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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Political Strategy Notes

So how close is the battle for Senate control at this political moment? Princeton Election Consortium’s Sam Wang sees seven Senate races within 3 percentage points — a hell of a lot better for Dems than was supposed to be the case.
“Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd asked Schumer why voters should care about the prospect of the Democrats losing their current Senate majority…”You asked one reason: Supreme Court. The money that’s cascading into our system,” Schumer said in a reference to the 2010 Citizens United decision that legalized Super PACs. “If the Supreme Court continues to be the way it is and there’s a vacancy and they buttress that, we will be subject to these few people just dominating the elections for decades to come. The Supreme Court on voting rights makes a huge difference. The Supreme Court on women’s issues makes a huge difference.” — from Zach Carter’s HuffPo post “Chuck Schumer: Supreme Court Will Thwart Democrats For Decades If We Lose Midterms
Will last minute strength be enough for Dems?” Stephen Collinson ruminates on the prospects for Dems holding their senate majority at CNN Politics.
At The New Republic John B. Judis illuminates the strategy of pro-Democratic ‘Battleground Texas’: “Texas has already become a majority-minority state like California. According to 2013 census figures, only 44 percent of Texans are “Anglos,” or whites; 38.4 percent are Hispanic; 12.4 percent African-American; and the remainder Asian-American and native American. By 2020, Hispanics are projected by the Texas State Data Center to account for 40.5 percent of Texans and African-Americans for 11.3 percent compared to 41.1 percent of Anglos. Texas’s minorities generally favor Democrats over Republicans, but they don’t vote in as great a proportion as Anglos who have favored Republicans by similar percentages. Battleground’s strategy assumes that if it and other organizations like the Texas Organizing Project can get many more minorities, and particularly Hispanics, to the polls, then, as minorities increasingly come to outnumber Anglos, Democrats can take back the state.”
As the political parties kick their GOTV operations into high gear, NYT’s Ashley Parker and Jonathan Weisman discuss “For Midterms, Betting on Feet and Good Apps.”
Here’s a turnout clue from Thad Kousser’s L.A. Times op-ed, “Want to Increase Voter Turnout: Here’s How”: “…Targeting different types of often-ignored voters could also pay off for campaigns. Ethnic minorities, especially Latinos, Asian Americans and Middle Eastern Americans who do not speak English at home, often do not get the full attention of campaigns. But in their path-breaking book, “Mobilizing Inclusion,” Lisa Garcia Bedolla and Melissa R. Michelson used randomized experiments to show that well-designed outreach efforts to this group can lead to massive increases in voter turnout. And a group of Yale researchers found that formerly incarcerated felons, who are often ignored by campaigns even after their franchise rights have been restored, could also be effectively mobilized.”
This short-sighted article fails to consider that every vote cast for a Republican advances their efforts to win majority control, dominate congressional and senate committees and crush all environmental regulation. Some environmental groups sincerely want to reward those few Republicans who occasionally support environmental reform. Others are targeting gullible Greens in hopes of neutralizing informed environmental voters as much as possible.
Kennedy Elliot and Scott Clement of The Washington Post have a gizmo for “Measuring the midterm turnout gap,” which provides a helpful visual depicting the midterm shortfall when combining up to three different demographic variables of your choice.
Could we have a little more generosity toward Democratic candidates from outgoing Democratic Sens. Baucus, Harkin and Tim Johnson, whose campaign coffers are reportedly flush?

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