How Badly Will Their Votes Against Impeaching Trump Cost Swing District Republicans?

Fore! by Nancy Ohanian

Michael Scherer, writing for the Washington Post Wednesday, reported that "When the dust clears, the result is most likely to look more like a draw than a victory, say political strategists from both sides." He quoted Democratic pollster Geoff Garin: "I am confident that not a single Democrat anywhere in the country next year will lose their seat because they voted for impeachment." And he quoted Republican pollster Glen Bolger: "I am not convinced that anybody is in significant danger but the small number that represent the other team’s area, and there are a lot fewer than there used to be." I disagree-- with both of them.

I suppose that an argument can be made that John Katko (R-NY), Fred Upton (R-MI) and Rodney Davis (R-IL) were already among the walking dead. But the argument is, at best, a stretch if not spurious. All three swing district Republicans are putting up an intense fight to hold onto their seats, and despite voting against impeachment, each is raising huge war chests. Katko has already raised this $1,182,000 cycle. Davis has raised $1,504,629. And Upton, who is independently wealthy, has raised $962,016 and is spending as though his political life depends on it-- which it does.

Tuesday we looked at polling from their districts showing that most voters are less likely to vote from them specifically because of their impeachment votes. Change Research, which did the polling, asserted in their analysis that "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... 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%). 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. These impeachment persuadables include:

• he 14% who currently oppose impeachment because they “haven’t seen enough evidence to know if his conduct was wrong,”

•  the 6% who believe “his conduct was wrong, but it is not impeachable,”

• the 1% who think “his conduct was impeachable, but impeachment will divide the country 
and the public should vote to remove him in the next election,” and

• the 2% who are undecided on impeachment. 


Change Research emphasized that Katko, Upton and Davis "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."

Unfortunately for Katko, Upton and Davis, NY-24, MI-06 and IL-13 don't have enough Republican voters to win an election without substantial support from independents, who overwhelmingly reject their arguments for not voting to impeach. Change Research concluded that "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."

So will it cost them? Yes, with one caveat. Their Democratic opponents have to make the case against them next summer and fall leading up to the election. Jon Hoadley (MI-06) and Dana Balter (NY-24) are talented political leaders. I have less faith in the DCCC's establishment hack running in IL-13.

It was no surprise that Donald J. Bacon voted against impeaching Donald J. Trump. They're couldn't be more similar and each supports the other. Omaha progressive congressional candidate Kara Eastman noted that "Majorities of people nationally and in NE-02 recognize that Trump did something very wrong and abused his power. While White House propaganda and media bothsides-ism has somewhat tempered the number of people willing to commit to impeach-and-remove, the fact is that Republicans like Don Bacon will seal their political fates with their vote against impeachment across the nation. It's about checks and balances pure and simple."

Liam O'Mara's opponent in Riverside County, Ken Calvert, is a lockstep Trump puppet and no one there, let alone in DC, was shocked when he voted against impeachment. Liam, a history professor, pointed out that "Calvert tried, on the eve of an impeachment vote, to complain that polling did not show voters in favour of impeachment-- saying the Dems had 'failed to make their case.' Not only is this false, it is irrelevant, as any popular action can, in fact, still be found illegal. I can think of quite a few. Impeachment is not a popularity contest. It is part of our system of balanced co-equal branches, meant to ensure lawless officials do not go checked. It involves weighing evidence and deciding a question of legal and constitutional principle. And if Calvert is so unfit to lead on matters of law, and must instead follow the opinion polls, he has no business being in public office."


Now... voting for impeachment may hurt a few useless, worthless Blue Dogs in the reddest of districts, Democrats who tend to vote with the GOP on just about everything. I'd guess Kendra Horn in Oklahoma City and maybe Joe Cunningham in Charlestown, South Carolina and Collin Peterson in western Minnesota. Or maybe the independents in the districts will admire them for taking a tough vote and stickling with their convictions. I suspect it will work with Cunningham and Peterson. 

But the most endangered Democrat is Maine's incredible disappointment, Jared Golden, who campaigned as a progressive and then voted as an arch-conservative all cycle. He was so pathetic on the impeachment vote-- voting for one article and opposing another-- that I think plenty of his 2018 supporters will abandon him next year. "'Standing in the middle of the road is dangerous,' Margaret Thatcher once explained, because you can get hit by cars going both directions. That’s what Golden is experiencing today. Liberals are angry. 'If my congressman, Jared Golden, votes for only one article of impeachment, I will work with all my might to see him defeated next year,' tweeted Stephen King, the best-selling mystery novelist. And Republicans... certainly aren’t placated. 'Golden’s vote to impeach President Trump proves he’d rather stand with the socialist Democrats than Maine voters,' said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Michael McAdams. Golden’s vote will not impact the outcome... But the fact that Golden stands alone says a great deal about not just impeachment but the political era we find ourselves in. Intensifying polarization and tribalism are forcing members to pick a side-- and fully own their decision one way or another-- in ways that used to be much easier to avoid."

In the Iowa U.S. Senate race, I think Admiral (Ret) Michael Franken has what it takes to make the case in regard to Joni Ernst's refusal to seriously consider impeaching Trump. "Republican senators," he told me on Wednesday, "face a Sophie’s Choice: An acquittal will only embolden Trump and cause the GOP even more trouble with suburban, female and independent voters. But if Republicans remove Trump from office, he will just run again in 2020 and take down every GOP incumbent along the way. Republican Senators have to decide whether they want their political destruction coming from outside or inside their ranks. Neither will be pretty."

Populist Rural Voters Were Part Of FDR's Coalition-- Will They Be Part Of Bernie's

Jared Golden made history this cycle-- not just because he's a progressive Democrat who won Maine's second district and not just because prior to Poliquin's defeat no incumbent had lost an election for Maine's 2nd District seat since 1916, but because he is the first member of Congress who won election through ranked-choice voting. The working class whip of the Maine state House, formerly a front line marine, took out Wall Street-backed GOP incumbent Bruce Poliquin. Two years earlier Maine voters had approved the use of ranked-choice voting in a referendum. A long process then ensued culminating in a unanimous state Supreme Court ruling that ranked-choice voting be used to determine 2018 winners. The result:

Maine experienced something of a blue wave this month. Independent Senate incumbent Angus King, who caucuses with the Democrats, was reelected against a Republican who only drew 35% of the vote. Democrat Janet Mills was elected governor over Republican Shawn Moody, replacing Trumpist oaf Paul LePage, who fled the state. Democrats flipped the state Senate from 18 Republicans, 17 Democrats to 21 Democrats, 14 Republicans and greatly increased their strength in the state House. Going into the election there were 74 Democrats and 70 Republicans. After the election, 13 Republican districts flipped and the new lineup is 89 Democrats and just 57 Republicans.

Maine has two congressional seats. The first district, represented by Chellie Pingree, is very blue and has a PVI of D+8. Hillary beat Trump there 54.1% to 39.3%. The relatively compact district, in the southeast corner of the state, stretches from Waterville and Augusta, through Brunswick, Portland, Kennebunk and Wells to Kittery and the suburbs of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It is primarily urban and suburban and very different from the 2nd district.

ME-02, the biggest district east of the Mississippi, is primarily rural (72%), has an R+2 PVI and gave Trump a 51.4% to 41.1% win over Hillary-- after having voted heavily for Obama in 2008 and 2012. Flipping it blue was no mean feat. The DCCC, which wanted Golden to join the Blue Dogs-- he joined the Congressional Progressive Caucus instead-- was not enthusiastic about his progressive record in the state legislature and his strong independent streak. They didn't back him against a richie-rich establishment candidate in the primary and allowed a GOP smear campaign to overwhelm their own spending against Poliquin. The measly $2 million they and Pelosi spent in Maine was nothing compared to the $3,467,925 from Ryan's SuperPAC, $1,089,171 from Trump's SuperPAC and $888,892 from the NRCC that slammed Golden mercilessly throughout the campaign with deceitful ads like this:



ME-02 is the exception to the rule of the 2018 wave narrative that has taken root this month, which is all about suburban women rejecting Trump. That narrative excludes all mention of rural districts like Golden's. But this morning, writing for Reuters, James Oliphant reported that Democrats actually did make inroads in rural America and among the kind of white working class voters that backed Trump over Hillary in 2016. Dems, after all, did win in rural districts in Iowa, Pennsylvania, New York and, as we just saw, in Maine's second district. "Democrats," wrote Oliphant, "increased their share of the vote in dozens of the country’s most rural congressional districts, a Reuters analysis shows." Looking forward, Democratic groups argue that "the party could reach working-class voters by focusing on economic opportunity for those without college degrees."

Compared to 2016 election results, they posted gains in at least 54 districts where the share of households in rural areas was at least 39 percent, or twice the national average, even though they only won a handful of the districts.

That could bode well for Democratic efforts to win the White House and retake the Senate in 2020.

In beating Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, Trump won Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, with their combined 46 electoral votes, by less than 1 percentage point, or by a total of about 80,000 votes.

...Democratic officials were encouraged by the election of Democratic governors Tony Evers in Wisconsin and Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan and Senator Amy Klobuchar’s victory in Minnesota, another state with a large rural population.

Whitmer, who emphasized fixing the state’s roads, won nine counties that went for Trump in 2016. Klobuchar, who may run for president, won more than 40 counties in Minnesota that supported Trump over Clinton.

Still, the road to Democrats’ new House majority mostly ran through cities and suburbs, while Republicans held on to the vast majority of rural districts they were defending.

Democrats lost two tight House races in Minnesota in largely rural districts and the governor’s race in Iowa, reaffirming Republicans’ edge in those regions.

Democrats say they will try to prevent that with new investments and organization in places they had once surrendered as unwinnable.

Officials at the Democratic National Committee say after Democrat Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, the party became preoccupied with defending so-called battleground areas at the expense of the rest of the country, cutting it off from huge swaths of voters.

Tom Perez, chairman of the DNC, said the turnaround began last year with the surprise win by Doug Jones in an Alabama special Senate election-- the first time a Democrat had won a Senate race in Alabama since 1992-- followed by Democrat Conor Lamb’s successful run earlier this year for a House seat in a rural Pennsylvania district long held by Republicans.

Those victories spurred greater investment in places such as Maine, where the party targeted the rural congressional district won last week by Jared Golden, and Georgia, where Democrat Stacey Abrams lost but ran a surprisingly competitive governor’s race.

Lamb’s victory provided a playbook for other rural Democrats such as Golden, Anthony Brindisi in upstate New York, and Richard Ojeda, who ran an underdog campaign in deeply rural West Virginia that drew national attention.

Although Ojeda ultimately lost, he generated the biggest pro-Democrat swing in the country for a House district from 2016-- boosting the Democrats’ share of the vote by 20 percentage points in one of the nation’s most ardently pro-Trump regions.

The candidates embraced some gun rights to avoid alienating rural voters, while advocating a working-class populism that argued the booming U.S. economy was not benefiting their regions.

Like Democrats in congressional races nationally, they supported coverage for preexisting medical conditions. The opioid epidemic was a prominent issue, dovetailing with voters’ concerns over a repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

And speaking about rural politics, it's worth noting that the harvest is in and crops are rotting, while Trump's trade wars are circling the drain. Trumpland is stinking of decomposing grain with no markets. Farmers are going bankrupt; grain storage facilities are cleaning up bigly.

Celebrating The Wave Of Democratic Congressional Wins Still Coming In? Here's A Report About How Trump Got The Cash To Run All Those Attack Ads Against Them

Don’t we even get one day to just celebrate? First AP declared that progressive Democrat Katie Porter had ousted Trump rubber-stamp Katie Porter in Orange County and seemingly minutes later, Maine finished their ranked choice vote count and announced that another committed progressive, Jared Golden will be replacing Trump enabler Bruce Poliquin in Congress. [Note: Katie and Jared aren’t just garden variety Democrats who we’ll never hear from again; each is a proven leader who we can expect great things from in Washington.] Anyway, the great news was just sinking in when I saw David Sirota’s less than sanguine exposé, Big Pharma Bankrolled Pro-Trump Group As Trump Pushed Pharma Tax Cut.

If we’ve learned anything about Donald Trump in the last 3 years, it’s that his word means nothing at all and that he’s the most transaction and opportunistic politician ever. During the campaign, he often tried adopting— with no context— Bernie’s populist ideas. But it was just hot, stinky air. One of Trump’s most popular promises that came directly from Bernie was to lower prescription drug prices. After Trump was elected, the idea was still popular but Trump began working hard to raise drug prices, not lower them. What a guy! And his followers seem not to have noticed— and will likely never notice. The short version of Sirota’s piece for Capital & Main: “In 2017 the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America gave $2.5 million to America First Policies Inc.— a major dark money group supporting President Donald Trump’s political and economic agenda.”

So far this year, America First’s PAC— America First Action— has spent $28,980,959, almost all of it on negative advertising against Democrats. Their biggest expenditures went into attack ads against a dozen canddiates:

• Joe Radinovich (MN)- $3,256,602
• Colin Allred (TX)- $3,036,688
• Joe Donnelly (IN)- $2,820,486
• Claire McCaskill (MO)- $2,625,287
• Jon Tester (MT)- $1,909,540
• Dan Feehan (MN)- $1,738,562
• Susie Lee (NV)- $1,678,086
• Elissa Slotkin (MI)- $1,397,996
• Richard Ojeda (WV)- $1,188,011
• Conor Lamb (PA)- $1,103,793
• Jared Golden (ME)- $1,089,171
• Doug Jones (AL)- $1,077,041

Where did they get that $28,980,959? Aside from the $10,000,000 bribe from the Adelsons, other high rollers giving to the America First umbrella operation… was the the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the top lobbying group for the drug industry and they got exactly what they were paying for: “at the same time,” wrote Sirota, “Trump backed off his position on a major drug issue and promoted a tax plan that was a windfall for the industry.”

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America gave $2.5 million to America First Policies in 2017, according to IRS documents. America First Policies was formed by former Trump advisers in 2017 and proudly touts itself as a pro-Trump organization. The PhRMA money represented more than 10 percent of America First Policies’ revenues in 2017, according to the group’s own IRS filings.

…While campaigning for president, Trump pledged to take action to generally reduce drug prices and to allow Medicare to negotiate lower prices for prescription medications. He then appointed a former pharmaceutical executive to run the Department of Health and Human Services, and slammed the Medicare negotiation concept after a meeting with pharmaceutical executives.

“I’ll oppose anything that makes it harder for smaller, younger companies to take the risk of bringing their product to a vibrantly competitive market,” Trump said. “That includes price-fixing by the biggest dog in the market, Medicare.”

While Trump has moved to allow limited negotiation in some parts of Medicare, he has rejected the larger policy he campaigned on, leaving it out of his prescription drug proposal released earlier this year.

Trump also passed a tax cut that benefited the pharmaceutical industry, but that has not corresponded with a drop in prescription drug prices. America First Policies launched an ad campaign to promote those tax cuts, and spent the end of the 2018 campaign promoting them. PhRMA also gave $1.5 million to the American Action Network, which aired an ad campaign in support of the tax-cut legislation.

This ugly, deceitful ad, run by Trump's America First Action-- and paid for by the major America drug companies that are ripping us all off-- back-fired and helped Jared Golden defeat Trump rubber-stamp and Big Pharma ally Bruce Poliquin:

New England Is Now, Congressionally Speaking, A Republican-Free Zone— Congratulations

Winning smile

Although Maine’s largely rural second congressional district voted for Obama both times he ran, in 2016 it was anything but Hillary country. First Bernie wiped her out in the state caucuses 64.3% to 35.3%. And in the 2nd it was even worse for her. Bernie took every county, Oxford with over 70%. When the general election rolled around, Hillary was toast; Trump beat her 51.4-41.1% in the district— and Wall Street Republican Bruce Poliquin easily beat a hapless identity politics laughing stock the Democrats cluelessly decided to run (again). Poliquin beat Emily Cain 192,878 (54.8%) to 159,081 (45.2%). Two years earlier he had beaten her 133,320 (45.2%) to 118,568 (40.2%) in a 3-way race.

This year, the state House whip, Jared Golden, didn’t wait for the DCCC’s— or anyone else’s— blessing. A former front line Marine (Afghanistan and Iraq), he jumped in and ran on a Bernie-like agenda geared towards the district’s working families. The establishment preferred one of their own, hereditary multimillionaire dabbler Lucas St. Claire. Golden beat him 54.3% to 45.7%.

In the first round of general election voting Poliquin led by a little over 1,000 votes— 46.2% to 45.6%, but because neither candidate received 50%, the state’s ranked choice voting system kicked in— at it kicked in before Poliquin lost his lawsuit trying to stop it from going forward. This afternoon, after the final count, Jared was declared the winner, surging past Poliquin by slightly less than 3,000 votes after the ranked-choice votes of two independents in the race were redistributed.

The final vote tally was 139,231 votes for Golden versus 136,326 votes for Poliquin— or 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent.

This is the first time in U.S. history that a congressional race was decided using ranked-choice voting, which allows voters to cast ballots for their favorite candidate but also rank other candidates in order of preference. Those ranked-choice votes only come into play, however, when no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote on the initial tally.

Thursday’s vote tally may not be the end, however. Poliquin is challenging the constitutionality of ranked-choice voting in federal court, and the campaign could ask for a recount of the results.

…Poliquin and three other plaintiffs had asked U.S. District Court Judge Lance Walker to declare the ranked-choice process unconstitutional and effectively declare Poliquin the winner. They also asked for Walker to halt the tabulation process until he can consider the constitutionality question.

Walker’s order on Thursday denied the request for immediate intervention but leaves open the possibility of a legal battle over the results.

Walker cited Maine voters’ repeated support for ranked-choice voting in his ruling Thursday.

“As it stands, the citizens of Maine have rejected the policy arguments plaintiffs advance against RCV,” Walker wrote. “Maine voters cast their ballots in reliance on the RCV system. For the reasons indicated above, I am not persuaded that the United States Constitution compels the Court to interfere with this most sacred expression of democratic will by enjoining the ballot-counting process and declaring Representative Poliquin the victor.”

…Of the second-choice votes redistributed Thursday, Golden received 10,232 while 4,695 went to Poliquin. More than 8,000 of the ballots cast for independents did not designate a second choice.

This is the first congressional race in the nation to be decided using the ranked-choice voting process. Maine voters have endorsed the ranked-choice process twice via two separate ballot questions.

Another manifestation of the pernicious Trump Effect: no more Republicans in the House from New England-- and just the very vulnerable Susan Collins, who is up for reelection in 2020, in the Senate. I expect great things from Jared who will hit the ground running, having been the progressive "tip of the spear" in the state legislature and who knows exactly how to get legislation passed in a split government.

Jared by Nancy Ohanian

Ranked Choice Voting, Minority Rule, and Maine's Second Congressional District

Click to enlarge

by Gaius Publius

In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure.

—James Madison, on why a Senate is needed to counterbalance the majoritarian House

Minority rule occurs in a political system when a small group of citizens is able to force its will on the large group of which it is a part. Minority rule describes what we have in the United States. A minority of our citizens, self-styled Republicans, write the rules that govern all of the rest of us — Democrats, independents and non-voters.

Mechanisms for creating and enforcing minority rule are many. In the U.S., those mechanisms start with the U.S. Constitution, which has many anti-majority features, such as the Electoral College and the U.S. Senate. According to the New York Times, for example, "a majority of the Senate now represents just 18 percent of the nation’s population." Because most of that majority, senators from the 25 smallest states, are Republicans, control of the minority-empowering Senate has been achieved by the political party (of the two viable parties) representing the fewest people.

In fact, the original plan for the selection of senators wasn't even by popular vote, but by the various state legislators. The people were to have no direct say at all in who represented them in the Senate — again, by design.

Other anti-majoritarian U.S. institutions include the U.S. Supreme Court, in which five unelected justices can nullify ("declare unconstitutional") any act of Congress they wish without review or appeal; and the Senate filibuster, by which a minority of senators can block passage of bills supported by the majority. Senators representing just 44% of the country recently confirmed the deeply unpopular Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, where he will likely serve for life.

One could easily add the ease of gerrymandering congressional districts to this list. And our elections themselves, in which the winner is determined by whoever gets the most votes, sometimes supports minority rule, since the person getting the most votes doesn't always get a majority of the votes. In as many ways as possible, it seems, the U.S. is designed to be governed by powerful minorities.

So what are the offsets to these anti-majority mechanisms? Obviously, major constitutional reform is needed in more than one area. But one way to avoid rule by the minority in elections is by implementing something called "ranked choice voting."

Watch the short video below to see, first, how ranked choice voting works, and second, how it's working in Maine, where Democrat Jared Golden is in a tight race against a Republican and two independents in the Maine's second district.

Maine is pioneering ranked choice voting in its federal elections this fall and it could change everything about the way that candidates campaign — and win. We take a look at the race for Maine's 2nd Congressional District, where ranked choice voting could decide the race. pic.twitter.com/iBkDRdhFwD

— The Fix (@thefix) October 31, 2018

Notice that even though the measure is called undemocratic by some and even unconstitutional by others, it's neither. The fact that it's mainly opposed by Republicans is an added indicator that it solves at least part of the problem of rule by a minority.

I'd like to emphasize two points before ending. First, our current voting system is called "plurality voting" because a majority is not required to produce a winner; a plurality of the votes cast will do it. Recall that President Clinton won his first election with just 43% of the popular vote (a plurality, not a majority), but 55% of the Electoral College. Ranked choice voting always requires an absolute majority of votes — 50% plus 1 — before a winner is declared.

Second, the argument that ranked choice voting sometimes produces anti-progressive results (i.e., sometimes benefits Republicans and corporate Democrats) is accurate. Ranked choice voting simply enables the will of the majority, whatever that will is at the time the vote is taken. And majorities too sometimes go off the rails.

Yet is that a reason not to support it? After all, if progressives are people who believe in expanding the electorate, rather than just expanding our electorate, it should make simple sense to support and enact ranked choice voting wherever possible.

After all, expanding only our electorate is what Republicans do, right?

GP
 

The Anti-Red Wave Is Ankle-High Already-- Will It Be Knee-High On Tuesday? Waste-High? Over Their Heads?

Late Tuesday night, Peter Baker reported for the New York Times that "In the last days before a midterm congressional election that will determine the future of his presidency, Mr. Trump seems to be throwing almost anything he can think of against the wall to see what might stick, no matter how untethered from political or legal reality. Frustrated that other topics-- like last week’s spate of mail bombs-- came to dominate the news, the president has sought to seize back the national stage in the last stretch of the campaign. Ad hoc though they may be, Mr. Trump’s red-meat ideas have come to shape the conversation and, he hopes, may galvanize otherwise complacent conservative voters to turn out on Tuesday. But he risks motivating opponents, as well, and he has put even some of his fellow Republicans on the spot as they are forced to take a position on issues they were not expecting to have to address."

The newest crazy move by an ally of the White House Crackpot is to hire women to claim that Bob Mueller sexually abused them. Jack Burkman, a Republican lobbyist, conspiracy theorist and Trumpist hate talk radio host, is the paymaster on this one and the FBI is investigating him and trying to find out where on the Republican Party food chain the hoax was hatched.

But the illegitimate fake "president" is hardly the only desperate Republican this week. Congressional Republicans all seem to feel they have been granted permission-- by Trump and by the right-wing public-- to lie their asses off in their ads and debates, brazenly, according to HuffPo reporter Jonathan Cohn. For example, how does a Republican Party pro-gerrymandering group get their message across? Cohn offers this radio ad with more dishonest assertions per second than even Trump's tweets make! Proposal 2 is a ballot initiative to set up a bipartisan commission to draw district lines for seats in the state Legislature and Congress with the goal of ending partisan gerrymandering. But listening to the ad, you'd never know that was even what Prop 2 is about. Listen; it's the sound of GOP desperation as they lose their grip on the levers of power.

6 days out and they're at each other's throats-- pity!

"Distortions in political advertising are part of politics," wrote Cohn... "[b]ut if you get the feeling the most frequent and audacious misrepresentations are coming from one side of the political spectrum, you are not crazy. Around the country, it’s Republicans and conservatives making the most patently ridiculous claims [like] all of those Republicans portraying themselves as champions of protections for people with pre-existing conditions even though they spent last eight years trying to take those protections away. The desperation could be a sign of panic over the polls, which give Democrats a strong chance of winning key statewide races and control of the U.S. House, as well as an outside chance of gaining a majority in the Senate."

In Michigan, that means the governor's mansion flipping red to blue, the state Supreme Court flipping from red to blue, the congressional delegation going from 9 Republicans and 5 Democrats to a big enough change that could amount to 9 Democrats and 5 Republicans! And "Republicans," wrote Cohn, "don’t have an easy way to fight back. Their party leaders have negative approval ratings, while their legislative record in Washington consists of an unpopular health care bill that didn’t pass and an even less popular tax cut that did. And so they seem to have decided the best strategy is just making up stuff about the causes and candidates they oppose."

All over the country, the Republican healthcare message is to frighten people into believing that single-payer health insurance-- whether that particular Democrat backs it or not-- would "destroy" Medicare.

Yesterday, Chuck Todd and company noted that everything seems to be moving in the direction of the Democrats in the last few days of Republican desperation. Trump's approval rating is sinking again; the generic polling is moving up for Democratic candidates-- the good, the bad and the ugly-- especially in the battleground races.

[T]he final week of this midterm season-- with now six days to go-- is how different it is in the closing days versus what we saw in 2016, when Comey, daily WikiLeaks disclosures and a disciplined Trump dominated the final days of that contest.

Is this due to movement after the pipe-bomb scare and Pittsburgh? Is this the political environment snapping back to where it was pre-Kavanaugh? Or is it just noise and a false sense of where things truly stand? (After all, it was six days before Election Day 2016 when the polls had Hillary Clinton up 6 points in Wisconsin.)

The close races that the pundits have been reticent to talk about other than to say "toss-up" have started moving blue. Progressive challenger Jared Golden, in the sprawling, largely rural 2nd district of Maine, has now pulled ahead of Wall Street puppet and Trump enabler Bruce Poliquin. 538 has changed their rating from "toss-up" to "lean Democrat," give Golden a 5 in 8 shot (63.3%), despite Ryan's SuperPAC and its allies spending $4,364,000 on ads smearing Golden, an ex-frontline marine who led the fight in the state legislature to protect healthcare from Republican efforts to take it away and led the fight in the state legislature to raise the minimum wage.

Even in the deep red Trump districts (over R+10) where the DCCC decided not to engage, Democrats have moved up into margin-of-error territory. Look at this: neo-Nazi incumbent Steve King leads JD Scholten by one point-- 45-44%... in a district Trump won by 23 points! The momentum towards Scholten is gigantic-- the true picture of a political tsunami. Ammar Campa-Najjar-- who DCCC right-wing staffer Kyle Layman has worked actively to sabotage-- has basically pulled even with Republican Druncan Hunter in a district where Hillary only got 39.6% of the vote. In western New York's 27th district (PVI- R+11), Hillary did even worse-- 35.2% against Trump's 59.7%-- but progressive Democrat Nate McMurray is now ahead of incumbent Chris Collins (who, like Hunter, is out on bail). Trump keeps going to Montana for hate rallies-- but that seems to have helped little-known Democrat Kathleen Williams pull even with Trumpist incumbent Greg Gianforte, the out-of-state multimillionaire who Trump lauded for body-slamming a reporter.

Another district that will report early on Tuesday is PA-11, one of the only districts in Pennsylvania to have gotten significantly redder after the state was un-gerrymandered. The DCCC had a corporate candidate in the race and she-- and they-- disappeared immediately after the state Supreme Court announced the new boundaries. But the progressive in the race, Jess King, fought even harder and is now within the margin of error in a fight against incumbent backbencher Lloyd Smucker. She's outraged him ($1,623,583 to $1,302,707), out-worked him, out-debated him and now, without the DCCC lifting a finger on her behalf, she's within 4 points of Smucker in a district that 538 says Smucker has an 11 in 12 (92.1%) chance of winning. When the totals are announced earlyTuesday night, a win or even a close loss-- by King will signal that GOP incumbents across the country should be kept away from windows in tall buildings for the rest of the evening.

Will Their Opposition To Healthcare Kill The GOP November 6th?

One of the funniest moments in the election debate this cycle-- at least for me-- came when Arizona congresswoman, Martha McSally, a garden variety Trump rubber-stamp who had voted to repeal protections for pre-existing conditions several times, was cornered by a reporter asking her to square her consistent record against healthcare with her promise now-- as she runs for U.S. Senate-- to protect people with pre-existing conditions from the greed of insurance companies. After lying for a few minutes to a reporter who kept pointing out her votes, she finally said something to the effect of "Can't you ask me about something voters are interested in, like the Caravan?" True, Fox News and hate talk radio hosts are interested in the Caravan... but voters? Not so much. They're more interested in Republicans trying to take away their healthcare.

In TX-10, Mike Siegel is campaign for Congress on a platform that includes Medicare for All. His opponent, Michael McCaul is a Trump enabler who has voted to destroy Medicare and to strip away protections for pre-existing conditions. "I have friends and family who would not be alive, and would not have healthcare, but for the Affordable Care Act's protections for pre-existing conditions," Mike told us. "My cousin received a liver transplant that his private insurance refused to pay for, thanks to the ACA. My opponent Michael McCaul voted repeatedly to repeal the ACA without having any replacement in place. The differences between us could not be more stark, and the choice for voters is clear." This is the ad Mike has been running on social media in his district:



In Omaha, progressive Democrat Kara Eastman has had to confront this bullshit head-on, as her opponent, anti-healthcare fanatic and desperate, compulsive liar Don Bacon (R-NE), has tried to pose as a protector of preexisting conditions-- even though he voted against protecting them every single time he could. "My opponent," she told us, "voted 'Hell Yes' for the AHCA. He claims this would have protected people with pre-existing conditions. However, the Washington Post gave this claim 3 PINOCCHIOS as the law would have allowed states the option to seek waivers that would nullify this promise."



The new Ipsos poll released by Reuters yesterday shows that 58% of likely voters want to keep ObamaCare in place and "eight in 10 likely voters from each major party want to protect coverage for people with existing conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes or cancer." I wonder how long before Trump and his sycophants start claiming they support it too. And have always supported it.

With the Nov. 6 elections looming, Democrats are reminding voters of Republicans’ often-repeated promises to repeal the 2010 law. Many Republican candidates are softening their tone or removing website references decrying what they long derided as “Obamacare,” according to candidates, analysts and healthcare experts in both parties.

As Democrats seek to take control of Congress, they see Republicans as having a particularly weak spot on healthcare. Sixty-seven of the 73 most vulnerable Republican incumbents in the House of Representatives voted at least once to eliminate the ACA and its protections for pre-existing conditions, according to the Center for American Progress Action Fund.



Some of those votes date back to the Obama administration, though his successor, Republican President Donald Trump, also campaigned on a promise to undo the law. A repeal attempt after Trump took office last year failed.

Opinion polls show Democrats as having a chance to achieve the net gain of 23 seats they would need to take a majority in the House, but facing a longer shot at picking up the two seats they need to take control of the Senate.

Democratic activists said the repeated Republican attempts to repeal the ACA provide a powerful tool to motivate voters.

“Healthcare has an ability to move people into action,” said Ben Wikler, Washington director of liberal activist group MoveOn. “It is turning people out in town hall meetings ... getting people to make hundreds of thousands of phone calls and getting voters to the polls.”

One sign of Democratic focus: 54.5 percent of Democrats’ federal election ads from Sept. 18 to Oct. 15 mentioned healthcare, far more than the 8.7 percent that did so at the same time in 2010, according to the Wesleyan Media Project.

Some 33.9 percent of Republican federal election ads mentioned healthcare during this period and 31.5 percent in 2010. Republicans took control of the House in the 2010 midterm elections, boosted in part by opposition to the ACA, which had become law earlier that year.

While the aim of the ACA was to expand healthcare insurance to reach millions of Americans who did not have any coverage, Republicans campaigned for years against it as government overreach, especially its requirement that people buy health insurance or pay a financial penalty.

U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill has made healthcare the focus of her campaign in Missouri against Republican challenger Josh Hawley. The state’s attorney general, Hawley has faced criticism from individuals and healthcare groups for saying he supports covering pre-existing conditions even after suing to end the ACA.

“Everyone is feeling anxious and worried about the future of healthcare,” McCaskill said in a telephone interview. “It’s beginning to dawn on people that the Republicans didn’t have a replacement (for the ACA), and that they have no ideas on how they could do it better.”

Hawley ran for state attorney general by emphasizing his role in a lawsuit against the ACA that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and also worked on a team that successfully challenged the ACA’s requirement to provide contraceptives coverage.

Despite Republican opposition, eight years after its passage many Americans have seen some benefits from the law.

“By the time Republicans last year tried to repeal the law, it had become real, people had benefited,” said Brad Woodhouse, executive director of Protect Our Care. He said at least 20 Republican incumbents have “scrubbed” their websites to appear more supportive of the law.

In Kentucky, Representative Andy Barr has called his vote to repeal the ACA “a great day for freedom in America” but now plays up his support of programs to prevent and treat opioid addiction. In Maine, Representative Bruce Poliquin dropped a promise to “end Obamacare” and now talks about protecting hospitals.



Ted Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, said during a debate this month against Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke that he would protect pre-existing illnesses, despite having once forced a shutdown of the federal government over ACA repeal efforts.

In a hotly contested upstate New York congressional race, Democratic challenger Antonio Delgado has hammered his opponent, first-term Republican John Faso, over his vote to repeal the ACA.

“John Faso, despite voting to take away protections, is running TV ads saying the exact opposite,” he said during a recent town hall meeting. “How can you look someone in the face and say, ‘No, I didn’t do that.’ After a while, you’re just lying to our faces blatantly. This is too real to lie about.”

Faso defended his vote in an interview, saying New York state law already ensures patients with pre-existing conditions are protected, regardless of federal legislation.

Despite support for specific elements of the law, 52 percent of likely voters told Reuters/Ipsos they view the U.S. healthcare system as “poor” or “terrible.”

There's No Weakening Of The Anti-Red Wave

Janet Hook reported for the Wall Street Journal that "Voter interest in the midterm elections has surged to record highs within both parties... findings point to an energized electorate, buffeted by dynamics that bring great uncertainty to the outcome just two weeks away. Her paper's own polling shows Democrats up by 9 points. Even the Republican Party polling firm, Rasmussen, shows the Democrats up, albeit just by 1 point. But the RealClearPolitics average is Democrats up 7.7 points. And last week's most accurate poll, the SSRS poll for CNN, shows the Democrats up by 13 points among likely voters, 54-41%, bolstered by women-- 63-33%. The FiveThirtyEight forecaster gives the Democrats a 6 out of 7 chance to win the majority in the House (84.9%... great odds).

And still... Sean Sullivan at the Washington Post was determined to pen the stupidest election analysis of the weekend: House Democrats' Hope For Wave Election Diminishes As Republicans Rebound. In a lesson of how to gin up excitement, Sullivan wrote that "Democratic hopes for a wave election that would carry them to a significant House majority have been tempered in recent weeks amid a shifting political landscape and a torrent of hard-hitting attack ads from Republicans. Democrats remain favored to win, but GOP leaders believe they can minimize the number of seats they would lose-- and, perhaps, find a path to preserving their advantage in the chamber." Do they now? This is news? Sullivan is either really stupid, really misinformed, or really Republican. He credits "Trump's rising approval rating and the polarizing fight over Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh." Trump's approval rating is sinking not rising, except for one outlier poll. And Kavanaugh? A new released over the weekend by the Associated Press found that just 1 in 4 people think Kavanaugh "was completely honest when he heatedly rebuffed charges of sexual assault and heavy drinking during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing... Overall, 43 percent disapprove of Kavanaugh’s confirmation while 35 percent approve." That's going to derail a powerful anti-red wave that's been building for over a year? To make Sullivan's lame argument lamer, the poll also found that the role played by Trump was only approved by 32% of voters.

Even Mr. Beltway Conventional Wisdom, Dave Wasserman, told him that "The past few weeks haven't really diminished Democrats' chances of a takeover by that much, but they've increased the chances of a small Democratic majority." Sullivan's own reporting about GOP triage doesn't seem to fit the headline all that well.

The GOP is redirecting $1 million from a suburban district in Colorado to Florida, bailing on incumbent Rep. Mike Coffman to try to hold an open seat in Miami. Democrat Donna Shalala, a former Health and Human Services secretary in the Clinton administration, is struggling to break away from Maria Elvira Salazar, a Cuban American and former television anchor, in a district Hillary Clinton won by nearly 20 points.

Republicans have also pulled back in a Democratic-held open seat in Nevada that includes some of the suburbs of Las Vegas. Clinton won there, as well.

...Republicans face other obstacles, including strong Democratic fundraising and enthusiasm, as well as struggling top-of-ticket GOP contenders in some Midwestern states that could hurt candidates down the ballot.

In a newly drawn Pennsylvania district in the suburbs of Philadelphia, where Clinton won by two percentage points, Democrat Scott Wallace, a wealthy philanthropist, said the contentious Kavanaugh fight has improved his chances of ousting first-term GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick.

"On the independent and Democratic side, and of course moderate Republicans, there is a sense of anger about how Dr. Ford was treated," said Wallace, referring to Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when both were teenagers; Kavanaugh denied the allegations. "My observation is that anger is a stronger motivator than gratitude. So, I think by Election Day, you will see the Kavanaugh effect will produce more energy on our side."

A recent New York Times Upshot/Siena College poll showed Wallace leading Fitzpatrick. The Republican held an edge in surveys earlier in the year.



Health care has been a main focal point of Democratic ads, which cast Republicans who voted repeatedly to repeal the law as threats to protections for people with preexisting medical conditions. Democrats have also slammed Republicans who supported the sweeping tax bill, which hasn't produced the political boost the GOP envisioned.

"Consistently, the number one issue that I hear about from voters is health care," said Rep. Katherine Clark, Mass., recruitment vice chair for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Clark said she has been to six states in the last three weeks and Democratic energy is still higher than she's ever seen in a midterm.

...The generic congressional ballot, one measure often used in public polls, shows Democrats in position to capture the majority. Voters are asked whether they would vote for the Democrat or the Republican, without names.

Among registered voters, Democratic candidates led 53 percent to 42 percent, a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted this month showed. Election forecasters and analysts estimate that Democrats need a six- to eight-point advantage to win a majority.

...In a memo to donors, Corry Bliss, the head of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC with ties to Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) wrote that the map was moving in a good direction for Republicans, but Democrats had the financial advantage. He said his group had raised $10 million in two weeks, but that Democrats were outspending the GOP on TV in top races.

And what would you expect him to say to GOP fat cats who he was trying to get more money out of? A prominent Democratic campaign manager just called me while I was writing this piece to scream about what a moron Sullivan is. His rant was too profanity-laced for me to use, although he did say something about agreeing with Trump about the quality of the Washington Post. By the way, please keep the contributions flowing to grassroots progressive who need help with their Get-Out-The-Vote efforts. This thermometer is for progressives who won their primaries and aren't being helped by the DCCC.

Oh... and Sullivan seems to have forgotten to mention early voting-- which is going through the roof. For example, Democrat areas of Georgia are going to have bigger voter turn outs than they did in the presidential election! Look at this and tell me the wave is evaporating.

The Midterms Are All About Two Things: Trump And Healthcare

Will people vote against this? Or to protect healthcare?

Unless the polls are all wrong, the 2 things that will be on the top of most voters' minds when they cast their ballots-- and millions are already doing so in an unprecedented rush to cast ballot early-- are Señor Trumpanzee and on healthcare. Thursday Kaiser released their new poll and yesterday the Associated Press put theirs out. Neither had any good news for the GOP. Both polls indicated that Trump is the top motivator for voters, that Trump's disapproval numbers are sky-high and climbing and that voters want to hand congressional leadership over to the Democrats and plan to vote against their own local Republican candidates. First the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation findings:

• 30% of voters (the highest percentage) said health care was their #1 issue (immigration was half that)
• 83% said which party controls Congress is a motivating factor
• Support for candidates who want to maintain protections for pre-existing conditions is off the charts
• By double-digit numbers, voters trust the Democrats more than Republicans to deal with healthcare-- from improving rural healthcare and dealing with the opioid epidemic to reducing healthcare costs and maintaining Medicaid expansion.
• Trump's approval was 40% and his disapproval 54% (-14%)
• Congressional generic ballot question went for the Democrats by 12%

This was basically about Obamacare in 2 swing states, Florida and Nevada:

And this was about passing Medicare-For-All in the same 2 swing states:

The poll the AP released shows Trump with a similarly devastating disapproval number-- 59% (45% strongly) to just 40% who approve (21% strongly). Far more people disapproval of the whole Kavanaugh scandal-- just 35% approve and 43% disapprove, with 85% of voters saying it is a very important issue for them.

Jesse Lee at the Center for American Progress released a very different-- but also very devastating page of numbers. as we've been making clear over the last month, Lee points out that "An increasing number of Republican incumbents are running television ads claiming that they support protections for people with pre-existing conditions, despite their votes in Congress being wholly inconsistent with this rhetoric." The worst of the Republicans in strongly contested races voted for legislation that would repeal protections for pre-existing conditions did so NINE times. Some weren't in Congress long enough to vote against healthcare 9 times but still voted against protecting pre-existing conditions whenever Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy gave them the chance to.

I've picked out 3 Republicans-- 2 from the chart and Mike McCaul courtesy from Team Jesse Lee-- who did vote against protecting pre-existing conditions all 9 times-- and are now lying about it-- and are also now being challenged by progressive Democrats who say they will co-sponsor the new Medicare-for-All legislation. The other number next to their name indicates approximately how many people in their districts have pre-existing conditions and need the Affordable Care Act in place to maintain healthcare coverage.

• Duncan Hunter (CA-50)- 320,600 vs Ammar Campa-Najjar
• Steve King (IA-04)- 307,900 vs J.D. Scholten
• Michael McCaul (TX-10)- 346,000 vs Mike Siegel

Other Republicans who voted to end pre-existing conditions and are now trying to deceive the voters in their districts include Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05), Chris Collins (NY-27), Bruce Poliquin (ME-02), Mimi Walters (CA-45) and Donald Bacon (NE-02). Collins isn't on the list either, but he voted to repeal protections for pre-existing conditions FIVE times, even though his district, NY-27, has 305,600 residents with pre-existing conditions. His opponent, Nate McMurray, is running on Medicare-For-All and is now exactly tied with Collins. You can contribute to the progressive candidates who have told us they will co-sponsor Medicare-For-All after they're sworn in in January, by tapping on the ActBlue thermometer on the right.

This week the Bangor Daily News used Poliquin's lies on the issue to explain why they had, in part, decided to endorse Jared Golden:

"Last year, Rep. Bruce Poliquin voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with an inferior plan with weaker protections for those with pre-existing conditions that would have led to more than 23 million Americans losing their health insurance by 2026. The House bill that he supported would have been especially harmful to rural areas, like Maine’s 2nd Congressional District... The district deserves a representative who better reflects its needs and values. Jared Golden, a Marine Corps veteran and legislative leader, would be that representative. On health care, which voters have identified as their top concern in this election, Golden would be a vote in Congress to protect and improve the Affordable Care Act while working toward a more permanent solution to extend health insurance to more Americans while also reducing costs. He supports allowing people between the ages of 55 and 65 to buy into Medicare as a step toward universal health care. Contrary to Poliquin’s scary claims, this is not radical and it will not end Medicare coverage for senior. It would simply allow more Americans to participate in a health insurance program that works-- more efficiently than most privately run insurance plans."

It’s official: the 2018 midterms are about health care. In the period between September 18 and October 15, nearly half (45.9 percent) of airings in federal races mentioned the topic while nearly a third (30.2 percent) of gubernatorial airings did the same. Although both parties are mentioning health care, the topic is most prominent in ads supporting Democrats, appearing in 54.5 percent of pro-Democratic airings.

As shown in Figure 1, health care appeared in a third (33.9 percent) of all pro-Republican ads aired in federal races in 2010 (following passage of the Affordable Care Act), but the issue declined in prominence in the following election cycles (appearing in 28.4 percent of pro-Republican airings in 2012, in 20.8 percent in 2014 and in 16 percent in 2016). Mentions of health care in pro-Republican ads airing in federal races jumped in 2018, however, appearing in 31.5 percent of ad airings.