Arizona Is Ditching The GOP-- But How Much More Conservative Will It Make The Democratic Party?

 

The anti-Trump/anti-Republican tsunami is still building force. You probably saw the newest polls already. YouGov released a batch of 'em yesterday for CBS News: Trump losing in Nevada by 6 points, Trump losing in Michigan by 6 points, Trump, Trump and Biden tied in Iowa. And then there was the ABC News/Washington Post released yesterday showing Trump's disapproval 10 points down and his reelection numbers a startling 12 points down.

And that includes Arizona. Arizona has been a deep blood-red Republican bastion for my whole life. I remember watching the returns roll in while I was a kid concerned about we was then far right extremist Barry Goldwater beating Lyndon Johnson (pre-"Hey, hey, LBJ, How many kids have you killed today?") The popular vote was overwhelming-- 43,127,041 (61.1%) for Johnson and just 27,175,754 whackos (38.5%) for Goldwater. Goldwater won the heart of the Old Confederacy, the 5 dumbest states in America-- Mississippi, Alabama (which didn't even let LBJ on the ballot!), Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana-- plus Arizona. In Mississippi, where they were still lynching blacks who tried to vote, Goldwater won 87% of the vote. Arizona was much closer, but it was the only non-Confederate state who chose a candidate who was successfully portrayed as much of a nut-job as Trump has been (and is) this cycle. I mean even states like Wyoming, Idaho, Nebraska and Utah were in the Democratic column that year! The electoral college gave LBJ quite the landslide-- 486 to 52.

Arizona seems to have come out of that trance now and is starting to look more like neighbors New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada, if not southern California (yet). All sides agree Arizona is a swing state this time around. The only reason the polling averages are even close is because GOP fake-polling firm Trafalgar is included in the averages and they manufacture weird Trump wins that Kushner can use to keep his father-in-law calm. Last week's NY Times/Siena poll of likely voters shows Trump losing to Biden by 8 points-- 49-41%. And among Independents, Trump is only getting 28% of the vote, which is what is dooming him.

It should be a good year for Democrats across the state. What a shame that there are virtually no good Democrats running for office. The Democratic establishment saw to that-- from top to bottom. Their Senate candidate, Mark Kelly, isn't even a Democrat and is likely to be one of the 3 most conservative Democrats in the Senate, possibly the most conservative, a slot now held by the other fake Democrat from Arizona, psychopath Kyrsten Sinema. The congressional candidates all stink too. But... "Democrats are on track to win big in Arizona next month-- from the presidential election to the state House," wrote Sabrina Rodriguez for Politico. "And Republicans fear it won’t just be a one-time event but the start of long-term Democratic dominance in the state. It’s a shift that’s been coming since before President Donald Trump’s election but has only been further accelerated over the past four years by his divisive presidency and the Arizona GOP’s evolution from the party of John McCain to that of Trump. Now, Republicans are reckoning with signs that the party has taken on a direction that won’t play well in Arizona in 2020-- or ever. With that, Democrats could cement control of state politics, as they have in other suburban-heavy states, like Colorado and Virginia. A win by Democratic Senate nominee Mark Kelly would put both of Arizona’s seats in Democratic hands after decades of GOP control. All Democrats need is two seats in the state House and three seats in the state Senate to flip the state legislature. Turning both chambers would be a first for Democrats in more than 50 years."

Democrats, yes-- but not the way most of us understand "Democrats." Kyrsten Sinema, for example, has the worst voting record of any Democrat in the Senate-- just as she previously had the worst voting record of any Democrat in the House. Her grade isn't just "F" from Progressive Punch; her lifetime crucial vote score is 45.39, reflecting the fact that she votes with the GOP more frequently against progressive positions than with Democrats for them. And, like I said, it won't surprise me if Mark Kelly turns out worse.

“It’s Republicans’ own fault this is happening. It’s their unwillingness to govern,” said Chuck Coughlin, a veteran GOP strategist in Arizona. “They’ve always been the party that wants to put together electoral coalitions to address policy issues. And under the party of Trump, you’re just vilifying people, not coming up with ideas.”

“Like Sen. John McCain would say, 'It's always darkest before it's totally black.' And, in this case, black is blue. I hope the party will do some soul-reflecting,” Coughlin added.

Republicans will continue to control number of statewide positions, including the governorship and the state attorney general's office. But a big night for Democrats could see the GOP lose the presidential vote for the first time since 1996, a Senate seat, both chambers of the state legislature and control of the state Corporation Commission.

Arizona’s state races haven’t gotten so much attention given the millions of dollars being pumped into the presidential matchup and expensive race between appointed Republican Sen. Martha McSally and Kelly, which could help tip the Senate over to Democrats. But it’s the possibility of flipping that state legislature that has many Republicans thinking about the long-term effects of Trump’s GOP.

The Republican Party needs to understand that there’s a large number of us voting Democrat all down the ballot because of Trump, and they need to realize that their choice to blindly follow him will impact the state politics,” said Daniel Barker, a former Arizona Court of Appeals Judge who started Arizona Republicans Who Believe In Treating Others With Respect, a PAC that’s supporting Biden.

“We need to change direction,” he added.

The November election will provide the first indication of whether Arizona is becoming Democratic-leaning territory, like Colorado and Virginia-- or a perennial swing state, like Florida. The state’s growing Latino population and shifting attitudes among college-educated white voters across the state have been a boon to Democrats. Almost a third of the state is Latino-- and while only about half of them are expected to vote, they are likely to break heavily for Democrats: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema secured 70 percent Latino support in her 2018 run.

“Latino voter turnout has been growing, and then there’s moderate white voters that are breaking toward Biden. And, really, both have been needed to create this Democratic wave,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), who served in the state House for three years and now represents a safe Democratic congressional district in Phoenix.

Voter registration in Arizona is also a bright spot for Democrats. Republicans' advantage has been shrinking for the past three election cycles. Republicans now hold a lead of fewer than 100,000 voters. Compared to 2016, the GOP share of the electorate is flat at 35 percent, while the Democratic share has ticked up 2 points, to 32 percent.

Gallego said he’s optimistic Arizona’s path toward becoming reliably blue will mirror neighboring Colorado. And he argues it’s been a long time coming, dating back to when then-GOP Gov. Jan Brewer signed SB 1070, the controversial “show me your papers” law, in 2010. But the state wasn’t ready to move more toward Democrats then because the Democratic Party had largely ignored Arizona in Obama’s 2008 race against McCain, a beloved figure in the state, Gallego said.

“Trump really sped this up and gave [moderates and independents] a good reason to move away from the Republican Party,” Gallego said.

Arizona's shift left has caught Republicans mostly flat-footed, struggling to adapt to the new political realities. After McSally's loss in 2018, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey appointed McSally to the state's other Senate seat. And Republicans chose a new state party chair: Kelli Ward, the far-right candidate who primaried McCain in 2016 and lost to McSally in the 2018 Senate primary.

“I don’t think anyone would’ve guessed three years ago there’d be a battleground for control of the lower and upper chamber" of the state legislature, said Mike Noble, the chief of research at the Republican polling firm OH Predictive Insights in Phoenix. "It’s mind-blowing."

Noble said it’s unlikely that Arizona will swing from reliably GOP to Democratic in such a short time, but Republicans need to appeal to the middle of the electorate to win there.

“Right now, Arizona is a battleground primarily due to the suburban shift. And remember: Arizona is the home of Barry Goldwater and John McCain-- moderate Republicans," he said, a reference to Goldwater's libertarian streak and McCain's "maverick" persona. "It’s really not a red state like Alabama, but an independent state when it comes to the electorate."

Republican groups acknowledge that it’s a tough fight to keep majorities in both the state House and Senate, spending almost double what Democrats have in advertising. Republicans have spent $671,000 to Democrats’ $371,000, according to numbers provided by Advertising Analytics. The Republican State Leadership Committee also has Arizona on its top targets list, despite it not being a redistricting priority.

Meanwhile, Democrats have focused on four target races in the state House and six in the state Senate. Republican and Democratic strategists agree it’s most likely Democrats will win the state House, but Republicans will retain control of the state Senate-- though a full flip is certainly possible.

“Republicans are playing defense, and [Democrats] really could be handed the ball here,” Coughlin said.

Doug Ducey's pandemic response was pure Trumpism-- and Arizonans paid the price. Ducey has killed 5,759 Arizonans, the 11th worst state record. And there have been 30,909 cases per million Arionznas, the 10th worst in America, all 10 being red states were public health officials were ignored while people got sick and all decisions were made based on Trump's political agenda. 791 Arizonans are dead per million in the population-- 9th worst in the country. And by the way, Arizona's population is 14th biggest so, clearly Ducey and his Republican puppet legislature was doing something very, very wrong.

Trump's Scheme To Sell Off Millions Of Acres Of Public Lands Just Came To A Screeching Halt

 

Pendley looks like a crook because he is a crook

Trump has the luxury of a spineless, knee-jerk Republican Senate run by #MoscowMitch, a Senate that has shown that it is willing to confirm a steaming pile of stinking crap if Trump sets one down in front of it... Donald even has some Democraps-- like Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin-- willing to go along for the ride. But some of his nominations-- the undeniable cutthroats and thieves who are beyond just unqualified but who are being put in place to destroy and upend decades of bipartisan policy... well, some of those have even been too much for the Senate. After all, how are Susan Collins, Steve Daines, Dan Sullivan, Thom Tillis and Cory Gardner expected to get reelected if they vote for some of this garbage?

So Trump has been filling executive positions without Senate approval, more so than any other president in history-- and without batting an eye. One of the worst is William Perry Pendley, who Donald made head of Bureau of Land Management, part of the Department of the Interior. Pendley is probably best known in Wyoming where he has been an extremist predatory attorney trying to force the federal government to sell all its lands to corporations. The Democrat running for the open Wyoming Senate seat, Merav Ben-David has been campaigning on a platform that includes "keeping public lands in public hands." Although it was a Montana lawsuit, I asked her how the result is likely to impact Wyoming. She told me that she's a hunter, biker, hiker, and skieër, just like the vast majority of Wyomingites. I know, and Wyomingites know, that we need to protect our public lands and keep them in public hands."

On Friday, in response to a suit by Montana Governor Steve Bullock, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris ruled that Pendley is serving illegally and that he must vacate the position he's held for nearly a year and a half without the Regime asking the Senate to confirm him, which is, after all, something mandated by the constitution. Morris ruled that the Regime's arguments were "evasive and undermine the constitutional system of checks and balances... Under the federal defendant’s theory, a president could ignore their constitutional appointment responsibility indefinitely and instead delegate authority directly or through cabinet secretaries to unconfirmed appointed officials. Such an arrangement could last for an entire presidential administration. In fact, the case before the Court presents that scenario."

After the ruling, Bullock, who is running for the U.S. Senate, said "Today’s ruling is a win for the Constitution, the rule of law, and our public lands." This seems to mean all the decisions Pendley made-- like the land use plan he approved in Montana-- are illegitimate, null and void. The reason Trump hasn't pushed to get Pendley confirmed is because his policies would have certainly ended the political careers of Steve Daines (R-MT), Cory Gardner (R-CO), Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Martha McSally (R-AZ) if they were forced to vote for him. In Montana, for example, he opened 95% of federal land to oil and gas development, despite pleas from the cattle industry.

Former Arizona State Rep Mark Cardenas, an environmentalist and outdoorsman, wrote last week about the danger Pendley poses for the country-- and particularly for Arizona and the Grand Canyon, which Pendley has been trying to turn into a mining site. Cardenas wrote that "Pendley is an ardent advocate for the disposal and sell-off of public lands. By allowing him to continue leading the Bureau of Land Mannagement, the Trump administration has made it clear that even during a pandemic they will continue to prioritize boosting industry profits over protecting our communities’ health and iconic landmarks like the Grand Canyon from harmful uranium mining."

Growing up in Arizona, I spent many weekends with my family hiking and camping around the Grand Canyon, providing us a respite from our urban neighborhood. I have seen firsthand the value public lands and national parks bring to a young person. And as a veteran, my connection to our public lands has only grown deeper. I believe it is a patriotic duty to protect America’s outdoors, especially now when families are turning to our parks for solace. I want to ensure that this appreciation of our natural resources extends into future generations, but for that to happen we need responsible leadership. The Trump administration withdrew their nomination because it was impossible to ignore that Pendley’s bigotry and extreme record on public lands make him unfit to lead the BLM. Now, the administration must end this charade and remove Pendley entirely, once and for all.

Access to clean drinking water, protection from uranium exposure, and the freedom to explore safe and protected public lands must be our elected officials’ top priority. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who opposed Pendley’s nomination and has demanded he be removed, is working with local stakeholders and tribal nations to permanently ban mining and put Arizonans first. Unfortunately, our other senator-- Martha McSally-- has not committed to supporting this important effort nor has she called for the removal of William Perry Pendley. Senator McSally, will you step up to prioritize Arizonans’ interests, or will you let the administration destroy our treasured landscape?

Our leaders at the federal level should be focused on protecting public health, plain and simple. Arizonans cannot afford to go through another battle with uranium mining, and we deserve a BLM director who will protect our public lands and put our well-being above that of fossil fuel CEOs. By withdrawing Pendley’s nomination, the Trump administration proved that his extremist, anti-public lands agenda was unconfirmable. He should not now be allowed to serve, presumably illegally, anymore. Pendley must go.

Trump Campaign Faces Reality And Gives Up On Arizona

2020's kiss of death in Arizona

Arizona has been a deep red state for a long time. The only statewide Democrat-- Kyrsten Simena, elected in 2018-- isn't a Democrat by any other standard except that she has a "D" next to her name. By any metric, she's the worst Democrat in the Senate, with a more Republican voting record than Doug Jones (AL) and Joe Manchin (WV), who represent far redder states. But Arizona is plenty red. Aside from the governor, Doug Ducey, being a full-bore Trumpist, the GOP controls both Houses of the state legislature. In presidential elections, Arizona was a strongly Democratic state when it was clear that the Democratic Party stood for the working class. Roosevelt won all 4 times he ran, Alf Landon scoring just 26.9% against him in 1936. Arizona stuck with the Democrats in 1948 (Truman) and then flipped entirely, especially after the Democrats tried enlarging their tent so much that they became unable to define themselves in a way that appealed to the working class. Eisenhower, Nixon Goldwater, Ford, Reagan, both Bushs (both times), McCain, Romney and Trump all won. The only Republican to lose was Dole in 1996 when Ross Perot drew 8% of the vote and Bill Clinton won with 46.5% against Dole's 44.3%.

Trump's win in 2016 was 1,252,401 (48.1%) 1,161,167 to (44.6%), a little wobbly, but he won 11 of the state's 15 counties, including massive Maricopa County, where Trump took 49.1% of the vote to Hillary's 45.7%. This cycle, everyone agrees that Arizona is a top swing state. The Real Clear Politics polling average-- which includes fake Republican polls from GOP operation Trafalgar Group-- shows Biden ahead by 5 points. The most recent Arizona poll show Biden at 49% and Trump at 39% among registered voters (including leaners).

The Fox poll indicates why Arizonans are giving up on Trump. The issue he does worst on against Biden is one very much on the mind of Arizonans: the pandemic. When asked who would do a better job on the coronavirus only 36% of Arizona voters pick Trump. High-growth Arizona is the 14th most populated state, but has the 7th most cases of COVID-19. Yesterday, Arizona reported 835 new cases, bringing the state total to 205,516, or 28,235 cases per million Arizonans. How bad is that? Louisiana, Florida and Mississippi are worse, but every other state has done better. Why? Trump, Ducey and the Republican controlled legislature made it clear from the beginning they will deal with the pandemic through extreme right ideology rather than through science of public health. As a result 5,207 Arizonans are dead so far-- the 8th worst COVID death rate in the country... and rising far more rapidly than 5 of the states above it.

How are the Republicans confronting this threat to 11 crucial electoral votes that Trump cannot afford to lose? On Friday, Jim Small, writing for the Arizona Mirror, reported that the Trump campaign is going off the airwaves the day after tomorrow and may not resume television advertising until early voting begins in early October. Trump had already stopped advertising in the blue-leaning Tucson area two weeks ago! Now he's going dark in the rest of the state as well.

On Thursday, records filed with the Federal Communications Commission by Phoenix-area television stations showed that the Trump campaign cancelled all of its ads between Sept. 8 and Sept. 14. The air time totaled approximately $580,000 in the Phoenix media market, which includes most of the state except for the areas surrounding Tucson and Yuma.

A campaign spokeswoman confirmed Trump was suddenly going dark in a state where he has consistently trailed Democratic challenger Joe Biden in the polls-- a state that has only voted for a Democratic presidential candidate once since 1948.

“With a permanent presence in the state since 2016, Arizonans have heard from the Trump campaign for years and know about the wins President Trump’s America First agenda has delivered for them in just one term,” said Samantha Zager.

A Trump campaign source who was not authorized to speak on the record said that the campaign’s advertising strategy is following the early voting map. Because Arizona early voting doesn’t begin until Oct. 7, the source indicated advertising here was being halted.

This is bad enough for Trump, but it is also a disaster for the GOP incumbent, Martha McSally, who has attached herself to him at the hip. McSally's reelect numbers are worse than Trump's and she doesn't have the resources her Democratic opponent Mark Kelly does. Kelly has spent $24,516,845 to McSally's $19,947,472 after having raised $45,735,788 to her $30,018,096. He has around double what she does to spend between now and election day. McConnell and his allies have spent around $7 million trying to help McSally but Schumer and his allies have spent around $10 million on behalf of Kelly. That same Fox News poll that shows Biden leading Trump 49-39%, has Kelly up over McSally 56-39%, a seemingly insurmountable lead that has continued to grow,

Most observers see McSally as a dead man walking. The same may well be true of the Republican majorities in the state legislature. Democrats need just two seats in the House and three seats in the Senate to flip the state legislature entirely. Democrats have 4 state Senate candidates and 6 state House candidates-- including popular Flagstaff mayor Coral Evans-- with reasonable chances to flip their districts from red to blue. Coconino County supervisor Art Babbott is also seeking a state House seat, running as an independent.

Another Arizona Congressional Seat Ready For A Red To Blue Seat-- The Last Of Crooked Wing-Nut David Schweikert?

Of Congress' 3 most corrupt Republicans, only Schweikert (right) is still in office and not yet headed for prison

In 2016, Trump won David Schweikert's Phoenix area congressional district (AZ-06)-- but he did far worse than either McCain or Romney had. This is one of those rare districts where Hillary outpolled Obama. Entirely within Maricopa County, it includes the northern suburbs of Phoenix, from Paradise Valley and Scottsdale all the way to Fountain Hills in the east and Carefree in the north. The PVI is R+9, but Schweikert isn't as safe as someone in a district that red-- on paper at least-- should be. And his congressional race is the hottest in the state this cycle.

The top two Democrats vying to challenge him are Anita Malik, who ran against Schweikert in 2018 and did poorly, and Hiral Tipirneni, who ran in the much redder (R+13) 8th district in Phoenix's conservative West Valley. As of July 15, Tipirneni is the top fundraiser for the seat, $2,466,261 as opposed to Schweikert's $1,321,631 and Malik's $242,848. Tipirneni, a garden variety establishment Dem backed by the DCCC and EMILY's List, will probably win Tuesday's primary. She doesn't have much to offer woke voters except that she's not Trump or Schweikert and in a heavily college-educated district... being a garden variety Democrat might be enough this cycle. Besides, Schweikert's a mess, a member of the far right House Freedom Caucus, hated by some Republicans who remember the vicious whispering campaign he orchestrated against Dan Quayle's son, Ben in 2012, and many of his constituents have had enough of him.

Yesterday, Ron Hansen summed up one part of Schweikert's woes in a piece for the Arizona Republic, In deal, Rep. David Schweikert admits 11 ethics violations, to pay $50,000 fine. Basically, Schweikert's crooked and there has been a constant drip, drip, drip about his behavior for several cycles. By admitting his crimes, he's also admitting he's been lying to his constituents about it since 2017, although he's still trying to slither out from under the charges, insinuating for example that though he's ultimately responsible, it was people who worked for him who were the criminals not him (a lie).

The committee found "substantial evidence" of violations by the five-term Arizona Republican stretching from 2010 into 2018 and faulted him for evasive, stalling tactics that helped him skirt more serious violations.

As it was, the violations the committee did find include undisclosed loans and campaign contributions; misuse of campaign funds for personal purposes; improper spending by his office; and an environment where office staffers were pressured to do political work.

...[T]he committee found that Schweikert was less than forthcoming and cooperative. His stonewalling tactics could be sanctioned by themselves, but the delays may have helped avert more serious problems for Schweikert, the committee wrote.

"Throughout the course of this investigation, Representative Schweikert made vague or misleading statements to the (investigative subcommittee) and (the Office of Congressional Ethics) that allowed him to evade the statute of limitations for the most egregious violations of campaign finance laws, his document productions were slow or non-responsive to several of the ISC’s requests for information regarding (Federal Election Commission) errors, and he gave self-serving testimony that lacked candor," the report said.

"Efforts like the ones Representative Schweikert undertook to delay and impede the ISC’s investigation were not only highly detrimental to the Committee’s work and reputation of the House, they were themselves sanctionable misconduct."

The committee’s report said Schweikert’s violations were a troubling example to avoid for other members of the House of Representatives.

"While all of the violations detailed above were concerning, the Committee was disturbed by the events described in counts three and four... in particular. Those counts detailed how Representative Schweikert’s campaign committee falsely reported that he had loaned the campaign $100,000, when no such loan had been made, and then falsely reported making $100,000 in disbursements, which served to adjust the campaign’s reported cash on hand that was propped up by the fictitious loan," the report said.

"These errors were not only flagrant and egregious violations of campaign finance law, the falsely reported loan improperly inflated his campaign’s finances, thus making Representative Schweikert’s campaign appear to meet its financial goals while depriving the public of accurate and transparent accounting of the true state of his campaign."

For nearly two years, Schweikert publicly maintained the matter under investigation was little more than a bookkeeping dispute.

After the separate Office of Congressional Ethics, which helps screen potential cases for the Ethics Committee, revealed its investigative findings against Schweikert's longtime former chief of staff, Oliver Schwab, in June 2019, Schweikert political adviser Chris Baker shifted tone. He acknowledged serious problems had existed and said Schweikert’s trust in Schwab "was grossly misplaced."

...The report deals another blow to Schweikert, whose Scottsdale-based congressional district is historically safe ground for the GOP. But the Republican-leaning district is the kind of suburban, relatively well-educated location that has drifted toward Democrats, especially in the Trump era.

Schweikert has struggled to raise money throughout the current campaign cycle and his best-funded Democrat, Hiral Tipirneni, had a $1 million cash advantage over him through mid-July.

For Schweikert, a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, the allegations of misspending hit directly at the heart of his political persona as a budget and finance expert.

Arizona, where there is no mask mandate, is having one of the worst pandemics of any state in the country. Today, another 3,212 new cases were confirmed, bringing the total to 174,010, which comes to a horrifying-- and increasing-- 23,907 cases per million Arizonans. The only state with a worse number is Louisiana. Many independent voters rightly blame the disaster on Trump and his enablers. Gov. Doug Ducey isn't on the ballot but Trump is and extremely unpopular Republican Senator Martha McSally is and both are are expected to be albatrosses around the necks of vulnerable Republican officeholders necks, none more so than David Schweikert.

As Arizona Moves Towards The Center, The State Republican Party-- Rightly Blamed For The Pandemic-- Moves Further And Further Right

On Saturday, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey gave Arizona a present: 3,740 new cases of COVID-19 (and, a bonus: another 144 COVID-deaths, the highest of any state reported on Saturday). Yesterday, Governor Ducey added another 1,973 new cases and today another 1,813, bringing the state total to 163,827. That's 22,508 cases per million Arizonans. Using that metric-- cases per million residents-- Arizona is doing worse than any country in Europe. In fact the only countries in the world doing worse than Arizona are Qatar, a nation filled with slaves, and French Guiana, a sparely-populated, swampy prison colony. Of the half dozen U.S. states with numbers anything like Arizona's two, New York and New Jersey, have the pandemic under control-- at least for now. The other 4 are in deep trouble with drastically worsening numbers:

• Louisiana- 23,644 cases per million Louisianans
• New York- 22,642 cases per million New Yorkers
• Arizona- 22,508 cases per million Arizonans
• New Jersey- 20,913 cases per million Jerseyites
• Florida- 20,149 cases per million Floridians
• Mississippi- 17,794 cases per million Mississippians

Ducey believes in Trump, not science and he was very consistent in following his beliefs when it came tp confronting the pandemic, which explains why Arizona is worse-hit than almost anywhere else on Planet Earth. Sure, there are worse elements in the Arizona politisphere than Doug Ducey... but she isn't going to win an election to anything... except to lead the GOP. I'm talking about a mentally deranged former state Senator, Kelli Ward, who primaried John McCain and was defeated with 39% of the vote, primaried Jeff Flake/Martha McSally and lost again, this time with 28%. A fringe extremist, she then ran for the Republican Party chair and won it, in a 3-way race, with 51.7%. The state is changing drastically but Arizona Republicans still love their fringe extremists. And, yes, she is much, much crazier than Doug Ducey.

In her much-read piece for The Atlantic over the weekend, How To Lose A Swing State, Elaine Godfrey reported that pretty much everything has gone wrong for the GOP in Arizona since Ducey and Ward have risen to prominence and that "One might think that, in its moment of peril, the Arizona GOP would attempt to win over moderates. Yet the person charged with shepherding the party to victory in this most crucial moment is the state GOP chairperson Kelli Ward, a pro-Trump zealot with a soft spot for conspiracy theories... Just as polls show Arizonans-- especially those in the suburbs-- souring on Trump, the state party has veered sharply to the right." Not the state; the state party.

During her time as a state senator representing parts of the ultra-red La Paz and Mohave Counties in northwest Arizona, Ward paid a visit to Cliven Bundy’s Nevada ranch in solidarity with the rancher’s standoff against the Bureau of Land Management; suggested that the Affordable Care Act was part of a broader plot to push rural Americans into urban areas; and entertained constituent concerns about the chemtrail conspiracy theory, the idea that the government is using airplanes to poison American citizens. In 2016, during her Tea Party–style challenge to McCain, Ward defended Trump’s attacks on the senator’s experience as a prisoner of war. Later, in a primary bid against McSally, Ward made national headlines for suggesting that the McCain family had deliberately timed an announcement about the senator’s brain cancer to damage her campaign. (She lost both primary elections-- badly.)





But as Republicans nationwide began to embrace Trumpism, Ward moved from the fringes of the party to its center. She was elected the state party’s chair in 2019, and has since used her perch primarily to help wage the president’s wars. Most recently, Ward, who is a family physician with a master’s degree in public health, made headlines for encouraging protesters planning to demonstrate against local stay-at-home orders to dress like health-care workers. She and her husband, Mike, an ER doctor, appear regularly on Facebook Live to discuss “fake news” and the tyranny of mask laws, while sipping coffee out of bright-red Trump mugs. In the past month alone, Ward has tweeted warnings about the threat of “antifa,” compared the New York Times to the devil, and shared multiple videos of Black teenagers fighting and looting stores.

But now that Arizona’s political sands are shifting, Ward’s leadership is damaging the Republican cause, her critics in the party told me. As presidential candidates, Republicans McCain and Mitt Romney each won the state by nine percentage points; Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 by just four points. For the past few months, Biden has been leading the president in the polls here, and unaffiliated Arizona voters, who typically swing right, are overwhelmingly supportive of Kelly in his race against Trump-endorsed McSally, according to Mike Noble, the chief of research at OH Predictive Insights, an Arizona-based nonpartisan research firm.

This is partly because of the state’s changing demographics: The Latino population, which makes up part of the Democrats’ base in Arizona, has grown, and more left-leaning young people are settling in red states. But the most important shift has been the leftward movement of suburban voters. Maricopa County, which covers the Phoenix area and accounts for 60 percent of all votes cast in the state, has been rapidly trending away from Republicans in the past few years. Barack Obama lost here by 11 points in 2012, but four years later, Trump defeated Clinton by just three points. In 2018, Sinema won Maricopa County 51 to 47 percent.

Perhaps unaware that Sinema, former chair of the Blue Dog caucus, was the single most right-wing Democrat in the House-- and is currently the Senate Dem with the most Republican-like voting record-- Godfrey referred to her win as part of a "leftward shift." There is a Demographic shift in Arizona-- more Latinos-- and there is the Trump factor, but hardly a leftward shift. Sinema has nothing to do with the left-- and neither does Biden; both are creatures of the right, although Sinema is, perhaps more so than even Ward, certifiably insane and not wedded to any ideology at all. Godfrey continued that no one wins "a statewide race in Arizona without keeping a tight grip on affluent Republicans, GOP women, and the unaffiliated voters who make up roughly one-third of the electorate, said the Arizona-based Republican strategist Chuck Coughlin-- and those are the exact voters whom the president and his ilk have alienated. 'Trump has changed everything,' Grant Woods, the former Arizona attorney general, told me. Woods was a lifelong Republican who once served as McCain’s chief of staff, but after Trump’s election, Woods reregistered as a Democrat. He’s observed a growing gap between Republican voters and their elected officials in the party and believes that gap has been stretched further by people like Ward. If Republicans 'want to double and triple down on Trumpism, then she’s perfect,' Woods said. But 'she is exactly the wrong person to be the party chairman for the Republicans if they want to have a future in the state of Arizona.' ... Jeff Flake, the former Arizona senator who retired in 2019, echoed Woods’s concerns. It’s 'tremendously damaging,' for moderates and independents to see 'virtually every Republican officeholder on stage with the president laughing at his jokes, looking at their shoes while he demeans their colleagues,' he told me. And attracting interest in the local party is difficult when the only issues discussed at precinct meetings are 'the deep state or immigration or the latest conspiracy theory.'"

The coronavirus pandemic has made a bad situation much worse for Republicans. Voters in poll after poll have been unimpressed by Trump’s handling of the crisis, and Republicans in Arizona have faced similar scrutiny: Cases of the virus surged after Governor Doug Ducey took early action to reopen the state in mid-May. In June, Arizona had the highest infection rate in the country. This spike in cases corresponded with a 13 percent increase in Arizonans reporting that the state was going in the wrong direction, according to OH Predictive Insights. Yet all the while, Ward, like Trump, has been encouraging opposition to stay-at-home orders, and dismissing mask wearing as “virtue signaling” on her daily live-stream. This has been a major turnoff to an important part of the Republican electorate, Flake said. “Suburban women and Millennials have been walking away from the party for a while. In many ways, they’re in a dead sprint now.”





Some on the right, however, dispute moderates’ diagnosis of their party’s problems. These Republicans-- best described as pro-Trump populists-- believe that the state GOP has not embraced the president enough. Steve Slaton, who runs a store in Show Low selling Trump-themed merchandise, feels that Ward, in her capacity as chairperson, has been too supportive of McSally in the primary, giving her an unfair advantage over Daniel McCarthy, her more populist opponent. Ward “got sucked into the whole McCainite-controlled party apparatus,” Slaton told me. Jennifer Esposito, a former state-committee member from Mohave County, campaigned for Ward back in 2019. “We thought as chairman she would be willing to go against the establishment,” Esposito said. “She appears now to be a sellout.”

Ward’s job, in other words, has in some ways become an impossible one. It’s unclear, at this point, whether there is anything she can do differently to change her party’s trajectory. It’s possible-- even likely-- that, come November, Arizona will turn blue. That sort of change has happened before. In 2000, Republicans controlled the Virginia state government; they held both of the state’s Senate seats, and they’d just given its electoral votes to a Republican presidential candidate. But Democrats made huge gains in the suburbs, the state GOP moved to the right instead of moderating, and by 2019, Democrats had turned the tables completely. “Unless something big changes between now and the middle of October,” this will happen in Arizona too, said Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

If it does, Woods, the former attorney general and lifelong Republican, told me he’ll be relieved. “I want ’em all to go,” he said. “I hope the Republican party regroups and starts over.”

Cook: Trump Is Dragging Down Republican Candidates With Him

Cook is usually a lagging indicator. They do not move on a dime. If they move a race from "leans Republican" to "toss up," it probably means you should expect a big loss for the GOP. Yesterday, Amy Walter, one of their top prognosticators, used the word "tsunami." It's July; I would interpret that to mean Cook foresees a mass GOP drowning in November-- an actual; threat to to basic well-being of the party's existence. This isn't just about swing states and swing districts-- you can start anticipating painful Republican losses in "solid red" states like Alaska, Texas, Arizona, Georgia and Montana. And that isn't just about electoral votes but about Republicans up for reelection-- or running for-- congressional and state and county legislative seats as well. "This election," wrote Walter, "is looking more like a Democratic tsunami than simply a Blue wave. President Trump, mired in some of the lowest job approval ratings of his presidency, is trailing Biden by significant margins in key battleground states like Pennsylvania (8 points), Michigan (9 points), and Wisconsin (9 points). He’s even running behind Biden in his firewall states of Florida and North Carolina."

She doesn't understand the difference between a Blue wave and an anti-red wave. There's no enthusiasm for Biden or the crappy party he "leads." All the enthusiasm is for stuffing Trump down a toilet and flushing. But the Beltway insiders will never understand that and will continue babbling like chimps about "a Blue wave." Fine, who cares; it ends up with the same results anyway.

Cook changed some of their electoral college predictions "to reflect this reality." All have moved towards the Democrats and all are laughably behind reality. Their best predictions are always the day after the election anyway. They move Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Nebraska’s 2nd district from toss up to lean Democrat. And Maine, which for whatever insane reason, was in the lean Democrat column moved to likely Democrat. Cook is so funny. They also moved Maine's 2nd district from likely Republican to just lean Republican. And she wrote that "Georgia has joined Arizona, North Carolina and Florida in the Toss Up column, although, at this point, Biden would be slightly favored to win at least Arizona and Florida."

Even Republican strategists she spoke with understand that Trump has now reached "a permanent loss of trust and faith of the majority of voters. In talking with strategists on both sides this last week, it’s also clear that Trump is dragging Republican congressional candidates with him as well. Plugged in strategists on both sides tell us that Trump is running behind in districts he easily carried in 2016. As one GOP strategist told us this week, 'I’d be surprised if any House GOP challenger is able to outperform Trump-- they are tied to him.' Meanwhile, Democratic Senate candidates-- even those in second and third-tier races-- are pulling in eye-popping second-quarter fundraising totals."




I spoke to a handful of candidates running strong in prohibitively red districts. Iowa progressive, J.D. Scholten, pointed out that his right-wing Trumpist opponent, Randy Feenstra "ran his primary campaign on the theme that he's best positioned to 'deliver' for Trump. But Trump's policies have systematically ravaged Iowa's farmers and rural communities in everything from the disastrous trade war to abuses of the Renewable Fuel Standard to corporate bailouts. Iowans don't need nor want another career politician who's beholden to corporate interests and afraid to stand up to power. We understand why folks voted for Trump-- they were looking for change and solutions, but unfortunately, that's not what we got. Our campaign is gaining traction with Trump voters, Republicans, and voters across the political spectrum because we're fighting for them: farmers, workers, and rural communities."

Georgia progressive Lisa Ring told me that through her experiences she's concluded that the most dangerous thing we can do is assume we can predict political outcomes. "Every action," she said, "has the potential of harming or propelling a campaign but the ever-changing nature of politics renders an important development, insignificant within hours. In general, the failures of the Trump administration should be harmful to every legislator or candidate who remains loyal to it. However, it is what Democrats choose to do with the failings of the GOP that will make a difference. Or not.

"Simply pointing out that Rep. Buddy Carter is a Trump lackey who has followed his every direction in order to gain Trump’s official endorsement, is not enough," she continued. "Instead, I must remind the people of my district that Carter and Trump worked hand in hand to destroy the middle class, working class, and disadvantaged, by taking away whatever healthcare they had, letting small businesses fail, allowing our infrastructure to crumble, protections to be rolled back, and failing the millions of unemployed, as well as the millions of infected Americans who were provided no assistance and no leadership during a pandemic that is not even close to being over. 2016 and beyond, should have taught us not to rely on polls or predictors, but rather to continue to focus on the issues, and reach voters one on one. These times are unprecedented and we cannot sit back and analyze with numbers, beliefs that defy all reason. Instead let us hit the streets(virtually, if it must be) and connect truthfully to people who need answers and solutions to the very real problems they face daily."

Texan Julie Oliver shared something that has changed in a pretty big way since the 2018 campaign. "What we’ve seen over the last two election cycles is a growing number of 'independent' voters in TX-25. Some folks share that they’re former Republicans who have lost their party and will never vote for another Trumpublican, like Rep. Roger Williams, again. Sometimes we encounter these newly independent voters when we are phone-banking, or in the pre-pandemic world when we were able to canvass, but what we are seeing in this election cycle that really didn’t happen in the midterms is that many former Republicans reach out to our campaign unsolicited."

Yesterday, Astead Herndon wrote specifically about the Trumpist base in Georgia and Arizona being nonplussed about the GOP establishment Senate candidates. "Many Republican candidates face a perplexing electoral landscape this year, given that Mr. Trump’s conduct has endeared him to the party’s most conservative groups, but has soured some suburban moderates and seniors who are vital parts of any swing state coalition. These candidates are walking a tightrope, made more difficult by a voter base that doesn’t just want to elect Republicans, but rather loyal foot soldiers who take on Mr. Trump’s political and cultural enemies. It is the long-term political war over how Trumpism is best expressed-- not the short-term battle over Mr. Trump himself-- and how a party that has been driven by early-morning tweets for four years will seek to survive the next 40."

In the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, a record number of House Republicans chose not to seek re-election rather than face conflict with the conservative base, and even a favorable Senate map saw Republicans lose in states like Arizona and Nevada.

With Mr. Trump on the ballot this year, it will be even harder for candidates to paper over the differences, and the uneasy relationship between the party’s most right-wing voters and the statewide Republicans like Ms. Loeffler and Ms. McSally who rely on their votes is bursting into the open.

Governors in both Arizona and Georgia are currently confronting this political challenge, after opening up their states’s economies at the urging of the president and those in the media who support him, only to face pressure to reverse course after coronavirus cases surged.

Polling also shows that Ms. Loeffler and Ms. McSally are underdogs in their respective races, facing an energized Democratic electorate in addition to their inner-party wrangling.

...A recent survey of Arizona voters from the New York Times and Siena College found Ms. McSally trailing her Democratic opponent, the former astronaut and U.S. Navy Captain Mark Kelly, by nine percentage points.

In a recent Fox News poll of the Arizona race, just 73 percent of Republicans supported Ms. McSally, while 88 percent of Democrats supported Mr. Kelly.

“They don’t buy her as a bona fide very conservative Republican,” said Chuck Coughlin, a longtime Republican political consultant in Arizona.

The candidates’ struggles speak to how real divisions among Republicans have been obscured by Mr. Trump’s victory in 2016, and could erupt again should he lose in November.

...Several Republicans in Arizona and Georgia said in interviews that the problem is not with Ms. Loeffler’s or Ms. McSally’s messages, but whether the base is buying the candidates as authentic.  As a sign of their shared troubles among Republicans, some of the most negative publicity for both senators in the past year has come courtesy of Fox News, the cable outlet that is often sympathetic to the president.

...“The electorate has changed a lot,” Mr. Coughlin said, adding that the current Republican Party has “moved away from that narrative that people were originally attracted to. And in my view, has become one that’s reactive to the identity politics of the left.”

A Month From Today-- Can We Trade In A Blue Dog Retrobate For A Dedicated Progressive?

Over the weekend, Blue America launched a last-minute fundraising drive for the one progressive challenger running for Congress in Arizona, Eva Putzova. 24 hours later, 61 contributors had raised $1,567 for her last minute push-- an average of around $26 a person. For a grassroots campaign, taking on an entrenched galoot like this, contributions like that make a real difference. In Eva's own words, "This is the final stretch for our campaign before the big primary on August 4 and your contributions are already making a big difference. Over the last 18 months of campaigning, we have done the impossible-- knocked on 17,000 doors (prior the pandemic), dialed 160,000 phones, and raised more than AOC didi in 2018 heading into her primary in New York."

But Eva's district, AZ-01, has some unique challenges for campaigns like hers as it includes the Navajo Nation where cell phone coverage (for texting and calling) is spotty, where broadband Internet access is limited (for digital ads), and where people check mail under the non-pandemic circumstances only once a month (for campaign mailers). "These days, Eva explained "it takes 2-3 hours standing in a line at the Post Office to get mail out of P.O. boxes on the reservation. Shortage of staffing due to COVID-19 as well as space limitation due to the necessary social distancing measures put in place make a trip to get mail a challenge the rest of America can’t even imagine. We still need to reach the Native voters and the best way to do it, considering these limitations, is by radio. We set a goal to raise $15,000 in the next 5 days to fund our radio campaign strategy on the Navajo Nation."

Can you step up on more time for Eva? Why? I asked her why.

As a reliable progressive with a track record of following through on my campaign promises-- during my campaign for the City Council in 2014 I said I’d work to raise Flagstaff’s minimum wage and I did that in 2016-- I will fight for Medicare for All where everybody is in and nobody is out, for a Green New Deal to retool our economy away from fossil fuels while bringing equity and justice to historically marginalized communities, and to overhaul our immigration system to reflect the humanity that I still believe most people in this country subscribe to. You can count on me to oppose wars of choice and to use my political capital to recalibrate our defense budget that serves corporate interests rather than peace, actual security, and diplomacy.

As a representative in Congress, I also need to bring justice for Indigenous people who live in this district and to all Native people around the country. We have to put First People first because for centuries, we put them last. As a result, 1/3 of the Navajo Nation doesn’t have running water, 15,000 households lack electricity, hundreds of miles of their roads are unpaved and children spend 2-3 hours every day being bussed to schools or separated from their families in boarding schools.

This weekend, I talked to an ER doctor from Chinle, AZ and they shared with me what it’s like for the Native patients. Unlike in other hospitals around the country, important specialists are not being hired to provide healthcare for the local Native people. During every ER shift, routinely, 1 to 6 patients require care of a urologist, neurologist, nephrologist, or one of other specialists. Instead of being completely treated at the Chinle hospital, they are airlifted and transported hundreds of miles away from their homes to Phoenix, Flagstaff, or New Mexico’s Albuquerque. After the treatment, they are discharged but Indian Health Service doesn’t pay for their transportation back home and they are stranded, oftentimes left homeless overnight or for longer in a place they have no network to turn to. And it’s not just the ER patients-- others who need a specialist-- experience a huge distress over the prospect of being sent outside of their home communities without access to transportation to bring them back.

How is it possible that we don’t fund Indian Health Service to employ much needed specialists locally? How come there’s money for expensive air transportation but not to bring people back to their homes? How can we stomach leaving vulnerable people stranded and homeless after the hospital discharge?

What we hear from the healthcare providers on the Navajo Nation points to one thing: a complete bi-partisan failure of the Congress to act. My opponent has done absolutely nothing for four years to change this and has done everything to help Republicans and corporations to exploit the rest of the country.

Help me unseat one of the most pro-Trump Democrats, Tom O’Halleran and donate to our campaign. We have no plans to come in a strong second and with your help, our campaign will deliver on August 4.

You see that thermometer above; just click on it and you'll be on an ActBlue "Primary A Blue Dog" page where you can contribute to Eva Putzova for Congress. Those radio ads for the Navajo reservation are not all that expensive. $26 contributions go a long way-- and this I can tell you for certain. As bad as O'Halleran has been in the House... that's how good Eva will be.

Arizona Primary Is Next Month-- This Is The Most Important Race For Progressives

For Blue America, primary season is rapidly coming to a close-- there are just a few left. We helped with some spectacular wins this cycle-- Kara Eastman in Omaha, Marie Newman in Chicago, Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones in New York, Liam O'Mara and Audrey Denney in California... Mike Siegel (TX-10) and Lisa Ring (GA-01) came in first in their primaries and Mike's runoff is next week (July 14) and Lisa's is August 11th. In between Mike's runoff and Lisa's, the last two candidates on our 2020 Primary A Blue Dog page have their big days: Keeda Haynes in Nashville and Eva Putzova in Arizona's mammoth first district.

Eva just released a new homemade video introducing herself (above). But after reports this week that Pelosi is doing for her Blue Dog opponent exactly what she did for Jamaal's-- raising tons of cash-- I thought it is important to remind people not just what Eva stands for-- Medicare-for-All, a Green New Deal, an equitable immigration overhaul, tuition-free college, peace...-- but also what the incumbent Pelosi is supporting stands for.

First a quick reminder about AZ-01. It is absolutely massive-- bigger than several states-- and it includes all or part of 11 counties. (The whole state has 15 counties.) Most of the voters live in just 5 though-- Pinal, Coconino, Pima, Navajo and Apache. It is the home of the country's biggest Native American population (23% of the district's residents) and is a classic swing district, although Trump has caused it to turn bluer. McCain won the district by over 3 points, Romney by two-and-a-half points but Trump by just one point. In 2018, the Republican congressional candidate lost by over seven-and-a-half ponts. Local polling shows Trump being swamped in AZ-01 this November.

The incumbent is a lifelong conservative Republican, Tom O'Halleran, who began his career as a cop in Chicago and then a futures trader on the Chicago Board if Trade. He was elected to the Arizona state House, as a Republican, in 2000 and then to the state Senate in 2007, again, as a Republican, before losing the Republican primary in 2008. As a state legislator he voted against marriage equality and to criminalize abortion-- both bills subsequently vetoed by Governor Janet Napolitano (D). He quit the GOP in 2014-- primarily over a water rights issue-- but was defeated when he ran for a state Senate seat as an independent. When he decided to run for Congress, he suddenly switched parties again and-- voilà!-- a Democrat is born. Kind of. He joined the Blue Dogs and basically still votes with the Republicans more than half the time (on substantive issues).

A big Austerity fan, O'Halleran is eager to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits, takes massive injections of corporate cash (bribes), which helps explain why he has voted with Trump 54% of the time, one of the worst records of any Democrat in Congress. You want examples? Halleran voted against:

• opening at impeachment inquiry against Trump
• a carbon tax
• removing an antitrust exemption for insurance providers
• disaster relief for Puerto Rico and other areas

O'Halleran voted for:

• a failed amendment to give Trump the authority to go to war with Iran
• a resolution to support ICE
• S 2155, introduced by Idaho Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) and passed into law in May 2018  that rolled back important banking regulations adopted under the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010
• an amendment that weakened the historic Raise the Wage Act, by allowing Congress to modify or delay future wage increases. (He wrote the amendment.) That is especially harmful considering that this was the very first time either chamber of Congress voted to raise the exploitative subminimum tipped wage of just $2.13 to the full minimum wage.

This is the final month before the primary and Eva's campaign could use more contributions to help fund, among other things, mailers for newly registered voters and GOTV and compared and contrast radio ads for the Navajo Nation. Please just click on the Primary A Blue Dog thermometer on the right and contribute what you can to Eva's campaign. I can't promise you she is going to win-- beating an incumbent is hard-- but I can promise you two things:

1- She will use your contribution well and work right up until the last vote is counted; and

2- If she is elected to Congress, she will be one of the top 5 members for her entire career, just the way O'Halleran has been one of the 5 bottom worst members. And remember, whoever wins this primary, will be the next member of Congress from AZ-01. There is no need to worry about losing this seat. 

(And, by the way, early voting starts in 3 days!)

Will The Republican Plague Lead To Voters Repudiating Trumpism In Landslide Proportions?

Four months before people will be filling in their absentee ballots Trump's national approval rating has been cratering. The latest Ipsos poll for Reuters, shows him with just 37% approving (+2% leaning towards approval) and 55% disapproving (and again with 2% leaning towards disapproval). Among registered voters, the poll shows Biden leading Trump 47-37%.

When it comes it his actions on confronting the pandemic, he's a dead man walking-- Only 17% strongly approve, while 44% strongly disapprove. And with the pandemic sweeping through Trump strongholds in Texas, Florida, Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, South Carolina, Iowa and North Carolina and starting to come on strong in Oklahoma and Missouri, voters who "somewhat approve" and "lean" approve are going to increasingly move towards disapprove. The latest Georgia poll, for example, just came out from Fox News. Keeping in mind that Trump beat Hillary by over 5 points-- 50.44% to 45.35%-- the new poll must be panicking the Trump campaign. Biden is actually leading Trump 47-45%. When asked who will do a better job handling the coronavirus, Biden leads Trump by 4 points. Trump's overall disapproval is 51% with just 47% approving.

Yesterday, a Politico headline went right to the crux of the matter: A Sun Belt time bomb threatens Trump’s reelection. Natasha Korecki and Marc Caputo wrote that the explosion of COVID-19 cases in Sun Belt states is becoming another albatross for Trump's campaign and "Republican governors in Florida, Arizona and Texas followed Trump’s lead by quickly reopening their states while taking a lax approach to social distancing and mask-wearing. Now each of them is seeing skyrocketing coronavirus caseloads and rising hospitalizations, and Republican leaders are in retreat. It’s hard to overstate the gravity of the situation for Trump: Lose any one of the three states, and his reelection is all but doomed. Liberal outside groups and the Biden campaign have launched digital and TV ads in Florida, Arizona and Texas hitting Trump for allowing a second wave of coronavirus. The developments have buttressed Biden’s main argument against Trump: that he’s incapable of bringing stability or healing in a time of crisis... Trump’s campaign accuses Democrats of exploiting tragedy."

These are the Sunday ---> Monday new cases and the (number of cases per million people) in these 4 states:

• Florida +8,530 (6,568 cases per million) ---> 5,266 (8,814 cases per million)
• Texas +4,330 (5,283 cases per million) ---> 6,135 (5,494 cases per million)
• Arizona +3,857 (10,154 cases per million) ---> 3,079 (10,577 cases per millions)
• Georgia +2,225 (7,272 cases per million) ---> 2,207 (7,480)

Korecki and Caputo summarized the situation in each state and certainly Florida and Arizona look dire for Trump at this point. Phoenix Congressman Rubin Gallego, they wrote, "expects hospitalizations and deaths to rise in the coming weeks in the state. 'Ballots drop in October. The president essentially has two months to try to turn this around in Arizona,' Gallego said. By then, 'What’s going to be on the TV is Covid-19.' In late March, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey issued an executive order barring local governments from requiring masks in public. Two weeks ago, Ducey reversed himself amid pressure from mayors, residents and health care professionals. As infections surged, Trump held a rally last week with thousands at a Phoenix mega-church, where photos showed the crowd sitting in close proximity and few wearing masks. Ducey brushed off calls to cancel the event. Days before, Phoenix required mask-wearing, but the city order was ignored. 'We’re going to protect people’s rights to assemble in an election year,' Ducey told reporters at a press conference last week, defending his decision to wait until after the Trump event to emphasize to all Arizonans to wear masks. Trump won Arizona by just three-and-a-half percentage points in 2016, with the help of suburban voters. 'Those suburbs that initially won Arizona for Trump have soured since,' said Mike Noble of OH Predictive Insights, who polls the state for non-partisan clients."

Texas is a harder nut to crack for Democrats, who haven't had a presidential win since Carter ran in 1976 but demographics are moving blue and the Democrats flipped 2 congressional seats last cycle and look likely to win 4 more this year (TX-10, TX-21, TX-23 and TX-25). strong Democratic campaigns in districts previously ignored by Democrats, will help the top of the ticket and if Biden campaigns there-- Hillary ignored the state except for fundraising among corrupt elites-- Texas could flip.

Gov. Abbott "moved to reopen Texas in early May even though it had not met benchmarks set by the Trump administration. The state had one of the shortest shutdown in the country. At the time, Trump applauded Abbott. 'Texas is opening up and a lot of places are opening up. And we want to do it, and I’m not sure that we even have a choice,' Trump said during an Oval Office meeting on May 7 with Abbott. 'I think we have to do it. You know, this country can’t stay closed and locked down for years.' Texas soon saw the proportion of coronavirus tests that came back positive spike to nearly 12 percent, in addition to a record-breaking number of hospitalizations. Last week, Abbott said Covid-19 'is now spreading at an unacceptable rate in Texas, and it must be corralled.' He ordered bars to re-close and restaurants to limit capacity to 50 percent, down from 75 percent." That isn't enough to slow anything down much and by the time people are voting, Houston won't be the only city without hospital capacity for new patients.

"Of the three states," wrote Caputo, "only Florida has been a true presidential swing state in recent decades. If Trump loses its 29 Electoral College votes, his chances of a second term are close to zero. The Real Clear Politics polling average in Florida has Biden ahead by nearly 7 percentage points. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a staunch Trump ally, has offered mixed messaging in response to coronavirus. He's repeatedly boasted about his 'data-driven' approach but refused to heed advice from medical experts who say that a statewide mask-wearing order would work. While DeSantis said he was deferring to local governments, Republicans filed a lawsuit last week when a mask-wearing ordinance was passed by Leon County, where the state Capitol is located. 'Our people are ticked off. Most of them are upset about the media coverage about the coronavirus and feel it’s overblown and it’s part of a strategy to bring down the president,' said Evan Power, chairman of the county GOP, the plaintiff in the lawsuit."

Blue America is in the middle of a campaign to support state legislative candidates running in red districts that have not even been contested by the hapless Florida Democratic Party in recent years. If nothing else, these candidates are going to turn out votes up the ballot. Some may also win because of the anti-Republican tsunami headed towards Florida. The Blue America Florida thermometer on the right will allow you to contribute to progressives running for Congress, state Senate and state House, all in one place. Even a dollar to each candidate will help.

"While many Democrats have watched their poll numbers rise as they’ve handled coronavirus," continued Caputo, "DeSantis’s approval ratings have dropped (though, unlike Trump, he’s still above water). Emboldened Democrats released an ad on Twitter last week contrasting DeSantis’s swagger in late May with the recent rise in coronavirus infections. State Democratic Party Executive Director Juan Peñalosa said he’s considering putting money behind the ad because 'it struck a nerve. Trump has botched every stage of this response and people are starting to see DeSantis as Trump’s lapdog,' Peñalosa said." This is the ad:





Dr. Elias Zerhouni was director of the National Institutes of Health in 2005 when George W. Bush was president. Yesterday he assessed Trump's response to the pandemic for NPR:

It was basically amateur hour. There is no central concept of operations for preparedness, for pandemics, period. This administration doesn't want to or has no concept of what it takes to protect the American people and the world because it is codependent. You can't close your borders and say, "OK, we're going to be safe." You're not going to be able to do that in this world. So it's a lack of vision, basically just a lack of understanding, of what it takes to protect the American people.

I bet Dr Zerhouni has a very high IQ-- a lot higher than the doofus who can't even put on a mask

It's what I call the boom and bust of preparedness. The old saying that we use for NIH is if you think research is expensive, try disease. And in this case, Claire Pomeroy from the Lasker Foundation came up with a different sentence: "If you think preparedness is expensive, try a pandemic." That's where we're living. It's a result of lack of preparation and short-term thinking.

What people are thinking of as the Republican Plague is causing businesses and governments to pull back from opening up plans. Some have reimposed restrictions. Voters are blaming Trump and his puppet governors like Abbott, DeSantis, Ducey and Kemp. CNN reported that with July 4 approaching, "officials are trying not to repeat scenes from Memorial Day, when thousands across the country flocked to beaches, bars and parties while experts cautioned the crowds could lead to spikes in cases down the road. Remember, the U.S. accounts for just 4% of the world's population, but because of Trump's incompetence and malignant narcissism, our country has 25% of the cases and deaths, At least 12 states-- or parts of states-- have slammed on the brakes, including Texas, California, Florida, Washington.