A relatively new term is popping up in articles on 2024 strategy for Democrats that I explained and explored at New York:
When you have a presidential candidate who is struggling to generate enthusiasm in the party base, it’s natural to look for some external stimulation. In the case of Joe Biden, the most obvious source of a 2024 boost is the deep antipathy that nearly all Democrats, many independents, and even a sizable sliver of Republicans feel toward Donald Trump. But in case that’s not enough, Team Biden is looking at another avenue of opportunity, albeit a risky one: the possibility of “reverse coattails” taking him past Trump on a wave of turnout that incidentally benefits the president of the United States.
That’s not the conventional wisdom, as the term reverse coattails makes clear: Normally, it’s the head of the ticket from whom all blessings flow, which makes sense insofar as presidential-election turnout dwarfs that of off-year and midterm contests in no small part because people who don’t necessarily care about the identity of their senator or governor are galvanized by the battle for the White House. But as Russell Berman of The Atlantic explains, this year is different:
“Faith in the reverse-coattails effect is fueling Democratic investments in down-ballot races and referenda. In North Carolina, for example, party officials hope that a favorable matchup in the governor’s race — Democratic attorney general Josh Stein is facing Republican lieutenant governor Mark Robinson, who has referred to homosexuality as ‘filth’ and compared abortion to slavery — could help Biden carry a state that Trump narrowly won twice. Democrats are also trying to break a Republican supermajority in the legislature, where they are contesting nearly all 170 districts. ‘The bottom of the ticket is absolutely driving engagement and will for all levels of the ballot,’ Heather Williams, the president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, told me.”
In other states, high-profile ballot measures, particularly those aimed at restoring the abortion rights denied by conservative courts and Republican lawmakers, may generate bottoms-up enthusiasm benefiting Biden and embattled Democratic Senate candidates as well:
“In key states across the country, Democrats and their allies are planting ballot initiatives both to protect reproductive rights where they are under threat and to turn out voters in presidential and congressional battlegrounds. They’ve already placed an abortion measure on the ballot in Florida, where the state supreme court upheld one of the nation’s most restrictive bans on the procedure, and they plan to in Arizona, whose highest court recently ruled that the state could enforce an abortion ban first enacted during the Civil War. Democrats are also collecting signatures for abortion-rights measures in Montana, home to a marquee Senate race, and in Nevada, a presidential swing state that has a competitive Senate matchup this year.”
Berman notes that the reverse-coattails strategy is unproven. Voters, for example, who attracted to the polls by abortion ballot measures don’t always follow the partisan implications of their votes when it comes to candidate preferences. Red-hot down-ballot races are probably more reliable in attracting voters who can be expected to follow the party line to the top of the ticket. A positive precedent can be found in Georgia’s coordinated effort of 2020, when a powerful campaign infrastructure built by Democratic Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock clearly helped maximize Biden’s vote; the 46th president won the state by less than 12,000. Perhaps a strong Senate candidate like Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey could help Biden survive as well. As for the possible effect of ballot measures, it was once generally accepted that in 2004 a GOP strategy of encouraging anti-same-sex-marriage ballot measures helped boost conservative turnout in battleground states like Ohio, enabling George W. Bush’s narrow victory (though there are analysts who argue against that hypothesis). One reason it may work better today is the increasing prevalence of straight-ticket voting and the heavy emphasis of Democratic campaigns up and down the ballot on the kind of support for abortion rights that should help them take advantage of ballot-measure-generated turnout.
We won’t get a good idea of how either reverse-coattails strategy is working until late in the 2024 campaign when it becomes possible to measure new voter registrations, screen registered voters for their likelihood to participate in the election, and assess states where down-ballot contests are turning into a Democratic blowout. Team Biden would be wise to do everything in its power to lift the president’s popularity and build a favorability advantage over Trump that can reduce the number of “double haters” likely to stay home or vote for a change in the party management of Washington.
I think Sea Change is what you are thinking however Seed Change might be a good idea as well.
The way to change things in this country is through voting, so if you want to elect Obama/Biden the thing to do is make sure all voters really know what they will do if elected and then be certain these people vote and their votes are counted correctly.
I’m tired of McCain’s Vietnam sychobabble, we all have memories about the 1960s and Vietnam.
Hate? Hate is SO yesterday.
One hundred years from now they’ll teach University courses about the 2008 Presidential Election. What is happening now is a seed change, nothing short of a revolution.
Quietly, in basements and dens around America an army of MILLIONS of Bloggers and fellow travellers is no longer responding to the media – considering what the media puts in front of us – considering the facts they have fed us on which we had to base out thoughts – what has happened this year FOR THE FIRST TIME IN WORLD HISTORY is that the PEOPLE have actually turned the tables and WE THE PEOPLE, not the media, CONTROL the agenda and the information available to the people. The media have been reduced to following our lead; our findings of facts and the Blogsphere’s exposure of Sarah Palin’s appalling background is a prime example.
The REVOLUTION is HERE, we are not only fighting it we are WINNING it – not with guns and rocks and blood – but with facts and communication and an Internet with a million points of light, operating at the speed of light – each point of which can take facts off the net and add to them.
For the first time in my adult life – America has a REAL chance at change. God Bless America!
At this rate, nothing will change the cycle in Obama’s favor. The campaign has been silenced into weakness, and the media is in love with Palin. No fundraising number is going to take attention away from hate speak.
I think Sen. Obama will sign on as a sponsor to the gang of ten energy bill. This will allow him to box in McCain on oil drilling, since the bill supports limited additional drilling but also a tax increase for oil companies. This would seriously limit the Republican arguments about oil drilling, but McCain can’t support the tax increase.
Sponsoring this bill would also show how Obama is acting in a bipartisan fashion. I wouldn’t be suprised if he announces support for this compromise as soon as tomorrow.
Why in god’s name would Obama want Powell’s endorsement? Is that supposed to be a good thing? The only things a Powell endorsement would signal is that (1) Obama is part of the Washington establishment and (2) when its to his benefit, he thinks the judgement of people who supported the invasion of Iraq is just peachy.
I would think a Powell endorsement would be a less than happy development.