State Legislative Races-- Big Disappointment As GOP Gets Ready To Gerrymander Like Mad

 

The National Conference of State Legislatures released this before-and-after graphic showing legislative control yesterday (bottom) and what it will look like starting in January (top). The only changes appear to possibly be in Arizona and New Hampshire, two non-gerrymander states.

NCSL executive director Tim Storey reported that "Democrats look like they will win the Arizona House for the first time since 1966. Republicans are poised to win back the New Hampshire Senate that went Democratic just two years ago." There are still enough votes being counted now to possibly change control in one or two chambers (including the Arizona state Senate and the New Hampshire House)-- but don't count on it. Also undetermined right now is who will control the Michigan House, the Pennsylvania House (both of which could flip blue) and both chambers in Nevada (where one or both could flip red).

Storey: "[T]his appears to be a remarkably status quo election in the U.S. states. It looks like this will be the least party control changes on Election Day since at least 1944 when only four chambers changed hands. It’s still possible that there could be even fewer than four flips as a result of Tuesday’s voting. In the 1926 and 1928 elections, only one chamber changed hands. And 2020 could conceivably match that."

Even adding in the governors’ races leads to hardly any change in the state partisan landscape. There was only one party change among the chief executives, and that was in the open governor’s race in Montana. Term-limited Democratic Governor Steve Bullock ran for the Senate, and Republican candidate Greg Gianforte took the mansion back for the GOP.

That win led to the only new trifecta in the nation, in Big Sky Country.

It is possible that Republicans will lose their unified control in Arizona, meaning the number of D, R and divided states stays exactly the same. No other changes are expected in the trifecta unless late returns in New Hampshire’s 400-member House, notoriously always hard to pin down, plus a GOP pick-up of the Granite State Senate leads to a new GOP trifecta there.

As it stands now, the lack of partisan change in the states is jaw dropping.

There were, however, some good results in a few places. Early in the cycle, Blue America endorsed progressive Democrat Heidi Campbell in her race to replace the last member of the Tennessee state legislature in the Nashville area, state Senator Steven Dickerson. Yesterday Heidi beat him 51.7% to 48.3%.

And up in Green Bay, Wisconsin Kristina Shelton won the Wisconsin Assembly seat to represent the 90th district with 60.2% of the vote. You may recall that last month this progressive leader told us that her personal politics align with AOC and that "We need all Democrats to get comfortable being courageous." Wisconsin needs a solid Democratic bench. She's part of it now.

Florida was the nexus of pain-- particularly Miami-Dade. Democratic turnout in red counties was through the roof while in Miami-Dade, it completely fell apart, possibly because of the tireless efforts of Trump crony Louis DeJoy and his team at the USPS. 67,385 requested Democratic absentee ballots that were sent to voters never made their way to the counting stations. Not a single legislative seat changed hands-- so Florida!

Writing for Rolling Stone, Tessa Stuart reported that "Despite months of polling that suggested Biden was a slight favorite to win the Sunshine state, Florida has slipped out of Democrats’ grasp once again... There have been clear signs in recent weeks that Republicans were turning out in higher numbers in a part of Florida where Democrats need to run up the score in order to win: Miami-Dade County... Around 55 percent of Florida’s Cuban-American vote went to Donald Trump, according to exit polls, giving him huge gains over his 2016 performance in the county, swinging some 200,000 voters into his column. But it wasn’t just Cubans breaking for Trump-- he won 30 percent of Puerto Ricans and 48 percent of 'other Latinos' in the state."

On Election Day, Rolling Stone spoke to Maria Elena Lopez, first vice chair of the Miami Dade Democrats to get a sense of the situation on the ground. Democrats had a fragile, roughly 100,000 ballot lead in the early vote, and volunteers were still out knocking doors, frantically trying to get out the vote. At the time, Lopez said turnout was on track to match 2016-- a problem, considering Hillary Clinton lost the state and the election that year. Still, Lopez was hopeful Tuesday morning that Biden might do better than Clinton did in other parts of the state, like the I-4 corridor, home to a growing Puerto Rican population.

“My worst fear would be that our Latin community believes the bullshit that Biden is a socialist and communist, and doesn’t vote for him,” Lopez said bluntly on Tuesday. “That is my main fear. It is very hard to fight misinformation, and that has been the most frustrating part for us as a party. How do you go out there and try to have a logical conversation with people that do not believe what you’re saying?”

This afternoon, Kathy Lewis, the Democrat we were hoping would flip the state Senate blue, told her followers in an e-mail that she ran the campaign she wanted to run despite the Florida Democratic Party. "Many people 'in the know'-- party leaders, consultants, people in our community-- told me this was an unwinnable race, she wrote. "They said it was especially unwinnable without the support of big money donors who would have censored my voice. Over 115,000 voters disagreed. Though we have lost this race, we have proved what is possible for future elections. We have shown that it is possible to run a truly grassroots campaign and fund it with small, individual donations-- we have raised more than $133,000 with an average donation of $80.  Considering this was a special election with a short lead time, this is a phenomenal achievement!"

In thanking her supporters, she noted that "As the late, Honorable John Lewis said, we make progress by making good trouble. That’s what we did together. Together, we have shown that it is possible to put the interests of people first, before big money and big business... This race and our campaign have focused the bright Florida sunshine on the problems so many hardworking Floridians face. We have raised the flag, bringing attention to the problems facing so many Florida families:

• to the difficulties obtaining disability and medical benefits;
• to the disenfranchisement of voters brought by poverty and race;
• to the problems workers and families have gaining equal access to quality and affordable health care;
• to women’s right to have control over their own bodies;
• to the issues of marriage equality and equal and fair employment and housing practices for the LGBTQ+ communities and for people of color;
• to the need for a realistic living wage—Amendment 2 on the ballot does not go far enough soon enough;
• to the issue of gun violence which affects too many people each and every day;
• to the problems we have in our criminal justice system with inequitable practices in our state law enforcement, the hiring of unqualified and disqualified applicants, and the need to invest in mental health services and education in law enforcement and in schools
• to the unfair burden put on our teachers to be all things to our children while being paid far less than they deserve;
• to the concerns of the environment and climate change that disproportionately affect Floridians, Florida tourism, small businesses, and people of color; and
• to our state’s haphazard, patchwork response to the pandemic, needlessly endangering millions of people, and especially our first responders, and needlessly sacrificing the lives of loved ones in the process.

She concluded that "Future Democratic candidates have a new playbook for how to run an honest, people-first campaign with sustainable grassroots support and without having to answer to corporations, special interests, or powerful, self-interested politicians."

The Country's Political Future Runs Through State Legislative Elections

 

In Florida, the Republicans have pretty close to a one-party state government. Ron DeSantis is the most disliked governor in America, but he's still the governor (and not up for reelection in November). The state House has 71 Republicans and 46 Democrats. The state Senate has 23 Republicans and 17 Democrats. The state House is going to need concerted Democratic effort for several cycles to flip it. The Florida Democratic Party is just not capable of that and is, in fact, worse than useless. Democrats would have a better chance to flip seats if the state party ceased to exist. The Senate looks more promising, right? 40 seats... just flip 3 and it's a 20-20 power-sharing tie. Flip 4 and Florida is no longer a one-party state. But there's a problem-- his name is Gary Farmer and he's a hack politician from a deep blue district in Broward County. He's slated to be Minority Leader in 2021 and desperately does not want to be Majority Leader. So he has made sure the state party is only targeting two seats. That guarantees the GOP maintains their dominance. Gary Farmer likes being dominated.

Maybe if they targeted 5 or 6 seats, they could win 3 or 4. Imagine that! It would be enough to stop the Republican decennial gerrymander plan in its tracks. The party is forever whining they have no money. Why should anyone give them any. They suck! I bet if they made a real concerted effort to win the Senate back, they'd be flooded with contributions.

A Florida political expert told me that the map drawing "will go like last time. The Senate GOP will try to gerrymander, the House GOP may or may not go along with it, and the Florida Supreme Court will end up deciding it, as it has the right to do."

Bob Lynch, the Democrat running for the Miami-Dade swing district held by Daniel Perez put the problem very clearly. "There is no other state and no other major county that has Republican leadership on down the line. We are also quickly approaching 14 thousand dead Floridians. Coupled with the disastrous unemployment system, and refusal to take the Medicaid expansion in the middle of a Pandemic and there has never been a better time for Democrats to compete for every seat. With the Census and redistricting coming up, we cannot afford to ignore any race. Any seat could be the difference between Florida being under Republican control or us having a say for the next decade. Investing in my race not only makes sense given the dynamics of my district, but it also forces my opponent to play defense and ties up resources. This is a pure return on investment for minimal capital play. One we can repeat all over the state if Democrats decide they really want to compete. So far that seems unclear."

Nationally, the DLCC-- Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee-- (and its National Democratic Redistricting Committee) aren't doing a bad job-- certainly much better than the Florida Democratic Party is. Their top targets appear to be chambers in North Carolina, Texas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Iowa and... not the most obviously flippable chamber of all-- the Florida state Senate. After Farmer failed to recruit Alex Sink to run in the 20th SD, he refused to back Kathy Lewis, a black woman who nearly ousted Tom Lee, the incumbent, in 2018, with no help from the Democratic Party. Now Lee is gone and Lewis-- with all that name recognition-- is up against a right-wing extremist. She would be the tie vote. But Farmer refuses to budge and just threatens, bullies, and blusters.

What can gerrymandering by state legislatures accomplish? Well, in 2012, House Democratic candidates won 59.6 million votes-- 1.4 million more than did House Republicans. But Republicans won 234 seats in Congress, compared with 201 Democrats. There are state legislative elections in 43 states this year-- for 86 chambers. Republicans are playing defense and worry about toxicity at the top of the ticket. Will an anti-Trump wave turn into an anti-Republican wave that wipes out scores of political careers across the nation?

Next year 17 states are using bi-partisan redistricting commissions instead of state legislatures to redraw the post-census maps:

• Alaska
• Arizona
• California
• Colorado
• Hawaii
• Idaho
• Iowa (although the state legislature gets to approve or reject it)
• Michigan
• Missouri
• Montana
• New Jersey
• New York (although, like Iowa, the state legislature gets to approve or reject it)
• Ohio (a new plan that is probably unworkable)
• Pennsylvania (for the state legislature-- which still draws the congressional districts)
• Utah
• Vermont (must be approved by the state legislature)
• Washington

Writing for Roll Call last January, Jacob Fischler reported that "The state legislative campaign arms of both parties said wins in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin would help win congressional majorities for the next decade. Those six states send a total of 116 representatives to the U.S. House-- more than a quarter of the entire voting body. Republicans outnumber Democrats in their combined delegations, 70-46. Both chambers of the legislature in all six states are now held by Republicans, and all empower their legislatures to draw congressional district lines." He rates Pennsylvania as the likeliest target, Georgia as the toughest.

The DLCC is spending $50 million to flip chambers and at least one allied group, Swing Left, is also spending. Fischler wrote that "Flipping a chamber in Texas, as in Florida, Georgia or Wisconsin, would break a Republican trifecta-- control in both legislative chambers and the governor’s office. In all states but Minnesota, one party controls both legislative chambers going into the 2020 elections. Similar, for redistricting purposes, is North Carolina. The state doesn’t give its governor, Democrat Roy Cooper, the power to veto maps drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature. [National Democratic Redistricting Committee spokesman Patrick] Rodenbush called the path to flipping a chamber in Tar Heel State 'tough but doable,' pointing out that the legislative elections will use new maps drawn after a 2018 state court ruling that found the North Carolina lines represented an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.

Yesterday Politico's Ally Mutnick equated the race to turn the state legislatures with the presidential race! "Far away from the glare of the presidential campaign," she wrote, "a competition rivaling it in importance is playing out across the country: for power over the redistricting process-- and potentially control of the House for the next decade." And she honed in on North Carolina and Texas. "Both parties are funneling millions into the battle for the Texas state House and the North Carolina legislature, eager to have a greater say in the crafting of what could be as many as 53 congressional districts between the two states combined. Republican mapmakers locked in a GOP advantage there over the past decade: Before 2018, the GOP held 69 percent of House seats in Texas and 77 percent of seats in North Carolina. 'North Carolina and Texas have a history of some of the worst gerrymandering in the country,' said Kelly Ward Burton, the president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, an initiative formed to break the GOP's hold on the map-drawing process. 'And so the ability to move from extreme gerrymandering into fair maps is incredibly notable.' Thanks to curbs on gerrymandering forced by voter initiatives and public pressure, along with the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats have already made up some of the ground they lost to Republicans after 2010. That year's wave election helped keep the GOP in the House majority for eight years and in control of many state legislative chambers for the entire decade."

North Carolina and Texas are so important because they are large, growing states entirely under GOP control-- and many of the other maps Republicans drew a decade ago have stubbornly endured, blunting Democratic gains. Privately, many Democrats concede they have no chance to flip any chamber in Ohio or Wisconsin, and only a narrow path to gaining control of the Florida state House.

Democratic strategists in Texas say 15 to 20 GOP-held seats will host competitive races, most of which lie in the quickly diversifying suburbs. Several of those are open seats, thanks to Republican retirements, and nine of them were carried by then-Rep. Beto O'Rourke in his 2018 Senate bid. Texas Democrats have mimicked the national party’s successful 2018 strategy, recruiting several women of color and veterans who are capitalizing on suburban disgust of President Donald Trump.

"In all these districts, in the polls I’ve seen, the president is definitely upside down in terms of his favorable rating. And that is hurting the entire Republican ticket," said Texas state House Democratic Caucus chair Chris Turner. "This is definitely the biggest battlefield for the state House that I can remember at least since my election, which was in 2008."

...Democratic operatives see the greatest opportunity in areas where rapid demographic change is diluting the GOP’s edge. Forward Majority is funneling its resources toward four growing states: Texas, North Carolina, Florida and Arizona-- largely abandoning the Rust Belt targets it went after in 2018.

“Democratic performance in state legislative races underperformed the congressional wave of 2018, and a lot of pundits said, ‘Well that’s gerrymandering,’” said Vicky Hausman, a co-founder of the group. That’s true, she agreed, in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where the population is static.

“It’s not true in the Sun Belt, where we’ve just seen so much population growth and diversification in the suburbs essentially blur the lines of the gerrymanders,” she said. “They just don’t hold.”

The Blue America 2020 state legislative thermometer above has some of the most progressive candidates running for state legislatures around the country. Please consider chipping in what you can. This is the future of the Democratic Party and the future of the country.



UPDATE: Katherine Norman is one of the progressive Democratic state Senate candidates who could help flip that chamber. And she's running against one of the most toxic Republicans in Florida politics, Republican Party chair and Trump campaign co-chair Joe Gruters. This morning she told me that her opponent "represents the very worst about the GOP, and dare I say, the FLGOP which is an even more cultish group. He claims that he wanted to get dark money out of politics and shares an office with the registered agent of 76 Republican Super PACs Eric Robinson. He inflames race issues by calling the coronavirus the ‘Wuhan’ virus at the RNC, falsely claiming the McCloskeys were threatened by BLM protesters on CBS News with Jim DeFede. He embraces the candidacy of self-proclaimed Islamaphobe Laura Loomer. He is a Trump fixture that embodies and represents the administration above all else." 

Every day I am connecting with voters through my outreach on social media. Often, I find that there is someone running against this entrenched Republican is enough to garner major support. Many people I have spoken with haven’t felt represented or hopeful in decades.

I am so proud to be a part of the movement for real, transparent, government in the face of deliberate deception under our current leadership. It is clear that the voters do not trust the FLGOP and I would love to reach and engage as many voters as possible.

I have so much data and intel on my opponent. I have been working diligently to understand the needs and motivations of voters in my district. If I had the funding I could hammer the message home to voters here in my district and certainly about the FLGOP across the state for Biden.

With more money my campaign could take on the kind of strategic large scale operation necessary to send a serious message to this very powerful incumbent, to the FLGOP as a whole, and to Democratic Voters in my district and beyond. I would be proud to do so and am critically invested in making sure that I have exerted all measures humanly possible to prevent a FLGOP victory in November.

 

Is The Anti-Trump/Anti-Red Wave Going To Help Democrats At The State Legislative Level?

My guess is yes-- this November we're going to see a lot of the seats that were lost while Debbie Wasserman Schultz incompetently ran the DNC picked back up by Democrats again. And, as Joan Walsh explained this week for The Nation that process is already underway. During the Wasserman Schultz years Democrats lost 942 legislative seats. "In 2009," wrote Walsh, "Democrats controlled 27 state legislative assemblies and Republicans 14, with eight divided. (Nebraska’s unicameral legislature is nonpartisan.) By 2017, Republicans controlled 32 and Democrats 14, with three divided. In 2010 Republicans were able to use this dominance to gerrymander electoral maps across the country, locking themselves into power in state after state, including in an inordinate number of congressional districts in states like Michigan, Ohio, Louisiana, North Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Walsh explained that by 2017 Trump's toxicity started impacting election results "as Democrats won back 14 state seats in special elections, plus an astonishing 15 in Virginia that November." And in 2018 Democrats "turned 380 seats from red to blue... flipping chambers in six states. In Colorado, New York, and Maine, Democrats took over Senate chambers. In Minnesota they grabbed the House, and in New Hampshire they turned both. They made huge strides elsewhere in eroding GOP power, switching 16 seats in North Carolina’s House and Senate, ending GOP supermajorities (which gave the legislature power to override the Democratic governor’s vetoes); 14 in Texas; and 19 in Pennsylvania. In 2019, Virginia Democrats finished their job, taking the House and the Senate. With a Democratic governor, the state returned to full Democratic control for the first time in over two decades. Counting those Virginia victories, Democrats have won back over 450 seats and 10 state chambers in the Trump era."

Anselm Weber, a progressive state House candidate for an open seat in southwest Florida told us that his race is important for a multitude of reasons. "In terms of my District," he said, "we have intense clean water issues as we are at the frontline of massive blue algae blooms caused by nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from commercial farms. My opponent Adam Botana is heavily funded by big Agricultural companies that directly contribute to our blue algae blooms. Moreover for the state of Florida we have massive poverty and healthcare uninsured rates along with immense housing insecurities. These issues have only gotten worse with COVID as thousands of Floridians have lost their job based health insurance and a whopping 51% of Florida renters are at risk for eviction. This means we need state legislators who will fight tooth and nail for a Green Jobs Program to combat climate change while providing well paying jobs across the state. along with fighting for living wages for all, universal healthcare, and an expansion of affordable and public housing."

Heidi Campbell, one of the Nashville area mayors, is running for the last state legislative seat in greater Nashville still held by a Republican. And she's going to win it. "Every now and then," she told me this morning, "I'll talk to a Democratic voter who asks me why I'm bothering to run for state Senate. Progressives have mostly given up on Republican super-majority states like Tennessee because flipping seats is a daunting prospect. There's also a tendency to focus on the shiny televised, twitter-fied federal races, and of course we've had four solid years of a President who takes up all the oxygen in the room. As a Mayor of a small city though, I can tell you that all politics really and truly IS local. Republicans are counting on states like Tennessee to seed battles to overturn Roe v. Wade and roll back environmental regulations. We need progressive candidates in these states who can win seats and fight to flip other seats. And we also need to elect people like me to run interference on the antediluvian legislation that the conservatives write, like bills to jail librarians, honor Rush Limbaugh, and the dangerous push for permitless carry. Geographically and legislatively our states ARE united, and we have to pay attention to state races before it's too late."

Drew Phelps is the progressive Democrat working towards replacing right-wing extremist Devon Mathis in a Central Valley Assembly seat. Today he told me that "The race in AD 26 is vital because the people in this district have been ignored by Sacramento for too long. One more Democrat in the California Assembly may not seem like a big deal, but for the approximately 465,000 people in AD 26 so much more is possible with a Democratic member who represents their interests. This election is a choice between a public servant who would put the needs of the district above partisan politics and special interests on one side, and someone like Devon Mathis who accomplishes nothing, harasses his own staff, and continually puts the interests of his large donors above the average working person in the district. Assembly District 26 has been ignored and left behind for too long and Sacramento needs to prioritize the needs of the people in the district so that they no longer lag behind the rest of California. Electing Drew Phelps would give the people of the district a champion who would put their needs above all else and allow them to finally get their fair share from Sacramento."

Joshua Hicks is running for a state House seat that takes in all of Nassau County and part of Duval County. "Here in Northeast Florida," he told us this morning, "we are running a campaign in District 11 to place the people back in charge in Tallahassee. This race is vitally important because it allows us the real opportunity to hold my Republican opponent accountable for his dismal failures, while also preventing him from spending his resources on his friends both locally and across the state. It's important because as Democrats, we need to ensure we have a candidate in every race because we can't win if we don't run. It's also important because we can move real numbers in my district and in districts across the country, that will help Democrats win up and down the ballot and ride the anti-Trump wave to victory. Here in District 11, we haven't had a Democratic state House campaign like mine in the past 10 years. We are putting in the resources to turn this district blue, and we are reaching out to NPAs and Republicans to convince them to reject the hate coming from Donald Trump and embrace focusing on the kitchen table issues impacting all our families. Issues like higher wages, better healthcare, acting on climate and a renewed focus on lifting up our local economy. These are the issues that matter and we are seeing real movement away from the politics of hate in Northeast Florida."

Please consider contributing to the progressive legislative candidates endorsed by Blue America-- in Florida, Tennessee, California and across the country-- by clicking on the ActBlue thermometer above.

Now those groups and some new ones are trying to change more chambers to blue, especially in states where the legislature controls redistricting. But they need to learn the lessons of why state Democrats slumped after 2008, failing to rise to the GOP challenge, and surged after 2016.

Chief among them: You can’t win if you don’t play.

Democrats in many states had long failed even to field challengers to many Republican incumbents. That’s changed hugely since 2016. In this cycle, the DLCC has spent $6.2 million to recruit candidates. Democrats also need a diverse slate of challengers, especially to turn out the people least likely to vote but most likely to be Democrats: so-called low-propensity voters, mainly people of color and younger people (who obviously overlap). Then Democrats need to target those voters, as well as run on issues and urgency that match the moment.

...[T]he four states that are seeing the most investment are North Carolina, where there’s a chance to shift the House and Senate; Arizona, where both chambers are likewise in play; and Texas and Michigan, whose Houses may be up for grabs. Fights are also underway to turn the Minnesota Senate, the Iowa and Ohio Houses, and both Pennsylvania chambers. Wisconsin and Georgia are getting attention, too.

And with a late, unexpected surge of first-time candidates, Florida has emerged as a fascinating laboratory for building Democratic infrastructure on the ground. Republicans hold a trifecta in state power-- hapless Governor Ron DeSantis as well as both legislative houses-- and they have botched the pandemic response beyond belief. Groups like Sister District, Forward Majority, and the DLCC are starting to spend money there to at least build a working Democratic Party in red areas, if not flip a chamber. “Running up the margins” in blue districts and preventing Republicans from doing so in red districts “can help Joe Biden win the state,” says Fergie Reid Jr. of 90 for 90, a group formed to honor his father, Fergie Reid Sr., who was elected in 1967 as Virginia’s first Black state legislator since Reconstruction, on his 90th birthday. (He’s now 95 and going strong.) It is one of the groups behind Virginia’s turnaround, by registering voters and recruiting Democratic challengers. Now it has helped inspire the late surge of Florida Democratic candidates.

...[I]n Texas, where Governor Greg Abbott is increasingly reviled for his pandemic management-- which is partly why Democrats are increasingly optimistic about their chances to win the nine seats they need to turn the state House. There are nine House districts held by Republicans that were won in 2018 by Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke, whose run is widely credited with reviving the state’s withered Democratic infrastructure. He lost to Senator Ted Cruz narrowly, but Democrats picked up an astonishing 12 seats in the House that year.

Run by a bumbling GOP trifecta in the age of coronavirus, ruby-red Texas is unpredictable this year. Biden even leads Trump in a few polls there. “Governor Abbott has taken all the ownership of Covid and has refused to believe science,” says second-time Texas House candidate Joanna Cattanach. “We have refrigerator trucks outside hospitals in Dallas County now.”

The net approval rating for Abbott’s response to Covid has slipped 21 points since June, when 56 percent of Texans approved and only 36 percent disapproved; he is now underwater, with 47 percent approval, 48 percent disapproval. “He’s really made himself the face of the pandemic,” Cattanach says, sounding bewildered. Not only did Abbott open businesses too soon, the 
public health data shows, but he also discouraged face masks and social distancing and even blocked localities from imposing stricter requirements.

...This year, some hope that a presidential election, which always gets more voters to the polls, could help boost Texas turnout-- but maybe not at the state legislative level. “We have to avoid down-ballot drop-off,” Cattanach says. That’s always a challenge in state legislative races, even in the hyperenergized Trump era. ”In 2018 our candidates underperformed Democrats in the same congressional district by about 4 points,” Forward Majority cofounder Vicky Hausman warns. “It’s a real problem.”

...Kathy Lewis, who’s running a second time for Florida’s Senate District 20, encompassing the Tampa–St. Petersburg area anchored by Hillsborough County, didn’t hear she was too liberal for the district in 2018. Mostly she didn’t hear anything, especially from Democratic Party leaders.

...“Everyone,” including many state Democratic leaders, “said we were crazy,” she recalls. “No one would vote for us. But the party had somehow miscalculated how much this district was changing.” She garnered an unexpected 46.5 percent of the vote, winning 52 percent in populous Hillsborough County. In 2020, Lee resigned, and suddenly the party had an open seat to contest. According to several reports, Democratic leaders approached at least two others to run, even though Lewis filed almost immediately after Lee’s announcement. “They said later they didn’t know I was on the ballot,” she says, sounding unconvinced.

If Democrats recruited two alternative potential candidates for Lee’s seat, they neglected a whole lot of other districts. That’s where 90 for 90 came in. After the group’s Virginia successes, it moved on to other states, helping recruit candidates where party leaders seemed unable or uninterested. In Florida the Reids reached out to Janelle Christensen, the energetic head of the state Democrats’ environmental caucus. “They explained the advantages of running in every district, and I said, ‘Hey, I’m convinced,’” she says. “It’s not necessarily that they’re going to win, although they could, but they can cut the margins in red districts for Biden and educate people on our issues.” She says she could fill maybe 10 challengers’ seats with folks close to her caucus. “But when I got started talking to them, they talked to their friends, and we recruited 36.” 90 for 90 also worked to help with the unlikely candidates’ state election filing fees, which are $1,800 each.

Other national groups, including the DLCC, have since jumped into Florida. “The conventional wisdom is there’s no path to winning the Florida House. We have a contrarian view,” says Hausman. As in Texas, there are districts that appear flippable, especially the 13 GOP-held seats that were won by either Clinton in 2016 or by gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum in 2018.

Still, many people feel the state party is undersupportive of its new insurgents. Inexplicably, challengers have had trouble getting access to VAN, a privately owned list of local voters, with names, addresses, and phone numbers, who have voted or might vote Democratic. “It felt like the party was constantly trying to reinterpret the rules for who qualifies [to get VAN],” Christensen says. “But even once you get it, most of the numbers are bad. Nobody’s even been trying in these districts, in some cases for decades. They’re useless for anyone coming in trying to organize. If all we did in these races is build a list of interested Democrats in VAN, that’s something.”

Sister District cofounder Gaby Goldstein, whose group is also working in Florida, says that’s a common problem in red states, many of which it has targeted since its founding in 2016. “In some places, we have to lay the basic groundwork because VAN is garbage. Many Democratic voter lists are garbage,” she says. I have heard this a lot in red states and districts over the last four years. There have always been stalwart Democratic activists in the reddest places, but a lot of state parties have let the infrastructure “wither away,” Goldstein says.

Lewis eventually got access to VAN. There are gaps in its data, but this time around, she’s more confident anyway. “You know what? With the coronavirus, we have local people who don’t have health care. They can’t access unemployment insurance. They know Florida is a mess,” she says. She adds that after hearing her story in 2018 about fighting with the state to get services for her daughter and hearing it again in 2020, people tell her, “Kathy, I didn’t understand last time, but now I see exactly what you were saying.”

Unfortunately, local party leaders still don’t seem to understand. Lewis benefited from a widely seen Zoom call in July led by Hillsborough County Democratic leader Ione Townsend with local Black leaders. When one asked about the party’s lack of support for Lewis her second time around, Townsend replied, “It’s not high on our list because of where the polling was. What we do is, we prioritize based on our overall goals. White, Black, brown-- it doesn’t matter who that candidate is, it’s where they fall on our election priority list.”

Angela Birdsong, a Hillsborough Democratic activist who ran for county commissioner in 2018, responded, “I just think any Black woman in the race right now stands a chance and should be given a little more money than you might think they need. I just feel that you should give them more money!”

Lewis, like other women of color running for office this year, believes the widespread American revulsion over George Floyd’s murder and the movement to end police violence buoy her campaign. For one thing, it has gotten people focused on the role of state and local leaders in reforming police departments. Here’s where electing Democrats can matter-- if not always enough. Colorado, which elected a Democratic trifecta over the past few cycles, did away with qualified immunity for police officers in June; New York, which completed a trifecta in 2018, enacted other criminal justice reforms. “We now have a Black Senate leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and a Black Assembly speaker, Carl Heastie,” the DLCC’s Post says of New York. “That’s truly made a difference.”

...Even in Virginia in 2019, Bachman observes, “Democrats keep underperforming,” at least partly because outreach to voters scored as less likely to vote was sometimes undervalued when it came to door knocking, media buys, and direct mail. Virginia Democrats took control of both chambers but won only two state Senate seats, fewer than expected. “Given the nature of the 2016 election, the voters who stayed home skewed to Democrats,” she adds. “It couldn’t be more clear that the path to winning more seats is getting lower-propensity voters, particularly lower-propensity voters of color, engaged with our message and turning them out.”

That’s especially true, Abrams says, since 2020 is another census year, with participation threatened by the pandemic and Trump administration malfeasance. “If we do not have adequate participation by voters of color in November,” she warns, “gerrymandering will be worse than we’ve ever seen.”

Jacob Malinowski, a candidate for the Wisconsin Assembly for the red-leaning southwest corner of Milwaukee County told me today that "In Wisconsin, there are a lot of obstacles for Democratic State Assembly candidates: the map is the worst gerrymander in the country, and many national resources are focused on a select few races. Furthermore, if Republicans make just a few gains, they'll have a veto-proof supermajority with no check on their power. But in the southwest suburbs of Milwaukee, I'm running to win. My district is a 50-50 flip that nobody is paying attention to, and we're using this to our advantage to flip the seat right under the noses of the GOP. With hard work and real conversations, I'm running a new, post-partisan campaign to build lasting progressive power in my home state. If we can win here, then the path to a people-first Wisconsin is clear: run hard-working candidates everywhere who offer real ideas and speak to the lived experience in their districts, not just the same talking points."

Christine Pellegrino is running for the New York state Senate (SD-4) in Suffolk County (Babylon and Islip), a swing district currently represented by Trumpist Phil Boyle. "For candidates like me," Pellegrino told us, "2020 will allow suburban progressives to win seats at the table of power. For too long, State House Democratic majorities have used the objections of their moderate suburban colleagues as the reason to hold up the progressive legislation we need. If more suburban progressives get elected, these excuses will no longer hold water, which means that the path to enacting progressive legislation runs through the suburbs. And I've won this kind of race before, by a landslide. I was the 2nd national red to blue flip in my 2017 special election for New York State Assembly, a harbinger for the 2018 Blue Wave midterms. And once I'm in the New York State Senate, we will be able to help reverse the damage of 2010 by fully funding our schools and libraries, improving our infrastructure, and fighting for the healthcare we all deserve. Suburban down-ballot progressives are the crucible-- the testing ground-- for enacting an agenda that helps poor and working people and families first. If Albany can pass progressive legislation, other states and the federal government will be able to accrue the support to pass similar reforms. Down ballot races like mine are the cornerstone of lasting political revolution."

Missouri state Rep Deb Lavender first ran for the legislature in 2008 and told us that she "was finally successful in 2014 running four cycles in a row. I watched firsthand in 2010 how the Tea Party swept across Missouri, and the nation, and watched as good Democrats lost their seats. Republicans picked up seats in Missouri for the next two elections. Until 2014 Missouri lost so many state legislative seats we dipped into a super minority in both chambers. In 2016 we elected a Republican Governor and since then have lost all legislative issues that are important to Democrats. In 2018, I watched my own state Senator, Andrew Koenig, file and pass one of the nation's most restrictive pieces of abortion legislation, leaving no exceptions for rape or incest.  Democratic senators negotiated as best as possible and yet in the end, we still passed one of the most egregious bills in the nation, because senators are also in the super-minority in Missouri. Being an elected official is about more than having power, it's about having a seat at the table to effect positive change and pass laws that improve peoples' lives. Unfortunately today in Missouri, Democrats are not welcome at the table, not in the House or in the Senate."

Deb won her race for state Representative in 2014, flipping a long held Republican seat. Over the last 6 years Democrats have picked up 4 additional seats in the state House and one in the state Senate, a good start, though not near what they need win to get out of the super-minority.

She told me that "a year ago I decided to run for this Senate seat knowing we had a chance to flip the Senate seat as I had my House seat. I have worked hard for the people in my district and have used my platform on the Budget Committee, where even a Democrat can make some change. I had the opportunity to meet Jessica Post in 2015 (she started her career here in Missouri), and she looks forward to the day when Missouri is ready to flip a chamber to Democrat again. Until then, I am proud of the results she has made across the nation in picking up so many seats these last years. A significant turning point for Missouri was when we finally became the 38th state to pass Medicaid Expansion in August of this year. My experience in budget will allow me the opportunity in the Senate, to implement Medicaid expansion. The stars are aligning and there are good signs that I will win this seat. Every week, the five women running for the State House in my senate district and I get together to discuss strategy and learn from each other what we are doing to win our races. I look forward to us all flipping Republican-held seats for Democrats this year."

 

Keeda Haynes: "It Is Time For Change And I Am That Change."

Tennessee is spiking really badly right now. An anti-mask governor and legislature have given the state 59,546 COVID cases-- including 1,955 new cases on Friday, 1,460 new cases on Saturday-- and a rapidly rising 8,933 cases per million Tennesseans. The governor, Bill Lee is a clueless Trump fanatic, refuses to mandate masks and the Tennessee General Assembly... well, the state Senate has 5 Democrats and 28 Republicans and the state House has 26 Dems and 73 Republicans-- obviously a full-fledged chapter of the Trump Southern Death Cult.





They're not worried about the pandemic overwhelming Tennessee hospitals; they're worried about maintaining a memorial to savage mass murderer and KKK first Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest in the state capitol where they can all admire it everyday and be infused with its Fort Pillow Massacre inspiration. A friend of mine in the legislature tells me they're also plotting the next state gerrymander. With a very good chance that conservative Blue Dog (and proto-Republican) Jim Cooper is going to be defeated by Keeda Haynes, the Fort Pillow Massacre fans intend to eliminate TN-05 (basically the strongly blue city of Nashville and its suburbs) by dividing it up among several Republican districts, exactly what Tom DeLay did to Austin.





Why would they suddenly do this to Nashville? Look closely-- Keeda is a woman; Keeda is progressive; Keeda is African American... and not likely to celebrate the Fort Pillow Massacre with them... or wink and look the other way as some conservative Southern Democrats do.

"I believe that those of us that are closest to the problem are closest to the solution," Keeda told me recently. "I understand and have personal experience with a lot of these issues that we are now demanding be changed in the criminal justice system. Experiencing and seeing these disparities first hand, I personally wrote Jim Cooper a letter regarding the various issues and volunteered to work with him and other members of Congress to address these issues. He met with me but did nothing about these issues. That was over 4 years ago, when he had the opportunity to be on the forefront of criminal justice reform and to fight for our community and our issues and not when it became 'popular' to do so. Nashville deserves better than this. We need a leader who understands the issues the community is facing and will actually lead when it comes to those issues."

As a former public defender, Keeda has fought against all of these racist laws, policies and procedures in the criminal justice system from the wealth based detention-- known as money bail-- to sentencing laws that disproportionately impact black and brown communities. She told that when police officers strip searched her client on the side of the road, when they kicked her client in the face and lied about it; when they profiled her Black and Hispanic clients just to make traffic stops, she filed grievances and complaints against police offers to ensure police accountability, and she has advocated with the community and voted for the police oversight board in Nashville. Fighting systemic racism isn’t new to Keeda. For her this is personal. "Accountability and Justice," she has been saying for a very long time, "are long overdue." Here's what she said Saturday:

None of us can deny that a shift is happening in our country right now. And to move our country and the conversations forward, we need someone who has always been fighting to dismantle systemic racism in every area and that brings passion and determination to that fight.

To see the change that we want to see, we must acknowledge that our current leadership, as nice and as respected as he may be, doesn’t fit this moment and can’t help move our community and country forward.

For the past 57 years in this district, we have been represented by 5 wealthy white men… Richard Fulton, Clifford Allen, Bill Boner, Bob Clement to our current representative Jim Cooper, who has been in this seat since 2003. This can no longer work for us.

This election allows us the opportunity to actually have someone that is more representative of who we in this district, someone that will actually be a leader and passionately fight for our issues and that will make sure that our voices are heard and that we have a seat at the table.

It is time that we had a Black person representing us in this district, it is time that we had a female U.S. Representative from the state of TN and it is time that we had someone elected to Congress with a felony on their record.

It is time for change and I am that change.

There are a lot of reasons to support Keeda-- the issues she's running on; her strength of character; to combat systemic racism; to combat gerrymandering-- and believe me, if the Fort Pillow Massacre legislature tries getting rid of her, this will be a case that will wind up in the Supreme Court. Please consider turning that support into a financial contribution. Early voting is just getting started in her race and she has a lot of ground to cover when it comes to getting her message out. The Blue America "Primary A Blue Dog" thermometer on the right will take you to a page where you can watch her campaign video and, if you want to, contribute to that campaign.

If The Democrats Win State Legislatures, Will They Gerrymander States The Way Republicans Do? Or Will They End Gerrymandering?

And it all depends on...

Sure, the GOP stole the racism issue from Democrats long ago and there is no longer any doubt which is the party of bigotry and hatred. But no one supposed to talk about it outlaid the way Trump does. And he's making other Republicans nervous-- not that minorities aren't going to vote for them-- they're not-- but that educated white people who don't like overt racism won't. Yesterday a team of NBC News reporters, Geoff Bennett, Peter Alexander and Carol E. Lee, looked into how this racism and divisiveness are playing itself out now.

They wrote that "Trump allies are telling him that he has a better argument to make and to focus on his accomplishments in office and offer sharp criticism of his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden. But Trump is 'going with his gut' and 'relying on instinct.' "Instead of touting wins, Trump has opted to zero in on the national debate about race and side with supporters who view themselves as victims unfairly cast as racists in the renewed national discussion about discrimination targeting minorities."

Trump has heard from some political allies encouraging him to embrace a divisive tone likely to further inflame civic unrest seen across the country over the past month and deliver political wins by rallying his supporters.

But other aides have pushed him to temper his rhetoric.

A second White House official said Trump is making a mistake by stoking racial divisions and continuing to revive the kind of grievances he also aired in 2016, when he stoked racial animosity targeting immigrants. This official says the president’s attack lines no longer have the same resonance as they did four years ago.

...[Trump] believes divisive rhetoric helped him win the White House, and could do so again. And two officials said he is largely eschewing the political advice to shift his message because he blames the coronavirus pandemic and his campaign's strategy-- and not his own approach-- for his polling plunge.

As a result, he’s tapping more deeply into the perceived anger and resentment of his white supporters.

The president, for instance, has gone from obliquely describing an effort to take down Confederate statues as an assault on “our heritage” during his campaign rally in Oklahoma last month to defending the Confederate flag and attacking NASCAR’s only Black full-time driver Monday on Twitter.

Some of the president’s allies worry he is out of step with public sentiment during this moment of national reckoning over racial justice, even if they agree he has a case to make that demonizing historical figures like George Washington goes too far.

The president “senses victimization that a lot of Americans feel” in scenarios where they’re deemed racist if they don’t denounce the Confederate flag, one of the officials said.

Yeah... like nearly the whole Mississippi state legislature and Republican governor, who just finally shit-canned the Confederate battle flag from their own state flag. The Democrats aren't going to win Mississippi-- or Wyoming for that matter. But other than that... the sky's the limit.

And the DLCC-- a less toxic version of the DCCC and DSCC but for state legislatures-- is aiming high and allowing themselves to dream about keeping the GOP from gerrymandering key swing states in 2021. And they thank Trump for what is looking more and more like an anti-red tsunami. Natasha Korecki and Christopher Cadelago reported that "they’re imagining a rout that extends all the way down the ballot... From Pennsylvania to Texas to Minnesota, cash-flush Democrats are working to win back legislative chambers needed to take control of drawing congressional maps-- or at least guarantee a seat at the table. If they succeed, it would correct an Obama-era down-ballot shellacking that handed Republicans House control and resulted in the loss of more than 900 Democratic legislative seats. The devastating results for Democrats in 2010-- part of a multi-million dollar effort by Republicans and Karl Rove to zero in on winning governor’s offices and battleground statehouses-- gave the GOP total control in 19 states and allowed them to draw 213 congressional districts." The 2020 Blue America state legislative thermometer above, is for carefully vetted progressives running for legislative seats. The thermometer below is for just the state of Florida and-- again-- just progressives, not run of the mill Democrats or crooked careerists.

The new maps were a disaster for Democrats and spawned a bevy of groups and fundraising efforts intent on preventing a repeat in 2020. Most notably, Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder created the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a centralized redistricting hub on the Democratic side “to make sure that what the Republicans did last time was not possible again,” said John Bisognano, the NDRC’s executive director. “We weren’t going to get caught off guard again.”

But the opportunity in November is even more profound, Democrats say. It represents not only a once-every-20-years occurrence when reapportionment falls in a presidential year, but perhaps a once in a lifetime opportunity when an incumbent president appears so weak.

Joe Biden has long said he thinks it’s part of the job as the presumptive nominee to bolster down-ballot races. His campaign is coordinating with local campaigns in battleground states, where building out infrastructure and organization can help drive Democratic control at lower levels of government.

If Trump’s dismal polling extends into the fall, Democrats say it's even more likely Biden’s campaign will contest territory once unfriendly to the party.

“We are a campaign aggressively looking to expand the map as we move forward,” said senior adviser Anita Dunn. Naming Texas and Georgia as “expansion targets,” she added, “Right now, we’re not ruling anything out.”

Simon Rosenberg, who worked as a senior consultant for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2018, when the party swamped Republicans en route to the House majority, said the environment is just as ripe this year.

“The rationale for going big is clear: it can help flip the Senate, create a more powerful mandate for governing, and lock in wins for the coming reapportionment,” he said. “From a governing and party perspective, there will be a powerful case for going big, and trying to get to 400-plus Electoral College votes.”

Republicans say Democrats should curb their enthusiasm. The GOP is pursuing its own state legislative fundraising efforts to stave off Democrats. In Texas, Rove has returned to serve as treasurer of Leading Texas Forward PAC, aimed at maintaining a Republican state House. They also paint Democrats as hypocritical, saying the party complained about gerrymandering by Republicans only to take part in it themselves in blue states, like Illinois.

Former Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker, the financial chair of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, dismissed talk of a Democratic rout.

"They were making similar predictions in 2016 while Hillary Clinton ignored Wisconsin after our primary and tried to run up the score in other states," he said.

Adam Kincaid, the group's executive director and a veteran of the GOP's 2010 redistricting efforts, said it won’t be easy for Democrats to flip legislative chambers in states where they came up short four years ago. “If the Biden campaign is talking about winning in Texas and Arizona and Georgia," he said, "they need to go back and read the clips from four years ago."

Some Republicans, however, acknowledge the party faces a genuine threat in longtime conservative bastions like Texas.

“The switch was flipped on in the November 2018 midterm elections. It was, 'Oh boy, this is real, we better get our act together,” said Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican strategist in Texas. “But I’m also not sure the party has figured it out.”

...National groups are eyeing Texas not only because Biden is polling close to Trump, but because Democrats need to gain control of at least one chamber of the state legislature to have a say in the state’s congressional map.

Texas stands to gain a handful of new congressional seats after the Census. In 2018, Democrats flipped two state Senate seats and 12 in the state House. The nine state House seats Democrats are eyeing to flip the chamber were all carried by former Rep. Beto O’Rourke when he ran for Senate two years ago.

In an interview, O’Rourke said years of litigation over the state’s maps-- and claims those maps have diluted the power of voters of color-- are motivating Democratic voters.

“Folks are talking about this and they get that if we have a Democratic majority, not only can we help decide what those new congressional districts look like, we can help to redraw existing state House, state Senate, U.S. Congress districts to include instead of exclude Black and brown voters in this state,” O’Rourke said.

O’Rourke is among the higher-profile Democrats working to direct resources and attention to obscure statehouse races in states like Texas and North Carolina.

So, too, is Virginia State Delegate Danica Roem, who in 2017 was the first openly transgender person to be elected to a U.S. statehouse. Roem said she’s held Zoom calls to help raise money for candidates or state parties in places like North Carolina and Texas.

In some areas, Democrats don’t need to win outright to advance their cause. In Kansas, they’re aiming to break the GOP’s statehouse supermajority so Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly can wield her veto power over congressional maps. To do that, they need to flip one seat in the state House and two in the state Senate.

Democrats are zeroing in on races in states with independent redistricting commissions that have come under fire from Republicans. They include Michigan, where Republican lawmakers have tried to take control of funding for the redistricting commission, and Arizona, where legislators have tried to split a legislative district that is the only majority Native American one in the state.

North Carolina is important for another reason. Despite having a Democratic governor, state rules prevent him from vetoing maps crafted by the majority GOP legislature.

Several factors make Democrats believe this time will be different. They’ve already made important strides to thwart Republican map-making in 2021, including winning the governorships in Wisconsin and Michigan and reelecting Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf. They also forced the redrawing of some old maps that put them in better position in places like North Carolina, and are encouraged by recent turnout in primaries in Wisconsin and Georgia during the coronavirus pandemic.

At the same time, with so much attention focused on the presidential election and control of the Senate, many Democrats still worry that down-ballot races will get short shrift.

“The question is... given the extraordinary and appropriate emphasis on the presidential race and the extraordinary emphasis on winning back the Senate, are we going to miss the third leg of this stool, which is losing control of the states and having this extreme congressional and legislative gerrymandering for another decade,” asked Tom Steyer, the billionaire climate activist who ran for president and has spent hundreds of millions to elect Democrats.

Steyer said he’s encouraged by the grass-roots activity on the ground. Yet taken together, he’s still concerned about the broader “Republican playbook”-- which he said includes redistricting, voter suppression and preventing vote-by mail expansion-- if Democrats don’t remain vigilant.

Dave Abrams, deputy executive director of the Republican State Leadership Committee, predicted that Democrats are “going to fail again" at the state level despite their renewed efforts. He said voters would "definitively reject the liberals’ new radical agenda that dismantles our nation and replaces it with a lawless society.”

But Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Chris Turner, who lost his state seat to remapping in 2010 and was later reelected, said that recent polls showing Trump and Biden virtually tied in Texas suggests the president is slipping in the suburbs. That alone, he said, is plenty of incentive for national Democrats to play in the Lone Star state.

“We’re very bullish about 2020,” he said, pointing to the party's gains in Texas in the 2018 midterms. “It’s a complete train wreck of an environment for the Republican Party right now.”

My guess that the Democrats 7 most realistic shots at flipping chambers are the Minnesota state Senate, the Pennsylvania House, the Iowa House, the Michigan House, both the North Carolina chambers, the Arizona House and, if things really rock for the Democrats, the West Virginia, Texas and Kentucky Houses.

Census Report Predicts Losses And Gains For States-- But NOT For Political Parties

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal’s Janet Adamy and Paul Overberg reported that “new state population totals released Monday offer fresh signs that political power is poised to continue its shift from the North and Midwest to the South and Southwest in ways that could help states that have voted Republican in recent years.” The Census Bureau released estimates that indicate that California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia are set to lose one seat each and that Texas will pick up two seats, while Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon will gain one seat each.

Other projections differ slightly, with Texas gaining three seats and Florida 2 while Alabama and Ohio make it into the losing column, minus one seat each. It’s hard to say which party will gain or lose seats. Some of the states have non-partisan commissions drawing boundaries, rather than legislatures. Other states with heavily partisan perspectives on drawing boundaries-- like Texas for the GOP and Illinois for the Democrats are already so grotesquely gerrymandered that it would be hard to make it favorable for their own parties. And several states with p;redatorily partisan legislatures, like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Montana and North Carolina, have Democratic governors as a check on their excesses. At this point no one can predict accurately what’s going to happen.

Meanwhile Hansi Lo Wang, reporting for NPR, noted that Latinos and Asians were uncomfortable with the now-blocked citizenship question in the census. She wrote that including the question (in an experiment) resulted in statistically significant dips in the self-response rates particularly in the Western states of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. In areas of that region where at least a fifth of homes have a Spanish-speaking adult who does not speak English very well, the bureau found the citizenship question led to a difference as high as 2.4% in self-response rates.” Exactly what Trump wanted-- and thankfully, the courts blocked.

Who's Behind The Move To Wipe AOC's Congressional District Off The Map?

It came as no surprise that New York would be losing a congressional seat after the census. Speculation in Albany over a year ago was that NY-27, a large rural district in the western part of the state-- then held by crooked Trumpist Chris Collins--  would be divided up between NY-26 (Buffalo- D+11), NY-25 (Rochester- D+8) and NY-23 (Southern Tier- R+6). The move would make NY-26 and NY-25 slightly more competitive but still safely blue and make NY-23 much redder and much safer for a Republican. And it would get rid of Collins and a district with a shrinking population.

But Collins resigned and is going to prison and the New York Democratic Party bosses have switched their focus on another congress member they hate-- and fear-- even more than Collins: AOC. The scuttlebutt in Albany is that the dominant Republican-wing of the party, in a move to protect Schumer’s Senate reelection in 2022, wants to dismember NY-14. That'll teach 'em! And that will, the thinking goes, keep AOC, now old enough to run for the Senate (30), in her place! So wrong on so many levels!

There was a buried mention in Politico on Tuesday morning:

With New York likely to lose at least one congressional seat, the district held by Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could be broken up, forcing her to find a new winning coalition. There’s little love for the disruptive young upstart in Albany, and many state lawmakers would like nothing more than to redraw her out of office. Ocasio-Cortez seems aware of the threat, as she’s been promoting Census sign-ups in her district to ensure that her constituents are fully counted.

I decided to run a quick Twitter poll to see if there is any kind of consensus around the importance of AOC’s political career. There is. The polling started strong for her:

And admiration for Ocasio-Cortez ended strong as well. 89 people participated in the poll-- one for each freshman!-- and 92% indicated they think AOC is the most consequential and most important new addition to Congress. Go Twitter! The New York (and DC) political establishments would be on the losing end of this battle, of that I'm certain.

As you know, AOC doesn’t take campaign contributions from any of the crooks who make the wheels turn in DC-- and Albany-- but she has still managed to raise $3,381,334.59 as of September 30, significantly more than any of the notorious New York whores who sit on the phone all day begging special interests for money:

• Max Rose - $2,139,582.51
• Antonio Delgado (D)- $2,063,246.39
• Hakeem Jeffries- $2,048,723.08
• Lee Zeldin (R)- $1,867,986.14
• Anthony Brindisi- $1,417,403.05
• Elise Stefanik (R)- $1,330,918.47
• Tom Reed (R)- $1,264,624.41
• John Katko (R)- $1,182,074.69
• Carolyn Maloney- $1,016,483.16
• Sean Patrick Maloney- $841,739.78
• Greg Meeks- $643,895.51
• Eliot Engel- $566,230.84
• Brian Higgins- $514,347.20
• Kathleen Rice- $334,379.20

Someone in Schumer’s operation denied that his boss-- who has raised $1,526,081.84 so far for his 2022 reelection campaign-- was behind the anti-AOC move and told me the impetus was from the Queens party machine. That is run by one of the most corrupt members of Congress, Gregory Meeks, a Wall Street-owned and operated slime ball New Dem (and Schumer ally). I spoke with Shan Chowdhury, the progressive Democrat challenging Meeks on his him turf and a former AOC campaign worker, what he though about this. "Would any of us be surprised if my opponent, the corrupt Gregory Meeks, is behind the anti-AOC movement? I sure am not! Meeks is only about himself and his special interest donors that keeps him in office. He’s anti-labor, anti-movement, and anti-people. As the Queens Democratic County Chair, he is doing everything in his power to keep the movement outside of the county democratic process. If he’s unwilling to make a system that’s fairer and just for all, is he a real Democrat at all? Working families deserve better. Our country deserves better. The movement deserves better. I will be his most competitive challenger he’s ever had. Let’s vote him out and vote me in because I will work for and with the people. We will make New York bluer. Happy New Year!

Mark Walker (R-NC)-- More Likely To Land In Prison Than Back In Congress

Bribee Mark Walker (R-NC) and briber Greg Lindberg

Right-wing ideologue Mark Walker (R-NC) isn't ready to retire, despite now representing an un-gerrymandered Greensboro-based district that will never be won by a Republican again-- unless the GOP gerrymanders it again in 2021. This week, when a panel of state judges ruled to accept the new, less gerrymandered electoral map, it was a signal that two Republicans, George Holding (NC-02) and Mark Walker (NC-06). Obama lost the gerrymandered NC-06 both times he ran-- with around 40%. In 2016 Trump beat Hillary there 59.4% to 37.9%. Under the new boundaries Hillary would have beaten Trump by around 20 points!

In the last election the north-central district included all or part of Person, Caswell, Rockingham, Guilford, Alamance, Chatham, Lee and Randolph counties. The city of Greensboro in Guilford County was split between Walker's 6th district and Ted Budd's 13th. Guilford County itself is very blue and countywide, Hillary beat Trump there 147,949 (58.7%) to 97,461 (38.7%). In 2018 Guilford was one of the keys to now Governor Roy Cooper (D) beating then-Governor Pat McCrory (R). Cooper took 154,386 (60.9%) to McCrory's 93,893 (37.0%). Democratic Senate candidate Deborah Ross (R) also won in Guilford-- 56.4% to 40.6% for incumbent Richard Burr (R).

Guilford county has provided the most voters in both the 6th and the 13th and has been a nightmare for both Walker and Budd. It was obvious neither could win in a district that included the whole county. In 2018 the performance in the Guilford portion on NC-06 was D+9 and the partisan performance in the Guilford portion on NC-13 was D+26. Now the county is reunited in NC-06 (along with some of Forsyth County). Worthless Blue Dog millionaire Kathy Manning, a pathetic establishment shill who will do nothing in office but waste air and a seat, is running in NC-06 and unless a good African-American candidate steps in to challenge her, she'll soon be in Congress. Last cycle she spent $4,182,467, almost $600,000 of which came from her own pocket. The DCCC and related PACs spent around $1.8 million trying to help her, to no avail.

So... what about Walker? He's polling to see if he could beat Budd in the considerably redder 13th and he's polling to see if he could take on incumbent Senator Thom Tillis (now that rich crackpot Garland Tucker has just dropped out of the race). About half of Walker's constituents, primarily white Republicans, now live in NC-13 and the polling shows he could beat Budd in a primary.

Walker has a developing major problem with a serious corruption scandal in which he took at least $150,000 in bribes from big-time GOP campaign donor Greg Lindberg in return for helping Lindberg in a matter being decided by North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey. Lindberg and the former head of the North Carolina Republican Party, Robin Hayes, another ex-congressman, have been indicted and Walker is likely to be next. If Walker pushes a primary challenge against Tillis the details around the scandal will be front and center and he is more likely to wind up in prison than in the Senate. Filing closes December 20 and Walker won't have to decide until then.