Stooges

The first time I recall ever having heard of Jennifer Horn was in 2008 when she ran for Congress against Paul Hodes (D-NH). In 2011 the very conservative Horn was elected chair of the New Hampshire Republican Party. No fan of Trump, though, she was a founder of the Lincoln Project and serves as a communications stagey consultant for the group-- in other words therapy her to write anti-Trump hit pieces like the one that was published by USA Today, Why Trump's Republican Senate enablers must be ousted this fall: Former NH GOP chair, yesterday. It was about Trump Stooge, the ad (up top) that the Lincoln Project produced and is running in Maine, an ad that is extremely damaging to Susan Collins.

"The Lincoln Project," wrote Horn, "generated strong criticism within Republican circles last week for 'going after' a member of the Republican majority in the Senate. We had released an ad comparing Sen. Susan Collins unfavorably to past senators from her state of Maine, including Margaret Chase Smith-- best known for being one of the few Republicans to stand up to Joe McCarthy and McCarthyism. Chase Smith was fearless and will be forever remembered for her 'Declaration of Conscience' speech in which she called out national leadership and declared the rights to protest, criticize and hold independent thoughts as basic principles of 'Americanism.' It is hard for any serious student of history to deny the common themes of McCarthyism and Trumpism. Both are constructed on a foundation of 'us vs. them,' suspicion of those who were not born in America, attempts to silence protest and dissent, and demonizing those who hold independent or unpopular beliefs. Margaret Chase Smith was a heroine of freedom. Susan Collins is not. And neither is any other Republican currently serving in the Senate, with the exception of Utah's Mitt Romney."

Mitt Romney? A hero of freedom? I don't think so, but remember, these #NeverTrump conservatives are... conservatives. They don't like Trump because they find him odious in the way most Americans do, but also because they judge him to not be a conservative.

Living in fear of a mean Trump tweet

The Republican majority in the Senate has become nothing more than protection racket for a president who has repeatedly declared he would accept foreign assistance in his campaigns and was impeached for trying to get a foreign leader to help him win.

And the Republican Party is angry that some of us refuse to go along for the ride. That includes the Lincoln Project, which is dedicated to the electoral defeat of Trump and Trumpism.

Donald Trump’s three-and-a-half years in office have been a relentless assault on the foundational principles of American democracy. He has driven the divides within our communities, undermined our ability to stand as an example to other nations, and battered our Constitution to within an inch of its life.

The president has sought to isolate our nation from our allies, cozied up to tyrants and dictators and defended white nationalists. He has attacked the free press and our right to protest and fired a military colonel for telling the truth about Trump’s corruption.

Last year, in a shocking action during these times of confirmed, corrupt attempts by America’s enemies to influence the outcome of our presidential elections, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, blocked a requirement that political campaigns report offers of assistance from foreign nations to the FBI. Trump thanked her publicly.

Now he is so mismanaging our response to a global pandemic that we have lost over 155,000 American lives.

Rather than strengthening their resolve to preserve the great ideal of America, Republican senators have become progressively more anemic in their response to this wannabe strongman of a president. They have become puny and faint-hearted, spineless and weak-willed. They have proven they are not worthy of the constitutional responsibilities bestowed upon them by their election to the esteemed United States Senate.

Worst of all, for over a year, Trump has ignored U.S. intelligence assessments that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be paying bounties to the Taliban for killing our soldierson the battlefield. Every day, hundreds of thousands of America’s sons and daughters wake up prepared to give their lives in defense of our nation, in defense of you and me and our families, and Republican senators remain feeble and limp before this president, living in fear of a mean tweet.

No heroic senators running this year

Throughout our history, our leaders have been the most eloquent and persuasive voices for freedom in the world. From Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence to Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation to Martin Luther King’s “content of character” speech, they have woven together the story of independence and freedom, inspiring Americans to rise up together, to fight and sacrifice for together, in defense of what makes our nation unique among all others.

When freedom and Americanism fall under attack by our own president, it is incumbent upon our leaders, regardless of party, to become defenders of liberty and voices for freedom. Margaret Chase Smith was one such American leader, responding to the attacks on liberty from within our own country; her voice will be heard throughout history as a guardian of freedom and democracy.

There are no such heroic voices among the Republican senators up for reelection today.

They have been cowed by this president. They have been silent when the country needs them to speak, weak when our nation needs their strength. And every one of them should expect to be held accountable one way or another. The Susan Collins ad will not be the Lincoln Project's last one reminding voters of these Republican senators' fealty and weakness.

Voting against a bill that would have failed anyway, opposing a procedural motion and dismissing the president’s threatening tweets as “jokes” does not excuse their feebleness in face of the grave danger Trump poses.

Elections are about leadership and accountability. Republicans will pay a price for lacking both.

Yesterday, Kyle Kondik at Sabato's Crystal Ball listed the dozen most likely Senate seats to flip, in ranked order. My list is a little different-- and a bit less optimistic . Democrats are not going to beat Cornyn (TX) and Ossoff is too weak a candidate to seriously take on Perdue (GA). The other Georgia Senate race is a jungle ballot with the top 2 candidates facing off January 5 if no candidate gets 50%, which isn't possible. In fact, there's a chance-- albeit a slim one-- that the runoff will be between appointed, corrupt incumbent Kelly Loeffler (R) and crackpot wingnut Doug Collins (R) with Raphael Warnock (D) and the son of the odious Joe Lieberman splintering the Democratic vote. Anyway, here's my list of most endangered to least endangered (albeit still endangered):

• Martha McSally (R-AZ)
• Cory Gardner (R-CO)
• Doug Jones (D-AL)
• Susan Collins (R-ME)
• Thom Tillis (R-NC)
• Steve Daines (R-MT)
• Joni Ernst (R-IA)
• Dan Sullivan (R-AK)

And, if God intercedes to teach the Republicans a lesson: David Perdue (GA) and Lindsey Graham (SC).

How Sick Will The Pandemic Make The Texas Republican Party By November?

Two COVID records for one-day case increases were broken Wednesday: the U.S. hit its highest number ever-- 51,097, it's first day over 50,000 (although yesterday that mark was topped again, this time with 57,236 new cases)-- and Texas increased by 8,240 cases, more than any country in the world other than the U.S., Brazil or India. Trump and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, have failed-- and failed spectacularly-- in their approach to the deadly pandemic. 2,541 Texans are dead and before the end of the week Texas will have the third most cases of any state in the U.S., overtaking New Jersey. Baked into Texas' current caseload is the likelihood of over 20,000 deaths. Hospitals are already being swamped in Houston and because of Abbott's and Patrick's and their allies' response to the pandemic, this is going to get much worse.

Texas voters are realizing this isn't a game, even if their ideologically-driven leaders do not. For the most part, there is no blue wave coming to Texas in November. But there is a massive anti-red wave brewing, one that will sweep Democrats into office. Even the most conservative and scared-of-their-own-shadows professional prognosticators are claiming they see Republican election chances dimming all over the state.

Yesterday's PPP survey of Texas voters

Last cycle, Democrats claimed two Republican-held congressional districts, one in Houston and one in Dallas suburbs. Yesterday, Kyle Kondik of Sabato's Crystal Ball, noted that their are Democratic murmurings in the Texas suburbs, which is about as far out on a limb as that outfit will ever go this far in advance of an election. They moved 4 "safe" Republican seats into their "likely" column, including a top Blue America target, TX-25 in which progressive Julie Oliver is challenging corrupt reactionary Roger Williams.

At Blue America we see half a dozen Texas seats flipping-- TX-10 (Michael McCaul to Mike Siegel), TX-21 (Chip Roy to Wendy Davis), TX-22 (Pete Olson to Sri Kulkarni) TX-23 (Will Hurd to Gina Jones), and TX-24 (Kenny Marchant to Candace Valenzuela). So far we have endorsed in two of the races and import you to contribute to the two candidates we think will do the most to make Congress a more effective tool for working families-- which you can do by clicking on the "2020 Turning Texas Blue" thermometer on the right.

It isn't likely that Biden is going to win Texas-- despite an outlier Fox News poll last week that showed him slightly ahead-- but he is going to do better than most Democrats have in recent years and he is likely to win in parts of Texas where Obama and Hillary didn't. Wait! An important note here: Biden isn't going to do anything except be there as the GOP falls apart. Kondik pointed out that "In an average of the most recent polls, Trump leads by two points in Texas. In 2018, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) won reelection over then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D, TX-16) by 2.6 points. If Trump were to win Texas by a similar margin this November, the congressional district-level results probably would look a lot like the Cruz-O’Rourke race.

In his 2018 Senate race, Beto won 5 congressional districts that were held by Republicans, TX-07 and TX-31, where Democrats simultaneously vanquished both GOP incumbents, plus TX-10 (Michael McCaul), TX-23 (Will Hurd) and TX-24 (Kenny Marchant). And Beto came close in 7 other districts: TX-02 (Dan Crenshaw), TX-03 (Van Taylor), TX-06 (Ron Wright), TX-21(Chip Roy), TX-22 (Pete Olson), TX-25 (Roger Williams), TX-31 (John Carter). "If Biden were to actually carry Texas," wrote Kondik, "he might carry many or even all of these districts in the process. In a time when ticket-splitting is less common than in previous eras of American politics (though hardly extinct), that could exert some real pressure on Republicans in these districts."

Trump’s Texas sag in 2016 didn’t immediately imperil any Texas Republican U.S. House members, except for retiring Rep. Will Hurd (R) in the perpetually swingy TX-23; it took the 2018 midterm, when Trump’s unpopularity led to big House losses for Republicans, to make many of these districts much more competitive. So it’s possible that Biden could do really well, but not have strong-enough coattails in these and other similar kinds of districts. We also still like Trump’s chances in Texas, despite the close polls.

However, if that changes-- and if Biden wins the state without much ticket-splitting-- there could be some unpleasant surprises down the ballot for Republicans in Texas. That could also include control of the Texas state House of Representatives, which might be in play if things get bad enough for Republicans this November.

Redistricting looms for 2021-- at the very least, Republicans who currently control state government in Texas may have to dramatically re-draw the map to shore up incumbents whose safe seats have eroded over the course of the decade while also accommodating a few new House seats because of Texas’ explosive growth. For Republicans, their gerrymander after the last census (albeit blunted a little by judicial intervention) made practical political sense, but demographic changes and coalition shifts pushed 20 of the 36 districts to vote more Democratic than the state in the 2018 Senate race. And if Democrats somehow win the state House, they will have a formal seat at the table in the redistricting process next year.

And that brings us to this new TV ad from Mike Siegel. In 2018, with zero help from the DCCC, which saw him as "too progressive," Mike held McCaul to a 51.1% win, winning Travis County, the biggest in the district 80,864 (70.4%) to 30,857 (26.9%). Bastrop County was closer for Siegel than it was been for previous Democrats-- 8,454 (53.6%) for McCaul to 6,763 (42.9%) for Siegel. The Harris County portion of the district is where Mike had the most trouble, McCaul beating him 71,717 (62.6%) to 40,820 (35.6%).

Once the DCCC saw the district was winnable, they ran a conservative candidate against Siegel. He still came in first in the 3-way primary but because no one reached 50%, Mike has a runoff against a pointless candidate with no real positions a week from Tuesday (Bastille Day).

The March 3 Democratic primary in TX-10 drew 80,639 voters, while just 60,235 Republicans bothered to vote. Now, back to that ad. Mike has the Travis County (Austin) market pretty well covered. We're hoping he can run ads in Harris County as well. And we're asking you to buy his campaign an ad. It isn't all that expensive to buy just one. In fact, maybe you want to buy him a few. Here are some examples of shows in Austin they have already bought and which could easily go up on cable systems covering Cypress, Katy and Tombatt in Harris County and in Prairie View in Waller County, all places that could swing the general to Siegel.

• New Day on CNN -$13.00
• Andy Griffith on TVL- $7.00
• Friends on TBSC- $41.00
• Morning Joe on MSNBC- $65.00
• Beat Bobby Flay on the Food Network- $40.00
• Married to Medicine on BRVO- $45.00
• Rachel Maddow on MSNBC- $105.00

You can chip in by clicking on the thermometer above or at this link. When I first met Mike in 2018 he told me that his campaign is "fighting for healthcare for all and a reversal of the 2017 cuts; for fair immigration policies that keep families together; for a living wage and a retirement with dignity. We are fighting to keep corporate and NRA money out of politics." That's what his campaign is still about. And it helps explain not just why he's been endorsed by Blue America, but by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Ted Lieu, Ro Khanna, Bill McKibben, Dolores Huerta, Jim Hightower, as well as the AFL-CIO, the Sunrise Movement, Our Revolution, the Working Families Party, the Austin Chronicle, the Daily Texan and the Houston Chronicle.





Late developments: someone talked Vanilla Ice into cancelling his show and Abbott seems to have woken up from a pandemic-long snooze and finally ordered a statewide mask mandate. I wonder if anyone in Texas ever heard about that ole horse/barndoor adage.

A Conservative View Of The 2020 Open Seat Congressional Elections-- Trump's Toxicity Is Going To Cost A LOT Of Republicans Their Congressional Seats

The November Emerson poll was released yesterday. The polling shows Bernie and Status Quo Joe tied for first place in the Democratic Primary, with only Elizabeth Warren as another viable candidate. Bloomberg shows up at 1% and Deval Patrick shows up at 0%, tied with Delaney, Bullock and poor Michael Bennet, an unpopular conservative Colorado senator, who is likely to have a very hard time being reelected in 2022.

And despite Status Quo Joe's empty and pathetic braggadocio at the debate Wednesday night, this particular poll shows Bernie as the only Democrat beating Trump in a head-to-head match-up. As you can see, Biden would lose to Trump by a couple of points, which helps explain why Trump is always attacking him, which encourages many Democrats to mistakenly assume Trump is afraid of Biden, rather than manipulating Democrats into nominating him.

The presidential race will have an out-sized impact on congressional races. Who will sit out the elections? Who will want to punish Trump's enablers? How many infrequent voters will show up to vote for or against Trump and his allies. Right now, Trump's average RealClearPolling disapproval number is 52.9% and his approval is 44.3%, putting him 8.6 points underwater nationally. State by state, Trump's disapproval is nothing short of shocking. He is down in approval from inauguration day in every single state, including state's where he still has relatively high approval, like Wyoming, where his net approval is +26, his most robust in the country-- but still down 13 points since inauguration.

There is not one state in the country that Hillary won in 2016 that is now looking favorably on Trump. And among states that Trump won, many now sport negative approval numbers for him:

• Alaska- minus 1
• Montana- minus 1
• Florida- minus 2
• Georgia- minus 3
• North Carolina- minus 3
• Utah- minus 3
• Nebraska- minus 4
• Arizona- minus 4
• Ohio- minus 6
• Pennsylvania- minus 9
• Iowa- minus 12
• Michigan- minus 13
• Wisconsin- minus 17

Yesterday Sabato's Crystal Ball looked at the 28 open House seats-- 20 of which are being defended by Republicans and 8 of whom are being defended by Democrats. They claim that only 8 of these seats are competitive, 7 of which are held by Republicans. These are the 8 seats they find competitive:

And these are the seats they assert are safe.

There are also 4 empty seats that will be filled by special elections:

The North Carolina congressional map has been, at least in part, de-gerrymandered and it is widely rumored that George Holding who now finds him sitting in a very Democratic seat, is about to announce his retirement. There may be a few other retirements as well but it doesn't look that there will be as many open seats in 2020 as there were in 2018. Since the end of WWII, there have been, on average, 38 open seats per cycle. There are 28 so far, but there’s still plenty of time for this cycle’s tally to match or perhaps even exceed the postwar average.

The open seats have a decidedly Republican lean: Of the 28 open seats, more than two-thirds (20) are currently held by Republicans, while just eight are held by Democrats.

Most of these open seats will be easy holds for the incumbent party: 20 of the 28 are rated as Safe Republican or Safe Democratic.

However, eight of the open seats are competitive to at least some degree in our ratings, and all but one of those are currently held by Republicans. This gives Democrats more of an opportunity to net seats from the list of open seats, at least so far.

While the incumbency advantage historically observed for House members may be eroding, open seats still tend to be harder for the incumbent’s party to defend than if the incumbent him or herself was running. In 2018, 12 of the Democrats’ 43 pickups came in seats where the incumbent didn’t run again. So while the bulk of the Democratic pickups came by beating incumbents-- they beat 30 last year, and also flipped an additional seat (SC-1) where the GOP incumbent, Mark Sanford, ran for reelection but lost his primary-- Democrats won 12 of 39 GOP-held open seats. In other words, Democrats converted about 30% of their possible open-seat opportunities. Meanwhile, Democrats won about 15% of the GOP-held seats where incumbents ran again. So the Democrats’ batting average was significantly higher among the open seats than among the ones defended by Republican incumbents.

Meanwhile, Republicans did not defeat a single Democratic incumbent in 2018-- but they did flip three Democratic open seats.

This is a long way of saying that open seats are still often more vulnerable for the incumbent party than ones held by incumbents.

...The seat that stands out [in the top-most chart] is TX-23, which runs from the outskirts of El Paso to the San Antonio area and has been competitive throughout the decade. Rep. Will Hurd (R) is retiring after three terms; this is just one of three districts held by Republicans that Hillary Clinton carried in the 2016 election, and it’s also the only seat in the country where we make the incumbent party an underdog. There are many candidates on both sides, but veteran Gina Ortiz Jones (D), who came within half a point of beating Hurd last year, is running again and is sitting on a $1.4 million warchest. Meanwhile, the leading GOP candidate appears to be veteran Tony Gonzales (R), who Hurd recently endorsed. He only has a little over $100,000 in the bank. Money isn’t everything, but Ortiz Jones’ big financial edge, residual name ID from her near-miss last time, and the likelihood (although not certainty) that the Democratic presidential nominee will once again carry the district combine to make the Democrats the favorite in this district.

The one Democratic-held open seat, IA-2, gives the GOP a Toss-up target in a Trump-won district. Democrats have rallied around Rita Hart, a former state senator who was the party’s lieutenant gubernatorial nominee last year, while Republicans have state Sen. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) and former Rep. Bobby Schilling (R), who represented IL-17 from 2011-2013. Miller-Meeks unsuccessfully challenged retiring Rep. Dave Loebsack (D, IA-2) in 2008, 2010, and 2014, coming within striking distance of him in those latter two elections, while Schilling’s old Illinois district is separated from IA-2 by the Mississippi River.

Otherwise, these open seats largely will test the GOP’s ability to defend suburban turf in places like Long Island, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, and Atlanta.

[The middle table above] shows the open seats rated as safe. This group includes a mix of long-serving members on both sides-- although there are clearly more Republicans heading for the exits than Democrats-- as well as some more recently-elected members who are seeking greener pastures: Reps. Bradley Byrne (R, AL-01), Joe Kennedy (D, MA-04), Roger Marshall (R, KS-01), and Ben Ray Luján (D, NM-03) are seeking Senate seats, and Rep. Paul Cook (R, CA-08) is running for a county supervisor position, which may actually be a greener pasture depending on one’s perspective (there have been a handful of other sitting U.S. House members from California who have attempted to make such a switch in recent years). Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D, HI-02) is pursuing, rather quixotically, the Democratic presidential nomination.

Some of these seats could hypothetically be competitive in really bad political environments for the incumbent party. For instance, retiring Rep. Peter Visclosky’s (D, IN-01) post-industrial northwest Indiana district fell from voting for Barack Obama by 24 points in 2012 to Hillary Clinton by 13 in 2016, although it should remain Democratic in 2020. If Indiana Republicans wanted to aggressively gerrymander the state after 2020 to add to their 7-2 statewide U.S. House delegation edge, though, this district might be an attractive target to break up.

...Finally, [the third table above] shows the vacant seats that will hold special elections later this cycle. Of these forthcoming special elections, only CA-25, from which Katie Hill (D) recently resigned, seems truly competitive. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) just set the all-party primary for March 3, concurrent with the state’s presidential primary. A big, Democratic-leaning first-round turnout could allow state Assemblywoman Christy Smith (D) to win the vote majority required to win the special election outright, but she may not have the Democratic field entirely to herself: Cenk Uygur, a progressive commentator, also is apparently running, but he is taking flak for past controversial comments. Former Rep. Steve Knight (R) is running to reclaim the seat he lost to Hill by nearly nine points last year, among other Republicans.

Overall, 2020 is not going to see the number of open seats we saw in 2018. Last cycle, only 375 of the 435 House seats featured an incumbent running for reelection, meaning that there were 60 open seats. That was the second-highest number of open seats in the post-World War II era, eclipsed only by 1992. That was a national redistricting year, and redistricting often leads to more open seats than normal years.

Last cycle, only Pennsylvania drew new lines, as the state’s Democratic-controlled Supreme Court threw out a Republican gerrymander and replaced it with a more balanced but arguably Democratic-leaning map. Democrats converted a 13-5 GOP delegation into one that was split 9-9, with three of those four Democratic flips coming in open seats and the fourth coming when Rep. Conor Lamb (D) beat Rep. Keith Rothfus (R) in a redrawn Pittsburgh-area seat (Lamb had won a special election under the old district lines before winning the incumbent vs. incumbent bout).

A similar situation is playing out in North Carolina, where a state court just threw out a Republican gerrymander. The state currently features a 10-3 Republican-dominated U.S. House delegation. North Carolina’s GOP-controlled state legislature passed a replacement map that likely would result in an 8-5 GOP delegation, netting Democrats two seats. It’s unclear whether this map will ultimately be adopted: It may be that the Democrats can get an even better map. Rep. George Holding (R, NC-2), whose district likely would become unwinnable for him under a new map, is already telegraphing his retirement. Rep. Mark Walker (R, NC-6) might also find himself in a Democratic district, although he may challenge a sitting GOP colleague elsewhere. In any event, the North Carolina remap may very well contribute to the open seat total, too. We will issue new ratings in North Carolina once the new map is finalized.

One final note: In 2018, Americans elected a 235-200 Democratic House majority. So that means Republicans need to win 18 more seats than they won in 2018 to win a House majority in 2020.

However, since the 2018 election, a few developments have effectively risen the bar for needed GOP gains. As noted above, Democrats seem likely to net at least a couple of seats because of the North Carolina remap. Also, Republicans are at least a small underdog in one of their current open seats-- TX-23-- and Rep. Justin Amash (I, MI-03) left the party. So instead of Republicans having to win at least 18 currently-Democratic seats to win the House, the real number may be more like 21, and that doesn’t even include whatever effort they will need to exert in Amash’s seat.

Republicans do have a path to win the House, which largely goes through flipping a significant number of the 31 Trump-won districts held by Democrats. Such a result cannot be ruled out in an age where ticket-splitting is on the decline.

But so far this cycle, Democrats stand to benefit more from retirements than Republicans. Also, significant one-off events, like Amash’s defection and the North Carolina redistricting, are making life harder for the Republicans.

That’s why the Democrats continue to be favorites to hold the House of Representatives majority.

Going Into The Midterms, How Toxic Is Trump For Congressional Republicans?

Yesterday, Adam Smith quoted a Florida political insiders and operatives in a piece he did for the Tampa Bay Times about Señor Trumpanzee's impact on the Republican Party in the state. Democrats were jubilant and independents sounded like Democrats. One said, "The question is how has the Republican Party's silence on Donald Trump changed the party? Absolutely for the worse, unless you are his 30% base." But Republicans were split between glorying Trump and bemoaning his existence. Generally Smith found comments like these from Republicans:

• He has pushed the party right and into the position of nominating candidates who appear to be unelectable in the General Elections
• Energized the base…. alienated the moderates.
• it's the party of trump
• split the party
• He has ruined it.

But one GOP insider was especially cruel: "We've gone from being the party of Jeb Bush Republicans who can win everywhere and over perform in Democratic areas to the party of red hat Cletus the Slack-jawed Yokel and QAnon. Who thinks this is going to end well?"

Yesterday Trumpanzee was blithely tweeting away that "Tariffs are the greatest" while more and more Americans are feeling them in their pocketbooks in ways that are hardly "the greatest." And if that wasn't bad enough, vulnerable Republican congressman, Mike Coffman, who represents a ring of suburbs that surround Denver from the west to the south and up the east, told the media that Trump "absolutely" got played by Putin. "I think the first summit was a terrible mistake. The second summit would be equally as bad... I think he was strong in talking to our allies and weak when it came to Putin." More congressional Republicans are opening their eyes and seeing Trump as an albatross hung around their necks going into the midterms.

Of course, some GOP congressmen are their own albatrosses-- photo by Chip Proser

Around the same time that Trump was tweeting his nonsense, Chuck Todd and the crew at NBC's First Read were checking in with swing voters-- the 18% of voters who dislike both parties in the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. 55% are breaking for Democrats and 25% for Republicans, significantly up from lat month when 50% were breaking for Democrats and 36% for Republicans. "What’s more in our current poll," wrote the authors, "these voters disproportionately are down on Trump (68 percent disapprove of his job, versus 52 percent of all voters), and they are enthusiastic about the upcoming midterms (63 percent of them have high interest, versus 55 percent of all voters who say this)." This isn't going to hurt Republicans in deep red districts in, say, Alabama where they don't need independent voters to win. But look at Arkansas, as a different kind of example. All 4 districts are held by Republicans:

• AR-01- R+17- east
• AR-02- R+7- Little Rock
• AR-03- R+19- northwest
• AR-04- R+17 west and south

An anti-red wave isn't going to hurt Rick Crawford, Steve Womack or Buce Westerman. But French Hill is in real trouble and could lose his seat to Blue Dog Democrat Clarke Tucker. Overly cautious--very overly cautious-- Larry Sabato just moved AR-02 from "likely Republican" to "leans Republican." Judging by how Sabato rates races, that means Tucker is close to winning. It'sworth noting that Hill, an especially corrupt member of the House Financial Services Committee and a complete Wall Street puppet, had raised $1,954,935 by the June 30 FEC reporting deadline, compared to Tucker's $975,268. It a swing year that difference doesn't matter. Tucker has enough to get his message out, build name recognition and operate a field campaign. So long as he isn't wasting his money on consultants the DCCC is directing him to, he has what he needs too beat Hill.

And Arkansas is far from unique when it comes to this dynamic. Pennsylvania's new 17th congressional district has a PVI of R+1. Under the new boundaries, Trump would have beaten Hillary there 49.4% to 46.8%. But the incumbent, Keith Rothfus, is in big trouble. Conor Lamb lives within the new boundaries and he decided to run there instead of in the red hellhole he now represents-- and has become even redder under the newly redrawn congressional boundaries. In a newly released Monmouth poll he's leading Rothfus 51-39% in the Beaver and Allegheny counties district northwest of Pittsburgh. Arkansas, Pennsylvania... where else? Short answer: everywhere that Trump is.

Even Establishment Stooges Are Sensing A Wave. By The First Wednesday In November They'll Be Certain

As we noted on Tuesday, the PA-18 special election 4 days from now, should be easy-peasy for the GOP. But they're on track to spend 40 times more money on this race than the Democrats! The PVI is R+11 and it's a district where McCain beat Obama 55-44%, Romney beat Obama 58-41% and then Trump eviscerated Clinton 58.1% to 38.5%. On top of that, the Democrats have a terrible candidate-- Conor Lamb a bland, wishy-washy Blue Dog who flies in the face of the energy that is motivating Democratic enthusiasm. He's worse than Ossoff-- but in a much redder district. And yet... polls show a tie, a toss-up, with Republican officials in DC peeing in their pants.

Yesterday Chuck Todd started the day by writing how Señor Trumpanzee has managed to turn the PA-18 special election into a major referendum on himself, exactly what Democrats were hoping for... and the only way to win a blood-red district like this with a crap candidate like Lamb. "[I]f there’s reason to pay attention to the outcome on Tuesday," Todd wrote, "it’s this: Trump has put his office’s prestige on the line. In addition to the president holding a rally with Saccone on Saturday, the Washington Post suggested last week that Trump’s move on tariffs is aimed at the voters in PA-18. 'In recent weeks, he has been told by associates that voters in places such as Pennsylvania’s 18th District are looking for more to be done by the administration, according to two people familiar with the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations,' the Post wrote. 'The president has noted that the Republican in the race is struggling in a district where he won by a large margin, those people said.' So the race-- despite the new map and already-evident political winds-- matters because it matters to President Trump. A win, therefore, would allow Trump to crow that the GOP can still win in Trump Country. But a loss would be devastating for him: After all the money, the campaigning and the tariff timing, to have a Republican lose in a district Trump carried by 20 points would suggest there’s not more the president can do to help GOP candidates, even in Trump Country. In sum, Tuesday’s PA-18 is a perfect microcosm of much of the Trump Era: So much attention and such high stakes on something that didn’t have to be this big-- and in large part because Trump made it so."

As Alex Isenstadt reported this week in Politico, in anticipation of a possible loss, the NRCC is already starting to trash Rick Saccone. Yep, their candidate is as mediocre and lame as Connor Lamb. The NRCC bitching is all about what a bad fundraiser he is. They're pissed off that as of the Feb 21 FEC reporting deadline, Saccone had only raised $916,392 to Lamb's $3,869,247. Because of Trump's hysteria-- as well as Paul Ryan's-- the GOP has had to open their purses is the biggest possible way-- over $10,000,000 in independent expenses to bail out Saccone.

Meanwhile you have Pennsylvania's Republican U.S. senator, Pat Toomey, bad-mouthing Trump's trade war strategy. Toomey: "I think the tariffs are a big mistake. I think the policy is very, very counter productive. It makes no sense. If there is a problem with steel, a problem that needs to be addressed, it’s Chinese over capacity. The Chinese, in an attempt to accelerate their industrialization in decades past, they built massive capacity to make steel and that’s true, that’s a fact. We can have a good debate, about what American policy should be about that fact. Here’ s the reality, because of perceived violations of trading norms, we’ve already punished the Chinese in the past and today, American imports from China are trivial. They only provide 2 percent of the steel we import... We manufacture 75 to 80 percent of all the steel we consume domestically. Our biggest imported source is, for this modest amount that we do import, is Canada. By the way, Canada buys from us as much steel as they sell to us, we just happen to have an almost equal balance of in trade of steel with Canada. So what we’re doing is were slapping a tariff on Canadian steel, which makes no sense at all, they don’t impose that kind of tariff on our steel but we’re doing that. China is completely unaffected because we already don’t buy steel from China." He completely undercut Trumpanzee's foolish reasons to start a trade war (and help Saccone). "Since we signed NAFTA, Pennsylvania’s exports to Mexico are up 500 percent. I mean it just totally opened up Mexico to all kinds of chemicals and manufactured goods, transportation equipment, the things that we sell to Mexico, that we export generally from Pennsylvania have gone through the roof. The exports that we sell to the Canadian and Mexican companies add up to more than we export to the next 10 Countries. They’re number one and two."

What a mess! And that's Trump, Trump, who is leading the GOP into a massive oncoming tsunami, an unprecendent electoral disaster, that they absolutely deserve for enabling his every unhinged circus performance since he became their nominee. This week Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball didn't just move PA-18 from "leans Republican" to "toss up," he moved 25 districts across the country in favor of Democrats-- and not one in favor of the GOP! This is the shape of the GOP catastrophe in the making. [Keep in mind Sabato is a sad-sack establishment idiot and his prognosticating months behind reality. His comments are generally worthless, other than to indicate what the DC establishment is thinking. Example: his critique of Randy Bryce's campaign is not based on reality in any way shape or form. Bryce's campaign is-- by far-- the best run in the country, the envy of every single campaign on both sides of the aisle, but Sabato is parroting DCCC/Hoyer wishful thinking and envy.]

"Democrats have been consistently overperforming Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential performance in special elections held since Donald Trump’s election," wrote Sabato... Democrats have been running on average 13 points ahead of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 margin in the nearly 90 races held so far featuring a Democrat and a Republican. That speaks to the overall political environment, which clearly favors Democrats right now."

We’re moving Reps. Ami Bera (D, CA-7), Tom O’Halleran (D, AZ-1), and Stephanie Murphy (D, FL-7) from Leans Democratic to Likely Democratic, and we’re moving Reps. Dave Loebsack (D, IA-2), Ann Kuster (D, NH-2), Sean Patrick Maloney (D, NY-18), Tom Suozzi (D, NY-3), and Ron Kind (D, WI-3) from Likely Democratic to Safe Democratic. If a Democrat was in the White House, many or all of these members would be Republican targets. Republicans still hope to push many of them this fall, but we’re just skeptical of their ability to do so given history and the overall environment. Of all of these changes, Bera is probably the closest call-- he barely won in both 2014 and 2016, and he has had to deal with the fallout of a campaign finance scandal that sent his father to prison. But memories of that scandal are likely fading, and he benefits, just like every other Democrat, from Trump being in the White House. A possible exception may be if first-term Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D, NV-4) decides to run for a second term after retiring earlier this cycle because of sexual harassment accusations. The Nevada Independent reported Wednesday that Kihuen might be reconsidering. We currently list his open seat as Leans Democratic.

...In addition to the new PA-17 and the soon-to-be defunct old PA-18, we have three additional Republican Toss-ups to add to a growing list of 50-50 races: Reps. Rod Blum (R, IA-1), Mike Bost (R, IL-12), and Erik Paulsen (R, MN-3). The first two, Blum and Bost, represent working-class districts with down-ballot Democratic strength that swung to Trump in 2016. Both should face strong opponents and the prospect of a Democratic snapback later this year. Brendan Kelly (D), a local state’s attorney, is set to challenge Bost, while Blum awaits the winner of a contested Democratic primary. Meanwhile, Paulsen represents a more affluent district in the Twin Cities suburbs where Trump underperformed in 2018. Paulsen is likely to face Dean Phillips (D), a member of a powerful Minnesota business family. The moves here are not related to a specific new development, but rather represent a fresh assessment of these races that takes into account what we believe is a challenging environment for Republicans in districts that both moved toward and away from Trump in 2016 relative to their previous presidential voting.

The same applies to several other Republicans who are also moving to more competitive categories this week: Reps. Mike Bishop (R, MI-8), Ted Budd (R, NC-13), Robert Pittenger (R, NC-9), Lee Zeldin (R, NY-1), Steve Chabot (R, OH-1), and Pete Sessions (R, TX-32) all move from Likely Republican to Leans Republican. These incumbents seem likely to face credible challengers, and Democrats have had success in some of this territory in the recent past. Zeldin in particular stands out as someone who may be a key Democratic target if only because his Suffolk County seat has been perennially competitive. Sessions, a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, is a very formidable longtime incumbent, but Tuesday’s Texas primary did demonstrate an urban/suburban Democratic energy in terms of significantly improved turnout from the most recent comparable election (the 2014 midterm). That may not be enough to change the statewide dynamic, where Republicans have long ruled the roost, but members like Sessions and another longtime Texas Republican, Rep. John Culberson (R, TX-7), may be endangered in districts narrowly carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016. The Democratic primaries to face both Texas incumbents are going to runoffs: Former NFL player Colin Allred (D) more than doubled the vote of his closest competitor for the right to face Sessions and is likely a big favorite in the May 22 runoff, while attorney Lizzie Pannill Fletcher (D) and activist Laura Moser (D) will battle to face Culberson. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee clearly prefers Fletcher, and the committee intervened (some would say ham-handedly) against Moser a couple of weeks ago. Moser ended up getting about 24% of the primary vote, second to Fletcher’s 29%, but Moser’s level of support grew from 22% in the early voting to 26% of the Election Day vote, perhaps suggesting the DCCC brouhaha actually helped her improve her standing in the latter stages of the race.

Meanwhile, Reps. Vern Buchanan (R, FL-16), Jack Bergman (R, MI-1), Fred Upton (R, MI-6), Tim Walberg (R, MI-7), and Steve Russell (R, OK-5) move from Safe Republican to Likely Republican. Russell in particular may seem like a curious addition, but Democrats have had some of their best special election performances in Oklahoma so far this cycle, and the Oklahoma City-based district shifted from 59%-41% for Mitt Romney in 2012 to 53%-40% Trump in 2016, perhaps indicating some anti-Trump sentiment that could contribute to a Democratic opening in a good year. Noah Rudnick, a sharp young analyst, recently published a long piece looking at OK-5 and questioning why House handicappers were ignoring it. We were sufficiently intrigued to include it in our ratings. The other four Safe to Likely Republican districts mentioned, three in Michigan and one in Florida, are also deep sleeper Democratic targets.

One final change of note: We’re moving Speaker Paul Ryan (R, WI-1) from Safe Republican to Likely Republican, too, for a variety of reasons.

The first is that Ryan’s district is actually competitive, on paper at least: Barack Obama narrowly won it in 2008, Mitt Romney (with Ryan as his VP nominee) carried it by four points in 2012, and Trump won it by 10 in 2016. So the district seems to be trending Republican — but, remember, we’re in an electoral period where Democrats are making districts Trump won by 20 points into Toss-ups, like PA-18.

Still, Ryan has been untouchable, never winning less than 55% in his 10 victories dating back to 1998. Ironworker Randy Bryce (D), one of Ryan’s potential general election challengers, has become a minor celebrity on the left, and he raised more than $1 million in the last quarter, a lot of money for a House candidate (though he burned through almost all of what he raised last quarter, which calls into question how he is running his campaign). Still, in a big wave environment, it’s not impossible that Ryan could be vulnerable, particularly because voters don’t seem to reward senior leaders the way they used to (it’s probably not a coincidence that Ryan’s weakest general election performance in the House came in 2012, when he was also on the ballot as the vice presidential candidate and thus a highly nationalized figure).

However, the main reason we’re including Ryan’s district on the list is to account for the possibility that he may not even be running in the fall. A few months ago, some well-connected congressional reporters, Politico’s Tim Alberta and Rachael Bade and Huffington Post’s Matt Fuller, suggested Ryan was not long for the House, and in late January, Ryan was non-committal about running for reelection, and Wisconsin’s filing deadline is not until June 1. Could Ryan decide not to run? Or might he run this year and then resign after winning reelection, perhaps necessitating a special election in 2019? It’s hard to say, but Ryan may keep us all guessing for awhile, because if he retires he could prompt even more of his colleagues to also retire. Ryan is also a vital (and very strong) fundraiser for his caucus, and he might not raise as much if donors explicitly knew he was heading for the exits.

So what that chart-- which Sabato comes up with by talking to the clueless imbeciles at the DCCC-- tells us is that Republican incumbents Vern Buchanan, Rod Blum (IA), Mike Best (IL), Jack Bergman (MI), Mike Bishop (MI), Fred Upton (MI), Tim Walberg (MI), Erik Paulsen (MN), Ted Budd (NC), Bob Pittenger (NC), Lee Zeldin (NY), Steve Chabot (OH), Steve Russell (OK), Keith Rothfus (PA), Pete Sessions (TX) and Paul Ryan have joined the ranks of the vulnerable.

Midterm Momentum Is Building Nicely-- Another Democratic Legislative Win This Week In New Hampshire

Can Democrats take back the House next year? Yes-- if they have more candidates like Randy Bryce and fewer "ex"-Republicans like the CA-39 Lottery Winner

Last Friday we talked about how progressives are winning special elections in red areas of New Hampshire. Tuesday it happened again. Kevin Cavanaugh, a Democratic alderman in Manchester shocked the political establishment with a grassroots campaign that beat Republican former Sen. David Boutin in a special election Boutin held from 2010 through last year. To understand what happened-- and how Cavanaugh won 55-44%-- first look at the registration numbers in the state Senate district that includes 3 Manchester wards and the nearby small towns of and the towns of Bow, Candia, Dunbarton and Hooksett:

• undeclared- 36%
• Republican- 35%
• Democrat- 29%

Both campaigns raised much more than is normally raised for a state legislative special election-- Cavanaugh $125,771 and Boutin 108,000. The turnout was 21%, relatively strong for a summer special election in a state legislative race. Cavanaugh ran up a big margin in Manchester-- 61.2% to 37.8% and Boutin didn't win his hometown, Dubrow, with a wide enough margin to make up for it. According the WMUR, "Democrats credited Cavanaugh's win to an outpouring of enthusiasm from voters frustrated by the GOP legislative and congressional majorities at the State House and on Capitol Hill."

That all said, Sabato's Crystal Ball just changed 13 ratings for the 2018 congressional midterms-- all but one in favor of Democratic candidates. The one was a swingy district in Nevada that right-wing garbage Dem Jacky Rosen is abandoning in her quest for a Senate seat. She's one of the 10 worst Democrats in the House and is unlikely able to beat Dean Heller-- but could be swept into office in an anti-Trump tsunami. She leaves NV-03 very vulnerable to a GOP win and it goes from "leans Dem" to "toss up." This is Sabato's whole list of changes:

If Democrats do have a chance to win the House next year, it might be because they translated a currently big field of announced candidates into credible opportunities to flip not just some of the top seats on their list of targets, but also some seats that, on paper, might not seem like they should be competitive. If that’s what happens-- a big if at such an early point in the cycle despite President Trump’s unpopularity and the usual midterm trends that favor the party that does not hold the White House-- it would mirror what happened when the Democrats last won the House from Republican control in 2006.

That year, Democrats ended up netting 31 seats, but they were not exactly the 31 seats that many might have thought would flip going into the election.

Several embattled GOP incumbents from districts that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry had won or came very close to winning in 2004 ended up eking out close victories in 2006, including Reps. Chris Shays (R, CT-4), Heather Wilson (R, NM-1), Deborah Pryce (R, OH-15), and Jim Gerlach (R, PA-6). Had one known before the election that all four of these Republican incumbents would have won, it would have been reasonable to question the Democrats’ ability to net the 16 seats they needed to win the majority.

And yet, Democrats ended up gaining double what they needed, in large part because while they didn’t win all of the most obviously competitive races, they won some upsets through good performances by unheralded challengers. For instance, then-college professor Dave Loebsack (D) surprisingly knocked off Rep. Jim Leach (R, IA-2) and social worker Carol Shea-Porter (D), who defeated a candidate backed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in her party’s primary, upset Rep. Jeb Bradley (R, NH-1).

As we unveil our latest House ratings changes this week, we’ve been thinking about 2006 and the importance, to Democrats, of fielding as many credible challengers as they can. That’s because even if there is a positive environment for Democrats next fall, they are not going to knock off every clearly vulnerable GOP incumbent. Many Republicans who sit in districts that Hillary Clinton won last fall are proven vote-getters who ran well ahead of President Trump last fall, like Reps. Mike Coffman (R, CO-6), Carlos Curbelo (R, FL-26), Barbara Comstock (R, VA-10), Dave Reichert (R, WA-8), and others. Democrats probably will have to beat some of these incumbents in 2018 to win the House-- or hope that some decide not to run for another term, like Clinton-district Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R, FL-27)-- but defeating all of them is unrealistic. Hence, the necessity of expanding the map.

...At this point in the cycle, Democrats have more than 200 filed House challengers who have raised at least a small amount of money ($5,000 or more). That’s more than the combined total of Democratic challengers at this point of the cycle in the last four cycles, and way more than either party has had in midsummer of the off year over the last decade and a half.

Granted, $5,000 raised and being registered with the Federal Election Commission isn’t a tremendously high bar, but the early wave of candidates is striking compared with previous cycles. Additionally, as Malbin writes, the candidates are not necessarily clustered in the same districts: “So far, 105 different Republican incumbents have Democratic challengers with $5,000. At this same time in 2009, only 50 of the Democratic incumbents were up against challengers with $5,000.”

However, there are some packed fields already, too. For instance, Democrats kicked off their 2018 campaign message in Berryville, VA, earlier this week, which is in VA-10, held by the aforementioned Rep. Comstock. This is a district-- Clinton won it by 10 points — that is a major Democratic target. However, party leadership’s preferred candidate, state Sen. Jennifer Wexton (D), actually finished behind three other Democrats in fundraising in the past quarter. Democrats also already have big fields in some races in California, which uses a top-two primary system to determine general election contests. All candidates, regardless of party, run in the primary, and the top-two vote-getters advance to November. It’s possible that big Democratic fields could lead to Republican incumbents in targeted districts advancing to the general election against another Republican, which has happened to Democrats in a couple of targeted races in recent years (and also to Republicans in the state’s U.S. Senate race last year). The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reserves the right to get involved in primaries: Will it do so in a major way next year? And, if the DCCC does, will it upset activists who distrust party leadership and believe that party bigwigs tilted the scales against Bernie Sanders in last year’s presidential primary? If Democrats begin to recoil at party leadership, the Democratic establishment might have to navigate through the same intraparty battles that sometimes bedeviled Republicans in the Obama years.

The bottom 2 charts show how the Beltway looks at seats that are potentially up for grabs but the criteria is pathetic and outmoded. Best example is that WI-01, Paul Ryan's seat, doesn't even show up as a possibility. It will, but the Beltway and it's silly arms are always months behind reality. The first chart shows the Republican-held seats Sabato sees as worth contesting. And the second one shows the Democrats who they think are targetable by the NRCC. With the exceptions of Carol Shea-Porter, Rick Nolan, Dave Loebsack and Matt Cartwright these are not Democrats worth defending.

Who Thinks Trump Will Have An Impact On The 2018 Midterms?

During the campaign Trump fared poorly when he tried interfering with Republican primaries. His crackpot candidates all lost. He endorsed and cut radio spots for Renee Ellmers (R-NC), the first woman in Congress to endorse him. Despite his help-- possibly because of it-- she barely managed to come in second in her three-way primary.

• George Holding- 16,999 (53.4%)
• Renee Ellmers- 7,527 (23.6%)
• Greg Brannon- 7,320 (23.0%)

Don't forget, Republican voters in the suburbs east, south and North of Raleigh, in Wake Forest, in Rocky Mount and way down in Dunn and Smithfield all heard this ad over and over and over:



Most votes cast in the 2nd district come from Wake County. In the general election, Clinton won the county massively-- 293,353 to 193,607 for Trump, who seriously under-performed Senator Richard Burr and barely kept up by the much-hated, now former Governor Pat McCrory. Ellmers would probably have done better without Trump's interference.

Yesterday, writing for Politico, Alex Isenstadt, warned that Trumpists are on the move, looking to win in primaries across the country. "Some of Donald Trump’s most loyal aides and outspoken supporters," he wrote, "are looking to ride his revolution into elected office themselves." One Trump crackpot, Alan Cobb is running for Mike Pompeo's now empty congressional seat in south-central Kansas. Sedgwick County (Wichita) decided elections there and that's Trump country. He beat Clinton there 101,319 to 66,716. (It is worth noting, though, that in the Kansas caucuses, the 4th district went overwhelmingly for Cruz, who took 58.3% to Trump's 22.0%). Isenstadt reports that Trump will be "front and center. Cobb, who turned down a White House job to run in the upcoming special election, plans to cast himself as a Trump loyalist-- a candidate with close ties to the new administration who embraces its outsider approach. 'I would wholeheartedly support the Trump agenda,' said Cobb, who spent Tuesday morning meeting with Republicans in Medicine Lodge, a town in the south-central part of the state. 'It’s all consistent with what’s best for the 4th District.' As Trump takes up residence in the White House, his disciples hope his success can be replicated far and wide... Trump has already demonstrated a willingness to endorse in Republican-on-Republican skirmishes, raising the specter that he could play hardball in races where his political allies are running."

Cobb isn’t the only former Trump aide about to announce a bid for Congress. Bruce LeVell, who was Trump’s diversity coordinator and a frequent surrogate on TV, is poised to launch a bid for a suburban Atlanta congressional seat.

What distinguishes him from the large group of other Republicans interested in running, he said, is simple: His unwavering support for the president.

“I’d like to see someone in that seat who’s a champion of Trump’s policies,” said LeVell, who recently wrapped up a trip to Washington, where he was meeting with operatives could staff his campaign. “I’d like to be that champion.”

LeVell said he planned to model his campaign after the new president, presenting himself as a political outsider. That means no donations from lobbyists, he said, among other things.

Virginia Republican Corey Stewart, who was Trump’s state chairman, has already begun to campaign for governor. Last week, he began airing a TV ad that borrowed heavily from Trump’s campaign playbook. It describes Stewart as an “outspoken blue-county conservative who keeps beating liberals again and again,” and says he has the “experience to win.” It highlights his “zero tolerance” for undocumented immigrants. And it promises to “take back Virginia” from Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s “crooked liberal gang.” (Using a word Trump often used to describe Hillary Clinton.)

Even Stewart’s mannerisms-- there’s lots of hand gesturing-- are Trump-like.

“The fact that Trump won the White House means that other aspiring politicians will follow, and they will follow in terms of his policy positions, and in terms of his style,” he said.

In California, Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder and billionaire entrepreneur who served on Trump’s transition team, is considering a campaign for governor, according to several people privy to his thinking. Most Republicans are skeptical that Thiel will run-- he's a fiercely private person-- though they say his ability to self-fund would make him an attractive candidate.

Perhaps the most intense speculation surrounding an ex-Trump hand is in Arizona. Jeff DeWit, the Trump campaign’s chief operating officer, has spent weeks deliberating whether to launch a primary campaign against GOP Sen. Jeff Flake, who frequently criticized Trump during the 2016 race.

One person familiar with DeWit’s thinking said he is leaning against running and is more likely to take a job in the administration. If that were to occur, attention could turn to the state party chairman, Robert Graham, as a potential Flake foe. While many party leaders shied away from supporting Trump during the campaign, Graham distinguished himself as a loyal and outspoken surrogate-- which did not go unnoticed in Trump Tower.

...Earlier this month, Trump-- in a highly unusual step for a president-elect-- personally phoned members of the Ohio Republican Party to advocate for his favored candidate for state GOP chair, Jane Timken, who raised money for his campaign. Timken went on to dislodge the incumbent chairman, Matt Borges, who had been a vocal Trump critic.

Then, last week, on the eve of Inauguration Day, two of Trump’s top aides, Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon, sent a letter announcing their endorsement of Ron Weiser, a major party donor, in the race for Michigan GOP chair. Both Weiser and his opponent, Scott Hagerstrom, had worked for Trump-- Weiser as a fundraiser, and Hagerstrom as his state director. Over the weekend, just after the letter was released, Hagerstrom withdrew.

Whether they're full-blown Trump-Like fascists or just garden variety GOP proto-fascists, it's essential for Democrats to win the House in 2018. With the execrable pair of congenital losers, Steve Israel and Kelly Ward, finally gone from the DCCC things are even starting to look a little less gloomy there! At Blue America we devote a minimum of a couple hours a day talking with prospective candidates from around the country. And, as you probably know, we have two great candidates who have already tossed their hats into the ring, both here in California. Click the thermometer on the right if you'd like to contribute to their elections which is, in both cases, contributing to the Resistance.

Whether you think Sabato's crystal ball functions well or not before election, his shop is definitely good at analyzing results after them. And a couple weeks after the last one, they came up with 16 observations from 2016, some of which-- ones relevant to our work going forward-- I want to run by you. Let's start with observations 5, 6 and 7, which need to be out there in light of conventional wisdom that implies Hillary lost because minority voters didn't bother coming out for her on election day.

5. Michigan: Poor urban turnout tells the tale

Despite doing significantly worse outside of Wayne County (Detroit) than Barack Obama, if Hillary Clinton had replicated the margin the county provided any of the last three Democratic presidential nominees (342,000, 441,000, and 382,000 in 2004, 2008, and 2012, respectively), she would have carried the state. As of the most recent count, Clinton is losing Michigan by about 13,000 votes, with only about a 289,000-vote margin in Wayne, about 53,000 votes worse than John Kerry’s.

6. But not necessarily in Pennsylvania

A vital part of the Democratic formula in Pennsylvania is getting a huge margin out of Philadelphia County, particularly in recent years when some typically reliable Democratic counties in Appalachian western Pennsylvania have deserted the party. Unlike in Detroit, where Clinton’s sagging margin was likely decisive, Clinton did acceptably in Philadelphia. Her margin in Philadelphia was about 457,000 votes, down from Obama’s 479,000 and 492,000 in 2008 and 2012, respectively, but a decent win, and markedly better than John Kerry’s 412,000-vote margin in 2004 (Kerry won Pennsylvania).

Clinton also outperformed Obama in Allegheny County (Pittsburgh), adding about 15,000 votes to Obama’s 2012 margin. So why did she lose the state by about 66,000 votes? Because outside of Greater Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and its closest suburbs, she lost by huge margins.

Leaving aside Allegheny and Philadelphia counties, Barack Obama lost the rest of Pennsylvania by about 273,000 votes. Clinton lost the rest of the state by…wait for it…629,000.

A great example of Clinton’s struggles outside of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia is Lackawanna County, a white, working class enclave that contains Scranton. Obama won the county by slightly more than 25 points in each of his elections, but Clinton won it by only three percentage points. Clinton also lost Erie County in the northwestern corner of the state-- it swung from Obama +16 to Trump +2. There are similar eye-popping swings across the state. Brandon Finnigan of the election results-reporting site Decision Desk HQ has argued for years that Republicans had a path in Pennsylvania, and he was proven correct thanks to the giant shift that the Trump candidacy effected in the Keystone State.

7. Or Wisconsin

The Wisconsin story is similar. Clinton lost the state by about 24,000 votes, but her combined margins from the state’s two Democratic powerhouse counties-- Milwaukee and Dane (Madison) counties-- were almost identical to Obama’s margins in 2012. Clinton’s margin dipped a bit in Milwaukee from Obama but she did better in Dane than Obama, and she only lost about 800 net votes from Obama in those two counties combined, effectively a wash. Outside Milwaukee and Dane, Obama lost Wisconsin by 97,000 votes. Clinton lost outside of Milwaukee and Dane by 333,000 votes.

To win Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in 2020, Democrats are going to have to work to reverse some of the transformation outside of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, and Madison. Both states have what should be highly competitive Senate and gubernatorial races in 2018, and the performance of the small cities and rural counties that swung hard from Obama to Trump will be interesting: Will they stay Republican without Trump on the ballot, or will they revert to their Democratic roots?

...9. Why Colorado, Nevada, and Virginia didn’t flip

While the Rust Belt largely abandoned the Democrats in 2016, albeit by very small margins in some of the aforementioned states, states with newer Democratic leans like Colorado, Nevada, and Virginia held fast for Clinton. There are two demographic factors that likely help explain why this occurred, particularly in comparison to the three Rust Belt States that crucially flipped for Trump: nonwhites, especially Latinos in Colorado and Nevada, and college-educated white voters. Helpfully for Trump, the exit polls found that white voters without a college degree made up pluralities of the electorates in Michigan and Wisconsin and were about even with white college-educated voters in Pennsylvania. Although Colorado had a smaller nonwhite share than Michigan, its electorate had a large plurality of white college-educated voters. Virginia also had a plurality of whites with college degrees and a sizable nonwhite share of the electorate. And Nevada had a plurality nonwhite electorate, the largest nonwhite share of the states in question, helping Clinton overcome the slightly larger share of voters who were white without a college degree in the Silver State.

As of the most recent count, Clinton won Colorado by a little under five points, Virginia by a little over five, and Nevada by about 2.5 points.

Table 2: Exit poll data for shares of electorates in Rust Belt trio and Sun Belt trio

10. The increasing urban-rural divide

The political split between more urban and more rural areas only grew in 2016. In 2012 Mitt Romney carried just four of today’s 50 most populous counties. Donald Trump carried the same number of localities, but with four changes. Romney carried Salt Lake County, UT-- not shocking given his Mormon faith-- and Orange County, CA. Trump lost both places-- notably, Orange County had not voted for a Democrat for president since Franklin Roosevelt in 1936. But unlike Romney, Trump carried battleground Pinellas County, FL along the important I-4 corridor in the Sunshine State, as well as Suffolk County, NY, at the eastern edge of Long Island.

Table 3: 2016 and 2012 presidential vote in the 50 most populous counties as of July 1, 2015

Among the largest localities in the country, Trump did worse overall than Romney while making up ground in places with smaller populations. Clinton performed about 0.5 points better (California still has many votes left to be counted) in the 50 counties in Table 3 than Obama did in 2012, but Trump performed about four points worse that Romney in the same group. However, in counties around the country with populations below 200,000 people, Trump improved about 4.5 points on Romney’s 2012 performance while Clinton did 7.5 points worse than Obama.

...15. Do the Republicans have new targets in the House?

Before the election, we speculated about the possibility of some white, working-class House districts with Democratic incumbents potentially producing a massive House upset because of their swings to Trump. While there were no upsets, there were a few close calls. Reps. Tim Walz (D, MN-1) and Collin Peterson (D, MN-7) had closer-than-expected races as their districts swung hard to Trump, as did Rep. Matt Cartwright (D, PA-17). As the National Republican Congressional Committee plots its targets for 2018, some of these districts might get special attention. On the flip side, Democrats will be looking to 2018 as an opportunity to make gains in the House, and at this early date, as unlikely as it may seem today, we would not rule out the possibility of Democrats grabbing the roughly 25 net seats they would need to take control. Simply put, midterm elections are often a backlash vote against the president’s party, and with Trump in the White House, history suggests the opportunity is there for the Democrats, even on a national House map that has given them headaches in recent years thanks at least in part to Republican control of redistricting in many swing states following the 2010 census.

16. Democratic losses in the Age of Obama

As we pointed out after the 2014 midterm election, the Democratic bench has taken an unprecedented hit during President Obama’s time in office. The numbers have worsened slightly following Obama’s final election as a part of the political environment. With most 2016 results in (adding projections for some uncalled races based on who is ahead at this point), the damage is as follows: a net loss of 13 governorships, 11 Senate seats, 63 House seats, 949 seats in state legislatures, and 29 state legislative chambers. Some other modern presidents lost more governorships, Senate seats, and state legislative chambers, but none has lost more net House seats and-- especially-- state legislative seats. Having lost close to 1,000 (!) seats in legislatures around the country, the Democratic Party has a weak bench from which to groom future party stars for higher office. Table 5 lays out the comparable losses-- and in some cases victories-- of other modern presidents compared to the outgoing one.

Table 5: Down-ballot wins and losses for modern presidents