Having closely watched congressional developments over the last few weeks, I’ve concluded that one much-discussed Democratic tactic for dealing with Trump 2.0 is probably mistaken, as I explained at New York:
No one is going to rank Mike Johnson among the great arm-twisting Speakers of the House, like Henry Clay, Tom Reed, Sam Rayburn, or even Nancy Pelosi. Indeed, he still resembles Winston Churchill’s description of Clement Atlee as “a modest man with much to be modest about.”
But nonetheless, in the space of two weeks, Johnson has managed to get two huge and highly controversial measures through the closely divided House: a budget resolution that sets the stage for enactment of Donald Trump’s entire legislative agenda in one bill, then an appropriations bill keeping the federal government operating until the end of September while preserving the highly contested power of Trump and his agents to cut and spend wherever they like.
Despite all the talk of divisions between the hard-core fiscal extremists of the House Freedom Caucus and swing-district “moderate” Republicans, Johnson lost just one member — the anti-spending fanatic and lone wolf Thomas Massie of Kentucky — from the ranks of House Republicans on both votes. As a result, he needed not even a whiff of compromise with House Democrats (only one of them, the very Trump-friendly Jared Golden of Maine, voted for one of the measures, the appropriations bill).
Now there are a host of factors that made this impressive achievement possible. The budget-resolution vote was, as Johnson kept pointing out to recalcitrant House Republicans, a blueprint for massive domestic-spending cuts, not the cuts themselves. Its language was general and vague enough to give Republicans plausible deniability. And even more deviously, the appropriations measure was made brief and unspecific in order to give Elon Musk and Russ Vought the maximum leeway to whack spending and personnel to levels far below what the bill provided (J.D. Vance told House Republicans right before the vote that the administration reserved the right to ignore the spending the bill mandated entirely, which pleased the government-hating HFC folk immensely). And most important, on both bills Johnson was able to rely on personal lobbying from key members of the administration, most notably the president himself, who had made it clear any congressional Republican who rebelled might soon be looking down the barrel of a Musk-financed MAGA primary opponent. Without question, much of the credit Johnson is due for pulling off these votes should go to his White House boss, whose wish is his command.
But the lesson Democrats should take from these events is that they cannot just lie in the weeds and expect the congressional GOP to self-destruct owing to its many divisions and rivalries. In a controversial New York Times op-ed last month, Democratic strategist James Carville argued Democrats should “play dead” in order to keep a spotlight on Republican responsibility for the chaos in Washington, D.C., which might soon extend to Congress:
“Let the Republicans push for their tax cuts, their Medicaid cuts, their food stamp cuts. Give them all the rope they need. Then let dysfunction paralyze their House caucus and rupture their tiny majority. Let them reveal themselves as incapable of governing and, at the right moment, start making a coordinated, consistent argument about the need to protect Medicare, Medicaid, worker benefits and middle-class pocketbooks. Let the Republicans crumble, let the American people see it, and wait until they need us to offer our support.”
Now to be clear, Congressional GOP dysfunction could yet break out; House and Senate Republicans have struggled constantly to stay on the same page on budget strategy, the depth of domestic-spending cuts, and the extent of tax cuts. But as the two big votes in the House show, their three superpowers are (1) Trump’s death grip on them all, (2) the willingness of Musk and Vought and Trump himself to take the heat for unpopular policies, and (3) a capacity for lying shamelessly about what they are doing and what it will cost. Yes, ultimately, congressional Republicans will face voters in November 2026. But any fear of these elections is mitigated by the realization that thanks to the landscape of midterm races, probably nothing they can do will save control of the House or forfeit control of the Senate. So Republicans have a lot of incentives to follow Trump in a high-speed smash-and-grab operation that devastates the public sector, awards their billionaire friends with tax cuts, and wherever possible salts the earth to make a revival of good government as difficult as possible. Democrats have few ways to stop this nihilistic locomotive. But they may be fooling themselves if they assume it’s going off the rails without their active involvement.
zogby poll out saturday will have kerry up 2 in fla.
I live in Milwaukee–and have for the better part of 50 years. Sen. Russ Feingold (“McCain-Feingold”) is running for a third term against an opponent that is far right (to give you an idea how far: no abortion for ANY reason, period) and will win a relatively easy victory. I cannot imagine there will many “Bush-Feingold” ballots. The 4th Cong. District that is essentially the City of Milwaukee has an African-American woman as the Dem. nominee. Of course, this will spur voter turnout in the Milwaukee inner-city.
As far as zeitgeist is concerned, yesterday Kerry had the biggest political rally in state history in Madison, and the Milwaukee Journal (the state’s largest newspaper) endorsed Kerry in a long editorial. There is much more. But, Wisconsin is a state that I know well, geographically and politically. Kerry doesn’t get a free ride, he has to earn his votes. But, I just don’t see it happening for Bush. If, despite everything, Bush somehow wins Wisconsin, then simply color this state “red” for future elections. There is NO reason to believe this is the case.
My only fear is that Most of the states in play seem to be traditional Democratic ones. If Kerry takes the four then great (he could even lose Hawaii and one of the Maine districts and still hit 270 on the nose). But just losing one of FLOHPA makes the matah really tough. I’m not saying he can’t/won’t win, it’s just the battle seems to be uphill. Trying to keep my chin up though.
Wisconsin is turning out to be key.
Bush’s strategy is to take Florida, Iowa, and Wisconsin, figuring they will probably lose in Ohio and Penn.
The Wisconsin polls look slightly better for Bush right now, although I don’t think slightly better is good enough to carry it for him in a big turnout election. The point is, it’s a very strategic battleground state.
Back to national polls for a moment. For my course (I am a political scientist) I compiled data on the national horse-race going back to April. While trying to pick trends out of this polling data is risky, given how much the polls diverge from one another, something interesting seems to be happening.
If you graph over time the share of the two-party preference (i.e. throwing out undecideds and third-party supporters) that Bush is getting in the RV polls, the two candidates are getting closer to parity in the last week.
But if you go by the incumbent’s share of all RV respondents (i.e. including undecideds and others in the denominator), Bush is getting closer to 50%.
In other words, if these are real trends–a big if–the chances that Bush could win the popular vote are increasing. But, paradoxically, the race is simultaneously tightening, meaning a split of the popular and electoral vote could be getting more likely. All the more so given Kerry’s lead in state polls of several key battleground states that we have seen posted here.
The graphs I refer to are at http://irpshome.ucsd.edu/faculty/mshugart/pmp/links.html, at the link entitled “2004 polls update.”
While all this information looks good in favor of Kerry, we have to remember that there are even flaws as of now with Florida. Lets cross our fingers they can get it right this time
Any new numbers about the north central states, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa? I think Kerry can be still have the edge without Iowa, but the other two have me nervous.
This late news from Hawaii is troubling too. What’s up with that?
No one’s panicking here, just curious.
Wisconsin? What about Wisconsin?
Kerry can take OH, PA, MI, and still lose without Wisconsin.
(And the Dems are spending $250,000 this weekend in … Arkansas.)
Hope you’re right about Florida .. and that Dems’ votes get counted there this year!
I noted the source for all data here is pollingreport.com. The LA Times web site has an interactive map based on pollingreport.com data. (I think, but may be wrong, that gives non-members access to their members only state-by-state polling data.) The map is a lot of fun because you can color it in based on most recents polls in each state or based on your obsessive desire to see this destructive, arrogant, insular administration bounced out of the White House. When John Kerry gets to 270 it plays “Hail To The Chief.” It is at least as much fun as “How Can Gallup….”
So, if the incumbent’s lead holds in FL, it would seem that the the race comes down to WI (and perhaps even HI)?
Can one of you smart stat-heads put this talk about Hawaii to rest? …. Gore won by 20 or so points in 2000 … I simply do NOT believe that W is ahead…. I’m sure there is some kind of major flaw in this polling…. Any details?
Thanks!
eg
are the average of the polls weighted for sample size?
would it not make sense to add all the samplings together for a state and then determine percentages?
[or are all samples exactly the same size?]
would it make a difference?