Greg Sargent’s Plum Line post “Why 2014 looks so bad for Dems, and what they can do about it” makes it clear that Democrats have an uphill battle ahead, but at least their best strategy is increasingly clear. Commenting on a new DCorps/Womens Voices, Women Vote Action Fund poll, Sargent writes:

…RAE voters [Rising American Electorate – unmarried women, young voters, minorities]are increasingly key to the victorious Dem coalition in national elections, thanks to the diversifying electorate. But they are among the least likely to turn out in midterms, unlike more GOP-aligned non-RAE voters, such as middle-aged and older white males and married women.
…64 percent of RAE voters who voted in 2012 say they are “almost certain” to vote in 2014. Meanwhile, 79 percent of non-RAE voters from 2012 say they are almost certain to vote this year, a 15 point edge.
…Among RAE voters who say they are “likely” to vote in 2014, Dems hold a 25 point edge in the generic ballot matchup, 57-32. But that is down 10 points from the edge Dems held among these voters in 2012, when it was 35 points, 67-32.
…Among those voters who will drop off from 2012 and not vote in 2014, Dems hold a big edge of 16 points, 49-33. In other words, the voters who are more likely to stay home are overwhelmingly Democratic voters.

On those terms alone, it’s a grim scenario for Dems. But there is one significant ray of hope — that Democrats are out front on issues of intense concern to RAE voters, particularly unmarried women, and therefore the possibility of energizing them to vote for Democrats by November is a realistic goal.
Sargent adds that the poll shows that “94 percent of unmarried women favor a combination of pay equity and protections ensuring insurance companies no longer charge women more than men, as Obamacare does, with 82 percent favoring it strongly.” Further, “75 percent of unmarried women favor a combination of pay equity and increasing the minimum wage, with 55 percent favoring it strongly” — reforms generally opposed by Republican candidates.
Sargent concludes with a quote by Page Gardner, president of Women’s Voices Women Vote: “This survey is a roadmap showing candidates how to succeed, by speaking about equal pay and an economic agenda that benefits women and their families. Our poll make clear that raising the minimum wage, ensuring equal pay for women and guaranteeing paid sick leave for working women are popular policies that will win elections.”
In addition to unmarried women, these policies are popular with African American voters, as well as young people. Democrats have a clear edge on the issues with RAE voters. If their GOTV game is optimized before October registration deadlines, the ‘Dems in disarray’ echo chamber may be eating crow, instead of crowing, in November.

At CBSNews.com Jacqueline Alemany considers “How should Democrats deal with Obamacare in 2014?” Alemany illuminates the ‘Fix it, Don’t nix it’ message strategy, quoting Democratic pollster Celinda Lake: “…People should talk about the fact that there are parts of Obamacare that work and parts that need to be fixed, and that Democrats will be aggressive about fixing it,” Lake told CBS News. “Because we shouldn’t start all over again, and we shouldn’t cancel the policies of 7 million people.” She also quotes Democratic strategist Tad Levine: “Saying, ‘Listen, it’s not perfect, but there’s a lot of good there,’ is the right approach.”
In his L.A. Times article, “Democrats target Republican ties to Koch brothers” Michael A. Memoli provides a Paul Begala quote which illuminates the Democratic strategy of casting the Koch brothers as poster boys for billionaires trying to buy U.S. elections: “My GOP friends say no one knows who the Koch brothers are,” said Paul Begala, a longtime Democratic strategist. “True, but fewer people knew what Bain Capital was until we told them. This is classic asymmetrical warfare. When you can’t match them bullet-for-bullet, diminish the effectiveness of the other side’s weaponry.”
The Nation’s John Nichols explains (here via Reader Supported News) why Dems believe shining a fresh light on the Koch brothers’ economic bullying and election meddling could be a big problem for Republicans in November: “In every part of the country, in every sort of political jurisdiction, citizens are casting ballots for referendum proposals supporting a Constitutional amendment to overturn US Supreme Court rulings that have tipped the balance toward big money….Since the Supreme Court began dismantling the last barriers to elite dominance of American politics, with its 2010 Citizens United decision, sixteen states and more than 500 communities have formally requested that federal officials begin the process of amending the constitution so that the court’s wrongheaded rulings can be reversed.”
At Real Clear Politics, Adam O’Neal explains why FL Dems believe Alex Sink can win a rematch in November: “…Democrats believe Sink has a significantly better chance in November than she did in the low-turnout special election. He said strategists have “run an analysis and they think this: With Charlie Crist as the Democratic nominee for governor — he used to be a Republican, but he’s a Democrat now — [and] in that particular area, Crist is very popular. They’ve run a new voter model that says even though she lost the special election by two points, they think she would win in November by about a point and a half.”
Ed Kilgore has some fun with Georgia Republican squabbles in the campaign for the GOP senate nomination, which includes a Richie Rich type (David Perdue) dissing a woman opponent (Karen Handel) for not having a college degree — not the kind of thing that will win the hearts of single working women, should he get the nomination to run against Democrat Michelle Nunn.
Talal Al-Khatib reports on “Voter Suppression: Old Strategy, Modern Tactics” at Discovery.com, with updates on some of the dirtier tricks being leveraged by Republicans: voter i.d. laws; limiting poll hours; voter ‘caging”; voting date misinformation; trashing registration forms (yes, it actually happened in VA and CA); “citizen” challenges; and poll “watchers” (intimidaters).
Democratic leaders are committed to making voter suppression a major issue in the mid term elections. Zachary Roth discusses the effort at MSNBC.com: “The notion that GOP voting restrictions could backfire by making their targets more determined to vote than ever may be well-founded. There’s evidence it happened in 2012, when blacks voted at a higher rate than whites for the first time ever, after several key states made voting harder.”
This idea is not going to work. Jack Kemp was a rare Republican who welcomed African Americans into the GOP tent with open arms. But they did not take the bait, likable as Kemp may have been on a personal level and even though he played a significant role in enacting the MLK holiday. African Americans vote their social and economic interests more reliably than other constituencies, while Today’s Republican Party is even more focused on supporting policies that benefit the super-rich to the exclusion of just about everyone else.
If, heaven forbid, you know any millennials taking Rand Paul seriously, it is your duty to direct them to this enlightening post, “10 Reasons Millennials Should Be Wary of Rand Paul’s Libertarianism” by Richard Eskow at Campaign for America’s Future.

As part of a continuing effort to get Democrats focused on what they can and cannot do to deal with the problem of a midterm voting falloff by pro-Democratic demographic groups, let’s look at the particular issue posed by Hispanic voters. Using a new Pew study, here’s what I had to say today at Washington Monthly:

In 1986, the percentage of eligible Hispanic voters who turned out was 38%, as opposed to 46% of African-Americans and 51% of whites. By 1994, the gap between Hispanic and white turnout figures had increased to 17% (34% versus 51%), where it has almost exactly remained through 2010 (when Hispanic turnout was down to 31%, while white turnout was just under 49%).
The erosion of Hispanic turnout has been obscured, of course, by the steady growth of the eligible Hispanic voting population.
Now if you ask the average pundit about current or prospective Hispanic turnout problems, he or she will probably start talking about “discouragement’ over immigration legislation or conflicts between liberal economic views and conservative cultural views, or even language issues, and so on and so forth. But Pew points out one huge factor you don’t hear much about:

The relative youth of the Hispanic electorate has helped drive down the group’s overall turnout. In 2010, 31% of Hispanic eligible voters were under 30. By contrast, 19% of white, 26% of black and 21% of Asian eligible voters were under 30.

As noted here recently, under-30 voters are conspicuously and consistently prone to midterm falloff, for reasons that appear to have more to do with life status (particularly high geographical mobility and a generally low level of civil engagement) than with the issue landscape or the standing of this or that president or this or that party. So shouting “messages” at them via network television ads they mostly will not see doesn’t seem the most fruitful way to deal with the problem.
There is some potential turnout improvement associated with old-fashioned GOTV efforts enhanced by new technology. Consider this data nugget from Pew:

Nearly twice as many Hispanics as non-voters overall said they forgot to vote, 13.3% to 7.5%.

You have to figure the DSCC’s 60-million dollar GOTV initiative this year ought to be able to drive that number down dramatically.

The following article is cross-posted from a DCorps e-blast:
Whether we are at a tipping point in the 2014 election depends, first, on whether Democrats can get to a strong economic message– and next week we will be releasing our results on the women’s economic agenda. But it will depend further on whether the Affordable Care Act – now at a tipping point – is embraced with enthusiasm by its natural base of supporters and whether they become willing to defend its benefits against the threat of repeal at the ballot box.
The Republicans have bet heavily on Obamacare’s unpopularity, but that misreads the public’s views on the Affordable Care Act. The latest national survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for Democracy Corps and Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund finds evidence that prompts us to urge the political class to re-examine its assumptions about the Affordable Care Act and about this being a Republican year.
This is a base and genuine turnout issue for Republicans, but public judgment about the new law is dynamic and moving and could come to haunt the Republicans. Support for the law is rising, particularly among Democrats and minority voters. Only a minority is opposed because this is big government and only a minority wants to repeal the law.
But to counter Republican intensity and turnout in this off-year, Democrats will have to feel just as strongly about the risks of repeal and the loss of benefits. In this poll, we find that a message on the really positive changes that would be lost if the law were repealed gets attention with these off-year voters – who do respond with heightened intensity. With more than 7.1 million successfully signing up through exchanges, voters could be at a tipping point – and Democrats need to making the right case.
That could impact turnout on the Democratic side and should prompt the political class to re-consider many of the dominant assumptions about the ACA and the 2014 election.

Read the full memo here
See the graphs here
Listen to the story on NPR

Of all of the gaps between public opinion and political action, none are more frustrating — or harmful to America — than that between overwhelming public support for campaign finance reform and the failure of congress and the U.S. Supreme Court to take corrective action. The most recent in-your-face example would be the McCutcheon decision, in which Chief Justice Roberts delivered yet another tortured rationale for why we should let billionaires buy elections.
While there is widespread agreement among everyday people about what should be done to democratize campaign finance reform: set reasonable limits, the question of how to get it done in the current climate of knee-jerk GOP obstruction cries out for some creative ideas. Josh Silver, director of Represent.Us, has a plan that merits consideration. As he writes at HuffPo:

If you have a heartbeat, you are one of the vast majority of Americans thoroughly disgusted by this week’s McCutcheon Supreme Court decision. It allows one donor to write a $3.6 million check to buy political influence, providing us all with yet another “just-when-you-thought-it-couldn’t-get-any-worse” moment. As if we needed it.
…But don’t give up just yet. Contrary to popular belief, the money in politics problem can be fixed by emulating the stunning successes of marriage equality and marijuana decriminalization over the past twenty years. Here’s how to do it.
First, we need to take the fight to local communities, by passing city and statewide reform initiatives. For too long, reformers have advocated small-step, incremental reforms at the federal level, such as ending secret donations. This is a good and popular proposal, but alone will not come close to fixing the problem. Other reformers are advocating “publicly funded” elections, which is also good policy, but remains unpopular with many voters and would not fix the entire problem if passed without simultaneous ethics, lobbying and transparency reforms.
And here’s the key thing: proposals that overhaul ethics, lobbying, transparency and public funding in one fell swoop enjoy over 80% voter approval, and they are constitutional, even under the current Supreme Court. Together they are much more popular than public funding alone, and far more palatable to moderates and conservatives to boot. As an added bonus, public funds created by statewide laws can go towards federal candidates from those states, and to judicial candidates in states that have them. In the words of one veteran pollster, “with these kinds of numbers, it’s virtually impossible to lose a ballot initiative.”

Makes sense. In some states at least, it should be possible for such reforms to gain traction. Create a few state campaign finance reform templates that are so compelling that neighboring states will eventually have to reckon with them, and maybe, just maybe start a prairie fire.
Silver also suggests that reform advocates “stop talking about “money, democracy and campaign finance,” and start talking about corruption.” He cites a December poll indicating ‘off the charts’ support “for stopping the undue influence of “corruption” in politics rather than “money,” even among conservatives. Silver continues,

It is time to move from defense to offense, and pass a wave of local anti-corruption laws across the nation over the next few years — while simultaneously organizing a 21st century anti-corruption movement made of grassroots conservatives, moderates and progressives.

It’s an interesting idea, creating a broad, locally-rooted anti-corruption coalition that stretches across the political spectrum (as much as possible). As Silver concludes, “It is the combination of passing bold reforms in cities and states, while creating a loud and visible, right-left anti-corruption movement that will provide the political power necessary to force change.”

Re the U.S. Supreme Court decision ending “the total amount any individual can contribute to federal candidates in a two-year election cycle,” Adam Liptak reports at TheNew York Times that “The ruling, issued near the start of a campaign season, will very likely increase the role money plays in American politics.” Dems should highlight the decision as a wake-up call to voters that a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate will obstruct any hope of restoring balance to the Supreme Court — and make America’s legal system even worse for everyone but the wealthy.
A majority of the current Supreme Court may be in the pocket of the GOP. But at least American voters are consistently opposed to unlimited campaign spending. As Megan Thee-Brenan reports, also at The New York Times, “A Gallup poll conducted in June found that 8 in ten Americans, if given the opportunity, would vote to limit the amount of money candidates for the Senate and the House of Representatives could raise and spend on their election campaigns…Unlike the Supreme Court’s decision, which was split along ideological lines, the public’s views are cohesive. The poll found that broad majorities of all Americans, regardless of their political philosophy, party identification, age, education, sex or income level, preferred limits on campaign donations.”
A The Pew Research Center Jens Manuel Krogstad discusses why “Hispanics punch below their weight in midterm elections.” Says Krogstad: “A record 24.8 million Hispanics are eligible to vote in 2014, according to February Census figures, up from 21.3 million in 2010…Hispanics made up a larger share of the electorate in 2010 than in any previous midterm election, representing 6.9% of all voters, up from 5.8% in 2006. In 2010 House races, Hispanics favored Democrats over Republicans by 60% to 38%…Nearly half (49.3%) of Cuban-origin Hispanics voted, compared with just 28.7% of Mexican-origin Hispanics…Among registered voters who didn’t vote in 2010, one-in-four Hispanics chose “too busy, conflicting work or school schedule” as the reason they did not cast a ballot. About the same percentage of non-voters overall chose the same reason. Nearly twice as many Hispanics as non-voters overall said they forgot to vote, 13.3% to 7.5%.”
E. J. Dionne, Jr. has some good questions his colleagues in the MSM ought to be addressing at this political moment: “From now on, will there be more healthy skepticism about conservative claims against the ACA? Given how many times the law’s enemies have said the sky was falling when it wasn’t, will there be tougher interrogation of their next round of apocalyptic predictions? Will their so-called alternatives be analyzed closely to see how many now-insured people would actually lose coverage under the “replacement” plans?”
At Rothenblog Nathan L. Gonzales explains why “Why Republicans Have Trouble Electing Women to Congress.” At present, “only 73 Republican women, including 17 incumbents, have filed or are expected to file to run for a House seat in 2014 — a 33 percent decrease from 2012.”
Greg Sargent reports that Democrats are renaming Republican Paul Ryan’s budget “The Koch Budget,” and it is “bought and paid for by Charles and David Koch,” and “forces seniors to pay more while providing tax breaks for billionaires like the Kochs.” Further, says Sargent, “if Dems have their way, they will be able to use it in statewide races, where the electorate may be somewhat more diverse, to galvanize core supporters and draw a sharp economic contrast in the eyes of swing constituencies.”
Democrats big push for a minimum wage hike may help Rep. Gary Peters hold on to the Senate seat. As Patrick O’Connor writes at Wall St. Journals’ Washington Wire: “In Michigan, where Mr. Peters is locked in a tight race with likely Republican nominee Terri Lynn Land, the Democrat needs to rally the party’s core constituencies. Mr. Obama won the state by 10 percentage points in 2012. The fall ballot measure raising the minimum wage from $7.40 an hour to $10.10 should give Democrats in union-heavy Michigan another reason to vote in November.”
Skeptical though they are about Dems’ chances in the Senate and House elections this year, Larry J. Sabato and Kyle Kondik say “we suspect a modest net Democratic gain of one to three governors’ mansions.”
Oodles of boo hoo out there from the poor one-percenters, with Chas Koch the latest case in point. You can’t do much better, though, than Joan Wash’s take-down at Salon.com, “Billionaires’ crybaby club: Someone get these whiners a bottle!”

In a column for TPMCafe today, I continued to beat the drum for a clearer understanding of the turnout problem faced by Democrats this midterm cycle, and for a more rational assessment of the limits and uses of “base enthusiasm,” which some Democrats (and Republicans) often discuss with mystic intensity.

We’re at that time of the election cycle when you start hearing a great deal about the relative “enthusiasm” of each major party’s “base,” with the assumption being this is the key to a robust turnout in November. Do this and don’t do that, we are told (especially by conservative Republicans, but increasingly as well by progressive Democrats), or you will dampen base enthusiasm and court disaster.
But there are a couple of problems with this assumption, namely (1) “enthusiasm” does not reward the base voter with additional trips to the ballot box, and (2) there are quite a few factors other than “enthusiasm” that affect turnout rates….
Now a lot of Democratic progressives claim that a party message more focused on the perceived interests or ideological leanings of marginal voters (i.e., a “populist” message) will produce much higher turnout. That’s based on the assumption that non-voting is mainly attributable to “voter discouragement,” rather than to longstanding demographic patterns of participation. It’s fair to wonder if those making this claim are projecting their own attitudes onto marginal voters, and/or simply prefer a different message (an entirely legitimate desire, but not one inherently relevant to turnout).
But in any event, there’s plenty of evidence that turnout can be more reliably affected by direct efforts to identify favorable concentrations of voters and simply get them to the polls, with or without a great deal of “messaging” or for that matter enthusiasm (no one takes your temperature before you cast a ballot). Such get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts are the meat-and-potatoes of American politics, even if they invariably get little attention from horse-race pundits. Neighborhood-intensive “knock-and-drag” GOTV campaigns used to be a Democratic speciality thanks to the superior concentration of Democratic (especially minority) voters, though geographical polarization has created more and more equally ripe Republican areas.
In recent years, however, technology has made it increasingly feasible to use voter-to-voter contacts to expand and intensify marginal-voter outreach (pioneered by the Bush re-election campaign in 2004, which used email chains and informal civic connections to conduct “under the radar” GOTV efforts, and then raised to another level via social media by the Obama re-election campaign of 2012). And that’s where “enthusiasm” really might play a role. Perhaps highly “energized” base voters don’t get a personal ballot bonus. But if they are motivated to contact those who otherwise might not vote at all, their “enthusiasm” can be usefully harvested.

While there is nothing wrong with “enthusiasm,” a message-driven hyper-polarized approach to GOTV can sometimes help the other side increase its own “enthusiasm.” Better to chose the message most in accord with the party’s policy goals and enjoying the most public support, and use “enthusiasm” in synch with investments in technology to reach and get to the polls as many voters as possible.

From Zachary Goldfarb’s Washington Post article “Democrats target unmarried female voters“:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is building a national computer model to predict voters’ marital status, with hopes of targeting what may be the party’s most important demographic group: unmarried women.
“The completed model will let us pinpoint unmarried women as the target of specific, poll-tested messages delivered through field, mail and paid communications,” said a Democratic official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. “The model can also be included in our polling, allowing us to monitor trends in support and enthusiasm over time.”

The key issues Democrats reportedly plan to highlight for unmarried women include minimum wage, pay equity and health care. Dems hope to replicate the success of VA Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who was elected Governor last year with 67 percent of unmarried women voters, vs. 25 percent for his opponent. DCCC Chairman Rep. Steve Israel called the effort our “earliest and most aggressive field and targeting program ever.” Goldfarb adds,

But Democrats have their work cut out for them. Not only do unmarried women tend to vote in far smaller numbers during midterm elections, Democrats are lagging in support from that group of voters compared with 2012.
Recent polling by Democratic firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner showed that just under 60 percent of single women likely to vote in 2014 are backing Democrats. Generally, it is a bad sign for Democrats if they are getting less than two-thirds support among this group, said Erica Seifert, a senior associate at the firm.
“The biggest turnout factor for unmarried women is whether they feel the candidates are speaking to the issues that really matter to them,” Seifert said. “That’s the big thing that we’re watching in 2014, if there is a pocketbook-level economic debate that’s going to bring unmarried women out to vote.”

Golfarb notes that TDS founding editor Ruy Teixeira explained that Democrats held only a 57-to-43-percent advantage among unmarried women in 1988. By 2012, however, the Dems edge increased to 67 to 31. “A large and widening gap in favor of the Democrats and a larger share of voters over time makes them pretty significant,” Teixeira said.