National Polling, Fine... We Need Accurate District Polls In Swing Districts

This morning we took a look at the lay of the land nationally (and in two bellweather Midwestern states, Minnesota and Iowa). Unless they're the kind of worthless polls the NY Times is doing now, I prefer district polling to get a better idea of what's going to happen in November. Polling in battleground districts is predictive-- and CBS News did just that Sunday: House control edges toward Democrats - CBS News poll. Their operation has its drawbacks as well, but not as overwhelmingly as the NY Times' silliness. Kabir Khanna and Anthony Salvanto reported that "Democrats remain in a stronger position than Republicans to win the House of Representatives, with their chances having gradually improved over the summer. We estimate that Democrats would win 224 seats if the elections were held today, which is more than the 218 needed for a majority. As we saw a month ago, CBS is extremely tepid and conservative in their polling, but their results in 61 battleground districts is still worth looking at.

The Democratic estimate has slowly but steadily increased over the past three months. It's two seats higher than one month ago and five seats higher than in June. One reason for the Democratic lead is a pattern we have consistently seen: people who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 are more unified in their support for Democratic congressional candidates than Donald Trump voters are for Republicans. While few voters are crossing over in absolute terms, the difference between parties favors Democrats. Six percent of Trump voters say they are voting Democratic, while only two percent of Clinton voters say they are voting Republican now.

...Likely voters in key districts who say they are not sure about their House vote look genuinely conflicted. Though most identify as independents, they lean conservative in terms of their expressed ideology, and more voted for Mr. Trump than for Clinton. On the other hand, they give Republicans negative marks on several issues. They are more likely to say recent Republican changes to health care and trade policy have been negative than positive, and they are ambivalent about the Republican tax bill, with half saying they have not felt its effects. Six in ten say the Republican Party works for the interests of large corporations over working people. These feelings offer an opening to Democrats to win over voters currently on the fence, most of whom say their vote isn't about which party controls the chamber.

The biggest short-coming of the CBS report is that they don't break down any of their information by district. They just give us the average of these 61 districts:

At this point FiveThirtyEight.com predicts that The Republicans have a 1 in 6 chance of holding onto the majority in the House (18%) and the Democrats have a 5 in 6 chance of gaining control (82%). Let's take a look at some Republican-held districts targeted by Democrats that were looked at as long shots, starting with WA-08, where Dave Reichert is retiring and where the GOP is putting up a very well-known politician, Dino Rossi, and where the Democrats have a first-time candidate, physician Kim Schrier:

It's still rated a toss-up by the numbers. But when voters fill out their ballots, Trump will be foremost in their minds and Schrier is going to take the seat. In Omaha (NE-02), the Republican incumbent, Don Baconis having a rougher time defending his seat from a full-fledged grassroots progressive, Kara Eastman and the race went from a toss-up last month to "leans Dem" now, largely because Eastman is campaigning on issues people are interested in (like Medicare-For-All) and Bacon is a complete Trump rubber-stamp.

With Robert Hurt retiring, Virginia's 5th district is an open seat and the DCCC had exactly zero interest in helping a very outspoken and very progressive Leslie Cockburn beat Republican Denver Riggleman, one of the GOP's most flawed candidates of the cycle. And without DCCC acknowledgement...

Democrats have been fighting to take CA-10 for many years, unsuccessfully. Josh Harder isn't any better-- to put it generously-- than any other DCCC-picked candidate for the district but this is a special year and incumbent Jeff Denham appears to be... a dead man walking:

Now I want to point out a major flaw in the kind of-- by the numbers-- prognostication FiveThirtyEight does. In CA-50, drunken crooked incumbent Duncan Hunter has been indicted on dozens of charges and Ammar Campaigns-Najjar is one of the most compelling candidates the Democrats have running for Congress anywhere. One racist at the DCCC has prevented him from being endorsed and the cockroach DCCC staffer in Orange County has been working against him, despite his victory in the primary and despite endorsements from President Obama, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. Fuck the DCCC here. FibeThirtyEight doesn't understand how to grok the race and the most recent poll shows gigantic moment for Ammar and a 46-46% dead heat. That said, this is FiveThirtyEight's boneheaded prediction:

Eye On The Ball This Week: 2 Special Elections, 5 State Primaries

As you know, Blue America raises money for progressives running for office, primarily for the House, but also for the Senate, for a handful of worthy incumbents, for governors, for state legislators who look like they will have careers beyond the state level, and, in one, case, for presidents. Oh, yeah... and for progressives who have won their primaries and have been subsequently abandoned by the DCCC. Keyword: progressives. However, this cycle, there is a special circumstance: the existential threat to our democracy, our country, our world posed by Trump. So this cycle while sticking to our rule of raising money just for progressives, we're also rooting for all candidates with a "D" next to his or her name running against a Trump enabler. Actually, there are 2 exceptions, where even holding our collective nose and closing our eyes won't work: Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL)... but that's a separate story.

The point is: we need Democrats-- even imperfect (and very imperfect) Democrats-- to put a check on Trump. In primaries though, like the ones coming up this week in Michigan, Kansas, Hawaii, Washington and Missouri, its all progressive all the way. In the OH-12 special election, a conservative Democrat, Danny O'Connor, is pitted against a very conservative Republican backed by Trump. To our friends in northern Columbus and it's suburbs and in Dublin, Worthington, Westerville, Pataskala, Mansfield, Bellville, Etna, Newark, and Zanesville... on Tuesday vote for "Danny Boy," as the orange orangutan called O'Connor on Saturday night in Lewis Center. Whatever else it is, it's a vote that will help hold Trump accountable and help keep him from pushing the U.S. in an ever more fascist direction. That overrides everything else. As Trumpanzee said: "Get your friends, get your neighbors, and get your family." Here's the kleptocratic ape's brilliant and inciteful political critique of the OH-12 election Tuesday:

The PVI is R+7. Trump beat Hillary 53.2% to 41.9%. Obama only took 43.9% in 2012 and 44.8% in 2008. It's a solid red, solidly gerrymandered, district. If O'Connor wins tomorrow-- and support for him is surging as of this morning-- the NRCC will be begging Trump to stay out of non-Southern states from now until November 7. And this special election is all about Trump-- which is exactly what he wants, what he always wants. In fact, yesterday, on ABC's This Week John Kasich said the hapless GOP candidate told him that he didn't invite Trump to Saturday's Delaware County rally. Kasich said the Trump appearance may lose the race for Balderson because of "the chaos that seems to surround Donald Trump has unnerved a lot of people... Suburban women in particular here are the ones that are really turned off, it's really kind of shocking because this should be just a slam dunk and it's not."

Last week, DCCC West Coast regional vice chair Ted Lieu tried to lure Trump into doing some of his crazy rallies in California. "I would pay the permit fees for Donald Trump to come to California and do one of his toxic rallies," he told us. "Can't wait for him to explain how the GOP tax scam increases taxes on millions of Californians; the random Trump tariffs hurt Californian farmers: and the rollbacks to environmental laws hurt our air and water. Trump's presence in California would help all Democratic candidates." Aside from the Ohio special election, 4 states have primaries on Tuesday and Hawaii has its primary on Saturday. Let's go through the House races first.

Kansas has 4 congressional districts and there are 3 that have Democrats running. KS-01-- the entire western and most of the central part of the state-- is so godforsaken (R+24 PVI), that no Democrat is even running. In the other 3 districts there are 2 Bernie carts and a Blue Dog in contention. KS-04 (Wichita) seems to be on the way to nominate James Thompson, the Kansan Blue America has endorsed. An oddity of this race, for the Koch brothers seat Mike Pompeo left to join the Trump regime, is that incumbent Ron Estes' Republican primary opponent is also named Ron Estes (and he's a registered Democrat!).

There is also an excellent progressive running against Republican Kevin Yoder in KS-03 (Topeka, Lawrence, Atchison, Pittsburg), Brent Welder. It's the least red district in the state (PVI-- R+4). Brent has a bevy of standard variety Democrats to get through tomorrow before he can face Yoder. For KS-02 (Kansas City), the DCCC has heavily backed a right-of-center Blue Dog, former state House minority leader Paul Davis, for the open seat, and his has no primary opponent. There are 7 Republicans in the hunt. Davis has raised more than the 3 top Republicans in the race combined.

The big race statewide in Kansas is for governor. After Sam Brownback bankrupted the state and ran off to become Trump's so-called "Ambassador for International Religious Freedom," Lt. Governor Jeff Colyer, a relatively mainstream conservative became governor. Neo-fascist Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who has his head planted up Trump's ass, is challenging him. Both Hannity and Trumpanzee, Jr have endorsed Kobach, of course.

In Michigan, there is also a big gubernatorial primary tomorrow. The status quo establishment pick is Gretchen Whitmer and the progressive in the race is Abdul El-Sayed (endorsed by Blue America). There's also a fake-progressive multimillionaire in the race, Shri Thanedar, who has helped fund Republicans. On the GOP side, Trump has endorsed a vile extremist, Attorney General Bill Schuette, against more mainstream conservative, Lt. Governor Brian Calley (who's being backed by outgoing Gov. Rick Snyder.

Michigan has 14 primaries (one of which-- in Detroit-- is a special election to replace John Conyers). The front runner is AAA progressive Rashida Tlaib (endorsed by Blue America). These are the primary candidates in Michigan, all progressives, we recommend voting for:

• MI-06: Matt Longjohn
• MI-09: Ellen Lipton
• MI-11: Haley Stevens
• MI-12: Rashida Tlaib

There's not much going on for progressives in Missouri,other than a long shot chance to replace corrupt Democrat Lacy Clay with progressive Cori Bush in St. Louis.

Washington state has 10 congressional seats-- 6 held by Democrats and 4 held by Republicans. With the exception of Pramila Jayapal in Seattle-- one of the best members of Congress-- the Democrats are all status quo conservative New Dems. The big news though is that 3 of the 4 Republicans are vulnerable in November. Imagine a Washington delegation with 9 Democrats and 1 Republican! One of the New Dems, Adam Smith (WA-09), is being primaried by progressive Sarah Smith. Now, what we all want is to see 3 Republicans replaced with 3 Democrats-- in WA-03, where Carolyn Long is poised to oust Jaime Herrera Beutler; in WA-05, where Lisa Brown (endorsed by Blue America) is poised to oust the 4th highest ranking Republican in the House, Cathy McMorris Rogers; and in WA-08... well, that's the complicated one, which will be solved tomorrow. Dave Reichert, the Republican incumbent in this district-- with an even PVI (and where Obama won both times and where Hillary beat Trumpanzee 47.7% to 44.7%)-- is retiring. A more conservative Republican, Dino Rossi, has his nomination locked. The 3 top Dems in the primary, Kim Schrier, Jason Rittereiser and Shannon Hader, are all decent progressives. The Democrats in the district, which stretches from Seattle and Tacoma's eastern outer suburbs-- 75% of the voters live in King and Pierce counties-- and then east past the Cascades as far as Wenatchee, Chelan and Ellensburg, will render their verdict tomorrow.

And then comes the one primary next Saturday, where there is a gubernatorial battle and a congressional race in Honolulu. The Honolulu primary pits one of the most progressive candidates anywhere in the country, Kaniela Ing (endorsed by Blue America) running against 4 conservatives from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. One, Beth Fukumoto was the actual minority leader of the House Republicans until recently, fighting every progressive bill Kaniela proposed. Now she claims to be a "Democrat." The other 3 are Ed Case, a former far right/Republican-lite Blue Dog member of Congress (the Kyrsten Sinema of his day and a cousin of AOL's Steve Case). He may be the worst in the race, but Donna Mercado King is a close runner-up-- a vicious anti-gay sociopath and a Republican in every way except for the "D" next to her name. Doug Chin is the corrupt corporate Attorney General who was appointed to his job and never won a race for anything and likely never win. We'll be talking more about this crucial race later in the week. Please consider contributing to Kaniela here, while considering why this poster-- and Alexandria's decision to travel to Hawaii next weekend-- is so important.

Trump Will Be Best Remembered As The Albatross Who Wrecked The GOP

Last week the malefactors who prop up the Koch network met in Manhattan for two days. They've gotten wind of the gigantic anti-Trump/anti-Ryan tsunami forming up in the hinterland and heading towards DC. And they are shitting a collective brick. Friday the Washington Post reported they "spoke in cataclysmic terms about the price they expect to pay in the midterm elections if their tax reform effort does not win passage. They voiced concerns a demoralized Republican base would stay home, financiers would stop writing campaign donation checks to incumbents and the congressional majorities the party has built in the House and Senate could evaporate overnight." Neo-fascist Texas Senator Ted Cruz was there warning about a 2018 "Watergate-level blowout." Some realized that the Republican Party civil war that has now blown completely out of control is adding gasoline to the fire of GOP inability to get anything done in Washington.

A good example was the Wall Street Journal reporting that Señor Trumpanzee urging "voters to oust lawmakers who don’t support his tax overhaul plan this year; he phoned his former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, to offer encouragement after Mr. Bannon appeared on Fox News on Monday vowing to unseat sitting Republicans who don’t actively support the president’s agenda." Even an imbecile like Kushner-in-law phoned Bannon to encourage him after an appearance with Hannity that could have easily have beens scripted by Chuck Schumer. One of Bannon's lines was "There's a coalition coming together that is going to challenge every Republican incumbent except for Ted Cruz."

Mainstream conservatives are increasingly worried and now wondering not if a wave is coming, but how high it will be and how deep and long-lasting the damage the Trump Circus will cause. Friday the Nevada Independent, for example, reported how popular Republican Governor Brian Sandoval reacted to Trump's latest stumble with healthcare. Sandoval: "It’s going to hurt people. It’s going to hurt kids. It’s going to hurt families. It’s going to hurt individuals. It’s going to hurt people with mental health issues. It’s going to hurt veterans. It’s going to hurt everybody... [T]this is going to make it much more difficult for those people out in the rural counties and in the urban areas to be able to obtain affordable insurance. So this is something I don’t support, I think that this has been very good for Nevada, and I think the administration should keep providing those subsidies."

Last week New Yorker reporter Susan Glasser interviewed long-time swamp resident and GOP establishment figure, lobbyist Ed Rogers. "There’s fires all around" was how he greeted her before her first question, before she had even taken a seat. "It’s surreal... Why does it have to be this way?" She observed, aloud, that Republicans seem to be finding life under Trump a lot harder than Democrats; he agreed. "You want to be loyal," he said. "You want to be a good member of the team."

Rogers cited his partner Barbour’s dictum for surviving Washington under this volatile new President-- sometimes Trump’s gonna help, sometimes he’s gonna hurt-- before asking, “When is he going to help? Life is all about the net, not the gross. Where’s the help?” The confirmation of the Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, last spring, often cited as one of Trump’s major accomplishments, “seems like a long time ago,” Rogers said. “And is the totality of Trump still a net plus? Is it going to be a net plus?”

The weekend war of words between Corker and Trump had left Rogers, like many lobbyists in town, thinking not so much of the actual world war that Corker warned about (though he’s worried about that, too) but about the fate of Trump’s proposed tax-reform plan. Given Corker’s public skepticism about the proposal, Rogers and others now suspect that it may run into the same problems that blocked the repeal of Obamacare. “Is this what legislative momentum looks like?” he asked, before joking that perhaps “the flames and all are just a façade” and that, “behind it, Gary Cohn”-- the President’s chief economic adviser-- “is really doing magic and something big is coming together that is going to have fifty votes.”

...When I cited Corker’s comments that most Republicans at least privately shared the belief that the White House had been turned into an “adult day care” center for its capricious seventy-one-year-old chief resident, Rogers offered his own criticism of the White House.

A sampling:

“They’re grasping at straws.”

“There is a permanent hunkered-down quality.”

“It’s shocking, it’s embarrassing.”

“They’re just making it up every day as they go along.”

And yet, he hesitated when I asked whether Republicans agreed with Corker that Trump was dangerous. “I think the word ‘dangerous’ is still a rare word,” Rogers corrected me, saying that the words “reckless” and “destructive” were far more common. He went on, “Saying the D-word is different than believing there are now stewards of normalcy in [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions, in Tillerson, in Kelly, and others that, I think everybody acknowledges, are protecting institutions from Trump, and protecting Trump from Trump, for that matter.”

“The only thing that is reliable and dependable about Trump is that he’s unreliable and not dependable,” he added.

...Back in January, the conventional wisdom had been that Trump, a Washington novice with a clear disregard for the details, would leave the governing to Congress, making Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell perhaps the capital’s most important player. Now, Trump and McConnell are barely on speaking terms, and tensions within the Party are proliferating. “Of course it’s personal,” Eliot Cohen, a former Bush Administration official who organized his national-security colleagues to sign open letters against Trump during the primaries, said. “These are the kind of rifts that don’t heal.”

For Washington Republicans, Corker’s public chastising of Trump has only increased the pressure: Are you speaking out? And if not, why not? “I don’t think it’s responsible to hold back,” Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a veteran of both Bush Administrations, told me. “I don’t believe this is a time to hold back. A lot of people have gone along or stood there quiet when they disagreed. But not to weigh in when you actually do disagree seems to me wrong.”

It is now taken as axiomatic that the Washington wing of the G.O.P. loathes and fears Trump, but still, there are genuine differences of opinion about how to deal with him. As a Republican veteran of Capitol Hill explained to me, “The taxonomy of Washington Republicans is not a bright line of Never Trump versus pro-Trump.” There is, instead, “a continuum of people who are to varying degrees either outright supportive of the President or comfortable with the fact that getting things done requires working with the Administration to outright disgust and opposition.” As I have found, and with the exception of a small handful of officials who came to town with Trump, the private comments of even the most publicly pro-Trump Republicans often differ little from their more outspoken colleagues.

Elected Republican officials like Corker are in a somewhat different situation, given Trump’s continued popularity with the core G.O.P. electorate, and their need to face those voters back home. In terms of the ease with which Republicans in Congress can oppose Trump, “there is a hierarchy, in ascending order,” the Hill veteran said, with House “members and senators in cycle next year” at the bottom, followed by “senators who intend to run for reëlection but are not in cycle next year,” then “senators who will probably retire but have not yet announced,” and finally, at the top, “senators who have announced they will retire.” When Corker decided not to run for reëlection, last month, he likely did not change his mind about the President but simply “transitioned from category two to category five.”

...Trump, of course, ran against Washington, promising to “drain the Swamp,” so if the swamp decides to fight back, that’s not necessarily such a terrible thing for Trump. This may be why Steve Bannon is not pretending that Trump commands the respect and allegiance of Republicans inside the Beltway. “This is what they think about President Trump behind closed doors,” Bannon said on Fox News on Monday night, when asked about the Corker comments. Bannon is already turning the topic into a TV talking point, a rallying cry to the Trump base: See how horrible those swamp creatures are, how much they oppose Trump? By Wednesday, the intramural fight among Republicans was playing so well that Bannon was on television promising to mount primary challenges for every single Senate Republican incumbent (except Trump’s G.O.P. Presidential rival turned more or less faithful defender, Ted Cruz).

For lifers like Rogers, who’ve figured out how to survive and prosper no matter which party is in power, Washington means having a healthy appreciation for the fact that your team doesn’t always win. But now that it’s clearer that getting along in the traditional Washington sense is not part of Trump’s plan, Rogers said he has changed his view of what is possible in this Presidency. “Republican loyalists have gone from ‘gigantic things are going to happen; the world really is going to change; there’s going to be a fundamental shift in what the government does,’ . . . to, ‘Can we keep the lights on around here?’ ” He added, “The possibilities are getting narrower. Consequences are piling up.”

Most Beltway pundits and prognosticators aren't ready to take this to the next step yet-- a 2018 blowout. But CNBC's John Harwood is starting to get it. He wrote that while Señor Trumpanzee "takes a baseball bat to Obamacare and the Iran nuclear deal, odds are rising that he could break the Republican majority in Congress, too. Midterm elections remain just more than a year away. But a leading nonpartisan analyst now sees a slightly better than even chance that Democrats win back the House in November 2018, which would halt Trump's current legislative agenda and even jeopardize his ability to complete his term."



A friend who works at the DCCC smuggled me copy of one of the PPP memos for the DCCC's associated House Majority PAC poll, this one about 3 GOP held open seats. Enjoy:

A new Public Policy Polling survey finds that the tax plan proposed by Congressional Republicans is deeply unpopular, and Congressional seats in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Washington are looking to be quite competitive. Despite the fact that they are not running for re-election, the current Members of Congress should be open to persuasion on the Republican tax reform plan, especially if they are listening to their constituents who are not in favor of this plan and its provisions.

PA-15

In Pennsylvania’s 15th Congressional District, Congress has a 9% approval and 84% disapproval rating, and Speaker Paul Ryan has a 25% approval and 61% disapproval rating. President Trump is just as popular as he is unpopular (47/47), but a majority (53%) of his supporters oppose the provision in the tax plan that would give wealthy Americans a tax cut. The hypothetical election matchup between a Democratic candidate (44%) and a Republican candidate (43%) is quite close and indicates that this will be a very competitive race. Candidates should be aware that the tax plan proposed by Congressional Republicans is very unpopular in this district. Incumbent Republican Congressman Charlie Dent should also note that his constituents strongly oppose this plan and key components in it.

MI-11

In Michigan’s 11th Congressional District, President Trump, Congress, and Speaker Paul Ryan are all quite unpopular. Trump has a 44% approval rating and 50% say they disapprove of the job he is doing, while 10% of voters say they approve of the job Congress is doing and 80% say they disapprove. 22% approve of the job Speaker Ryan is doing and 65% disapprove. The hypothetical election matchup between a Democratic candidate and a Republican candidate is currently tied (42/42). Candidates should be aware that the tax plan proposed by Congressional Republicans is very unpopular in this district. Incumbent Republican Congressman David Trott should also note that his constituents strongly oppose this plan and key components in it.

WA-08

In Washington’s 8th Congressional District, President Trump, Congress, and Speaker Paul Ryan are all unpopular. Trump has a 40% approval rating and 55% say they disapprove of the job he is doing, while 12% of voters say they approve of the job Congress is doing and 79% say they disapprove. 20% approve of the job Speaker Ryan is doing and 67% disapprove. The hypothetical election matchup between Dino Rossi (42%) and a “Democratic candidate” (43%) is very close. Candidates should be aware that the tax plan proposed by Congressional Republicans is very unpopular in this district. Incumbent Republican Congressman Dave Reichert should also note that his constituents strongly oppose this plan and key components in it.

Back to the lunatic on the fascist right for a moment. Yesterday Bannon, a master manipulator for the severely simpleminded, spoke to neo-Nazis and imbeciles gathered for their annual convention at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in DC. McConnel was a speaker at the shindig as well, but he wasn't in the room when a deranged Bannon addressed him: "Yeah, Mitch, the donors are not happy. They’ve all left you. We’ve cut your oxygen off, Mitch." He was particularly venomous towards John Barrasso (R-WY), Bob Corker (R-TN), Dean Heller (R-NV) and Deb Fischer (R-NE). Give him a listen; he's dangerous.

Lots Of Retirements By Incumbents Always Precede A Political Tsunami-- Most Recent: Charlie Dent

Leading his party to doom and destruction

Before you get a political tsunami that wipes out your party, you get ripples-- entrenched swing state incumbents in the tough seats start announcing their retirements. This year the first to throw in the towel was Ileana Ros Lehtinen-- first elected in 1989 and never seriously challenged in an increasingly blue district because her crony Debbie WassermanSchultz always protected her. The 2006 Almanac of American Politics listed her South Florida district's PVI at R+4. She had drawn the boundaries herself in the state Senate. A decade later, the 2016 Almanac of American Politics rated the same district-- no longer FL-18, but FL-27-- as a PVI R+2. McCain had beaten Obama there 51-49% in 2008 but Obama turned it around in 2012 and won the district 53-47%. Last year Hillary eviscerated Trump there-- 58.5% to 38.9%, Hillary's best performance in a Republican-Held congressional district anywhere in the country. That and Wasserman Schultz's loss of power within the Democratic Party was the writing on the wall for Ros-Lehtinen. When the new PVI for the district came out-- D+5 (an unprecedented swing)-- she announced her impending retirement. The DCCC has never fought an election there are has no idea how to win the district, so in a non-tsunami year, the GOP would have a chance to hold the district. But in 2018? Not even DCCC bumbling will save this seat for them.

Ros Lehtinen is a mainstream conservative and she was just the first of her breed to face the bitter reality. Next came Dave Reichert in WA-08, most of whose voters live in the suburbs of Seattle and Tacoma. Reichert was first elected in 2004, the same year Kerry beat Bush in the district 51-48%. 4 years earlier, Gore had beaten Bush there 49-47%. The PVI in the 2006 Almanac of American Politics listed WA-08 as D+2. Reichert proved popular and he hung on as Obama beat McCain 51-47% and then beat Romney 50-48%. Last year, Hillary beat Trump 47.7% to 44.7%, though the district had been slightly rejiggered and was sporting an R+1 PVI. The new PVI, though, is an ominous "EVEN." Reichert was considered fairly safe but in a tsunami year... the calculations for that Beltway safety are mostly moot. The Democrats will have more than half a dozen candidates vying for the nomination in the jungle primary. The district is no slam dunk for an incompetent and bumbling DCCC but if a good candidate emerges in this district that went overwhelmingly for Bernie, we should see a flip blue there.

And then Thursday, came the third mainstreamer calling it quits: Charlie Dent. His Lehigh Valley district-- including both Bethlehem and Allentown-- had a PVI of D+2 right after he was elected in 2004. Both Gore and Kerry had won the district, albeit very narrowly and by 2014 the PVI had slipped to R+2. Obama still managed to bet McCain, 52-47%, but in 2012, Romney took the district 51-48%. Hillary expected to win but she came nowhere near Obama's numbers and Trump out-performed Romney. Trump won 51.8% to 44.2%. In 2014 the Democrats didn't even bother running a candidate against Dent and in 2016 the DCCC ignored Rick Daugherty's challenge entirely. He spent $21,560 against Dent's $1,746,125. That's how the DCCC was looking at the "swingyness" of PA-15. In any but a wave election, the district would have to be seen as having swung too far into red territory for the DCCC to handle. The PVI is now R+4.

There are 5 counties that make up PA-15-- Leigh, Northampton, Lebanon, Dauphin and Berks. It wasn't Bernie country. Hillary and Trump dominated the primaries and in the general Trump was viewed as the lesser evil. Democrats can't count on this one for a flip but with Dent out of the picture they have at least a theoretical shot at it.

Far right-wing nut and Trumpist, state Rep. Justin Simmons had already thrown his MAGA hate into the primary ring earlier in the week with this anti-Dent ad:



Dent was the chairman of the centrist Tuesday Group. His formal retirement announcement will come tomorrow in Allentown.

In a district that has become more Republican-leaning during his tenure but still is viewed as a potential swing seat, Dent has drawn a reputation as someone liked by both sides of the aisle. In his general elections, he’s been bolstered by support from Democrats and independents.

His decision Thursday drew reactions of shock and expressions of praise from both Democrats and Republicans, many of whom caused his phone to continually buzz with text messages and calls as the congressman headed to a round of evening House votes.

Bethlehem Mayor Robert Donchez described Dent as a good congressman who works across the aisle and served the Lehigh Valley well.

“I may not have always agreed with him on every issue, but he was accessible and worked really hard,” said Donchez, a Democrat.

State Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, who represents the district that Dent held during his tenure in the state Senate, said he was caught off guard by Dent's decision. He has known Dent since childhood, and described him as someone unlikely to be frightened by a primary challenger.

"I can say unequivocally, with 100 percent certainty, that's not the case," Browne said. "I know Charlie. It would not be because of a campaign by Justin Simmons."

Dent said that with his exit, he expects “serious, credible Republican candidates” to announce campaign bids for what he expects will be a competitive race.

National Democrats said they’re aiming to take advantage of the opportunity. Evan Lukaske, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said they “are confident that a strong candidate will step up to run and represent the people of the 15th Congressional District in November.”

While Dent may be leaving his post after next year’s election, the outspoken legislator doesn’t sound like he’ll be quieting down after that. He said he hasn’t given much thought yet to his exact plans for his next phase, but said he wants to remain part of discussions on where his party is headed.

“I think we need to bring a stronger voice to the sensible center, of not only our party but of the country,” Dent said. “Both political parties are in a pretty bad place right now and I want to be part of that conversation but maybe from a different seat, from the outside.”

You'll know the Republican mainstreamers see the congressional party really collapsing when we see retirement announcements from folks like Erik Paulsen (MN), Fred Upton (MI), Leonard Lance (NJ), Bruce Poliquin (ME), John Katko (NY), Jeff Denham (CA), Lee Zeldin (NY), Mike Simpson (ID), Martha McSally (AZ), Dan Newhouse (WA), David Valadao (CA), Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ), John Faso (NY), Mario Diaz-Balart (FL), Frank LoBiondo (NJ), Ryan Costello (PA), Adam Kinzinger (IL), Tom Reed (NY), Paul Cook (CA), Dan Donovan (NY), Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA), David Joyce (OH), Pat Meehan (PA), Mike Turner (OH), Peter King (NY), Tim Murphy (PA)... That would signal a real realignment in Congress-- mainstream versus neo-Nazis. Could happen; but still way to early to predict any of these members are seriously considering retirement.

Josh Kraushaar wrote something smart for the National Journal yesterday about the retiring Republicans. "The decisions to step down by Reps. Dave Reichert of Washington and Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania expanded an already-growing map of vulnerable GOP seats next year. Neither seat was on The Cook Political Report’s list of most competitive races, given the incumbents’ impressive track records back home. Dent’s retirement turned his seat from a near-Republican lock to one that 'will be in the thick of the battle for control of the House,' as The Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman wrote. With Reichert’s departure, his district shifted from solidly Republican to pure toss-up. Such drastic shifts don’t happen often... Trump’s scattershot approach to governing-- not to mention his historically low approval ratings-- has driven these rank-and-file Republicans to depart. In a statement announcing his decision, Dent referred himself as part of the 'governing wing' in Washington and took a swipe at 'outside influences that profit from increased polarization.' One of Reichert’s last comments before retiring was decrying Trump’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals decision as 'not in the American DNA.' Since retiring, Ros-Lehtinen has loudly slammed President Trump for his record on gay rights, race relations, and treatment of immigrants."

“Trump is fracturing the party to the point where the risk of wholesale retirements and resignations will be high from mainstream lawmakers who came to Washington to do business,” said one senior GOP strategist. “The people who got into public service because they had a successful life, wanted to have rational conversations with rational people on a regular basis, and are now finding the idea of coddling activists around Trump’s daily Twitter habits not very appealing.” Already, Republicans are bracing for additional pivotal retirements. The GOP watch list includes two swing-district members from Michigan: Reps. Fred Upton, the former chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Dave Trott, a junior lawmaker from suburban Detroit. Trump carried both their districts, but these R+4 seats (according to the Cook Report’s Political Voting Index) would be vulnerable in a Democratic wave.

With every Republican retirement from a competitive district, the GOP math of holding its House majority becomes increasingly difficult. Retirements both serve as a signal that the political environment is bad, while also opening up opportunities for the opposition that hadn’t existed before. Name-brand members of Congress can win under tough circumstances, but it’s exceptionally difficult for lesser-known recruits-- even the most talented among them-- to run against punishing political headwinds.

But the issue of whether Republicans can maintain power in 2018 feels secondary to the more consequential long-term development-- that the ideological disposition of elected Republicans is changing before our very eyes. Most of the Republicans who are leaving politics feel like throwbacks to a bygone era-- more serious about governing than showboating. Meanwhile, the next generation of Republican candidates are more likely to be running in the image of Trump-- substance-free, needlessly confrontational, and playing to a hardcore base. When Trump loyalists characterize House Speaker Paul Ryan as a squishy RINO, it’s clear that antiestablishment forces care more for revolutionary zeal than party affiliation.

It’s no secret why Republican leaders have been working tirelessly for years to prevent such candidates from emerging in primaries. But with a president egging on nihilistic elements, it’s becoming a thankless undertaking. If the pace of congressional retirements accelerates, it’s not just the House majority that will be at risk. It’s the future of the Republican Party.

Future MSNBC contributor and Trump critic

Dave Reichert Announces Retirement, Throwing WA-08 Into The List Of Most Competitive Seats

Probably the single best indicator that a swing district is about the flip is when the incumbent suddenly announces retirement. Yesterday, the Republican incumbent in Washington's most swingy district-- Dave Reichert in WA-08-- announced he's leaving Congress at the end of 2018. The district was always sketchy for him and he's had some close calls but the GOPO was able to redraw a slightly safer seat for him with a PVI of R+1. This year, demographic and other changes saw the PVI slip to EVEN. Obama won the district 51-47% in 2008 and 50-48% in 2012. Last year, even as awful a candidate as Hillary was able to win there, although that was really due more to Trump underperforming Romney than anything she did. In fact, she did worse than Obama had in the district, winning it 47.7% to 44.7%-- two really crappy candidates. Bernie absolutely eviscerated Hillary in the caucuses. These were the Bernie-Hillary scores in the 5 counties (in order of how many votes they provide in WA-08 elections) all of which or part of which make up WA-09:

• King Co.- Bernie- 67.3%, Hillary- 32.6%
• Pierce Co.- Bernie- 73.3%, Hillary- 26.5%
• Chelan Co.- Bernie- 71.7%, Hillary- 28.3%
• Kititas Co.- Bernie- 77.4%, Hillary- 22.6%
• Douglas Co,- Bernie- 73.3%, Hillary- 26.7%

The right kind of Democrat-- so, obviously, not a typical DCCC corporate whore-- will easily replace Reichert, although you can expect the DCCC to move into high gear to find exactly the wrong kind of candidate to run. Both Cook and Sabato moved WA-08 from "likely Republican" to "toss up," although Roll Call claims that the district now tilts blue. Just a few days ago, the Seattle Times had reported that 6 Democrats had already decided to compete for the nomination to challenge Reichert: Kim Schrier, a pediatrician from Sammamish; Jason Rittereiser, a 33 year old attorney and former King County deputy prosecutor originally from Ellensburg and now living in Issaquah; Toby Whitney, an Amazon executive who previously worked in DC for former Seattle progressive icon Jim McDermott; Mona Das, a progressive Indian immigrant who lives in Covington; Tola Marts, an Issaquah City Council member; and Tom Cramer, who primaried conservaDem Adam Smith in a neighboring district in 2012.

Reichert was a mainstream conservative and isn't comfortable with the neo-Nazi direction Trump has been dragging the party. Chances are good that a Trumpist will want to run on the Republican side and I'd bet that there will be more than one Republican candidate. Reichert was one of the 20 Republicans who voted against TrumpCare in the House-- although he took a lot of heat for supporting it in the House Ways and Means Committee before flip-flopping.

Washington is a top 2 jungle primary state and it wouldn't be unprecedented for a gaggle of Democrats to split up the vote so badly that 2 Republicans face off in the general election. Washington Democrats did it recently with a statewide race and, of course, the DCCC is expert at engineering such outcomes in their dogged pursuit of execrable conservative candidates.

When Will Commentators Start Describing Trump's Campaign As Off The Rails-- Or Even Moribund?

It's not likely that Señor Trumpanzee will be campaigning in WA-08 this year. The Seattle suburbs and exurbs aren't fertile ground for him and, to put it mildly, the Republican congressman in the district, Dave Reichert, doesn't want Trump getting anywhere near the any media markets where his constituents will have reason to connect the two of them. Yesterday, in fact, Reichert announced he may vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson but he's definitely not endorsing The Donald. Besides, Hillary is going to clean up in that district. Obama won it both times-- and he wasn't running against a deranged narcissistic sociopath.

Democrats have had their eyes on the district for a long time but have never been able to dislodge Reichert, although Darcy Burner came close in 2006 when Reichert scraped by 51-49%. Last time, he won with 63%. This year the DCCC screwed up again and the candidate, longtime popular KING-TV sports anchor Tony Ventrella-- who was running on a platform of getting big money out of politics-- dropped out before the primary but beat the other two Democrats in the primary and is now, reluctantly, back in the race. Reichert seems safe to me even there is an anti-Trumpanzee tsunami in Washington state.

Trump was was clear across the country August 4, campaigning in Portland, Maine. It was a disaster as he tried fomenting racial and ethnic antagonisms with between whites and Maine's peaceful Somali population. Senator Susan Collins disavowed him immediately after and yesterday a Gravis poll came out showing Hillary beating him by 10 points in the state:

• Hillary- 43%
• Trumpanzee- 33%
• Johnson- 10%
• Stein- 5%

Clinton is the choice of 74% of Maine Democrats and 15% of them prefer Trump. 68% of Republicans support Trump and 19%supporting Clinton. She leads him among independents 43-31%.

Yesterday's big news stories of the morning were how Trump is wrecking both parties and how forces within the GOP are agitating to cut him loose. Many commentators are catching up with Thomas Frank's thesis in Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? that the Democrats have given up the working class to become the party of the white collar professionals along with women and minorities (identity politics)-- the splintering of the FDR coalition. Thomas Edsall in the Times:

Trump is competitive among the less affluent and those without college degrees, among whom he is behind by 3 and 4 points respectively. But Clinton is crushing him among college graduates (57-34) and among those making $50,000 or more (55-37).

The current education and income patterns reflect a reversal of the way Bill Clinton first won the presidency in 1992. Bill Clinton beat George H.W. Bush by double-digit margins among voters making less than $50,000, but lost among voters making $100,000 or more, 54-38. In 1992, Clinton won by similarly large margins among those with high school degrees or less, while losing college graduates 41-39.

The larger conclusion from the data is that the Trump campaign-- both through the support Trump generates among working-class whites and the opposition he generates among better educated, more affluent voters-- has accelerated the ongoing transformation of the Democratic Party. Once a class-based coalition, the party has become an alliance between upscale well-educated whites and, importantly, ethnic and racial minorities, many of them low income.

...If current trends continue, not only will there be a class inversion among the white supporters of the Democratic Party, but the party will become increasingly dependent on a white upper middle class that has isolated itself from the rest of American society.

Instead of serving as the political arm of working and middle class voters seeking to move up the ladder, the Democratic Party faces the prospect of becoming the party of the winners, in collaboration with many of those in the top 20 percent who are determined to protect and secure their economic and social status.

...From this vantage point, Trump and the pro-social insurance populist right that has emerged in much of Europe are as much the result of the vacuum created by traditional liberal political parties as they are a function of the neglect of working class interests by conservatives.

You can look at the populist insurgency spearheaded by Donald Trump as either a corrective or a threat to mainstream Republican orthodoxy.

But GOP insiders are losing patience with Trump, as his narcissistic personality gets in the way of successfully navigating the realignment and his flailing, floundering campaign puts their down ballot candidates at increasingly grave risk. Alex Altman and Zeke Miller reported in Time about a tough phone call between Reince Priebus and Trumpanzee. Although Trump denies the call ever took place, they reported that "Priebus told Trump that internal GOP polling suggested he was on track to lose the election. And if Trump didn’t turn around his campaign over the coming weeks, the Republican National Committee would consider redirecting party resources and machinery to House and Senate races... Polls show that Trump has failed to grasp one of the essential truths about this extraordinary contest: in a race between the two most unpopular major-party nominees in modern history, it’s in each campaign’s interest to train the spotlight on the other. Clinton wants the race to be about Trump. Which is what the publicity-addled Republican wants too." The result is what we're seeing in the polls now, which are showing Trump not only failing to win targets like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin but possibly losing red bastions like Georgia, the Carolinas, even Utah!

With their candidate mired in self-sabotage, Republicans could only watch and wince. “I don’t think we’ve seen anything like this since George Wallace,” said retail mogul Art Pope. Sitting at a lakeside hotel in the Colorado Rockies on July 31, the conservative megadonor wondered how his party had wound up cowering in fear of the latest tweet from a former reality star. “My concern is Donald Trump will depress the Republican vote and hurt down-ballot candidates,” said Pope, a close ally of North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory. “We’re going to lose races because of him. I just hope it’s not all lost.”

Republicans groan that the difficult task of keeping their Senate majority gets tougher with each outré remark. Which is why the RNC is considering shifting some cash and staff away from the presidential race and toward down-ballot contests. That plan is already in motion among powerful outside groups that typically spend hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of the party nominee. “There’s going to have to be some resource reallocation,” says a senior Republican official familiar with internal party deliberations. A second senior party official routinely instructs Senate campaign managers to distance their candidates from Trump. “Don’t worry about the appearances,” the official said on a recent conference call. “Worry about winning.”

That explains why Republicans running for office this year don’t meet Trump’s plane at airports or introduce him at rallies. In some places, the avoidance strategy seems to be working. Senator Pat Toomey is in a statistical tie in his re-election bid in Pennsylvania, a state where Trump trails by about 10 points. In the key swing state of Florida, Senator Marco Rubio is running ahead in his re-election bid even as Trump narrowly trails Clinton. But in New Hampshire, Trump’s troubles may be dragging down Ayotte, who plummeted from a virtual tie to 10 points down in a recent poll.

The morning got worse when Politico published a report that "more than 70 Republicans have signed an open letter to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus urging him to stop spending any money to help Donald Trump win in November and shift those contributions to Senate and House races. "We believe that Donald Trump’s divisiveness, recklessness, incompetence, and record-breaking unpopularity risk turning this election into a Democratic landslide, and only the immediate shift of all available RNC resources to vulnerable Senate and House races will prevent the GOP from drowning with a Trump-emblazoned anchor around its neck. This should not be a difficult decision, as Donald Trump’s chances of being elected president are evaporating by the day."

And by last night, the narrative had moved along to an emergency "come to Jesus meeting" with top Trump staffers scheduled for today at the Orlando Ritz Carlton.

Trump on Thursday night challenged reports that the RNC might shift resources down ballot, warning in an interview on Fox News “if it is true, that’s okay too because all I have to do is stop funding the Republican Party.”

Trump argued that the RNC needs him more than the he needs the committee, asserting: “I’m the one raising that’s funding, I’m the one that’s raising the money and other people are getting to use the money that I raised.”

An RNC member said discontent with the Trump campaign has hit new heights in recent days, describing “major tumult in the building and staff problems and disagreements and RNC staff on the edge of mutiny.”

That’s particularly evident in must-win Florida, the nation’s biggest battleground state, where Trump’s campaign has only one field office and no visible footprint otherwise. It plans to open 25 offices by early September, but rank-and-file Republican Party members and candidates are worried that Hillary Clinton’s team is building a robust campaign across the state.

Republicans started growing more-jittery this week as a Quinnipiac University poll indicated Trump was losing his advantage in Florida over Hillary Clinton and might be dragging down Sen. Marco Rubio’s reelection efforts.

..."We're having a problem," Trump told a group of ministers in Orlando in Thursday, according to the Associated Press. Trump pointed out that the troubles and his potential loss "could cost us the Supreme Court."

And that Politico Insiders poll they take... the Republican insiders have come to the conclusion Dr. Trumpanzee can't win. These are the same men and women who, less than a month ago, were certain that a successful convention in Cleveland had put Trumpy-the-Clown on the path to victory; just a month ago! Republicans are more certain of GOP doom than Democrats, who cited the unpredictability of the 2016 campaign, along with some of Clinton’s own weaknesses. 51% of the Republicans on the panel think it's all over for Trump, who, they feel, has no understanding of electoral politics' mechanisms. Last night, for example, he told Fox News viewers that "I don’t know that we need to get out the vote. I think people that really want to vote, they’re gonna just get up and vote for Trump... We are gonna have tremendous turnout from the evangelicals, from the miners, from the people that make our steel, from people that are getting killed by trade deals, from people that have been just decimated, from the military who are with Trump 100 percent. From our vets because I’m going to take care of the vets." Republican Party communications strategist Matt Mackowiak does't seem impressed-- and let loose an epic twitter storm last night. Here's part of it:

Can the news get any worse for Mr. Trumpanzee? In 2012 Mitt Romney won North Carolina's 15 electoral votes 2,270,395 (50%) to 2,178,391 (48%) and Pat McCrory won the governor's mansion 55-43%. New polling from PPP shows Hillary pulling ahead, 43-41%. They are also showing Democrat Roy Cooper beating McCrory 43-42%. Even more shocking, much redder South Carolina is tightening so that Trump just leads 41-39%-- in a state Romney won 1,071,645 (55%) to 865,941 (44%).

Flipping A District In The Great Northwest: WA-08

This week we were delighted to hear that two truly awful Republican congressmen-- John Kline in Minnesota and Dave Reichert in Washington-- are stepping down. Kline made it final; he's going for sure, which must be a great relief to America's students (and their parents). Reichert, bored with Congress, is still mulling a run for his state's governor's mansion, which polling indicates he'll lose anyway.

Blue America hadn't made a decision to back a candidate in MN-02 yet, although Angie Craig looks like a good replacement for Kline. It's much easier for us in WA-08, where we already have a great, well-vetted candidate in Jason Ritchie.

Washington's 8th Congressional District is the only CD in Washington that is considered flippable. It is the only district in the state-- and one of only 17 nationwide-- that President Obama carried in 2012 but has a sitting Republican congressman, Reichert. If, as is likely, he does leave this seat open, it must be turned blue for Democrats to reclaim a majority in the House of Representatives in 2016. And not just blue, but progressive.

The DCCC hasn't recruited a conservative to run against Jason in a primary-- having looked and failed. But keep in mind, the Republicans aren't giving the district up without a fight. Reichert tried portraying himself as relatively "mainstream" or even "moderate." (He wasn't.) It's likely that whoever the GOP tries replacing him with won't even try. Privatizing Social Security and cutting back on Medicare are as high on the Republican agenda as rounding up millions of undocumented immigrants and shipping them to Mexico. That's a very different agenda from the one Jason is fighting for.

After Reichert's announcement last week that he's looking closely at the gubernatorial race, Jason told us that he's

seeking this seat in 2016, as I did in 2014, as a strong, progressive Democrat who believes that Social Security, Medicare and Disability are not entitlements; they are earned benefits. I will oppose any Republican efforts to degrade, defund, privatize or otherwise take away our earned benefits.

Across the board, Jason is a stalwart Blue America-backed candidate with values and principles that support working families and not wealthy special interests. 

I strongly support and believe in women's health care choices, and I will oppose any Republican effort to limit access to these health care choices, including any efforts to cut funding to essential access points such as Planned Parenthood.

I own and operate a small construction business building wheelchair ramps and installing grab bars for seniors and people with physical challenges. I know that middle class, living wage jobs are the lifeblood of our economy. I know that economic inequality and lack of opportunity are the largest threats to our democracy and our economy. I will fight to create strong, middle class, living wage jobs in our communities by investing into our infrastructure.

I need your support to fight those Republicans who think they can keep this seat red. I need your help to make the case to the voters of the 8th CD that this race is not only winnable, it is essential that we win this seat in 2016.

This is a seat Jason can win-- with our help. He's not a wealthy man, and the DCCC hasn't given him any help at all, although they haven't been sabotaging him this cycle either. I suspect that if he can raise some money this quarter, they may actually even get behind his campaign. If you can afford to, please consider making a contribution here. Washington deserves an upgrade after 12 years of Reichert! We all do.