The Nation’s Ari Berman asks (via Moyers & Company) “Where Are the GOP Supporters of Voting Rights?” It’s a good question, and one which should leave the so-called “mainstream” Republicans, especially Thad Cochran, feeling more than a little ashamed. Double ditto for the conservative pundits whose silence on GOP voter suppression would shame Pravda columnists during the cold-war heyday.
Conservative campaign consultant Steve Adler, whose company furnishes the rVotes technology to some Republican candidates, explains “How a tiny GOP data firm helped David Brat win” at Campaigns & Elections, and notes “One of the most significant advantages Brat had against his entrenched and well-funded Republican opponent was, ironically, the same core, grassroots technology Democrats have been using for over a decade…In extreme cases, a razor sharp grassroots effort can make $200,000 more powerful on Election Day than an opponent’s $5 million.”
Sure, Cochran’s Mississippi upset was rooted in extraordinary circumstances, that can’t be so easily replicated, as Ed Kilgore notes below. But still, a Democrat has to hope that African American voters, who know that their voting rights are under an all-out assault by Republicans, will now be more inspired to turn out and make a difference where they can.
Here’s an interesting color-coded map of the “shrinking congressional battleground” showing ad spending in competitive districts by political party.
Anthony Man reports in the Florida Sun Sentinel that Democrats are optimistic about the November election, and with good reason. He quotes Florida congressman Ron Klein: “I’ve never seen the Florida Democratic Party be as strategic as they are about how you dissect Floriida.” State party chairwoman Allison Tant “promised the “biggest field program in Florida Democratic Party history.” Man adds, “she said 15 field organizers have already been hired and more are coming.”
At The New York Times Jeremy W. Peters reports on Democratic campaigns for Native American votes, a rural and sometimes pivotal constituency in several states, including Alaska, Montana, the Dakotas and Nevada.
Also at the NYT, Paul Krugman writes on the enduring folly of tax cuts as panacea, with Kansas as the latest disastrous example.
I recognize these typologies in some people I know. But I have to doubt their durability and utility. Almost by definition, most swing voters combine these traits in unpredictable ways for limited periods of time. But I agree with author David Jarman that Pew Research at least tries to probe the complexity of political attitudes.
A “left-wing tea party” brewing in the states?

Following Thad Cochran’s upset and highly unorthodox runoff win earlier this week, some Republicans and non-Republican undoubtedly hoped a mold had been broken making it possible for the GOP to reach out to African-American voters regularly.
Aside from the ugliness associated with the backlash to Cochran’s “crossover” voters, this hopeful thinking underestimates how unusual Mississippi really is. I toted up some reasons at TPM Cafe Wednesday:

Let’s look at the ways the Magnolia State’s unusual character made Thad Cochran’s win possible:
1) Heavy dependence on military spending in coastal counties, where Cochran campaigned heavily during the runoff period and improved both turnout and his percentage of the vote.
2) The justifiably defeatist attitude among Mississippi Democrats that made them a ripe target for Cochran’s audacious attempts to recruit them for a Republican runoff.
3) The lack of party registration, the poor turnout in the June 3 Democratic primaries, and Mississippi’s large African-American population, which together created a pool of winnable Democratic votes for Cochran.
4) The highly visible McDaniel-associated campaign to deplore and even intimidate “crossover” voting, which brought back many bad memories of Mississippi’s notorious resistance to African-American voting rights.
5) The massive trans-ideological support for Cochran among a Mississippi “Republican Establishment” that would be considered hard-core right-wing in most other states.
These factors help explain why Team Cochran deployed the counter-intuitive runoff strategy of not competing with McDaniel for the “most conservative” mantle, but instead emphasizing his pork-producing background, attacking McDaniel as an extremist, and overtly appealing for Democratic (code in Mississippi for African-American) votes.
Is there another state where a Republican could deploy this same strategy and win? It would have to be a heavily GOP state with a sizable defense industry, no party registration, an unusually conservative “Republican Establishment” and a large percentage of minority voters. That pretty much narrows it down to Alabama and maybe Texas. Add in the fact that Cochran had managed to avoid race-baiting for a few decades in a race-obsessed state, and you have a really unique situation.
Had McDaniel won, we might have had the interesting and potentially replicable scenario of conservative voters choosing ideology over self-interest in America’s poorest state, and then a general election test of partisan and racial polarization. But that’s all water over the Tallahatchie Bridge.

Don’t expect any replications of the Miracle of June 24 any time soon.

One one level, Thad Cochran’s success in attracting enough African-American “crossover” votes to subdue Chris McDaniel in Mississippi’s GOP SEN runoff was a strange and unexpected triumph for Republican “outreach” to minority voters. But the conservative backlash to this tactic, in MS and beyond, could do that cause a lot more damage in the long run, as I noted at Washington Monthly today:

A lot of us spent a good part of yesterday wondering what the basis might be of some Chris McDaniel challenge to the results in Mississippi on Tuesday night. Would Team McDaniel stick to investigating clear and provable violations of state law (e.g., Democratic primary voters being allowed to participate in the GOP runoff), or essentially try to criminalize “crossover” voting?
The answer is “both,” it appears, per comments McDaniel made last night on Mark Levin’s radio show:

We haven’t conceded and we’re not going to concede right now. We’re going to investigate.
Naturally sometimes it’s difficult to contest an election, obviously, but we do know that 35,000 Democrats crossed over. And we know many of those Democrats did vote in the Democratic primary just three weeks ago which makes it illegal.
We likewise know that we have a statute, a law in our state that says you cannot participate in a primary unless you intend to support that candidate. And we know good and well that these 35,000 democrats have no intention to do that. They’ll be voting for Travis Childers in November. We know that. They know that. And so that makes their actions illegal.
So we’re going to be fighting this.

Aside from the fact that this “intent to support” statute McDaniel cites is blatantly unenforceable and unconstitutional, I hope he understands that any inquiry into “crossover” voting in a state like Mississippi is going to be strictly about race. How do we know these are “crossover” voters, since there’s no party registration? Because they are African-Americans! Can’t have African-Americans voting in our White Primary, can we?

The “Republican Establishment” folk who are congratulating each other for engineering Cochran’s upset win should probably wake up and spend some time muzzling (or better yet, though they wouldn’t dare contradicting) McDaniel. Having Republicans debating whether or not they should be willing to accept minority votes is a long-term disaster. Reminding the world they’re now the segregated White Man’s Party of Mississippi isn’t the best idea, either.

Abby Smith reports at The Hill that “Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg said Wednesday that unmarried women are the “absolute centerpiece” of the 2014 midterm elections for his party…Greenberg joined Women’s Voices Women’s Vote founder Page Gardner on a press call with reporters to release the results of a new national survey, which found that, with the right messaging, Democrats could pick up votes from the rising American electorate and shift the vote in their favor from a -1 to a +3 margin….According to the Democracy Corps/Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund survey, the rising American electorate responds best to an empathetic “in your shoes” messaging framework. And when unmarried women are exposed to this messaging, they shift from +17 to +31 Democratic margin and increase their turnout by 10 percent. In a congressional race that is neck-in-neck, Greenberg said that messaging could make all the difference for Democrats…His survey found that unmarried women voters respond positively to an economic agenda that caters to their interests, focusing on policies that help working mothers, secure equal pay, raise the minimum wage and make college more affordable.”
From Daniel Kreps’s post on the return of Rock the Vote at Rolling Stone: “Rock the Vote will once again be a merging point of music, pop culture, politics and technology as they strive to reach their goal for the midterm elections: Registering 1.5 million people — including 400,000 young people and 200,000 Latinos — to vote. RTV will also seek to kickstart an advocacy campaign to fight back against punitive laws that have made access to polling more difficult for certain citizens, focusing their efforts on states where voting rights are threatened like Arizona, California, Colorado, Iowa, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.” Here’s RTV’s new website, with a gateway link to voter registration forms for the entire nation.
Deficit spending to boost employment is an economic policy of proven effectiveness. But it remains politically problematic. Ruy Teixeira observes in Danny Vinik’s TNR article “Hillary Clinton’s Biggest Vulnerability: Her Economic Agenda“: “The public is not Keynesians or anything close to it. They don’t understand the relationship between spending, debt and growth. And, therefore, it’s the hardest sell.”
At Reuters Opinion Janal S.Nelson writes, “Congress must act swiftly to move the Voting Rights Amendment Act forward with a hearing in the House and, ultimately, a vote for its passage…The amendment is designed to restore crucial elements of the landmark act and strengthen its safeguards against racial and language discrimination in voting. It updates the formula for identifying jurisdictions that must receive federal oversight by relying on voting violations within the past 15 years as a trigger. It demands crucial advance notice and disclosure of any changes in election law nationwide, increases deployment of federal observers and expands Washington’s ability to suspend potentially discriminatory state laws pending litigation.”
Chris McDaniel may be the new poster boy for sour grapes. But he isn’t the only Republican still marinating in bile over his upset loss to Sen. Thad Cochran, as Emily Arrowood and Olivia Kittel report in their Media Matters roundup of recent comments by wingnut talking heads.
Michael Tomasky makes the case that Dems who were rooting for McDaniel as an easier Republican to defeat in the general election should be glad Cochran won.
Crystal Ball’s Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley add credence to the argument that Black voters “saved Cochran’s bacon.”: “Cochran’s victory margin of about 6,400 votes may well have been provided by African Americans, who were recruited by Cochran’s campaign and who realized the incumbent senator was a better choice for their interests than McDaniel. There was a relatively strong positive correlation of r = .64 between the black population percentage of Mississippi counties and turnout change.”
This New York Times editorial makes an excellent point: Thad Cochran should show his gratitude to African American voters by supporting legislation to restore the Voting Rights Act.
Yes Sarah, a third party is a swell idea. Call it ‘The Bitter Tea Party.’

Yes, another Republican upset, only this time the tea party lost (though not by much). Republican incumbent Thad Cochran was likely to lose to challenger Chris McDaniel in the GOP primary, according to some astute political commentators.
As R. L. Nave wrote in his article “McDaniel Polling Ahead, Black Voters Still a Big Unknown” the Jackson Free press on Monday,

By most accounts, going into tomorrow’s Republican primary for U.S. Senate, state Sen. Chris McDaniel of Laurel has a commanding advantage over the incumbent, U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran…That is, among likely GOP voters…Over the weekend, Chism Strategies–a Democratic firm that has commissioned several polls since the June 3 primary election that resulted in a runoff–unveiled its latest survey of Republicans that shows McDaniel leading Cochran by eight points. For the first time since Chism began polling, the lead is well outside the 4 percent margin of error.

Instead Cochran eked out a victory 50.8 to 49.2, with 99 percent of the votes counted. At the upshot, Nate Cohn explained it this way:

Overall turnout has surpassed that from the initial primary by 14 percent, or 45,465 votes, so far…The increase in turnout was generally to the benefit of Mr. Cochran. Turnout increased by 34 percent in the counties where Mr. Cochran was strongest and won at least 62 percent of the vote. But turnout also increased by 18 percent in counties where Mr. McDaniel was strong…The increase in the number of voters upset the conventional wisdom that turnout plummets in a runoff election.
…Mr. Cochran ran extraordinarily well in the traditionally establishment-friendly and heavily black Mississippi Delta, as well as around Jackson…The Cochran campaign’s efforts to appeal to Democratic-leaning black voters appeared to succeed. The increase in turnout was largest in heavily black counties, particularly in the Mississippi Delta. Over all, turnout rose by 43 percent in the counties where black voters make up more than 65 percent of eligible voters. Turnout increased by 92 percent in Jefferson County, where African-Americans represent 85 percent of the population, the largest share of any county in the country…

Cochran beat McDaniel by a little more than 6,000 votes. Cohn reports that “Turnout increased by 4,156 votes in the handful of counties where black voters represent more than 65 percent of eligible voters.” It seems reasonable that he could have picked up another 2-3 thousand African American votes in all of the other counties.
Cochran will no doubt crow all the way to November about how Black voters appreciate his constituent service and reasonable policies. But clearly, many African American voters who cast ballots for Sen. Cochran felt strongly that McDaniel would be an even more reactionary opponent of their voting rights and reforms that produce jobs and educational opportunity.
It’s an ambivalent outcome for Democrats. On the one hand, as Cohn notes, “Mr. Cochran’s victory eliminates whatever slight chance Democrats would have had if Mr. McDaniel had been the Republican nominee. Mr. Cochran is all but assured of winning re-election in Mississippi, one of the most Republican states in the country.”
On the other hand, a show of political strength by African American voters as a pivotal force in Mississippi is good news. It might embolden a stronger Black turnout in the future, if not in 2014. If it signals a new era of African American political upsurge in the south, it could set the stage for a blue wave in 2016.

There’s still a lot of head-scratching going on (mine included) about David Brat’s upset win over Majority Leader Eric Cantor. For now, let’s let Mark Blumenthal and Ariel Edwards-Levy weigh in, from their HuffPollster post, “Cantor’s Pollster Releases post-Election Survey“:

… The new data put to rest the argument that Cantor was undone by an “Operation Chaos” scenario involving Democrats hoping to nominate a weaker GOP candidate. As pollster Mark Mellman (D) pointed out on Twitter, if all of the self-identified Democrats in McLaughlin’s new survey had not voted, Cantor would still have lost among the remaining Republicans and independents. McLaughlin’s analysis concedes that Cantor’s undoing was an “organic turnout” of both independents and Democrats who do not typically vote in Republican primaries.
The independents who made it into the McLaughlin post-election survey demonstrate a strong conservative bent: 75 percent disapprove of President Obama, 74 percent oppose the ACA, 58 percent say they agree with or consider themselves part of the Tea Party and 61 percent plan to vote for Brat in the general election, versus just 17 percent who plan to vote for Democratic nominee Jack Trammel. “I think it was an organic, anti-Washington, anti-establishment turnout, and because it was a Republican incumbent, it was easier for the Democrats and the independents who normally vote Democrat to come in and vote and vent their anger at Washington via Eric,” McLaughlin said.

No doubt Cantor was the near-perfect lightening rod for generalized anti-incumbency, but Ed Kilgore’s take that it could well be unique to him also fits with this data. Meanwhile, Here’s the cross tabs on John McLaughlin’s post-election survey.

“Voter registration is the antidote to voter suppression,” writes Ben Jealous, former president/CEO of the NAACP, at msnbc.com. “…The average margin of victory in Georgia over the last three elections was minimal: just over 260,000 votes. So what would it take to give voters of color in Georgia a voice?…a massive wave of voter registration could shake up the political dynamic. If organizers were to register 60% of unregistered black voters in the state – and those voters then turned out at previous levels – it would create a corps of 290,000 new black voters. That is 30,000 more than the average margin of victory for a governor in the state. Moreover, a voter drive that registered 60% of unregistered black, Hispanic and Asian voters would create 369,000 new voters of color, or 109,000 more than the margin of victory…most of the 13 “Black Belt” states would be similary disrupted by a massive wave of voter registration. In South Carolina, registering 40% of unregistered voters of color would be enough to upset the balance of power. In North Carolina, registering 10% would do the trick.”
The Nation’s John Nichols makes a persuasive case in his post, “Why Scott Walker Will Never Be President.” As a result of Walker’s alleged efforts to circumvent campaign finance laws, “Walker’s presidential prospects look less realistic even than those of his mentor, scandal-plagued New Jersey Governor Chris Christie…Walker has a paper trail that is unlikely to read well on the 2016 campaign trail…Walker might have trouble getting past the 2014 election.”
Albert R. Hunt has an encouraging word for Dems in his New York Times article, “Democrats’ Strategy to Keep the Senate“: Hunt is much-impressed with the creative leadership demonstrated by Democratic Senate Campaign Committee Chairman Sen. Michael Bennett, “Along with his savvy campaign executive director, Guy Cecil, he is recalibrating traditional strategy to stave off this challenge. The focus is less on big television advertising and more on old-fashioned voter mobilization with cutting-edge new technologies…The central components of success are raising enough money and then recruiting a sizable volunteer force — volunteers are more effective than paid canvassers — to work their own neighborhoods and precincts to register voters and get them to vote…They have databases to identify prospects with all of their demographic essentials and possess the techniques to contact and influence them…Thus, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and affiliates plan to spend about $60 million on these mobilization efforts, or about one-third of the budget, almost 10 times what the D.S.C.C. spent in 2010.” As Bennet puts it, “It’s precinct politics with 21st-century technology.”
At The National Journal Andrea Drusch asks “Can North Carolina’s Latinos Help Democrats Hold the Senate?” and notes that, while Latinos were only 2 percent of the NC electorate in 2012, Republican Thom Tillis is so bad on issues of concern to Hispanics, that they could provide Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan’s margin of victory.
Slate’s Reihan Salam has your nightmare of the day: “Teatopia: What would actually happen if Tea Partiers controlled Congress and Rand Paul was president?” It’s a once-over-very-lightly exercise, giving tea party racism a free ride and avoiding any discussion of the likely environmental disaster that would ensue if industry had its Libertarian way with environmental regulations. Ditto for health and safety and consumer protections. Still, anything that gets people talking and thinking in more depth about the disturbing real-world consequences of the tea party/Libertarian “free market” vision is probably a good thing.
At The New Republic Ruy Teixeira and Gary Segura have a takedown of “The Myth of the “White” Latino: Sloppy analysis of Census data is giving the Republican Party false hope.” In addition to the complex and sloppy census methodologies, the authors note, “Whatever the reason some Latinos call themselves white, it’s been far less relevant to their social status than how the white majority sees them…It also matters little in determining elections. Over the last 25 years, there has been a rapid growth of pan-ethnic identity among Latinos, more closely linking populations differentiated by national origin and generation into a more coherent and organized whole. This identity has resulted in growing political mobilization and unity. While the increase in Latino political participation has been frustratingly slow, their growing power has proven pivotal in places like California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Florida. Latinos–even those calling themselves white–vote overwhelmingly and increasingly Democratic. How they responded to a single Census question doesn’t change that.”
It’s High Noon for Medicaid expansion in VA, and Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe is ready to take executive action in the absence of any spirit of compromise from the GOP-controlled legislature.
Facing South’s Sue Sturgis takes a by-the-numbers look at “Unions as a remedy for growing income inequality.” Among her stats: “Of the 100 U.S. counties with the greatest income inequality, number in the South: 77; Rank of the South among the nation’s least-unionized regions: 1; Of the five states where union membership is growing the fastest, percent in the South: 100; Percent by which union membership grew last year in Tennessee: 25; In Georgia and Alabama: 22.2; In South Carolina: 19; In Virginia: 13.2.”
Guess which state has America’s healthiest kids. Hint: Nearly 99 percent of children in the state have health insurance.