We may wish that he would long be gone, but he’s hard to erase. The damage he has done to our national psyche is enormous. We elected a common real estate broker with a limited belief in democracy to be the leader of our land, and nothing will ever be the same again. He has impacted our institutions of governance in a way that should never be forgotten. If we are lucky, or at least peripherally vigilant, we won’t make the mistake of electing such a personage to be our President ever again.

Already, I digress.

He is not in this story at all, except for the long shadow that he has been able to cast over our previous concept of democracy, a notion that goes back to the Colonies in New England in the early 1600’s. We’ve had centuries of practice in democracy. We honed to, discussed it, fought over it, legislated it; the overwhelming majority of us based our lives on its tenets. We thought we were good. We came to love the hypothesis that we were all created equal, and we utterly believed that our vote, once we were all awarded it, counted. We learned that nobody was above the law.

The property-owning huckster begged to differ.

God knows what image of himself he fell in love with in front of his mirrorball; however he did it, he fell for a self-inflated ego the likes of which has rarely been seen across the land. He thought omnipotence, he thought all-powerful, he thought Ayatollah; he cosied up to Kim Jong Un. Things got out of hand. He ended up questioning the operation of democracy in multiple states, and pushed in Georgia for imaginary votes to materialize.

This man has, as far as I can tell, never encountered humility.

Confucious once said Humility is the solid foundation of all virtues. Without a solid foundation in life, where are you? Well, possibly in a Barbiland place called MAR-A-LAGO, about as far away from reality as you can get and still be in the United States.

Do we care?

Yes, and no. We don’t want him back in the White House, so we have to constantly keep an eye out and an ear cocked for erratic and half-baked truths that might again threaten our foundations of self-government. Let him busy himself on his apparently multitudinous golf courses; we don’t really have to give a second thought to his golf escapades unless, of course, he’s hiding highly sensitive and classified documents on nuclear programs in his golf course bathrooms. Then, we might need to be concerned.

We elected Biden. We were ready to move on, but our loser-in-chief resident of Inflated Ego Tower in New York, doesn’t want to let us go. He keeps dragging us, desperately, back, repeating his false claims and hurt feelings ad nauseum. His desire for headlines swamps us, even now, daily. Many of those headlines date back to his time in office, and many involve prosecutions and lawsuits that appear to be reproducing like rabbits. A date in 2024 has been set for a trial involving the man’s fetish for hoarding official government documents at his residences; the Justice Department has brought 37 counts against him for his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House. It doesn’t end there. New York is charging him with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. A jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation of writer E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million. This is only a partial list of accusations. Bubbling just under the surface is Georgia’s 2020 election meddling case; the Grand Jury has already submitted their report there.

Perhaps most serious of all is the January 6 insurrection case in Washington. Did the con man actually direct an assault on our Capitol? This past week, he received a letter of concern from Justice Department prosecutor, Jack Smith, informing him that he is a target in Smith’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The potential charges against our former loony-in-chief are obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the government, incitement of an insurrection and conspiracy to violate civil rights.

None of it looks good.

Where is Trump? Out on the campaign trail for 2024, where else, disinforming and continuing with his usual bragger and swagger, and now being threatening too. To understand that more, just take a gander at Robert Reich’s instinctive column today, Trump is gearing up for his ‘final battle’. So should we:

A Trump indictment for attempting the overthrow of the constitutional order and the verdict of the electorate will guarantee that 2024 will be more of a referendum on Trump than a referendum on Biden, as was the 2020 election.

It will make it harder for Republican candidates across the nation to focus on their fake nemeses – “woke” teachers and corporations, trans youth, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants and “socialism” – and force them instead to defend Trump’s side in the final battle.

Trump and the Republicans will lose this battle. Even if they win Republican primaries, they will lose the general election.

Let’s just hope. As Reich reminds us:

We want to live in a nation where no one is above the law. We want to be able to sleep at night without worrying that a president might unleash armed lackeys to drag us out of our homes because he considers us to be his enemy.

Here I was thinking that I was going to write a piece on the nascent concept of Bidenomics, much in the news these past few weeks.

What do you know? The elephant in the room trumpeted (ah ha, that’s what elephants do!), growled, squeaked, and snorted. The churning of the legal battles of the man who held the most prestigious office in the land not even 4 years ago, got in the way. The most damning legal struggles of our President from 2017 to 2021 seem to be getting underway at a moment when Biden’s economic initiatives are clicking into place.

As someone once said. That’s politics.

There was never going to be a Trump in this headline. There never should be. There never should have been.

But there you go.

Life is full of surprises. It will continue to stymie us until we can never be stymied again, or until justice is served.

Fingers crossed.

The post The Elephant in the Room (or There Is No Trump in this headline) appeared first on Occasional Planet.

We are now three Tuesday’s away from the first (perhaps only) midterm of the Biden Presidency, and things have certainly changed from last Fall when Republicans hailed their conquering hero in Virginia, now Governor Glenn Youngkin, as a harbinger of things to come; a Red Wave. However, a confluence of events has drastically altered the playing field for the two parties and Democrats now find themselves within striking distance of maintaining control of Congress. Last year I previewed the midterms here, and an update is necessary. Let’s start off checking in on a few predictions:

“Another Glenn Youngkin is Hard to Find. Therein lies the greatest hope for Democrats, Youngkin of course was not the choice of a primary electorate. The Virginia Republican party opted to hold a convention to select its nominees for statewide row offices as opposed to a regular primary. This was because the party establishment correctly understood that State Sen. Amanda Chase, who self-described as “Trump in heels”, would run away with the nomination if left up to primary voters. A convention however would limit the influence of party outsiders and the folks who might be motivated enough to vote but not spend several hours at a convention. Most states will have primaries and as we saw in 2010 when Republicans lost easy pickup opportunities in Senate races in Nevada, Delaware, and Colorado; sometimes a bad candidate is just bad enough to break a wave.”

Possibly more than the Dobbs decision, Democratic prospects have been saved by abysmal candidate quality on the part of the Republicans. Earlier this month the nominee for the United States Senate in Pennsylvania, Dr. Mehmet Oz, was forced to play defense against a story that he managed experiments at Columbia which killed over 300 dogs including an entire litter of puppies. That same week, we found out that Herschel Walker in Georgia who has said he believes abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape paid for at least one abortion. That’s on top of scandals from earlier in the cycle where we learned that Walker had several secret children or that Walker had held a gun to his ex-wife’s head or more recently that he lied about Native American ancestry.

In Arizona, US Senate nominee Blake Masters has been all but abandoned by Mitch McConnell and his massive fundraising apparatus. Partially because of his history of extreme or heterodox views on every domestic issue (and unsuccessfully has tried to scrub them from his website), but more likely because he has consistently polled behind Senator Mark Kelly. In New Hampshire, Republicans opted to nominate Don Bolduc to challenge Sen. Maggie Hassan. The problem? Bolduc is an election denier in a state that leans Democratic and doesn’t appear to have any of the moderate inclinations that usually propel Republicans to victory in New England.

Then finally there’s the potential sleeper scare for Republicans in Ohio, a state that shouldn’t even be considered competitive. J.D. Vance has proven to be a much weaker candidate than the partisanship of the state would suggest. Even acknowledging the problems of modern election polling, in multiple polls that show President Biden significantly underwater and Governor Mike Dewine cruising to re-election by double digits, Vance either trails his Democratic opponent Rep. Tim Ryan or leads within the margin of error.

Let’s not bury the lead here, Republicans have seriously fucked this one up. The self-destructive tendencies of GOP primary voters as well as Donald Trump’s need to have himself surrounding by sycophants have produced a field so weak that the US Senate is not a toss-up but leans substantially in Democrats favor. Of course it is not a sure thing that Democrats will keep control of the Senate, a polling error as significant as 2020 would at the very least flip as many as two or three seats where Democrats are currently favored. However it seems likely that the polls will not have the same error as 2020, because as we saw in 2018 polling was actually quite good without Trump on the ballot who has twice produced millions of low propensity voters who were not reachable by conventional polling methodology.

“Split Ticket Voting is a thing of the past. The seats Democrats see as most vulnerable, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and New Hampshire are not necessarily full of voters that are trending towards Democrats currently. In Virginia according to exit polls, these white voters without college education went from voting Republican 62% to 38% in 2020 to 74% to 24% in 2021. There are of course problems with using only exit polling data but looking at county level swings in conservative southwestern Virginia tell this story too. Every county swung more Republican, some as little as Buchanan County which became only 2.1% more Republican but some as large as Radford County which swung right 18%. If you apply that kind of shift to Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and New Hampshire what you find is that every state flips Republican. The challenge becomes clearer when you look at the states Democrats want to flip; Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, and Florida which at least have 40% of their voters being non-college educated white people.”

This appears less true than a year ago as some issues, namely abortion, have risen in salience. In Kansas, a state which has not given Democratic candidates for President more than 41% of the vote since 1988 (and that year Dukakis only mustered 42%), voters enshrined Abortion in the state constitution with nearly 60% in favor. This could not have been possible without substantial support from the white non-college educated voters who Republicans have had great success with since the turn of this century. In recent years there has been much greater partisan sorting on the issue, with fewer Democratic politicians identifying as anti-abortion and even fewer Republicans politicians identifying as pro-choice. But the voters themselves have been much more varied, in 2020 24% of voters who thought abortion should be legal in most cases voted for Donald Trump and 23% of voters who thought abortion should be mostly illegal voted for Joe Biden. This year has the potential (more on those italics later) to deliver a not insignificant number of those pro-choice but otherwise conservative voters to Democratic candidates.

The greater split in voters however is related to perceptions of President Biden who despite being up from his nadir over the summer, is still significantly underwater in most of America and especially so in the states that will decide control of Congress. In an poll of Georgia from Emerson College just last week, President Biden managed a dismal 41% approval rating among likely voters with 52% disapproving. At the same time, Sen. Raphael Warnock leads Herschel Walker by 2-points, 48% to 46% (many other polls put Warnock further ahead). In a poll of Pennsylvania from Suffolk University, once again Biden receives a much lower approval (42%) than the share of support for the Democratic nominee for US Senate (John Fetterman leads Mehmet Oz 46% to 40%). That story repeats itself in North Carolina, in Wisconsin, in Arizona, and very notably in Ohio. There are many reasons for this split, but a lot of it can be attributed to voters who supported the President in 2020 and are generally left of center but disapprove of his performance now. This group, many of whom are under 35, non-white, and/or do not identify with either political party would traditionally be low-propensity voters as they were in 2014 and 2010. In 2022 however, their turnout is predicted to be closer to 2018 than 2010 or 2014 and they support down ballot Democrats over President Biden by upwards of 10%  in many polls.

“The Fundamentals favor the Republicans. On key questions where Democrats had previously enjoyed relatively good numbers in our hyper-partisan political environment but polling from YouGov/The Economist shows a pretty clear story of declining fortunes over the last several months.

Direction of the Country:

Generally headed in the right direction: 27% Nov., 31% Sept., 35% Jul., 42% May

Off on the wrong track: 61% Nov., 55% Sept., 51% Jul., 46% May

Trend of the Economy

Getting Better: 16% Nov., 17% Sept., 23% Jul., 28% May

Getting Worse: 54% Nov., 45% Sept., 38% Jul., 34% May

The bit of good news is the final question that most analysts look at when trying to handicap the political environment shows some hope for Democrats. The only thing people dislike worse than Democrats are Republicans! 53% of voters dislike the Democratic Party including 39% who strongly dislike Democrats, but 59% dislike the Republican Party including 40% who strongly dislike Republicans.”

It looked likely at the time that things could get worse, and things certainly have with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia has certainly accelerated negative trends. Americans are not optimistic about the economy or the Direction of the Country and that appears unlikely to change as the Federal Reserve has indicated that they will continue to raise interest rates while OPEC has reduced the global oil supply. In YouGov polling from this week, perceptions have either gone from bad to worse or have simply stagnated at bad.

Direction of the Country

Generally headed in the right direction: 28%

Off on the wrong track: 60%

Trend of the Economy

Getting Better: 12%

Getting Worse: 52%

With less than a month before Election Day, it’s unlikely that American optimism will suddenly rebound to anywhere near where it was at the beginning of the Biden term. The cake is probably baked on this one, Americans think inflation and the economy are serious issues and they can’t be convinced otherwise when their bank statements confirm this truth every month. The fact that Democrats have been able to hold their own in such dire straits is noteworthy, but if they end up faltering on election day the answer will be obvious as to why.

“The Democrats Actually Are in Disarray. Despite what you might hear from party loyalists, self-proclaimed resistance members, never-Trumpers, and MSNBC viewers there is actually a lot of internal discontent in the Democratic Party. The left is likely more distrustful of moderates than ever after several betrayals over the last several months. Years of “Vote Blue No Matter Who” rhetoric to encourage disaffected progressives to support the party fell apart when the incumbent mayor of Buffalo was defeated by India Walton, a democratic socialist, in their democratic primary. Instead of conceding, the defeated mayor launched an independent bid for mayor which went unchallenged by Gov. Kathy Hochul (who had made endorsements in other races) and was actively supported by establishment figures in the state (except for Majority Leader Schumer). Brown was successful in his re-election, showing progressives that the relationship they have with the party is entirely one-sided as they were left flailing looking for support when just a year earlier, they we were decisive in defeating Donald Trump. There’s also the Build Back Better/Infrastructure chicanery which has produced a lot of bad will not just among rank-and-file voters but clearly amongst members….James Carville and his neoliberal allies have made clear that they blame Democratic misfortunes on leftist activists and progressives lending support to causes they think are electorally toxic. Namely “Defund the Police”, “Critical Race Theory”, “Wokeness”, “Cancel Culture” and “Socialism” generally. Admittedly these issues clearly have some cultural resonance among at least some voters although this has likely been helped by a media that seems insistent on promoting narratives as opposed to nuance. However much of the blame does lay with Democrats who have not effectively found a way to explain exactly what it is that they do believe in this new culture war. The answers they’ve given on these issues is some variation of “This isn’t real, it’s more of an academic thing that most people don’t engage with and it’s missing context, but we do agree with the sentiment and will attack anyone who attacks these ideas by name although we aren’t running on these things but opposing these things puts you closer to Donald Trump.” To be clear, it is not the job of activists to support popular policies, lunch sit-ins and Martin Luther King Jr. were widely disapproved of by white Americans. Their job is to shift the window of what is politically possible and bring issues to the attention of the actors who can address them. The job of politicians is to build public support for policies and then to enact them. If something associated with the Democratic Party is “Toxic” that is the fault of the party for not figuring out how to explain themselves to the voters.”

What a difference a year can make. Democrats have found themselves united, perhaps more so than anytime in 10 years, and that is in large part thanks to the United States Supreme Court’s extreme term which saw many right-wing decisions with the most far-reaching being the overturn of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey which ended the constitutional right to an abortion and effectively made abortion illegal in 13 states and virtually inaccessible in several more. It appears, at least for now, that Democratic voters and politicians have agreed to point their fire outside their circle as opposed to at each other.

President Biden has also encouraged this development over the last several months with wins on the Inflation Reduction Act (a diminutive spiritual successor to Build Back Better), the Supreme Court nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson, a limited but still expansive student loan forgiveness, the PACT Act for veterans, and the CHIPS and Science Act. The President with no time to spare seems to have caught his stride, and a party desperate for policy wins started getting them at a pretty rapid clip while the price of gasoline declined all summer long. It’s easy to cheer for your team when you’re winning.

So that leaves a question of, how does this midterm resolve itself?

My Prediction: A Divided Congress is Likely, but both Parties have Room for Error to Change That

Before we get into predictions, just briefly let’s talk about terms.

From www.ballotpedia.com:

“The Cook Political Report published its first Partisan Voter Index (PVI) in August 1997. The PVI was developed by Charles Cook, editor and publisher of Cook, and scores each congressional district based on how strongly it leans toward one political party. The PVI is determined by comparing each congressional district presidential vote to the national presidential election results. According to Cook, the PVI “is an attempt to find an objective measurement of each congressional district that allows comparisons between states and districts, thereby making it relevant in both mid-term and presidential election years”

You can find the 2022 updated PVI of your state or congressional district here. For example, Rep. Cori Bush (MO-1) represents the 27th most Democratic seat in the nation with a PVI of D+27. Therefore, in an election where nationally Republicans and Democrats tied in the popular vote (a D+0 or R+0 environment), you’d expect Bush to win her election with about 77% of the vote. In 2020, Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by about 4.5 points nationally (meaning a D+4.5 national environment) and Bush won her election with about 78% of the vote, a slight underperformance. Meanwhile Rep. Jared Golden (ME-2) represents one of the most Republican leaning districts held by a Democrat at R+6. In 2020, Golden won with 53% of the vote, running ahead of his district’s partisanship by an impressive 8 points. What accounts for over performance or underperformance varies from race but political science says generally a few things matter: incumbency, fundraising, voter contact, and candidate favorability (not necessarily in that order). In the Senate we see a bit more of candidates defying state partisanship like Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in West Virginia which has a score of R+22 and Republican Sen. Susan Collins in Maine which has a score of D+2. The House is increasingly becoming more partisan with no Democrat representing a district redder than R+6 and no Republican representing a district bluer than D+9. This isn’t usually true in the aftermath of a wave election, 2006 and 2008 saw many Democrats representing Republican leaning districts while 2010 and 2014 brought a lot more Republicans from D districts. So, while you’d expect Republicans to lurch further into Democratic leaning territory and Democrats to lose some of their Republican leaning seats, partisanship will blunt some of that momentum. That said, the party favored usually wins most of the toss up races and I expect that to be the case in 2022.

THE HOUSE

While there will be a margin of error, perhaps as many as +/- 10 seats, this is how the House of Representatives could look in January. I think Republicans are still very clearly favored in the House for the simple fact that Democrats have such a narrow majority, it doesn’t take much for them to win. Democrats have 220 seats to Republicans 212, that means just 6 flips and it’s hard to imagine a scenario where Republicans can’t find 6 seats. The question I believe is can they find a governable majority and that is very much an open question. Kevin McCarthy will be greeted by no fewer than a dozen members of Congress who have espoused some belief in the QAnon conspiracy, if Republicans maintain a majority on the backs of these members then McCarthy may very well find himself in a situation like former Speaker John Boehner who was ousted in 2015 by a revolt in the right flank of his party conference. That’s a battle for 2023, the question before us is where might those GOP gains come from? There’s been some movement among Latino voters in the Rio Grande valley that should work in Republicans favor, you might also expect some reversion in the suburbs which could make the northeast and the southwest more competitive than it might otherwise be. However, the most beneficial factor for Republicans will be redistricting as states like Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Alabama have drawn maps that have been largely regarded as racial gerrymanders by independent observers. Democrats have some upside to be sure, Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) seems well positioned against either Former Governor Sarah Palin or Nick Begich. There are also Democratic pickup opportunities in California, Illinois, and New York thanks in part to Democratic gerrymanders but also thanks to long term demographic trends. Still, you’d rather be the Republicans even if you wouldn’t necessarily want to be Kevin McCarthy.

THE SENATE

The Democrats are probably more likely to pick up a Senate seat than Republicans are to win the majority, although I think the most likely outcome is the status quo with a seat traded in Nevada for one in Pennsylvania. If Democrats hold a narrow margin in the House, they are living on a razor’s edge in the Senate with a 0-seat majority. Last year I thought it was likely that candidate quality would matter and it has in ways that I couldn’t have imagined at the time. The Democratic field is strong, and the Republican field with a notable exception in Nevada is fairly weak.

The “party crackup” in Pennsylvania never materialized as Lt. Governor John Fetterman won his primary in a landslide and despite health issues has maintained a lead the entire campaign. That’s in part because of Fetterman’s appeal, but the most relevant factor is the unpopularity of Republican nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz who rose to prominence as a television doctor who was investigated by the US Senate for advertising pseudo scientific health products. While Fetterman has a net +1 approval rating among Pennsylvania voters, Oz gets a net -17 rating with a majority of voters (51%) saying they have an unfavorable opinion of Oz. It wouldn’t be impossible to overcome those perceptions, but Oz would need a lot of things to break his way to even break even.

In Arizona, largely on the power of Donald Trump’s endorsement, Blake Masters defeated Attorney General Mark Brnovich and businessman Jim Lamon in the GOP Primary. Masters so far has had to mostly rely on the generosity of crypto bros and billionaires like Peter Thiel to raise money as Mitch McConnell and the NSRC have begun to triage this race. Senator Mark Kelly could’ve had a much tighter race had he faced any of Master’s opponents, then again Kelly amassed a war chest of over $73 million which probably always made the incumbent favored.

A lot has already been written about the Senate race in Georgia, and that’s because of Herschel Walker has been a lightning rod for controversy. The danger for Senator Warnock is not Mr. Walker, but it is Governor Kemp who will also be on the ballot and is heavily favored for re-election. Although there will be some split ticket voting to be sure, southern states like Georgia have incredibly racially polarized electorates with very few swing voters. It is possible for Gov. Kemp and Sen. Warnock to both win re-election, but the larger Kemp’s margin gets the closer Warnock will be to a runoff in which it’s harder to predict what the result might be. It’s less likely that Walker could win outright without a run-off due to the presence of a libertarian candidate who is likely to draw more votes from the Republican.

The closest race will likely be in Nevada where the wild card is not third-party voters but a ballot option that gives voters the chance to select “none of these candidates” which has received anywhere from 15,000 to over 50,000 votes over the last decade. Sen. Cortez-Masto despite serving in the US Senate for the last 6 years hasn’t built her own brand in the state once dominated by the Reid machine and it wasn’t until recently that most voters could form an opinion about her performance. Nevada is also a state that in theory could be ripe for a realignment as it has a significant Latino population, many voters are non-college educated, and even more voters are working class. The Republican, former Attorney General Adam Laxalt for his part has been a top-tier recruit. Nevada has historically been a difficult state to poll because it is so rural and a not insignificant population only speaks Spanish, yet that’s still the best predictive tool we have. Laxalt and Cortez-Masto have traded leads in polling throughout the election with Laxalt currently having a one-point edge in the fivethirtyeight polling average. Of course, Nevada is still a Democrat leaning state and every statewide office except secretary of state is held by a Democrat so there is institutional strength working in Sen. Cortes-Masto’s favor. Still, Las Vegas has been especially affected by inflation and without Clark County Democrats can’t win Nevada. Again, it’ll be close, but I’d give the advantage to Laxalt.

Now for some discussion on Ohio, Wisconsin, and North Carolina where Democrats are tied but facing significant electoral obstacles. Donald Trump won Ohio twice and both times by about 8%, which is better than he got in Texas. North Carolina has elected and re-elected it’s Democratic Governor, but it has not elected a Democratic senator since 2008 and has given Republicans it’s electoral votes in every election except one from 1980 until present. Wisconsin was won by President Biden and Democratic nominees from Obama to Dukakis, but Sen. Ron Johnson is an incumbent who despite being pugilistic and divisive has managed to win two statewide elections with at least 50% of the vote when the expectation was that he would not be favored. Democrats nominated very strong candidates in each race, and Republicans are frankly not sending their best. Despite that, you’d expect partisanship to still carry the day and give Republicans wins in each contest. That said, if Democrats win any of these races, then they have almost certainly won the Senate. If you had to ask me who I’d consider most favored in these races, I’d say Cheri Beasley in North Carolina, then Tim Ryan in Ohio, and then Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin.

It’s not worth discussing Florida, Iowa, Missouri, or South Carolina. Republicans will win these races, and in the case of Missouri and South Carolina it will be a landslide. If there is any mystery, it is in Alaska where Senator Lisa Murkowski and Trump endorsed Kelly Tshibaka are locked in an epic battle for that seat. In a split Senate, there is a world of difference between a Sen. Murkowski and a Sen. Tshibaka. Ranked choice voting has already helped Sen. Murkowski because it’s almost certain that she would’ve been defeated in a Republican primary as she was in 2010 when she had to launch a write-in campaign to win her election. Still, it’s not a sure thing that in a Republican leaning state that a Republican Senator can get away with voting to impeach a Republican President as Murkowski did after Trump’s role in inciting the January 6th insurrection. I have Murkowski favored, but there could be a surprise.

THE GOVERNORS RACES

Despite a surprisingly strong effort by Rep. Beto O’Rourke, Texas will re-elect Gov. Greg Abbott. The fact is, Beto’s run for President did him no favors and his comments on the trail have become a recurring campaign theme. Gov. Abbott has had a controversial term with many failures included the power grid collapse that left millions freezing, a mass shooting in Uvalde, and many more unforced controversies. Still, he is favored because Texas is still Texas, and Abbott is still popular among conservatives who remain the largest voting bloc in the state.

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis looks like a presidential candidate in waiting and looks likely to announce for 2024 whether or not Donald Trump does the same. His culture war has been popular in Florida, and the state has only gotten more red between 2018 and today. Charlie Crist has been a Republican, an Independent, and a Democrat and has been painted as a political chameleon because of that. This race probably wasn’t ever going to be close; the question now is whether DeSantis will win left leaning Miami-Dade in his re-election.

Georgia is shaping up to be another disappointment for Democrats, and the nominee Stacey Abrams will likely lose by a larger margin than she did in 2018. Why? Gov. Brian Kemp by doing the bare minimum of not breaking the law to support Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud, has earned a reputation as a conservative willing to stand up to the former President which has endeared him to the suburbanites he lost in his first campaign. Abrams also did herself no favors by refusing to concede her race in 2018 which has been used against her by Republicans claiming Democratic hypocrisy. Finally, Kemp is the incumbent and he isn’t unpopular.

Republicans are in for barn burners in Nevada, Arizona, and Oregon (yes Oregon!) but they are favored in each race albeit slightly. In Arizona, Kari Lake is a Trump acolyte and true believer in his political vision which ordinarily wouldn’t be a strength in Arizona. However, Lake is a household name with decades of television experience and is frankly very very good on camera and has been able to out-message and out-perform her Democratic opponent Secretary of State Katie Hobbs who refused to debate Lake. Polling shows a close race, but more polls recently have given Lake an edge. In Nevada, Governor Sisolak is in a similar situation to Sen. Cortez-Masto which is a state where tens of thousands are employed in hospitality and tourism are facing hard times because of inflation. There seem to be plenty of undecided voters, but Sheriff Lombardo leads in most polls. Finally Oregon has gotten itself a competitive race because of a strong independent candidate, Betsey Johnson, running as liberal leaning centrist who is siphoning votes from the Democrat, Tina Kotek, which has left an opening for Christine Drazan to win with perhaps as little as 40% of the vote. As election day gets closer independent candidates usually fade as voters come home to one of the major parties, but Johnson has not faded as much as would’ve been expected and her candidacy will matter a lot in the final outcome

In Kansas, New Mexico, and Wisconsin Democratic Incumbents are in very different races but may very well win by similar margins. Kansas is a red state, but as we saw earlier this year Abortion is clearly on the mind of voters in more pronounced way than perhaps any other state. That works to Governor Kelly’s advantage who has led in the few polls of this race and has run an active campaign across the state. Still, her opponent Attorney General Derek Schmidt is no slouch and will gather more support from Republicans than Kris Kobach did 4 years ago. In New Mexico, Gov. Grisham is experiencing the same trends among Latino voters that are happening all over the southwest but New Mexico is much bluer than Nevada and for that reason alone she should win re-election. To be clear, New Mexico is not a done deal and has elected Republicans to statewide office as recently as 2014 and Mark Ronchetti, the Republican nominee, outperformed expectations in 2020 when he was a candidate for US Senate and lost by only 6%. That said, Ronchetti did lose in New Mexico and Gov. Grisham has won in New Mexico, and that’s worth something. Wisconsin will be the closest of these races, and that’s just the nature of Wisconsin. Gov. Evers and Tim Michaels have been in a two-point race since the summer as Wisconsin, more than any other Midwestern state, has the pedal to the floor on partisanship. Anything that happens between now and election day will affect things on the margins, and luckily for Evers there seems to be some evidence of falling gas prices in the Great Lakes states which is exactly the boost he’d need but the race may still be close enough for a recount.

In New England, voters will almost certainly continue their tradition of electing unorthodox Republicans to their Governor’s mansions in Vermont and New Hampshire but not Massachusetts or Maine. In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano has struggled to fundraise, attract volunteers, and any positive media attention and for that reason Attorney General Josh Shapiro should be heavily favored. In Michigan, Republicans had hoped for a closer race against Gov. Whitmer who has been a target on Fox for her response to Covid but an abortion referendum being held in the state seems to have foreclosed that possibility. Finally, Illinois and Ohio, states which were competitive in recent midterm cycles will re-elect their incumbents, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Gov. Mike Dewine, if polling is to be believed, have gathered the weakest opponents possible and are headed to large victories in November. If there are any surprises they might come from South Dakota or Oklahoma where recent polling has shown Democratic candidates tied or leading Republican incumbents, but I’d take those polls with a grain of salt and expect a closer race but not a flip. Although stranger things have certainly happened.

Going Forward

What happens this November will directly shape what happens in the 2024 Presidential campaign and we might see some potential candidates, especially President Biden and former President Trump, recalculate their chances and opt not to run or decide definitively to throw their hat in the ring. If Republicans get their wave, and some Trump endorsed long-shots defy the odds then the former President would rightly feel vindicated and other candidates might back off. Alternatively, if Democrats maintain control of Congress, it would be difficult to imagine anyone challenging Biden although Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and others seem to be ready to jump on any sign of weakness. Ultimately though, 2024 is an eternity away and there are Secretary of State, Attorneys General, and Supreme Court Justices who might have more of an impact on our politics than anything else.

We are not dealing with politics as usual, and if I have learned anything about the Trump era it has been to forget what you know and expect the unexpected.

The post An (Updated) Honest Preview of the 2022 Midterms appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Monday evening an unknown individual inside the United States Supreme Court leaked a draft decision written by Justice Samuel Alito which would explicitly overturn the landmark decisions Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. This would mean the end to a guaranteed federal constitutional protection of abortion rights and at least 22 states, including Missouri, would almost immediately ban abortion entirely. This has been the animating force behind the conservative legal movement for the last two generations and this is their grand triumph which will only embolden the court to go even further. The language of Alito leaves the door open for reconsiderations of Obergefell v. Hodges which legalized same-sex marriage and Lawrence v. Texas which invalidated state laws criminalizing homosexual intercourse, and if you compare his dissent in Obergefell to his draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization it’s not hard to imagine the Court deciding to also “Send the issue back to the states”. The Constitution of the United States of America is in the hands of 6 members of the federalist society, we are entering a new era of American politics.

President Biden has made clear that his administration has no plans to protect abortion access. In a statement the morning after the leak, the President said, “If the Court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose. And it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November.  At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law.” It’s important to be clear about two points. The first, is the most important and it is that the president’s party almost always has a bad midterm. Data from fivethirtyeight.com shows a familiar pattern (that I also wrote about in 2021 here) “Overall, in the post-World War II era, the president’s party has performed an average of 7.4 points worse in the House popular vote in midterm elections than it did two years prior. Therefore, since Democrats won the House popular vote by 3.0 points in 2020, Republicans can roughly expect to win it by 4.4 points in 2022 if history is any guide…Indeed, in the 19 midterm elections between 1946 and 2018, the president’s party has improved upon its share of the House popular vote just once. And since 1994, when (we would argue) the modern political alignment took hold, the president’s party has lost the national House popular vote in six out of seven midterm elections — usually by similar margins (6 to 9 percentage points) to boot.”

It took 9/11 for George W. Bush and Impeachment for Bill Clinton, as well as voter coalitions that no longer exist, for them to break history. It is extremely unlikely that President Biden, given his approval ratings, economic conditions, and redistricting will outrun history. The second point is, when Democrats had 60 Senators there were not enough votes to codify Roe into law. In 2022 there are not realistic opportunities to win 60 Senate seats, meaning the only avenue to codifying Roe or expanding the Court or any potential remedy would be through abolishing the filibuster which cannot find 50 votes in the US Senate. Currently in the House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is campaigning for the lone anti-choice Democrat in the House while he has a viable progressive challenger in Jessica Cisneros. This is the state of our opposition party, these individuals are the last line of defense.

There are some who have used this dark moment which represents the greatest contraction of civil rights since the end of Reconstruction to deliver an “I told you so”. These people would like to do historical revisionism about the 2016 election and have taken to blaming the left-wing in this country for the state of the Supreme Court. Generally, it’s not worth engaging in this discourse, but I’ve decided to do so today if not for the sole reason that these narratives are actively hindering the success of any centrist let alone any liberal project in this country. Candidly, we are rapidly approaching different entirely preventable disasters and we shouldn’t waste any more time promulgating useless ideas. So, I’m willing to address the skyscraper sized elephant lurking around this discourse, What if Hillary Clinton had won. It’s probably the most frequent hypothetical among liberals, and my read of the alternative is blessed by hindsight but is not informed by omniscience. This is what I believe would’ve happened, it is not exhaustive of everything that could’ve happened.

It’s important to note that Clinton didn’t lose because of insufficient support from the left. In 2008, Clinton did 13 public campaign events for then-candidate Sen. Barack Obama. In 2016, Sen. Bernie Sanders did 41 public campaign events for Clinton during the general election. In 2008, 25% of Clinton primary voters supported Sen. John McCain. In 2016, only 12% of Sanders supporters voted for Trump, meanwhile 13% of Obama’s 2012 voters supported Trump. Clinton lost because she was the most unpopular Democrat to run for President in the history of modern polling and would’ve been the most unpopular candidate period if not for Donald Trump. In terms of ideology, it’s hard to remember now but a critical number of voters wrongly perceived Trump to be more moderate than Clinton. To imagine a world in which Clinton wins the election is not difficult because in spite of her weak electoral performance and rock bottom approval ratings, she very nearly did win. Let’s imagine that James Comey does not release his October letter which hurt Clinton among late deciders and Clinton narrowly wins Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Florida bringing her to 307 electoral votes. Let’s assume, for Clinton’s sake, that her improved margin extends down ballot which would mean victories in the Pennsylvania and Missouri Senate races and probably an additional 2-3 house seats. This would give her the exact same evenly divided Senate the Biden has but a GOP controlled House. So, what would have happened to Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat?

President Hillary Clinton would submit her nominee to the Senate Judiciary Committee, likely Sri Srinivasan of the D.C. Circuit or Jane Kelly of the 8^th Circuit. The nomination would advance deadlocked from the committee, NeverTrump Republicans like former Sen. Jeff Flake would not adopt their current faux moderate posture without Trump as a foil but would return to the vapid anti-Clinton rhetoric that dominated the 90s. It is likely that Republicans would filibuster this Supreme Court nomination, led perhaps by Sen. Ted Cruz who would now likely be heir-apparent for the 2020 nomination or Sen. Jeff Sessions who instead of being disgraced former Attorney General would be an ideological leader in the GOP Conference. Even without the filibuster, the nomination is in jeopardy as Sen. Manchin is non-committal about supporting the nominee and no GOP Senator wants to cast the deciding vote in favor. Senate Majority Leader Schumer undertakes an effort to abolish the Senate filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, it fails 47-53 with Senators Joe Donnelly, Heidi Heitkamp, and Joe Manchin voting with all Republicans. President Clinton is forced to withdraw her nomination and through a compromise with Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley nominates then Gov. Brian Sandoval of Nevada, a “moderate” Republican. He is confirmed with all 50 Democrats and 16 Republicans voting in favor. Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Republican appointed by Reagan, opts not to retire while Democrats control the Senate and Presidency. Justice Ginsburg again postpones retirement, fearing that she too will be replaced by a conservative compromise candidate.

In 2018, Democrats suffer sweeping loses in the midterm elections. Republicans elect Josh Hawley in Missouri, Rick Scott in Florida, Joe Donnelly in Indiana, and Kevin Cramer in North Dakota just like in our reality. However, Republicans also pick up West Virginia and Montana while holding Nevada as Democrats narrowly squeak by in Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. There is no special election in Minnesota, Democrats don’t force Al Franken to resign and launch at attempt to discredit the MeToo movement as liberal figures like Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey find themselves accused of sexual misconduct. This is done partially to protect the tenuous Democratic majority, but also to discredit renewed criticism of former President Bill Clinton as his connections to child sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein become public knowledge during a special counsel investigation lead by Robert Mueller was launched by the House early in the administration. On January 3^rd, Mitch McConnell becomes Senate Majority leader once again with 55 seats. Democrats make gains in the House, although still in the minority they make gains in the suburbs bringing their numbers just above 200.

In 2019, Several Republicans announce their candidacies for President including Sen. Ted Cruz fresh off his double-digit re-election, Governor Nikki Haley, and Sen. Tom Cotton while Speaker Paul Ryan forms an exploratory committee before ultimately deciding against a run. Donald Trump is speculated to be a potential candidate, but instead successfully pivots his failed run for President into a New York Times best-selling novel with accompanying docuseries chronicling his rise to the GOP nomination self-describing as a “populist revolutionary”. Clinton herself faces a spirited primary challenge from Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley (the lone member of the Senate to endorse Sanders in 2016), and he wins the New Hampshire primary as well as a few caucuses, but he is never seriously close to overtaking Clinton and she wraps up the nomination before mid-March. The pandemic still rages across the globe in 2020, in the United States the pandemic is made worse by a severe economic recession. President Clinton and the GOP Congress deadlock on several fronts and settle on a relief package that mirrors the 2009 recovery, however it is not passed until May leaving millions scrambling to compete for resources from overwhelmed nonprofits. Infections are lower than our current reality because Clinton never disempowers the CDC and is prepared for a pandemic level event, but anti-lockdown activity begins earlier and is more violent as people are animated not just by anti-science conspiracy but also anti-Clinton sentiment. In September, Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies, and Republicans hold open her seat for the duration of the 2020 Election. President Clinton is likely defeated, not since the election of 1820 have there been 2 successive 2 term presidents of the same political party. If Clinton did win re-election, it’s hard to imagine Democrats having better midterm prospects in 2022 than what they face today. When she does lose, Republicans appoint Attorney General Pam Bondi of Florida or perhaps law professor Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Anthony Kennedy retires shortly thereafter, and Judge Brett Kavanaugh is elevated to his seat. Roe and Casey are functionally though not explicitly overruled in a 5-4 decision, with Sandoval joining the liberal minority in dissent.

Seeing as a Clinton victory might not have been enough to avoid our current reality, what would’ve needed to happen to avoid this nightmare? You don’t have to get into butterfly effect level science fiction or have had psychic super power to be able to imagine how things could’ve gone differently. If:

1. At any point between 2009 and 2015, if Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had opted to retire, abortion rights, voting rights, labor rights, and many civil liberties would not be facing near certain annihilation. In 2013, Ginsburg had battled cancer twice by the age of 80 and the political environment in Washington was increasingly polarized. It was clear to contemporary writers that should Republicans capture the Senate, something they were heavily favored to do given the history of midterm elections, because of rising partisanship it would be unlikely that a liberal successor could be confirmed. At the time, the balance of the court was 3 hard right conservatives, 2 center-right conservatives, and 4 liberals. The few liberal victories of the 21^st century were generally 5-4 decisions, and the disappearance of any justice would have a dramatic impact on constitutional law. Furthermore, the disappearance of a liberal justice would of course mean a hard right turn in the court at least until a conservative vacancy appeared. Ginsburg, understanding the stakes of her decision opted not to retire. When she died, as an attempt to shield her legacy perhaps realizing the disastrous effect of her decision to not retire, sheepishly relayed a message that she knew would not be honored. Ginsburg had no reason to believe her replacement would not be a woman, as President Obama had nominated both Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Ginsburg had no reason to believe that her replacement would be less liberal, as Sotomayor actually disagreed more with Kavanaugh, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts than Ginsburg did in the 2019 term. There was no reason for Ginsburg to do what she did, and that decision more than anything else is responsible for this moment.
2. In 2014 and 2010, Democrats lost several close Senate races and spent tens of millions of dollars on blowout losing races. If the party had decided to abandon clear losers and directed that spending elsewhere, Democrats might’ve had a Senate majority in 2016 when Scalia died. Which would’ve meant a liberal Supreme Court, not just a not as far right one, but a genuine liberal majority which hasn’t existed in generations. Let’s look at the 2010 races, Sen. Blanche Lincoln (AR-D) spent $12 million for 37% of the vote, Gov. Charlie Crist (FL-I) and Rep. Kendrick Meek (FL-D) spent a collective $23 million to receive 29.7% and 20.2% of the vote respectively, and Robin Carnahan (MO-D) spent $10 million to receive 40.6% of the vote. Meanwhile Democratic Senate candidates in Illinois and Pennsylvania failed by less than 2% of the vote. What might an extra $45 million split between the two of them have meant? So, what about 2014? Mark Pryor (AR-D) spent $14 million to receive 39% of the vote and Alison Lundergan Grimes spent $18 million to receive 41% of the vote. Meanwhile, Democrats lost Alaska, Colorado, and North Carolina by less the 2.3%. If those races had broken Democrats way, they would’ve certainly had enough votes to Supreme Court Justice. Unfortunately, this pattern has only intensified as Democrats burned a whopping $250 million dollars to be beaten by double digits in Kentucky, South Carolina, and Alabama while losing several close House races.
3. In 2009, Democrats could’ve attempted to codify Roe. For 3 months, Democrats had a filibuster proof majority and then just shy of it the rest of that congressional term. There were likely enough Pro-Choice Republicans to overcome the objections of Anti-Choice Democrats, and even if compromise legislation had to be crafted it is a near certainty that it would’ve been better than our current system which has allowed states like Texas and Mississippi to ban abortion without outright doing so. It certainly would’ve been better than allowing a conservative court to decide the fate of abortion. But the fault on this one doesn’t lay solely with Harry Reid, but with President Barack Obama. In 2007, he said at a speech to Planned Parenthood that the first thing he’d do as President was sign the “Freedom of Choice Act” which would’ve codified Roe. Before he’d been President 100 days, it had been completely dropped from his agenda and he said of the bill that it was “not my highest legislative priority” and apparently not a priority at all.

That leaves just one burning question, what can we do now? Some of you will be tempted to say “vote!” or some variation of “elect more Democrats”. I’d like you to just consider this, for a moment. In 2018, more than half of Americans could not name a single Supreme Court Justice. Although most Americans (71%) blame Vladimir Putin and Oil companies (68%) for the rising cost of oil, however a majority also blame President Biden (51%) and Democratic Party policies (52%). Most voters don’t perceive politics through the lens of obsessive partisan observers, and often are more likely to see correlations and be unaware of longer-term trends. This is all to say that there is a critical mass of voters who will say “Why should I be convinced that my support has mattered or will matter? I’ve always voted for Democrats, and they just beat Trump so why is this happening.” If Abortion rights disappear while Democrats control congress and the Presidency, the fine details will be lost and I don’t think it’s logical to assume that the response among voters will be a Democratic surge. Although, you should support candidates who support abortion rights when given the opportunity. It’s important to keep protesting, donate to abortion funds to support people who are going to have trouble finding access, and testify against state efforts to criminalize abortion.  But beyond that, what else is there? Not much that isn’t 10 years too late. What’s really important is for the left to develop a sense of our place of history and work towards a long-term vision for society. The right knows who they are and where they are going and have been working for it since the New Deal. We must have that same determination and will or there will come a day when we wake up in a country that we do not recognize as our own. We may already be there.

The post Would President Hillary Clinton have saved Roe? Probably Not appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Being a Republican in Congress is a lot easier than being a Democrat. That’s because there are very few things that Republicans have or want to do. Most Democrats have full plates in front of them as they want to reform our society so that government provides a strong and secure safety net for all of us, particularly those most at risk. If we reach a point of gridlock, of stalemate, it is the right that wins, because if nothing happens, that is exactly what they want.

In the wake of the January 6, 2021 insurrection and other rebellious acts from the right, there is increasing talk of a new American civil war. What shape it might take is open to all kinds of interpretation. It certainly would not be like America’s first civil war, or even a feared possible upcoming war between Russia and Ukraine.

That does not mean there would not be violence. The January 6 insurrection resulted in the deaths of five individuals and the injuring of hundreds. The Right certainly does not hesitate to use threats of violence against those with whom they merely disagree.

For example, Fox News anchor Jesse Watters recently told a group of conservatives to “ambush” Dr. Anthony Fauci with questions and “go in for kill shot.” Fox News has not reprimanded Watters; in fact, they have not said a word about his using their platform to threaten to kill someone. Fox did the same things with correspondent Lara Logan who compared Fauci to the Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele (also included in the clip below).

As we approach the end of 2021, the Washington Post reports “Inside the nonstop pressure campaign by Trump allies to get election officials to revisit the 2020 vote.” The Big Lie continues more than thirteen months after the 2020 safe, secure and democratic elections.

The fallout has spread from the six states where Trump sought to overturn the outcome in 2020 to deep-red places such as Idaho, where officials recently hand-recounted ballots in three counties to refute claims of vote-flipping, and Oklahoma, where state officials commissioned an investigation to counter allegations that voting machines were hacked.

The important point in the article is that the Trumpsters are continuing their efforts to intimidate Republican-controlled state legislatures to undo the past and change the future so that free and fair elections become something of the past.

A “civil war” could include numerous other acts of aggression by the right including the intimidation of teachers, vigilante forces, Congressional action to not raise the debt limit and not fund necessary programs that are the framework of our social and economic safety net.

COVID has already played a key role in dividing the nation and threatens to do so for some time to come. Samuel Goldman in The Week suggests:

I’m not the first to compare the way of thinking about the pandemic still dominant in official statements to the military disasters of the last two decades. My colleague Noah Millman and the journalist Daniel McCarthy have both noted parallels between the interminable conflicts that followed 9/11 and the “war” on COVID. “Like the old Afghan government,” Millman wrote, “those in charge of public health have little practical ability to shape events. But they speak as if they are sovereign and in control.”

It is hard to imagine what aggressive actions those on the Left may take. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, extremists far to the left of the Democratic Party engaged in bombing attacks on both public and private buildings. But there was very little coordinated about that and as it became apparent that the bombings were counter-productive, the bombings essentially ended.

Regrettably, there is very little that the Right needs to do now to win a “civil war.” The current stalemate allows those on the Right to generally get their way.

Progressive legislation will not pass. The right to safe and legal abortions will be ended in most states when Roe v. Wade is overturned, elections will be rigged to favor far-right Republicans, COVID and other infectious diseases will continue to run rampant, gun-control measures will not be passed, climate change legislation will stall and those who do not agree with those on the Right will live in fear of violence.

The only real way that progressives and others can prevent an escalated “civil war” is by winning big in elections and having protections against Republican electoral manipulation. This means that the U.S. Senate is going to have to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in order to maximize the chances of free and fair elections. Additionally, Democrats are going to have to figure out a way to elevate the popularity of Joe Biden and improve their chances of winning 2022 Congressional races. Perhaps a backlash to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade would help, but that seems unlikely.

The stakes are truly high for progressives; we need to do all that we legally and non-violently can do.

The post Why A “Civil War” Would Be So Hard for Progressives to “Win” appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The thermostatic public opinion of the American voter is not a well understood phenomenon, but it is something that has been well observed for the last century. The President’s party almost always suffers a midterm penalty and Joe Biden is historically unpopular, only just missing out on the bottom spot except Donald Trump was more unpopular. This is all to say that the political environment is bad, and conceivably very bad. These are not really debatable points, what is debatable is how much we can read into the future from what happened in Virginia and New Jersey. There is a lot of spin and misguided optimism in politics, there is also an equal amount of apocalypse type meltdowns. This preview attempts to be neither, but rather a 10,000 foot view of the state of things.

The good news first:

Another Glen Youngkin is Hard to Find

How exactly did a Carlyle employed, fleece vest wearing, multi-millionaire who has never held elected office defeat a former Governor? The strengths of the Republican were only amplified by the many weaknesses of the Democrat.

In a normal campaign, you’d probably see the Democrat take a more populist tone and attack Youngkin for his ties to the financial industry. Terry McAuliffe was unable and unwilling to “go there” perhaps because as many pundits have noted, McAuliffe himself is an investor in Carlyle.

Youngkin made extraordinary use of education as a campaign wedge issue, drawing a lot of attention to an apparent gaffe made by McAuliffe during a debate in which he said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach”. There are a couple pieces to this, the first being the frustration many Virginia parents have had because their schools have been closed for in-person learning longer than most other states because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The second more obvious motivating force was race, specifically a considerable amount of white opposition to anything deemed “Critical Race Theory”. Normally a dog whistle this loud would be easy to counteract except the Democrats had very little credibility on racial issues in this election. The incumbent Governor, Ralph Northam, admitted to wearing black face as did the incumbent Attorney General, Mark Herring, who was unsuccessful in his bid for re-election. The Republicans also managed to nominate Winsome Sears, a Jamaican-American who will be the first woman and person of color to be Lieutenant Governor. Republicans essentially were able to neutralize whatever natural advantage Democrats typically have on issues of race and racism, which allowed at least several thousand more conservative Biden voters to pull the lever for Youngkin.

Finally, the way in which Youngkin talked about race sounded rhetorically much more like a liberal critique than a conservative one, despite the more straightforward right-wing animus we saw at school board meetings across America. Ironically, he very successfully used the Obama era “post-racial America” that worked so well for the former President in diffusing tensions with the rural and working-class whites who have abandoned Democrats in droves.

I’ll include a portion of his final stump speech, and I think you’ll notice that this threading of the needle will be hard to replicate:

“We will teach all history, the good and the bad.  America is the greatest country on the planet. We know it. We have an amazing history, but we also have some dark and abhorrent chapters. We must teach them all. We can’t know where we’re going unless we know where we come from. But let me be clear, what we don’t do – what we don’t do — is teach our children to view everything through a lens of race, where we divide them into buckets; one group’s an oppressor and another group’s a victim; and we pit them against each other, and we steal their dreams. We will not be a commonwealth of dream-stealers. We will be a commonwealth of dream-enablers and builders. We know it’s not right. We’re all created equal, and we’re trying so hard to live up to those immortal words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who implored us to be better than we are; to judge one another based on the content of our character and not the color of our skin. And so let me be clear, on day one, we will not have political agendas in the classroom, and I will ban critical race theory.”

That’s not how former President Trump talks about race nor is it how many GOP primary voters talk about race. Therein lies the greatest hope for Democrats, Youngkin of course was not the choice of a primary electorate. The Virginia Republican party opted to hold a convention to select its nominees for statewide row offices as opposed to a regular primary. This was because the party establishment correctly understood that State Sen. Amanda Chase, who self-described as “Trump in heels”, would run away with the nomination if left up to primary voters. A convention however would limit the influence of party outsiders and the folks who might be motivated enough to vote but not spend several hours at a convention. Most states will have primaries and as we saw in 2010 when Republicans lost easy pickup opportunities in Senate races in Nevada, Delaware, and Colorado; sometimes a bad candidate is just bad enough to break a wave.

Other Good News:

1. Midterm and off-year elections are not predictive of Presidential elections. Consider 2018, 2010, 2002, 1994, and 1990. In 2018 and 1990 Presidents Trump and Bush saw their party, the Republicans, suffer loses in the midterm election and they in-turn went on to lose re-election. In 2010 and 1994 Presidents Obama and Clinton saw their party, the Democrats, suffer historic defeats only to be re-elected themselves 2 years later. Finally in 2002, President Bush saw his party make gains and was re-elected President. What’s the theme? Context matters. The results of the next Presidential election were about the next battle, not the last one. Even if Democrats do poorly in 2022, they have until 2024 to recover if they can.
2. A year is an eternity in politics. In 2018, it seemed probable if not likely that Republicans would lose their Senate majority until as late as September. However, the confirmation battle of Brett Kavanagh made possible an opening for Republicans to galvanize voters in states like Missouri and Indiana. What would that look like for Democrats? It’s unclear, but it may defend against potential loses in Georgia and Arizona by providing openings in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. However, it should be said, Republicans won Missouri and Indiana by 19% in 2016 while Democrats won Georgia and Arizona by less than 0.2% in 2020.
3. Starting in 2024 but continuing through 2026, 2028, and 2030 many of the seats drawn to favor Republicans will likely continue to trend Democratic. Population growth is exploding across American suburbs while rural areas are seeing mass depopulation. Take Cobb County in suburban Atlanta for example which mirrors the trends being seen elsewhere. In 2020, Donald Trump received 25,000 more votes than George Bush had in 2000 when he carried the county with nearly 60% of the vote. Joe Biden however received 135,000 more votes and won the county with 56.3%. You can find similar numbers in the suburbs of Houston, Dallas, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, New York, and nearly every major American city with the obvious exception of Miami (although Jacksonville and Tampa show greater upside). The 2012 maps had been gerrymandered heavily in some places, but by 2018 more than 40 seats had flipped to the Democrats. This is short-term good news for the House, but the Senate might be a longer-term view.
4. Should Donald Trump announce his candidacy for President in 2024 he will be the Republican nominee. The potential of a defeated President returning to lead his party in another general election campaign if frankly something that exists well outside the bounds of living memory. The closest examples we have are Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 who ended up running under a third party or Grover Cleveland in 1892 who successfully returned to office after being ousted in 1888. There’s not a lot of precedent for that and there is no precedent for Donald Trump. He is the unknown unknown and he could completely scramble expectations for November should he begin actively campaigning.

Now that Bad News:

Split Ticket Voting is a thing of the past

In 2013, the last time McAuliffe was on the ballot, over 113,000 votes separated the highest performing Democrat (Ralph Northam, then the candidate for Lieutenant Governor) from the lowest performing Democrat (Mark Herring, then the candidate for Attorney General). All three Democrats ended up being elected in that election. In 2021, only 13,000 votes separated the highest performing Republican (Glenn Youngkin, Governor-elect) and the lowest performing Republican (Jason Miyares, Attorney General-elect).

In some environments, that is good news. If there was less split ticket voting, Susan Collins would’ve been defeated in 2020 and the Democratic majority in the House would not have shrunk to single digits. In some environments, this is bad news. If there were more split ticket voting in 2020, it’s very easy to imagine Republicans keeping Senate seats in Arizona and Georgia and perhaps picking up a seat in Michigan, bringing us to 54-46 as opposed to 50-50. Democrats unfortunately find themselves much closer to the latter than the former. This is a bad environment for more split ticket voting for a couple reasons.

The seats Democrats see as most vulnerable, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and New Hampshire are not necessarily full of voters that are trending towards Democrats currently. According to exit polling, here’s the percentage of white voters without college degrees in the aforementioned states:

Nevada: 42%

Arizona: 41%

Georgia: 35%

New Hampshire: 53%

In Virginia according to exit polls, these white voters without college education went from voting Republican 62% to 38% in 2020 to 74% to 24% in 2021. There are of course problems with using only exit polling data, but looking at county level swings in conservative southwestern Virginia tell this story too. Every county swung more Republican, some as little as Buchanan County which became only 2.1% more Republican but some as large as Radford County which swung right 18%. If you apply that kind of shift to Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and New Hampshire what you find is that every state flips Republican. The challenge becomes clearer when you look at the states Democrats want to flip; Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, and Florida which at least have 40% of their voters being non-college educated white people. What is dire however is 2024, which as David Shor has observed that if education and race are still as predictive as they are now for voter choice and voters split ballots like they do now and Democrats manage 52% of the popular vote as they did in 2020; Democrats likely will only capture 45 seats (not including any potential loses in 2022). If they win the Presidency in 2024, the 2026 midterm could be equally challenging when Democratic seats such as Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, and New Hampshire will be contested.

The Senate has a bias that currently benefits Republicans (It was not so long ago that Democrats had 60 Senate seats and could expect modest support from non-college educated white voters). There are simply many more states with large populations of non-college educated white voters, and many of those states are relatively small while receiving the same number of senators. Democrats need some voters concentrated in red trending states to vote for them, it’s becoming clear that not many will.

The Fundamentals favor the Republicans

Analysts like Dave Wasserman and Nate Silver said in 2018 that Democrats would probably need to win the popular vote by around 7% in 2018 to win a majority of seats outright in the US House. The latest polling averages suggest Republicans have a lead in the generic congressional ballot in the low single digits although some polls show a dead heat. With gerrymandering, there will likely be a slight bias in favor of Republicans given that many “Blue” and “purple” states opted for independent redistricting processes while “Red” states are utilizing the more familiar partisan redistricting process. However even without gerrymandering, something that is not an issue in statewide races, Democrats are still at a disadvantage if they are losing the popular vote. Remember in 2012 when Democrats led Republicans by 1.1% in the House popular vote, they still found themselves in a minority position weaker than the Republicans find themselves in now.

On key questions where Democrats had previously enjoyed relatively good numbers in our hyper-partisan political environment but polling from YouGov/The Economist shows a pretty clear story of declining fortunes over the last several months.

Direction of the Country:

Generally headed in the right direction: 27% Nov., 31% Sept., 35% Jul., 42% May

Off on the wrong track: 61% Nov., 55% Sept., 51% Jul., 46% May

Trend of the Economy

Getting Better: 16% Nov., 17% Sept., 23% Jul., 28% May

Getting Worse: 54% Nov., 45% Sept., 38% Jul., 34% May

The bit of good news is the final question that most analysts look at when trying to handicap the political environment shows some hope for Democrats. The only thing people dislike worse than Democrats are Republicans! 53% of voters dislike the Democratic Party including 39% who strongly dislike Democrats, but 59% dislike the Republican Party including 40% who strongly dislike Republicans. However, the light at the end of the tunnel on this one is still somewhat dim. In 2016, Hillary Clinton was the most disliked Presidential nominee in the history of polling….second to Donald Trump who ended up defeating her. Americans are familiar with negative partisanship and there is a critical mass, certainly millions of people including this author, who have a negative opinion of both parties. This is in my opinion the true swing group of voters because some not only are weighing whether to vote for the Republican or the Democrat, but many more are conflicted whether to vote at all. Donald Trump won this group of voters by 17 points in both 2020 and 2016, but in 2016 they accounted for 18% of voters while in 2020 they made up less than 5%. So it’s unlikely that it will be enough to be less hated but rather Democrats need to become more popular. Which brings me to my final point.

The Democrats Actually Are in Disarray

Despite what you might hear from party loyalists, self-proclaimed resistance members, never-Trumpers, and MSNBC viewers there is actually a lot of internal discontent in the Democratic Party. The left is likely more distrustful of moderates than ever after several betrayals over the last several months. Years of “Vote Blue No Matter Who” rhetoric to encourage disaffected progressives to support the party fell apart when the incumbent mayor of Buffalo was defeated by India Walton, a democratic socialist, in their democratic primary. Instead of conceding, the defeated mayor launched an independent bid for mayor which went unchallenged by Gov. Kathy Hochul (who had made endorsements in other races) and was actively supported by establishment figures in the state (except for Majority Leader Schumer). Brown was successful in his re-election, showing progressives that the relationship they have with the party is entirely one-sided as they were left flailing looking for support when just a year earlier, they we were decisive in defeating Donald Trump. There’s also the Build Back Better/Infrastructure chicanery which has produced a lot of bad will not just among rank-and-file voters but clearly amongst members. The original agreement reached by Moderates in the Senate, Progressives in the House, and President Biden was two bills that would move simultaneously. One bill would be bipartisan and contain Senate priorities on physical infrastructure like roads, bridges, broadband, and environmental upgrades. The other bill would pass through reconciliation with only Democrat votes but would have the vast majority of Biden’s domestic policy goals including a public option, paid family leave, tuition free community college, dental coverage for seniors, the PRO Act, and other liberal priorities of the last quarter century. The end result so far has been the passage of the Senate bill without support from the left with Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Bush, Tlaib, Omar, Pressley, and Bowman voting no. Meanwhile, the House bill has been neutered by moderate figures like Sens. Manchin, Sinema, and unnamed others who don’t have the temerity to put their opposition on record. This doesn’t begin to touch on the palpable disappointment with the failure to raise the federal minimum wage or cancellation of student debt. This well sums up the left-wing frustration with the party, but it’d be dishonest not to acknowledge the drift within the right flank of the party.

James Carville and his neoliberal allies have made clear that they blame Democratic misfortunes on leftist activists and progressives lending support to causes they think are electorally toxic. Namely “Defund the Police”, “Critical Race Theory”, “Wokeness”, “Cancel Culture” and “Socialism” generally. Admittedly these issues clearly have some cultural resonance among at least some voters although this has likely been helped by a media that seems insistent on promoting narratives as opposed to nuance. However much of the blame does lay with Democrats who have not effectively found a way to explain exactly what it is that they do believe in this new culture war. The answers they’ve given on these issues is some variation of “This isn’t real, it’s more of an academic thing that most people don’t engage with and it’s missing context, but we do agree with the sentiment and will attack anyone who attacks these ideas by name although we aren’t running on these things but opposing these things puts you closer to Donald Trump.” To be clear, it is not the job of activists to support popular policies, lunch sit-ins and Martin Luther King Jr. were widely disapproved of by white Americans. Their job is to shift the window of what is politically possible and bring issues to the attention of the actors who can address them. The job of politicians is to build public support for policies and then to enact them. If something associated with the Democratic Party is “Toxic” that is the fault of the party for not figuring out how to explain themselves to the voters. There is a lot that Republicans campaign on that is not just offensive but unpopular and they are connected to activists and ideologues who are equally unpopular. Nevertheless, they have at least managed a coherent (although often inflammatory not to mention dishonest) message that appeals to a growing number of voters.

Not everyone blames the culture war, in fact some moderates like Rep. Spanberger blame the political environment on the national economy and blame the condition of the national economy on progressives. She’s quoted in the New York Times saying:

“We were so willing to take seriously a global pandemic, but we’re not willing to say, ‘Yeah, inflation is a problem, and supply chain is a problem, and we don’t have enough workers in our work force, we gloss over that and only like to admit to problems in spaces we dominate. Nobody elected him to be F.D.R., they elected him to be normal and stop the chaos”

Spanberger is now being challenged for her seat by State Sen. Amanda Chase, the aforementioned Trump in heels. Virginia aside, many so-called fiscal hawks have pointed to President Biden’s American Rescue Plan as the cause of the spike in inflation we’re currently experiencing. Which of course is not just a critique of government spending but government priorities.

My Prediction: Republicans are going to Win, Democrats can decide by How Much

I’ll let Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter describe exactly how bad for Democrats it would be if Republicans continue the swing they achieved earlier this month.

“To put yesterday in context: in NJ, GOP legislative candidates outperformed the ’20 Biden/Trump margin in their districts by a median of 10.8 pts. If that swing were superimposed nationally, Rs would pick up 44 House seats in 2022 (before even factoring in redistricting). Before unpacking what this could mean we need to discuss “PVI” or “Partisan Voting Index” to ground us.

From www.ballotpedia.com:

“The Cook Political Report published its first Partisan Voter Index (PVI) in August 1997. The PVI was developed by Charles Cook, editor and publisher of Cook, and scores each congressional district based on how strongly it leans toward one political party. The PVI is determined by comparing each congressional district’s presidential vote to the national presidential election results. According to Cook, the PVI “is an attempt to find an objective measurement of each congressional district that allows comparisons between states and districts, thereby making it relevant in both mid-term and presidential election years”

You can find the PVI of your state or congressional district (according to 2020 lines) here. For example, Rep. Cori Bush (MO-1) represents the 22^nd most Democratic seat in the nation with a PVI of D+29. Therefore, in an election where nationally Republicans and Democrats tied in the popular vote (a D+0 or R+0 environment), you’d expect Bush to win her election about 79% of the vote. In 2020, Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by about 4.5 points nationally (meaning a D+4.5 national environment) and Bush won her election with about 78% of the vote, a slight underperformance. Meanwhile Rep. Jared Golden (ME-2) represents the most Republican leaning district held by a Democrat at R+6. In 2020, Golden won with 53% of the vote, running ahead of his district’s partisanship by an impressive 8 points. What accounts for over performance or under performance varies from race but political science says generally a few things matter: incumbency, fundraising, voter contact, and candidate favorability (not necessarily in that order). In the Senate we see a bit more of candidates defying state partisanship like Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in West Virginia which has a score of R+23 and Republican Sen. Susan Collins in Maine which has a score of D+1. The House is increasingly becoming more partisan with no Democrat representing a district redder than R+6 and no Republican representing a district bluer than D+5. This isn’t usually true in the aftermath of a wave election, 2006 and 2008 saw many Democrats representing Republican leaning districts while 2010 and 2014 brought a lot more Republicans from D districts. 2022 will probably see Republicans take many of those Democrat leaning districts back.

What could it look like? Well assuming some Democrats will outperform their districts partisanship (although most won’t), some states/districts are weighted too heavily towards 2016 as opposed to 2020, and that Joe Biden’s approval doesn’t recover to majority support but doesn’t fall below Trump’s in 2018…it’s a good picture for Republicans.

In the House, Republicans might expect to end up with a majority somewhere between those that they had in 2014 and 2010, which themselves were extraordinary wave elections. However, partisanship might be so strong that even with new lines, some D leaning seats are just too far out of reach (this could be a particular problem California and New York). Therefore, you might see Democrats land somewhere around 200 seats, about the size of their caucus after the 1994 elections. Conversely, if partisanship has weakened then it’s possible that some Democrats who have been outperforming expectations in their district since flipping them in 2008 or 2006 or earlier may finally find themselves out of office and Democrats could reach their nadir of the century. A lot of this will depend on how new lines are drawn, as of the writing of this article Republicans have created 5 new winnable seats for themselves and Democrats have created 5 new winnable seats for themselves, additionally 5 competitive seats have been erased. Which brings up another natural dynamic of wave elections which is the swing districts fall first and most people representing those districts are moderates. That was true in 2018 when Democrats inadvertently created a much more Trumpian Republican caucus by defeating most of the party moderates. In 2022 the Democratic caucus is likely to lurch a bit to the left but it’s unlikely that the left flank of the party will be empowered in the minority, but this election will provide an opportunity to lose the more obstructionist members of the caucus like Rep. Gottheimer in New Jersey’s 5^th Congressional District (D+0). However, some seats will be harder to flip back than others, as some Latino and Asian voters continue to drift to the right it will make incumbent Republicans who are members of those communities more formidable. In southern California Reps. Young Kim and Michelle Steel are the first Korean-American republican women in Congress and they represent districts with growing Korean populations, they will probably be able to represent California as long as they want to. Overall, the house looks fairly grim for Democrats if things persist as they are.

The Senate is probably bad news but there are a couple of ways Democrats can thread the needle here assuming nothing else changes. As was mentioned earlier, candidate quality really does matter although it isn’t everything. In the 2017 Alabama Special Senate election (where I correctly anticipated the surprise result) for example it might not have actually been enough for the Republican candidate to be a credibly accused sexual predator who was “more than off color” about matters ranging from slavery to 9/11 being divine retribution from God. After all, the Republicans did still manage 48.3% of the popular vote in Alabama. What was also required was a near-perfect candidate in Doug Jones the Democrat who had prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan, had no voting record, and could raise $22 million. Democrats have well positioned candidates in Sen. Raphael Warnock and Sen. Mark Kelly and potentially very poor candidates in Herschel Walker and Mark Brnovich in Georgia (R+3) and Arizona (R+3) respectively. Yet we should probably expect Republicans to have an edge, however they may be able to save themselves. In Nevada (D+0) and New Hampshire (D+0), Sens. Catherine Cortez-Masto and Maggie Hassan were both elected with less than 48% of the popular vote in 2016 and represent states with large populations that are trending Republican. Their incumbency, fundraising ability, and raw political talent will keep these races competitive but only Cortez-Masto faces a potentially strong challenger in Nevada’s former Attorney General Adam Laxalt who comes from a political dynasty in the silver state but who is not without baggage. Hassan avoided almost certain defeat when Gov. Chris Sununu announced that he has no interest in being part of the United States Senate (and why would you when you can be God-King of New Hampshire) and will run for re-election after winning the popular vote by 32 points just last year (New Hampshire elects its governor every 2 years, with no term limits). However she may face the President of the New Hampshire Senate, Chuck Morse, who is well connected around the state.

That said, Democrats will probably lose one of the four aforementioned seats if not all of them. To counteract that, Democrats need to pick up Republican seats and there are theoretically opportunities in Pennsylvania (R+2), Wisconsin (R+2), North Carolina (R+3), Florida (R+3), Ohio (R+6), and Missouri (R+11) but many of these are simply illusions of opportunity. Although the potential of an explosively toxic Eric Greitens, the disgraced former governor who resigned after allegations of stealing a donor list from a veterans charity and less than clearly consensual series of sexual encounters with his hairdresser, candidacy may seem like the best opportunity for Democrats to capture Missouri’s US Senate seat. However, there are zero reasons to believe based on any publicly available data or easily observable trends that Missouri will elect anyone but a Republican to the US Senate next November. In an environment where Democrats won the popular vote nationally by 8 points, Sen. Claire McCaskill was defeated for re-election by a larger than expected 6 points (McCaskill underperformed her state partisanship at the time by a little over 5 points).

In Florida, Sen. Marco Rubio is popular enough in South Florida with Latino voters that he could conceivably win Miami-Dade County as he did during the 2016 Republican primaries. If you’re not familiar with Florida politics, Democrats won Miami-Dade by 29 points in 2016 and still lost Florida. In Ohio, Republicans seem set to nominate the Trumpian former state Treasurer whose campaign staff walked out on him last year, Josh Mandel or the Peter Theil financed Hillbilly Elegy author that the liberal media constantly platformed  J.D. Vance. Rep. Tim Ryan is no slouch as a potential Democratic Senate candidate, but he’ll likely be forced to account for statements made on the campaign trial during his quixotic quest for the presidency in 2020. Furthermore, Ohio has seen perhaps the most accelerated rightward shift of any state in the Midwest and in 2020 Donald Trump received 300,000 more votes than 4 years prior while achieving virtually the same margin of 8 points.

North Carolina has two very strong Republican options to choose from in the former Gov. Pat McCrory and Trump endorsed Congressman Rep. Ted Budd. 2020 saw over performance down ballot in North Carolina as the Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, and Auditors Office all were won by Democrats as Joe Biden lost the state to President Trump. The character of North Carolina is changing from a traditionally inelastic southern state with nearly all white voters supporting Republicans while Black voters support Democrats at similar levels, which bodes well for Democrats future prospects in the state. However, North Carolina is more red than purple, and Democrats will need to do better than they have in better years where they also lost which is a tall order.

Finally, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania which do represent the best opportunities Democrats have to flip any senate seats. These states are both trending Republican and were won by President Biden last year, but Wisconsin has a polarizing candidate in incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson and an open-seat in Pennsylvania where the Trump endorsed Republican is credibly accused of domestic violence. In Pennsylvania however, Democrats are threatened with a party crackup as the front-runners for the nomination are conservative Rep. Connor Lamb, moderate state. Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, and progressive Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman. After the betrayal in Buffalo, it seems unclear if any of these candidates if nominated can unify the Democratic voting base. Wisconsin although it has an incumbent, and incumbents are typically harder to defeat, benefits from the character of Mr. Johnson which has been remarkably conservative given the lean of his state. Wisconsin is trending Republican, but it isn’t that Republican yet and it’s likely that Johnson’s likely challenger, Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, will be able to raise enormous sums of campaign dollars.

As far as Alaska goes, it’s complicated. The state has recently adopted a new voting system described here by the Anchorage Daily News:

“Under the new Ballot Measure 2 system, all candidates for a particular office, regardless of party, will run against one another in the August primary. (Candidates for governor and lieutenant governor are paired together on a single ticket as running mates.)

Voters pick one candidate or ticket for each office, and the top four vote-getters advance to the general election in November. In that election, voters will be asked to rank the candidates in order of preference, Nos. 1 through 4. A write-in spot offers a fifth choice.

If one candidate gets more than half of the first-choice ballots, that person wins the election. If none of the candidates reach that mark, the candidate with the fewest first-choice ballots is eliminated. Voters who picked that candidate first will instead have their ballots go to their second choices, and the total is recounted.

If a candidate then has more than half of the votes, that person wins. If not, the process continues until there are only two candidates left, and the person with the most votes wins.”

President Trump has already endorsed an opponent to Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the former commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Administration Kelly Tshibaka. Meanwhile Murkowski has been endorsed by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin and Republicans like Sens. Mitch McConnell, Rick Scott, Susan Collins, and John Thune to name a few. It’s unclear what the voters will do or if Murkowski will make the top-two in November. If she does, it’s likely that she’ll win with coalition support as she did in 2016 and 2010. If she doesn’t, Tshibaka will almost certainly win. Given that Murkowski voted to impeach the Donald Trump who last year won Alaska by 10 points and voted against the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, you might want to be Tshibaka.

All said, the Republicans have a lot more paths to 51 seats than Democrats have to 50.

Without beating a dead donkey, Democratic incumbents in Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Maine and Nevada find themselves in tough races for the reasons listed above. These states either have large populations that are trending Republican, or they are traditionally red states. Democrats have the best odds likely in New Mexico and Nevada where the strength of incumbency may carry Gov. Steve Sisolak and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham over increasingly conservative working-class Latino voters in their states. However, all these governors were swept in on a blue wave in 2018, it’s not impossible to think that they could be as easily swept out. In fact, in 2010 that’s exactly what happened in Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Maine (Nevada already had a Republican governor) after the 2006 blue wave. The fact is that while it helps to be an incumbent, these are still not favorable environments.

In New England, liberals love electing Republican governors and we shouldn’t expect that to change in the near future. Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont (D+15) was re-elected last year by a staggering 41 point margin capturing every municipality in the state except for 3. Scott voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and called for President Trump’s resignation after January 6^th. Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire (D+0) also won re-election by a very impressive 32 points in 2020, but Sununu unlike Scott has described himself as a “Trump guy through and through”. The only Republican in any danger is Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts (D+14) and it’s not from the Democrats but rather a Republican primary challenger. President Trump has endorsed Geoff Diehl, a former state rep who challenged Sen. Warren in 2018, over Gov. Baker who despite being overwhelmingly popular in the state is actually not very popular among Republicans who view him as too liberal. If Baker should decide not to run or be defeated in his primary, Massachusetts would be ripe for Democrats to flip. However, should Baker survive his primary, he will surely sail to re-election like Scott and Sununu.

In the South, Democrats are hoping failed Presidential and US Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke will make the race for Governor in Texas (R+5) competitive. That likely won’t be the case for several reasons starting with the heavy GOP swing in the Rio Grand Valley in 2020 which is home to many Latino voters. Just looking at Zapata County, which is 94% Hispanic, you can see just how uphill Beto would need to fight to be competitive.

Beto of course ran for President and made a number of statements on the campaign trial that were calibrated to appeal to a national primary electorate that in theory is much more culturally liberal than general election voters in Texas, although of course voters opted for chronically “un-woke” Joe Biden so it’s not clear if Democrats were that “woke” to begin with. Yet Beto will likely be easy work for the Republican propaganda machine with statements like “hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47” and “In necessary some cases, completely dismantling those police forces”. However, Beto is perhaps the strongest candidate Democrats could hope for, but having unnecessarily tarnished himself in a Presidential campaign it’s unlikely that we should expect Gov. Gregg Abbot to be in any serious danger.

Georgia like Massachusetts will see its Republican Governor challenged seriously in the primary which will have implications for the general election. Gov. Brian Kemp has fallen very far from the graces of Donald Trump after he refused to intervene on behalf of Trump in the certification of Georgia’s election last year. Enough Georgia Republicans sat out the Senate run-offs that Democrats were able to narrowly win and secure the majority in the US Senate, in large part due to Trump continuing to spread conspiracies about unproven mass voter fraud. If Kemp is the nominee, Trump may well decide to ask Republicans to stay home. That’s if Kemp makes it that far as he’s being challenged by Vernon Jones, a once promising Black former Democrat legislator turned Republican who has been dogged by allegations of anti-white racial prejudice. There are rumblings that former Sen. David Purdue might challenge Kemp and if he did it’s an open question whether Kemp could win. Now it’s time to address the name Democrats have been hearing for the last 4 years, Stacey Abrams who narrowly lost her campaign for Governor in 2018. Abrams would be a formidable candidate given the chaos that is consuming the Georgia GOP, but it’s not clear if she will jump into the race given the difficult political environment. Abrams, who has never been shy about wanting to be President (or Vice President), understands where to look for political opportunities. In 2018 she ran for Governor in her purple state when polls showed a national wave environment for Democrats. In 2020 she did not enter the race for President after seeing over 2 dozen candidates including the runner-up from 2016 and the former Vice President enter because she (unlike Beto) correctly recognized that she didn’t have a lane to win. Later in 2020, when polls showed Biden with an exaggerated lead over President Trump, she auditioned heavily to be Vice President on what would eventually be a winning ticket. Now we are less than a year from the next election, and this time in 2017 Abrams had already been a candidate for 5 months. This could’ve been because she had a primary then and doesn’t expect much competition now. It could also be because she doesn’t want to run just to lose.

If one state is likely to flip to the Democrats, it is Maryland (D+14) where Gov. Larry Hogan is term-limited. He was elected in a close upset in 2014 but since then had achieved high marks from Democrats and Independents with more mediocre numbers among Republicans. Like Scott in Vermont, Hogan did not vote for President Trump in 2016 or 2020.

The white whale for Democrats is Florida, a state that has not elected a Democratic Governor in over 25 years. Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration have mirrored their style in many ways after the former President and that has created many detractors. Yet it’s also produced many supporters as DeSantis polls in the top-tier of potential Presidential candidates, and those are polls with and without former President Trump. In Florida Gov. DeSantis is on the positive side of polarizing — notching a 52% approval rating among registered voters ahead of his upcoming re-election bid. The Florida Democratic Party however has a penchant for botching elections in the state and that doesn’t seem to be changing as for the first time in history as registered Republicans outnumber registered Democrats in the Sunshine state. Challenging DeSantis are the former Republican turned Independent Governor who already lost an election as a Democrat in 2014 now Congressman Charlie Crist, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried who is Florida’s only statewide elected Democrat, or state Sen. Annette Taddeo who previously ran with Crist as his Lieutenant Governor candidate in 2014. None seem prepared so far to deal with the precipitous slide in Miami-Dade or the continued collapse in the panhandle which will be the party’s undoing.

Republicans should be able to hold on easily in Ohio, Iowa, and Arizona and they should be able to hold on very easily everywhere else. Iowa is approaching the status of red state and is currently more Republican leaning than Texas, there are no indications that rural white voters (of which Iowa has many) will be shifting back towards the Democrats anytime soon. In 2012, President Obama won all white voters in Iowa by 4 points. In 2020, Joe Biden lost white voters in Iowa by 12 points. Gov. Kim Reynolds was elected for the first time in 2018 in a much more hostile political environment, she should be fine in 2022 against any Democrat. The same is true of Gov. Mike DeWine in Ohio who is a known quantity in Ohio having previously been elected statewide as its Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, and US Senator. In Arizona, Gov. Doug Ducey is term-limited (although he would’ve been unlikely to earn a Trump endorsement after he acknowledged Biden won his state last year) and so that race is the most competitive. Trump has endorsed former TV news anchor Kari Lake although it’s not clear if she will be the party’s nominee given her history of association with QAnon conspiracy theories, white supremacist congressman Paul Gosar, and alleged Nazi sympathizers. Should she be nominated however, it’s likely that she’ll face Secretary of State Katie Hobbs who does not have the same history of bizarre connections. Nobody should be surprised if Hobbs pulls an upset because again, candidate quality can and often does matter on the margins.

Finally, Illinois, California, New York, and Oregon will almost certainly elect Democratic governors (although in New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul faces a very strong primary challenge from Attorney General Tish James). The state level Republican parties in these states for the most part lack a serious moderate element which means that they will likely be unable to mount serious challenges in 2022. These for all intents and purposes are blue states, and they’ve only gotten bluer since the last GOP wave in 2014.

So, what’s a Democrat to do then?

The Democrats are on borrowed time, it’s not clear if all of them know that but some do. It might be easy to despair as we look down the road at the horror of possibilities. Instead, though, we should remember that we are living through a turbulent period of great transitions and there are forces outside of our control. It is up to the President and his Congress to understand the stakes of the next year and do whatever it takes to pass their policy agenda. It may not be enough to save themselves from ignominy but doing nothing will surely doom them to it. And so, what if they do everything they promised last year and more and still the American people still reject them at the polls? What good is government that is so afraid to govern lest they be thrown out and forced to not govern some more but this time from the minority? I’ve written about the need to radically change the Supreme Court, but beyond that Democrats should probably try to do what voters want and dare them not to like them.

Polling suggests sweeping majorities in favor of legalizing marijuana, increasing the minimum wage, forgiving student debt, codifying Roe v. Wade, and letting the government negotiate prescription drug prices. These are things Democrats could do if they were willing to really question the rules of what is possible. The only thing that will save the party from likely electoral disaster is if they can get out of their own way and realize that the rules of the road have changed forever. Perhaps they still will, but the clock is ticking.

As for us, the ball is in their court. Knock on doors if you want, make phone calls if you have time, donate if you’ve got the disposable income, talk to your neighbors if you like them enough and vote if you’ve got the Tuesday available. Ultimately though, it’s up to the people in power to decide how long they think America can survive Republican control of the federal government. In a nation where 700,000 have died of an infectious disease over the last 20 months, it’s not an unreasonable question.

The post An Honest Preview of the 2022 Midterm Elections appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Donald Trump uttered the word and visited the place. We’re talking about Iowa. And off we go, the 2024 presidential election is under way.

There is virtually nothing democratic about the Iowa caucuses. But that has not kept Democrats from worshiping at the altar of Des Moines, Bettendorf and Dyersville where there is a Field of Dreams.

At a time when virtually all Democrats in the House and forty-eight in the Senate are strongly advocating strengthening our democracy with The For the People Act (H.R. 1) and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (H.R. 4), the party is hamstrung by Republicans and a few of their own, most notably Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ).

The Democratic Party also has a structural disadvantage in the U.S. Senate. While far more Americans vote for the 50 Democrats in the Senate than the 50 Republicans, any gain that Democrats would accrue is negated by the gerrymandered nature of the Upper Chamber. Wyoming has as many senators as California even though California has 57 residents for every individual in Wyoming.

But there is one part of our political process where Democrats can effect meaningful change without constitutional changes. This is the manner in which the party of progressives selects its nominees for president. The method for choosing nominees for president is as archaic and undemocratic as any part of our political process, and Democrats do not seem particularly concerned about it.

The quadrennial nomination process begins in Iowa. With a population of 3.1 million people, it represents less that one percent of the United States. The U.S. is 13.4% African-American; Iowa is 4.1%. The U.S. is 18.5% Hispanic; Iowa is 6.3%. In the U.S. as a whole, 13.6% of the population is foreign-born; in Iowa the number is 5.3%. Oh, and Iowa does not have a presidential primary; it has caucuses in which less than 10% of eligible voters participate.

Just across the Mississippi River from eastern Iowa is Illinois. Like Iowa, Illinois is rich in farmland and rural development. But it also is home to America’s third largest city, Chicago. It is a state that consistently votes Democrat, thus making it an excellent state in which candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination can compete. It has minority representation reflective of the country as a whole. It has strong components of virtually every crucial constituency of the Democratic Party.

It clearly makes sense for the Democrats to open their primary season in a state like Illinois. However, we all know that relegating Iowa to a lower ranking would not play well in Iowa. In the past six presidential elections, Democrats carried Iowa in 2000 (Al Gore) as well as 2008 and 2012 (Barack Obama), so there may well be a price for Dems to pay if they relegated Iowa in the nomination process.

If the Democrats choose to engage in meaningful electoral reform, it will require creating a level playing field across the country. The process of leveling will mean that some states like Iowa will have less clout in the nomination process and other states like California will have far more.

It is quite possible that in the short run, the Democratic Party will lose support in smaller states. But that is already happening, and trends indicate that Democrats will be paying less attention to New Hampshire and more to Texas.

But once the Democratic Party has a clear policy of promoting democracy across the board, it will be easier for it to argue for statehood for the District of Columbia as well as Puerto Rico. Both such developments would help Democrats bring more democracy to the U.S. Senate. Once that happens, our country will be much closer to operating as a true democracy.

It’s a small window of opportunity to talk about Iowa without getting thrown out of the room. Now is the time for Democrats to initiate that conversation. Promoting true democracy should be a consistent goal for the Democratic Party.

The post How Democrats Can Promote Democracy starting with Iowa appeared first on Occasional Planet.

For Los Angeles County election chief Dean Logan, Tuesday, March 3, 2020 was, to quote a famous children’s book, “a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.” It was Super Tuesday, a critical point in the 2020 election timeline. News reports chronicled long lines at polling places, equipment failures and mad-as-hell voters. Much of the blame, it seemed, landed on the debut of a $300 million dollar, custom-designed system of electronic voting machines, many of which appeared to have malfunctioned or failed completely. But other factors appeared to play a role, as well: The rollout of an early-voting option; and the first-time use of a vote-center configuration, which reduced the previous 4,000 neighborhood polling places to 900 geographically dispersed centers.

But those first impressions, like many heat-of-the-moment media stories, were only the first draft. The real story emerged later. In the days that followed, LA County launched an investigation into what had gone wrong. The resulting 135-page report showed up on the LA County website at the end of April, without a public announcement, and it doesn’t take an advanced degree in logic to understand the zero-publicity approach: The embarrassing problems revealed during the investigation are not flattering to Logan and his operation.

The report highlights system failures that might have been prevented with better planning and testing and they offer a cautionary tale for other jurisdictions as the critical November 2020 presidential election approaches. Key findings in the report’s executive summary include the following facts, followed by my annotations:

• 20 percent of voters surveyed after the election reported a negative voting experience.
• 15 percent of voters reported waiting more than two hours to vote.

In the world of election management, those are terrible numbers.

• Vote Centers were open for ten days before election day. 27% of voters cast ballots in the first 10 days. 73% voted on election day.

Election officials had projected a much higher early voting percentage. They staffed and set up vote centers thinking that a much smaller percentage of people would vote on election day. Some election-management experts speculate that the early voting option—in play for the first time—was not as accepted by voters as had been hoped for, because voters, typically, are wary of any change in procedures.

• Long wait times primarily resulted from technical issues with the electronic pollbooks (Poll Pads) that are used to check in voters as they arrive at Vote Centers. Even though ample network bandwidth was available, the Poll Pads had issues synchronizing date with the voter database, and the voter search function was too limited for the size of the county’s electorate. This resulted in delays as voters checked in. Also, some Vote Center had fewer Poll Pads than needed to handle voter turnout on Election Day.

There’s plenty of blame to go around, but LA County’s report pins a big chunk of it on the company—Missouri-based Knowink—that programs and maintains the electronic pollbook system.

• While there was a perception among voters and the media that [the new ballot-marking machines] were not operable and contributed to wait times, generally this was not the case.

Having spent 10 years and $300 million dollars designing a custom-made voting system, LA County’s election administration has a big stake in reassuring the public that they made the right decision. To their credit, in the report, they acknowledge that they made many mistakes, understaffing help desks and some Vote Centers, and not adequately addressing a previously identified problem with the gears in some ballot printers, which caused jamming that further slowed the flow of voters. But “problems” with the new ballot-marking system, they contend, were less about the machines not working and more about not deploying enough of them.

A chart in the executive summary lists the problems and offers potential solutions, The chart illuminates the scope of failings on Super Tuesday in America’s largest voting jurisdiction: Excessive wait times. Short-staffing at Vote Centers. Inadequate poll worker training; Late delivery of 17,000 vote-by-mail ballots to voters. Discrepancies between official publications of Vote Center locations and actual locations. Malfunctioning voter hotline. Problems with Vote Center set-up and deployment of resources.

Between now and November 2020, LA County election officials have a lot to do to make sure none of these problems happen again. To that end, the report includes a to-do list whose succinct bullet points only hint at the amount of additional behind-the-scenes planning, meetings, logistical changes and staff overtime it will take to improve the outcome in November—the kind of grunt work that is invisible to voters, but crucial to the integrity of elections.

They’ll try, because no election administrator wants to be the lead story on CNN on election night, and the vast majority of people in this line of work want to get it right. But there are no guarantees. Election day, no matter where you vote, is a crap shoot for election managers, and things happen that cannot be anticipated or even, sometimes, imagined. Good luck, Mr. Logan.

The post Behind the scenes at LA County’s Super Tuesday election meltdown appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Civitas, a St. Louis-based educational non-profit, is working with seventeen interns this summer. They are researching (a) why certain individuals do not vote and what can be done to encourage them to do so, (b) how are system of voting is changing in light of COVID-19 and countervailing forces for change, and (c) current race relations issues in the United States and around the world.

Interns were asked to explore ways in which voting rights could be suppressed. The theory is that you have to understand the problem before you can remedy it. Below are their thoughts:

Bella: If I wanted to suppress voting in today’s world, it would obviously depend on the position of power that I was in. But assuming I have total power over President, Congress, the courts, and the entire bureaucracy, and my goal is to get as few people voting as possible, here’s how I would do it.

First, I would require more in-depth applications for poll workers to get a better gauge of their personality. Did lots of optimistic, naive AP Government students apply? Count ‘em out! Any cynical, technologically inexperienced old people apply? Count ‘em in, with bonus points if they have an attitude! Maybe increase the pay rate for poll workers, to get a larger applicant pool. This way, any mishap with the ballot scanners turns into hours-long waits, with disgruntled workers and voters alike. As a result of the increased pay rate, however, many states will have to decrease their numbers of voting stations. I’ll block regulations on the spacing there. Then, I would block cases going through the courts against gerrymandering. No need to look over voting districts! In state party meetings, I would lobby against open primaries. Why not go for the most inefficient method of handling primaries: the closed caucus! Only people willing to skip work for the day in the name of politics will be willing to go to this one. At the very least, I will get open primaries changed to closed primaries, to make sure only voters registered with a party will vote. With all aspects of this plan in place, at the bare minimum I will have only the most patient and determined voters taking part in the process.

Claire St:
How I would suppress voters in today’s world:

1. Cut power to traffic lights and tell the cops directing traffic to only let people from one side of the intersection go all day
2. Sample ballots have advertisements on them so that people think it’s a penny saver and throw it away without looking
3. Provide donuts or pizza to poll workers but ensure it comes during the busiest time of the day and force workers to take a break to eat it
4. Spill cherry soda on machines so that when workers take them out of the cases the machines are sticky and poll workers have to wash their hands and clean the machines delaying start times
5. Do a “balloon drop” in the polling place celebrating the 100th vote and make workers clean it up before anyone else can come in because the polling place is not accessible with balloons on the floor
6. Make poll workers spend the first hour of voting time decorating the poll place, and if it isn’t deemed aesthetically pleasing by an interior designer/ party planner, shut the polling place down

Ethan:
The most effective way to obstruct voting is to create a process that makes registering to vote as complicated as possible. This would include adding charges for mailing, poll taxes, etc, as well as making it take a long time. If people can get past that, make it hard to access polling places by making them far from people’s homes, and keeping them far away from public transportation. If they get to the polling place, adding in extra measures like photo ID requirements and confusing ballots will discourage more people. For those who can’t make it to the polls, you could make requesting absentee ballots more complicated, or just get rid of absentee voting altogether.

Valerie: The best thing to do to rig an election, assuming you have the resources, is not to rig the vote, but to rig the factors that influence voting. The vast majority of media in the US is owned by just a few companies. As such, they all share relatively similar interests, which will affect their reporting. They are less likely to report stories that hurt their bottom line, and willing to report those that help them. For example, they may ignore stories about a primary candidate who would threaten their business winning several primaries, but push one about another, more status quo candidate winning one less significant primary, frame it as them running away with the race, and then ignore stories damaging them. This boosts their favorite candidate’s credibility, and by ignoring their opposition, many of them can be undemocratically wiped out without touching a single vote. Or perhaps they take a relatively unknown local politician announcing their candidacy, who has never held higher office, and give them disproportionate coverage, putting them in the same position as senators and former cabinet members. Of course, this isn’t something that can simply be relied on – the media reports based on their own interests, not a political party’s. Outright bribery and lies are very hard to get away with. But the interests of the media and the political establishment are often the same – the interests of the elite.

Daria:

I think there are many ways that you could subtly suppress voting in today’s world. This is already being done in the United States today, especially through voting restrictions in black or brown communities. For example, restricting the number of polling stations in areas that you do not want to vote already occurs in this country. In addition, posters could be hung up in these communities or false advertisements could be posted on social media, which has been done in the past, telling people to go vote the day after the date of an actual election, deterring even those who actually want to vote. Furthermore, a lack of transportation accessibility in predominantly black communities in the United States can also discourage black voters from going to vote and these are all combined just a few of the numerous reasons why black voter turnout tends to be lower than that of white voter turnout.

Gabe: 
Repress Voting

1.           Make the ballots confusing, beyond normal understanding, and they must be fully filled out and complete to be counted.

2.           Multi-phasal voter ID. Fake IDs are commonplace among this nation, to prove that you are who you say you are you need: driver’s license; birth certificate; social security card; and a notarized special voter’s pamphlet.

3.           The special voter’s pamphlet requires an online registration process that takes 1 hour to complete and three weeks to ship.

4.           You have one hour to vote. 5:00am-6:00am. If you cannot put the ballot in the counter by that time, you cannot vote.

5.           Calming classical music, played at a dangerously high volume, is blasted through the voting area.

Emily:
Here’s my list of ways I think of to suppress voting in America (some are unfortunately in practice or have been proposed):

• Poll tax
• Literacy tests
• Notarizing absentee ballots
• Limiting polling places
• Illegalizing absentee ballots
• Shortening hours when polling places are open
• Placing polling place hours during the typical work day
• Requiring more and more documents
• No national holiday for elections
• Closed primaries
• Having the outcome of an election not actually follow majority/popular vote (i.e. the electoral college)
• Increase the time it took to vote through tedious aspects of the voting process such as filling out a bunch of personal information or requiring voters to take surveys
• Make voting more confusing with constantly changing the voting process with technology

Maggie:
If you have ever seen the documentary Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook, you would have evidence to explain why voting is suppressed in the United States. Year after year, different people and groups use tricks to limit people’s votes such as voter purges, voter I.D. laws, and gerrymandering. Even legislation that protects voters has been changed, and laws have been created to further suppress votes. In order to change this, I would uphold the Voting Rights Act while strengthen it where needed as well as ensure every state is consistent in protecting voting. Voter I.D. laws should not exist as they hinder people from voting. We need automatic and same-day voter registration to enable more to vote easily. We need better absentee voting options as well as mail-in voting. We need to change Election Day to a weekend and make it a federal holiday, so we make it more accessible for people to vote. We live in a democracy, yet only half of registered voters actually vote. This is outrageous given we have the right and privilege to vote. What’s more outrageous is the fact that groups of people actively try to prevent people from voting. Every effort against voter suppression must be enacted.

Martriana:

Ways to Suppress Voting to Today’s World…

• Making Election Day on a Weekday Where People Don’t Have Time To Vote
• Set a Fixed Time Period To Go Vote
• Machines That Don’t/Never Work
• Lack of Backup Paper Ballots
• Voting Buildings Far From Home/Work
• Voting Buildings that Can Only Be Accessed via Car
• Making Voter Registration Needlessly Difficult
• Making Voter Registration Cost Money
• Conveniently Blocking Traffic to Polling Places
• Normalizing That, If You Don’t Like Neither Candidate, Just Don’t Vote
• Prevent Urban Voters By Making Polling Places in Rural Areas
• Normalize That if You Don’t Feel Safe Voting in the Only Polling Place Within Close Range, Don’t Voting
• Large Police Presence, Inflicts Intimidation Tactics
• Openly Lying About When Polls Open
• Must Have Voter’s ID
• Felons Cannot Vote. Ever.

Myla:
Unfortunately, there are still ways to “legally” suppress voters in today’s world. Since Election day is not considered a civic holiday on a national level, many voters have to take time off of work without pay. There are only nine states in the United States who have the opportunity to have a day off of work to vote. However, this does not exclude these voters from being suppressed in other ways. For example, voters can be suppressed through long lines at the polls and malfunctioning machines. Others can qualify for absentee voting but they may never receive their ballot in the mail. Gerrymandering is also a huge issue in voting. District lines may be redrawn to change the demographic of voters in certain districts.

Riley:

• Require two forms of ID in order to vote

• Require proof of residence to register (mail)
• Reduce voting times from 9:00 am-5:00 pm with an hour break for poll workers from 11:30 to 12:30, and only allowed to vote on tuesdays
• Don’t have special needs assistance at voting places(no ramps, audio help, brail etc.)
• Do not post publicly about voting dates and places
• Stop sending out voting cards with voting day information
• Have registration expire every year
• Do not have public transport reach voting sites, or have sites that are not accessible by car.
• Make voters use a private password that they cannot reset when voting that must be 13 characters long, with a special character.

Stephanie:

● Require an address

● Require a high school diploma or ged

● Spread out voting centers

● No criminal record- at all

● don’t advertise election

● don’t advertise deadline

● Limit voting hours

● Propaganda

Sophie:

If I was going to suppress voting, I would start by only mentioning voting in connection with fraud or other negatives like long lines or lost ballots. It would be essential to link voting and futility together to discourage voter turnout. Passing strict voter ID laws would be a necessity. If people think that their vote doesn’t matter, then I don’t have to worry about them turning up at the polls. For those who do vote, I would close polling places, insuring long lines and longer commutes for people. I would also try and delay the training of polling workers, so they were less prepared to deal with faulty equipment.  Slowing the whole process down, ie taking longer to mail absentee ballots, not having the proper amount of paper ballots at a polling place, would be the name of the game. Just make voting a nuisance that requires too much time and paperwork and never leads to change, that would be how I would suppress voting.

Traditionally there are two ways to win an election (this might be somewhat reductionist but bear with me); A campaign might decide to focus on persuasion which would involve “flipping” voters who might usually support the opposition to your preferred side, a campaign might also decide to focus on turnout which would involve motivating as many likely supporters as possible to vote. However there is a little appreciated but fairly pervasive third way to win an election which is as old as America itself, voter suppression which is the act of creating barriers to an opponent’s voters being able to vote. If I were a government official from a political party that has limited support among any number of various groups but perhaps especially low-income voters, young voters, African-American, and Latino voters I might use this course of action to ensure victory and suppress voting.

Reece:

1. Introduce a state issued license requirement to vote, preferably a photo identification card.
2. Require a number of qualifications in order to receive the state issued license
   1. Payment of all delinquent taxes
   2. No warrants from any law enforcement agency
   3. Payment of a one-time nominal fee to register for the license (Passports cost $140 with all components)
3. Allow a limited number of locations where these licenses can be processed and purchased
   1. These locations should be inaccessible to public transport
   2. These locations should only be opened for limited “Registration periods”, perhaps only a few weeks every year.
   3. These locations should have limited processing abilities, having only enough materials to produce so many licenses per day
4. Allow residents to receive a different standard of license
   1. These licenses would be sufficient for driving and identification for all purposes except voting
   2. These licenses should be available for purchase at a significantly reduced price
   3. The distinction between the non-voting license and voting license should not be made clear in the licensing centers
   4. The non-voting license should be available for distribution at locations that are extremely accessible including libraries, post-offices, and shopping centers

The post Students Discuss How to Steal an Election / Suppress Voter Engagement appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Here’s a question for you: “Do introverts commit acts of violence? The only way to try to answer this question is to acknowledge that at least one premise of the statement is probably faulty. It is unlikely that there are individuals who are introverts 100% of the time. It’s more likely that we are all live on the Introvert / Extrovert continuum and depending on the situation we are in; we slide to different points on the scale.

But there clearly are people who spend more time to the left of the center-point (Ambiverts), and ones who spend more times to the right. So, for those people who live more to the left on this continuum (in the comfort zone of being an introvert), it seems likely that they would avoid violence. They would not be the people on the streets of America’s cities who are smashing windows, looting, and possibly even scuffling with law enforcement officers. In fact, they may be far less likely to even be on the street protesting.

To march, picket and protest, someone has to feel pretty confident about going into crowds and asserting oneself. My hunch is that most introverts would much rather watch what is happening through the digital pictures from their televisions, computers, or even phones. But that does not mean that introverts cannot, or do not, engage in actions promoting social change.

Many introverts are frequently in thought about how to change our society for the better. They often put their ideas to paper and provide us with clear purpose and direction as we work to help society clean up its ailments.

One could argue that societal change happens best when there is either formal or informal collaboration between those who are in a frequent state of reflection about what is happening in our world, and those who comfortably take to the streets and other public places to let the world know what they think and the intensity of their beliefs.

But this picture of the thoughtful non-violent introverts has the requisite exceptions to the rule. One of the quietest, most secluded and reclusive individuals in modern American history engaged in over twenty acts of horrendous violence. His name is Ted Kaczynski; also known as the Unabomber.  Timothy McVeigh, who blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 also had many attributes of an introvert.

Maybe if we eliminate from our universe of introverts those who harbor extreme amounts of anger and hate, then we can more clearly state that introverts tend to be non-violent. But in all fairness, we could say the same about extroverts.

It’s all complicated and I certainly do not have clear answers. But, it’s something that I’m pondering now. Can those of us who spend considerable time functioning as introverts, be helpful voices for moderation when are streets are rioting? Can we also be leaders in promoting progressive solutions to problems that send so many others to the streets? As Donald Trump shows us every day, those of us who believe in rational thinking and embrace empathy must take whatever non-violent action we can to help solve America’s and the world’s problems.

The post Do Introverts Commit Acts of Violence? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In the 2008 Minnesota election for US Senate, Al Franken beat Norm Coleman by less than three hundred votes. In that race, almost four thousand absentee ballots were not counted because votes didn’t sign the envelope, as required. The problem was a flaw in the design of the envelope. Voters didn’t notice the signature line, an innocent mistake that ultimately disenfranchised them. That screw-up prompted the Minnesota secretary of state’s office to redesign the absentee mail-in envelope to include an outsized X to prominently indicate where voters needed to sign. In the 2010 election, the missing-signature total dropped to 837.

The way your ballot looks influences how you vote. Anyone who paid attention to the 2000 presidential election will remember how “butterfly ballots” in Palm Beach County, Florida, confused thousands of voters, who may have voted for Patrick Buchanan rather than Al Gore, because the layout of the ballot was ambiguous. More recently, in the 2018 senate election in Florida, thousands of voters didn’t mark their ballots for that contest, because it appeared at the bottom of a long column of instructions—a column that many voters skipped. Election officials calculate that more than 30,000 votes may have been lost because of that design error. The winner of the Senate race, Rick Scott, won by less than 10,000 votes. No one will ever know if that margin of victory was attributable to the missing votes.

In 2020, as American politicians, election scholars and administrators try to figure out how conduct elections in a pandemic—and increasingly by mail—ballot design is going to be a critical factor in getting it right.

The Washington Post recently posted this very informative, four-minute video on this subject. Watch it here.

The post Ballot design is important, especially now appeared first on Occasional Planet.