At The Fix Amber Phillips has a post, “Why Democrats are set to retake state legislatures in 2016 (and it’s not just Trump),” which should offer some encouragement to state Democratic parties. Phillips conducts an interview with Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact’s senior correspondent, who sees significant gains for Democrats in state legislatures in November, particularly in rust-belt megastates MI, PA and OH.
Phillips and Jacobsen emphasize that it’s not just because Trump may well produce a backlash landslide favoring Democrats; “It’s because Democrats have lost so many state legislatures in recent years they may have nowhere to go but up,” as Phillips explains. Also, presidential elections turn out pro-Democratic constituencies which can cut into the GOP’s disproportionate gains in the 2010 and 2014 mid terms.
Here’s a map showing which party currently controls both houses of the state legislature in the 50 states (GOP in red, including unicameral NB legislature; Dems in blue; split control in grey):

Jacobsen sees Democrats picking up majorities in “at least a half-dozen” state legislative chambers, but also emphasizes,

Getting to parity is going to take a couple of cycles. And it could go faster for them if Republicans win the White House. But we’re talking changes on the margin here. And some of the chambers that changed Republican in recent years are not going to change back.

Jacobsen also sees potential picks ups in western states like AZ and NV, where “the possibility of a Trump candidacy can energize Latino voters.” Jacobsen and Phillips may be understating the potential turnovers favoring Democrats. A strong Latino turnout in the west could also turn NM and CO blue in the map above. NY is also a good bet if Latino and African Americans turn out in impressive numbers. And if the Democratic presidential nominee improves on President Obama’s support from women by as little as 3 or 4 percent, the map will change dramatically.
Phillips and Jacobsen are understandably cautious about Democratic prospects. One major concern would be if those Republican donors who are not giving support to Trump decide to invest more in GOP candidates as far down-ballot as the state legislatures.
But Dems have reason to be optimistic, especially if the trend favoring straight ticket-voting in presidential elections continues. As elections analyst David Byler explains at Real Clear Politics,

Democratic Party leaders will almost certainly put increased money and manpower into these elections in 2016, but funding, advertising and campaigning on the local level can only do so much. The national political atmosphere will play an outsized role in determining the outcome of state legislative contests. Specifically, the outcome of the presidential race will likely shape the composition of state legislatures across the country.
In order to show this, we analyzed state-level data from every presidential election from 1956 to today. The data shows a clear, potentially problematic pattern — that the presidential race has become increasingly important in determining the results of state legislative elections.

And if Trump doubles down on alienating Latinos and women, while the Democratic nominee presents a credible and more appealing alternative in the debates, the map will look considerably different when the new state legislators are sworn in across the U.S.

In the wake of tensions, both real and over-hyped, between the Clinton and Sanders campaigns, New York Times reporters Jonathan Mahler and Yamiche Alcindor ask and address an important question: “Bernie Sanders Makes a Campaign Mark. Now, Can He Make a Legacy?” The legacy Sanders wants is a come-from-behind upset win of the Democratic presidential nomination. But it would be a shame if his coalition evaporates in the event of a Clinton victory. Alcindor and Mahler cite three core issues of the Sanders campaign — universal health care, free college tuition and reducing the influence of wealthy donors in politics. There is a concern that these issues will fade into the background without his candidacy or election. The authors discuss some possibilities for future political involvement of Sanders supporters beyond 2016. Win or lose, Sanders can make a significant contribution by mobilizing his supporters to “adopt” the midterm elections and help candidates who support his three core causes.
At Salon.com Michael Bourne makes the case why “Hillary must pick Bernie for VP: She may even need him more than he needs her.”
Salon.com’s Heather Digby Parton discusses Stan Greenberg’s memo, “The GOP Crash and the Historic Moment for Progressives.” Parton comments on Greenberg’s calculation that about 10 percent of conservatives are willing to vote for Clinton over Trump, “The question is what it will take to get them to vote for Democrats in this election…Where Greenberg sees an opening is in national investment, bank regulation and corporate governance which dovetails nicely with the populist agenda coming from the left wing of the party as well…If Greenberg is right and the Democrats pay attention and all the stars align, we could come out of this with a big progressive win, setting the stage for a fertile time of renewal and progress.”
It appears that Hillary Clinton is on solid political ground in calling for stricter gun control. “A New York Times/CBS News poll in January found that 57 percent of respondents wanted stricter laws governing gun sales, and 88 percent favored background checks for all purchases,” reports Amy Chozick at The New York Times.
I disagree with most of the points conservative commentator Matt Lewis makes in his rambling Daily Beast rant, “How the GOP Went South.” But some of his comments on the affected vernacular of various presidential candidates are on target, specifically his observation that “his father, former President George H. W. Bush, had been mocked as a tax‑raiser and a preppy wimp. George W. Bush did everything possible to be the opposite of that. The adoption of the Texas persona helped, but the younger Bush overswaggered and overtwanged. But hey, he managed to win two elections, and winning is everything, right?” Despite his sheltered preppy background, W did somehow have an ear for ‘regular guy’ chatter, his malapropisms notwithstanding. Although Gore and Kerry both had more real world life experience than Bush II, it was frequently noted that they both seemed a little on the stiff side. Could it be that a more casual persona is worth some votes?
Here’s why now would be a good time for Alabama Democrats to get their shite together. Such opportunities often pop up suddenly, and Dems in red states simply must do a better job of identifying, preparing and funding new candidates to meet the challenge.
Interesting statistical nuggets on the relationship between presidential primary turnouts and winning presidential candidates from Rhodes Cook’s “High Primary Turnouts: Any Clues for the Fall?” at Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Only in the open election of 2008 was there a clear correlation between the primary turnout and the November outcome. That year, 16 million more votes were cast in the Democratic primaries than the Republican ones, which proved a precursor of Democratic success that fall…In 2016, the Republican edge in the primary vote is much smaller than the Democrats enjoyed in 2008. Coming out of the May 10 primaries in Nebraska and West Virginia, the GOP margin stands at 4 million votes and shrinking. Among the eight states left to hold their presidential primaries are deep blue California and New Jersey. And in 2008, more than 2 million more votes were cast on the Democratic than Republican side of the California ballot.”
Quoctrung Bui’s Upshot post “Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking” provides some data that might be useful for targeting political messages and political ad expenditures.
Some salient comments from Sean J. Miller’s post “Republican Consultants keeping faith with facebook” at Campaigns & Elections: “Donald Trump has more fans on Facebook than any other presidential candidate. And Fox News drives more interactions on its Facebook page than any other news outlet in the world,” says Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. GOP digital consultant Phillip Stutts adds “Facebook is the best targeting advertising platform available,” he said. “Older men and women vote and they are the largest segment joining Facebook right now. It would be political malpractice to our candidates to not use it.” Another GOP digital consultant Ian Patrick Hines echoes Facebook’s “data and ad targeting tools are unmatched.”

Yes, preregistration does increase young voter turnout, reports Journalist’s Resource.

How secure is online voting? Sari Horwitz addresses the issue in her troubling Washington Post article “More than 30 states offer online voting, but experts warn it isn’t secure.”

A perceptive quote from Connor Kilpatrick’s “Burying the White Working Class” at The Jacobin: “The working class is central to a meaningful progressive politics because they have the numbers, the economic incentive and the potential power to halt capital in its tracks — to check the power of our ruling class and build a truly democratic society out of this miserable oligarchy we all find ourselves stuck in today.”

Quinnipiac University Poll puts Christie’s Trump grovel into perspective.

AP glorifies Trump’s lily-white list of eight potential Supreme Court nominees

Telling stats from Niall Stanage’s post “Trump, Clinton face most diverse electorate in history” at The Hill: “Non-whites also represent a higher proportion of new voters who have come of age since 2012. Non-whites accounted for 43 percent of the eligible voters who turned 18 between 2012 and 2016, despite representing only about 30 percent of the overall electorate…Pew counts a net increase of about 7.5 million eligible voters who are members of ethnic minorities since 2012. Among whites, that number is just 3.2 million.”

Lapdog media dutifully parrots the latest Dems in Disarray narrative, even though the Nevada state Democratic convention incident is dwarfed by the GOP’s more numerous and intense internecine slugfests.

Rachel Maddow brings a more measured perspective on the lasting effects of contentious primary season divisions.

Trevor Noah has some choice zingers describing Megyn Kelly’s softball “interview” with Trump.

At The Washington Post Abby Phillip reports on Clinton campaign preparations in the Rust Belt battleground, “particularly in economically struggling states that have been hit hard by global free-trade agreements”: Phillip notes, “…Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton is preparing to dispatch resources to vote-rich industrial states that have been safely Democratic for a generation…Democrats say that Clinton will need to work assiduously to court Sanders’s supporters in these parts of the country — including younger millennials and working-class voters concerned about economic fairness but also frustrated with government.”

WaPo’s Anne Gearan and Dan Balz explore the ramifications of Hillary Clinton’s personal “weaknesses” as a candidate, including “poor showings with young women, untrustworthiness, unlikability and a lackluster style on the stump. Supporters also worry that she is a conventional candidate in an unconventional election in which voters clearly favor renegades.” They quote Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who says “I bring it down to one thing and one thing only, and that is likability…To counter these challenges, Clinton is relying primarily on the prospect that her likely Republican opponent’s weaknesses are even greater. But advisers also are working to soften her stiff public image by highlighting her compassion and to combat perceptions about trustworthiness and authenticity by playing up her problem-solving abilities.” I would add that part of the problem is that Trump is hogging media coverage with his outrage du jour, which denies Clinton opportunities to showcase her likeable qualities. That won’t change. Therefore, the debates will be critical in showing which candidate is more likeable. Also, her campaign should make more extensive use of social media opportunities to show her in a favorable light.

NYT’s Michael Barbaro and Megan Twohey roll out “Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private,” which won’t shock the reading public, but is a pretty devastating portrait nonetheless.

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign is reportedly preparing a new round of personal attacks designed to lower the level of political discourse even further. But it will most likely backfire. As Patrick Healy reports at the Times, quoting Melanne Verveer, a longtime friend and former chief of staff to Mrs. Clinton: “She is so prepared to be president, but holding her head high and staying dignified during the campaign is probably what will help her the most…Trump is yet another way she will be tested personally — one of her greatest tests yet.” Dignity could indeed be the key here, since Trump has long ago forfeited any semblance of it on the gamble that a majority of American voters are going to be able to forget his mud-wrestling by election day. Not likely in the era of facebook and YouTube.

It’s a smallish sample and all of the usual caveats apply, but the Fayetteville Observer reports some good news from the Tarheel state for Democrats: “The Civitas Institute, a Raleigh think tank that bills itself as “North Carolina’s Conservative Voice,” released a poll in late April of key statewide races…The biggest takeaway was Republican Gov. Pat McCrory trailing his Democratic challenger, Attorney General Roy Cooper, by 10 percentage points…According to the Real Clear Politics website, Cooper is leading McCrory by an average of 4 points. The average was taken from four recent polls – three in April and one in February.” Also, “In another statewide race surveyed by Civitas poll, U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, a two-term Republican, is leading Democratic challenger Deborah Ross, 37 percent to 35 percent,” well within the m.o.e.

In his New York Times op-ed, “Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?,” Neil Gross probes the politics of resentment, specifically attitudes of and toward post-grad educated voters. Gross warns, “It is probably right that something like a culture of critical discourse can be found in the workplaces and households and in the publications read by Americans who have attended graduate or professional school. The challenge for the Democrats moving forward will be to develop appeals to voters that resonate not just with this important constituency, but also with other crucial groups in the Democratic coalition. Some of the draw of Donald Trump for white working-class male voters, for example, is that he does not speak in a culture of critical discourse. Indeed, he mocks that culture, tapping into class resentments…Democrats may find they need to give up a little of their wonkiness if they want resounding victories. It’s not in their long-term interest to be too much what Pat Buchanan once referred to as “the party of the Ph.D.s.”

Yes, Republicans, do this. Make chaos your friend — because it worked so well for the Whigs 180 years ago.

At The Daily Beast Betsy Woodruff has a nicely-tailored summary of one of the Trump/Priebus campaign’s worst weeks yet: “Priebus’s walk of Sunday shame came in the wake of a brutal few days for Trump. The Washington Post produced audio of Trump allegedly pretending to be his own PR flack, the New York Times released a scorching report about Trump’s creepy and predatory treatment of pageant contestants and female employees. On top of that, Trump spent the week arguing that he doesn’t have a responsibility to release his tax returns and that nobody wants to look at them anyway…The tax returns–which Trump has said he will probably release at some point–are a uniquely thorny issue. When Face the Nation host John Dickerson asked Priebus whether Trump should release his tax returns, the chairman replied that voters don’t really care either way.”

Far be it from TDS to pile on and savor the pain and suffering of Republicans forced to defend the character of their nominee-apparent. And yet we must flag Paul Waldman’s chuckle-rich American Prospect post, “Spare a Thought For Those Condemned to Defend Donald Trump: It’s a soul-crushing job, but someone has to do it.” A sample: “…What is Reince Priebus supposed to do? I suppose he could say, “You’re right, we really screwed the pooch by nominating this train wreck of a candidate. This is a living nightmare”…So Republicans have to pretend that they oppose Hillary Clinton not just because she’s a liberal and they’re conservatives–which ought to be more than reason enough–but also because she’s some kind of cartoonish psychopath who would strangle your children’s puppy if she had the chance.”

“Nothing to see here. Let’s move on now” is not an acceptabe substitute for transparency on Trump’s taxes.

Re Trump’s tax returns, New York Times reporters Patrick Healey and Alan Rappeport observe “Making tax returns public is not required of presidential candidates, but there is a long tradition of major party nominees doing so. Joseph J. Thorndike, who tracks presidential tax returns as the director of the Tax History Project at the nonpartisan Tax Analysts, said Mr. Trump would be the first major candidate since 1976 to not make any of his full returns public. President Gerald R. Ford released a summary of his tax returns that year…Dr. Thorndike noted that President Richard M. Nixon released his tax returns while he was under audit, starting the tradition of presidential candidates making their returns public.”

The Nation editor/Washington Post columnist Katrina vanden Heuval makes the case that, “Against Trump, Clinton should resist the temptation of triangulation,” noting “There is no guarantee that pivoting to the middle would attract a significant number of Republicans, who generally loathe Clinton, but it would almost certainly dampen enthusiasm among progressives. Indeed, while Sanders might endorse Clinton at some point, she still has to earn the support of millions of people who voted for him if they are going to remain energized through the fall campaign.”

“In his absolute best-case scenario, Trump might match the two-thirds of white men that Reagan won in 1984, the party’s modern apex. But given Trump’s astronomical unfavorable ratings among African Americans and Hispanics, it’s not unreasonable to project that Clinton could hold the roughly 80 percent of minority voters who have typically backed Democratic nominees since 1976…Trump would then need to attract 58 percent of white women to reach a national majority–slightly more than the 56 percent that Romney won. Looking at the equation from the other direction, if Clinton matched the usual Democratic performance with non-white voters and also carried even half of white women, Trump would then need to win more than three-fourths of white men for a national majority, a daunting prospect…Trump almost certainly can’t beat Clinton, or even stay competitive, without constructing a solid advantage among white women. But today he’s trailing Clinton among them in most surveys.” from Ronald Brownstein’s article, “The Republican Party’s Woman Problem” at The Atlantic.
At HuffPo Seth Abramson charts a narrow path for Sen. Bernie Sanders to win the Democratic presidential nomination, based on his continued momentum, a high-profile upset in California, superior performance vs. Trump in head-to-head horse race polls and super delegates switching to Sanders en masse.

For an interesting preview of the Democratic Party’s Latino messaging strategy at the upcoming convention and going forward to the general election, click here.

“Could Trump help Democrats gain ground in Southern state politics?” Chris Kromm addresses the question at Facing South and notes, “As Gallup found in its most recent survey of partisan affiliation, the electorate in most Southern states is either evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, or leans GOP; only in Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee did voters fall into the “Solid Republican” category.” Kromm sees good chance for a Democratic victory in the NC governors race, where the Republican incumbent is already under criticism for defending against a growing boycott that is costing NC jobs and tourist revenue. Also, Dems could pick up seats in southern state legislatures, perhaps enough to prevent veto-prof majorities in several states.

Quinnipiac University poll shows close U.S. senate races in OH, PA and FL.
And the same poll shows “Buckeye state voters overwhelmingly support legalizing medical marijuana by a margin of 90% to 9%. They narrowly support allowing recreational use of the drug, by 52% to 45%.”

Paul Krugman’s NYT op-ed column on “The Making of an Ignoramus” provides a reminder that the GOP’s nominee-apparent is not making this stuff up when it comes to his worst economic ideas; in most cases he is parroting well-established Republican policies and values. As Krugman explains:

Truly, Donald Trump knows nothing. He is more ignorant about policy than you can possibly imagine, even when you take into account the fact that he is more ignorant than you can possibly imagine. But his ignorance isn’t as unique as it may seem: In many ways, he’s just doing a clumsy job of channeling nonsense widely popular in his party, and to some extent in the chattering classes more generally.
…Basically, it involves running the country like a failing casino: he could, he asserted, “make a deal” with creditors that would reduce the debt burden if his outlandish promises of economic growth don’t work out.

Trump’s economic hucksterism, particularly on the issue of the debt, has left the financial and economic experts with “a mix of amazed horror and horrified amazement,” adds Krugman. “One does not casually suggest throwing away America’s carefully cultivated reputation as the world’s most scrupulous debtor — a reputation that dates all the way back to Alexander Hamilton.”
The global reverberations could be disastrous, says Krugman. “The Trump solution would, among other things, deprive the world economy of its most crucial safe asset, U.S. debt, at a time when safe assets are already in short supply.”
But, it’s not like Trump’s failed casino economics is bucking his party’s economic policies. The Republican party long ago abandoned the principle of economic prudence. Trump just restates their views with his customary bombast, and much of the media falls for it as something new and flashy, when really it’s the same old GOP story of rich guys screwing around with the hard-earned assets of everyone else.
With respect to Trump’s debt “crisis” hysteria, Krugman spotlights the real reason behind it:

.. Lots of supposedly serious people have been hyping the alleged threat posed by federal debt for years. For example, Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, has warned repeatedly about a “looming debt crisis.” Indeed, until not long ago the whole Beltway elite seemed to be in the grip of BowlesSimpsonism, with its assertion that debt was the greatest threat facing the nation.
A lot of this debt hysteria was really about trying to bully us into cutting Social Security and Medicare, which is why so many self-proclaimed fiscal hawks were also eager to cut taxes on the rich. But Mr. Trump apparently wasn’t in on that particular con, and takes the phony debt scare seriously. Sad!

Noting that Trump is “extrapolating from his own business career, in which he has done very well by running up debts, then walking away from them,” Krugman adds,

…Much of the Republican Party shares his insouciance about default. Remember, the party’s congressional wing deliberately set about extracting concessions from President Obama, using the threat of gratuitous default via a refusal to raise the debt ceiling.
And quite a few Republican lawmakers defended that strategy of extortion by arguing that default wouldn’t be that bad, that even with its access to funds cut off the U.S. government could “prioritize” payments, and that the financial disruption would be no big deal..Given that history, it’s not too hard to understand why candidate Trump thinks not paying debts in full makes sense.
…When Mr. Trump talks nonsense, he’s usually just offering a bombastic version of a position that’s widespread in his party. In fact, it’s remarkable how many ridiculous Trumpisms were previously espoused by Mitt Romney in 2012, from his claim that the true unemployment rate vastly exceeds official figures to his claim that he can bring prosperity by starting a trade war with China.
None of this should be taken as an excuse for Mr. Trump. He really is frighteningly uninformed; worse, he doesn’t appear to know what he doesn’t know. The point, instead, is that his blithe lack of knowledge largely follows from the know-nothing attitudes of the party he now leads.

Trump has a talent for making other Republicans’ worst economic policies and ideas seem like they are his creations. However contentious Democratic party economic proposals may be, no one can say that they haven’t been scrutinized and honed by serious economists and policy wonks — in stark contrast the the GOP. As Krugman concludes, “in this election, one party has largely cornered the market in raw ignorance.”

From John Stoehr’s “The Donald’s Trump Card Isn’t an Ace: The media narrative that Donald Trump is winning over white working-class voters is false” at U.S. News: “That Trump performed more or less on par with his rivals in Rust Belt states suggests that his supporters were already firmly conservative or already primed to choose any Republican, populist or otherwise, according to Andrew Levison, author of “The White Working Class Today” and analyst for “The Democratic Strategist,” a journal of public opinion and strategy. Indeed, Levison observed in a March white paper, Trump performed best not with Midwestern Reagan Democrats but with white working-class Southerners. This, he argued, isn’t due to Trump’s “right-wing version of economic populism” but “the racial and xenophobic elements of his platform.”

In his NYT op-ed explaining why Trump is perpetrating “Working-Class Fraud,” Timothy Egan observes, “Trump’s solution to the woes of working families is to slap a 45 percent tariff on goods coming from China. The Chinese would retaliate, of course, meaning American companies that sell aircraft, medical equipment and vehicles to China — part of the $116 billion in exports there last year — would have to cut jobs to make up for losses.”

Ed Kilgore has a reminder that “The Working Class Isn’t All That White Anymore” at New York magazine: “While Sanders has (by my back-of-the-envelope calculation) carried non-college-educated white voters in 14 of the 24 primaries and caucuses with exit polls (Hillary Clinton won them in six states, and they were basically tied in the other four), he’s lost non-white non-college-educated voters just about everywhere. That shouldn’t be a footnote. Nor should the frequent comments on the political left about Clinton betraying “the working class” and now suffering the electoral consequences go unchallenged without some attention being paid to her robust support among working folks who happened to be non-white or non-male.”

At The American Prospect Rich Yeselson has a review article discussing Tamara Draut’s pre-Trump book, “Sleeping Giant: How the New Working Class Will Transform America” and prospects for rising class consciousness as a political force. Yeselson observes, “..People make their own history, but not always in the humane ways we would hope–working-class agency isn’t always a positive social force. The weakness especially of private-sector unionism is critical here because, as Draut notes in a perceptive aside, when unions wane, “what’s also lost is the civic participation and political education unions provide.” While unions don’t guarantee interracial and ethnic solidarity–again, see Western Europe–they are, as of now, the only organizations we have that, in their normative goals and often their actions, encourage just that.”

In his post, “Bernie Sanders’s Legacy? The Left May No Longer Need the Rich,” Nate Cohn reports at The Upshot that “According to exit poll data, liberals represented a majority of white Democrats without a college degree in nearly every primary contest. It’s a huge change from just a decade or two ago, when so many white working-class Democrats were conservative (check out this 1995 Pew Research typology of voters if you want to see what the Democratic base used to look like). Mrs. Clinton tended to win “moderate” white voters without college degrees in these states, but she lost among the self-described liberals…A lot of this is a generational divide. Mrs. Clinton won among white voters without a college degree who were over age 30, but she was pummeled among those who were younger.”

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe’s executive order restoring voting rights to more than 200,000 of his state’s citizens who have completed their felony sentences has awakened the fury of the Republican establishment, which threatens to sue to prevent it, mostly because VA is a major swing state. The New York Times editorial board notes that “Virginia’s voting ban, like most of the others that collectively disenfranchise about six million Americans, is a 19th-century relic rooted in racism — a direct reaction to the passage of the 15th Amendment, which guaranteed African-Americans the right to vote…Politicians in Virginia were blunt about their motivation. In 1902, when Virginia’s voting ban was expanded at the state’s constitutional convention, Carter Glass, a state senator, said its purpose was to “eliminate the darkey as a political factor in this state in less than five years, so that in no single county of the Commonwealth will there be the least concern felt for the complete supremacy of the white race in the affairs of government…Before Mr. McAuliffe’s order, one in five black Virginians was permanently barred from voting because of a past felony conviction.”

It’s just a snapshot, but Clinton and Trump are in a stat tie in a new GA poll.

At The Fix Chris Cillizza explains why “The GOP’s electoral-map problem is not about Trump. It’s about demographics.” Cillizza reasons, “if Clinton wins the 19 states that every Democratic nominee dating to her husband has won and she wins Florida (29 electoral votes), she wins the White House. It’s that simple…Or if she wins the 19 reliable Democratic states and Virginia (13 electoral votes) and Ohio (18). Or the 19 states plus Nevada (6), Colorado (9) and North Carolina (15)..You get the idea. There are lots and lots and lots of ways for Clinton — or any Democratic nominee — to get to 270 electoral votes. There are very few ways for Trump — or any Republican nominee — to get there.”

The Cook Political Report puts it this way: “As a result, we are shifting 13 ratings on our Electoral Vote scorecard, almost all of them favoring Democrats. Our assessments are based on publicly available polling, data on demographic change and private discussions with a large number of pollsters in both parties. Much could change, but undecided voters begin more hostile to Trump than Clinton…With these changes, 190 Electoral Votes are in the Solid Democratic column, 27 are in Likely Democratic and another 87 are in Lean Democratic – enough for a majority. Yet another 44 Electoral Votes are in Toss Up. Although Iowa, New Hampshire and Ohio could shift to Lean Democratic and Nevada could shift to Likely Democratic, we are holding off on changes in these states until we see more evidence. “

You may have heard references to recent opinion polling which indicates that discontent about Obamacare is rising. AP’s Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar eplains what is behind it in his article, “Stirred by Sanders, Democrats Shift Left on Health Care.” As Alonso-Zaldivar notes,

Two recent polls have shown an uptick in negative ratings of the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, and the shift seems to come from Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. For example, in the latest installment of the Kaiser Family Foundation health care poll, the share of Democrats with unfavorable views increased by 6 percentage points.
Underlying the unease seems to be a growing conviction that the law did not do enough. About 27 million people remain uninsured, and many who gained coverage find it costly. Kaiser found that for the first time, a 51-percent majority of Democrats wants to expand what the law does, a sharp increase from the 36 percent who said so in December.

That’s a pretty significant increase in support for more government intervention in strengthening health security. Further,

Overall, Democrats still support the Obama health care law by broad margins, especially if the alternative is repealing it. But the nonpartisan polls released last week registered surprising movement.
A Pew Research Center poll found that overall the public disapproves of the law by 54-44 percent, a change from last summer when it found Americans almost evenly divided. Part of the explanation was a 12-point drop in support among Democratic-leaning independents.
Kaiser’s April tracking survey found 49 percent of Americans had an unfavorable view of the health law, with 38 percent favorable. That showed slippage from a 47-41 split in March.
Among Democrats, the share of those with unfavorable views went up from 19 percent in March to 25 percent in April. “It’s being driven by the Democrats. That’s what’s so interesting here,” said Mollyann Brodie, who directs the Kaiser poll.

Critics of Obamacare want the spin to point to less government involvement in healthcare. But the evidence says that is not the case. Overall, Americans want more government involvement in strengthening America’s health security, not less.
The author credits Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders, who has called for “Medicare for all,” with increasing pubic suport for moving in the direction of single-payer health care, or an expanded role for government in providing health security.
Majority or not, there is still a large segment of the public which doesn’t like Obamacare. Although some who feel this way have had experiences that influence their opinion, there are many who are unaware of the benefits of Affordable Care Act. This is the fault of Obamacare supporters, including the Administration, who have not done a particularly good job of educating the public.
This is part of a larger pattern of poor salesmanship and very little public education following legislative reforms, which afflicts Democrats more than the GOP. No, you can’t count on the press to do an adequate job of explaining new reforms. Their job is to sell their product, not yours.
Dems are good at twisting arms to get bills passed, but nearly clueless about how to educate the public. Republicans generally do a better job of selling their policies to the public, particularly when it comes to disparaging Democratic reforms.
FDR was arguably the last Democratic president who fully understood the importance of selling his reforms and educating the public about them — both before and after enactment. It’s as if Democrats, the so-called “party of big government” expect beneficial legislative reforms to sell themsleves, based on merit. Not gonna happen.
There needs to be a major poll to find out how much Americans actually know about the provisions of the ACA, for example. I suspect it would be shockingly little. Follow-up polling, after citizens are educated about particular reforms, would likely show an impressive uptick in public support.

In his column, “Please don’t mainstream Trump,” E. J. Dionne, Jr. warns of the threat of media complaisancy in the months ahead: “Many forces will be at work in the coming weeks to normalize Trump — and, yes, the media will play a big role in this. On both the right and the left, there will be strong temptations to go along…There will be much commentary on Trump’s political brilliance. But this should not blind us to the degree that Trumpism is very much a minority movement in our country. He has won some 10.6 million votes, but this amounts to less than a quarter of the votes cast in the primaries this year. It’s fewer than Clinton’s 12.4 million votes and not many more than the 9.3 million Bernie Sanders has received.”
All of a sudden, Red State loves them some Merrick Garland.
Senior editor Jeet Heer explains at The New Republic why “Bernie Sanders Owes It to His Supporters to Keep Fighting,” and notes, “The fact that Sanders, this late in the race, can draw a majority of voters in Indiana means his revolution has yet to run its course. He owes it to his supporters in California and other late states to give them a chance to vote. Nor is a vote for Sanders meaningless, even if his loss is foreordained. The delegates he continues to rack up will give him a greater voice in the convention and allow his supporters to shape the party platform…57 percent of Democrats say they want Sanders to stay in the race. The party base, if not the party elite, appreciates what Sanders is doing by continuing his fight. He has every reason to listen to them..”
At Politico Ann Karni ponders “Clinton’s dilemma: To punch or not to punch: Brooklyn operatives are studying how Trump’s GOP rivals fought and failed against the unscripted mogul.” Karni quotes Cl;inton Spokesman Brian Fallon: “She will not be passive, like we saw from so many of the Republicans he vanquished…But she will also not follow him into the gutter. She can challenge him in the way the Republicans wouldn’t — on the issues and on his hateful rhetoric.”
Associated Press reports “In the Year of Trump, Democrats Are Fielding a Near-Record Number of Female Senate Candidates.” As AP notes, “Democrats will have female Senate candidates on the ballot in nine states in November, a near-record…Donald Trump, whose commanding win in Indiana cemented his improbable status as the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee, is viewed unfavorably by 70% of women, according to Gallup…Women vote in higher numbers than men–in 2012, 10 million more women cast ballots than men–and vote more heavily Democratic. This year, strategists in both parties expect those trends to be magnified given Trump’s unpopularity with women, Clinton’s historic candidacy (though she herself faces high negative ratings), and the large number of women running for Senate.”
Roll Call’s Walter Shapiro provides a plausible take on the GOP’s mess in his “Republicans “Couldn’t Muster the Honor to Fight Trump: Demands of party unity recall Vietnam War excuses.” Shapiro warns, echoing Dionne, “Nervous Republicans and bored journalists will have a shared interest in creating a story line about how the real-estate baron has grown in stature as a candidate. A week without crude insults and Trump will seem like a modern-day statesman. A few cordial meetings with GOP leaders and Trump will be hailed for embracing conservative principles.”
At Salon.com, via Alternet.org, Conor Lynch has a provocative post, “What the Left Can Learn From Donald Trump: Winning the Working Class Means Fixing Your Sales Pitch: Trump’s policies are a nightmare, and his message is full of hate. But the Left must learn to connect like he does.” Lynch urges, “If progressives hope to restore democracy and economic justice in America, they must rail against the economic elite as forcefully as Trump has railed against the liberal elite.”
Just to show yas how fair-minded we are, congratulations to Georgia’s Republican Governor Nathan Deal for having the mettle to veto two wingnut bills, the transgender bathroom bill and now the ‘campus carry’ bill passed by gun nuts in the state legislature. We stop short of recommending a ‘Profiles in Courage’ Award just yet, at least until Deal OKs Medicaid expansion, the lack of which has already proven to be life-threatening for too many Georgians. Still, the Governor’s recent boldness is commendable, especialy at a time when his party is collapsing under the weight of Trumpmania.
Now it seems prophetic:

NPR political blogger Danielle Kurtzleben has a post up which will make Democrats wince and and Republicans cringe: “Democrats’ Brand Is Bad, But Republicans’ Is Way Worse.”
Kurtzleben explains that the Democratic Party’s “net favorability rating has fallen off steeply in the last few years, and it’s been negative or near-negative since 2010, according to multiple polls.” However,

The Republican Party is viewed more negatively than at any time in a generation. According to the Pew Research Center, the GOP currently has its lowest net-favorability rating since 1992, the farthest back that Pew has data on this question. (Net favorability is the share who see the party favorably minus the share who see it unfavorably.)
It’s not just Pew. CBS News in March also found the GOP’s unfavorability rating at 66 percent — the highest since the first time they asked that question, in 1984. Right now in that poll, the GOP is at negative-38 net favorability compared to Democrats’ negative-2.
NBC News has Republicans at negative-24 (27 percent positive, 51 percent negative) to Democrats’ negative-3 (38-41). (The GOP score is only a few points off from the party’s all-time low of 22-53 in the poll.)
Gallup likewise finds a similar pattern — plummeting GOP favorability which, while not at record lows, is currently mostly sticking below the Democrats’ numbers.

Kurtzleblen adds that the low favorability/approval figures cling to the candidates, as well. It’s difficult to determine whether the candidates or their parties are the collateral damage here, but it is an inextricable relationship.
On a positive note, one key difference is that Democrats are having a healthy internal debate, which holds the potential for improving the ‘brand.’ Sen. Sanders has elevated key issues, including Wall. St. reform, restoring unions and reducing the role of money in politics, as Democratic policy priorities.
Despite the GOP’s more severe image meltdown, Democratic Party leaders are understandably frustrated by their inability to sustain positive favorability and approval ratings for the party — even though they are the only party which has provided majority support for reforms that actually serve the needs of middle-class and low-income families.
Might one reason be that Democrats don’t really toot their own horn? Dems are pretty good at blasting the Republicans and their candidates in social media forums, but less effective on television, where the GOP seems to have more impact.
Having an entire network helps the Republicans, no doubt. As more and more Americans cut the cord, however, isn’t there an opportunity for Dems to create a heavilly-publicized streaming network that tells their story and explains, not just the historical achievements, but also the more recent accomplishments of Democratic leadership? These include private sector job-creation, deficit management, expansion of health care coverage, environmental protection and other needed reforms.
Dems might also benefit from a national ad campaign, not promoting candidates directly, but rolling out the legislative accomplishments — and proposals — of the party. Republicans, with their roots sunk deep in the advertising industry, have long understood that you have to assertively sell the product, regardless of its quality. It’s time for Dems to get that clue.
Dems don’t have to worry much about an improvement in the GOP’s bickering image, at least in 2016. But Dems do need a robust messaging program to improve their image, if the victories of 2016 are not rendered inconsequential by the next midterm elections.