Trump On Track To Flipping Over 50 Seats From Red To Blue

Trump loves it that the midterms are all about him and seems oblivious-- at least most of the time-- that he's going tp get the blame for the Republican apocalypse... and probably get impeached too boot. He'll finally get to truthfully boast that he's starring in a TV show with high ratings. No one can doubt that Trump is driving voters participation-- and on all levels. He's got people so worked up that even conservatives in local elections-- like the 6 hapless right-wing IDC members of the New York state Senate last week-- are feeling the results of pissed off, riled up Democratic voters.

Over the weekend, writing for The Hill, Reid Wilson took a look at the soaring 2018 primary turnout across the country. "More than 40 million Americans voted in primaries this year, a staggering increase from four years ago and a sign of virtually unprecedented voter enthusiasm ahead of the midterm elections. Primary voter turnout was higher than in 2014 for both Democrats and Republicans in most states across the country-- though Democrats have a decided advantage. Through Thursday’s vote in New York, more than 22.7 million Democrats had cast ballots in party primaries, compared with just 13.8 million in 2014. Among Republicans, 19.3 million showed up to vote, an increase from the 15.5 million who voted in GOP primaries four years ago."

Look at those numbers. In the last midterms 15.5 million Republicans and just 13.8 million Democrats voted. This year, the "Trump factor" has has brought out almost 4 million more Republicans. That's a lot more Republicans, right? Yes, it is-- until you realize that 9 million more Democrats voted... or at least that 9 million more voters participated in Democratic primaries, better yet. Believe me, that indicates even bigger turnout in November. And every poll I've seen is indicating that the more people vote, the more Republicans are going to lose.

Political scientists say the higher turnout among primary electorates is a sign that voters across the spectrum are more excited to take part in the midterms than in previous years. Some said higher participation in Democratic primaries should worry Republicans, who already face a challenging midterm cycle.

“The surge in Democratic primary turnout shows that the party’s occasional voters are energized, which is an especially encouraging sign in a midterm because so many of these voters sit out anything but a presidential race,” said Thad Kousser, who heads the political science department at the University of California-San Diego.

..."When the primary turnout becomes anomalous, and suddenly it's surging in one direction or another, that does tend to have some bearing on general election turnout," said Tom Bonier, a Democratic micro-targeting expert. "Democratic turnout pretty consistently surged over Republican turnout."

Some of the states where Democratic turnout increased the most are states at the heart of the battle for control of Congress, a potentially worrying sign for Republicans trying to hold on to their fragile House majority.

Democratic turnout more than tripled in Minnesota, where the parties are fighting over two Democratic-held seats in rural areas and two Republican-held seats in the Twin City suburbs. Both sides handled competitive gubernatorial primaries, and Republican turnout rose too, by about 74 percent.

All told, 582,000 Minnesota Democrats cast primary ballots, compared to 320,000 Republicans; four years ago, just 191,000 Democrats and 184,000 Republicans voted in party primaries.

Democratic turnout more than doubled in 14 states, including in House race hotbeds such as Colorado, New York, Iowa, Kansas, Virginia, Michigan, New Jersey and Nevada.

...Overall, turnout in Democratic primaries increased in 37 of the 47 states that held comparable contests in 2014 and 2018. Most states where turnout dropped-- like Kentucky, North Carolina, Arkansas, Alaska and South Dakota-- did not feature any competitive contests near the top of the ticket.

On the GOP side, turnout increased in 34 of 46 states that held comparable contests in the two midterm years. Republican turnout dropped in some that featured competitive statewide primaries, like Arizona, Mississippi, Illinois and New Hampshire, where both of the state’s two districts featured competitive Republican primaries.

McDonald said the increase in turnout is likely to be "unusually high" in November.

Bonier, the Democratic strategist, said his party should pay attention to higher turnout among Republican voters. Unlike in 2006, when Republican voters were depressed enough to stay home, today's GOP is more excited than it typically is for midterm elections.

"The one reason why Democrats shouldn't be doing backflips yet, it's not that Republicans are depressed, they're just not surging at the level that Democrats are," Bonier said. "They appear to be surging above levels that are typical of midterm turnout."

Still, high primary turnout is another data point that hints at a strong year for Democrats. Several recent surveys testing the generic ballot matchup between unnamed Democratic and Republican candidates, from outlets like CNN, Quinnipiac University, Marist College and Emerson College all show Democrats leading by double-digits. A Reuters/Ipsos poll this week pegged the Democratic edge at 8 points.

President Trump looms large over Republican hopes in November as well. Trump’s approval rating is dismally low, ranging from the high-30s in the CNN poll to the low-40s in the Reuters poll.

Significantly more voters, 58 percent, told Quinnipiac pollsters they want Congress to be more of a check on Trump’s agenda than the 27 percent who said Congress was doing enough [to support Trump].

This is going to translate into Republicans losing the majority of their open seats, seats from which nearly 40 Republicans decided to retire. The only either certain or most likely to fall to Democrats are FL-27 (Ros-Lehtinen), CA-49 (Issa), WA-08 (Reichert), AZ-02 (McSally), WV-03 (Jenkins), NJ-02 (LoBiondo), WI-01 (Ryan), MI-11 (Trott), NJ-11 (Frelinghuysen) plus the newly renumbered seats in Pennsylvania where GOP incumbents Ryan Costello, Charlie Dent and Pat Meehan aren't running. Robert Pittenger was defeated in his NC-09 primary by a far right extremist, Mark Harris, who can't win in a general election, so that's another seat a wave will sweep into the Democratic column. Those seats alone are halfway to a House Democratic majority. And those seats are by no means the only ones Democrats are likely to swing from red to blue. If the turnout among Democrats and independents eager to check Trump holds (or, more likely, grows), Republican incumbents likely to lose in November are:

• Jeff Denham (CA-10)

• David Valadao (CA-21)
• Steve Knight (CA-25)
• Mimi Walters (CA-45)
• Dana Rohrabacher (CA-48)
• Drunken Hunter (CA-50)
• Mike Coffman (CO-06)
• Carlos Curbelo (FL-26)
• Pete Roskam (IL-06)
• Mike Bost (IL-12)
• Rodney Davis (IL-13)
• Rod Blum (IA-01)
• David Young (IA-03)
• Kevin Yoder (KS-03)
• Andy Barr (KY-06)
• Bruce Poliquin (ME-02)
• Fred Upton (MI-06)
• Mike Bishop (MI-08)
• Jason Lewis (MN-02)
• Erik Paulsen (MN-03)
• Don Bacon (NE-02)
• Tom MacArthur (NJ-03)
• Leonard Lance (NJ-07)
• John Faso (NY-19)
• Claudia Tenney (NY-22)
• John Katko (NY-24)
• Steve Chabot (OH-01)
• Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01)
• Keith Rothfus (PA-17)
• John Culberson (TX-07)
• Will Hurd (TX-23)
• John Carter (TX-31)
• Pete Sessions (TX-32)
• Mia Love (UT-04)
• Scott Taylor (VA-02)
• Dave Brat (VA-07)
• Barbara Comstock (VA-10)
• Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA-03)
• Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05)

There are likely to be others-- New York, Texas, Kansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina and Iowa, for example, all have room for one or more upsets-- but what we're looking at here is over 50 red seats becoming blue seats. That's my most conservative estimate.

And speaking of Texas, the Dallas Morning News noted over the weekend that George Bush "is hosting a series of fundraising events for vulnerable Republican candidates, including a couple of House members facing tough re-election bids in his home state of Texas." These are not nothing like the big public rallies President Obama has been doing across the country. These are all closed-door, invitation-only events for conservative fat-cats. He did one last week for Will Hurd and is doing one this week for Pete Sessions. Sessions is seen as so likely too be swept away in the anti-red wave that aside from Bush, the GOP has sent in or is sending in Paul Ryan, Rick Perry, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Pence, almost none of whom can appear in public, just in behind closed doors sessions with GOP fat cats. If things don't start turning around for Sessions soon, they may have to send in Fuck-Up, Jr.

Bush is also doing the same kind of fat-cat-only events for a handful of Republican Senate candidates in Florida, North Dakota, Missouri, and Indiana... and very conspicuously not for teetering Ted Cruz in his home state of Texas (who he has publicly said he doesn't like).

Yesterday, in a letter to Blue America members, Digby asked the question, Can A Progressive Win Over An R+11 District? She then attempted to show why Ammar Campa-Najjar, being demonstrably sabotaged by the DCCC, can do what the insiders think is impossible. She started by explaining the problems with his right-wing opponent, Trump enabler Drunken Hunter.

"I don't know exactly what's in the water down in California's 50th district," she wrote, but it must be something that turns Republican congressmen into major crooks. In the last decade alone, two of them have been indicted on serious federal corruption charges, the first being the notorious Duke Cunningham who served 8 years in prison after having been convicted of bribery and a host of other crimes. And today we have Duncan Hunter who, along with his wife, apparently believed that they could use campaign and charity funds as their own personal piggy bank. The Washington Post helpfully published a list of what they called the top 10 "ickiest" allegations against him. Here are just a handful to illustrate the depth of their greed:

• Margaret Hunter allegedly spent $200 on tennis shoes at Dick’s Sporting Goods, which she then claimed as being for an annual dove hunting event for wounded warriors.
• When Hunter told his wife he needed to “buy my Hawaii shorts,” but he was out of money, she allegedly told him to buy them from a golf pro shop so he could claim they were actually golf balls for wounded warriors.
• Margaret Hunter allegedly spent $152 on makeup at Nordstrom and told the campaign it was “gift basket items for the Boys and Girls Clubs of San Diego.”
• They allegedly described the payment of their family dental bills as a charitable contribution to “Smiles for Life."

"But perhaps the ickiest of all was when Hunter threw his wife/accomplice under the bus the day the indictment was announced saying, 'When I went away to Iraq in 2003, the first time, I gave her power of attorney. She handled my finances throughout my entire military career, and that continued on when I got into Congress. She was also the campaign manager, so whatever she did, that’ll be looked at too, I’m sure, but I didn’t do it.' Then he whined like Donald Trump about the whole thing being a partisan witch hunt (by the GOP-led DOJ) and complained about the 'deep state' being out to get him. This is what passes for a chivalrous war hero turned Republican leader these days. And yes, Hunter is still running for re-election in November, apparently believing that his district actually prefers to be represented by a criminal. (It was one of the rare California districts Trump won in 2016, so that's not a crazy as it sounds.)"

Hunter has another big problem on his hands-- he has an excellent Democratic opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar. Ammar is a young, progressive former Obama administration labor official who, in yet another example of grassroots, progressive strength, shocked the Democratic establishment when he trounced the DCCC-favored "ex"-Republican primary opponent in the state's jungle primary.

Blue America backed Ammar before the primaries and we are thrilled that the rest of the party has come around: Today he's endorsed by the California Democratic Party, by the California Labor Federation, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Working Families Party, J Street, Our Revolution and as Howie says,  "by some pretty impressive political figures who don't rush willy-nilly into endorsing House candidates: Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti... and by the two best DCCC vice chairs, Ted Lieu and Joe Kennedy.

Can you join with all of us today and donate to Ammar's campaign? Ammar has an impressive resume and a compelling life story as well. He was raised by his single Mexican American mom after his Palestinian father moved back to Gaza. His grandfather, who died 16 years before he was born, was involved in the terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics in 1972. Of course, the Trumpsters are going there.

Click the thermometer to help him fight back against the hate, if you can.

But as the LA Times' Robin Abcarian noted:

This is the kind of life story that tantalizes the dark imaginations of conspiracy theorists, xenophobes and racists, yet inspires people who believe in the beauty of the American melting pot, in not holding sons responsible for the sins of their forebears.

If there is a battle for the soul of this country, this race exemplifies it. A crooked, privileged scion of a political dynasty, slurping at the public trough, braying incoherently about partisan witch hunts running against a young idealistic Latino-Arab American running on an anti-corruption and jobs platform. We know which side we're on, don't we?

Blue America has always believed that no matter what the conventional wisdom says about whether a progressive can win in a particular district, you never know when a Republican crook (a redundancy these days) is going to get caught, so it's always important to get on the ballot and run as hard as you can, which is exactly what Ammar has been doing for nearly 2 years.

He's the real thing and he can win this.

This district may have been conservative for years but they just didn't know what they were missing-- an honest representative of the people. Ammar Campa-Najjar is who they have been waiting for.

You can donate to Ammar's campaign here on our Blue America on our Blue America 'Progressives Abandoned by the DCCC' page.