The White Working Class Is Not Sold On Biden, But Will It Abandon Trump In The COVID-Election?

Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg recently watched a series of focus groups of white working class voters in rural Wisconsin, the Mahoning Valley region in Ohio, northern Maine and suburban Macomb County, Michigan, all swing areas where Trump did well. Vote-rich Macomb County, for example, gave Trump a 53.6-42.1% victory over Hillary in 2016, after going for Obama both times he ran. Trump won the northern Maine congressional district, which also voted for Obama twice, by an astounding 10 points-- 51.4% to 41.1%. In 2018 though, the district ousted its Republican congressman and elected, Jared Golden, a Democratic state legislator in his place.

Greenberg wrote that what he watched told him that "the heartbreaking health care crisis that is ravaging working-class and rural communities threatens to cut short Donald Trump’s political career, and demands a forceful response from opposition Democrats. It will teach big lessons about how to reach working people who are struggling, regardless of color." He shared his findings with the American Prospect, noting that "In 2016, a white working-class revolt enabled Trump to win [working class] men by an unimaginable 48 points and women by 27. But disillusionment was real in the midterms: The Republican House margin dropped 13 points across the white working class. In the new poll, Trump lost a further 6 points with white working-class women, where Biden only trailed Trump by 8 points (52 to 44 percent). While Trump has been throwing a lot of red meat to his base, white working-class men have not been dislodged from their trajectory, as Trump’s margin eroded another 4 points."

These are mostly low-wage families, many with children raised by a single parent. They are consumed with rising opioid deaths and disabilities and a deadly expensive health care system. That was a big part of why they voted for Donald Trump in 2016: so he could end Obamacare and its costly mandate, and deliver affordable health insurance for all. When he failed to do so, many voted against the Republicans in the midterms.

But the pandemic was the perfect storm. I have never seen such a poignant discussion of the health and disability problems facing families and their children, the risks they faced at work, and the prospect of even higher health care and prescription drug costs. The final straw was a president who battled not for the “forgotten Americans,” but for himself, the top one percent, and the biggest, greediest companies.

That is why most in the Zoom focus groups pulled back from President Trump. Three-quarters of these voters supported Trump in 2016, but less than half planned to vote for him now. Even those who still supported him did not push back when other participants expressed anger with his doing nothing about health care, fostering hatred and racism, dividing the country, siding with the upper classes, and having no plan for COVID-19. This is a life-and-death issue for them, as much as nearly any other group in American society.

The same voters were still very cautious about Joe Biden, who seemed old and not very strong, but most importantly offered the prospect of only minor changes to the health care system and seemed unlikely to challenge the power of the top one percent. Like lots of other working people, they are looking for a leader who will make big changes in health care, fight for working people over big business, and unite the country to defeat the current economic and public-health crisis.

Working-class anger with the establishment after the financial crisis of 2008 ran deep into the Democratic base of Blacks, Hispanics, unmarried women, and millennials, too. Many were not initially enthusiastic about the Affordable Care Act, and in election after election failed to rally fully for Democratic candidates until the 2018 midterms, when Democrats ran on “health care, health care, health care!” The pandemic may allow progressives to battle for working people, regardless of color.

In today's working-class and rural communities, health care is everything. In introductory remarks, participants in the focus groups went right to the personal health care crises they were facing every day.

“My wife is disabled,” said one man from Wisconsin. “My daughter has 30 percent immune system left so she’s bouncing around from doctor to doctor and the wife says don’t bring [the pandemic] home.” Another Wisconsin man spoke of his terminally ill seven-year-old son. A woman in Maine explained how she nearly bled to death and had a $24,000 medical bill “on my credit report for who knows how long.” One woman from Ohio had two kids with autism, and another had a grandson with allergies, requiring access to a lifesaving EpiPen. “I haven’t been able to get him one for the last three years, I can’t afford it... my insurance won’t cover it,” the woman said. Prices have skyrocketed for EpiPens and remain stubbornly high.

As I was observing the Zoom group, I initially wondered whether the focus group recruiter had used some specialized list to find the participants. But then I checked the census data on disabilities.

Across the country, 12.6 percent of the population has disabilities, rising to 15.1 percent in rural areas. Black and Native American populations are more likely to have disabilities than their white counterparts. The rate is over a quarter for those 65 to 74 years old and half of those over 75 years-- all groups that are overrepresented in these rural areas. And structural racism has played a powerful role here: 20 percent of Blacks with disabilities were employed at the beginning of this year, compared to 30 percent of whites and Hispanics with disabilities.

Then I looked at census data for the congressional districts where these sessions were being held. It was a new window into America in the pandemic. In suburban Macomb County, the disability rate looks like the rural areas, with 14 percent of both whites and Blacks disabled. In northern Maine, the numbers show one in five with disabilities, slightly more for whites. In Ohio’s Sixth Congressional District, both one in five whites and Blacks are disabled. And seniors in these areas are even more disabled than other rural Americans.



TRUMP KNEW IN FEBRUARY-- AND LIED TO THE PUBLIC


So COVID violently brought together the personal health crises of these people and the failed and corrupted government response, breaking their emotional bond with Trump.

Just throw out the words “health care,” and people relayed a train of horrors: a “$16,000 deductible,” employers throwing them off health insurance, “ridiculous” premiums, a $400 bill for their asthma medicine paid for out of pocket. They spoke of the frustrations of making too much money to be eligible for Medicaid but not enough to stay in the solid middle class. They explained how people avoid treatment because they can’t pay the associated costs. “The way we deliver health care is just unbelievable,” said one woman from Michigan, “the amount of waste and how much it costs to let people go bankrupt to pay for medical bills.”

Most of the respondents live on the edge in a virtual “minimum wage” economy, where companies don’t care about their employees and look just to enrich themselves. “You’re just a number now,” said one Ohio woman. They fight for every dime, as they are being overwhelmed by a health care crisis that they recognize Donald Trump has failed to fix. And importantly, for working families outside poverty, the health care reforms passed by the Democrats-- the Affordable Care Act and insurance on the health care exchanges-- just were not much help.

Discussion of the Affordable Care Act did not sound ideological, as they talked about their direct experience with insurance on the exchanges, which in the words of one woman “costs a lot of money and doesn’t pay for much of anything.” The health care system is failing them, and they want someone to fix it. And Joe Biden’s rhetoric has not been very reassuring that he would make big changes. “He’s been vague on health care,” one woman from Wisconsin said. “I want to know the specifics of what he’ll do to make it better.”

These working-class and rural swing voters voted overwhelmingly for Trump, but their response to him is now profoundly shaped by what has happened in the COVID-19 crisis. They think he failed to take the virus seriously and has just made a mess of it. They think he is failing at the most important issue for them.

What was striking is how the usual Trump deflect-and-blame strategy no longer works with these swing voters. “It seems like a lot of the stuff he’s saying could be proven wrong,” said one man from Wisconsin. “He just won’t admit where things are, he’s out of touch with reality,” said another woman. “It’s just embarrassing to have a country with the highest COVID cases, highest COVID deaths,” said a man in Michigan. “We’re supposed to be the leader in the world and we completely fumbled the ball on this.”

Respondents despaired about the lack of a national plan of action, with everyone “just left on their own.” Meanwhile, there was dismay that the president gave more care to his family’s businesses than the rest of the nation. One woman theorized that he didn’t shut down domestic travel “because he owns hotels.” These participants are paying a lot of attention to the position of Trump’s family in the administration and how the bailouts and loans are benefiting his family business, his cronies, and the top one percent.

At the same time, they are on a financial knife’s edge, worried about being one bad break away from being homeless. The focus groups happened after the $600 federal unemployment benefit ended, and those in the groups who were out of work despaired of getting by without that. Nearly all of them supported Trump in 2016 because he was a businessman who would grow the economy. But now they’re scared about the economic damage. Trump reminding these voters of his great economic successes before the pandemic fell flat. His economic bravado was not reassuring at a terrifying moment. “I remember my father watching the news and crying, and I find myself crying sometimes when I watch the news,” related a woman from Wisconsin. “And I think, oh god, I’m turning into my parents. You have no choice. The things you see are gut-wrenching.”

In emails we asked the participants to send to President Trump, you can feel that the spirit that led them to join the working-class revolt is just broken. While some hope he will get back in the right direction, most used their email to express their deep disillusionment. You can feel that they wanted a president who didn’t divide the country and make it a “laughingstock” (two writers used that exact word) internationally. They wanted a president who put the interests of the people, not just big business, first.

“I supported you in the beginning over Hillary but in the end unfortunately, you show me you’re just not for the people,” wrote one man from Wisconsin. “You lied to the American people about COVID,” wrote another. “You are everything that is wrong with America, you have effectively ruined this country,” added a woman from Ohio. “Congrats, you suck.”

It is critical to listen for what they did not say: “What an ass I was to vote for that guy in the last election.” They did not regret or say they made a mistake. All working Americans have been in financial trouble since the 2008 crash, and rising health care problems and disabilities, health care costs and deductibles, and empowered insurance and pharmaceutical companies were an explosive brew. It is why many working people voted for Trump in 2016. It is why many working-class Democrats of color and millennials failed to turn out and defend Obamacare in midterm elections and in 2016. All these voters had reasons for those choices.

COVID has shattered so many lives, but also seemingly insurmountable political barriers. The great majority of working people, regardless of color, are desperate for a government that stops taking direction from the pharmaceutical companies, and brings the boldest feasible changes to our health care system.

Western Riverside County (CA-42) is one of the fastest growing areas in southern California-- and one of the last southern California districts with a Republican member of Congress, in this case "Crooked" Ken Calvert. In 2016, Trump won the district, although by smaller margins than McCain or Romney. Still, his 53.4% to 41.4% win over Hillary was substantial. In 2018, the anti-red wave wasn't big enough to dislodge Calvert. This year, though, the Democrats nominated a better candidate, independent minded progressive Liam O'Mara. His district shares a lot of traits with the districts Greenberg was looking at. There is a white plurality and nearly 40% of the adults did not go beyond high school. About 21% are blue collar workers and 44% are sales and service workers. Liam had quite a lot to say about it, as you might expect. Please read it-- and then consider contributing to his campaign by clicking on the Bluer California thermometer below.

There is a lot of anger in the Inland Empire. The biggest challenges Democrats have faced out here have to do with the targets of that anger. Lacking the populist energy nationally to focus it on the élites who have kept wages low and costs high, too much of the population has been susceptible to fearmongering about immigration and crime. In election after election, Calvert has been all-too-happy to shift the blame for his policies onto working class brown and black people, maintaining a firm lock on the working class white vote in the district.

A couple of key factors now threaten that strategy, both in 2020 and long term. The first is demography. While white voters remain solidly in the majority for the district, they are not as monolithic in their views, with many more recent migrants from other parts of southern California attracted by lower housing costs. And the district is a lot more diverse than it once was, with large immigrant communities from Asia, and with Hispanic people making up more than a third of the total.

The other important change is to the national conversation on economics. It is true that Biden is exactly the kind of milquetoast neoliberal who has said he cares about the people but delivers mainly for the super rich, and he will not excite people at the polls. That he isn't Trump just won't be enough in this area, even with the pandemic raging. Bernie won the district by a very solid margin in the primary, and were he our standard-bearer, retiring Crooked Ken Calvert would be much easier. But the shift in policy emphasis matters still for our own race, and it is why we have drawn in so many new voters and historic independents this year.

Given the very real impact on ordinary people of rising costs and stagnant wages, this country needs to turn around. It elected Barack Obama because he spun a tale about hope and change that resonated with a country in the grip of recession. There was a historic opportunity in those first two years to realign the economy to favour growth for all, not just the one per cent. Alas, Obama failed completely to rise to the challenge of the day, preferring to bail out the people who caused the problem, not those who suffered its effects. At the end of the day, exactly the same people and ideas were left in charge. This is how we got Trump. And people really thought Biden was their best shot against him? For some reason, "It's the economy, stupid!" remains one of the hardest lessons for this party to learn.

If Democrats really want to win nationally, not just against Trump but consistently, and regain ground in the swing states, we must get back to our New Deal roots and tear up the nonsensical DLC crap that's driven the party since the 1970s. And a new batch of policy-driven challengers across the state and country give me hope that we're gaining ground at the grassroots at least. The Squad is already set to double this year, and there are a lot of great challengers running in red districts as well as the safely blue seats.

The purplish districts are where the real action is, in my view. If folks like Kara Eastman, Blair Walsingham, and I can flip red seats, or at the least improve upon past Democratic performance in these areas, we can show that populist issues resonate with a wider share of the population. That is the path back to the unchallenged dominance which the Democratic party enjoyed in the House thanks to the FDR to LBJ economic consensus. Since those days, we have lamentably allowed the fault lines to shift to racial issues and law-and-order dogwhistles, thanks to Republican strategy.

But we didn't need to fall for it! It's the same shit they pulled in the late 19th century against the populist movement of those days, disrupting solidarity with racism. And as I like to remind people, those who reject the lessons of history are condemned to repeat its mistakes. We need to get past the narrow focus on identity politics and work for all Americans again. Yes, the country is more diverse, and we should continue to embrace that diversity... but not at the expense of talking about the cost of living and the declining American Dream.

We need to be laser-focussed on the things that will get the attention of working people overall: The high cost of health care and housing, the unjust tax burden, the lack of affordable child care and elder care, the limited opportunities for education and business-creation, and the high crime rates caused by stubbornly-high poverty. We need to stop ceding the economy to the Republicans and the corrupt neoliberals, and start telling people that they can dream again.

I am running to lower the cost of living for working families, period. I don't talk about Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi because they have nothing to do with my race. I tell people that they'll have a fighter in me-- someone who will go to bat for them against anyone, of either party, who says they need to tolerate the poor conditions they face now. We deserve an economy that works for all of us, and that starts with replacing tools of the ruling class like Crooked Ken Calvert.

Is Florida Turning Into A Hot COVID-Mess?

COVID-Don + COVID-Ron

There are different ways at looking to see which countries have, thus far, been hit hardest by the pandemic. One way is to see how many cases have been confirmed per one million in the population. Not counting mini states, Spain has had the hardest rate-- 5,940-- followed by Iceland (5,285), Ireland (4,890), Belgium (4,772), the U.S. (4,583), Italy (3,728), the U.K. (3,586) and Switzerland (3,537).

The rates for several U.S. states dwarf the rate of infection in other countries. 9 states have had worse pandemics than Spain and 17 have had worse rates than the U.K. This is a list of states arranged in order of number of cases per million on Thursday and again (in parentheses) yesterday. States in red are headed for Wave II catastrophes.

• New York- 18,151 (18,486)
• New Jersey- 16,215 (16,481)
• Massachusetts- 11,923 (12,323)
• Rhode Island- 11,343 (11,964)
• Connecticut- 9,947 (10,495)
• Delaware- 7,418 (7,877)
• Louisiana- 7,204 (7,407)
• Illinois- 6,940 (7,296)
• Maryland- 5,939 (6,418)
• Michigan- 4,965 (5,057)
• Pennsylvania- 4,938 (5,101)
• Nebraska- 4,868 (5,283)
• Iowa- 4,334 (4,541)
• South Dakota- 4,286 (4,507)
• Indiana- 3,870 (4,126)
• Colorado- 3,619 (3,757)
• Mississippi- 3,522 (3,796)
• Georgia- 3,388 (3,551)
• Virginia- 3,259 (3,560)
• Kansas- 2,644 (2,726)
• New Mexico- 2,624 (2,788)
• New Hampshire- 2,487 (2,615)
• Washington- 2,450 (2,523)
• Tennessee- 2,445 (2,531)
• Minnesota- 2,382 (2,778)
• Alabama- 2,264 (2,401)
• Ohio- 2,256 (2,389)
• North Dakota- 2,247 (2,493)
• Nevada- 2,110 (2,226)
• Utah- 2,105 (2,205)
• Florida- 2,012 (2,123)-- suspected phony numbers
• Wisconsin- 1,936 (2,093)
• California- 1,893 (1,996)
• Arizona- 1,741 (1,915)
• Missouri- 1,720 (1,765)
• North Carolina- 1,621 (1,774)
• Kentucky- 1,617 (1,721)
• South Carolina- 1,590 (1,682)
• Texas- 1,544 (1,644)
• Vermont- 1,494 (1,506)
• Arkansas- 1,447 (1,577)
• Idaho- 1,316 (1,354)
• Oklahoma- 1,254 (1,342)
• Wyoming- 1,211 (1,280)
• Maine- 1,164 (1,255)
• Oregon- 825 (856)
• West Virginia- 800 (833)
• Alaska- 529 (536)
• Hawaii- 450 (451)
• Montana- 432 (438)

Yesetrday afternoon, the U.S. crossed the million and a half caseload mark. On Friday, Yahoo News' Alex Nazaryan reported that Palm Beach County, Trump's home and newly opened by order of Governor Ron DeSantis, is emerging as a major COVID hot spot. People who pay close attention to Florida's official COVID stats have noticed that the state is deliberately under-reporting its own numbers, presumably to help Trump make the false case that it is safe to disregard social distrancing and to reopen businesses early. A leaked White House document indicates rising concern about increasing cases there and in San Bernardino in California and Marshall County in northeast Alabama.

“Palm Beach County, FL reported a 71% increase in new cases the last 7 days compared to the previous 7 days,” the document explains. “The state authorized Palm Beach County to begin Phase 1 of reopening on 11 May, which includes the reopening of barbershops, salons, restaurants, and other businesses.”

...The information in the document is attributed to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and was collected on May 12, which means cases were rising even before the county began to reopen on May 11. Other parts of the state had begun to reopen earlier, on May 4.

...The DHS document says that San Bernardino County in California “reported an increase of 782 cases in the last 7 days, nearly doubling new cases reported in the previous 7 days. County officials recently began Phase II of the county’s reopening plan, lifting requirements for mask use on 8 May.”

Marshall County, Ala., the document says, “reported 217 cases in the last 7 days, a 517% increase over the previous 7 days. Marshall County is home to several poultry plants and the meat packing industry accounts for 8% of the county’s employment. On 11 May, additional businesses were reopened.”

Public health officials have warned that lifting stay-at-home orders would lead to more infections and, inevitably, more deaths. Some governors have either discounted or dismissed such warnings, as has President Trump.

Encompassing the beachfront and inland communities north of Miami, Palm Beach County has a population density about four times that of Marshall County, which is in the northeastern corner of Alabama, and seven times that of San Bernardino County, which encompasses the desert region east of Los Angeles. Population density is thought to contribute to the spread of the coronavirus, which causes the lung disease known as COVID-19. That disease has killed more than 87,000 Americans, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

The coronavirus also tends to strike older people. The average age of a Palm Beach County resident is 45 years old, whereas the average Marshall County resident is 39 years old and the San Bernardino County resident is only 33 years old.

Palm Beach is home to many retirement communities, a fact that worries health officials. The county has recorded 263 coronavirus deaths, three more than the entirety of South Korea, which recorded its first coronavirus case on the same late January day as the United States.

...Florida was one of the first states to reopen, at the urging of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had also been slow to close his state, effectively waiting for permission from Trump to do so. DeSantis’s faltering and confusing response to the coronavirus made him among the nation’s least popular governors, according to a national survey conducted in April.

In recent days, however, DeSantis has been celebrated by some for Florida’s seeming success in battling the coronavirus. But a good part of that success appears to have come from shelter-in-place orders by mayors who acted ahead of DeSantis.

In California, the Inland Empire is spiking dangerously, as is Orange County. San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties all have big populations and all have significant and dangerously aggressive opposition to the governor's social distancing rules, opposition that has gone unanswered and thereby encouraged more opposition-- and more cases and deaths. On Friday, all 3 counties reported outsized one-day increases in cases:

• Riverside County- 5,618 cases (+178)
• Orange County- 4,222 (+157)
• San Bernardino County- 3,463 (+113)

Meanwhile...

The DCCC Isn't Interested But The California Democratic Party Just Endorsed Berniecrat Liam O'Mara To Take On GOP Crook Ken Calvert

CA-42 is one of the last remaining red districts in California. The district voted against Obama both times he ran and last year gave Trump a 53.4-41.4% win over Hillary. The district, entirely in western Riverside County has an R+9 PVI. The main population centers are Corona, Norco, Eastvale, Menifee and Murrieta. A weird crooked Republican, Ken Calvert, has been in office there since 1992. The demographics of the district have been shifting away from the GOP and whites are no longer a majority:

• White- 42.9%
• Latino- 38.5%
• Asian- 9.0%
• Black- 5.2%

The Republican registration edge is beginning to erode and Republicans are no longer a majority:

• Republicans- 143,195 (38.30%)
• Democrats- 110,516 (29.56%)
• No Party Preference- 99,502 (26.62%)

Over the weekend, the California Democratic Party convention endorsed Liam O'Mara to take on Calvert. Liam is a history professor at Chapman University and comes from all-union family. His campaign website begins with his extensive issues pages-- Medicare-for-All, Green New Deal, fair taxation, affordable housing, tuition-free state colleges, gun regulation, comprehensive immigration reform, campaign finance reform... all the things you would expect from a Berniecrat. But I want to start with a section called Frequently Asked Questions, because it's funny and I've never seen anything like it on any candidate's website. I republished 3. Please read them and if you like them, please consider contributing to his campaign by tapping on the Bluer California thermometer on the right.

• But but but... that beard! And that hair!

Yes, I have a long beard and long hair. I’m glad you noticed. I realize that this is highly unusual in American politics today, and yes I could have trimmed it shorter for the campaign-- here is why I did not.

My campaign is built around a central theme: integrity. To cut it off just for an election would be inauthentic. It would be pursuing body-modification for the sole purpose of chasing votes, and that to me rings false. It seems dishonest. As I will be telling people again and again in this campaign, we may not agree on every issue, but one thing you’ll always get with me is honesty. I will sit down with you, listen to your concerns, and answer your questions as directly and honestly as I can. I want government to serve the people, and that means listening to them, taking their thoughts seriously, and finding solutions that address their concerns. With me you’ll always get that. And the easiest way to see that is, well… that in spite of all the political advice to conform to expectations, I decided to come to you as I am, and make my appeal to you based upon my character, my experience, and what I can do for you-- not what I look like.

• How is a historian helpful to me in Congress?

I have always read widely-- indeed, my house is literally a private library, with bookcases covering every possible space. For me, history is the center of a vast spider web that connects every branch of human knowledge, its sole defining feature being the recognition of change over time. As a historian of ideas, that is what I study. And in that capacity, I have learned a lot about who we are, where we’ve come from, and where we might still go. I have studied economic history, so I know what made American rich and how to ensure that promise reaches us all. I have studied cultural history, so I know something about our differences and how to bridge divides, find common ground, and treat others with respect. I have studied diplomatic history, so I know a fair bit about foreign policy and geopolitics-- I still read a dozen newspapers a week from half a dozen countries. I have studied the history of science, so I have a keen sense of what we can do when we put our minds to it.

With me in Congress, you get someone not only dedicated to public service, but who has knowledge directly revelant to many areas of public policy, from foreign relations to macroeconomics to the environment. I can draw on my background in research, my contacts in academia, and my willingness to reach outside my comfort zone and confront difficult truths. Politics requires not only a willingness to compromise and work toward common goals-- it also requires solid data and the tools to identify it. My training makes it harder for bad information to slip past unnoticed, and means I am a lot more critical of what I get from the news. With me on a committee, I can promise attention to detail and a willingness to put in long hours to review how a proposal actually works… or whether it works! Electing me gets you not just another partisan hack-- it gets you someone able to work through complex bills and make an informed decision about whether they serve your interests.

• With the demographics of CA-42, how will you appeal to independents and moderate Republicans?

An explicitly “centrist” message, designed to lure Republicans, does not work, and Democrats steadily chasing Republicans to the right has been shown a massive failure all across the country. What can work, however, is a campaign centered on economic populism, since this has proven cross-over appeal-- in fact, such messages are behind the previous success of Democrats in much of the country prior to the rightward realignment of our political landscape. My principles will be clear and my positions progressive, but they will be cast in economic terms so that they can best be understood and appreciated by voters who are not interested in the moral priorities Democrats consider vital. Focussing my messaging to suit the characteristics of the district-- by hammering home kitchen-table economic issues-- allows us to expand our coalition and gain enough votes to win.

One way to see the value of this is to consider that, for all their massive differences in social policy and personal integrity, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders both hit populist notes in their campaign rhetoric which had substantial bipartisan appeal. A massive post-election survey of 50,000 voters suggests that up to 12% of Bernie’s primary voters went for Trump in the general election. Finding a way to reach that fraction of the electorate can give us much of the difference between Republican and Democratic votes in the 42nd. That ultimately Trump’s rhetoric is dishonest, and his policies mostly their opposite, is beside the point-- what mattered was his effort to channel the frustrations of the working class. If Democrats stand firmly for the working class above all-- a proposition that works well with our priorities in general-- then I believe a portion of Trump’s coalition can be attracted to our ticket.

Another way in which I can reach out to independents and NPPs is my own non-partisan mentality and outsider mentality. Yes, my views are consistently progressive, but I am not a tribal person by nature, and will review all policies, issues, and bills on their own merits, on their own details, and determine what is in the best interests of the 42nd. My background is in policy analysis, not as a creature of machine politics, and I will let my principles guide my legislative identity, not partisan calculations.

Now, a few words about the whacko congressman who Liam is running to replace, Ken Calvert. Let's start with a report about Calvert on, of all places, Fox News. Here's Chris Wallace reporting about what a totally crooked slime ball Calvert is:





Calvert first came to wide attention when he was arrested-- a pretty typical Republican "Family Values" hypocrite-- with a young woman he didn't know in a parked car, his pants down around his knees. (She turned out to be Lore Lorena Lindberg, a heroin addict with several prostitution convictions.) Although he tried to flee the scene of the crime, the policeman caught him and arrested him. Here's an interesting report on Calvert from the arresting officer:

You can click on the document to make it easier to read

Let's end on a better note than that wretched Calvert and his hypocrisy and lack of ethics. He's just another Trumpist. Instead, let's go back and take a look at Liam's introductory video. It's a good one:

Ken Calvert Is Surrounded-- Time To Replace This Corrupt Trump Enabler

When Ken Calvert was first elected to Congress in 1992, CA-42, the western Riverside County district, was in the heart of a deep red swathe of Republican California. Today, Calvert is surrounded by Democrats. To the east is CA-36, the Palms Springs district, today Raul Ruiz's D+2 seat. To the north, he's bordered by Mark Takano's CA-41 (D+12) and Norma Torres' CA-35 (D+19). To the west are 3 districts that just flipped from red to blue last year-- CA-39 (Gil Cisneros), CA-45 (Katie Porter) and CA-49 (Mike Levin). In the South is a big desert-- CA-50-- where Duncan Hunter, Jr, the son of Calvert's old crony, Duncan Hunter, Sr, is on very vulnerable and seriously on the ropes.

Calvert is the last Republican holdout in the Inland Empire and, with the exception of Hunter, the last Republican holdout in southern California (not counting a part of Paul Cook's CA-08, which begins nearly as far north as Sacramento along the eastern border of the state and makes its way down into Barstow and Victorville). The clock is ticking for Calvert as well. CA-42 is no longer a white majority district.

• White- 44.7%
• Black- 5.2%
• Latino- 37.2%
• Asian-8.9%

Last year, Calvert managed to beat Julia Peacock, a school teacher, spending $1,611,609 to her $149,565. The DCCC studiously ignored the race and Peacock was left to fight Calvert on her own, in a district where the PVI is still a daunting R+9. McCain beat Obama 54-43% there and Romney did even better: 56.5% to 41.4%. Hillary scored the same 41.4% although Trump did worse than Romney and McCain with 53.4%. Peacock actually did better last year than Hillary or Obama had done in the district.

The 42nd, entirely in Riverside County, starts up in Corona, goes south through the Temescal Valley, past Lake Elsinore through Murrieta and east to Menifee and beyond into a part of the state where there's not much to do besides manufacture and take meth. The stink of cooking meth hangs heavy in the air in some parts of the sparsely-populated eastern end of the district.

Calvert is kind of a lowlife-- who was caught with an underage prostitute in a parked car [read the police report here] and has been involved with some shady financial real estate dealings in the district. Watch Chris Wallace exposing Calvert's criminal activities on Fox News:





Who the hell votes to reelect someone like Ken Calvert? Meth-heads? I've long thought it was commuters, stuck in traffic with hate talk radio blaring in their consciousnesses day after day, month after month, year after year. Yesterday, I asked Julia Peacock how she thought she might be able to do better in 2020 than she did in 2018. Here's what she told me:

My team and I have learned a lot. We saw what worked and what didn't. We know that our biggest challenge is money (isn't it always), but it's also making sure we knock on more doors. Our grassroots volunteers knocked on 30,000 doors (not nearly enough) and polled the voters to the tune of 97% pro-Julia. We have to have a larger apparatus for canvassing, and we're already working on that now by reaching out to grassroots organizations across blue areas in Southern California.

One of the mistakes we made the first cycle was keeping ourselves close to home. I felt it necessary to work within the district to reach voters right here. However, we didn't have the capacity to turn that into a victory. Lesson learned: We need more help from other groups who aren't married to the Democratic party (which hasn't done squat to shift this district blue in more than a quarter century). We have to earn more attention state- and nationwide so we can raise more money and amplify our message. Will that guarantee victory? Nope. But it has all the potential to push the needle to the win column.

We did some things well last time, too. The effort I'm most proud of is how we addressed issues and not political parties. Whether writing postcards, sending texts and emails, or talking to voters personally, we asked what issues mattered to them. Sometimes they had a quick answer and sometimes they didn't, but it always opened up a more honest conversation about common ground that transcends party lines. That's where we're the strongest. We expand that effort to every single voter in the district and we win. Not an easy task, but we're down for the work.

...We talked to voters about issues everywhere we met them. The issues that came up the most were healthcare, education, and jobs. Close behind was traffic and affordable housing. For younger voters, the environment, gun reform, and higher education. Really, there's such a diverse population, something that Calvert has been ignoring for too long, that the issues are vast and very personal.

As for healthcare, 80,000 people in our district alone benefit from the Affordable Care Act. While a step in the right direction, it obviously hasn't gone far enough. One of the most powerful conversations I had was with an NPP voter. His wife is a strong supporter of mine, but he wasn't convinced. He came with her to one of my meet and greets and grilled me for 45 minutes about healthcare, guns, and more. After patiently answering his questions, listening to his concerns, and trying to make valid, humane points about why the current system of healthcare wasn't working, he looked at me and said, "You know, I'd gladly give up all of my guns so my neighbor doesn't have to go bankrupt over healthcare costs." THAT'S the difference we can make with real conversations.

Education is a hot button in our community because we are very suburban. Many families, if they can afford it, move here to raise families. They expect quality schools with opportunities for their children. One of the biggest issues I've found as an educator myself is that we're not spending the money necessary to provide social/emotional support for our students. In Riverside County alone, we have 3,000 children on home hospital (still enrolled in the public school, but they study at home, and a certificated teacher visits them 2-3 times per week with personal educational support) for anxiety. Anxiety. Kids are terrified to go to school. Counselors are overworked with caseloads of sometimes over 500 students. They do not have the training or expertise to do more than provide academic support and guidance. We don't invest, especially in California, in the education of our children, which makes families very vulnerable to the for-profit charter movement with their promises of the best education and results with almost zero oversight. Betsy's got to go, to say the very least. Parents want their kids to go to good schools. That's the least our children deserve.

What I followed of the Orange County campaigns (when I could, being a full-time teacher and a candidate myself) was the strength of their ground game. I made some connections with some of the activist groups in the OC who canvassed their butts off for their candidates. People all across the area, including here in the 42nd, got brave enough to leave their own backyards to talk to their friends and neighbors. That has to be repeated x1000. It's not lost on me, however, that some of the OC folks had some serious support from big names and national organizations. Our R+9 district didn't get any love from any of those fronts, even though some of the local and regional folks actually on the ground here were pushing hard to get us recognized. We're hoping to change that this time around by, again, getting out of the district and working with activists across the region and the state. I'm hopeful that dropping us to R+7 on all of our volunteer-led efforts might open a few more doors this time around. I know it's worked to get me an interview with TYT on May 28, so I'm excited about that.

Want to help Julia even the odds a little? That Turning California Bluer thermometer above... that's what that's for. Please consider making a contribution-- anything you feel comfortable with. $20.20 is what we usually suggest. You probably never heard this song; listen to it while you decide if today is the day you want to help Julia Peacock replace Ken Calvert in Congress:

California-- Not Quite As Blue As You Might Imagine

Eloise

Yesterday, Jon Wiener, writing for The Nation picked at the ugly scab of California's Democratic politics, something few outside the state know about, namely that deep blue California has a Democratic Party very much under the thumb of corrupt conservatives calling themselves, inaccurately, "moderates." And these moderates represent, primarily, their campaign donors and their campaign donors' lobbyists-- oil and gas, agribusiness, real estate developers, Big Pharma, the charter school industry and, of course, the banksters.

Democrats hold the governorship and every statewide office in California, as well as huge majorities in the state Assembly and the state Senate. The Assembly has 52 Democrats and 28 Republicans and the Senate has 26 Democrats and 13 Republicans. And the Democrats have delivered to their constituents in some significant area. As Wiener wrote, "Democrats raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour and introduced paid sick days and paid family leave; they increased abortion access; they passed automatic voter registration; they expanded Obamacare and health insurance for poor people; and just before Labor Day they required overtime pay for farmworkers, and established the nation’s most far-reaching targets for renewable energy and limits on greenhouse gas emissions." Not too shabby. It sure ain't Texas.

"But," he wrote, "there’s a shadow over California politics. When the corporations’ favorite political party became hopelessly weak, they set out to gain power in the other one. Their tool, of course, was money. So now we have some Democrats taking corporate money and doing the bidding of the oil and gas industry, agribusiness, the real estate developers, Big Pharma, and some of the billionaires. It’s 'the new reality of California politics,' says Harold Meyerson of the American Prospect, an op-ed columnist for the Los Angeles Times. In Sacramento a new caucus was formed in 2014: Democrats who call themselves "moderates," and are known as 'the mods.' But “we shouldn’t call them "moderates,"' one progressive labor leader told me. 'We should call them "opponents of working families and the poor."' It’s simpler to call them 'corporate Democrats.'"

The corporate Dems have piles of cash-- they spent at least $24 million in the June primary-- and several goals. Number one was probably blocking Governor Jerry Brown’s effort to cut motorists’ use of fossil fuels in half by 2030. The oil lobby succeeded at this last year, but failed this term. And three years ago eight mods joined the remaining Republicans to block a bill that would have required big companies to provide medical care for low-income workers and their families who were not on Medi-Cal. “The bill’s opposition comprised a Who’s Who of California’s most influential corporate interests,” according to Capital and Main, a news website reporting on progressive issues in California. Then there’s a group of billionaires led by Eli Broad, fighting the teachers’ unions and seeking to expand charter schools. And there are the real estate interests who want to end restrictions on development, especially along the coast. And the agribusiness-funded resistance in the Assembly to overtime pay for farmworkers was especially intense and prolonged.

...After the launch of Our Revolution, the group’s website unveiled the list of candidates it endorses, and urged Bernie people to work and vote for them. But of the 79 candidates currently endorsed, only one is challenging a corporate Dem in the California Assembly: Eloise Reyes in San Bernardino and the neighboring working class cities of the “Inland Empire” east of Los Angeles-- Rialto, Colton, and Fontana. (San Bernardino of course is also site of last December’s terrorist attack.)

If Our Revolution was going to pick only one, this one is probably the most important challenge underway right now. The incumbent, Cheryl Brown, is a leader in the Mod caucus who is running for her third term in the Assembly. She’s an African-American who comes from a business background. In 1980 she and her husband founded a local African-American newspaper, Black Voice News, and then in 2001 expanded to run a network of 22 African-American newspapers and media enterprises across the state called California Black Media. Cheryl Brown is good on some issues: she voted for the minimum wage hike-- her district desperately needs it-- and for the farmworker overtime bill. But she voted with Big Oil against Jerry Brown’s historic climate/environmental targets that passed just before Labor Day. That vote came after she received $1 million in “independent expenditures” from Chevron to help her fight off what the Sacramento Bee called “a rare challenge from the left over her environmental record.”

DWT readers should remember the progressive reformer running against Brown well-- Eloise Reyes, who almost beat corrupt conservative Pete Aguilar in 2014 but had her campaign destroyed by aggressive incompetents from EMILY's List. Lesson learned. Aguilar has been as horrendous a corporate tool in DC as was predicted, but Eloise has turned her attention closer to home, the state Assembly. She's been endorsed by the AFL-CIO's Central Labor Council (which represents more than 289,000 workers in the Inland Empire) and by virtually all of the local unions, including several that endorsed Brown in 2014 and feel betrayed by her today. Eloise also won the endorsement of environmental groups like the Sierra Club and the California League of Conservation Voters, and of Planned Parenthood, DFA, Blue America, Xavier Becerra and the legendary Dolores Huerta.

When Wiener asked her about the most significant differences between her and Cheryl Brown, she said simply, "I’m pro-worker, she’s pro-business." She explained that, "when the legislature tried to close the loophole that allows big corporations like Walmart to reduce workers’ hours so they would no longer have to provide medical coverage, she voted against. On the proposal for double pay on holidays, she abstained. On the bill to stop wage theft, she voted against. On rights of temporary warehouse workers, she voted against." But that isn't going to stop certain groups that try to pass themselves off as progressive from endorsing Brown-- including a laughable state Democratic Party and most of the African-American political elite, including the less-than-trustworthy Kamala Harris and the aforementioned crooked conservative Pete Aguilar. And much of the state legislature has circled their wagons-- if less than enthusiastically-- around Brown, including one of the few members widely considered even more corrupt that Brown herself, Isadore Hall.

This morning Eloise told me that when she "was told this race was an uphill battle, I accepted the challenge. We finished the primary less than 8.5% behind the corporate incumbent. New polls have us 4% behind her without messaging. With messaging, we are ahead with double digits... In Sacramento, I will work and fight for the best interests of our district. I will remind corporate special interests that our vote is not for sale. Our community is made up of extraordinary people  and extraordinary businesses looking for a representative who is willing to put them first. I am committed to doing this. San Bernardino county suffers from one of the highest poverty rates, a high drop-out rate, gun violence, the dirtiest air in California and a great number of people who feel disenfranchised.  Unless we put the people of our district above the profits of big corporations, we will continue to see our communities worsen without a hope for a brighter future... I will work to ensure Sacramento's Democrats are no longer beholden to corrupt special interest lobbyists. For too long Sacramento has been a joke to people who truly want progress. Well, I'm here to tell you the joke is over, and I will come to town with the will of the people on my side, looking to shake some things up."

Wiener speculated that "the political battle for the future of the state continues. If Eloise Reyes defeats Cheryl Brown in San Bernardino, that will put the remaining corporate Dems in the Assembly on notice: they will be challenged in two years, and could face the same fate. Our Revolution is now part of that fight." I'm not sure anyone in Sacramento fears Our Revolution or considers it a factor. If they can help turn-out the vote for Eloise, that will change-- and it will encourage other progressives and other reformers to challenge corrupt conservatives in Sacramento like Matt Dababneh, Tom Daly, Patrick O'Donnell, Mike Gipson, Luis Alejo, Jim Wood, Bill Dodd, Jim Cooper, Jim Frazier and Sebastian Ridley-Thomas. If you care to help Eloise, please tap on the thermometer below.

UPDATE: Rhode Island Too

Obama won California with 61% in 2008 and 60% in 2012. That's huge-- even huger than Texas' votes for McCain (55%) and Romney (57%). But Rhode Islanders were even more lopsidedly partisan. Obama got 63% both times he ran. Rhode Island's whole congressional delegation is Democratic-- 2 senators and two representatives. And the state legislature is overwhelmingly Democratic too. The state House has 63 Democrats and 11 Republicans and the Senate has 32 Dems and just 5 Republicans. Unfortunately, the Governor, Gina Raimondo, is a corrupt conservative, but a corrupt conservative Democrat.

Rep-elect Marcia Ranglin-Vassell

The good news is that a progressive Democrat, Marcia Ranglin-Vassell, beat the entrenched Rhode Island House Majority Leader, John DeSimone, an anti-Choice conservative with a miserable environmental record, a failing grade from the ACLU and an NRA-friendly record on guns. DeSimone had been in the legislature since 1992 and Ranglin-Vassell beat him by 17 votes-- a margin that increased when DeSimone a recount yesterday, which turned up 5 more votes for her. She's a public school teacher and will face Republican Roland Lavallee in the November general election, in the solidly blue district. 18 incumbents were challenged and 6 lost. Four of the winners had been endorsed by Rhode Island's Progressive Democrats of America. One, state Senator William Walaska (D-Warwick), who had been endorsed by the NRA, lost to Jeanine Calkin, a dedicated Berniecrat (51.8% to 48.2%), who helped Bernie win the Rhode Island primary 55-43.3%. Progressive Democrats State Coordinator Sam Bell called the results a "body blow to the political machine."


And In St. Louis

Looks like there was some vote count cheating going on all through the establishment and not just in the presidential primaries.

Six weeks after activist and business owner Bruce Franks Jr. narrowly lost his Democratic primary challenge to incumbent state Rep. Penny Hubbard (D-St. Louis), a court-ordered revote had a markedly different outcome.

Today, Franks walloped her.

With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Franks took 76.12 percent of the vote to Hubbard's 23.88, winning by a margin of more than 1,500 votes.

In the earlier election in August, which a judge threw out after Franks' election challenge revealed serious irregularities with absentee balloting, Hubbard had squeaked by with a 90-vote margin of victory.

...Franks and his attorney, David Roland, had successfully argued that serious irregularities with how the city Board of Elections handled absentee ballots were enough to invalidate the August 2 election. They fought all the way to the Missouri Court of Appeals to win the right to tonight's revote.

And, yes, Bruce Franks is a strong Berniecrat and Hubbard, the other kind of Democrat, was a Hillary supporter. Watch this video:

Electing Democrats Isn't The Solution-- Electing Progressives Is... Take California, For Example

Bad news for conservative Democrat Cheryl Brown and her lobbyist buddies

Yesterday the Courage Campaign released its report card for the California legislature-- and if you're laboring under the delusion that a Democratic majority and a Democratic governor means everything's going to be hunky-dory... a look at the scores will soon disillusion you. There are too few Republicans in the legislature to matter-- although if you guessed that every single Republican was a failure... you would be exactly right. Of the 28 Republicans in the Assembly, all 28 scored an "F." And of the 14 Republicans in the state Senate, ever single one of 'em also managed to get an "F." OK, what you'd expect.

What you might not expect, however, is that of the 52 Democrats in the Assembly, 21 also got "F" grades and of the 25 Democrats in the state Senate there were 3 with an "F" grade. Courage Campaign defines its scores as measuring "how well they stand up for their constituents over corporations or special interest groups that seek to exploit Californians, particularly those who are poor, people of color, or disadvantaged. It conveys to what extent your California state representatives have backed the interests of corporations (leading to a lower score) vs. the interests of their constituents (leading to a higher score) on critical votes."

The three Senate Democrats who voted with the Republicans against the interests of their own constituents frequently enough to get "F" grades were Cathleen Galgiani (Stockton, Lodi, Modesto, Tracy, Mateca), Steve Glazer (East Bay, including Livermore, Dublin, Walnut Creek, Orinda, Antioch, Concord, Lafayette and San Ramon) and Richard Roth (northwestern Riverside County). Just so you know, Democrats Obama, Dianne Feinstein and Jerry Brown won all three districts in their most recent races and Democrats have a registraion advantage in each district.

These were the 21 Assembly Democrats with the "F"s.

• Jim Wood (the North Coast)
• Bill Dodd (Napa, Yolo, Lake counties)
• Ken Cooley (eastern Sacramento suburbs)
• Jim Cooper (part of Scaramento and the southern Sacramento suburbs)
• Jim Frazier (Vacaville, Fairfield, Brentwood)
• Adam Gray (Merced Co. and part of Stanislaus County)
• Luis Alejo (inland Monterey, Watsonville, San Benito County)
• Henry Perea (half of Fresno County)
• Rudy Salas (Kings County, part of Kern Co.)
• Tom Lackey (Lancaster, Palmdale, Mojave)
• Jacqui Irwin (Westlake Village, Thousand Oaks, Camarillo, Oxnard)
• Matt Dababneh (Encino, Calabasas, Woodland Hills, Tarzana, Canoga Park)
• Cheryl Brown (Colton, Fontana, Rialto, part of San Bernardino)
• Freddie Rodriguez (Pomona, Chino, Ontario)
• Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (Culver City, West L.A., Westwood, Inglewood, Ladera Hts, Crenshaw, Mar Vista)
• Eduardo Garcia (Imperial County, Blythe, Cathedral City, Indio, Coachella)
• Ian Calderon (Hacienda Heights, Whittier, Norwalk, La Mirada, Santa Fe Springs)
• Jose Medina (most of Riverside, Perris, Moreno Valley)
• Mike Gipson (Compton, Carson, Watts, Willowbrook)
• Tom Daly (most of Santa Ana, part of Anaheim)
• Patrick O'Donnell (most of Long Beach, San Pedro, Avalon)

The legislators were rated on issues like fracking, over-time pay, racial profiling, equal pay for women, consumer protections, climate change, gun control, paid family leave, health insurance, etc. Few of the Democrats with "F" scores will have to worry about accountability. The two corrupt parties so dominate the politics of the state that there are virtually no primaries. One exception is down in San Bernardino where Blue America has endorsed Eloise Gomez Reyes for the Assembly seat from which Cheryl Brown sells her vote to lobbyists. Brown's record is so at odds with the interests of her district and has so pissed off the unions that Eloise has a good chance to beat her, hopefully sending a message to other Republican-lite fake Dems in the legislature.

UPDATE: Arambula Elected To Replace Perea

While everyone was watching returns from Wisconsin last night, Fresno had an election too. One of the most corrupt of the conservative Democrats in the Assembly, F-rated Henry Perea, who had been threatening to primary F-rated congressional Blue Dog, Jim Costa, resigned last December and promptly became a lobbyist for Big Pharma. Perea was the leader of the right-wing caucus of the Democrats in Sacramento which works with the GOP to sabotage progressive legislation. He was widely considered the most corrupt Democrat in the Assembly and there was general rejoicing when he resigned.

I don't know much about, Joaquin Arambula, the Democrat who won last night-- and won big (no run-off!)-- but I do know he was endorsed by all the worst of the Sacramento corporate shills-- from Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, state Senator Ricardo Lara and Assemblymen Luis Alejo and Rudy Sala (a bunch of F-rated crooked pols) to Blue Dog congressman Jim Costa, the worst, most right-wing California Democrat in Congress. Arambula, however, can't be worse than Perea and he had a lot of labor backing, including from trustworthy unions like the nurses union. Next year we'll see when the Courage Campaign puts out their next score card-- although that won't be in time for Arambula reelection campaign for a full term in 8 months.

In the days leading up to the 31st Assembly District’s 2004 election, then-Assembly Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield made a prediction: “Someday, this will be our seat.”

That day may never come.


...Republicans always like their chances in special elections, which historically have low turnouts. Because of that, the GOP saw this as its best chance to steal the seat away from the rival Democrats, who have held it for 40 years.


With all precincts reporting but some absentee and provisional ballots still to be counted, however, Arambula, an emergency room physician, had 52 percent of the vote to 42 percent for Olivier, a Fresno City Council member. Caruthers Democrat Ted Miller, an engineer and the third person in the race, had 5.7 percent of the vote.


...Democrats were well aware of the political realities of special elections, and responded accordingly. Arambula has raised more than $930,000 for the special election, including more than $405,000 from the state Democratic Party.

Special interest groups spent another $700,000 to help Arambula, a possible bad sign. During the campaign the other Democrat in the race, Ted Miller, gave anyone who cares about the rightward-drift of the Sacramento Democrats reason to pause. "The politicians who call themselves Democrats in Fresno are voting against the Democrats; they're voting in favor of money and power... There's three people that convinced me to get into the race: my Democratic opponent, my Republican opponent and Bernie Sanders. My political philosophy reflects Bernie Sanders."


UPDATE TWO: California Labor Federation Endorsements

The California Labor Federation is way too influenced by the Democratic Party bosses and they endorsed plenty of garbage candidates. However, a move in the right direction saw them refusing to endorse right-wing, anti-worker Democratic members of Congress-- Jim Costa (Blue Dog), Ami Bera (New Dem), Scott Peters (New Dem) and Susan Davis (New Dem). The Labor Federation also told some of-- though not all of-- the most corrupt of the conservative Democrats in Sacramento, including Cheryl Brown, Matt Dababneh, Tom Daly and Steve Glazer, to take a hike.