Trump Is Not The Only Republican Working Furiously To Undermine Democracy

 

Timberrrr by Nancy Ohanian

All this talk of a Trumpist coup can be scary, but I still think Señor Trumpanzee will be leaving office by Jan. 20, even if not like Indira Gandhi or Nicolae Ceaușescu. The coup may turn out to be more a comedy than a real threat. But the Trumpists are absolutely trying to take over the apparatus of the Republican Party.

This morning, CNN reported that Trumpanzee, Jr. and the psychotic crackpot who used to be married to Gavin Newsom and is now Junior's unofficial better half, "are making moves to expand their influence at the Republican National Committee." ROTFLMAO. I hope the assholes like McConnell, McCarthy, Cruz, Graham, Mike Pompeo, the two craven Georgia Senate asslickers and the others who have been backing up Trump's desperate pretend-coup, are enjoying this part of it. Jr. and Guilfoyle have made it clear to campaign and White House officials they are unhappy with RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who they view as not having done enough to win a close race."

For some in the GOP, as distasteful as Trump Jr. leading or having significant influence over the RNC may sound, it's seen as better than purging the outgoing first family, which could backfire with the President's base, two sources close to the White House said.

"In order for Republicans to move forward they may have to do this," one of the sources said.

If Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle do not ultimately assume formal positions at the RNC, the sources said somebody close to the Trump family, such as longtime campaign adviser David Bossie [unless he dies], could become chairman.

"They don't want the ride to end," a Trump adviser said of Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle.

I mentioned the other day that a lunatic fringe Republican, Eric Early, in my deep blue district (D+23) has been whining that the race was stolen from him and that he refuses to concede. This is the state of the race, which was called within moments of the polls closing:

Schiff, who is super-popular-- even beloved-- in the district, could shed 100,000 votes and still beat Early, who spent over $3,000,000 on the race, including over $100,000 of his own personal money. In the March 3rd jungle primary, Early barely made it into the general, Having run neck-and-neck with a transsexual activist, Maebe A. Girl, who wound up with 22,129 votes (12.0%) to Early's 23,243 votes (12.6%). But Early made it, blanketed cable TV with laughably dishonest ads and won the same 20-25% of the votes than any Republican wins in this district. Turns out Early's refusal to concede is part of a silly Trumpist "strategy," that I first noticed in Michigan, where defeated Republican Senate hopeful John James is whining he's been robbed and refuses to concede, even though Gary Peters beat him by over 87,000 votes, with the remaining ballots all mail-in votes from heavily Democratic areas, likely to put Peters' margin of victory up over 100,000.

The writing for the Daily Beast early this morning, Will Sommer reported that it isn't only Early and James. He focused on another crackpot: Kimberly Klacik [who] became a star on the right in her bid for the Baltimore-area seat once held by late Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and now by Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD). Klacik spoke at the Republican convention, earned a Trump endorsement, and raised a whopping $7.4 million, boosted by her viral campaign ad decrying urban problems in Baltimore."

A star in Trumpworld, Klacik never had a shot in the D+26 district. Right now, with 82% of the vote counted, Mfume is leading her 211,841 (71.9%) to 82,896 (28.1%). She conceded on election night and congratulated Mfume, and then... "with Trump refusing to acknowledge President-elect Joe Biden’s win, Klacik has had a change of tune. Now, like Trump, she claims there’s something suspicious about mail-in ballots favoring Democrats and says her campaign has enough money to 'investigate.' Klacik quote-tweeted a Trump tweet about former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) claiming that 'big city machines are corrupt.'" She's now raving that she beat Mfume "on day of and in-person early voting, along with absentee," meaningless gibberish and absolutely untrue.

Q-Anon media clown Laura Loomer never had a chance to beat Democrat Lois Frankel in her Palm Beach County, Florida D+9 district (which Trump lost to Hillary by nearly 20 points in 2016). She ran because she's a publicity hound and a freak. With 93% of the votes counted and the race long-called for Frankel, 237,837 (59.0%) to 157,588 (39.1%), Loomer is running around shrieking that the election was stolen via absentee ballots. An infamous grifter, Loomer raised over two million dollars from hapless GOP suckers, who also contributed to 3 nutty right-wing SuperPACs that helped her, the American Liberty Fund, the New Journey PAC and a neo-Nazi outfit called the Stop Socialism Now PAC which spent money against 3 candidates: Lois Frankel, Cameron Webb (VA) and Eugene DePasquale (PA). Loomer who is generally considered a psychopath has been banned by Twitter and Facebook but posts on fascist sites where she claims there is "lots of voter fraud happening in America right now. We don’t have free & fair elections in America anymore!"

All of these candidates-- as well as looney-tunes Republican Luke Negron (better known as "The Young Wolf " in Nazi circles), who is currently losing to Democrat Michael Doyle in Pittsburgh 256,615 (69.1%) to 114,771 (30.9%)-- know they have no chance to win, hope they can continue lining their pockets with contributors' money and are all trying to advance Trump's spurious claim that absentee ballots are rigged and illegal.

Meanwhile, 6 academic political scientists released the result of a study today: Does elite rhetoric undermine democratic norms? In their introduction, they noted that "Democratic stability depends on citizens on the losing side accepting election outcomes. Can rhetoric by political leaders undermine this norm?"

As part of an experiment, they evaluated the effects of exposure to multiple statements from Trump attacking the legitimacy of the 2020 U.S. presidential election and concluded that "though exposure to these statements does not measurably affect support for political violence or belief in democracy, it erodes trust and confidence in elections and increases belief that the election is rigged among people who approve of Trump’s job performance. These results suggest that rhetoric from political elites can undermine respect for critical democratic norms among their supporters."

Why Did The DCCC Fail So Spectacularly On Tuesday? Let's Ask 3 Really Smart Philosophic Types: AOC, Eric Zuesse And Anand Giridharadas

 

Today's most-talked about NY Times piece, at least in my universe, is Astead Herndon's post-election interview with AOC. Short version-- AOC: "People really want the Democratic Party to fight for them." If only Pelosi and Hoyer would tattoo that on their foreheads so they saw it whenever they checked the mirror! Their DCCC chair this cycle, Cheri Bustos, a protégée of centrist bankster Rahm Emanuel, aside from losing probably a dozen House seats while Biden won the election, nearly lost her own seat-- a D+3 district that was gerrymandered by the Democrat Party-controlled Illinois legislature to elect Democrats. With votes still being counted, the race was finally called for Bustos after a few harrowing days and it looks like she squeaked by with a 51.9-48.1% win over Esther Joy King, who enjoyed no significant help from the Republican Party (while Pelosi's SuperPAC used a late IE costing $1,044,002 to smear her). As of October 14 Bustos had spent $4,573,839 to King's $1,634,304. Bustos, in line with the DCCC, offered her constituents nothing at all to vote for her. Like her fellow New Dems and Blue Dogs, she opposes every popular systemic progressive initiative to ease the burdens conservatives have put on their lives. Yesterday, Politico noted that she is being considered for a Cabinet position.

Herndon began by affirming that AOC had been "a good soldier" for the party and Biden in the battle against the fascist threat. After Biden was declared the winner on Saturday, though, she "made clear the divisions within the party that animated the primary still exist. And she dismissed recent criticisms from some Democratic House members who have blamed the party’s left for costing them important seats." [Note: except that you may consider every seat "an important seat," not a single lost seat is even remotely important and the House Democratic caucus is MUCH better off without every one of the losers.] AOC put it differently, telling Herndon that some of the members who lost had made themselves "sitting ducks." Herndon's first question was to ask her for her macro takeaway. It certainly isn't what the pundits and high-priced consultants are saying to explain the abject failure of the DCCC last week. AOC:

Well, I think the central one is that we aren’t in a free fall to hell anymore. But whether we’re going to pick ourselves up or not is the lingering question. We paused this precipitous descent. And the question is if and how we will build ourselves back up.

We know that race is a problem, and avoiding it is not going to solve any electoral issues. We have to actively disarm the potent influence of racism at the polls.

But we also learned that progressive policies do not hurt candidates. Every single candidate that co-sponsored Medicare for All in a swing district kept their seat. We also know that co-sponsoring the Green New Deal was not a sinker. Mike Levin was an original co-sponsor of the legislation, and he kept his seat.

Mike Levin and Harley Rouda were both elected in 2018 to represent adjoining districts. In Orange County, everything north of Laguna Niguel, Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita in part of Rouda's district and everything south of Dana Point, San Juan Capistrano and Madera Ranch is part of Levin's district. Before their victories, both districts were occupied by odious Republicans, Dana Rohrabacher and Darrell Issa. Levin is a moderate Democrat; Rouda, a former Republican, is a conservative Democrat. Levin's victory was quickly called-- 192,105 (53.4%) to 167,423 (46.6%). With 99% of the vote counted Rouda is losing to Republican Michelle Steel-- 196,208 (50.9%) to 189,235 (49.1%). Since being elected, Levin has been on the right side of crucial progressive roll calls 79.01% of the time. Rouda, on the other hand, is a New Dem and rates an "F" from ProgressivePunch; he's voted with progressives just 64.20% of the time. Progressives in his district know him as a DINO and he campaigned as a Republican-lite candidate.

Herndon pressed AOC on this tendency among conservative Democrats to shy away from issues that are important to Democratic voters: "Democrats lost seats in an election where they were expected to gain them. Is that what you are ascribing to racism and white supremacy at the polls?"

I think it’s going to be really important how the party deals with this internally, and whether the party is going to be honest about doing a real post-mortem and actually digging into why they lost. Because before we even had any data yet in a lot of these races, there was already finger-pointing that this was progressives’ fault and that this was the fault of the Movement for Black Lives.

I’ve already started looking into the actual functioning of these campaigns. And the thing is, I’ve been unseating Democrats for two years. I have been defeating D.C.C.C.-run campaigns for two years. That’s how I got to Congress. That’s how we elected Ayanna Pressley. That’s how Jamaal Bowman won. That’s how Cori Bush won. And so we know about extreme vulnerabilities in how Democrats run campaigns.

Some of this is criminal. It’s malpractice. Conor Lamb spent $2,000 on Facebook the week before the election. I don’t think anybody who is not on the internet in a real way in the Year of our Lord 2020 and loses an election can blame anyone else when you’re not even really on the internet.

And I’ve looked through a lot of these campaigns that lost, and the fact of the matter is if you’re not spending $200,000 on Facebook with fund-raising, persuasion, volunteer recruitment, get-out-the-vote the week before the election, you are not firing on all cylinders. And not a single one of these campaigns were firing on all cylinders.

...These folks are pointing toward Republican messaging that they feel killed them, right? But why were you so vulnerable to that attack?

If you’re not door-knocking, if you’re not on the internet, if your main points of reliance are TV and mail, then you’re not running a campaign on all cylinders. I just don’t see how anyone could be making ideological claims when they didn’t run a full-fledged campaign.

Our party isn’t even online, not in a real way that exhibits competence. And so, yeah, they were vulnerable to these messages, because they weren’t even on the mediums where these messages were most potent. Sure, you can point to the message, but they were also sitting ducks. They were sitting ducks.

There’s a reason Barack Obama built an entire national campaign apparatus outside of the Democratic National Committee. And there’s a reason that when he didn’t activate or continue that, we lost House majorities. Because the party-- in and of itself-- does not have the core competencies, and no amount of money is going to fix that.

If I lost my election, and I went out and I said: “This is moderates’ fault. This is because you didn’t let us have a floor vote on Medicare for all.” And they opened the hood on my campaign, and they found that I only spent $5,000 on TV ads the week before the election? They would laugh. And that’s what they look like right now trying to blame the Movement for Black Lives for their loss.

...If you are the D.C.C.C., and you’re hemorrhaging incumbent candidates to progressive insurgents, you would think that you may want to use some of those firms. But instead, we banned them. So the D.C.C.C. banned every single firm that is the best in the country at digital organizing.

The leadership and elements of the party-- frankly, people in some of the most important decision-making positions in the party [Note: Pelosi, Perez, Hoyer...]-- are becoming so blinded to this anti-activist sentiment that they are blinding themselves to the very assets that they offer.

I’ve been begging the party to let me help them for two years. That’s also the damn thing of it. I’ve been trying to help. Before the election, I offered to help every single swing district Democrat with their operation. And every single one of them, but five, refused my help. And all five of the vulnerable or swing district people that I helped secured victory or are on a path to secure victory. And every single one that rejected my help is losing. And now they’re blaming us for their loss.

So I need my colleagues to understand that we are not the enemy. And that their base is not the enemy. That the Movement for Black Lives is not the enemy, that Medicare for all is not the enemy. This isn’t even just about winning an argument. It’s that if they keep going after the wrong thing, I mean, they’re just setting up their own obsolescence.

Herndon then asked her what her expectations are as to how open the Biden administration will be to the left? And what is the strategy in terms of moving it?

She responded that she don’t know how open they’ll be but noted that the Democratic establishment gets all lovey-dovey with the grassroots leading up to an election "and then those communities are promptly abandoned right after an election. I think the transition period is going to indicate whether the administration is taking a more open and collaborative approach, or whether they’re taking a kind of icing-out approach. Because Obama’s transition set a trajectory for 2010 and some of our House losses. It was a lot of those transition decisions-- and who was put in positions of leadership [Note: Rahm Emanuel, who Biden is already talking about giving a role to, as well as others from the bottom of the Democratic Party battle: Cheri Bustos, Heidi Heitkamp, Michele Flournoy, Antony Blinken, Tom Perez, Meg Whitman, Terry McCauliffe, Pete Buttigieg]-- that really informed, unsurprisingly, the strategy of governance.

He followed up with the obvious question that all long-time Biden watchers are worried about: "What if the administration is hostile? If they take the John Kasich view of who Joe Biden should be? What do you do?

Well, I’d be bummed, because we’re going to lose. And that’s just what it is. These transition appointments, they send a signal. They tell a story of who the administration credits with this victory. And so it’s going be really hard after immigrant youth activists helped potentially deliver Arizona and Nevada. It’s going to be really hard after Detroit and Rashida Tlaib ran up the numbers in her district.

It’s really hard for us to turn out nonvoters when they feel like nothing changes for them. When they feel like people don’t see them, or even acknowledge their turnout.

If the party believes after 94 percent of Detroit went to Biden, after Black organizers just doubled and tripled turnout down in Georgia, after so many people organized Philadelphia, the signal from the Democratic Party is the John Kasichs won us this election? I mean, I can’t even describe how dangerous that is.

At the Strategic Culture Foundation blog on Friday, investigative historian Eric Zuesse wrote a somewhat more in depth look at the struggle between progressivism and traditional liberalism, pointing to a partially flawed recent piece by Philip Giraldi, . Zuesse pointed out that Giraldi "criticized-- and very correctly so-- the U.S. Democratic Party’s mischaracterization of America’s main problem as its (supposedly) being a conflict between ethnic groups (religious, cultural, racial, or otherwise), and Giraldi unfortunately merely assumed (falsely) that the Democratic Party’s doing this (alleging that inter-ethnic conflicts are America’s top problem) reflects the Party’s being 'progressive,' instead of its being 'liberal'; but, actually, there are big differences between those two ideologies, and that Party-- just like America’s other major Party, the Republican Party-- is controlled by its billionaires, and there simply aren’t any progressive billionaires; there are only liberal and conservative billionaires. America has a liberal Party, the Democratic Party, and a conservative Party, the Republican Party, and both of those Parties are controlled by their respective billionaire donors; and there are no progressive billionaires... Giraldi was actually attacking progressivism by confusing it with liberalism."

Though the Democratic (liberal) billionaires blacklisted Bernie-- and only Bernie, "had the most-passionate supporters, and vastly more donors, than did any other candidate in the contest; and, the polls throughout the Democratic primaries showed that he was virtually always either #2 or (occasionally) #1 in the preferences of all of the polled likely Democratic primary voters. But, Sanders got no billionaire’s money. He got as far as he did, only on his mass-base. He was running as the lone progressive in the field. And, unlike any of the others, he focused on the class-conflict issue, instead of on the ethnic-conflict issue-- he focused against the money-power, instead of against “racism” (which was his #2 issue). All of the other candidates placed the ethnic-conflict issue (in the form of anti-Black racism) as being America’s most important problem."

Sanders was the only candidate who blamed America’s billionaires (the people who control both of its Parties) for being the cause of America’s problems and the beneficiaries from those problems. He was the only progressive candidate in the entire contest. Sanders’s competitors were blaming the public (as if the majority of it were anti-Black bigots)-- not the aristocracy (not the super-rich-- the few people who actually control America). So: all of Sanders’s competitors had billionaires already funding them; and, still more billionaires were waiting in the wings to do so for whomever the Party’s nominee might turn out to be-- except if it would be Sanders (who would get nothing from any of them). (And, even if Sanders had won the Democratic nomination, what chance would he have had to win against Trump if even the Democratic Party’s billionaires were donating instead to the Trump campaign?)

Back in 2016, the two most-heavily-funded-by-billionaires candidates were Hillary Clinton (#1) and Donald Trump (#2). And they became the nominees. In today’s America, the billionaires always get their man (or their woman). It’s always a contest between a Republican-billionaires-backed nominee, versus a Democratic-billionaires-backed nominee.

What Giraldi blames on “progressivism” is instead actually “liberalism” (which accepts being ruled by its billionaires) but there are more ways than only this that Giraldi misunderstands the difference between these two ideologies.

...Giraldi writes as a conservative who uses the falsehoods that are intrinsic to liberalism as cudgels with which to attack progressivism. He doesn’t understand ideology-- especially progressivism. Clearly, it’s not within his purview; and, therefore, his intended attack against progressivism misses its mark, and doesn’t even squarely hit its intended target, which is actually liberalism.

Throughout history, the aristocracies have been of two types: outright conservatives, versus the “noblesse oblige” type of aristocrats, which are called “liberals.” The main actual difference between the two is that, whereas the self-proclaimed conservatives boldly endorse their own supremacism, liberals instead slur it over with nice and kindly-sounding verbiage. Whereas conservatives are unashamed of their having all rights and feeling no obligations to the public (even trying to minimize their taxes), liberals are ashamed of it, but continue their haughty attitudes nonetheless, and refuse to recognize that such extreme inequality of wealth is a curse upon the entire society. Progressives condemn both types of aristocrat: the outright conservatives, and the hypocritical conservatives (liberals). Progressives recognize that the more extreme the inequality of wealth is in a society, the less likely that society is to be an authentic democracy, and they are 100% proponents of democracy. Liberals talk about ‘equality’, but don’t much care about it, actually. That’s why aristocrats can support liberalism, but can’t support progressivism. Progressives recognize that the super-wealthy are the biggest enemies of democracy-- that they are intrinsically enemies of the public. Progressives aren’t bought-off even by ‘philanthropists.’

Scientific studies (such as this) have documented that the more wealth a person has, the more conservative that person generally becomes. Furthermore, the richer a person is, the more callous and lacking in compassion that person tends to be. Moreover, the richer and more educated a person is, the likelier that person is to believe that economic success results from a person’s having a higher amount of virtue (and thus failure marks a person’s lacking virtue). And, studies have also shown that the wealthiest 1% tend to be extreme conservatives, and tend to be intensely involved in politics. Consequently, to the exact contrary of Giraldi’s article, the higher levels of politics tend to be filled with excessive concerns about how to serve the desires of the rich, and grossly deficient concerns about even the advisability of serving the needs of the poor. Such attitudes naturally favor the aristocracy, at the expense of the public. Confusing liberalism with progressivism advances the conservative, pro-aristocracy, agenda, at the expense of truth, and at the expense of the public, and even at the expense of democracy itself.

Furthermore: throughout the millennia, aristocracies have been applying the divide-and-conquer principle to set segments of the public against each other so that blame by the public for society’s problems won’t be targeted against themselves (the aristocrats), who actually control and benefit from the corruption that extracts so much from the public and causes those problems. Thus: Black against White, gay against straight, female against male, Muslim against Christian, and immigrant against native, etc. This divide-and-conquer strategy is peddled by both conservative and liberal aristocrats, and has been for thousands of years. Giraldi’s focusing on that as being instead generated by progressives, is not only false-- it is profoundly false. It is a fundamental miscomprehension.

So, the popular confusion between progressivism and liberalism is beneficial to the aristocracy, but harmful to the public.

Anand Giridharadas, author of Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, is not confused and his Friday OpEd for the NY Times, Biden Can’t Be FDR He Could Still Be LBJ. On one level that scares people who lived through the "Hey, hey, LBJ, How many boys have you killed today" era. Giridharadas wrote that "if this election is to have lasting meaning, we cannot see a Biden campaign victory as license to cast away politics as a presence in our daily lives. We cannot succumb to the liberal temptation parodied by the comedian Kylie Brakeman to 'vote for Biden so we can all get back to brunch.' However effective it might have been at closing this race, this restorationist fantasy would be a terrible governing philosophy. Because the pre-Trump world-- in which voting rights were being gutted and 40 percent of Americans couldn’t afford a $400 emergency bill -- is no kind of place to go back to. Mr. Biden himself seemed to concede this point by tempering his restoration message with the slogan 'Build Back Better.'"

Giridharadas spoke with Schumer the day before the election-- when he still was tying to decide on whether to have diamonds or rubies in his Majority Leader crown-- and he wrote that Schumer, like Biden, "is an institutionalist and a moderate." He asked him about this idea of restoration versus transformation. "Almost as soon as he heard me say the word 'normalcy,' he began, for lack of a better term, to filibuster: 'No, no, I don’t buy that. My view,' he told me, 'is if we don’t do bold change, we could end up with someone worse than Donald Trump in four years' What passed for change in the past two decades (including during the Obama years) had not, he acknowledged, been 'big enough or bold enough.' When I asked if Democrats bore some responsibility for that, he deflected: 'There’s plenty of blame to go around.'"

Even if, improbably, the Senate is on Mr. Biden’s side in 2021, he and his advisers will have to pull off a grueling balancing act: pushing federal policy to reflect popular will so that people’s lives can measurably improve, while making fundamental changes to the workings of American democracy and managing to heal rather than inflame the cultural resentments, racial hatred and party polarization that still imperil the Republic (and that the Republican Party thrives on).

...If Democrats win the two presumed Georgia runoffs, Senate Democrats will represent roughly 41 million more people than the Republican half of the chamber. If Mr. Biden is to meet this moment, he can’t let his cautious temperament and deep hankering for civic comity stop him from making the policy changes families need.

...For tens of millions, the economic traumas of the pandemic have come on top of decades of stagnation and precariousness. Since 1989, the wealth of the bottom 50 percent of Americans has fallen by $900 billion. Before Covid-19, 44 percent of American workers were being paid median annual wages of $18,000. And the evictions now surging are coming in the wake of a housing market that has long been unaffordable. Even if high unemployment were reversed, it would hardly repair our increasingly classist and Uber-ized labor market.

And if Democrats do win the Senate? Senator Schumer told me he envisions a first 100 days filled with a raft of measures on the virus and economic relief, mixed in with policies that address inequality, climate change, student debt, immigration and more. A Biden administration’s early days “ought to look like F.D.R.’s,” he said. “We need big, bold change. America demands it, and we’re going to fight for it.”

Much, however, could still get in the way. First, Mr. Biden’s own instinct toward caution-- which can easily end up enabling paralysis at a time when Democrats’ window for proving the promise of an active government could be closing. Any measure of success is likely to be determined by how seriously a Biden administration takes the inevitable calls for fiscal conservatism and austerity (despite historically low interest rates).

...And there are early warning signs: Ted Kaufman, who is leading the Biden transition team, recently told The Wall Street Journal that because of Trump-era deficit spending, “when we get in, the pantry is going to be bare.”

A Biden administration could also perceive itself as owing a political debt to the most influential and visible center-right elements of his sweeping, unwieldy alliance of supporters. Young leftists of color from cities in major swing states are arguably more responsible for his win than Republican defectors like former Senator Jeff Flake and the former Republican operatives turned media darlings of the Lincoln Project. But who will have more of a voice in Washington?

On various matters of policy, Mr. Biden could find himself in an awkward fox trot with wealthy donors in liberal power centers like Silicon Valley and Wall Street-- the kind of people who may love hanging “Black Lives Matter” signs in their yards more than they love Biden proposals like a Section 8 expansion that would allow more working-class Black families to live in their midst.

...The growing sense, among both the party’s technocrats and its populists, is that their midterm fate lies in whether voters give Democrats credit for improving their lives-- not on the processes used or norms violated to do so.

“A public health and economic crisis is not the time for incremental steps, small ideas or meekness,” Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, a leading Democrat in the House Progressive Caucus, told me. “Joe Biden can deliver on this from Day 1 with executive orders and administrative actions that cancel student debt, lower drug prices, strengthen workers’ rights and cut emissions.” The American Prospect recently published “277 Policies for Which Biden Need Not Ask Permission,” based on the results of the Biden-Sanders unity task force.

Mr. Biden has an opportunity to seize on policies that, thanks to the heterodoxy of Trumpism, now have surprising resonance in both parties-- but not for the traditional reasons of being milquetoast or appealing to corporatist moderates. A wealth tax polls surprisingly well among Republican voters. Using the Department of Justice to crack down on monopolies and threats from China has some bipartisan support. As does actual infrastructure investment and, to a limited extent, raising the minimum wage.

Mr. Biden also does not need Mr. McConnell’s permission to build a down-ballot pipeline. One of the failures of the Obama years was the attrition of the Democratic Party beneath the president: By 2017, its Senate seats had dwindled to 48 from 59, and it lost 62 House seats, 12 governorships and a whopping 948 seats in state legislatures.

Amanda Litman, the executive director of Run for Something, a progressive group that grooms candidates for office at all levels, proposes this corrective: “Bring back the 50-state strategy. Invest in all state parties to build grass-roots infrastructure,” she told me. “Set the direction and tone: No office is too small, no community too unimportant. Then raise money for all of it.”

To the extent that, for the next two years, divided government severely limits the sort of public action that progressives dreamed about in their 2020 primaries, Mr. Biden could use his office to create task forces that normalize and build a public consensus for more significant small-d democratic changes to American politics achievable only down the road.

...In the end, a basic choice may stalk Mr. Biden: What matters more, the radiation of personal decency or the pursuit of structural fairness?

There are some reasons to hope that he could be a bolder president than anticipated. He is that rare candidate who tacked toward the party base rather than the center in the general election. In certain areas, such as climate change and student debt, he has shown a willingness to have his initial policy view revised by others. He is less motivated by ideology than by the path of least resistance. Whether that path aligns with donors, the Beltway consensus or organized popular movements, he takes it.

The example of Lyndon Johnson-- a longtime senator and a vice president less charismatic than the president he served and succeeded who, nevertheless, became more consequential-- provides a possible historical analogue. Mr. Biden could turn out to be an improbably deft salesman for progressive priorities, using his disarming, folksy, median-voter-friendly patois, that “C’mon, man” Americana vibe, to make major changes seem like common sense.

“Joe Biden’s magic is that everything he does becomes the new reasonable,” Andrew Yang, once Mr. Biden’s rival for the Democratic nomination, told me. “He has shown the ability to move the mainstream of the Democratic Party on issues before. As president, whatever he does, he will bring the whole center with him.”

DCCC And DSCC Forced Their Candidates To Sit On The Phone Raising Millions Of Dollars All Day-- And They Lost Anyway

 

I'm always complaining that the DCCC and DSCC are predisposed to oppose progressives. They recruit conservative Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party and when a progressive manages to win a primary, the two committees rarely offer them any support. But there's another context besides ideology at work here. Both the DSCC and the DCCC insist on candidates who will spend most of their energy on fund-raising-- dialing for dollars-- rather than on persuading voters by doing actual campaigning. This has been catastrophic for the Democratic Party. It winds up selecting really shitty candidates who don't know how to help voters understand issues and understand the inherent dishonestly of Republican attacks. And... the money doesn't make nearly as much difference as that ability to persuade does.

All but 3 of the House incumbents who lost (or are in races still too close to call) out-raised their Republican opponents:

• CA-21

Rep. T.J. Cox (New Dem)- 48.2%-- $4,798,088
David Valadao (R)- 51.8%-- $3,721,619

• CA-39

Rep. Gil Cisneros (New Dem)- 49.5%-- $3,779,013 (self-funded $9,252,762 in 2018 and didn't want to spend his own money again-- only gave his campaign $370,887 this time)
Young Kim (R)- 50.5%-- $5,319,367

• CA-48

Rep. Harley Rouda (New Dem)- 49.2%-- $5,426,654 (although the DCCC spent $10 million to try to save his ass)
Michelle Steel (R)- 50.8%-- $5,627,779

• FL-26

Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (New Dem)- 48.3%-- $6,178,239
Carlos Gimenez (R)- 51.7%-- $1,946,504

• FL-27

Rep. Donna Shalala (D)- 48.6%-- $3,405,420
Maria Salazar (R)- 51.3%-- $3,126,831

• IA-01

Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D)- 48.7%-- $5,308,465
Ashley Hinson (R)- 51.3%-- $4,601,403

• MN-07

Rep. Collin Peterson (Blue Dog)- 40.1%-- $2,284,742
Michelle Fischbach (R)-53.3%-- $2,205,150

• NM-02

Rep Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog)- 46.1%-- $7,509,987
Yvette Herrell (R)- 53.9%-- $2,498,130

• NY-11

Rep Max Rose (Blue Dog)- 43.1%-- $8,350,467
Nicole Malliotakis (R)- 57.9%-- $3,052,007

• NY-22

Rep. Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog)- 43.4%-- $5,359,636
Claudia Tenney (R)- 54.5%-- $2,053,931

• OK-05

Rep. Kendra Horn (Blue Dog)- 47.9%-- $5,465,349
Stephanie Bice (R)- 52.1%-- $3,089,972

• SC-01

Rep. Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog)- 49.4%-- $6,278,942
Nancy Mace (R)- 50.6%-- $4,891,696

• UT-04

Rep. Ben McAdams (Blue Dog)- 47.8%-- $5,137,258
Burgess Owens (R)- 47.2%-- $4,021,248

• VA-07

Rep. Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog)- 50.6%-- $7,806,646
Nick Freitas (R)- 49.4%-- $3,182,940

Maybe if Max Rose didn't spend so much time on the phone begging rich people for money-- and instead talked to his constituents about programs the Democrats want to implement that would make their lives better, he would still be a congressman after January. Oh, but he can't talk about this things... he opposes them all.

And it was the same thing in the Senate, only worse. Schumer and the DSCC hammer it home several times a week that candidates must be on the phone raising hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's dehumanizing-- part of why none of their candidates seem human. Schumer-selected Democrats lost almost everywhere... but raised bucketfuls of money. In most cases they raised double, triple or quadruple when their Republican opponents raised:

• South Carolina

Jamie Harrison (D)- 44.2%-- $107,568,737
Senator Lindsey Graham (R)- 54.5%-- $72,690,495

• Iowa

Theresa Greenfield (D)- 45.2%-- $47,004,93
Senator Joni Ernst (R)- 51.8%-- $23,536,707

• Maine

Sara Gideon (D)- 42.8%-- $68,577,474
Senator Susan Collins (R)- 50.5%-- $26,511,555

• Montana

Steve Bullock (D)- 44.8%-- $42,773,128
Senator Steve Daines (R)- 55.2%-- $27,017,875

• Kentucky

Amy McGrath (D)- 38.1%-- $88,098,919
Senator Moscow Mitch (R)- 57.9%-- $55,500,67

• Kansas

Barbara Bollier (D/R)- 41.5%-- $24,265,420
Roger Marshall (R)- 53.6%-- $5,926,110

• Texas

MJ Hegar (D)- 43.8%-- $24,024,713
John Cornyn (R)- 53.6%-- $30,754,633

• Alabama

Senator Doug Jones (D)- 39.7%-- $26,377,442
Tommy Tuberville (R)- 60.1%-- $7,415,639

• North Carolina

Cal Cunningham (D)- 47.0%-- $46,795,495
Senator Thom Tillis (R)- 48.7%-- $21,474,728

• Arizona

Mark Kelly- 51.3%-- $88,856,406
Senator Martha McSally- 48.7%-- $55,772,809

• Colorado

John Hickenlooper (D)- 53.4%-- $39,303,249
Senator Cory Gardner (R)- 44.4%-- $26,063,229

All that financial firepower didn't do it for the Senate candidates. And now the Democrats are going to run the exact same kind of race (2 of them) in Georgia... money, money, money and not much messaging for working families. I guess it took 5 minutes for Schumer to forget that "money did not prove decisive for Democrats in hotly contested Senate races, despite a combined Democratic fundraising advantage over $200 million. Democratic candidates raised a whopping $626 million in 14 highly competitive races, vastly overshadowing Republican collections of $386 million in the same contests."

“We just got completely slaughtered on Election Day. There truly was a red surge,” said a Democratic operative who worked closely with the Harrison campaign. “Turnout was just incredible, which isn’t necessarily a good thing for us, in red states.”

Democrats who had hoped to easily oust the 53-47 Republican Senate majority have instead won a net gain of only one seat so far. They could reach a majority, if they win two Georgia Senate seat runoffs on Jan. 5. Such a result would give them a 50-50 split, if Democrat Joe Biden is declared president and Kamala Harris vice president, allowing her to cast a tie-breaking vote.

Senate Democrats are already calling on supporters to send campaign contributions to Georgia candidate Raphael Warnock. Warnock, far more progressive than any of Schumer's candidates, is one of the only Democrats who was out-raised by his Republican opponent-- although in that case, his opponent, Kelly Loeffler, is both a well-documented crook and a billionaire. She out-raised him by $7 million, although "out-raised" might be the wrong word, since she contributed $23,345,292 out of her personal piggy-bank, so far.

How Incompetent Do You Have To Be To Keep Losing To Florida Republicans? Let's Take A Look

 

How does the FDP keep losing to this batch of dogshit?

On Friday, Florida reported 5,245 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the already horrific state total to 832,625-- 38,767 cases per million Floridians. 52 more Floridians died from the infection on Friday-- so all told 17,016 Floridians who have been killed on the alter of Republican ideology. So far. It's probably going to get much, much worse.

You may have noticed-- Florida is a mess. And it's not just that Trump won and that 2 Democratic congresswomen in solidly blue districts in Miami-Dade-- one D+5 and one D+6-- were defeated by Republicans. The Florida Democratic Party, which some time this cycle sank below the Ohio Democratic Party to become the worst state party anywhere in America, failed up and down the ballot. Some attribute it to incompetence; some attribute it to venality and self-serving. I can't see how anyone could make the case it is anything other than the toxic combination which has laid the party so low.

Aside from losing to Trump, they managed to lose every single attempt to flip a seat in Congress, in the state House and in the state Senate. Although, to be honest, "attempt" applies they actually tried to accomplish something. Did they, though?

Trump won the state 5,646,949 (51.2%) to 5,269,926 (47.8%). As of August 31, Florida's party registration looked like this:

• Democrats: 5,203,795
• Republicans: 5,020,199
• independents: 3,653,046

Two problems come to mind. Did the FDP turn out their voters? Did the FDP fail to persuade voters with no party affiliation that Biden was the better-- or at least the less badd-- candidate? In 2016 Hillary also took 47.8% of the vote-- so the exact percentage Biden took-- while Trump increased his percentage from 49.1% to 51.2%.

Of Florida's 67 counties, Biden won 12, an increase of 3 over the 9 Hillary won. These were the 12 Biden counties with their 2020 numbers followed by their 2016 numbers:

• Alachua- Biden: 89,527 (62.7%); Hillary: 75,370 (59.0%)
• Broward- Biden: 617,689 (64.8%); Hillary: 546,956 (66.5%)
• Miami-Dade- Biden: 617,289 (53.4%); Hillary: 623,006 (63.7%)
• Duval- Biden: 251,952 (51.2%); Hillary: 210,061 (49.0%)
• Gadsden- Biden: 16,139 (67.9%); Hillary: 14,994 (67.9%)
• Hillsborough- Biden: 374,714 (52.7%); Hillary: 306,422 (51.5%)
• Leon- Biden: 103,364 (63.5%); Hillary: 91,936 (60.5%)
• Orange- Biden: 394,602 (61.0%); Hillary: 329,579 (60.4%)
• Osceola- Biden: 97,157 (56.4%); Hillary: 85,287 (60.9%)
• Palm Beach- Biden: 432,117 (56.1%); Hillary: 371,411 (56.5%)
• Pinellas- Biden: 277,191 (49.4%); Hillary: 233,327 (47.5%)
• Seminole- Biden: 132,213 (50.8%); Hillary: 105,611 (47.1%)

South Florida-- the heart of the FDP-- was the problem. The big 3-- Palm Beach Broward and Miami-Dade-- all under-performed, and in Miami-Dade's case, drastically so. While Democrat performance increased in most of the counties, it really fell apart in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach. Trump increased his Palm Beach vote from 270,762 (41.2%) in 2016 to 333,927 (43.3%) and in Miami-Dade from 333,666 (34.1%) in 2016 to 532,460 (46.1%). Why? Why so different, for example, in Alachua County where Democratic performance increased so smartly?

The FDP seems to have missed the class in Politics 101 where they teach you that if you don't play, you don't win. They backed avery narrow subset of mostly mediocre candidates and left most of the state to the Republicans, uncontested. When Janelle Christensen of the Florida Environmental Caucus and Fergie Reid of 90For90 stepped in to recruit candidates for every legislative district the FDP flipped out (in a bad way, in some cases extremely negatively and in others just deciding to ignore the candidates altogether).

Janelle Christensen of the state Environmental Caucus, who is being boosted for the state party job now, reiterated that "Running candidates EVERYWHERE, even in red districts, did not have the overwhelming results that I would have liked. However, we did see marked improvement in Democratic turnout in historically red districts. Collier county, for example, had over 90% of the registered Democrats show up to vote. Lee county and Sumnter also were very impressive. If historically blue counties had shown up in the way they did for Clinton, we would have seen the impact. It seems that we had the Trump Administration scared that he would lose his 'home state'... and we forced them to spend a lot of time and money here in Florida. If that means he lost margins elsewhere, even in other states like Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, then it was worth the effort. Please note, many of our candidates had a budget of about $10,000... and their Republican opponents spent one million in several of the state House races. That says they were scared."

In Alachua County, congressional candidate Adam Christensen was basically ignored by the FDP and the DCCC. His exciting, super-active grassroots campaign generated so much heat that Alachua and his whole district came into play. He didn't win but he did better than any Democrat ever had previously in the district and forced Trump to campaign there three times, three times that he could have been campaigning in Arizona, Georgia or Pennsylvania.

What Christensen accomplished was spectacular for this election cycle. "We ran as close to a perfect race as we could have in a +9 R district in Florida," he told me this morning. "We turned out over 80% of Democrats in Alachua, Clay, and Marion County (The 3 most populous counties in our district). We outperformed the average Democratic candidate in Florida by nearly 7% in one of the most heavily Republican counties in the state (Clay County). We also flipped nearly 8% of Republicans in Clay. On top of that we raised $225,000 completely grassroots. Our average donation was less than $23. We made over 120,000 calls, knocked on 10,000 doors in Clay County and successfully proved a new model for running in rural/Republican areas in Florida."

But that isn't all Christensen and his team accomplished. He also tested the standard Democrat data (NGP Van) and found that nearly 80% of it was wrong in Republican areas. "We bought Republican data for Clay to test it out and found that it was almost 3x more effective. It appears that the reason Democrats got absolutely crushed in Florida is because Republicans could spend $1 to $3 Democrats spent and get the same effect. The Florida Democratic Party also breached their contract with us a week before the election by refusing to release Republican data to us for us to send final persuasion messages. No amount of money or organizing can overcome that. By laying this groundwork we set the stage for 2022 when redistricting happens and a new congressional seat is drawn through Gainesville towards Tampa. We also did all of this without the help of the party or DCCC."

 

In their Wednesday election analysis of Florida, the NY Times, noted that most of the counties in Florida swung further right, "allowing him to win the state with a margin that is nearly three times what he had four years ago." They also identified Miami-Dade as the big problem, Biden underperforming in many precincts with a majority Hispanic population, particularly those in the Cuban-American communities of Miami-Dade County, which supported overwhelmingly. "The surge among Cuban-American voters boosted Mr. Trump’s vote totals in the county, where he picked up nearly 200,000 more votes than four years ago."

One of those districts was the one where Bob Lynch was running in, trying to oust GOP power-monger Dan Perez, a politician the FDP isn't interested in ousting.

The FDP should have been focused like a laser on flipping the state Senate-- thereby stopping the GOP from gerrymandering Florida for the next decade. They only needed to slip 3 seats. Instead, they targeted two, giving up in advance. The obvious district they should have contested was SD-20 (Hillsborough, Pasco and Polk counties) where Kathy Lewis had run well before and where the FDP had tried to recruit Alex Sink, who declined. When she declined, racists inside the FDP, decided an African-American candidate like Lewis couldn't win the district and they abandoned it. The biggest part of the district is in Hillsborough County and Lewis won there 63,094 to 58,024. She needed FDP help in red-leaning Pasco and Polk counties. They refused.

The FDP spent over a million dollars on Patricia Sigman's campaign in Seminole and Volusia counties and on the campaign of lobbyist Javier Fernandez in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. They spent zero on Kathy Lewis' race. The results:

• Patricia Sigman- 47.6%
• Kathy Lewis- 45.16%
• Javier Fernandez- 42.79%

I'd also like to mention another state Senate candidate Blue America backed besides Lewis-- progressive Katherine Norman, who ran against the chairman of the Florida RepublicanParty, Joe Gruters, who the FDP didn't want to anger. They refused to help Norman in any way and she wound up getting far more votes-- 131,313-- than Fernandez's 95,088 and nearly as many as Sigman's 133,630. What is wrong with these people?

Many things-- and we'll save that for another day (literally)-- and just say that they need to be removed and replaced, for the sake of Florida and the sake of the whole country. This state is too important to leave to a gaggle of small-minded, corrupt incompetents.

Fergie Reid noted that "Trump visited Florida several times late in the 2020 campaign cycle, holding rallies in, The Villages, Pensacola, Fort Myers, Sanford, Jacksonville, Tampa, Ocala and Miami-Dade. A 'strong' GOP incumbent probably wouldn’t spend so much time in a state like Florida unless his campaign and his state managers considered it imperative. Trump was not in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, or Nevada during these visits to Florida. The rallies helped motivate an overwhelming voter turnout of his GOP supporters, leading to a great election night of victories for Florida Republicans."

He said that "Republicans are now in complete control of Florida’s horrendous COVID outbreak and response strategies, (such as they are). They’re celebrating their awesome governing situation. The GOP is dominant in Florida, and they’re providing their 29 electoral college votes to Donald J. Trump, who will soon be moving his family’s traveling grift show to Palm Beach Co.’s Mar-a-Lago, where he will no doubt take over control of the Florida Republican/Trump Party. 'Winning !!!...?????' Ask Joe Gruters, Chris Sprowls, Ron DeSantis and Wilton Simpson how that’s working out for them several months from now.

Meanwhile, Reid explained, "Grassroots rank and file Democrats in Florida owe a great debt of gratitude to the 83 Democratic candidates who challenged Republican-held seats this year. None of these challengers won their contests; many received zero help from the state party apparatus; however, their 'party building' candidacies, in some of the most Republican districts on the map, will pay dividends for years to come if the new Florida Democratic Party leadership takes proper advantage. Many thanks to these heroic, awesome Democrats."

I'm Thinking About Moving Abroad... Again

 

When you're 20, it's easy to pick up and go live abroad. Now...

After Nixon was elected, I left the country and stayed away until he was being impeached. That's a photo of me in 1969 when I first went overseas to live. Eventually, I wanted to come back to America, my home... so I did. I never thought I would consider moving away again. Last night, looking at my computer screen as the returns rolled in, made me start thinking about how much I liked living in Amsterdam. I could do it again. It's harder for an old person than was for me when I was a young person. But I started thinking about it-- mostly about how much I don't want to liven a country where so many people want to elect... a fascist... a sociopath... a degenerate... a traitor. It's not him-- not Trump-- that made me think about moving away. It's Americans. They came out in droves and voted for Trump as another 88,980 of us were reported to have COVID yesterday.





I have to talk myself off this ledge.

It may take a few days. Or maybe I won't be able to. Meanwhile, I'll work on a post this morning trying to make some sense out of how horribly Democrats did-- not just Biden-- Democrats everywhere. And I'll try to look at how I could have been so wrong about a wave election. Rural, blue collar voters don't see themselves as Democrats any longer-- and why should they? What does the party stand for-- a confused Big Tent that is no longer a vehicle for the legitimate interests of the working class. Biden may win this-- I think he will-- but the Democrats lost the chance to take the Senate and lost seats in the House and lost opportunities to advance a next generation of progressive leaders like Kara Eastman, Julie Oliver, Mike Siegel, Dana Balter, Nat McMurray, Adam Christensen, Beth Doglio, Jon Hoadley, Georgette Gomez... 

And... is anyone ever going to believe a pollster again?





Or is it going to all come down to this argument in the Lincoln Project video below... they stole the election? Can we muster it up to fight over this now? I guess... But how did both Miami-Dade Democrats lose in D+5 and D+6 districts. It's not even supposed to be possuble, even though both Muarsel-Powell and Shalala have to be-- at best-- be described as unispiring and mediocre. Still, that describes most members of Congress. But it looks-- at least from the numbers I'm looking at as I write this... well they describe a smoldering ruin everywhere. This was supposed to be an extension of 2018 and instead it feels more like 2010. Actual neo-Nazis Lauren Boebert and Madison Cawthorn look like they are beating Diane Mitsch Bush in Colorado and Moe Davis in North Carolina. And Texas... at least half a dozen House seats to pick up. Mike Siegel, Wendy Davis, Sri Kulkarni, Gina Ortiz Jones, Candace Valenzuela, Julie Oliver, Donna Imam... it looks like everyone lost. Damn! Still, the winters are so cold in Amsterdam...

Election Day Open Thread II

Thirteen blackbirds waiting for election results

by Thomas Neuburger

By my count we're still several hours away from knowing anything worth hearing about, and as many have pointed out,the evening will go one of two ways — Biden will win the early states (Florida comes to mind) and we can all go home, or this evening will drag out for a week or more. 

Feel free to post your own updates and observations in the comments. 

In the meantime, I've already set my emotional clock to 2021 and the new day that's soon to dawn no matter who takes the White House. Because that new day is likely to have Biden's name on it, I want to offer this, from the same Matt Taibbi piece (paywalled) that Howie quoted earlier. This is his assessment of where we're headed:

The unknown factor is how much more of this lay ahead in a Biden White House. The obvious first concerns would be increased political surveillance, much more aggressive and coordinated propaganda, more McCarthyite manias, and harsher punishments for Assange/Snowden type figures accused of leaking “misinformation” (now re-defined as true adverse information). As a member of the press, the drift toward a Chinese-style digital media landscape, policed by armies of political truth-scorers, probably bothers me more than most, but that’s on the table. There are going to be a lot of people coming back to Washington who are going to insist that something like Trump not be allowed to happen again, even if it means snipping a passage or four out of the Constitution. 

I think Taibbi's right. Two points, and then it's over to you, dear readers.

First, note the Orwellian conflation of "misinformation" with "true adverse information" that can't be allowed to appear before the public. We're already there. From the Washington Post:

We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a foreign intelligence operation — even if they probably aren’t.

Get ready for a whole lot more where that came from, and get ready for Party elites, the self-styled "Democrats," to cheer it on.

Second, what Taibbi accurately called our "imperial government-in-exile" will return to power with a vengeance (the bolded passage above addresses that). That's the correct description, right? — Trump as an interregnum, a Cromwell interruption in the march of kings.

The State, both narrowly and broadly defined, has been out of power, at least at the very top, for the last four years. Think there's a chance in hell of a new Trump getting back in, much less a Sanders (as-was) or an unreconstructed AOC? My cynical self says No, not in the least.

With that sad thought, on to the tubes to witness what unfolds. Comments? Post 'em if you got 'em.

(Note: For those who like my work, I'm launching a Substack site. You can get more information here. If you do decide to sign up — it's free — my thanks to you!)

 

Election Day Open Thread, I

 

Rather than just run pre-scheduled posts like every other day, the DWT election day coverage will include open threads between posts. This is my first. I invited Tom, Noah and Ken to do likewise.

The map up top predicts a big Trump loss, even if I'm wrong about Florida and if all 3 final toss-ups go to Trump.





I know it's getting late, but I want to remind you that if you want to vote Trump out of office today, but you haven't registered to vote yet, you can still cast ballots in 19 states + DC: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming. (H/T Ari Berman)

The final set of Change Research polls of the cycle found that voters who did not vote in 2016 are supporting Biden by a 23-point margin (59% Biden, 36% Trump).They also found that Gary Johnson voters are nearly twice as likely to support Biden over Trump or Jo Jorgensen this year (44% of Johnson voters are supporting Biden, 28% Trump, 24% Jorgensen).

 

In Senate races, they found Mark Kelly (D) leading Martha McSally (R) 51-47% in Arizona, Sara Gideon (D) leading Susan Collins (R) 46-42% in Maine, Cal Cunnimgham (D) leading Thom Tillis (R) 50-46% in North Carolina, Theresa Greenfield (D) leading Joni Ernst (R) 48-47% in Iowa, but Steve Daines (R) leading Steve Bullock 50-46% in Montana. Ironically, Bullock is the only person on the list who would probably make a decent senator.

The also polled key House races:

• NE-02- Kara Eastman beating Rep Don Bacon 48-47%
• NY-24- Dana Balter beating Rep John Katko 46-44%
• OK-05- 47-47 tie between Blue Dog Rep Kendra Horn and Stephanie Bice (R)
• AR-02- 48-48% tie between Joyce Elliott (D) and Rep French Hill (R)
• IN-05- 46-46% tie between Christina Hale (D) and Victoria Spartz (R)
• MO-02- 46-46% tie between Jill Schupp (D) and Rep Ann Wagner (R)
• OH-01- Rep Steve Chabot (R) beating Kate Schroder (D) 47-45%

Yesterday, Matt Taibbi explained why he couldn't bring himself to vote for Biden-Harris: "Trump’s incompetence and influence on the darkest part of the national character make it morally impossible to vote for him. But his opponents are lying, witch-hunting scum in their own right, a club of censorious bureaucrats whose instincts for democracy and free speech hover somewhere between the mid-seventies GDR and the Church of Scientology. I thought all year I’d be able to do it, but I wake up this week unable to talk myself into voting for these people, even against Trump. What choices they give us! Thank God at least it’s about to be over. If it’s about to be over. Please, let it be over." I didn't either. But Taibbi and I need the rest of you to save the world from Trump. So, unless you live in California, Massachusetts, New York and a few other states that allow for the luxury we've availed ourselves of... do your duty today.


UPDATE

Adam Stone, publisher of Examiner Media in Mt. Kisco, New York, leans kind of conservative in an old mainstream Republican way. Today he explained why he is urging his newspapers' readers to oppose Trump.

It’s been said that Trump is a poor man’s idea of a rich man, a weak man’s idea of a strong man and a stupid man’s idea of a smart man. But that belittles the intelligence and ability to judge character of so many intelligent and genuinely kind Trump voters. (And I’m distinguishing here between Trump voters and his most vociferous rally-going, bridge-blocking supporters).

The truth is, I don’t understand why these otherwise astute, normal people fail to see through the transparent con, or at least I don’t understand why they don’t care about the man’s deep and dangerous flaws. But, as I continue to try to understand why so many people refuse to believe what they see, why they won’t condemn behavior they’d admonish from a fellow parent on the sidelines of a youth soccer field but not in the leader of the free world, I’m reminded of the child in The Emperor’s New Clothes.

“But he hasn’t got anything on,” a little child reveals of the naked emperor in the fable while adults gush at the emperor’s phantom fancy clothing.

Trump might be wearing (and selling) a silly red hat but this small-minded, morally bankrupt, weak emperor is standing in front of us, stark naked. All you need to do is look and listen. Just don’t forget to believe what you see and hear. Character should trump all other considerations.

UPDATE 2

Congressional district polls that also asked about the presidential race indicate that Trump is doing even worse than the national polling shows he is. (Remember as you scan these districts the numbers are predictive of the presidential race not necessarily the House race. (In some cases House candidates are doing better than Biden and in other cases, Biden's coattails are helping them.) The districts we're looking at though, are just districts where progressive congressional candidates are in contention.

• AR-02 (Joyce Elliott)- Trump's margin was 10.7 and now Biden is leading by 3
• MI-06 (Jon Hoadley)- Trump's margin was 8.6 and he's now ahead by just 6.7
• NE-02 (Kara Eastman)- Trump's margin was 2.2 and now Biden is leading by 7
• NY-24 (Dana Balter)- Clinton's margin was 3.6 and now Biden is leading by 13
• TX-10 (Mike Siegel)- Trump's margin was 9.1 and now Biden has evened it up exactly
• TX-25 (Julie Oliver)- Trump's margin was 14.9 and he's now leading by 4

I also want to mention that there is a lot of chatter that several Blue Dogs could go down to defeat. I disagree. I hope they all lose but that hope is not going to bear fruit. One of the Washington Post columnists is predicting garbage freshmen Blue Dogs Xochitl Torres-Small (NM), Max Rose (NY), Anthony Brindisi (NY), Kendra Horn (OK), Joe Cunningham (SC) and Ben McAdams (UT) will lose. I hate to say it, but I think he's wrong. Trump's margins are down significantly in their districts. In fact, in Cunningham's district, Trump win by 13.1% and now he and Biden are essentially even. Trump won NY-11 (Rose) by 9.8 and is now winning with just 3. Trump's margin is way down in NM-02 (Torres-Small) as well-- from10.2% to just 6%. Trump won OK-05 by 13.4 and is now up by 6. Most disappointing-- for me and for many Democrats in the House who were hoping to get rid of him-- Brindisi's NY-22 shows Biden leading by, Trump having won it in 2016 by 15.5!

Trump Will Lose Tomorrow-- And It Won't Be Close

 

Red America by Nancy Ohanian

The foundation to any Republican presidential victory is Texas. Bottom line: if Trump loses Texas and its 38 electoral votes tomorrow, game over. But he's not likely to lose the state. It's still just too red. But the fact that Trump looks so weak in recent polls-- ahead of a nothing like Biden by just 2.3 points according to the most recent Real Clear Politics average-- is a testament to what a disastrous presidency he's presided over. And while those weak numbers may not deny Trump Texas' 38 electoral votes, they may well presage half a dozen or more GOP congressional losses in "safe" red districts. It's likely that TX-10 (McCaul), TX-21 (Roy), TX-22 (Olson), TX-23 (Hurd), TX-24 (Marchant), TX-25 (Williams) could all flip blue tomorrow.

Over the weekend, one of the Mike Siegel campaigners told me that 366,000 people had already voted early in TX-10, more people than had ever voted in an election in that district totally. Black voters, Asian voters, first-time voters and young voters all set new participation records. (301,200 voters participated in the TX-10 congressional race in 2018.) Siegel is expecting a big turnout tomorrow as well. Big turnouts are not what Republicans encourage. And those new voters and young voters and voters of color are not who Trump is trying to appeal to now.

In fact, Toluse Olorunnipa and Josh Dawsey reported for the Washington Post that Trump's madcap super-spreader rallies are focusing exclusively on his base of uneducated white racists. They wrote about episodes likely to turn off swing voters but enthuse his beloved "poorly educated," noting that in a frenzied burst of campaigning in the last days of the presidential race, Señor Trumpanzee has "accused doctors of fabricating coronavirus deaths for money, pantomimed a physical fight with Democratic rival Joe Biden, mocked a Fox News host for wearing a mask and celebrated his supporters for using pickup trucks to ambush a Biden campaign bus on a Texas highway... [H]is closing message is a classic display of the kind of red meat tailored specifically to animate his most faithful supporters. Convinced that it’s too late to change the minds of voters who are not yet sold on Trump, the president’s advisers are intensely focused on turning out those who are. Trump’s decision to forgo a broad, unifying closing message and instead double down on appealing to a narrow but enthusiastic slice of the electorate is a gamble. Whether it pays off or becomes a cautionary tale will not be known until the polls close Tuesday and the votes are counted."

It doesn't look good for Trump. His polling numbers are falling and COVID-19 infections are rising, particularly ones that are tied specifically to his super-spreader rallies, which caused at least 700 deaths, not counting Herman Cain. Yesterday 71,321 new cases were reported, bringing the U.S. total to 9,473,911-- as well as 399 new reported deaths for a total of 236,471. Swing states, many with Republican governors and or legislatures who have followed Trump's anti-science line, are being hammered. Yesterday's swing state new cases (with number of cases per million residents):

• Texas +4,193 (33,140 cases per million residents)
• Florida +4,865 (37,593 cases per million residents)
• Wisconsin +3,493 (39,307 cases per million residents)
• Ohio +3,319 (18,738 cases per million residents)
• Iowa +2,394 (41,320 cases per million residents)
• Minnesota +2,200 (26,717 cases per million residents)
• North Carolina +2,057 (26,382 cases per million residents)
• Pennsylvania +1,684 (16,755 cases per million residents)
• Arizona +1,527 (34,000 cases per million residents)
• Georgia +1,192 (34,093 cases per million residents)

Trump is in his own fantasy world though, gaslighting his rallies 'til the very end. He spread COVID to his Pennsylvania supporters in 4 rallies on Saturday. The first was on Newton where he told the crowd, "A great red wave is forming. As sure as we’re here together, that wave is forming. And they see it, they see it on all sides and there’s not a thing they can do about it."

In front of large crowds that defied public health guidelines in the middle of a pandemic, Trump offered a defiant closing message about the forces he battled during his first term, claiming that his willingness to fight them is one reason he deserves a second term.

“We did not come this far and fight this hard only to surrender our country back to the Washington swamp,” Trump said Friday in Waterford Township, Mich.

That event kicked off a four-day stretch of rallies taking him to Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Wisconsin. By the time he holds his final rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Monday night, Trump will have given his stump speech to tens of thousands of potential voters.

The president’s allies say he is smart to make a bet on rallying his troops at this stage of the campaign, with few undecided voters left and more to be gained from juicing turnout than from winning converts.

“The weekend before election, you’re not changing minds,” said Bryan Lanza, an adviser on Trump’s 2016 campaign and transition. “You’re not IDing supporters, you’re just turning them out. That’s where we are. Persuasion is done. He’s got to turn out what’s there.”

Trump is under more pressure to turn out his base voters in the last days of the race due to the unprecedented partisan split between Americans who vote early and those voting on Election Day.

More than 90 million Americans have already voted early or by absentee ballot, according to data maintained by the U.S. Elections Project, a nonpartisan early-voting tracker. Democrats have an edge over Republicans in several swing states, and Trump has explicitly told his supporters to cast their votes in person on Tuesday.

...The president’s strategy carries risks. His embrace of the conspiracy theories spread by his most ardent supporters about the coronavirus pandemic has driven away potential supporters, according to polls.

Trump has increasingly used his rallies to promote misinformation about the deadly virus, downplaying it and bemoaning the fact that it continues to dominate news coverage. He has told supporters that the country was “rounding the turn” on the virus even as the case count soars to record levels, and claimed without evidence that a vaccine has been held up until after the election due to politics. On Friday, he mocked Fox News host Laura Ingraham for wearing a mask to his crowded Michigan rally.

“No way!” he said from the stage. “She’s wearing a mask? She’s being very politically correct!”

During the same rally, Trump made the baseless accusation that doctors are inflating the number of patients who died of covid-19 to “get more money.”

“Now they’ll say, ‘Oh that’s terrible what he said,’ but that’s true,” Trump said of his false allegation. “It’s like $2,000 more, so you get more money.”

The American Medical Association called the claim “malicious, outrageous, and completely misguided” in a statement Friday, without naming Trump.

Trump’s conspiratorial approach to the pandemic comes as the number of Americans dying each day has begun to increase, along with the rising caseload and hospitalizations.

More than 230,000 Americans have died of covid-19, and more than 9 million have been infected.

...[H]e has veered away from his prepared remarks to offer controversial running commentary to his supporters. He has fed off crowds chanting “Lock him up!” about Biden and “Superman!” about him. Shortly before his fourth rally of the day in Pennsylvania on Saturday, Trump tweeted a video of several of his supporters forming an intimidating vehicle caravan around a Biden campaign bus as it attempted to drive down a Texas highway.

“I LOVE TEXAS!” the president wrote.

On Saturday, Keith Collins, Trip Gabriel and Stephanie Saul took NY Times readers on a trip into the 20 Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin counties across the country where they claim, inaccurately, that the battle for their states' electoral votes are fiercest. Let's follow along anyway:

Miami-Dade, FL-- A Democratic stronghold, it is not a county Mr. Trump would hope to win. But this majority-Hispanic county was a disappointment for Democrats in 2018, especially in heavily Cuban-American precincts. Younger Cuban voters have started identifying as Trump Republican here.

Disappointment in 2018? The Democrats targeted 2 congressional seats in Miami-Dade and won both. Gillum won with 59.9% and Nelson won with 60.6%

Pinellas County, FL-- Perhaps the biggest swing county in the state, which backed Mr. Trump after twice backing Barack Obama, it is a Florida microcosm: solid Democrats in St. Petersburg and Midwestern retirees elsewhere.

2018 was good for Dems in Pinellas-- Gillum won with 50.7%, Nelson won with 52.6% and Charlie Crist was reelected with 57.6%

Osceola County, FL-- Part of the greater Orlando area, it is increasingly Hispanic. Conservative retirees have been joined by hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans, who did not register in expected numbers to give Democrats an advantage in 2018, and so far, are lagging behind other groups in early voting.

Osceola was another good county for Dems in 2018-- Gillum 58.4%, Nelson 59.7%, and it performed for mediocre Rep. Darren Soto D+26. It would have been way more interesting to include Polk County  

Union County, NC-- In 2016, Mr. Trump easily won this suburban Republican bastion near Charlotte. Republicans remain dominant, but signs of disaffection with the president, along with an upswing in “unaffiliated” voters, give Democrats hope they can trim Mr. Trump’s margin.

Union is one of those counties where Republicans routinely steal votes

Wake County, NC-- One of the nation’s fastest-growing counties, Wake has shifted steadily leftward over the past 20 years, supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016 by more than 100,000 votes. An influx of out-of-staters since then stands to boost the Democrats even more, potentially offsetting high Republican numbers in rural areas.

Robeson County, NC-- A former Democratic stronghold, this economically depressed county went for Mr. Trump in 2016. The prize will likely go to the candidate most popular among the Lumbee Indians, the county’s largest group. Mr. Trump held a rally here in October, and both campaigns pledged to support the tribe’s quest for federal recognition.

Robeson delivered for Democrat Dan McCready in 2018 (D+15)

Westmoreland County, PA-- Typical of other counties where Mr. Trump outperformed with white working-class voters four years ago, this area near Pittsburgh is where he must win even bigger margins to counter a likely Democratic surge in the suburbs.

Hillary screwed the pooch but 2 years later Tom Wolf took 46.4% and Bob Casey took 43.9%-- which is all Biden needs to do there and in places like it to be sure of winning Pennsylvania

Chester County, PA-- Democrats must continue their 2018 midterm surge in this suburban Philadelphia county, especially with college-educated women, or Mr. Trump could carry Pennsylvania again.

In 2018 Dems all did better than Hillary had-- Casey drew 59.2%, Wolf took 61.3% and the county performed as a D+18 for Democrat Chrissy Houlahan 

Erie County, PA-- One of three counties in the state that Mr. Trump flipped in 2016, its mix of a working-class post-industrial economy and rural towns makes it “the oracle of Pennsylvania,” in the words of a Democratic strategist.

Erie Co. regretted going for Trump in 2016 and made up for it 2 years later-- Bob Casey 55.7%, Tom Wolf 59.8 and the county is the biggest one in PA-16 and performed at a D+20 level for Democrat Ron DiNicola

Philadelphia County, PA-- The big question here is whether Mr. Biden can re-energize Black voters-- Democrats’ core supporters-- after Hillary Clinton’s lackluster showing in 2016. Mr. Biden will have to boost the numbers to counter Mr. Trump’s margins with rural white voters. The Trump campaign has taken on aggressive tactics, like videotaping voters at ballot drop boxes.

Macomb County, MI-- Heavily unionized and mostly white, the state’s third largest county has picked the statewide winner in the last seven elections for governor and president.

In 2018 Stabenow did 8 points better than Hillary and Whitmer did slightly better than Stabenow. The county performed at a D+19 level for Andy Levin

Oakland County, MI-- Once solidly Republican, it is a more affluent neighbor of Macomb County and has been trending Democratic. It is a prime example of the changes that are taking place in many of the nation’s suburbs. In 2018, it gave Gov. Gretchen Whitmer the biggest margin for a Democrat in 20 years.

Oakland was good for all the Dems running in 2018 and will be for Biden tomorrow

Kent County, MI-- This traditional Republican stronghold-- home to Grand Rapids, where President Gerald Ford was raised-- has moved away from the Republican Party in the Trump era.

Mentioning Ford is the most hawkish possible thing to say about Kent. He served from 1949 to 1973-- 100% irrelevant. Maybe they should have mentioned current Rep. Justin Amash. Stabenow and Whitmer both won the county in 2018

Brown County, WI-- Among the top counties that will decide the state’s winner is the home of vote-rich Green Bay. It’s a swing county that in 2018 voted for the Republican candidate for governor, Scott Walker, and the Democrat for Senate, Tammy Baldwin. Mr. Trump won blowout margins here compared with Mitt Romney in 2012.

Waukesha County, WI-- It is the largest of Milwaukee’s suburban counties. Long a Republican stronghold, the county underperformed for Mr. Trump in 2016. Mr. Biden has forged inroads here, but it’s not clear how deep they are.

Don't get excited; Biden has not forged any inroads in Waukesha. The writers had nothing so say so they made it up

Dane County, WI-- This is home to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and it’s where Democrats surged in an April 2020 race for the State Supreme Court. Nearly as many votes were cast here as in Milwaukee County, even though Dane has less than 60 percent of Milwaukee’s population. Heavy turnout in early voting suggests Mr. Biden is claiming those votes.

Grant County, WI-- Emblematic of southwest Wisconsin, it is one of the state’s swingiest regions, where weak partisan identity saw voters shift from Mr. Obama to Mr. Trump.

In 2018 it swung back blue-- Tony Evers beat Scott Walker by about a point and Tammy Baldwin beta her GOP opponent by 9 points

Maricopa County, AZ-- Home to Phoenix and more than 60 percent of the state’s electorate, it is Arizona’s most important county. It went narrowly for Mr. Trump in 2016, but two years later supported a Democrat, Kyrsten Sinema, for senator. The question is whether the county’s changing demographics will tip the state to a Democratic president for the first time since 1996.

Pima County, AZ-- The home of Tucson, Democrats typically run up the score here.

Pinal County, AZ-- The state’s third-largest county is a Republican redoubt. Mr. Trump will have to turn out enough rural white voters to help protect the 3.5-point margin he won the state with in 2016.