In his Washington Post Politics article, “Why political independents are political independents” Philip Bump writes:

A frequently observed trend in American politics is the rise of self-identified independents. In Gallup’s most-recent estimation, 42 percent of Americans say that they’re independent and not members of either political party. The last time more people identified as a member of a party than as independents was in 2012.

It’s a weird trend in a moment of spiking partisanship, but it’s easy to see how the two could overlap. As partisans become more partisan, it drives some people away from parties entirely. Those independents aren’t then independent in the sense that they vote for members of each party; most independents vote consistently with one party or the other. In the vernacular, they’re leaners — they lean to the Democrats or the Republicans….In Gallup’s latest poll, only 7 percent of independents don’t lean to one party or the other.

In other words, most “Independents” are either Republican-lite or Democrat-lite. Some of the 7 percent of voters who are genuine Independents are part of the “swing voter” category. Even though they call themsleves Independents, they may cast a ballot for a Democrat or Republican on occasion. Others vote for third party candidates. Even though they voted in the last election, some may not vote at all in the next one.

But the swing voter category is larger than Independents because it includes some who self-i.d. as either Republican or Democrat. but may occasionally or frequently vote for the other party, such as many “Reagan Democrats.” Swing voters are the primary targets of campaign because they are more likely to be genuine “persuadable” voters. Significant Democratic Party resources are directed toward winning back Reagan Democrats, a primary battelfield of the struggle for hearts and minds.

If you are running a political campaign, the most relevant way to look at the percentage of the ‘Independents’ electoral segment is to use it as a rough guideline for understanding your electorate. It’s hard to target them for special appeals, and it wouldn’t be a cost-effective use of your time. Keep them in mind in advertising, but don’t spend too much time and effort locating them.

For Democrats, swing voters are more of interest, especially since ample polling data indicates that many voters who identify themselves as “conservatives” hold liberal views on a number of issues. Swing voters include some Independents, but also Dem and GOP partisans, and some who don’t identify as anything. But not all swing voters are persuadable. Some have already made up their minds, or are otherwise uninterested in  new information, arguments and appeals.

If there is a ‘holy grail’ of Amerian politics, it is the elusive persuadable swing voter (PSV). They decide the outcomes of some elections, particularly in a highly-partisan, competitive political environment, in which Democrats and Republicans are evenly matched – like we so often have today. Perhaps the most effective way to find them is to knock on as many front doors as possible and talk with people, which campaigns should do for other reasons as well — like shoring up base voters. After writing down their contact info, get back to them with carefully-calibrated “touches.”

‘Touches’ can be tricky. As Beth Donahower notes in her post, “Get Out the Vote and Super Voters,” at Political Resources Online:

How many times have you heard that you need to contact targeted voters six times, seven times, nine times, or more? These numbers, which are different based upon who you talk to, are at best derived from the average number of touches that you need to persuade a voter and get the voter to the polls. The truth is you don’t need to contact targeted voters a specific number of times to win their support and ensure that they are going to the polls on Election Day; you need to contact them as much or as little as necessary to persuade them and get them out to vote.

The challenge is understanding groups of voters well enough to know what that necessary number is. It could be zero touches, seven, or twenty. Some of your targeted voters need a lot of attention and others, like super voters, you can skip your traditional GOTV calls and mail.

The same principle applies to your scripts and messaging. The better you understand each segment of your targeted voters, the better you can tailor your communication with them. In the case of super voters, leverage your communication with them by tapping into their political prowess and their connections in the community. It’s almost condescending for someone to tell a super voter who has voted every election for the last thirty years that they vote at the local fire hall. They know that! Instead, tap into the intelligence that they can provide to the campaign and turn their interest in politics into volunteerism.

Candidates and campaigns should appeal to the elusive PSVs with ads, media interviews, statements, debates and policies. They can be important in a close race, but they are a small group, compared to base voters, who are easier to reach with specific appeals and the all-important late reminders to vote. Each campaign will have to decide on the wisest allocation of resources to reach PSVs vs. their base. But every winning candidate has to appeal to both groups.

Expect plenty of articles in early June marking the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. But Eric Alterman’s “What Can Democrats Learn From Robert F. Kennedy’s Presidential Campaign? Liberals need to find a way to appeal to white working-class voters without betraying their principles” at The Nation is of particular interest now, as Democratic midterm campaigns hit high gear. As Altman writes in the lede, “Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, inspired an important debate with his recent report “The Inclusive Populism of Robert F. Kennedy.” In The New York Times, he argues that Kennedy’s 82-day 1968 presidential campaign provides a model for liberals who seek to recapture the allegiance of white, working-class voters and “forge a powerful coalition” based on a “liberalism without elitism and a populism without racism.” It really is a good time for Dems to understand the elements of RFK’s unique appeal, and Altman’s article illuminates the power of ‘inclusive populism.”

In his cnbc.com article, “Democrats bet on moderates, military veterans to win in GOP House districts, but the strategy faces big tests as the left pushes more liberal stances,” Jacob Pramuk spotlights two promising Democrats running in potential red-to-blue congressional districts, Brendan Kelley (IL-12) and Gina Ortiz Jones (TX-23) as prime examples of candidates well-matched for the unique features of their districts. Pramuk adds that “Of the 33 challengers getting the DCCC’s organizational and fundraising support as part of its “red to blue” effort, at least a dozen have some military or national security experience…Democrats often try to run candidates with military or national security backgrounds to counter a GOP narrative that the party is weak on defense or crime, said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Democratic National Committee member. That experience is “particularly valuable” in swing districts where Democrats will need voters to cross ideological lines, she said.”

Other insights from Pramuk’s post: “”No side has ever lost an election because of too much energy, and it’s clear that Democrats have all the energy,” said Tyler Law, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC. “Ultimately, robust primaries can be very helpful for candidates, especially those who haven’t run for office before…House Republicans won’t say it publicly but they woke up after the special election terrified by the fact that we have a huge amount of Democratic candidates who uniquely fit their districts and have deep records of service,” said the DCCC’s Law. “But that’s not all that keeps them up at night – Republicans know that their stale playbook backfired, particularly on taxes, and now they’re stuck without a single popular accomplishment to campaign on.”

Megan Bernan and Lydia Saad report the latest findings from the Gallup Poll concerning global warming and partisanship, including: “While 82% of Democrats think global warming has already begun to happen, only 34% of Republicans agree. Rather, 57% of Republicans think it will not happen in their lifetime (25%) or will “never happen” (32%)…About seven in 10 Republicans (69%) think the seriousness of global warming is exaggerated in the news, 15% think it is generally correct and 15% say it is generally underestimated. Democrats, however, are much more likely to think the seriousness of global warming is underestimated (64%) or correct (32%), and just 4% say it is exaggerated…Four in five Republicans do not think global warming will pose a serious threat to them in their lifetime; two-thirds of Democrats think it will.”

According to a new CNBC All-America Economic survey, “the data show that the tax cuts have not been felt, at least not yet,” reports Steve Liesman. “The poll was conducted March 17-20, which should be well enough into the year for Americans to notice a change in their withholding taxes. But that’s not the case…Just 32 percent of the public reports having more take home pay because of the tax cuts, including only 48 percent of Trump supporters and 35 percent of the middle class. More than half say they see no change in their paychecks and 16 percent are unsure. It could be that more time is needed for people to notice the change. It could also be that the tax cut provided too small a break to be meaningful to many Americans.”

Regarding the controversy about adding a question about a respondent’s citizenship status in the 2020 census, E. J. Dionne, Jr. explains the problem succinctly: “There’s a reason why the formal census has not asked about citizenship since 1950, and why it is an especially bad idea to reintroduce it now….Response rates to the census in lower-income neighborhoods have long been a challenge, and immigrants in the country illegally have worried that answering the questionnaire could endanger their status, despite legal guarantees of confidentiality. Even legal immigrants have shared these worries….The undercounting of immigrants would create a twofold injustice,” explains E. J. Dionne, Jr. in his syndicated column. “It would tilt representation at all levels of government away from places with large populations of Latinos and other immigrants (often Metropolitan and Democratic-leaning) and overrepresent white, rural regions and states. And it would short-change undercounted areas when it comes to federal funds, since many programs operate on formulas based on the census…In the Trump era, there is an irony here since one legitimate concern in locales with high levels of recent immigration is that their public services are often strained. Cutting money from such jurisdictions only increases the burdens on local taxpayers, native born and immigrant.”

At The Atlantic, Ronald Brownstein writes, “All the elections held since 2016 have signaled that Republicans are facing elevated turnout among Democratic partisans eager to hobble Trump. The refusal to challenge Trump—particularly as he rages against the Russia investigation—enhances that risk for Republicans. Their approach threatens to persuade less partisan voters that they need a Democratic House (and perhaps Senate) to impose any limits on a president who daily redefines the words “mercurial,” “belligerent,” and “volatile…One group has emerged as especially alienated from the president: college-educated white women. The group ordinarily leans Democrat, but only slightly: Since 1992, Democrats have never carried more than 52 percent of their votes in House elections, and Hillary Clinton won 51 percent of them in 2016. However, this week’s NBC/WSJ poll found that 63 percent of them now disapprove of Trump and 62 percent intend to vote Democratic in November.”

Lachlan Markay and Sam Stein of CNN report on Tom Steyer’s “impeachment crusade,” the activities of his “foremost political vehicle, NextGen Climate Action,” and how his involvement might impact the midterm elections. Markay and Stein note that NextGen “has raised more than $16 million during the 2018 election cycle. And more than half of those funds have been passed along to other groups or spent on political activity in support of specific candidates…The group has donated millions more to leading left-wing political organizations, including prominent Democratic groups such as opposition research group American Bridge 21st Century, labor union-backed super PAC for Our Future, and, most recently, a $1.5 million contribution to a new state-level political outfit called State Victory Action…NextGen Rising, the youth turnout entity housed in one of Steyer’s nonprofit groups, has been highly active in 10 states, including the crucial battlegrounds of Florida, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Virginia.” While many Democrats worry that the impeachment initiative could backfire, as it did with President Clinton, others argue that calling attention to Trump’s impeachable offenses has helped position Democrats as a clear alternative for the midterms.

The pivotal role labor unions played in helping to elect Conor Lamb brings a reminder that unions are one of the most important elements of a winning Democratic coalition, and a healthy labor movement is critical for Democratic prospects. “Today, both the Gallup and the Pew polls show public support for unions at its highest level in years: 61 percent at Gallup; 60 percent at Pew, a good 20 to 35 percentage points higher than the approval ratings of President Trump and the Republican Congress,” Harold Meyerson writes in The American Prospect.  “Among Americans under 30, unions’ approval rating is a stratospheric 76 percent. As was the case in the 1930s, pro-union sentiment has grown only after the recovery was well under way…Unions’ new members are not merely younger; they also are increasingly either professional or technical workers. In 2003, 34 percent of all union members were professionals or techs; today, that figure has risen to 42 percent…Should the Democrats recapture the federal government after the 2020 elections, they will need to do something that no Democratic Congress has mustered the will to do in the last 70 years: Change labor law to bolster workers’ right to organize—and, if the Democrats can figure out how to do so, do the same for workers who are independent contractors and temps. They will have strong public backing to make such changes. The anti-plutocratic, pro-democratic politics of the young in particular apply not just to the polity, but to the workplace as well.”

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

How important should the issue of education be to the left? I’d say very important indeed: the provision of more and more widely-distributed educational opportunity is absolutely central to the life-chances and economic mobility of the working and middle classes, for whom the left presumably stands. Making early childhood education available for all is part of this, as is more effective elementary and secondary education and much easier access to a college education.

A sign in the Atlanta March for Our Lives  (public domain photo)

David Weigel has an encouraging article at PowerPost, “Democrats’ message at gun-control rallies: Do what the students say,” which shows why Democratic candidates are in a good position to benefit from the burgeoning gun safety movement. Weigel notes that “politicians, most of them Democrats, cheered them on from the crowd. Democratic leaders from both houses of Congress participated in the marches, along with dozens of colleagues and candidates who are running for office in 2018. Their message: Listen to the students, and do what they say…Chants of “vote them out” rang in Washington and at other marches…Democrats were more outspoken about what they wanted: legislation to tighten background checks, restrict the sales of some magazines, and a restored ban on “assault weapons…On Twitter, congressional Democrats shared messages of support, videos of the crowds they saw, and the names of gun-control bills they wanted to pass.”

From Steve Peoples and Emily Swanson of the Associated Press: “Support for tougher gun control laws is soaring in the United States, according to a new poll that found a majority of gun owners and half of Republicans favor new laws to address gun violence in the weeks after a Florida school shooting left 17 dead and sparked nationwide protests…The poll, conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, found that nearly 7 in 10 adults now favor stricter gun control measures. That’s the strongest level of support since The Associated Press first asked the question five years ago. The new poll also found that nearly half of Americans do not expect elected officials to take action…Overall, 69 percent of Americans think gun laws in the United States should be made stricter. That’s up from 61 percent who said the same in October of 2016 and 55 percent when the AP first asked the question in October of 2013. Overall, 90 percent of Democrats, 54 percent of gun owners and 50 percent of Republicans now favor stricter gun control laws…Sixty percent believe that making it harder to legally obtain a gun would result in fewer mass shootings; just 49 percent said the same in the 2016 poll…7 in 10 favor a nationwide ban on devices known as “bump stocks” that allow semi-automatic guns to function like automatic guns…Nearly 6 in 10 favor a nationwide ban on AR-15-style rifles.”

In his syndicated column, “The March of the Hope-Mongers,”  E. J. Dionne, Jr. notes, “To begin with, Saturday’s marches achieved something that had never been accomplished before. Guns have long been a voting issue for those who insist that any and every restriction on firearms is a danger to freedom. These marches finally established guns as a voting issue for those who (as the signs carried by demonstrators declared in various ways) place the desire to save innocent lives ahead of preserving unlimited access to weapons…The unmistakably political character of this movement is another change. No phony bipartisanship. No pretending that everyone approaches this issue with goodwill. Thus the importance of “Vote them out.” Thus the imperative of casting the NRA as the adversary and all who welcome its money and support as complicit…this march established the gun safety alliance as multiracial and intersectional, reaching far beyond its traditional base among suburban white liberals…On a crisp and beautiful spring day, we witnessed a new dawn in the struggle against gun violence.”

But NYT’s Margot Sanger-Katz reports that “David Farmer, who led the Maine effort for universal background checks in 2016, said that supporters of gun rights can be particularly persuasive once a concrete proposal is unveiled. In Maine, polling support for the measure declined between introduction and the final vote, before failing, 52-48…We know for a fact we lost the argument at the kitchen table and the bar and the bowling alley,” he said. “…Gun enthusiasts were talking to their friends and relatives and neighbors. They felt about it in a way that was so passionate that they won those one-on-one encounters, and they were very successful in bringing in people to their side.”..The enthusiasm of gun rights activists doesn’t show up just in personal conversations. Over the last few decades, they have been more likely to speak to their legislators or give money to gun-related political groups, according to research from the Pew Research Center. Those actions have sent a signal to legislators that there is robust opposition even to laws that show strong public support in polls.”

Here’s a revealing nugget from The Daily Beast: “Rep. Ryan Costello (R-PA) announced that he will not seek re-election in 2018 due to the “political environment,” according to an interview with The Delaware County Daily Times. Costello claimed that the “deeply personal decision” was rooted in today’s political climate, saying that “it’s very difficult to move forward in a constructive way” with a “very angry environment,” and “hate” from the left. Costello’s 6th District was recently redrawn after the state’s Supreme Court found the congressional map to be in violation of the Pennsylvania’s constitution. With the new boundaries, the district is more Democratic than it was before.”

In his Plum Line post, “Why is Trump raging about the budget? Because Democrats got most of what they wanted,” Paul Waldman provides a list of “some of the ways Democrats won out in this [Ominibus spending] bill, despite being in the minority in both houses.” Waldman adds “Yes, there are some things in there that Republicans wanted. They boosted the defense budget to $700 billion and threw money at some other of their priorities, such as “abstinence-only” education. But when it comes to cutting domestic spending — which nearly all Republicans say they want to do — they took a pass…Why? The simple reason is that they’re afraid. They understand all too well that, while voters might say they like “small government” in the abstract, voters also really like nearly all the things government does. And when you start cutting those programs, there’s a backlash. With an election coming less than eight months from now, the last thing they need is to provoke controversies over slashing important and popular programs…Republicans know full well that their agenda, and even their entire ideological approach to governing, is one that the American public just doesn’t share. They have complete control of government, and they aren’t willing to put their beliefs into practice.”

So what is the lesson of Rep. Daniel Lipinski’s narrow win over the more liberal Marie Newman in the Democratic primary for IL-3 ? At Post Politics David Weigel explores some reasons: “Lipinski, who proudly touted his “F” rating from the National Rifle Association, offered just enough Democrats a trustworthy brand and some coherence on their issues…Lipinski won precincts in the city of Chicago by a landslide, a victory for that rattled but resilient Democratic Party machine. But Newman won the suburbs, in a race her supporters were happy to describe as the party’s past against its ideological future…Newman did not run against Lipinski as a superior legislator. She ran as an avatar for a new suburban politics: pro-abortion rights, pro-gay rights, pro-immigration and, above all, for government investment in social welfare…“Look, this was a Democratic primary, and critical forces in the labor movement stayed with the incumbent,” said Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), who endorsed Newman.” With Lipinski’s narrow win over a newcomer, progressive Democratic candidates are not likely to get  discouraged.

Perry Bacon, Jr. and Dhrumil Mehta of FiveThirtyEight share some data about the current demographic profile of the Democratic party: “According to Pew, 33 percent of self-identified Democrats¹ are whites without a four-year college degree. They represent a larger cohort in the Democratic Party than whites with a four-year degree (26 percent), nonwhites without a four-year degree (28 percent) and nonwhites with a four-year degree (12 percent). Yes, President Trump carried non-college-educated white voters easily in 2016; the exit polls suggest Hillary Clinton won only about 30 percent of these voters. But, because they’re such a huge portion of the U.S. electorate overall (44 percent, according to Pew) that’s enough to make non-college-educated whites a big share of the Democratic flock…And while the percentage of Democrats who are unaffiliated with any religion is growing and that group now makes up a third of the party, the majority of Democrats consider themselves Christians. And it’s not just black and Hispanic Democrats who account for the party’s churchgoing contingent: White Democrats who belong to “mainline” denominations, such as certain types of Presbyterians and Lutherans (12 percent), white Catholics (10 percent) and white evangelicals (7 percent) together form a is sizable percentage of the party — almost as large as the unaffliliated bloc. In terms of ideology, 46 percent of Democrats identify as liberal, the highest number Pew has found for that label since at least 2000. That’s a plurality, but it’s still a minority — Democrats who describe themselves as either moderate (37 percent) or conservative (15 percent) together form a slim majority of the party, according to the Pew poll…Young voters may tilt heavily Democratic, but nearly half of Democrats (47 percent) are 50 or older.”

Today’s crowded news cycle included the death of former Georgia governor and senator Zell Miller. Because many people from outside his native state have a limited view of his career, which I observed from up close, I wrote an assessment for New York:

Most news consumers remember Zell Miller, if they remember him at all, for his abrasive attacks on John Kerry — the presidential nominee of the party to which Miller had belonged for his entire, long life — at the 2004 Republican National Convention. Older folk may remember his keynote address at the 1992 Democratic Convention that nominated his close friend Bill Clinton.

People in his home state of Georgia are probably aware of additional aspects of Miller’s career, including his many years in elected office (he was lieutenant governor from 1975 until 1991, and governor from 1991 to 1999, before an appointed stint in the Senate from 2000 until 2005). They also know about his legacy initiative, the much-praised and imitated lottery-supported HOPE Scholarship program, which made college affordable for many hundreds of thousands of young Georgians while boosting academic standards at the state’s public colleges and universities by getting talented kids to stay in-state.

The length of Miller’s time in the public spotlight, and the wildly varying directions it took him, have often been encapsulated by the nickname he acquired from critics early on: “Zig-Zag Zell.” And the taunt goes back a lot further than his bookend Democratic and Republican convention addresses. Early on Miller ran twice for Congress in his native North Georgia mountains as an opponent of civil-rights legislation (a posture for which he later apologized), and then served as chief of staff for the state’s infamous segregationist governor Lester Maddox. But by 1974, Miller had managed to reframe himself as a relatively progressive Democrat in running for lieutenant governor, and by 1980 was most definitely the “liberal” candidate challenging the old reformed segregationist Herman Talmadge (losing in a Democratic runoff).

Elected governor in 1990 by running to the left of former ambassador and Atlanta mayor Andrew Young and future governor Roy Barnes, Miller had a reasonably progressive record centered on HOPE and unprecedented appointments of women and minorities to executive and judicial offices. After his association with Clinton very nearly earned him defeat in 1994 (his Republican opponent ran hundreds of ads featuring Miller’s Democratic Convention speech, particularly the line, delivered in Zell’s mountain twang: “BILL CLINTON FEELS YORE PAIN”), he lost his zest for national Democratic politics. He was settling into multiple university teaching gigs and political retirement until he shocked most people he knew by accepting a Senate appointment when Paul Coverdell died in 2000.

No one was more shocked than I was, as his former (from 1992 through 1994) federal-state relations director, who had accompanied him to Washington often enough to understand his intense antipathy to the city and its culture. It surprised me less when he hated the Senate, and began lashing out at his Senate Democratic colleagues and the party to which he nominally owed allegiance. In 2003, he published a strange memoir (titled, for maximum book sales to conservatives, A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat), which enveloped a proud account of his own progressive record in brief but quote-worthy attacks on Democrats. Soon afterwards, he completed his apostasy with his RNC speech embracing George W. Bush and savaging his former colleague John Kerry.

For a while there, Miller was like fellow arch-Appalachian Andrew Johnson reincarnated, turning on former friends and embracing former enemies with equal passion. It seemed there was no GOP candidate he wasn’t willing to support, the nadir probably being his establishment of a group called Democrats for Santorum, just as the right-wing senator was going down the tubes in the 2006 elections in Pennsylvania.

But in the last few years, as his health declined and he became more distant from politics, the fiery mountaineer seemed to mellow. He mended fences with old Democratic friends and advisers James Carville and Paul Begala (whom he first introduced to Bill Clinton). And in his last major political endorsement, in 2014, he supported Democrat Michelle Nunn’s Senate campaign.

You can think of that as a final “zig-zag,” or as a bit of a homecoming. I personally think it reflected a complicated and conflicted man who often regretted his own political impulses, and had more of a sense of humor about it all than most people realized.

I had some evidence for that suspicion. Back when it appeared, I wrote a review of A National Party No More that basically suggested Miller had lost his bearings after going to the Senate. The title was “Zell Bent.” A few months later a friend who had visited his Senate office brought me a handwritten note from my former boss (who was normally proper but not affectionate towards staff) that read: “Your review was fair and honest, and I remain your friend and admirer.” And he signed it “Zell Bent.”

He was one of a kind, and should be remembered for more than his zig-zags.

At The Weekly Standard, David Byler addresses the question, “Can Sherrod Brown Take Back the Working Class Vote in Ohio? His Senate race is a test of whether Obama-Trump voters are reliable Republicans.” Byler writes that “For decades, Ohio has been a political bellwether—a quadrennial swing state that often voted for the winning presidential candidate. But in 2016, something odd happened—Ohio jerked sharply to the right, giving now President Trump an eight-point win despite his two-point national popular vote loss. Some Republicans hoped that Trump’s win was a sign of permanent shift that would allow them to unseat progressive Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in 2018…But a new Baldwin Wallace poll is throwing some cold water on those hopes…Baldwin Wallace found that Brown leads two possible Republican challengers, Jim Renacci and Mike Gibbons, by 12 and 10 points respectively…According to the poll, 13 percent of Trump voters favor Brown. Some of those voters may be the much discussed Obama-voting white working class Democrats that Trump won over in 2016. Ohio is flush with those voters…More broadly, it might be worth thinking of these Obama-Trump voters not as reliable Republicans but as possible swing voters. They have, after all, swung from Obama to Trump recently and have reasons to vote for either party (cultural commonality with Republicans and economic agreement with Democrats).”

Yet more evidence that voter enthusiasm is high among rank and file Democrats. “Democrats turned out for Illinois’ primary in higher numbers than the left-leaning state has seen for a midterm election in more than a decade, deciding several hotly contested races and signaling the November election could be even tougher than usual for the GOP,” report Sara Burnett and Sarah Zimmerman of Associated Press. “More than 1.2 million people voted in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. That was nearly double the number who cast Republican primary ballots and a roughly 25 percent increase over 2010, the last time Democrats had a competitive gubernatorial primary.”

The gang at FiveThirtyEight addresses a question of interest to political strategy wonks and Democratic headhunters looking for potential senate candidates in 2020: “Which U.S. House Race Is The Best 2018 Bellwether?” At one point Clare Malone makes the case for CA-45: “It’s held by Republican Mimi Walters, but Hillary Clinton won it by 5 percentage points in 2016. It’s in the general Los Angeles area, and it has the suburban voter types who I think are the sort that we’ve seen be more persuadable to the Democratic side in the special elections we’ve had since President Trump’s election. I’m interested in that particular group of voters this year and think the California 45th would give me a decent handle on them if it were the only race I were allowed to know the result of.” Nathaniel Rakich agrees with Malone that CA-45 is “the ideal test case” for guaging college-educated voter trends. Other districts noted in the article include ME-2, IL-6, TX-32, TX-7, CA-25, NY-19, OH-12, KY-6 and VA-10.

In her Newsweek article, “We need Stronger Labor Unions to protect the Middle Class,” Sharon Block, executive director of the Labor and Worklife program at Harvard Law and a former member of the NLRB,  shares some disturbing statistics: “Its failure can be summed up in one surprising statistic : the percentage of American workers who are members of unions is lower now than before the NLRA passed. ..Think about that; workers were more likely to be union members (13.2 percent) when they had no right to do so than they are now (10.7 percent) after more than 80 years of having a federally protected right. This decline is having a dramatic effect on all American workers – because the decline in union density suppresses wages for all workers, it accounts for about one-third of income inequality over the past several decades.” Block suggests amending The National Labor Relations Act, which “pre-empts ” – any state or local law that even arguably affects the rights covered by federal law…One big way to change labor law would be to allow states and even cities to enact their own rules for the future of the labor movement.”

Syndicated columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. reports on “the outrage created by the invasion of an estimated 50 million Facebook accounts for the ultimate benefit of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign,” and adds, “we have a right to worry about the ability of a researcher to use voluntary answers to a survey of 270,000 Facebook users to “scrape” information on 50 million people, later used by Trump’s campaign. We have a right to be outraged about Facebook’s failure to inform users that their data had been harvested. “They keep saying, ‘Trust us, we can take care of our own people and our own website,’ ” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “Well, that’s not true.” She and Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., have called for Judiciary Committee hearings, and Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia also called on Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Congress.” It’s one thing for a political campaign to have your phone number, Dionne argues. “But no campaign is permitted access to your hopes, fears, worries, passions or day-to-day business,” which they can get from you Facebook posts.

The Trump Administration’s failure to address the crisis in Puerto Rico with a serious relief plan could have some unintended consequences that backfire badly. As Manuel Madrid writes in The American Prospect,  “Clustered along Florida’s I-4 corridor, a political bellwether for the state, Puerto Ricans in central Florida are increasingly considered a counterweight to the state’s Republican-leaning Cuban American population, over half of whom voted for Donald Trump. In the wake of Hurricane Maria, a state-provided count claimed that the number of Puerto Ricans who had settled in Florida by December 2017 could be as high as 280,000—a figure that has since been questioned by experts. A newer estimate from University of Florida economists, using school enrollments and requests for state aid as a guide, put the total closer to just 50,000. But this number could grow. Recently, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at the City University of New York released a study projecting that Puerto Rico could lose as many as 470,335 residents between 2017 and 2019. If recent trends serve as any guide, many if not most of those migrants will end up in Florida.”…“Very soon, the Puerto Rican vote will be in the driver’s seat in Florida,” says Garces of Mi Familia Vota, one of the Florida groups in discussion with the DNC. “But this work is year-round, it won’t be solved in one election cycle or just on even years.”

The appointment of John Bolton as Trump’s national security advisor can only signal an even more contentious and belligerent era for U.S. foreign policy. Heather Hurlbert explains why in her article, “John Bolton’s Incompetence May Be More Dangerous Than His Ideology” at New York Magazine: “…He seems to relish the role, going out of his way to argue that the Iraq War wasn’t really a failure, calling for U.S.-led regime change in Iran and preventive war against North Korea, and writing the foreword for a book that proclaimed President Obama to be a secret Muslim. He is a profoundly partisan creature, having started a super-PAC whose largest donor was leading Trump benefactor Rebekah Mercer and whose provider of analytics was Cambridge Analytica, the firm alleged to have improperly used Facebook data to make voter profiles, which it sold to the Trump and Brexit campaigns, among others. Recently Bolton’s statements have grown more extreme, alarming centrist and conservative national security professionals along with his longtime liberal foes.”

Geoffrey Skelley shares the good news at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Gov. Bruce Rauner (R-IL) endured a difficult night on Tuesday. Although he won his party’s primary to earn a reelection shot in November, the contest in some ways confirmed his overall weakness as the most endangered incumbent Republican governor facing the voters in 2018. As such, the Crystal Ball is moving the Illinois gubernatorial contest from Toss-up to Leans Democratic, the first time in the 2018 cycle that we have rated an incumbent U.S. senator, U.S. House member, or governor as an underdog for reelection. Rauner’s vulnerabilities are two-fold: his party base is not solidly behind him — the GOP primary made this abundantly clear — and he faces an energized Democratic Party in what is typically a blue state….With our ratings change, [Democratic nominee J. B.] Pritzker starts the general election campaign with an edge over Rauner. On top of Rauner’s intraparty problems,..At the starting gun, Pritzker holds an early advantage.”

Few will be shocked by the headline of Margot Sanger-Katz’s, “Getting Sick Can Be Really Expensive, Even for the Insured” in The New York Times. But her findings in the article helps to explain why health care reform remains a leading priority for many voters in 2018, particularly high-turnout seniors. As Sanger-Katz notes, “New research shows that for a substantial fraction of Americans, a trip to the hospital can mean a permanent reduction in income. Some people bounce right back, but many never work as much again. On average, people in their 50s who are admitted to the hospital will experience a 20 percent drop in income that persists for years. Over all, income losses dwarfed the direct costs of medical care…On average, uninsured people in the study owed the hospital $6,000, compared with only $300 for those with insurance. But the average decline in income for both groups was much larger — an average earnings hit of $11,000 by the third year. Much of that average — around 60 percent — came from people who never returned to work at all…To the authors, the lesson of the paper is that standard health insurance isn’t enough — policymakers need to think about ways to better protect people against the income risks that accompany illness.” Clearly America’s health security system should include better wage replacement insurance, sick leave provisions or and broader disability insurance — reforms that could prove popular with senior voters and thise with chronic disabilities.

In watching the ever-changing Senate landscape for this November, an unexpected development from West Virginia caught my eye. Here’s my explanation from New York:

Of all the “Trump Ten” Democratic senators from states carried by the president in 2016 who are facing reelection this November, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin is fighting the strongest MAGA tide. Trump won his highest percentage in the Mountain State, defeating Hillary Clinton by a 69/26 margin. Enthusiasm for the 45th president in West Virginia has not flagged; according to Gallup, his average job approval rating in the state during 2017 was 61 percent — again, the highest in the country.

So despite Manchin’s popularity in the state (his job approval ratio as of the end of 2017, according to Morning Consult, was 52/36), he attracted two A-list Republican opponents: U.S. Representative Evan Jenkins, who represents coal country’s Third Congressional District, and Attorney General Pat Morrisey. But as a May 8 primary approaches, it’s a third candidate who has all the momentum and is seriously worrying Republicans: former mine owner Dan Blankenship. A prominent figure in West Virginia economic and political life for years, Blankenship gained national notoriety during his prosecution by the Justice Department for his alleged role in a 2010 mine explosion in West Virginia that killed 29 workers. He was acquitted of the felony charges the Feds wanted, but was convicted on a misdemeanor charge of conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards, and served a year in a federal prison in California.

Now Blankenship has launched an unlikely Senate bid, which appears largely designed to reboot his brand. Thanks to his high name ID, his wealth, and his willingness to go after his GOP opponents, he’s soon become a formidable candidate, as Politico reports:

“Blankenship’s rise has been driven in part by his self-financed TV ads. Since launching his campaign in late November, Blankenship has spent over $1.1 million on roughly a dozen commercials, according to media buying totals, far surpassing his opponents. Morrisey has so far spent nothing on TV ads and Jenkins only about $38,000.

“Blankenship has used the ads to paint his rivals as insufficiently conservative, blasting Jenkins over his positions on Obamacare and climate change, and Morrisey on abortion. He’s positioned himself as an unshakable ally of President Donald Trump, who received 68 percent of the vote in the state.”

Jenkins is somewhat vulnerable as a former longtime Democratic state legislator who only became a Republican in 2013 when he decided to run for Congress. And Blankenship has gone after Morrisey for his law firm’s links to pharmaceutical companies, and his wife’s law firm’s representation of Planned Parenthood.

Objective public polls in this contest are hard to come by, but the consensus is that the race has become a close three-way fight. A new Morrisey-commissioned poll shows Jenkins dropping into third place behind Blankenship, who is right behind Morrisey.

A Manchin–Blankenship general election would be nasty and personal. The senator has said of the mine owner: “I believe Don has blood on his hands.” And Blankenship has charged that Manchin, who was governor at the time of the mine explosion, conspired with Barack Obama (not a popular figure in West Virginia) to send him to the hoosegow.

National Republicans understandably fear that this kind of grudge match would move a key Senate race away from the partisan and ideological issues where they have a big advantage in West Virginia. And even if Blankenship fades before May 8, he’s doing some damage to the other two candidates.

West Virginians seem split over Blankenship’s culpability in the death of the miners; their tendency to forgive him reflects the ancient dependence of the state on vanishing coal jobs and their defensiveness about federal efforts to regulate the industry. But if Blankenship makes it through the GOP primary, voters will have to come to grips with his decidedly mixed legacy.

And Joe Manchin would not be the only candidate with a bullseye on his back.

The following article by Andrew Levison and TDS Managing Editor Ed Kilgore, co-directors of The White Working Class Roundtable, is cross-posted from a Democratic Strategist e-blast:

Conor Lamb’s victory in Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district required winning strong majorities among college educated whites in the suburbs around Pittsburgh but it could not have been achieved without also sharply reducing the margin of victory that Trump achieved in 2016 among whites without a college degree. The district includes many union members and other white working class voters who comprise around 60% of the population, many living in small towns. In 2016, Trump carried the two counties that have few college graduates by over 60%.

Last week Lamb held his opponent’s margin to 57% in one of these two counties and 53% in the other — providing the critical margin for his victory.

This TDS Strategy Memo discusses five key strategies behind Lamb’s victory in detail and explains how Democratic candidates can apply them to regain support among white working class Americans.

Most of the analyses of Lamb’s strategy in this election focused on his carefully calibrated “moderate-to-liberal” policy stances on specific issues ranging from abortion and gun control to economics and social security and union rights. But in seeking lessons for other candidates running in areas with substantial numbers of white working class voters there are five other important strategic lessons that can be learned.

1. Lamb did not pander to racial prejudice or the demonization of immigrants. He won by seeking votes among white working class Trump voters who were not motivated by racial and ethnic bias and intolerance.
2. Lamb’s campaign placed partisan conflict in the broader framework of the widespread cynicism and disgust that exists regarding corruption and “big money” domination of the political system as a whole. His refusal to be defined as a “Nancy Pelosi Democrat” was designed as a signal that he was seeking to move beyond “business as usual” in the political system.
3. Lamb’s campaign was based on promising authentic and sincere representation rather than support for any broad Democratic agenda. He emphasized local issues and his identification with the actual needs of his constituents rather than adherence to any formal national agenda.
4. Lamb had deep personal roots in the district. His father and grandfather were well-known political figures and Lamb himself grew up in the district. After military service, he returned to the state to work as a federal prosecutor.
5. Lamb did not strictly follow either of the two main Democratic political strategies — Bernie Sanders’ progressive populism or “third way” centrism. He shaped his campaign platform to the specific contours of his district rather than allying himself with either broad strategic approach.

Visit The White Working Class Roundtable wesbsite.

The notion that the Democratic Party is D.O.A. in the south has been upended by Doug Jones’s victory in Alabama’s U.S. Senate race and the strong showing of Democrats in Virginia’s recent elections, along with John Bel Edwards becoming Louisiana Governor in 2016.

Democrats may also have a real shot at winning the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Thad Cochran in Mississippi. Republican Governor Phil Bryant is expected to name state Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Cindy Hyde-Smith to the U.S. Senate seat, but she will have some nasty opposition from hard-core conservative Chris McDaniel. Ed Kilgore writes that McDaniel feels “entitled” to the G.O.P. nomination as a result of  “his close primary race against Cochran in 2014.” Indeed, McDaniel has already announced his candidacy for the seat in November.

Several Mississippi Democrats are considering running for the Senate seat. But the most likely Democratic candidate is former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and Congressman Mike Espy. As Kilgore notes,

Establishment Republicans in both Jackson and Washington, however, fear that if McDaniel (who has a robust collection of craziness on his résumé) edges Hyde-Smith in the special election, he might actually lose the seat to Espy, an outcome that would be as strange as the GOP’s loss of Jeff Sessions’s seat in next-door Alabama. It’s the sort of thing that could even produce a Democratic majority in the Senate.

An Espy victory in Mississippi will require a heroic voter turnout effort similar to what occurred in the recent Alabama and Virginia elections, along with a strong Espy campaign. If such a prospect seemed unlikely a year ago, it now seems possible.

Perhaps the marquee Senate race in the south will be Democrat Beto O’Rourke vs. Sen. Ted Cruz, whose current approval ratings in Texas are less than impressive. O’Rourke lags in some recent polls, but he is credited with solid skills in terms of public speaking, debating and messaging in general. He could ride a blue wave to flip the seat for Dems. In the Tennessee US. Senate race, former Democratic Gov. Bill Bredesen leads Rep. Marsha Blackburn in a new PPP poll — a possible pick-up opportunity for Democrats.

Dems have their best southern pick-up prospects in House districts FL-26, FL-27, TX-7 and VA-10, according to the Cook Political Report. If a ‘blue wave’ materializes, another half-dozen seats could be included.

In addition, Democrats have candidates for all 2018 governor’s contests in the south. Florida, where Democrats have three strong candidates, is the marquee race, and it is currently rated a toss-up. In addition, the gun safety issue may help Democratic candidates in Florida. Georgia and Tennessee governors races could also get competitive.

Democrats lack majority control of both houses of the state legislature in any southern state, except for Maryland. But they are very close to majorities — 2 votes down in both houses of the Virginia state legislature. Dems are also contending for majorities in the state senates of FL, SC, TX and LA., but lag by larger margins in the lower houses of southern state legislatures, as a result of the impressive Republican takeover campaigns of recent years.

Of course, the Republican ‘control’ of the South has been overstated, in that Democrats have long held the mayorships of most major southern cities. Democrats currently serve as Mayors of Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Austin, Charlotte, Nashville, Baton Rouge, Memphis, Baltimore, Annapolis, Louisville, New Orleans, Charleston, S.C., Tallahassee, Little Rock, Chattanooga, Columbia, SC, Tampa, Jackson, Birmingham, Orlando, Wilmington, NC, Norfolk and Richmond, in addition to numerous second tier cities.

While it would be overstating the case to say that the south is back in play in a big way for Democrats, it is reasonable enough to expect some significant improvement in 2018 and there is cause for hoping to do even better in the longer range. But Democrats must raise their game considerably with respect to campaigns for state legislative seats.