Steven L. Schweizer asks at The Monkey Cage “Is a Democratic realignment afoot in the middle class?,” and answers “Meanwhile, the political partisanship of the middle class is trending Democratic. Data from the General Social Survey show that, since 2004, the self-identified middle class has moved toward the Democrats (see these charts). These shifts are particularly pronounced among those ages 18-39, men, the college educated, whites and Protestants…My argument naturally shares some affinities with other proponents of a pro-Democratic realignment, such as John Judis and Ruy Teixeira. But I see this realignment as being driven in part by groups not typically considered part of the “rising American electorate” — such as whites and men within the middle class. The emerging Democratic coalition is broader and deeper than many have suggested, and it is less reliant on the support of the poor, urbanites, minorities, women and highest-educated.”
“Democrats Counting on an Early Voting Advantage,” writes Emily Schultheis at The National Journal: “More than a third of the 2014 electorate is expected to cast ballots early this year, and they’re starting to do it very soon…Democrats have enjoyed a ground-game advantage in past elections, and have put $60 million behind their field efforts in 10 key Senate states–two facts they’re counting on help tip the scales toward them in a year when the electorate will be whiter and more conservative than in presidential years. But Republicans aren’t ceding the ground game, and they have made significant investments–including an additional $8 million last week–of their own to help with early-vote turnout and field operations…Of the nine Senate races rated as toss-ups by The Cook Political Report–Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Kentucky, Michigan and North Carolina–seven currently have significant early-vote programs, which consist of some combination of of no-excuse-necessary absentee voting and at least a week of early in-person voting.”
Patricia Murphy writes at The Daily Beast about the battle for control of the offices of Secretary of State across the country. Notes Murphy: “As the jobs have gained prominence and power, so has the pressure for the two parties to win them. Republicans currently dominate the breakdown, with 27 GOP secretaries of state in the 47 states that have the position. Democrats believe reversing that ratio is key to expanding ballot access in the short term among traditionally friendly constituencies like low-income seniors, women, and minorities, as well as setting the table for the 2016 presidential elections by having Democratic elections officials in place in key swing states.”
From “How Democrats Could Gain Power This Fall” by Perry Bacon, Jr. at NBC News: “Polls show Democratic gubernatorial candidates in Florida, Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and even deeply-red Kansas could upset Republican incumbents. Many of these key races are in blue states, and the rising unpopularity of President Obama does not hobble Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls as much congressional candidates, who must say if they will vote for or against his agenda…If they win, these Democratic candidates could implement major policy changes on the state level, such as expanding Medicaid and further entrenching Obamacare, increasing the minimum wage, joining forces with the Obama administration on reducing U.S. carbon emissions and rolling back GOP-backed provisions that Democrats say make it harder to vote.”
Only 5 percent of Republican “insiders” say they believe Obamacare will be the top issue in November, according to a National Journal poll.
At The Upshot Nate Cohn opines in his post “Why Democrats Can’t Win the House,” “Democrats often blame gerrymandering, but that’s not the whole story. More than ever, the kind of place where Americans live — metropolitan or rural — dictates their political views. The country is increasingly divided between liberal cities and close-in suburbs, on one hand, and conservative exurbs and rural areas, on the other. Even in red states, the counties containing the large cities — like Dallas, Atlanta, St. Louis and Birmingham — lean Democratic.”
At Slate.com John Dickerson adds: “In the election of 2014, only a small number of seats are in a position to act as a proving ground for a battle of ideas. The Center for the Study of the American Electorate suggests that this might be the lowest midterm turnout in history. The number of people who will participate in states with elections that will determine control of the Senate is even smaller still. The House represents a national election of sorts, since all 435 members are up for re-election, but of that group only 30 (6 percent) are in races that are considered up for grabs.”
In his post “The GOP’s fear of higher voter turnout,” David Sirota notes at The Everett Herald-Tribune, “According to data compiled by the think tank Demos, average voter turnout is more than 10 percent higher in states that allow citizens to register on the same day that they vote. Demos also notes that “four of the top five states for voter turnout in the 2012 presidential election all offered same-day registration.” There was some evidence in Wisconsin that same-day registration boosted Democratic turnout, but the Wisconsin State Journal of Madison reports that “Republican areas also saw heavy use of the state’s last-minute registration law.” The registration system been also been adopted by such deeply Republican states as Wyoming, Idaho and Utah.”
I’m glad somebody’s thinking. In “A Quacked-Up Strategy to Stop Terrorism” at The Democratic Daily, Walter Brasch riffs on the whole Duck Dynasty/Sean Hannity ‘convert ’em or kill ’em’ strategy conservative luminaries are peddling. A teaser: “…Make sure every soldier also has a duck call. I recommend Duck Commander’s Homeland Security duck call. It’s only about $150 each, or about $1.5 million retail if both regiments are at full strength. This sale will help spur the American war economy. The soldiers will use the quackers to lure and mesmerize the ISIS fighters…The Robertson clan needs to be on the front lines as decoys. Because the clan looks like terrorists, the ISIS terrorists will think long-haired, bearded scarf-wearing camouflaged Robertsons are kin-folk.”

In the Daily Tarheel Blair Burnett notes that the 2010 turnout of voters between ages 18-29 in NC was 23.5 percent — less than half of their 2012 turnout rate of 56.5 percent. Burnett quotes UNC junior Caroline Moretz, who has a clue for NC Dems: “I like to be informed, but I don’t really ever engage in local politics,” Moretz said. “Now that I see people in the Pit asking me if I’m registered to vote, I’ll think about voting (in November).” Burnett says the youth cohort is about 20 percent of NC voters, and “November’s elections could be decided by that demographic.”
“An estimated one-third of all ballots will be cast before the traditional Election Day on Nov. 4,” according to John Harwood’s New York Times article, “Voting Restrictions Are Key Variable in Midterm Elections.” Harwood adds, “Eight states, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, have narrowed early voting times, and three of them feature Senate races crucial to Republican hopes of capturing a majority…In Georgia, where Michelle Nunn, a Democrat, is seeking the Senate seat of the retiring Republican Saxby Chambliss, state officials have cut early voting to 21 days from 45. In West Virginia, where Representative Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, aims to flip the seat of Senator Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat who is not seeking re-election, officials cut it to 10 days from 17…North Carolina, where Senator Kay Hagan, a Democrat, is seeking re-election, has also shrunk early voting to 10 days from 17. To the chagrin of students, local officials eliminated early voting sites on the campuses of North Carolina State and Appalachian State…”
Meanwhile in Wisconsin a group of young activists is getting creative about facilitating voting, as Jason Stein reports at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: “The group’s name, Vote (Mostly) Online, captures its goal: get young people voting by helping them do as much of the voting process online as state law allows. That’s a challenge in Wisconsin, a state where the 1,852 municipalities — each with their own clerk — make it difficult to connect voters statewide with the correct ballots…the website for facilitating absentee voting in Wisconsin is one of several projects started by a trio of serial technology entrepreneurs…The website will then ask users for the information needed to request an absentee ballot from their clerk. Vote (Mostly) Online will then complete and print out the official request forms and send them to voters, who will verify them, sign them and mail them to their clerk using an enclosed envelope with the correct address and postage. The clerk will then in turn send the voters their absentee ballots for them to fill out and return.”
Associated Press reports that a coalition of faith groups called Isaiah is pushing what it calls an “equity agenda” to launch a drive “to get 56,000 voters to Minnesota polling places this fall.”
I dunno about this gambit. But weird stuff works sometimes, and there isn’t much to lose in this particular instance.
Chris Cillizza asks at The Fix “Our Senate model is moving in Democrats’ direction all of a sudden. Why?” Cillizza adds “…Democratic candidates are currently overperforming how past history suggests they should be doing in a number of races. In a trio of states that has caused significant movement in the odds in Democrats’ favor over the past month [GA, IA, LA]…”
At The Daily Beast Michael Tomasky makes a persuasive case for “the Democrats’ best hope for November: that enough voters in enough key states are sicker of the Republicans than of them.”
Emma Roller’s National Journal article “Inside the Strangest Job on the Campaign Trail” provides an interesting look at how the Democratic and Republican gaffe tracker units work. For now, at least, Dems seem to have the edge in funding and organization.
About the same odds of this happening anytime soon as a snowball’s chance in hell.

At Daily Kos Dreaminonempty has an elegant graphic in his post “Why 2014 is not 2010, in one very clear chart.” Go there and chew on it for a minute.
The chart shows two trend lines, using “loess curves” to depict the course of “Democratic generic congressional ballot polls” for 2014 and 2010 over time, beginning in January of each respective year. The 2014 line is fairly straight, showing a Democratic edge in positive territory, ranging from a low of about +0.4 percent to a high in the ballpark of +2.0 percent.
The 2010 trend line, however, is all over the place — from a low of about -8.2 percent to a high of approximately +0.2 percent.
You will remember 2010 as the year that Democrats got “shellacked” in congressional elections, as President Obama put it. The trend line is very different for 2014, much less volatile — and completely in positive territory thus far.
Granted, the 2014 line only goes to the end of August. In 2010, however, Dems started tanking in early July and experienced an even more precipitous decline beginning in mid-September, when many voters began paying attention. July and August 2014 have come and gone, and Dems are still hanging tough in positive territory. “In past years, massive waves have been quite obvious by now,” notes Dreaminonempty.
Apart from Dreaminonempty’s point that “2014 is not 2010,” what I’m hoping the chart shows is that the Democrats’ demographic advantage is kicking in, solidifying our edge, at least in generic balloting. Perhaps also that Republicans have befouled their nest to the point where some of their rational voters are beginning to bail.
As for how reliable generic ballot polls are in predicting outcomes, that’s another story. But the relative stability of the Democratic positive edge is most likely a good thing. You would rather see that than a mirror image of the 2010 volatility. As Dreaminonempty puts it, “…as of now, there’s no evidence of a developing Republican wave.”
The post has another chart, comparing polling for 6 other elections to 2014. Again the relative stability of Dems’ generic congressional ballot advantage in 2014 is striking.
Of course none of this will mean much if Dems do an inadequate job of turning out the base. Much depends on the scope and scale of the modernized Democratic GOTV projects now underway in the more closely-contested races.

From Joan McCarter’s Daily Kos post “Kochs to Republicans: All your voters belong to us“:

The RNC has been working on creating a program called Beacon. The key part of that sentence is “working on,” because the program isn’t ready and campaigns need it. Campaigns have been going their own way with diverse private vendors, including one called Themis which has a system called i360. That poses a problem for the RNC because they then don’t have access to the databases of voters that the campaigns are identifying. But the RNC is coming up against a behemoth foe.

McCarter then quotes from Jon Ward’s “The Behind The Scenes Story Of The RNC’s Quest For Data Supremacy” at HuffPo:

Beacon is intended to open up the RNC voter file to as many new apps and programs want to interface with it. But when campaigns, or worse, state parties, use i360, that is a problem for the RNC, because i360 is more than an app. It has its own voter file. And so every state party that uses i360 is sending out field staffers–paid for with RNC money, funneled through the state parties–to collect data that goes back not to the RNC, but to the Koch-brothers owned subsidiary.

And then from Josh Israel’s ThinkProgress post “The Koch Brothers And Republican Party Have Just Joined Forces To Track Voters“:

A secretive data and technology company linked to conservative oil billionaires Charles and David Koch has reached an agreement to share its information with the “voter file and data management company” that holds an exclusive agreement with the Republican National Committee. This will allow the Republican Party full access to voter data collected by the Koch’s Freedom Partners entities and clients–and entrenches the Kochs’ network even deeper into the GOP.

In 2014 and going forward, data control will be an increasing source of power. And with all of this invaluable voter data being filtered through the Koch Brothers’ system, it is no exaggeration to conclude, as does McCarter that this “arguably means the Koch brothers essentially own the Republican party, not just its Senate candidates.”

So, “Where Would Workers Be Without labor Unions?” At Arizona Centeral Angel Rodriguez has an answer for Arizona — and a challenge for workers.
This new Gallup poll indicates a majority of Americans (53%) support labor unions, but unions have a lot of work to do in educating the public, which also supports the so-called “Right to Work” laws by an even larger margin.
From the Omaha World-Herald’s Cindy Gonzales: “24.4: The biggest percentage of union members from a state is New York. North Carolina is the smallest, with 3 percent. 26: States (including Iowa) that saw their union membership rate decline from 2012 to 2013; 22 states (including Nebraska) saw union membership rates rise. Two states remained unchanged.”
At The Atlantic Chad Broughton’s “When Labor Day Meant Something: Remembering the radical past of a day now devoted to picnics and back-to-school sales” and observes that consumers have a good alternative to Walmart: “…better, people could go to Costco, where workers make about twice the Walmart wage, and don’t have to rely on federal benefits like food stamps and Medicaid (which, according to Americans for Tax Fairness, cost taxpayers $6.2 billion a year). In addition, Costco lets its workers unionize while Walmart instructs managers to report union activity or grumblings about wages to the company’s “Labor Relations Hotline.”…Holiday shoppers will have to wait until Tuesday, though, because Costco is closed on Labor Day. Its workers are where they should be–at the family barbecue or the parade, celebrating our national holiday.”
Steven Greenhouse’s “More Workers Are Claiming ‘Wage Theft‘” at the New York Times spotlights a mixed trend — rising corporate greed meets more assertive workers.
NYT’s Labor Day editorial notes, “There has been progress since last Labor Day. Mr. Obama has signed executive orders to improve the pay and working conditions of employees of federal contractors. The Labor Department is revising rules on overtime pay; simply updating them for inflation would make millions of additional workers eligible for time-and-a-half for overtime…What is still lacking, however, is a full-employment agenda that regards labor, not corporations, as the center of the economy — a change that would be a reversal of the priorities of the last 35 years.”
It appears that the Wall St. Journal couldn’t even manage a ‘thank you’ to, or spare a thought for, American workers who have enriched their clients and WSJ’s bottom line immeasurably.
E.J. Dionne, Jr. pays tribute to the workers and customers of Market Basket, who stood up for a stand-up manager.
AFL-CIO Now’s Mike Hall makes it plain: “Happy Labor Day! Now Let’s Raise Wages”

Politico has obtained an internal Republican report commissioned by two conservative groups: Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS and the American Action Network, which says “although Republicans have tried to improve outreach to female voters, women still believe the party is “stuck in the past” and “intolerant.” Forty-nine percent of women polled for the report looked on the GOP unfavorably. Only 39 percent felt that way about the Democratic Party,” reports Marina Fang at HuffPo. “The report drew its conclusions from focus group discussions and a poll of 800 registered women voters. In top issue areas, such as health care, the economy and education, the poll found that Democrats held a huge advantage. For example, when considering which side “wants to make health care more affordable,” the women surveyed chose the Democratic Party by a 39 percent margin. They also said that a policy of equal pay for equal work would “help women the most.”
It’s not just the federal level. The GOP does major damage to women’s health and rights at the state level, according to this report by People for the American Way.
In his article “Politicians and Billionaires: Pledging Allegiance to Each Other in Secret” at HuffPo, Mike Lux chronicles the squalid doings at the Koch Bros/GOP ring-kissing grovelfest, at which Mitch and other Republican candidates gush shamelessly about their benefactors and brag about screwing over working people.
At The New Republic Brian Beutler explains why Democrats shouldn’t be suckered by Republican denials that they will shut down the government in retaliation for President Obama expanding a program which would defer deportation of low-priority immigrants: “the people who orchestrate government shutdowns never admit to the explicit nature of their threats. Last year, conservatives adamantly denied that they were preparing to shut down the government unless President Barack Obama agreed to spoil his own signature initiative, and they deny that’s what they did to this day. Instead, they insist that President Obama and Harry Reid shut down the government out of their own misplaced devotion to Obamacare, as if it were not already a law on the books.” Beutler adds that Mitch McConnell, among others, is “threatening to use the appropriations process as leverage to extract concessions. That’s a government shutdown fight. And no matter how he plays it, he will unleash forces he and other GOP leaders have proven incapable of restraining. They can’t control the plot…Nobody’s saying a government shutdown will definitely happen. But a confrontation is very likely, and Republicans in Congress are the reason. Even if they never say the words “government shutdown.”
In another TNR post, Beutler floats an interesting idea for Dems in the event of a big 2016 win: “…if the wave materializes, they should be prepared to use the threat of aggressive, opportunistic redistricting as a source of leverage, to entice Republicans into supporting some kind of non-partisan redistricting system, ideally in every state.”
From The Princeton Election Consortium’s “Senate Democrats are outperforming expectations” by Sam Wang, who picked every single 2012 Senate victor (33 races) correctly: “The PEC polling snapshot has mostly favored Democrats. Starting from June 1st, Democrats have led for 61 days and Republicans for 26 days, a 70-30 split. During that period, the Senate Meta-Margin has been D+0.24±0.57%. Assuming that the June-August pattern applies to the future, I can use this Meta-Margin, and the t-distribution with 3 d.f., to predict the future, including the possibility of black-swan events. The result is that the November Senate win probability for the Democrats (i.e. probability that they will control 50 or more seats) is 65%.
I would argue that President Obama has nothing to worry about in much-hyped polls showing, for example, that only 36 percent say his “approach to foreign policy and national security” is “about right.,” compared to more than half earlier in his presidency. The questions and response menu of such polls are so vague as to be nearly worthless. Obama is a centrist on the interventionist/isolationist continuum, and his party is not likely to suffer because of it in the midterms.
How can any political leader seriously argue that “Illinois’ new same-day voter registration statute is a Democratic “trick,” especially Chris “The Bridge” Christie? 2014 may go down in U.S. political history as the emblematic year when Republicans outed themselves in a huge way as shameless advocates of voter suppression. In fact, reports David Sirota at International Business Times, “most of the 11 states with same-day registration laws currently have Republican governors.”
It’s just a snapshot, but this poll should make Karl Rove and Reince Priebus choke on their Cheerios.

Caitlin Huey-Burns’s post “How Democrats Can Hold Their Senate Majority” at Real Clear Politics is not well-titled, since it is more a horse race update than a genuine how-to. Read as a recap, however, it does offer a “road ahead” snapshot of the challenges Dems face in holding their upper-chamber majority. As Huey-Burns elaborates:

…It’s not all doom and gloom for Democrats. A silver lining, party operatives say, has been there all along. What the party has going for it are strong, battle-tested incumbents. And that advantage is holding up — so far.
“Republicans have a terrible record of beating incumbent Democratic senators, going back to their last good year in this category, 1980,” wrote Larry Sabato and his “Crystal Ball” colleagues this week. “There is no obvious way for the GOP to gain the six seats necessary for control without taking down some incumbent Democrats, a task at which Republicans have struggled — they haven’t beaten more than two Democratic Senate incumbents since that huge 1980 landslide.”
…Several Democratic incumbents are either leading or within the margin of error, according to polls. With the exception of Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia, no Republican challenger has pulled into a significant lead in Democratic-held states.
After Labor Day weekend, voters will begin to tune in in earnest to the congressional races in their states and districts and the ad wars will heat up. Contests will surely tighten, and both Democrats and Republicans expect close races up until Election Day…
Democrats note that at this point in 2010, a GOP wave was already coming and much hope was lost. “Now, the Republican brand is worse than it’s ever been, so even in red states where we should be losing, we’re not,” said Justin Barasky, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “It speaks to the strength of our incumbents and their brands.”

Huey-Burns gets down to specific cases and notes that Dem Senate incumbents are holding up surprisingly well and our challengers are playing serious offense in red states GA and KY. Republicans are more worried than they thought they would be on the eve of Labor Day. She acknowledges that “there is still little room for error on the Democratic side” considering the large number of Senate seats Dems are defending. But the fact that so many seats are still very much in play is encouraging.
As we approach the Labor Day break, it seems like a good time for Democrats who want to help boost turnout in November to start thinking about voter registration deadlines and planning GOTV projects. Toward that end, Rock the Vote has the voter registration skinny — and registration forms — for the 50 states right here.

In her Salon.com post “The left’s secret midterm weapon: How marijuana ballot initiatives can change turnout,” Heather Digby Parton concludes that DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s opposition to a medical pot is ‘political malpractice.’ Parton cites some compelling data to make the point:

… Studies have shown that a controversial ballot initiative can boost turnout by as much as 4 percent in off year elections. For years the Republicans used “gay marriage” as the boogeyman to rouse their social conservative voters but that seems to have backfired on them in recent years as marriage equality is now being routinely acknowledged by legislatures and the courts.
Today it’s the Democrats who are taking advantage of the ballot initiative process to push for a loosening of marijuana laws in states across the country and having some big successes. In fact, there’s good evidence that while the youth vote overall stayed nearly exactly the same percentage of the electorate in 2012 as 2008, in the states where marijuana legalization was on the ballot, the 18-29 year old vote went way up:

In 2008 young people made up just 14 percent of the vote in Colorado but this year it was 20 percent. Even more incredibly, in Washington State the youth vote went from just 10 percent of the electorate last election to 22 percent this time.

In Oregon there was also a 5 percent point increase. Polling last spring showed a very big advantage for Democrats if marijuana is on the ballot this fall:

George Washington University Battleground poll, a national survey of likely voters, reveals that nearly four in 10 respondents say they would be “much more likely” to vote if marijuana legalization issues were on the ballot. An additional 30% say such ballot initiatives would make them “somewhat” more likely to vote.

Parton adds that opponents of medical marijuana have found no convincing evidence that there is much “downside to the drug itself,” other than legal problems. She puzzles over Wasserman-Schultz’s opposition to the modest medical reefer reform measure on the ballot in Florida. I guess some, not many, Democrats are conservative on the issue, maybe fewer than those who are conservative about reproductive rights and same-sex marriage.
Further, adds Parton, a May Quinnipiac Poll found that “Florida voters support 88 – 10 percent allowing adults to legally use marijuana for medical purposes, if a doctor prescribes it. Support is over 80 percent among all listed groups, including 84 – 13 percent among voters over 65 years old.”
Wasserman-Schultz is usually one of the more astute message-crafters in the Democratic party. But I think Parton is right that it is probably unwise for the DNC head to go too high-profile against medical marijuana. Or, if she must, then always make it clear that she is not speaking for the DNC or her party and emphasize that it is just her personal point of view.
In any case, other Florida Democrats should feel unencumbered in taking a position strongly supporting medical marijuana in their state. That train has pretty much left the station, as far as young voters are concerned, and Dems have nothing to gain by blocking the tracks.

Jeffrey M. Jones writes that “Disapproval of Congress Linked to Higher Voter Turnout,” and explains at Gallup Politics:

Congressional job approval, currently 13%, is on pace to be the lowest it has been in a midterm election year. Moreover, a near-record-low 19% of registered voters say most members of Congress deserve re-election. This latter measure shows a similarly strong relationship to voter turnout as does job approval.
Voter turnout in midterm elections has ranged narrowly between 38.1% and 41.1% since 1994, considerably lower than the 51.7% to 61.6% range for the last five presidential elections. But there has been a clear pattern of turnout being on the higher end of the midterm year range when Americans were less approving of Congress. The correlation between turnout and congressional approval since 1994 is -.83, indicating a strong relationship.
The disapproval-turnout link is a fairly recent phenomenon. From 1974 — the first year Gallup measured congressional job approval — until 1990, there was only a weak relationship between turnout and approval, with turnout higher when approval was higher, the opposite of the current pattern. But that weak relationship was driven mostly by the 1974 midterm elections, when turnout was among the higher ones for midterms and Congress was relatively popular after the Watergate hearings that led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation that summer.

Jones reviews the history of the relationship between turnout and congressional approval, post-Watergate and adds, “As a result, it is unclear how the current frustration with Congress will manifest itself in terms of party control of the two houses of Congress.”
If recent patterns prevail, the expectation is that Republicans will reap the benefit, with their traditional midterm turnout edge, although most recent polls show that voters are more displeased with congressional Republicans than with Democrats. If the Dems’ Bannock Street Project lives up to some of the more optimistic reporting, they will likely do better than expected in the Senate and hold their majority. The DCCC’s recent 13-seat expansion of its “Red to Blue” campaign may also get better results than expected with a turnout surge.
As always the “safe” bet is with recent patterns. But if Bannock Street and Red to Blue do a good job, all bets are off.

Molly Parker’s “Democrats roll out new strategy to motivate folks to the polls” at the Southern Illinoisian” describes the challenge Dems face in Illinois — and a template Dems can use in other states: “…5.1 million Illinoisans voted in the last presidential election, compared to 3.6 million that voted in the last midterm election. That means some 1.5 million people sit out midterm elections. Of those 1.5 million, roughly 1.2 million of those non-voters are Democrats…so-called “drop-off voters” have been identified in every county and every precinct in the state. Party leaders are going door-to-door and asking these folks to sign a card pledging to vote in November. The cards will be mailed back to them before the election as a reminder of their pledge, in addition to three separate mailers they will receive…” She quotes Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin: “”If we bring theses people out, a large portion of these people out, we’re going to win elections.”
At Daily Kos Jeff Singer’s “Want to make sure every vote counts? Get involved in these key races for secretary of state” spotlights often-overlooked, but critically-important election contests, which deserve more attention from Democratic political operatives.
At the Atlantic Molly Ball’s “Inside the Democrats’ Plan to Save Arkansas–and the Senate” notes “To beat the odds, across the country Democrats have mounted an ambitious political organizing effort–the first attempt to replicate the Obama campaign’s signature marriage of sophisticated technology and intensive on-the-ground engagement on a national scale without Obama on the ballot. The effort is particularly noticeable in states like Arkansas and Alaska, which have small electorates and which haven’t been presidential battleground states for a decade or more. (In 2004, John Kerry initially tried to compete in Arkansas, but pulled out of the state three weeks before the election and lost it by 10 points.) In Arkansas, campaigns traditionally begin after Labor Day; this year, the airwaves have already been blanketed with campaign ads, from both the candidates and deep-pocketed outside groups, for months…This year marks Democrats’ attempt to roll out the program on a national scale. Dubbed the Bannock Street Project, after the Bennet campaign’s Denver headquarters, it will, by the time the election is over, comprise a 4,000-employee, $60 million effort in 10 states. The voter-contact metrics recorded in each state are uploaded in real time to the Washington headquarters of the senatorial committee. While such efforts are commonly described as turnout operations, Matt Canter, the committee’s deputy executive director, says there’s more to it than that. “This is about much more than [get-out-the-vote],” he tells me. “This is not just identifying supporters and turning them out. This is actually building sustained voter contact programs through multiple face-to-face conversations that can persuade voters to change their minds and vote Democrat.”..Democrats believe they have a technological edge in their ability to use data to model and target voter preferences. Republicans, who have invested heavily in technology since 2012, are working to catch up. But on a basic level, turning out voters relies on the simple arithmetic of the application of resources–bodies on the ground, close to their communities, tirelessly recruiting volunteers who will work to activate their neighbors and family and friends…”
Re the recent UNH/WMUR poll showing Scott Brown down just two points from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Blumenthal, Ariel Edwards-Levy and Rachel Lienesch say “Stop Freaking Out Over The Results Of One Poll.”
At Forbes, pollster John Zogby concludes from a new Zogby Analytics poll that “In 2010, it was older, whiter, and more conservative voters who turned out, while many of the Democrats’ base voters stayed home. Thus far in 2014, it looks like Democrats may show up at the polls and independents may just stay home because they don’t like either party.”
Susan Davis illuminates why “Alaska becomes crucial frontier for Senate Democrats” at USA Today.
It appears that President Obama’s “economic patriotism” meme may have sturdy legs. Americans are at long last ready to take a stand against corporate ex-pats exploiting U.S. taxpayers, then skipping out on the bill. Anne Tucker’s “Curbing Corporate Inversions Through Public Pressure for Economic Patriotism” includes this observation: “Feared negative public reaction tipped the scales in favor of remaining a U.S. company for Walgreens, with market pressure nearly causing the opposite result. Public pressure for economic patriotism and corporate stewardship must be a part of any permanent solution. It will mitigate market-based profit maximization pressures. Brand identity and consumer loyalty are not subject to the kind of loopholes that riddle the tax code or the partisan gridlock in Washington, D.C.” It’s a great slogan for Democratic candidates looking for creative ways to call out their Republican opponents’ refusal to protect American jobs. UPDATE: This report suggests Burger King may also need to be challenged on its “economic patriotism.”
The National Journal’s Scott Bland and Adam Woolner report on the larger contributions to pro-Democratic Super-PACs to help Dems hold their senate majority.
The “voting with your wallet” app gets a lot of diss, but I’m thinking Buypartisan is a good tool for identifying companies which fund Republicans. Sure it’s maybe too much of a hassle to use for groceries and everyday purchases. But for bigger ticket items like stocks, phones, cell services services and cameras etc., why not? If Google and Facebook are supporting ALEC, or Verizon, ATT and T-Mobile support Ted Cruz, why should Dems give them any play?