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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Political Strategy Notes

At The Minneapolis Star Tribune, Allison Sherry’s article, “Rep. Keith Ellison hones new voter-turnout strategy for Democrats: Democrats around the country have high hopes the new effort will lead to more victories in nonpresidential elections” explores an interesting idea. Sherry quotes Ellison: “As a fifth-term Minneapolis Democrat who routinely wins his elections by more than 65 percent, Ellison is increasingly convinced that the future of Democratic victories is hiding in apartment buildings and low-income urban areas across the country. Trust me, there’s 3 percent in every congressional district in the United States,” Ellison said. “If we had a good turnout strategy across the country, you could really turn things around.” To do this, Ellison has workers fanning out to apartment buildings and low-income communities to reach potential constituencies in more personal ways. His idea is that through more one-on-one contact, Democrats can drive more people to the polls and cement lifetime allegiances to the party.”
Maxwell Tani of Business Insider explains “Here’s how badly Democrats have to screw up to lose the election.” Tani quotes Whit Ayers on the challenge Republicans face: “Un­less you count on the Re­pub­lic­an getting Ron­ald Re­agan-like num­bers among whites, you’re go­ing to have to be some­where in the mid-forties with Hispanics.” Tani also quotes Ruy Teixeira, who notes that Dems will win of they hold an “11-point deficit among white college graduates, a 22-point deficit among white working-class voters, and a 64-point advantage among minority voters”
Matt Viser reports at Boston Globe Politics that “Number of GOP polls jumps 90 percent in four years.” Viser notes, “The number of polls of Republican voters in the first three primary and caucus states — Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina — has skyrocketed nearly 90 percent compared with the 2012 GOP primary, according to a Globe review of polls tracked by the news website Real Clear Politics…The trend toward saturation polling shows little sign of abating, with online polls now cheaper than ever and polling firms and universities competing to satisfy an insatiable media appetite for the latest upticks and downturns, the trends in the minute-by-minute drama of the contest.”
The question is “Would an independent Jim Webb candidacy pull more votes from the Dem nominee or the GOP opponent? Or does it even matter, since Webb has a history of getting very little national traction? It does indicate that Webb was not much of a committed Democrat to begin with and he appears more interested in pursuing his personal ambitions than leading the Democratic party to achieve meaningful reforms.
Albert R. Hunt explains why “Democrats See Chance to Reclaim Senate Majority” at Bloomberg View. Says Hunt: “This time, half of the seats are in states carried by President Barack Obama, and some of the most competitive are in solidly blue states.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders has developed an assertive pitch to win working-class voters away from Trump, including reminding them that Trump says the minimum wage is too high. Both Gallup and Pew Research polls show support for a significant minimum wage hike is over 70 percent.
“Trump is pushing the racial and cultural resentment button a lot harder than he’s pushing the economic button,” argues Heather Digby Parton at Salon.com (and Alternet). “In fact, he’s pushing the resentment button so hard that it’s activated some very serious racists who truly had been pushed to the fringes of the right wing fever swamps…This is not to say that all Trump supporters are white supremacists.” But it does appear that he is courting the racist vote.
A new Democracy Corps poll of LVs found that “72 percent favor a law to provide candidates with “limited public matching funds for small contributions they raise from constituents,” with 39 percent favoring it strongly. Only 21 percent oppose it, and of those, only 7 percent oppose it strongly…Support was strong across the political spectrum, with 76 percent of Democrats, 74 percent of independents, and 66 percent of Republicans favoring such a law.,” reports Jon Schwarz at The Intercept.
Krugman updates The Chart:
Obama Bush Chart.png

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