Aside from having major implications for individual rights and perhaps for the Democratic Party, the current abortion fight may also affect the future of individual politicians, one of whom I wrote about at New York:
Vice-presidents of the United States are captive to their boss’s interests and the assignments they are willing to delegate. This has been particularly true of the current vice-president, Kamala Harris. She’s in the shadow of a generally unpopular president who has at best a shaky grip on his own party (most Democrats hope those negative characterizations of Joe Biden will soon be out of date, but they remain accurate right now). And as my colleague Gabriel Debenedetti recently explained, Harris has been unlucky with the thankless jobs Biden has given her:
“Her popularity started sinking when she first visited Central America and appeared dismissive of a suggestion that she visit the border. Behind the scenes, she was worried the assignment to take on the migrant crisis was a clear political loser … Her other top priority — voting rights — was no less publicly frustrating when the administration’s preferred legislation predictably failed in the split Senate. Some close to her wonder why she didn’t muscle her way into leading more popular projects: implementation of the COVID-relief-bill spending or, later, the infrastructure package.”
But now Harris’s luck may have finally turned: She is emerging as the Biden administration’s chief champion of abortion rights at a time when they are uniquely in danger and when Democrats everywhere are seizing on the issue as a potential game changer in 2022 and beyond. It’s an issue that fits her far better than it does the president, an old-school Irish Catholic politician who until mid-2019 opposed federal funding for abortions and could not bring himself even to say the word abortion. Harris is an entirely credible and consistent advocate for reproductive rights, as the Los Angeles Times noted:
“Taking command in the battle over abortion’s future, now largely being fought in the states and as an issue in the November election, comports neatly with Harris’ political résumé, touching on her experience as the first woman elected to the second-highest post in the nation and as a former California attorney general and U.S. senator with a longstanding interest in maternal health.”
It’s also worth noting that the women most immediately and harshly affected by the anti-abortion legislation racing toward enactment in red states are people of color, Black and Asian American women like Harris. And although many other federal and state Democrats will command a portion of the bright spotlight on this topic, Harris uniquely can call on the unparalleled megaphone of the White House, which reaches all states with highly diverse abortion landscapes. Per the Times:
“’We need a leader on this. No one knows who’s the head of Planned Parenthood,’ said Montana state Sen. Diane Sands, an abortion rights activist since the 1960s and one of many Democratic lawmakers and advocates who have met with Harris in recent weeks.”
Most of all, the abortion-rights battle offers Harris something her 2020 presidential campaign lacked: a passionate constituency with national reach, as the Washington Post observes: “She faces considerable pressure to show that her political skills have improved since that effort, which collapsed before a single primary vote was cast.” Yes, she has the famously combative “KHive” Twitter army ready to throw down on her behalf at a moment’s notice, but she could use a showing of excitement in the non-virtual world of left-of-center grassroots activists too. No issue is more starkly partisan than abortion post-Dobbs; within the Democratic Party, there is no real downside to pro-choice militancy.
What would really benefit Harris politically, of course, would be evidence that the abortion issue can stop or significantly mitigate the red wave so many Democrats fearfully glimpse on the horizon of the November elections. If abortion rights turn out to be not simply an energizer for the Democratic Party’s progressive base but a wedge issue that can bring back the suburban gains and heavy youth turnout of the 2018 midterms, it could help give Harris’s prospects a significant boost.
This development for Harris couldn’t arrive at a better time. Biden’s rapidly approaching 80th birthday is very likely to revive pressure on him to retire at the end of his first term. At this point, even though Harris is the heir apparent as vice-president, it’s unclear whether she has enough political juice to head off powerful rivals for the 2024 nomination. Nothing would make her more powerful as a presidential contender than to have not just Biden’s blessing but a reputation for fighting on an issue of crucial importance to progressive politics and the people it aims to represent.
>This CBS poll appears to use a weighting that includes MORE Dems than Reps (See the end of the file), so I’m confused by all the Lib spin that suggests this poll is biased in favor of GWB because it oversamples Reps.
>Of course, if the poll does not toe the Lib line that the race is a dead heat, then the poll is to be discarded – Sheeeeesh!!
Hmm, looks to me like, unweighted at least, it still favors the Republicans (by one). I’m still not versed enough in polling techniques to understand what they mean by “weighted” vs. “unweighted” — are the “weighted” responses the Likely Voters? How do they determine which responses are discounted? In any case, if the unweighted is Registered Voters, they’re still oversampling Republicans.
The increase in voter registration is great, but I fear it will be essentially defeated by partisan secretary’s of state in these various battleground states like OH and FL. There are many new legal technicalities which the (ironically named) Help America Vote Act of 2002 (“HAVA”) introduced into federal elections law. For example, there are numerous byzantine technicalities contained in HAVA concerning the proper form of identification to be used on a state voter registration form. I assure you that it is not the goal of Republican secretaries of state in states with large numbers of minority voters to increase the rolls of registered voters! I predict enormous election difficulties in these states on Nov 2, with thousands of new voters who thought they had registered finding out that their registration form was thrown out on a technicality, with no notice to them by the helpful secretary of state—–those are the kind of tactics that our friendly Republican Party will be using in this election, and all future ones.
This CBS poll appears to use a weighting that includes MORE Dems than Reps (See the end of the file), so I’m confused by all the Lib spin that suggests this poll is biased in favor of GWB because it oversamples Reps.
Of course, if the poll does not toe the Lib line that the race is a dead heat, then the poll is to be discarded – Sheeeeesh!!
If there is one thing history has taught us, it is that modern technologic changes often catch old disciplines with their pants down.
Polling is seeing one such blind spot come to fruition.
The data appear to show a major disconnect between what is really happening versus what is being sampled. A poll is a sample, and it matters WHAT it is a sample of.
The faulty premise is that pollsters are constructing valid models and carrying them out flawlessly. They are not even getting close in many instances.
The practice of calling voters and talking to those who will talk to you is inherently unreliable. It can only be made more reliable by sound methodology, and it isn’t there for Gallup and others, whose strategies are as outdated as the French post WWI planning.
This modern day polling Maginot line will fail as surely as did the original. Campaign Kerry is coming through. We have the numbers, and the registrations in key battleground states prove it.
The fact is we lost in 2000 because too many Dems didn’t register, didn’t vote, didn’t care enough. That is not happening this time, and any way you slice, we have at least 5 million more voters than they do.
We will win by 5 million.
I got to say that the CBS poll of registered voters makes zero sense given the NY Times article about the trend with registered voters at least in the battelground states. I mean seriously a 250 percent increase in Democrats to 25 percent increase in Republicans (which amounts to tens of thousands and maybe 100,000 new voters in Democrat heavy portions of these battleground states- remember most elections in these states with close margins will not be decided by more than a few ten thousand votes, and not several hundred thousand), and their numbers are at 8 percent more registered (not even likely voters) in favor of Bush. Does this sound off to anyone else? I know they say that polls undercount new registrants, but this seems out of wack with whats happening on the ground. Can someone explain the difference?