In “Here Is How an Obamacare Deal Might Actually Work,” Jonathan Cohn writes at The Bulwark: “THE FIGHT OVER THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN appears to be over. But the fight over what to do about those enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies hasn’t stopped—and the chance to do something about them hasn’t run out, either…Yes, the House is about to vote to reopen the government, thanks to a short-term funding bill that got through the Senate with the support of all Republicans and eight Democrats. But precisely because that legislation does nothing to extend those expiring “Obamacare” subsidies, the problem at the heart of the fight hasn’t gotten better…If anything, it’s about to get worse…More than 20 million Americans are in the process of discovering their health insurance is going to be a lot more expensive next year. They disproportionately live in places like Florida, Arizona, and Kansas that voted for Trump in the last election. That’s going to keep the political pressure on Republicans—and it could create an opportunity for action at one of two coming inflection points…The first will be in December, when Democrats get to hold a vote on extending the Obamacare subsidies. That vote was one of the few concessions the eight Democrats wrung from Senate GOP leaders as a part of the deal to reopen the government. It will force yet another high-profile debate over the subsidy policy, at a time when even some GOP lawmakers say they want to do something. And that might just be enough to sway House Speaker Mike Johnson, who so far has refused to say whether he’d allow a vote in his chamber.” More here.

From “Top House Democrats vow to oppose shutdown bill over healthcare funding: Democrats are demanding an extension of tax credits for Affordable Care Act health plans set to expire at end of year” by Chris Stein at The Guardian: “As House Republican leaders move to hold a vote on legislation to reopen the US government, top Democrats vowed on Tuesday to oppose the bill for not addressing their demand for more healthcare funding…The House rules committee will consider the bill on Tuesday evening, setting the stage for it to come to the House floor on Wednesday. Top House Democrats oppose it, with the minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, calling it a “partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the healthcare of the American people…The House’s largest ideological caucus, the centrist New Democrat Coalition, has announced its opposition to the measure…“While New Dems always seek common ground, our coalition remains united in opposition to legislation that sacrifices the wellbeing of the constituents we’re sworn to serve,” chair Brad Schneider said…“Unfortunately, the Senate-passed bill fails to address our constituents’ top priorities, doing nothing to protect their access to healthcare, lower their costs or curb the administration’s extreme agenda.”…The sentiment appears much the same in the Congressional Progressive caucus, where chair Greg Casar called the measure “a betrayal of millions of Americans counting on Democrats to fight for them.”

Alan I. Abramowitz, author of “The Great Alignment: Race, Party Transformation, and the Rise of Donald Trump,“ explains why “The 2025 Elections and Future of the Democratic Party: Why Spanberger and Sherrill Provide a More Plausible Model for Success than Mamdani” at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Donald Trump’s stunning victory in the 2024 presidential election set off a wave of soul-searching among liberal pundits and Democratic Party leaders. Perhaps the central question that Democratic leaders and their political allies have been debating since last November has been whether Democrats should respond to their 2024 defeat by moving closer to the center of the ideological spectrum in order to appeal to swing voters or by adopting populist positions on economic issues in order to win back white and nonwhite working-class voters who stayed home or voted for Trump in 2024…One year after Donald Trump’s victory, the 2025 off-year elections produced dramatic victories for Democratic candidates across the country. Perhaps the three highest-profile wins for Democrats were in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial contests as well as the New York City mayoral race. In this article, I examine the results of exit polls in these three elections to try to understand what implications these results have for the ongoing debate over the future direction of the Democratic Party…Two common themes emerge from the results of all three of these Democratic victories—growing concern with inflation and rising disapproval of Donald Trump’s conduct in the White House. Beyond these common elements, however, we see that the Democratic victors in these elections took very different approaches in appealing to their electorates. The two gubernatorial candidates, Spanberger and Sherrill, while highly critical of President Trump, campaigned as pragmatic moderates with records of working across party lines. In contrast, Zohran Mamdani ran for Mayor of New York as a Democratic Socialist, proposing drastic reforms aimed at expanding city services while raising taxes on the wealthy and large corporations.”

Abramowitz continues, “Democrats won decisive victories in all three marquee races that were decided last Tuesday. However, the coalitions that the two moderate gubernatorial candidates assembled were quite different from the one that the Democratic Socialist mayoral candidate assembled and are much more likely to provide a path to success for future Democratic candidates who are not running in Democratic strongholds like New York City. Zohran Mamdani won his election fairly easily because the New York City electorate is overwhelmingly Democratic and tilts decidedly to the left ideologically. The coalition he assembled was disproportionately made up of white liberals. That’s a group that makes up a much larger share of the electorate in New York City than in Virginia, New Jersey, or most of the rest of the country…Some of the differences between Mamdani’s results and those for Spanberger and Sherrill undoubtedly reflected the different types of opposing candidates that they faced. While Spanberger and Sherrill each had only a single significant opponent (the Republican nominee), Mamdani had two—a Republican and a former Democrat. The Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, was extraordinarily weak and ended up receiving only 7% of the vote. Mamdani’s main rival was former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo. However, Cuomo was no electoral powerhouse. His reputation had been badly damaged by allegations of inappropriate sexual advances by several former female staffers that eventually led to his resignation from office. After losing to Mamdani in the Democratic primary, Cuomo ran as an independent in the general election and openly appealed to Republican voters. Cuomo was actually endorsed by President Trump. The fact that a substantial minority of Democrats and a majority of independents were willing to vote for Cuomo was less a reflection of his strength as a candidate than of Mamdani’s weakness among moderate voters—a group that will be much more crucial to Democratic success in swing states and House districts in the 2026 midterm elections.”

Abramowitz shares this chart:

When I first heard that 8 Senate Democrats “caved” to the Republicans to help end the shutdown, I was disappointed. After reading more about it, it looks like Democratic leadership played their hand as best they could. Their cards were good through the election and Dems had an almost unified front against cutting a bad deal with Republicans, and they won everywhere. After the election, however, some of the eight senators believed the the utility of their shutdown cards went south. Many would disagree, and argue that Dems could leverage more concessions from Republicans. But consider what Democrats gained by the deal to end the shutdown this week: There won’t be 42 million people losing their SNAP benefits or going hungry at Thanksgiving, unless the Trump Administration succeeds in blocking SNAP; Government workers will finally get paid for their labors and Thanksgiving travelers will not be blaming Democrats in airport interviews about canceled flights and safety concerns; Rep. Grijalva will be sworn in, and the Epstein mess will finally be addressed in a big way; There will be no Filibuster reform, as threatened by Trump. (It probably wasn’t going to happen anyway, but who knows?); None of the Democratic senators who ‘caved’ are up for re-election next year, so there won’t be any loss of Democratic senate seats because of their voting to end the shutdown; The government will be re-opened because of Democratic initiative; The Republicans will totally own the huge increase in health care expenses forced on consumers, or they will have to lower those costs. There will be a vote on this, unless Republicans dishonor their agreement, which would be a really bad look, and voters would notice. Republicans have working majorities of the House and Senate, occupy the White House and have a majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices. They were going to eventually get their way. But at least Democrats were able to stomp Republicans in the ’25 elections.  For those who like their history raw and real, last night on MSNBC, Lawrence O’Donnell explained how a conscious and co-ordinated switch among five Democratic senators, under the creative leadership of Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who voted against the compromise, forced 271 Republicans to support an increase in the budget for SNAP and make other concessions, which benefitted the public. Watch a video of O’Donnell’s lucid explanation for a clear understanding of what actually happened.

Since the devil is always in the details, read “What’s in the legislation to end the federal government shutdown” by AP’s Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro, who writes at Chron: “What’s in and out of the bipartisan deal drew sharp criticism and leaves few senators fully satisfied. The legislation provides funding to reopen the government, including for SNAP food aid and other programs, while also ensuring backpay for furloughed federal workers the Trump administration had left in doubt…But notably lacking is any clear resolution to expiring health care subsidies that Democrats have been fighting for as millions of Americans stare down rising insurance premiums. That debate was pushed off for a vote next month, weeks before the subsidies are set to expire…It would next go to the House, where lawmakers have been away since September but were being told to prepare to return to Washington this week. Then, it’s to Trump’s desk for his signature…Yet in a breakthrough for what’s considered a more normal appropriations process, the package also includes several bills to fully fund other government operations including agricultural programs and military construction along with veterans’ affairs for the full fiscal year, through September 2026…Additionally, the package ensures states would be reimbursed for money they spent to keep the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, and the Women, Infants and Children program, or WIC, running during the shutdown…The Democrats failed to secure their main demand during the shutdown, which was an extension of the health care subsidies that many of the 24 million people who buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act rely on to help defray costs…Instead, the package guarantees a vote on the issue in December — which was not enough for most of the Democrats, who rejected the deal and voted against it…The stopgap measure reinstates federal workers who had received reductions in force, or layoff, notices and protects against such future actions. It also would provide back pay for federal workers who were furloughed or working without pay during the shutdown — something that’s traditionally provided but that the Trump administration had threatened was not guaranteed.”

Here’s what some Democratic leaders said about the deal, as reported by Miranda Jeyaretnam at Time magazine: “The seven Democrats and one independent who caucuses with the Democrats who sided with Senate Republicans on the bill were Jeanne Shaheen (D, N.H.), John Fetterman (D, Pa.), Tim Kaine (D, Va.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D, Nev.), Dick Durbin (D, Ill.),  Maggie Hassan (D, N.H.), Angus King (I, Maine), and Jacky Rosen (D, Nev.)…Rand Paul (R, Ky.) was the sole Republican to vote against the bill…Kaine defended his vote, saying the deal “guarantees a vote to extend Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, which Republicans weren’t willing to do,” and he expressed confidence that that vote would ultimately result in an extension of those subsidies…“Lawmakers know their constituents expect them to vote for it, and if they don’t, they could very well be replaced at the ballot box by someone who will,” Kaine said in a statement…Shaheen said in a statement that the deal “gives Democrats control of the Senate floor—at a time when Republicans control every level of power—on one of our top legislative priorities.”…“This is a major step that was not predetermined,” Shaheen said. “But weeks of negotiations with Republicans have made clear that they will not address health care as part of shutdown talks—and that waiting longer will only prolong the pain Americans are feeling because of the shutdown.”…But several Democrats criticized the promised future vote as far from a guarantee…“I am unwilling to accept a vague promise of a vote at some indeterminate time, on some undefined measure that extends the healthcare tax credits,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D, Conn.), told reporters before the vote. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I, Vt.) called it a “policy and political disaster for the Democrats to cave.”…California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office posted on X, “Pathetic. This isn’t a deal. It’s a surrender. Don’t bend the knee!”…Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D, Mich.), who had been part of earlier talks around a funding deal, ended up voting no, as did Sens. Jon Ossoff (D, Ga.), Tammy Baldwin (D, Wis.), and Peter Welch (D, Vt.)…“I was involved for many weeks then over the last couple weeks, it changed,” Slotkin told reporters on Sunday evening, adding that she was not involved in final negotiations. “I always said it’s got to do something concrete on health care and it’s hard to see how that happened.”…Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, N.Y.) said in a post that the average monthly ACA benefit per person of $550 outweighs that of SNAP at $177. “People want us to hold the line for a reason. This is not a matter of appealing to a base. It’s about people’s lives,” she wrote.”

Aaron Blake shares “6 Takeaways from the Governmentent Shutdown Deal” at CNN Politics. A teaser from the fifth takeaway: “5. Republicans still have an Obamacare problem — and this could exacerbate it…The best case for Democrats’ strategy is this: They were never going to get Trump and GOP leaders to commit to extending the Obamacare tax credits as part of a shutdown deal. But they could force an issue that’s a significant GOP liability, cast a spotlight on it and even force Republicans to take some tough votes and squirm a little…Regardless of whether that was actually the best Democrats could do, the pressure being applied on the GOP on health care isn’t insignificant…With around three-quarters of Americans supporting the tax credits, this issue poses very real political problems for Republicans. A recent Pew Research Center poll also showed health care was the GOP’s worst issue among a dozen tested, with 42% favoring the Democratic Party’s approach, compared with just 29% for Republicans’…Look at none other than Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia pleading with her party to renew these tax credits. Or the July memo authored by Trump’s own pollster, Tony Fabrizio, making the case that letting the subsidies lapse could spell political disaster for the GOP in the midterms…If nothing else, this record-long shutdown could spotlight the choice Republicans are about to make. By voting for a deal that does not extend the subsidies and therefore allows premiums to skyrocket for millions of Americans, Republicans will have made it clearer that this is what they fought hard for. They’ll be put on the record on the issue in an even starker way when the Senate takes a separate vote on the subsidies…If that measure were somehow to pass, it could pressure Speaker Mike Johnson to allow a vote in the House too…While Democrats want these tax credits extended from a policy standpoint, you could argue that the best thing for them from a raw-politics standpoint is for Republicans to reject them — and for voters to remember it come 2026…Republicans are already having to deal with explaining the major Medicaid cuts in Trump’s big agenda bill over the summer. And unlike those cuts, which are delayed until after the 2026 midterms, these premium increases will go into effect quickly…At the very least, Democrats have continued to fertilize a potent political argument on bad issue for the GOP.” Check out the rest of Blake’s takeaways right here.

Kyle Kondik shares his thoughts on Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger’s win at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Loudoun County, Virginia, whose early reporting suggested Donald Trump was on the way to a significant national win in 2024, pointed the way to Abigail Spanberger’s (D) big gubernatorial win and Jay Jones’s (D) attorney general victory…A year ago, the near-complete vote from early-reporting Loudoun County, Virginia was the first major signal that Donald Trump was on the way to victory in the 2024 presidential election. Last night, Loudoun was the signal that the 2025 election, both in Virginia and elsewhere, was becoming a rout in favor of Democrats…Wealthy, highly-educated, and diverse, Loudoun had zoomed toward Democrats throughout the 2010s, punctuated by Ralph Northam (D) winning the county by 20 points in his 2017 gubernatorial victory and Joe Biden winning it by 25 in 2020…But by 2021, the Democratic margin in the county had contracted to 11 points, helping Glenn Youngkin (R) win the governorship. Three years later, Kamala Harris only won it by 16 points, another 9-point Democratic contraction from four years prior. The shift in Loudoun was emblematic of the overall results, in which Trump improved to varying degrees in all 50 states…But the pendulum has swung again. Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger (D) won Loudoun by an eye-opening 29 points. And Attorney General-elect Jay Jones (D) won it by 19 points—nearly matching Northam in the county and running ahead of Harris, and giving the clearest indication that he was on the way to winning. Despite the bombshell revelation of violent, outrageous text messages from Jones that rocked the race a month ago, Jones ended up winning easily, riding Spanberger’s coattails to a 6.5-point statewide win over state Attorney General Jason Miyares (R). Lt. Gov.-elect Ghazala Hashmi (D) won by 10.5 in what was the sleepiest of the three statewide races, and Spanberger won by 15. Polls were correct in the sense that there would be variation in the three races, but they all ended up just being different shades of blue. Democrats also made a massive gain in the state House of Delegates, pushing their majority to 64 seats, a massive 13-seat gain in which they flipped all 8 Harris-won Republican districts and an additional 5 that Trump had carried by small margins last year.”

Some insights from “A Big Night for Democrats,” in which Ruy Teixeira notes at The Liberal Patriot: “It was a good night for Democrats, which confirmed that their coalition, now tilted toward educated, engaged voters, is likely to overperform in non-presidential elections where their coalition’s turnout advantage has the most effect. Granted that the marquee 2025 elections in Virginia and New Jersey were in blue states and President Trump is not popular, Spanberger’s and Sherrill’s easy victories show that their coalition can be mobilized in off-year elections to deliver strong victories given competent, well-run campaigns…Beyond that, one should not read too much into the Democrats’ performance given the historically poor power of these elections to predict future ones. The 2026 and 2028 elections will be fought on a much, much wider playing field with different electorates and a political terrain that is difficult to predict. Still, Democrats can take heart that their coalition has passed an initial test that, had they not done well, would have further demoralized an already demoralized party. Of course, now they’ll have the reverse problem: clearing this low bar will make many Democrats too confident that their problems have been solved when such optimism is not merited…One such problem is the class gap in support. Democrats now do far better among college-educated voters than among the working-class (noncollege) voters. This election was no exception. Indeed, comparing the 2024 and 2025 elections in Virginia and New Jersey using the preliminary AP/NORC VoteCast results indicates you can account for almost all of Democrats’ overperformance in 2025 relative to 2024 (both Spanberger and Sherrill ran ahead of Harris) by (1) a larger class gap (college vs. working class) in both states primarily because both candidates did way better among college-educated voters than Harris did in 2024, and (2) a greater share of college voters in both states (especially VA) relative to 2024.” Teixeira adds, “Moderates will point to the triumphs of Spanberger and Sherrill as giving the party a mandate for moderation; progressives will point to democratic socialist Mamdani’s victory in the New York mayoral election, where he exceeded pre-election polling and broke 50 percent of the vote, as a clear signal the party needs to be more robustly progressive and exciting…I think the moderates have a better case and more persuasive evidence on their side. But the debate will continue. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. In truth, neither side has really cracked the case of how Democrats can rebuild their working-class support in a populist age, and these election results just do not provide a clear answer. Democrats would be well-advised to approach them with humility as they attempt to chart a course forward.”

Alicia Civita writes at The Latin Times that “Democrats celebrated a clean sweep in Tuesday’s elections across Virginia, New Jersey, New York City and Cincinnati, powered by a dramatic shift among Latino voters who have turned sharply against Donald Trump’s economic results and his immigration and deportation agenda…Early AP VoteCast exit polling cited by The Atlantic‘s Ronald Brownstein shows Hispanic support for Republican candidates collapsing to about one-third in states that Trump carried nearly two-fifths of just a year ago, a sign that the political pendulum among Latinos is swinging back toward the Democrats…In Virginia, Democrat Abigail Spanberger defeated Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, while in New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill secured a second term as governor. Both victories came with notable margins among Hispanic voters…According to the AP VoteCast data shared by Brownstein, each Democrat held her GOP opponent to roughly one-third of the Hispanic vote, compared with the two-fifths or more Trump won in both states during the 2024 presidential race. Even more striking, about three-fifths of Hispanic voters in New Jersey and three-quarters in Virginia said Trump has gone too far with deportations, highlighting a deep disapproval of his enforcement policies…The numbers suggest that the administration’s recent mass-deportation initiatives and rhetoric about “removal quotas” are eroding what had been a rare area of growth for the GOP in 2024. Latino voters in both states cited fears of family separation, economic disruption, and anti-immigrant sentiment as motivating factors for their Democratic votes…In New Jersey, 64% and 81% of the Hispanic and Black vote (respectively) went for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate…According to the first numbers from exit polls, majority of Hispanics say that Trump “has gone too far on deportations.”

Harold Meyerson explains at The American Prospect that “Democrats connected with broad public discontent over Trump and the Republicans’ mishandling of the economy and ignoring the public’s resulting discontent. Compare, for instance, the difference between the salience in the public’s mind of Trump’s signature issues and the issues that actually mattered to them. When Virginia voters were asked what issue mattered most to them, 47 percent said the economy, 21 percent said health care, 12 percent said immigration, 10 percent said education, and 6 percent said crime. In New Jersey, 36 percent said taxes, 32 percent said the economy, 16 percent said health care, 7 percent said immigration, and 3 percent said crime. In New York City, 55 percent said the cost of living, 24 percent said crime, 9 percent said immigration, and 6 percent said health care. (And Mamdani voters ranked immigration much higher than the other voters; clearly, they were referring to ICE sweeps against law-abiding immigrants.).” Meyerson adds, “Newsom has managed to win, for now, the pole position in the party’s 2028 presidential contest in a way that has uniquely enabled him to avoid being boxed into the moderate or leftist camps.)..If every Democrat on the ballot yesterday was in touch with the public’s anxiety about the economy, a number of them—Newsom and Mamdani loudly, Spanberger and Sherrill quietly—were also in touch with the Democrats’ fury at the ICE sweeps and Trump’s attempted assumption of monarchial power. Those two themes powered the Democrats to victory yesterday; they should power them to victory next year as well.” More here.

Not to gloat, but Democrats cleaned their clocks. We ran the table. We swept all of the big races. Cleaned, ran, swept. We gave them a major ass-whuppin’. (Insert your favorite sports victory gloat cliche right here). It may take a while before the top analysts weigh in with serious cross-tabs. Until then, however, we do have exit polls, be they flawed or otherwise unworthy of your attention due to oft-repeated caveats. Yet, it can’t hurt to take a peek at them, now can it?

A couple of days ago, Jennifer Agiesta wrote at CNN Politics, “This year, for the first time since 2016, CNN, ABC, CBS, Fox News, NBC and the Associated Press are working together to produce this critical research, in collaboration with SSRS, a nonpartisan research company that also conducts CNN’s polling. On behalf of the six media organizations, SSRS will conduct The Voter Poll in California, New Jersey, New York City and Virginia to cover the marquee contests on this November’s slate. You’ll see the results here as CNN’s Exit Poll.”

Agiesta noted, further, “Traditionally, exit polling has leaned heavily on in-person interviews of a randomly selected sample of voters at different Election Day polling locations. That remains a key part of the polling this time around. But to include people who vote early or vote by mail, those in-person interviews will be combined with survey results gathered before Election Day to ensure that exit polls reflect the views of the full electorate, regardless of when they vote or how they cast their ballot.” She has more details about the process at the  first-noted link.

Flash forward to this morning, which brings us the actual exit poll results in a handy tool you can tweak for specific results. As regards the Virginia Governorship, for example, the report indicates that: Governor-elect Spanberger got 48 percent of the men; 65 percent of women; 47 percent of White voters; 92 percent of Black voters; 67 percent of Latino voters; and 79 percent of Asian voters. And yes she did substantially better with women in this racial categories, the largest gap being a 23-point edge with Latina women.

Spanberger crushed it with the younguns (18-29) with 70 percent. She got 61 percent of the 30-44 age group; 55 percent of the 45-64 cohort; and 52 percent of the over 65s. She got 50 percent of those with no college degree and 63 percent of those who have a degree. In terms of party i.d., Spanberger won with 7 percent of Republican supporting her; 59 percent of Independents and 99 percent of Democrats. She got 65 percent of moderates, 15 percent of “somewhat conservative” voters and 5 percent of “very conservative” voters. Interestingly, she got 21 percent of “born again” or “evangelical Christians.” She got 50 percent of “military veteran household” voters and 64 percent of “federal worker/contractors this year.”

The data takes deeper dives into gender by race; income; trans rights; abortion; the Jay Jones factor; feeling about the way things are going; opinions of Trump (she got 6 percent of Trump approvers and 7 percent of those who voted for him in ’24). Tellingly she got 54 percent of those who took a “somewhat unfavorable view” of the Democratic Party. She got 81 percent of those who said “health care” is the “most important issue facing Virginia.”

Check out the exit poll tool for other candidates and issues right here.

Some takeaways from “Working-class voters think Dems are ‘woke’ and ‘weak,’ new research finds: The extensive research project shows the challenges and openings for the party in winning back working-class voters” by Elena Schneider ate Politico: “Working-class voters see Democrats as “woke, weak and out-of-touch” and six in 10 have a negative view of the party, concluded a frank internal assessment of the hole the party finds itself in…The nine-month, 21-state research project is the latest in a wave of post-mortems and data dives aimed at solving the Democratic Party’s electoral challenges after their sweeping losses in 2024. It was funded by Democracy Matters, a nonprofit aligned with flagship Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, and backed by months of polling, dozens of focus groups and message testing…American Bridge’s project focused exclusively on working-class voters, shedding light on a once-core constituency for Democrats that’s drifted away from the party over the last decade…The Democratic brand “is suffering,” as working-class voters see the party as “too focused on social issues and not nearly focused enough on the economic issues that impact every one, every day,” the report said…Other center-left groups’ post-mortems drew similar conclusions about the depths of the problem Democrats face in repairing their brand, as well as urging their party to side-step social issues and prioritize economic concerns. But even as the report calls for a proactive policy agenda, it’s not clear what that detailed policy agenda might be…The report argues Democrats still have a path to regain the support of blue-collar voters they have been losing to Republicans, from resetting their perceived priorities to leaning into issues that voters trust them on, including health care and housing. They point to Trump’s failure to bring down costssince resuming office this year as proof that “this group is very much up for grabs,” said Margie Omero, a Democratic pollster who worked on the project…The report acknowledged that “Republicans start off on stronger ground on these issues, but Democrats can reclaim them when they vividly illustrate how their plans differ from Republicans’, particularly on health care.” Read on here.

From “Healthcare for All: The Democratic Promise That Could Heal a Broken Nation” by thomhartmann at Daily Kos: “Every election cycle, candidates talk about “freedom,” “security,” and “opportunity,” yet ignore the most basic measure of all three: whether ordinary Americans can afford to stay alive.In the richest nation in the history of planet Earth, millions of Americans are dying from treatable illnesses, rationing insulin, and running GoFundMe campaigns for chemotherapy. This isn’t just a policy failure, it’s a moral collapse…And it’s the one issue that could unite the country, reshape the Democratic Party, and finally prove that compassion is not weakness, but strength…Dilbert creator Scott Adams is begging Donald Trump for help forcing Kaiser to provide him with a possibly life-saving infusion for his cancer. That’s how f*cked-up healthcare is in today’s America…They’ve voted over 100 times to date on bills that would end, gut, or severely disfigure the ACA and finally got a good chunk of it done with their so-called “Big Beautiful Billionaire’s Bill” that handed Trump, Musk, Zuckerberg, et alover  four trillion dollars in tax cuts, while making up for it by eviscerating ACA subsidies and Medicaid eligibility…But now that November 1st is in the past and we’re atop the actual enrollment period, 24.2 million people on the ACA plans are discovering their insurance rates, co-pays, and deductibles are exploding…And they’re pissed. Even Marjorie Taylor Greene is pissed!…we spend more on “healthcare” than any other country in the world: about 17% of GDP…Switzerland, Germany, France, Sweden and Japan all average around 11%, and Canada, Denmark, Belgium, Austria, Norway, Netherlands, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia all come in between 9.3% and 10.5%…Health insurance premiums right now make up about 22% of all taxable payroll, whereas Medicare For All would run an estimated 10%…Medicare For All, like Canada has, would save American families thousands every year immediately and do away with the 500,000+ annual bankruptcies in this country that happen because somebody in the family got sick.”

If you’ve been following the fuss about Maine’s Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, read “You’re Being Lied to About Graham Platner” by Branco Marcetic at Jacobin. Marcetic takes the time and trouble to comb all of Platner’s Reddit posts to see what he is really about, and ends up painting a nuanced portrait of a solid, upright guy, with an admirable sense of decency. Marcetic sheds light on Platner’s political views expressed over the years and concludes, “Platner’s Reddit archive contains thousands of comments over more than a decade, and it is possible to single out many of them to accuse him of any number of unflattering things. This is, in fact, exactly what seems to be happening in the media coverage of his posts, in which Platner is simultaneously portrayed as both a bigoted, far-right reactionary, and a dangerous left-wing radical…But read in their totality, Platner’s posts paint a different picture of the candidate: someone who, far from a secret fascist, was openly and passionately opposed to fascism; who held a variety of typical progressive views even as he expressed himself in ways many liberals would regard as crass and offensive; who sympathizes with rural Americans despite being vehemently opposed to many of the candidates they vote for; and who was disillusioned with and radicalized against the system by US wars…Platner, in other words, comes off as a flawed, complicated, and sometimes contradictory human being whose political views don’t always fit neatly into a box. In that, he resembles millions of Americans — including some of the exact voter demographics that American liberals say they want to win back, yet seemingly can’t help but vilify.” Read more here.

“A number of progressive groups close to the Democratic Party and the labor movement are trying to recruit working-class candidates,” Robert Kuttner writes in “Working-Class Heroes: Today on TAP: Would democracy work better if more working-class people ran for public office?” Kuttner explains:  “The Working Families Party recruits working-class candidates up and down the ballot,” says Joe Dinkin, the party’s national deputy director. “We run trainings for hundreds of working-class people to run for every year.”…It’s far from easy. Running for office is time-consuming and expensive. Working-class people tend to be working. Few can just take time off to run for office. The most important pipeline that launches working-class people into politics, the labor movement, is far weaker than it once was…“The experience of having to work hard for a living is familiar to most Americans but not to most elected officials,” Dinkin adds. “There are more millionaires in Congress than working-class people.” Too true. And the more the party is dominated by millionaires, the less hospitable it is to either working-class candidates or working-class causes…That said, getting the right candidate matters as least as much as the candidate’s class background. Occasionally, an authentic working-class candidate who is also a superb politician breaks through…Some of the greatest working-class champions, beginning with FDR, were well-to-do class traitors. And some people rose up from the working class, such as Vice President JD Vance, who was saved from destitution by New Dealer grandparents and grew up to be a plutocrat whose famous book blamed poverty on low character rather than disparities of power…when Ted Kennedy, one of the great champions of legislation to help working people, first ran for the Senate in 1962, he was 30 years old and was inheriting a seat from his brother Jack that had been kept warm for him by a family retainer until he was old enough to run. Campaigning at a factory gate, Teddy encountered a burly worker coming off the graveyard shift…Worker: “You’re a rich kid. You’ve probably never worked a day in your life.”…Kennedy: “Ye-es, I guess you could say that.”…Worker: “You ain’t missed a thing.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders suggests some reforms needed to help workers navigate the problems generated by the explosive growth of A.I.: “First, we must move to a 32-hour work week with no loss in pay. Think about it. Today, American workers are 4oo percent more productive than they were in the1940s when the 40-hour work week was first established. Artificial intelligence and robotics will greatly increase that productivity. Workers must benefit from that increased output through a shorter work week. A 32-hour work week with no loss of pay would be a major step forward in improving the quality of life for millions of Americans. Second, we must require large corporations to allow workers to elect at least 45% of the members of their boards of directors, similar to what already takes place in Germany. Workers need a seat at the table to best determine how AI is used in their companies. If Tesla workers were on their corporate board, I doubt very much that they would be rewarding Elon Musk with a trillion dollar pay package. Third, we must greatly increase profit sharing at our nation’s largest corporations. In my view, workers should receive at least 20% of the stock in companies they work for. Corporate profits should not just be going to enrich wealthy stockholders and the billionaires who own them. Fourth, we need to substantially expand the concept of employee ownership in America. When workers own their own businesses and are more involved in the decision-making processes, they will make choices that benefit everyone in the company, not just the people on top. Fifth, instead of providing billions of dollars in tax breaks to companies that are throwing workers out on the street and replacing them with new technologies, we should enact a robot tax on large corporations and use that revenue to improve the lives of workers who have been harmed in this transition. Bottom line, AI and robotics will bring a profound transformation to our country. Nobody denies that. In my view, we must fight to make sure that these changes benefit all of us and not just a handful of billionaires. Let the debate begin and we need your participation.”

In “Previewing the New Jersey and Virginia Governor Races: Part Two,” Michael Baharaeen writes at The Liberal Patriot: “Next week, voters in New Jersey and Virginia will go to the polls to select new governors in the first major election since Donald Trump was re-elected. In my previous rundown of these races, I detailed how historical trends suggest Democrats are favored to win both. But I also noted that over the last four years, these two blue-leaning states have drifted rightward and delivered some surprise wins for Republicans—and that Democrats can’t take either one for granted…This week, we’re diving into the current state of play, including what the polls show, which issues are dominating, and how much all this can tell us about what to expect next week…Heading into the final stretch of the campaign, Democrats appear to be in a stronger position in Virginia than in New Jersey. According to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, the Democrat in the race, former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, lead her GOP challenger, Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, by about seven points…Up the Atlantic coast, the landscape looks a little different. Though New Jersey has for years been a much bluer state than Virginia in federal elections, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate there, Mikie Sherrill, is having a tougher go at it than Spanberger. Sherrill has held a lead over Republican challenger, Jack Ciattarelli, since late summer, but it has narrowed considerably over the past couple of months. RealClearPolitics’ polling average showed Sherrill’s advantage dropping from nine points in August to just 3.7 points as of this week…When married together with historical election trends, this evidence adds to the idea that Spanberger and Sherrill are the favorites ahead of next week. However, Sherrill is arguably in a tougher fight, and there is a clear opening for Ciattarelli to upset historical trends and become New Jersey’s first Republican governor since Chris Christie…Next week, I’ll conclude this series with a look at the arguments for why each party’s candidate could win in each state—and detail a list of things I’ll be watching for heading into election night.” More here.

From “Is Economic Populism the Key to Winning Over Rust Belt Voters?” by Jared Abbott, head of the Center for Working-Class Politics, at In These Times: “For all their divisions, Americans share one conviction: the economy comes first…In September 2024, 81% of registered voters told Pew the economy would be very important to their presidential vote—the top issue on their list, ahead of all others. Gallup likewise found the economy was the most important of 22 issues, with 52% calling it ​“extremely important” and another 38% ​“very important,” making it a significant factor for roughly nine in ten voters. And this February, Pew reported that economic concerns dominate Americans’ top national problems, including the affordability of health care (67%) and inflation (63%)…But beyond general concern about ​“the economy,” affordability and inflation, it’s much less clear what specific economic policies might help to nudge more infrequent voters to the polls and turn swing voters into Democrats…Centrist Democrats claim that the best policies to connect with working-class voters are commonsense, practical, non-ideological policies aimed at strengthening economic growth and expanding economic opportunities for working people. For example, a post-election study conducted by PPI of battleground voters found that 82% of Americans agreed that it should be easier to start a business, 83% favored having more alternatives for college and 81% wanted to reduce government budgets. By contrast, only 47% of respondents in the PPI survey supported taxpayer-funded health insurance and just 42% had a favorable view of ​“increasing social spending and redistribution.”…Progressives counter by arguing that the notion Americans are averse to bold progressive economic policies is a myth — and there’s substantial evidence to support that claim. Recent polls have shown, for example, that 63% of Americans favor higher taxes on large corporations, 76% support Congress passing a national paid family and medical leave program, and 65% of working-class respondents want to see worker representatives on corporate boards of directors, while 69% of working-class respondents hope the federal minimum wage will rise to $15 per hour, and 79% of working-class voters support increased funding to Social Security and Medicare. But just because voters express hypothetical support for a given policy doesn’t mean they would be moved to support candidates who endorse it.” More here.

Some notes from Martha McHardy’s article, “Donald Trump’s Support Among Middle Class Crumbling: Poll” at Newsweek: “Middle-income voters surveyed by YouGov/The Economist remain broadly negative about the economy under Trump. Their approval of his handling of the economy has slipped from 41 percent in August to 37 percent in October, while disapproval rose from 50 to 59 percent. Views on inflation were even more negative, with just 33 percent approving and 63 percent disapproving in October, compared to 33 percent approval and 57 percent disapproval in August…However, some of the polling data shows the outlook of middle class voters has begun to stabilize after months of decline…While only 22 percent of respondents in October said the economy was “getting better,” that figure has remained steady since September after a sharp drop earlier in the summer. The share saying the economy was “getting worse” has held at 52 percent for two consecutive months…Similarly, the share of middle-income voters reporting that their personal finances have improved fell slightly, from 17 percent in August to 15 percent in October, while those saying their situation was “about the same” has stabilized near 45 percent…The dim economic mood follows signs of renewed strain in key areas: Inflation rose to 3 percent in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)—its highest level since January—while the unemployment rate reached 4.3 percent, the highest in four years.”

In “Senate Democrats: Get Your Stories Straight!,” Jason Linkins writes at The New Republic: “The U.S. Senate: For a long while now, it’s where Democratic Party ambitions, along with democracy itself, have hit the skids. There are structural reasons for that: Far fewer voters are represented by the GOP majority, and this malapportionment problem is exacerbated by changing demographics that could one day allow 30 percent of Americans to elect 70 of its senators. But Republicans learned long ago that their agenda—showering tax benefits on the wealthy and breaking the government—only requires 51 votes most of the time. Democratic governance—which involves building, fixing, regulating, preserving, and improving—requires 60 nearly always…One might have expected by now that Democrats would have recognized how the Senate filibuster, which requires them to regularly conjure these supermajorities, is something of a suicide pact. Or that it’s a recent innovation that’s easily discarded. Or that it runs so counter to the Founders’ ideals that its very existence should be offensive. But not enough Democrats have made this leap. And the reason is that too many of them suffer from what The New Republic contributor Christopher Sprigman calls “Degenerative Senate Brain.”…Having observed this less than august body operate over the past few years, I think that the main problem with many of our Democratic senators is that they believe their own hype. They all think they’ve signed up for an austere debate club—the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” the “cooling saucer” of government. They don’t seem to have noticed that when it comes to deliberating, or maintaining a reputation for judiciousness and equanimity, everyone has to agree to participate in those ideals. And Trumpist Republicans do not: They’ve shut down the government. They’ve willingly ceded the power of the purse. They rarely if ever question the Mad King’s desires…The state of the GOP means that you can’t really have a Senate anymore. Unfortunately, the most Senate-brained Democrats still naïvely believe that they can revive this moribund body, through actions that at best send mixed messages and at worst directly undermine the work of Democrats like Jeff Merkley…

Linkins continues, “Case in point: This week, amid the government shutdown, 13 Democratic senators joined forces with all but one Republican to advance the nomination of Harold Mooty to a judgeship in the Northern District of Alabama. Some fun facts about Mooty that The New Republic’s Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling collected: He has gone to some lengths to dance questions about the January 6 riots and who was culpable; he practically invented new verb tenses to avoid saying directly that Joe Biden was the legitimately elected president…When it comes to deal-breakers, to each their own, but I find it puzzling that these weren’t some crimson flags for Senate Democrats. But even if they weren’t, everyone should understand that the only role a Republican judicial nominee plays in American life is serving Trump as if he was their personal legal client and backstopping his savage corruption. For that reason alone, there should never be a Democratic name signed to the advancement of Trump’s judges…In their own skewed, Senate-brained view of the world, taking these kinds of votes helps to bolster democracy. That is to say, any time there is a small window in which they can make a gesture of comity and bipartisanship, they believe the right thing to do is to take it—the better to demonstrate that the ol’ ship of state is still humming along, normal business and regular order is possible, and that we aren’t so far off from recovery. Democrats are leaving the door to deliberation open. They’re keeping that saucer on ice…Folks, I would love to believe that a small overture might seed a future coming together of polarized parties. But if watching schoolchildren get shot to pieces several times a year isn’t going to foster that fellowship, then we’re definitely not getting there by throwing the other side a bone…Is democracy in grave danger? This week, it looks like Merkley and his allies agree, and that 13 other Democrats aren’t really ready to believe him. But with midterms looming, everyone in the party has to be of one mind on the matter in order to not sow confusion among critical voters. And if they all truly agree that Trump is some unique threat, we cannot have Democrats in double digits signing their name to support his agenda—not now, not ever.”

From “It is So ‘Disconcerting’ that We Have No Congress: Republicans refuse to do their jobs” by Jennifer Rubin at “The Contrarian”: “… a headline from The Hill announces: “GOP senators disconcerted by possible $230M Justice Department payout to Trump.”…There are so many things about which to be “disconcerted,” including unconscionable misuse of the military against Americans, brutal ICE raids, skyrocketing debt, corruption on a grand scale, and herky-jerky trade wars (complete with Trump’s temper tantrum over an ad accurately reminding us that Ronald Reagan opposed protectionism). One should further “raise concerns” that the Affordable Care Act premiums will “spike on average by 30 percent next year” for 17 million people, so that “along with the likely expiration of pandemic-era subsidies… millions of people will see their health insurance payments double or even triple in 2026,” as The Washington Post reports…If only these fretful Republicans belonged to some sort of governmental body that had the ability to limit or even stop these troublesome actions. One could image, say, a separate legislative body to check the executive, control spending, and vet unfit nominees. But they want no part of that…” Rubin provides a list of specific legislative initiatives Republicans could do if they really cared, then writes: “Republicans’ brazen refusal to do their constitutionally assigned duties should compel voters to boot them out in 2026. Since they have shirked their duties and thereby enabled Trump’s corruption, malfeasance, and replete policy failures, what justification could there be to rehire them?…Put simply, if MAGA lawmakers are not moved by their oaths of office or the health and security of the American people, perhaps the prospect of a blue wave in 2026 will jolt them from their slumber. If Democrats perform strongly next week in elections in New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania (state supreme court), and California (Prop. 50), Republicans might become “disconcerted” enough to take up their constitutional obligations.”

An excerpt from “Virginia: Ticket-splitting, dropoffs, and write-ins” by Kyle Kondik at Sabato’s Crystal Ball:  “The focus in Virginia remains on the state attorney general race. While former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D, VA-7) leads all recent polling against Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R) by varying margins in the gubernatorial race, Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) has more often than not led former state Del. Jay Jones (D) following the exposure of inflammatory text messages from Jones. Decision Desk HQ has polling averages for both races: Spanberger is up 50.4%-43.5% on Earle-Sears, while Miyares is up 47.1%-44.4% on Jones. Miyares is running about 3.5 points ahead of Earle-Sears’s vote share, while Jones is lagging a larger 6 points behind Spanberger’s vote share. The danger for Miyares is that the undecideds in the AG race may just be disproportionately Spanberger voters who, when push comes to shove, just end up voting a straight Democratic ticket. Needless to say, though, there is much more uncertainty about the AG race than the gubernatorial race…This year, there are no named third-party candidates in any of the three statewide Virginia races. However, there is a write-in option, and it may also be that some voters skip the AG race altogether…In recent Virginia elections, there have always been more votes cast for governor than there were for lieutenant governor and attorney general, and typically there is slightly less of an undervote for attorney general than there is for lieutenant governor. That makes some intuitive sense, as attorney general is a higher-profile and more powerful office than lieutenant governor.” More here.

In “Trump Claims He’d Give His $230 Million Justice Department Grift to Charity. Yeah, Right.The president, who has a history of reneging on charitable pledges, ran his own family foundation into the ground,” Inae Oh and Dan Friedman write at Mother Jones: “On Tuesday, shortly after the New York Times reported that President Donald Trump is demanding $230 million from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to reimburse him for legal costs related to earlier federal investigations against him, the president claimed he would donate any such funds to charity. “I’m not looking for money,” he told reporters. “I’d give it to charity or something. I would give it to charity, any money.”…Does Trump grasp the impropriety at play? His bid to appear magnanimous suggests that he knows it doesn’t look good for a president to shake down the Justice Department for taxpayer money, particularly amid a shutdown, and especially as his administration slashes Medicaid and food stamps…His effort to put a generous spin on this blatant grift—there is no compelling evidence that the DOJ’s investigations were launched improperly—belies Trump’s long, sordid history of stiffing contractors, and, even more notoriously, the court-ordered dissolution of his namesake charitable arm over a “shocking pattern of illegality.” Read more here.

From “The Headless Party: Inside the Democrats’ Search for Identity in the Age of Trump” by Jolynda Wang at ThePolitic: “The Democratic Party finds itself in a leadership vacuum. The 2024 presidential election was a devastating loss that brought Donald Trump back to the White House, Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress, and the Supreme Court solidly conservative. Having no clear frontrunner for 2028 and no unified message for the midterms, the question of who might fill the void looms large for Democrats…“We need a leader. But even more than that, we need a vision for the future that transcends the politics of Donald J. Trump,” said Holly Page, the former executive vice president of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). “Start talking about ideas that nobody else is talking about yet and change the playing field.” She emphasizes that there is no “black and white answer to leadership” in the Democratic Party…“What we need more than anything else is not just a central figure, but a strong communicator who will challenge the left and the dominant ideology embraced by the party right now,” said Page…Under the current administration, [UC Law Professor Joan] Williams said that “Democrats have a tremendous amount of ammunition to be talking about how the economy isn’t great.”…“That should be an opening for Democrats to center economic issues,” she said. “Democrats have to position themselves to be able to be seen as an attractive alternative, which they haven’t managed to do consistently yet.” More here.

Lauren Egan writes in “How Maine Became a Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party” at The Bulwark: “BY THE TIME GRAHAM PLATNER walked onstage at the Governor Hill Mansion this past Monday, the room had hit capacity…The grand colonial revival house was built in 1901 for Maine’s forty-fifth governor; nowadays, it’s used as an event venue. But on this night, it was an incubator of energy, political chatter, and a humidity not customary for the usual early-fall chill in this part of the country. Platner wore a henley, rolled up just enough to show off one of his many forearm tattoos. His dirty-blond hair was damp from having ducked outside in the rain to speak to the dozens of people who didn’t make it in the door…“I’m Graham Platner and I’m from Sullivan,” he cheekily said to a crowd of a couple hundred people. The introduction was unnecessary. They’d seen his viral social media clips and his launch video for U.S. Senate. And whether out of curiosity, inspiration, or something in between, they’d decided on that random Monday evening to come see this oyster farmer, harbormaster, and Marine veteran…“I just want to make it very clear that I do not view myself as a politician,” Platner said, kicking off his stump speech. “I certainly didn’t live a life in preparation for this. And I really thought that, frankly, just living in Sullivan, living the simple, fulfilling life that my wife and I have been able to build, that that was going to be it.”…AS MUCH AS ANY RACE in the country, this primary for the Senate seat in Maine has come to resemble the crossroads—and opportunities—for the Democratic party. At stake is one of the few seats that Democrats believe they can flip: Susan Collins’s. But there are huge divides over how the party thinks it can achieve that…“Graham Platner, in a lot of ways, is like a political consultant’s idea of what a guy from Maine looks like,” Caitlin Legacki, a Democratic consultant, told me. “The fact of the matter is, Janet Mills is popular. Janet Mills has gotten stuff done and she’s gotten elected statewide. If the stakes are as high as everyone keeps saying they are, why on earth would we cast her aside?”…As a two-term governor, Mills doesn’t just have name recognition and deep political connections. She has a lot of credit from earlier this year when she stood up to President Donald Trump at the White House, particularly at a time when other Democratic leaders and institutions were acquiescing to his demands.” More here.

“Just 38 percent of respondents said they approve of the president’s handling of the economy, while 57 percent disapproved and 5 percent did not provide an opinion,” Max Rego reports in “Trump approval on economy hits new low: Quinnipiac poll” at The Hill. “Trump’s previous low on the economy was a 39 percent approval rating, a mark he hit four times — including last month— since the start of his first term in 2017…The respondents were split along partisan lines: 88 percent of Republicans and just 2 percent of Democrats approved of the president’s handling of the economy. Only 30 percent of independents backed Trump on the issue…The survey, conducted Oct. 16-20 via phone, consisted of 1,327 registered voters. It has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points…Since returning to office in January, the president has imposed sweeping tariffs on trading partners around the world, impacting a variety of industries…The tariffs, intended to boost domestic manufacturing, have heavily impacted American businesses and consumers. A Goldman Sachs analysis from earlier this month said that American consumers and businesses will shoulder 55 percent and 22 percent of the tariff costs this year, respectively. The report also projected that U.S. firms will pass on their costs to consumers in the coming months.”

You can find one of the best recent articles about Democratic strategy, Andrew Levison’s strategy paper, “Anti-Trump Political Strategy in Red States Must Include Many Independent Candidates” with excellent sidebars, right here at TDS. As Levision writes, “As the initial shock of Trump’s victory has passed Democrats are now responding to his aggressive extremist agenda by recognizing that active resistance is necessary and that Democrats must try to regain support in working class and rural districts that shifted even further toward Trump in2024 than in 2020.1…Within this growing consensus, however, a profoundly important argument is emerging: itholds that in a significant number of cases anti-MAGA candidates in red state districts should run as independents rather than as Democrats…The recent spark behind this view was the candidacy of Dan Osborn in Nebraska. Osborn, a trade union leader who led a major strike before entering politics ran as an independent rather than as a Democrat and combined a solidly class conscious economic populism with culturally traditional positions on a number of social issues such as immigration, guns and crime. Although he fell short of winning a majority, Osborn did dramatically better than most Democratic candidates in deep red areas…His example is now cited as a model by a growing group of progressive activists that includes Bernie Sanders, Washington Post commentator E.J. Dionne and top Democratic data guru, David Shor…In one of his dramatic “Fight Oligarchy” mass meetings that have drawn over 100,000 people in recent weeks, for example, Sanders said the following:“One of the aspects of this tour is to try to rally people to get engaged in the political process and run as independents outside of the democratic party…”Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne echoed the view: A heretical thought is that as they rebuild Democrats should acknowledge that in places where their brand is badly broken independent candidates, particularly for Senate, might have a better chance of building an alternative coalition to Trumpism than running as Democrats. Senate candidate Dan Osborne lost in Nebraska running as a pro-worker independent but his nearly 47% of the vote should be seen as a prologue not a failure.”

Levison adds, “And leading Democratic data analyst David Shor also agreed: If you look at Nebraska the biggest single over performance that we had was Dan Osborne running as an independent. He outperformed the top of the ticket by 7.1%…we’ve only ever tried this strategy of running candidates who are not formally tied to the Democratic Party in extremely red states but I think it’s something we have to seriously consider more broadly…Many Democrats will immediately and passionately reject this idea. Their argument, in essence, will be that the problem is not actually the Democratic Party “brand” in the abstract but rather specific policies, messages and candidates. If these specific areas of weakness are corrected it should make it possible for Democratic candidates to win even in strongly red state districts and areas…This view actually a combination of two distinct arguments: First, it is widely felt among Democrats that the broad Democratic “brand” has deep historical and emotional roots that extend from the New Deal era of Franklin Roosevelt and the successful passage Civil Rights, Voting Rights and Medicare in the 1960s to Barack Obama’s campaigns that championed the “Rising American Electorate” of women, People of Color, environmental advocates and GLBTQ Americans. This enduring progressive tradition is embodied in the deeply held vision of the Democratic Party as a “Big Tent Coalition.” For many Democrats this basic progressive vision of the Democratic Party as a Big Tent Coalition is the essence of the basic Democratic “Brand.” In their view this vision is profoundly valuable and must not be abandoned. Second, whatever the current level of popularity of the party, by correctly fine tuning the Democratic platform, message and selection of candidates, it is held that Democrats should be able to successfully appeal to working class voters. There should be no need for candidates to run as independents.”

Further, Levison writes, “The extensive ethnographic field research conducted by the new generation of sociologists found, however, that this was simply not how workers actually made political choices. In the 1950s and 1960s many working class voters were blue collar workers deeply embedded in a social world and community life that was shaped by tight-knit working class neighborhoods, trade union halls, Democratic precinct captains and liberal Catholic churches all of which reinforced the view that the Democratic Party was “the party of the working man.” It was this social and community reinforcement and not any armchair contemplation of TV ads and newspaper reports that had made workers loyal to the Democratic Party.3… By the 1990s and 2000s, on the other hand, this tightly knitted social world had largely disappeared and sociological research dramatically revealed that the younger generations of workers—the children and grandchildren of the “working class Democrats” of the 1950s and 60s—no longer had any memory of or loyalty to the vision of the Democratic Party as a “Big Tent Coalition.” On the contrary, they felt profoundly isolated, abandoned and ignored by both political parties and wanted, above all else, candidates who they felt they could trust because they were passionately committed to representing these workers’ very distinct political perspective. Trump clearly understood this and cynically filled the vacuum…The alternative is a more sociological approach that begins by asking a basic question: Are there basic sociological differences between the attitudes of MAGA voters and non-MAGA voters who nonetheless support the GOP? The first group is beyond persuasion, the second is not.”

In the concluding section of Levison’s analysis, he notes that “in deep red states the problem is not simply that voters in these areas overwhelmingly vote for Republicans. It is that major elements of GOP and specifically MAGA ideology have become so pervasive and familiar in everyday life that many voters—even if they disagree with certain particular ideas—simply cannot imagine that there is any sensible political alternative to voting for candidates who espouse the GOP and MAGA perspective. For many Republican voters this view has become synonymous with what they feel all “normal” or “sensible” people should view as acceptable. Many people in red state areas genuinely feel that “no sensible person could really support all that crazy stuff that Democrats believe”…Moreover, in the past even deeply conservative people in small towns and rural areas who firmly rejected Democratic candidates nonetheless still considered local Democrats to be “normal” – their neighbors and co-workers, their children’s schoolteachers and little league coaches, shopkeepers on main street and so on. This is increasingly no longer the case. The pervasive current view of Democrats as completely “alien” or “crazy” in many red state districts now stands as a profound roadblock to even the most preliminary attempts to develop a Democratic presence in these areas. It empowers a political “race to the bottom” as GOP candidates, freed from the need to debate with moderates compete instead to “out-extreme” each other…In fact, there is now a boringly standardized Republican playbook for attacking any Democratic candidate. Republican TV ads simply show lurid scenes of crime, riots and waves of immigrants followed by images of the Democratic candidate standing side by side with Nancy Pelosi,Barack Obama or some other well-known Democrats during the Democratic convention or other events. The commercial then ends with bucolic images of the Republican candidate with his family posed in front of a pickup truck, ranch, farm or small town city street. Narration is basically unnecessary. Regardless of how much a Democratic candidate proclaims his or her independence from the overall stances of the party, they cannot escape the identification with the national brand…Independent candidates like Osborn confound this Republican strategy. They can be attacked as “false flag” secret Democrats but, when they emphatically assert their independence and uphold positions clearly at variance with the national Democratic agenda, the garish smear ads simply don’t work as well…As a result, independent candidates like Osborn have a profoundly important role to play in the coming period and must be encouraged. The anti-Trump coalition must be as broad as possible and Democrats simply do not have the luxury of demanding political purism.”Read Levison’s entire article right here.

In “Still No Kings: Millions to Protest Trump On Saturday: A coalition of civil rights groups expects the turnout on Oct. 18 will be even bigger than the first nationwide protest held in June, which by some counts was the largest in U.S. history,” Whitney Curry Wimbush previews Saturdahy’s nonviolent uprising against the Trump Administration’s policies at The American Prospect: “Millions of people will take to the streets again this Saturday to protest the autocratic regime of President Donald Trump, his government shutdown, and his demolition of Medicare, Medicaid, and other public programs in service of tax cuts for billionaires. The protests, under the brand No Kings, have the potential to be the largest ever in the United States…As of last Friday, 2,500 events were planned across every state, Europe, and Canada, No Kings organizers said. They expect that number to grow. Multiple cities will host anchor events, including Bozeman, Montana, a college town that rarely makes national news. Other No Kings anchor protests will be in Atlanta, Boston, Kansas City, New Orleans, San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. The latter two have been burdened by a persistent federal law enforcement presence over the past several weeks… “If you are cynical, you might not understand the utility of simply standing together and showing the massive agreement in this moment around our disdain for a president who believes he is a king,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the nonprofit Public Citizen and one of the rally’s organizers.” More here.

In is latest essay at The New York Times, Thomas B. Edsall notes, “In a January 2025 paper, “Social Media, Disinformation, and A.I.: Transforming the Landscape of the 2024 U.S. Presidential Political Campaigns,” [Newcastle University Fellow Maria] Papageorgiou wrote that in the 2024 election,

social media also played a pivotal role in monitoring public sentiment and tracking real-time engagement through metrics like likes, reposts and followers. Candidate follower counts highlighted the digital dynamics: Trump led with 95 million followers on X; his running mate, JD Vance, had 2.8 million; Harris had 21.1 million; and her running mate, Tim Walz, had 1.2 million. Trump’s engagement metrics on X were significantly higher than his competitors’, with a record-breaking interview on Joe Rogan’s podcast garnering extensive viewership across platforms like YouTube and X.’

“Democratic messaging has been consistent and straightforward,” Bill Scher writes in “WTF Is Chuck Schumer Doing? (Psst. It Looks Like Winning.)” at Washington Monthly. “As Schumer said on the Senate floor on Wednesday: “The government is shut down for one reason and one reason only: Donald Trump and the Republicans would rather kick 15 million people off health insurance and raise premiums by thousands and thousands of dollars a year on tens of millions of Americans, rather than sit down and work with Democrats on fixing healthcare.”… And there is no evidence Democrats are suffering with the public. A poll from The Economist/YouGov sampled between October 4 and 6 found a plurality of 41 percent of American adults primarily blame Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress for the shutdown, versus 30 percent for the Democrats. Another YouGov poll conducted for CBS News a few days priorreported 39 percent blaming Trump and Republicans compared to 30 percent for congressional Democrats…  The most important poll number to watch is the congressional generic ballot test, which asks which party’s candidate you plan to support in the next House election. Two such polls have been taken since the shutdown, with Democrats leading by five points in one survey and three in the other. That’s a tick better than the average Democratic lead before the shutdown. So long as Democrats hold steady in the generic ballot, Schumer, as well as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, will likely be able to keep their members in line.”

Editor Josh Marshall puts the shutdown layoffs in perspective at Talking Points Memo: “Here’s an update on Russ Vought’s “mass layoffs,” following through on the threats he and Trump made in advance of the shutdown. From what I can tell, this seems to be a version of what we described yesterday: a comparatively small number of layoffs aimed mainly at allowing the White House to say it followed through on its threat (call it counter-TACO praxis) and tightly focused on a few agencies or departments President Trump is personally aggrieved at. The most concrete number I’ve seen refers to 4,200 employees across seven departments and agencies. That’s a big deal for the people losing their jobs. It’s also a very small number compared to what we saw in the spring. The New York Post suggests (famous last words, I know) that as many as a third of those layoffs may come from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which has been a focus of Trump’s anger since 2021 when its then-director Chris Krebs disputed Trump’s claims of cyber-election hacking in the 2020 election. I’ve gotten more concrete reports that at least a quarter of these firings are at the CDC alone, focused on core public health work. STAT News reports that almost the entire staff of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report have been fired. (That is essentially the publication that the CDC uses to communicate the latest information on disease circulation in the country.) Other targeted offices seem tied to clean energy projects and other bêtes noir. As one source put it, these are not ‘reductions in force’. They are ideological firings targeting specific offices and parts of the government Trump has long been mad at.”