In his post mortem on Tuesday’s two governorship elections, E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes, “All of Tuesday’s portents were negative. In both Virginia and New Jersey, Republicans were energized and Democrats were indifferent….In Virginia’s GOP rural precincts, the places where Donald Trump is still a hero, voters surged to polling places in a tidal wave….Democrats, particularly young and Black voters, stayed away, making up a far smaller share of the electorate than they did a year ago….in the end, exit polling made clear, hostility to Biden mattered more than alarm over Trump….But McAuliffe cannot simply blame the president or a dithering Democratic Congress for failing to enact the president’s program in a timely way — even if they have much to answer for….McAuliffe will no doubt long regret 12 words that Youngkin played back again and again in advertising that blanketed the state: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”…It was a dismissive formulation that made it far harder for McAuliffe to push back against Youngkin’s demagogic attack on critical race theory, which is not taught in Virginia’s schools….McAuliffe was not wrong to describe Youngkin’s appeal as “a racist dog whistle.”….But Democrats and progressives need a much better answer to parental discontent….They also have to make a compelling argument for how schools can offer an honest accounting of the role of racism in American life that also honors the country’s achievements. They cannot continue to let Trumpists dominate this discussion….One thing Democrats should not do: tear themselves apart with arguments over critical race theory itself, a set of ideas far better debated in law schools and graduate schools than at school board meetings….Democrats would also be foolish to litigate whether moderates or progressives in Congress are most to blame for McAuliffe’s loss and the surprisingly weak showing of Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy in New Jersey. They must all take responsibility for the unconscionable delays in enacting the president’s program. So must Biden.”….Democrats must move swiftly to enact and defend the president’s program, and Senate Democrats cannot allow the filibuster to block action on voting rights, now a more urgent cause than ever. Republican state governments will continue to throw up roadblocks to voting — and Black voters who were key to Biden’s victory will not forgive the president or his party if they just walk away from the pivotal civil rights battle of our time.”

In Judy Woodruff’s interview on PBS, James Carville explained it this way: “Well, what went wrong is this stupid wokeness. All right? Don’t just look at Virginia and New Jersey. Look at Long Island, look at Buffalo, look at Minneapolis. Even look at Seattle, Washington. I mean, this defund the police lunacy, this take Abraham Lincoln’s name off of schools, that — people see that….Some of these people need to go to a woke detox center or something. They’re expressing language that people just don’t use. And there’s a backlash and a frustration at that….Youngkin never ran any ads against Biden. And I think what he did is just let the Democrats pull the pin and watch the grenade go off on them….And we have got to change this and not be about changing dictionaries and change laws. And these faculty lounge people that sit around mulling about I don’t know what are — they’re not working….Who could even think of something that stupid? And they’re suppressing our vote. And I have got news for you. You’re hurting the party. You’re hurting the very people that you want to help….And Terry got caught up. He’s a good friend of mine. He’s a good guy. He got caught up in something national, and we have got to change this internally, in my view.”…There’s a ton of pent-up demand in this economy. I’m just not one of these people that thinks that we’re necessarily doomed in 2022….We could have a roaring economy. This Build Back Better is going to give people a lot of confidence.And as long as we talk about things that are relevant to people and understand what they’re going through in their lives and get rid of this left-wing nonsense, this claptrap I hear, I think we can be fine….These people have got to understand they’re not popular around the country. People don’t like them. And they’re voting because that’s the only way that they can express themselves and how much they disagree with this….People don’t want to ride in the car with you. They don’t want to ride next to you in the subway….You’re annoying people. And they got to understand that. It’s very important….every Democrat wants to be a policy maven. No one wants to be a salesperson….Well, you got to get out there and sell your product and tell people what’s in it and quit worrying about being in the policy shop or being some self-important bureaucrat. That’s what I think.”

From Ronald Brownstein’s take on the elections at The Atlantic: “The Republican victory in the Virginia gubernatorial race and the unexpectedly close result in New Jersey’s—both states Biden won comfortably last year—don’t guarantee a midterm wipeout for Democrats in 2022. Rather, the sweeping Republican advance in both states more likely previews the problems Democrats will have next November if the political environment doesn’t improve for Biden….Glenn Youngkin, benefited from a huge gaffe by Democrat Terry McAuliffe that seemed to dismiss the role of parents in shaping their kids’ education. But above all, the results reinforced the conclusion that in modern U.S. politics, it’s becoming almost impossible for candidates to escape the shadow of attitudes about the incumbent president, for good or ill….Compared with Biden’s sweeping 2020 win, the exit polls did show Youngkin gaining ground with independents, college-educated white men, and especially white voters without a college degree, both men and women….Even with Youngkin’s marginal gains in the center, both the exit polls and actual results suggest instead that McAuliffe’s biggest problems were explosive turnout and huge deficits in the parts of the state most alienated from Biden and the Democrats who now control Washington. Turnout in Republican-leaning places was so strong that the share of the statewide vote cast by the blue-leaning big five Northern Virginia counties declined this year after steadily rising over the past three governor’s races….For the majority of Democratic elected officials and strategists, the most immediate lesson of Tuesday’s tough night is that the party needs to finally pass Biden’s economic agenda—which they hope will both assuage doubts about the president’s competence and provide them a list of tangible programs they can take to voters next year, including an expanded child tax credit and child-care subsidies and plans to lower prescription-drug prices.”

“Although public polling on immigration shows a strong shift to the left, survey responses in that vein mask a far more complicated reality, Thomas B. Edsall writes in his New York Times column. “Over and over again, immigration has proved to be politically problematic for Democrats. As far back as 2007, when he was chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Rahm Emanuel warned that immigration had become the new “third rail of American politics.”….The reality of the politics of immigration stands in contrast to the more positive Gallup findings that the percentage of people describing immigration as a “good thing” grew to 75 percent in 2021 from 52 percent in 2001, and the percentage describing it as a “bad thing” fell to 21 percent from 31 percent. Over the past 20 years, the percentage of voters who say immigration should be increased grew to 33 percent from 10 percent, while the share who said it should be decreased fell to 31 percent from 43 percent. The percentage saying immigration levels should be left unchanged remained relatively constant over these two decades, ranging from the mid-30s to the low 40s.” Edsall quotes Ryan Enos, a professor of government at Harvard, who contends, “The question for the future of the broader consensus on immigration is whether Republicans can continue to be successful despite the anti-immigrant pandering that is largely out of step with the broad American consensus on immigration. If they are electorally successful — and there is reason to believe they will be, given forecasts for Democratic losses in 2022 — then this broad consensus might break down permanently and a large portion of the American public may follow their Republican leaders toward more fully adopting anti-immigrant ideology.”

From “8 takeaways from the 2021 elections” by Eric Bradner, Gregory Krieg and Dan Merica at CNN Politics:

“Youngkin drafted a playbook for Republicans to navigate around Trump — keeping the former President’s base energized while also winning back a share of suburbanites who had fled the party during Trump’s tenure….[Youngkin] tapped into the brewing culture war over education. He appealed to conservatives steeped in the right-wing media ecosystem by promising to ban critical race theory, which isn’t taught in Virginia schools; to end coronavirus-related school shutdowns and mask mandates; and to launch an expansive charter school program. He also won over moderates by pledging an education budget with money for teacher raises — a core theme in his television ads — and special education….the pandemic appears to be fading as a driving factor at the ballot box….McAuliffe went all-in on linking Glenn Youngkin to Donald Trump and it failed.”

The NJ governor’s race is still razor close as of this writing, but it shouldn’t be. Youngkin’s 2.5 percent margin of victory in VA could get just a little bigger or smaller, when the last votes are counted.

When the margin is that small, you can blame a host of factors, including the BBB and infrastructure circus, Biden’s tanking approval ratings, Youngkin’s impressive campaign skills, McAuliffe’s stale candidate persona, inflation, weak Democratic GOTV, or some combination thereof. Some of those factors likely hurt Democratic Gov. Murphy in NJ as well.

But there’s no denying that the Youngkin campaign skillfully deployed a duplicitous, but effective attack  on “critical race theory,” their code for a ‘don’t guilt-trip today’s white school kids for the racism of the past’ message. We will likely see more of it in upcoming campaigns. Democrats have to develop a better response, including a more effective attack strategy of their own.

One of the reasons we ofen quote E. J. Dionne Jr. at TDS is that the Democrats are a party that frequently needs adult supervision (although that’s better than the GOP, which is in urgent need of psychiatric care for their abusive daddy issues). In Dionne’s current WaPo column, “Take the win, Democrats, and don’t look back,” he writes, “Celebrate victory. Explain what you’ve achieved. Defend it from attack. Change the public conversation in your favor. Build on success to make more progress. And for God’s sake, don’t moan about what might have been….President Biden and Democrats in Congress are on the cusp of ending their long journey through legislative hell by enacting a remarkable list of practical, progressive programs….This will confront them with a choice. They can follow the well-tested rules for champions of social change. Or they can repeat past mistakes by letting their opponents define what they have done and complain about the things left undone….Passing Biden’s program and defending it successfully offer all wings of his party the best opportunity they will have to push the day-to-day dialogue toward the tangible and the achievable….Begin with the basics: Trump spent four years promising investments in the nation’s physical infrastructure. Biden got it done with bipartisan support.” Sound advice. And it wouldn’t hurt if Democratic moderates and progressives would stop sniping at each other.

Dionne also has some salient comments about tomorrow’s gubernatorial election in Virginia and its effect of Democratic maturity and unity: “A victory by Republican Glenn Youngkin in Tuesday’s Virginia governor’s race would unleash recriminations guaranteed to make this task even harder. If Democrat Terry McAuliffe hangs on to win, it will be Republicans forced into soul-searching about the steep costs of their continuing fealty to Donald Trump….But however it turns out, the Virginia contest should force Democrats to confront the imperative of shifting the terms of the political debate. In a state Biden carried by 10 points, Youngkin managed to dominate the campaign’s final weeks with a shameful focus on critical race theory — which is not taught anywhere in the state — and the suppression of challenging books in high school curriculums….Youngkin’s trafficking in racial backlash could work as well as it did, because Democrats have fallen short in fulfilling one of the most important aspirations of the Biden era. They hoped that politics could be defined more by how government can get useful things done and less by manufactured issues that promote moral panic among conservatives and sharpen divisions around race, immigration and culture.” I would add only that a McAuliffe win would lend some cred to the ‘demographics is destiny’ argument, particularly when favorable demographic transformation is accompanied by solid strategy and fierce GOTV.

Charlie Cook sees it this way at The Cook Political Report: “What many progressive Democrats did not seem to realize is that while they were busy holding Biden’s spending package hostage—one that would have addressed badly needed infrastructure needs that have gone unaddressed for three decades—public concern about the direction of the economy surged, putting Democratic House and Senate majorities in real danger, and putting the Virginia governorship in considerably more danger than it should have been. If Democrats lose that governorship, it will feel like an earthquake just hit at the Democratic National Committee headquarters….While progressives did their party considerably more damage than they realize, it is a mistake to relieve Biden and Democratic congressional leaders of their share of culpability. Biden has been trying to emulate Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal or Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, yet it’s hard to imagine either of those presidents or their respective party leaders on the Hill putting up with their rank-and-file members sabotaging a signature piece of presidential legislation and making their own president appear politically impotent….Had Democrats simply pushed through the hard-infrastructure package—the streets, bridges, water systems, ports, airports, and broadband expansions that have broad, bipartisan support—then pushed a more modestly sized social-spending measure, both their party and their president would be seen in a considerably better light than they are today and their majority would be in less danger.”

A pretty good historical perspective and video update on the Virginia race from Jeff Greenfield:

In their post, “Democrats Worry A Lot About Policies That Win Elections. That’s Short-Sighted,” Lee Drutman and Meredith Conroy write at FiveThirtyEight: Democratic leaders, activists and strategists spend a lot of time discussing — and arguing about — policy under the assumption that the policies the party prioritizes affect whether they will win the next election. It’s been a big part of President Biden’s governing strategy so far, and one need look no further than Democrats blaming talk of defunding the police for losses in the House in 2020 or, conversely, citing health care in the 2018 midterm elections as the reason they did so well to understand the role they think policy plays in their electoral success….But the research on whether choosing the right policy actually helps parties win elections is far less clear. How Democrats talk in 2021 and 2022 and what they prioritize may — or may not — help them win the 2022 midterm elections, but it will shape the policy and political landscape for the future in potentially profound ways. And that, perhaps, is what Democrats should be more worried about….In political science, there’s a large body of research that examines how policy shapes politics. The broad takeaway is that policy matters — a lot — but not in the ways that political pundits often think it does. Rather than helping parties win the next election, research suggests that major policies remake the political landscape in ways that reverberate far into the future — including changing expectations of government and creating new voter constituencies. This, in turn, can shape future elections.”

Drutman and Conroy add “Of course, the shorter-term risk is that any new government program yields an immediate backlash. It’s far easier for opponents to play up the costs and demonize the program when no voters have come to rely on the benefits. Moreover, since many social spending programs are likely to benefit communities of color, Republican opposition is likely to play on racial tropes, as it did with the ACA and other social programs before that.” Further, “The potential electoral risk is why some Democrats and Democratic strategists want the party to focus more on bread-and-butter issues, like economic policy. The concern is that if Democrats make race and racial justice too much of their agenda, they risk alienating voters, especially white voters without a college degree, who are geographically important. But what this misses is that Republican messaging is going to focus on contentious conflicts over race and identity regardless of what Democrats do. So if the Biden administration and Democratic Party leaders think they can duck having these conversations, they are mistaken, especially given that a few outlets exercise a stranglehold over the media ecosystem on the political right. Moreover, spending on expanded social programs might actually help Democrats win over some of these voters in the long run, especially since they tend to be lower-income and are also more likely to be women, who would benefit most directly from free child care.” In their conclusion, however, the authors note that, “even policies that eventually poll well take time to become popular because voters must experience them and actually value them. Partisanship is also sticky and slow to change. Most voters evaluate policy and programs through partisan media and judge programs by whether the programs are Democratic programs or Republican programs. But on the margins — and especially over time — policies shape both identities and party coalitions.”

“If this were a poker game, it could be said that this year, with such a grand set of plans, they bet the house on a pair of 3’s,” Charlie Cook writes at the Cook Political Report. “Pushing a Franklin D. Roosevelt- or Lyndon B. Johnson-sized agenda—without the massive House and Senate majorities those two presidents’ parties enjoyed—is more than just a misreading….It is also hard to believe that FDR or LBJ would remain stymied as long as Biden has by a faction of their own party, holding legislative hostage one of the two signature spending packages that actually had a chance of being enacted as written. The AJA hard-infrastructure package, focused on concrete, steel, bricks, mortar, electric grid, and broadband, had (note past tense) a real chance of passing largely intact, and potentially with at least some support (at least initially) from a few Republicans. Now, no matter what its size and configuration, Democrats would be lucky to get more than a handful of GOP House and Senate votes, at best….It is a decent bet that the winning party next year will not be the party that the election is about….On the other hand, if this election is about Trump and a Republican Party seemingly obsessed by fighting culture wars—clashing with Democrats over symbols and engaging in proxy fights, appealing to a shrinking core constituency—Democrats can win….Midterms are about the president and party that is in power, not one that is no longer in charge. But these might be the only arrows in the Democratic quiver.”

Talking Points Memo Editor Josh Marshall puts it all into a clarifying perspective: “Democrats appear to be limping their way toward passing a slimmed down version of the President’s agenda. I don’t think we should be overly distressed that the final number is around $2 trillion as opposed to $3.5 trillion. You never get everything you want. And we can’t run from the reality that Democrats control Congress by the most tenuous of margins – in fact, no margin at all in the Senate. But Democrats should be asking themselves why it is that over the last three to four months the President’s public approval has fallen roughly ten points. In a highly partisan and polarized age that is simply a massive drop….As I and many others have argued, the clearest explanation is the summer resurgence of COVID. Or more specifically, the whipsaw realization that COVID wasn’t done….Combined with that you have various economic knock on effects – high prices for a number of important consumer items, at least the appearance (the reality is less clear) of a lagging job market, and all manner of shipping delays and shortages of all manner of things people want to buy….But most of the public doesn’t have a clear sense of what those things even are. And to the extent they do, they’re not what most people are focused on. They’re mostly focused on COVID and getting out of the hole we collectively fell into almost two years ago. Popularity isn’t the same as saliency….The only way forward is to pass the bill. Give Democrats something to be enthused about, show everyone else the President is able to get things done and then get about selling what’s in the bill and working and being seen to work nonstop on bringing the Pandemic to heel.”

Stephen Collinson reports at CNN Politics that “Joe Biden is tantalizingly close to fulfilling what supporters see as the historic promise of his presidency in the coming days, at a critical moment for his social policy transformation at home and his hopes of reclaiming US leadership overseas….After weeks of feuding between moderate and progressive Democrats and his agenda’s several brushes with extinction, the President’s double play of social spending and a bipartisan infrastructure program may finally come to fruition this week. Democrats hope to agree on a framework on a trimmed down package of social, health care and education programs in order to lift a House progressive blockade on a vote on the bipartisan bill fixing roads, bridges and railroads….”I think we’re pretty much there now,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” on Sunday. A Democratic source told CNN’s Manu Raju the goal is now for the House to have a vote on the infrastructure package on Wednesday or Thursday and send it to Biden’s desk. The exact content of the final social spending bill is not yet known, since negotiations on paring back a more ambitious program to win moderate votes have been taking place behind closed doors. But Democrats still appear to be determined to provide free pre-kindergarten education, an extension of Medicare, home care for seniors and more affordable child care.”

At The Hill, however, Lexi Lonas reports that “Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Saturday that the expansion of Medicare to include dental, hearing and vision coverage is staying in the human infrastructure bill despite doubts from President Biden….Biden said Thursday during a CNN town hall that it would be a “reach” for the spending bill to include the Medicare expansion due to opposition from moderate Democrats Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Krysten Sinema (Ariz.)….“The expansion of Medicare to cover dental, hearing and vision is one of the most popular and important provisions in the entire reconciliation bill,” Sanders tweeted on Saturday….“It’s what the American people want. It’s not coming out,” he added….Biden said Thursday during a CNN town hall that it would be a “reach” for the spending bill to include the Medicare expansion due to opposition from moderate Democrats Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Krysten Sinema (Ariz.).” The Kaiser Family Fund reported in September that “Results from a recent KFF poll indicate that 90% of the public says expanding Medicare to include dental, hearing, vision is a “top” or “important” priority for Congress.”

As for lowering prescription drug costs, “Democrats have been at an impasse for weeks as a small handful of House and Senate centrists continue to push back on the planned sweeping system for negotiating drug prices, ” Jennifer Scholtes, Marianne Levine and Alcie Miranda write at Politico. “Now lawmakers acknowledge they will end up with a far narrower drug pricing bill, if they can secure one at al l….Fallback plans include negotiating a smaller set of drugs under Medicare Part B, which covers drugs people usually wouldn’t self-administer, like vaccines and IV fluids. Lawmakers are considering leaving out drugs covered under Medicare Part D, which covers other prescriptions. They are also mulling negotiation only for the cost of drugs with expired patents and setting prices based on a U.S. standard, rather than an international baseline….Other options for scaling back the plan include applying the lower prices in Medicare and not private insurance plans, or phasing in the changes more slowly to give corporations time to adjust.” The KFF poll reports that 83 percent of respondents favor “Allowing the gov’t to negotiate with drug companies to get a lower price on Rx drugs that would apply to both Medicare and private insurance (Oct. 2021).”

Geoffrey Skelley addresses a question of increasing concern “Could Manchin Actually Leave The Democratic Party?” at FiveThirtyEight, and writes, “Sen. Joe Manchin told reporters Wednesday that suggestions he would leave the Democratic Party were “bullshit” with a “capital B.” He’d previously told Democratic leaders that he’d consider becoming an independent if they felt it would help them explain to the public why the party was having such a hard time coming to an agreement on its social spending plans, but he denied that he’d made threats about leaving the party.” In an extensive study, political scientist Antoine Yoshinaka “found party-switchers performed 4 to 9 percentage points worse in their next general election than non-switchers between 1952 and 2010.” Skelley adds, “Yet while one can make a fairly convincing electoral case for why Manchin should consider switching parties, it’s most likely he’ll stay where he is considering the enormous amount of leverage he has. He essentially can veto any proposal he disagrees with while also working within his party to adjust legislation to better reflect what he wants. And because Democrats have full control of government, he’s more likely to get laws passed that are agreeable to him….if Manchin were part of a 51-member Republican caucus, he would wield a similar amount of veto power. But outside of that, it’s unlikely he would be as influential as he is right now….And he’d also be unlikely to influence the trajectory of GOP legislation in the way he does as a longstanding member of the Democratic caucus.”

Every Republican U.S. Senator voted to block the The “Freedom to Vote Act,” from being considered. As Sam Levine explains at The Guardian, the Act “would require every state to automatically register voters at motor vehicle agencies, offer 15 consecutive days of early voting and allow anyone to request a mail-in ballot. It would also set new standards to ensure voters are not wrongfully removed from the voter rolls, protect election officials against partisan interference, and set out clear alternatives people who lack ID to vote can use at the polls.” Levine continues, “While most Democrats in the Senate favor getting rid of the filibuster, at least for voting rights legislation, the blockade will put immense pressure on two of the most significant remaining Democratic holdouts, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. There will be particular scrutiny on Manchin, who personally helped write the revised bill and has been seeking GOP support for it. It’s not yet clear if a lack of Republican support for any kind of compromise could force Manchin to finally support some kind of change to the filibuster but activists have been heartened by a letter he issued earlier this year in which he said “inaction is not an option” around voting rights.”

At The Daily Beast, Sam Brodey shares some perspectives on how to persuade Sen. Joe Manchin to support Democratic legislative reforms: “At this point, those who are pleading with Manchin not to buck his party’s agenda are at a loss. That’s particularly the case for some of the senator’s own constituents, who have sought to make the case directly to him that the party’s sweeping proposal would provide much-needed investments in their home state, one of the nation’s poorest….“It’s become insanity to us,” said Angi Kerns, one of the West Virginia activists who confronted Manchin from a kayak on the Potomac River outside his houseboat….“We’ve done everything we can do in West Virginia—collected stories, amplified voices, thousands of people are calling a day,” she told The Daily Beast. “He doesn’t care. The only option we have at this point is to make ourselves be heard.”…Liberal advocates in West Virginia have an unusual relationship with the senator they’re often cajoling. He may resist their pleas, but because he is so attuned to his reputation back home, he tries to avoid stiffing his constituents. That means some advocates have had multiple meetings with him over the years—which are not always groundbreaking but can be productive….Kerns said before showing up at Manchin’s houseboat, she had met with him or his staff directly five times so far this year. In those discussions, she said, it was tough to dislodge the senator from his talking points—until she started speaking his language….“It’s not what you say, but how you lay it out for him,” Kerns said. “To get his attention, it has to be structured in terms of an investment, a return on investment… then, as a businessman who cares a lot about dollars and cents, he at least takes pause, and he doesn’t have a pre-set narrative.”…Getting as far away from an ideological discussion as possible is crucial with Manchin, said DiStefano. “The over the top rhetoric only reinforces the national media narrative, which has not been the best,” he said. “The key to success is presenting an argument to the senator, begin with data, lead with your values, and your values should be delivered by people who are living this.”

In “Why Democrats are trying to fit every wish into a shrinking bill: Democrats are banking on the popularity of these policies to keep them around,” Li Zhou reports at Vox: “Democrats, it seems, are looking to pare down their budget bill by going the route favored by progressives. While they’re weighing some big cuts to the $3.5 trillion package, the general approach — which isn’t yet finalized — skews toward funding more programs for a shorter period of time, rather than fewer programs for longer….Pushback from moderates over the size of the package has meant tough decisions about what to cut and what to keep. Progressives argued for preserving as many of the proposal’s policies as possible, while saving money by having them expire sooner than initially planned. Some moderates, meanwhile, advocated for the opposite: funding fewer programs for more time….President Joe Biden backed the former strategy as well, and that appears to be the course Democrats will pursue. Biden and the progressives hope the policies will be so popular — even if they’re only implemented for a short period — that it will be difficult for future lawmakers to let them lapse, regardless of who controls Congress….Obviously, some of these programs are shorter than ideal. But the president believes, and I agree with him, that once we have these programs established, it becomes hard to take them away,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a member of Progressive Caucus leadership, told reporters on Tuesday….Opponents of this thinking emphasize that this approach could mean that many of these programs simply expire after funding runs out.”

Noah Rothman explains why “Popularity is just not enough to make activist desiderata manifest — not in the United States” at at MSNBC News: “That word — popular — has become something of an obsession among anxious center-left Democrats. It’s contributing to a mania overtaking the liberal media ecosystem. And the unlikely figure around whom apprehensive Democrats find themselves rallying, 30-year-old political strategist David Shor, has the answer: Just talk about popular stuff….Doing things” via legislation is difficult by design. Popularity without exigency is not enough. What’s more, initiatives that are undeniably popular can become unpopular (see the latitude once afforded labor unions in law and jurisprudential precedent) and vice versa (see the Affordable Care Act). The public’s attitudes shift, sometimes as a reaction to complex societal phenomena but often in response to stimuli policy wonks would dismiss as superficial. To predicate your political strategy on popularity is to build a foundation on sand….What Shor has right, and what his progressive opponents are deliberately refusing to comprehend, is that Democrats are better off without needlessly antagonizing the public. Wild-eyed theories that would replace police with social workers and functionally end the enforcement of U.S. immigration law in workplaces offend on an essential level. Reducing financial pressures on families by doling out largess from the public treasury sounds great, but not to the point that the public welcomes disincentives to work indefinitely. There’s a difference between being popular and principled. Voters can tell the difference, even if the Democratic intelligentsia cannot.”

From “Carville: Democrats “Think It’s Beneath Them” To Go Out And Sell Biden’s Plan, Quit Hounding Manchin and Sinema” at RealClear Politics: “Democratic strategist and former Clinton adviser James Carville admonished Democrats on Wednesday on MSNBC for believing it is “beneath them” to campaign for President Biden’s agenda and for an “idiotic strategy” to protest and hound moderate Democratic Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ)…..”The issue right now is Democrats in Congress are asked to do very popular things,” Carville said. “It doesn’t take much courage to negotiate prescription drug prices. It doesn’t take much courage to raise taxes on the wealthy. It doesn’t take much courage to expand health care. Somebody has to get into the room and say, ‘Okay, we want to do ten things, we can do five. Let’s do these five and then take the other five and run them in 2022….They have got to understand the reality is they’re just running around like they are people in a locker room banging their helmets against the lockers,” Carville said. “That’s not going to do you any good. You are not going move any further than Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema. So quit this idiotic protesting and hounding them and tell President Biden get them in the room, get the Speaker in there, get the Majority Leader, let’s hammer something out, and what we don’t get let’s go for it in 2022….”Is that a failure of Democratic messaging?” the host asked. “Of course it is,” Carville answered. “They didn’t get out in the country enough, they didn’t sell it enough.” Watch the video at this link for tips on hw to close a political sale.

E. J. Dionne, Jr. largely agrees in his latest Washington Post column, and observes “Democrats are a maddening bunch, especially to their supporters….A party that should be celebrating its efforts to expand health coverage, help families with children, build roads and fight climate change is instead engaged in a messy and increasingly angry confrontation over how much it can and should accomplish….Democrats are effectively running what would be a coalition government in countries with multiparty systems — but without the disciplines that formal coalition agreements typically impose in advance on an alliance’s various components. Democrats are making their deals on the fly, and it shows….I sat down last week with the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, co-authors of the justly celebrated 2018 book “How Democracies Die.” Both speak with deep worry about the anti-majoritarian nature of the American system with a Senate and electoral college that vastly underrepresent rban and suburban voters as well as racial and ethnic minorities….None of this gets Democrats off the hook. As the late Donald H. Rumsfeld might advise them, you have to work with the system you have, not the system you wish you had. It is no excuse for making a mess of what should be a moment of achievement.”

If you were wondering “How Close Is Virginia’s Governors Race?,” Geoffrey Skelley and Mackenzie Wilkes have a good update at FiveThirtyEight: “Election Day 2021 is only about two weeks away, and the big race to watch is undoubtedly Virginia’s gubernatorial contest. A still-somewhat purple state with a Democratic lean in recent presidential elections, Virginia will be viewed by many as a bellwether for the 2022 midterms, and the race is already proving to be a testing ground for some of the big national issues  that could very well influence elections next year, including COVID-19 policies, what should be in taught in schools and the economy.” Noting a slight edge for Democrat Terry McAuliffe in recent polls, but with worrsome upticks for his opponent,  Skelley and Wilkes write, “Still, the polls could be overselling the GOP’s chances, like they did in 2017 when Republican Ed Gillespie trailed Democrat Ralph Northam by about 3 points going into the election — similar to where Youngkin is now — but ended up losing by 9 points. That’s impossible to say with any certainty, as the direction of polling error is inconsistent from one cycle to the next. But polls that model higher turnout, such as the CBS News/YouGov survey, which found that McAuliffe led Youngkin by 8 points instead of 3 points in a high-turnout situation, suggest Democrats could perform better than expected if pollsters are underestimating turnout….Historically, Virginia hasn’t been an especially good barometer of the overall national environment“….one election should never be used as a benchmark on its own, but the spotlight will shine brightly on Virginia’s result nevertheless.”

Will supermarket shortages hurt Dems in the 2022 midterms? Are they already doing so? I got to  wondering yesterday by a customer next to me at the meat bin in a rural Food Lion, who grumbled “I don’t know how people can afford to eat any more,” then walked away empty-handed. I noticed some empty shelf space throughout the market, though not as bad as the early days of the pandemic. But it’s still a bad look. Talking heads debate whether the high meat prices and some product scarcity are caused by labor shortages or “shipping bottlenecks” or”pipeline issues.” Nathaniel Meyerson reports that “Grocery store shelves aren’t going back to normal this year” at CNN Business, and notes, “These latest limits mean that stores won’t have all things for all customers heading into the holidays….” Grimly, I remember the way-back Saturday Night Live skit with Akroyd’s Jimmy Carter punchline “Inflation is our friend.” Low unemployment is a good thing for Dems. But, politically, I’m less worried about a Pringles shortage than high meat prices still hanging around a year from now.

“Can Democrats Get Surge Voters To Show Up in 2022?,” Amy Walter asks at The Cook Political Report, and shares her response:

Among independent voters, Gallup polling shows Biden has lost a lot of ground. Back in April, 58 percent of independent voters approved of the job Biden was doing as president. That number has been steadily dropping ever since. Biden’s approval rating with independent voters now sits at a dismal 37 percent.

There’s also been empirical and anecdotal evidence of a decided drop in enthusiasm among younger voters and voters of color. A recent Pew Research survey found that while Biden’s overall job approval had slipped, some of the biggest drops in support came from young voters (-14) and Black voters (-18).

Terrance Woodbury, founding partner and chief executive officer of HIT Strategies, a firm focused on people of color and millennials, isn’t particularly surprised by the lack of enthusiasm among Black voters, especially younger Black voters.

Walter argues that “Black voters propelled Biden to victory in places like Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, three states that will be pivotal again in 2022. So, getting these Black voters (re)engaged and (re)enthused is going to be critical for Democrats’ ability to hold the Senate.”

Walter quotes Woodbury, who says Democrats, “are actually making progress on things that matter to them, they just don’t know about it.” In other words, stop focusing on what you haven’t yet accomplished, and spend more time telling people what you’ve already done for them. He wants to see Democrats spend as much money telling these voters why their vote to put Democrats in charge mattered as they spent in 2020 bombarding them with texts telling them to vote.”

For example, Woodbury argues that Democrats should be talking up the Department of Justice’s work in banning no-knock entries and chokeholds by federal agents. Text voters directly and let them know how many free COVID vaccines and test kits have been delivered in their community and help connect them with those same resources.

Woodbury also worries that not connecting with these voters today will only give Republicans more opportunities to siphon them away in the future. The Trump campaign flooded social media with messages that played up the frustration and cynicism these voters already have about the Democratic Party. “We have to talk to them because someone already is.”

However, Walter cautions, “Even a robust messaging and marketing program of the size and scale Woodbury proposes is unlikely to move the needle in 2022. But, Woodbury’s research has uncovered a more fundamental challenge for Democrats. For the last 12 years, two people — Barack Obama and Donald Trump — have been the animating forces engaging Democratic voters; one motivated with hope, the other fear. But, they can’t rely on them for much longer. Instead, Democrats need to show their most loyal voters that they’ve delivered on the issues most important to their lives, not just the legislation that is taking up so much of the political capital and oxygen in Washington.”

From “How Democrats can rebuild their ‘blue wall’ in the Midwest” by John Austin at The Hill: “Popular perceptions aside, and as I have written before, today there is no monolithic Midwestern “Rust Belt” of struggling manufacturing and mill towns. There was once a common economic storyline among the small, mid-sized and large manufacturing communities strung through the fields, forests and along the rivers and lakefronts of the upper Midwest….But this manufacturing-based economy, rocked by globalization, technological change and new competitors has undergone decades of restructuring. and in some places the total disappearance of manufacturing plants and their well-paying jobs. Communities have struggled to adapt….These small and medium-sized factory towns have outsized political influence. In Michigan and Wisconsin, for example, more than half of the voting population resides in the smaller and midsize manufacturing communities….And as the report by Midwestern Democratic strategists Richard Martin, David Wilhelm and Mike Lux documents, in the communities that have seen the most severe manufacturing job loss, the ground is fertile for a nationalist, nostalgic and populist appeal of the kind offered by Donald Trump….Why is this? Residents of struggling industrial communities are responsive to the messages of leaders who identify with them and against urban elites — leaders who promise to bring back the industries that once provided well-paying jobs, and blame trade deals and immigrants for their community’s woes….And this populist message can come from the left or the right. Both Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) (who did very well in Midwest factory town communities in the 2016 primary, defeating Hillary Clinton outright in Michigan) offered a politics of resentment — essentially a message that says: “you are getting screwed and someone else is getting theirs at your expense.”

Austin adds, that “the report notes that the Midwest mirrors the nation’s voting trends, with Democrats gaining votes in recent years in the bigger cities and their suburbs while losing votes in rural areas. But according to the report, the biggest losses came in the small and midsize industrial communities that shed manufacturing jobs (and the good health care that goes with them) during the past eight years. More than 2.6 million fewer Democratic votes in 2020 versus 2012 came from once solidly blue Democratic strongholds such Chippewa Falls, Wis., and Bay City, Mich….Strategists worry that without the polarizing presence of Trump on the ballot (at least in 2022), suburban moderate Republicans, repelled by Trump, may return to their party. Absent these votes in key Midwest congressional districts, the Democrats’ electoral goose may be cooked….there is also compelling evidence that where former “Rust Belt” communities find new economic footing, the lure of resentful populism wanes as residents grow more optimistic about the future….This has been the case in the Midwest. Residents of industrial communities that have made the transition to a new economy exhibit different attitudes and voting patterns than those in communities that still struggle. Resurgent industrial communities, such as Pittsburgh, Pa., and Grand Rapids, Mich., as well several smaller Midwest former industrial communities that have turned an economic corner, see powerful trends away from nationalism and nostalgia and towards moderate centrism. This was true in both the 2018 midterm elections and in the November 2020 election results — when once solidly Republican counties such as Kent County, Mich., home to newly thriving Grand Rapids, went for both a Democratic governor and President Biden….What working-class voters want to hear from Democratic leaders is: “We see you. We understand why you are upset with the conditions of your community. You and your community and future success are a national priority. We are here to support and offer resources for you to build your own future.”….Only then can Democrats begin to rebuild the blue wall.”

At Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman share some insights about bellwether Virginia’s gubernatorial race, including: “Though the McAuliffe campaign has worked relentlessly to tie Youngkin to Trump, an unpopular figure in the commonwealth who has endorsed Youngkin several times, President Biden’s weakened approval ratings weigh on Democrats. Congressional Democrats’ lack of action on big-item legislation, specifically on infrastructure and social spending, also seems to be dampening enthusiasm among their rank-and-file voters….The down-ballot races will probably be linked closely with the top of the ticket, with the state House of Delegates up for grabs in addition to the other statewide offices….While early voting is down a good deal compared to last year’s presidential race, as expected, it is hard to draw firm conclusions from these totals because the lion’s share of Virginians have traditionally voted on Election Day, aside from last year during the pandemic….So the early/mail vote share has already surpassed all of 2017, when early/mail-in voting was much harder to do in Virginia, but the pace is likely behind 2020 at a comparable point of the election. Given a trend toward Democrats preferring to vote early and Republicans preferring to vote in-person, one could see this as alarming for Democrats — and it may indeed represent a lack of Democratic enthusiasm in the post-Trump era. On the other hand, Virginia has such little tradition of early/mail voting — and voters may be more comfortable voting in-person despite the pandemic compared to a year ago — that it’s possible many voters from both parties are just going to vote on Election Day even if they voted early a year ago.”

Former President Trump finally came up with a good idea, and he should be reminded of it repeatedly by the media. As reported by Zachary Evans in “Trump Urges Republicans to Sit Out Coming Elections” at Yahoo News: “Former President Trump is urging Republicans not to vote in upcoming elections unless the “fraud” of the 2020 elections is uncovered….“If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020 (which we have thoroughly and conclusively documented), Republicans will not be voting in ’22 and ’24,” Trump said in a statement released Wednesday. “It is the single most important thing for Republicans to do.” Perhaps some independent group could make it a viral video, leading up to the midterm elections. Evans notes further, “Trump’s claims of a “rigged” election also depressed voter turnout during the Georgia Senate runoff elections on January 5. Georgians elected two Democratic senators as a result, giving the party 50 total Senate seats.”

At CNN Politics, Harry Enten reports some results from CNN’s latest opinion poll: “Democrats hold a 1-point advantage among all registered voters on the generic congressional ballot, which is within the margin of error. Among those voters who say they’re extremely or very enthusiastic about voting in the midterms, Republicans hold a 4-point edge. Democrats, meanwhile, are up 6 points among those who are only somewhat or not enthusiastic about voting next year….Now look at those who say they’re going to vote Democratic and are enthusiastic vs. those who are not. Very liberals make up 20% of those who are extremely or very enthusiastic about voting next year, while only 11% of those aren’t. That is, the Democratic voters who are more enthusiastic about voting next year are more likely to be very liberal than those are lack enthusiasm….You can see this in party identification (instead of going by who they’re going to vote for) too. Very liberals make up 20% among those who identify as closer to the Democratic Party and are extremely or very enthusiastic about voting next year. They’re 11% of those who aren’t….Take a look at the post-election polling with a Democratic president in every midterm since 1978. In those five midterms, Republican voters were far more likely to show up than Democratic midterms. The median midterm of them saw Republicans making up 6 points more of voters who showed up in midterms than they made up of all registered voters….Democrats who didn’t cast a ballot in 2014 were 9 points less likely to say they were very liberal and 12 points less likely to say they were liberal (very or somewhat) than those who did vote.”

“Among the Democrats who were verified as voting in 2016 and 2018 by the Pew Research Center, 54% were liberal,” Enten adds. “Liberals were a minority (42%) of those who voted in 2016 but not 2018. They were a minority too (43%) of those who voted in 2020 but not 2018….A mere 37% of the Democrats who didn’t vote in either 2016, 2018 or 2020 said they were liberal….Of course, none of this should be terribly surprising. The voters who sit out elections are more moderate overall, regardless of their party affiliation, in the Pew dataset….Therein lies the potentially good news for Democrats. The people less likely to vote as well as those who are persuadable voters are more likely to be closer to the center of the aisle….A more similar message than one might expect could work to capture both of these groups. Biden and the Democrats may need a strong one ahead of 2022.”