Some Factors Affecting The Mid-Terms

The Daily Escape:

Before dawn, Kennebunkport, ME – June 2022 photo by Eric Storm Photo.

Even though the first public hearing about the Jan. 6 attempted coup happened last night, Wrongo doesn’t intend to write about them for a few days. The hot takes are all over the media, and it’s doubtful that we will know much about how the public is reacting for a few weeks. Once again Wrongo cautions that the media will cover this like a political contest when it isn’t. It really is about the health of our democracy.

And did you realize that only 21% of Americans over 18 read a newspaper every day? Cheryl Russell of Demo Memo has statistics from the General Social Survey showing how precipitously newspaper readership has fallen. She says that in 1972, 69% of the American public read a newspaper every day:

“Now, the share of adults who never read a newspaper (40%) is far greater than the share who read a newspaper daily. Fully 57% of the public reads a newspaper less than once a week…”

This also has implications for how broadly the findings of the Jan. 6 committee will be shared. As does the fact that FOX won’t be airing the hearings and plans to counter-program with GOP members of the House and Senate presenting real-time disinformation as the facts are aired.

Speaking of not knowing the facts,  YouGov reports on an economic survey showing that seven out of 10 Republicans think we’re currently in a recession. More than half of all independents and 43% of Democrats also think the same. They sampled about 1,500 US adults online between May 28 – 31, 2022, with a margin of error of ± 3%. Here are the results:

How can we be in a recession when our unemployment rate is at 3.6%? When wages are up 5.6% over the past year, and consumers still are spending money like crazy?

People may believe we’re in a recession, but the US economy added 1.2 million jobs in the past three months. Yes, inflation is the highest it’s been in 40 years, but higher gas and food prices don’t mean we’re in the midst of an economic slowdown. Maybe the survey was poorly worded, or maybe, since people really never read in depth about what’s really going on in America, they never learn what’s really happening. This will be very damaging to the Democrats’ mid-term chances.

Next, you may have heard that there was a “political earthquake” in the California primaries, that Dems did poorly because of the “crime” issue, and that will hurt Democrats all across the nation.

A recalled San Francisco District Attorney didn’t cause an earthquake, and neither did a Republican-turned-Democrat’s advancing in the LA Mayor race. Former Republican and billionaire Rick Caruso spent $40 million on his mayoral primary! His opponent, Karen Bass, spent $3 million on her campaign. He won the primary by 3 points, although she is the likely winner in November.

What WAS an earthquake was the anemic voter turnout. Only about 19% of California’s registered voters actually voted.

There was no sign of an anti-Democratic wave in CA. Candidates from both parties that were expected to make the general election did so. Probably the weakest performances by incumbents were posted by Republicans David Valadao and Young Kim, who struggled to defeat challengers running to their right. In particular, Valadao, who voted to impeach Trump, appears to have advanced to the general election.

And in CA-41, moderate Democrat Will Rollins advanced to the November election against Republican incumbent Ken Calvert, who voted to overturn the 2020 election results. Rollins has a decent chance to win in November in what is a 50-50 district.

Finally, Larry Sabato reports on the redistricting landscape now that most state redistricting is complete:

  • The total number of competitive districts has declined from 84 to 75.
  • The number of super-safe Republican districts (those where Biden won 40% or less) increased from 112 to 131.
  • The number of super-safe Democratic seats, 127, while similar to the Republican total, is down slightly.
  • There are 211 seats where Biden received 49% of the vote or less, and 202 seats where he won 53% or more.

Sabato’s Crystal Ball rates Republicans having 214 seats as safe, likely, or leaning Republican. That means that if they hold those seats, they are just four additional seats from controlling the House. They rate the Democrats as having 193 seats as safe, likely, or leaning Democratic.

That means if both Parties hold serve, there are just 28 seats in play in the 2022 mid-terms. For the Democrats to retain control of the House would require them to win 25 of those 28 seats.

If the Dems want to retain control of the House, what message should they be telling voters who: a) Don’t read newspapers; b) Think the economy is crashing; and c) Fail to turn out in Democratic and Independent-leaning Congressional Districts?

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – December 19, 2021

The political class in DC is very concerned about inflation, including many Democrats. So much so that they are unwilling to pass Biden’s “Build Back Better” social infrastructure bill because it will add to our current inflation. Specifically, Sen. Manchin objects to the extension of the child tax credit that is expiring this month.

It’s time to remind these people of what real inflation looks like. Back in 1980, when then-Chair of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker raised interest rates high enough to throw the US into a recession and end inflation, inflation had averaged 6.9% for the previous 11 years. Let’s also remind Sen. Manchin that this year’s annualized rate of inflation went above the long-term average of around 3% in April. We’ve averaged 6.81% for the year, not for 11 years.

The Senate wrapped up its work for the year, with Democrats punting the Build Back Better and the voting rights bills into 2022. The Senate adjourned early Saturday morning after a voting marathon including confirming 50 of Biden’s nominees. On to cartoons.

The answer is to elect more Democratic Senators:

Let’s see the Senate break at least one tooth on voting rights:

Only the social programs have to pay for themselves:

Omicron surges, is anybody surprised?

Why can Fox News get away with this?

Republican misfits can’t wait for the midterms:

This would be gerrymandering in the real world:

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Monday Wake Up Call – August 31, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Devil’s Punchbowl, OR – 2020 photo by indieaz. There are many places in the US called the “Devil’s Punchbowl”.

Where did the summer go? We’ve all been tied down by the pandemic, so we probably focused more on politics than we wanted to. Pretty sure that made time pass more slowly, though. So Wrongo’s still not sure where the summer went.

Last week, Wrongo and Ms. Right had lunch with old friends, and the subject of what older Boomers and Silents can do to influence the election was a big discussion topic. Depending on your means, there are many things that could be done, like picking key states and congressional districts that are in play, and donating bigly to candidates who have a real chance to flip the seat they’re seeking.

But perhaps the most important impact would be to help register voters in those same states and districts this fall. For many, that would mean traveling to another state, braving the risk of COVID, while dueling with anti-maskers. When you consider the alternative of four more years of divided government with Trump in power, it may well be worth doing.

It’s important to remember that 2020 is a census year, and Democrats had a huge loss in the Senate, House and in state legislatures in 2010, the last census year. That enabled Republicans to gerrymander many states, making Democrats uncompetitive in those states for a decade.

We can’t risk another huge loss year like 2010.

Paul Rosenburg reports on using a “moneyball” type of approach, based on the famous book of the same name by Michael Lewis. Lewis wrote about baseball teams using the “moneyball” approach to get the best team on the field using the least amount of their limited budgets. The idea of applying it to voting comes from the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.

Like baseball teams, each citizen has a fixed amount of time and resources to invest in politics. The idea is to focus on political races with a high potential either for flipping the US Senate or selected down-ballot races.

You could also focus on Congressional seats, or on state legislatures. In the case of legislatures, the goal is to split or change control of legislatures that will be drawing new districts in 2021. Since only 10 states have independent redistricting commissions (list is here), we should focus on the Republican states among the other 40 to minimize the chance of seeing more unfairly gerrymandered districts like the Republican’s REDMAP project delivered in 2011.

Turing to the Senate, here’s a chart that shows races by current margin, and by what the political moneyball group calls “voter power”:


The red names are Republicans, blue are Democrats. By convention, the race where resources go the farthest is set to a voter power of 100, with the other races calibrated against it. The Montana race has immense voter power, since the state has so few residents. Money or time spent trying to get Steve Bullock elected can go 50 times farther there than against John Cornyn in TX, who has a big lead in a big state. If Bullock wins, that’s likely to mean Democrats will win control of the Senate.

Wrongo’s friends want to see Mitch McConnell defeated in KY, but Wrongo advised not to donate to Amy McGrath, the Dem running against him. It’s a difficult race to win. Instead, they should focus their time and money into races with lower profiles but better chance to win. Like Sarah Gideon running against Susan Collins in ME.

From Tom Sullivan:

“Find…tabs for “Moneyball” states where “a few hundred voters mobilized in the right districts could bring a state bipartisan control of redistricting, leading to fairer districts for a decade.” These include TX, MN, KS, FL, CT, and NC. Voters in those states should examine where their money and effort could do the most good.”

Time to wake up Voters! It is surely the right time to build your list of candidates to support to flip the Senate, and to pick down ballot-candidates to create a firewall against gerrymandering.

To help you wake up, a special treat. Here’s an accomplished guitarist Wrongo had never hear of, Justin Johnson. Johnson is playing an original composition, “Rooster Blues”, live on a four-string cigar-box guitar. Sounds fantastic:

Watch it. You won’t be disappointed!

And if you liked that video, you might like him playing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” on a vintage oil can guitar here.

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Partisan Gerrymandering Overturned in North Carolina

Daily Escape:

Colchuk Lake in the Enchantments, part of the Cascade Mountains, WA – August 2019 photo by atgctgtt

This summer, the Supreme Court decided 5-4 in the case Rucho v. Common Cause that federal courts could not invalidate maps based on partisan gerrymandering, although states might still do so.

At the time, Wrongo snarked about the decision:

“Wrongo’s shorter John Roberts: The federal government can’t do anything about your state stripping you of representation. You have to go back to the people who stripped you of representation and ask them.”

Despite Wrongo’s skepticism, on Tuesday, the North Carolina (NC) state Supreme Court put an end to eight years of Republican partisan gerrymandering when it ruled against NC Republicans who had installed it in 2011. From the Daily Kos (DK):

“On Tuesday, a three-judge panel delivered a major blow against Republican gerrymandering when it struck down North Carolina’s state Senate and state House districts for violating the rights of Democratic voters.”

More:

“The state court ruled that these maps, designed to entrench Republican rule, ran afoul of the state constitution’s guarantee of free and fair elections. These illegal districts were so extreme that they helped Republicans to maintain their legislative majorities in 2018’s elections even though Democratic candidates won more votes statewide. If fairer districts are implemented for 2020, they could put Democrats in striking distance of a majority in one or both chambers.”

NC’s current state-district maps had to be redrawn again in 2017, after the US Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s ruling that they constituted an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

Now, NC’s voters will be voting in new state election districts for the third time since 2011.

This decision is similar to one in PA in 2018, where a state court ruled that PA’s congressional map was unconstitutionally gerrymandered. It also relied on the PA state constitution, so its decision was not reviewable by the US Supreme Court.

When SCOTUS decided not to rule on the constitutionality of partisan gerrymandering, it said quite clearly that state courts could rule on the question based on the individual state constitutions. NC now joins PA as states in which this strategy has succeeded.

The NC and PA decisions are reminders that we can challenge bad laws under state constitutions. States are free to recognize more rights than those enumerated in the US Constitution, they just can’t recognize fewer rights. This is the sort of “federalism” that conservatives hope you never learn about.

More from DK:

“While this case only concerns the maps in one state, every state constitution has provisions similar to North Carolina’s that could be used to challenge partisan gerrymanders so long as there’s a receptive and fair-minded state Supreme Court majority to hear such a case. This ruling therefore underscores the importance of Supreme Court elections in key swing states next year, including Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Progressive victories in these races would go a long way toward blocking the GOP’s lopsided control over redistricting as we head into the next round of redistricting following the 2020 census.”

The NC court decision was 345 pages long. The opinion really makes it clear how there’s just no possible defense for what the GOP was doing in NC. In addition, the opinion might as well have had “John Roberts is an embarrassing hack” stamped on every page.

This doesn’t mean that Democrats can relax between here and 2020. Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin are states where 2020 state Supreme Court elections could either give Democrats a majority, or set them up to gain one in subsequent elections. That will be crucial in the next decade, since the Census will also take place in 2020. There will be new voters to count, or to disenfranchise, depending on your Party’s ideology.

This war must be won in the trenches, not by the national candidates.  Wisconsin gave us a bad example in April. Although Democrats in Wisconsin won the popular vote in 2018, they didn’t work hard enough to get their state Supreme Court nominee over the finish line in 2019, despite having a progressive plurality.

Democrats have to realize that they won’t win if they think only certain elections are important enough to get out and vote.

These battles are local, not national, and now that the US Supreme Court will be sitting on its hands for a decade or more, these are fights we must win.

Democrats can’t afford not to contest local judicial elections.

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