I know there’s a lot of scary stuff in the air about Donald Trump’s second-term plans. But there is one agenda item that is unusually well-defined and a real electoral challenge and opportunity for Democrats, as I explained at New York:

Donald Trump’s recent reference to his political enemies as “vermin” is a reminder that while we should be cautious about comparisons between the 45th president and the most notorious fascists of the 20th century, there are times when nothing else suffices. That’s certainly true of Trump using such dehumanizing rhetoric for his fellow Americans. And it’s also true of Trump’s appalling immigration-policy proposals for his second term, which truly sounds like something you’d expect to see in an authoritarian dictatorship rather than in the modern-day United States.

The New York Times recently reported that if reelected, Trump plans to round up, incarcerate and then deport millions of undocumented immigrants. In recent decades there has been plenty of talk among Republicans about sealing off the southern border, reducing both legal and illegal immigration, and deporting selected groups of immigrants deemed a threat to national security. But aside from those living in the fever swamps of racist xenophobia, nobody has proposed mass deportations of people who have been living and working peacefully in America for years.

That will clearly change if Trump wins a second term and returns former Breitbart News rabble-rouser Stephen Miller to the helm of the government’s immigration policies, per the Times:

“Former President Donald J. Trump is planning an extreme expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration if he returns to power in 2025 — including preparing to round up undocumented people already in the United States on a vast scale and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled …

“He plans to scour the country for unauthorized immigrants and deport people by the millions per year.

“To help speed mass deportations, Mr. Trump is preparing an enormous expansion of a form of removal that does not require due process hearings. To help Immigration and Customs Enforcement carry out sweeping raids, he plans to reassign other federal agents and deputize local police officers and National Guard soldiers voluntarily contributed by Republican-run states.”

This isn’t some surreptitious plan that reporters have dug out from obscure sources. Miller is publicly chortling about the audacity of what he intends to do, as the Times notes:

“Stephen Miller, a former senior Trump administration official who led Trump’s immigration policy, told The Times, ‘Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown.’

“Miller told The Times that Trump’s immigration plans are being designed to avoid having to create new substantial legislation. During Trump’s first term, he relied heavily on executive orders to implement immigration policy. Many of those moves were challenged in the courts, something Miller acknowledged would be likely to happen again in a second Trump term.”

We’ll get to see, in other words, whether Trump’s judicial appointments and more competent lawyering can help him achieve a different result in his new term than he did with his less aggressive first-term agenda.

There’s no doubt the political climate on immigration policy has changed since Trump was first elected president in 2016. For one thing, the salience of immigration as a voting issue dropped significantly between 2016 and 2020. And it was clearly a topic that hurt Trump’s second campaign even though he wasn’t raging about it constantly, as a 2020 Election Night survey from Public Opinion Strategies found:

“The Public Opinion Strategies poll makes clear that President Trump’s immigration policy was a political loser by a double-digit margin and cost him a substantial vote share. Voters across the political spectrum want to reform our nation’s immigration system, centered on a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.”

Now, thanks to massive publicity (particularly in conservative media) about migrants at the southern border, immigration policy matters more than it did in 2020. According to recent battleground-state polling from New York Times/Siena, voters trust Trump more than Biden on immigration policy. It’s simply a better environment for Trump to propose an immigration crackdown. However, it’s unclear whether voters have any idea of how far Trump wants to go in inaugurating Gestapo-style policies to track down, arrest, transport, and deport millions of people from communities all over the country. But it’s not ambiguous at all. Once they know about Trump’s plans, the Latino voters who have been trending Republican in recent elections will likely bridle at the racial and ethnic profiling by federal, state, and local law-enforcement officials that will inevitably accompany any effort to “scour the country for unauthorized immigrants,” as the Times puts it.

Team Biden may be tempted to ignore immigration policy as a “loser” for the incumbent president. But if they do, they will be missing an opportunity to let voters know how scary Trump’s plans are. He’s using concerns about migrants to justify the most massive reversal of U.S. immigration practices at least since Dwight D. Eisenhower’s openly racist “Operation Wetback” deportation drive in the 1950s (which Trump has often praised). Biden and Democrats need to stop thinking of immigration as a Republican issue and explain to voters just how radical Trump is on the subject. It’s encouraging that the Biden campaign has already come out with an attack on Trump’s plan, calling it an “extreme and rapid expansion of his first-term clampdown on immigration if he takes back the White House,” as Politico put it. But they need to keep it up. It’s a really big deal not just for people directly affected by immigration policy but for anyone who wants to block a lurch into authoritarianism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Smith shares some well-crafted talking points, including:

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

Commenting on recent polling, Smith adds,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter and John B. Judis, a former editor of The New Republic and author of major works about contemporary politics, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot. It is adapted from their recently published book, Where Have All the Democrats Gone?: The Soul of the Party in an Age of Extremes:

The Democratic Party has had its greatest success when it sought to represent the common man and woman against the rich and powerful, the people against the elite, and the plebeians against the patricians. Over the last thirty years, the Democrats have continued to claim to represent the average citizen. In his 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton championed “the forgotten middle class” and promised to “put people first.” Barack Obama pledged that the “voices of ordinary citizens” would “speak louder” than “multimillion-dollar donations.” Hillary Clinton in her 2016 campaign promised to “make the economy work for everyday Americans.” And Joe Biden promised in 2020 to represent “the people” and framed the election as being between “Park Avenue and Scranton.”

For all this, over the last decades, Democrats have steadily lost the allegiance of “everyday Americans”—the working- and middle-class voters that were at the core of the older New Deal coalition. Initially, most of these lost voters were white, but in the last elections, Democrats have also begun to lose support among Latino and Asian working-class voters.

How did this happen? There is an original reason, for which the Democrats were hardly to blame. Democrats were the principal supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965—measures that went a long way toward ending racial segregation and Jim Crow, but that angered many southern whites and, to a lesser extent, some whites in the North.

With the exception of a few far-right groups, however, Americans have reconciled themselves to those bills. Democrats regularly win elections in Virginia, the seat of the southern Confederacy, and many of the northern and southern suburbs formed by white flight now vote for Democratic candidates. And Americans elected an African American president in 2008 and reelected him in 2012.

Today, there are a multitude of factors that have driven working-class voters out of the Democratic Party. They include:

• Democrats’ support for trade deals that led to factory closings in many small towns and midsize cities in states that were once Democratic strongholds.
• Democrats’ support for spending bills that the working and middle classes paid for but that were primarily of benefit to poor Americans, many of whom were minorities.
• Democrats’ enthusiasm for immigration of unskilled workers and the party’s opposition to measures that might reduce illegal immigration.
• Democrats’ support for strict gun control.
• Democrats’ insistence on eliminating fossil fuels.
• Democrats’ use of the courts and regulations to enforce their moral and cultural agenda, whether on the sale of wedding cakes or the use of public men’s and women’s bathrooms.

Not all Democrats are in line with these actions or beliefs. But overall, they came to characterize the party. Some of these stances have to do directly with economics; others with culture. The differences over them are often taken to distinguish the college-educated professional from those who do not have college degrees, but they equally, if not more accurately, arise from the differences in economic geography—what we call the “Great Divide” in American politics.

On one side of the divide are the great postindustrial metro centers like the Bay Area, Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, New York, and Seattle. These are areas that benefited from the boom in computer technology and high finance. These areas are heavily populated by college-educated professionals, but also by low-skilled immigrants who clean the buildings, mow the lawns, and take care of the children and the aged. The professionals, who set the political agenda for these areas, welcome legal and illegal immigrants; they want guns off the street; they see trade not as a threat to jobs but as a source of less expensive goods; they worry that climate change will destroy the planet; and, among the young, they are engaged in a quest for new identities and sexual lifestyles. A majority of them are Democrats.

On the other side of the divide are the small towns and midsize cities that have depended on manufacturing, mining, and farming. Some of these places have prospered from newly discovered oil and gas deposits, but many are towns and cities like Muncie, Indiana; Mansfield, Ohio; and Dundalk, Maryland that have lost jobs when firms moved abroad or closed up shop in the face of foreign competition. The workers and small businesspeople in these towns and cities want the border closed to illegal immigrants, whom they see as a burden to their taxes and a threat to their jobs; they want to keep their guns as a way to protect their homes and family; they fly the American flag in front of their house; they go to or went to church; they oppose abortion; some may be leery of gay marriage, although that is changing; many of them or members of their family served in the military; they have no idea what most of the initials in LGBTQIA+ stand for. A majority of them are now Republicans and many are former working-class Democrats.

Read more…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There’s not much doubt about the issue that most helped Democrats to a strong showing in the 2023 Off-Year elections, as I observed at New York:

Continuing a pattern evident in Democrat overperformance in the 2022 midterms and 2023 special elections, the Donkey Party posted solid wins in Tuesday’s elections thanks in large part to the continued backlash to the end of Roe v. Wade.

Democrats held on to an improbable Kentucky governorship, defeated a heavily financed bid by Virginia Republican governor Glenn Youngkin to win GOP control of the legislature, and won an expensive and potentially important Pennsylvania State Supreme Court race. And in the contest that most exemplified the day, Ohio became the seventh consecutive state where voters have confirmed abortion rights since the Supreme Court reversed Roe. The lone disappointment was in deep-red Mississippi, where, as generally expected, Republican governor Tate Reeves overcame scandals and a spirited challenge from Democrat Brandon Presley, cousin of Elvis.

Kentucky’s Democrat governor Andy Beshear handily defeated Daniel Cameron, the Republican attorney general and Mitch McConnell protégé, despite the state’s strong red tint (Donald Trump carried the state by 25 points in 2020) and some evidence that Cameron was gaining on Beshear as the campaign reached its climax. While the incumbent’s general popularity and his handling of the pandemic were front and center in the campaign, the abortion issue was major. The candidates were on opposite sides of a failed 2022 ballot initiative that would have overruled state-court recognition of reproductive rights.

The Ohio pro-choice win was no surprise, after Republicans spectacularly failed to sneak through a preemptive ballot measure during a special election in August that sought to make it harder to pass constitutional amendments like Tuesday’s reinstating Roe. The abortion-rights measure won by double digits in a state where Republicans who control the governorship and the legislature have tried to impose a six-week abortion ban. (That now looks impossible.) The partisan nature of the battle was underlined by the very visible role of Governor Mike DeWine and secretary of State (and 2024 Senate candidate) Frank LaRose in fighting (and lying about) the initiative. But without question, Republican voters contributed strongly to the abortion-rights victory; as the New York Times reported, 18 Ohio counties that voted for Donald Trump in 2020 gave a win to Issue 1.

Abortion policy also played a key role in the Virginia legislative races. Youngkin talked Republicans out of the defensive crouch on the issue they had assumed after the reversal of Roe and convinced them (and a lot of big donors) to loudly promote a “compromise” position backing a 15-week abortion ban with exceptions for rape and incest (in contrast to the six-week or total bans many red states were enacting) and seeking to depict Democrats as the extremists on abortion. It didn’t work, as Democrats repelled Youngkin’s bid to take over the state senate and create a Republican trifecta. Democrats also flipped the GOP-controlled House of Delegates.

Since Youngkin and his fans clearly advertised his abortion gambit as an experiment with vast national implications, the legislative defeat was a major blow to his star status among Republican elites, as Politico noted:

“Youngkin’s loss will likely stretch beyond the commonwealth. Some Republican donors have been publicly pining for the Virginia governor to jump into the presidential race as a last-minute challenger to Trump …

“Youngkin pointedly never ruled out a presidential run, only saying he was focused on these legislative races when asked. But Tuesday’s results will likely put an end to that talk.”

No question about that. But more importantly, Republicans in Virginia and elsewhere will very likely resume their defensive position on abortion, which will remain a Democratic priority everywhere. More oddly, the redundant demonstration that abortion is a loser of an issue for Republicans will likely benefit the front-running primary campaign of Donald Trump, who has been telling Republicans exactly that since the 2022 midterms, notwithstanding his own central role in making the reversal of Roe happen by installing three of the six justices who voted to overturn it.

All in all, the 2023 election was a tonic for Democratic troops recently dispirited by poor showings in the polls for President Joe Biden and jittery feelings about the incredible survival skills of his heavily indicted predecessor and likely future opponent. Off-year elections aren’t always harbingers of what will happen in the immediate future, but the evidence grows that the GOP will continue to pay a heavy price for its bad marriage with the anti-abortion movement.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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