The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from his blog:

Elizabeth Warren could win the Democratic nomination and even win the general election. But to do so, she’s got to make some changes. As Jeff Greenfield notes in Politico,

“The strategic premises of her campaign are to claim the progressive mantle from Bernie Sanders, stake the “alternative to Biden” ground, and then engage in a one-on-one battle for the nomination….There are significant challenges to this strategy, not the least of which is winning over a reasonable share of the African American vote, where Biden dominates…..

In polls, Warren trails Biden in South Carolina by dozens of points. What’s more, about half of the state’s black Democrats say they support Biden, while Warren is practically tied for the lead among the state’s white Democrats.

And African American Democrats are, as Tom Edsall pointed out in a much-discussed column in the New York Times, on average, more centrist than white Democrats. The party’s “more moderate wing, which is pressing bread-and-butter concerns like jobs, taxes and a less totalizing vision of health care reform, is majority nonwhite, with almost half of its support coming from African-American and Hispanic voters,” he wrote.

So it would make sense for Warren to draw some distinctions between herself and her party’s most liberal voters, in order to make her candidacy more appealing—or at least acceptable—to the elements of her party that do not fully embrace the canon. And there’s a long history of winning presidential candidates doing this without alienating their most loyal supporters.”

This shouldn’t be so hard. Most of her economic positions are fine in the context of today’s Democratic party and can be sold to a wider electorate in a general election. Voters really do oppose crony capitalism and really do want a reformed system that isn’t dominated by the rich and Wall Street and is focused on the welfare of the middle class and poor. That plugs right into the concerns of the moderate voters, particularly nonwhite and working class voters, mentioned by Edsall.

But Warren has gone too far in some areas, competing to seem the most “woke” on issues like decriminalizing the border and reparations and endorsing Medicare for All instead of Medicare for All Who Want It. This is not necessary. Her strong economic program has great appeal but so far Warren’s support is heavily dominated by educated whites, with very little noncollege or nonwhite support, as shown by the graphic below.

That needs to change and the way to do it is to take positions that appeal to the working class, not the “woke-eoisie”, and ditch the ones that don’t. My guess is she’d retain most of her educated white support anyway but start gaining in places where she’s currently weak. If she wants to win, that may be a bet she’ll have to make.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from his blog:

America the Liberal

Yes, yes, I know, Trump and all that. But facts, gentlemen and women, are stubborn things and the facts are that Americans are in a pretty liberal mood these days. How do I know?–because James Stimson’s public policy mood measure tells me so. Gregory Koger’s post on the Mischiefs of Faction site has the details:

“Stimson’s updated measure of public policy mood….revealed that Americans’ support for government action is at its highest point since the index began in 1952….

As explained in (among other places) Public Opinion In America and Tides of Consent, public policy mood combines polling responses across a wide range of policy issues to measure the American public’s collective appetite for more or less government, liberal or conservative policies. Even if we think citizens are not fully informed about stock market regulation, health care insurance, and the dozens of other specific policies pollsters ask them about, Stimson’s mood measures their underlying preference for government activism.

The mood index helps us understand previous shifts in American politics. Before 2018, the mood index peaked in the 1960s, coinciding with landmark civil rights laws, Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society social welfare policies, and the expansion of civil liberties by Supreme Court decisions. During this period there was a dramatic increase in the number of issues addressed by government actors. Public appetite for more government reached a nadir around 1980, inspiring the Republican Party to embrace a starkly conservative presidential candidate and a range of policies that would have seemed unthinkable a decade earlier.

The updated mood index shows public policy mood is at its peak. This manifests itself in public support for more government action across a range of issues: gun control, health care (e.g. a public option), college tuition, paid parental leave, minimum wage policy, etc. NPR/Marist, for example, polled on a range of Democratic proposals (plus Obamacare repeal) last month. While there are some unpopular items, Democrats have broad support for many of the policies approved by the House or advocated by Democratic presidential candidates.”

Of course, this liberal mood won’t last forever and much depends on how well Democrats play offence and how well Republicans play defense in this pro-activism period. As Koger notes:

“The history of public mood and American politics suggests the stage is set for progressive policy change after the 2020 election, but this is not guaranteed. It is not clear how well parties will take advantage (Democrats) or deflect (Republicans) public support for more active government. Nor is it clear how well our electoral system—from its campaign financing system to the small-state bias of the Senate and Electoral College—will translate public opinion into government action…If the Democrats gain unified control of the federal government in 2021, the real question is how well they use their window of opportunity to create durable policy programs and systemic political change.”

Yes, that’s the real question. The public is clearly moving in a liberal direction–but can Democrats get their act together and take maximum advantage? I’d say that’s not yet clear.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from his Facebook page:

Leaving aside some of the nutty resolutions like the Open Borders one, how should we assess the DSA convention as a whole? Harold Meyerson offers some thoughts, especially focusing on the Bernie or Bust resolution, which has fairly immediate implications. He also does a good job of discussing some of the disciplined caucuses like the Trotskyist-inflected Bread and Roses and the quasi-anarchist Build.

He concludes:

The following post, by consumer lawyer and former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann and Leo Jennings III, a leading Northeast Ohio political consultant and media specialist, is cross-posted from Working-Class Perspectives:

Two years ago, we compared the opioid epidemic to the mortgage crisis that nearly cratered the global economy, noting how both were caused by corporate greed. Recent reporting in the Washington Post and other media outlets reveals an important difference between the two: unlike the regulators who were blithely ignorant of what was happening in the financial markets, officials at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) knew exactly how many opioid pills were being distributed in the U.S. and where they were going. They simply chose to do nothing about it even though DEA investigators and line attorneys were pushing to hold at least one major drug manufacturer responsible for fueling the deadly epidemic.

The Obama administration’s decision to let drug company CEOs and managers off the hook runs parallel with its refusal to prosecute the big bank and brokerage officials who ignited the mortgage crisis. This eagerness to place Wall Street above Main Street is the key to solving the mystery that has confounded pundits, pollsters, and prognosticators since November 8, 2016: why did so many blue-collar and working class voters abandon the Democratic Party and vote for Trump?

Read more…

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from his blog:

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from his blog:

The spate of House Republican retirements in Texas has gotten people thinking again about Texas’ political trajectory. How seriously should we take this?

Certainly one should take this seriously as a big boost to Democrats’ chance of retaining control of the House in 2020. But what about winning a statewide race in Texas in 2020, particularly of course in the Presidential race? This is still a very heavy lift though these developments should remind us that Texas is rapidly changing in this era, so such a result is no longer out of the question. As Sean Trende, the election analyst for the conservative RCP site, and one uninclined to pump up Democrats’ chances, recently tweeted:

“People grossly oversold GOP vulnerability in TX pre-Trump and are grossly underselling it now. Texas is an overwhelmingly urban/suburban state, so GOP weakening in the suburbs is felt disproportionately in TX. It could go blue, quickly, under this current configuration.

People really underestimate how many people live in rural/small town areas east of the hundredth meridian (so wi, oh get redder), and overestimate how many live west of it (tx, az get bluer)”

Trende’s point is underscored by data from University of Houston professors Renee Cross and Richard Murray:

“Metro Texas and the state’s outlying Anglo counties were similar in both demographics and partisan voting patterns for most of the latter half of the 20th century, even as high birth rates and migration from elsewhere in Texas and nearby states propelled urban growth after World War II.

Those metro counties boomed in the 1990s, a trend that has only accelerated. Between 2010 and 2018, the 27 metro counties added almost 3 million people, compared to just 375,000 for the 199 non-metro, non-bordercounties — growth that profoundly altered the demographic makeup of the state’s metropolitan areas. Anglo growth slowed as birth rates dropped and migration from elsewhere in Texas and neighboring states slowed; metro growth now is driven by international immigration and higher birth rates among non-Anglo urban residents…

Republicans are now a clear minority in the large metro areas of Texas.

The shift is illustrated by Fort Bend County, a suburban area southwest of Houston with large Latino, Asian American and African American populations. Mitt Romney defeated President Obama there by 15,000 votes in 2012, and all local Republicans easily won election. In 2016, Trump lost Fort Bend by 18,000 votes. In 2018, O’Rourke topped Cruz by 31,000 votes, and all 10 Republicans in contested countywide elections were defeated.

What does this mean for 2020? Metropolitan growth in Texas will certainly continue, along with its ever-growing share of the vote — 68% of the vote in 2016. And the latest census estimates suggest the Latino population is increasingly choosing to live in metro areas. Expect a growing difference in how metro Texas votes compared with the outlying counties.”

So, could this really happen in 2020? Well, a lot of things would have to go right. Clinton lost Texas by 9 points in 2016. Ongoing demographic change should knock that deficit down to about 7.4 points in 2020, even if all other voting behavior remains the same. Then if Democrats managed a big margin swing in their favor (15 points) among Hispanic, Asian and other race voters, that should bring the deficit down further to around 3.2 points. Then you are in a position where some combination of increased support among whites (college or noncollege, but likely mostly college) and stronger Latino turnout could put the Democratic candidate over the line.

That’s a lot of “if”s. But it is no longer out of the question.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from his blog:

So, Where Are We After the Latest Round of Debates?

John Judis’ piece on the Talking Points Memo site is a good place to start, which runs down many of the disquieting and counter-productive (from the standpoint of Democratic victory) stances taken by various Democratic candidates. By my count, he hits points 1,2, 5, 6 and 7 of the Common Sense Democrat creed in his discussion.

As for effects on the nomination race, I think Biden will remain the front-runner with Warren, Harris and Sanders below that and Harris perhaps slipping a bit. Booker preformed well and may get some sort of bump. But, for all the strident positions taken and various attack lines launched, particularly at Biden, I doubt if things will change too much.

It’s interesting to speculate about why so many candidates feel obliged to take non-viable political stances in their quest for the nomination. Kevin Drum has a theory which I cannot completely discount: He blames it on “the twitterization of the progressive movement”.

“No matter how carefully you curate your Twitter feed, and no matter how much you try to take Twitter with a grain of salt, it will inevitably overexpose you to a very specific subset of the progressive movement. This is not just the activist subset. It’s a group that’s way leftier, way louder, way less tolerant, way woker, way younger, and way whiter than the Democratic Party as a whole. Even if you think you’re sophisticated enough to understand this and account for it, spending time on Twitter almost certainly skews your view of the progressive movement….

Many of the Democratic candidates seem like they’re in thrall to the lefty twitterverse, deathly afraid of doing anything that might bring down a viral storm on their heads. And it’s hard to blame them, since campaign reporters also love Twitter, and will turn these viral shitstorms into page A1 stories in the New York Times.”

An interesting twist on this is to consider how this might be leading candidates especially banking on black support like Harris and Booker astray. They appear to be assuming that attacks on Biden on race and on his association with various controversial aspects of Obama’s record will eventually pay off with black voters.

But what if they’re wrong? What if in reality this sort of stuff appeals more to a particular sector of woke white liberals than to black voters? That certainly seems to be the pattern so far. And the latest debates may just confirm that. From a Politico article on reaction to attacks on Obama’s record:

“Henry Crespo, former chair of the Democratic Black Caucus of Florida, who watched the debate with about a dozen fellow black Democratic officials and operatives, cold-called a POLITICO reporter outraged with what he saw transpire on the debate stage Tuesday and the following day, when Harris and Booker appeared to him to be insufficiently supportive of Obama.

“Obama is an icon in our community. And they’re attacking his legacy Obamacare? And Joe Biden is the one defending it?” he asked.

“We were sitting here watching this and wondering: ‘What the hell are you doing? What is wrong with our party?’ It’s like they want to lose,” Crespo said, adding that Democrats like him resent Harris and Booker for attacking Biden’s record on race.

“Joe Biden is not Bull Connor,” Crespo said. “You just can’t make us believe it.”

Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), Biden’s campaign co-chair and the former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Obamacare is widely supported among African Americans because it’s good policy and people know how hard it was for Obama to pass his signature health law.

“I don’t think it’s the wisest move to go after it. You’ve got to realize when you go after it, you’re doing exactly what Trump and Republicans have tried to do, which is repeal Obamacare,” he said. “When you talk about the Affordable Care Act, there’s deep, deep appreciation for it. That was a hard-fought win.”…

“The attacks, particularly from Harris and Booker, have been backfiring with black voters who always show up in Democratic primaries,” said Patrick Murray, a Monmouth University pollster who released a survey last week showing Biden capturing 51 percent of the African-American vote in South Carolina’s Democratic primary, where more than 60 percent of the electorate is black.

“Black voters are significantly less liberal than white voters in the Democratic primary,” Murray said. “So if their strategy is to attack him because he’s not woke enough on race or left enough on issues like Medicare for All, it’s not going to help you with these voters.”

Murray said polls show the dismissal of Obamacare made no sense more broadly with Democratic voters who like the program. Surveys also show voters prefer Biden’s proposal to add a Medicare-like public option to Obamacare rather than scrapping all private insurance and instituting a Medicare for All plan.”

More broadly, Ron Brownstein reminds us that, beyond the leanings of black voters, the overall structure of the Democratic primary electorate makes an approach that works best with woke white liberals and the twitterverse unwise.

“While the attacks on Biden from his left could further erode his position with the party’s progressive wing, his rivals may have simultaneously painted themselves more deeply into an ideological corner that constrains their capacity to grow among more centrist Democratic voters.

In the 2016 race, voters who identified as “very liberal” were the only ideological group in which Sanders ran evenly with Hillary Clinton. But they represented only about one-fourth of all primary voters, according to a cumulative analysis of 2016 exit polls by CNN. Voters who identified as “somewhat liberal” (just over one-third) or “moderate and conservative” (about two-fifths) cast a larger share of the vote. Likewise, voters over age 45 cast fully 60 percent of all primary votes in 2016, compared with about one-sixth for voters under 30.”

In short, it could be that some of the leading candidates are drastically underestimating the number of Common Sense Democrats and vastly overestimating the number of woke progressives. So far, that’s to Biden’s advantage.

“Warren had a strong performance. For instance, she may have had the line of the night by shooting down a Delaney attack by asking why someone would run for president if they don’t have big ideas and plans. Warren has been firm and aggressive in defense of her progressive views, continuing to use the word “fight” over and over again when describing how she’ll take on Trump and change the country. I don’t think she’s going to necessarily rocket up further in the polls, but she’s positioned herself to be a strong contender for the nomination heading into the fall.” – Geoffrey Skelley at FiveThirtyEight.

“Steve Bullock: The Montana governor, to his immense credit, understood that this debate was his one big chance to make an impression with voters — and move from the third tier upward. I’m not sure if his numbers will move in a major way, but Bullock went for it — from his opening statement on. He made clear, time and time again, that he did not believe that the liberal views of Warren and Sanders were grounded in reality and did believe that those views would cost Democrats the election…If moderates were looking for someone other than former Vice President Joe Biden to support in this primary, Bullock offered himself as a viable alternative.” – Chris Cillizza at CNN Politics.

“…While Sanders and Warren correctly pointed out the problems with “good” private insurance ― namely that it’s at the whim of employers and frequently leaves very sick people with huge bills ― they never acknowledged the core political reality that polls have shown repeatedly and as recently as this week: Support for Medicare for All drops dramatically when people hear that enrollment in a new government plan would be mandatory.” – Jonathan Cohn at HuffPo.

“My bottom line–I’m not sure whether any of these five will surge in the polls or be on the debate stage in September. But I think both Bullock and Delaney have succeeded in pushing the Democratic 2020 debate to the center. And I think there’s an outside chance that Bullock actually gets a look from the party.” – Perry Bacon, Jr. at FiveThirtyEight.

“The “moderates,” desperate for a big moment and probably (as my colleague Jonathan Chait suggests) looking to become a back-up option to Joe Biden if he fades, obliged — some through substantive criticisms and others alluding to their fear of public opinion and Republican attacks. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, whose views were generally being challenged by moderators and rivals alike, fired back lustily, too, with Warren emulating and sometimes exceeding Bernie’s customary tone of righteous indignation.” – Ed Kilgore at New York Magazine.

“Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), a candidate who has gained no traction, summed up the critique about an hour into the debate. “In this discussion already tonight, we’ve talked about taking private health insurance away from union members in the industrial Midwest, we’ve talked about decriminalizing the border, and we’ve talked about giving free health care to undocumented workers when so many Americans are struggling to pay for their health care,” Ryan said. “I quite frankly don’t think that is an agenda that we can move forward on and win.” – Andrew Prokop at Vox.

“Ten Democratic candidates struggled to overcome an abysmal debate format and moderators bent on forcing them to address right-wing talking points and attack each other. Some managed to rise nonetheless. Others continued to spur only questions about why, exactly, they were on stage to begin with. Once again, the winners were the progressive policies shaping the race and, by extension, the two candidates who have championed and driven those policies into the national debate…” – Laura Clawson at Daily Kos.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from his blog:

Josh Marshall has a great piece up on Talking Points Memo about the politics off Medicare for All. It is eminently sensible and covers well both the facts of the situation and the standard objections Medicare for All advocates raise when it is pointed out just how electorally difficult this program would make things for the Democrats. Point #6 of the Common Sense Democrat creed is: Don’t advocate clearly unpopular policies (if you want to win of course). Josh Marshall agrees!

Marshall’s piece is behind a paywall but it’s well worth seeking out if you are interested in this issue. But a few telling excerpts;

“In Democratic policy debates since 2016 there’s been a widespread and sometimes near dominant narrative that Medicare for All is the way forward and actually surprisingly popular…The problem is, the whole premise is false. A raft of public surveys show that Medicare for All has anything ranging from public support in the low 40s to dismal support down into the 20s. How is that reconcilable with all the polls showing that clear majorities support it? Like most political labels it’s not clear, beyond in an aspirational sense, what “Medicare for All” actually means. Survey after survey shows that when most people hear “Medicare for All” they assume something like a right for anyone who wanted it, regardless of age, to be able to get or buy into Medicare. Critically, most believe they and others would be able to keep their current private coverage if they chose to.

A new Marist poll illustrates the point, but it’s far from the only example. The poll asked Americans whether they supported “Medicare for all that want it, that is allow all Americans to choose between a national health insurance program or their own private health insurance.” 70% of adults thought that was a “good idea”.

When asked about “Medicare for all, that is a national health insurance program for all Americans that replaces private health insurance” the number fell to 41%. This isn’t an outlier. Numerous polls have shown roughly the same thing. A 2018 Reuters/Ipsos poll found 70.1% support and 51.9% support among self-identified Republicans. The numbers are actually remarkable consistent across many polls. Roughly 70% say they support Medicare for All, assuming that it means people can keep private policies. The numbers hover around 40% if they’re told that’s not true.

But just as consistently polls show that people assume Medicare for All means the option to opt into Medicare or keep their own private insurance. Much like the new Marist poll, a January 2019 Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 55% of adults believed Medicare for All would allow people to retain their private coverage if they chose. When told it would “eliminate private health insurance companies” that support collapses, going from slightly more than 70% to just 37%….

The reaction to these stark numbers from Medicare for All advocates has been telling and instructive. Of course, if you focus on perceived negatives or scare tactics, support falls! But this makes no sense. You can’t understand the popularity or political viability of a policy without figuring in counter-arguments that will certainly be used in the political arena. This is especially the case with counter-arguments which are actually true!

The secondary response has settled down to daring people to find anyone who likes their insurance company. Nobody likes their insurance company ergo these numbers can’t be true or don’t mean anything or don’t matter. It’s a pretty effective dare. Who raises their hand at a town hall meeting to give a big thumbs up to their health insurance company? Unfortunately that doesn’t really prove anything or at least what advocates what it to prove.

Here we have the kernel of magical thinking inspiring this whole debate: advocates belief that if something doesn’t make sense, it actually can’t be true. It’s certainly true that more or less everyone has complaints about their insurance company. And it’s hard to find people who affirmatively like or have some devotion to their insurance company since the whole system is a mess. But it simply doesn’t flow from that that people support doing away with private insurance or being forced to give up their current insurance. To pretend otherwise ignores basically everything we know about public risk aversion, especially tied to health care, and people’s perception that while what they currently may not be ideal something else might be worse. Call it relative privilege or advantage and people’s resistance to losing it….

He concludes:

“Of course, none of this means that people shouldn’t support Medicare for All or other comparable single player plans on the merits. A substantial minority of Americans do support it. Indeed, more practically, without a vibrant left supporting such a model the public debate is inevitably skewed to the right. A decade ago the legislative debate on Capitol Hill largely focused on whether or not what we now call Obamacare would include a “public option.” It failed because of stiff opposition from insurers and opposition from centrist Senate Democrats. Now that’s basically the centrist fallback position and Republicans running for office, as opposed to working the courts, have basically given up on gutting Obamacare. Indeed, ‘Medicare for America’, one of the major Medicare buy-in style plans proposed by wonks at the Center for American Progress, is as the name implies in large measure a reaction to the Medicare for All push. But that’s not what the proposal entitled “Medicare for All” actually does. It’s a single payer plan in which private health care plans would be prohibited except for supplemental plans which covers services or deductibles not covered by the standard plan.

There is every reason to believe that Medicare for All would be a major electoral liability for a Democratic presidential candidate in a general election – just on the basis of what the plan actually does, let alone the way the GOP and the health care industry writ large would pile on to that with a campaign of lies, horror stories and propaganda. It could well mean the difference between Trump’s defeat or reelection by effectively nullifying the Democrats big advantage on health care and giving the GOP a cudgel to sour a significant amount of the electorate on the Democratic candidate.”

Like Marshall, I get why people would be attracted to the Medicare for All idea. But I continue to be surprised at people’s willingness to ignore or try to explain away the clear evidence that the program would be a serious electoral liability. Sure it would be nice if that weren’t so. But it is.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from his facebook page:

David Leonhardt’s column today, rightly in my view, approvingly notes a recent op-ed by Theda Skocpol in USA Today:

Theda Skocpol — the Harvard social scientist who has studied the Tea Party and the anti-Trump resistance, among many other things — has a new op-ed in USA Today that argues that the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates are ignoring the lesson of 2018. By doing so, Skocpol says, they are increasing the chances that Trump will win re-election. As Democrats prepare for their second round of debates this week, I think Skocpol’s message is worth hearing.