The GOP Doesn't Have Enough Congresswomen. Lara Trump To The Rescue?

How smart could Lara Trump be? After all, she married the dumbest member of the Trump clan, their Fredo. Lara Yunaska was born in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1982, and has only ever lived in Manhattan and North Carolina... but she's been to the Hampton's frequently enough to have a general idea where Long Island is. Lucky, because there's a week-old rumor circulating that wife of Eric may run for Peter King's seat, now that he's retiring. The rumor started at Bereitbart and has oozed into legitimate media like the New York Times and Newsday, Long Island's most widely read newspaper. The district includes much of blue-leaning Suffolk County and the south shore of Nassau County. As we saw a week and a half ago, swingy NY-02, is trending blue.

Last year, Nassau County’s white population dipped below 60% for the first time ever, as Latino, African-American and Asian populations across Long Island grew while the number of non-Hispanic white residents continued to decline. Less than 30 years ago, Long Island--then classic white flight suburbs-- was more than 84% white, according to the 1990 census. In 2018, about 59% of Nassau County residents and 67% of Suffolk County residents were white, according to the new estimates. Democrats now outnumber Republicans on Long Island, a once unthinkable development in a traditional conservative stronghold where voters backed every Republican presidential candidate, bar two, from 1900 to 1988… The numbers on Long Island enumerate the challenges for Republicans. In 1996, registered Republicans in Nassau County outnumbered the Democrats, 360,000 to 257,000. By this year, the number of Democrats had rocketed to 411,000. The number of Republicans, by contrast, had dropped by more than 30,000. In NY-02, once all all-Nassau district is now mostly a Suffolk County district and the Democratic Party now has a registration advantage over Republicans. Obama won the district both times, although Hillary lost it to Trump by almost 10 points. Peter King was reelected in recent years because he was Peter King, beloved by the transpartisan super-corrupt Long Island establishment, not because he was a Republican per se. All things being equal, a Democrat is likely to win it in 2020.

The Republicans are looking for a candidate to replace King and the Trumpist wing of the GOP is floating Lara Trump's name. There are 16 other Republicans in the primary-- Islip Town Councilwoman and ex-TV news reporter, state Assemblyman Mike LiPetri and Suffolk County election commissioner Nick LaLota-- or looking at it, particularly former Congressman for the North Shore district, Rick Lazio. The Democratic establishment seems to have settled for Babylon Town Councilwoman and Afghan War vet Jackie Gordon, a centrist, which is just what the DCCC wants.

The shady Club for Growth poll that Breitbart claims to have seen shows Lara Trump with 53% compared to 19% for Lazio. The poll showed that 60% of respondents had a favorable opinion of her while only 13% had an unfavorable opinion of her and 18% never heard of her. Although Trumpanzee's own approval rating on Long Island is in the dumpster, 78% of Republicans in NY-02 favor him and only 19% view him unfavorably. (And since this is an all GOP poll, yes, 1% said they have never heard of Donald Trump.)

These are the November 1, 2019 NY-02 registration numbers by party:

• Suffolk part of the district

Democrats- 38,110
Republicans- 59,075
Decline to state- 33,238

• Nassau part of the district

Democrats- 124,904
Republicans- 93,231
Decline to state- 85,086

• Total, district-wide, shows that if Democrats turn out their base and continue turning independent voters against Trump, the district is unwinnable for a Republican, especially one with the last name Trump.

Democrats- 163,014
Republicans- 152,306
Decline to state- 118,324

Now, remember, this Obama district flipped red for Trump (or against Hillary) in 2016. A Biden nomination might be as bad but there's no way to be certain what made NY-02 voters turn against Hillary so strongly. Over a year ago, John Pavlovitz had already begun giving up on the hardcore Trump fanatics. "There's an old saying," he wrote: 'When the horse is dead-- dismount. It’s time to stop beating that horse, America. It’s not going anywhere. I’ve tried for three years now. I’ve tried to understand them. I’ve tried to listen to them. I’ve tried not to assign motive to them, not to speculate as to why they voted the way they voted, not to believe they consented to every cruel thing their vote birthed and enabled. I’ve tried not to caricaturize them; not to make them into one-dimensional stereotypes, not to treat them as some fictional other whose presence posed a threat. I’ve tried appealing to their sense of decency, to their capacity for compassion, to their faith in Jesus." As I'm sure you can imagine, basically none of that has worked for Pavlovitz.

I’ve quietly endured thousands of their racist outbursts and homophobic rants on Twitter and at neighborhood picnics and across the Thanksgiving dinner table-- in the hopes that I could find some vulnerable place beneath their fear to access later.

I’ve tried buoying pep talks and firm tough love and expressions of kindness and straight-talking challenge and attempts at affirmation.

I’ve tried discussing theology, tried sharing stories of oppressed communities, tried to offer facts in the face of a million lies generated by their President, tried to show the lessons History has already taught us about the slope we’re currently sliding precipitously down.

They have all failed to reach fertile ground.

Nothing has worked.


It’s all been fruitless.

I think it’s time to stop saying that we need to understand these people. I think we do understand them:

We understand that they have dug in their heels so deeply, they will not be moved by anything-- not facts or data or truth or their own eyes.


We understand that there is no political scandal massive enough, no President’s Tweet reckless enough, no legislation predatory enough to alter their allegiance.


We understand that the past two years of viciousness and ineptitude haven’t tempered their passions but ignited them.

We understand that the image of an angry white, American male God is so burned into their brains, that they see no conflict with a religion devoid of love or a world absent diversity or a theology made of malice. 
We understand that infidelity, dishonesty, obscenity, and cruelty are no longer liabilities to those they would have lead them.


We understand that the FoxNews poison has so fully circulated through their systems that truth is no longer necessary.

We understand that white supremacists in the Cabinet and Russian infiltration in our elections and children separated from their parents are acceptable collateral damage to winning.

We understand that their capacity to rationalize away human rights atrocities now borders on complete delusion.

People have warned that we should treat these people with kid gloves; that explicitly expressing anger or pointing out criminality or vocally opposing injustice right now will only drive them deeper into their entrenched positions. That’s a fairly dire assessment.

If adults are that fragile in the face of reality, that willing to deny country and humanity simply because they’re offended, that thin-skinned and prone to mutiny-- their dispositions aren’t really a burden the rest of us should or could bear.

We don’t come to this understanding with any joy or self-satisfaction-- we come to it with sober despair and the deepest grief, because we know practically speaking that right now they are unreachable.

It’s one thing to have held out hope for them on November 9th, 2016, but at this point, I’m not sure any miraculous moral awakening or conversion of the heart is possible.

If their consciences and compassion and reason have not been accessed and unearthed by now, I’m concerned those things will never be forthcoming.

And since these people will not be moved, the rest of us need to move together.

Democrat, Republican, and Independent, the deeply devout and the passionately irreligious, people of every pigmentation and persuasion-- we need to move in concert, to affirm our shared regard for one another, and to vote to restore balance in something we all love that is teetering wildly.

This isn’t a battle to change the minds of the few who refuse to be changed. That horse is dead.

It also isn’t a test to see if we can manufacture the same hatred and vitriol for them as they dispense toward us.

This is a golden moment for the vast, sprawling army of good people who believe in the beauty of diversity and in a fully accessible America to speak unequivocally-- on our social media profiles, at family gatherings, in our church meetings-- and most of all, in the voting booth.

We don’t need to convince or coddle or win over hatred, and we don’t need to outdo it either.

We need to outnumber it.
We need to outlast it.
We need to outlove it.
We need to outvote it.

Chuck Schumer Is Already Weeping Over The Loss Of Peter King

Early this morning, Peter King-- first elected to Congress from the south shore of Long Island in 1992-- announced, on his Facebook page, that he won't be running for reelection. The announcement didn't say anything you wouldn't expect from a lock-step Trump enabler. Even though he sits on the Intelligence Committee and is well aware of how guilty Trump is, he announced in his statement that "In the coming weeks and during the next year I intend to vote against President Trump ‘s impeachment and will support the President’s bid for re-election." Many people first heard of his decision via a tweet (above) from Little Chuckie Schmucky. Not familiar with Schmucky? Maybe this little tune will help:




NY-02 shouldn't have been a Republican district all these years. Although Hillary stunk it up with her status quo bullshit agenda, Obama won it both times he ran and the PVI hovered around neutral. After Hillary's dismal showing-- she lost by almost 10 points-- 53.0% to 43.9%, the PVI is now officially R+3. The district won't perform that way with King out of the way. I spoke with the head of the Suffolk County legislature, DuWayne, a former King opponent who has endorsed Gordon. He told me he expects her to win the district, explaining that it was the bipartisan old boys network that kept King in power.

Before this morning's announcement, there were two Democrats running, establishment fave Babylon town concilmember Jackie Gordon (endorsed by EMILY's List and DCCC scam operation End Citizen's United) and local activist Mike Sax. She's already raised $187,941 but I wouldn't be surprised if other potential candidates jump into the race now. In 2018 King was forced to spend $3,175,639 to hold onto his seat. His progressive opponent, Liuba Grechen Shirley, spent $1,948,325. Although both Kirsten Gillibrand and Andrew Cuomo won the district, King was reelected, albeit more narrowly than in previous elections-- 128,078 (53.1%) to 113,074 (46.9%), losing the larger Suffolk County part of the district (D+3) while winning his Nassau home base which performed for him at an R+27 level.

For years, the Long Island political class assumed that his daughter, Erin Sweeney, top Republican on the Hempstead town council, would inherit the congressional seat. But she decided to move to Charlotte, North Carolina and didn't run for reelection.

John Wagner noted in his report for the Washington Post that the 75 year old King is the 20th GOP congressman to bow out of reelection. "King joins a growing number of Republican members of Congress who have announced retirements, resigned or said they will seek another office next year... By comparison, eight Democrats have announced they will not seek reelection."

Even before King announced he was bowing out of Congress, NBC News ran a piece early this morning about how the GOP has lost 100 members since Trump arrived in DC. "Change is a way of life in Washington," reported Dante Chinni. "Politicians come and go at the whims of voters. But even by D.C. standards, House Republicans have seen massive changes during President Donald Trump's administration. This week, as the House impeachment proceedings become public, those changes are going to be front and center. When Trump arrived in the White House in 2017, there were 241 Republicans at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue in the House of Representatives. Today, 100 of them have gone or have announced that they are leaving. That's 41 percent of that original 241 in the 115th House... not congressional seats lost; that's a measure of actual people, the personalities that once roamed the halls of Congress that aren't there anymore. They left for a range of reasons. Some left to take administration appointments, some lost, and some just walked away."

While much is made of partisan flips-- and they are obviously crucial in terms of who controls the House and the Senate-- Congress is ultimately a collection of people, and personalities matter. Personalities frame debates and set up how committees are run. And the House's GOP personalities will define the larger Republican Party when impeachment moves from private to public hearings this week.

The change in the House GOP over the last three years has been especially striking. Compare it to changes in the Democratic House in the same time period under President Barack Obama from January 2009 to November 2011.

...A good number of changes in the Republican House, 36 of them, came through election defeats. But overall, the departures are being driven more heavily by retirements and resignations. Half the Republican House turnover has come via voluntary exit-- 50 departures. And there was a lot of experience on that list.

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, a 10-term veteran, bowed out on his own. And 10 other Republican members who had served at least four terms in the House retired with their seats remaining Republican. That is, they were not in real danger of losing-- they just walked away and let different people take the reins.

And more departures are likely on the way. We are heading into the holidays and the new year, always a prime time for members to announce that they are not seeking reelection.

Keep these changes in mind this week when the House impeachment trial becomes a public affair. There has been a lot of turnover in the House in the past few years, and not just in terms of partisanship. The president's own party in the chamber looks very different from when he arrived in Washington.

The House Republicans have less institutional memory and more new faces than they did a few years ago-- and those new faces have come to Congress in Trump's Washington. That's likely to have some impact when temperatures and rhetoric rise around impeachment.

Three memorable quotes by Peter King, the right-wing asshole Schumer said he will miss and whose friendship he will always value:

• Just after Michael Jackson's death: "Let's knock out the psychobabble. He was a pervert, a child molester, he was a pedophile. And to be giving this much coverage to him, day in and day out, what does it say about us as a country? I just think we're too politically correct. No one wants to stand up and say we don't need Michael Jackson. He died, he had some talent, fine. There's men and women dying every day in Afghanistan. Let's give them the credit they deserve... I believe I'm articulating the views of a great majority of the American people."

• On the Occupy Wall Street movement: "We have to be careful not to allow this to get any legitimacy. I'm taking this seriously in that I'm old enough to remember what happened in the 1960s when the left-wing took to the streets and somehow the media glorified them and it ended up shaping policy. We can't allow that to happen."

• After the police murdered Eric Garner: "If he had not had asthma, and a heart condition, and was so obese, almost definitely he would not have died from this."

King was a repulsive racist and an all around bigot. Right after the Orlando shooting in a gay club, he termed it a "vicious Islamic terrorist attack" on his Facebook page and said that "the Islamic threat to the United States is greater than at any time since 9/11" and excoriated "leftwing editors at the New York Times and the "liberal ideologies" of the ACLU, stating that both the newspaper and organization were attempting to "intimidate" critics of Islam. He also helped lead the charge against football players peacefully protesting discrimination by kneeling during the national anthem, likening their protest to "Nazi salutes." That's who Peter King-- a corrupt bag of shit-- is. I'm sure he and Schumer will sson meet again in Hell.

Close Calls… And 2020 Opportunities For Progressives

In 2020, Trump will force voters to pick a torch again

Is it too soon to start thinking about the 2020 congressional cycle? Not for the Blue America team. We’re even starting to hope who our two first candidates will be to flip red seats blue. One district’s on Long Island-- yeah, we’re looking’ at you, Peter King-- and the other is deep in the heart of Tejas.

Now is the beginning of recruitment time for us. We’re looking for solid, proven progressives who want to run and have the capacity to do two things:

1- run a grueling grassroots campaign
2- be a kick-ass member of Congress

What we’re doing right now is identifying districts to begin the process. The first wave are the districts that Democrats came very close in this cycle. Some of them were districts the DCCC just missed entirely-- for one reason or another, ranging from incompetence to venality-- like TX-10, CA-50, NY-27, IA-04 and NY-02). Others were districts with woefully weak candidates, especially Blue Dogs like in KS-02 and PA-16, seats where Paul Davis’ and Ron DiNicola’s Republican-lite approaches failed to ignite any grassroots enthusiasm. Others were districts with good enough first time candidates running good enough campaigns and who built a strong foundation for a 2020 re-match, like Kara Eastman did in NE-02 and Dana Balter did in NY-24.

So, try to imagine that Trump will stay the same between now and 2020 as he’s been since the mid-1940s when he was born, a malignant narcissistic sociopath and as entitled racist shit. That would make for an even bigger wave-- at least in theory-- than we had this cycle. Much of the low-hanging fruit, though, is now off the table, those red suburban seats that Hillary won in 2016, for example, like FL-27 with an R+5 PVI and where Hillary beat Trump by TWENTY points. There aren’t many quite like that left. But 2018 uncovered new opportunities election pundits hadn’t seen coming, like the aforementioned TX-10 and like GA-07. But let me give you a back-of-the-envelope sketch of the earliest map we’re looking at at Blue America. This is the first round of districts where we want to find-- or have already found-- candidates. The percentage is the winning GOP score from last week:

• CA-21 (Central Valley)- 51.0%
• CA-50 (eastern San Diego County)- 52.8%

• GA-07 (Gwinnett suburbs northeast of Atlanta)- 50.2%

• IL-13 (downstate from St. Louis suburbs to Champaign, Springfield and Bloomington)- 50.5%

• IA-04 (northern and western rural Iowa)- 50.4%

• KS-02 (eastern Kansas minus Kansas City)- 48.1%

• KY-06 (Lexington)- 51.0%

• MI-06 (southwest Michigan)- 50.2%

• MN-01 (southern Minnesota)- 50.2%
• MN-08 (northeast Minnesota)- 50.7%

• MO-02 (St. Louis suburbs)- 51.3%

• MT (the whole state)- 51.1%

• NE-02 (Omaha Metro)- 51.6%

• NY-24 (Syracuse)- 53.1%
• NY-27 (Buffalo to Rochester suburbs and exurbs)- 49.5%

• NC-09 (southern tier from Fayetteville to Charlotte)- 49.4%

• OH-01 (Cincinnati + Warren County)- 51.8%
• OH-12 (central Ohio including part of Columbus)- 51.6%

• PA-01 (Bucks County)- 51.3%
• PA-10 (Dauphin, York and Cumberland counties)- 51.4%
• PA-16 (northeast Pennsylvania including Erie and Butler counties)- 51.5%

• TX-10 (northern Austin to Houston exurbs)- 50.9%
• TX-21 (Austin to San Antonio corridor)- 50.3%
• TX-23 (Rio Grande Valley from San Antonio to El Paso)- 49.2%
• TX-24 (Dallas and Tarrant counties)- 50.7%
• TX-31 (Williamson and Bell counties)- 50.6%

• WA-03 (sw Washington, Portland suburbs)- 52.9%

These were, basically, districts left on the table. Ironically, one of the first candidates we’re looking at isn’t even from one of these districts. New York state Assemblywoman Christine Pellegrino won a special election in 2017 for the 9th district in Nassau County. It’s the most Republican area of NY-02, Peter King’s Nassau-Suffolk South Shore district, still being “protected” by Steve Israel. Pellegrino, one of the best legislators in Albany beat Republican opponent 52-31% in the 2017 special but was defeated by another Republican last week. She’s probably still the best bet to take on King and retire him in 2020. Now all we have to do is try to talk her into it.

The Year Duwayne Gregory Can End Peter King's Long, Tired Political Career

Alexa Sheryll is Duwayne Gregory's campaign manager. Their primary is a week from Tuesday, June 26. Alexa explained this week that she's heard that "a lot of people don’t know exactly where the money they give to campaigns goes. "As DuWayne’s campaign manager," she said, "I can tell you exactly where your donation goes... With our campaign, money isn’t going to some shadowy super PAC fund. It’s going directly to our efforts to bring real leadership to NY-02." She pointed to three priorities they need to fund between now and the 26th:

• Supporting our field team (even volunteers have to eat!)
• Helping DuWayne connect with as many voters as possible
• GOTV (get out the vote) efforts

Duwayne has already been endorsed by the Working Families, Women’s Equality and Independence parties and will challenge Peter King on those lines. His primary opponent is a woman and many Long Islanders wondered why Duwayne was endorsed by the Women's Equality Party. They based it on his work on behalf of women's equality, not on gender ID. Recently Duwayne wrote that "Trump campaigned on a platform that was anti-women-- and he’s followed through."

It started with repealing the Affordable Care Act’s birth control access mandate.

Now he has instituted a domestic gag rule that will withhold federal grants from organizations like Planned Parenthood simply because they perform abortions.

Planned Parenthood and similar organizations are the main source of healthcare for so many women across the country who couldn’t otherwise afford it.

I’m standing with women-- and against Trump-- and denouncing this domestic gag rule.

I have been a lifelong advocate for women’s rights and equality on every front. I support Planned Parenthood, paid family leave, equal pay, and a woman’s right to choose.

Peter King, on the other hand, has voted against paid family leave, voted against the ACA (which increased healthcare access for women), and voted to ban abortions nationwide.

Peter King is running the same anti-woman agenda that Trump is. As your Congressman, I’ll vote for policies that bring women’s rights to the forefront, not turn back the clock.

This domestic gag rule is just Republicans’ latest attempt to curtail women’s rights and freedoms.

Duwayne, who I've known for several years, is the Presiding Officer of the Suffolk County Legislature, a post he's been elected to several times. His campaign isn't so much about unaccountable promises as it is about solid progressive accomplishments, which has a lot to do with why Blue America endorsed him. He was the victim of a hate crime when he was eleven years old. This experience helped mold him into a champion for the voiceless. The son of two union workers, an auto mechanic and a registered nurse, he understands what working class families are fighting for. Washington needs more people with a sense of purpose to understand what they are fighting for and what they are fighting against. I asked Duwayne to name a half dozen things he's done that have changed the loves of people on the South Shore. These are the ones that popped into his head immediately:

• I created the Hate Crimes Task Force to address the hate crimes that were happening in the county.
• I sponsored a bill that was the first in the nation ban on powdered caffeine to minors. The FDA later took action to ban the bulk sale of powdered caffeine after my lobbying them.
• Under my leadership we expanded our human rights law to address housing discrimination against undocumented immigrants and LGBTQ.
• I also supported the ban of microbeads in consumer products which was having a detrimental effect in the environment.
• I initiated a program to provide child care for students at our community college that is on public assistance.
• I also created the Suffolk County Land-bank which is charger with cleaning up environmentally contaminated properties and returning them to the tax rolls. This program has received national recognition and has brought in over $5 million in tax revenues. 

It's one thing to talk about doing this and supporting that. It's something else to work with other people to get something done. Blue America supported legislative leaders who showed what they could do in legislatures before they got into Congress. And now we have dynamic congressional leaders like Ted Lieu (CA), Pramila Jayapal (WA), Jamie Raskin (MD) and Karen Bass (CA). This year some of our top endorsements are proven legislators like Kaniela Ing (HI), Jared Golden (ME), Lisa Brown (WA), Rashida Tlaib (MI), Ellen Lipton (MI), and, of course, Duwayne Gregory (NY).

Long Island Gets A New Candidate Today-- And Blue America Endorses DuWayne Gregory

A couple of weeks ago DuWayne Gregory was elected to his fifth term as the Suffolk County Legislature’s presiding officer. I met DuWayne a few years ago when he helped me conduct a forum for political science and economics majors at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. This morning he announced that he is running for New York's second congressional district, a seat that's been held by Republican Peter King since 1992. Although Obama won the Long Island district both times he ran (51-48% against McCain and 52-47% against Romney), Suffolk County was Trump territory in 2016. Hillary lost the county to Trump 328,403 (52.5%) to 276,953 (44.3%) and lost NY-02-- which includes part of Nassau County as well-- by slightly worse margins-- 53.0% to 43.9%. The district's voters wanted change and Hillary was seen as the candidate of the establishment and the status quo. Although DuWayne did better than other candidates had against King, he was swimming against the tide in 2016.

This year he feels he's swimming with the tide and probably along with a strong anti-Trump/anti-GOP wave. The district starts at Lake Ronkonkoma, Islandia, Bohemia, Bayport and Sayville in the east and heads west through Islip, Bay Shore, Babylon and Lindenhurst to Amityville, Massapequa and Seaford. This cycle many in the district-- as well as those of us at Blue America who had gotten to know DuWayne over the last couple of years-- were eager to see him in a rematch with King, especially in the kind of political environment of GOP overreach that Trump and Paul Ryan have created. Their tax bill, for example. is absolutely devastating for working families on Long Island. And the voters there know it, despite Trumps' gaslighting and Ryan's bogus claims. Peter King was given a "pass" to vote NO, but all that did was highlight his ineffectiveness as a representative for the district.

The most Hispanic of any of the Long Island districts (23% Latino), many NY-02 residents were shocked when they read that their own congressman sponsored a bill to deny citizenship to natural born Americans if their parents were not U.S. citizens. Nor were they pleased to see him sponsoring a bill that called for English only in government communications. Needless to say, the bigoted King was not a supporter of the comprehensive immigration bill passed by a wide bipartisan majority in the Senate.

In his own communications to Long Islanders, Duwayne stresses his own record of inclusion and vows to go to Washington "to fight for fairness for all Americans by working to bring about justice reform" and to "ensure that no one is treated differently because of their race or economic status when it comes to our justice system." He's one veteran who has every intention of going to Washington to ensure that "the problems with the VA never happen again to our war veterans" and to "work to provide quality healthcare to every veteran in need."

Over all, his outlook leads in a very different direction from King's. His concerns are about fighting for the middle class, not maintaining a status quo for the very wealthy and for corporate special interests. His goals are to be part of the congressional team that will increase the minimum wage, guarantee college affordability, increase child care credits, provide tax credits for healthcare providers and fight for good-paying jobs. When he was endorsed by New York's Working Families Party, Long Island Political Director Emily Abbott noted that "DuWayne has put politics aside to get things done for working families. Washington needs people like DuWayne Gregory who will fight to ensure that all of Long Island’s families and small businesses have a fair shot to succeed." DuWayne is a strong advocate for Medicare-For-All.

Peter King's antiquated perspective on women doesn't work in NY-02, not in 2016. He voted against equal pay for women and his anti-choice extremism belies his claims to be a "moderate." Moderates, unlike King, don't oppose women's choice even in cases of rape and incest. "The disparity of pay between men and women doing the same work is unjustifiable and I'll never forget when I'm in Congress that my constituents don't want any part of that," DuWayne told us. "Nor will I ever countenance the government coming between a woman and her doctor or her minister or whomever she choses to consult about her intimate health matters. My opponent talks about government getting off the backs of our people. I don't know how he squares that with his extreme positions on women's choice and his shameful, ideological vote to defund Planned Parenthood."

DuWayne reacted strongly when King voted for TPP Fast Track Authority. He would have rejected it. "I have serious concerns about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was largely negotiated in secret. The nations set to sign on to this agreement represent 40% of the world’s GDP. A trade deal of that magnitude deserves to be rigorously debated and amended in Congress, so as to ensure strong protections for American jobs. By sacrificing the power to make changes to this deal, Congress is sacrificing its power to help shape it."

This morning DuWayne told me that "the call for vigorous new leadership in Washington is loud and the enthusiasm for change is inspiring." He added that Trump has degraded America's moral authority while Peter King remained silent. "We deserve a passionate champion for the issues we all care about-- cutting taxes, protecting our environment, and preserving the American Dream... "I hear it from my neighbors and from friends across the country; people are tired of the nonsense, the lies and the failures of Trump’s administration, and the politicians in Washington who let it happen. We know the swamp hasn’t been drained-- it’s deeper and dirtier than ever. And we know that it’s because politicians like Peter King aren’t doing their job."

Last year we had a mobile billboard driving up and down the district and we'd like to step up our participation in DuWayne Gregory's campaign for 2018. We are eager for suggestions from Blue America members and DWT readers. Meanwhile, a remembrance of 2016:

Is The DCCC Pepared To Help Turn Long Island Blue Again? Or Not?

I was born in Brooklyn and I went to high school there but in between (and afterwards) I lived on Long Island, first in Nassau County and later in Suffolk County. I have Long Island in my DNA-- and God knows I want to see Peter King out of office in my old neighborhoods. The Lovin' Spoonful may have been a NYC band but no one on the Island in the mid-'60s thought so. Their music was our music and I was so happy to share that music in the clip above for the Blue America DuWayne Gregory billboard truck last cycle. And you can't imagine how badly I want that truck out on the roads again-- from Massapequa, Amityville, Lindenhurst, Babylon, Bay Shore, Islip, all the way to Nicholas Road where I once shared a house with 6 women and entertained the Jefferson Airplane before their first East Coast concert. Last year it really would have been magic for DuWayne to beat Peter King-- especially with the DCCC abandoning him completely. Although Obama won it both times he ran, King beat Hillary in King's blue-trending district by nearly 10 points-- 53.0% to 43.9%. Was she ever the wrong candidate for that Nassau-Suffolk district! King was reelected 181,506 (62.1%) to 110,938 (37.9%). He spent $1,307,660 to DuWayne's $372,792. This cycle King already has $2,703,782 cash on hand. But in wave elections huge cash advantages by incumbents are largely meaningless.

Blue America has been begging DuWayne to run again. Last week he was reelected to his county legislative seat with an eye-popping 72% of the vote-- and against Chris Madden, a Republican recruited and heavily backed by King. His legislative district encompasses almost the whole eastern half of NY-02 and DuWayne won 52 out of the 55 election districts including even deep red parts ofAmityville and Copiague. DuWayne is known outside of his own part of the district because he's the presiding officer of the Suffolk County legislature. 

This cycle the DCCC claims it isn't going to ignore NY-02 like it did in 2016. Writing for Newsday, Emily Ngo reported that "The seat held by 13-term Republican Rep. Peter King was added Thursday to the Democratic list of districts the party views as vulnerable enough to flip in the 2018 midterm election. New York’s 2nd Congressional District is considered safely GOP in major race rating systems such as the Cook Political Report, but its designation by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as in-play comes on the heels of Democratic victories Tuesday in the Nassau County executive and Hempstead Town supervisor races." And, don't forget that last May progressive activist and Berniecrat Christine Pellegrino won a red legislative district right in the heart of King's district (Massapequa, Babylon, West Islip and West Bay Shore). Romney had beaten Obama in that Assembly district and last year Trump eviscerated Hillary with a 23 point margin there. But Pellegrino beat conservative sociopath and Trumpist Tom Gargiulo 5,590 (57.89%) to 4,049 (41.93%). She ran on an unadulterated progressive platform-- none of the Republican-lite bullshit the DCCC tells all of its candidates to run on.

In the past DCCC chairman-- and King crony-- Steve Israel has done everything he could to protect King's seat. Israel is finally gone from Congress, but-- alas-- still influential at the DCCC. He's already dug up a horrifying candidate for the Democrats who would never be able to beat King, tsunami or no tsunami, Tim Gomes. This guy doesn't know if he wants to be a Democrat or Republican and keeps switching his party registration back and forth. This year he's trying the Democrat label. He doesn't have any policy positions on his website, usually a good indication of a bad candidate. But he loaned his campaign $1 million in the first quarter. (He's raised another $39,750 from real people since then.) There's also some self-entitled carpetbagger from the City-- Liuba Grechen Shirley-- in the race. No one in the district knows anything about her or Gomes. And neither would be a good bet to beat King.

DuWayne still seems interested. I think if he gets any kind of a signal that the DCCC won't undercut him by supporting the Republican self-funder pretending to be a Democrat, he'll run-- and win, both the primary and the general.

Is The DCCC Letting Peter King Off The Hook Without A Fight Again?

Last May there was such a big hubbub when progressive activist Christine Pellegrino won a red legislative district right in the heart of Peter King's Long Island congressional district (Massapequa, West Babylon, Babylon Village, West Islip and West Bay Shore). Romney had beaten Obama in that Assembly district and last year Trump eviscerated Hillary with a 23 point margin there. But Pellegrino, a full-fledged Berniecrat, beat conservative sociopath and Trumpist Tom Gargiulo 5,590 (57.89%) to 4,049 (41.93%). She ran on an unadulterated progressive platform-- none of the Republican-lite bullshit the DCCC tells all of its candidates to run on. And her victory was said to bode well for the Democrats to finally oust Peter King in 2018. So... as 2018 approaches, people are starting to wonder... what happened with that?

NY-02, which covers much of southern Long Island and includes chunks of both Nassau and Suffolk counties, went from a PVI of R+1 in 2015 to R+3 this year, but it is still very swingy and appears ready to swing back-- for the right candidate. Obama won the district both times he ran, but last year the voters gave Trump a stunning 53.0 to 43.9 win over Hillary. At the same time, Peter King was reelected 171,915 (62.4%) to 103,643 (37.6%) for DuWayne Gregory, the head of the Suffolk County legislature. DuWayne spent $372,792 to King's $1,307,660 and the DCCC refused to get involved in the race. This year, after his experience with the DCCC, Gregory-- easily the best shot the Democrats have for replacing King, seems more than reluctant to jump in again.

Instead, we have 3 candidates who know one in the district knows or cares about. Tim Gomes doesn't know if he wants to be a Democrat or Republican and keeps switching his party registration back and forth. This year he's trying the Democrat label. He doesn't have any policy positions on his website, usually a good indication of a bad candidate. And he loaned his campaign $1 million in the first quarter. (He's raised another $39,750 from real people since then.) Mike Sax seems to want to pass himself off as the progressive-- "the Randy Bryce of Long Island" without understanding anything about who Randy Bryce is-- but everyone I asked in the district (where I used to live) sees him as a nice guy who's a little looney. Liuba Grechen Shirley behaves like she's entitled to be congresswoman. But she just moved back to the district to run for Congress after living in New York City for 15 years. Everything I've read about her indicates a candidate reeking of inauthenticity, the opposite of what voters are looking for. No one knows any of them and they will have to work hard in the communities that make on NY-02 to give King a real race. I don't think Peter King could have picked a better contingent of candidates to guarantee his own reelection if he had selected each of them himself.

I'm also hearing that Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone might jump into the race. I don't know about that. He aspires to be governor and I don't think he sees a congressional seat as helpful towards achieving that ambition. He'd at least be a plausible candidate. I bet if Ben Ray Lujan or Pelosi called DuWayne Gregory and apologized for screwing him last time and promised not to do it again, he'd run again. I didn't ask him because those two would rather lose NY-02 again-- and forever-- than ever do anything like that. It's how their "leadership" works and explains why King will be in Congress in 2019 even if there is a mammoth anti-Trump tsunami next year.

What's Happening With Those Crazy Congressional Races Today?

Let me start by saying it's not a conspiracy. It's just that all the Beltway types live in the same bubble. So when, for example, Cook does their House ratings, they don't look further than the districts the DCCC and NRCC have identified as battlegrounds. Media follows along happily and a kind of a prophecy starts becoming self-fulfilling. Today, Cook showed 3 Republican seats likely to fall to the Democrats-- FL-13 (from Jolly to Crist), NV-04 (from Hardy to Kihuen) and NH-01 (from Guinta to Shea-Porter) and one Democratic seat likely to fall to the GOP, Murphy's red-leaning FL-18 where the self-funding conservaDem, Randy Perkins is feeling about now that he just wasted $7,827,029 of his own money, just to see Brian Mast beat him. And they identify 18 toss-ups-- 2 blue ones (Nolan's MN-08 and Blue Dog Brad Ashford's NE-02)-- and 16 red ones.

• CA-10- Denham vs Eggman
• CA-25- Knight vs Caforio
• CA-49- Issa vs Applegate
• CO-06- Coffman vs Carroll
• FL-07- Mica vs Murphy
• FL-26- Curbelo vs Garcia
• IL-10- Dold vs Schneider
• IA-01- Blum vs Vernon
• ME-02- Poliquin vs Cain
• MN-02 (open)- Lewis vs Craig
• NV-03 (open)- Tarkanian vs Rosen
• NJ-05- Garrett vs Gottheimer
• NY-19 (open)- Faso vs Teachout
• PA-08 (open)- Fitzpatrick vs Santarsiero
• TX-23- Hurd vs Gallego
• VA-10- Comstock vs Bennett

That's the playing field. It's certainly where the bulk of the money is being spent, although there are 14 other Republican-held seats (+ the red Florida Panhandle seat Blue Dog Gwen Graham abandoned in fear) where there is an acknowledgement of a contest-- and where the DCCC and NRCC are spending some money. But when you look at districts that the DCCC (or, presumably, the NRCC) lets it be known that "nothing's happening"-- like in PA-07, NY-02, TX-21, NJ-07 as examples-- operations like Cook as well as Beltway media, doesn't even look.

The DCCC, for example, signaled that Anna Throne-Holst, a Steve Israel recruit (in more ways than one) had a hot race against Lee Zeldin on the eastern end of Long Island. She's not even a Democrat-- switched parties a few days before the deadline-- but had a thing with Israel so he pushed her. She's losing by a ridiculous landslide-- although Pelosi's House Majority PAC wasted $1,069,507 on the race (and EMILY's List threw in another $881,886). Next door, in NY-02, the South Shore district represented by Israel crony Peter King, which includes a chunk of Nassau and a bigger, bluer chunk of Suffolk, Israel was determined to keep the DCCC away. (The Democratic candidate, DuWayne Gregory, the progressive Presiding Officer of the Suffolk County Legislature, is the best shot the Democrats have ever had to win the seat, but Israel is adamantly opposed to black people representing majority-white districts and he blackballed Gregory.) Today Gregory is likely to fair better than Throne Holst and a case can be made that if even half the nearly two million dollars wasted on her hopeless, silly race was spent in NY-02, Peter King would be looking for a job on K Street tomorrow.

We've talked about how the DCCC, infuriated that Mary Ellen Balchunis beat their piss-poor conservative primary candidate-- 74-26%-- and withdrew from one of the best Democratic take-over districts in the whole country... partially out of spite and partially out of pique. Yes, yes, this is Pelsoi's corrupt, vile, money-wasting DCCC. Hillary will probably win PA-07 by 20 points today. She, Bernie and Elizabeth Warren all campaigned with Mary Ellen, but the DCCC wouldn't spend a dime, told institutional donors not to waste their money and warned the media off the district. Cook doesn't even mention it, even though by their own ratings, it's far closer to being able to be flipped than other districts the DCCC is pushing for their Blue Dog and New Dem candidates.

More of a stretch is TX-21, Austin to San Antonio, plus the Hill Country. When Berniecrat Tom Wakely beat his conservative opponent, the DCCC literally refused it even take any of his calls. That's what a bunch of muthafuckers they are. The incumbent, clueless, venal and doddering reactionary Lamar Smith is a powerful committee chair, which, instead of inspiring the DCCC, makes them shy away. With Hillary looking like she could win the district-- up in Travis, Bexar and Hays counties-- the DCCC should be going to bat for Wakely. Instead, all their Texas money is going to a grotesquely corrupt Blue Dog, Pete Gallego, who was in Congress from 2013 to 2015, voting consistently with the GOP to the point where Democrats didn't even bother coming out to vote for him in 2014. That's how a 70.8% Latino district came to be represented by a non-Latino right-wing Republican kook.



Blue America has been working to help Wakely with a revolutionary phone-banking system and with the mobile billboard above. Now if we had just been able to spend the $3,092,425 the DCCC and the $2,209,274 the House Majority PAC wasted on the Gallego race...

Meanwhile, the only acknowledgement that there's even a race at all in TX-21, came from Lisa Rein at the Washington Post yesterday morning,in a piece about climate change: House science chairman gets heat in Texas race for being a global warming skeptic. "In the race for the White House," she wrote, "the climate change debate has been more or less missing in action. In the race for a central Texas House seat, the Democrat hoping to topple 30-year incumbent Republican Lamar Smith has made global warming his top campaign issue. Democrat Tom Wakely is campaigning as a champion of climate science in a year when Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump-- and most other candidates for Congress, for that matter-- have barely touched on the issue, in what is shaping up to be the hottest year on record."

Wakely has seized on a theme that has defined Smith’s run in Washington as chairman of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology: He’s a climate change skeptic.

Smith, 68, an attorney from San Antonio who’s represented the area northwest of the city since 1987, rejects the scientific consensus that man-made pollution is behind global warming. He’s used his perch as committee chairman to subpoena federal climate scientists to discredit their research, issuing a record number of legal summonses this Congress and turning a panel that was once a sleepy backwater into an aggressive attack dog.

This has made Smith a polarizing figure in Washington, beloved by oil and gas interests who give generously to his campaigns and vilified by those fighting to reduce global warming pollution.

Now his attacks on scientists are percolating back home in a district buffeted in recent years by drought and water shortages. And while Smith does not often highlight his views on climate change on the campaign trail, Wakely, a little-known Democratic activist, saw an opening this year to pounce.

“Lamar Smith is the major impediment to anything being done on climate change in Congress and absolutely nobody is talking about it,” said the 63-year-old Air Force veteran and former union organizer who supported Bernie Sanders. “People in this district are slowly getting the message that climate change is not a far left wing conspiracy.”

Wakely has little shot at unseating Smith, who is running for a 16th term in a safely red district.

But his campaign isn’t the only sign that Smith’s stance on global warming is raising some eyebrows back home.

Smith has long won the support of local newspapers. But this year, his hometown paper, the San Antonio Express-News, refused to endorse him for reelection, citing his “bullying tactics” on climate change.

“We’ve argued that Smith’s undeniably conservative credentials have been a good fit for the 21st congressional District,” the editorial board wrote on Oct. 17. “However, Smith’s actions have developed more transparently this term into an issue that goes beyond the boundaries of his district. A particular issue is his abuse of his position as chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. Specifically, it is his bullying on the issue of climate change that should concern all Americans.” The Express-News is one of Texas’s largest newspapers.

...Smith was one of the first members of Congress to endorse Donald Trump and has stood by the nominee, who is favored to win central Texas. Like Trump, he says the U.S. has not done enough to secure the border with Mexico and is co-sponsoring legislation to keep out Syrian refugees.

This Congress, Smith has shown a willingness to go beyond the boundaries of the science committee’s traditional jurisdiction, subpoenaing attorneys general and environmental groups investigating whether oil giant ExxonMobil covered up what it knew of the dangers of climate change and launching an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state. He has also demanded records from the Environmental Protection Agency to undermine President Obama’s regulations to reduce emissions from power plants.

“As Chairman, I have an obligation to conduct vigorous oversight of agencies and programs within my jurisdiction,” Smith said in a statement to the Post. “Under that umbrella, I work to ensure that federal agencies base their regulations and policy decisions on the best available science and not on partisan politics.”

Wakely runs a private hospice care home for veterans and other patients. He served early in his career on a school board in southern Wisconsin. He says he was motivated to make climate change a core issue because his granddaughter has asthma and he worries about pollution. He argues that global warming is keenly felt by voters in the district, who have been faced in recent years with long droughts and severe water shortages.

“We’re talking about water,” Wakely said. “That resonates with everybody. It’s part of the changing climate.”

In a district with a large military presence, Wakely also says he will fight for faster benefits and better health care for veterans.

Smith did not face a Democratic opponent two years ago. He has always won reelection with at least 60 percent of the vote. While the district is now 28 percent Latino, a demographic trend that could favor a Democrat, a smaller percentage of these residents are registered to vote.

While the economy of the Lone Star state is heavily reliant on the fossil fuel industry, energy companies are not a huge presence in the 21st district. Still, Smith calls climate science an economic threat to his constituents.

“The Obama administration along with climate alarmists have long pursued climate policies that would cost Americans billions of dollars and put hard working people in my district out of a job,” he said.

Smith has raised $1.4 million this election cycle, according to OpenSecrets.org, while Wakely has brought in $64,400, much of it in small contributions. ClimateHawksVote, a political action committee that endorses candidates who fight global warming, has identified Wakely as its top “message” candidate this year.

A 2014 estimate by the nonprofit Yale Program on Climate Change Communication of attitudes toward the issue found that 65 percent of people in Texas’s 21st district believe global warming is happening, similar to 63 percent nationwide. The estimate, based on a statistical model using national surveys, also said 49 percent believe that global warming is caused mostly by human activities, while 33 percent think it is caused by natural environmental changes. Those numbers roughly mirror national data.

Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, said he doubts climate change is a top voter concern in the district. “I think it’s driven from within for Smith, more by his personal beliefs,” Jones said.

Texas is one of ten states that allow straight ticket voting, where general election voters can choose every candidate in a political party who is on the ballot. With Trump favored to win the 21st district, this makes Wakely’s challenge tougher.

Are Suburbanites About To Teach The GOP A Lesson About Nominating Crackpots And Fascists?

When Doug Applegate came for his Blue America interview, he brought his campaign manager, Robert Dempsey, the guy who ran Bernie's very successful Minnesota campaign-- where Bernie beat Hillary 118,135 (61.6%) to 73,510 (38.4%), winning every single congressional district in the state. Yesterday, after Trump tweeted out an explicit endorsement of Darrell Issa-- something most congressional campaigns have avoided, Dempsey told the media that "Issa Issa once again shows why he's unfit to represent this district in Congress. When he's not busy lining his own pockets, he's trying to score political brownie points with one of the least qualified candidates for president in the history of the United States. I guess Issa couldn't help himself in showing the voters of this district that he really is a mini-Trump who will always put party before country."

Issa finds himself suddenly in danger of defeat, a prognosis worsened by his decision to embrace Donald J. Trump.

“It’s a mystifyingly bad campaign that Issa’s run,” said David Wasserman, an editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “And he is in grave danger.”

Democrats, who cannot contain their glee at the prospect of his defeat, are trying to make the case that Mr. Issa is not alone. “If Darrell Issa, a long-term member who is well known in his district and outside his district, who is the richest member of Congress, is on the cusp of losing,” said Representative Xavier Becerra of California, a member of House Democratic leadership, “then it’s not just Darrell Issa who’s going down.”

The most current polling shows Applegate beating Issa As of yesterday by 4 points, 46-42%-- in a district that hasn't gone Democratic in a presidential year since FDR's second term. As of last week's FEC reporting deadline Issa had already spent $3,930,927 to Applegate's $975,049. Applegate has gotten help from the DCCC ($1,655,181) and from Pelosi's House Majority PAC ($914,046) and neither the NRCC nor Ryan's House Leadership PAC have put any money into the race at all. A Ryan staffer told me that Issa's "the richest guy in Congress and all he put it is $27,000. If he doesn't want to pony up neither do we... Screw him and let him pay for his own ads. Out you're way we're trying to save Jeff Denham who looks like he's in worse trouble than Issa is... He should of thought about what would happen in a district like his before he endorsed Trump. He's out of touch."

Yesterday's L.A. Times painted a similarly dismal picture for Issa, predicting that Orange County is turning Blue. In 2012 CA-49's electorate included just over 66,000 voters in Orange County and about 170,000 in San Diego County. Issa won the Orange County part of the district with 66% and the San Diego part with 56%. Right now Hillary is leading in San Diego County by 14 points and in Orange County by less than a point. (Obama won San Diego County 52-46% and Romney won Orange County 53-45%.) And they held Issa up as an example of how the increasingly extreme GOP is losing it's once-solid grip on the suburbs across the country.

[T]he American political map has been upended by Donald Trump’s campaign: He has sped up a decade-long shift in which the GOP has gathered strength in white, blue-collar regions that once routinely elected Democrats, but traditional Republican suburbs increasingly have turned blue.

From Chester County outside Philadelphia to Gwinnett County east of Atlanta and on to Fort Bend County near Houston and Tarrant County west of Dallas, big, affluent suburban regions seem likely to shift significantly toward Hillary Clinton this year, according to analysts who track county-level voting trends.

That’s an immediate hurdle for the GOP, which has long counted on suburban strength to offset Democratic votes in the cities. It could be an even bigger problem in the longer term because those suburbs are among the nation’s most economically dynamic, growing regions.

  The shift reflects changing demographics: As with Orange County, many of the nation’s suburbs have become racially and ethnically diverse, shedding their status as all-white enclaves.

It has been accelerated by Trump’s weakness among college-educated, white voters. That group has sided with the Republican in every presidential election since reliable polling began in the U.S. in the 1940s, but this year it has consistently shown a Democratic majority in polls.

Because of the demographic changes, “the question is not whether or not a Democrat is going to win in Orange County, it’s just a question of when,” said Jon Fleischman, an influential conservative blogger who lives in Anaheim Hills.

“If Donald Trump were not at the top of the ticket, I don’t think it would be this year,” he added. “Because he is, it may very well be the case.”

...As the region has grown more diverse, GOP margins have narrowed. The last time a Democrat took Orange County was 1936, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt won by nearly 12 percentage points. In 1980 and 1984, Ronald Reagan won by 50 points. But in 2008, President Obama came close to flipping the county, losing by 2.5 points to Sen. John McCain.

Trump’s disparaging rhetoric about Mexicans and Muslims, his breaks with past Republican stands on trade and the overall tone of his campaign seem likely to create the final tipping point this month.

“He’s a bad fit for upscale suburbs,” said Stu Rothenberg, a veteran nonpartisan political analyst. “They expect a certain style from their presidential nominee, a certain intellect and a kind of measure in serious discussion of policy.”

The GOP’s problem is most acute among college-educated white women.

“Trump is a bully and a misogynist and incompetent,” said Anna Hornbostel of Mission Viejo.

The 36-year-old Republican, who holds a master’s in education and is studying for a second one in marriage and family therapy, is no fan of Clinton. “She’s a career politician, and I think she embodies everything that’s wrong with the system,” she said.

But Trump has her considering a Democrat for the first time in her life. His language about women appalls her, she said, adding that her three brothers would never use such words and that she would never want her 10 nephews to hear them.

“I’ll probably end up voting for Hillary-- closing my eyes and plugging my nose-- because I trust her ability as a politician to not … get us into a nuclear war,” she said.

Local Democrats hope Clinton’s coattails, along with an expected drop in Republican turnout, will help them tip congressional, legislative and local races as well.

Other suburban district Republicans who, like Issa, the DCCC never imagined they could successfully target but who are in trouble going into the last week before the election, largely because of Trump, include Patrick Meehan (PA-07-- Delaware, Montgomery, Chester, Berks counties), Peter King (NY-02-- Nassau and Suffolk counties) and the odious Lamar Smith (TX-21-- Travis, Bexar, Comal and Hays counties). Unfortunately, the DCCC has refused to lend a hand to the progressive opponents of these Republicans, respectively Mary Ellen Balchunis, DuWayne Gregory and Tom Wakely and is spending no money on any of their races, although these grassroots progressives are likely to outperform some of the wretched Blue Dogs and New Dems the DCCC and Pelosi are wasting tens of millions of dollars on. If you can, please... Balchunis, Gregory and Wakely-- and Applegate: