Recent years have witnessed lots of hand-wringing about the Democratic “brand,” paired with anxieties about a lack of clarity regarding the Democrats’ mission, along with questions like “what do the Democrats stand for?” It’s a fair gripe – it hasn’t been easy for Dems to project a clear, concise message that gives them a positive image. But now that the Republicans are in glorious 3D ‘disarray,’ it’s time for Democrats to craft some new GOP branding irons, so Republicans will have to display a deeper imprint on their foreheads.

Branding is not a one-way strategy. It’s just as important to brand the adversary as oneself.

G.O.P. stands for “Gridlock, Obstruction and Paralysis” is a particularly good fit at the moment. That’s fine for bumper stickers and headlines. But it’s also time for Dems to sear the “do-nothing GOP” and “Chaos party” brands deeply into the Republican public image. Pair it with a reminder that the The GOP leaders are marinating in their own chaos to the point where they can’t even get newly-elected members, most of whom are Republicans, sworn-in, let alone do the peoples’ business.

As Stephen Collinson put it at CNN Politics, “McCarthy is becoming the latest example of a political leader consumed by a revolution the “Make America Great Again” radicals helped to stage. For the radical lawmakers now blocking his ascent to his dream job, he’s become the political establishment he once condemned….The Californian, who has lost a stunning 11 consecutive House roll call votes in his bid to become speaker, was the first major GOP leader to embrace ex-President Donald Trump after the January 6, 2021, insurrection.”

“The speakership stalemate is not just a fresh indication of the turmoil still racking the GOP after the far-right forced out two previous GOP speakers,” Collinson adds. “It suggests the new GOP House majority will be perennially dysfunctional and – given the capacity of a few lawmakers to grind the chamber to a halt at any moment – chaotic political crises are likely to dominate the next two years.”

What Dems must do is something more than sit on the couch enjoying the spectacle and noshing on popcorn. Every single Democratic elected official ought to be out there branding the Republicans as the incompetent do-nothing party. It’s long been true. But never before has there been a better political moment for making the brand stick. Some Democratic leaders are doing this. But all of them need to make it the ‘message du jour.’

Eventually, the Republicans will elect a speaker and they will be able to make Democratic reforms D.O.A. in the House, no matter what Dems are able to accomplish in the senate. They will launch investigations targeting Democrats, and they will dominate the media narrative when it comes to House coverage. For Dems not to take full advantage of this political moment, would be political malpractice. Attack, attack, attack.

The worst part about the McCarthy meltdown is that the Republican dissenters causing it are even worse than him. Many are wondering why the Democrats can’t hook up with a half-dozen or so Republican moderates to elect a more moderate Republican speaker. The answer is that it’s not so easy to find enough GOP moderates who have the gonads to to take such a stand. At The Week, Peter Weber notes, “Incoming House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who won a plurality of votes in all three rounds, said Republicans have not yet reached out to his caucus. And he didn’t sound overly eager to make a deal. “We are looking for a willing partner to solve problems for the American people, not save the Republicans from their dysfunction,” Jeffries said. “We need a partner in governance” and haven’t found one in McCarthy’s Republicans….Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) seemed a little more amenable. “Democrats are here, we’re not going anywhere, and if they want to play ball, we’re open to that,” she told MSNBC Tuesday night….”I do not believe that Kevin McCarthy has the votes, I believe that a lot of the opposition to him is very personal,” and if no Republican can get 218 votes, “McCarthy’s team may have to come to the Democratic Party,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And if that’s the case, then what would that even look like? It’s rather unprecedented. Could it result in a potential coalition government? Could we get Democratic chairs of committees as a result? We don’t know.” New York Times columnist Perry Bacon, Jr. argues that “Democrats should back a centrist Republican for speaker.” For most House Democrats, however, the prevailing attitude seems to be pass the popcorn and enjoy the demolition derby. No telling how it’s going to shake out.

Writing at The Hill, Mike Lillis also doubts that Democrats are going to get involved. “Democratic leaders said Wednesday that Republicans are on their own amid the conservative revolt that’s prevented Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — or anyone else — from becoming the next Speaker in the new Congress….“This is on them,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), the incoming chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said during a press briefing in the Capitol….Aguilar said he hasn’t been approached by any lawmakers about a search for a potential consensus candidate, nor have Democratic leaders presented that possibility to their rank-and-file members, who are united behind Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the incoming minority leader who got all 212 Democratic votes on Tuesday’s three ballots….With Republicans flailing in their effort to seat a new Speaker, outside centrist groups are agitating for lawmakers in both parties to unite behind a moderate figure — perhaps one outside of Congress — to fill the void. This week, former Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), a centrist who is popular on both sides of the aisle, said the idea that he might be that figure is “an intriguing suggestion that I have not rejected.”….Yet even those Democrats who have supported the idea of a consensus candidate don’t appear ready to jump on board. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who has been open to that strategy, is also downplaying that idea this week amid the Republicans’ struggles to seat a new Speaker….Yet even those Democrats who have supported the idea of a consensus candidate don’t appear ready to jump on board. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who has been open to that strategy, is also downplaying that idea this week amid the Republicans’ struggles to seat a new Speaker….“At the end of the day, this is a Republican mess,” he told CNN Tuesday night. “This is a failure of them to govern. This is their problem to fix.”

In “4 Things That Were Changed (Forever) By 2022” at Campaigns & Elections, Sean J. Miller writes, “There was a time when digital consultants felt it was, well, just a matter of time before they took their rightful place at the head of the campaign strategy table. Remember Brad Parscale’s appointment as campaign manager for President Trump’s reelect? Digital was going to be in charge. Since 2020, that inevitability has appeared far less certain. Sure, digital spending is still increasing — as platform companies’ stock prices are plummeting — but look at how much money went to broadcast in 2022: Pre-election projections had it hitting just under $5 billion , the biggest advertising category by far. And the reason for that is clear: it still works….“Broadcast television builds the most reach, quickly, and there’s nothing that comes close to it,” said Hadassa Gerber, chief research officer at TVB, a trade association representing America’s local broadcast television industry….Gerber’s group recently released a study  that had 41 percent of voters saying broadcast TV was motivating them to get out and vote. Cable TV was second at 27 percent, followed by social media at 24 percent….“People just write off that television can’t reach young adults (18-34 year olds), but 78 percent [of those voters] saw an ad on TV for a candidate or ballot issue,” Gerber told C&E. “They also trust it.”….She added: “Are they [campaigns] using the other platforms? Yeah they are. But nothing has the reach of television.”

I know. I too hate to see Mitch McConnell get credit for anything good. After all, the senate minority leader served as Trump’s most important enabler for years. He could have checked Trump’s worst proclivities numerous times. He could have been a force for moderation, or at least sane conservatism. He could have raised some hell about January 6. He betrayed long-standing bipartisan consensus on procedural traditions to pack the Supreme Court into a reactionary majority. His list of coulda shouldas and crimes against human decency is too long to document here. But all of that was then, and this is now. So when Mitch and Biden do a joint appearance to claim credit for an infrastructure upgrade, it’s sigh and smh time. As MJ Lee, Kevin Liptak and Sam Fossum report in “Biden and McConnell show off their bipartisan bonafides in Kentucky“at CNN Politics: “A rare scene unfolded Wednesday in Covington, Kentucky: President Joe Biden stood alongside Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, as the two men promoted a major bipartisan legislative accomplishment they achieved together….The president’s visit to McConnell’s home state to herald the implementation of the massive $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that McConnell and 18 other Senate Republicans voted for, and that Biden signed into law in 2021, marked his first domestic trip of the new year. The trip was aimed at sending an unmistakable message as Biden kicks off the second half of his first term: Even in a newly divided Congress, the Biden White House still sees room for bipartisanship….Biden thanked McConnell for working across the aisle on the law….“It wouldn’t have happened without your hand. It just wouldn’t have gotten done and I want to thank you for that,” Biden said to McConnell during his remarks….He added that while he and McConnell don’t agree on a lot, the Kentucky Republican is someone you can trust….“He’s a man of his word. When he gives you his word, you can take it to the bank, you can count on it, and he’s willing to find common ground to get things done for the country. So thank you, Mitch. Thank you,” Biden said.” Wince. But Democrats have to be about the future, if they want to build an electoral coalition that actually gets things done. Sure, Biden could be playing Charlie Brown to Mitch’s Lucy holding the ball. But Democrats are stuck. If they want to be perceived as the grownups going forward, they have to give the leader of their party and the nation enough room to be viewed as a force for bipartisanship.

Despite all of the legitimate gripes about social media’s influential conservative bias (see Musk, Elon and Zuckerberg, Mark, for example), TV still rules when it comes to political ads. A couple of quick takes from Amy Walter at the Cook Political Report underscore television dominance: “….Traditional advertising (TV and cable), made up 73% of all ad spending in 2022 – But, CTV, Connected TV, has become a bigger share of the political advertising market, representing 12% of all ad spending this cycle. CTV is defined as a device that plugs into your TV (or is part of your TV) that allows you to stream content (think Roku or Apple TV). (AdImpact)….2022 was the most expensive midterm on record for TV ad spending. According to the campaign ad tracking firm AdImpact, the 2022 political cycle was the most expensive midterm election on record, with over $8.9B spent, more than doubling the $3.9B spent during the 2018 midterms. In fact, this year’s midterm spending was just $119M shy of 2020, the most expensive political cycle of all time….However, according to Wesleyan Media Project, while spending on advertising in House and Senate contests was up 10 percent compared to 2018, the volume of TV ads (the number of ads run) “does not break historical records in all cases.” It was 2020, not 2018, that saw the highest volume of TV ads in races for the House and Senate. In House races this cycle, writes the Wesleyan Media Project analysis, ad volumes cycle-to-date were down 7 percent from 2020 and in Senate races the volume was down 35 percent from 2020. “In general, though, ad volumes in congressional races since (and including) 2018 are higher than in the three previous elections in 2012, 2014, and 2016.”

In their op-ed, “Latino voters are still in search of a working-class agenda” in The Los Angeles Times, Republican strategist Mike Madrid and Democratic analyst Lucas Holtz write: “The education divide that has defined American politics over the last three election cycles has begun to appear in the country’s largest blue state, California. Democrats have captured and retained greater shares of college-educated voters in metro areas, but it has come at the expense of losing rural and blue-collar voters to the Republican Party….For California, this trade-off has had the effect of Democrats flipping down-ballot House seats in suburban places like Orange County and northern Los Angeles County but losing races in the rural Central Valley. It could also exacerbate ethnic, class and geographic tensions within the Democratic Party….In California, as with other states with large Latino populations, the educational realignment has become intertwined with Latino voters’ political shift to the right. California’s 17 most heavily Latino congressional districts (where a Republican and Democrat both ran in 2022) have an average college education rate 20% lower than the rest of the state. Every one of these districts swung right from the 2020 presidential election to the 2022 midterms, with an 11.2% aggregated shift. All but one of these 17 districts swung right from the blue wave of 2018 to this year’s 2022 midterm election. There were three competitive, toss-up districts among these 17, each of which Biden won in 2020 and Republicans managed to win this year….Republicans won seven of California’s 10 most competitive congressional districts in 2022, and Latino voters had an outsize impact in the outcomes of almost every one of these 10 districts….The backlash to the Supreme Court overturning Roe vs. Wade, the recent memory of the Uvalde school shooting and the constant drumbeat of MAGA extremism may have been enough to keep swing Latino voters in the Democratic column, but these issues become less motivating as Latino voters are disproportionately affected by rising living costs, steep housing prices and the employment damage done by the pandemic.”

Associated Press reporters  Ayanna Alexander and Gary Fields make the case that “Black voters have been a steady foundation for Democratic candidates for decades, but that support appeared to show a few cracks in this year’s elections….Republican candidates were backed by 14% of Black voters, compared with 8% in the last midterm elections four years ago, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive national survey of the electorate….In Georgia, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp more than doubled his support among Black voters to 12% in 2022 compared with 5% four years ago, according to VoteCast. He defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams both times….If that boost can be sustained, Democrats could face headwinds in 2024 in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where presidential and Senate races are typically decided by narrow margins and turning out Black voters is a big part of Democrats’ political strategy….It’s too early to tell whether the 2022 survey data reflects the beginnings of a longer-term drift of Black voters toward the GOP or whether the modest Republican gains from an overwhelmingly Democratic group will hold during a presidential year.” There’s no denying that Republicans are making some small, but potentially-significant gains with Black and Latino voters. Sharon Lure notes at U.S. News that “According to [Univ. of California researcher Robert] Fairlie’s analysis of the census data, the number of Black small-business owners was 28% higher in the third quarter of 2021 than it was pre-pandemic, compared to 19% for Latino business owners and 5% for white and Asian business owners.” Would it help Democrats if they  reviewed and updated their policies to benefit and win support from more small business entrepreneurs?

Paul Glastris explains “How Democrats Won More Rural Votes in 2022” at The Washington Monthly: “Instead of relying on out-of-district volunteers to canvas with scripted messages, [Wisconsin State Senator Jeff] Smith and other successful rural Democrats deploy locals or knock on doors themselves and let voters lead the conversation. They also buy ads in and give interviews to small-town newspapers and radio stations, even if those outlets are arch-conservative.” Noting that The Washington Monthly has been advocating similar strategy for a long time, WaMo Editor-in-Chief Gastric adds, “The overall aim is not to win the majority of rural voters—that’s virtually impossible these days for a Democrat—but to minimize their losses in these areas while getting the maximum number of their core Democratic supporters to vote….other Democratic candidates listened to what Johnson and other party critics had to say about the need to fight for rural votes. The most famous is Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senator-elect John Fetterman, who performed better than Joe Biden in 2020 not only in the suburbs but also in small, rural towns, as well with a strategy he dubbed “Every County, Every Vote.” The state’s newly elected Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro also ran hard in rural counties and did even better there than Fetterman. In Colorado, U.S. Senator Michael Bennet won reelection in a 15-point blowout, thanks partly to the Democrat’s better-than-expected showing in rural areas. And in Michigan, robust results in rural districts plus a new legislative map helped Democrats take control of both houses of the legislature for the first time in 40 years.”

Digby reports on “The massive Cuban emigration” at digbysblog.net, and writes “I know why Trump put in place all the draconian policies that have now forced Cubans to try to emigrate to the US in massive numbers. But why are they still in place?….Cubans migrate to the US because, unlike any other group of refugees, they are fast tracked to residency as political refugees. If they put their feet on US land, they get to stay. I can only assume that this migration is, therefore, supported by Cuban American Republicans because they want these people to come to America….The people who push the Great Replacement Theory idea that Democrats want more immigrants because they believe they will vote for Democrats, actually seem to be doing what they accuse the Democrats of doing. Surprise.'” Digby quotes from a recent New York Times article, which notes, “Over the last year, nearly 250,000 Cubans, more than 2 percent of the island’s 11 million population, have migrated to the United States, most of them arriving at the southern border by land, according to U.S. government data….Even for a nation known for mass exodus, the current wave is remarkable — larger than the 1980 Mariel boatlift and the 1994 Cuban rafter crisis combined, until recently the island’s two biggest migration events….But while those movements peaked within a year, experts say this migration, which they compare to a wartime exodus, has no end in sight and threatens the stability of a country that already has one of the hemisphere’s oldest populations….The avalanche of Cubans leaving has also become a challenge for the United States. Now one of the highest sources of migrants after Mexico, Cuba has become a top contributor to the crush of migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border, which has been a major political liability for President Biden and which the administration considers a serious national security issue.” The massive migration from Cuba to the U.S. undoubtedly has political consequences favoring Florida Republicans, who are already having a good year.

From “With the creation of the Heartland Caucus, Democrats look to the Midwest for a winning strategy” by Zoe Clark and Rick Puta at michiganrdio.org: “The background: Michigan Democrats won the 2022 election handedly. For the first time in nearly four decades, they are taking over the Governor’s office, the state House and the state Senate in 2023. And that has many wondering if their strategy is a template for winning future elections nationwide….The question: Are Michigan issues the key to helping Democrats win elections nationally?….The answer: Michigan Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell sure thinks so. “Sometimes it’s easy to fly over the heartland and we want to make sure that we have a collective voice in the heartland,” Dingell recently told us. She wants to see a new Democratic caucus in Congress known as the Heartland Caucus. It would be made up of Democratic members from at least 12 Midwest states, and Dingell says the caucus would focus on a long list of issues facing the Midwest surrounding agriculture, unions, telehealth services for rural areas and the Great Lakes….The idea is gaining traction after Dingell shared a map that has been getting a lot of attention. The map shows the power that coastal Democrats hold in Congress with leadership representing California and much of the East Coast but the Midwest being left-out. “This battle for the heartland and to make sure there’s more representation is something that, you know, I’ve talked about for years, for decades. I think a map that I put together that showed that the heartland in the Democratic Party had no representation in senior leadership or committee chairs got the attention of a lot of people,” Dingell explained….Dingell says Republicans — especially Trump Republicans — have tapped into the anxiety felt by working class voters in the suburbs and rural areas and she says if Democrats want to build on their successes they’d be smart to focus on issues that Midwesterners care about. Take a look, for example, at how Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin won reelection in her mid-Michigan swing district that went for President Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020.”

Sasha Abramsky shares some insights regarding “How Democrats Beat Arizona’s Extremist Republicans” at The Nation: “Although Arizona has historically been a Republican state, in recent election cycles it has gone from red to purple to, at least in federal elections, a light shade of blue. Many moderate GOP voters, said a regional Republican consultant who asked to remain anonymous, “woke up and said, ‘I can’t take four more years of this shit.’ Donald Trump’s persona—people just said, ‘Enough is enough.’” The state has two Democratic senators, both elected under Trump, and in 2020, after the vast voter registration and mobilization efforts spearheaded by Unite Here Local 11 and other unions and a huge voter turnout for Biden in the Navajo Nation and other tribal communities, its Electoral College votes went to Biden….On many of the key issues of the day, from abortion to January 6 to climate change and immigration, Arizona voters are to the left of the GOP politicians who run the state and the candidates who ran for statewide and federal office in 2022….Tucson, in Arizona’s far south, has long been a liberal redoubt. Over the past several election cycles, it has increasingly been joined by the population center of Phoenix (America’s fifth-largest city) and surrounding Maricopa County, which have gone from being bastions of the sort of racist, demagogic politics preached by longtime sheriff Joe Arpaio—who was finally booted out by voters in 2016 after 24 years in office—to leaning Democratic. The mayor of Phoenix, Kate Gallego, is a Democrat, and its city council has a Democratic majority that pushes progressive housing, labor, and wage ordinances.”

“This year, young people appear to have made up a smaller portion of the electorate than in 2018, and they supported Democrats by a thinner marginthan in the last two elections. And despite what you’ve heard, young people aren’t one single, amorphous voting bloc that will continue to vote the same way,” Christian Paz writes in “What America’s politicians get wrong about young voters” at Vox. “Given Democrats’ struggles in holding on to support from voters of color, independents, and working-class people, this year’s results from young voters should be a wake-up call for both parties, but especially Democrats. Despite the identity often ascribed to them, young voters aren’t special or unintelligible — they are just as complex as other voting demographics….They’re also not the sum of stereotypes that both progressives and right-wing pundits project as conventional wisdom — young voters are not all clamoring for full student loan cancellation, vote based on climate policy and marijuana legalization, or are “brainwashed” leftists. Those issues do matter to young people but, this year, they behaved like most other voters: They balanced concerns over abortion, the cost of living, and election denialism in making their decisions….Though it varies by state, it looks in general as though young voters did turn out in above-average numbers nationally. In most places, they didn’t exceed the turnout of 2018’s blue wave or the historic 2020 presidential election year, which saw the highest youth voter participation rate in recent memory. But young voters likely exceeded the levels of participation seen in the 2010 and 2014 midterms during the Obama years, when Democrats were dealt significant setbacks in Congress. In specific states, like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, and Georgia, their share of the electorate was closer to 2018 than 2014, while participation lagged in places like California, North Carolina, Texas, and Washington….What stands out is the breakdown in young voters’ support for Democrats: Voters under 30 years old preferred Democratic candidates by 28 points (which, according to exit polls, is a 7-point drop from their support in 2018’s blue wave), making it the only age group that Democrats won by a large margin. That same dynamic shows up in AP Votecast’s measure of vote choice based on age: 53 percent of voters under the age of 30 supported Democrats this year compared to the 41 percent who supported Republicans. That margin is down from 2020 and 2018, when the margins were 25 points and 30 points respectively….Young women, especially women of color, are much more Democratic than young men, according to Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. And rural youth are much more Republican than those who live in cities….But research published in the University of Chicago’s journal of politics shows that, for most people, political beliefs are longstanding and stable, but liberals are more likely to become more conservative than the other way around as people grow older.”

At The American Prospect, Robert Kuttner ponders a question of much current interest, “Could Democrats Really Elect a Moderate Republican Speaker?: It’s a long shot, but not out of the question.” As Kuttner writes, “Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy, who hopes to become Speaker, is in a real pickle. His majority in the House will be just four or five. The far-right members of his caucus are pushing him to a point where moderates won’t vote for him. But conversely, if he fails to meet MAGA demands, he will lose the voters of the hard right. It’s hard to see how he gets to 218 votes….Here is the choreography. On January 3, the Republican House caucus will meet and cast ballots for a Speaker-designate. If they agree, the full House will then vote for Speaker, and the Republican majority will prevail. But if they deadlock, Republican moderates could try to seek a deal with Democrats….Then it gets really complicated. Is this a deal just to elect a moderate Republican Speaker? Or is it a genuine bipartisan, anti-MAGA governing caucus?…What would Democrats demand? No far-right Republicans as committee chairs and no committee fishing expeditions? Some Democrats as committee chairs?…And how would the far-right Republicans, who make up a majority of the Republican caucus, react? They would likely be livid, and could well kick the faithless moderates out of their caucus, which would make an anti-MAGA House bipartisan governing majority a reality.”

Nathaniel Rakich notes at FiveThirtyEight that “One of the most important numbers in American politics this year is 140 million. That’s the number of Americans who live in a state where Democrats will have total control over state government after the 2022 midterm elections. By contrast, only 137 million live in a state where Republicans will control state government…Democrats did better in state-level elections across the board in 2022. They flipped three governors’ offices: Arizona, Maryland and Massachusetts. Republicans flipped only one: Nevada. Democrats also took control of four state-legislative chambers, and they will share power in the Alaska Senate, too, thanks to a coalition with some moderate Republicans. Meanwhile, Republicans didn’t flip a single state-legislative chamber….Overall, Democrats took full control of state government in three new states: Michigan, Minnesota and Vermont, where they won enough seats in the state legislature to override the Republican governor’s vetoes. That means Democrats will control all the levers of policymaking in 18 states — including big ones like California and New York. Meanwhile, Republicans will enjoy full control of government in 24 states — but they’re mostly on the smaller end population-wise….Democrats’ new strength on the state level could lead to a flurry of new liberal policies. Democrats in Michigan and Minnesota are already talking about repealing anti-union laws, legalizing marijuana and passing paid family leave….any big legislation passed in the next two years is probably going to come from the states.”

Nicole Narea explains “How Democrats mostly neutralized Republican attacks on crime in the midterms: Crime was expected to be a defining issue of the midterms. Here’s what actually happened” at Vox: “It’s difficult to disentangle just how much influence Republicans’ arguments on crime actually had in the midterms, and the effect wasn’t uniform across the US. Democrats in New York appear to have suffered acute repercussions. But in many competitive races from where Republicans flooded the airwaves with their crime messaging, like in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, it appears that the media was too hasty to believe that crime was a major deciding issue. In other contests, especially some of the country’s hardest-fought attorneys general races, Democrats were able to diffuse the issue — even, at times, turning it to their advantage….Polling suggested that a majority of Americans were worried about crime ahead of Election Day. And it’s true that the national murder rate remains up over pre-pandemic levels….The state of violent crime overall is less clear due to changes in how that data is reported starting in 2021….As the Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg has previously pointed out, it’s hard to parse issue polling. Voters may say that they care a lot about a whole range of issues, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that any one of them will impact their decision to vote for a particular candidate or party or to vote at all….The candidates who were successful in fending off Republican attacks were those who had an affirmative argument for why voters should trust Democrats on crime. That’s exactly what the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee advised their candidates to develop in a memo sent around in March. And it’s an approach that’s been poll-tested by Democratic consultancy groups Change Research and HIT Strategies, which found that voters responded best to messaging on the solutions rather than laying blame at the feet of police….Some Democrats have also pointed to the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol and Republicans’ lack of support for gun control measures as evidence of their hypocrisy when it comes to law enforcement.”

From the conclusion. of “The Challenges of Leading in a Historically Divided Congress” by Charlie Cook at The Cook Political Report: “With the country so narrowly divided, even slight changes in support can tip races for the House, the Senate, and the presidency in a way that’s rarely happened before….Unless House Republicans reach outside of the chamber to elect a speaker and go with someone who has already held the top post before, anyone besides McCarthy would be a complete rookie at that level. Let’s just say that for the next two years, the House is more likely to look like a train wreck than a well-oiled and highly functioning machine….Because Republican bills will likely hit a brick wall in the form of President Biden in the White House and a Chuck Schumer-led Democratic Senate, look for the House to use its oversight and subpoena powers to conduct opposition research on Biden, his family, and his administration. Harassment will be the order of the day, the better to make life as miserable for Biden and Senate Democrats as possible and maximize the GOP’s chances of having a better 2024 than they had in 2020 and 2022….On the Democratic side, expectations will remain low for incoming House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, not the worst circumstances for on-the-job training. For Schumer, though, this is the time when he has to not only step up and assume Democrats’ alpha-dog leadership role that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has occupied for the better part of 20 years, but also defend the majority with a 2024 map that is very ugly. Democrats must defend 23 seats to just 10 for Republicans. Seven Democratic seats are up in states that Donald Trump carried at least once (three that he won twice), while no Republicans are up in states that either Biden or Hillary Clinton carried. Pushing through as many Senate nominations as possible, along with must-pass legislation, will be all that most anyone can expect.”

In his New York Times opinion article, “What Really Saved the Democrats This Year?,” Thomas B. Edsall mulls over the debate about whether the midterm elections show that moderate or progressive policies are a better bet for the Democrats looking toward 2024. Edsall quotes political analysts, who make compelling arguments for both viewpoints. For example, Edsall quotes TDS contributor Ruy Teixeira, a leading advocate for Dems embracing a more moderate set of policies. As Edsall writes,

“The Democratic strategist Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a longtime critic of the Democrats’ progressive wing, contends in a recent essay, “Ten Reasons Why Democrats Should Become More Moderate,” that adoption of an extreme progressive stance is not only “dead wrong,” but also that “Democrats need to fully and finally reject it if they hope to break the current electoral stalemate in their favor.”

In the 2022 election, Teixeira writes,

the reason why Democrats did relatively well was support from independents and Republican leaning or supporting crossover voters — not base voters mobilized by progressivism. These independents and crossover voters were motivated to support Democrats where they did because many Democrats in key races were perceived as being more moderate than their extremist Republican opponents.

According to Teixeira:

As the Democratic Party has moved to the left over the last four years, they have actually done worse among their base voters. They’ve lost a good chunk of their support among nonwhite voters, especially Hispanics, and among young voters. Since 2018, Democratic support is down 18 margin points among young (18-29 year old) voters, 20 points among nonwhites and 23 points among nonwhite working class (noncollege) voters. These voters are overwhelmingly moderate to conservative in orientation and they’re just not buying what the Democrats are selling.

Teixeira’s final point:

Democrats shouldn’t be afraid to embrace patriotism and dissociate themselves from those who insist America is a benighted, racist nation and always has been. Large majorities of Americans, while they have no objection to looking at both the bad and good of American history, reject such a one-sided, negative characterization. That includes many voters whose support Democrats desperately need but who are now drifting away from them.”

Edsall Also quotes advocates for a more progressive mix of policies: “I asked Joseph Geevarghese, the executive director of Our Revolution, if the organization had flipped any House seats from red to blue. He replied by email:

This was not the goal of Our Revolution. Our Revolution’s goal in the 2022 elections was to push the Democratic Caucus in a progressive direction, and we succeeded with nine new members joining the ranks of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

In part because of Our Revolution’s support, he continued:

The Congressional Progressive Caucus is growing by nine newly elected members, all of whom were endorsed by Our Revolution. That includes: Summer Lee, Greg Casar, Delia Ramirez, Maxwell Frost, Becca Balint, Andrea Salinas, Jasmine Crockett, Jonathan Jackson, and Val Hoyle. Our Revolution’s success didn’t include just those running for Congress. Our Revolution’s success expanded to local races including St. Louis Board of Alderman President-elect Megan Green, whose victory creates a blue island in a state that is a sea of red.”

Advocates of both progressive and moderate policies point to victories for their Democratic candidates, while ignoring their defeats. But neither progressives nor moderates took away many Republican-held seats. For Dems, the big senate pick-up was John Fetterman in PA (a seat vacated by retirement of Republican Sen. Toomey). The marquee House seat pick-up for Dems came from Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in WA-3. Both of these candidates support mostly progressive policies, while presenting a working-class image. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) provides a good example of a progressive Democrat who got re-elected in a fairly conservative state by projecting a moderate image and tone. Policies do not necessarily define candidate image, and that’s something Dems ought to think more about.

The last words in this discussion come from Ed Kilgore, who has unmatched experience as both a Democratic Party strategist and operative and as a political analyst. As Kilgore, a TDS editor and contributor, observed in his column at New York magazine (and excerpted at TDS),

Data points are still being collected and assessed at this point, but a very strong effort by FiveThirtyEight’s Geoffrey Skelley to examine four big Senate races that Democrats won but were at various points in doubt (in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania) shows us that the search for some simple, overriding explanation may not be terribly fruitful.

Using county-level and in some cases precinct-level results, Skelley explains that the winning formula for Mark Kelly, Raphael Warnock, Catherine Cortez Masto, and John Fetterman varied significantly. To oversimplify it, Kelly beat Blake Masters mostly thanks to overperformance among Latino voters; Warnock beat Herschel Walker via impressive margins in Atlanta’s urban core and suburbs; Cortez Masto (the one Democrat in these states to run a bit behind Joe Biden’s 2020 performance) held on against Adam Laxalt by a slightly inflated vote among white college-educated voters; and Fetterman dispatched Mehmet Oz pretty clearly by cutting into the recent Republican margins among white working-class voters.

Regardless of debates about progressives vs. moderates, turnout vs. persuasion and where to allocate campaign resources, winning Democratic campaigns have to be nimble to adapt to events and changing circumstances. While strategy is important, Kilgore concludes that “sometimes the key to victory is to set aside any predetermined grand strategy and simply take what each opponent gives you.”

In “Why Zelensky’s surprise US visit is so hugely significant” at CNN Politics, Stephen Collinson touches on Republican ambivalence about America’s support of the Ukrainian leader and the people of that brutalized country: “His visit to Congress will also play into an increasingly important debate on Capitol Hill over Ukraine aid with Republicans set to take over the House majority in the new year. Some pro-Donald Trump members, who will have significant leverage in the thin GOP majority, have warned that billions of dollars in US cash that have been sent to Ukraine should instead be shoring up the US southern border with a surge of new migrants expected within days….Conscious of pressure from his right flank, the possible next speaker, GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, has warned that Ukraine should not expect a “blank check” from the new House. Even though Ukraine still has strong Republican support in the Senate, it’s this kind of shifting political dynamic that appears to inform Kremlin perceptions about how long US resolve will last in a conflict on which Putin’s political survival may well depend.” Biden’s well-managed orchestration of Zelensky’s visit is an impressive testament to our President’s ability to call attention to the moral decay in the GOP core congressional leadership — just before Republicans take over the House speakership. For the most part, however, Republicans let their media ideologues make the nastiest comments about Zelensky. For some appalling examples,  check out “Putin’s Useful Idiots: Right Wingers Lose It Over Zelensky Visit: The anti-Ukraine right can’t stand America standing as the arsenal of democracy” by Cathy Young at The Bulwark.

You are probably not shocked by revelations that “Trump paid no taxes in half of the last six years and his returns have dozens of potential issues, as Mark Sumner explains at Daily Kos. Bearing in mind that many Americans are tired of hearing about all things Trump, his tax avoidance is nonetheless a subject that should resonate with many swing voters – particularly if he somehow becomes a GOP presidential nominee. As Sumner notes, “In all, over the six years of returns, Trump reported making money only in 2018 and 2019. He used a combination of reported losses and questionable deductions to keep his tax bills to $750 in 2016, $750 in 2017, and $0 in 2020. Trump did pay $641,935 in 2015, but don’t worry. He still has a “claim for refund” filed for that year based on a claim that he was owed more for “historic restoration.” If that claim is successful, it will return that 2015 money to Trump….This gives Trump a reported $54 million loss over these six years. In those years when he did pay taxes, he paid effectively 4% of his reported income in 2018, and 3% in 2019. The 2015 numbers involved paying taxes that carried over from the previous year, but Trump is still asking the IRS to reduce that year to no more than $750….Trump also appears to have written off over $2 million in property taxes as an income deduction; the committee notes that New York law caps that deduction at $10,000.” Trump’s tax forms also cast further doubt on his ‘successful business leader’ persona in Sumner’s view. “What’s also striking is that in every single year, including 2018, Trump’s core businesses—his golf courses, hotels, and real estate—operated at a reported loss. If Donald Trump actually makes money at anything, it’s not any of the areas in which he brags about being a success. In his best year, Trump reported that he lost $11 million on real estate.”

From “Notes on the State of North Carolina” a superb update on the state’s politics by J. Miles Coleman at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “While Democrats broadly overperformed expectations in last month’s midterms, some weak spots in their coalition have become evident as more detailed data has emerged. Generally, Democrats relied more on persuasion — convincing swing voters to stick with them, as opposed to going with the other guys — than turnout. In several of the historically Republican suburban counties across the country, this played well for Democrats. But as news organizations like the New York Times have found, the Black vote, a key part of the Democratic coalition, was not especially animated this year….As we noted last week, North Carolina was 1 of only 7 states to be decided by less than 3 points in the 2020 presidential race — and the only state among that group to vote for Donald Trump….Though its race wasn’t in the highest tier of battleground Senate contests — the Crystal Ball had it rated as Leans Republican the entire cycle — 2022 was another cycle where Democrats came up a few points short in North Carolina. Rep. Ted Budd (R, NC-13) — who was, in retrospect, one of the better Trump-endorsed candidates running in a marginal state — held the state’s open Senate seat for Republicans by just over 3 percentage points. He beat former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley (D)….Beasley was not a weak candidate: In 2020, as Joe Biden lost North Carolina by almost 75,000 votes, she lost her seat by 400 that year. Part of what made her an attractive candidate to Democrats was that, as a Black woman with statewide stature, she seemed well-positioned to inspire minority turnout. In 2020, Cal Cunningham, a white man who was their Senate nominee, got fewer votes than Biden in most areas of the state that have high Black populations — this was something that, if rectified, could have helped Democrats close the gap….To be fair to Beasley and North Carolina Democrats, low Black turnout was, again, a national problem for Democrats this year. It was especially pronounced in the South, given the region’s large Black population. In Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and South Carolina, several heavily-Black rural counties that easily went for Barack Obama 10 years ago gave the GOP nominees for governor clear margins last month. In the Georgia Senate race, Sen. Raphael Warnock’s (D-GA) numbers in non-urban Black areas were down from his 2021 showing — but, as Georgia has less of a rural component than North Carolina, Warnock won by expanding his margins in the Atlanta metro area.”

At The Cook Political Report, Amy Walter flags four political developments coming up in 2023, which “could give us more insights into what 2024 could bring (as well as what we really learned from the 2022 midterms),” including: 1. Who Showed Up and Who Didn’t in 2022? 2. Who Stays Put and Who Retires? 3. Can Washington Work? and 4. Can Biden Keep His Momentum Going? Regarding the last point, Walter writes, “The better-than-expected midterm outcome have put President Biden in a strong position for 2024. Gone is the hand-wringing and second-guessing from his allies that dominated much of the 2021-2022 chatter. But, anyone who follows politics knows that the winds can shift at any moment. As The Washington Post’s Dan Balz noted, “despite Biden’s good fortunes in 2022 and Trump’s failures, there’s nothing certain about how 2024 will play out. Biden’s age and capacity to handle the job remain issues to many voters.” There will be unexpected events and crises. For now, the spotlight is trained on the former president and his troubles. But it won’t stay there permanently.” President Biden’s age, approval ratings and shifting winds notwithstanding, he does seem to have the determination to make an energetic run of it. Until that changes, Democrats would do well to focus more on preparing for down-ballot and state legislative races, plenty off which are also at stake in 2024.

In his latest column, “There’s a Reason There Aren’t Enough Teachers in America. Many Reasons, Actually,” New York Times opinion essayist Thomas B. Edsall shares a daunting litany of problems facing teachers, as well as school administrators and parents. These include: “a generalized decline in literacy; the faltering international performance of American students; an inability to recruit enough qualified college graduates into the teaching profession; a lack of trained and able substitutes to fill teacher shortages; unequal access to educational resources; inadequate funding for schools; stagnant compensation for teachers; heavier workloads; declining prestige; and deteriorating faculty morale….Nine-year-old students earlier this year revealed “the largest average score decline in reading since 1990, and the first ever score decline in mathematics,” according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In the latest comparison of fourth grade reading ability, the United States ranked below 15 countries, including Russia, Ireland, Poland and Bulgaria.” Edsall quotes from and August 2022 paper, “Is There a National Teacher Shortage?,” Tuan D. Nguyen and Chanh B. Lam, which notes that “We find there are at least 36,000 vacant positions along with at least 163,000 positions being held by underqualified teachers, both of which are conservative estimates of the extent of teacher shortages nationally.” Edsall also writes, “I asked Josh Bleiberg, a professor of education at the University of Pittsburgh, about trends in teacher certification. He emailed back: The number of qualified teachers is declining for the whole country and the vast majority of states. The number of certified teachers only increased in the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, and Washington. Those increases were relatively small and likely didn’t keep up with enrollment increases.” Edsall has more to say about inadequate compensation of teachers, international comparisons, the adverse effects of culture wars, burnout, training and workload. Democrats have long been the more “pro-teacher” party, at least in terms of supporting teacher unions. I hesitate to suggest anything that reduces the supply of qualified teachers even more. But might it be time for Democrats to recruit and help prepare more public school teachers to run for office? Most teachers are already good at speaking to small groups and interacting with parents, good base skills for candidates. Ironically enough, it may take more teachers in politics to get more teachers in schools.

For another view of the political implications of public education issues, check out “Randi Weingarten Explains Why Most People Are Pro Public Education,” Glenn Daigon’s interview of the American Federation of Teachers President at The Progressive. Daigon’s opening question: “Glenn Daigon: The political momentum seemed to be on the right after Glenn Youngkin won the Virginia governor’s race in 2021. Do you think the midterms saw any shift in the political winds? If so, how do you think the results of the midterm elections will impact education policy both at the local and national level?….Randi Weingarten: Based on data analytics from TargetPoint, Youngkin used the culture wars to win people in rural areas who were very fearful. The culture wars didn’t persuade parents to vote for Youngkin, but they persuaded the elderly to vote for Youngkin. He used it effectively as a divisive tactic. But part of the reason he was successful was that Terry [McAuliffe], made an election-deciding mistake [by] saying, wrongly, that parents don’t have a role in their kids’ education….Parents of course have a role in their kids’ education, and I think what you saw in 2022 was that public education did quite well. Not in all places, but by and large parents want [teachers] to help their kids recover [from the disruption of the pandemic] and thrive by focusing on things that both Republicans and Democrats talk about: reading and literacy; pathways to career and college; and helping kids have confidence again and feel better about themselves….There is an agenda—a true education agenda—that is bipartisan, with perhaps Florida being an exception. But even in Florida, pro-education budgets were passed even though Republican Governor Ron DeSantis won comfortably. In virtually every other state where these issues were hotly contested, the pro-public education governors and legislators won….If you look at Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine, and Arizona, where Republican candidates ran on denigrating, defamatory, and demeaning planks; the undermining of teachers and vulnerable students; defunding public education; and all of the culture wars, pro-public education governors won. Those wins were just in states where races were really hotly contested. In less contentious races—in Illinois, New York, Connecticut, and Minnesota—pro-public education governors also won.”

The Progressive’s Weingarted interview also includes this exchange:”Q: Is there a set of any races in the 2022 election cycle where you can point to  moderates and progressives successfully countering the anti-critical-race-theory and anti-LGBT messaging from rightwing education backers?….Weingarten: Take New Hampshire, where they easily reelected Republican Governor [Chris] Sununu, but over the course of several months, every school board member who was elected was a pro-public education school board member. [This was in a state] where Moms for Liberty put $500 bounties on the heads of teachers and where a state school superintendent tried to chill the efforts of teachers to teach honest history—school board races were won by pro-public-education school board candidates.”….In Berrien County, Michigan, which had been electing Republicans since the 1800s—so it is a very red area—twenty-one out of twenty-five extremist school candidates lost their elections. In West Virginia, the anti-public education forces lost two referendums, while at the same time, the state has turned ruby red. In New York State, we saw a lot of Congressional races go to Republicans, but 85 percent of the pro-public-education school board candidates won, and 99 percent of school budgets passed….Sure, in Florida, where DeSantis put hundreds of thousands of dollars into school board races, he won more than he lost because nobody has that kind of money to compete, and most of the time these races are basically locally run races. But by and large, in the marquee races around the country, what you saw was the pro-public-education forces win. And in places where they didn’t, like in South Carolina, I believe you’ll see a lot of resistance develop.”

From Amy Walter’s “What Can Losing ‘22 Dem Candidates Tell Us About ‘24 Priorities?” at The Cook Political Report: “In politics, losing isn’t always a career ender. Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush both lost U.S. House contests before winning statewide office. President Biden, of course, ran and lost his bid for the Democratic nomination for president twice before his 2020 win. For years, the saying went that in order to win statewide in Ohio you first had to lose. Former Ohio Senators John Glenn, Howard Metzenbaum and George Voinovich all lost at least one senate race in the state before ultimately succeeding….In recent years, however, thanks to the increasing nationalization of our politics, down-ballot candidates can quickly build a brand that goes far beyond the borders of their state.  In 2018, liberal Democrats across the country were wearing BETO for Senate t-shirts and sending contributions to a Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate named Stacey Abrams….Even as they lost their bids, Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams proved that Democrats could turn fast-growing and diverse Sunbelt states blue….Today, however, Democrats’ most lauded loser is a white guy from Ohio who gave Democrats some hope of winning back their blue-collar followers. Democratic Senate nominee Tim Ryan ran just a couple points ahead of Biden’s showing in the Buckeye state, but his strong campaign operation helped down-ballot Democrats win in key House races in the state….What does Ryan do with his newfound fame? For now, the path to the White House is closed. And, there are no obvious opportunities back home either….In fact, the types of ‘losers’ that Democrats have become attached to in recent years tells us more about what the party is most hopeful or worried about for the upcoming election than it does about the future for these up-and-coming candidates. In 2018, Democrats saw in Abrams and O’Rourke a pathway to opening up the sunbelt. Two years later, Democrats hold both senate seats in Arizona and Georgia, and hold the Governor’s seat in Arizona. At the same time, hopes of turning Texas and Florida blue have been deflated. In 2022, as was the case in 2016, Democrats are more focused on keeping their midwestern bunkers intact. It may not be possible to win back Ohio, but Democrats now see midwestern governors like Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan and Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania as their best potential presidential contenders for the near future.”

Matthew Yglesias opines at Slow Boring: “Now that all the races are resolved, the 2022 midterms were pretty clearly the most catastrophic defeat yet for mobilization theory. As Nate Cohn explained in detail in the New York Times last Thursday, Republicans decisively won the turnout battle in key states, even while losing the preponderance of important races. Most years require an in-the-weeds effort to parse whether mobilization or persuasion mattered more because they both point in the same direction (a subject we’ll return to), but this year there was no such dilemma. Differential turnout explains less than 0 percent of Mark Kelly, Raphael Warnock, or Catherine Cortez Masto’s wins — it was an R-leaning turnout year, but they all won….We don’t yet have the same level of visibility into exactly who voted in Pennsylvania, where Democrats had an even better performance in statewide races. But we do know that comparing 2020 to 2022, the PA county with the largest turnout decline was the city of Philadelphia. That’s what you would expect to see if PA had the same turnout dynamics as those other six states, and it would be very unusual for a trend to hit all six states that we have full data for and not represent a national trend….Democrats won key races by persuading a small but nonzero number of Republicans to vote for them….Democrats’ current majority rests on the backs of Sherrod Brown, John Tester, and Joe Manchin, all of whom represent Trump states and face very steep re-election battles in 2024. It’s also notable that there aren’t a lot of targets that are clearly better than Ohio. In 2022, North Carolina, Florida, and Texas were all closer than Ohio. But Florida’s politics seem to have moved further to the right since then, Democrats have come up decidedly short in the last two North Carolina Senate races, and Texas remains a pretty firmly red state….Once you give up on the magical idea of mobilizing the base instead of finding ways to make swing voters like you, it’s easier to see that there actually isn’t a tradeoff here anyway. In other words, you should absolutely try to maximize the turnout of sporadic voters who are likely to vote for you. But there’s no reason to believe there’s a tension between that goal and trying to appeal to swing voters, because the boring truth is that sporadic voters are less politically engaged and less ideological than non-voters….Democrats really did do badly in most Georgia races in November. That’s how we know so precisely that Warnock won thanks to crossover voters. Taken on the whole, Democrats flopped on both turnout and vote choice. Warnock himself just did really well.” Put a little differently, it’s a false choice between turnout mobilization and persuasion. Winning campaigns do both well enough.

In his article, “in “Georgia’s Election Laws Couldn’t Stop Raphael Warnock,” at The Washington Monthly, Bill Scher writes “African American turnout in yesterday’s runoff election appears to have been robust and decisive. While we don’t have final demographic numbers yet, we can compare early vote data from all four Georgia elections over the past two years. Black voters composed 31.9 percent of the runoff early vote, precisely one point more than the January 2021 special election runoff. (Warnock won his first runoff by two points, and according to The New York Times estimate, he will win this time by three.) The Black share of the December 2022 runoff early vote is also higher than their share in November 2022 (29.1 percent) and November 2020 (27.7 percent)….if the point of Republican restrictive voting laws in Georgia and elsewhere was to suppress the vote to such an extent that Democrats couldn’t win, the plan failed. In states with strict voter ID laws that don’t allow for alternatives such as signed affidavits, this year, Democrats won hard-fought governor’s races (Arizona, Wisconsin, and Kansas) and Senate races (Arizona and Georgia). Democrats also performed well in swing states with non-strict voter ID laws, such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, keeping both governorships and winning key congressional races. Perhaps most importantly, Democrats needed to succeed in voter ID states to maintain control of the Senate, and they did….In short, everything both parties have told themselves about election laws—at least in regards to which parties are helped by restrictive and expansive reforms—has been proved wrong repeatedly. Voter ID laws don’t suppress voters, regardless of the intent behind them; academic research has shown that they boomerang and galvanize the voters thought to be targeted for suppression….In fact, after absorbing the 2022 midterm results, Republicans appear to be increasingly aware that instead of disparaging early voting, they should be competing for early voters.” Another point that fits under Scher’s title is that Atlanta’s activist community poured it on again for Warnock. Nobody outworks them, and without them, Warnock would have lost. And they don’t focus only on Black GOTV; they worked in close coalitions with other demographic groups, including Latinos, Asian-Americans and persuadable whites, including suburban soccer moms and and young white women, who had a lot at stake.

At FiveThirtyEight, Geoffrey Skelley and Holly Fuong report on findings from an Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel  collaboration asking 2,000 respondents “how they felt about the election, what policies the next Congress should pursue and their early views of the potential 2024 presidential candidates.” Regarding non-voters,  Skelley and Fuong report that “Among Americans who did not vote this year, 34 percent stated that they never vote in elections⁴ — a reminder that while turnout was high in 2022 (for a midterm) and record-setting in 2020 (for a modern presidential race), a large swath of potential voters is consistently uninvolved. Meanwhile, about 1 in 4 nonvoters felt that “none of the candidates were good options,” and another 1 in 4 “did not have enough information about the candidates and/or ballot initiatives.” Excuses, excuses. At The Hill, demographer Joseph Chamie noted last year that “The U.S. level of not voting in elections is higher than those of many OECD countries. For example, low percentages of the eligible populations not voting in recent elections where voting is not compulsory include Sweden (13 percent), Denmark (17 percent), South Korea (20 percent), and the Netherlands (21 percent). However, some countries have substantially higher levels of non-voting in recent elections than the U.S., including Switzerland 61 percent, Mexico and Poland both 51 percent, and Japan 47 percent….The major reason why 77 million Americans didn’t cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election was that they were not registered to vote. Approximately 27 percent of all Americans aged 18 years or older, numbering 63 million men and women, had not registered to vote. Those 63 million unregistered U.S. citizens account for 82 percent of those who did not vote in the 2020 presidential election. The U.S. is one of the few countries that requires citizens to register for voting separately from the actual voting….Other reasons offered by those who did not vote or failed to register to vote in the election included not being interested due to voter apathy, alienation, skepticism and voter fatigue, purged voter rolls, strict ID laws, and is a hassle. Some non-voters also believed that their vote would not make a difference on the election’s outcome or the country’s policies, they did not like any of the candidates or were undecided on whom to vote.”

“A new report from Inside Elections details how, in the five closest GOP House wins, the Republicans won by a combined measly 6,652 votes,” Prem Thakker writes at The New Republic. “Republicans’ gain of any seats at all came from just 22,370 votes, the combined margin of their nine closest victories….The most razor-thin victory was Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert’s closing win over Democrat Adam Frisch. The far-right candidate, expected to win 97 times out of 100 in FiveThirtyEight’s election simulator, had won the district previously by six points. This November, she won by 546 votes—a 0.16 percent margin that triggered an automatic recount. (The Inside Elections report did not take into account Boebert’s even lower margin of victory after the recount, and we’ve updated the numbers in this piece accordingly.)….Elsewhere, in New York, the state Democrats allowed a disastrous string of losses, with two races being lost by less than one percent, including the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Sean Patrick Maloney….A combination of state party mismanagement, a lack of strong top-of-ticket campaigning from re-elected Governor Kathy Hochul, and a disadvantageous redistricting spurred by former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s appointed judges all contributed to New York Democrats’ disastrous results….In total, New York Democrats lost six races in redistricted sections that voted for Biden in 2020….Of course, Democrats won narrow races too. And these wins came not just from coasting off of attacking MAGA candidates as such, but actually doing the work of campaigning….As Slate’s Alex Sammon points out, one of Democrats’ major upsets—Marie Glusenkamp Perez’s House win in rural Washington—benefitted from a massive organic ground game. The operation came despite lackluster financial support from the DCCC (losing-candidate Maloney’s committee), which dismissed the race as a “reach.”

David Bromwich makes the case that “Democrats Dodged a Bullet in the Midterms, But the Culture War is Far From Won” at The Nation. But I think his article’s subtitle, “A Functioning Democracy Requires the Consent, If Not the Votes, of a Good Deal More Than Half the Country” captures the big picture Democrats ought to be thinking about. As Bromwich writes that “Democrats have gotten American culture wrong for several years now; and….their lucky escape in November was owing mainly to the choice of untenable candidates by the rival party—a party still cowed by Donald Trump, who never had much interest in politics and who carried his repulsive election-denial program into Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Arizona. Democrats ought to look again at the warnings they received in 2018 and 2020, since the likely effect of persisting in their errors could be read (even in 2022) in Ohio and Florida, and in the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Congressional Districts of Long Island. The final tally of the 2022 congressional races yielded the Democrats 47.8 percent of the popular vote, while the Republicans took 50.7 percent…. the national majority the Democrats can now command adds up to 55 percent on a good day. They have no plan for dealing with the remaining 45 percent—only a small proportion of whom can be dismissed as conspiracy theorists, election deniers, and incurable cranks. A functioning democracy requires the consent, if not the votes, of a good deal more than half the country. How, then, will the 55 percent cope with disagreement on the following issues?” Bromwich notes “the paternalist ethic that judges people by tribe or ancestral group rather than personal qualities; the North Carolina and Harvard college admissions cases, now before the Supreme Court, brought out the indignation that identity politics cannot help provoking in a society that values merit. Merit: the necessary qualification for the job you undertake—not to be confused with meritocracy, the bugbear of the cultural left. The shorter word denotes a recognition of demonstrated competence that is assigned to an individual and not an ascriptive group.”

“Taken as a whole, the midterms have provided a ringing endorsement of the approach to politics favored by President Joe Biden,” Andrew Gawthorpe writes in “The Georgia runoff shows that Democrats have figured out a winning strategy” at The Guardian. “From the first moment it looked like he would enter the 2020 Democratic primary, Biden was maligned and mocked for suggesting that the path to a Democratic victory lay through gains with independent and suburban voters. Critics argued that the country was so deeply polarized that swing voters no longer existed, and that appeals for bipartisanship would fall on deaf ears. In their view, the only viable strategy was to mobilize the Democratic base with leftwing appeals, even at the cost of losing voters in the center….Over two election cycles, however, Joe Biden has proven to have a much firmer grasp on American politics than some of his critics. His victory in 2020 was driven by flipping suburban and independent voters, as well as staunching Democratic losses among the non-college-educated white voters who make up Trump’s base. And even though commentators worried that this coalition was “precariously thin” and lacked durability, a broadly similar coalition came together in key midterm races to produce one of the best results for an incumbent president in modern American politics….As they look forward to 2024, Democrats should stick with Biden’s approach. One of the president’s key insights into today’s politics is that the flagrant extremism of the Republican party creates the space for precisely this sort of centrist approach to work. In 2020, naysayers charged that Biden hadn’t really created a durable new coalition, but merely capitalized on opposition to Trump. But with Trump still defining the Republican party, it will remain important for Democrats to continue to give right-leaning voters an excuse to defect….For their part, the main question Democrats face is whether or not Biden continues to be the best person to put at the top of their ticket. This highlights a paradox, which is that Bidenism is more popular than Biden himself. Despite the key role that independents have played in Biden’s victories, three-quarters of them do not want Biden to run again in 2024, and the group as a whole views Biden only somewhat more favorably than Trump. This is a red flag for many Democrats, who worry that questions about Biden’s age and verbal gaffes could drag them down in 2024….Biden’s coalition is not held together by a charismatic individual who will eventually pass from the scene, but by the structural forces shaping American politics today.”

Interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Senator Jon Tester (D-MT), addressed a critical problem for Democrats as they look toward the 2024 elections. As Summer Conception writes at nbcnews.com: “Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said Sunday that he believes his party’s “very bad” messaging cost Democrats support in rural America in the midterm elections in November….In an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Tester said Democrats need to focus their messaging “more on the things we’re doing for rural America.”….He also said he doesn’t believe Democrats talk about their accomplishments in a way that appeals to rural voters “nearly enough,” citing the bipartisan infrastructure law that passed Congress last year….“It’s going to help rural America big time, when it comes to broadband and electrical distribution and roads and bridges. We didn’t talk about it,” he said. “We didn’t talk about it from a rural perspective.”….President Joe Biden is still struggling to gain strong support in rural areas almost two years into his presidential term. In a final NBC News poll before the Nov. 8 midterm elections, 44% of registered voters approved of the president’s performance. Biden earned his lowest lower numbers among rural voters (29%) and independents (28%).” In “Democrats show signs of life in rural America” however, Josh Krushaar writes at Axios, “A new analysis of the midterms by centrist Democratic think tank Third Way finds that most Democratic candidates improved on President Biden’s 2020 performance in rural America — with some notable exceptions….Third Way’s data dive labeled counties as rural, suburban/exurban or urban and aggregated the countywide results. The analysis covered 10 states (Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) and 16 races….Pennsylvania Sen.-elect John Fetterman was one of the party’s top rural success stories. He outdistanced Biden by seven points in the state’s rural counties — overperforming Democrats more in the state’s rural counties than in the suburban and urban centers….Among Senate candidates, the party’s top overperformer in the suburbs was Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, who ran 4.7% ahead of Biden….Only 33% of rural voters backed Biden in the last presidential election, according to a Pew Research Center analysis, a worse showing than Hillary Clinton in 2016.”

In “The Future Is … Doorknocking?,” Alexander Sammon writes at Slate: “Of all the election night surprises of this year’s midterms, none was bigger for Democrats than Marie Gluesenkamp Perez’s shock victory over the Republican Joe Kent in Washington state’s third congressional district. Five Thirty Eight’s modeling had Kent winning in 98 out of 100 scenarios. But Perez, a 34-year-old mother and auto shop owner with now-famous bangs, eked it out—by just under a percentage point….The result, Democrats’ biggest upset in the House, came in a largely rural district outside Portland, Oregon, the sort of place where Democrats have fared particularly poorly of late and were polling dreadfully. But while post-election autopsies have credited the victory to voters’ rejection of Kent’s ties to MAGA extremist groups and Gluesenkamp Perez’s tactful embrace of pro-choice and pro-gun positions, it’s not the whole story. One big reason the Gluesenkamp Perez campaign triumphed has to do with a pretty retro strategy: a big volunteer army of doorknockers….Over the course of the campaign, over 500 people knocked on a total of 40,000 doors spread across Vancouver, Washington, and its rural surrounds. The victory, called officially on November 12, came despite a complete absence of cash support from the Democrats’ official campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which deemed the race a “reach,” and directed its ad budget elsewhere….Much of that money went to those same online and digital tactics: television spots, digital ads, phone calls, texts, and mailers. Making actual contact with voters, meanwhile, got even more difficult. Hardly anyone even picks up the phone anymore: As numerous pollsters reported, the deluge of paid messaging, combined with the demise of the landline, has made getting people to pick up calls to answer polling queries nearly impossible; phonebanking has also become exceedingly difficult….Rather than spend time on a futile effort to contact and cajole potential voters, the Gluesenkamp Perez campaign decided to prioritize calling known supporters, convincing them not to pledge their vote but to volunteer their time. A dedicated group of ten volunteers, called the “Call Squad,” focused their energy on encouraging likely voters to show up and knock on doors, and then to come back and do it again. That helped swell the number of doorknockers to nearly 500. Among them: young moms, alienated Republican voters, and political newcomers who had never volunteered before. Many of them made it a habit. “We prioritized getting people to come out again and again,” said Gowan….Recruiting and training unpaid volunteers, especially in smaller House races and communities where those union operations don’t exist, can still clearly make a difference.” I’m wondering if it is less the raw number of doorknockers and more the number of doorknockers with engaging personalities who can energize an upset victory in a district. If so, Democratic campaigns would be wise to identify, court and pamper such individuals as soon as possible.