District Polling Is Way More Predictive Than Nationwide Polling: PA-07

Every time there's some bump up or down in the polls I have half a dozen nervous campaign managers who call me to talk about what it means. It means nothing. No, I assure them, the wave is not cancelled. I suggest they check out the special election swings; those swings are far more predictive of what to expect in November than any polling. But if you want polling, look at local polling not national polling.

Yesterday Muhlenberg College's Institute of public opinion released an April/May survey for the newly redrawn 7th district, the old Lehigh County district with Northampton and southern Monroe County. The district starts north of the Delaware Water Gap and Stroudsburg, where I once lived, and goes south and west to Kunkletown and south to Nazareth, Easton, Bethlehem, Allentown to send south of Zionsville and Hosensack and as far west as New Tripoli. Most of it was Charlie Dent's district, (PA-15) when had a moderate Republican lean (R+4) and now has a slight Democratic lean (D+1).

The incumbent, Charlie Dent, announced he's retiring and the end of the current term and there are 3 Democrats and 2 Republicans running campaigns for the seat that are financially competitive. These numbers are as of the March 31 FEC reporting deadline:

• Greg Edwards (D)- $326,369
• Marty Nothstein (R)- $304,920
• Susan Wild (D)- $286,227
• John Morganelli (D)- $233,570
• Dean Browning (R)- $203,550

Greg Edwards and Susan Wild are both progressives. John Morganelli is virtually a Republican (anti-Choice, anti-immigrant, etc) but for some reason running as a Democrat. The only elected official is Marty Nothstein, a Lehigh County commissioner. Now for the findings. 53% of registered voters in the newly redrawn district disapprove of the job Trump is doing and only 39% approve. Governor Tom Wolf, who will be on the ballot in November, has a 41-32% job approve rating. Independent voters say they disapprove of Trump 57-35% and say-- by a margin of 35-24%--that they plan to vote for a Democrat in November.

Under the new boundaries Hillary would have won by about a point-- 48.7% to 47.6%. So, quite a bit of buyers' remorse. Dangerous for the GOP: An enthusiasm gap has emerged among voters with 64% of Democrats "very interested" in the midterms, to just 53% of Republicans. A generic congressional ballot gives the Democrats an 11% lead-- 46% to 35%.

Generally, voters aren't familiar with the candidates but head to head matchup between Edwards, Wild and Morganelli show that each one of them would beat either Dean Browning or Marty Nothstein, based almost entirely on party affiliation. Wait 'til people start finding out that Bernie has endorsed Edwards appeared with him this afternoon at the Miller Symphony Hall in Allentown. Bernie:

"For the past 25 years, Greg Edwards has worked tirelessly to organize for justice in health care, education and economic dignity throughout the Lehigh Valley. From his work in the nonprofit sector, to his practice of nonviolent direct action, Greg is a proven progressive leader who has had the courage to speak out and fight for those left behind. The powerful grassroots movement behind Greg Edwards is championing Medicare for All, universal pre-k, debt free college and raising the minimum wage, and he is living his values of unwavering inclusion by building the diverse coalition Democrats need to win in his district."

Edwards was also endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the biggest Democratic caucus in Congress. People sometimes note that there's a long time between now and the election and that Trump could turn it all around by then. There is a long time between now and then but the likelihood is that Trump will make his party's situation worse, not better. According to an analysis by CNBC's John Harwood, most voters have become numb to each new Trump scandal because they don’t believe what he says anyway and that "most Americans have considered Trump dishonest throughout his time in office. They judge his character indecent. But that no longer drives change in their judgments of his presidency... It will take blockbuster information to shift their assessments of Trump" which are overwhelmingly negative, especially in swing suburban districts like PA-07.

Bernie Endorses Progressive Champions In Pennsylvania

Bernie's point this week, when he asked his supporters to back 3 candidates in Pennsylvania, was that "if we are going to defeat right-wing Republicans in 2018 and 2020, we need to win in states that Trump won, like Pennsylvania. And, in my view, the only way we win in those states is by supporting progressive candidates who have the guts to defend working-class families-- white, black, Latino, Asian American, Native American-- and take on the power and greed of the billionaire class."

I wonder what went on in his mind when he picked his 3 candidates. Was it more than just paying them back for backing his campaign in 2016? All of them had done exactly that. The 3 progressive reformers-- John Fetterman (Lieutenant Governor), Greg Edwards (PA-07) and Jess King (PA-11)-- are in tight races. Fetterman may be the most progressive candidate in his race-- or perhaps Nina Ahmad is-- but Fetterman supported Bernie in the 2016 primary. Blue America likes them both-- a lot-- and so far we're staying neutral. Greg Edwards (who has ignored, or been to busy to respond to, our attempts to reach out to his campaign) and Jess King (who Blue America has endorsed early on) are certainly the most progressive candidates in their primaries.

Susan Wild and John Morganelli are Edwards' main opponents. Wild seems like a garden variety Democrat and is backed by EMILY's List, which is generally anti-progressive. Similarly, Morganelli seems like an off-the-shelf Dem, OK but nothing that special. Greg Edwards is certainly the best in this race for Charlie Dent's old seat, which just flipped from R+4 to D+1.

PA-11 has a different contour. Jess King is running a powerful race and was able to clear the field of primary candidates and stay financially competitive with the Republican incumbent, Lloyd Smucker. As of the March 31 FEC reporting deadline, he had raised $564,344 and Jess had taken in $515,812. Unfortunately, the ungerrymandering of the state by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court worked better for Smucker than for Jess, as heavily Democratic Reading was taken out of the district. It was formerly PA-16, with a PVI of R+5 but it's now PA-11, which has a much more daunting PVI-- R+14. (Remember, though, Conor Lamb, not nearly as good a candidate as Jess, just won a similarly red district.). Trump works magic for Democratic candidates. Bernie wrote that "Trump represents something we have never seen before in the history of the United States. It is not just that he represents the interests of the wealthy and powerful. It's that we have never had a president with more authoritarian tendencies than him."

The 2018 midterm elections will be long remembered as a pivotal moment in American history because, if we are successful, we can put an end to the disastrous Trump agenda. If we are not, we will have at least two more years of a rapid shift toward authoritarianism, the further normalization of corruption and the continued rise of oligarchy.

But we cannot defeat Trump and the Republican Party with the same playbook, or by supporting the same kind of candidates long favored by the political establishment and financial elite. That is how we got to where we are today.

He'll be barnstorming with John Fetterman, Greg Edwards and Jess King before the primaries May 15 primaries. "Our job in 2018," he wrote, "is to take on and defeat Trump's authoritarianism, xenophobia, racism, sexism, homophobia and religious bigotry. But we can only do that if we run candidates who can rally the American people around an agenda that works for them, not the billionaire class.

For more than a decade now, John Fetterman has been an outstanding progressive leader in Pennsylvania. From early in his career he has stood with the working families of the state as he advocated for a $15 per hour minimum wage, Medicare for all, marriage equality and ending the failed war on drugs. He has been an outspoken defender of women’s health, immigrant rights, racial justice and LGBTQ equality.

For the past 25 years, Greg Edwards has worked tirelessly to organize for justice in health care, education and economic dignity. The powerful grassroots movement behind Greg Edwards is championing Medicare for all, universal pre-k, debt-free college and raising the minimum wage, and he is living his values of unwavering inclusion by building the diverse coalition Democrats need to win in his district.

Jess King has seen firsthand how the biggest corporations have hurt workers and squashed competition. In Congress, she will work to pass Medicare for all, rein in Wall Street, break up corporate monopolies, and support the real job creators: small businesses in our local economies.

Please contribute to Jess' grassroots campaign by tapping on the ActBlue congressional thermometer on the right. We agree with Bernie; she's a great candidate who would make a real difference in Congress. If the issues he's been campaigning on mean something to you, please help make sure she replaces Lloyd Smucker, someone who never strays from what Trump and Ryan demand from this puppet Congress. Jess is no one's puppet... and never will be.

Who Exactly Is Making All Those Terrible Blunders At The DCCC This Cycle?

Luján & Pelosi continue recruiting NRA allies while undermining progressives

Like Trump, DCCC chairman, Ben Ray Luján, only hires the best people. Just like Trump. Are you wondering whose idea was the savage attack on Democrat Laura Moser in Houston? That savage attack by the DCCC has brought her over $100,000 and may actually catapult her into the run-off, damaged and unable to compete effectively against GOP incumbent John Culberson. A surge of intense anti-DCCC feelings across Texas and the rest of the country was the otherwise biggest result. No one is claiming the credit for the idea.

But an increasing parade of Democrats are condemning it, even DNC chair Tom Perez. Nina Turner summed up with progressives are thinking about the whole tawdry incident: "The DCCC has lost touch with its base. Despite facing continued losses, they have yet to realize that the path to the majority requires supporting diverse candidates who hold progressive values. The majority of Democrats, and many independent voters, support Medicare for All and banning assault rifles."

How about the decision to try to get the most progressive candidate in Pennsylvania's new 7th district, Greg Edwards, out of the race? Edwards is also the only African-American candidate in the race. He's also the top fundraiser among the Democrats-- $185,592 as of the December 31 FEC reporting deadline, compared to the more establishment candidate Susan Wild's $122,433 (20% of which was self-funding). Greg is the founder and Senior Pastor of Resurrected Life Community Church in Allentown. His campaign website introduced him by vowing he'll champion "an aggressive progressive program that includes equitable health care, free higher-education, economic dignity and civic engagement that puts people before big corporations and big donors." Not exactly a message the DCCC wants to hear from candidates, especially not from candidates who mean it.

Edwards is running on a platform that includes Medicare-For-All, which the DCCC oposes. as well as for debt-free college, campaign finance reform, clean energy, a more reasonable minimum wage and an immigration policy that includes a path to citizenship.

Charlie Dent is retiring after the current session. That's the seat we're talking about-- and it's a great deal more friendly for a Democrat. The heart of it is still the Lehigh Valley put instead of heading west into GOP-leaning parts of Berks and Lebanon counties, it goes north to encompass all of Northampton County and a tiny bit of Monroe County (where I used to live). Dent's old 15th district had a PVI of R+4. The new 7th district has a PVI of D+1. Hillary would have beat Trump under the new boundaries 48.7% to 47.6%. It's a prime candidate for a flip... and the DCCC wants to make sure when it flips, it flips to a corporate Democrat, not a values-based progressive like Edwards. Wild is a weak candidate who follows the DCCC injunction against putting up an issues page of a campaign website. Instead she has innocuous, even insulting, bullshit like "sharing a working-class ethic," "taking care of business," "walking in your shoes," listening to-- and fighting for-- every voice."

Friday Dave Weigel reported for the Washington Post that the DCCC has been trying to get Edwards out of the race.

The drama in Pennsylvania is centered on Greg Edwards, a pastor running for a newly drawn swing seat in the Lehigh Valley. On Thursday, he told the Washington Post that the DCCC had approached local Democrats to ask whether he could be persuaded to seek another office.

“As far as I know, they only targeted one candidate to leave this race-- the most progressive candidate, the only candidate of color,” Edwards said. “Their inability to understand why that’s fundamentally wrong says everything.”

The DCCC pushed back on Edwards’s claims, saying that the unique situation in Pennsylvania, where a court struck down a gerrymandered map and created 18 new districts just weeks before party primaries, prompted them to ask several candidates if they might run instead for offices further down the ballot.

Tim Persico, a DCCC operative, had indeed asked local Democrats if Edwards, or ex-Allentown solicitor Susan Wild, might leave the crowded primary to run for state Senate in a district where Hillary Clinton had run strongly but the party had struggled to recruit solid candidates. After Edwards learned of the meeting, Persico returned to Allentown and met with Edwards for 30 minutes.

“Pennsylvania’s congressional maps were just completely redrawn, and it’s very typical for candidates to recalculate their campaign plans as a result,” DCCC Communications Director Meredith Kelly said. “As a Pennsylvania native, Tim knows the importance of local politics in the state and went to Allentown for an early, on-the-ground assessment of the political landscape in this newly drawn district, particularly regarding the multiple Democratic candidates’ next steps. This is completely normal. He did not, however, ask anyone to drop out of the congressional race.”

David Marshall, who runs the Pennsylvania Democrats’ state Senate campaign committee, said that Persico had only asked him “if we’d be interested in any of these folks” if they dropped into down-ballot races.

“I said that if a candidate was rolling in with a few hundred thousand dollars, that would be a great, strong start,” said Marshall. “This week, I asked: ‘Is there any movement?’ And he said they took umbrage and felt like they were being pushed out of the race.”

...“It’s a shame that the DCCC and the wealthy white donors and revolving door consultants that make up the Democratic Party establishment are actively trying to stop Greg [Edwards],” said Waleed Shahid, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, a group that has endorsed left-leaning candidates in a number of races, including some with incumbents, where party leaders prefer different candidates. “Their consultant-driven strategy seems to prefer milquetoast candidates who they believe can appeal to moderate Republicans over progressive candidates of color. This is what systemic racism looks like.”

...[W]hen told that the party was defending its conversations about whether he could switch between races, Edwards said that neither he nor voters wanted the party to call the shots.

“I’d just say that the DCCC got caught red-handed, and admitted as much to us,” said Edwards.

So... who's the "brains" behind these two moves in Texas and Pennsylvania? I've been asking my contacts at the DCCC and I finally hit pay dirt. On condition of anonymity, a DCCC staffer told me both moves were thought up by Jason Bresler. Who? Ben Ray Luján recently made this revolving door character the DCCC's political director. Luján: "Jason Bresler is a veteran of congressional politics, who knows how to recruit top candidates, build quality campaigns and win tough races in areas that Democrats need to regain ground. From Minnesota to Illinois and Florida, Jason has guided Democrats to victory in many Republican-leaning districts, and he knows the importance of candidates and campaigns focused on connecting with hardworking families." This is how these pathetic congenital losers fellate each other and puff themselves up so they all walk around denying the reality of scores of losses for over a decade.

The Art Of The Rig... By A Perpetually Failed DCCC

Tuesday is primary day in Texas. The most closely followed races are in TX-07 (Houston), TX-32 (Dallas), TX-23 (Rio Grande Valley), and TX-21 (Austin-San Antonio), races that are considered flippable in November. Then there are two open blue seats-- TX-16 and TX-29, the former being vacated by Beto O'Rourke who is running for Ted Cruz' Senate seat and the latter being vacated by Gene Green because he realized the constituents were onto him and he wouldn't survive a primary challenge. TX-29, one of the poorest and most neglected districts in the U.S., is 77% Latino and Green is a conservative old white man owned by Big Oil who has led the neglecting. When school teacher Hector Morales, challenged Green, no one paid any attention nationally, but people did locally. And Green saw the writing on the wall, picked an establishment crony of his-- Sylvia Garcia-- and announced he was departing to spend more time with his family.

Blue America has been enthusiastic about Morales replacing Green. Six other Democrats jumped into the race to vie for the nomination in this deep blue district, including Tahir Javed who has put $800,000 of his own money into the contest-- hoping to buy the seat. And as of February 14 he had raised a total of $1,217,677 and Garcia a total of $483,885. Our candidate in this race, Hector Morales, had brought in just over $10,000. In a Q & A yesterday told the Houston Chronicle yesterday that "Money and signs don't win election, people do. When 30,000 people determined the winner in the primary for the 29th last year, during a presidential election year, it was beyond time to act. Elections should be won based on merit, not low voter turnout or millions of dollars spent and raised from special interests." Asked why he's running, Hector responded with this:

Education, healthcare, and the environment. As a teacher I've seen first-hand how the policies in Washington and Austin affect our students and parents. We've grown to accept a system with zero accountability on behalf of our elected officials. When my mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, my family witnessed first-hand the sickening world of profits over people and cannot fathom ever having anyone else have to go through what we went through as a family. The time for Medicare for All is now because we can have a system where people do not have to worry about being too poor to receive the health care they desperately need. For decades the refineries in Pasadena have dominated the skyline, along with multiple stories about explosions, leaks, and shelter in places for the community. It's time we hold these players accountable for the increased rates of cancer in our community and tell them "no more." We can have a future of renewable energy that will place us in the forefront of the future.

It's basically too late to send money now but there's going to be a primary runoff in May so we'll readjust our Texas page on Wednesday morning and get back to you. Where money is very much needed now is in the non-Texas races-- and that's where the Act Blue congressional thermometer on the right will take you to if you click on it. Let's flip over to the East Coast where our old pal, Will Bunch, has penned a piece for The Inquirer that sheds light on how the DCCC tries to rig the primaries for their GOP-lite candidates. And he goes right to one of our favorite candidates as an example: Jess King. Jess, he wrote, was frustrated after Trump's narrow victory in Pennsylvania "by watching how the Democratic Party had failed to connect with economically struggling voters in the center of the state who instead were lured to Trump’s throw-back nationalism." He's too polite that the Pennsylvania Democrats had recruited a gaggle of crappy centrist candidates who inspired no one.

“I never saw myself running for office,” King told me this week. But the more she brooded about Trump’s success, she thought, “He’s using a language that people in my neck of the woods are responding to. As Democrats, we need to own the issues for working families. We need to address the challenges in those districts that are Trump Country … that are struggling with the loss of jobs with automation, with off-shoring.” Last June, King announced her candidacy for Congress.

Running for Congress is a daunting task, especially for a political novice, and especially in a district that was mapped for GOP dominance, represented by a Republican incumbent. But 2018 isn’t a normal political year by any stretch of the imagination. In a grim political landscape, the only real energy is coming from the progressive grassroots-- the thicket of heavily female “resistance” groups that sprung up in disgust with the vulgarian Trump and that have amplified support for truly liberal policies like single-payer health care.

In east-central Pennsylvania, King fed on the electricity of an amped-up grassroots group called Lancaster Stands Up and by the end of 2017 she was raising more money than any candidate in the then-16th Congressional District-- even more than incumbent GOP Rep. Lloyd Smucker-- en route to endorsements by progressive groups like the Working Families Party. Indeed, only one key group didn’t seem excited by everything that first-timer King had accomplished: The Democratic Party establishment, with its ability to tip the May party primary.

Last October, the influential Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC, held a weeklong training event for candidates. Jess King wasn’t even invited. Instead, an invitation went out to a rival candidate — Christina Hartman, who’d won the party’s nomination in the 16th in 2016 and built close ties with Democratic insiders even as her centrist appeal to white exurban voters fell flat in a lopsided defeat by Smucker. Planning to run again in 2018, Hartman won the immediate nod from of a bevy of establishment types like Ed Rendell, the former governor and national Democratic chairman, and also from the highly influential Emily’s List, which was created to encourage female candidates like King but didn’t even reach out to her before its endorsement.

King’s problems-- which got national coverage in the Intercept in January and which, in her case, has had a happy interim ending (more on that later)-- aren’t unique. Across America, the tsunami of newcomer candidates who decided to get involved in politics because of anger over Trump, generating grassroots enthusiasm, is hitting an unexpected obstacle: the Democratic Party that many had perhaps naively expected to welcome them with open arms.

In regions like the Philadelphia suburbs, where mostly women first-time candidates are lining up in hopes of challenging Republican incumbents, the so-called Trump resistance is bumping up against a party establishment that continues to fight the last wars (even though it lost those wars, for the most part) by favoring more connected insiders who are wealthy enough to fund their own campaigns or tap other rich friends, and who-- not coincidentally-- tend to hold moderate views aimed at nonexistent “swing voters” instead of the fired-up liberal base.

Those tensions boiled over in public this past week as the DCCC-- convinced that only a Republican-lite centrist can win in a suburban Houston district that’s on its list of potential pick-ups after it went narrowly for Hillary Clinton in 2016-- actually lashed out in an attack ad against the female Democratic primary candidate who seemed to be gaining grassroots support, Laura Moser. The party muckety-mucks apparently decided she was too liberal, although the DCCC’s line of attack is that Moser is a “Washington insider” (because she’d lived there with her husband, a videographer … for Barack Obama).

Like most of the Democratic establishment’s clumsy, heavy-handed moves, the attack on the slightly-more-liberal Democrat Moser seems to have completely backfired. Not only has it given the Houston challenger a national profile, but contributions began pouring in-- $86,700 in just a matter of days-- from rank-and-file Democrats infuriated by this election meddling by the real Washington insiders, the DCCC.

But the national party’s attempts to tamp down enthusiasm for female newcomers like King and Moser could cause the Democrats to do what it’s always done best: Snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. With Trump’s unpopularity spiking up to 60 percent, the party infighting between the party’s grassroots and its establishment hasn’t stopped a string of victories for the Democrats since November, with some unlikely upset wins in Virginia legislative races while nationally flipping a remarkable 39 formerly GOP-held state legislative seats in special elections. About the only thing that could screw up a Democratic “wave”  this coming November is bitter party infighting tamping down enthusiasm among the party base. And that seems to be happening, right on schedule.

...In recent days, leaks have exposed that the DCCC continues to push its candidates toward the soft, soulless middle. One party memo recently leaked to the Intercept showed that — in a time of surging support for single-payer health care — the DCCC is using poll data that critics say are skewed in an effort to steer Democratic candidates away from that issue. Even more embarrassing was the release of DCCC memos from after the mass shootings in Las Vegas and again last month in Parkland, Fla., that urged Democratic candidates to not politicize the issue on Day One but to take a noncontroversial thoughts-and-prayers approach to gun violence.

The last memo hit just as the teen survivors from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were angrily rejecting the thoughts-and-prayers strategy and calling for immediate gun-law reforms — and electrifying the nation. That gun debate would still be mired in stalemate if the mush-mouths at Democratic HQ in Washington had their way. And that’s symbolic of the broader problem-- insulated party poobahs who don’t seem to have a clue about the anger and energy on America’s streets today … or maybe they’re just afraid of that grassroots energy.

We all know that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing that failed, again and again. Thus, the Democratic Party’s determination to stick to the same tired playbook that lost control of the U.S. House in 2010, the Senate in 2014, and the White House in 2016 is officially insane. The intensity of the anti-Trump resistance-- people who were barely engaged in politics two years ago, now determined to knock on neighbors’ doors or even run themselves if that’s what it takes-- is the game-changer the Democrats have been waiting for. The tired establishment can lead, follow, or get out of the way. Or put up a wall, the dumbest possible choice.

In the case of Jess King out in Lancaster, the story has a happy ending … sort of. Her good news is that when the state’s congressional map was changed last month by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the controversial and much-ballyhooed gerrymandering case, her rival Hartman decided her prospects were better in the next district over. This week, King’s candidacy was officially endorsed by Lancaster County Democrats. The bad news? The map made the new 11th District more Republican and more favorable for Smucker.

But in a year in which the political momentum is flowing against all things Trump, the longer odds don’t seem to bother King. She told me that her idea is to prove to the Democrats that a new approach can win back some of the voters who defected to Trump, to show that “we have rebuilt left-wing populism.” Amid a grassroots tidal wave, that kind of new thinking sounds refreshingly … not insane. Are you listening, Beltway Democrats?

And a little update that's roiling many Democrats this weekend about the imbeciles and incompetents at the DCCC-- this time in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, where Republican Charlie Dent is retiring and where the new district boundaries predict a probable Democratic seat. Dave Weigel broke the story Friday for the Washington Post. Greg Edwards is one of the candidates, the most progressive candidate and the only African-American candidate. The DCCC tried forcing him out of the race. "As far as I know they only targeted one candidate to leave this race-- the most progressive candidate, the only candidate of color," said Edwards."Their inability to understand why that’s fundamentally wrong says everything."