Abandoned By The DCCC 2020

 

With a tiny handful of exceptions-- basically Kara Eastman in Omaha, Joyce Elliott in Little Rock and Dana Balter in Syracuse (who is running in a D+3 district)-- Cheri Bustos and her DCCC have once again decided to spend all the big money primarily on corporate-friendly conservative candidates backed by the Blue Dogs and New Dems. To say movement candidates don't get a fair shake from Bustos, would be the understatement of the cycle.

Sri Kulkarni is a good example. He's running in TX-22, Tom DeLay's old district in the suburbs south and southwest of Houston, primarily Fort Bend County with a chunk of Brazoria and a sliver od Harris. With a PVI of R+10, Trump beat Hillary there 52.1% to 44.2%. Kulkarni lost to Republican Pete Olson in 2018-- 152,750 (51.4%) to 138,153 (46.5%), a good showing but not as good as Beto O'Rourke had. Olson is retiring now and it makes sense for the DCCC to chase the district. Kulkarni, though is an extremely flawed candidate on many levels. We'll just mention one: he's been endorsed by the Blue Dogs and New Dems. The Blue Dogs have been known to reject conservatives who they don't view as conservative enough. They see Kulkarni as right up their alley.

Kulkarni has outraised Republican Troy Nehls $4,863,231 to $1,532,299. But the big spending is the district is coming from the DCCC and Pelosi's House Majority PAC and from Kevin McCarthy's Congressional Leadership Fund. As of last week, the DCCC and Pelosi had spent $5,749,664 slamming Nehls and bolstering Kulkarni. Meanwhile McCarthy had put $5,692,407 into slamming Kulkarni and bolstering Nehls. Those are signals that the committees are serious about backing candidates. Corporate conservatives like Christy Smith (CA), Carolyn Bourdeaux (GA) and Amy Kennedy (NJ)-- all endorsed by the New Dems-- have also been benefiting from mega-DCCC independent expenditures. Progressives? Nope; with a couple of exception-- just peanuts that send a very different signal.

We've just re-activated Blue America's Abandoned by the DCCC ActBlue page, which you will find by clicking on the thermometer on the right. These are progressive candidates who won their primaries and each is on the verge of flipping a red seat blue-- without any real help-- or in most cases, without any help-- from the DCCC, which endlessly whines that progressives are "too liberal" for the districts they're running in.

I spoke with a movement candidate who looked over the list of the DCCC favorites. He said, "I think we can persuade some of them to vote progressive at least some of the time." OK, better than nothing, but what about candidates you don't have to persuade, leaders like Jamaal Bowman, Mondaire Jones, Beth Doglio and Cori Bush who have already proven that they don't need any persuading?

I'm thinking this is going to be the last Blue America ask before the election. So please read what history of ideas professor-- and Riverside County progressive candidate-- Liam O'Mara told me about what's behind the DCCC abandonment of progressive candidates.

"The idea that I am 'too progressive for the district' is rubbish... We currently have the best early return rate of any Democrat in recent memory, and that follows a primary cycle that saw more votes to the Dems than any previous primary in ages. Right now FiveThirtyEight gives my campaign a better chance of flipping the district than they've seen yet, and a higher chance of flipping the seat than quite a few candidates in the long list of candidates the DCCC is spending on. Progressive-populist leaders used to dominate in the most socially conservative corners of the country, because more people vote their wallets and their hopes than anything else. To say that we are out of touch with the needs and wishes of the electorate is to surrender preëmptively to Republican control and Republican arguments... when what we ought to be doing is standing out there and winning over hearts and minds. The Democratic party needs to stop focussing on safely blue seats and start trying to win people over... and we can't do that with tepid, half-baked conservatism."

The Florida Democratic Party never looked seriously at the north-central Florida district centered on Gainesville, but this year, after Ted Yoho announced his retirement, 27 year old Adam Christensen has made a real race out of it. If he win, the DCCC will be in shock-- especially because he's the kind of independent-minded progressive that the establishment fears. "The DCCC hasn’t spent a penny on this race," Christensen told me. "They wrote it off a long time ago and refused to even look our way. Even without their help we have managed to raise more money than anyone who has ever run here, all from small dollar donations, and have brought an 'unwinnable' within the margin of error. If we had $100,000 more this race would be over. It is the best Return-On-Investment of any race in the  country and would winning it would flip Ted Yoho’s R+9 district. So if anyone wants to make a good investment Florida CD-3 is about as good as you can find."

Another Bush Fails To Make It Out Of A GOP Primary, This Time In Texas

In December we looked at Republican congressional candidate Pierce Bush, the grandson of George H.W. Bush who was planning to run against freshman Democratic backbencher Lizzie Fletcher in gramps' old Houston seat, but switched districts when Republican Pete Olson announced he was retiring (TX-22). Despite the lineage, of because of it, and despite the endorsement from Olson, Bush came in third last night.

Tuesday night's no-runoff winner on the Democratic side was Sri Preston Kulkarni, who came close to beating Olson in 2018-- 51.4% to 46.5%, helping persuade Olson that it is time to retire. It's still a red-leaning district in the Houston suburbs (primarily transitioning Fort Bend County) that was once Tom DeLay's base. The PVI is R+10 and Trump beat Hillary there 52.1% to 44.2%.

As of the February 12 FEC filling deadline, 3 candidates had raised over a million dollars-- Kulkarni plus self-funder Kathaleen Wall and Bush. These were the top GOP raisers:

• Kathaleen Wall- $3,257,886 ($3,245,467 self-funded)
• Pierce Bush- $1,088,159
• Green Hill- $395,740
• Troy Nehls- $299,650

The only 6-figure independent spending in the primary was $138,495 to run this pathetically ineffective ad by a Bush family sewer money PAC, Texans Coming Together.





It's worth mentioning that in 2018, Kathaleen Wall spent $6,206,351 of her own money in her losing race in TX-02. She is expected to spend as much in her runoff battle against Nehls. Other dynamics in the race is that Bush didn't live in the district and was successfully labeled a carpetbagger. His competitors turned the primary-- at least in part-- into a referendum of the Bush name, which Trump has basically destroyed.

Is Anyone Really Ready For Another Bush In Politics?

On Sunday, Abby Livingston and Patrick Svitek of the Texas Tribune reported that George H.W. Bush's grandson, Pierce Bush, is ready to get into the family business. He was going to run against freshman Democratic backbencher Lizzie Fletcher in grandpa's old seat (TX-07), but when Republican Pete Olson announced he's retiring in a nearby district (TX-22)-- hey what the hell... TX-07, TX-22, whatever works for his career is what he and any politician generally cares about. Besides, TX-22 is a lot easier for a Republican (R+10) compared to TX-07 (R+7), which Hillary won. He officially announced this morning.

In 2018, Democrat Sri Preston Kulkarni took 46.5% of the vote to Olson's 51.4% in this suburban district mostly in blue-trending Fort Bend County but also including swingy parts of Brazoria and Harris counties. Last cycle Olson and Kulkarni each raised around a million and a half dollars. This time Kulkarni is off to a strong lead, having already taken in $766,039. Self-funder Kathaleen Wall (R) ran in TX-02 last cycle, spending $6,169,732 to lose the primary. So far she's put just over $600,000 into the TX-22 primary. Two other Republicans have raised significant money, Greg Hill ($217,553) and Felicia Harris, another self-funder ($211,247), in a race that now includes 16 Republicans, Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls having announced his own Republican candidacy on Saturday.

This morning the Houston Chronicle reminded readers that the race is crowded and that no one is ceding the seat to Bush. "A vaping-business owner, a professional sitar player, a sheriff and a former border patrol agent are among a growing field of candidates competing in a Fort Bend County-based district that has fast become one of the hottest congressional races in the nation." Pierce doesn't live in the district and didn't really have anything to say other than some gratuitous nonsense about "socialism!!" in this slick and vapid campaign announcement video:

3 Republicans Just Announced They're Retiring From Congress But Just One Of The Districts Is Even Remotely Winnable

There was no Blue Wave in 2018-- the Democrats were basically offering runny gruel. Instead there was a massive anti-Trump/anti-red wave. Unless the Democrats wind up nominating Bernie-- better yet Bernie + Elizabeth Warren-- there will be no Blue Wave in 2020 either. Even if the Democrats nominate the worst possible candidate-- Status Quo Joe, setting up the contest between 2 profoundly evil evils that Trump is so eager for-- there will still be another massive, perhaps more massive, anti-Trump/anti-red wave, a true tsunami this time. The GOP explains what happened last cycle not in terms of waves or Trump's toxicity, but whines how there were too many retirements for them to deal with. There's some truth to that, but a better way too look at the retirements is to understand how Trump's toxicity helped bring many of those retirements on. Look at the 2018 cycle like this:

• Turnout was the highest for a midterm election in more than a century (1914), with over half the electorate casting ballots.
• The Democrats won/Republicans lost the popular vote 60,572,245 (53.4%) to 50,861,970 (44.8%)-- a margin of 8.6%, the largest margin on record for a House majority party switch
• The Republicans lost 42 or 43 seats (NC-09, nearly a year later is still undecided after the GOP was caught trying to steal the election), their biggest loss since Nixon was thrown out of office after Watergate
• Republicans lost a net of 7 seats in California, 4 seats in Pennsylvania and 4 in New Jersey, 3 each in New York and Virginia, 2 each in Iowa, Florida, Texas, Michigan, Illinois and one seat in Utah, New Mexico, Washington, Kansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Maine, Arizona, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Colorado.
• 13 Republicans retired or left the House to run for other offices in districts that were subsequently won by Democrats

But however the NRCC wants to paint it, 30 Republican incumbents were beaten by Democrats, while not one single Democratic incumbent was beaten by a Republican. Yes, the fact that Dave Trott (MI), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL), Charlie Dent (PA), Dave Reichert (WA), Ed Royce (CA), Darrell Issa (CA), Frank LoBiondo INJ), Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ), Pat Meehan (PA), Steve Pearce (NM), Martha McSally (AZ), Ryan Costello (PA) and Mark Sanford (SC) left open seats that Democrats won was a very big deal, but

a- many of them retired because they knew they had next to zero chance to be reelected;

and

b-it doesn't explain the 30 incumbents who lost.

Now GOP retirement season has kicked off with a bang. Last week alone, 3 Republicans announced their premature retirements, at least 2 of whom would certainly have been reelected.Five Republicans-- Bradley Byrne (AL), Rob Woodall (GA), Susan Brooks (IN), Greg Gianforte (MT) and Rob Bishop (UT)-- had already beaten them to the punch.

Paul Mitchell, basically can't stand Trump and what he's done to American politics. So, after just 2 terms, he's retiring from Congress. He didn't blame Trump per se; he blamed the "rhetoric and vitriol" in DC. Before Congress, Mitchell had been a very right-wing member of the Michigan state legislature. MI-10, north of Detroit, is a thumb-like protrusion into Lake Huron. About half the voters come from the northern part of suburban Macomb County. The county used to be the bluest suburban county in America. In 2016, it was the Trumpiest county in Michigan. The PVI is R+13 and although Obama almost won in 2008 (50-48%), Trump beat Hillary 63.8% to 31.6%. (Bernie won the district in the primary and beat Hillary in 5 of the 6 counties, and essentially tying her in the 6th.)

There are at least 8 Republicans talking about jumping into the race. The only Democrat running so far is Kelly Noland, an Army veteran and a nurse who supports Medicare-for-All-- which means the DCCC will likely recruit someone to run against her.

As of the June 30 FEC reporting deadline Mitchell had raised only $232,501, and Noland hasn't raised the $5,000 that would have triggered a report.

Friday Martha Roby announced she's had enough of Congress. AL-02 is another prohibitively red district, gerrymandered so that as many African Americans living in Montgomery are dumped into AL-07 (Alabama's one black district). The PVI is R+16 and Trump's 64.9% of the district's vote was stronger than either McCain's or Romney's. The anti-red wave barely lapped around the edges of the district last year. Incumbent Martha Roby was reelected 138,879 (61.5%) to 86,931 (38.5%). Although Roby lost Montgomery County, the biggest in the district, and two tiny rural counties, Conecuh and Bullock, she won the 12 other counties in the district-- massively (except by Barbour, which she won by the skin of her teeth).

Roby was no fan of Trump's and didn't vote for him in 2016. After the Access Hollywood pussy-grabbing escapade was revealed, she said, "Trump’s behavior makes him unacceptable as a candidate for president, and I won’t vote for him." His fans refused to vote for her in 2016 but they were back in the saddle last year after she showed them that she was basically another garden variety Trump enabler.

Alabama is likely to lose a seat after the 2020 election and AL-02 will surely be impacted. So far there are 4 Republicans talking about running: Bobby Bright, a former Blue Dog Democrat who took the logical step that all Blue Dogs eventually take and hopped the fence to become a fascist/Republican; crackpot state Senator Clyde Chambliss of Prattville; far right state Rep. Will Dismukes ad a lunatic fringe former state Rep, Barry Moore, who will fight anyone who claims he endorsed Trump before Moore did. Roby beat Moore and Bright in the 2018 primary.

The third seat-- the one that the DCCC was already targeting-- is TX-22, from which Pete Olson announced his retirement on Thursday. Although an R+10 PVI normally looks like too steep a hill for a Democrat to climb, Hillary had improved on Obama's 2008 and 2012 score by around 8 points and the Houston suburb's hostility towards Trump was making the district competitive. When Olson was first elected the district was over 60% white. The demographic shift has been fast and now just 42.9% of his constituents are white. That made Olson's 96.2% Trump adhesion score problematic. Olson's win number last year was just 51.4%. He was forced to spend $1,921,992 (more than he raised) to hold onto his seat as newcomer Sri Kulkarni (D) threw $1,539,576 into his campaign. Neither the DCCC nor the NRCC spent any money in the district. This year it looked like a lot of money is being set aside for this district (by both party committees), which starts the suburbs south of Houston, includes Pearland and Alvin and then twists west to Sugar Land, Brazos Bend State Park, past Rosenberg and almost as far as East Bernard in Wharton County. Olson had already raised $635,183 and spent $221,320 this year and Kulkarni had raised $415,249 and spent nearly $100,000. Both Olson and Kulkarni have primary opponents.

There are already half a dozen Republicans looking at the seat. Kulkarni and 2 other Democrats are already campaigning. Local KHOU confirmed that political insiders think TX-22 "could change parties... The traditionally conservative district has gotten a lot more competitive in recent years. Rep. Olson’s margin of victory dropped from just under 19 points in 2016 to within five points in 2018, the same year Fort Bend County went blue."

KHOU 11 political analyst Bob Stein said the best chance for a switch in party control is always an open seat.

“My sense is (Rep. Olson) would have been ‘primaried,' ‘Tea-Partied,’” Stein said. “What you’re seeing here is really the last of the old guard. Pete Olson was not a strong conservative but held the line. His legislative record was modest.

Olson had already been on the 2020 DCCC retirement watch list-- as had been Rob Woodall (GA) and Susan Brooks (IN), each of whom has announced their retirements. Still left on their list:

• Don Young (AK)
• David Schweikert (AZ)
• Druncan Hunter (CA)
• Ross Spano (FL)
• Vern Buchanan (FL)
• Fred Upton (MI)
• Ann Wagner (MO)
• Chris Smith (NJ)
• Peter King (NY)
• John Katko (NY)
• Chris Collins (NY)
• Steve Chabot (OH)
• Mike McCaul (TX)
• Kenny Marchant (TX)
• John Carter (TX)
• Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA)

Starting The Week With Another Republican Leaving Congress?

I can't say I was ever a fan of Dan Coats, the conservative Indiana politician, but as a Director of National Intelligence, he was considerably better than what anyone has a right to expect from Trump. And Trump hates him and has been trying to get him to resign for months. By announcing he would be replacing him with congressional crackpot John Ratcliffe (R-TX), Trump gave him no choice.

Yesterday Ratcliffe was on Fox with Maria Bartoromo to give Trump another public blow-job, this time barking that he trusts Barr to lock up Obama and Hillary-- though not naming them-- and any other Trump enemies.

It will be a pleasure to have Ratcliffe out of Congress, but he represents one of the most backward districts in America, so don't expect the seat, TX-04, to flip blue. The PVI is R+28 and Trump beat Hillary 75.4% to 21.8%, her third worst performance in Texas. The godforsaken district is in the northeast corner of the state, tucked in between Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and Louie Gohmert's district. It's a real hellhole, 73% white, poorly educated (48% high school or less), 45% rural, fairly poor.

Ratcliffe was elected with no opposition although in that district it's the primary that determines the member, not the general election. In 2014, he primaried Ralph Hall, the oldest member of Congress (91) and beat him in a runoff, in part by claiming that he would oppose reelecting Boehner speaker. He voted for Boehner anyway.

Last year he had his first Democratic opponent, Catherine Krantz, who he beat 75.7% to 23.0%. Ratcliffe raised $1,072,295 to Krantz's $29,171. Bowie, Camp, Cass, Delta, Fannin, Franklin, Grayson, Hopkins, Hunt, Lamar, Marion, Morris, Rains, Red River, Rockwall, and Titus counties along with areas of Collin and Upshur counties make up the district. None of them offer Democrats even a whiff of a hope to build a base. The least Republican county is tiny Morris where the PVI is "only" 42%. So far no one has mentioned running against Ratcliffe.

Here's Trump's favorite Republican questioning Mueller:

Hispanic Voters Could Be A Strong Part Of The Democratic Coalition... With Some Real Work

Latino Decisions surveyed Latino registered voters in Florida, Arizona and Nevada for a new memo released by Priorities USA this week. They will likely be an Anti-Trump bulwark in all three states, but could provide the Democrats with a much bigger share of the votes, if the Democratic Party were to magically come alive and start acting something like a political party. As Bob Dylan said, decades ago when he looked into the future and saw the way Pelosi, Hoyer and Schumer would be running the Democratic Party: "He not busy being born is busy dying." In many places the Democrats haven't done enough to bring Hispanics into the party. There're still, for example, congressional districts with huge Hispanic pluralities-- even majorities-- with Republican congress members. Republican Will Hurd represents a huge south Texas district where 70% of the population is Hispanic. Last year the Democrats nominated a non-Hispanic candidate (with a Hispanic name) and she lost, so the DCCC is trying to fix the primary so they can run her again this cycle. The DCCC has never run a serious campaign against Mario Diaz Balart, whose south Florida district is 71% Latinx, Devin Nunes (CA- 47% Latinx), Paul Cook (CA-39% Latinx) or Dan Newhouse (WA-38% Latinx). Last year none of them had serious candidates with serious DCCC support. So far this year, it looks like mastermind Cheri Bustos is planning a redux. Diaz-Balart has no announced opponent. The DCCC recruited another sure loser, Phil Arballo, against Nunes. They are ignoring Cook's and Newhouse's districts again. Newhouse has no opponent at all and Cook's opponent, Chris Bubser, is running on a cut and paste DCCC platform that won't, move any needles for anyone.

Diaz-Balart con Don the Con-- shouldn't this be a kiss of death?

The report begins with a ritual statement about how "Latino voters will make up an increasing share of the electorate in 2020" and then warns that "while they predominantly support Democrats over Trump, there is a significant amount of work to be done. Health care and immigration are the top issues for Latino voters in Florida, Arizona and Nevada, but Democrats must conduct significant outreach to engage voters on the specifics of Trump’s policies to fully take advantage of the salience of the messages available to us, particularly on economic issues. While views on the strength of the economy are generally positive, a majority of voters surveyed in all three states said they do not believe they benefit personally from Trump’s economic policies. Trump’s immigration policies are deeply unpopular with the Latino communities in these states, and can be seen as emblematic of his larger racist and divisive message that, not surprisingly, is toxic with Latino voters." In other words Democratic Party "support is somewhat soft, with one-third falling into the lean or undecided categories... [M]ost are hesitant to say they would consider supporting Trump [but] those that do feel that protecting jobs and the economy are the top reasons they might consider voting for him." 


While the effectiveness of health care and other economic messages are similarly strong among Latino voters as across all battleground voters, it is a strategic imperative to make the messaging and creative culturally competent and relatable to the diversity of experiences within the Latino community.

...Cuban origin voters in Florida are a consistent outlier, the only Trump-friendly segment: 43% certain Trump, and 11% lean Trump. Still, 41% of Cubans in Florida are planning to vote for the Democrat in 2020, and another 5% are undecided.

...Message testing [across all 3 states] found that protecting Medicare and Social Security were especially important and motivating across all states and population segments, as were other messages that focused on economic issues.

...It is imperative that Democrats do not allow Trump to continue to define his record on economic issues without holding him accountable for policies that have hurt many working and middle-class Latinos financially. Even among these Democratic-leaning voters, there is a perception that the economy is moving in the right direction (60% in Florida, 50% in Nevada, and 41% in Arizona), and Trump gets stronger approval on his handling of the economy (58% approve in Florida, 43% in Nevada, and 35% in Arizona) relative to his overall approval.

Those favorable impressions are important to note because protecting American jobs and overseeing a successful economy are the most compelling reason these voters would consider supporting Trump. This is especially true for Latinos in Florida (50%), Nevada (40%), and persuasion voters (50% in Florida, and 43% in Arizona and Nevada).

Despite these openings for Trump, the majority do not believe his economic or tax policies provide any personal benefit: 59% in Florida, 67% in Arizona, 60% in Nevada, and 61% of persuasion voters in all three states said they did not benefit at all from Trump’s economic policies.

They sense they are left out of the economic growth taking place in the country. They’ve heard that Trump’s tax cuts benefited the already wealthy and corporations (52% Florida, 63% Arizona, 61% Nevada) and that he uses his office to enrich himself and his friends.

It is also true that generic economic performance measures have little traction relative to more day-to-day personal finance/economic realities. At rates of 70% and above, Latino voters tell us that wages not keeping up with the cost of living is more important to them than stock market performance or job indicators.

Concerns about health care are largely tied to economic concerns. The top cited personal economic concern that Latino voters “worry about a lot” is out-of-pocket health care costs. In Florida and Arizona, 45% worry a lot about prescription drug costs too. The rising costs of health care have made other personal expenses more difficult to manage (saving for retirement, paying for education, etc).

Other health care-adjacent issues also pose significant worry, including ability to handle an emergency expense and keeping up with basic expenses. And, as noted at the outset, the most motivating message was the appeal to protect Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Democrats must ensure that Latino voters are hearing about Trump’s disastrous health care record, especially through paid media. Only 49% in Florida (51% among Florida persuadables) have heard that the changes to the health care system Trump will advance could cause millions to lose coverage and end protections for preexisting conditions. The rates are higher in Arizona (59%) and Nevada (56%), and with persuasion voters in the West (56% Arizona and Nevada persuadables). More awareness on this issue could pay off significantly given the importance of health care costs, and their responsiveness to messaging on it. 


Among Latino registered voters in Arizona, 77% are certain or leaning towards voting Democratic. That number is 71% in Nevada. But just 57% in electoral vote-rich Florida, primarily because of weak numbers among Cuban-Americans (41% certain or lean Democratic and 54% certain or lean Trump). This ad that started running today looks like it would be helpful:




Older Hispanic voters tend to be among the most patriotic voters in America. The survey shows they respond strongly-- negatively-- to Trump's authoritarian nature. The OpEd yesterday by John Podesta in the Washington Post, The Mueller Report Paints The Most Unpatriotic Portrayal Of A Presidential Candidate-- Ever might be a good one to translate and circulate widely in Latinx communities.

The raw partisan divide cleaving America and constantly worsened by President Trump is almost certain to be on full display Wednesday, when Robert S. Mueller III appears on Capitol Hill. The House Judiciary Committee, followed by the House Intelligence Committee, will hear Mueller’s testimony about the findings in his special counsel report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Committee members on both sides of the aisle will have to contend with an inescapable conclusion from a fair reading of the report: The Russian attack would not have worked-- and perhaps would have been over before it really got started-- if not for Donald Trump’s enthusiastic encouragement and amplification of it.

While much will be made about the legal standard to prove specific conspiracies beyond a reasonable doubt, it’s clear that every step of the way, Russia was looking for green lights, and at every step of the way, the Trump campaign provided them. An unequivocal bipartisan rejection of Russian outreach and attacks in 2016 might have left Russian President Vladimir Putin with no incentive to go forward. But, as the Mueller report shows, Trump encouraged the interference: The Trump campaign “welcomed” it and “expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.”

Even beyond that, had both candidates and both parties agreed to banish from the campaign trail material illegally hacked by a foreign adversary, especially after its Russian origins were confirmed, coverage of and interest in the hacked material certainly would have taken on a different tenor. Instead, Trump himself mentioned “WikiLeaks” 164 times in the last month of the campaign, even after the U.S. intelligence community publicly identified the hacks and leaks as a Russian active-measures operation. All along, Trump deflected blame from Russia and excused the hacking, making a unified American response all but impossible.

The Mueller report represents the most damning portrayal of unpatriotic behavior ever compiled about an American candidate for president-- and only then does it go on to detail a shocking pattern of obstruction of justice that more than a thousand former prosecutors say would have led to the indictment of anybody not holding the office of the president.

While this full accounting of the past is important, the most profound urgency of the Mueller report and his testimony concerns the present and the future.

Just a few weeks ago, at the Group of 20 meeting in Osaka, Japan, the world watched as Trump joked about Putin’s attack on American democracy, mock-scolding the Russian leader not to do it again. It was the sort of display that has become familiar, going back to 2015, when Trump appeared to excuse the murder of journalists critical of the Putin regime (“Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing, too”). Then there was Trump’s humiliating joint news conference with Putin in Helsinki in 2018 that left even his most reliable defenders disgusted. When Trump said last month that if a foreign government offered dirt on his 2020 opponent he would “take it,” that was a green light for Putin and other potential malefactors.

Yet only weeks earlier, the president’s own Pentagon leadership had approved for public release a sobering report, “Russian Strategic Intentions,” that amounts to a postscript to the Mueller report.

In what can only be read as a scathing indictment of Trump’s behavior over the past three years, the report condemns “the unwillingness of Western experts and governments to confront the ideological-- as well as political and military-- aspects of our rivalry with Putinism.” The report also says that “Putin’s worldview is zero-sum, so it’s hard to imagine a win-win scenario. For Putin to win-- to look ‘great,’ the U.S. has to lose.”

Putin himself confirmed that outlook in his own words last month, crowing in an interview with the Financial Times that Western democracy has become “obsolete” and “outlived its purpose.”

Putin’s actions in 2016, exposed in great detail by the Mueller report and the indictments of Russian operatives, were an attack on American democracy-- and not just in the sense that Russia’s illegal hacking of Trump’s opponents and social media disinformation campaign were meant to alter the outcome. They were an attack on democracy as a concept, an attempt to destroy the American public’s faith in fair elections that had served, on the world stage, as an implicit rebuke to Putin’s autocratic rule.

That attack is not over. In April, Trump’s FBI director, Christopher A. Wray , described Russian cyber-aggression as “not just in an election cycle threat. It is pretty much a 365 day a year threat.”

That’s why Mueller’s testimony is so vital. He can provide guidance on how Russia operates and how to prevent further attacks. But Americans must face the truth: Trump, in broad daylight, has encouraged the destruction of the nation’s fundamental democratic institutions, and he continues to do so.

EXTRA: Another Republican Congressman Bites The Dust

Pete Olson announced his retirement this afternoon. His district-- TX-22-- was an already targeted seat. Although the DCCC foolishly ignored it in 2018, Hillary had improved on Obama's performance by almost 8 points. Trump beat her 52.1% to 44.2%. Last year, the Houston suburbs were unexpectedly unfriendly towards Trump and the GOP and Olson's share of the vote fell, especially in Fort Bend and Harris counties. The R+10 district had been consistently delivering him wins in the mid- to high 60s. And then 2018 and the anti-Trump wave appeared. Olson still won but with just 51.4% of the vote.

This used to be a very white district. When Olson was first elected, the population was a bit over 60% white and about 20% of the residents were Latino. Now the district is much more diverse-- and the kind of majority minority district Republicans are finding it harder and harder to win in:

• White- 42.9%
• Latino- 24.8%
• Asian- 17.2%
• Black- 13.0%

So, suddenly Olson's 97% Trump adhesion score was an albatross around his neck. He was forced to spend $1,921,992 (more than he raised) to hold onto his seat as newcomer Sri Kulkarni (D) threw $1,539,576 into his campaign. Neither the DCCC nor the NRCC spent any money in the district. This year it looked like a lot of money is being set aside for this district (by both party committees), which starts the suburbs south of Houston, includes Pearland and Alvin and then twists west to Sugar Land, Brazos Bend State Park, past Rosenberg and almost as far as East Bernard in Wharton County.

Olson had already raised $635,183 and spent $221,320 this year and Kulkarni had raised $415,249 and spent nearly $100,000. Both Olson and Kulkarni have primary opponents.