U.S. elections

Trump can still win this election

Outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, police were using billy clubs and tear gas to beat back anti-Vietnam War protesters. Inside the International Amphitheatre, Sen. Abraham Ribicoff was so enraged by the violence that he put aside his prepared nomination speech and declared, "with George McGovern as President of the United States, we wouldn't have to have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago."
The convention's host, Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, and other members of the Illinois delegation stood up and shouted insults at the senator from Connecticut. It was an electrifying moment, a rare case of the reality of the streets intruding on the packaged rhetoric of a political convention.
No such unscripted moment was allowed at this week's carefully orchestrated Republican National Convention, despite the tumult occurring outside: the protests after the shooting of a Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Sunday, culminating in the arrest of a 17-year-old charged with killing two protesters; the fierce hurricane slamming into coastal Louisiana; the wildfires consuming homes and forests in California; and the continuing march of a pandemic that has left more than 180,000 Americans dead.
With relentless discipline, wrapped in flag-draped videos, the convention hammered home President Donald Trump's message: that behind closed doors and contrary to all outward signs, he is an ardent feminist who cares deeply about the problems confronted by Black Americans, that Joe Biden is a "Trojan horse" for radical activists and that a Democratic victory in November would spell the end of the American dream.

U.S. elections

Joe Biden flopped in Iowa. And so did the Democratic party's reputation

Internal numbers released by the Sanders campaign, showing results from 40% of caucus sites, showed Sanders winning with approximately 30% of the vote, Pete Buttigieg coming in second with 25%, Elizabeth Warren third with 21%, and Joe Biden a very distant fourth with 12%. If those numbers match the ultimate totals, they are great for Sanders and absolutely horrific for Biden. Sanders will have kicked the crap out of the frontrunner, Barack Obama’s former vice-president and the man most favored to win the nomination. It would be a stunning upset.

But Biden caught a lucky break. With the party not releasing the actual result, his campaign sent a letter demanding that the result be suppressed until such time as the “quality control issues” were resolved. If it takes long enough to get the official count, Biden may hope that Iowa is old news, or that the issues surrounding the caucus are discussed far more than the actual result. (That’s one reason we need to make sure we don’t get bogged down too much in talking about the procedural issues rather than the actual outcome.)

U.S. elections

Democrats Ponder the Unthinkable: What If They Lose?

Nearly two years of organizing, marching, candidate recruitment and unprecedented fundraising has led the Democratic party to a critical moment. On Tuesday, it can either reassert itself politically or fall short, prompting an utter and complete psychological meltdown.

Most in the party believe that the path they will go down will be the former; that they will gain a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time since former President Barack Obama’s first term. But paranoia is part of the Democratic DNA, especially after the shock of the 2016 election. And in the final stretch of the midterm campaign, a scenario in which the party is unable to flip the requisite 23 House seats looms in the dark recesses of the mind.

“It will be paralyzing for a while, it will,” said Neera Tanden, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress. “Candidly, I think there will be a fair amount of soul searching and people will feel back on their heels... We will have to rebuild. But the resistance is built on opposition to [Donald] Trump's extremism. And the more extreme he is, the more we will have.”

Or, as veteran Democratic strategist Paul Begala put it: “After all this work, all these volunteers, it would be absolutely shattering.”

Few midterm elections have taken on as much significance as the current one.

U.S. elections

Question For Midterm Voters: Are You Better Off Than You Were Two Years Ago?

President Reagan won a landslide election in 1980 when he asked voters a simple question: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" Voters knew they weren't. Midterm voters should be asking themselves that same question now, before casting their ballots next Tuesday. Only this time, the answer is yes.

The latest evidence: The Labor Department reported this week that private sector wages and salaries rose 3.1% in the third quarter of this year, compared with last year. Total compensation, which includes things like health benefits, climbed 2.9%. Both growth rates are significantly faster than two years ago.

This was just the latest spate of good economic news. But there is plenty more. In fact, by almost any measure, the country is much better off than it was in November 2016.

U.S. elections

This Is the Most Expensive Midterm Election Ever

This is already shaping up to be the most expensive midterm election in history—$3.9 billion and counting, according to the nonpartisan OpenSecrets.org. Super-PACs and outside spending groups fueled by wealthy donors and corporations account for large chunks of the spending, but candidates themselves, in particular Democrats, are raising huge amounts of cash for their campaigns, and they are relying on relatively small donors to do it. 

Big dollars are pouring into the election across the board, as became clear on Monday when candidates, committees, and super-PACs reported their third-quarter fundraising figures. For comparison, at this same point during the 2016 election, just 23 political committees reported raising more than $1 million in the third quarter—on Monday, 176 groups did. 

U.S. elections

Why The House And Senate Are Moving In Opposite Directions

At first, I was a little skeptical of the narrative that Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process could send the House and Senate moving in opposite directions. Usually in politics, a rising tide lifts all boats — so whichever party benefited from the Supreme Court nominee’s confirmation would expect to see its fortunes improve in both its best states and districts and its worst ones.

But a House-Senate split is exactly what we’re seeing in the FiveThirtyEight forecast. Democratic prospects in the Senate are increasingly dire, having fallen to about 1 in 5. Indeed, it’s been hard to find any good news for Democrats in Senate polling lately. In the House, by contrast, their opportunity is holding up relatively well. In fact, Democrats’ chance of taking the House has ticked back upward to about 4 in 5, having improved slightly from around 3 in 4 immediately after Kavanaugh was confirmed. And while district-by-district House polling has been all over the place lately, Democrats’ position has improved slightly on the generic congressional ballot.

On the surface, you might reason that House and Senate battlegrounds aren’t that different from one another. Yes, the most competitive Senate races this year are in really, really red states.

U.S. elections


Despite new accusers, Democrats war on Brett Kavanaugh could cost them midterm elections

Have Democrats gone so overboard in trying to demonize Brett Kavanaugh that they risk a backlash from upstanding men and the women who love them?

Let’s start with the premise that Democrats want to keep Judge Kavanaugh off the high court by any means necessary. Their modus operandi is to bring up alleged sexual assault charges late in the game to delay or derail the nomination process. They see it as a win-win: they either destroy Kavanaugh, discourage the Republican voter base, and deal a significant blow to the Trump presidency (the real target of all this); or Republicans hang together in the face of this political monsoon, confirm Kavanaugh, and alienate women voters in the process, leading to Democratic victories in the midterm election.

Democrats seem to think this political game won’t cost them. But they have left the reaction of men out of the equation.

U.S. elections

Democrats should worry about all their close special election losses

Democrats have plenty of reasons to be optimistic in the 2018 midterms: President Trump is unpopular, they hold a strong lead in indicators like the generic congressional ballot, and they have pulled off shocking upsets in special elections over the past two years in places like Alabama and rural Pennsylvania.

But there is a dark side to those promising omens: Democrats have also fallen short in several special elections that were teed up as the kind of race they would need to win to take back the House majority. In the Georgia Sixth to replace Tom Price and the Ohio 12th to replace Pat Tiberi in particular, Democrats outperformed the district’s partisan lean and its Republican voting history but still couldn’t find quite enough votes to win.

For every Pennsylvania 18th, the site of Conor Lamb’s stunning win in a district Donald Trump had won by 18 points, there is an Arizona Eighth. Democrat Hiral Tipirneni came within 3 points of beating Republican Debbie Lesko in a district Trump won by 23.

So Democrats came much closer than you’d think to winning a coveted House seat. But they still lost. They’ve actually lost a lot over the past two years, including in the Ohio 12th special election last month. Of course, Republicans haven’t really been impressive either, as they scrape by in what were supposed to be solid GOP districts.

U.S. elections

After a bummer of a summer, midterm polls are putting smiles on Republican faces

The Republican Party has had a grim August, one filled with indictments, guilty pleas, courtroom convictions, gloomy prognosticators and a potential midterm disaster. So why are some party officials smiling? Polls.

The latest numbers in a handful of Senate races seem to indicate brighter prospects for Republican candidates against Democratic incumbents in the November midterm elections.

In New Jersey, the Republican nominee appears to have trimmed Sen. Robert Menendez’s lead in what seemed to be a long-shot race. In Wisconsin, where a primary just provided clarity on who will be on the ballot, the Republican appears to be rallying behind its pick in the race against Sen. Tammy Baldwin.

In Florida, where Gov. Rick Scott has held the Republican nomination for several months, he appears to have taken a slim but unmistakable lead over longtime incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson.

“I think there’s a disconnect between handicappers in D.C. who just look at the numbers and don’t see what’s happening on the ground and those of us who do see what’s happening on the ground,” Republican National Committee spokesman Rick Gorka said.

U.S. elections

Midterm Elections Blue Wave Looking Doubtful, Says CBS News Head Pollster

The CBS News head pollster has some information for Democrats expecting a Blue Wave to take over the House and more in November’s midterm elections: It’s not looking good.

In Where Did You Get That Number?, a new book out Tuesday from Simon & Schuster, author Anthony Salvanto, the CBS pollster, explains his methodology for tracking the 2016 presidential election, considered one of the biggest upsets in electoral history, and how those lessons apply for the coming season.

Studying the exit polls in 2016 for CBS News coverage of the presidential election, Salvanto saw what was happening – Hillary Clinton was losing ground, and voters who hadn’t cast ballots were not likely to vote for her.  Salvanto delivered his verdict to the networks anchors and producers: “This is a contested race.”

The late deciders gave Trump the victory, Salvanto claims. CBS’s final 2016 poll gave him a big lead among voters who decided at the last minute.

Salvanto told the New York Post that comparing elections to horse races is wrong.  “The horse-race analogy is compelling but it’s wrong. “In a campaign, everything can change tomorrow.”

U.S. elections

There are 100 days to the midterm election. Here's what to watch

Voters are now 100 days away from delivering their verdict on President Donald Trump's first two years in office, and while the political landscape could shift dramatically in three months, right now, the wind is at Democrats' backs.

Democrats need a net gain of 23 seats to wrest control of the House away from Republicans. And they need a net gain of two seats to take a Senate majority, although the path to get to that number is difficult.

Trump got some welcome news on Friday, with the announcement that the economy grew at a 4.1% in the second quarter, the best number since 2014. Trump will surely make that growth part of his midterms pitch to voters.