Trump's Toxicity Has Wrecked The Chances For Republicans Like Rodney Davis, John Katko And Fred Upton To Be Reelected

Remember when I told you that Change Research is this cycle's polling outfit to pay attention to? I was in heaven seeing their latest-- surveys in 3 battleground congressional districts, Michigan's 6th (Fred Upton), New York's 24th (John Katko) and Illinois' 13th (Rodney Davis). All the incumbents are Republicans and all the districts are swingy and flippable. Two, MI-06 and NY-24, have solid progressive challengers, respectively Jon Hoadley and Dana Balter) and the other has a fairly worthless Cheri Bustos/DCCC careerist who stands for nothing at all and is so ashamed of the Democratic Party that she has no issues on her campaign site, Betsy Dirksen Londrigan.

Although IL-13 is now rated R+3, Obama won it convincingly in 2008 and was virtually tied in 2012. Hillary, exactly the wrong kind of candidate for a district like this, lost by 5 points to Trump in 2016. In the primaries, Bernie won resoundingly, showing what Democrats want there-- change not status quo, so of course the Democratic establishment gave them putrid example of the status quo-- Londrigan-- as their candidate. She lost. And she's back again. There are 14 counties in the district, though most of the votes come out of just 5-- Champaign, Madison, Macon, Sangamon and McLean. This table shows how Bernie, Hillary and Trump did on primary day:

• Champaign- Bernie- 20,581 (65.9%), Hillary- 10,542 (33.8%), Trump- 7,645
• Madison- Bernie- 18,723 (54.5%%), Hillary- 15,332 (44.6%), Trump- 15,588
• Macon- Bernie- 4,990 (45.2%), Hillary- 5,945 (53.8%), Trump- 6,655
• Sangamon- Bernie- 10,365 (52.6%), Hillary- 9,255 (46.9%), Trump- 11,930
• McLean- Bernie- 12,936 (62.4%%), Hillary- 7,695 (37.1%), Trump- 8,653
• Macoupin- Bernie- 3,552 (55.0%), Hillary- 2,770 (42.9%), Trump- 3,527
• Christian- Bernie- 1,526 (51.2%), Hillary- 1,395 (46.8%), Trump- 2,392
• Montgomery- Bernie- 1,266 (49.3%), Hillary- 1,241 (48.3%), Trump- 2,269
• Jersey- Bernie- 1,069 (54.5%), Hillary- 853 (43.5%), Trump- 1,902
• Piatt- Bernie- 1,016 (55.5%), Hillary- 787 (43.0%), Trump- 1,496
• De Witt- Bernie- 659 (53.3%), Hillary- 561 (45.4%), Trump- 1,577
• Greene- Bernie- 530 (49.4%), Hillary- 503 (46.9%), Trump- 1,014
• Calhoun- Bernie- 503 (50.7%), Hillary- 446 (45.0%), Trump- 329
• Bond- Bernie- 858 (53.4%), Hillary- 718 (44.7%), Trump- 1,102

Change Research explained that the goals of the 3 surveys "were to understand how closely voters were tracking Trump’s Ukraine scandal, the House Intelligence Committee hearings, what evidence and arguments for or against impeachment are most resonant, whether voters recognize the seriousness Trump’s actions, and how voters expect their member of Congress to hold Trump accountable." It's the final goal that most interests us here but I encourage you to read the whole analysis. These are the PVIs of the three districts:

• IL-13: R+3
• NY-24: D+3
• MI-06: R+4

In their intro, Change Research explains that Katko, Upton and Davis "enter 2020 with exceptionally low favorability ratings and with majorities disapproving of their handling of the impeachment inquiry and their record when it comes to holding President Trump accountable. A majority of voters in these key Republican districts think what Trump did was wrong and, once they hear the facts, are less likely to support Members of Congress who oppose the impeachment inquiry. Specifically, majorities express concern about facts established during the impeachment inquiry and believe that the primary grounds for impeachment have been established-- including believing Trump abused the power of his office, withheld military funds to pressure a foreign country to investigate a political rival, and put his personal political interests before the good of the country. The survey also found that voters will not reward Republicans for their opposition to impeachment: just 38% say they are more likely to support a member of Congress who opposes impeachment at the end of the survey, while a 54% majority says they are less likely to support an impeachment opponent after hearing arguments on both sides. The message is clear: voters in these districts believe their representatives should put politics aside during impeachment and do their job."

I. Republican incumbents are unpopular and voters believe they are not doing enough to hold Trump accountable

The vulnerability of these Republican members of Congress is reflected in their favorability ratings, which start from a net negative position in each district. John Katko is 8 points net unfavorable and Rodney Davis is 10 points net unfavorable. Fred Upton, is a remarkable 40 points net unfavorable. In particular, majorities in these swing districts-- districts where it still pays to appear independent-- disapprove of the job their congressman is doing standing up to President Trump and holding President Trump accountable. Majorities also disapprove of their congressman’s handling of the impeachment inquiry.

But if these Republicans are hoping to take on enough of Trump’s water today to make it through their GOP primary, and rely on their approval ratings on the economy to survive another general election, they should take a look at their dismal approval ratings on voters’ top priority, health care costs. Just 37% approve of Rodney Davis’ handling on health care costs, just 32% approve of John Katko’s handing, and a dismal 26% approve of Fred Upton’s handling of health care costs.

II. Voters are closely tracking the impeachment inquiry

After the House Intelligence Committee’s hearings, seven-in-ten voters have heard or seen a lot about the impeachment inquiry, and they are very concerned by what they have learned.

...It is clear that voters, even in these more conservative-leaning districts, believe that the President’s conduct is wildly inappropriate and worthy of the investigation underway. Regardless of their feelings about impeachment, majorities in these districts believe that Trump has engaged in conduct that will ultimately provide the basis for impeachment articles - including abusing the power of his office (52%, 47% strongly), withholding military funds to pressure another country to investigate a political rival (52%), putting his personal political interests before the good of the country (51%, 47% strongly), and engaging in corruption (51%). Majorities also believe he has intimidated a witness (53%), undermined the rule of law (51%), and even committed crimes (51%).

III. GOP arguments are less effective than those of impeachment supporters at moving ‘impeachment persuadables’

About half of voters in these GOP-held districts already support impeachment without reservation, while just three-in-ten voters oppose impeachment and think Trump did nothing wrong. This leaves over one-in-five who are still impressionable on the impeachment question.

... As the impeachment proceedings progress, these Republican members of Congress have few convincing arguments in their arsenal. The argument that “Donald Trump’s actions are very troubling, but with an election coming next year, Congress should not overturn 63 million votes by impeaching the President now” was ‘not convincing at all’ to a stunning 55% majority of voters, including 36% of Republicans. A similar argument that says “Donald Trump may have engaged in wrongdoing, but it is not worthy of impeachment, which will divide our country and stop progress on critical issues like health care and trade deals” was ‘not convincing at all’ to 52% of voters, including 30% of Republicans.


Also unconvincing is an argument that “President Trump was right to ask his lawyer to investigate corruption in Ukraine. Ukraine has had it out for Trump since the 2016 election,” which was ‘not convincing at all’ to nearly half of voters. This conspiracy theory seems to have some traction, however, with the Republican base. While 83% of Democrats and 46% of independents give this a 0 on a 1-10 scale (where 0 means it is not convincing at all and 10 means it is very convincing), 47% of Republicans say it is a ‘very convincing’ argument against impeachment.


 ...The good news for impeachment supporters is that their arguments for impeachment are stronger by comparison. The strongest arguments say that the evidence demonstrates that Trump’s conduct has reached an established bar for impeachment-- which is what the Judiciary Committee was attempting to demonstrate to the public in last week’s hearings.

An argument that the evidence shows “Trump abused the power of this office for personal gain, an impeachable offense in the Constitution, and in so doing undermined our national security, to the benefit of the Russians, by withholding taxpayer funded military aid to Ukraine” was a ‘very convincing’ justification for impeachment for nearly 4-in-10 voters. As convincing was an argument that the evidence establishes Trump “solicited a bribe, an offense listed in the Constitution as one worthy of impeachment, by withholding taxpayer-funded military aid and a White House visit to pressure Ukraine to give something of value to his re-election.”

A majority of these voters acknowledge that Trump has abused the power of his office, withheld military aid to pressure an ally to investigate a political rival, put his personal political interests above the good of the country, and more. Majorities find the evidence established in the investigation concerning, and majorities disapprove of the way these Republican congressmen are handling the inquiry and their approach to Trump.

...After hearing from both sides on impeachment, a majority of voters in these GOP-leaning districts are now willing to punish these GOP members for their unwillingness to participate in the impeachment inquiry, with 54% saying they are less likely to support a member of Congress that opposes the impeachment inquiry. That includes 54% of voters in IL-13, 53% of voters in MI-6, and 56% of voters in NY-24.

IV. Conclusion

A majority of voters in these key districts think what Trump did was wrong and, once they hear the facts, are less likely to support Members of Congress who are opposed to the impeachment inquiry. The message is clear: these representatives should put politics aside during impeachment and do their job.

How Many House Races Will The DCCC F-Up In Illinois?

The change this primary represents frightens the establishment jackoffs at the DCCC

Monday we looked at another reason the Democratic Party needs to dismantle the DCCC and start over again. But at the same time one of the credibility-free Beltway trade magazines was running an unsigned story, Illinois House Primaries Will Be Early Testing Ground For Democrats, that I thought might be about two of the more interesting primaries, Marie Newman's and Chuey Garcia's very credible challenges to the corrupt Democratic machine in Chicago. as it turned out, neither of those races was even mentioned. That's especially odd in the case of IL-03 where Newman is on the verge of beating execrable Blue Dog Dan Lipinski. Instead the article appears to have been a p.r. piece written at the direction Steny Hoyer or by whomever writes press releases for Ben Ray Lujan. The subtitle "Democrats have several pickup opportunities, but they need viable candidates first," should have been a warning, since "viable" inside the Beltway is the world they use to describe corrupt conservatives. Pure DCCC-talk: "With early voting starting in less than a month [not really-- the primary is March 20], Illinois will be a testing ground for Democrats’ ability to nominate general election candidates they think can win out of crowded primaries." The DCCC theory, proven catastrophic for Democrats over and over and over is still the committee's top operating strategy-- force the election of Republican-lite conservatives who will play ball with Hoyer's K Street lobbyists. (If you didn't read that post Monday about how Hoyer is rigging the CO-06 primary in favor of a sleazy pay-day lending lawyer, you really should.)

In Illinois the DCCC has 4 crap candidates in targeted districts. The problem here is that what Roll Call refers to as "Democratic campaign veterans" describe the precise reason the Democratic Party has lost dozens and dozens of House seats since the DCCC strategy was put in place by Rahm Emanuel:

In two competitive districts-- the 6th and the 13th-- Democratic candidates who have won the primary before but fallen short in the general election are running again. Even though they’re not raising much money, there’s still fear among Democratic campaign veterans that they could sneak by in the primary.

In the 13th, the corrupt DCCC operatives are petrified that heroic progressive Doctor David Gill will win-- you can contribute to his campaign here-- over their garbage candidate who could only win in a massive anti-Trump tsunami and would then lose the seat in a non-wave year. Let's start by going back to 2012. The DCCC conservative candidate, Matt Goetten, lost the primary (despite outspending Gill with over $300,000 in establishment cash). In the general election Republican Rodney Davis edged Gill 137,034 (46.5%) to 136,032 (46.2%). Why did Gill fall short by 1,000 votes? A left-wing independent, John Hartman acted as a spoiler and took 21,319 votes in the general (7.2%). That year was the only time the Democrats came close to beating Davis.

In 2014 the establishment persuaded Gill not to run again, appointing him assistant director of the Illinois Department of Public Health and they slipped in one of their really dreadful crap candidates, a conservative EMILY's List Republican-lite nothing burger, Ann Callis, who lost 59% to 41%. In 2016 it was the same story: uninspiring candidate loses to Davis in a 60-40 landslide. This cycle the DCCC and EMILY's List are working towards replicating 2014 with a pointless-but-wealthy crony of Dick Durbin, Betsy Londrigan, exactly the kind of uninspiring blecccch of a candidate Davis knows how to eviscerate.

The braindead DCCC operative who helped write the story says if Gill wins the primary-- which is likely, since voters love him-- the DCCC will take the district "off the table." That's how the DCCC plays. That's why the DCCC should be shuttered and the Dems should start over again in a post-Hoyer/post-Pelosi era dedicated to winning, not losing. OK, ready to hear from one of the architects of Democratic congressional disaster?

“Illinois is incredibly important because you have the three kinds of districts Democrats need to compete in, plus the kinds they need to defend,” said Ian Russell, former deputy executive director and national political director at the DCCC. He’s working with two Illinois primary candidates backed by EMILY’s List.

Based on 2016 presidential performance, the 6th District looks like Democrats’ best pickup opportunity. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race Likely Republican.

“It’s one of those districts where we have to perform; it’s a part of our path,” a national Democratic strategist said.

Out of the four Illinois seats on the DCCC’s target list, it’s the only one Clinton carried-- by 7 points.

But voters in this affluent suburban Chicago district also backed incumbent Republican Sen. Mark S. Kirk, who lost statewide, and easily gave Rep. Peter Roskam a sixth term.

Democrats plan to hit Roskam on the GOP tax overhaul, which the state’s Republican governor called “punishing” because of its cap on state and local tax deductions.

“It’s clear that [Roskam’s] voters wanted a conservative representative who was focused on cutting their taxes-- and that’s exactly what Roskam did,” Maddie Anderson, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in an email.

“I’m a little confused by the notion that following through on what voters asked for would lead to being voted out of office,” she added.

[That's the kind of messaging revolving door walking garbage pile Ian Russell buys right into.]

...Many national Democrats [what a loaded and stupid phase; sounds like a Trumpism] see Kelly Mazeski, a former financial adviser and local elected official, as the front-runner. The breast cancer survivor announced her candidacy the day the House voted to repeal the 2010 health care law, which earned her national attention. She raised $163,000 in the fourth quarter of 2017 and loaned herself another $100,000. She ended December with $510,000 in the bank.

In addition to support from EMILY’s List, she has endorsements from Illinois Reps. Jan Schakowsky and Cheri Bustos and several of Bustos’ closest female allies in Congress, who have been politically active across the country.

But some members of the delegation prefer lawyer Carole Cheney, a former district chief of staff to Rep. Bill Foster. She has the backing of Foster and Rep. Robin Kelly. She had $90,000 at the end of the third quarter.

Clean energy entrepreneur Sean Casten raised $335,000 in the fourth quarter, including $250,000 of his own money. One national Democrat described the primary as a race between Mazeski and Casten, both of whom he thinks would be strong general election candidates.

But [Amanda] Howland’s team thinks she has the connections to take advantage of an energized electorate since she’s run before without national backing.

Russell, the former DCCC political director, is working with Mazeski [and nothing says LOSER like being a client of Russell's]. He acknowledged that Howland probably started as the front-runner-- she led seven candidates with 46 percent of the vote in her own campaign’s poll from last August.

But he’s less worried about Howland as a primary threat now since she hasn’t amassed the resources to communicate in such an expensive media market. She had $50,000 at the end of September. End of the year fundraising reports are due to the FEC at the end of January.

Having the backing of national Democratic leaders, though, doesn’t always guarantee electoral success. When Tammy Duckworth, now the state’s junior senator, first ran for Congress in 2006, she had money and the backing of EMILY’s List, then-DCCC chairman Rahm Emanuel and then-Sen. Barack Obama.

She defeated the 2004 nominee, who had strong local support, 44 percent to 40 percent in the primary. But despite outraising Roskam, Duckworth lost in the general by about 5,000 votes.

The 12th District, held by two-term GOP Rep. Mike Bost, is the only pickup opportunity in which the DCCC is showing their cards.

The committee courted St. Clair County State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly for years. This cycle, he finally said yes and quickly earned a spot on the committee’s Red to Blue list.

Democrats failed to land a candidate in this downstate district in 2016. “Oh god, it was awful,” Russell recalled. “We went through four or five candidates in the 12th. There was a lot of skepticism about the viability of the seat.”

Kelly’s campaign launch in July prompted Inside Elections to move the race rating from Solid Republican to Likely Republican. It’s currently rated Leans Republican.

On paper, the 12th District is trending away from Democrats. Former President Barack Obama carried it by double digits in 2008 but by less than 2 points in 2012. Trump won it by 15 points in 2016.

But Duckworth carried the seat in her 2016 Senate victory, and Democrats are optimistic that Kelly, who they see as a moderate, can compete in the general election.

“I just hope the demographics don’t overcome good candidate quality,” Russell said.

The 13th District was another recruiting miss for Democrats last cycle.

The cycle before that, in 2014, GOP Rep. Rodney Davis defeated a supposed top-tier recruit who had received DCCC support in the primary.

Obama carried the district by double digits in 2008, and lost it narrowly four years later. But in 2016, the 13th swung to Trump, who carried it by about 6 points. Davis won a third term by 19 points. This year’s race is rated Likely Republican.

As in the 6th District, there’s a Democrat running who’s won the primary before-- David Gill, who beat the DCCC’s recruit in 2012. Since then, though, he’s alienated many in the local and national party establishment. He had $4,000 at the end of the third quarter.

Betsy Dirksen Londrigan has the backing of EMILY’s List, Schakowsky and Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, for whom she used to be a fundraiser. Londrigan ended the third quarter with $129,000. Erik Jones could also be competitive here; he ended the third quarter with $195,000.

David Gill is no shrinking rose and, although most candidates dislike the DCCC and recognize their incompetence, corruption and malfeasance as much as he does, he's one of the few who doesn't mind expressing it clearly and publicly. His analysis is very much worth reading. He told us that "The most ironic thing about the DCCC's lack of support is that the progressive issues that I push for and which seem to terrify the corporate-backed DCCC-- single-payer healthcare, a $15/hour minimum wage, tuition-free access to public higher education-- my support for those progressive positions is the precise reason that I'm able to generate tens of thousands of more votes than the standard Republican Lite/DCCC-backed Democrat. Voters around the district, whether they consider themselves Dems, Independents, or even thoughtful Republicans seem to like the idea of being represented by a longtime care-giving doctor who actually gives a damn about their well-being. At the end of the day, 'ironic' is actually the wrong term; when the DCCC repeatedly gets behind candidates who present a passionless bland message that loses by 20 points, that's pretty clear evidence that they just don't care much about the seat in the first place. It seems they'd rather have a Republican occupying the seat than a single-payer supporting doctor."

Trump carried the 14th District by only 4 points. The DCCC has included this exurban Chicago district on its target list, but Democratic strategists who’ve worked in the state are skeptical.

“That’s a very tough one,” Russell said. Another Democratic strategist called it “a bridge too far.” GOP Rep. Randy Hultgren won a fourth term by 19 points in 2016.

Still, national Democrats are hoping to have a candidate who makes the general election competitive. Seven Democrats are running. Nurse and former Health and Human Services official Lauren Underwood had the most cash on hand at the end of the third quarter. Engineer Matthew Brolley wasn’t far behind, with $51,000. He’s backed by Schakowsky and just secured the endorsement of the state AFL-CIO, which should boost his ground game.

But Republicans scoff at Democratic chances in the district.

“That’s Republican delight,” said one Republican from the state. “Waste your money on that one.”

In Illinois there is no party registration/affiliation other than the party ballot you pull. One of the 2 DCCC candidates, Mayor Matthew Brolley regularly pulls Republican ballots (including in 2016). Sounds like the kind of crap the DCCC always get aroused by. The front-runner in the race, despite the party establishment and the DCCC and their allies, is progressive Jim Walz, a Bernie guy and big Medicare-for-All supporter. The only way to win a district like this is to offer the voters a clear and unambiguous choice, not by muddying the water with a Republican-lite candidate that turns off the base. Walz has backing from the progressives in the district as well as from independents and even moderate Republicans who want real change. The DCCC is downplaying IL-14 but this is a winnable race-- unless the DCCC gets one of their Republican-lite candidates in.

Alan Grayson Has A Request: Help Send David Gill To Congress

Alan Grayson isn't running for Congress again-- at least not so far. He's been doing other work, like working on very time-consuming legal cases against the Trump Regime. But another thing Alan is doing is helping raise campaign funds for other progressive who are running for Congress. And today he's asking his supporters to contribute to an especially great candidate in central Illinois, Dr. David Gill, also endorsed by Blue America. Alan's wife, Dena Grayson, has been working with David on strategies for fundraising from medical groups, some of whom don't always know how to relate to progressives. By going to his own supporters and asking them to chip in to Gill's campaign, Alan is taking it to the next level. And we love it when progressives from across the country work together as a team-- something the Blue Dogs and New Dems sure do with their corporate donors!

Grayson's e-mail today was called "A candidate who actually talks about what needs to be done." He wrote that he's "tired of listening to candidates who boldly claim that they are anti-hurricane, and in favor of 'values.' Duh."

Dr. David Gill is a progressive doctor who supports ‘Medicare for All’ is running for Congress. He came within an inch of defeating the Republican incumbent before. But the Democratic Party won’t help him.

Maybe we should help.

Since healthcare is now one-sixth of the U.S. economy, it surely would be a good idea to have a progressive doctor in the House of Representatives. Dr. David Gill is running for Congress in the Land-of-Lincoln center of Illinois, IL-13, against some generic Republican smiley-face. (A lot of the GOP Members of Congress from the Midwest look like the Joker hit them with his laughing gas, and they just can’t stop smiling, even if you poke them with a stick. The Southerners are much less prone to that rictus rigor mortis.)

President Obama won the district by nine points in 2008, and basically tied Romney in 2012. In that same year, Dr. Gill came within 1000 votes of defeating the GOP jackwagon. Three-tenths of one percent, 46.5% to 46.2%, with a liberal Independent on the ballot taking away seven percent.

(Jackwagon, n. A useless piece of equipment, usually military, used to refer to a mule-drawn freight wagon which had been pieced together from discarded or substandard parts, and subject to frequent breakdowns. Jackwagons typically were good for only one or two uses, then abandoned or discarded along roadsides and in ditches, and were often re-cannibalized to create new jackwagons.) Yes, that does sound like a lot of Republican Congressmen I know.

Since that very close race in 2012, the Democrats have nominated Right-Wing Dem. #1, who lost by 36,000 votes, and Right-Wing Dem. #2, who lost by 51,000 votes. But ask anyone in the Democratic Party leadership, and he or she will tell you how super-duper-important it is to nominate Right-Wing Dem. #45,678 in any competitive House district because, you know, issue-phobia is what every voter craves. Or so they say.

And I say, what voters really want is someone who will fight for the progressive platform that will make their lives better.

Dr. Gill says that, too.

Help give a fighter a fighting chance-- support David Gill for Congress

Dr. Gill wrote a note recently, explaining the differences between him and his GOP opponent:

“campaign finance reform, aggressive action against climate change, single-payer healthcare, a woman's right to make her own decisions regarding reproduction, and gay marriage[,]... single-payer, a $15/hour minimum wage, and tuition-free access to public universities, colleges, and trade schools.”

Seriously, doesn’t this sound like someone whom you’d want to see in Congress? Then I ask you: please make it happen. Tap the Blue America thermometer on the right and support Dr. David Gill’s campaign.

  Courage,

  Rep. Alan Grayson

A Campaign Based On Real Economic Populism Will Flip This Illinois Congressional District Red To Blue

We want to introduce you to an old friend who's running for Congress in Illinois, David Gill, a life-long and dedicated progressive in a swing district that Obama won in 2008 and then lost by a handful of votes in 2012. It was the wrong kind of district for Hillary and Trump beat her 49.7% to 44.2%. But in the primaries Bernie swept the district by a landslide, beating Hillary in the biggest of the 14 counties, Champaign 20,581 (65.9%) to 10,542 (33.8%) and outpacing Trump and Cruz combined there (17,253 for the two of them on the same day). The 14 counties:

• Bond- Bernie- 858 (53.4%); Hillary- 718 (44.7%)
• Calhoun- Bernie- 503 (50.7%); Hillary- 446 (45.9%)
• Champaign- Bernie- 20,581 (65.9%); Hillary- 10,542 (33.8%)
• Christian- Bernie- 1,526 (51.2%); Hillary- 1,395 (46.8%)
• DeWitt- Bernie- 659 (53.3%); Hillary- 561 (45.5%)
• Greene- Bernie- 530 (49.4%); Hillary- 503 (46.9%)
• Jersey- Bernie- 1,069 (54.5%); Hillary- 853 (43.5%)
• Macon- Bernie- 4,990 (45.2%); Hillary- 5,945 (53.8%)
• Macoupin- Bernie- 3,552 (55.0%); Hillary- 2,770 (42.9%)
• Madison- Bernie- 18,723 (54.5%); Hillary- 15,332 (44.6%)
• McLean- Bernie- 12,936 (62.4%); Hillary- 7,695 (37.1%)
• Montgomery- Bernie- 1,266 (49.3%); Hillary- 1,241 (48.3%)
• Piatt- Bernie- 1,016 (55.5%); Hillary- 787 (43.0%)
• Sangamon- Bernie- 10,365 (52.6%); Hillary- 9,255 (46.9%)

David was an enthusiastic Bernie activist and the platform he's running on today is almost entirely on the issues he and Bernie have long championed. And, yes, the DCCC has, predictably-- it's all they ever do-- some Republican-lite corporate shill they're trying to run. We asked David to re-introduce himself to DWT readers.

Winning A House Race With Progressive Issues In A "Trump District" 
-by David Gill
candidate, IL-13

I’m a physician in Emergency Medicine and Family Practice, and I’m seeking the Democratic nomination for Illinois’ 13th district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. I live in Bloomington with my wife Elaine, and we have six children, two cats, two turtles, and two rescue dogs.

As a doctor, I’m a 25-year member of Physicians for a National Health Program, a group of 20,000 doctors that has been pushing and pushing for single-payer health care here in America.  And with the Republicans on the verge of completely messing up health care, the door is going to open very soon for single-payer in this country; and we can take full advantage of this opportunity by having the strong voice of a progressive physician such as me helping to lead the charge.

And as a doctor, I’m also a 20-year member of Physicians for Reproductive Choice. We must have representatives who stand up for women’s rights at all times, because the opposition is stomping on those rights every chance they get. I’ve also been a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union for 24 years-- I was standing beside my friends in the LGBTQ community, standing up for marriage equality, even when such a position was very unpopular. And we must have representatives who will protect marriage equality and who will stand against discrimination of every kind.

I’m also a long-time member of the Union of Concerned Scientists. And we must have representatives who believe in science, who will stand up passionately in the greatest battle in human history: the fight against climate change. There is no more important battle, because if and when we lose this one, there won’t be any more humans left to battle about anything.

But of course, we have a Congress made up of too many men and women who stand against single-payer and science and civil rights. They take the big money from the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry, the arms manufacturers and the oil industry, and then they work on behalf of those corporations. We need representatives who stand against this corporate ownership of our politics and our government, and I intend to work tirelessly to undo the impact of Citizens United, up to and including working to pass a Constitutional amendment stating explicitly that corporations are not people and that money is not speech.

I ran for this seat once before, back in 2012. And my Republican opponent, Rodney Davis, was very lucky that year; for in years that end in a “2,” and only in those years, it’s relatively easy for an Independent to get on the ballot in Illinois, and in 2012 there was a liberal Independent who got on the ballot. He traveled around the 14 counties of this district, saying all the same things as me, talking about single-payer, campaign finance reform, gay marriage, a woman’s right to choose, and climate change. So I was running against both Rodney Davis and this mirror image of myself. I wound up losing by three tenths of one percentage point, the liberal Independent took 7% of the vote and Rodney Davis went to Congress as an “accidental congressman.”

We intend to reverse that result next year, with the help of citizens from all across the country. Ours is very much a grassroots campaign, fueled by ordinary citizens from all walks of life who want to see a caring, thoughtful healthcare professional fighting for their well-being within the halls of Congress. 2018 does not end in a “2”, so Rodney Davis won’t be protected this time around by some liberal Independent, and I intend to beat him soundly in a two-man race this time, with the support of all those ordinary Americans.

I invite you to join our campaign, either by volunteering your time and/or making a financial contribution. You can also visit and like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

If The DCCC Continues To Pick Congressional Nominees, Instead Of Voters, The Democrats Will Never Win Back Congress

The only primaries these 4 should be involved with is defending themselves

Forget that you may have an inkling that here at DWT we feel Pelosi's incompetent and corrupt DCCC has become a source for both evil and failure over the last decade, rather than a worthwhile and constructive party organ. One of my first beefs with them-- under Rahm-- is how they tried to dictate-- despite their own "rule" to the contrary-- who Democratic nominees should be. They claim they don't, but they do-- all the time.

I asked a couple of dozen candidates for their views on the DCCC endorsing in primaries. First I spoke to some who either have DCCC tacit backing or are close to getting it. One told me that he wants DCCC backing in the general election when he has to face a Republican incumbent loaded with corporate special interest money. He told me he feels the voters in his district should pick the candidate, not some power-players in DC. I've never heard a candidate who the DCCC wants to back in a primary not wanting their backing before. This would be an historic first if it actually happens.

Another candidate, in a similar situation said this to me off the record: "We're now hearing they might interfere on our behalf... apparently they had some consultant meeting in DC and a question was asked about if there's a candidate who, on paper, looks like the right one (pedigree, fundraising, etc.) but it's becoming clear that there is a better candidate for the district with a better chance of winning, what would they do, and they acknowledged this openly and said they would use data to try and push the other person out, use the delegation, and spend against them in the primary if needed. I've heard more from other members that it is looking like this as well. Obviously I think this is what they should have been doing all along-- supporting the candidates from the communities with the best chances of winning. Maybe there are signs they are learning?"

I don't agree with him at all. He's a good candidate and I understand why he wants their help in clearing the field but it's anti-Democratic and I urged him to reject their help until after the primary.



Paul Perry is in an excruciatingly tough primary in swingy PA-07, with at least 7 vying for the Democratic nomination to take on Ryan rubber stamp Pat Meehan. There are several DCCC-type candidates-- including an "ex"-Republican-- and there are also 2 other progressives besides Paul Perry, state Senator Daylin Leach and last cycle's candidate Mary Ellen Balchunis. Last cycle, the DCCC didn't want Mary Ellen as the nominee and spent $14,500 on some manufactured establishment candidate, Bill Golderer, who they helped raise $351,551 to depend against Mary Ellen, about $300,000 more than she spent in the primary. But she whipped his ass from Worcester, Whitemarsh and Blue Bell down through Radnor, Wayne, Marple Township, Springfield and down and around to Intercourse and the suburbs south of Reading-- 52,792 (74%) to 18,509 (26%). The DCCC was confused about how someone they judged as not able to win votes could beat the well-funded corporate candidate they parachuted into the district. What did they learn? Absolutely NOTHING! In fact, instead of rallying around Balchunis to defeat Meehan, Pelosi-- who in her more and more difficult to cover up dotage is always babbling her nonsense about "when women win..."-- led a campaign to sabotage Balchunis' fundraising ability. The DCCC pulled out of the district entirely and, allowed Mary Ellen to be swamped with Meehan's cash while Hillary won the same day Meehan beat her. That's what they do. They lie and tell sappy donors they don't interfere in primaries and what they did to Mary Ellen is what they have always done since Rahm was Pelosi's first tragic pick as DCCC chair. And they're doing the same thing today-- picking, for example, Pelosi's 2018 DCCC mascot to run in CA-39.

Here's how Mary Ellen explained what happened to her: "When I taught Political Parties & Elections, I told my students that primaries were when the electorate selected who they wanted to represent the party in the general election, not who the DCCC wanted to represent the party! Although, that is what the DCCC did in my 2016 congressional campaign. They went outside the district and found a wealthy candidate who angered many political committee people and leaders. In Chester County, the Kennett Area Democrats sent numerous emails to the DCCC Chair saying we have a candidate; and it is Mary Ellen Balchunis. As someone, who has worked for the party for decades and ran when the party asked me to run in what many described as the most gerrymandered district and knowing I would lose with the idea 2016 would be better, it was very demoralizing to have the DCCC put someone up against me, rather than support me. I went on to defeat their candidate who outspent me by hundreds of thousands of dollars, 74% - 26%. If the DCCC wants to be the people's party and win, they should let the people select the candidate in the primary and support that candidate in the general!"

Anyway, let's get back to Paul Perry. Yesterday he told us that he believes "the DCCC should be leading the hard work that many grassroots and independent organizations are doing to build a strong bench of progressives candidates, beyond those who can simply self-fund or raise millions in corporate PAC dollars. While it's fine to have high expectations of candidates in terms of community resources they can leverage to win elections, we need Democratic Party leadership to consider and plan for the long game of building the capacity of local leaders while empowering them to win elections and govern as just leaders. Any backdoor influencing of primaries should be brought to light and ended in order for the playing to be leveled for candidates across all lines of difference if we're aiming to build a truly egalitarian Democratic Party."

With Gabriel McArthur's decision yesterday to withdraw from the CO-06 congressional primary and run for Colorado Secretary of State, Levi Tillemann is left as the progressive alternative to the shady establishment candidate the DCCC is pushing, Jason Crow. He wants the DCCC to stop pushing Crow and let the Democratic voters of the district decide who their nominee should be. "This primary," Levi told us this morning, "should be about ideas, public service and what's best for the people of Colorado-- not the preferences of unaccountable political operatives in Washington. Too often, the DCCC gets behind candidates that are simply the most likely to funnel cash into the coffers of the DCCC. They're great at raising money, but not at winning hearts and minds."

Another candidate who has extensive experience with the DCCC from the inside, practically wrote a whole post on the topic but asked that I skip the name part. "When I'm elected I'm perfectly happy to go on the record in terms of the DCCC but for now if we could not associate my name with any of..."

What the DCCC is doing is a disservice to us finding the best candidates for each Congressional District in Orange County. They clearly have picked their candidate in the 48th district and while he looks great on paper and he may end up being a good candidate, it doesn't do anyone good to push out all the other candidates before we actually know whether he's the real deal or whether he's going to completely fall on face.  We've seen lots of people who seem like they are great candidates on paper who have failed miserably. Running for office is hard and no matter the resume its hard to predict who is going to be good at it, especially when none of them have run before. If you are the DCCC you should be trying to find as many good candidates as possible, make sure they all have the tools to succeed, and let them fight it out amongst themselves to see who is actually the best candidate. And you shouldn't just be looking for rich people just for the sole reason that they are rich and that they have lots of rich friends who can help them raise money. Who knows for instance if they actually represent the party's ideals? This obsession with rich people and the donor class is at the very root of are party's problems. It's like no wonder as a party we don't have the ability actually talk to working people.

It's also a terrible idea to push people away from a district like 48, where they actually might be the best candidate, to places they don't actually live. In the 39th congressional district in particular the DCCC seems to have a complete lack of understanding in terms of what a bad idea it is to run someone not from that district. If they had paid any attention to the Sukhee Kang/Josh Newman race they would know what a bad idea it is. If the candidates who live in 48 and who are running in 39 are as good as people think they are, let them run in the district that they actually live in. Look at what happened with Ossoff in Georgia; whatever his reasons in terms of not living in the district and no matter how good they were, he gave Republicans a free attack line to use against him and I don't know if that's why he lost but it certainly didn't help.

There are candidates who are potentially announcing soon in 45 who actually live in 48 and preferred to run there and were told not to. How does that help anyone run against Mimi Walters, who herself doesn't live in 45 but instead lives and is registered to vote at her $8 million dollar home in Laguna Beach in the 48th district? The real problem is they do not seem to understand that Orange County is not a monolithic place and each of these communities are incredibly unique and separate from one another. It's not the game of musical chairs they think it is.

One of the things I noticed when I was running is that no one seems to have learned any lessons from our past failures. Since 2010 whatever we've been doing as Democrats hasn't worked and there all kinds of failures across the country that demonstrate that. In California we continue to fail cycle after cycle to unseat vulnerable Democrats in territory that should be very favorable to us. The fact that Steve Knight, David Valadao, and Jeff Denham are still members of Congress is a demonstration of that. And yet when I asked people who are part of the party's political apparatus what we had done wrong in those seats or in other places around the country and how I could avoid making the same mistakes, no one seemed to have any idea or have any other advice other than "raise a ton of money and hope the national environment is in your favor." That seems extremely problematic to me that no one seems to have any other ideas.

I very much tried to reach out and find out who in the Democratic Party was being the most innovative when it came to campaign strategy and what are the things that I could be doing differently to make sure that I would actually win, and no one had anything to offer. The only advice anyone has is always just to raise as much money as humanely possible. I'm not complaining about that because you can't win without money but just because you have it doesn't mean that you are going to win. More fundamentally we just completed an election where Donald Trump is now the President of the United States and nobody seems to have any idea as what we should be doing differently when it comes to campaigns.

And the thing is it has nothing to do with who is in charge of the DCCC. You can keep changing the staff and keep changing the person in charge and things aren't going to change. Because the way you rise in a place like DC is by learning to be like the people in charge and developing the skills that they have. That's how we as a party have trained an entire class of political operatives and consultants. They are where they are and have risen in politics because they learned how to be like their predecessors and mentors. And when you put them in a position of authority, they are never going to do anything differently. Because they've never learned any other skill-set and doing it the way they know has gotten them where they are. And they also know by continuing to do it that way, even if they lose races, that's the way to avoid blame (as everyone will just blame the political environment instead).

The other thing I've learned is that when you talk to actual members and ask them about their experiences with the DCCC when they first ran, none of them have anything good to say about it. There is something wrong whenever even the members themselves have nothing good to say about the institution and when they give you advice along the lines of "don't let the DCCC push you around."

Bob Poe has been a major Democratic donor from Florida who was once chairman of the Florida Democratic Party and got a taste of what the DCCC is all about when he ran for Congress last cycle and was successfully opposed by a Pelosi New Dem pick, Val Demings, who predictably, has turned out to be one of the worst Democratic freshmen in Congress. It was hard to get Poe to tell his story but he did share a few words he thought would be helpful for DWT readers to understand. "From the day Democrats became the minority in the House of Representatives in 2010 until today, I have received literally thousands of emails from the DCCC asking, begging and pleading for contributions to defeat Republicans and regain the majority. Countless donors large and small have donated millions in pursuit of that noble effort. But, what most donors don't know is the dirty little secret that the DCCC spends a significant amount of of their scarce resources not defeating Republicans but in defeating Democrats. Each cycle, the DCCC involves itself in Democratic primaries-- even in races that are safely Democratic regardless of who wins the primary. This practice is dishonest and it needs to stop."

Doctor David Gill is running in an Illinois district the DCCC keeps losing. He explained to use this morning that "Perhaps no Congressional district in America better reflects the deep schism within the Democratic party than IL-13. As we saw during last year's Presidential primaries, there is a deep divide between the corporatist Democrats and the Berniecrats. I defeated the DCCC's hand-picked candidate in the 2012 primary in IL-13, and I went on to lose the general election that year by just three-tenths of one percent. I was handicapped by the presence of a liberal Independent on the ballot that year, a man who expressed all of the same views as me, arguing in support of campaign finance reform, single-payer healthcare, gay marriage, a woman's right to make her own reproductive health choices, and aggressive action against climate change. That liberal Independent received a little more than seven percent of the vote, and Republican Rodney Davis went off to Washington as an accidental Congressman.

"The progressive positions that I support actually won in this district by approximately seven points in 2012. However, the DCCC insisted that my progressive stances had cost me the election, and they chose to run a candidate with much more 'moderate' views in 2014. The result: the 'moderate' Democrat lost by 50-60 times what I had lost by two years earlier.

"And did the DCCC learn anything from the 2014 debacle? Hardly-- rather than supporting my current campaign, they have once again recruited a more 'moderate' Democrat, a woman who has not expressed any public support for issues such as single-payer, a $15 per hour minimum wage, or tuition-free public universities. One can only theorize about the DCCC's motivation in spurning a physician who outperformed President Obama in this district, but one certainly has to wonder if the DCCC's primary goal is to win seats for Democrats. Are they more interested in having lukewarm 'moderate' candidates that they can control, but who subsequently lose decisively, or do they truly want to attain majority status in the U.S. House?"

UPDATE: Lou Vince Would Have Beaten Knight In CA-25

The DCCC pushed a progressive police officer and local elected official, Lou Vince, out of the CA-25 race last cycle to make room for some rich guy-- a Beverly Hills attorney, Knight never stopped emphasizing, from far off Orange County-- and that ended catastrophically. While Hillary was decisively beating Trump in the district, Caforio sat around waiting for her coattails to sweep Knight away... something that didn't happen. Caforio says he wants to try again though polls show he would lose again with almost exactly the same numbers. This morning Lou Vince, who isn't running again, told us that "The DCCC is the reason that we have lost so many races in the last few cycles. They fail to learn any lessons from their losses and that's the primary reason we lost in CA-25 in 2016. Rather than focus on candidates that understand issues and connect with the voters, they'd rather have candidates that function as ATMs and use D.C. talking points like robots. Their meddling needs to stop and they need to stop importing carpetbaggers to lose in winnable districts. They need to stop inserting their vanilla centrist candidates claiming to be progressives."

The GOP's Class War Against Their Own Base-- Bernie Is Fighting Back For Them

Many 2018 congressional candidates are delighted to campaign against Trump and to tie their opponents to him, especially the ones with big Trump vote scores. Several of the Blue America-endorsed candidates are running against far right GOP incumbents who literally have 100% pro-Trump voting records, as Doug Applegate has pointed out about Darrell Issa and Katie Hill has pointed out in the case of Steve Knight, who blatantly lies to his Santa Clarita/Simi Valley/Antelope Valley constituents in trying to pain himself as "bipartisan" and "mainstream." Randy Bryce's opponent, Paul Ryan, has a 100% Trump score as does Paul Clements' opponent, Fred Upton.

And more candidates than not are delighted to point out the glaring Putin-Gate scandals that have become a nightly staple of the #1 and #2-rated cable TV shows, Rachel Maddow's and Lawrence O'Donnell's, both of which are absolutely crushing Fox News in their time slots, with Fox News adamantly refusing to expose Trump's and his Regime's Putin escapades. Yesterday Bernie was in Morgantown, West Virginia and Covington, Kentucky, not to talk about Russia or Trump or Putin-Gate but to talk with voters in these two states Trump won in landslides (68.7-26.5% in West Virginia and 62.5-32.7% in Kentucky) about the Republican legislation they're passing off as "healthcare" that is really nothing but the Republican Party's class warfare against workers. Before the rally in Covington Bernie issued a shot across the bow of Kentucky's senior senator, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell:

Since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was implemented, no state in the country has benefited more from the ACA than Kentucky. The uninsured rate for adults in Kentucky has gone down from 20.4 percent in 2013 to just 7.8 percent in 2016-- the largest reduction in America. Today, as a result of the ACA, only 4 percent of children in Kentucky are uninsured.

Unbelievably, at a time when Kentucky has made significant progress in health care, the Republican bill being proposed in the Senate by Kentucky’s own Senator Mitch McConnell would throw over 230,000 people in Kentucky off of health insurance. It would also decimate the Medicaid program in the state which provides insurance for more than 2 million people, including 40 percent of all children.

Further, at a time when Kentucky is struggling with an opioid addiction epidemic, there is no question that if McConnell’s legislation were to be passed, thousands of Kentuckians would no longer be able to receive the treatment they desperately need.

The bottom line is that this legislation, which nationally would throw 22 million Americans off of health insurance, cut Medicaid by almost $800 billion, substantially raise premiums for older workers and defund Planned Parenthood, is a disaster for America but an even greater disaster for Kentucky and other states that voted heavily for Trump. This Republican legislation must be defeated.

Bernie's populism is as different from Trump's as their Twitter feeds are

I want to reiterate something we looked at Saturday morning. Covington is the county seat of Kenton County, Kentucky's third most populous county. And, yes, Trump won that county decisively in November-- 59.7% to 33.7% but on primary day, Kenton County told a far different story. On the Republican side, Ted Cruz won Kenton Co. with 2,475 votes to Trump's 1,997. And Hillary and Bernie each beat both of them. Bernie won 4,880 votes countywide-- more than Cruz and Trump combined. Bernie was on the road punching back-- and so are the candidates who have been inspired and energized by his message. You think candidates like Randy Bryce in Wisconsin, Dave Gill in Illinois and Jenny Marshall are going to shy away from talking about how economic inequality is impacting working families in their districts? That is largely what their campaigns are about? That and how they plan to fight back against Republican efforts to tilt the scales further in favor of the top 2% of wealth-holders. This morning Randy Bryce told us that "Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that it’s not a working person’s house that he is speaking on behalf of. In addition to not wanting to have a public town hall because of his horrible policies, he is trying to steal what we have left of health care. Now that our campaign has taken off, he’s had the NRCC unleashed against me even though he won his last election by 35 points! What is he afraid of? Oh yeah-- that would be the people in the district. He can run but he can’t hide. November 6, 2018 can’t get here soon enough."

Jenny Marshall, the Blue America-endorsed progressive running against Trump/Ryan rubber stamp Virginia Foxx in central North Carolina, has a similar perspective. "As I travel the 5th district talking to people on the street," she told us, "the overwhelming issue that keeps coming up is money. It doesn’t surprise me in the least, as the poverty rate across the 5th district is 18.6% which is 4.3% higher than the nation's average. A staggering 44% of the households in the district are low-income meaning their incomes were less than twice the poverty level ($48,500 for a family of 4). People are hurting. They want a representative who understands and will fight for a better future for their family. We cannot ignore their pain any longer." Last month, a short article in The Economist about how little tax the Scandinavian super-rich pay gave them more fodder.

Of life's two certainties, death cannot be dodged even by the well-to-do. Taxes are another matter. Quantifying quite how much they manage to keep from the taxman, however, has always been tricky. One common approach governments take is to conduct randomised audits of tax returns. This methodology can give regulators a rough sense of overall tax revenues lost. But it is far from ideal. For instance, studies based on randomised tax audits are usually both too small and too crude to reflect accurately the financial shenanigans of the most egregious tax-dodgers: the super-rich.

A new study by Annette Alstadsæter, Niels Johannesen and Gabriel Zucman, three economists, tackles this problem by investigating two recent financial-data hoards: the “Swiss leaks,” a record of bank accounts held at HSBC in Switzerland; and the “Panama papers,” files that document the use of offshore accounts and shell companies by clients of Mossack Fonseca, a law firm in Panama. By matching the leaked information with wealth data from Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the authors are able to construct the most detailed estimate to date of the extent of tax evasion.

Their research leads to two conclusions. First, tax evasion is extremely concentrated. The average Scandinavian household paid around 3% too little in taxes in 2006; the richest 1% of households, with net assets of at least $2m, underpaid by around 10%. The truly rich, though, behave truly differently. The top 0.01% of households, with net assets of over $40m, short-changed the taxman by a whopping 30%.

Second, the numbers imply that previous estimates of wealth inequality, often based on tax data, have understated the problem. And the Scandinavian statistics may provide a conservative estimate of worldwide tax-dodging: only around 2% of Scandinavian household wealth is held in offshore accounts, compared with the global average of 4%.

Globalisation has disproportionately benefited the rich in part by rewarding capital more handsomely than labour. But globalisation has also made it easier for the well-heeled to hide their wealth. In that sense, maybe the data should cause even more surprise: despite the best efforts of a lucrative global tax-evasion industry, Scandinavia’s ultra-rich are paying 70% of their taxes.

As Alan Grayson reminded me yesterday Citizens for Tax Justice has research that shows basically identical anti-social trends by the super-rich here in the U.S. Earlier today, Ro Khanna (D-CA), who has become one of Congress' top champion's of action to make economic equality and equality of opportunity attainable goals in this country, reminded is that "Picketty has shown that today's economy favors capital over labor. Our tax rules also favor shareholders over the working class. That is why working families feel that the system is rigged against them-- that they are working harder but making less. We need to restructure the economy to reward work instead of speculation and to hold the investor class accountable for the taxes they owe."

I look forward to do the day Ro Khanna is working with Dr. Dave Gill, a central Illinois House candidate, to translate these lofty goals and ideals into programs and tangible progress. "Here in IL-13," Dave told us this morning, "we've seen the impact of economic inequality for the past 20-30 years, with jobs sent overseas and reduced access to appropriate health care and educational opportunities. As I travel through the district, I see the blight of poverty everywhere, and it pains me to know that IL-13 voted for Trump by 5 points last year. There is good news on the horizon, though-- I talk with citizens throughout the district, and among those who did vote for Trump, there are huge levels of buyer's remorse. They now recognize that his 'economic populism' was a crock, and they're angry that they got deceived by him. It started with his Cabinet picks, and the anger has grown as they've come to learn more about TrumpCare. As an E.R. physician, I know all too well the consequences of a bad healthcare system, and I look forward to going to Congress and helping to lead the charge toward Single-Payer. I've been a Bernie fan since the early 90's, and I'm proud that Bernie handily won our district in the Democratic primary last year. I hope to follow in his footsteps and ultimately join him in Washington."

Holding Republicans Who Wanted To Take Away Their Constituents' Health Insurance Accountable

Let's go beyond the orgy of recriminations and finger-pointing over the massive and devastating Ryan-Trump-Pence-Price health care loss. This weekend, Wall Street Journal readers are being told to see it as "a major blow to the Trump Presidency, the GOP majority in Congress, and especially to the cause of reforming and limiting government."

The damage is all the more acute because it was self-inflicted. President Trump was right to say on Friday that Democrats provided no help, but Democrats were never going to vote to repeal President Obama ’s most important legislation. And that’s no excuse. Republicans have campaigned for more than seven years on repealing and replacing ObamaCare, and they finally have a President ready to sign it. In the clutch they choked.

The Journal accused the Freedom Caucus of sabotage: "When one of their demands was met, they dug in and made another until they exceeded what the rest of the GOP conference could concede. You can’t have a good-faith negotiation when one party doesn’t know how to say yes-- or won’t." They suggest that Señor Trumpanzee may be able to recover from this debacle, but as an opening act to a new Presidency the collapse of his first legislative campaign is ominous. In business Señor Trumpanzee "liked to 'get even.' He’s got some scores to settle with the Freedom Caucus." That was an unsigned editorial.

The writer wasn't interested in facing the fact that the bill was untenable and indefensible-- and politically suicidal. The Washington Post documented calls coming into Congress over the last day or two before Ryan pulled the bill and finally threw it in the trash. Calls to House members in support of Trumpcare: 1,130. Calls to House members in opposition to Trumpcare: 59,337. And not just to Democratic members. This bill was unpopular among Republican voters, especially among Republican voters in swing districts. In a poll released Thursday by Garin-Hart-Yang for Priorities USA and Patriot Majority USA, it became obvious Ryan shouldn't force Republicans-- in the words of Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton-- to walk the plank by voting for this hated concoction. Forget the frightening enough national 17% approval rating, the poll looked at 20 battleground congressional districts currently held by Republicans-- including 11 carried by Hillary Clinton in November, and nine carried by Donald Trump. These are the Clinton districts polled:

• AZ-02- Martha McSally had announced she was voting yes
• CA-25- Steve Knight was flip-flopping all over the place
• CA-45- Mimi Walters had announced she was voting yes
• CA-49- Darrell Issa flip flopped half a dozen times between yes and no
• CO-06- Mike Coffman had announced he was a yes vote
• IL-06- Peter Roskam was always a big supporter of TrumpCare
• MN-03- Erik Paulsen said he was likely to vote yes
• NY-24- John Katko wisely read the tea-leaves and came out against the bill at the last minute
• PA-07- Pat Meehan was another likely yes vote but said he was undecided to the end.
• VA-10- Barbara Comstock got scared at the last minute and said she was opposed.

These are the districts polled that went for Trump in November but where buyers' remorse appears to be strong now and which the Democrats may target in 2018:

• FL-18- Brain Mast was a strong TrumpCare supporter
• IA-01- Rod Blum wanted an even more draconian bill
• IA-03- David Young announced he would vote no and Ryan's superPAC cut off his campaign funds
• ME-02- Bruce Poliquin was consistent-- as a tap-dancer who never told anyone how he would vote
• MN-02- Jason Lewis voted for Trumpcare in the House Budget Committee
• NY-01- Lee Zeldin never wavered in his TrumpCare support
• NY-19- John Faso was a little flip-floppy but he voted for the bill in the House Budget Committee
• PA-08- Brian Fitzpatrick came out against the bill after the CBO report
• VA-02- Scott Taylor was a zombie-like supporter.

All 20 districts have something in common today-- aside from having a Republican copngressmember-- dissatisfaction with TrumpCare. The survey found that information about the Republicans’ plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act-- combined with voters knowing their Republican member of Congress supports the plan-- resulted in a net 13-point swing away from the Republicans in the vote for Congress, including substantial movement in districts President Trump carried in November.

Across districts, Republican incumbents (respondents each heard the name of their own representative) have a 35% positive and 30% negative personal favorability rating-- with a combined 35% saying they are neutral or don’t know enough to offer an opinion. (This compares to a much cooler 39% positive, 51% negative rating toward President Trump, even though this set of districts as a whole was evenly split in November.) Across districts, the Republicans’ job approval stands at 46% approve, 34% disapprove, with 1 in 5 (20%) volunteering that they are not sure.

At the outset of the poll, voters are inclined to re-elect their incumbent over a generic Democratic challenger, but only by 44% to 38%-- with these Republicans notably under the 50% mark. With no information given, Trump districts vote for the Republican by 9 points (43% to 34%) with almost 1 in 4 (23%) saying they are not sure, while Clinton districts begin at a near dead heat (43% Republican, 42% Democrat).

However, on both approval and the trial heat for Congress, there is potential for real, substantial movement toward the Democrats--including in districts Trump won in November. After hearing a positive argument in favor of the GOP plan, information about its provisions and consequences, and messages against their own incumbent for supporting it, we are able to really move the needle in a way that is rarely driven by a single issue, as it is in this case. Overall, voters move from approving of their congressperson by 12 points (46% approve, 34% disapprove) to disapproving by 21 points (35% approve, 56% disapprove)-- a net shift of 33 percentage points. This includes a net shift of 31 points across the Clinton districts (47% approve, 36% disapprove to 37% approve, 57% disapprove) as well as a notable 36-point shift across the Trump districts (44% approve, 32% disapprove to 32% approve, 56% disapprove).

And movement on the actual vote for Congress is substantial as well, including a net 13-point shift away from the Republicans among voters overall.

...Despite President Trump’s warnings that House Republicans will lose their seats if they do not repeal the ACA, this poll suggests that support for this proposal presents a significant danger for Republicans come 2018. Democrats have a clear opportunity to harness the current battle over ACA repeal-- an issue with which voters are unusually engaged, and one which affects them directly-- to show that their Republican members of Congress are not looking out for them, instead putting the health and economic wellbeing of Americans at risk. Finally, instead of focusing on only a narrow swath of districts carried by Hillary Clinton in November, this poll suggests that communicating across a wider playing field of competitive districts can potentially pay big dividends for Democrats in 2018.

The bottom line takeaway is this: on the average, when those surveyed were told their Republican member of Congress supported the plan, they moved from saying they would reelect their congressman, 44-38, to saying they will elect a Democratic challenger, 45-38 (a net 13-point swing away from the Republicans).

Dr. David Gill is an ardently progressive, long-time Medicare-for-all candidate for Congress in central Illinois' swingy 13th district, which runs from up in Normal, western Bloomington and Champaign and heads south through Decatur to Calhoun and Jersey counties in the suburbs north of St. Louis. The district profile would have worked perfectly for the poll but it wasn't included. This was Bernie country in the primary but Trump won it in November-- 49.7% to 44.2%. On March 17, the clueless incumbent, Rodney Davis, tweeted that TrumpCare was "must pass legislation." A week earlier he told the News-Gazette that he was proud of TrumpCare. When we asked Dr. Gill about Davis' support for TrumpCare and his refusal to hold public town hall meetings with his constituents he told us he was "extremely disappointed to learn that Mr. Davis is supportive of the American Healthcare Act of 2017, aka Trumpcare. This disastrous bill is a tax break for the millionaires and billionaires wrapped in a terrible healthcare bill, which strips insurance coverage from tens of millions of Americans. How can Mr. Davis even be sure that this is what his constituents want, given his repeated refusal to meet with his constituents on this issue?

Blue America has endorsed him and you can contribute to his campaign here. He reminded us that "while Davis won't face his constituents, I can and will. I've been a practicing physician for nearly 30 years, and over that time I've gained a great understanding of healthcare and its financing. As a small businessman, I'm well aware of the flaws of our current healthcare system. While Obamacare has its problems, I have the expertise to fix them. As a member of Physicians for a National Health Program, I have been a supporter of a single-payer healthcare system for the last 25 years. Rodney Davis has spent almost 20 years receiving taxpayer-funded healthcare coverage; this is ironic, given his intention to strip 43,000 of his constituents of their healthcare coverage."