At Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Carah One Whaley warns “No, the Big Lie Hasn’t Gone Away.” As Whaley explains, “An analysis of 552 Republican candidates running for Senate, House of Representatives, governor, secretary of state, and attorney general in the 2022 elections shows that close to half (221 candidates) who made statements on a spectrum from those who accepted the 2020 election outcome with reservations to those who fully denied the results won in 2022….The good news is that surveys show a majority of Americans are confident their votes will be accurately cast and counted. The bad news is that confidence is still at historic lows and, not surprisingly, there is a partisan divide….Public concerns about election fairness, security, and safety of course need to be taken seriously. And, election administration can always be improved, from increasing voting machines to better ballot design and process management, and consistent application of voting laws, just to name a few. The bigger challenge ahead, however, is to address the continued concerted efforts by those in power (or seeking it) to use unfounded claims of voter fraud to erode public trust in elections for their own political purposes. The extent to which unfounded claims of election fraud have become integrated into campaigns and used as a tools for fundraising efforts are particularly corrosive to democratic institutions when they translate into attempts to reshape voting laws that create divergent access and rights, and contribute to rising violent threats against election workers. And while it may be a challenge endemic to one party now, that doesn’t mean the roles won’t reverse in the future….Finally, Newton’s third law may very well apply to the politics of election denialism. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction; for every voter mobilization, there is a counter voter mobilization. In response to the election denialism as a campaign strategy, millions of voters showed up to the polls in 2022 mobilized by the belief that democracy itself was on the ballot. This itself may reverberate into the future by setting the stage for a partisan arms race that further exacerbates conflict and tensions over claims to electoral legitimacy.”

In his Washington Post column, “Raphael Warnock, with Herschel Walker’s help, is now a national voice,” E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes, “Sen. Raphael G. Warnock’s reelection is a rebuke to the idea that partisanship overwhelms personal character, another blow to Donald Trump’s domination of the Republican Party and a warning to the GOP that moderate suburban voters will continue to resist flawed candidates and right-wing extremism….His victory in a contest many thought a year ago would be unwinnable for a Democrat will transform him into a major voice in his party, which hopes to make more inroads in the Deep South by mobilizing a multiracial political coalition of the sort that sent Warnock back to Washington….Republican control of the House will limit what the party can accomplish legislatively in the final years of President Biden’s term. But by winning the party a 51st seat, Warnock will give Democrats an outright majority on Senate committees that are split evenly in the current Congress. This will speed the confirmation of judges and ease the way for midterm personnel changes in the Biden administration. Getting Biden’s appointees through Senate committees will be much easier….Democrats will also be able to issue committee subpoenas without Republican support, creating a useful counter-force to a Republican House intent on launching a large number of highly partisan investigations. The Senate, if it wished, could also pick up on investigations begun by Democrats in the House over the past two years….Although the role of Walker’s shortcomings cannot be underestimated, the ability of Democrats to prevail again in a Georgia runoff speaks both to demographic change in the state and exceptional organizing work by the party and civil rights groups over the last decade….”

Now for the bad news: “Republicans Still Have A Clear Path To Retaking The Senate In 2024,” Geoffrey Skelley reports at FiveThirtyEight, and writes, “The good news for Republicans, however, is that the 2024 Senate map puts them in a better position to take control of the chamber than it does for Democrats to hold onto it….Democrats have more than twice as many Senate seats to defend in 2024 as Republicans, an imbalance that gives the GOP a clear path to capturing the Senate — even if the Georgia result has given Democrats a little breathing room. At present, 34 Senate seats will be up for election,¹ and of those, Democrats (including the independent senators who caucus with them) hold 23 to the GOP’s 11, as the table below shows….That Democrats have so many seats to defend in 2024 is a byproduct of past electoral success. Each class of Senate seats is up every six years,² so the group of seats up in 2024 was previously up in 2018 and each six-year mark prior to that….Democrats now must defend the now red-leaning seats of Sens. Jon Tester of Montana, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. All three won reelection in 2018, but those elections took place in a heavily Democratic-leaning environment that they can’t count on having again in 2024. In addition to those three redder seats, Republicans will surely also target swing-state seats in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin….Though Republicans have ample pickup opportunities, Democrats can realistically hope to flip only two GOP-held seats in 2024: Florida and Texas. Still, given the strong Republican showings in Florida recently and the inability of Texas Democrats to break through statewide, even as the state has become a lighter shade of red, the GOP incumbents will likely start as favorites in these seats in a way that isn’t true for Brown, Manchin and Tester….With Georgia’s runoff in the rearview mirror, the 2024 election cycle can truly begin. And while the Democrats’ victory in the Peach State has helped give them a bit of wiggle room in the Senate, the overall map remains favorable to Republicans. To hold onto the Senate, Democrats need a lot of things to go right in 2024. While the 2022 midterm result showed how that can happen, Democrats will probably have to retain at least a couple of seats that are redder than any they had to defend this year — a difficult task in a world with fewer split-ticket outcomes between presidential and Senate voting.”

At The New Republic’s “The Soapbox,” editor Michael Tomasky interviews Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA17). Tomasky  observes, “Economic patriotism, to Khanna, means repatriating manufacturing to the United States on a major scale, reversing the lamentable trend of the last half-century that left the U.S. importing all the stuff it used to make. “We can build industry in every part of America,” he told me….Khanna is part of the new breed of Democrats who say: Working- and middle-class economics comes first. Yes, much else is important, but it’s all connected to the party’s approach to economic questions, and convincing—no, showing—working- and middle-class Americans that the Democratic Party has changed and is on their side. “People are right to be upset at the governing classes,” he said. “We need to say, ‘Look, we have an actual agenda to fix this.’”…We talked a lot about what the Democrats can do in these next two years, when big legislative victories won’t be possible. Khanna has clearly been thinking about this and has interesting takes on it.” The interview:

At the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Greg Bluestein explains “How Raphael Warnock Defeated Herschel Walker,” and writes:

…Warnock and his allies recognized from the outset that winning reelection against Republican Herschel Walker, even with his troubling personal issues and blunders, would require a new strategy….Doing so would mean veering from a 2020 approach that focused almost exclusively on Democratic priorities — and little about his opponent. Instead, Warnock set out to energize liberal Georgians and swing voters by emphasizing his sharp contrast with Walker.

The Democrat was helped by Walker’s pile of personal issues, bizarre behavior and campaign blunders during the runoff. Warnock’s most effective ads, to many, consisted simply of footage of Walker’s confusing remarks on the campaign trail….Inside the Republican’s campaign, aides lurched from crisis to crisis so often it felt like a “death march,” said one staffer, one of a half-dozen Walker allies who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the inner workings of the operation.

Bluestein adds that “Warnock, meanwhile, held dozens of events to mobilize voters when they most needed the push. A Democratic majority in the Senate, and the absence of other candidates on the ticket, changed the stakes. And a shrewd scheduling move by the Democrat caused chaos in Walker’s campaign.” Further,

“Herschel was like a plane crash into a train wreck that rolled into a dumpster fire. And an orphanage. Then an animal shelter. You kind of had to watch it squinting through one eye between your fingers,” said Dan McLagan, an adviser to Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, one of Walker’s defeated rivals in the GOP primary.

Bluestein notes, “To overcome the staunch support for his rival, Warnock had to motivate both liberal voters who form the Democratic Party’s base and middle-of-the-road Georgians who harbored concerns about both candidates.” Also,

He steered clear of Biden, saying talk of the president’s future should be left to pundits. He spoke more on the campaign trail about work he had done with Republicans in the U.S. Senate than allying with Biden, often to the shock of supporters. And he cast the race as a referendum on Walker.

….Warnock, meanwhile, laid claim to the political center despite a liberal voting record. Jason Shepherd, the former chair of the Cobb County GOP, marveled at Warnock’s “solid, focused and disciplined campaign” in contrast to Walker’s failure to woo swing voters.

….t was clear that one of Walker’s biggest weaknesses was middle-of-the-road voters who had defected en masse to Warnock, voted for the third-party candidate or just skipped the race altogether. But no campaign reset was underway.

Bluestein shares an inter-active map which clearly shows that Walker fell way short of Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp’s total votes, not only in metro Atlanta, but also in the heavily-Republican counties north of Atlanta.

At FiveThirtyEight, Geoffrey Skelley notes that “The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade gave Republicans an unusual win for the party outside of power, one that ran against public opinion and clearly motivated the Democratic base. At the same time, Trump remained in the political picture and cast his broadly unpopular shadow over Republican Senate primaries, which helped produce a series of poor candidates in key Senate races.” Also at FiveThirtyEight, Nathaniel Rakich adds, “Republicans nominated poor candidates, with Walker being a prime example. He was a political novice with multiple skeletons in his closet who didn’t even live in Georgia….”

None of this should detract from Sen. Warnock’s impressive accomplishment, nor his campaign’s tireless efforts. But Somewhere Mitch McConnell is grinding his teeth.

Julia Mueller notes that “Betting markets heavily favor Warnock over Walker in Georgia runoff” at The Hill: “Online betting markets are heavily favoring incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) over Republican Herschel Walker in Georgia’s Senate runoff with two days until the election….The Democrat’s chances of winning the runoff were at 89.5 percent to Walker’s 10.5 percent as of Sunday afternoon, according to the tracker Election Betting Odds, which culls odds from other popular betting markets….The site, run by conservatives John Stossel and Maxim Lott, notes Warnock’s lead has climbed 1.4 percent in the last day….PredictIt and Polymarket both show Warnock at 89 percent. Smarkets, another betting market used by Election Betting Odds, puts Warnock’s odds even higher — at 92.6 percent to Walker’s 8.3 percent….Recent polling has also put Warnock in the lead, though only slightly….Results from Emerson College and The Hill released last week showed the Democrat up by 2 percentage points, and a CNN poll released Friday found Warnock leading by 4 points.” Lest Dems get too giddy with optimism about this report, Robert S. Erikson and Christopher Wlezien argue in the abstract to their Public Opinion Quarterly article, “Are Political Market Really Superior to Polls as Election Predictors?”  “Election markets have been praised for their ability to fore-cast election outcomes, and to forecast better than trial-heat polls. This paper challenges that optimistic assessment of election markets, based on an analysis of low Electronic Market (IEM) data from presidential elections between 1988 and 2004. We argue that it is inappropriate to naively compare market forecasts of an election outcome with exact poll results on the day prices are recorded, that is, market prices reflect forecasts of what will happen on Election Day whereas trial-heat polls register preferences on the day of the poll. We then show that when poll leads are properly discounted, poll-based forecasts outperform vote-share market prices.”

Alex Samuels ponders “How Either Candidate Could Win Georgia’s Senate Runoff” at FiveThirtyEight, and writes: “However, because of what happened during the 2020 cycle and the fact that recent polling shows that this race could be a tight one, it’s hard to rely only on historical data. The first poll of the runoff, a November Fabrizio Ward and Impact Research survey for AARP, showed the incumbent with 51 percent support from voters versus Walker’s 47 percent. But a second, more recent, Phillips Academy Poll of likely voters, on the other hand, showed Walker and Warnock essentially neck-and-neck (48 percent to 47 percent, respectively) with 5 percent of voters still undecided. And a third FrederickPolls, Compete Digital, and AMM Political survey of likely runoff voters had the two men tied at 50 percent support each….The 2021 Georgia runoff was different. Next week’s election will tell us if it was an outlier — or the potential harbinger of more Democratic statewide victories to come. If past runoffs are any guide, we’d expect there to be at least some dropoff in turnout. In 2021, for example, turnout was down about 10 percent from the total votes cast in November 2020, and historically that was an unusually small decline in runoff turnout. “There are fewer incentives to turn out this year than there were in 2021,” Bullock said. “So we might expect less people to show up to the polls this year.”….Still, the outcome of this race will tell us which side can better mobilize their base, even during a midterm year when control of the Senate isn’t at stake. And that could start to answer a much bigger question: Is the Peach State red enough to where we can regard recent Democratic wins as an off-chance phenomenon? Or is it now more competitive — or even purple — meaning races can swing in either party’s favor based on the circumstances and candidates?”

In “How Donald Trump is helping Raphael Warnock in Georgia” at CNN Politics, Harry Enten shares his perspective on the closing days of the Georgia run-off campaign: “Trump’s unpopularity in Georgia is causing him to stay out of the state in the campaign’s final days and is part of a deeper reshaping of political alignments in America….To understand the Trump impact on Georgia, take a look at the CNN/SSRS poll of the Senate runoffreleased on Friday. Trump came in with a favorable rating of just 39% and an unfavorable rating of 54% among likely voters….Not surprisingly, Walker leads among White voters and Warnock with Black voters. This is what you’d expect in most closely divided states….But what might have floored a political analyst a mere eight years ago is the extent of the educational divide among White voters in Georgia. Walker was ahead 83% to 17% among White voters without a college degree. His lead shrunk to 51% to 47% among White voters with a college degree….Indeed, arguably the biggest reason Democrats are now competitive in Georgia elections is how much more Democratic college-educated White voters have become….Unlike in most states, though, there wasn’t a lot of ground Republicans could gain among non-college-educated White voters in Georgia. They were already solidly Republican. There was a ton of ground, however, that the GOP could lose among White voters with a college degree….This made Georgia a perfect place for Democrats to make gains because a significant portion of the state’s White population holds a college degree. In the CNN poll, 45% of likely White runoff voters have a college degree….When Warnock combines support from these White college-educated voters with the deeply Democratic Black vote (who made up nearly 30% of the likely electorate in the CNN poll), it gives him a small advantage as the campaign comes to a close.”

But Democrats should also get real about the limitations of a Warnock victory, should they be so lucky. As Lauren Gambino notes at The Guardian, “Likely to remain in place, even with a 51st seat, is the Senate filibuster. Despite mounting calls from across the party to weaken the rule to protect voting rights and codify Roe v Wade, Democrats do not have the support of 50 senators to do so. Manchin and his Democratic colleague, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, oppose changes to the filibuster, which imposes a 60-vote threshold to pass most legislation. Democrats would have needed to gain at least two additional senators to overcome their resistance and even then, such legislation would be unlikely to advance in a Republican-controlled House….Without a majority in the House, Democrats’ streak of legislating will all but certainly grind to a halt. In the senate, Democrats’ priority will be to confirm federal judges and executive branch appointees nominated by the president. Here again having a one-seat cushion would help Democrats bypass a degree of obstinance within their ranks, in contrast to earlier this year when one of Biden’s nominees to the Federal Reserve was forced to withdraw her candidacy after Manchin announced his opposition.” However, looking toward the near future, Gambino adds, “Holding Warnock’s seat would also have longer-term political implications. Democrats face a daunting political map in 2024, when 21 senators who caucus with the party face reelection, including three who represent states Donald Trump won in 2020….“Winning or losing this race isn’t just about whether or not it puts Democrats at 50 or 51 for the next two years,” said Mary Small, national advocacy director at Indivisible, a progressive advocacy group with affiliates across the country. “It also locks in the seat for the next six years in a way that will shape the composition of the Senate in future Congresses as well.”….Having an extra vote in the Senate will free Harris, allowing her to travel even when the chamber expects a party-line vote. In her role as president of the Senate, Harris has broken 26 ties, the most for any vice president in a single-term….“Not having the vice president tied to DC all the time as a tie-breaking vote is another sort of overlooked piece of why senator Warnock’s win will be so important,” Small said, adding: “The ability of the executive branch to have high-profile people out there telling that story of what was accomplished will be a critical part of what [Democrats] need to do heading into 2024.”

For a really good update on the U. S. Senate run-off in Georgia, check out Greg Bluestein’s “Boots on the ground could be key to how US Senate runoff is won” at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Some excerpts: “After years of playing catch-up to Democrats’ vaunted get-out-the-vote efforts, Republicans poured more resources than ever into closing the gap in the midterm. Gov. Brian Kemp invested more than $10 million into building his own apparatus….It appears to have paid off. Amid underwhelming turnout, Republicans won every statewide race except for the U.S. Senate contest between Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker. Since neither won a majority of the vote, a Dec. 6 runoff is required….“Runoffs are about turnout. It’s a sprint, not a marathon — and whoever does a better job getting their folks to the polls wins,” said Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. “We intend for it to be us.”…His group plans to spend $2 million during the runoff to boost Walker’s campaign, with goals to knock on 400,000 doors and make 1 million calls through the election……the ongoing efforts to personally connect with voters play a paramount role in campaigns. Armed with sophisticated voter data and old-fashioned flyers, these door-to-door trips are no blind scavenger hunts for voters. Staffers and volunteers use apps and well-rehearsed scripts to target their most likely supporters with pinpoint accuracy.”

Bluestein adds, “About 200,000 Georgians backed Kemp and not Walker in the midterm, a crucial bloc of voters whose wariness of the Senate nominee helped plunge the race into overtime….Walker’s drop-off was sharply pronounced in Atlanta’s suburbs, an area where GOP canvassers have been particularly active during the runoff campaign….The RNC and state GOP boast 400 staffers to augment Walker’s team of about 30 field operatives. Pro-Walker outside groups are providing at least 100 more paid canvassers, some assigned to specifically target voters of color. Warnock’s campaign added about 300 more people to its payroll, for a total of more than 900 assigned to knock on doors, send texts and find other ways to connect with voters….Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition will distribute voter guides in 5,000 churches. Warnock’s campaign planned what an aide called an “impossible to miss” blitz, complete with airborne messages, to appeal to hard-to-reach voters….“The ground game is mission-critical during this runoff election, especially for Black and brown voters. And we knew we had to prepare for a runoff election well before the general election ended,” said Hillary Holley of Care in Action, part of a coalition that has knocked on 1.5 million doors since the day after the midterm.” On Wednesday, we reported on a recent poll showing an edge for Warnock. Democrats get extra traction from extremely dedicated and effective Black community GOTV organizers, including LaTosha Brown and Nse Ufot, who helped engineer the ‘Georgia flip’ of 2020-21, which elected two Democratic senators in the heart of the deep south. On the GOP side, however, Ralph Reed is also a highly experienced lead organizer for Walker, and he has lots of campaign money to spread around.

At The Hill, Julia Mueller reports ” Even though Senate control is not on the line, as many predicted it would be, Georgia is seeing high early voting turnout in the runoff. Data from the Georgia Secretary of State’s website showed early Sunday that some 90,000 voters had already cast their ballots just a day after early voting opened in some Georgia counties — after the Georgia Supreme Court denied a Republican bid to block Saturday early voting….More Georgians voted on Sunday than on any Sunday in the 2018, 2020 and 2022 general elections, or in the 2021 Senate runoff, according toWarnock’s campaign director Quentin Fulks. The Hill has reached out to the Georgia secretary of state for confirmation of that data….Polls show the two candidates are again neck-and-neck heading into the runoff….The latest FiveThirtyEight polling averages put Walker up 1 percentage point over Warnock, 47.8 percent to 46.8 percent. However, a poll released last week by AARP put Warnock ahead by 4 percentage points, though Walker was leading among voters older than 50….Warnock touted his character in a new television ad, after Walker has defended himself against abuse allegations from his ex-wife and claims from a former girlfriend that he paid for her abortion….“Character is what you do when nobody is watching. It’s about doing the right thing simply because it’s the right thing, and doing it over and over again,” the Democrat says in a recent ad, without naming Walker.”

Holly Otterbein and Madison Fernandez take a look at “The overlooked constituency both parties are now targeting in the Georgia runoff” at Politico. As the authors write: “Powered by a multimillion-dollar get-out-the-vote program, turnout among Asian Americans nearly doubled in Georgia from 2016 to 2020, according to the Democratic firm TargetSmart — a major boon for Democrats, who they backed overwhelmingly….The same analysis found that the number of ballots cast by Asian Americans in the state increased by upwards of 60,000 votes in 2020, more than the amount by which President Joe Biden carried Georgia. Now Asian American and Pacific Islander elected officials, donors and activists who support Warnock are trying to prove that those voters can be the margin of victory in this year’s runoff — and grow their clout in the process….“We’re the only demographic group that keeps going up,” said Georgia state Sen.-elect Nabilah Islam, who will be the first South Asian woman in the chamber. “So I’m confident that we’re going to be a huge voting bloc that will help deliver a win for Sen. Raphael Warnock.”….Though the GOP made some gains among Asian Americans this cycle, the voting bloc tends to lean Democratic nationally. In Georgia, exit polls in the November general election showed that Warnock beat Walker among Asian American voters by 20 percentage points, 59-39. By contrast, Kemp lost the voting bloc by only 8 percentage points, carrying the state in the process.” Making the campaign for this constituency more difficult, the term “Asian-American” represents a diverse constituency that speaks many different languages and embraces equally diverse cultures. As Executive Director of the Asian American Advocacy Fund Aisha Yaqoob Mahmood noted, “many people outside of the community underestimate the time and effort required to mobilize Asian American voters: “We are not a monolith. We have so many different language and cultural competency needs that often don’t get addressed in these political conversations.”

In his New York Times opinion article, “Trump Was a Gift That Might Not Keep Giving,” Thomas B. Edsall writes, “The 2022 midterm election revealed dangerous cracks in the Democratic coalition, despite the fact that the party held the Senate and kept House losses to a minimum….Turnout fell in a number of key Democratic cities. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the city’s “vote count dropped 33 percent from 2020, more than any other county and the statewide average of 22 percent. It’s not just a 2020 comparison: This year saw a stark divergence between Philly turnout and the rest of the state compared to every federal election since at least 2000.”…The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners reported that turnout of registered voters in 2022 was 46.1 percent, down from 60.67 percent in the previous 2018 midterm….According to the Board of Elections in Ohio’s Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, turnout fell from 54.5 percent in 2018 to 46.1 percent in 2022….The Gotham Gazette reported that from 2018 to 2022, turnout fell from 41 to 33 percent in New York City.”

Edsall continues, “Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist, made a similar case by email. “Swing voters in swing states and districts didn’t marry the Democrats; they just dumped the Republicans,” he wrote. “In the post-Dobbs environment, extremism is not a theoretical concern anymore. The two most valuable players of this cycle for the Democrats are Sam Alito and Donald Trump. Democrats should send them each a fruit basket.”….“I cannot think of a worse way for the House G.O.P. to introduce themselves as a governing party than braying about investigations into Hunter Biden and Anthony Fauci,” Begala argued. “Their candidates won by promising action on inflation, crime and borders.”….To counter the House Republican agenda, Begala wrote,Biden needs to say, “They’re obsessed with my family’s past; I’m obsessed with your family’s future.” At every hearing in which the Republicans are tormenting Hunter Biden or Dr. Fauci, I would have Democratic members ask, “How will this hearing lower the price of gas at the pump? How will it reduce crime? How will it secure the border?”

Edsall adds, “Should Democrats repeat a tactic used successfully this year to lift the chances that Republicans nominate their weakest general election candidate?…Both Begala and Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, stood firmly opposed. “We should leave this to Republicans to nominate their own Trump,” Lake said by email….Begala gave three reasons for his opposition. First, “it undermines President Biden’s powerful message that Trump leads a mega-MAGA fanatical fringe that is a clear and present danger to our democracy.” Second, “Trump is still a massive, major force in American politics — especially in the Republican Party. I don’t want Trump anywhere near the White House.” Third, “while I respect the political success of governors like DeSantis, Youngkin, Hogan and Christie, if the Democrats can’t beat them, we don’t deserve the White House.” Begala’s first point resonates — Dems can’t hang the fanatic label solely on Republicans if Dems are enabling it. In addition, unorthodox tactics work well with the element of surprise, which you can’t count on repeatedly. And, as the post below indicates, Dems don’t have a lot of extra cash laying around to squander in Republican primaries.

Puzzling questions persist in the wake of the 2022 midterm elections, including, “Why are Democrats so weak in Florida, and why is it getting worse?” As Ryan Best , Humera Lodhi and Geoffrey Skelley  observe at FiveThirty Eight, “In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis won reelection by 19 points, while GOP Sen. Marco Rubio won by 16 points. Their performance in South Florida may have also helped Republican Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos Gimenez achieve the largest overperformances of any candidates in the House races we examined (although Diaz-Balart has long been a dynamo when it comes to easily winning elections).” Max Greenwood notes further at The Hill, “The scale of the Democratic wipeout in Florida is hard to understate. Tuesday’s elections saw Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R) win landslide victories and Republicans clinch supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature. For the first time since Reconstruction, no Democrat will hold statewide office in Florida….In 2008, when former President Obama carried Florida for the first time, there were about 700,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans. As of Sept. 30, 2022, there were roughly 300,000 more registered Republican voters than Democratic voters.” Florida State Democratic Party Chairman Mann Diaz “released a memo on Tuesday in which he called out national Democratic groups for spending so little in Florida this year — about $1.35 million in 2022 compared to nearly $59 million in 2018…DeSantis, a star among conservatives nationally and prospective Republican presidential candidate, drastically outraised Crist throughout the campaign, pulling in more than $200 million for his reelection bid. Crist, on the other hand, raised about $31 million.” In “How to Fix the Pathetic Florida Democratic Party,”  Hamilton Nolan writes at In These Times,, “Georgia has two Democratic senators. Do you think Georgia is naturally more liberal than Florida? It ain’t. The party needs to get its act together….Only 5.2% of Florida workers were union members in 2021. That has to change….Labor and the environment: that is the coalition that the Florida Democratic Party should represent…No wonder potential Democratic voters in the state aren’t energized. For what? Give them a genuine vision…It means representing the people working at the gas station and the grocery store and the cafe. They need help, and Republicans aren’t helping them! “

In their article, “Democrats Must Do Better in Rural America,” Anthony Flaccavento, Erica Etelson and Cody Lonning write at The Nation: “According to the AP/NORC VoteCast Survey, Democratic support among rural and working-class voters continued to fall in 2022, the latter by seven points compared to 2018. Among working-class voters of color, the decline was even bigger, dropping 12 points across that same period, In North Carolina, the state Supreme Court is now entirely Republican. In more than 40 small towns and rural communities in Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, and elsewhere, local governments are passing “pro-life sanctuary” resolutions that proclaim that life begins at conception and pledge to prohibit abortions, in defiance of state law….If this midterm was a success for Democrats, it is a retreat from what they ought to expect. Success for the Party of the People can’t merely mean that they barely hold on to a tie in the Senate or lose the House of Representatives by only a few seats. This vision of success is far too modest to meet the enormous challenges our nation faces….For Democrats to do more than hang on by their fingernails in 2024 and beyond, it’s essential that they expand their base to include rural and working-class voters of all races. The Rural Urban Bridge Initiative (RUBI), which we cofounded, is one of a growing network of groups working to reach, understand, and engage rural voters. One important tool for doing that is our just-released report, “Can Democrats Succeed in Rural America? A Review of Strategies and Practices that Work.” It distills best practices from interviews with 50 Democratic candidates who ran for state or federal office in rural districts between 2016 and 2020….Rural races are different from urban and suburban races; running competitively in them requires a different approach in both style and substance. Two-thirds of rural voters hold Democrats in low esteem and are profoundly antagonized by liberal elites who scorn the “rubes of flyover country.” Though Democrats’ rural deficit runs deep, it’s important to remember that as recently as 2008, Barack Obama garnered 43 percent of rural votes. And this cycle, John Fetterman’s consistent presence in rural places produced a two-and-a-half-point improvementover the 2020 presidential race—enough for him to win statewide in Pennsylvania….“Can Democrats Succeed in Rural America?” describes more than a dozen strategies used by rural candidates and office holders, four of which we highlight here.

Flaccavento, Etelson and Lonning continue, “First, candidates must have local credibility. Whether through generational ties to the area or long-standing community involvement and problem solving, Democrats fare better when they have local roots and are fluent in the concerns and values of the people living there. This means being able to connect state or national issues to specific local realities, and responding to the everyday concerns of people, without regard to party affiliation. For example, Chloe Maxmin, a progressive who won rural seats in the Maine House and then Senate, suspended much of her campaign activities in the spring of 2020 to help provide essential services to sick and elderly residents….Second, candidates put local concerns and issues first, rather than trying to mobilize people around their own—or their party’s—policy agenda. These local concerns vary, though they almost always include “kitchen table” issues like jobs and health care. Making local concerns central to a campaign does not mean ignoring or adopting conservative positions on critically important national issues. Rather, it means respecting voters enough to put their priorities at the center of the campaign. In so doing, candidates sometimes find meaningful ways to tackle state and national issues by drawing upon local experience, as when a candidate in rural Appalachia stood up for local businesses by fighting the outrageous subsidiesused to recruit big box competitors….Third, candidates and campaigns seek people where they are, rather than strictly following the advice to “go where the votes are.” Canvassing and phone-banking strategies typically focus on people who vote regularly and lean Democrat. By contrast, many of our study’s successful candidates reached out to people usually overlooked by campaigns. In big districts, where comprehensive canvassing may not be possible, candidates routinely “showed up” in even the most out-of-the-way places, joining community events or hosting town hall meetings. While campaign consultants might view this strategy as inefficient, New Rural Project’s work in predominantly Black rural communities in North Carolina is modeling an approach that builds trust and activates people who’ve disengaged, especially when done year-round.Fourth, successful candidates listen more and talk less. Genuine listening entails more than a slight pause before rattling off your talking points. It requires respect for the experiences, values, and choices of the people with whom candidates are engaging. When effective rural candidates do speak, they do so with humility and respect for other points of view, steering clear of partisan talking points or jargon. They talk like a neighbor, not an activist, with clear, concise language and concrete examples rather than policy abstractions.”

By now, you’ve probably read a lot of election spin that says Dems did so much better than expected in the midterm elections because they did so well with young voters. We’re going to need better data to verify or debunk that assertion, since the exit polls have their limitations. We need a solid estimate of the percentage of the pro-Democratic turnout that came from young voters, as well as the gender breakdown of the youth vote. Meanwhile, consider Katha Pollitt’s take, also at The Nation, about the pivotal importance of women voters: “Here’s what actually happened. On November 8, with a rush of new voter registrations and a high turnout, five states chose reproductive rights, women’s health, and freedom. In California, 66 percent of voters passed Proposition 1, enshrining abortion and contraception rights in the state Constitution. In Vermont, voters went one better, locking down in their Constitution the rights to abortion, contraception, sterilization, and decision-making around pregnancy. In Michigan, voters won constitutional protections for abortion, contraception, and pregnancy and childbirth decisions….Most surprising, in cherry-red Kentucky, where post-Roe trigger laws currently ban most abortions, voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would have explicitly denied protection for abortion, and in even cherrier-redder Montana, where Republicans control the governorship and both houses of the state legislature, voters rejected a deceptively worded “born alive” law that could have given doctors who provided palliative care to infants with fatal fetal anomalies a $50,000 fine and 20 years in prison….Far from sinking Democrats’ hopes with their pesky uterine concerns, in many states pro-choice voters helped Democrats on to victories….According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, support for abortion rights has surged since Dobbs: 66 percent of Americans now support all or almost all abortion, the highest since 1995—among women it’s 74 percent. Moreover, ABC News reports that “in the 14 states that have ceased nearly all abortion services, 63 percent now support legal abortion, up 20 points since April.” Reality bites….Abortion rights are popular, and Democrats should act that way. As Maya Rupert of the Center for Reproductive Rights put it to me in a phone call, “We have to let go of the idea that abortion is a uniquely divisive issue that people shouldn’t talk about.”

New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall shares some of Stanley B. Greenberg’s analysis of the midterm elections: ” From Nov. 6 to 8, Stanley Greenberg conducted a survey of 2,520 registered voters for Democracy Corps, including a 1,130 oversampling of voters of color, the results of which were releasedon Nov. 15. The conclusions Greenberg drew from the survey and earlier polling this year are a mixed bag for both parties….“Two-thirds rate the economy negatively,” according to Greenberg, “yet Democrats did not prioritize the economy in this election, and the president is still trying to convince people this is a good economy. This may be the toughest to make progress on.” In addition, the “failure of national Democrats to address the economy meant rural areas and white working-class communities were a political wasteland.”….The Democratic Party, according to Greenberg, “got respectable support with Hispanics, as well as young people, but women across the whole spectrum played the biggest role. Unmarried women, white college women and under-50, white working-class women all raised their vote level since October, no doubt motivated by the abortion issue.” But, Greenberg warned, Democrats remain “at risk with Hispanics and Asian voters if they do not rethink what they prioritize, what their policies offer, consciously battling for all in our coalition and acknowledging past mistakes and having an inclusive vision where all make progress in America,” noting that the Biden administration’s 2021 expansion of the child tax credit is “uniquely popular among Hispanics.”….Crime, Greenberg wrote,

was a top issue for many Democratic base voters. A quarter of Blacks and half of Hispanics and Asians voters trusted Republicans more than Democrats to address the issue. With Democrats trailing Republicans by 10 points on crime, Democrats have a lot of work to do.”

In “Georgia’s Runoff is the Opening Battle of the 2024 Senate Cycle” Kyle Kondik writes at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “In a 50-50 Senate, the parties have equal representation on committees, based on a power-sharing agreement that the 2 parties reached early in the current Congress. An extra seat for Democrats would render such an agreement unnecessary and would give Democrats the advantage on committees. It also would make it easier for Democrats to confirm judicial nominees if they had an actual majority, because there are logistical challenges the party must surmount in a 50-50 Senate that would not exist in a 51-49 Senate. A big part of modern Senate majorities is simply keeping the judicial confirmation conveyor belt running at full speed: An extra Democratic senator would improve efficiency in that regard….A 51-seat Senate majority would also allow Senate Democrats to occasionally bypass their few members who are not always team players, most notably Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). However, this is probably less important in the new Congress as opposed to the current one because the likely Republican takeover of the House means that the GOP will have a seat at the governing table — meaning that the kind of legislation Democrats would want to try to get through the Senate is not likely to pass the House anyway. There is also the filibuster, but eliminating it next year would not make any sense because Republicans control the House — even if Democrats had the votes to do so in a 51-49 Senate, which they likely would not….One other thing: A 50-50 Democratic Senate majority means that they are but one death or resignation away from losing the majority. A 51-49 edge gives the party a buffer on that as well….But the more important buffer, for Democrats, is electoral….In saving at least the tiniest of Senate majorities, Democrats completed the first step of a tricky 2-cycle challenge. It very well may not be enough to save them from eventually losing the Senate next cycle, but it does give them another 2 years of control and at least a fighting chance in 2024. But that fighting chance may be predicated on what happens on Dec. 6, when Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and former NFL star Herschel Walker (R) face off for a second time. This is a race we leaned to the Republicans prior to Election Day, but we are now characterizing it as a Toss-up.”

Kondik also provides a map that, gulp, shows which states have Democratic senate seats up in the 2024 election:

At The American Prospect, Harold Meyerson explains “Why Inflation Didn’t Wipe Out the Democrats.” As Meyerson writes, “It becomes clear when we examine two questions buried deep in the AP VoteCast exit poll. In the first, voters were asked how confident they were that they could find a good job if they needed to. In response, 65 percent answered they were very or somewhat confident, while just 35 percent said they were not too or not at all confident….Voters were also asked “how confident are you that you can keep up with your expenses?” To this, 67 percent said they were very or somewhat confident, while just 33 percent said not very or not at all confident….Inflation was clearly a problem, then, but for most voters, a manageable one. Even more important, these questions don’t reveal a level of economic anxiety that can turn an election when there are other pressing issues in play….But how is it that voters felt so confident about getting a good job and keeping up with their expenses? The answer, I suggest, is that the very same economic policies for which Biden has been raked over the coals for causing inflation also created a robust economic recovery in which jobs are plentiful and incomes are rising. The very same $1.9 trillion bill to offset the pandemic downturns—the bill on which every Republican on the Hill voted no; the bill that Larry Summers et al. predicted would have inflationary impacts—also created an economy in which jobs and incomes were, and still are, growing. And they still may, unless the Fed slams on the brakes so hard that growth turns negative….This isn’t to say that the bill wasn’t inflationary. It is to say that it also gave a boost to the economy—and to middle- and working-class Americans who were the intended beneficiaries of that boost—on a scale large enough to enable those Americans to feel confident about getting a good job and weathering the rising prices….Dare we say that the much-maligned Bidenomics actually worked? I think we dare.”

The blogosphere is not yet brimming with ideas for Democratic strategy in light of the Republicans taking over the speakership and House committees when congress reconvenes. But at FiveThirtyEight, Nathaniel Rakich shares some insights about the challenges facing Democrats: “So how should we assess the House results for Republicans? On the one hand, Republicans took control of the chamber and ended Democrats’ ability to pass legislation without GOP approval. That’s a big deal! On the other hand, though, Republicans have to be pretty disappointed with their showing. They will likely gain around eight seats, which is relatively low by historical standards. Since the end of World War II, the president’s party has lost an average of 26 House seats in midterm elections.² Of course, Republicans had an unexpectedly good 2020 election in the House, so they were starting from a higher baseline (you can’t flip a seat that you already control). But even their raw seat total is underwhelming by the standards of recent midterms. Republicans controlled 242 seats after the 2010 midterms and 247 after 2014; Democrats held 233 after the 2006 midterms and 235 after 2018….More importantly, it will likely be a difficult feat for House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy to muster up 218 votes to pass anything — or even be elected speaker. While a GOP House would mostly be playing defense (killing Democratic bills, conducting investigations into the Biden administration) rather than offense (passing its own bills), it would still need to pass bipartisan legislation like the budget. And conservative hardliners made it difficult for Republicans to govern even when they had wider majorities in 2015-2016 and 2017-2018. So we could be in for a chaotic two years in the south wing of the Capitol and look back at the 2022 elections as a Republican victory in name only.”

In “Forget DeSantis. Whitmer and Shapiro are defining the future,” Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes: “Here’s my vote for the values that Americans endorsed in the 2022 elections: reasonableness, democracy, governing, progress and freedom. Here’s what they voted against: extremism, Trumpism, culture wars and intolerance….Okay, let’s stipulate that all this applies north of the Florida state line. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the top draft pick of those longing for Trumpism without Donald Trump, swept to a landslide victory there by playing on all the divisive themes his mentor-turned-enemy thought he had patented. No wonder Trump is going crazy….But in large parts of the nation, voters formed what Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) called an “exhausted majority,” desperate to move on to problem solving. Ryan, alas, lost his Senate race to J.D. Vance in Ohio, but two nearby Democratic victors on Tuesday effectively carried this banner and stand as the antithesis of DeSantis-ism….Meaning that every gushing story about DeSantis should be balanced by pieces about Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania….Like DeSantis, both Democrats won landslides in states that Trump carried in 2016. Both had coattails for down-ballot Democrats. Both linked progressive objectives, staunch support for the labor movement, a moderate tone and pragmatism about governing. Both showed how to isolate far-right culture warriors and broaden what you might call the live-and-let-live coalition….So don’t get too obsessed with a Trump-DeSantis rumble rooted in a tired, old cultural politics. “Fix the damn problems” is the sound of the future speaking.”

“Control of the House of Representatives remains unclear as of Sunday morning, as Republicans appear to have an edge but a path to a Democratic majority remains,” Andrew Prokop writes at Vox. “To win a majority, a party needs 218 seats. The totals for several close contests and races with many uncounted mail ballots remain in flux. But currently, Republican candidates lead in 221 districts and Democrats lead in 214….So to hold their majority, Democrats need to gain the lead in four House races where Republicans are currently ahead — as well as holding on to their own leads, some of which are quite narrow….A Democratic takeover is probably not the likely outcome at this point, but it is possible. One contest where a Republican previously led, in Maryland’s Sixth District, flipped to Democrats Friday, when Rep. David Trone (D) was called the winner. There are several other uncalled contests, particularly in California, where only 60 percent or so of the vote has been counted and tallies of the remaining mail ballots could change the leads….The catch is that Democrats’ small leads in other close races are far from secure….a lot would still have to go right for Democrats for the GOP’s takeover to be thwarted.” Prokop identifies the key districts to watch, and concludes, “If some of these Democratic leads slip away in favor of Republicans, it’s possible the House will be called for the GOP relatively soon. But if Democrats hang on here and start gaining ground in contests where Republicans are up, House control could take weeks to determine, as California and other states deal with the slow process of processing and counting many thousands of mail ballots. Buckle up.”

So, “Why Did Democrats Do So Well in the Midterms?,” Matthew Cooper asks, then writes at the Washington Monthly, “Let’s look at turnout as a factor in the Democrats staving off utter disaster. Almost 47 percent of eligible voters went to the polls, which is slightly lower than in 2018, when it topped 49 percent, but still high. If Roe galvanized the pro-choice majority, you would expect higher turnout than four years ago, when Roe was threatened but still the law….If the election were all about abortion, you might expect to see an explosion of turnout in states with abortion on the ballot. But if you look at states where the legal-abortion ballot initiatives fared well, turnout was lower than or the same as in 2018….There was a spike in youth turnout, and it was strongly Democratic. The Tufts University Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement found that 27 percent of those critical 18- to 29-year-olds showed up at the polls. That rate is lower than the national average, which is to be expected, but higher than usual, though still lower than 2018. Youth made up 12 percent of all votes in this midterm, still short of 2018, when they were 13 percent.” Cooper notes further, “We still can’t be sure why young voters moved left. Did they vote more Democratic because of abortion rights, or was it the combination of Dobbs and other issues—say, the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness or the GOP’s less-than-enthusiastic support of LGBTQ rights? It will take time and more in-depth surveys of voter files or data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey’s Voting and Registration Supplement, due next year, to make more sense of it. Keep in mind that the 18–29 cohort becomes more Black and brown every year, more so than the rest of the population, and that alone could account for some of the leftward movement.” It seems plausible that many swing voters decided that Democracy and bodily autonomy were keepers. But, in light of the so-so turnout Cooper notes, I’m also wondering about the dog that didn’t bark — conservatives who were disenchanted with both parties and stayed home.

At Brookings, Elaine Kamarck shares some revealing observations about three states that have dominated headlines during the last few days. “Over time, states change their partisan make-up. Although this is a complicated process, most of it is due to people moving into a state and bringing their partisan leanings with them….Arizona used to be a reliably Republican state and yet, to Trump’s surprise and to the surprise of nearly every pundit in America, he lost that state in 2020. Today, it is the fourth or fifth most popular state in the union to move to—based on census data and on very interesting data from the U-Haul company—which tracks moves….A large number of the people moving to Arizona are from California. For many of them, Arizona offers a lower cost of living, lower taxes, lower housing costs, less traffic, and good schools plus natural beauty….Not surprisingly there are a lot of Democrats among these California transplants….Georgia is right up there with Arizona in terms of the number of people moving there. Atlanta has been an economic powerhouse for some time now. As one professor put it—Atlanta is part of the “growth” South not the “stagnant” South….People from around the country and the world have been moving there making it the center of Democratic politics in the state. In fact, as Professor Charles Bullock, a political scientist at the University of Georgia says: “We know that the strongest Republican voters are people who’ve been in Georgia more than 20 years… Individuals who have been in Georgia less time are more likely to be Democratic.”….Finally, Nevada, like Arizona and Georgia, has seen in-migration that is making it a more competitive state. Like Arizona, most of the new residents are coming from California. In Washoe County, home of Reno, Nevada, the new Tesla plant and other high-tech businesses are attracting people from the San Francisco Bay area who are bringing with them their famously deep blue politics. Meanwhile, Las Vegas, the state’s largest city, is a powerhouse of job creation, ranking behind only three other metro areas in the United States with the fastest growth in job postings. At the presidential level, Nevada has been Democratic since 2008, and its consistently high job growth seems likely to cement that tendency with voters from California….we can expect very close presidential and Senate elections in these states in the next few years. However, if the trends keep going, these states may end up as reliable wins in the Democratic column in future election cycles.”

Both Senate and House majorities are still not set as of this writing. But inside those two leading concerns there are some strategic lessons Dems can milk from the midterm elections, including:

Meddling in Republican primaries didn’t hurt and ultimately helped a number of Democratic candidates in their general elections. Democratic Governor-elects Wes Moore (MD), J. B. Pritzker (IL) and Josh Shapiro (PA) all did well, as did Reps. Hillary Scholten (MI-3) and Ann Kuster NH-2, along with Sen. Maggie Hassan (NH). There were at least seven campaigns in which the meddling strategy did not get the desired Republican extremist nominated. But nowhere did primary meddling backfire in the general elections.

Doesn’t mean primary meddling will work again. Doesn’t mean the Dems wouldn’t have won by even bigger margins if they didn’t meddle. Doesn’t mean it will work in any situation. Doesn’t mean the money would not have been better-spent on other races. But it does mean that it worked pretty much as planned for these six important campaigns.

What would Madison think? It’s winning ugly; It’s cynical; it’s a little sleazy. But it’s not illegal and it is right out in the open. And, it’s not like Mitch McConnell doesn’t play dirty, is it? ‘Divide and Conquer’ is an ancient principle of political strategy for a reason — it often works, and many forms of it it will be deployed in the future.

A lot of Democrats felt we should stop playing patty-cake when our opponents show up with brass knuckles, especially in a year when democracy itself faces an unprecedented threat. Voters seemed ok with it…for now

One caveat is that it may not work again because voters might get sick of it. It could backfire in the future. And, what is to prevent Republicans from using it in the next election, turning our democracy into versions of  the poker games, “pass the trash” and “fuck your buddy”?

All caveats notwithstanding, primary meddling might well work again in special circumstances. But it should be even more carefully considered in the future. And yes, it would be better if Democrats classed up their candidate recruitment and support systems, so we don’t have to squander limited campaign funds in GOP primaries.

We don’t know yet if Herschel Walker lost to Sen. Raphael Warnock. But he certainly got extremely close for a guy with all of his baggage. I’ve often felt Democrats could profit from running some jocks and entertainers. There are plenty of them who are as sharp as most national politicians. Republican Reagan did alright, as did Democratic Sen. Bill Bradley.

Walker’s success is also a testament to the huge popularity of college football in the south, at least. But I got the feeling that Walker was helped by harsh criticism vented by the media and some Democrats. The tone got a bit too nasty, and it may have created some ‘underdog’ sympathy for him. Not that his awful record didn’t deserve tough scrutiny.

Warnock, on the other hand, is a moral leader of the U.S. Senate and has an excellent record, which didn’t get much play. Next time, Dems should promote the positive accomplishments of top candidates, like Warnock with more zeal. This is a six-year term, so don’t be surprised if Republicans fight dirty to defeat Warnock, if it goes to a run-off.

Lastly, and with benefit of hindsight and considering the close margins, Democrats should have provided more support for the Barnes, Cortez Masto, Beasley, Ryan and Kelly Senate candidacies. Easy to say on Wednesday morning, but it’s not so easy to make good decisions about who should get how much financial support. And it’s not all on the party. Democratic voters could also give more in the future.

At Mother Jones, Madison Pauly reports, “The Future of Abortion Is Up for Grabs in These States on Tuesday.” As Pauly writes, “California’s Proposition 1 and Vermont’s Proposal 5 would explicitly add abortion rights to their state constitutions—an additional safeguard where abortion access is already protected by law and insulated by left-leaning climates….Potentially more impactful is Ballot Proposal 3 in Michigan, where voters are considering a constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to “reproductive freedom.” The amendment would establish full abortion rights for all, at least until fetal viability, as well as the right to make and carry out one’s own decisions about contraception, sterilization, and miscarriage management. “More so than any other individual race or ballot referendum,” my colleague Abby Vesoulis reported, “the results of this measure in this particularly purple state will reveal the degree to which middle-America voters support strong abortion protections in practice rather than in the abstract.”….The amendment would stymie attempts to bring back a blocked 1931 abortion ban, and guard against future anti-abortion lawmaking by the Republican-controlled state legislature….Kentucky’s Amendment 2 would go in the other direction, clarifying there is no right to abortion anywhere in the state constitution. If passed, the amendment would help cement the state’s zero-week abortion ban, throwing a wrench into pro-choice activists’ plans to argue that their right to privacy in the state constitution implies the right to end a pregnancy….Two more states have initiatives that indirectly implicate reproductive rights. In Alaska, Ballot Measure 1 asks whether to call a state constitutional convention; if they do so, some lawmakers would see it as an opportunity to prohibit abortion, according to Alaska Public Media. Meanwhile, Montana’s Legislative Referendum 131 would impose strict criminal penalties on health care workers who don’t take “take medically appropriate and reasonable actions” to provide medical care to infants born alive at any stage of development. The measure reportedly resembles model legislation by the anti-abortion group Americans United for Life.” Pauly also notes Governor’s races in PA, KS, MI and WI and some state legislative elections that spotlight the threat to abortion rights. Here’s hoping abortion rights ballot measures have ‘coattails’ that benefit Democrats.

Some excerpts from an article Democrats ought to share with seniors. “If a Republican-controlled Congress comes for your Social Security benefits in the next few years, don’t say they didn’t warn you,” Brett Arends writes in “Yes, some Republican senators really are talking openly about Social Security cuts” at MarketWatch….”Sen. Mike Lee of Utah brings to a round dozen the number of sitting GOP senators who have said, quite openly, that they want to put Social Security on the chopping block one way or another….As Social Security benefits are looking at a 20% cut without new taxes, we may be talking about major changes to America’s retirement plan….Meanwhile, according to the latest numbers at Predictit.org, the online betting market, the Republicans are cruising toward control of the House after next week’s midterms and have a growing chance of also winning the Senate. Which means they would have the means and opportunity as well as the motive to start taking the pruning shears, or an ax, to America’s retirement plan….Lee this week refused to disavow or deny his past remarks that he wanted “to phase out Social Security, to pull it up by the roots and get rid of it.” He made those remarks in 2010, and an audio recording just resurfaced — and is appearing in a (video) attack ad in Utah, where Lee is up for re-election….Changes, he said, should include raising the age at which those who have paid into Social Security become eligible for benefits. That’s a cut in benefits for each future beneficiary, no matter what people call it….Lee is not alone in wanting changes to Social Security. Fellow Senate Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, one of his party’s ardent fans of anarcho-capitalist author Ayn Rand, is on record as wanting the program turned into “discretionary” federal spending….Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who as a private–sector businessman once oversaw the biggest fraud against Medicare in history, is on record as wanting to introduce an automatic five-year “sunset” on all federal programs, including Social Security and Medicare. “If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again,” Scott said….Meanwhile eight other GOP senators say they want to “rescue” America’s retirement program with unspecified, er, measures … to be decided upon behind closed doors….That proposal, put forward by Lee’s fellow Utah senator Mitt Romney, is also being championed by occasional Republican maverick Lindsey Graham, who earlier year spoke out for lower Social Security benefits for some to help “save” the program.”

Leave it to our most eloquent former President to put Fetterman’s stroke into a perspective that should resonate with PA voters. As President Obama explained in Pittsburgh on Saturday “John’s stroke did not change who he is, it didn’t change what he cares about, it didn’t change his values, his heart, his fight,” Obama said. “It doesn’t change who he will represent when he gets to the United States Senate. He’ll represent you,” Jared Gans reports at The Hill. “Obama said the choice facing Pennsylvanians in the Senate race should be simple,” Gans writes, “because they don’t want a leader “who is just looking out for himself,” but one who will “work hard for you.” He said Fetterman knows “what it’s like to get knocked down and then get back up….When you get knocked down, you know he’s going to be there to help you get back up.” Fetterman has done a few interviews since his debate, and by now most PA voters can see that he is lucid and getting better. “Obama said Fetterman has been fighting for people his entire life, having worked for AmeriCorps to teach GED classes for young parents and run for mayor of a small town to create jobs and reduce gun violence.” One day out, FiveThirtyEight calls the Fetterman-Oz race a “dead heat,” giving Fetterman 54 out of a hundred chances to win, compared to a 46 chances rating for Oz. At Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Kyle Kondik writes, “Honestly, we think a Muhlenberg College/Morning Call poll released Tuesday showing the race deadlocked at 47% apiece is a pretty good approximation of where the race is now. The same pollster’s numbers from mid-September had Fetterman up 49%-44%.” The Real Clear Politics average has Oz up +0.1.

In “How Democrats Mishandled Crime,” Stanley B. Greenberg writes at The American Prospect: “In 2021, I created a multiracial and multigenerational team of pollsters funded by the American Federation of Teachers and the Center for Voter Information to look at how to raise Democratic support with all working-class voters. It included HIT Strategies and Equis Labs….They conducted the research in the African American, Hispanic, and Asian American communities. All of those communities pointed to the rising worry about crime. And they worried more about the rise in crime than the rise in police abuse. Yet Democrats throughout 2021 focused almost exclusively on the latter. Clearly, these communities wanted political leaders to address both….Despite Democrats’ seeming indifference to community safety, we found that Democrats in 2021 could make gains if they reassured voters on the police. Voters believed Democrats were for defunding the police, so messages that showed respect for the police and advocated for funding got heard. The message also included “urgent reforms, including better training and accountability to prevent excessive force and racial profiling.” And since the principal doubt was about the police, the message had to focus only on the police….This Democratic crime message was preferred to the Republicans’ by 8 points, and hearing it gave the Democrats another 2-point lift in their congressional vote margin….In a mid-October poll, I was able to test a crime message that got heard. It got heard because it dramatized more police, said Democrats heard our communities on violent crime, and also called out the small minority of Democrats who failed to address violent crime, and said, “Democrats in Congress are mainstream” and support our “first responders.”….To be honest, I didn’t want to open up this debate during the campaign when Democrats could do little to address it. That is why I am writing this article now, being published right before the election….Our effective crime message began with respect for police, but this time, the Democrat proposes to add 100,000 more police. That is a pretty dramatic offer that says, my crime plan begins with many more police. The message includes the same urgent reforms, but also adds, “those very communities want us to get behind law enforcement” and “fight violent crime as a top priority.”….This crime message defeats by 11 points a Republican crime message that hits Democrats for defunding the police, being with Biden who is soft on crime, and presiding over Democratic cities with record homicide rates. Democrats are in so much trouble on crime, yet this message wins dramatically in the base and competes with working-class targets….But the message gains even more support and shifts which party you trust better on crime when the Democrats call out the small minority in the House who supported defunding the police and voted against all efforts to fund law enforcement. This message had some of the strongest results in the survey, with the positive reaction outscoring the negative by 16 points….Whatever happens on Tuesday, Democrats should start by listening to the voters again and show that they know how to make communities safe, while raising the power and well-being of all working people.”