Dan Balz’s “A consumer’s guide to the final weeks of Campaign 2014” at The Washington Post provides a sort of drive-by tour of where things stand in the battle for control of the U.S. Senate. He cites polls and forecasts indicating a Republican edge, but neglects to address Sam Wang’s prediction that Dems will hold the Senate, despite Wang’s impressive track record.
Michael P. McDonald reports “robust” early voting in states with competitive races thus far — and it’s just gutting started.
“…One of the most fascinating numbers from Elect Project’s excellent round-up of early voting is this: 34.5 percent of Georgians who requested a mail ballot this year did not vote in 2010,” reports Jef Singer in a Daily Kos e-blast..
In “Cassidy’s Count,” at The New Yorker John Cassidy has one-paragraph updates on 10 key senate races.
At MSNBC.com Benjy Sarlin concludes, ” It doesn’t look like a Republican wave in which a national tide boosts candidates around the country – some races have moved in the GOP’s direction in recent weeks, others the opposite way. On the other hand, almost all the top tier races are currently either tossups or not much better for either side.”
For more on an issue Dems might be able to leverage, read “Ebola Vaccine Would Likely Have Been Found By Now If Not For Budget Cuts: NIH Director” by Sam Stein at HuffPo.
And a new poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for RespectAbility indicates that LVs and swing voters in battleground states strongly favor more federal and state support for employment of Americans with disabilities. “Said Stan Greenberg, PhD, “Issues of employment among people with disabilities can affect outcomes in competitive races for Senate and Governor. This community is far bigger than many people realize, including people in my profession.”
At The New Republic, Rebecca Leber, Naomi Shavin, and Elaine Teng have a warning: “What the Next Two Awful Years Will Look Like: The five things to fear about a Republican Congress.” Their concerns include: The Gutting of Dodd-Frank; A Keystone Showdown–And Possible Shutdown; The Continuance of NSA Snooping; Strategic Slashes to Obamacare; and Confirmation Chaos.
And if that doesn’t wake up your friends who are considering whether or not to vote:

Wisconsin voter i.d. law bites the dust in 6-3 Supreme Court decision. No surprise that dissenters are the most partisan ideologues, Scalia, Thomas and Alito.
How ActBlue has raised $619 million over the last ten years.
NYT’s Jeremy W. Peters discusses whether the GOP’s Downerama strategy can work. Obama should have some fun with it.
At The Upshot Nate Cohn reports on new RAND study showing Dems have a retention problem.
A Charleston Gazette editorial nonetheless meditates on “America’s ‘blue’ future?”
More evidence that Dems have not done a good job of explaining why the midterm elections are important. Only 15 percent are “closely following news about the midterms” — down from 25 percent in 2010.
But here is great news from the sunshine state.
At Campaign for America’s Future, Bill Scher makes the case that Georgia’s Republican senate candidate David “the Outsourcer” Perdue may deserve “The Worst Gaffe of 2014” honors for his remarkable “Defend it? I’m proud of it” double down on the merits of exporting jobs from Georgia, which has the highest unemployment rate of all 50 states.
Well, yeah. That’s why they do it.

Despite all of the buzz about Democratic success in fund-raising outpacing Republicans, Elaine Kamarck reports at Brookings that conservative organization independent expenditures on Congressional primaries and the general election in 2014 is more than double that of liberal organizations.
According to a new NYTimes/CBS News/YouGov poll of more than 100K respondents conducted 9/20-10/1 reported by Nate Cohn at The Upshot, Democrats are 4 points ahead in 46 U.S. Senate races, but have only “a nominal edge” in NC, CO and IA. “If the Democrats sweep all three — an outcome by no means assured with such tenuous leads — Senate control could be decided by Kansas, where the Republican senator Pat Roberts is tied with the independent candidate Greg Orman. If Mr. Orman won and caucused with the Democrats, then they would hold the Senate.” If Dems can’t win KS or AK, explains Cohn, they will have to win one of four southern states, KY, AR, LA or GA, where “Republican David Perdue saw his lead fall to four percentage points against Michelle Nunn….Whether the Democratic turnout machine can turn its advantage in voter contacts into additional votes on Election Day might well determine Senate control.”
In GA, reports Bloomberg View’s Albert R. Hunt, “This race is surprisingly close because of the state’s changing demographics. As recently as 2004, whites, who vote overwhelmingly Republican, accounted for 71 percent of the electorate. In 2012, they made up a little more than 61 percent. The black vote, almost all Democratic, grew to 30 percent from less than 25 percent, and the small Hispanic vote is increasing. The Atlas Project, a Democratic organization that studies voting patterns, projects that this trend will continue.” Hunt calculates that Nunn needs 30 percent of the white vote, and for African Americans to be 30 percent of the electorate in GA.
Nunn’s opponent David Perdue is in some pretty scalding hot water, explain John Bresnahan and Manu Raju at Politico: “David Perdue has run aggressively as a “job creator,” touting his record as a top executive with Fortune 500 companies as the chief selling point in his Georgia Senate campaign…Yet during a…nine-month stint in 2002-03 as CEO of failed North Carolina textile manufacturer Pillowtex Corp…– Perdue said he was hired, at least in part, to cut costs by outsourcing manufacturing operations overseas. Perdue specialized throughout his career in finding low-cost manufacturing facilities and labor, usually in Asia…During a July 2005 deposition, a transcript of which was provided to POLITICO, Perdue spoke at length about his role in Pillowtex’s collapse, which led to the loss of more than 7,600 jobs. Perdue was asked about his “experience with outsourcing”…”Yeah, I spent most of my career doing that,” Perdue said, according to the 186-page transcript of his sworn testimony.”
Nunn’s ad on the revelations:

A new NBC/Marist poll of LVs has “Kansas GOP Sen. Pat Roberts down double digits, North Carolina Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan with a 4-point lead and a neck-and-neck race in Iowa,” reports James Hohmann at Politico. Hagan “has now led in the past 10 public polls.”
Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. explains “Why Democrats aren’t getting credit for the economy.” Dionne cites as key factors the “different worries” that come with better times and wage stagnation.
In addition to low wages, long-term unemployment and involuntary part-time employment are still too high, add Yulan Q. Mui and Katie Zezima, also at The Post.
2014 as best year for private sector job growth since 1999 is not a bad meme, however. Or if you want to up the ante, how about “Best Year for Job Creation This Century”

At the Princeton Election Consortium, Sam Wang cautions that, while “Republicans are finally in the lead in election polls…as a profession, pollsters have a small tendency to underestimate Democratic performance, by an average of 1.5%.” Further, he believes that “Kentucky is basically lost to Democrats,” and it would be better to invest resources in winning Senate races in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, and Louisiana and “maybe Georgia and North Carolina.” All in all, however, “Considering the margins of error in polling, things could still go either way.”
John Dickerson argues at CBS News that Democratic candidates are better off not talking much about “Obama’s unpopular foreign policy” and they appear to have embraced a strategy of changing the subject to domestic policy when it comes up. Dickerson notes that polls indicate that voters trust Republicans more on national security concerns. This last meme is somewhat problematic, since most Republican leaders not named Rand Paul seem to favor a more interventionist stance, and the polls rarely probe the popularity of such views in depth. Obama’s “bombs yes, boots no” approach may have a better public opinion shelf life, compared to the alternatives.
WaPo’s Ed O’Keefe discusses those annoying email pitches for Democratic donations you are receiving in droves — and why they seem to be working. The word “begging” appeared in five subject lines in my e-box yesterday.
Alex Altman of Time Politics discusses the increasing importance of ‘gotcha’ oppo research in 2014 campaigns: “…On the left, the dominant player is American Bridge 21st Century, a super PAC founded in 2010 by the liberal activist David Brock. In the 2014 cycle, American Bridge has an $18 million budget, which pays for 44 trackers in 41 states, plus more than 20 researchers in the group’s Washington office. It has caught [Illinois Republican candidate for Governor Bruce] Rauner on video opposing the minimum wage, captured Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter extolling the billionaire Koch brothers, and documented Michigan Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land arguing that women are “more interested in flexibility in a job than pay.”
At Politico Bill Scher updates the dicey “why it might be good for Democrats if they lose the midterms” argument.
Richard L. Hasen’s Slate.com post “The Voting Wars Heat Up” previews the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court battle over repressive voting laws. Hasen spotlights four major cases before the court and ads, “If the Supreme Court gives the green light to all the voting cutbacks, and especially if it does so reading the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act narrowly, then expect to see even more Republican legislatures pass voting cutbacks in time for the 2016 elections…The longer-term prospects for court protection of voting rights appear bleak. We cannot expect the Supreme Court to read voting rights protections broadly, and we cannot expect a polarized Congress to pass any new voting rights protections to make up for the loss of preclearance. Instead, the battle over voting rights will have to be fought state by state, through political action and agitation.”
Crystal Ball’s Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley report that “One popular dataset that analysts keep an eye on is early and absentee voting numbers, particularly in states with competitive races. At this point, seven states have entered their early voting periods, and 33 states and the District of Columbia will have early balloting this cycle, while 27 states and DC have no-excuse absentee voting as an option. And in many states with party registration, we can see the number of requests and total votes cast by each party’s registrants (though not for whom they voted). For example, Nate Cohn of the New York Times recently read the early ballot tea leaves in Iowa, which has a very competitive Senate race on its hands. His general conclusion: Both Democrats and Republicans are much more engaged in a state that hasn’t had a Senate contest decided by less than 10 points since 1996, and absentee requests are up over 2010 for both parties and among independents. In North Carolina, Catawba College Prof. Michael Bitzer says that absentee ballot requests and returns are looking better for Democrats than they did in 2010.”
Women are still lagging badly behind men in their share of elective offices nationwide. But 2014 may be the year that women roar at the polls in a different way. In “Why Women Are Democrats’ Last Best Hope to Salvage the Senate” at The National Journal, Scott Bland notes, “…a National Journal analysis of public polls, and interviews with strategists from both parties, suggests that the gap has ballooned to historic proportions across 2014’s battleground states…”I think the gender gaps are growing compared to past election cycles,” said Matt Canter, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s deputy executive director. “We’ll see how that turns out, but that’s certainly what the public and internal polling shows, in every race across the board.”
All of the buzz about the importance of women voters in this election cycle notwithstanding, GOP ads targeting them are still clueless.

At The Washington Spectator Lou Dubose explains why “Ignoring Obama’s Record Rewards the Party of No“:

Caught between the unmet expectations of the left and the animosity of the extreme right, the president is defined by two narratives that work against a dispassionate appraisal of his record. In particular, a domestic record that will likely play a decisive role in the midterm elections.
Is Obama deserving of disapproval numbers that range between 50 and 55 percent?
Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley has suggested a different criterion by which to evaluate the president.
Brinkley describes Obama as a new type of 21st-century Democratic chief executive: a curatorial president. Obama, he writes, is a “progressive firewall” standing between an energized right-wing Republican Party and the legacy of the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier and the Great Society.

“The Curatorial President” or “The Firewall President,” neither moniker is very inspiring. Yet the terms illuminate an extremely important accomplishment — preventing the GOP’s wholesale rollback of the gains of the New Deal and the Civil Rights Movement. It’s fortunate that we have a President who had the guts to pick up the fallen torch of Sen. Ted Kennedy, as a force against Republican excess. Dubose elaborates:

As long as he is president, Social Security will not be privatized (as proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan); Medicaid will not be turned into a voucher program (per the Ryan budget that the House passed in 2008); the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and National Public Radio will not be defunded (a John Boehner initiative); and the EPA will not be abolished (as proposed by Senators Richard Burr, John McCain, Mike Enzi, John Thune and Roy Blunt).
The role squares with Obama’s character: a deliberative (perhaps excessively deliberative) chief executive deciding where to draw the line on domestic programs he considers essential to the lives of ordinary Americans.

In addition to his “firewall” leadership, let’s give Obama due credit for his pro-active accomplishments, which required some deft politicking, including the Affordable Care Act and saving the all-important auto industry, in stark contrast to the GOP’s laissez faire demolition derby alternative.
Dubose recounts the horrific statistical litany of Bush II’s 2008 meltdown, including the sudden evaporation of $16.4 trillion in personal wealth and 3.8 million private-sector jobs. All of which were soon followed by the Republicans explosion of vitriolic lies and all-out obstruction of even modest reforms that would benefit working Americans.
The Republican response to President Obama’s efforts to get America back into a semblance of economic health was described by Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein as “ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.” Dubose adds “No modern president has been confronted by an opposition party that is as nihilistic in its determination to thwart virtually every initiative proposed by the executive branch.”
Further, President Obama’s executive orders, which have enraged Speaker Boehner and other Republicans to initiate a lawsuit, include some eminently defensible measures:

• Providing legal status for more than half a million undocumented residents brought to the country as minors by their parents
• A minimum wage of $10.10 an hour for anyone working for federal contractors
• Blocking companies with a history of workplace violations from receiving federal contracts
• Adding sexual orientation and gender-identity provisions to existing federal workforce protections
• Allowing debtors paying off college loans to cap payments at 10 percent of their annual income
• EPA and Transportation Department rules that will increase fuel economy in cars and light trucks to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.

Sigificant reforms, yes, but hardly deserving of the Republicans’ accusations and tantrums about socialism run amok. The President’s latest executive actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, also overwhelmingly supported by the public, has Republicans even more apoplectic.
As Dubose sums up and concludes,

“…$787 billion in stimulus invested in roads, bridges, schools, police forces and public school faculties; health care reform that LBJ biographer Robert Caro describes as a major advance in the history of social justice; public investment in an auto industry to avert its collapse; the expansion of Medicaid to 10.5 million uninsured indigent Americans; ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy; and fulfilling a campaign promise to wind down two wars.
In a healthy political ecosystem, that is a record that candidates would be running on, rather than disowning.”

What President Obama has accomplished, despite the toxic environment created by the GOP and their refusal to negotiate in good faith is remarkable. He may not get the deserved lift in his approval ratings in time to help much in the midterm elections. But average American families ought to be glad he was there to stop the Republicans from shredding the reforms of the New Deal, destroying the economy and weakening health care services for millions more citizens.

This video deserves to ride another day:

Shane Goldmacher reports at The National Journal that “Democratic House Candidates Are Walloping Republicans in the Small-Money Game.”
Also at The National Journal, Alex Roarty asks “GOP strategists fret they aren’t scheduled to spend enough in a handful of battlegrounds. Are they lowering expectations or setting up the blame game?”
At Salon.com Thomas Frank has a good interview with Bernie Sanders entitled, “Bernie Sanders: Longterm Democratic strategy is “pathetic.”” Among Sanders’s insights is this one, which might make a pretty good meme for Dems in some campaigns: “I’m not one who says there’s no difference between the two parties. There are significant differences. The Republican Party is right-wing extremists. The Democratic Party is centrist. That is a big difference.”
Nate Silver makes his case that Republicans are still favored to win a Senate majority. But he answers “not quite” to the chicken little question in his headline.
Jacqueline Klimas argues at The Washington Times that “Online campaign ads may prove decisive in midterm elections“. Says Klimas “Even at just 3 percent of ad spending, online buys are much higher this year than they were in the 2012 campaigns. And analysts expect another big boost heading into the 2016 campaign cycle. Online campaign spending is expected to reach almost $1 billion, or 7.7 percent of total ad spending, in 2016, according to the Borrell report.”
Alexis Levinson reveals at CQ Politics what is “The Big Issue in the North Carolina Senate Race“: “The Tar Heel State is also uniquely suited for political messaging on education. The state’s public university system and the Research Triangle Park are considered local gems. North Carolina is the only state with a state constitution mandating the legislature provide funding for public institutions of higher learning…”Education motivates Hagan’s base, and that’s an urban corridor base,” said Morgan Jackson, a North Carolina Democratic operative. “Not only is it an issue that is a good issue for all of North Carolina, it is one that is off the charts on the people that she needs to motivate.””
A damn good question — and a good retort to ACA-bashers, as well as anti-choicers.
Ronald Brownstein explains at The Atlantic how the U.S. Senate got so “fickle”: “With each party consolidating Senate seats in its presidential strongholds, the prognosis is for narrow Senate majorities tipped by a few swing states and the handful of senators who win on the other side’s natural terrain. Looking forward, the Senate’s “natural division … is very close to 50-50,” says Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz.”

Georgia has highest unemployment rate of 50 states, Republican Governor suggests statistical conspiracy has suddenly erupted. Meanwhile Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp is reportedly “sitting on” 51 thousand voter registration forms.
From Jackie Calmes’s “To Win Back Older Voters, Democrats Talk Up Social Security” in the New York Times: “Democrats are stepping up their appeals to older voters in the final stretch before the midterm elections, spurred by polls showing the party has regained some support lost in the Obama years…”Doing even a little bit better with seniors can have a substantial impact,” Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster, said.”…In the first half of September, one in five Democratic ads dealt with either a candidate’s commitment to the programs or, more often, the threat from Republicans, according to Kantar Media CMAG, a nonpartisan media monitor. By comparison, one in 10 Republican ads mentioned the programs, typically to answer Democrats’ assaults.”
At The Daily Beast Linda Kilian has a profile of Sam Wang, “Meet the One Numbers-Cruncher Who Foresees Democrats Holding the Senate.”
Costco, which used to favor Democrats in political contributions, is now shifting their money to Republicans in Washington state. Something to do with liquor taxes. “We’ve had support from certain Republicans in the Legislature, and we thought it was appropriate. It’s as simple as that,” [Costco CEO Jim] Sinegal said of the donations. “I’ve been supportive of Democrats in the past, and on a national basis continue to be.”
“Can Obama Use the Campaign Against ISIS to His Political Advantage? Probably Not,” argues George E. Condon at The National Journal.
Aaron Blake charts “The decline of the conservative Democrat” at The Fix, and cites an 11-point slide in NC and AR voters who self i.d. as Democrats since 2008.
“Younger voters, who tend to back Democrats but are less likely than other groups to turn out during midterm years, are among the least interested in the election. In the new Journal/NBC/Annenberg survey, only 20% of voters younger than 35 said they had a keen interest in the election…Among people age 65 and older, a far higher share, 62%, described themselves as highly interested in the election,” reports Reid J. Epstein at The Wall. St. Journal.
Kyle Kondik of Sabato’s Crystal Ball moves NC Senate race from toss-up to “leans Democratic.”
New American Media’s Khalil Abdullah explores “Will Ferguson Be a Tipping Point for Black Youth Voter Turnout?”

At NBC News Alastair Jamieson, Kiko Itasaka and Kelly Cobiella ask “Will Scotland’s Independence Referendum Be Decided by Teen Voters?” Like Brazilians, Scots can now vote at age 16.
HuffPost Pollster reports that “A Quarter Of Gubernatorial Races Look Like Tossups.”
Union organizer gets McArthur “Genius grant.”
Tired of all the pundit prognosticating about the midterm elections? The Upshot has a gizmo you can use to “Make Your Own Senate Forecast.”
This is an interesting take on faith-based GOTV.
Michael D. Shear and Carl Hulse make a case at The New York Times that “World Events Muffle Democrats’ Economic Rallying Cry.” They are right that there’s not much that can be done about media giving most of the air time and ink to the horrific violence in the Middle East. But Dems should be able to score a few points by reminding voters that Republicans initiated the disastrous occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan that helped create it and sent the U.S. and world economies into a tailspin.
Here’s a good update on political apps.
Lots of “Dems in disarray” hoo ha in the MSM this week. But Greg Sargent flags a telling comment from Karl Rove that “each passing day brings evidence as to why a GOP Senate majority is still in doubt.” Sargent notes also that Republicans get squirmy at the mere mention of anything to do with reproductive rights these days, and “Rove’s own Crossroads GPS has reacted by running ads designed to simply change the subject, which suggests that Dems really are turning cultural issues to their advantage.”
Wouldn’t it be more surprising if it were otherwise?

At The Nation John Nichols posts on “Scotland’s Referendum on Austerity,” with the theme of his argument well-encapsulated in the title. Nichols writes from Glasgow:

Thursday’s Scottish referendum vote is often framed in terms of the politics of nationalism–and the desire of a people for self-determination. And of course there have always been, and there still are, impassioned Scottish nationalists…But the reality that becomes overwhelmingly clear in the last hours before the referendum vote–which polls suggest will see an exceptionally high turnout and a close finish–is that this process is being shaped by the politics of austerity.
… [British Prime Minister David]Cameron has implemented an austerity agenda that threatens the National Health Service and broader social services, undermines trade unions and communities, and deepens inequality. Despite the devolution of some powers to a Scottish Parliament over the past decade, Scotland is still governed in many of the most important senses from London–even though less than 17 percent of Scots backed Cameron’s Conservatives in the last election, giving the Tories just one of Scotland’s fifty-nine seats in the British Parliament.

So, clearly, Scotland would be better off independent from a purely progressive standpoint, in the sense that it could get free of Tory economic austerity policies. He adds that the “Yes, Scotland” campaign will mean:

We can use Scotland’s wealth to build a fairer nation.
Scotland’s NHS [National Health Service] will be protected from creeping privatization.
We spend money on childcare instead of Trident missiles.
A lower pension age and higher pensions.
The end of Tory governments we don’t vote for.
Decisions about Scotland will be made by the people who care most about Scotland, the people who live here.

Even if the independence vote fails, writes Nichols, The Tory government will face enormous pressure to relax austerity policies. So the referendum will do some good for working people in Scotland, regardless of the outcome. Hard to argue with any of that if you are a progressive, right?
Hmmm. Maybe not. Michael Tomasky looks at it from a different angle at The Daily Beast. But first, consider that Scotland has a population of about 5.3 million, about the same as metro Detroit. England, however, has a population of about 53 million, about 10 times that of Scotland. Further, adds Tomasky:

The biggest implications of tomorrow’s Scottish vote are political, and they aren’t good for Labour in the long term.
Imagine with me for a moment that the states of New England left the United States of America. Yes, absurd–if anyone ought to leave someday, it’s the yellow-bellies who left the last time so that they could preserve their God-given right to keep other humans as property, not the patriots who founded the damn country. But let’s pretend.
Well, the implications would be many and weighty, both for the diminished USA and for the new entity. How would all the economic questions be sorted out? Would the New Englanders need passports? What would American higher education be without Harvard and Yale and the others? Would the Celtics stay in the NBA? But being a political person, I’d find the most interesting questions to be the political ones, and of the many that would arise, the bluntest would clearly be: Could the Democrats ever win a presidential election again?

Tomasky adds with impressive candor “I can’t say that I care about Scotland one way or the other, but I do care whether Labour can continue to win elections, and if you care about that too, this is the sense in which you have a stake in the outcome… You take away Scotland, you take a major base of Labour strength. No wonder Labour is making a huge “no” push, sending native son Gordon Brown up to campaign as the vote nears.”
Tomasky links to a nifty graphic representation of the political stakes of the vote on Scottish independence, which you can see right here.
No doubt Prime Minister Cameron doesn’t want to be the U.K. leader who presided over the final dissolution of the empire, but some of his fellow Tories are licking their lips at the prospect of purging Scotland’s Labour M.P.s. Cameron is also surely worried that a “yes” vote would restart the troubles in Ireland in a big way, and perhaps lead to the unification of Eire, and history would say it’s all his fault.
But it’s not an easy call for thoughtful progressives. Sure self-determination is a good thing from a liberal point of view. But millions of English workers — and the Labour Party of our closest ally getting politically-screwed — not so much.

From Samnatha Lachman’s HuffPo post “Here’s How Progressives Plan To Beat Back The GOP Tide“:

“How do you encourage a discouraged electorate?” Karen Nussbaum, Working America’s executive director, asked at a press briefing last week…”It’s a matter of reaching these folks,” she said, explaining that the organization has set a goal of reaching 1.5 million households — or 2.5 million voters — by Nov. 4. The group plans to hold 25,000 face-to-face conversations with voters every week until then.
…As part of this effort, roughly 400 Working America canvassers will go door-to-door between now and Election Day to talk to voters, with instructions to steer the conversation away from disapproval of President Barack Obama toward more local economic issues. The group’s rationale is that while white, working-class males might remain agitated with Obama, they could nonetheless be persuaded on economic grounds to vote for Democrats in key races, like Mark Schauer, who is running against Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R), or Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is challenging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Lachman quotes Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, “who surveyed 1,000 low-propensity Democratic voters in the group’s target states, such as those who did not vote in the 2010 midterms but voted in 2012 because Obama was on the ballot.”

In a memo for MoveOn summarizing the poll results, Lake listed a number of messages that motivated so-called “drop-off” voters, including: “Republicans will take away a woman’s right to choose and restrict access to birth control”; “Republicans will cut access to health care for 8 million people and let insurance companies refuse to cover people with preexisting conditions”; “Republicans will cut back workplace protections for women, denying them equal pay for equal work”; and “Republicans will cut funding for Head Start and K-12 education.” Voters were also swayed by the idea that their state could decide which party controls the Senate.

Meanwhile, AFL-CIO Political Director Michael Podhorzer says that his canvassers will be “talking with voters “about how they’re going to pay their gas bills or rent, how they’re going to get by,” they will understand how voting for a Republican incumbent will lead to more of the same…”This is about taking the election down from the cacophony on television to, ‘How are you going to make your mortgage payment?”
All good messages for 2014. But it’s about making it personal this time, not only with ad buys and other tools of the media arsenal, but with more up-close, face-to-face contact and the human touch.