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

That Was Then. This Is Now.

Excellent article by Dante Chinni and Sally Bronston at NBC News running through how big the swings have been this election cycle–and pretty much all in the Democrats’ favor. Nice graphics!

“The 2018 midterm terrain looks a lot different now than it did at the start of the campaigns. Races that many expected to be close, aren’t. Candidates that were assumed to be safe now find themselves in fights. And the Democrats have been the biggest beneficiaries of the changes.

What is the best option for Democratic strategy regarding the sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, now that his accuser has passed an F.B.I.-administered lie detector test? Elana Schor reports that Sen. Jeff Flake, a member of the closely divided Judiciary Committee, “flashed a yellow light Sunday night on Brett Kavanaugh’s high court bid, telling POLITICO that he won’t support advancing the nomination this week if fellow senators don’t do more to hear out a woman accusing the nominee of sexual assault more than three decades ago.” Sen. Bob Corker also supports a delay in the confirmation process. The Washington Post conservative columnist Max Boot writes, “If Republicans try to muscle Kavanaugh’s nomination through now, without any further investigation, they will be guilty of gross deflection of their duty to “advise and consent.” Given their narrow 51-49 majority, it takes only a few Republicans of conscience — paging Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowksi (Alaska), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Ben Sasse (Neb.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.) — to force the majority to do the right thing. Which is to have the FBI investigate the incident, and, if as appears likely, the accusation is found to be credible, to call both Kavanaugh and Ford to testify under oath.” Democrats do need to kep the heat on, and strongly express their opposition to a quick confirmation, especially in light of the latest allegations.

Let’s have an amen for Frank Bruni’s New York Times column, “Democrats’ Top-Secret Formula for Victory: Stop obsessing over ideology. It’s about personality.” The central point of the article is well-encapsulated in the title. After all of the theories about developing a winning formula for political campaigns have been exhausted, there is no substitute for an exciting candidate. Nothing all that new here, but Bruni does provide some well-stated insights, including “…Over and over, as we rapt observers yearn for a pattern and persuade ourselves that we’ve found one only to have it vanish before our eyes…That’s because we’re staring at the wrong thing. Intent on some ideological takeaway, we miss the human moral. This year’s victorious candidates, like so many winners before them, aren’t prevailing simply or even mainly because of the labels they’re wearing or the precise points on the political spectrum to which they can be affixed.” Bruni says of good candidates, “They’re powered by their personalities, their organizations or both. They communicate effectively. They have backgrounds that make sense to voters or temperaments that feel right to them. And they’ve devised ways to reach voters that their rivals haven’t…It’s candidates’ ability to connect and make the case.” But being a good candidate is not just about endowed personal charisma; it’s also about discipline, working hard to be an effective communicator and running a smart campaign. It’s not a 100 percent foolprooof notion — charismatic candidates sometimes get beat by dullards, as Bruni notes. All other factors being equal, however, a candidate who has a really good personality is  usually a better bet than a yawner.

Bruni cites a couple of examples to help make his point: “Did Andrew Gillum, the Democratic contender for governor in Florida, win his primary because he was the most progressive of the four main candidates? That’s a less likely explanation than two others. First, his rivals, fixated on each other, competed for and split the same territory, enabling Gillum to gobble up different ground. Second, he was an impassioned, magnetic competitor with an inspiring biography, a talent for telling it and an innovative approach.” After the horrific shootings at Parkland, FL, Gillum  communicated a sense of compassion for the victims and their families with authentic warmth and sincerity that has become all too rare among current politicians. Bruni also cites Ohio’s Sen. Sherrod Brown as an example of a progressive who also communicates an aura of integrity and dedication with “rumpled authenticity” and Beto O’Rourke, who effectively leverages his personal likeability with an even more impressive work ethic in his Texas campaign for U.S. Senate.

Noam Scheiber and Astead W. Herndon have an outstanding New York Times report on Democratic midterm prospects in a key state, entitled “In Michigan, Female Candidates Target a Key Trump Bloc: Union Voters.” An excerpt: “…Michigan Democrats, like the party’s nominee for governor, Gretchen Whitmer, are determined to recapture union voters in 2018, and in so doing show national Democrats how to retake the state’s critical electoral votes in 2020. For unions, the fall election provides a test of political strength after years of decline, and of the power of economic issues to drive their members’ votes…Michigan Democrats are now on the offensive on the economy, proposing hundreds of millions in spending on infrastructure: “Fix the damn roads!” thunders Ms. Whitmer. They rail against new taxes on pensions and vow to stand up to scofflaw corporations. They insist, à la Mr. Trump, that the state can once again produce good blue-collar jobs.”

Scheiber and Herndon continue, “In 2016 I think I had two people working with me on politics,” said Lisa Canada, the political and legislative director for the state carpenters union, referring to paid staffers. “We have 20 this year.”…All four Democratic nominees for statewide office are women, as are three of the party’s five nominees in competitive congressional races, and they are showing a knack for trying to increase the return on the labor investment in their races. Many of the candidates lighten their populist overtures with an empathy that often evades Mr. Trump — and, some Democrats say, evaded Mrs. Clinton, too…She has discussed spending billions on infrastructure and pointedly contrasts her proposals — which draw inspiration from the epic Mackinac suspension bridge — with the president’s. “At a time when some people want to build walls,” she says in her Grand Rapids lilt, “we in Michigan are going to get back to building bridges.”…Recent public polls have shown Ms. Whitmer with double-digit leads over her Republican opponent, Attorney General Bill Schuette. She also led Mr. Schuette by 22 points among union households in an early September pollcommissioned by the Detroit News…“I think she’s resonated because she’s invited labor to the table,” said Jon Brown, a construction worker and member of a local laborer’s union, citing Ms. Whitmer’s infrastructure plan.”

Margot Sanger-Katz explains why the “No. 1 Aim of Democratic Campaign Ads: Protect Pre-existing Conditions” at The Upshot: “This cycle, even Democrats running in red states are unapologetically putting health care at the center of their campaign messages. There’s a reason: Republican efforts to overhaul the health care system last year were deeply unpopular…A lawsuit brought by several states imperils the health law’s protections for people with pre-existing health conditions, the law’s most popular provision. Recent polls show growing numbers of Americans rank health care as a top issue, and coverage for pre-existing conditions as an important policy…A recent analysis from the Wesleyan Media Project showed that health care was the most common subject of televised campaign advertisements by Democrats in both the House and the Senate…(Obamacare figures in only 1 percent of Republican ads, according to the Wesleyan count.)”

Sanger-Katz presents and analyzes 7 Democratic midterm video ads that effectively target the GOP’s war on protection for pre-existing conditions, including this one:

New York Times columnist David Leonhardt cuts through the fog of simplistic slogans and generalizations and makes it plain: “For the most part, though, the Democratic agenda remains decidedly center-left: Raise taxes on the rich, and use the money to help the middle class and poor. Protect civil rights. Expand educational access. Regulate Wall Street, and fight climate change. Expand health insurance using the current system. And compromise with Republicans when necessary…The radical agenda is the Republican agenda: Make climate change worse, unlike almost every other conservative party in the world. Aggravate inequality. Sabotage health-insurance markets. Run up the deficit. Steal a Supreme Court seat. Keep dark-skinned citizens from voting. Protect Trump’s lawlessness…If you consider yourself a moderate — whether you lean slightly right or slightly left — your choice in this year’s midterms is clear…And if you consider yourself a leftist, I understand you are probably frustrated that the Democrats won’t go further. But look at the big picture. The Democratic Party may not have moved nearly as much as you would like, but the party has moved. It has adjusted its agenda in response to soaring inequality and stagnant living standards…The one mistake no voter should make is pretending that the two parties are just different versions of the same thing.”

Here’s a chart spotlighting four different midterm election forecasts by political scientists, presented by James E. Campbell, author of Polarized: Making Sense of a Divided America, at Sabato’s Crystal Ball.

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

It’s not just about the House and the Senate. The outcomes of the various governors’ and state legislative races will be absolutely crucial for our politics going. Here’s an analysis of where we are on these races with one of my favorite analysts, Henry Olsen:

“Most discussions of the midterms focus on federal races for the House and the Senate. But nearly all states hold legislative elections this year, too, and 37 states will elect governors this fall. If the negative trends apparent at the federal level hit Republicans here, too, the repercussions could be felt in the party for years.

One might think that state and federal races would have different outcomes. After all, presidents and Congress have little to do with the issues that normally dominate state-level campaigns. Nevertheless, outcomes at each level tend to run in similar directions and with roughly equivalent dimensions.

Take the GOP “wave” election of 2010. Republicans not only picked up a massive 63 House and six Senate seats; they also gained six governorships and 680 state legislative seats. Democrats celebrated similar numbers four years earlier. In 2006, a Democratic landslide saw that party gain 31 House seats, six Senate seats, six governorships, and over 300 state legislative seats. Individual races might diverge from the national trend, but a wave will sweep all before it, no matter what level the race is at.

This bodes ill for Republicans running for governor this year. In part because many of the Republicans who won in 2010 are now term-limited out of office, Republicans must defend 11 governor’s chairs without the benefit of a previously elected incumbent. RealClearPolitics rates three of those seats as leaning to the Democrats with another six rated as toss-ups, including the large states of Florida, Georgia, and Ohio. GOP incumbents are also running in seven other states that by polling or by prior voting behavior raise caution flags. RealClear rates one of them, Illinois’ Bruce Rauner, as a likely loser, while incumbents in Wisconsin (Scott Walker) and Arizona (Doug Ducey) are considered toss-ups. Should Republicans lose the four races they trail in and only split the toss-ups, that would mean a net loss of eight governorships, the largest any party has lost in one election since the GOP picked up 11 in the historic 1994 wave.

Hundreds of state legislative seats are also in play. There’s lots of debate over when a seat should be considered vulnerable, but in the current environment most observers would probably agree that any Republican-held seat carried by either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump with less than 50 percent of the vote qualifies for that distinction. A staggering 477 GOP-held statehouse seats fit these criteria. Another 202 Republican-held state Senate seats also fit the bill, though not all will be up for election because many states stagger senatorial terms. Losses of that magnitude would easily be the largest Republican losses in decades.”

Wave on, Big Blue, wave on!

In his syndicated column, “Brett Kavanaugh — and Susan Collins — better watch these seeds of a grass-roots revolt,” E. J. Dionne, Jr. reports on the uphill struggle citizens groups to persuade Sen. Susan Collins to vote against Trump’s GOP nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. Most political observers believe Collins will cave to McConnell and the GOP and vote for Kavanaugh — even though it is clear that Kavanaugh is highly likely to support gutting Roe v. Wade and affirmative action, exempt the President from any accountability arising out of the Mueller investigation, weaken worker rights and “roll back environmental regulations and the Affordable Care Act.” Voting for Kavanaugh would also require Collins to ignore clear evidence that he lied under oath during the hearings. Dionne adds that “More broadly, there is a belief that the would-be justice is primarily a partisan and an ideologue. “He’s a political animal to the core — and I say that as a political animal,” said [activist Ben] Gaines, who worked for many Democrats around the country.”

Paul Waldman explains at The Plum Line why “a Supreme Court with Kavanaugh on it could create a free-for-all when it comes to the influence of money in politics, a new era in which corruption is absolutely rampant — and completely legal…To understand why, we have to look at not just what Kavanaugh believes, but at where the court has been heading in recent years. With the court about to be dominated by a quintet of highly ideological conservatives, conservative ideas about campaign finance and about corruption could come together in a way that presents a profound threat to the integrity of the American system of government…Once Kavanaugh joins the other conservatives on the Supreme Court, we could see almost all campaign finance laws disappear. Then Republicans will declare that we’ve solved the problem of corruption in politics, because almost nothing will be against the law.”

Daniel Strauss’s Politico article, “Obama jumps into Dem fight to reclaim Ohio: Richard Cordray’s campaign for governor has become a rallying point for Democrats focused on rebuilding the party” provides insights into Democratic midterm strategy in Rust Belt. As Strauss writes, “The campaign has become a focus for national Democrats intent on rebuilding their party: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a Cordray mentor, has stumped for him, as has Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), another potential 2020 presidential candidate. Former Vice President Joe Biden will also return to Ohio to boost Cordray soon, though the specifics of his next visit have not yet come together. They are hoping to undo years of reversals for the state Democrats, who have been locked out of every statewide constitutional office since 2010 and had no leverage on the last redistricting process, allowing Republicans to cement majorities in the state legislature.” In addition to the role President Obama, Strauss explores in detil the complex political dynamics of this key governor’s race.

“In 2016, four percent of registered voters did not vote because of “registration problems,” according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data. Another three percent pointed to “transportation problems,” and two percent cited “inconvenient hours or polling places.”…Research has shown that one factor consistently linked with higher vote turnout is the ability to fix a registration issue at the time of voting. One of these registration problems is tied to an upsurge in voter purging. Across the country, the rate at which people are being purged from the voting rolls has increased substantially compared to a decade ago, according to a report from the Brennan Center published this summer. The analysis found about four million more people were purged between 2014 and 2016 than in the equivalent period between 2006 and 2008.”  — From Asma Khalid’s “Election Laws May Discourage Some From Voting, Even If They Are Allowed” at npr.og.

Paul Rosenzweig’s”Securing the Vote: A Report From the National Academies of Sciences” calls attention to an “elegant study of election security…without partisan bluster,” and cites three of it’s recommendations, including “Elections should be conducted with human-readable paper ballots.” Also, “States should mandate a specific type of audit known as a “risk-limiting” audit prior to the certification of election results. Additionally, “Internet voting should not be used at the present time, and it should not be used in the future until and unless very robust guarantees of secrecy, security, and verifiability are developed and in place.

At The New York Times, Julian E. Barnes and Nicholas Fandos discuss legislative proposals to deter foreign interference in U.S. elections, and note “Senator Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat who is vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said to truly deter Russia, the United States must make clear that election interference will have “painful consequences…Senators Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, and Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, have written a bill, the Deter Act, to impose mandatory sanctions on anyone who attacks the American election…While the executive order would primarily target the people and entities that attack the election system, lawmakers said, the Senate legislation would have wider economic sanctions targeting financial institutions, oligarchs and others.”

Fando and Barnes add that “Another bipartisan group of senators — led by Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, and Mr. Graham — have pushed for an even more aggressive sanctions package designed to impose devastating sanctions across the Russian economy pre-emptively. But it is less likely to receive serious consideration by Republican leaders in the Senate or the House…The fate of either measure ultimately rests with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader. He has not promised action but previously said it might be possible to vote on consensus legislation in October. Mr. McConnell assigned two committees to study sanctions and develop a single proposal for consideration. One of those, the Senate Banking Committee, convened a panel of experts on Wednesday to evaluate Mr. Trump’s executive action and the potential effect of targeting sectors of the Russian economy through new sanctions authorities.”

Jennifer Agiesta of CNN Politics reports that “Democrats maintain a wide lead over Republicans in the race for control of the House of Representatives, a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS finds, including a 10-point lead among those most likely to turn out this November…In a generic ballot test, 52% of likely voters back the Democratic candidate for House of Representatives in their district while 42% back the Republican. Among all registered voters, Democrats hold a 12-point margin over the GOP, suggesting preferences have not shifted much since an August CNN Poll, which did not include an assessment of likely voters…And more Americans say the country would be better off (40%) than worse off (28%) should Democrats take control of Congress in this November’s elections. That’s a wider margin that felt the nation would be better off should Republicans take control back in 2010. Only about a quarter now (27%) say it doesn’t make a difference, fewer than felt that way in 2014 or 2010, suggesting voters see this year’s contest as more consequential.”

An addendum to our staff post yesterday surveying political analyst views on Democratic prospects for winning a Senate majority in the midterms comes from Nate Silver, who writes at FiveThirtyEight that “Republicans Are Favorites In The Senate, But Democrats Have Two Paths To An Upset.” Silver notes that the FiveThirtyEight “model has Democrats as reasonably clear underdogs to take control of the Senate. Even though it’s more optimistic than the consensus about Democrats’ chances in several individual races — and even though the model is generated by the same program that gives Democrats around a 5 in 6 chance of winning the House — it nevertheless says Republicans have somewhere between a 2 in 3 and 7 in 10 chance to hold the Senate, depending on which version of our model you look at…In essence, writes Silver, “there are two ways by which Democrats might win the Senate: a macro path and a micro path.” Read Silver’s article for the detailed exploration of both paths.

There is lots of buzz recently about improving Democratic prospects for winning a majority of Senate seats in the midterm elections, and the consensus of the top political analysts is a lot brighter for Democrats than it was even a few months ago.

CNN editor at large Chris Cillizza sees the range of possibilities for Democrats between +/- 3 seats and Kyle Kondik of Sabato’s Crystal Ball has changed his election outcome estimate from “Likely Republican” to “Leans Republican.”

Of the 36 senate seats in play on November 6th, the Cook Political Report rates only 3 of the races as “Solid R,” 2 as “Likely R” and 1 as “Lean R.” The remainder range from “Solid D” (14); “Likely D” (5); “Lean D” (2); and “Toss-up” (8).

At The Princeton Election Consortium, Sam Wang writes,

Senate control is said to be a difficult challenge for Democrats. However, the eventual seat margin will be close, and the number of critical races is small. If we look at current polling margins, a swing of 3 points would be enough to put Democrats on the brink of having 51 seats. So in the Senate, Republicans have a handicap of 3 percentage points favoring them.

I should throw in here that close Senate races tend to break mostly in the same direction on Election Day. Which way they’ll break isn’t known; one way gets Democrats to 51-52 seats, and the other way gets them to 45-46 seats. It appears that Senate control could go either way.

Ruy Teixeira flags an encouraging survey reported in the conservative Weekly Standard, and notes:

Senate models are a bit thin on the ground but David Byler at the Weekly Standard has one that seems solid. Currently, he has Democratic chances of taking the Senate at 41.5 percent, quite an improvement over earlier runs of his model. This reflects continued good poll results for Democratic Senate candidates, including the many, many candidates who have to hold a seat in red states. Of course, a little better than 2 in 5 still means they’re more likely to fall short than not. But given the Senate map this year, an estimate this high is impressive.

Political analyst Stu Rothenberg sees “an almost impossible map” for Democrats.” However he believes that the GOP’s mounting problems indicate that “the Senate could be in play.” Vox’s senate analyst, Dylan Scott says “while Democrats will need a near-perfect November to win back control of the chamber, a fresh assessment of the Senate battlefield reveals that they should have several opportunities to pick up the seats they need.”

All in all, the odds still favor the Republicans to hold a senate majority, but Democrats have some good reasons to invest more resources in competitive senate races.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman answers an important question on the minds of many voters, “are Democrats really credible on health care?”

Almost five years after Obamacare went into full effect, the answer is a very clear yes. It hasn’t worked perfectly, and its successes haven’t come in quite the form its proponents expected. But it has delivered huge progress, especially in states run by politicians who are trying to make it work.

It’s worth remembering what Republicans said would happen before the A.C.A. went online: that it would fail to reduce the number of uninsured, that it would blow a giant hole in the budget, that it would lead to a “death spiral” of rising premiums and declining enrollment.

What actually happened was a dramatic fall in the uninsured, especially in those states that expanded Medicaid. The budget costs of expanding Medicaid and subsidizing other insurance have been significant, but estimates for 2019 suggest that these costs will be around $115 billion — much less than half the revenue lost due to the Trump tax cut.

Krugman concedes that premiums “rose sharply when the people signing up for those exchanges turned out to be fewer and sicker than insurers had hoped.” However, “the markets have now stabilized, with only modest premium increases for 2019 and insurers returning to the exchanges.”

In addition, “Medicaid is covering more than expected, so that overall gains in coverage have been surprisingly on target. In early 2014, the Congressional Budget Office projected that under the A.C.A., by 2018 there would be 29 million uninsured U.S. residents. The actual number is … 29 million.”

And, despite the assault on the Affordable Care Act by Trump and the Republicans, “Democrats built their system so well that it’s still standing despite everything thrown at it.” Further,

…Obamacare would be doing even better if it were run by people who weren’t trying to kill it. Look at what’s happening in New Jersey, where a Democratic governor and Legislature have used their powers to undo most of the Trumpian sabotage: 2019 premiums will actually drop 9.3 percent, even as they rise modestly in the nation as a whole.

…Republicans, on the other hand, aren’t just lying about their health plans — pretending, for example, to protect people with pre-existing conditions when they aren’t. They’ve also been utterly wrong about everything, and have learned nothing from their mistakes.

Even the conservative Democrat Joe Manchin is running strong in a state Trump won by 42 percent by attacking the Republican plan to eradicate protection for people with pre-existing conditions. As Krugman concludes, “Democrats have earned a lot of credibility on health care: They delivered what they promised, and they have showed that they can build systems that work” — in stark contrast to their GOP opponents, who can’t pass any health care measures, despite having control of the presidency and majorities of both houses of congress.

Very interesting data from a Monmouth University poll of 8 competitive CDs (CA48, PA01, PA17, NJ03, NJ11, OH12, VA10, WV03). The general take below but there is a ton of detailed data provided in the writeup. Note particularly how well Democrats are doing among white noncollege women, losing them by a mere 6 points, while totally killing it among white college women.

“These eight House districts are particularly competitive because Donald Trump’s vote share was less than Mitt Romney’s in election precincts that encompass just under half of the combined electorate. Republican House candidates are doing worse in precincts where Trump underperformed even after controlling for the partisan lean of those precincts. Furthermore, Republican House candidates are not doing as well overall in Republican precincts as Democratic candidates are doing in Democratic precincts. This performance gap currently offsets the natural GOP lean of these congressional districts.”

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

There hasn’t been much polling specifically of Latinos in the 2018 election cycle and the subsamples in most polls are small enough not to be very trustworthy. So it’s nice to see Latino Decisions out of the gate with a tracking poll of Latinos that they will do every week until the elections.

Their first poll is now available. Topline for the Democrats for the House vote is good –a 70-22 advantage among likely voters. On the less positive side, mobilization leaves something to be desired–about three-fifths say they have not been contacted yet concerning their vote. This is not an election when you want to leave any votes on the table!

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

Hillaryland Says: It’s Time to Think Big!

I thought this was really interesting. Jake Sullivan, who was senior policy adviser on Clinton’s 2016 campaign, has a lengthy article up on the Democracy Journal website where he argues strongly that Democrats should embrace big, bold policy ideas. Presumably this is indicative of how folks in that sector of the party are thinking about things these days. One of the most telling nuggets in the article is this:

“In contending with Sanders, we often fell back on the argument that his proposed agenda simply wasn’t achievable. I cheered when Hillary styled herself as a “progressive who gets things done” during the first primary debate in Las Vegas, but while it was a great debate moment, it also created a trap that became apparent as the campaign unfolded. Instead of aspiration, we gave people arithmetic: His numbers didn’t add up! This was a mistake. There was a time and place for expressing caution on the sheer magnitude of spending in Bernie’s agenda, but it should not have been our core critique.”

So clearly some serious re-thinking is going on here. What kind of re-thinking? Sullivan starts his article this way:

“When political commentators aren’t talking about Donald Trump, they are often talking about how the Democratic Party has “moved to the left.” This is often phrased as a lament, the notion being that the party has been hijacked by its progressive wing. But what if that is missing the point? What if, when it comes to economic policy at least, it’s the country’s political center of gravity that is actually shifting? That is, what if not just one party, but the American electorate as a whole is moving to embrace a more energized form of government—one that tackles the excesses of the free market and takes on big, serious challenges through big, serious legislation instead of the more restrained measures to which we’ve grown accustomed? What would that mean for Democrats?”

He answers his own question in a remarkably robust fashion:

“This essay proceeds from the premise that we have reached another turning point. Just as the Great Depression discredited the ideas of the pre-New Deal conservatives who fought for total laissez-faire outcomes in both the political branches and the courts, so the Great Recession once again laid bare the failure of our government to protect its citizens from unchecked market excess. There has been a delayed reaction this time around, but people have begun to see more clearly not only the flaws of our public and private institutions that contributed to the financial crisis, but also the decades of rising inequality and income stagnation that came before—and the uneven recovery that followed. Our politics are in the process of adjusting to this new reality. The tide is running in the other direction, and, with history serving as our guide, it could easily be a decades-long tide…

In the face of Trump, some Democrats will be skittish about embracing big, bold economic policy solutions for fear of alienating independents and moderate Republicans who can help defend our national institutions, our core values, and our democracy. What these trends suggest is that Democrats do not have to choose between shoring up the “vital center” in American politics and supporting a more vigorous national response to our economic challenges. Both are possible. Indeed, both are necessary to defeating the long-term threat of Trumpism.

Most important, the bottom line is that Democrats should not blush too much, or pay too much heed, when political commentators arch their eyebrows about the party moving left. The center of gravity itself is moving, and this is a good thing. The government’s role in checking the excesses of the free market and supporting workers and families should and will be redefined in the years ahead…..

We Democrats do need to embrace a big, bold policy agenda. We do need to heed the calls of Franklin Roosevelt, who asked us to save capitalism from its excesses, and Lyndon Johnson, who asked us to think ambitiously about how government—and yes, government programs—can help do that. But, crucially, we need to apply their principles to a new economic landscape.

What we need, ultimately, is to encourage the rise of New Old Democrats.

Here’s the old part: reclaiming a willingness to take energetic government action when the circumstances call for it, based on a respect for the free market but also a recognition that the free market alone will not serve the public interest without checks against abuse, corruption, and unacceptable levels of inequality. Roosevelt knew this as well as anyone. My hero Hubert Humphrey, another son of Minnesota, knew this too. They saw that public policy can solve these problems—that the rise of inequality and the loss of mobility is not chiefly a story of abstract “market failures,” but of self-serving actors intentionally distorting markets, and government failing to stop them.

Here are the new parts:

We need to marry the principles of Roosevelt and the ambition of Johnson with updated understandings of how the job market works, how families live, and how corporate and political power are exercised in the globalized, technology-driven landscape of the twenty-first century.”

New Old Democrats. Not sure that’ll catch on but I take his point and generally agree with it. As I do with most of the policy ideas he advances under four “Core Pillars for s New Old Democratic Platform” I was particularly taken with Pillar #3: “Tackle the geography of opportunity so that all regions experience a middle-class revival”. This is absolutely essential given current economic trends and has not, until very recently, gotten enough attention from Democrats. As Sullivan notes:

“Old Democrats thought a lot about communities that had been left behind in the face of social and technological change. Roosevelt invested in rural electrification. Bobby Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson fought urban and rural poverty. Today, the geography of opportunity should be a central focus once again—specifically, the disparity in growth and dynamism between cities and rural communities, the urban core and wealthier neighborhoods, the suburbs and the exurbs, the coastal metropolises and mid-sized cities in the middle of America.”

Amen to that. Exactly which big ideas Democrats should be pushing to address this big problem–and others–is a reasonable subject for debate and I think it’s fair to say Sullivan does not have the definitive take. But that’s fine. These are the debates Democrats should be having in the run-up to 2020 rather than the endless and rather pointless debates about base mobilization vs. reaching swing voters (Spoiler alert: you need to do both!) Sullivan points the way to a healthier and way more interesting and important discussion.

Sullivan is not unaware that some will see his recommendations as some sort of dismissal of what we might loosely call “identity politics”. He urges us not get dragged down into that kind of argument. Instead his view is that:

“[T]he only way out is through. Hillary Clinton was fundamentally right when she said that we need to deal with all of the barriers holding people back—not just the economic and political barriers, but obstacles of racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination. We should not be apologetic about that, or tiptoe around it. The task—and where we fell short—is to figure out how to speak honestly about these barriers in a way that allows everyone to see themselves as part of a common effort, a shared effort, an effort that benefits the whole country. While I disagree with those who argue that Democrats should de-emphasize or outright avoid what some see as “inconvenient” issues touching on race or identity or immigration, I take their point that an explicit list of groups in a candidate’s stump speech can end up dividing more than uniting. Which brings me back to Hubert Humphrey. We need “happy warriors”—strongly crusading against injustice and disadvantages and doing so in a way that is hopeful and summons us to shared purpose.”

Sign me up!

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

Democrats’ hopes are high that two Sunbelt prizes that seemed out of reach to them not long ago might fall to them this year: the governorship of Georgia and Ted Cruz’s Senate seat in Texas. Just in the last few days, both the Washington Post and New York Times have run detailed articles about each of these contests.

So can the Democrats do it? They’re running strong in both places and enthusiasm among Democrats and their core constituencies seems to be high. That is very important obviously and they can’t win without it.