washington, dc

The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

J.P. Green

Political Strategy Notes

In “Exclusive: Memo Reveals Democratic Plan to Flip More State Houses in 2024,” Mini Racker reports at Time: “After their big wins in Virginia last week, Democrats are signaling they will use the strategy adopted there as a model for down-ballot races in 2024….In a memo to top donors shared first with TIME, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which focuses on state legislative races, credits its early focus on abortion rights in Virginia as a critical factor in helping the party retain control of the State Senate and flip the State House, thwarting a high-profile effort by Gov. Glenn Youngkin to ban abortion in most cases after 15 weeks in the state. The memo signals that the committee plans to position state-level races next year as part of a national fight to preserve Americans’ freedoms….“Throughout the year, the DLCC sounded the alarm on the national stage about the stakes of the election and what a Republican trifecta would mean for Virginia,” Heather Williams, the DLCC’s interim president, writes in the memo. “Republican control of the General Assembly and an unchecked GOP trifecta would have led to an abortion ban and cut off the last point of access for the entire South.”….As the presidential race, and the unpopularity of each party’s frontrunner, sucks up much of the air in politics, the memo emphasizes the importance of state legislative seats. Wins at that level could provide a key bulwark for Democrats against right-wing legislation, especially if President Joe Biden fails to win reelection in what is expected to be a close race….“Regardless of what happens at the top of the ticket, 2024 will be the year of the states,” Williams writes….The DLCC also plans to invest in Georgia, Kansas, North Carolina, and Wisconsin next year. The status of abortion rights in several of those states is currently murky pending action from the courts…. “Democrats are recognizing that alongside important federal races, we must also compete and win power in the states,” Williams writes. “Republicans built an advantage in the last decade but now Democrats are fighting back and shifting the balance of power.”

Some insights from “Biden’s ‘Up-Ticket’ Ballot Strategy: Can Democrats reverse the typical dynamic in which the presidential nominee boosts candidates in down-ticket races and instead rely on them to help raise their leader to victory?” by Susan Milligan and Lauren Camera at US News: “President Joe Biden is having an awful time in the polls, with surveys showing even core Democratic supporters are unhappy with his job performance and – at best – less than excited about casting a vote for the incumbent president next fall….At the same time, Democrats are having a great year at the polls themselves, with Tuesday night’s near sweep of key elections capping a year when the party’s candidates have well overperformed in state and local races and won every state referendum on abortion rights….The political contradiction has the Democrats and Republicans in a quandary: Do the Democratic wins mean Biden is better-positioned than he appears for next year’s presidential election? Is the 80-year-old Biden (who turns 81 on Nov. 20) uniquely vulnerable because of his age and other issues? And can down-ticket Democrats reverse the typical dynamic – where the presidential nominee either boosts or deflates candidates in his party – and help raise their leader to victory next year?….Biden on Thursday dismissed questions about polling – actually, a sobering New York Times/Siena College poll released Sunday that showed the president trailing GOP front-runner Donald Trump in five of six battleground states. “Because you don’t read the polls. Ten polls: Eight of them, I’m beating him in those states – eight of them. You guys only do two, CNN and New York Times. Check it out. Check it out. We’ll get you copies of all those other polls,” Biden said as he prepared to leave for a speech before United Auto Workers in Illinois….”We told people to pay attention to what was happening in states like Virginia and Kentucky and ballot measures in Ohio because Republicans were using those as test cases for what they might be able to accomplish in 2024,” said A’shanti Gholar, president of Emerge, a political organization that recruits and trains Democratic women to run for office.”….”Democrats, meanwhile, believe they can benefit not just from the abortion issue but discontent toward Trump, whose favorability numbers with the general electorate are on par with Biden’s. Trump’s legal woes – along with Republicans’ failure to “right the course” of their party after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, puts the threat of future extremism in the minds of voters as they head into the 2024 election season, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, told reporters in a conference call.”

Monica Potts of 538 reports at ABC News Pollapalooza that “Recent polling suggests that Americans are very worried about gun violence. A Quinnipiac University poll taken from Oct. 26 to 30, right after the Maine shooting, found that 46 percent of registered voters worried about becoming a victim of a mass shooting themselves. That matches a high set in July 2022 in the wake of the Uvalde, Texas, shooting at Robb Elementary School, and is 9 points higher than a low of 37 percent in December 2017, the year the survey began asking the question….Americans also feel pessimistic that anything will change. Indeed, 68 percent don’t believe the federal government will do anything to reduce gun violence within the next year, per the Quinnipiac poll…A solid majority of Americans have supported stricter gun control laws during most of the years that Gallup has been tracking the issue, since 1990, with a dip in support during former President Barack Obama’s tenure. More than half have supported stricter gun control laws since 2015, and recent polls have shown public support hovering between 50 and 60 percent….In September, a Verasight poll that found 58 percent favored stronger gun laws. And in late October, Gallup found that 56 percent of Americans supported stricter gun control laws, an amount virtually unchanged from a year before….Support for tighter gun control measures tends to spike after a mass shooting event and then fall back down to the prior level after the event has faded from the news, a pattern that began after the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012. (Though it’s worth noting that the correlation is most direct for school shootings, as opposed to high-profile shootings at other locations.)….There’s not enough evidence yet to say whether public opinion following the Lewiston event will follow that pattern, but early surveys seem to show public opinion holding stable. The Quinnipiac poll found results in line with previous polls, with 57 percent of respondents supporting stricter gun laws. A YouGov/Economist survey has asked adults whether they think laws governing the sale of handguns should be more strict periodically over the past year.

Potts continues, “Support has varied between a low of 53 percent last November and a high of 58 percent in January. The latest survey, which ran from Oct. 28 to the 31, right after the Lewiston shooting, showed support for stricter laws at 55 percent, still within that range and 2 points lower than the most recent survey in May….Drilling down, even more registered voters show support for specific measures. The Quinnipiac poll found that 52 percent supported a nationwide ban on assault-style rifles, the kind of legislation Golden had previously voted against, compared with 44 percent who opposed it. An overwhelming majority, 92 percent, supported background checks on all gun buyers, 56 percent opposed the sale of high-capacity magazines, and 53 percent thought the United States would be less safe if more people carried guns. These numbers are consistent with other polls, and with Quinnipiac polling that on some questions goes back at least a decade; American voters have wanted stricter gun control laws for a long time….About 70 percent of Americans also favor red flag laws that allow law enforcement to temporarily remove guns from people deemed a risk to themselves or others, according to an Associated Press/NORC poll from Aug. 10-14. There’s a lot of evidence that, particularly in the case of mass shootings, many shooters talk about their plans or raise alarms with family and friends, and interventions in those cases can be successful….In a September NPR/Ipsos poll on active shooter drills, 40 percent of respondents named gun violence as one of their top concerns for K-12 schools….The 68 percent of Americans who didn’t think the federal government will do anything about curbing gun violence within the next year is up from the 56 percent who said the same in June 2022, right before Biden signed the gun control law. Biden has said that law didn’t go far enough, but the partisan splitin support for some gun control measures may keep many Republican lawmakers from working on more serious reform. The AP/NORC poll found that Republican support dropped after Biden signed the law, from 49 percent last summer to 32 percent this summer.”


Biden Urged to Out Trumponomics

From “Biden’s economic messaging should ‘hit Trump’ and highlight his mistakes, data reveals: Biden can revive ailing poll numbers by reminding voters Trump was a threat to social security and cut taxes for the wealthy” by David Smith at The Guardian:

Joe Biden should sharpen his economic message by acknowledging voters’ pain and drawing a more direct contrast with Donald Trump to revive his ailing poll numbers, according to research presented to the White House and seen by the Guardian.

Surveys by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), a grassroots organisation aligned with Senator Elizabeth Warren, found that voters trust Republicans over Democrats to handle the economy – but there are ways to close the gap by highlighting Trump’s past mistakes and threat to social security.

“We cannot just repeat over and over again that the economy is doing great and expect repetition to win us the trust of the public,” said Adam Green, cofounder of the PCCC, who has held meetings with top officials in the White House, House of Representatives and Senate Democratic leadership and senior political operatives around Washington.

Smith shares some well-crafted talking points, including:

America’s economy is performing well by most measures. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rose at a 4.9% annual rate during the July to September quarter, defying predictions of a recession. Unemployment is at its lowest level for half a century and inflation has fallen to the lowest rate in any G7 country.

Commenting on recent polling, Smith adds,

National polling conducted by the PCCC and the Data for Progress thinktank from September to November rings further alarm bells going into Biden’s re-election campaign. Asked which party they trust more to handle the economy, 42% of likely voters say Republicans, 35% say Democrats and 20% say neither. But the research also found that message framing is crucial.

Just 24% of likely voters agree with the statement that “the economy is getting better for people like me”. But that share climbs to 43% when extra context is given such as: “We should not return to the chaos created by Trump. Our economy is beginning to turn a corner after a few tough years felt across the world. I trust Biden more than Trump to crack down on corporations that inflate the price of gas and food – and to fight for people like me.”

The survey found that a message that blames Trump for gutting funding for pandemic preparedness, which left America unprepared for Covid-19, still leaves Democrats with a deficit of 14 percentage points. But asserting that Trump mismanaged the economy by cutting taxes for billionaires and failing to fight back against corporate price gouging on gas and groceries cuts the gap to just four points.

The PCCC’s research shows that Democrats can drive a contrast over taxing the wealthy to boost social security. The statement “Billionaires and other wealthy Americans should have to pay social security taxes at the same rate as other Americans” has support from 79% of independent voters.

Furthermore, the assertion that “Democrats support increasing taxes on billionaires and support increasing funding for programs like social security” gives the party an 11-percentage point lead. While adding a second sentence – “Republicans are pushing to cut taxes on billionaires and are pushing to cut funding for programs like social security” – doubles the advantage to 22 percentage points.

Smith notes in his concluding paragraph that much of the public doesn’t seem to know abut the divergent policies of both parties on Social Security, and Democrats can benefit tremendously by exposing the difference.


Political Strategy Notes

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch advises “‘Give ‘em hell, Joe!’ How Harry Truman showed Biden a way to win in 2024,” and observes that ” President Biden can benefit from taking a page Harry Truman’s reelection strategy: “Like Truman, Biden’s challenge in going into 2024 is not to reinvent the wheel — Democrats have won the popular presidential vote in seven of the last eight elections — but to boost enthusiasm and turnout among the coalition that produced those million-vote margins. Today, that includes white voters in cities and suburbs with college degrees, Black and brown voters, and young people of all stripes, among others. Truman outsmarted Dewey by designing campaign trips that intensely targeted the places he needed to win, and Biden must do the same….“We’re going to give ‘em hell,” Truman declared in boarding his whistle-stop express in mid-September. A campaign slogan — and a winning vibe — was born. The growing shouts of “Give ‘em hell, Harry!” from the swelling crowds meant more than any public-opinion poll….Biden — despite his lifelong struggles with stuttering, and now his advancing age — can be Truman-esque when he is truly unleashed on the campaign trail. “Is there ever anything America set its mind to as a nation that we’ve done together and we haven’t succeeded?” Biden asked union autoworkers celebrating a new contract in Illinois last week, before, uncharacteristically, lashing out at Trump by name. His energized audience booed and someone shouted “send him to jail!” Biden was giving ‘em hell, and his crowd was eating it up….Times change, but commonalities abound. Voters fret about the economy, but what brings them to the polls is a threat to their fundamental rights….Last Tuesday’s election shows that in the 2020s, nothing has motivated voters more than the threat to women’s reproductive rights since the GOP’s handpicked U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling in 2022, as well as the freedom of speech assaults by conservative groups like Moms for Liberty….Until now, Democrats haven’t fully figured out how to translate that anger into energy into Biden’s reelection, but it can be done. Plans to put abortion rights referenda on the ballot in key states like Nevada or Florida will help. Team Biden needs to spotlight Trump’s frequent boasts that he’s personally responsible for ending Roe v. Wade through his radical Supreme Court picks….Abortion rights can be a winning issue. So can voter revulsion at the poisonous GOP brand and growing legitimate fears of dictatorship, which should trump any qualms over Biden’s age. The history of how Biden wins in 2024 was written in 1948. Give ‘em hell, Joe!”

Harry Enten explains “How RFK Jr. could change the outcome of the 2024 election” at CNN Politics”: As Enten writes, “…It would be foolish to dismiss what the current polls are telling us: Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is polling higher than any independent or third-party candidate in a generation. He, along with other non-major-party candidates, has a real chance to affect the outcome of the 2024 election….,Take a look at a recent Quinnipiac University poll: Kennedy hit 22% among registered voters. That struck me as very high, so I went into the polling vault…The last independent presidential candidate to earn over 20% support in a poll within a year of the election was Ross Perot in 1992. He ended up getting 19% of the popular vote….Perot is a bit of an exception in that independent or third-party candidates usually fade as an election nears. John Anderson was polling above 20% during the 1980 campaign, before pulling in just 7% in November. In 1968, former Alabama Gov. George Wallace topped out at 21% in pre-election polling as a third-party candidate before picking up 14% when the votes were cast….Moreover, those three prior candidates ended up getting above 5% (if not 10%) in the final outcome….his numbers in the swing states should be turning heads. According to New York Times/Siena College surveys, Kennedy was in the high teens to upward of 25% in the six closest states that Biden won in 2020 over Trump: Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Michigan….If the final results matched those polls, Trump would win the election….Also on Thursday, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin said he would not run for reelection next year. He was entertaining the idea of running as a third-party candidate earlier this year. Manchin took 10% as a No Labels candidate in an PRRI poll during the summer….Now, none of these non-major-party candidates are likely to win. That, though, really isn’t the point when talking about them….The ultimate winner could come in with well less than a majority.”

However, “if former President Donald Trump is the GOP nominee, his return to the spotlight and potential felony convictions will ensure that Biden is compared to the alternative, not the almighty, as the president likes to say,” Jonathan Martin writes in “Here’s How Biden Can Turn It Around” at Politico. Further, “For Biden to win reelection, however, he must make changes. I spoke with dozens of Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans about what the president can do on personnel, presentation and strategy to improve his prospects. Their suggestions (pleadings?) are below….Biden is indeed in peril. The New York Times battleground survey was no outlier, as made clear by a new poll from Bloomberg-Morning Consult that reflected the same cold fact: the president begins his re-election as the underdog….With the increasingly likely possibility that this will be a multi-candidate election, and Biden at risk of being denied the nose-holding votes he needs from independents and pre-Trump Republicans, the president’s margin for error is nil….Last week’s entry of Jill Stein as a Green Party candidate and Sen. Joe Manchin’s new presidential tease should focus the mind. Biden can do little about Stein, but he must smother Manchin with kindness and keep him in the Democratic tent. While he’s at it, the president and his top aides should also woo Manchin’s Republican friend (and third-party temptress) Mitt Romney….Neither senator wants their legacy to be abetting Trump’s return. But that’s not enough: Biden must bring them into his corner. They must actively make the case that voting for Biden is the only way to block Trump….And on this score, why is Biden not doing more to secure the support of Liz Cheney? She has made clear she’s determined to stop Trump’s return to the Oval Office. Yet Cheney is still publicly keeping open a presidential bid of her own. Biden can let her publish her book next month, but then she should be brought into the fold. Whether it’s called Republicans Against Trump or Republicans for Biden, Cheney must be deployed and do all she can do to bring other prominent figures with her, including her father and former President George W. Bush.”

Martin continues, “No ambassador has seemed to remake the role as Biden’s envoy to Japan, Rahm Emanuel. Yet the best service Rahm-san can offer Biden isn’t using his post in Asia to forge Pacific alliances and taunt the Russians and Chinese. The president should call Emanuel back stateside and have him chair the reelection….Doing so would demonstrate a willingness by Biden to broaden his inner circle, create a manic urgency in the campaign that is Emanuel’s trademark and, by elevating one of the most ferocious operatives of our times, signal that when Trump goes low the Democrats will go fucking lower….The last president to lose reelection before Trump, George H.W. Bush, was tagged as a foreign policy-focused leader who waited too long to summon his old hand, James A. Baker III, back from diplomatic service to the campaign. Biden should not make that mistake….The White House must move to the political equivalent of a war footing. Biden should lure back former Chief of Staff Ron Klain in some capacity. Few modern chiefs could do as much simultaneously as Klain, and he could be particularly useful as the left grows restive over Biden’s Israel tilt….The governors, the senators, the cabinet secretaries and the infrastructure czar should be the faces of Biden’s campaign, along with the president and vice-president. The message: with Democrats remaining in power, it’s not just an 82-year-old at the helm but also this group — Team Normal when compared to Trump and his Star Wars bar term two….the president must enlist younger figures like Senators Raphael Warnock and Cory Booker, and Representatives Marc Veasey, Lauren Underwood and Joe Neguse in the way he did Maxwell Frost on guns….Which raises one of the most vital imperatives: Go on the offensive against the GOP. Where are the frontal attacks on Republicans? Especially with Biden at risk of defeat because of slippage among working-class voters of all races, it’s confounding that he doesn’t lash the opposition for siding with the wealthy….And when it comes to the best issue Democrats have on their side, Trump is single-handedly responsible for the end of legal abortion in America. It was his three Supreme Court justices who delivered the crucial votes to overturn Roe vs Wade. And now, recognizing the issue as a political loser and never being fully committed in the first place, Trump is running like a scalded dog away from his signature achievement. Yet he’s on tape boasting how he’s the architect of Roe’s demise….As one canny Democratic strategist all but begged: Talk about abortion every day….Lastly, to paraphrase a future Middle East envoy, voters care more about their future than your past. Tell them what you will do in a second term. Be forward-looking. And contrast your vision for the next four years with that of the candidate who’s, literally folks, running on retribution.”


Dems Enjoying GOP’s ‘Hair on Fire Triage’

Just a few days ago Democratic political operatives were chewing their fingernails to the nubs over President Biden’s lousy poll numbers. Then in the darkest hour, Americans went to the real polls and gave Republicans a proper shellacking. Then the GOP veep hopefuls had their televised “debate,” the highlight of which was one candidate calling another “scum.” And then, while Dems were breathing sighs of relief, Sen. Manchin chucks his little bomb into the scenario, significantly decreasing Dem hopes for holding a senate majority and provoking new worries about a possible 3rd party presidential run.

By now, no one could be blamed for throwing their arms up and shouting “whatever!”

But Democrats who are looking for a more lasting source of satisfaction are directed to “Republicans have never been this panicked over their abortion debacle—never by Kerry Eleveld at Daily Kos, who writes, “On the heels of an electoral shellacking Tuesday over their continued attacks on abortion rights, Republicans are in hair-on-fire triage mode. Republican Party operatives are now counseling their congressional candidates to disavow any support for a national abortion ban, according to NBC News.” Eleveld adds,

At Wednesday’s third Republican primary debate, only one of the five candidates committed to pushing a national abortion ban—a glaring lack of support among GOP presidential hopefuls. And even that single candidate, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, sought to take the edge off such a ban by using the term “limit” instead of “ban,” stealing a page from Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s failed rebranding effort.

….No matter what Republicans say now, remember North Carolina, where some Republican state lawmakers and candidates actually campaigned on protecting abortion access in 2022. But as soon as the GOP-led legislature had the votes earlier this year, Republicans jammed a 12-week abortion ban through, overriding a veto by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to make it law. Their denials on the campaign trail have no bearing whatsoever on how they will actually govern.

For now, many Republican candidates have made their radical support for banning abortions perfectly clear, and Democrats are promising to show those receipts.

“On the record and on video, Republican Senate candidates have already staked out dangerous positions that would make abortion illegal without exceptions — and we’ll make sure voters see and hear them in their own words,” said Tommy Garcia, a spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

So now Democrats get to make ads showing all Republican presidential candidates contradicting themselves on reproductive rights and broadcast the ads throughout the year. In addition, all manner of  GOP candidates – not just presidential, but also candidates for Senate, the House, statewide and legislative districts, will be squirming in TV lights while they are being nailed by reporters. Pass the popcorn.


Political Strategy Notes

In “Elections 2023: Democrats Enjoy a Strong Night,” Kyle Kondix and J. Miles Coleman share their thoughts on Tuesday’s election at Sabato’s Crystal Ball, including “Last night’s results have given Democrats a shot in the arm and have confounded the recent narrative about Democrats being in deep trouble next year. But it’s also true that these races in many respects differ from the election coming up next year. It may be the case that President Biden is in fact uniquely vulnerable, and that even former President Trump — himself dragged down by plenty of vulnerabilities that likely are not getting the kind of attention now that they will if he is renominated — could beat Biden. It may also be the case that polling a year out from an election is not predictive (and it often is not). Maybe the Democrats do just have an advantage now in smaller turnout, off-year elections as their base has absorbed many higher-turnout, college-educated voters while shedding lower-turnout voters who don’t have a four-year degree. Maybe the presidential year turnout will bring out more Trump voters and give the Republicans a clearer shot. About all we feel comfortable saying is that we should continue to expect the presidential race to be close and competitive — a boring statement, we know, but probably true….One other thing before we take a quick look at some more granular results: In case it wasn’t already blindingly obvious before, the abortion issue in a post-Dobbs political environment continues to be a significant advantage for Democrats. Another abortion-related state ballot issue triumphed in Ohio; the abortion issue, we suspect, helped bring southeast Pennsylvania more in line with presidential partisanship, powering the Democratic victory there; even in Kentucky, Beshear was able to run against the strong anti-abortion stance of Cameron as part of his campaign; and in Virginia, abortion rights were a huge factor in the campaign, and Democrats came out on top (albeit narrowly). Abortion is not a one-size-fits-all automatic decisive winner for Democrats in every race, but it’s clear that the Democrats are just closer to where average Americans are on the issue than Republicans, and they have used the issue to great effect in many parts of the country.”

Kondik and Coleman note further, “At the topline level, there was hardly any difference between Issue 1 in Ohio, the reproductive rights vote, and Issue 2, a ballot issue that legalized marijuana sales and use. As of Wednesday morning, Issue 1 was leading 56.6%-43.4%, while Issue 2 was doing slightly better, 57.0%-43.0%. However, the actual county-level voting patterns were notably different in some places, as the marijuana issue did less well in Northeast Ohio and some other places than the abortion rights issue but a lot better in many other parts of the state, winning several Appalachian counties ranging from east of Cincinnati to Athens, home to Ohio University (alma mater of one of the authors). We were not surprised that Athens turned in the highest “yes” vote in the state on the marijuana issue; we also could not conceal a chuckle when we saw that sparsely-populated Meigs County, Athens’s southern neighbor and home to the legend of “Meigs Gold,” narrowly backed the marijuana issue despite strongly opposing the abortion issue. Undergraduate laughs aside, we suspect that for some rural Ohio counties, backing marijuana may have been an economic issue as much as anything else. Map 2 shows the differences between the two issues at the county level.” Wherever it is possible, Democrats might do well to put both issues on the ballot a year from now.

“Tuesday’s wins will likely validate Democrats’ plans to continue to run on abortion next year, a strategy that has given them a series of almost uninterrupted wins since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer,” Zach Montellaro writes in “Why Democrats’ big Virginia win is also a victory for Biden” at Politico. “In hundreds of races since Donald Trump’s conservative Supreme Court appointments overturned Roe v. Wade, we’ve seen Americans overwhelmingly side with President Biden and Democrats’ vision for this country,” Biden’s campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez said in a statement Tuesday night. “That same choice will be before voters again next November, and we are confident the American people will send President Biden and Vice President Harris back to the White House to keep working for them.”….They also show that Youngkin doesn’t have the silver bullet for solving the GOP’s electoral problems with abortion, as his operation had hoped. Youngkin’s operation poured millions into ads that said Republicans in the state would push for a 15-week ban on abortion, calling their position reasonable and casting Democrats as the ones who are extreme….Voters, evidently, did not agree….In a small way, Democrats’ wins in Old Dominion on Tuesday also makes a 2024 rematch between Biden and Trump more likely….Some big GOP donors nervous about Trump’s continued stranglehold over the party have been practically begging Youngkin, a rising star in the party, to launch a last-minute bid for the presidential nomination. The governor has steadfastly insisted he was focused on winning Virginia’s legislative elections, but pointedly he never entirely ruled out a run….,Now, Virginia voters have weighed in — and may have knocked the white knight off of his horse.”

From “Andy Beshear offers Democrats some lessons for how to win in Trump country” by Li Zhou at Vox: “Much of Beshear’s support seems to stem from his successful leadership of the state both economically and during various disasters. In the course of Beshear’s tenure, Kentucky has attained one of the largest budget surpluses in its history, much of which has gone into its “rainy day fund.” The state has also attracted major external investment projects related to battery manufacturing for electric vehicles. Additionally, voters have praised Beshear’s leadership during a series of crises including the Covid-19 pandemic, when he held nightly briefings about the status of the virus in the state; a mass shooting at a Louisville bank in which one of the governor’s “closest friends” was killed; and severe flooding that required rebuilding in many parts of Kentucky….Beshear centered much of his campaigning on the state’s low unemployment rate; a slew of business investments, including a new project from Ford; and the state relief funds that were established for communities to rebuild after devastating tornadoes and floods….Beshear also focused on abortion rights and called out Kentucky’s near-total abortion bans. In November 2022, voters in Kentucky voted against supporting a state constitutional amendment that would ban abortion. Republicans, meanwhile, put forth attacks about Biden’s leadership and Beshear’s ties to the president, argued that Beshear is to blame for rising crime rates, and criticized his vetoing a measure that would ban gender-affirming care for minors….Although Beshear touted infrastructure projects that were funded from legislation Biden previously championed — like pipes for clean drinking water — he’s put the focus on the benefits the state has gained, rather than where the money came from.”


Dems Did Better Than Expected In Yesterday’s Elections

Despite widespread concerns about President Biden’s sinking poll numbers, Democrats did really well in yesterday’s elections. With the exception of Mississippi, Democrats pretty much ran the table in the most important elections. From a roundup of ‘takeaway’ articles in different media:

In Virginia, Gregory Krieg reports at CNN Politics, “Gov. Glenn Youngkin – the Virginia Republican who believed he could crack one of the most intractable issues in American politics with the promise of “reasonable” abortion restrictions – will not lead a GOP-controlled legislature in the Commonwealth, which denied the party control of the state Senate and put a swift end to both his plan for a 15-week abortion ban and rumors he might pursue a 2024 presidential bid.”

A.P.’s Bruce Schreiner reports “Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear won reelection to a second term Tuesday, notching another significant statewide victory in an increasingly red state that could serve as a model for other Democrats on how to thrive politically heading into next year’s defining presidential election….The governor withstood relentless attempts to connect him to Democratic President Joe Biden, especially his handling of the economy. Beshear insulated himself from the attacks by focusing on state issues, including his push for exceptions to the state’s near-total abortion ban that he said would make it less extreme. His reelection gave pro-choice advocates nationwide yet another victory since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.”

Also at CNN Politics, Arit John writes, “With the passage of the ballot measure Issue 1, Ohio will be prevented from restricting abortion access before fetal viability, which doctors believe to be around 22 to 24 weeks of pregnancy. After viability, the state can restrict abortion access unless the patient’s life or health are at risk….The vote is yet another sign that abortion access is a key issue for voters across party lines, even in a state like Ohio, which has trended Republican in recent elections.”

Ohio voters also voted for the legalization of marijuana, which was supported by most of the state’s Democratic leaders,  on “Issue 2” by a hefty margin – 57 percent (with 95 percent of the vote counted). (More here)

“On Tuesday, all 120 seats in the Democrat-led [New Jersey] State Legislature were again on the ballot, and Republicans were hoping to tally further gains.,” Tracey Tully reports in the New York Times. “But as of 11:30 p.m., Democrats had held on to win in competitive districts in southern and central New Jersey and were leading in other key races.”

The sole downer for Dems was in Mississippi, where the incumbent Republican Governor took 51.8 percent of the vote to beat Democrat Brandon Presley’s 46.9 percent (another 3.2 percent, and he would have won). Geoff Pender reports at Mississippi Today that “Numerous precincts in Hinds County reportedly ran out of ballots, or of the proper ballots, leaving some voters waiting in line for hours and causing others to give up and go home. This prompted legal filings from multiple groups before normal poll closing time at 7 p.m., and prompted a circuit court judge to order all Hinds County polls stay open until 8 p.m. to allow more people to vote.” Hinds County, which includes Jackson, is Mississippi’s most populous county.

As for the importance of turnout in Tuesday’s results, Julia Manchester notes at The Hill: “Democrats benefitted from high turnout in Tuesday’s off-year elections. This was evident in the red states of Ohio and Kentucky, where Democrats turned out in high numbers. In Ohio, the Issue One ballot measure sparked an early voting surge that clearly benefited Democrats. In Kentucky, Democrats benefitted from strong turnout while Republicans struggled to bring out their base in what is typically a reliably red state….Strong Democratic turnout was evident in Virginia as well. NBC News reported earlier on Tuesday that Election Day turnout at one precinct in Henrico County in the greater Richmond area reached 1,200 people by the middle of the day. There are over 3,200 people registered to vote at that precinct and 800 people cast their ballots during the early voting period.”


Political Strategy Notes

Tonight we should know the answer to a question Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. poses, “Will Kentucky’s Andy Beshear show Democrats how to win Trump Country?”  As Dionne writes, “Astonishingly, for a Democrat in a state Donald Trump carried by 26 percentage points in 2020, Beshear has become one of the most popular state chief executives in the nation….He did it with a sterling economic record — bolstered by state spending spurred in part by President Biden’s investment programs — and courtesy of an unusually personal link with voters that he forged through empathetic daily briefings during the pandemic. They were so popular that his sign-language interpreter, Virginia Moore, became a beloved celebrity in her own right, and her death this year was mourned across the state. …With polls showing Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron closing fast by rallying his party’s base with attacks on Biden, Beshear is reminding voters that this election is not about a certain white house some 570 miles away….“What you’re seeing is fear and anger, and even encouraging Kentuckians to violate that golden rule and to get one Kentuckian to hate another,” Beshear told the appreciative crowd here. “Listen, this race is about us. It’s about Kentucky. But if we can send one message to the rest of the country, it ought to be that anger politics ends right here and right now.”….It’s a lovely thought, and it’s a reason Tuesday’s gubernatorial battles in Kentucky and Mississippi matter. Neither state is likely to vote for aDemocratic presidential nominee anytime soon. But Beshear and Brandon Presley, the surging underdog Democrat in Mississippi, have shown that their party’s brand can be detoxified on hostile terrain with a focus on jobs, education and health care — and by intensely personal campaigns that encourage voters to forget culture wars and partisan loyalties.”

“The erosion of Democratic strength in rural areas, especially in Appalachia and the western reaches of the state, echoes national patterns,” Dionne explains. “The decline of the coal industry is part of the story. But so is the collapse of an infrastructure of community that once favored Democrats….“There were labor unions in these areas, there were Democratic clubs in these areas,” Contarino said. “People were hearing alternative messages.” Now, as Lainey Newman and Theda Skocpol argue in their insightful book, “Rust Belt Union Blues,” the community-binding messages come from talk radio, conservative churches and other local groups that lean right….That’s why Beshear’s pandemic briefings were so important. They allowed him to crack through those barriers by conveying empathy and cultivating solidarity across the state. “We will get through this,” he said over and over. “And we will get through this together.”….His willingness to admit uncertainty helped him develop a reputation for honesty. “They teach you never to say, ‘I don’t know,’” Beshear told the Louisville Courier-Journal in 2021. “And I had to say ‘I don’t know’ a lot.”….One other aspect of Beshear’s appeal that national Democrats might study: an open religious faith grounded in ideas quite different from those of the Christian right. “For me, faith is about uniting all people,” he told me. “It says all children are children of God. And if you’re truly living out your faith, you’re not playing into these anger and hatred games.”….Democratic state Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, who represents a Louisville-based district, grew up in the foothills of Appalachian Mountains. The author of “Hill Women,” a powerful tribute to her native region’s tenacity, Armstrong said rural voters often feel “overlooked by decision-makers in the outside world.” The Democrats’ “brand problem” in rural areas, she argued, will have to be solved by local Democrats who can make a case for “how these larger policies actually impact people’s lives.”….But this is a long-term project, she added, “best done outside the election contest.”….If he prevails, Beshear could be a powerful voice in that argument. No wonder Republicans are working so hard to beat him.”

Ever wonder if  discouraged voters who are influenced to stay at home by horse-race reporting are contributing to election outcomes? At Journalist’s Resource, Denise-Marie Ordway  comments on “Projecting Confidence: How the Probabilistic Horse Race Confuses and Demobilizes the Public” by Sean Jeremy Westwood, Solomon Messing and Yphtach Lelkes at The Journal of Politics: “This paper examines problems associated with probabilistic forecasting — a type of horse race journalism that has grown more common in recent years. These forecasts “aggregate polling data into a concise probability of winning, providing far more conclusive information about the state of a race,” write authors Sean Jeremy Westwood, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth College, Solomon Messing, a senior engineering manager at Twitter, and Yphtach Lelkes, an associate professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania….The researchers find that probabilistic forecasting discourages voting, likely because people often decide to skip voting when their candidate has a very high chance of winning or losing. They also learned this type of horse race reporting is more prominent in news outlets with left-leaning audiences, including FiveThirtyEight, The New York Times and HuffPost….Westwood, Messing and Lelkes point out that probabilistic forecasting might have contributed to Clinton’s loss of the 2016 presidential election. They write that “forecasts reported win probabilities between 70% and 99%, giving Clinton an advantage ranging from 20% to 49% beyond 50:50 odds. Clinton ultimately lost by 0.7% in Pennsylvania, 0.2% in Michigan, 0.8% in Wisconsin, and 1.2% in Florida.”

Is the Israel-Gaza war changing US public attitudes?,” Shibley Telhami asks at Brookings and writes: “To probe the issue, the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll with Ipsos asked several questions focused on the role of the United States and the perception of the Biden administration. The poll did not directly ask about attitudes toward the war itself but probed any shifts in public attitudes on the Israeli-Palestinian issue broadly….Here are three takeaways: First, public opinion on U.S. policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian issue remains divided along partisan lines, with an increasing majority of Republicans wanting the United States to lean toward Israel, while a declining majority of Democrats wants the United States to lean toward neither side. Those who want to lean toward Israel increased since last June, the last time we asked about this issue….A majority of Republicans, 71.9%, say they want the United States to lean toward Israel, compared with 47.3% in June, while a majority of Democrats, 57.4%, said they wanted the United States to lean toward neither side, a drop from 73.4% in June. A 53.6% majority of independents also wanted the United States to lean toward neither side, a drop from 71.4% in June….While those who wanted the United States to take the Palestinians’ side remained relatively constant since June, those who wanted the United States to lean toward Israel increased not only among Republicans but also among Democrats, going from 13.7% in June to 30.9% in October; it also increased among independents, going from 20.8% in June to 37.9% in October….It is notable that there was no statistically significant change in the attitudes of young Democrats (under 35). In June, 14% wanted to lean toward Israel, and this increased to 14.7% in October; 17% wanted to lean toward the Palestinians in June compared to 16.2% in October. Among young Republicans and independents, however, there were significant increases among those wanting to lean toward Israel, but also smaller increases among those wanting to lean toward the Palestinians. Overall, a majority of young Americans, 54.5%, wanted the United States to lean toward neither side.”


Political Strategy Notes

Among the many charms of the new Speaker of the House, Rep. Mike Johnson, is his eagerness, make that determination, to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits for millions of Americans. As Michael Hiltzik explains in his column, “America’s retirement system is mediocre. The new House speaker wants to make it downright awful” at The Los Angeles Times, “Johnson is a long-term advocate of cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits through changes such as raising the retirement and eligibility ages for the programs….He also has advocated scrutinizing the cost of those programs through a “bipartisan debt commission” that inevitably would place them in the deficit-reduction cauldron along with other spending. After his rise to the speaker’s chair Wednesday, Johnson immediately promised to create this panel….“When Social Security was created in the ‘60s, the average life span was somewhere in the mid-70s,” he said. “Now people live to be 100 routinely. So people are on the program for decades, when it was never structured to be able to do that.”….A few things about this. First and foremost, Social Security was created in 1935, not the ‘60s. Even then, the average American life expectancy for anyone reaching the age of 45 or older was more than 70. For 65-year-olds — that is, those who were eligible to begin collecting benefits — the average life expectancy was nearly 78….Today, the average life expectancy for a 65-year-old is about 85….As for Americans living “routinely” to age 100, one wonders from where Johnson could have excavated that fantastical assertion. In 2021, there were 89,739 centenarians in the U.S., out of a total population of 336 million. That works out to about 2.5 hundredths of a percent of the population. You may debate whether that’s a lot or a little, but by any standard, “routine” it ain’t….In measuring Johnson’s record on 10 legislative measures important to retirees, the Alliance for Retired Americans gave him a 0% score for 2022, and 5% for his entire career. He was the lowest-scoring senator or representative from his state.”

John Ward interviews Ruy Teixeira one week out from the release of his and John Judis’s new book, “Where Have All the Democrats Gone?: The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes., and asks Teixeira three good questions. Here’s an excerpt with one of Ward’s questions and Teixeira’s answer: “You say that the radical side of the GOP has propensities for violence and contempt for democracy that far outweigh the foibles of the Democrats’ cultural radicals. Basically, you’re saying that your hopes for democracy and American prosperity and vibrancy rests with the Democrats and with the working class?  [Teixeira responds] Yes, absolutely. That’s the correct way of understanding it. We don’t rule out that the Republicans could right the ship, and there are very interesting intellectual currents in and around the Republican Party. That could bear fruit over the medium to long term. But right now, realistically, looking at our political landscape, we still see the Democrats as being the best bet — if they sort of return to the roots as a party of the people — as a party of the common man and woman, if they shuck off some of this cultural radicalism for more of a centrist approach….At the tail end of another question, Teixeira adds, “We’re trying to make people understand how even though the Democrats are plausibly the best alternative at this point — the sort of the Trumpist Republicans are not a great look — here’s why they can’t seem to beat the other side more decisively. And here’s what they might need to be, to be the party we need to have in America.”

Credit Democrat Brandon Presley for making a gutsy run for the governorship of Mississippi, even though many political observers pronounced the state Democratic Party a near-hopeless cause. As AP’s Emily Wagster Pettus elaborates at The Mississippi Link: “They’re sitting up in that governor’s mansion tonight, I bet you money, tinkling their little glasses, smoking their cigars,” Presley said, imitating someone holding a tumbler of whiskey. “And they’re talking about how, ‘Well, nobody’s going to come vote.’ And particularly black Mississippians. They don’t think you’re going to commit.”….Presley, the 46-year-old second cousin of rock ‘n’ roll legend Elvis Presley, will need a bipartisan, multiracial coalition to vote in unprecedented numbers to accomplish his goal of unseating Reeves….Presley is endorsed by the state’s most powerful black politician, U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson. One of the most famous black Mississippi residents, Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman, recently joined him at a campaign event….Presley has raised more campaign cash than Reeves this year, and he’s attracting larger and more diverse crowds than any Democrat running for Mississippi governor in a generation….Presley is pushing for robust turnout among black voters, who comprise nearly 40% of the state’s population and are the base of the state Democratic Party. He also needs crossover votes from people who usually support Republicans but are disenchanted with conditions in one of the poorest states in the U.S….Others are making independent efforts to increase turnout….In speeches and TV ads, Presley talks about being in third grade when his father was murdered and then being raised by a single mom who worked in a garment factory and struggled to pay bills….Presley says rural hospitals are hurting because of Reeves’ refusal to expand Medicaid to people working jobs with no health insurance – roofing houses or waiting tables at the Waffle House. Reeves calls Medicaid “welfare” and says he does not want more people on government-funded health insurance….There’s evidence Presley is connecting with white working-class voters.”

If Presley can pull off an upset, future statewide victories for Democrats will become more of a possibility and perhaps lure needed funding and activism for the party’s candidates. Pettus notes one major change in election law which could help Presley: “One source of optimism in the Presley camp is a change in how Mississippi elects its governor. Until this year, winning a governor’s race required overcoming a unique legal challenge that was written into the state constitution during the Jim Crow era and repealed by Mississippi voters in 2020….Under the old method, a gubernatorial candidate had to win a majority of the statewide popular vote and and prevail in a majority of the 122 state House districts. Without both, the race would be decided by the Mississippi House….That process was written in 1890….The separate House vote allowed the white ruling class to have the final say in who holds office, and it fueled lingering cynicism among black Mississippians about whether their votes would ever matter….Mississippi was the only state in the U.S. with this process for electing statewide officials, and the vote to repeal the provision came only after former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sued the state on behalf of some Black residents….Winning a governor’s race now requires a majority of the popular vote. If nobody receives that Nov. 7, the race goes to a Nov. 28 runoff. Although an independent candidate, Gwendolyn Gray, recently announced she is dropping out and endorsing Presley, she did so after the ballot had been set….Presley says the new method of electing a governor gives him a better chance than the old one. He doesn’t have to strategize to win a majority of House districts mostly drawn to favor Republicans….“For the first time, candidates of all political parties can truthfully emphasize voter turnout, where before it had to be such a scattered approach,” Presley said last week at Tougaloo College, an historically black school in Jackson. “This will be the first time particularly that black voters’ votes will count to an extent of 100%, where before, an argument could be made that they were very much diluted.” Here’s a fridge magnet Gandhi quote for Presley and other Democratic underdog candidates: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”


Pay Attention: Big Election Doings Coming Shortly

Some nuggets from “The races to watch next week and why 2024 is already here” by Daily Kos Staff:

It’s not a midterm or a presidential year, but voters in Kentucky, Mississippi, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, and other states all face important state or local elections, and everyone should watch closely to see what the results presage for 2024.

In blood-red Kentucky, Republicans are struggling to gain traction in the governor’s race, where popular Democratic incumbent Andy Beshear remains the favorite. Indeed, after months of trying to make “the radical transgender agenda” a thing, the Republican candidate is now claiming that “Andy Beshear is a nice enough guy.” Attacking transgender people remains an electoral loser for Republicans, even in one of the most evangelical states in the country.

In Ohio, a ballot initiative to guarantee a right to abortion is headed toward a landslide victory, with a Public Policy Polling survey finding support at 55-38. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine must be looking at similar polling: He’s now trying to convince people to vote against the measure by saying he’ll loosen Ohio’s oppressive abortion restrictions. Are there any abortion-rights supporters brainless enough to fall for that trap? Hopefully not. After all, DeWine signed the state’s six-week ban, which lacks exceptions for rape and incest. Why would anyone trust him to do better? This election will demonstrate the continued potency of reproductive rights heading into next year.

In Virginia, Democrats can retake control of the state House of Delegates by picking up just a handful of seats. You can still make a difference in these races by supporting these five great Democratic candidates. And by doing so, you can help quell the insufferable Beltway narratives that somehow it is Democrats who are currently in trouble.

You know who is in trouble? Republicans. And not just because they picked a radical weirdo as their new House leader. There are few states more conservative than Mississippi, where its racialized politics means that roughly 90% of white voters vote for Republicans no matter what. Yet infighting among Magnolia State Republicans could offer Democrat Brandon Presley an opening for a surprise victory. And like the GOP civil war happening inside the U.S. House of Representatives, a divided Republican Party could pay big electoral dividends for Democrats next year.

The post didn’t really address New Jersey’s election, in which Republicans hope fallout from Sen. Menendez’s indictment will help them. As Matt Friedman notes at Politico,

New Jersey Republicans are practically giddy at a prospect that had been virtually unthinkable until now: Could they retake control of one or both houses of the state Legislature?….It’s a longshot scenario in a state where Democrats have a nearly one million voter registration advantage and have controlled the Statehouse for two decades….buoyed by Republicans’ surprising gains in the 2021 election — and the sudden fallout of Sen. Bob Menendez‘s indictment — GOP leaders see a narrow path to scoring key upsets that could put them on top in Trenton….“We are looking at a razor-thin proposition of holding the majorities in both houses this year. It’s going to come down to a few districts,” Kevin McCabe, the Middlesex County Democratic chair and one of the leading power brokers in the state, said at a party meeting in June….Democrats hold a 25-15 majority in the Senate and a 46-34 majority in the Assembly. Flipping either chamber would take an extraordinary run in swing districts and at least some upsets.

It’t undoubtedly too much to hope for that Dems will pull the inside straight and win all five elections. But three or four out of five would be something to crow about.


Political Strategy Notes

How is the war in Gaza affecting public opinion of President Biden’s policy toward the conflict? The most recent polling data indicates a significant decline in young voter support, although it is unclear how these attitudes will play out a year from now. Alexander Sammon notes in “Biden Has a Youth-Vote Problem. His Israel Policy Is Making It Worse” at Slate that “A recent Quinnipiac poll underscores Biden’s disastrous standing with the youth vote. The president’s favorability rating has cratered out at an almost-unbelievable 25 percent among registered voters under 35 years old. A few weeks prior, a Washington Post–ABC poll had Trump winning voters under 35 by 20 points. (The Post’s story notes that the poll differs from others taken recently, and that it may be an outlier. It’s not the only recent presidential poll that’s made publishers raise an eyebrow.)….In 2020, 60 percent of 18-to-29-year-old voters, by far the most Democratic-voting group by age, threw in for Joe Biden….That same Quinnipiac poll found that 51 percent of voters under 35 say they disapprove of the United States’ sending weapons and military support to Israel—a much higher figure than the 28 percent of Americans who oppose such a policy. Only 21 percent of voters under 35 say they approve of Biden’s Israel policy; 42 percent of voters across all age brackets approve….A CBS News poll conducted last week came to an even starker conclusion. When asked if the U.S. should send weapons and supplies to Israel, 59 percent of respondents under 30 said it should not. An even more resounding 64 percent of those between age 30 and 44—a bracket more likely to vote that carries the whole millennial generation and part of Gen X—said the U.S. should not….Earlier this year, Gallup polling found that among Democrats, net sympathy for Palestinians outweighs net sympathy for Israelis, a change that has occurred during Biden’s time in office. The aforementioned CBS News poll shows that a slim majority of both Democrats and independents feel that the U.S. should not send weapons and supplies to Israel. Data for Progress found that 80 percent of Democrats currently believe that the “US should call for a ceasefire and a de-escalation of violence in Gaza.”

Sammon continues, “Although the data seems overwhelming on this point, the anecdotal evidence in Washington appears to mirror it. An open letter, signed by 411 congressional staffers, took the rare move of calling publicly for a cease-fire. Meanwhile, HuffPost has reported that the State Department is in turmoil over Biden’s unequivocal support for Israel. “There’s basically a mutiny brewing within State at all levels,” one department official told the outlet….those 400-odd staffers are overwhelmingly not senior-level or senior age. They’re young people expressing a widespread conviction of their generation….Look, too, at the slowly growing list of representatives sponsoring the House’s cease-fire resolution. They’re not all young, but the list includes the House’s most prominent left-wing millennial in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the chamber’s only Gen Z member, Maxwell Frost….If Biden hopes to win reelection, he desperately needs to run up the score with the youth vote as he did in 2020; we can comfortably say, even 13 months from Election Day, that there are only narrow, unlikely paths back to the White House for any Democrat without that….Meanwhile, joining the congressional calls for cease-fire is hardly a safe bet. Certainly, significant percentages of the electorate would welcome that, but the same polling indicates that nontrivial percentages would also be enraged. It’s a divisive issue, and domestically, there’s no “safe” option for a U.S. president.” At The Guardian, Lauren Gambino reports that “A Gallup poll released on Thursday found that Biden’s approval rating among Democrats plummeted 11 percentage points in one month, to a record low of 75%. According to the survey, the drop was fueled by dismay among Democratic voters over Biden’s support for Israel….Meanwhile, a poll released last week by the progressive firm Data for Progress found that 66% of likely US voters strongly or somewhat agree that the US should call for a ceasefire.” Gambino adds that “So far no senator has backed a ceasefire. Warren, Sanders and several other Democratic senators have urged a “humanitarian pause” to allow aid, food and medical supplies to flow into Gaza after Israel ordered a “complete siege” of the territory.”

“Today’s polls aren’t predictive of an election that’s more than a year out,” Will Marshall writes in his article, “For victory in 2024, Democrats must win back the working class” at The Hill. “But they are indicative of how little headway the president and his party have made since 2020 on their central political challenge: enlarging their party by winning back working class voters.” Marshal, founder and CEO of the Progressive Policy Institute, adds “…it’s not unreasonable for Democrats to believe that, despite his abysmal approval ratings, Biden could yet parlay public anger at the Republicans’ anti-abortion crusade and Trump’s accumulating legal wounds into a second presidential term next November….Yet even if he manages to eke out a win, a Biden-Trump rematch would likely leave the parties at rough parity. Until that changes, Democrats’ path to victory will be exceedingly narrow….  To break this political deadlock, Democrats need to start reaching across the “diploma divide.” They’re doing fine with college graduates; Biden won 61 percent of them in 2020…. But Trump won white non-college voters by a massive, 25 point margin. The New York Times reports that “In nearly 20 Western and Southern states, Democrats are virtually shut out of statewide offices largely because of their weakness among the white working class.”….What Democrats really need is more voters. The only way to break today’s partisan stalemate and build a solid center-left majority is to target non-college voters, who are expected to be nearly two-thirds of eligible voters in 2024. Democrats must whittle away at Trump’s huge margin with white voters and stop hemorrhaging support among Black and especially Hispanic non-college voters….The push for loan forgiveness also highlights a glaring disparity between Democrats’ solicitude for college students, who are already on track toward higher lifetime earnings, and their comparatively modest investments in the majority of young Americans who don’t have college degrees….  Educational polarization also manifests itself in cultural politics. As the liberal political demographer Ruy Teixeira has documented, the progressive left has saddled Democrats with “genuinely unpopular positions” on crime, immigration, race, gender and schooling….it’s not too late for Democrats to start reorienting their cultural and economic policies around what working families actually want rather than what progressive elites think they should want. Their ability to keep Trump or a Trump clone out of the White House just may depend on it.”

In “The group Biden and Trump both want, because it might win them the presidency,” Los Angeles Times syndicated columnist Doyle McManus writes, “The battle for working-class voters is on, and it could well decide the outcome of the 2024 election….The battle for autoworkers’ hearts is a microcosm of a larger struggle for working-class voters, a category typically defined by pollsters as voters without a college degree. They make up about 60% of the electorate….Working-class voters, especially union members and their families, were once the cornerstone of the Democratic Party. But over the past half-century, as Democrats became more liberal, millions of white, non-college-educated voters moved toward the GOP and its conservative social policies — a phenomenon political scientists call a “class inversion.”….In 2016, Trump won the presidency partly by winning almost two-thirds of white non-college voters, a major reason he prevailed in former Democratic strongholds such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton won only 28% of those voters….In 2020, Trump won 65% of white working-class votes, but Biden improved on Clinton’s dismal performance by winning 33%, according to a study by the Pew Research Center. That was enough to move Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania into the Democratic column….So Biden doesn’t need to win a majority of non-college-educated voters to keep his job in 2024, he just needs to do about as well as he did in 2020….He especially needs to maintain his support among union members and their families, most of whom still vote Democratic. In 2020, Biden carried union households in Michigan by a whopping 25-percentage-point margin, 62% to 37%….Census Bureau estimates suggest that real household income, which began falling in 2020, hasn’t yet returned to its pre-pandemic high….Biden’s answer has been an array of economic stimulus, investments in infrastructure and clean energy, and policies to promote higher wages — a package he has dubbed “Bidenomics.”….”The term ‘Bidenomics’ seems perfectly designed to annoy voters rather than win them over,” said Ruy Teixeira, a centrist Democratic political scientist….Better, he suggested, for Biden to focus his pitch on the ways he’s nudging businesses to raise wages, including federal regulations requiring overtime pay for more workers.”