From Pema Levy’s article, “The 2020 Election Is Now About the Coronavirus. Here’s How Progressive Groups Plan to Win It: Democrats are taking early steps to spread word about Trump’s bungled response.” at Mother Jones:

“On March 12, a group dedicated to preserving and expanding the Affordable Care Act, called Protect Our Care, released the first political television ad that mentioned the coronavirus. It targeted Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) for his opposition to Obamacare. Montanans already worried about health care were now also worried about coronavirus, the ad’s narrator intoned.

But Protect Our Care quickly realized that as a group focused on health care, they had a larger role to play, and broadened its messaging to include the country’s biggest contest by setting up what it calls its “Coronavirus War Room,” a messaging hub meant to hold Trump accountable for the ways he has made the crisis worse. Last week, it began blasting off memos targeting Trump to the press while also acting as a messaging clearinghouse for other groups. Protect Our Care also started hosting calls three times a week with progressive groups to get everyone on the same talking points…

“Our focus at Protect Our Care and the Coronavirus War Room is largely on the accountability piece and with that it’s almost exclusively focused on Trump,” says Woodhouse, a longtime Democratic operative. “You can’t wait until October to tell the American people about how roundly he screwed this up.”

…[Executive Director Brad] Woodhouse sums up the core messages pushed from the war room: “He screwed it up from the beginning, he hasn’t learned from his mistakes, he’s downplayed the crisis, he doesn’t listen to experts, and that continues to make the crisis worse.” You can see the strategy deployed in the emails his team blasts out, often three a day, which attack Trump on a range of issues, including the administration’s failure to prepare by ramping up testing and the manufacture of medical equipment and protective gear; its elimination of key offices and positions charged with pandemic preparedness; and by elevating Trump’s comments, like downplaying the need for ventilators, that contradict medical experts.”

Levy explains, “To fight pro-Trump narratives, Democratic message warriors are looking for fresh data on how his words and actions are hitting home amid the crisis.” She adds, “Navigator Research, which is operated by two progressive polling firms, Global Strategy Group and GBAO Research and Strategy in consultation with the Hub Project, has put out monthly polls to help guide progressive messaging on a variety of issues. Two weeks ago, the project decided to scrap the monthly poll and set up a daily tracker to understand people’s attitudes toward the coronavirus and Trump’s handling of the crisis.”

She quotes Ian Sams, a Democratic strategist who consults with the Hub Project and Navigator Research: “We can’t handle this appropriately in real time as a progressive movement, as Democratic leaders, if we don’t understand how the public is processing it—because it is uncharted territory…We’ve never had 3 million people file for unemployment in a week.” Recent numbers show the situation is even more unprecedented: 10 million jobless benefit claims in two weeks.”

The Hub project “has captured data uncovering areas where Trump remains out of step with American opinion. When Trump floated the idea of prioritizing the economy over public health, the tracking poll released last Friday showed that people were more worried about their health and the health of those they know than the economy. Over the course of its first week, the poll showed Americans’ view of Trump’s overall handling of the crisis was trending downward. Small majorities last week believed  Trump’s response has been “unprepared” and “chaotic.” Further,

Multiple Democratic super PACs have begun to run advertisements on Facebook and on television to hammer this message, though campaign finance law prohibits them from coordinating with progressive groups that are subject to fundraising restrictions. Pacronym, a Democratic super PAC affiliated with the digital firm Acronym, announced on March 17 that it would spend $2.5 million through April on Facebook ads to educate voters about “how the Trump administration’s chaos and incompetence have weakened the nation’s ability to respond to the coronavirus crisis.” The effort is focused on battleground states.

Priorities USA Action, another Democratic super PAC, began running television ads last Tuesday in the swing states of Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The ad splices clips of Trump downplaying the crisis with a growing chart showing the rising number of infections in the United States. The Trump campaign issued a cease and desist letter to TV stations asking them to remove the ad; the group responded by putting it on the air in Arizona as well. A version with updated numbers went up this week. On Wednesday, the group spent another $1 million on a television ad that contrasts Trump’s response with remarks Biden has made about how he would handle the crisis. It also began running a Facebook ad juxtaposing Trump and Biden.

“This is the most important issue in the country today,” says Katie Drapcho, Priorities USA Action’s director of research and polling. “I think it’s a defining moment for Trump’s presidency and the country. And our view is that it’s absolutely crucial that voters hear the facts about Trump’s inaction and misleading statements.”

In addition, “Unite the Country PAC, a super PAC started in 2019 to support Biden’s campaign, spent $1 million to broadcast an ad accusing Trump of failing in this time of crisis, and added another TV spot on the same…Protect Our Care, the group behind the Coronavirus War Room, launched new ads across Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania…”

Regarding the difficulty of Democratic messaging during the pandemic, Levy concludes that “It’s one thing to figure out how to attack Donald Trump, it’s another to do so without rallies or door knocking. It’s a problem for the Democratic nominee, but also for organizers behind voter registration and get-out-the-vote programs…Just as social gatherings have transitioned to FaceTime and Zoom, it seems certain that new forms of political organizing will be digitized.”

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

The following article by Sarah Attfield, University of Technology Sydney and editor of the  Journal of Working-Class Studies, is cross-posted from Working-Class Perspectives:

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted class inequalities. Commentators in the US, UK, and Australia are acknowledging that working-class people are more likely to suffer as a result of both the virus and the measures put in place to contain its spread.

Workers face increased risk of exposure to the virus because many have no choice but to be in regular face-to-face contact with people who might be infected. Workers in hospitals are at especially high risk, and while the majority of doctors might be middle class, most nurses, care assistants, cleaners, porters, and the people preparing and serving meals are working class. These front-line workers simply can’t stay at home.

Working-class people also have more difficulty accessing health care. In the US, working-class people often lack access to adequate health care, and they might not be able to afford treatment if they can get it. In the US, working-class people are also less likely to have sick pay and may have no choice but to go into work when sick. Existing health disparities put people of colour in the US at far greater risk of serious illness if they contract COVID-19. The UK and Australia have universal health care systems, but there are still discrepancies in access to treatment. In the UK, for example, Tory austerity measures have severely diminished the capacity of the National Health Service (NHS), so the system that cannot cope with the influx of infected patients despite the efforts of NHS workers. And racial disparities exist in these countries, too. Indigenous Australians are also at greater risk from the virus due to the racial gap in health outcomes.

Testing also reflects class inequities. While many working-class people don’t have access to tests, more elite members of society have had no trouble at all in getting tested and receiving immediate treatment. Prince Charles was infected and isolated himself at the royal family’s private estate in Scotland. No doubt he had excellent medical care available. In Australia the health system is less overloaded, but celebrities there have had no trouble getting tested even as others have had requests turned down.

Class differences also make for different experiences of quarantine, social isolation, and the recommended hygiene routines such as hand washing. Middle-class people are more likely to be able to work at home. Most have good internet access and space for at-home leisure activities such as home-gyms or gardens to escape to. Quarantine looks very different for people living in households with little physical space, and many cannot afford or don’t have access to the internet. The shift to online learning for school and tertiarystudents has really exposed the digital divide. And the guidelines on handwashing can only be met if people have access to clean running water and soap.

Add to all of this the millions of working-class people who have lost their jobs due to new restrictions on “non-essential” busineses. In Australia, the government announced that all bars and night clubs would close, and restaurants and cafes could only serve take out. Overnight, thousands were unemployed. More people were stood down by retail outlets, the travel industry (such as airlines), and other businesses no longer able to operate due to the restrictions or the sudden and unsustainable drop in trade. This sent thousands of people to Centrelink (the Australian social security offices) to apply for unemployment benefit. The system has been unable to cope with the mass applications, and people have been left without any income. The Australian government’s response in the form of a wage subsidy will help some, but not all, of the laid-off workers.

For working-class people, these inequalities come as no surprise. People on low incomes know only too well how easy it is to be down to their last dollar and understand the implications of precarity. Class divisions are only a surprise to people who have never struggled financially or experienced class discrimination.

At the same time, the crisis has shown that working-class people matter. As others have pointed out, society is learning to appreciate workers whose essential labour is usually taken for granted and ignored. Now the middle classes are realising that retail and delivery workers, cleaners, sanitation, and utility and transport workers are the ones who keep society ticking along. Without these workers everything falls apart. Can the same be said for some middle-class professionals?

The pandemic crisis has also shown how important is it for workers to be organised. Unions have played a big part in pressuring governments and industries to look after workers. In Australia, the union movement has been instrumental in arguing for a wage subsidy and pushing the government to extend them to all workers. Unions have also been lobbying big employers and industries to secure extra sick pay, to ensure that workers on casual contracts also have access to sick pay and carers leave, and to demand that  casual contracts be honoured even if workers are currently unable to work. In other places, workers have been calling wildcat strikes to demand safer working conditions or even for the shut-down of their workplaces.

We don’t know what the long-term effects of this pandemic will be, but it’s already clear that working-class people are essential for the running of our societies. The crisis is also showing more middle-class people how class works to create and reinforce inequalities, and it’s revealing the failures of the free market and neoliberalism. Whether this will lead to a change in the way economies are organised remains to be seen, of course. If nothing else, I hope this new recognition of the importance of working-class people will shift attitudes permanently.

Amy Walter observes at The Cook Political Report, that “the hand-wringing from some in Democratic circles that Biden needs to ramp up his public presence, lest he be ‘forgotten’ or overshadowed by Democratic Governors like Andrew Cuomo or Gretchen Whitmer, is unnecessary and misses the point…in a national crisis, the attention is trained on the person in charge and not the person who wants to replace him or her. This scenario works to Biden’s benefit. Even before this horrible virus hit the United States, Biden’s best opportunity to win in November was dependent on making the contest a referendum on Trump…Biden doesn’t need to spend as much time attacking and defining the president when he’s getting a lot of help from outside groups like Priorities USA and other SuperPACs…More important, Biden’s goal isn’t to be a more ‘exciting’ alternative to Trump but to be the opposite of Trump. Biden isn’t going to be a ratings superhero. He’s not going to pack stadiums to the rafters with supporters. His message is basically this: I’m pretty boring but steady and competent. That may not work every year, but it is well-suited for a time of chaos and confusion…”

Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. has a warning for Democrats: “One of the frustrations of being Biden these days, said the Washington Democrat close to him, is being asked during a media appearance what he is doing to be more visible on the media. Biden made light of such irritation when he told MSNBC’s Yasmin Vossoughian on Monday: “Well, thanks for giving me the time. So they don’t wonder where I am.”…But that question’s plaintiveness also suggests that if Democratic panic is premature, complacency is more dangerous. In 2016, both Trump’s opponents and (ironically, perhaps) the media underestimated the enormous value of his ability to command wall-to-wall coverage. Even when he peddles outright falsehoods, Trump’s version of events often penetrates widely before it’s even fact-checked. Trump can change his story so fast that it’s hard to keep up with him…Democrats, including Biden, would be foolish to let Trump dominate the discussion of what needs to be done to lift the country up after the coronavirus threat ebbs…Trump’s foes, in other words, need to chill out and buck up at the same time. Overestimating Trump feeds his power. But underestimating him leads to political ruin.”

Charlie Cook writes, also at The Cook Political Report: “Of course, the presidential race will be determined not by the national popular vote but by the Electoral College. If only we had more high-quality polls from the half-dozen most hotly contested states—Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—we could make a better judgment. Until then, we have to look at the national polls. Since Democratic votes are less efficiently allocated than Republican ones, is the Democrat far enough ahead nationally to translate his support into 270 electoral votes? To be sure, he may need a cushion of 4 percentage points…We obviously can’t know how deep this recession will be or how long it will last, much less its impact on Trump. Many assume it will give him a strong headwind. I prefer to say it will deprive him of the tailwind that he has enjoyed until now…There is no question in my mind that there are plausible paths for Trump to win 270 electoral votes. It isn’t an easy or wide path, but it is there. Working in his favor, his campaign will be a million times more competent than it was four years ago. He will also have far more money than he did last time, although money in politics is not determinative (just ask Michael Bloomberg).”

Columnist/radio host Dean Obeidallah writes in “Trump’s infrastructure tweet makes Democrats look bad. The party of FDR needs to step up: With the coronavirus crisis pushing our economy toward a cliff, it will likely take a Democratic president, or at least Democratic policies, to save America (again.)” that “Democrats, generally speaking, subscribe to the philosophy that the federal government should be expanded and used as a tool to help Americans in times of need. In contrast, one of the policy pillars of the modern-day GOP is shrinking the role of the federal government. Now is not the time for Democrats to be cautious — Democratic leaders need to lean hard on their ideological roots. They need to channel the spirit of FDR and champion sweeping, large-scale federal programs that can help Americans by creating jobs and investing in our nation…Yet, stunningly, it’s President Donald Trump who is now taking the lead by proposing an FDR-style massive infrastructure program. This week Trump tweeted in support of his infrastructure proposal: “It should be VERY BIG & BOLD, Two Trillion Dollars, and be focused solely on jobs and rebuilding the once great infrastructure of our Country!” Of course, the challenge for Democrats is to make sure such an investment actually creates jobs at a living wage, instead of a  multi-billion dollar gift to corporations, and that it is financed as much as possible by taxes on large companies and the wealthy, instead of the middle class.

“While it’s not yet mathematically impossible for him to win, Sanders would need to amass more than 60 percent of the remaining delegates to clinch the nomination — a mark he’s only hit in two states this year, Nevada and his home state of Vermont,” Holly Otterbein writes at Politico. “His path is so narrow that some of Sanders’ senior aides have even advised him to consider dropping out, though not everyone in his inner circle feels the same way, according to people familiar with the situation…Another possible reason for not explaining his long-shot course to victory: it depends on something his staff and allies have for the most part only whispered about — an epic Biden collapse.” Articulating such an unseemly hope would be an extremely bad look for the Sanders campaign. They are fast reaching the point where staying in could damage Sanders’s’ influence as the leading advocate of Medicare for All, which is gaining traction in the coronavirus crisis, according to a recent Morning Consult poll.

Otterbein adds that “In recent weeks, Sanders has retooled much of his campaign to focus on the coronavirus and workers’ rights — both markings of a candidate running a message candidacy rather than a true race against Biden. He has raised more than $3.5 million for coronavirus aid, while ceasing to actively raise money for himself. He has also used his email list and social media accounts to drive up support for Walmart and Amazon employees fighting for protective equipment and additional benefits during the pandemic…But managing even a successful message campaign at this moment could prove difficult, given that the coronavirus death toll and response efforts are commanding nearly all of the media’s attention. Last weekend, CNN and ABC canceled tentative appearances with Sanders.” There is no reason why Sanders could not formally drop out and strongly support Biden, but continue to urge Biden to move closer toward Medicare for All. Indeed, he might even get better media coverage by shedding the ‘sour grapes’ critique.

Nathaniel Rackich notes at FiveThirtyEight that “Biden needs some Sanders primary voters to support him in November, since Sanders has won about 31 percent of the national popular vote so far. But he doesn’t need every single one…Some Sanders-or-bust voters might stay home in November; that happens to some degree in every election…Sanders voters don’t fit that description. According to a recent Morning Consult poll, 82 percent of Sanders supporters say they would vote for Biden in the general election, and just 7 percent said they would vote for Trump. And Quinnipiac University found that 86 percent of Sanders voters would vote for Biden, 3 percent would vote for Trump, 2 percent would vote for someone else, 4 percent wouldn’t vote, and 5 percent didn’t know who they’d vote for.”

In his update on Democratic prospects for winning a U.S. Senate majority, Kyle Kondik writes at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “First of all, we’re moving the special election in Arizona from Toss-up to Leans Democratic this week. Likely Democratic nominee Mark Kelly (D), a former astronaut who is the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), has consistently led appointed Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) in polling, and not just by a little: four surveys in March showed Kelly up anywhere from five to 12 points, a better margin than Biden enjoys in the state (he has led Trump there in polling, but by smaller margins)…We are also moving Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) from Leans Republican to Toss-up. We’ve resisted this change for a while, but it’s become apparent to us that Collins is in for a very close race, even if she may retain a lead at this precise moment. Her likeliest opponent is state House Speaker Sara Gideon (D).

Kondik adds, “There is one positive rating change for Republicans. We have not been very impressed by Democratic recruitment for both Senate races in Georgia, and we’re upgrading Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) from Leans Republican to Likely Republican. We’re also tempted to move the Senate special election there to Likely Republican, but we’re going to hold off in light of the potential for appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) to be damaged by recent reporting that she benefited from a stock sell-off before the markets took a dive as the coronavirus pandemic emerged, prompting accusations of a form of insider trading…Assuming that Republicans defeat Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL), which we see as likely, Democrats need to win at least four currently Republican seats to get to a 50-50 tie in the Senate, which the incoming vice president would break…We have Democrats favored in two Republican seats, Arizona and Colorado. Then there are two genuine Toss-ups, Maine and North Carolina, followed by Leans Republican states Iowa and Montana, along with the Georgia Senate special. These states are where the Senate majority will be won, in all likelihood.”

Sometimes big political decisions are made that seem a little odd until you explore the internal logic. That’s how I assessed the big news this week about the 2020 Democratic National Convention at New York:

Here are several explanations for the decision to move the date instead of bagging the whole atavistic event in favor of a long-distance show for TV and social media.

1. Because they could

Yes, the postponement of the Olympic Games might make it seem strange to go ahead with a different (if vastly smaller and less complex) high-profile live event. But it also opened up new scheduling territory. The original July dates for the DNC were based on giving a wide berth to the Games. Now Democrats can snuggle right up to the August 24 start date for the Republican Convention without trying to draw eyeballs away from the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. And if the pandemic (and the fear of big gatherings) somehow fades by then, they can go ahead and party like it’s 2019.

2. They don’t want to give the GOP an advantage

Even as Democrats talked about going virtual, Republicans were insisting none of their plans had changed: “No way I’m going to cancel the convention,” Trump has told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “We’re going to have the convention, it’s going to be incredible.”

Conventions have traditionally been worth a significant bounce for each party’s presidential candidates. They typically canceled each other out, but the possibility of Republicans having their big four-day live TV show after Democrats had bagged or curtailed their own did not seem advisable to those planning the Milwaukee event. If, of course, Republicans do look at the epidemiological evidence and radically modify their plans for Charlotte, Democrats will do the same in a Milwaukee Minute.

3. A lot of local money depends on a live convention

National political conventions are massive undertakings by the host city, which in turn expect massive benefits from the many thousands (an estimated 50,000, initially) of people who attend the event and eat and drink and pay premium rates for lodging and transportation. Now that Milwaukee, like every other American city, is facing a deep and immediate recession, a huge live convention in August seems perfectly timed in terms of a much-hoped-for rebound, as local leaders tell the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

“Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett called the decision ‘absolutely the right move’ by the organizers and the Democratic National Committee.

“’It underscores the commitment that they have made to Milwaukee,’ he said. ‘It underscores the commitment they have made to Wisconsin and it is my hope that by having it in August it will be a much needed shot in the arm for our restaurants, hotels and other businesses.’”

Sharply cutting back on the in-person aspects of the convention before it’s absolutely necessary would be a bummer for the host city, and that in turn could cast a pall over the residual events.

4. Nobody wants to offend Wisconsin

And speaking of palls cast, Democrats haven’t for a moment forgotten why they picked Milwaukee for their convention in the first place: the belief that Wisconsin will be one of the key states — and perhaps the key state — that will determine the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Scrubbing the party’s big party there would likely be a buzzkill for Wisconsin Democrats and could even alienate swing voters:

“Part of the narrative that comes out of a convention also involves the host city and state. A potential casualty if there is a virtual convention would be the visibility Milwaukee and Wisconsin stand to gain from the convention and the political message Democrats want to send by choosing Wisconsin — that the party is laser-focused on a part of the country it neglected in the last presidential race.”

Being literally afraid to set foot in Milwaukee would not be a good look for Democrats, even if it’s for public-health reasons everyone can understand.

5. It’s Joe’s party now

It’s no coincidence, of course, that the decision to postpone the convention (without changing its nature — so far at least) came almost immediately after Joe Biden began urging that course of action. Perhaps his DNC friends were whispering to him to move in that direction, but in any event, as the presumptive presidential nominee, Uncle Joe is on the brink of assuming complete command of convention planning. It’s essentially a turnkey operation ready to bow before the imperial will of the candidate whose name will be uttered a thousand times once the opening gavel drops.

Delaying the convention also gives Biden’s people more time to impose control over the proceedings, which is handy since the coronavirus has also greatly postponed the moment when he officially clinches the nomination.

6. The convention can always “go virtual” later

Postponing the convention may simply mean kicking the can down the road a month in making the fateful decision to sadden nostalgic Democrats and the population of Milwaukee by “going virtual” with significant elements of the convention — or just scaling everything back. I’d be shocked if contingency planning for a very different kind of convention isn’t quietly under way (probably among Republicans as well), even as the DNC trumpets sound the charge toward an event just like the ones that made Joe Biden the vice-presidential nominee in 2008 and 2012. So don’t be surprised, if it turns out to be just too risky to kick it old school in Milwaukee on August 17, that the Democratic Party will have a fully developed plan B before the first balloon order is canceled.

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

Yesterday, I noted that Biden’s strong primary performance owed a lot to how well his did with white noncollege voters. But that’s the primary; what about the general election? How does Biden fare against Trump among this demographic relative to how well (which was very poorly) Clinton did against Trump in 2016?

Here I compare States of Change data from our analysis of the 2016 election with data from the UCLA/Lucid/Democracy Fund Voter Study Group survey. The survey interviews 6,000 respondents a week; I pool the date from the beginning of the year (almost 60,000 registered voters to date). What the data show overall is that Biden is delivering as advertised in terms of performance among white noncollege voters.

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

One quite obvious pattern from the primaries as the race narrowed to Biden vs. Sanders was how well Biden was doing among white noncollege voters–a group Sanders had hoped to make his own. Geoffrey Skelley on 538 has an excellent breakdown of the primary voting results that highlights this striking development. Below are some excerpts from Skelley’s article. Tomorrow, I will use the Nationscape data to take a look at whether Biden’s good performance among white noncollege voters holds in state general election trial heats.

Voters of a certain age should appreciate Charles Pierce’s Esquire article, “There’s an Awful Lot of ‘Cull the Herd’ Rhetoric Floating Around These Days: Ron Johnson joins the parade of people to whom my response is: You first.” Pierce writes, “I know we’re all slowing down and stuck in our houses, but I don’t think it’s time for U.S. senators to go all wiggy on existential questions. This is especially true in the case of Ron (Shreds of Freedom) Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin. He took to the pages of USA Today and encouraged us all to liberate ourselves through profound, patriotic, fatalistic gibberish…What is the senator getting at, exactly? There’s an awful lot of discreet “culling of the herd” realism floating around in the public rhetoric these days, and there’s also an occasional episode in which somebody seems to be putting it into practice, discreetly, in one way or another…Now that this particular president* has decided that a mere 100,000 to 200,000 dead will be a personal triumph on the scale of V-E Day, I find this attitude more than a little disturbing. My response remains unchanged: You guys first.”

New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall explains why “Covid-19 Is Twisting 2020 Beyond All Recognition: The coronavirus crisis will determine whether Trump is a one-term president, but it may reshape the social order far more.” Edsall’s article is loaded with anti-GOP talking points, including: “When the best-case scenario predicts 100,000 to 240,000 deaths, the pandemic reminds us just how important it is who holds the reins of power. This is especially the case when one crucial question will be whether widespread suffering, panic and economic collapse will destabilize the American political system and the fragile consensus-based social order that underpins it, both of which have been under strain for some time.” Edsall quotes Jonathan Haidt, a professor of psychology at N.Y.U.: “If we had good leadership — a president who could unify the country and turn our shared adversity into social solidarity, trust, and cooperation, then we could look to past national crises such as World War II and the boost it gave to social capital…We don’t have that. In fact, a marker of our political sickness is that taking the virus seriously has become itself a marker of tribal identity.”

However, Edsall also quotes UNC political scientist Marc Hetherington, who observes, “that “this moment holds the potential to resuscitate negative feelings that Americans have about government…If the government actually succeeds in keeping the carnage to a minimum, it is unlikely to change much. Americans already think government can do this. If, however, the government doesn’t succeed — and I think there is every reason to think it will struggle with these problems — it has the potential to further undermine trust in government. People already don’t trust it to redistribute money and provide certain services, which is bad. If they come to think it is not competent to keep us safe, it will be even worse, much worse…Republicans have internalized what used to be just a political strategy, which increases the chances that government will fail.” That cynical approach to campaigning seems to have infected their approach to governing. In 2016, the party nominated a complete political amateur, pointing up just how little governance means to the party. And, of course, Trump has failed to fill vacancies in key areas like the C.D.C., disbanded the pandemic task force in the N.S.C., and all sorts of other stuff.” Edsall add, “The result, Hetherington wrote, is a government “characterized by poor leadership at the cabinet level and hollowed out expertise at the department level,” sharply increasing the “chance that government simply can’t come through right now.”

Another potent observation unearthed by Edsall, this one by M.I.T. economist David Autor, who notes that it would be “easy to tell a story in which this episode causes Americans to remember that their government is indispensable for marshaling expertise, coordinating emergency measures, guarding public safety, serving as an insurer of last resort, calming financial markets, and generally shepherding its citizens through an extraordinarily challenging time.” However, Autor adds, “After four decades of successful Republican effort to starve the U.S. government of resources and demonize its experts, our government is in fact less competent, less well prepared, and less agile than it used to be. Perhaps this event would have restored our faith in government were the government deserving of that faith. The picture is mixed at best, so far.”

You may have heard some progressive grumbling that Democratic front-runner Biden is being eclipsed by NY Governor Cuomo’s excellent television presentations addressing the coronavirus crisis. But there’s no good reason why Biden should be the only Democrat presenting an image of compassion and competence, in stark contrast to Trump’s constant fumbling. In fact, the more Democratic leaders who project an image of responsible, well-informed leadership, the better it is for Democratic candidates for all offices, not just the presidency. At The Daily Beast, Matt Lewis weighs in and notes, “Joe Biden should social distance even more,” Lewis writes. “Citing a decades-old observation called the Feiler faster thesis, my former colleague Mickey Kaus recently argued that news cycles have sped up and that humans can process information quicker than most people realize. “Biden can wait until September, or whenever the conventions are, and then, he can gin up a huge publicity ‘Biden for president’ campaign,” Kaus said. “He doesn’t have to be omnipresent in our attention now in order to do that, then.” Lewis suggests Biden should “reemerge tanned and rested after Labor Day…Laying low may be Joe Biden’s best strategy—and it’s one that wouldn’t be possible were it not for social distancing.”

At FiveThirtyEight, Nathaniel Rakich writes that “the biggest Senate news of the last couple months came in the longer-shot Democratic pick-up opportunity of Montana, where Gov. Steve Bullock’s entry has shaken up the race. Bullock was considered to be the only Democrat who could put this red state in play, and his announcement caused nonpartisan handicappers to move the race from “Solid Republican” to “Lean Republican.”…According to Morning Consult, Bullock has a +21 net approval rating (approval rating minus disapproval rating) and at least 83 percent of Montanans are able to form an opinion of him (approval rating plusdisapproval rating). This gives him a leg up against incumbent Republican Sen. Steve Daines (who has just a +16 net approval rating and at least 78 percent name recognition, according to the same poll).”

Rakich also notes that “handicappers still rate Arizona as a toss-up, but there’s an increasingly strong argument that Democrats are actually favored despite the state’s Republican lean. Five polls of Arizona’s U.S. Senate race have been conducted so far in March, and Democrat Mark Kelly led Republican Sen. Martha McSally in all five. His average lead was 7 percentage points…Even a small systematic polling error in Arizona could mean that McSally is actually ahead (most of those Kelly leads are within the margin of error). However, Kelly also has the advantage of being a monster fundraiser — he took in more than $20.2 million in 2019. McSally raised only $12.6 million.”

“In North Carolina,” Rakich adds, “former state Sen. Cal Cunningham, who had the support of the DSCC, won the Democratic primary with 57 percent of the vote. That sets up a close general election with Republican Sen. Thom Tillis: A survey by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling claims Cunningham is ahead, while Tillis’s pollster gave the incumbent the lead.” NC’s other Republican Sen. Richard Burr is getting roundly slammed for his insider trading shenanigans. But he is not up for re-election this year, like Tillis. Here’s one of Cunningham’s ads:

Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, political life goes on, and so this week I wrote about the House and Senate landscape at New York:

At FiveThirtyEight, Nathaniel Rakich has conducted an overview of Senate races, and concludes that Democrats have a marginally better — though still limited — chance of picking up the three or four (depending on who controls the tie-breaking vice-presidential vote) net seats needed for control in 2021:

“The most competitive Senate races remain unchanged from late last year — there haven’t been any significant developments in Colorado or Maine, for example, that have dislodged them from their too-close-to-call status. Instead, the biggest Senate news of the last couple months came in the longer-shot Democratic pick-up opportunity of Montana, where Gov. Steve Bullock’s entry has shaken up the race. Bullock was considered to be the only Democrat who could put this red state in play, and his announcement caused nonpartisan handicappers to move the race from ‘Solid Republican’ to ‘Lean Republican.'”

The November special election for a Republican-held Senate seat in Georgia is another potential Democratic pickup opportunity, given the potentially vicious GOP intraparty maneuvering involving Doug Collins and recently appointed senator, Kelly Loeffler. And as Rakich notes, in Arizona, Democrat Mark Kelly is beginning to look like a slight favorite against another appointed senator, Martha McSally.

If the Senate landscape is looking slightly bluer but still tinged red, COVID-19 has more decisively affected House races, as Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman explains:

“As the COVID-19 outbreak forces more states to delay spring primary and runoff dates, it’s had another, more subtle effect: it’s all but frozen the House recruitment process in place and curtailed fundraising, benefiting incumbents and candidates who had already built large war chests and disadvantaging recent entrants. On the whole, that boosts Democrats, the party on defense this cycle.

“Republicans need a net gain of 18 seats to win the majority back. But of the 30 House Democrats who represent districts President Trump carried in 2016, 11 still didn’t have a GOP challenger with more than $200,000 in the bank at the beginning of 2020. In fact, the median Democrat in these 30 seats ended 2019 with $1.8 million on hand to just $247,000 for the median leading Republican challenger.

“Amid self-quarantines and massive 401k losses, it’s going to be next to impossible for the parties to convince fence-sitting would-be candidates to jump into races and spend most of the year asking for money. That’s bad news for Republicans, who still have a few glaring recruitment holes.”

In his own ratings, Wasserman has moved four freshman Democrats — Laura Underwood of Illinois, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Antonio Delgado of New York, and Ben McAdams of Utah — from toss-up races to Lean D.

Most obviously, we are in the kind of insane cycle where everything could change between now and November, with the most politically important variables (themselves significantly affected by public-health and economic developments) being Donald Trump’s job approval rating and the capacity of the states to pull off a competent general election with something approaching the high turnout everyone expected before COVID-19 arrived. At this point we don’t even know for sure that the presidential nominees will be healthy as the campaign gets geared up. But it will matter a lot which party controls Congress next year, and whether either has the kind of trifecta that can make governing much easier as the country — God willing — moves beyond the current crisis.

At Brookings, William A. Galston reports that “Polling shows Americans see COVID-19 as a crisis, don’t think US is overreacting.” As Galston writes:

As soon as the novel coronavirus began spreading across the country, some pundits—and on occasion President Trump—alleged that health experts and the media were exaggerating the problem and that policy makers were responding with measures that the American people would not tolerate. The high-quality survey research published in recent days makes it clear that the people don’t agree. They believe that we face a national emergency and that all the steps taken during the past few weeks are reasonable and proportionate. As of now, moreover, there is no evidence—none—that these measures have pushed the people past their breaking-point into non-compliance or revolt.

Galston provides “a summary of the key findings from three wide-ranging surveys conducted by Economist/YouGov, the Pew Research Center, and the Washington Post,” and notes:

Eighty-one percent of the people say that the Covid-19 pandemic has created a “national emergency” (Economist/YouGov). Sixty-six percent believe that it is a “major threat” to the health of the U.S. population, 88% say that it is a major threat to the economy (Pew), and 57% say that the country is “at war” with the coronavirus (Economist/YouGov). Only 3 in 10 say that the threat has been exaggerated for political reasons (Economist/YouGov).

About three-quarters of Americans are concerned about an outbreak in their communities (Economist/YouGov). Nearly 7 in 10 express the fear that they or a member of their family will catch the disease, and about two-thirds say that the disease will push the U.S. into a recession or that we are already in one. One-third of all households have already experienced layoffs or pay cuts, and the impact has been even higher for lower-income and less-educated individuals (Pew).

Galston notes further that “The surveys find a remarkably high degree of support for the measures public officials have mandated in response to Covid-19, even the measures that have massively disrupted daily life.” He adds that, “40% or more of Americans believe that we are underreacting to the Covid-19 threat, compared to 25-30% who believe that we are overreacting and about one-quarter who think that our reaction has been about right (Pew, Economist/YouGov). The country is split down the middle on the effectiveness of our efforts to contain the coronavirus, with 47% saying that the battle is going well and 46% that it is going badly. Only 4 in 10 Americans think that we were adequately prepared for this crisis, while 6 in 10 say that we were not (Economist/YouGov).”

For those who are wondering how the crisis affects public views about the role of federal, state and local governments in addressing the crisis, Galston notes, “On the one hand, a plurality of Americans (43%) say that the federal government should be in charge, compared to 27% for the states and just 9% for localities (Economist/YouGov). On the other hand, they express more confidence in state and local officials than they do in the federal government.”

Galston cites the likelihood that “sustained public support for tough public health measures will increase” if the CARES Act keeps most people employed and busines bankruptsies are limited. He concludes that “the American people are backing an increasingly robust response to the COVID-19 epidemic, even when it limits their customary liberties, they expect this restrictive regime to continue for at least another few months, and they seem prepared to tolerate it—for how long, nobody really knows.”