Trump Will Lose Tomorrow-- And It Won't Be Close

 

Red America by Nancy Ohanian

The foundation to any Republican presidential victory is Texas. Bottom line: if Trump loses Texas and its 38 electoral votes tomorrow, game over. But he's not likely to lose the state. It's still just too red. But the fact that Trump looks so weak in recent polls-- ahead of a nothing like Biden by just 2.3 points according to the most recent Real Clear Politics average-- is a testament to what a disastrous presidency he's presided over. And while those weak numbers may not deny Trump Texas' 38 electoral votes, they may well presage half a dozen or more GOP congressional losses in "safe" red districts. It's likely that TX-10 (McCaul), TX-21 (Roy), TX-22 (Olson), TX-23 (Hurd), TX-24 (Marchant), TX-25 (Williams) could all flip blue tomorrow.

Over the weekend, one of the Mike Siegel campaigners told me that 366,000 people had already voted early in TX-10, more people than had ever voted in an election in that district totally. Black voters, Asian voters, first-time voters and young voters all set new participation records. (301,200 voters participated in the TX-10 congressional race in 2018.) Siegel is expecting a big turnout tomorrow as well. Big turnouts are not what Republicans encourage. And those new voters and young voters and voters of color are not who Trump is trying to appeal to now.

In fact, Toluse Olorunnipa and Josh Dawsey reported for the Washington Post that Trump's madcap super-spreader rallies are focusing exclusively on his base of uneducated white racists. They wrote about episodes likely to turn off swing voters but enthuse his beloved "poorly educated," noting that in a frenzied burst of campaigning in the last days of the presidential race, Señor Trumpanzee has "accused doctors of fabricating coronavirus deaths for money, pantomimed a physical fight with Democratic rival Joe Biden, mocked a Fox News host for wearing a mask and celebrated his supporters for using pickup trucks to ambush a Biden campaign bus on a Texas highway... [H]is closing message is a classic display of the kind of red meat tailored specifically to animate his most faithful supporters. Convinced that it’s too late to change the minds of voters who are not yet sold on Trump, the president’s advisers are intensely focused on turning out those who are. Trump’s decision to forgo a broad, unifying closing message and instead double down on appealing to a narrow but enthusiastic slice of the electorate is a gamble. Whether it pays off or becomes a cautionary tale will not be known until the polls close Tuesday and the votes are counted."

It doesn't look good for Trump. His polling numbers are falling and COVID-19 infections are rising, particularly ones that are tied specifically to his super-spreader rallies, which caused at least 700 deaths, not counting Herman Cain. Yesterday 71,321 new cases were reported, bringing the U.S. total to 9,473,911-- as well as 399 new reported deaths for a total of 236,471. Swing states, many with Republican governors and or legislatures who have followed Trump's anti-science line, are being hammered. Yesterday's swing state new cases (with number of cases per million residents):

• Texas +4,193 (33,140 cases per million residents)
• Florida +4,865 (37,593 cases per million residents)
• Wisconsin +3,493 (39,307 cases per million residents)
• Ohio +3,319 (18,738 cases per million residents)
• Iowa +2,394 (41,320 cases per million residents)
• Minnesota +2,200 (26,717 cases per million residents)
• North Carolina +2,057 (26,382 cases per million residents)
• Pennsylvania +1,684 (16,755 cases per million residents)
• Arizona +1,527 (34,000 cases per million residents)
• Georgia +1,192 (34,093 cases per million residents)

Trump is in his own fantasy world though, gaslighting his rallies 'til the very end. He spread COVID to his Pennsylvania supporters in 4 rallies on Saturday. The first was on Newton where he told the crowd, "A great red wave is forming. As sure as we’re here together, that wave is forming. And they see it, they see it on all sides and there’s not a thing they can do about it."

In front of large crowds that defied public health guidelines in the middle of a pandemic, Trump offered a defiant closing message about the forces he battled during his first term, claiming that his willingness to fight them is one reason he deserves a second term.

“We did not come this far and fight this hard only to surrender our country back to the Washington swamp,” Trump said Friday in Waterford Township, Mich.

That event kicked off a four-day stretch of rallies taking him to Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Wisconsin. By the time he holds his final rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Monday night, Trump will have given his stump speech to tens of thousands of potential voters.

The president’s allies say he is smart to make a bet on rallying his troops at this stage of the campaign, with few undecided voters left and more to be gained from juicing turnout than from winning converts.

“The weekend before election, you’re not changing minds,” said Bryan Lanza, an adviser on Trump’s 2016 campaign and transition. “You’re not IDing supporters, you’re just turning them out. That’s where we are. Persuasion is done. He’s got to turn out what’s there.”

Trump is under more pressure to turn out his base voters in the last days of the race due to the unprecedented partisan split between Americans who vote early and those voting on Election Day.

More than 90 million Americans have already voted early or by absentee ballot, according to data maintained by the U.S. Elections Project, a nonpartisan early-voting tracker. Democrats have an edge over Republicans in several swing states, and Trump has explicitly told his supporters to cast their votes in person on Tuesday.

...The president’s strategy carries risks. His embrace of the conspiracy theories spread by his most ardent supporters about the coronavirus pandemic has driven away potential supporters, according to polls.

Trump has increasingly used his rallies to promote misinformation about the deadly virus, downplaying it and bemoaning the fact that it continues to dominate news coverage. He has told supporters that the country was “rounding the turn” on the virus even as the case count soars to record levels, and claimed without evidence that a vaccine has been held up until after the election due to politics. On Friday, he mocked Fox News host Laura Ingraham for wearing a mask to his crowded Michigan rally.

“No way!” he said from the stage. “She’s wearing a mask? She’s being very politically correct!”

During the same rally, Trump made the baseless accusation that doctors are inflating the number of patients who died of covid-19 to “get more money.”

“Now they’ll say, ‘Oh that’s terrible what he said,’ but that’s true,” Trump said of his false allegation. “It’s like $2,000 more, so you get more money.”

The American Medical Association called the claim “malicious, outrageous, and completely misguided” in a statement Friday, without naming Trump.

Trump’s conspiratorial approach to the pandemic comes as the number of Americans dying each day has begun to increase, along with the rising caseload and hospitalizations.

More than 230,000 Americans have died of covid-19, and more than 9 million have been infected.

...[H]e has veered away from his prepared remarks to offer controversial running commentary to his supporters. He has fed off crowds chanting “Lock him up!” about Biden and “Superman!” about him. Shortly before his fourth rally of the day in Pennsylvania on Saturday, Trump tweeted a video of several of his supporters forming an intimidating vehicle caravan around a Biden campaign bus as it attempted to drive down a Texas highway.

“I LOVE TEXAS!” the president wrote.

On Saturday, Keith Collins, Trip Gabriel and Stephanie Saul took NY Times readers on a trip into the 20 Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin counties across the country where they claim, inaccurately, that the battle for their states' electoral votes are fiercest. Let's follow along anyway:

Miami-Dade, FL-- A Democratic stronghold, it is not a county Mr. Trump would hope to win. But this majority-Hispanic county was a disappointment for Democrats in 2018, especially in heavily Cuban-American precincts. Younger Cuban voters have started identifying as Trump Republican here.

Disappointment in 2018? The Democrats targeted 2 congressional seats in Miami-Dade and won both. Gillum won with 59.9% and Nelson won with 60.6%

Pinellas County, FL-- Perhaps the biggest swing county in the state, which backed Mr. Trump after twice backing Barack Obama, it is a Florida microcosm: solid Democrats in St. Petersburg and Midwestern retirees elsewhere.

2018 was good for Dems in Pinellas-- Gillum won with 50.7%, Nelson won with 52.6% and Charlie Crist was reelected with 57.6%

Osceola County, FL-- Part of the greater Orlando area, it is increasingly Hispanic. Conservative retirees have been joined by hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans, who did not register in expected numbers to give Democrats an advantage in 2018, and so far, are lagging behind other groups in early voting.

Osceola was another good county for Dems in 2018-- Gillum 58.4%, Nelson 59.7%, and it performed for mediocre Rep. Darren Soto D+26. It would have been way more interesting to include Polk County  

Union County, NC-- In 2016, Mr. Trump easily won this suburban Republican bastion near Charlotte. Republicans remain dominant, but signs of disaffection with the president, along with an upswing in “unaffiliated” voters, give Democrats hope they can trim Mr. Trump’s margin.

Union is one of those counties where Republicans routinely steal votes

Wake County, NC-- One of the nation’s fastest-growing counties, Wake has shifted steadily leftward over the past 20 years, supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016 by more than 100,000 votes. An influx of out-of-staters since then stands to boost the Democrats even more, potentially offsetting high Republican numbers in rural areas.

Robeson County, NC-- A former Democratic stronghold, this economically depressed county went for Mr. Trump in 2016. The prize will likely go to the candidate most popular among the Lumbee Indians, the county’s largest group. Mr. Trump held a rally here in October, and both campaigns pledged to support the tribe’s quest for federal recognition.

Robeson delivered for Democrat Dan McCready in 2018 (D+15)

Westmoreland County, PA-- Typical of other counties where Mr. Trump outperformed with white working-class voters four years ago, this area near Pittsburgh is where he must win even bigger margins to counter a likely Democratic surge in the suburbs.

Hillary screwed the pooch but 2 years later Tom Wolf took 46.4% and Bob Casey took 43.9%-- which is all Biden needs to do there and in places like it to be sure of winning Pennsylvania

Chester County, PA-- Democrats must continue their 2018 midterm surge in this suburban Philadelphia county, especially with college-educated women, or Mr. Trump could carry Pennsylvania again.

In 2018 Dems all did better than Hillary had-- Casey drew 59.2%, Wolf took 61.3% and the county performed as a D+18 for Democrat Chrissy Houlahan 

Erie County, PA-- One of three counties in the state that Mr. Trump flipped in 2016, its mix of a working-class post-industrial economy and rural towns makes it “the oracle of Pennsylvania,” in the words of a Democratic strategist.

Erie Co. regretted going for Trump in 2016 and made up for it 2 years later-- Bob Casey 55.7%, Tom Wolf 59.8 and the county is the biggest one in PA-16 and performed at a D+20 level for Democrat Ron DiNicola

Philadelphia County, PA-- The big question here is whether Mr. Biden can re-energize Black voters-- Democrats’ core supporters-- after Hillary Clinton’s lackluster showing in 2016. Mr. Biden will have to boost the numbers to counter Mr. Trump’s margins with rural white voters. The Trump campaign has taken on aggressive tactics, like videotaping voters at ballot drop boxes.

Macomb County, MI-- Heavily unionized and mostly white, the state’s third largest county has picked the statewide winner in the last seven elections for governor and president.

In 2018 Stabenow did 8 points better than Hillary and Whitmer did slightly better than Stabenow. The county performed at a D+19 level for Andy Levin

Oakland County, MI-- Once solidly Republican, it is a more affluent neighbor of Macomb County and has been trending Democratic. It is a prime example of the changes that are taking place in many of the nation’s suburbs. In 2018, it gave Gov. Gretchen Whitmer the biggest margin for a Democrat in 20 years.

Oakland was good for all the Dems running in 2018 and will be for Biden tomorrow

Kent County, MI-- This traditional Republican stronghold-- home to Grand Rapids, where President Gerald Ford was raised-- has moved away from the Republican Party in the Trump era.

Mentioning Ford is the most hawkish possible thing to say about Kent. He served from 1949 to 1973-- 100% irrelevant. Maybe they should have mentioned current Rep. Justin Amash. Stabenow and Whitmer both won the county in 2018

Brown County, WI-- Among the top counties that will decide the state’s winner is the home of vote-rich Green Bay. It’s a swing county that in 2018 voted for the Republican candidate for governor, Scott Walker, and the Democrat for Senate, Tammy Baldwin. Mr. Trump won blowout margins here compared with Mitt Romney in 2012.

Waukesha County, WI-- It is the largest of Milwaukee’s suburban counties. Long a Republican stronghold, the county underperformed for Mr. Trump in 2016. Mr. Biden has forged inroads here, but it’s not clear how deep they are.

Don't get excited; Biden has not forged any inroads in Waukesha. The writers had nothing so say so they made it up

Dane County, WI-- This is home to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and it’s where Democrats surged in an April 2020 race for the State Supreme Court. Nearly as many votes were cast here as in Milwaukee County, even though Dane has less than 60 percent of Milwaukee’s population. Heavy turnout in early voting suggests Mr. Biden is claiming those votes.

Grant County, WI-- Emblematic of southwest Wisconsin, it is one of the state’s swingiest regions, where weak partisan identity saw voters shift from Mr. Obama to Mr. Trump.

In 2018 it swung back blue-- Tony Evers beat Scott Walker by about a point and Tammy Baldwin beta her GOP opponent by 9 points

Maricopa County, AZ-- Home to Phoenix and more than 60 percent of the state’s electorate, it is Arizona’s most important county. It went narrowly for Mr. Trump in 2016, but two years later supported a Democrat, Kyrsten Sinema, for senator. The question is whether the county’s changing demographics will tip the state to a Democratic president for the first time since 1996.

Pima County, AZ-- The home of Tucson, Democrats typically run up the score here.

Pinal County, AZ-- The state’s third-largest county is a Republican redoubt. Mr. Trump will have to turn out enough rural white voters to help protect the 3.5-point margin he won the state with in 2016.

Why Are Most Voters In Wisconsin Casting Ballots Against Trump? Where Do We Start?

 

The big con-- when will the rest of Wisconsin voters figure it out?

Yesterday, Trump infected 61,429 more Americans with COVID-19. Wisconsin had the second most confirmed new cases-- 4,591, bringing the state's total to 178,482-- 30,654 cases for every million residents. I'm not a big fan of moderate Democratic governor Tony Evers but he did everything scientists and public health experts said was necessary. And the Republican-controlled legislature and Republican goons on the state Supreme Court, cheered on by Trump, overturned every move he made to protect the state. Now, as predicted, hospitals are on the verge of being overrun as the state keeps setting records for new cases, hospital admissions and deaths. The state's school system is a wreck, including in red, rural districts whose MAGA citizens thought they were safe and that Trump would never lie to them.

Across Wisconsin-- currently one of the nation’s worst COVID-19 hotspots-- health officials have investigated nearly 500 COVID-19 outbreaks in schools. More than 15,000 children ages 17 and younger have been infected to date, state Department of Health Services data show. Numerous schools across Wisconsin have suspended in-person classes this fall, at least temporarily, because of cases among students and staff.

...Wisconsin is behind the national average when it comes to high-speed internet coverage in rural parts of the state. About 43% of rural areas lack the service, compared to about 31% nationwide.

That’s one reason Wisconsin’s rural school districts overwhelmingly decided to return to face-to-face instruction last month, said Kim Kaukl, executive director of the Wisconsin Rural Schools Alliance.

While big urban school districts like Milwaukee and Madison opted to start completely online, about 75% of the 100 rural districts that answered an optional survey from the state Department of Public Instruction planned to offer face-to-face instruction at least four days per week, a Wisconsin Watch analysis of DPI data shows. Most, if not all, give families the option of virtual schooling, however.

Yesterday, Wisconsin Public Radio reported that "Wisconsinites are not making changes to their behavior-- even as public health officials issue grave warnings, the state's hospitals are on the verge of overflowing, and more people are dying from the disease than at any time in the pandemic. New data from the White House Coronavirus Task Force found Wisconsinites are still traveling in their communities about as much as they did before the pandemic. The task force report, released Wednesday, also said Wisconsin ranks as the fourth-worst state in the nation for new infections. It called Wisconsin's rising hospitalizations an 'extreme concern' and wrote the situation in Wisconsin will 'continue to worsen' short of real changes in state policy or public behavior. As of Monday afternoon, according to the New York Times' tracking tool, 8 of the 20 worst-hit metro areas in the country are in Wisconsin."

Nevertheless, 3 days after the White House task force called for caution, Trump staged one of his super-spreader events in Janesville-- against the request of local elected officials-- that attracted thousands. And it isn't just Trump. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald should eventually be charged with negligent homicide.

Wisconsin has few statewide public health measures in place, and those it has have been the subject of court challenges.  The Republican-controlled Legislature and a conservative legal group have said they'll take their lawsuit against Gov. Tony Evers' statewide mask mandate to the state Supreme Court.  In response to the state's soaring infection rates and hospitalizations, state DHS Secretary Andrea Palm issued an order Oct. 6 limiting capacity at bars, restaurants and retail shops. The order was in place for less than a week before a Sawyer County judge issued an injunction that temporarily blocked it, after the state's Tavern League filed a lawsuit. On Monday, a different judge put the order back in place. 

Monday, Reuters released a poll of likely Wisconsin voters by Ipsos. Biden has increased his margin against Trump statewide by a point and now leads Trump 51-43%, with almost a quarter of the respondents saying they have already voted. By a margin of 52-38%, Wisconsonites say Biden would be better at handling the pandemic. It shocks me no end, though, that by 47-45%, a plurality says Trump would be better at managing the economy. Are they insane?

Every single one of them needs to read Judd Legum's latest Popular Information newsletter: Trump's "Eighth Wonder Of The World" is a few empty buildings, Legum noted that "On June 28, 2018, Trump traveled to Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, and announced that Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics company, would be building a 20-million-square foot manufacturing facility. Trump said that he had secured an agreement from his 'friend,' Foxconn chairman Terry Gou, to invest $10 billion and create 13,000 jobs" and "dubbed the facility the 'Eighth Wonder of the World" and claimed it was proof his policies were 'restoring America’s industrial might.'"

It was another of Trump's trademarked empty, self-serving boasts. Today Kristina Shelton is the progressive Democrat running for an Assembly seat in central Green Bay. She told us that "The Foxconn deal is perhaps the best example we have that relying on the whims and profits of corporations is not the way to create good jobs in Wisconsin or anywhere else. Even if this project had worked, and it never seemed likely that it would, it would have been a massive giveaway of Wisconsinites’ tax dollars to a foreign corporation. Its utter and disastrous failure clearly shows that the gargantuan amount of wasted money and wasted resources could have been much better spent in directly guaranteeing Wisconsinites good jobs and protecting our natural resources and lands."

Jacob Malinowski, whose western Milwaukee Assembly district is closer to the derelict site said "We knew from the get-go that this was a bad deal for Wisconsin: Assembly Republicans were willing to give huge corporate handouts and destroy the local environment for a company which had failed to deliver on its promises around the globe. Either they didn't do their homework or they knew this and didn't care. We need thoughtful leaders who will smartly evaluate their decisions-- not more disinterested and dispassionate partisans."

Putting the boondoggle into context, Legum wrote that now-defeated Governor Scott Walker "paid a heavy price to seal the deal. Overall, the state and various localities provided Foxconn $4 billion in incentives. Some of that money has already been paid out. Racine County bought the land for the facility and gave it to Foxconn for free. Property owners had their land seized by the state, paid for by taxpayers, to make way for Foxconn's facility. Millions more were spent on infrastructure improvements. Since all taxes for the project were eliminated, the tax incentives were essentially cash payments to the company. If everything went perfectly, 'the state wouldn’t break even until 2043.' The deal quickly began to fall apart... [A] Foxconn spokesman told Reuters that it would not manufacture much of anything in Wisconsin. 'In Wisconsin, we’re not building a factory. You can’t use a factory to view our Wisconsin investment,' the spokesman said. The facility would 'consist of research facilities along with packaging and assembly operations.' Foxconn initially estimated it would create 5,200 jobs by 2020. That figure was revised down to 1,000."

Trump was unhappy. He called Gou and convinced him to reverse the announcement. After the conversation, Foxconn released a statement saying it was "moving forward with our planned construction of a Gen 6 [LCD] fab facility." Trump took a victory lap.

But while Foxconn agreed to Trump's demand to keep calling the facility an LCD factory, there was "no further information on the focus of the facility, the size of the investment, or the jobs that will be created." Since then, things have gone downhill.

A new expose by The Verge finds that what "Foxconn calls an LCD factory-- about 1/20th the size of the original plan-- is little more than an empty shell." Last month, "Foxconn received a permit to change its intended use from manufacturing to storage."

The project has only generated a handful of jobs, "many of them held by people with nothing to do, hired so the company could reach the number required for it to get tax subsidy payments from Wisconsin" at the end of 2019. The company claimed it had hired 580 people, enough to qualify for the tax subsidies. Last week, "Wisconsin rejected the company’s subsidy application and found it had employed only 281 people eligible under the contract" at the conclusion of last year. After the deadline passed, many of those were laid off.

The company built a handful of buildings, including a "multi-purpose" structure and an orb. None of them have any clear purpose. It considered, at various times, using them for "fish farms, exporting ice cream, [or] storing boats." Before striking the massive deal, Foxconn performed "no research into the market for products Foxconn might make or the costs of producing those products in Wisconsin." The company maintains that an LCD factory is coming and recently set up a small line for manufacturing servers. But Foxconn recently acknowledged it "has so far invested 2.8 percent of the $10 billion it promised."

Trump, for his part, continues to stay on message. In an interview with a local Wisconsin station on Sunday, Trump said Foxconn had built “one of the most incredible plants I’ve ever seen.” The company will keep its promises, Trump insisted. But only if he's reelected.

Chris Larson is the most progressive-- and strategic-- member of the state Senate. Yesterday, he reminded me that "Three years ago, so many of us tried to avoid this debacle for Wisconsin and our warnings were ignored. Instead, they fell for the biggest con in U.S. history. Even now, you'd be hard pressed to find a Republican who still isn't pretending they aren’t being conned. Like most things involving Trump, it's hard to tell if they’re really this gullible or in on the con. Either way, they shouldn’t be trusted. Every politician who voted for this boondoggle should be forever reminded of what a disaster it is. Luckily, we have a chance to hold them accountable in two weeks, from the assembly and senate Republicans all the way up to Trump."

Assembly candidate Sarah Yacoub couldn't agree more. She told me that her opponent "as of 9/4/2020 is still lying to us about Foxconn, saying it was a good deal and that it didn’t cost us any money. Even local Republicans recognized that it was bad for our district and now we know it cost Wisconsin taxpayers at least $400 million. The 30th Assembly District deserves representation that has the backbone to stand up and say no to a bad deal. Instead, we currently have someone more interested in licking the boots of Madison Republicans for his own personal political gain."

When super-progressive Francesca Hong won the Madison primary, she essentially won herself an Assembly seat. She's spending a lot of her time campaign for other Democrats in tougher seats. "The thing is," she said, "Foxconn went pretty much according to plan. President Trump and Governor Walker wrote out the biggest corporate contract in the history of our state on the back of a napkin. They gave a ton of money to a corporation-- something they're always happy to do-- and they harmed working families and individuals in the process. They liked the press releases about creating jobs more than they actually cared about creating jobs. How do we know? Look at the deal. Tons of upfront money and few if any safeguards ensuring that real jobs went to Wisconsinites. Wisconsin got conned by Foxconn. But we got screwed by Walker, Vos and their allies in the state legislature. Let's vote Vos and his cronies all out of office this November and and do the work of refocusing our priorities on working families, not massive corporations."

Kristina Shelton: "We Need All Democrats To Get Comfortable Being Courageous"

 

When we think about gerrymandering, it's often in the context of trying the almost impossible task of flipping red districts blue. But in isolating Democrat-heavy communities, we are creating oases from which progressivism can spring. Wisconsin's 90th Assembly District in central Green Bay is the perfect example.

To create this district, Walker-era Republicans drew lines to include the meat packing plants, most of the city's rental housing, and majority minority neighborhoods. Generally, you can tell which district you're in based on the size of the houses. The 90th is blue collar and blue voting.

With relative electoral security, Wisconsin's Democratic Assembly incumbents should be positioned to demonstrate the true potential of the party: leading with creativity and courage as they work to make people's lives easier. But instead, the 90th's current-- and soon-to-be former-- Representative for the 90th used his position to try to coerce an employee of the State Capitol into sex. He was only eight months into his first term.

Enter Kristina Shelton, a woman elected to the Green Bay School Board whose personal politics align with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Kristina enthusiastically supports the Green New Deal, strong union rights, and Black lives matter. Her campaign is built from the premise that to beat the divisive, low expectations politics of the Republicans, Democrats have to be part of a social movement to rein in corporate power and lift up the most vulnerable in our community-- whether that is women victimized by sexual harassment or undocumented workers exploited by their bosses.

The process to get her the nomination was less of a primary and more of a culture war. Those backing the sexual harasser incumbent labeled her "radical," "underqualified" and "untested." But in August, she won the primary by 58 points. That's not a misprint: She won 79% of the vote, beating an incumbent who got only 21% of the vote. Green Bay declared that they want someone who is a little bit radical, and more importantly, a representative who will include them in the work-- and fun-- of making the change we need.

These safe blue districts can also serve as the laboratory for campaign innovation. When others around the region were struggling to pull together socially distanced fish fry fundraisers, Shelton was experimenting with live video, Spotify playlists, feminist artwork, and an ambitious texting program. She was running for state Assembly as though she were running for the White House.

"For me, the turning point was this poster we made," said Kristina. "I was up one night thinking of all the things I've been called in my life. I think a lot of women can relate to that. Words like unqualified, over-qualified, sexy, unattractive. My cousin, an artist in Pittsburgh, made those words into a beautiful image on a poster, and we sold the artwork as a fundraiser.

"We try things, we see what works, and we share whatever we learn so that the movement gets stronger. Win, lose or draw, we need all Democrats to get comfortable being courageous. And we shouldn't be afraid of enjoying ourselves while we're doing it."

If she secures election in November, Kristina will be a strong voice in the Assembly's Democratic Caucus. "I plan to legislate the same way I've campaigned: by bringing my community with me."

President Super-Spreader Won't Be Making An Already Stricken Green Bay Worse With His Poxy Presence Today

 

Murder/Suicide by Nancy Ohanian

Wisconsin is pandemic-central right now. Thursday, the state reported 2,887 new cases, third most in the country after Texas and California, both with far bigger populations. Friday, while the media was reporting on the Trump family's COVID-ity, Wisconsin reported 2,745 more cases, bringing the state's total to 127,906-- a very rapidly rising 21,968 cases per million residents. And the center of the contagion, Green Bay, where Trump's rally was scheduled for today. He had also scheduled a rally in La Crosse today, but Mayor Tim Kabat told him to fuck off and he moved the rally to Janesville, Paul Ryan's hometown, where the mayor also asked him not tp come. Late Thursday Wisconsinites breathed a sigh of relief when Trump's disease announcement and quarantine caused all his appearances to be cancelled.

Rich Republican donors in New Jersey Thursday weren't as lucky. I wonder how many will be joining Herman Cain now. Reporting for the Daily Beast, Jamie Ross wrote that "Just hours before President Trump announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19, he was mingling with fundraisers at an event held at his New Jersey golf club—and even posed for personal photo-ops with supporters. The event went ahead after the White House learned that one of the president’s closest aides, Hope Hicks, had tested positive for the disease, according to multiple reports... Trump reportedly delivered a droplet-spraying speech. According to the Washington Post, Trump didn’t wear a mask at the golf club, or on the plane back to Washington, D.C. The president then tested positive after he had returned to the White House."

The White House had plenty of time after learning of Hicks' diagnosis on Wednesday night to cancel or postpone the Bedminster event but all they did was reduce the size of the staff that would be attending and left the wealthy New Jersey Trumpists to their fates. (This was around the time they learned that RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel is also sick with COVID.) Ross reported that "The event may have exposed dozens of people to the virus and adds to a long list of people who have had recent contact with Hicks or Trump who may now need to isolate. They include a large contingent from Trump’s family who traveled to Tuesday night’s debate in Ohio together. Hicks was also seen boarding Marine One on Wednesday with President Trump and senior White House advisers Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller.

The fact that the Bedminster event went ahead despite Hicks’ symptomatic case has been met with stunned disbelief. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper said: “The fact that the president still went, knowing he’d had very close contact with somebody who’d tested positive, is irresponsible.”

Reporters also voiced their incredulity at the fact that press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who has also been in contact with Hicks, held a news briefing at the White House on Thursday and didn’t wear a mask. Neither Hicks’ symptoms or rest were mentioned at the briefing.

CNN correspondent Kaitlan Collins asked: “Why did the president still go to New Jersey, knowing that he could potentially put these people at risk, these donors and fundraisers? And of course, why did the press secretary still hold a briefing despite knowing she had come into contact with somebody who had just tested positive for coronavirus?”

Although a Trump rally scheduled for Friday in Florida was canceled after his positive test result, some events are still being pushed as if there’s a chance of them going ahead. Early Friday, an email went out to Trump supporters for a Texas rally next week which touted a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enter to win a trip to meet your favorite president.”

Jonathan Martin, Maggie Haberman and Matt Stevens reported for the NY Times that the conornavirus diagnosis "upended the presidential race in an instant, inviting significant questions about his cavalier attitude toward the pandemic and the future of his campaign just 32 days before the election... [H]is personal indifference toward the virus could threaten his own health, the stability of the country and his already dimming hopes for re-election... 'It’s hard to imagine this doesn’t end his hopes of re-election,' said Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant, pointing to Mr. Trump’s 'flouting of obvious precautions.'"

It’s almost certain that the remaining two debates between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden will be canceled or drastically changed. The next one is scheduled for less than two weeks from now, on Oct. 15, and medical guidance would most likely keep the president isolated until then.

And after having gone forward with the rallies he craves, despite rules against large gatherings in many states, Mr. Trump will not be able to leave Washington during a final, crucial stretch of the campaign.

Moreover, one of his central arguments against Mr. Biden, that the 77-year-old former vice president is enfeebled and unfit to lead the country, has now been undermined by questions about the president’s own health.

“Trump is now in the position of becoming exhibit No. 1 for the failure of his leadership on coronavirus, and he runs the risk that his supporters will feel misled by his dismissiveness of the virus and the need for precautions,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster.

...[I]n private conversations, members of his staff were also candid that the president has comorbidities that could make him more susceptible to a severe bout of the virus.

...On Tuesday, at his first debate with Mr. Biden, Mr. Trump ridiculed his opponent, a fellow septuagenarian, for his precautions.

“I don’t wear masks like him,” the president said. “Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from it. And he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”

Even on Thursday, after his close aide Hope Hicks was showing symptoms of the virus, Mr. Trump delivered remarks from the White House for the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in which he insisted falsely that “the end of the pandemic is in sight.”

Alex Gibney's new documentary, Totally Under Control, focusses on Donald's completely, dosgracefully failed response to the pandemic and how it didn't haveto be that way. It comes out in mid-October. Here's the trailer:

Last Night Was Hard To Watch For Normal Americans-- But A Great Night For The Neo-Nazi Proud Boys

 

Trump/Biden Debate by Nancy Ohanian

Trump was a national embarrassment. That's what you get when you practice debating with Rudy Giuliani. And Biden was, at best... a weak foil. Instant polls and focus groups, though, showed Trump decisively losing the first-- and hopefully-- last debate of 2020. Republican focus group-meister asked his panel of 15 swing state undecided voters, "You just saw 90 minutes; how can you still be undecided?" 11 are still undecided; 4 are voting for Biden and two made up their lizard-minds to vote for Trump. One of the Biden converts described the debate as "trying to win an argument with a crackhead." Trump didn't grow his support. Politico:

Despite their indecisiveness, most described Trump in a negative light, including one of the participants who was leaning toward voting for the president. The voters characterized Trump as “unhinged,” “arrogant,” “forceful," a “bully,” “chaotic” and “un-American.”

When asked to describe Biden they offered: “better than expected,” “politician,” “compassion,” “coherent,” and a “nice guy lacking vision.”

John Harris termed the whole mess as an epic moment of national shame, "a new low in presidential politics," and "an embarrassment for the ages" that caused many viewers "at frequent intervals... [to] lower the sound, wince and look away." Maybe that's what Trump wanted, although I doubt it. He thinks he won. No one else does though. "Trump," wrote Harris, "plainly arrived to shred the official debate rules, and shed any pretense of decorum. At numerous points, his honking interruptions blared without interruption. So did his putdowns, including mocking Biden’s performance in college 56 years ago-- “You graduated either the lowest or almost the lowest in your class,” before adding, “There’s nothing smart about you, Joe.” He also brought up Hunter Biden’s drug problems and inaccurately said he received a dishonorable discharge from the Navy." Biden's best moments were when he called Trump a "clown."

Writing for the New Republic, Walter Shapiro noted that Donald's unhinged performance is a sign he knows he's losing. He concluded his column by writing that watching caused him to grieve for American democracy. "And I am frightened by the specter of two more presidential debates as moderators insist on playing by rules of civil discourse in the face of Trump the Termagant." NBC's Jonathan Allen agreed with Shapiro that Trump's performance was a sign that he fears Biden and knows he's losing. "In the end," he wrote, "what voters saw was a president who was deeply fearful of the result of a fair election determined on the actual positions and records of the two candidates. And yet, his desire to dominate the debate stage-- to talk over both his opponent and the moderator, Chris Wallace-- made it more likely that the race will be a referendum on him than a choice between him and Biden." BINGO! A referendum on Trump is exactly what's brewing... which is why as unsatisfactory a candidate as Joe Biden is going to win in a landslide and why Republicans are going to lose control of the Senate and lose dozens of House seats.





In her Washington Post OpEd, Karen Tumulty noted that "the nightmare that played out Tuesday evening on a debate stage in Cleveland served at least one useful purpose. It encapsulated, in a single 98-minute span, the entire presidency of Donald... All of the impulses that drive Trump were unleashed: The lying. The rage. The bluster. The incoherence. It is hard to imagine that anyone but the most obdurate of partisans could have watched the spectacle and thought, Gee, wouldn’t it be great to have four more years of this?"

Joe Biden spoke for the rest of us when he at one point blurted out: “Will you shut up, man? This is so unpresidential.”

Granted, this was not Biden’s finest hour either. He failed to achieve the most fundamental mission for a challenger, which is to present a vision of the alternate direction in which he would take the country.

Then again, it is hard to blame the former vice president, who had assumed that he was showing up for a debate, not a shipwreck. For the most part, Biden retained his composure. He in no way resembled the doddering and feeble old man that Trump and his compatriots have sought to portray him as.

Biden also resisted Trump’s efforts to align him with the more liberal members of his party and positions that fall to the left of where most Americans are on issues such as health care. “I am the Democratic Party right now," Biden said. "The platform of the Democratic Party is what I, in fact, approved of.”

Trump lied his way through the debate but did anyone expect he even knew how to do otherwise? Lying is what he does-- always; it comes as naturally as it does to Lindsey Graham when someone asks him if he's gay. I love the response Mike Reese, sheriff of Multnomah County (Portland, Oregon) gave after Trump lied about being endorsed by him:

Even after his catastrophic performance last night, Donald is going through with his super-spreader events in Green Bay and La Crosse, Wisconsin on Saturday, two cities where coronavirus cases are surging... Trump’s rallies, which are known for their size and lack of social distancing, will be held in two cities with some of the highest rates of coronavirus infections in the country. La Crosse has the second-highest rate of infection...and Green Bay has the sixth-highest number of cases per capita. Coronavirus cases around the state are skyrocketing and hospitalizations are at a record high. As of Monday, every county in the state has high virus activity, according to the state Department of Health Services. The Green Bay area, especially, is seeing high numbers of coronavirus patients in their health care centers. At Bellin Hospital in Green Bay, coronavirus patients occupy three-quarters of the hospital's intensive care unit beds and two-thirds of medical unit beds-- roughly double the number from two weeks ago. Last week, the Bellin Hospital emergency room was so overwhelmed that hospital workers had to tend to patients on gurneys in the hallway. Meanwhile, 150 Bellin Hospital employees are quarantining at home."

Reporting for the Washington Post on Trump's plans to kill more Cheeseheads, Lena Sun noted that during the debate, "Trump defended his events as opportunities for his supporters to gather to hear him and claimed that there has been 'no negative effect' from his rallies, even though health officials in Tulsa said a spike in covid-19 cases was 'likely' sparked by an indoor Trump gathering in June." [Herman Cain started trending on Twitter.] Señor T, lying again, said "he was 'okay with masks' but falsely claimed that scientists are divided over their value. Health experts have said mask-wearing, hand-washing, social distancing and being careful about crowds currently make up the best defense against the virus. Biden, by contrast, said Trump has been 'totally irresponsible' in the way he has handled social distancing and masks, and in holding large rallies. 'Basically he has been a fool on this,' Biden said of Trump."

“If you could get the crowds, you would have done the same thing,” the president responded. “But you can’t. Nobody can.”

In addition to the White House task force’s guidance, local concern has been growing in Wisconsin about Trump’s planned events, which are scheduled for outdoor airplane hangars without universal mask mandates. Gov. Tony Evers (D) said Tuesday in a news briefing that Trump should either cancel the events or require mask-wearing by everyone who attends.

“This virus is real, and it is devastating our communities, and it will continue to do so until we all get on the same team,” Evers said in a press call about the recent spike in the state’s cases.

He told Wisconsin residents that wearing a mask is not a substitute for social distancing or staying at home, and he asked them to cancel family barbecues, play dates or dinner parties, and make all large gatherings virtual.

Ryan Westergaard, the state’s chief medical officer, said Tuesday that Wisconsin is “in a crisis right now,” given the rate of community spread.

While Biden has made a point of keeping his events small and attendees distant from one another, Trump has largely dismissed the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention against holding mass gatherings during the pandemic.

The president has crisscrossed the country to hold rallies, mostly in outdoor spaces but sometimes indoors, where mask-wearing is optional. At the events, he regularly mocks virus mitigation efforts, like social distancing, as little more than political ploys by Democratic state leaders bent on punishing him.

“We don’t call these ‘rallies’ anymore, because in Dem states like where you have a governor who’s a Democrat, you’re not allowed to go to church and not allowed to go to a restaurant. You’re not allowed to go to your friend’s house. You can’t move from your house unless you’re related to the governor,” he said at a rally in Newport News, Virginia, on Friday.

“You can’t do anything, unless of course it’s a peaceful protest. Okay?” he continued. “So what we do is we call these peaceful protests, and we’re getting big crowds.”

For Biden, the only good outcome is that watching Trump act like last night that certainly got Democrats-- and perhaps others-- reaching for their wallets. His campaign and that of other Democrats-- had huge fundraising booms during and after the debate. ActBlue brought in around $8 million between 9 and 11, almost half of which went to Biden. I asked Twitter followers to consider contributing $5 to their favorite Democratic congressional candidates here every time Trump lied. Please consider doing that today by clicking on the Blue America 2020 congressional thermometer on the right.

David Frum asserted in his Atlantic column that Donald was a dead duck before he set foot on the stage. He explained that Trumpanzee "arrived at the first debate with a theory and a plan. The theory was that American voters crave dominance, no matter how belligerent or offensive. The plan was to hector, interrupt, and insult in hope of establishing that dominance. His theory was wrong and his plan was counter-productive."

Trump walked onto that stage in Cleveland seven or eight points behind, because the traditional Republican advantage among upper-income and educated voters has dwindled; because non-college-educated white women have turned against him; because he is losing older voters to his mishandling of COVID-19; because the groups he needs to be demobilized—African Americans, the young—are up-mobilized. On the present trajectory, nearly 150 million votes are likely to be cast in 2020. If Trump wins 43 percent of them and Joe Biden 50 percent, not even the Electoral College can convert that negative margin into a second Trump term.

He needed to do something to change that reality.

Instead, he talked to Facebook conspiracists, to the angriest of ultra-Republican partisans, and to violent white supremacists. He urged the Proud Boys to 'stand by' because 'somebody’s got to do something' about 'antifa and the left.' He refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power in the (likely) event that he loses. He threatened months and months of chaos if the election does not go his way.

Trump yelled, threatened, interrupted-- and changed nothing. All he did was confirm the horror and revulsion of the large American majority that has already begun to cast its ballots against him.

Correction, Trump did one thing. On the Cleveland stage, Trump communicated that he will seize any opportunity to disrupt the vote, and resist the outcome. He communicated more forcefully than ever that the only security the country has for a constitutional future is that Biden win by the largest possible margin.

...Who and what Trump is, could not have been more vividly displayed in all the psychological reality. Debate one was not Donald Trump versus Joe Biden, or red versus blue. It was zookeepers versus poop-throwing primates.

Biden may be faded from what he was: perhaps less crisp, less sharp, less fast. But when Biden spoke, he spoke to and about America. Trump spoke only about his wounded ego. Biden communicated: I care about you. Trump communicated: I hate everybody. Biden succeeded in putting his most important messages on record: your healthcare, your job, your right to equal respect regardless of race or creed-- all against Trump’s disregard and disrespect. Trump may have imagined he projected himself as strong. The whole world witnessed instead the destructive rage of a bully confronting impending defeat. Trump disgraced the presidency on that stage. He may just have delivered the self-incapacitating wound that pushes the country toward self-salvation.

Can Cookie Baking Grandmas In Rural Wisconsin Stop The Deadly Republican Political Machine In Madison? Meet Kriss Marion

 

-by Kriss Marion, candidate
Wisconsin Assembly district 51

As a wife, mom of four and a grandmother, I am fiercely committed to the well-being of my family, my neighbors, and Southwest Wisconsin. I run an award-winning bed and breakfast on our small farm in Blanchardville, and have long been involved in our village chamber of commerce and regional tourism promotion, including the Soil Sisters Tour. I have years of experience tackling tough issues, tight budgets and political disagreements as a Lafayette County Supervisor. I have a deep knowledge of the issues facing our region because of my service as a Southwestern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commissioner, and board member of Southwest Workforce Development, SWCAP, and the Community Leadership Alliance of Southwestern Wisconsin. I co-founded the Pecatonica Pride Watershed Association and Wisconsin Farmers Union South Central Chapter.

I’m running for state Assembly because I am so incredibly proud to live, work, and play in southwest Wisconsin and I want to protect our way of life for years to come. I’m tired of watching our legislators stay on the sidelines to fight with each other and the Governor, and refuse to show up to work while the rest of us wrestle with a world pandemic and a recession. I am ready to bring a civil, respectful, and tireless work ethic to Madison. I am ready to roll up my sleeves and show up.

I first learned that our Wisconsin state government was broken back in 2015, when some fellow farm women and I decided to approach our local legislators with a “Cookie Bill” proposal to make it legal to sell non-hazardous baked goods face to face. We had recently learned that it was illegal in Wisconsin to sell baked goods to your neighbors, even though a lot of people were doing it. Because we recognized that farm profits were in a tailspin, as they still are today, we wanted a legitimate way for farm families to add to their bottom line, without investing in an expensive certified kitchen. We wanted bigger and more successful farm markets in our small towns. And we know we needed more businesses in rural communities. Wisconsin was one of only two states in the nation that had such a ban.

We had great luck with our legislators, and with the legislature, and over the course of two years gathered the co-sponsors and the yes votes for an easy passage though the State Senate. Several dozen of us gathered at the Capitol for the Assembly vote, ready with cookies for our allies, and aprons for photo ops. We learned 15 minutes into the session that the bill was dead because the Speaker of the House didn’t like it and had simply omitted it from the agenda. He owned popcorn factories that required inspections, and he didn’t think it was fair for home bakers to go without expensive licensing. He hadn’t reach out to us with concerns, or tried to work with us. But that was it for our two years of work.

As we started through the process again in the next legislative session, this time getting a Republican to author the proposal, thinking we’d have more luck with the Republican Speaker. But after a year of work in committee, we knew that the Speaker continued to be opposed. With his limitless power, and no scruples about blocking a popular bill that had sailed through the committee process in two sessions, we accepted the offer of a non-profit law firm to take our case to court.

Two years later, we won and the Wisconsin ban on baked goods sales was overturned. Today, Wisconsin farmers markets are full of home bakers! But we still have no actual law on the books, and without legislative guidance, the Department of Ag, Trade and Consumer Protection is able to apply rules whimsically and, without reason, harass bakers here and there throughout the state.

While it’s by no means my only issue, Food Freedom is a big issue for me today. Now more than ever, farmers need more opportunities to make money, and when elected I’ll work to craft not just a Cookie Bill, but a whole package of legislation that makes it easier for farmers to sell goods directly to consumers.

But here are the other critical issues facing my state:

COVID: First and foremost, we’ve got to get COVID under control. Though we’ve been blessed as rural communities to not have the number of positives that urban areas have, we will continue to struggle to run our schools and businesses safely until we contain the spread. Science, technology, good leadership, and public cooperation are essential if we want to end this tragic disruption to our lives. COVID isn’t the new normal, but it’s here to stay for as long as we don’t address it wisely.

HEALTHCARE: In my conversations with voters, the top concern in most families right now is the uncertainty and expense of healthcare. Many people who have lost jobs because of COVID have also lost insurance coverage. The skyrocketing costs of health insurance and prescription drugs MUST be addressed. That’s why I’ve pledged to not take a dime of campaign contributions from pharmaceutical companies or health insurance lobbies. My opponent has taken thousands of dollars from these industries, and he has, predictably, voted NO to cap insulin prices. He has also refused to accept federal Medicaid dollars that would extend Badgercare benefits to thousands more Wisconsin families who are just one medical emergency away from financial ruin. I want to make the best policy choices for my constituents, rather than for corporate donors. We must also address the lack of access to mental health care.

FAMILY AGRICULTURE: Rural places are the soul of our state and the engine of our economy. The future of our families, schools, and small towns in SW Wisconsin is tied to the fortunes of our farmers. Western Wisconsin led the nation in farm bankruptcies before COVID and 2020 will likely see accelerated farm exits. The collapse of global supply chains during the beginning of the pandemic showed just how vulnerable commodity markets are, and we need to address that with policy. We absolutely MUST resolve as a state to keep small and medium-scale farmers on the land, and give them the means to be profitable, or we will lose Wisconsin as we know it. My team has developed a 10-point “Rural Routes to Wisconsin’s Post-Pandemic Recovery” which supports diversification, short supply chain development and local processing. We need to make clean energy generation a part of farm balance sheets, increase profits by reducing burdensome regulation on direct farm sales, and expand farm-to-institution infrastructure. I sued the state of Wisconsin and won so that home bakers could sell goods to neighbors, but that was just the beginning of a Food Freedom renaissance that could revitalize our rural economy.

EDUCATION: Now more than ever, we understand the important role public education plays in the life of every American, and certainly in the well-being of every American family. High quality early education, especially birth-to-three, is foundational to future academic and life success-- and we fail to address the childcare crisis at our peril. Excellent K-12 education, once a hallmark of the great state of Wisconsin, should be a privilege guaranteed to every child, regardless of zipcode. COLLEGE AND TRADE SCHOOLS. A state which fails to fairly pay its teachers and adequately fund the instruction of its children, its young adults, and its returning students, is a state suffering from a lack of hope and a tragic failure of imagination. I am proud to be endorsed by our Education Governor, Tony Evers, and I share his optimism about our future. We can rise up stronger, Wisconsin, together.

CLEAN WATER: Many people were skeptical during my last campaign when I campaigned on the issue of water contamination. In fact, one of the main reasons I ran against Howard Marklein for state Senate in 2018 is because he refused to take my concerns seriously. But then the SWIGG (Southwest Wisconsin Groundwater and Geology) study showed conclusively in 2019 that at certain times of the year,  42% of randomly tested wells in Iowa, Grant and Lafayette Counties were too contaminated to drink. As a result, the Governor declared 2019 the Year of Clean Drinking Water and Rep. Robin Vos initiated the year-long Speaker’s Task Force on Drinking Water. Unfortunately, that Task Force, led by my opponent, failed to pass any water protections, and the legislature blocked all of the Governor’s proposals. But groundwater testing in SW Wisconsin is ongoing and we learn more every day about how vulnerable our karst bedrock is to surface contamination and septic leakage.  I believe with new faces, the legislature will eventually produce water protection policy, based on science and not special interest lobbies.  We must make sure that our communities provide the clean water and quality of life that will attract and retain workers, farmers, families and businesses.

I know there are many good people, including my beloved father, who believe that the private sector can and will take care of the environment. That has been Jared Kushner’s response to COVID as head of the PPE procurement effort: “Free markets will solve this,” Kushner told business leaders looking for direction on how to get involved. “That is not the role of government.” We now know that approach has been tragically disastrous when it comes to COVID, and the same is true of our response to environmental protections. I’m a small government democrat, and in many sectors I have fought against government overreach - including suing the state over an unconstitutional ban on selling baked goods! But protection of the commons - the resources that we all rely on for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - is one of the highest, most sacred jobs of government. We are at a critical moment in world history and we absolutely must insist that our state government, and our federal government, collaborate with the governments of all nations to address environmental protections. I have led on this at the community level, as a Wisconsin Farmers Union chapter president, and at the local level as a Lafayette County Supervisor. I will continue to lead forcefully on environmental protections as a state legislature. Our world can’t wait.

Wisconsin On The Verge-- Time For A Choice

 

Last week the U.S. new cases numbers were back over 50,000-- even though cases were down in California and Texas, the two biggest states both population-wise and COVID-wise. All week the spiking has been in the Midwest. Friday, for example, Illinois was #4 with 2,805 new cases, Wisconsin was #5 with 2,504 new cases, Missouri #8 with 1,765 new cases, and climbing numbers in Kansas, Minnesota, Indiana, Ohio, and Iowa.

When you look at cases per million residents, the U.S. has a ghastly 21,928, far worse than European country. Five Midwestern states have worse outcomes-- Nebraska, Illinois, South Dakota, North Dakota and Iowa. Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas are just a week or so away from overtaking the national average. And Wisconsin, with 19,518 cases per million residents, may... or may not. The state is definitely spiking, but at least part of the population is fighting back and attempting to prevent a full-blown catastrophe of Floridian proportions. Yesterday, Wisconsin reported 2,817 new cases (4th worst in the nation), bringing the state total to 113,645.

Yesterday, The Atlantic, published a chilling essay by Robinson Meyer, Wisconsin is on the Brink of A Major Outbreak. "In every state that has so far seen a large spike of COVID-19 cases," he wrote, there has been a moment when the early signs of an uptick are detectable-- but a monstrous outbreak is not yet assured." He then asked, "Can a state realize what’s happening, and stop a surge in time? Wisconsin is about to find out."

In the past week, Wisconsin has crashed through its own coronavirus records, reporting more cases and more COVID-19 hospitalizations than it has at any time since the pandemic began... It now ranks among the top states in new cases per capita, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and it is reporting more new cases, in absolute terms, than all states but California, Texas, and Florida.

Wisconsin’s outlook was deteriorating into the weekend. Yesterday, it reported more than 2,620 new cases of COVID-19, an all-time high. More than 540 people are hospitalized with the virus statewide.

The outbreak started about a month ago. It seemed, at first, like a product of students returning to college campuses. The University of Wisconsin at Madison brought back tens of thousands of students to campus in August. Within a week of classes starting, more than 1,000 of them tested positive, and the university shut down all in-person instruction. Other states in the Midwest saw similar spikes after colleges and universities restarted for the fall.

[NOTE: This is also when bikers were returning from the super-spreader rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, which also hit Wisconsin hard.]

But those states are not seeing what Wisconsin is now. Cases are popping up in too many places, and among too many different age groups, to be blamed on college kids. In fact, every age group except 18-to-24-year-olds has seen cases rise this week, according to official data. “There’s a surge happening in cases across the state, for the most part,” Ajay Sethi, an epidemiology professor at the University of Wisconsin, told me.

Any coronavirus outbreak is bad news, but a surge in Wisconsin, at this moment, would be particularly awful. The problem is one of both political geography and poor timing. Wisconsin could determine the outcome of the presidential election: The state went for President Donald Trump in 2016 by only 22,748 votes, and both Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden have campaigned there this month. The election is little more than a month away, and if the threat of infection scares Wisconsinites away from polling places, the outbreak could play a role in who wins the state.

...The Badger State is seeing an explosive rise in cases: On September 1, it reported an average of about 750 new coronavirus cases a day; now it reports more than 2,000 a day. Wisconsin has reported nearly as many new cases per capita this week as Texas and Georgia did at the peak of their outbreaks this summer, according to the CDC.

At the same time, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Wisconsin has more than doubled since the month began. “The surges are in Green Bay, in northeastern Wisconsin, and there’s a little evidence of an uptick in Milwaukee,” Sethi said. “A lot of these counties are where older individuals live, on average.”

But the state is not doomed to becoming the next Arizona, and it has already had some success halting the spread of the virus. After the University of Wisconsin at Madison shut down in-person classes earlier this month, case counts plummeted across the state. (The school is now loosening those restrictions.) Nationwide, many colleges and universities have successfully kept the virus in check through frequent testing and mask requirements.

But those tools aren’t as easy to deploy in a fractious state. This week, Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, announced that the rising case counts forced him to extend a statewide mask mandate through November. Mask mandates are supported by public-health officials in the Trump administration and the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Yet the state’s top Republican legislators immediately attacked the move. “Moot, illegal, invalid, and almost assuredly headed for litigation,” Scott Fitzgerald, the state’s Senate majority leader, said in a statement. If the mask mandate is overturned in the state legislature, as Fitzgerald has repeatedly threatened, then Wisconsin’s odds of a deadly surge will worsen.

Leaders in Wisconsin should recognize that they hold the entire region’s fate in their hands, because their reckless action could set off a much larger blaze. The Midwest now reports more COVID-19 cases per capita than any other region. It is the only part of the country to have escaped a large-scale outbreak so far, but a major spike could prove especially devastating, because the residents of many midwestern states skew older.

The next few months will prove decisive in the Midwest. Infections didn’t really start going in the Southwest until the summer arrived, when the searing daytime heat drove people indoors, where the coronavirus seems to spread most easily. In the Midwest, indoor season arrives in late autumn. It is nearly 80 degrees Fahrenheit in Green Bay today. The weather in December probably won’t be as favorable.

From the very beginning of this pandemic, the Republican legislature has been on COVID-19's side, not on Wisconsin's side. It's time to throw these bums out on their asses. The problem, of course, is that Wisconsin is one of the most gerrymandered states in America-- by the same legislators who now deserve to be defeated and see their political careers ended. Blue America is working to help a some of the progressive candidates running to flip the Assembly. I asked them how they look at the role of government in this pandemic, now just in terms of how badly the legislature has handled it, but what they expect going forward.

Francesca Hong, who will be representing part of Madison in the Assembly next year, noted this morning that "There were over 14,803 new COVID19 cases in Wisconsin this week. That number is higher than the total number of cases reported in the month of June. Over 1,200 Wisconsin lives lost yet Speaker Vos and Sen Fitzgerald are too busy suppressing democracy and our right to vote safely to notice. These leaders do not fucking care if Wisconsinites die, especially since those who are dying are disproportionately people of color.Protecting white supremacy/patriarical capitalism is their only priority. They have no plan to combat this virus nor do they hold themselves accountable even though they hold all the legislative power. We must vote the Wisconsin GOP legislators out. All of them. Our lives depend on it."

Jacob Malinowski is running for a Republican-held Assembly seat to represent his neighbors in the western suburbs of Milwaukee, right where Milwaukee county meets Waukesha and Kenosha counties. "I don't blame anyone for the pandemic," he told me last night, "but I directly blame the inaction of the Wisconsin State Assembly GOP for how bad it has gotten in Wisconsin. Because they refuse to show up for work, families across the state are struggling with COVID-19. We desperately need new leadership who actually listen to experts-- not our do-nothing, money-driven politicians."

The Assembly district Emily Voight, a Calumet County Supervisor, is trying to flip is straight north from Jacob's, just south of Green Bay. "The state legislators have refused to act, using the pandemic as a reason to not meet or enact any legislation; yet they are expecting local governments to continue functioning in person and passing the buck on to us. If schools and local governments can convene in person or virtually, why can’t our state representatives?"