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.
Marcus, I hate to throw cold water on anyone’s hopes, but don’t get too excited about SUSA polls. They have often shown results well out of line with other surveys–in both directions; conversely, don’t get depressed when they show us doing worse than other polls.
In my home state, which gave Gore a 17% margin in 2000, SUSA showed a tie in mid-September and Republicans were exuberant. Two weeks later they showed Kerry leading by 15 points. I don’t think there was that great a swing here, because Maryland was never tied in the first place.
But I agree with your broader point about the states. Virginia and North Carolina are, I think, closer than most people think through probably not enough for Kerry to win them. And I think the press is overestimating Bush’s strength in NJ.
More good news from Mickey Kaus, leader of the “Kerry haters voting for Kerry” group of bloggers —
“Those dueling Ohio polls are reconciled here. They’re actually ‘amazingly consistent,’ says the now-famous Mystery Pollster .
His quite convincing explanation is not an auspicious one for President Bush. … Meanwhile, look at these results of the Survey USA robo-poll. Isn’t Kerry shockingly close in presumed Bush states like Virginia (50-46) and North Carolina (50-47)? That’s much closer than Kerry’s lead in allegedly in-play states like Pennsylvania (51-45) and New Jersey (51-43) … [You’re starting to sound like Ruy Teixeira.–ed I’ll lie down until it goes away.]”
MARCU$
According to NPR last night, Bush has not been to Ohio since early Oct., and his latest travel plans do not include it. Most certainly this is not because it is in the bag. Has he in fact written it off?
Very glad to hear about favorable battlegrounds, indies, and internals, but I have a question for the pros here.
I have now read several times in high-profile blogs that (in essence) “the incumbent needs to be 3-4 points ahead on election day because undecideds traditionally break for the challenger.”
I’ve been looking to this (and other trends) for reassurance, but I keep wondering: What if this year isn’t like any other year?
What if the “one-dimensional patriot” vote looks past everything else and buys W’s tough guy act? What if we’re still early enough into this war that cognitive dissonance is too weak to sway the electorate? (Nixon won, after all, and we’d been in Vietnam for years and years.) What if, in our first post-9/11 presidential election, the nation hears only Bush’s bullhorn in the voting booth?
That’s a lot of conjecture, but my question is this: How confident are you that this trend — late-deciders breaking for the challenger — will hold? Are other trends particularly vulnerable this year? I know it’s probably like casting the bones, but is anyone doing any analysis that might give us a clue?
Thanks very much, and thanks for all the hard work.
Ruy,
I was a bit surprised to see in the WaoPo article on voter registration, that the GOP bested the Dems by a slight margin in Florida. However, the ACT coordinator bragged that they spanked the Republicans in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Iowa, in particular.
No way, am I conceding Florida, knowing we have a very real chance there, while I know the Bush supporters are in real denial, in the face of such success by the Soros groups.
But, is the Kerry camp factoring in these registration numbers with their internal polling?
George Bush is not leading in a single state that Al Gore carried in the 2000 election.
One presumes we’re taking Gore actually having likely won FL out of this equation, for wholly academic discussion purposes.
The one caveat with that statement, then, is that the electoral votes for the 2000 Bush states have increased overall by 7, with a corresponding loss in Gore states. This means an electoral deficit that increases from 4 (271-267) to 18 (278-260). This means Kerry absolutely MUST win at least one state that went for Bush in 2000, and it better have 10 or more EVs.
Either OH or FL will do nicely, of course, but even MO would do the trick.
I’ve been pointing out, though, that to make this election stick, we need to have an unassailable majority — we can’t have it hinge on one close state, the way it did in 2000. My hunch is that we may well have anywhere from 4 to 8 “Floridas” this year; even if there isn’t another EC debacle (and I do not expect a constitutional process to be followed if there is), we’ll have several state-level results challenged between election day and electoral college day.
Not to get too far off topic.
Any information on the latest ABC poll or WSJ/NBC
poll. There must be something funny with the internals in the ABC poll to show Bush leading by
5.
I sure hope you all are right and my expectations of a machine agenda of putting in Bush one way or another are wrong.
If Kerry can effectively neutralize the flipflop issue (halve the harm it does now), and the “nuisance/soft on terrorism” thing, he should have it. In the latter case, a major speech and going on the offensive intelligently would do it.
The incumbent needs to be up by 4 pts overall with which category of voter? Likely or registered?
I am concerned that the (unfounded) belief held by many, esp. the so-called security moms, that only Bush can keep them safe will override all other concerns once in the voting booth and could invalidate the conventional wisdom that undecided voters break overwhelmingly for the challenger on election day. I certainly hope this is not the case.
Slightly off-topic, but does anybody find it odd that the NY Times poll showed Bush’s approval rating as 44% while the Washington Post poll from the exact same day showed a much higher 53%?
I guess it could be a difference is the actual question the poll asks. But I find the Post poll a bit odd, considering it’s the only one where a majority approves of the president’s job performance.
Anyone have info on that poll?
Zogby Battleground
by Chris Bowers Oct 19
Maybe the wingers won’t be complaining about the new Zogby numbers after all:
Kerry Bush
OR 55.7 42.6
MN 54.2 43.1
WA 54.3 43.9
NM 53.6 44.1
MI 52.6 45.9
PA 51.8 46.1
NH 51.1 46.0
WI 51.3 47.5
IA 51.1 47.9
WV 45.8 48.6
AR 48.4 49.7
NV 45.9 49.8
FL 48.9 50.1
TN 47.8 50.3
OH 47.6 50.6
MO 47.6 50.7 Kerry looks very comfortable in OR, MN, WA, NM, MI, PA and NH, all of which show Bush, as the incumbent, completely out of contention barring a major October surprise. WI and IA are also very good, especially for a challenger (challengers over 51 always win). However, These numbers would lead to a 269-269 tie, as the undecided break in WV, but nowhere else, would push Kerry over the top.
On the plus side, if this is accurate, Kerry has all of the Gore states plus New Hampshire shored up, and can spend the significant majority of his resources trying to flipjust one other 2000 Bush state, all of which are very close. On the negative side, if this is accurate, Kerry comfortably wins the popular vote, but the electoral vote is tied and Bush wins in the House.
I’ll see you on the barricades if that happens.
If Kerry/Edwards win two of the “big three” (Penn, Fla, and Ohio), they’ll probably take the cake.
[and if they win all three, forget about it!]
But;
Maybe I’m looking at old polls, but Bush seems to be ahead in New Mexico. Also, recent polls have shown him with leads in Wisconsin. He’s tied with Kerry in Iowa and Minnesota.
I worry very much about these northern states breaking for Bush.
If Bush is ahead an average of 4 points in national polls is it possible that Kerry could still be leading in electoral college. Could he actually win electoral college and lose by 4 points on 11/2
regester as a Republican so you can get to vote and then vote Kerry.
.
Off the immediate topic of this posting, but…
I hope you’ll soon be discussing the internals of the current Gallup poll, which (surprise) turns out to have a sample that skews way to the right. Steve Soto at the Left Coaster has the goods.
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/003054.html
It’s really out of the candidate’s hands now. Barring a major gaffe, it will be events on the ground that decide this election. The dynamic is currently working against Bush. He can’t do anything to significantly shift the numbers, nor can Kerry. Events in Iraq, news on jobs and the economy, terrorist attacks, and gas prices will probably decide the outcome.