Votes Are Coming In And Trump Will Probably Be Stealing The White House Silverware On His Way Out

 

In 2016, Trump beat Hillary in Montana 279,240 (56.17%) to 177,709 (35.75%). Trump won 50 of Montana's 56 counties. According to a just-released poll from Montana State University, no one should expect anything like that in November. Trump is leading 51-44%, which shows Trump doing much worse than he did 4 years ago and Biden doing significantly better than Hillary. But the much better news for Democrats is that Democrat Steve Bullock is leading Trumpist incumbent Steve Daines 49-47% among likely voters. The poll shows Bullock receiving 97% of support from Democrats compared to Daines’ 88% from Republicans. Another 67% of independent voters also said they preferred Bullock, compared to 29% for Daines.

This is bad news for Trump, even if he wins Montana's 3 electoral votes. Biden doesn't need them nearly as much as he needs Bullock in the Senate instead of a toady like Daines. The poll shows Bullock with a 60% job approval rating compared to Daines' 55% and Trump's 51%.

Moving over to Texas, it's noteworthy that despite Gov. Abbott and the GOP trying to hold down voting, the first day of early voting saw over a million Texans line up and vote, a state record. Some waited on lines for hours, part of the GOP voter suppression program.

Early voting in Florida is also through the roof. "Republicans," wrote Marc Caputo, "typically hold a slight edge in absentee ballot returns in Florida elections. But this year, there’s been a stunning development.cFor the first time ever at this stage of a general election, Democrats here are outvoting Republicans-- and by a mammoth 384,000-vote margin through Tuesday... As of Tuesday, Democrats accounted for almost 51 percent of the nearly 1.8 million ballots cast so far. Republicans had cast about 520,000 ballots, or about 29 percent of the total. The remaining 20 percent of the ballots mailed in so far have been cast by independent voters who have no party affiliation or belong to minor third parties. The preference of these independent voters is harder to gauge, but polls suggest Biden is winning them. In addition, according to an internal analysis by Florida’s Democratic Party, its models show that 31 percent of those independent voters who have already cast ballots look like Democratic voters because their age and race more closely correlate with Biden voters; only 11 percent look like Trump voters."

Trump is leading by a polling average of 4.4 points in Texas but he's losing Florida by 2.7 points in an average that includes a phony-baloney poll from Republican operatives pretending to be pollsters (Trafalgar). A poll from Quinnipiac last week showed Trump losing by 11 points in Florida, with Biden kicking his lard ass 51-40%.

Yesterday the Washington Post reporters Amy Gardner and Elise Viebeck wrote that "With less than three weeks to go before Nov. 3, roughly 15 million Americans have already voted in the fall election, reflecting an extraordinary level of participation despite barriers erected by the coronavirus pandemic-- and setting a trajectory that could result in the majority of voters casting ballots before Election Day for the first time in U.S. history... The picture is so stark that election officials around the country are reporting record early turnout, much of it in person, meaning that more results could be available on election night than previously thought.

So far, much of the early voting appears to be driven by heightened enthusiasm among Democrats. Of the roughly 3.5 million voters who have cast ballots in six states that provide partisan breakdowns, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by roughly 2 to 1, according to a Washington Post analysis of data in Florida, Iowa, Maine, Kentucky, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

...[T]he early numbers are proving to be larger than even Democrats predicted. Three out of four voters in Pennsylvania who have returned their ballots, for instance, are registered Democrats. In increasingly Democratic Virginia, where early voting began in September with hours-long lines in suburban Washington, nearly 1.7 million voters had cast ballots by Wednesday, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project-- more than triple the number who voted early or by mail overall in 2016. In Kentucky, nearly 70 percent of mail ballots cast have come from registered Democrats.

In Georgia, so many people were determined to vote in person at the first chance of early voting Monday that they withstood lines that lasted throughout the day. A record 242,000 people voted in the first two days.

...[N]early 40 percent of those who voted Monday in Georgia were Black, and 56 percent were women, according to state election data. Two years ago, when Democrat Stacey Abrams, who is Black, narrowly lost the race for Georgia governor, 34 percent of the electorate was Black, according to U.S. census data. In that election, the share of women who voted was 56 percent, the same as the proportion of early voters now.

“Are you seeing the same thing I’m seeing?” asked one Republican strategist in Georgia who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly, when shown the numbers. “This state is blue.”

Trump came up with an idea he could buy 33 million seniors' votes with a $200 discount card for pharmacies, so he must have been crestfallen yesterday to find out that the cards-- which haven't been approved by Congress and are probably an illegal use of taxpayer money-- will mostly be mailed out after Election Day. Instead, he's openly begging for votes. At one of his super-spreader rallies in Pennsylvania yesterday he said "Suburban women, will be please like me? I saved your damn neighborhood."

The answer is no. Just ask Bette Midler:

In 2016, Trump won voters who lived in the suburbs-- 49% of the total electorate-- by 2 points over Hillary Clinton, according to Pew.

Two years later, the President's party was crushed in the 2018 midterms-- losing control of the House-- thanks in large part to a suburban revolt against Trump. House Democratic candidates won 52% of suburban voters as compared to just 45% for House GOPers.

Unfortunately for Trump-- and down-ballot Republicans-- the 2018 midterms weren't the low ebb for the President in the eyes of suburbanites.

States like Colorado, Pennsylvania, Texas, Georgia and Florida-- where much of the population resides in suburban areas-- have all moved away from Trump over the past few years.

Colorado looks to be out of reach for the President, and his struggles will likely cost Republican Sen. Cory Gardner his seat. Pennsylvania remains a possibility for Trump but his poor performance in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh suburbs could be too big a hole for him to dig out of.

Florida, Texas and Georgia are all toss ups at this point, largely due to Trump's underperformance in the suburban areas of the state.

The problem for Trump is that knowing he has a problem in the suburbs and fixing it are two very different things. Trump, as his quote on Tuesday night makes clear, has tried to scare women in the suburbs into voting for him; if Joe Biden wins, he claim with little subtlety, roving gangs of Antifa supporters will invade your suburban paradise.

But female suburban voters aren't buying it. As the New York Times wrote last month, citing polling data in Minnesota and Wisconsin:

"President Trump's effort to court suburban women by promising to protect their neighborhoods is encountering one sizable hitch: Most suburban women say their neighborhoods aren't particularly under threat."

As Everyone Knows, Trump-- Like The Mafia-- Is An Enemy Of Law And Order... But Why Did The Republican Party Go Down That Path With Him?

 

The box on the right is the official one. The box on the left was put up by the Republican Party to steal your ballot and burn it. Be careful of Republicans; they hate democracy

No one has been arrested in the Republican scheme to steal ballots and burn them by setting up phony drop-off boxes around California. It seems to have begun in Fresno County in an attempt for the local Republican Party to steal ballots from Hispanic voters, although the coordinated Republican fraud has been detected in Los Angeles and in Orange County where it may be part of an effort by sleazy Republican congressional candidate Michelle Steel, who Kevin McCarthy's Congressional Leadership Fund SuperPAC has supported with $1,980,734 so far this cycle. This is just the kind of felony McCarthy-- an ethics-free Trump stalwart-- would get behind. It appears that Jordan Tygh, a regional field director for the California Republican Party and part of the Steel campaign, is the designated fall guy for the GOP higher-ups. Steel has not been disqualified, let alone arrested, for her decision to steal ballots.

Republicans are freaking out as they stare at the dimensions of the tsunami headed their way. Yesterday, Wall Street Journal reporters Danny Dougherty and Chad Day looked at the early voting data that helps explain the GOP freakout. "Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Virginia," the wrote, "have already received more early ballots than they did in the 2016 presidential election. Several other states have topped 2016 numbers for mail ballots returned, even as in-person early voting is opening up in much of the country. So far, 8.2 million people have voted by mail in the general election and 835,000 headed to polling places early to cast ballots, according to figures from 35 states and the District of Columbia compiled by the Associated Press. For comparison, more than 58 million early ballots were cast in 2016... North Carolina, another presidential battleground and host to a competitive Senate race, received more mail-in votes by September than it saw for all of the 2016 general election... In both North Carolina and Florida, registered Democrats have cast more ballots than registered Republicans so far. In North Carolina, independent voters have also cast more early ballots than registered Republicans.

Presumably, it was just rogue elements in the Trump coalition and not officials of the Republican Party who are behind the thwarted plot to kidnap Democratic governors. Yes, governors (plural)-- not just Gretchen Whitmer. Washington Post reporters Kayla Ruble and Devlin Barrett wrote that according to sworn FBI testimony, the same right-wing terrorists in Ohio who plotted to kidnap the Michigan governor, also talked about kidnapping Virginia Governor Ralph Northam.

Trump continually smeared and attacked both governors in a way than any violent, low-IQ follower of his might believe he was being called on by the president total action against them to "liberate" their states.

Northam spokeswoman Alena Yarmosky said the FBI “alerted key members of the Governor’s security team throughout the course of their investigation,” but to keep tight control of information about such a sensitive matter, neither the governor nor other members of his staff were told.

“At no time was the Governor or his family in imminent danger,” said Yarmosky, adding that extra security measures “have been in place for Governor Northam and his family for quite some time, and they will remain.”

The spokeswoman also faulted Trump for fueling anger.

“Here’s the reality: President Trump called upon his supporters to ‘LIBERATE VIRGINIA’ in April-- just like Michigan. In fact, the President regularly encourages violence against those who disagree with him. The rhetoric coming out of this White House has serious and potentially deadly consequences. It must stop,” said Yarmosky.

Tuesday’s hearing is to determine if some of those charged in the alleged Whitmer plot can be released on bond. Separately, seven others are charged by state authorities in Michigan with providing support to terrorist acts.

Don Don-- Criminals hate regulations

Trask, the FBI agent, described in great detail how federal agents became concerned about the accused, particularly after a June meeting in Dublin, Ohio, where self-styled militia members from four or five states gathered to discuss possible plans.

It was at that meeting, Trask said, that the notion of grabbing governors was raised, specifically mentioning the governors of Virginia and Michigan. One of the suspects, Adam Fox, then returned to Michigan and began recruiting possible accomplices for such a kidnapping, Trask said.

Fox and others conducted surveillance on the governor’s lakeside vacation home, Trask said, and at one point Fox told the others that he wanted to abduct the governor, take her away from the home by boat, and then “leave her out in the boat” so others would have to come rescue her, according to testimony at the hearing. Another option discussed was to take Whitmer to a secret location where they would put her “on trial,” Trask said, possibly in Wisconsin.

...Trask also detailed the ways in which the half-dozen suspects repeatedly discussed plans to attack law enforcement. At one point, a member of the group mentioned the possibility of attacking Michigan State Police buildings.

At another point, one of the defendants, Brandon Caserta, became irate that he had been pulled over and ticketed for driving without insurance.

“An injustice just happened to me,” Caserta messaged the other suspects, according to evidence introduced at the hearing, and he wrote he could find out where the two police officers lived and “tap them,” which the FBI agent said was slang for killing them.

Even as the FBI closed in on the group, the defendants became increasingly concerned they might be under investigation by federal agents. At one point, the accused collaborators scanned each other’s bodies for radio signals, to see if anyone was wearing a recording device, the agent said. While the scans turned up nothing, the group’s alleged plot was infiltrated by two informants and two undercover agents, Trask said, and the FBI secretly recorded more than 100 hours of the suspects’ conversations.

Americans Are Already Voting In Two Dozen States-- Many Have No Need To Hear Debates

 

Tomorrow, early early voting ballots are mailed to people who requested them in Missouri. And on Thursday, they'll be mailed out in Illinois, Maryland, Mississippi and North Dakota. (On Thursday, Illinois voters can also vote in person.) Voters are already casting ballots in 23 states! Ballots have already been mailed out in North Carolina, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Minnesota, South Dakota, West Virginia, Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Wyoming. And early in-person voting has begun in Minnesota, South Dakota, Virginia, Wyoming, Michigan, New Jersey and Vermont.

Millions of Americans have already made up their minds are aren't waiting to watch or listen to the debates before voting. According to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released yesterday, The Donald's disapproval number is 53% (45% approve). Asked who they would vote for today, 51% said Biden and 43% said The Donald. and when asked who they would vote for for Congress, 42% of registered voters said Democrats and 39% said Republicans.

As of Friday, 7% said they had already voted-- 4% by mail and 3% in person-- and 45% said they plan to vote early (27% by mail and 18% in person). Just 42% of respondents said they plan to wait until Nov. 3 to vote.

It's worth mentioning that another poll released yesterday, Ipsos' for ABC News, found that 69% don't have confidence in The Donald vouching for a coronavirus vaccine, including 16% saying "not so much" and 53% saying "none at all." This question alone-- something that has never come up in an American election before-- could determine who wins the presidency.

Over the weekend, CNN reported (above) that people stood on line for hours to vote. A local electionofficial in Faifax County Virginia told CNN that in 20 years they had never seen this many people show up on the first day. As far as the The Donald's and the GOP's decision to fight the election by intimidating voters... if has begun. Business Insider reported that supporters of The Donald staged a rally during early voting in Fairfax County on Saturday, "in a stunt that an election official said had intimidated voters and disrupted voting. It was only the second day of early voting and the Trumpist neo-fascists were blocking the entrance to the polling place. Some voters, and elections staff, felt intimidated by the crowd and were provided escorts past the Trumpists. Imagine what would have happened if they were black.

The Donald had called on his fascist-oriented supporters to act as "poll watchers" to guard against election fraud.

Already some observers say that the escalating tensions could spill over into election day violence.

Russ Travers, who served as acting director of the National Counter-Terrorism Centre until March, told ABC News last week: "I fear there are a lot of people out there with very warped views of reality and a lot of guns who could willingly take up their weapons in defense of what they believe is the President and the constitution.

"That, I think, is a worrisome possibility that is growing as the political rhetoric gets more and more severe."

In a statement Saturday, Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Steve Descano said that those seeking to intimidate voters would be prosecuted.

Early Voting Numbers Continue To Astound

This is the first week of early voting in the city of Racine. Turn-out is not just higher than for the last midterm (2014), but higher than for the 2016 presidential election. District-wide, Democratic parts of Wisconsin's first district-- like Janesville and Kenosha as well as Racine-- are over 2016 levels, while Republican areas-- Waukesha, for example-- are lagging. This is good news for Randy Bryce and for statewide Democrats Tammy Baldwin and Tony Evers.

Yesterday, NBC reported that midterm voter enthusiasm, nationally, is reaching the same kind of historic levels that it its in WI-01. Dante Chinni and Sally Bronston wrote that for all the uncertainty pundits and journalists may be seeing regarding the outcome, "one thing seems clear: A lot of people are going to go to be voting. From poll data to actual early ballots, the signs point to 2018 as a blockbuster midterm in terms of turnout. Last week’s NBC News/Wall Street Journal showed truly notable numbers for the percentage of voters who are highly interested in the election.

Overall, 65 percent of those surveyed said they had high interest in this midterm election. That figure is higher than any number seen recently. The closest election was 2006, when 61 percent said they were highly interested in that midterm. Furthermore, the trend in the data holds true for a wide range of demographic groups from women to Democrats and Republicans to white, African–American and Hispanic voters.

Beyond the polls, there’s more concrete evidence that voters are revved up for November. Looking at early ballots that have already been cast, the number two weeks out was actually ahead of where they were in 2016. More than 8.1 million people have already voted in 2018, according to data from TargetSmart. Two weeks before Election Day in 2016, the figure was 7.9 million.

...Georgia, Tennessee and Texas have each seen an increase of more than 500,000 early votes compared to the same point in the 2014 election. In each of those states the early 2018 vote has more than doubled compared to the same point in 2014, according to TargetSmart data.

And the ballot in all of those states this year looks similar to 2014-- they each have a Senate and gubernatorial race this year just as they did in 2014.

Arizona, Florida and Nevada, three other states with important Senate races this year that didn’t have one in 2014, are also seeing big boosts in their early vote-- all double-digits in terms of percentages.

...Whatever happens when everything is tallied, whoever wins and loses, it will be difficult for anyone to cite voter apathy as a cause. These numbers show an electorate that is involved in the 2018 election and ready to show it at the ballot box. This is what an engaged citizenry looks like.

Kendra Fershee probably has the steeped path to victory of any of the candidates we've endorsed. Her district's PVI is R+19 and Trump crushed Hillary there 68-26%. But... Bernie not only beat Hillary in the district on primary day, in many of the district's 20 counties he also beat Trump! Take Monongalia County: Bernie 8,096; Trump 5,971. Or Wetzel : Bernie 1,744; Trump 1,096. And Marion: 5,324; Trump: 4,035. Kendra is not running the kind of Republican-lite campaign the DCCC prefers to lose with. She's running on progressive populist issues that appeal to voters in northern West Virginia. "Our voter turnout appears to be up significantly," she told me today, "with Dems outnumbering Republicans by a 55-45 margin (that data specificity is limited to day 1 of early voting). As compared to other midterm general elections, my home county appears to have already exceeded, after four days of early voting, the average number of votes for the entire ten days of early voting."

Way up in the northwest corner of California sits one of the reddest pockets in the state, CA-01, where progressive champion Audrey Denney is challenging Trump rubber stamp, Doug LaMalfa. She told me yesterday that her staff had dug into the PDI data late last week and saw that the district had one of the highest-- or the highest-- rate of Latino and millennial returned ballots anywhere in the state.

According to the Texas Tribune "As of day five of early voting, 2,146,117 Texans have cast in-person ballots and 280,444 have cast mail-in ballots in the 30 counties where most registered voters in the state-- 78 percent-- live. That preliminary turnout has surpassed the total votes cast in those counties during the entire two-week early voting period in the last midterm election in 2014. So far this year, 19.8 percent of the 12.3 million registered voters in those 30 counties have voted."

Let's look at Dallas County, which has turned very blue in recent years. Two years ago Hillary eviscerated Trump there-- 458,845 (61.1%) to 261,865 (34.9%). The higher than normal early voter turnout is headed towards beating the 2016 presidential year, which augers very well for Beto and is likely going to see Colin Allred replace Pete Sessions in Congress-- and if not for the sheer incompetence of the DCCC would see Democrats in serious contention against Kenny Marchant and for the open 5th district Hensarling seat.

Dayna Steele's campaign manager, Mitch Zaiman, told me that the turn-out in TX-36, east of Houston, "has been extremely high. Early voting and vote by mail totals have surpassed '14 totals. While several counties have reporting delays, we currently have '85,516 voted' reported, putting us well above 2014 totals. District wide turnout is at 19.3% with nearly a week left to go until the end of early voting. Harris County itself is at 20% turnout through yesterday. The electorate has been exceedingly white and senior citizens so far but this keeps with previous trends. Yesterday, the first weekend of early voting did see more younger voters and people color turnout out as expected."



"Sustained turnout at these levels," he continued, "would be extremely positive for the campaign and Dems in general. There have been no indications of turnout dropping of yet. The question is whether these are voters who would have voted on election day regardless or if early voting allowed them to vote when they otherwise would not have. My guess is that the older, white voters would have voted anyway and that some people of color who are turning out on the weekends are taking advantage of early voting to cast a vote they might have otherwise missed. If this is the case, a relatively small percentage of crossover vote among traditional GOP voters would be enough to push us across the edge and win. If we see these levels of turnout continue through early voting and, if turnout on election day is 40-50% of the total vote, then we will have achieved the turnout to win. None of this is far outside the norm nationally but has never been seen in this district. Assuming all these things happen and trends from previous elections are not skewed we can win in a remarkably red district."

The DCCC-- and therefor the pundits and journalists who take stenography from them-- wrote off Texas' 10th district even before the primary. But because the DCCC wasn't paying attention, a full-on reformer and progressive, Mike Siegel, won (with 70% of the vote) and has turned the gerrymandered district competitive. Early voting has been eye-popping. 80% of the voters live in Harris and Travis counties and there is record turnout for a midterm already-- with more women (52-48%) voting than men and unexpectedly big numbers for millennials. Contrary to past elections, there have been more voters in the Travis County parts of the district (Austin) than in the Harris County parts. Travis is bluer and Harris has a vote suppressing Republican county clerk who closes the earlier voting polls at 4:30, before most people get out of work, while Travis county is open 'til 7pm. Travis County has now registered 94.5% of eligible voters, something I've never heard of in my life. A quarter of all registered voters have already cast their ballots after just a week of early voting! Meanwhile, Mike has huge field operations not just in Travis and Harris counties, but also in Bastrop County and in Waller County, where standing up to local voter suppression and racism-- and two nights on Maddow-- have made him a hero in a traditionally red county. And, of course, one statewide Texas race seems to be helping every Democrat running down-ballot:

Why We Can't Have Nice Things

One of us, not one of them-- so Pelosi will try to destroy him without blinking

Today is the first day of early voting for Utah and Saturday is the start of early voting for the rest of the Florida counties that didn't start yesterday-- albeit not all that early. But most of the rest of the country is in the throes of it now-- at least in those states that allow it. It started in bluer states like Minnesota, New Jersey and Illinois last month. And people have been voting at unprecedented numbers for a midterm. Turnout virtually everywhere is higher than it was for the 2014 midterm. And some states and counties are reporting numbers that make it look more like a presidential cycle. So this is part of a wave... right? Well that depends if these early voters want to support Trump or put a check on him. Do they want to preserve healthcare for their families or do they want to make healthcare a privilege for the wealthy?

So how do you know who's voting? The excitement about early voting was so high in Miami-Dade that people camped out at the polling places Sunday night! Republican Trump supporters? Not likely. There GOTV rallies in Miami, Tampa and Jacksonville with Andrew Gillum and Joe Biden-- and they brought Bill Nelson or a Bill Nelson dummy along with them-- and they resulted in long, long lines Monday. Republican Trump supporters? That isn't what anyone is saying. Gillum is seemingly everywhere in the state while DeSantis is hiding under his bed licking his deep wounds after being eviscerated in the CNN debate. These are early voters in Miami. Unless they were wearing Gillum shirts to fake out the media, these were not Republican Trump supporters.

North Carolina is also in the midst of early voting and about 431,000 North Carolinians cast their ballots during the first five days of early voting, compared to 410,000 in 2016 and just 298,000 in 2014. And this is despite the fact that this year, only 27 counties had early voting sites open on the first Saturday of early voting, compared to 48 counties in 2016 and over 80 counties in 2014. So are they voting for Trump or against Trump. No way to be certain, but so far around 196,000 ballots have been cast by registered Democrats, compared to 134,000 by registered Republicans and 121,000 by unaffiliated voters.

Early voting in Nevada started Saturday and something like 3 times as many Nevadans cast ballots during the first week of early voting compared to the 2014 midterms. Clark County (Las Vegas), a Democratic stronghold, had turnout that is usually seen in presidential election cycles.

How about this headline from the Houston Chronicle? Shocking turnout for first day of early voting in Houston. "Thousands of people were already camped out at a key early voting location in Houston on Monday morning, hours before voting was even set to begin." But are these Democrats or Republicans?

This was from day one of early voting in Travis County (Austin). As you can see, not only did early voters blow past the 2014 (midterm) number by 40,000 votes (!!!!), they passed the 2016 (presidential) number as well!

• 2018: 47,405

• 2016: 47,109

• 2014: 17,181

And then there was the BETO Effect in hometown El Paso County!

• 2018: 17,294
• 2016: 15,286
• 2014: 2,817

The Tysons Reporter wrote that "In Virginia's Fairfax County interest in this mid-term election is running high-- possibly as high as in a presidential election year. If early ballots are any indication, interest in this mid-term election is running high-- possibly as high as in a presidential election year. As of last Friday, 23,772 ballots had been cast in Fairfax County since early voting began September 15. That’s an increase of 112 percent over the number of early ballots cast at this point in the 2017 election. The figures come from the non-partisan Virginia Public Access Project. In Fairfax City and Falls Church the increase is 115 percent. Statewide, 95,616 ballots have been case for an increase of 97 percent. 'It’s actually quite shocking,' Richard Keech, deputy director of the elections office in Loudoun County told the Washington Post.'This would be the first time without a president on the ballot that we’ve seen this kind of increase.'"

But don't get too excited. Some states are reporting that more Republicans are rushing to vote early than Democrats, including states with pivotal Senate races, like Arizona, Indiana, Montana and Tennessee. In Indiana, fro example, 51% of early voters have been Republicans and just 39% Democrats. That could auger badly for Joe Donnelly, who has done nothing at all to rev up the Democratic base. In fact, his conservative voting record is going to get many Democrats out to the polls. Same in Tennessee. Phil Bredesen--- who was leading in the polls until he said he would have voted for Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation-- deflated his base and only 30% of early voters have been Dems, while 63% have been Republicans.

The hopeful news for Democrats in many states is that women are voting in greater numbers than men and that suburban voters are the ones who are out voting early. Women and suburbanites, regardless of party affiliation, are out to punish the GOP for enabling Trump. Florida, Texas and Georgia, particularly have seen huge upsurges in women voters. And it's suburban voters rather than rural voters who are crushing it in Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.

Honestly though, it's hard to tell which party is benefitting most from this early voting increase. Reporting for New York Magazine, Eric Levitz wrote that Tribalism Isn’t Our Democracy’s Main Problem. The Conservative Movement Is and that the "Democrats and Republicans now provide the electorate with stark choices on health care, taxation, social spending, immigration, racial justice, abortion, environmental regulation, labor rights, and myriad other issues. It has rarely, if ever, been more clear what-- and whom-- each party in the U.S. stands for."

[O]ur republic may be suffering from a variety of disfiguring illnesses, but all trace back to the damage that hyperpartisanship did to its immune system: Our president may be a kleptocratic conspiracy theorist who oozes contempt for America’s highest ideals (and ignorance of high-school civics)-- but only because conservative voters came to despise the Democratic Party more than they loathe self-proclaimed pussy-grabbers. Congress might be barely able to fund its own paychecks, let alone find consensus solutions to policy challenges-- but voters only tolerate such gridlock because they’ve come to see compromise as a synonym for their side’s defeat. And Americans might be losing confidence in public institutions, the integrity of their nation’s elections, and the value of democracy itself-- but this is largely because so many of them have decided that one of their nation’s two political parties poses an existential threat to their bedrock ideals.

University of Maryland political scientist Lilliana Mason writes in her book, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity that contemporary American politics,"our conflicts are largely over who we think we are rather than over reasoned differences of opinion." By this, Mason means that our nation’s partisan divisions are not rooted in the severity of red and blue America’s ideological disagreements, but in the extremity of their social animosities.

In an exhaustive study of the 2016 electorate, Vanderbilt political scientist Larry Bartels found that a majority of Democratic and Republican voters “endorse government efforts to regulate pollution, provide a decent standard of living for people unable to work, and ensure access to good health care.” Those conclusions are buttressed by the past two years of policy polling, which has consistently found Democrats and Republicans seeing eye-to-eye on a wide range of economic issues. To name just a few: At least a plurality of voters in both parties want the government to increase federal spending on health care, preserve the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, guarantee affordable health insurance to people with preexisting conditions, subsidize tuition at public colleges, provide a “public option for the internet”-- and keep taxes on the wealthy and corporations at least as high as they were before the Trump tax cuts passed.

Crucially, the possibilities for consensus legislation are not limited to “bread-and-butter” issues. Even on our culture war’s bloodiest killing fields-- i.e., on the subjects of immigration, guns, and abortion-- there is plenty of room for Republicans and Democrats to find common cause. In August of this year, a Fox News poll found that 69 percent of Republicans favor a pathway to legal status for all law-abiding, undocumented immigrants currently working in the United States (and that finding is consistent with broader polling on the subject). On gun policy, a wide variety of proposals routinely attracts majority support from “red” and “blue” Americans-- while universal background checks and (the substantively bad idea of) barring Americans on the “no-fly list” from purchasing firearms boast the backing of over 75 percent of voters in either camp. On abortion rights, recent surveys have shown that a majority of both parties’ voters want the Supreme Court to uphold Roe v. Wade, and thus, preserve a constitutional right to abortion services. (Of course, there is far less consensus on these issues among the two parties’ most politically engaged elites, activists. and interest groups.)

And yet, these myriad areas of agreement have been no bulwark against hyperpartisanship: Ordinary Republican and Democratic voters don’t disagree about public policy much more than they used to, but they still fear and loathe each other more than at any point in our nation’s modern history.

To see why we all can’t get along, let’s turn to the second half of Mason’s thesis. Drawing on insights from social psychology, Mason argues that human beings are hardwired for tribalism. We compulsively (and unconsciously) divide the social landscape into ingroups and outgroups; selectively process information that affirms the virtues of the former and the vices of the latter; and allow our self-esteem to rise and fall with the status of our team.

...Through an elaborate analysis of survey data, Mason shows that the strongest partisans in the United States today are not the voters with the most conservative or liberal policy opinions-- but rather, those with the strongest attachments to social groups that are uniformly associated with one major political party. As all of one’s social identities “line up behind one party or the other, they all win and lose together,” Mason writes. “The humiliation of loss is amplified. Victory, then, becomes more important than policy outcomes. Even when both sides hold the same policy positions, the priority is often to make sure the dirty shirts don’t win.”

Mason points to the government shutdown of 2013 as a paradigmatic example of this phenomenon. As we’ve seen, a plurality of Republican voters want the federal government to expand Medicaid and protect individuals with preexisting conditions. And yet, a plurality of Republican voters also wanted their elected representatives to shut down the government-- and thus, inflict economic damage on their own country-- on the outside chance that doing so would prevent Barack Obama’s plan to expand Medicaid and protect people with preexisting conditions from ever taking effect.

For Mason, and many other critics of polarization, the fundamental problem with the phenomenon is not that it has made political conflict in the United States bitter and divisive. On many policy questions, America really is bitterly divided; bipartisan comity in this country has typically been built atop a foundation of disregard for the rights of marginalized social groups (African-Americans invariably among them). To the extent that social polarization has enabled such groups to win meaningful representation, it has been a laudable development.

But Mason contends that, in minimizing the overlap-- and thus, personal contact-- between Democratic and Republican voters, social polarization has also amplified our tribal biases, and thus, led partisans to exaggerate the severity of their genuine divisions; overlook the myriad areas where consensus policymaking is possible; and tolerate substantive betrayals from their own party’s leadership. “When individuals participate in politics driven by team spirit or anger, the responsiveness of the electorate is impaired,” Mason argues. “If their own party-- linked with their race and religion-- does something undesirable, they are less likely to seriously consider changing their vote in the ballot booth.”

This analysis is persuasive. But as an account of why the United States lacks responsive government, it is deeply inadequate. Partisan prejudice might give legislators greater freedom to betray their constituents’ substantive aims-- but it does not explain why so many of our elected officials choose to exercise that liberty. Social polarization, therefore, is not the cause of unresponsive government in the U.S., so much as a condition that facilitates it.

This distinction has important, practical implications. If the fundamental obstacle to popular sovereignty in America isn’t hyperpartisanship, then reducing the latter will not necessarily bring us closer to the former; in fact, it is possible to imagine conditions in which “depolarizing” American politics could lead us even farther from that ideal.

To see why this is, consider one of Mason’s prescriptions for how our republic can be healed:

If the parties themselves had any interest in reducing levels of partisan prejudice, they could likely do so simply by encouraging the prominent flag-bearers of the party to loudly and freely discuss partisan opponents in an unprejudiced way…What if the leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties decided to take on a tolerant rhetoric toward the opposing team? What if party prototypes started discussing real differences rather than demonizing their opponents? What if party opinion leaders (of both parties) started talking about politics by commending compromise and acknowledging the humanity and validity of the opposing team?

Mason is no naïf; she stipulates that there is “no reason to believe that this will occur in the near term, particularly in the Republican Party.” But the trouble with her proposal goes beyond its implausibility. The reciprocal, rhetorical disarmament she describes would likely reduce partisan hostilities-- but whether it would make government more responsive depends entirely on the terms of the two parties’ reconciliation.

For example, if Democratic elected officials and opinion leaders had commended compromise during last year’s health-care debate; acknowledged the validity of the Republican Party’s attempt to throw millions of low-income Americans off of Medicaid to finance tax cuts for the rich; and supplied the votes necessary for gutting federal health-care spending (in defiance of the wishes of a majority of both parties’ voters), then our politics would have become less polarized-- and less responsive to the popular will-- at the same time.

And this is not all-that fanciful a hypothetical. More than a few times in recent decades, Democrats have sought bipartisan compromise by acquiescing to unpopular (and unwise) conservative policy goals. It wasn’t wrenching social divisions that led the government to cut the capital gains tax rate in the 1990s, in defiance of a majoritarian preference for higher taxes on the wealthy-- it was Bill Clinton. Similarly, it was Barack Obama, not partisan prejudice, that brought Congress to the cusp of passing unpopular cuts to Social Security in 2011; in fact, partisan prejudice arguably prevented those cuts from passing.

Which is to say: Even in our hyperpartisan times, the two major parties can sometimes unite behind a policy that a broad, bipartisan majority of the public opposes. Social polarization cannot explain such failures of popular government; but the immense political power of reactionary elites in an economically polarized society can.

American Gothic, Revisited by Nancy Ohanian

The biggest barrier to popular sovereignty has always been economic inequality.

In truth, the most formidable obstacle to responsive government in the U.S. is-- and always has been-- the disproportionate power that economic elites wield over its political system. Influencing elections and legislative processes requires investments of time, money, and attention. Wealthy individuals and corporations can easily shoulder such expenses; ordinary voters can’t. This simple reality-- that economic power is easily converted into the political variety-- is an inherent constraint on popular sovereignty in all (capitalist) democracies. But it’s a constraint that can be more or less restrictive, depending on how unequally wealth is distributed, how easily large masses of ordinary people can organize politically, and how effectively outsize political spending is regulated or socially stigmatized. More concretely, policymaking tends to be more responsive to popular concerns in nations with strong labor unions, as such institutions help secure workers a larger share of economic growth, while also enabling working-class voters to collectivize the costs of political engagement.

In the contemporary United States, however, unions are on the verge of extinction; the richest 0.1 percent of the population commands as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent; and legal restrictions on political spending are effectively nonexistent. The Koch Network plans to spend $400 million electing its preferred Congress this November; corporate America is poised to spend upwards of $2 billion lobbying it next year. Given these conditions, one wouldn’t be expect policymaking to reflect popular preferences, no matter the social makeup of the nation’s two political parties.

After all, the last time organized labor was this weak and wealth, this concentrated, it was the Gilded Age. And that era was plagued by governance so unresponsive to public needs, the average height and life expectancy of ordinary Americans declined during it, even as their nation grew immensely wealthier. It is true that Democratic and Republican voters were bitterly divided and socially isolated in this period. But few would cite a dearth of “cross-pressured” voters as the principal reason why the federal government did not provide more relief to the unemployed during the Panic of 1893; or immiserated small farmers with deflationationary monetary policies throughout the late 19th century; or routinely massacred striking workers. The disparate economic power-- and political organization-- of corporate elites and ordinary workers is a much more intuitive explanation for the government’s failures in that period. It remains so in ours.

Political tribalism is bad. But government by and for the rich is worse.

Now, there is reason to believe that social polarization contributes to such disparities. Countering the inherent imbalance of political power between the superrich and working people requires the latter to organize around their class interests. And a population that is bitterly divided by Colin Kaepernick and the phrase “Happy Holidays”-- or, in the Gilded Age context, a recent Civil War and a de jure racial caste system-- is going to have hard time making common cause.

But if social polarization abets the power of reactionary plutocrats in the United States, reactionary plutocrats return the favor. In the industrial Midwest, labor unions once functioned as a (modestly) effective bulwark against racial polarization-- unionized white workers were far more likely to remain Democrats (which is to say, in a political coalition with a majority of the African-American electorate) than their non-unionized peers, amid the white backlash of the late 1960s.

But over the ensuing decades, a political movement bankrolled by conservative elites implemented a variety of policies that weakened organized labor-- and consciously worked to increase the political salience of America’s racial and and cultural divisions.

...[T]he GOP, and its associated institutions, have spent much of the past half-century actively trying to polarize the electorate along racial lines, and mobilize the Christian right through appeals to its most paranoid, millenarian instincts. This is no partisan conspiracy theory; it is basic political history. In the late 1960s, Republican operatives realized that an America in which the electorate was split along racial lines would be one in which the party least dependent on African-Americans would thrive. Some spelled out this theory explicitly, in best-selling books. John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s top domestic aide, summarized the spirit of his boss’s 1968 campaign as, “We’ll go after the racists”-- adding, in his memoir, “The subliminal appeal to the anti-black voter was always present in Nixon’s statements and speeches.” And that appeal has been a fixture of Republican political rhetoric in the United States ever since. (Anyone who doubts that the conservative movement still seeks to exacerbate social polarization would do well to spend an evening with Fox News’s prime-time lineup.)

One major appeal of “polarization” (or “hyperpartisanship”) as a framework for understanding our democracy’s dysfunction is that it does not implicate any one party or political movement: We are all subject to cognitive biases; impersonal, sociological forces have strengthened those biases; and thus, we have lost our collective capacity to find common ground.

...Tribalism may be a threat to democracy; but the tribe that the poorest 99 percent of Americans do not belong to is a bigger one.

OK, so in 20 words or less, why can't we have nice things? Is anyone watching season 3 of Versailles? And silly me, I've been urging people to vote for any shit Democrap no matter how bad, just to preserve us from Trump. I had a bad feeling about that advice. I need to think about it more closely. Mitch McConnell to Bloomberg News October 16: "I think it would be safe to say that the single biggest disappointment of my time in Congress has been our failure to address the entitlement issue [Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid], and it's a shame, because now the Democrats are promising Medicare-for-All... There's been a bipartisan reluctance to tackle entitlement changes because of the popularity of those programs. Hopefully at some point here we'll get serious about this. We haven't been yet." McConnell was making the point that cutting these popular programs can only be done in a bipartisan way so both parties share the ire. That's why I oppose Blue Dogs and New Dems so vehemently. They're the ones willing-- eager-- to share the ire.