The 2016 presidential campaign has generated a lot of media coverage speculating on the role of social class in the upcoming presidential election. Philip Bump’s article, “Donald Trump’s strategy centers on working-class whites, but even they don’t like him” at The Fix provides an informative update on the speculation, as both parties prepare for their nominating conventions. As Bump notes,

Donald Trump’s reasonable argument* for how he’ll win in November centers on white, blue-collar voters — the sort of voters he thinks can propel him to victories in the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. (Sometimes, Wisconsin gets looped into that list, but that looks unlikely at the moment.)
Winning white, blue-collar voters doesn’t necessitate that those voters like him, of course, but it would help. And while that group (loosely defined as whites without a college degree) likes Trump better than anyone race/education split, more than half still view him unfavorably.

Bump goes on to note that a majority of white men without college degrees view Trump favorably. It’s white working-class women women who tilt his unfavorables upward with the working-class demographic.
All of this is rendered somewhat problematic by defining adults without college degrees as working-class, excluding many who have college degrees — or “some college” in some definitions — who are working at jobs that are essentially working-class. Quite a few recent college graduates, for example, are waiting on tables, walking dogs, driving cabs and doing other jobs most would consider essentially blue collar work.
There are also skilled — and even unskillled — manual workers with no college degree who are making more money and living more upscale lives than adjunct professors, for example. I know a former adjunct professor at a community college who quit her job because she could easily make more money stitching together dog-walking and baby-sitting gigs.
As always, the reality is more complicated than the simplistic definition, which is more intended for ‘ballpark’ socio-economc and political analysis. That should be kept in mind when pondering generalizations about political attitudes. The point is to get a rough idea about how social class is affecting American politics. In Trump’s unique case, gender clearly provides the pivot point that qualifies even simplistic generalizations about ‘the white working-class’ vote.
Further, let’s not assume that Trump voters can all be correctly pidgeon-holed into any one social class. As Dave Anderson notes in a Boulder Weekly op-ed,

Nate Silver, in a May 3 posting on his FiveThirtyEight website, says Trump voters are economically better off than most Americans: “The median household income of a Trump voter so far in the primaries is about $72,000, based on estimates derived from exit polls and Census Bureau data. That’s lower than the $91,000 median for Kasich voters. But it’s well above the national median household income of about $56,000. It’s also higher than the median income for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters, which is around $61,000 for both.”

Bump also points out that working-class disapproval of Hillary Clinton remains high. Clinton’s campaign strategy of keeping a relatively low media profile up till now, while Trump self-destructed, has begun changing in a big way. As the Democratic nominee, she will be increasingly visible leading up to November, and voters will get a much better look at her impressive qualifications in stark comparison to Trump.
By November, Trump’s shrinking constituency could be reduced to a hard core of mostly white male ideologues of all social classes. In that event, a wave election favoring Democrats will become a reality.

While the two national political conventions are still more than a month away, the two presidential candidates’ general election strategies are coming into focus. I discussed the contrast this week at New York.

Politico didn’t have to mince words when it came to describing the strategies Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will pursue in the key general-election battleground states:

Republicans will rely on the sheer force of Donald Trump’s personality to tap into deep-seated voter anger. Democrats are counting on a superior field organization to serve as Hillary Clinton’s firewall.

The Republicans quoted in the story appear to have decided to make a virtue of Trump’s famous disdain for data analytics, micro-targeting, and all that other fancy-dan stuff. He doesn’t need it.

“His job is to be Mr. Trump,” said Rob Gleason, the chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party. “His appeal is very different than a normal politician. Usually, when we have rallies for people, we prepare weeks in advance. All he has to do is announce three days ahead of time he’s going to be somewhere and a huge crowd shows up. It always energizes people.”

Indeed, Trump’s casual approach to figuring out what to do where is encouraging to GOP leaders in places presidential candidates usually skip:

Deployed the right way, Trump’s force-of-nature persona could help flip some long-blue states toward the GOP, others said.
“I think if he invests in Michigan and shows up in our state, he will do very well,” said Ronna Romney McDaniel, chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party (and niece of 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney). “We haven’t had a candidate actually run a robust campaign in Michigan where they’re showing up post-convention.”

You may recall that Sarah Palin pitched a fit in 2008 because the McCain campaign would not waste time and money contesting Michigan. Her buddy Trump may be easier to persuade. After all, he’s “very different from a normal politician.”
By contrast, Hillary Clinton is going to deploy all the state-of-the-art political resources she can. Her events may not have the demonic energy of Trump’s White Resentment Festivals, but she’s not counting on outgunning the mogul in some imaginary enthusiasm competition.

Democrats should not hesitate to emphasize the fact that nearly all Republican U.S. Senators voted against a measure to let the attorney general deny firearms to suspected terrorists. It would be wrong for Democrats not to leverage public outrage to secure life-saving reforms.
Reena Flores reports at cbsnews.com that “In the wake of the nation’s deadliest mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, a new CBS News poll has found that a majority of Americans now support a nationwide ban on assault weapons…The survey, conducted in the days following the massacre at a popular Orlando gay night club, shows 57 percent of Americans now favor such a ban. That’s up from 44 percent in December, when the question was last asked in CBS News polling. Now, 38 percent of respondents oppose the legislation, compared to the 50 percent who opposed it in December.”
At gallup.com Jim Norman has stats showing that ‘terrorism’ is an issue that historicaly has a short shelf life. However, calling the Orlando massacre “the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. since 9/11,” Norman concludes “It happened in the middle of a bitter presidential contest already marked by harsh exchanges between the candidates on the issues of terrorism and gun control. The combination of these factors almost guarantees that terrorism and gun control will be major, persistent themes in the candidates’ campaigns over the next five months.”
A new addition to the GOP’s “somebody but Trump” list: “Republican Maryland Gov. Hogan says he won’t vote for Trump” by Jeremy Diamond at CNN Ppolitics.
Re Sean Illing’s “Letting Trump and the GOP self-destruct: Hillary and Democrats have the right strategy by laying low: Harry Reid is encouraging Dems to sit back and watch Trump discredit himself — and he’s exactly right” at salon.com, that’s a good strategy — to a point. But there will also be times when Clinton and/or surrogates should weigh in with sharply-stated comments and soundbites to clarify issues and maximize coverage.
At The Plum Line Greg Sargent puts the torch to an oft-repeated false equivalency meme: “In reality, for now, at least, there’s no real equivalence between the negative views of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. While Clinton certainly has problems in this regard, Trump fares far, far worse…The new Washington Post/ABC News poll illustrates this neatly. It finds that Donald Trump’s unfavorable numbers have climbed to a new high: 70 percent of Americans have an unfavorable impression of Trump, versus only 29 percent (fewer than one-third!) who have a favorable impression. Clinton’s negatives, too, have hit a new high of 55 percent.”
In his NYT op-ed “Sanders, the Windows 95 of Progressive Politics?,” Mark Schmitt, director of the political reform program at New America, criticizes the economic proposals of Sen Bernie Sanders, but acknowledges “Mr. Sanders’s achievement has been to show the leadership of his recently adopted party that Democrats and many independents under 35 — that is, those who weren’t adults during Bill Clinton’s administration — are eager for a full-throated progressive agenda and are unafraid of backlash. While Democrats in the 1990s — notably Bill and Hillary Clinton — worried about the party’s mistakes of the 1970s, many in this decade worry more about triangulation and the cautious politics of the 1990s.”
At The Wall St. Journal Laura Meckler and Colleen McCain Nelson report that “Bernie Sanders Not Being Vetted as Hillary Clinton’s Running Mate: Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is among a group of Democratic officials being considered.” The authors add, “Beyond the Massachusetts senator, other prospective candidates include Labor Secretary Tom Perez; Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro; Sens. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Cory Booker of New Jersey; Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, and Reps. Xavier Becerra of California and Tim Ryan of Ohio, several Democrats said.”
David Cay Johnston presents “New Evidence Donald Trump Didn’t Pay Taxes” at The Daily Beast.

The following article by Democratic strategist Robert Creamer, author of Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, is cross-posted from HuffPo:
We will not know all of the facts surrounding the unfathomable tragedy in Orlando for some time – perhaps, many days.
But one thing is certain: intolerance and hatred inevitably lead to violence and death.
That is why our primary response to the horrific massacre at the Pulse nightclub must be to rededicate ourselves to creating a culturally diverse society that is based on tolerance and respect for other religions, sexual orientations, races and life styles.
In America the one thing we must never tolerate is intolerance itself.
All of us must extend our sympathy and support to those who are directly affected – and, frankly to the entire LGBT community that was, in fact, the intended victim of this horrible attack. This was an attack on an LGBT club during Pride Month.
The shooter, Omar Mateen, sent messages indicating that it was his allegiance to ISIS that lead him to murder fifty of his fellow human beings. Whether he was motivated by ideological commitment or his own hatred of gays and lesbians, or both — that motivation can never trump the fundamental sense of human empathy that provides the foundational principle of a civilized society.
Whatever his motivations, the shooter himself obviously bears complete responsibility for actions that ended the hopes and aspirations of so many brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, boy friends and girl friends, sons and daughters.
But while the shooter is directly responsible, political decisions – and America’s political culture – are also culpable. And we dare not allow the forces of intolerance to exploit the Orlando mass shooting and throw gasoline on the fire of intolerance itself.
In recent years, instances of mass violence that were born of intolerance, have increased:
• The shooting of African American worshipers at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston;
• The murders at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs;
• The mass shootings by Islamic extremists in San Bernardino, Paris and Brussels;
• The Boston marathon bombing.
They all have one thing in common. All of them resulted from actions by those inspired by hate filled rhetoric and intolerance.
Islamic extremism is a major driving force. But let’s remember, that the data shows that in the United States itself you were more than 7 times as likely to be killed by a right wing extremist than a Muslim terrorist in the 13.5 years following 9/11.
The New York Times reported that a study by UNC Professor Charles Kurzman and Duke Professor David Schanzer, showed that Islam-inspired terror attacks “accounted for 50 fatalities over the past 13 and a half years.” Meanwhile, “right-wing extremists averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11, causing a total of 254 fatalities.”
In point of fact, there is no fundamental difference between the murders by Islamic extremists, or white racists, or anti-abortion extremists. They are all acts rooted in intolerance and bigotry and we must create a society that refuses to tolerate those acts – or the intolerance and bigotry that lead to them.
For much of the last year, many on nativist right – particularly Donald Trump – have spewed out hate-filled, intolerant rhetoric like a geyser. Trump has made it seem increasingly “normal” in American political discourse.
Quite apart from wrong-headed policy proposals, the hateful, intolerant political environment that this rhetoric spawns, creates the conditions that make hate motivated political violence more – not less likely. It is reckless and dangerous.
In particular, Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric legitimates the narrative that groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda use to recruit impressionable young people.
Then of course there is the issue of assault weapons – and the fact that it is simply too easy for people who are planning violent acts to get their hands on guns in the United States.
The purpose of an AR-15 – or any similar rapid fire assault weapon like the one used by the shooter in Orlando – is to allow the shooter to enter a “target rich” environment and kill dozens of people in seconds. Storm a nightclub where 300 people are enjoying the evening, and you can easily use an AR-15 to kill 50 people and wound 53 others.
Assault weapons are designed for military use – to kill as many people as possible in the shortest time possible. There is simply no justification for their sale to the general public.
During the administration of Bill Clinton, assault weapons were banned by Congress. That ban expired and the GOP Congress has refused to renew it. The GOP Congress even refuses to stop individuals on the terrorist watch list from obtaining these weapons and other firearms- although they may be banned from flying on commercial aircraft. That is simply inexcusable.
Assault weapons should be banned in the United States for all but military and police use. You can’t use them to shoot deer. You can only use them to kill other human beings.
And it is obviously time to enact universal background checks for the purchase of all guns – a position supported by 80% plus of the voters.
Gun violence has to stop. Congress must act now.
And most important, the Orlando massacre should serve as the event that forces America to launch a new war – a war on intolerance, hatred and bigotry.

Recent reports of scant contributions to the Trump campaign mask a serious problem for Democrats who hope for a landslide victory that will return balance to the U.S. Senate, House and state legislatures: Republican fat cats are shifting their political contributions to down-ballot candidates.
As a consequence, Democrats should prepare for record-level funding of Republican congressional and state legislative candidates. Ned Resnikoff reports at International Business Times:

Conservative billionaires may be withholding their support from Donald Trump, but don’t expect them to sit out the 2016 election entirely. Instead, some of the key donors on the right have signaled their intention to focus on down-ticket races. That means an unprecedented flood of outside money could be coming soon to a congressional district near you.
Leading the charge are Charles and David Koch, the libertarian philanthropists responsible for crafting the right wing’s most expansive donor network. While the Trump campaign has attempted to broker an alliance with the Koch Brothers, Charles Koch said on Thursday that he would be staying out of the presidential election. For most of the past year, the Kochs have been almost completely absent from the Republican nomination process, even as Koch-backed organizations have poured resources into a handful of congressional races.
Millions of dollars in outside spending already have flooded into this year’s Senate race in Ohio between incumbent Republican Rob Portman and former Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat. Americans for Prosperity, one of the Koch Brothers’ flagship organizations, has so far spent more than $1.7 million in support of Portman, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Another Koch-backed group, Freedom Partners Action Fund, has spent more than $3.7 million.
That sort of money can be a lot more effective in a down-ballot race than in a presidential election, Sunlight Foundation spokesperson Josh Stewart told International Business Times…”Fewer dollars can go a longer way,” Stewart said. “It takes relatively little investment to have a significant impact, especially in House races.”
…That might help explain why Freedom Partners and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce each has dedicated nearly $3 million to re-electing Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Penn. Both groups are also spending to help Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., fend off a challenge from former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold.

Trump has a major door commitment from Sheldon Adelson, who has pledged to spend about $100 million to help Trumps’s campaign. But other conservative mega-donors, in addition to Charles and David Koch, such as North Carolina’s GOP sugar-daddy Art Pope, have said they will not be investing in Trump and will be channeling their political contributions down-ballot.
Democratic strategists are aware of the problem. As Tai Kopan explains at CNN Politics in her post, “GOP donors look past Donald Trump and down ticket“:

Democrats are aware of the potential influx of cash into states and prepping for it…”We totally recognize and take seriously that the dumpster fire that’s shaping up at the top of the ballot could definitely direct some more resources toward these Senate races with an eye toward keeping the majority, and I think our recognition of that has actually been borne to bear with how well have done on fundraising,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee press secretary Lauren Passalacqua in an interview.

The DSCC has also reserved $50 million for the “Party of Trump” campaign linking the GOP nominee to senate candidates who are supporting him.
The other factor that ought to worry Democrats is that the shortfall in funding for Trump may not present as much of a problem for him as expected, since he is extremely effective in securing free media coverage, even though most of it is bad. If his new management team cleans up his act, he may be able to leverage his media skills in a new, more productive way.
It is sometimes persuasively argued that money isn’t always a pivotal force in politics, and indeed there are plenty of examples of candidates who were grossly out-spent who won their elections. But the converse is also true.
The possible down-ballot shortfall in funding for Democratic candidates presents a unique and historic opportunity for Sen. Bernie Sanders, as he searches for a meaningful role for the coalition that empowered his candidacy. As Brent Budowsky, a former aide to Democratic Senator and Vice Presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen has suggested,

Sanders should…reconstitute his campaign as a people’s PAC to raise substantial money from small donors that would be used to support liberal candidates running for the House and Senate against Republicans…With this people’s PAC project…Sanders would keep a political staff to run the program outside his Senate office, raise somewhere between $100 million and $300 million from his small donors, travel across the country to rallies in support of liberal candidates, and do national talk shows on a regular basis to support the cause.

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of the difference between a Democratic presidency that has a working congressional majority and one that does not. It is really the difference between a hopeful progressive future and one of continued legislative obstruction and social and economic sagnation. If Democrats fail to win back working congressional majorities in this year of nearly unprecedented Democratic opportunity, it will be a tragic waste of political power.
Sen. Sanders has the chance to play a pivotal role in making sure the next president will have a congress that is ready to invest in infrastructure and secure a range of Democratic reforms. If he rises to this challenge, he just might do more to create a truly progressive future for America than any of the other presidential candidates of 2016.

Sad but true, regarding the horrific mass murder in Orlando: “GOP Congressmen Offer “Thoughts and Prayers.” Here’s How Much the NRA Gave Them to Offer Nothing More” by Forrest Wickman at slate.com.
Julian Zelizer probes “What Orlando terror attack means for Clinton, Trump and 2016” at CNN Opinion and observes, “the turmoil and fear the attacks raises will spur more questions and concerns from some voters about whether Trump can be trusted with the awesome responsibility of handling a terror attack; whether he has the knowledge, the temperament, the wisdom and the demeanor to guide the nation through these kinds of events.”
Trump doubles down on call for a temporary ban on Muslim migration to the U.S., tries to portray Clinton as advocate for for increasing the number of Muslims admitted to the U.S.
Washington Post syndicated columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. explains why “The strategic playing field is tilting toward Clinton“: “Hillary Clinton faces a strategic choice…she needs a decent share of the blue-collar vote to hold key Midwestern states — and she will have to rally what have been core Democratic constituencies: younger voters, who eluded her during the primaries, African Americans and Latinos. But the direction of her campaign and her selection of a running mate will depend in significant part on the class tilt of her strategy…Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg says Republican candidates for the House and Senate would risk large defections from their base if they are seen as sabotaging Trump…Greenberg argues that Clinton knows she has to offer a strong economic message with a populist feel to win over the millennial voters who flocked to Sanders. Appeals aimed their way will simultaneously help earn Sanders’s blessing and pick up the white working-class votes she’ll need.”
“Trump can’t even take the Romney map for granted,” said Pennsylvania GOP strategist Ray Zaborney, quoted in “Road to 270: Electoral map already looks tough for Trump” by AP’s Thomas Beaumont and Julie Pace.
At The Fix, Philip Bump reports that “Donald Trump’s polling surge has faltered — and Democrats haven’t even united.”
Lots of hype in headlines about Sen. Sanders not yet conceding or endorsing Clinton, even in some of the better newspapers. But when you read the stories below the headlines, what makes more sense is that Sanders is just waiting for the optimum moment to endorse Clinton, when his supporters will be ready for it and when it can do the most good.
At the Crystal Ball Kyle Kondik offers a salient back-of-the-envelope calculation about what constitutes a wave election which can propel Dems to a House majority: “Remember: Democrats narrowly won the national House vote in 2012 but only won 201 seats. In 2006 and 2008 — years where Democrats won House majorities — they led the generic ballot polling by about 10 points right before the election…That’s probably where the generic ballot polls will have to be in the fall to suggest that Democrats have a real shot at flipping the House.”
Should that happen, one of the more obnoxious wingnuts and Trump endorsers may be one of the celebrated political casualties of the blue wave, according to Eric Garcia’s Roll Call post, “Darrell Issa Gets Viable Challenger: Retired Marine colonel’s strong showing in jungle primary surprises experts.”

Today at New York I wrote about one notable challenge in restoring Democratic Party unity after the presidential nominating contest winds down:

The heartburn among Democrats about “Bernie or bust” voters who may resist pleas to turn out in November for Hillary Clinton is largely about young people. They’ve preferred Sanders to Clinton during the nomination contest by vast margins, even within racial or ethnic groups that otherwise favored Hillary. They are disproportionately self-identified independents, which means putting on the party yoke sounds like bondage rather than solidarity. And they are the classic marginal voters, thanks to high levels of personal mobility and low levels of political engagement.
Clinton, moreover, is a two-time loser among young voters, having been beaten by Barack Obama among under-30 voters by nearly as large a margin in 2008. Solid as she seems to be with the other big element of the Obama coalition, minority voters, millennials are simply not a natural constituency for her.
But will that matter crucially in November? The New Republic‘s Brian Beutler argues that it won’t, in part because the Kidz weren’t as big a deal for Obama (especially in 2012, when he won despite a significant drop in turnout from under-30s) as some have imagined. And then there’s the Trump factor: A Republican candidate far more distasteful to young voters than Clinton should help her in that demographic with or even without a great deal of effort from Democrats.
Without question, Beutler is right that Obama weathered a drop-off in both under-30 voter participation (from 17 percent of the electorate to 15 percent) and support levels (from 66 percent to 60 percent) between 2008 and 2012. That limits the damage another drop-off could inflict on the Democratic nominee this time around.
As for the impact among millennial voters of Republicans choosing Trump as their nominee, the best evidence we have is from a large-sample survey by Harvard’s Institute of Politics in April and May (i.e., the height of the Sanders phenomenon) that shows Clinton trouncing Trump among under-30 likely voters by a 61-25 margin, pretty comparable to Obama’s performance in 2008. This number is impressive in part because it exists despite meh assessments of Clinton herself: Her favorability ratio among under-30s is pretty far underwater at 37-53 (compared to Bernie Sanders at 54-31). But Trump is at the bottom of the sea with a ratio of 17-74. Clinton goes into the general-election campaign with a sizable advantage among young people even before Bernie Sanders and other validating figures lift a finger to help her.
In general, for all the talk about Trump’s dangerous appeal to white working-class voters, Clinton is very lucky to have drawn an opponent who probably caps at a very low level any potential defections from the Obama coalition of African-American, Latino, and under-30 voters.