Erica Smith Is Out-Polling Cal Cunningham But Schumer Prefers A Conservative White Man To A Progressive Black Woman

Yesterday, the DSCC officially endorsed middle of the road loser, Cal Cunningham for the North Carolina U.S. Senate seat occupied by Trump ass-kisser Thom Tillis. Cunningham, however, is in a tight primary battle with popular state Senator Eric Smith, who currently leads him in the polls. Smith's campaign has had it with Chuck Schumer, who has been making these kinds of suicide plays all over the country-- starving progressive candidates like Betsy Sweet (Maine), Maggie Toulouse Oliver (NM)-- who ended her campaign this week-- and Andrew Romanoff (Colorado) of institutional Democratic support and funding. Even though these progressives are all far more union-oriented than their GOP-lite primary opponents, Schumer has been largely successful in preventing union financial support from flowing their way.

Friday, the Erica Smith campaign went on record with what she thinks of Schumer and his tactics. "Today’s endorsement by the DSCC," she wrote, "removes the false veil of neutrality and confirms their attempt to sway this US Senate election away from the voices and voters of North Carolina. I have been in and out of sessions, all day, doing the work of the people of North Carolina. I am responding during the sixth recess and adjournment of the day! This Halloween endorsement is a trick and not a treat for North Carolinians."

The DSCC has been unofficially backing Cal Cunningham as their ‘heir apparent’ with personnel, resources, directed donations, infrastructure, and more since he entered the race in June. We have made multiple overtures to the DSCC about their under the table support for my primary opponent and they told us, unequivocally, that they were not, had not, did not intend to endorse in the Primary. In fact, I met one-on-one with the DSCC Executive Director in August and he assured us that the DSCC was not making any efforts in the North Carolina Primary. Our objective has always been to allow the voters-- and the voters only-- to be the decision makers in this primary election. The failure of the DSCC to disclose their ongoing support for Mr. Cunningham’s campaign puts their thumb on the scale of our democracy and mutes the voice of North Carolina Voters. This is unacceptable.

Enumerated evidence of DSCC support prior to formal endorsement:

•Devan Barber:

◦ Cal Cunningham’s campaign manager, was the Deputy Executive Director of the DSCC up until July 2019. Shortly thereafter, she suddenly becomes Cal’s campaign manager.
◦ Barber was also the political director at End Citizens United, who also endorsed Cal Cunningham over me despite Cal being in receipt of PAC money in 2011 while he worked with a major developer. Mr. Cunningham is, in fact, the only candidate in this campaign that has welcomed the support of Super PACs.

•Senator Chuck Schumer

He's also an idiot who gets it wrong most of the time

In the second fundraising quarter of this year, prior to any endorsement from the DSCC, Sen. Schumer directed 55 of his very wealthy donors to contribute the maximum allowed donation to my opponent’s campaign-- totaling $152,000. All these donors have prior giving history to Sen. Schumer and had never given to Mr. Cunningham. These New York-based donations constitute more than a third of the total money raised by the Cunningham campaign, at that time.

  •Unauthorized Email list sharing

There have been multiple reported instances of people being placed on Mr. Cunningham’s mailing list despite them never signing up to receive his fundraising emails. These same people reported recently signing up with either the North Carolina Democratic Party or the DSCC. This may run afoul of campaign finance law and the Cunningham campaign should immediately cease this practice or disclose how these lists were acquired in accordance with the law.

An Emerson poll in June showed me beating incumbent Thom Tillis by 7 points. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Cunningham was recruited by some who would consider themselves Democratic establishment to run for this statewide office. Three other polls conducted since June show that I remain in the lead! In the last independent statewide poll conducted by Meredith College, I am leading Thom Tillis, but Mr. Cunningham is trailing me and Tillis. This is after Cunningham has raised $1.7 million, and reported spending $47,000 on digital advertising. Having been outraised 12 to 1 by my opponent, I am still leading the field. That tells me that the voters support me over Cal. I am ahead of every candidate, including incumbent Senator Thom Tillis, in EVERY poll that has been conducted since this contest started and have yet to spend a dime on advertising.

This endorsement cuts to the integrity and ethics of this election. If the DSCC has been involved all along, then it should disclose the details of its prior involvement to the voters of North Carolina. Ultimately, the voters of North Carolina will decide who their next United States Senator will be-- NOT a handful of DC politicians making back room deals in windowless basements.

In the spirit of Shirley Chisholm, I am Unbought and Unbossed. I am One of US for ALL of US! The big tent party of inclusion is how the Democratic Party became the party of the people. Our diversity makes us strong-- our unity keeps us rising!  We remain the most qualified, progressive frontrunner in this race.  We continue working for US and for an America that works for US. We are “In It to Win It” and we’ll see you on the trail! 

Thom Tillis Is Counting On Trump And Schumer To Keep Him In The Senate

Thom Tillis is betting that pledging fealty to Trump will help him keep his Senate seat. He needs to beat multimillionaire neo-fascist crackpot Garland Tucker in a primary in which Tucker is self-financing his campaign ($1,274,643 million so far, 74% of his campaign war chest) and painting Tillis "as an enemy of the Trump agenda."

Trump beat Hillary in North Carolina, a swing state, by 3 points in 2016-- 2,362,631 (49.83%) to 2,189,316 (46.17%). Since then, though, Trump's image has crashed and burned. He's popular among Republicans but has utterly lost independents-- in a state where independents determine the outcomes of every election. According to the most recent Trump Tracker polling, Trump's job approval has steadily decreased since he was inaugurated. Since then, he has lost 21 points and today his approval is minus 3%. In way of comparison, Trump's approval is in positive territory in both Kentucky (+11) and Louisiana (+12)-- where he just presided over the loss of two gubernatorial allies, Matt Bevin and Eddie Rispone. It's worth mentioning that an impeachment inquiry was favored, even before it started, by 48.8% to 41.0% of North Carolinians polled.





Burgess Everett took a look at Tillis' strategy for Politico, reminding readers that "Tillis began the Trump era by negotiating with Democrats on immigration and co-authoring legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller. He even briefly opposed President Donald Trump’s national emergency to build a border wall." That was then. "Now the North Carolina Republican's independent streak is fading. He’s deploying the president as a shield against a conservative primary challenger and he’s hugging Trump tightly... It’s a shrewd political strategy amid a well-funded primary challenge from Garland Tucker, a conservative businessman who paints Tillis as an enemy of the Trump agenda. But Tillis’ role as Trump’s new best friend threatens to undermine his profile as a diligent, unpredictable senator-- and could damage his general election chances."

Everett himself is a good example of how Tillis can avoid losing in November. Everett is the kind of Inside-the-Beltway shill for the party power-mongers so that his Politico pieces sound like they were written, in part, by the DSCC and the NRCC. Let me show you some typical Everett: Standing behind Tucker is potential Democratic opponent Cal Cunningham, an establishment-backed military veteran eager to cast Tillis as a lackey who 'married himself to Donald Trump.'" Straight from Chuck Schumer's press shop. Virtually all polling shows state Senator Erica Smith, a progressive African American woman, is preferred to Schumer's conservative what male candidate. The most recent polling (Oct 7) is by Meredith College and it shows Schumer's Cunningham losing to Tillis 33.3% to 32.6%... but the more independent-minded Erica Smith beating him 33.5% to 33.1%. Schumer's propaganda team manages to get lazy lunkheads and Beltway sheep-- Everett is just one of dozens-- to stick with the party line.

Everett is correct when he points out that Tillis' most immediate task is to win the primary. (Presumably he can hope Schumer is successful in sabotaging smith's campaign and handing him the easily beaten Cunningham as an opponent.)

“He probably has more of a challenge in a primary than he does in a general,” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), a close ally of the president who has not endorsed Tillis.

Meadows added that Tillis’ support for the special counsel bill and his shifting stance on the national emergency declaration “created an opening in a race that would generally not have seen a credible primary challenger."

The wealthy Tucker is spending heavily on ads highlighting Tillis’ “flip-flop” on the border-- Tillis’ most infamous episode as a senator-- when he voted to uphold the national emergency after announcing his opposition in a Washington Post op-ed. Tillis boasts a 94 percent voting score with the president, but Tucker is pouring enough money into pointing out Tillis’ perceived dalliances away from Trump that the senator felt compelled to respond with an ad barrage of his own.

Tillis acknowledges his style isn’t necessarily built to appeal to his party’s hard-liners. At a North Carolina Federation of Republican Women event, he lamented that sometimes he gets “criticized because I don’t speak too fiery or talk too angry.”

“Some people, I think, perceive my style as being something that’s soft,” he said during a 25-minute interview at the state party headquarters. “But I’ve got a good conservative track record to run on. And we believe if people know it, they know where I stand on immigration, they know where I stand to the level where the president will endorse me? We’ll win.”

These are rare moments of self-reflection for Tillis, a confident bordering on cocky 59-year-old former state House speaker who helped rebuild the North Carolina GOP. He said Trump would campaign for him in the primary if necessary but dismisses Tucker: “I don’t believe the race is even close.”

Most Republicans still feel Tillis can ride Trump’s coattails to reelection, though he risks running behind the president in a state known for close elections. GOP alarm bells go off every few years in North Carolina, sometimes warranted and sometimes not: In 2016, GOP Sen. Richard Burr was easily reelected despite running a laid-back campaign, while the Republican governor was cast out.

This year, Tucker is essentially operating as a Democratic super PAC, draining Tillis of resources and allowing national Democrats to sit back and enjoy the show. It’s a situation that most other vulnerable incumbents have avoided, but Tillis’ plight is unique, having riled up parts of Trump’s base with his limited dissent.

...Facing attacks from the right and left, Tillis harbors few regrets. He’s dropped any notion of deal-making on immigration with Democrats, walking away from 2018 talks to help Dreamers and dismissing comprehensive immigration reform as something that could happen “maybe 20 years from now” after the border is fully secured.

He even argues that his bill protecting the special counsel from a Trump firing was all about defending the president.

“I had a concern and it actually proved to be wise: to let the special counsel play out its role. Because there was no collusion and no obstruction,” Tillis said. “Obviously, I support the president. I thought, like he did, that it was a witch hunt.”

Tillis concedes he could have “probably spent more time explaining” his queasiness with Trump’s national emergency to his constituents, but doesn't disavow what in North Carolina political circles is now simply called “the op-ed.”

It’s an example of the dissonance surrounding Tillis. He tells Republican supporters he’s been with Trump “every step of the way” on the border wall but also emphasizes his willingness to take criticism from his own party.

“If all you do is take the easy way out and be silent on things that you feel strongly about institutionally, then you’re not really doing your job as a U.S. senator,” Tillis said. “I’m not going to be that person.”

It’s a difficult argument for him to make, but it doesn’t surprise close friends. Tillis is a partisan Republican, but he bristles at the idea that he’s become a rubber stamp.

“There have been times where Tillis has stopped and truly deliberated,” said Carolyn Justice, a former GOP state lawmaker and longtime ally. “People confuse that with his support for Trump overall. And that’s a mistake.”

“We live in an environment where people are out to get you if you stray one inch,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who has told Trump directly that Tillis is a strong general election candidate.

Tucker says he’s put $1.5 million of his own money into the race and will put in still more, hoping to tap into what he describes as long-standing conservative dissatisfaction with Tillis.

“It wasn’t necessarily that [conservatives] were waiting for me to run, but they were waiting for someone,” Tucker said in an interview in North Raleigh, flanked by adviser Carter Wrenn, a former aide to the late firebrand conservative Sen. Jesse Helms.

As he chomped on a lit cigar, Wrenn insisted Tucker has narrowed the race to about 10 points. Tillis has put more than $2 million of his campaign money into ads attacking Tucker as someone who “lies like a dog,” and he scoffed when told of Wrenn’s account.

A recent Fox News poll showed Tillis with the support of 54 percent of primary voters, with Tucker garnering just 11 percent.

“This is Carter Wrenn’s retirement fund. That’s the only reason he’s got Garland running,” Burr said of the race.

Tillis said he’s spending early to introduce himself to the fast-growing state’s new voters who have arrived since his previous election in 2014. Public polling shows Tillis still has work to do. Public Policy Polling, Fox News and Morning Consult surveys show at least 25 percent of voters have no opinion of him, hampering his approval ratings.

“He is not really in control of how he’s defined,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster. “This double whammy of being seen as not different enough from Trump among suburbanites and not supportive enough among rural conservatives could end up being the kiss of death.”

Whether Tucker comes anywhere close to beating Tillis is irrelevant to Democrats. They are just happy that Tillis is moving further to the right and putting the 2.2 million unaffiliated voters here in play.

“Extraordinarily weak, extraordinarily vulnerable,” Cunningham said of Tillis during an interview in nearby Cary. “I’d rather be me than him right now.”

North Carolina could easily be the tipping point for the GOP’s 53-seat majority. After losing the 2010 Senate primary here, Cunningham again has a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee endorsement and is credible enough that Senate Republicans acknowledge Tillis is a top concern.

But Cunningham also has hurdles to overcome before he can face Tillis. The Fox News poll showed him trailing state Sen. Erica Smith, with Cunningham coming in at 13 percent of the vote to Smith's 18 percent.

“Every poll that has been conducted since this race started has me as the frontrunner,” Smith said.

Still, a 20-to-1 financial edge over Smith and the DSCC endorsement could prove decisive for Cunningham.

Cunningham is taking a centrist posture, distancing himself from “Medicare for All” and the suspension of deportations, while Tillis ties Cunningham relentlessly to Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. In gauging Cunningham’s chances, Tillis strikes a Trumpian note, dubbing him “Silent Cal” after tight-lipped President Calvin Coolidge.

The incumbent senator said he takes his primary “seriously” but considers Cunningham his opponent, not Tucker. Tucker retorted that since his entry in the race, Tillis is “Trump’s new best friend... he’s desperate to make the race about Trump.”

Tillis insisted he “never” directly asked Trump for his June endorsement, which followed Tucker’s campaign launch. But he’ll be damned if anyone is questioning his Trump credentials.

“We’ve got the full support of the president,” Tillis said. “You can’t start out a campaign on the premise of thinking that you’re going to support the president more” than me.

Will Schumer Keep The Democrats From Winning Back The Senate?

There are some really excellent Democrats running for the Senate this cycle-- and some real dreck. Schumer has always had a nose for the dreck-- especially when their opponents are progressive. Schumer's biggest fear isn't about Republicans winning-- it's always about independent-minded Democrats winning and spoiling his nice little racket inside the Democratic caucus. This year his top priorities are stopping progressives like Andrew Romanoff (D-CO), Maggie Toulouse Oliver (D-NM), Erica Smith (D-NC), Teresa Tomlinson (D-GA) and Gloria Tinubu (D-SC), while pushing more conservative candidates who know how to take orders for political bosses like... Chuck Schumer.

In 2010 Schumer broke more ground on manipulating Senate primaries, when he wasted more than a million dollars in party money against Admiral Joe Sestak in the Pennsylvania Senate Primary. Rep. Sestak (D-PA) was the highest ranking military officer ever to serve in Congress; Schumer couldn’t care less.  Schumer interfered in the Democratic Senate Primary to try to keep his corrupt promise to clear the Democratic Primary for “Magic Bullet” Sen. Arlen Specter (who had concocted a fantasy theory about the bullet that killed JFK in order to end an investigation into the assassination). This was after Specter demonstrated his fealty to Schumer and Reid by switching parties, thereby earning the enmity of every voter in the state.

Schumer spent party money against Sestak again in 2016, and also against Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), a three-term progressive champion who had passed more laws in 2012-2016 than any other Member of Congress, despite GOP control of the House.  (Grayson also pioneered “People Power” fundraising; he was the only Member of the House to raise most of his campaign funds from small donors.) Schumer anointed hapless Rep. Patrick Murphy instead, whose only claim to fame was that he had lied about providing post-hurricane relief in the Gulf of Mexico by taking a picture of himself dressed as a sailor, standing on a boat docked in Connecticut. Murphy spent all his time in Congress vacuuming up corrupt Wall Street money, just like Schumer. (In fact, Murphy outraised the GOP Chair of the House Finance Committee.) According to Murphy’s Super PAC chief, Murphy’s rich father promised Schumer and Reid $10 million ($5 million from him, and $5 million from his rich friends) if they delivered the nomination to Murphy, and actually placed a $10 million September/October/November TV buy to make that credible.

Reid attacked Grayson personally and demanded that he drop out of the race, while Reid and Schumer planted "hit pieces" in national media against Grayson. Schumer personally called both Grayson and Sestak donors, demanding that they pull the plug on their support. And the DSCC employed the now-familiar ploy of trying to get vendors and consultants to boycott the campaigns. For instance, Grayson’s direct-mail fundraising company not only refused to work on the Senate campaign, but wouldn’t even provide Grayson with a list of previous Grayson contributors, specifically citing pressure from the DSCC. Grayson’s media consultant was offered a $1 million buy for another campaign-- if he stopped working with Grayson. The Senate Democratic Super PAC laundered money from Murphy’s father to run ads for Murphy in the primary, touting the party’s endorsement.

In both Pennsylvania and Florida-- not to mention the Ohio catastrophe-- Schumer’s hand-picked candidates failed miserably. The candidate whom Schumer anointed in Pennsylvania had come in fourth (in single-digits) in the primary for Governor just two years earlier. Pennsylvania voters sniffed her out as a Schumer puppet, and defeated her. In Florida, Murphy had to spend $7 million just to win the primary.  In the general election, the promised money from his father never showed up, and week after week, as the payment deadline on the TV buy approached, Daddy Buy was canceled. CBS Miami tagged Murphy as a habitual liar, and he ran seven points behind Clinton in Florida. (An interesting subplot arose after Murphy had leaked secret audio from a Clinton fundraiser in Florida to make it look like Clinton favored him in the primary. Clinton got over any ill-feelings from the leak when Murphy made a $1 million contribution to Clinton’s Super PAC-- which Murphy paid for by selling his stock in his father’s company.)

Both Pennsylvania and Florida in 2016 demonstrated that Schumer had the power to foist turds on Democratic primary voters-- and then see them stink up the joint in the general election, with Republicans winning both seats. But... anything is better in Schumer's mind than an independent-minded Democrat like Grayson or Sestak.

North Carolina state Senator Erica Smith is the progressive-- not the Schumer-- candidate running for the Democratic nomination to oppose Trump enabler Thom Tillis next year. She has a great reputation from her service in the legislature and polling shows her beating Tillis by 7 points. So what's Schumer's problem? I asked Erica.

"I liken Schumer’s reported interference into primary elections across the nation to the college admissions scandal," she told me. "If the less progressive, less qualified, less competent candidates that he appears to favor were electable on merit-- he would not need to prop them up with exorbitant sums of money from his personal campaign list of wealthy Wall Street donors. A three-judge Superior Court panel just ruled in a case of paramount importance to the voters of North Carolina with national implications for partisan gerrymandering. On page 320 of the Common Cause vs. Lewis decision, the opinion states 'There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in the election of our political leaders'-- including of course, the right to 'vote.' McCutcheon v. FEC, 572 U.S. 185, 191, 134 S. Ct. 1434, 1440 (2014).  The voters of North Carolina have fought for uninhibited voting rights for the last eight years in this case, and after this historic victory will not willingly abdicate this right. The voters of North Carolina and every other state should be the only people deciding the elections in Primaries and otherwise. The will of the people to support progressive candidates should never be commandeered by incumbent leaders, or Party and Caucus officials and their predilection for 'Republican-like moderates.' This is completely antithetical to who we are as a big tent, party of inclusion. We recognize that Party infrastructure is necessary for our collective success. However, we are hopeful that these resources are fairly allocated based on voters’ decisions and not coerced ones based on forced acceptance of big money backed establishment choices. There are many party insiders who feel the DSCC's backing of Cal Cunningham in the 2010 US Senate race over the more experienced, progressive, woman candidate Elaine Marshall resulted in a fracture in the Party leading to a general election defeat to Richard Burr, who has served in the US Senate ever since. Secretary Marshall defeated the DSCC backed candidate twice, by almost 10% points in the primary and by double that percentage in a subsequent run off. To say that there remain a fair amount of festering unhealed wounds nine years later is modest. With the state of politics in our state and nation as a whole today, a repeat of 2010 will have more than destructive aftershocks that will be felt across the country, it may very well be the death knell to Democracy once and for all." 

Money Money Money Makes Chuck Schumer's World Go Round

Picture Chuck Schumer playing either Liza Minnelli or Joel Grey in this 1972 film, released while he was still in law school, earning a law degree he never used once, going straight into vacuuming up money from special interests to finance his grubby political career. And now, he's demanding that other Democrats do the same-- or else. In 2006 Schumer was a loyal Harry Reid henchman and ran the DSCC. One race I remember well was when he recruited a pointless party hack, John Morrison, a Wall Street puppet then serving as Montana state auditor. Progressives were all in on state Senate president Jon Tester who ran a populist campaign and cursed out Schumer, who proclaimed he was too liberal to win in Montana, daily. Despite all Schumer's efforts and sabotage-- including demanding all institutional money go to Morrison--Tester beat Morrison/Schumer overwhelmingly, 60.77% to 35.48%. Tester then went on to prove Schumer wrong in November by beating Republican incumbent Conrad Burns 199,845 (49.16%) to 196,283 (48.29%). Schumer was certain Tester would lose for two reasons:

1- Schumer hates progressives with all his being
2- Burns outspent Tester, $9,167,154 to $5,587,467

That easily describes Schumer's perspective in every Senate race since then. He recruits conservatives to and tells them the only thing that matters is money. He's often wrong, but being wrong has never stopped Chuck Schumer. Yesterday, writing for the National Review, Jack Crowe reported that Schumer has been up to his old tricks in North Carolina, working to make sure a conservative lackey gets the nomination in case an anti-Trump wave is big enough to take out Republican incumbent Thom Tillis. Ideas, character and values have no place in Schumerian electoral calculus-- just national trends and money for mass media. It's like he's still living in the era Cabaret won its 8 Oscars (Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Original Song, Best Art Direction and Best Sound. The Godfather won Best Picture, not a dishonorable loss. A leaked tape shows that Schumer, wrote Crowe, "has taken a heavy-handed, top-down approach to selecting Democrats to challenge vulnerable Senate Republicans this cycle, putting his thumb on the scale for candidates willing to shun grassroots outreach in favor of a smile-and-dial, fundraising-first approach."

In the recording, taken during a September 26 talk at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, North Carolina state senator Jeff Jackson describes the experience of courting Schumer while he was considering running for the Democratic nomination to challenge the state’s incumbent Republican senator, Thom Tillis, in 2020.

Jackson had grand ambitions: When he flew to Washington to meet with Schumer earlier this year, he told the minority leader that he was going to do “100 town halls in 100 days” and talk to as many North Carolinians as possible to get a feel for the electorate’s priorities. But Schumer, who had previously dispatched his staff to meet with Jackson at his home, had other plans.

“Wrong answer,” Schumer said when confronted with Jackson’s grassroots strategy, according to the account of their conversation Jackson gave at UNC Charlotte. “We want you to spend the next 16 months in a windowless basement raising money and then we’re going to spend 80 percent of it on negative ads about Tillis.”

Jackson explained that, while he didn’t technically require Schumer’s support to run, the minority leader’s control over the funds disbursed by major donors and the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), made running without his support an impossibility.

  “So, did I need his permission to run for that race? No,” Jackson said during his address at UNC Charlotte. “But talking to my family and seeing the opportunity we have-- sort of the obligation we have to try and take the majority to end gerrymandering in 2020-- and realizing that I probably wasn’t going to have the support of this group, which is important financially because I ain’t rich... I mean, they kind of tipped the scales in favor of not running.”

And if the lack of funding wasn’t enough, Jackson said he was turned off by Schumer’s insistence on running an entirely negative campaign against the incumbent, Tillis-- a preference that Jackson attributed to “artistic differences” between himself and the minority leader during his UNC talk.

Instead of Jackson, Schumer and national Democrats are throwing their considerable support behind Cal Cunningham, a former state legislator and Army veteran who, in apparent accordance with Schumer’s wishes, has given just three interviews since announcing his candidacy in June. Reached for comment, Cunningham’s spokesman denied that the candidate has eschewed public appearances and grassroots activism in favor of fundraising.

...A copy of Cunningham’s campaign schedule obtained by National Review lists 18 appearances at various barbecues, galas, and church services from August 10 to September 29. During his remarks at UNC, Jackson dismissed these appearances as meaningless window-dressing compared to the town halls he’d planned for his own campaign.

“Yes,” Jackson said when asked if Cunningham has been in “a windowless basement” since announcing his candidacy. “He hasn’t held a public event. He didn’t have a kickoff. This is like month three. He goes to Democratic-party events if you follow him, right-- places where they’re going to say, ‘And everybody, Cal Cunningham is here!’ And he gets to be like, ‘Hey!’” (Jackson did not respond to a request for comment, but announced his endorsement of Cunningham hours after he was contacted and learned of the existence of the audio recording.)

...Cunningham’s chief primary rival, state senator Erica Smith, who announced her candidacy roughly five months before him, has already taken note of the national party’s intrusion in the race.

“The special interest groups and big, wealthy donors out of New York are trying to buy this Senate seat, and it’s just shameful and it is embarrassing,” she told Crabtree. “I just worry about the people I serve in North Carolina. We don’t have the same demographics as New York, and this Senate seat is not for sale.”

Reached by phone, Smith lashed out at Schumer and the DSCC for being dishonest about their support for Cunningham, telling National Review that Schumer’s public and private stances on candidates were “diametrically opposed.” She claimed that shortly before she learned Cunningham was fundraising off of the DSCC’s email list, Schumer had assured her that he had not endorsed any particular candidate and would remain agnostic for the time being.

Smith also pointed out that in addition to avoiding appearances, Cunningham appears to be avoiding public-policy commitments altogether. The only information or interactive features on his website concern donations.

“We can’t find his policy positions either,” Smith tweeted in August in response to a message one constituent wrote about the difficulty she’s had in identifying where Cunningham stands on any policy she cares about.

The same pattern, in which Democratic leadership handpicks a preferred candidate to run against a vulnerable Senate Republican, is also playing out in Maine and Iowa. [Jack Crowe appears to have forgotten Colorado, where Schumer has decided the Democratic nominee will be Frackenlooper and has demanded that unions directly their contributions to him and not to Andrew Romanoff, who many working people prefer by a very wide margin.]

In Maine, incumbent Republican senator Susan Collins is sure to face a tough reelection amid the liberal backlash to her support for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Schumer and the DSCC have made clear that their preferred candidate is state House speaker Sarah Gideon. Like Cunningham, Gideon has carefully avoided the spotlight and policy commitments. And like Cunningham, she’s benefited from her deference to Washington: She raised more than $1 million in the first ten days after she announced her candidacy in June, and she’s reaped the high-profile endorsements that follow from being taken under Schumer’s wing.

Like Cunningham’s opponent, Smith, Gideon’s opponent, Betsy Sweet, has taken notice.

“An open letter to Democratic leadership,” reads an August fundraising email from Sweet’s campaign. “How many times. How many times are you going to interfere with primary races by picking an opponent before the people do?”

In Iowa, it’s Theresa Greenfield, a real-estate-development executive and first-time candidate, who has been chosen to follow the Schumer playbook. The DSCC endorsed Greenfield just three days after she announced her candidacy in June, shunning J. D. Scholten, who vaulted to national acclaim last year after nearly beating the racist Republican representative Steve King in the state’s fourth district.

“We don’t need a primary,” Schumer reportedly told Scholten on a phone call at the end of May.

Michael Franken is the best of the Iowa senatorial candidates-- but not Schumer's favorite. So Schumer is trying to destroy his campaign by telling donors to not give him any money and by working hard to get a candidate nominated who is only known for her own corruption, a candidate who can't win. "Iowans," said Franken, "are first-on-deck in choosing Presidential nominees, so we should be more than capable of picking the best U.S. Senate candidate, as well. I didn’t ask a party chief’s permission to serve my country for many decades and I shouldn’t need to ask permission to continue that record of service in the US Senate."

New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a candidate for the empty U.S. Senate seat in her state, made a reputation for herself as a successful corruption fighter. That's a major turn-off for Schumer, who is more afraid of reformers than Dracula is of garlic. This morning Maggie told us that "The Washington establishment wants to keep big money in politics and keep progressive leaders out. That's not how democracy works. Voters-- not Chuck Schumer, not special interests, not corporations--choose their elected leaders. All the money in the world isn't enough to buy establishment leaders the bold vision and core values that voters want. I'm not running on big money or poll-tested talking points. I'm running to make sure every American has health care; to finally address the climate crisis; and to get big money out of politics once and for all."

The three billboards above-- in Colorado, Maine and North Carolina-- appear to be the work of the NRSC, even if they really look like they were designed and played by Little Chucky Schmucky. My dream for 2022: Schumer vs AOC. I pledge to max out.

Does Schumer Actually Want To Win Back The Senate? So Why Is He Behaving As If He Wants To Lose?

In the video above Frackenlooper explains over and over again why he shouldn't be running for the Senate. He was sure right when he said "I’m not cut out to be a senator... It’s awful hard to imagine that I could be successful in a Senate campaign or as a senator." If he's elected he'll be a disaster in Congress. No one really wants him there except Chuck Schumer who recognizes another corporate scumbag like himself. And to Frackenlooper it's a consolation prize after bombing in his "presidential" run-- his average approval when he dropped out being 0.3%.

As you may know, Blue America has endorsed Andrew Romanoff, the former Colorado House speaker who has been leading in the polls and who is leading on every single important issue. Those issues, however, are not issues Schumer wants being pushed in the Senate. Yesterday, Romanoff e-mailed his followers and told them that two new stories had just broken about the Colorado Senate race. "One shows some of the nation’s most powerful corporate interests are bankrolling not only Cory Gardner’s campaign but also the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee." Don't be surprised. That's who Schumer has always been-- and will always be. (I knew him back in high school. That's the kind of piece of crap he was then too.)


Yesterday RL Miller, founder of Climate Hawks Vote, wrote something smilier to what most people are saying about this race: "The DSCC shouldn’t be putting its thumb on the scale. The Democratic primary voters of Colorado are the ones who ought to decide who represents them-- not DC insiders thousands of miles away." Her organization is not what you would call a big Frackenlooper support group. "His record is abysmal. He mothballed clean energy programs, actively promoted oil and gas interests with outright fabrications and lies (promoting regulatory capture and dysfunction in COGCC, CDPHE, Dept Natl Resources, Air Quality Commission), ignored climate realities, and moved our state backwards in terms of conservation of water, protection of air, water, soil, health and climate stability. His support for fracking is indicative of his lack of understanding (hopefully) or just lack of regard for the issues concerning climate change that are [affecting] us as we speak. Hickenlooper … has worked tirelessly to serve powerful special/ industrial interests at the cost of the constituency he purports to serve. John Hickenlooper fights against progressive values everyday. He has no interest in fixing the many problems we have, but only in maintaining the status quo. [Hickenlooper] sold us out to the oil and gas industry for fracking. He is in bed with big oil and gas. I want to see him gone from Colorado politics. He pretends that he brought Colorado into clean energy but the opposite is true. We can’t trust him to support the planet or the people of Colorado. That he drank the fracking fluid says it all. Climate Hawks Vote is not endorsing just yet, but better alternatives to pro-fracking John Hickenlooper exist. Although the field is fractured, Andrew Romanoff is beginning to emerge as the climate hawk alternative to Hickenlooper. We will be following this primary closely and look forward to engaging this fall as we continue our formal endorsement process."

A plurality of people polled want Romanoff and they really DON'T want Frackenlooper

"The second story," wrote Romanoff, "shows the DSCC has spent the past six months blackballing our campaign-- threatening to punish any firm that does business with us. Why? Because I’m fighting for a Green New Deal and Medicare for All-- priorities that don’t sit well with the party bosses and powerbrokers in DC."

Yesterday Aída Chávez and Akela Lacy were calling out Schumer's slimy DSCC in The Intercept. Even before Frackenlooper was driven out of his absurd presidential run Schumer was already pressuring consultants and vendors not to work for him on pressure of being blackballed by the DSCC.

“They’ve made it clear to a number of the firms and individuals we tried to hire that they wouldn’t get any business in Washington or with the DSCC if they worked with me,” Romanoff said. “It’s been a well-orchestrated operation to blackball ragtag grassroots teams.”

At least five firms and 25 prospective staff turned down working with his campaign, said Romanoff, who has raised more than $1 million in individual contributions so far. “I spoke to the firms, my campaign manager spoke to the staff prospects,” he said. “Pretty much everyone who checked in with the DSCC got the same warning: Helping us would cost them.”

A consultant who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity said that their firm had been far along in talks to work for Romanoff when they got word that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the DSCC weren’t happy. The firm was told by a top DSCC staffer that they “absolutely under no circumstances could work for Andrew Romanoff, so we withdrew our offer to be his consulting firm.”

The DSCC is using an “unquestionably far more heavy-handed approach this year than they have in previous cycles,” the consultant said.

Earlier this year, the DSCC’s companion organization in the House, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, made it official policy to cut off funding and vendors to Democrats who challenged incumbent Democrats. Putting the policy in writing ratcheted up what had been more of an informal understanding in prior cycles. But if the DSCC’s intervention in Colorado is any indication, the Democrats’ Senate campaign arm is taking the blacklist one step further, by discouraging consultants from working not only for challengers to incumbent Democrats, but also for progressives running against the establishment’s preferred candidate in a seat currently held by the GOP. In Romanoff’s case, the DSCC did so before it had been clear whether Washington’s choice, Hickenlooper, even planned to run.

It’s still early in the cycle, and while some candidates are getting their Senate campaigns off the ground, others are still deciding whether to jump in. Individuals connected to a handful of campaigns across the country said they’ve heard about interventions by national Democrats, either in the form of the DSCC pressuring consultants not to work with progressive candidates, or Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer telling people not to run for office in the first place.

“First they came for the House candidates; now they’re gonna come for the Senate candidates,” said Heather Brewer, who is managing the Senate campaign of New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a progressive who was snubbed by the DSCC, which made an early endorsement of Ben Ray Luján, a member of House Democratic leadership. “It’s not rocket science to see where this is heading.”

“They’re threatening people’s livelihoods, if people dare break with what the insiders in Washington want,” Brewer added. “It’s extortion.”

Schumer’s office directed questions to the DSCC, which is officially run by Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, but known to be controlled by Schumer, whose piloting of the committee in 2006 and 2008 reclaimed the Senate for Democrats and then gave them a brief filibuster-proof majority. “We do not have a policy of preventing firms from working with candidates,” a DSCC spokesperson told The Intercept in an email. “In our role as a campaign committee focused on winning Senate seats, we have ongoing conversations with strategists and advisers about battleground races.”

...In a Hill TV interview (below) with Krystal Ball, presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders echoed progressives’ frustration. “I think you let it play out,” he said of the DSCC’s endorsement of Hickenlooper. “This is obviously a major debate within the Democratic Party. Those who think that so-called centrist candidates backed by folks who have a lot of money may be able to win over some moderate Republicans-- that is the future. I disagree. The future of the Democratic Party is to greatly expand the base, increase voter turnout, especially with young people, speak to the needs of working people. I believe there are some people who voted for Trump who, in fact, if given the option of a progressive agenda, will vote with us.”





North Carolina state Sen. Erica Smith, who’s leading the latest polls in her bid against Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, said she has reason to believe that the DSCC is doing similar things in her race. The committee told her that it isn’t yet endorsing in that race, and that it’s not helping any candidates fundraise-- but there are whispers that the DSCC might support her potential primary opponent Cal Cunningham, whom it has backed in the past.

“It seems clear to me that there is a question of integrity or lack thereof,” Smith said. “This brings to question who’s telling the truth. And there’s an appearance to me that Senator Schumer is trying to purchase-- trying to buy a U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina. That is not going to go well for the constituents that I serve. And I am very much opposed to that. New York and North Carolina are extremely different.”

Smith’s campaign manager Jonathan Lucas said he had been directly pressured by people he described as veteran, well-connected establishment Democratic operatives in North Carolina not to work with Smith, and that he’s faced similar pressure in years past while working on other races in the state. Given the makeup of Cunningham’s donor base, Lucas believes that pressure originated from the DSCC and Schumer, because a significant portion of Cunningham’s donors have links to the Senate minority leader.

“I had a number of influential ‘establishment’ Democrats tell me it was a mistake to work for her, she will never be the nominee, etc.,” Lucas said in a statement, referring to Smith. “Well, I have never been an establishment consultant. I met her and I am not only convinced she will win, but that she is exactly the type of candidate that we need right now. One that Schumer and the establishment fear because her vote is not for sale.”

No matter what else, you can always count on Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to pick the corrupt corporate conservative in any primary anywhere. If he's behind Cunningham, it simply means Smith is the better candidate. In Iowa, he's pushing Theresa Greenfield, which automatically means Mike Franken is a better candidate. Franken is an admired 3-star admiral, who requested retirement in late 2017, and is more progressive on the issues, across the board, than Greenfield, who, you probably remember, was caught cheating and lying-- Schumer's kind of candidate-- last time she ran and could never beat Joni Ernst. We're just getting to know Mike now but you can contribute to Andrew Romanoff's campaign and Maggie Toulouse Oliver's campaign by clicking on the Blue America 2020 Senate thermometer on the right. I have a feeling, Mike Franken will be on that page pretty soon as well.

Trump Has Led The GOP Into A Death Spiral-- Last Night Was Just A Taste Of What's Coming

This morning, Aaron Blake noted at the Washington Post that "When President Trump was elected, he promised the GOP that they would win so much they would get tired of it. But for a third successive election year since then, the Republican Party has walked away the loser." Also this morning a top Democratic congressional staffer told me that she spoke to "two different Republican Hill staffers who have expressed serious concerns with how badly last night went for them. They described Virginia and Kentucky outcomes as canaries in the coal mine for 2020. Despite all the negative news and concerning polls, they were holding out hope that the DC news cycle wasn't breaking through in the rest of the country. That illusion was shattered last night and now congressional Republicans are starting to realize what it will be like to run with Trump in 2020. It appears impeachment politics aren't as catastrophic to Democrats as initially thought; the Kentucky gubernatorial race was pitted as a referendum on impeachment in a state Trump won by 30 and the incumbent Republican still lost. Trump made the election about him (which he will of course do in 2020) and the result was a complete disaster for his party." As we mentioned last night, the Democrats won and Trump lost. Even in Mississippi, in the heart of the Confederacy/Trumplandia, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves' less-than-stellar win is dimmed when put into historical context:

• 2019- Reeves (R)- 443,063 (52.3%), Hood (D)- 394,177 (46.5%)
• 2015- Bryant (R)- 476,697 (66.4%), Gray (D)- 231,643 (32.3%)
• 2011- Bryant (R)- 544,851 (61%), DuPree (D)- 348,617 (39%)
• 2007- Barbour (R)- 430,807 (57.9%), Eaves (D)- 313,232 (42.1%)
• 2003- Barbour (R)- 470,404 (52.6%), Musgrove (D)- 409,787 (46.8%)

Reeves had the worst results of any Republican candidate in recent times. And that was the best news Trump and the GOP had yesterday.

Kentucky is one of Trump's best states. The PVI is R+15. Only Idaho, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming are redder. These are the 2016 results that were the best for Trump:

• West Virginia- 68.50, Hillary 26.43
• Wyoming- Trump 67.40%, Hillary 21.63%
• Oklahoma- Trump 65.32, Hillary 28.93%
• North Dakota- Trump 62.96%, Hillary 27.23%
• Kentucky- Trump 62.52%, Hillary 32.68%
• Alabama- Trump 62,08, Hillary 34.36%

If Trump's best effort-- and his non-stop efforts on behalf of Bevin was the best he is capable of-- couldn't win the day in Kentucky, how will Trump be able to help anyone anywhere? On Monday night Trump was in Lexington playing the role of clown on behalf of Bevin: "If you lose, they’re going to say Trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world. You can’t let that happen to me!" They did. Two days before the election, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundegan Grimes predicted that turnout would be 31%, essentially the same miserable turnout Kentucky had in the 1015 gubernatorial election (30.7%). She was way off. By yesterday 42% of eligible voters had cast ballots. It was 45% in Jefferson (Louisville) and 47% in Fayette (Lexington) counties, an increase in the two counties that put Beshear ahead of Bevin.

Moscow Mitch isn't the only Republican incumbent who slept poorly last night. GOP senators in Arizona, Maine, Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia, Alaska and Montana did not sleep well last night. Last chart. This one shows Trump's net approval/disapproval in each these key Senate battleground states-- along with how much Trump's approval has fallen in each state since he occupied the White House. (It didn't rise in any state).

• Kentucky- plus 15 (down 19 points)
• Arizona- minus 4 (down 23 points)
• Maine- minus 13 (down 21 points)
• Colorado- minus 15 (down 16 points)
• Iowa- minus 14 (down 22 points)
• North Carolina- minus 3 (down)
• Georgia- plus 1 (down 17 points)
• Alaska- plus 1 (down 23 points)
• Montana- minus 3 (down 27 points)

As the AP made clear this morning "The suburban revolt against President Donald Trump’s Republican Party is growing. And if nothing else, the GOP’s struggle across the South on Tuesday revealed that Republicans don’t have a plan to fix it. In Kentucky, Trump and his allies went all in to rescue embattled Gov. Matt Bevin, who literally wrapped himself in the president’s image in his pugnacious campaign. In Virginia, embattled Republicans ran away from Trump, downplaying their support for his policies and encouraging him to stay away. In the end, neither strategy was a sure winner... [T]there’s little doubt Tuesday’s outcome is a warning to Republicans across the nation a year out from the 2020 election and a year after the 2018 midterms: The suburbs are still moving in the wrong direction."

“Republican support in the suburbs has basically collapsed under Trump,” Republican strategist Alex Conant said. “Somehow, we need to find a way to regain our suburban support over the next year.”

...[T]he GOP’s challenge was laid bare in places like Virginia’s Henrico County just outside Richmond.

Republican state Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant won there by almost 20 percentage points four years ago. The area has recently been transformed by an influx of younger, college-educated voters and minorities, a combination that’s become a recipe for Democrats’ support.

With the final votes still trickling in Tuesday night, Dunnavant was barely ahead [final: 50.88% to 48.95%] of Democrat Debra Rodman, a college professor who seized on Trump and her Republican opponent’s opposition to gun control to appeal to moderate voters.

In northern Virginia, Democrat John Bell flipped a state Senate district from red to blue in a district that has traditionally favored Republicans. The race, set in the rapidly growing and diverse counties outside of Washington, D.C., attracted nearly $2 million in political advertising.

Democrats’ surging strength in the suburbs reflects the anxiety Trump provokes among moderates, particularly women, who have rejected his scorched-earth politics and uncompromising conservative policies on health care, education and gun violence.

Republicans’ response in Virginia was to try to stay focused on local issues. In the election’s final days, Dunnavant encouraged Trump to stay out of the state. The president obliged, sending Vice President Mike Pence instead.

Struggling for a unifying message, some Republicans turned to impeachment, trying to tie local Democrats to their counterparts in Washington and the effort to impeach Trump.

No one played that card harder than Kentucky’s Bevin, who campaigned aside an “impeachment” banner and stood next to Trump on the eve of the election.

But even in ruby-red Kentucky, Trump was not a cure-all and the trouble in the suburbs emerged.

Bevin struggled in Republican strongholds across the northern part of the state, where the Democrats’ drift and increased enthusiasm was clear.

In 2015, Bevin won Campbell County south of Cincinnati handily. On Tuesday, Beshear not only carried the county with ease, he nearly doubled the number of Democratic votes there, compared to the Democratic nominee of four years ago. Beshear also found another 74,000 Democratic votes in urban Jefferson County, home of Louisville.

Beshear led Bevin by the narrowest of margins Tuesday night.

Republicans were quick to blame Bevin for his stumbles. The governor was distinctly unpopular and picked fights with powerful interests in the state. Still, it was difficult for Republicans not to note the warning signs for the party next year and beyond.

“They continue to lose needed support in suburban districts, especially among women and college-educated voters,” said Republican strategist Rick Tyler. “That trend, if not reversed, is a death spiral.”

Democratic enthusiasm and turnout was sky-high in Kentucky and Virginia, where Democrats ran on Democratic issues and values. In Mississippi, where the fake-Democrat ran on a repulsive anti-Choice/pro-NRA, GOP-lite record, there was no enthusiasm and Democratic turnout was terrible. (As I noted last night, even in New Jersey's only state Senate race-- the one to replace Blue Dog ass-wipe Jeff Van Drew-- Van Drew's handpicked right-wing candidate, Bob Andrzejczak, ran on a GOP-lite record and lost to the real Republican, Mike Testa 27,163 (53.47%) to 23,636 (46.53%). Count on the Democrats-- especially the DCCC-- to absolutely not learn a lesson from this.

The were local races all over the country and the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on how dismally they went for Republicans in Pennsylvania. "The political forces that shaped last year’s midterm elections," wrote Julia Terruso, showed no signs of abating Tuesday, as voters turned on Republicans and establishment Democrats alike in races from Philadelphia and Scranton to the suburbs of Delaware and Chester Counties... Locally, Democrats will hold all five seats on the Delaware County Council, a Republican stronghold since the Civil War, and also assumed a majority on the legislative body in Chester County. In Bucks County, Democrats also held a late lead for control of the board of commissioners in a close race. And in Philadelphia, a third-party insurgent candidate weakened an already marginalized GOP by securing one of the at-large City Council seats reserved for minority parties-- a seat Republicans have held for decades. 'It’s a new day in Delaware County,' said Elaine Schaefer, one of three Democrats elected Tuesday in Delaware County. Democrats had never held a majority on the county council in its history, let alone every seat."

We Met The Enemy And They Are Us by Nancy Ohanian

In Virginia and Kentucky Republicans did everything they could to tie Democrats to Bernie and AOC and to "Socialism!!" and the Green New Deal. The backfired for them badly. In Kentucky the top coal counties are Pike, Harlan, Hopkins, Muhlenberg, Perry, Letchner, Floyd, Union, Knott, Webster and Ohio. Trump beat Hillary in every one of them in 2016-- and by a lot. But in the primaries, Bernie won these counties. In Pike Co. Trump won with 80.1%. It was 77.2% in Perry, 72.0% in Muhlenberg and 84.9% in Harlan County.

Hillary won the Kentucky primary, entirely because of the black turn-out for her in Louisville and Lexington. But she was swamped in every one of the coal counties. Bernie beat her. But Bernie also beat Trump in every one of these counties

Pike- Bernie- 4,848, Hillary- 2,335, Trump- 840
Harlan- Bernie- 1,092, Hillary- 451, Trump- 189
Hopkins- Bernie-2,696 , Hillary- 1,690, Trump- 574
Muhlenberg- Bernie- 1,632, Hillary- 1,544, Trump- 338
Perry- Bernie- 1,666, Hillary- 839, Trump- 421
Letchner- Bernie- 1,788, Hillary- 838, Trump- 410
Floyd- Bernie- 4,010, Hillary- 2,327, Trump- 278
Union- Bernie- 1,106, Hillary- 672, Trump- 92
Knott- Bernie- 1,114, Hillary- 583, Trump- 37
Webster- Bernie- 1,169, Hillary- 693, Trump- 116
Ohio- Bernie- 943, Hillary- 778, Trump- 663

Last night, Beshear won some coal counties and lost some-- but out-performed Hillary massively in all these counties. The biggest coal county in the state is Pike. Beshear took 42.94% compared to Hillary's 17.4%. Beshear won Floyd County with 52.56% and won Knott County with 49.43% compared with 24.3% for Hillary in Floyd and 21.6% for Hillary in Knott.

That billboard was produced and placed by the DSCC, attempting to tie state Senator Erica Smith--the progressive running for the North Carolina U.S. Senate seat-- to AOC and Rashida Tlaib. They produced similar campaigns against Andrew Romanoff in Colorado and Betsy Sweet in Maine. This morning Erica turned the tables on them and ran the billboard as part of a fundraising appeal for herself!

"Republicans," she wrote, "aren't the only ones engaging in rigging elections and suppressing the will of voters in our state. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) has been rigging the US Senate race in NC for far too long and it has had disastrous effects on Democracy. They recruited their endorsed candidate after he had been campaigning for Lieutenant Governor for a year. The DSCC doesn't want the people of North Carolina to choose their next Senator. They would prefer a 4 term Senator from New York to tell you how to vote! It didn't work in 2010 when they did the same thing with the same Democratic candidate. Together, we can make sure they don't get another chance to corrode our progressive coalition! 

• People are rationing their insulin and other life-saving medication because they can't afford it.
• Refusal to expand Medicaid reduces the leverage that lawmakers have to negotiate down drug prices.
• The wealthiest 1% receive the bulk of the benefits of our tax code while hard-working Americans continue to lose leverage with their tax dollars.

"If my devotion to your voice and these platforms for progress are considered radical," she concluded, "then sign me up! It should not be radical to amplify the voices of the people over the powerful. Help us continue to spread the good word of the Erica For Us Campaign by giving what you can. This is the people's campaign, now more than ever!"