From “A Voter’s Guide to Health Care” by The New York Times Editorial Board: “national poll results released in September found that three-quarters of Americans want to retain protections that prevent insurers from discriminating against people based on their medical history…As health care costs rise, more Americans are voicing support for a single-payer system: Fifty-three percent now support such a plan, compared with less than 40 percent in the early 2000s…Republicans have long insisted that they want to protect people with pre-existing conditions from insurance discrimination — just not through the Affordable Care Act…But it’s tough to argue that one is for pre-existing condition protections when one is actively fighting the only federal law to ever have guaranteed those protections in the first place.”

The editorial continues: “So far, 34 states have chosen to opt in to the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion program, which provides coverage for working-age adults who earn up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line. On Tuesday, three more states — Idaho, Nebraska and Utah — will decide whether to join those ranks, and several others — including Florida, Georgia, Wisconsin and Maine — will decide whether to replace a Republican governor who has opposed Medicaid expansion with a Democratic one who supports it…Medicaid is increasingly popular among voters, in part because so many of them — roughly one in five Americans, as of June — now receive benefits through the program.”

In his article, “How Will Hate Play in the Midterms?,” Robert Kuttner writes at The American Prospect: “Here is an awkward but urgent question. Will the grotesque violence incited by Trumpism and his own appalling remarks hurt Republican congressional incumbents and candidates who slavishly vote with Trump? Or will they be permitted to step delicately around the escalating violence?…One straw in the wind since the pipe-bomb mailings is the latest NPR poll showing that Trump’s favorability is down to 39 percent. Fully 44 percent of respondents said that Trump would be a major factor in how they vote in the midterm, compared to just 28 percent who said at a comparable point on the eve of the 2016 midterm that their view of President Obama would influence their vote for Congress…Even more ominously for Trump and the GOP, 47 percent of voters said that their view of Trump made them more likely to support a Democrat for Congress. Just 34 percent said they’d be more likely to back the Republican.”

With “Five Days to Go,” Kyle Kondik shares “our best guess right now” at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “House: Right now, we have 212 House seats at least leaning to the Democrats, 202 at least leaning to the Republicans, and 21 Toss-ups. While we’re still gathering information about the Toss-ups, we do have a sense as to where we’re leaning in the races. As of this moment, we’d probably pick the Democrats in 12 of the Toss-ups and Republicans in nine of them. That would amount to a Democratic House gain of 29 seats. So let’s say, for now, we’re thinking an overall Democratic gain of somewhere around 30 seats, give or take. That’s more than the 23 net seats the Democrats need, but not so many more that one could rule out the Democrats sputtering out short of the majority…Senate: Including the 65 Senate seats not on the ballot as obviously “safe” for the current incumbent party, our Senate ratings show 50 seats at least leaning Republican, 45 at least leaning Democratic, and five Toss-ups. Our current sense, subject to change, is that the Toss-ups might split three to two in either direction. If that happens, and our other ratings hold up, the Republicans would net one-to-two Senate seats…Governors: Republicans currently hold 33 governorships, Democrats hold 16, and there’s one independent…our ratings show 22 governorships at least leaning Republican, 18 at least leaning Democratic, and 10 Toss-ups. Split the Toss-ups five to five, and Democrats would have 23 governorships, or a net gain of seven…”

In his NYT op-ed, “When Trump Voters Go For Democrats: Why is the Rust Belt trending blue for the midterms? The collapse of community may provide an answer,” Timothy P. Carney writes, “It’s easy to assume that Rust Belt voters have soured on the president, that blue-collar voters are upset Mr. Trump never Made America Great Again. But it’s not about the president: Mr. Trump still has extraordinarily high approval ratings among those who voted for him. The problem for the Republicans is that Mr. Trump made these Rust Belt voters into Trump voters, but he never made them Republicans…One NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted in mid-October showed that, compared to the midterm voters in Mr. Obama’s first term, voters now are less likely (31 percent to 36 percent) to be voting to “send a signal” about the president. Instead, they seem to be sending a signal about the Republican Party…Low social trust and low civic engagement defined the places that swung hardest to Mr. Trump. Because the vote was an expression of alienation and dissatisfaction, rather than an expression of partisan fealty, many of those places will swing back enough to give Democrats statewide wins on Election Day.

Conservative Max Boot has an 18-point litany explaining why Republican candidates, nearly all of whom are Trump enablers, should be defeated across the board on Tuesday. As Boot writes in his column, “Vote against all Republicans. Every single one” in The Washington Post. “If you’re sick and tired, too, here is what you can do. Vote for Democrats on Tuesday. For every office. Regardless of who they are. And I say that as a former Republican. Some Republicans in suburban districts may claim they aren’t for Trump. Don’t believe them. Whatever their private qualms, no Republicans have consistently held Trump to account. They are too scared that doing so will hurt their chances of reelection. If you’re as sick and tired as I am of being sick and tired about what’s going on, vote against all Republicans. Every single one. That’s the only message they will understand.”

At The Nation, NationAction writes, “There’s no better way to get involved in the final days of a campaign than by canvassing and door-knocking. Swing Left, an organization founded to take back Congress after the 2016 election, has created a campaign called The Last Weekend that shows you high-impact canvassing opportunities near you. Whether you’re in a red or blue state, chances are there’s an important race nearby where you can make a difference by showing up in person.”

In most of the recent polls, Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke is running behind in his quest to win a U.S. Senate seat from incumbent Republican Ted Cruz. But, if O’Rourke wins next Tuesday, much of the credit will go to his unprecedented Facebook messaging. Alexis C. Madrigal explains at The Atlantic:

Through October 20, O’Rourke alone had spent $5.4 million advertising on the platform, according to Facebook’s Ad Archive Report. J. B. Pritzker, Kamala Harris, Andrew Cuomo, Claire McCaskill, and Heidi Heitkamp had spent $5.5 million total. O’Rourke’s opponent, Senator Ted Cruz, had spent only $427,000 on Facebook, about 1/13th as much as O’Rourke…Much of O’Rourke’s Facebook-ad buy seems to be going toward short videos of the candidate talking to crowds or directly to the camera.

Not that O’Rourke is neglecting TV and Google, as Madrigal notes:

The two Texas Senate hopefuls are relatively close in spending on television ads. While O’Rourke had spent more than $15 million on television ads through mid-October, Cruz and associated pacs had spent $12 million and were on pace to nearly catch up there. O’Rourke has also spent $1.3 million on Google ads, also top among all candidates, though by a much narrower margin (Rick Scott has spent more than $1 million). Cruz has spent little on Google—$181,000—according to the company’s political transparency report.

But O’Rourke’s online campaign has already proven to be a tremendous success in terms of fund-raising, and “his unexpected fund-raising success—pulling in $62 million through September 30—has catapulted the relatively unknown congressman from El Paso onto the national stage.”

Perhaps, even more importantly, O’Rourke’s campaign has also invested heavily in assembling a first-rate video production team.

But O’Rourke’s own video team has proved able to get and recognize hot footage, according to Kasra Shokat, a digital-media strategist at the consultancy Winning Mark. “He has invested a ton of infrastructure that can turn around and produce video on a dime and get those up quickly,” Shokat said. “That’s the kind of engaging content that works really well.”…Shokat said he’s begun to recommend that campaigns, especially those of charismatic talkers, hire full-time video help to create content.

Through widespread re-postings of his diverse videos, “it’s looking like O’Rourke’s total spending on Facebook has generated into the hundreds of millions of impressions,” notes Madrigal. It seems a wise bet. When a political campaign has a charismatic candidate, who is an underdog, maximizing face-time can only help.

“Facebook remains the primary platform for most Americans,” report Aaron Smith and Monica Anderson at pewinternet.org. “Roughly two-thirds of U.S. adults (68%) now report that they are Facebook users, and roughly three-quarters of those users access Facebook on a daily basis. With the exception of those 65 and older, a majority of Americans across a wide range of demographic groups now use Facebook.”

“O’Rourke’s remarkable fund-raising might not be duplicative by candidates with less star power or in less contentious races, “warns Madrigal. “But if O’Rourke’s Facebook-heavy campaign surprises, even with a closer-than-expected loss, his approach could be a blueprint for state-level candidates devoting more resources to the platform.”

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

Well, there’s been a spate of stories about nervous Democrats fearing a 2018 surprise, just like the 2016 surprise, along with reports of some races tightening, making Democrats even more nervous. These are stories that have to be written I suppose but it’s still hard to see how the situation is changing in a big way at this point. The overall playing field is not contracting, it’s expanding as the GOP rushes in to try to defend seats they didn’t even think they’d have to worry about.

And we have this from Charlie Cook, as experienced and astute an observer of elections, particularly House elections, as we have. Cook observes in his latest column:

“With 12 days to go before the midterm elections, there are plenty of reasons to believe that we know the general directions that the House, Senate, gubernatorial, and state legislative elections will go, just not the degrees….

In the House, will the Democratic gain be above or below the 30-35 seat range? In the contests for governorships, will Democratic gains be closer to five seats or to eight or 10? In terms of state legislative seats gained, is it closer to 400 or to 700? And in chambers controlled, will it be closer to a half-dozen chambers flipping from red to blue or is it closer to a dozen?

For once, it is the fight for control of the House that is getting more attention than for the Senate, and a national survey conducted for The Cook Political Report and Louisiana State University’s Manship School of Mass Communications, in conjunction with Manship School Fellow James Carville, underscores that movement in favor of Democrats in the House. While among registered voters nationally, Democrats have a 7-point lead over the GOP in terms of the generic-congressional-ballot test, 45 to 38 percent, among voters in the 72 districts considered most competitive by The Cook Political Report, Democrats had an 11-point lead, 43 to 32 percent. When those who were undecided but leaning toward a party were included, Democrats were still ahead by 11 points, 45 to 34 percent. An Oct. 15-21 Washington Post-Shar School poll in 69 competitive districts released this week put Democrats ahead for Congress as well, though by a 3-point margin, 50 to 47 percent….

A generally accepted rule of thumb is that Democrats need a lead of at least seven points in the national popular vote for the House, matching the generic ballot number in the CPR/Manship School poll. The RealClearPolitics average of national polls is 7.5 percent, while Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight average is 8.3 percent. But when you look exclusively at the most competitive districts, not at the slam-dunk seats where parties waste votes by running up the score, and keeping in mind that only a handful of the competitive seats are held by Democrats, a generic lead for Democrats of 3 points, as the Washington Post/Schar School poll shows, or of 11 points, as the CPR/Manship School polls indicates, would both indicate Democrats having an advantage in terms of control of the House.

This top-down, macro-political view of the House matches a more race-by-race, micro-political analysis, starting with Alabama’s 1st District and going through Wyoming’s at-large seat, suggesting that Democratic gains in the 30- to 35-seat range, more than the 23 needed to tip control, are likely to occur.”

OK, now you can get back to worrying.

If Democrats needed a late energizer for their midterm campaigns, in addition to the horrific Trump-stoked violence of last week, Ari Berman’s op-ed “How Voter Suppression Could Swing the Midterms” in The New York Times should help. As Berman writes, “In Georgia and other states, the question in this election is not just about which candidates voters will support, but whether they’ll be able to cast a ballot in the first place. The fight over voting rights in the midterms is a reminder that elections are not solely about who is running, what their commercials say or how many people are registered to vote. They are about who is allowed to vote and which officials are placing obstacles in the way of would-be voters…Since the 2010 election, 24 states overwhelmingly controlled by Republicans have put in place new voting restrictions, such as tougher voter ID laws, cutbacks to early voting and barriers to registration. Republicans say these measures are necessary to combat the threat of widespread voter fraud, even though study after study shows that such fraud is exceedingly rare. Many of these states have hotly contested races in 2018, and a drop in turnout among Democratic constituencies, such as young people and voters of color, could keep Republicans in power.”

Berman spotlights voter supression initiatives in Georgia, Texas, Florida, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Kansas, and concludes, “If Democrats turn out in large numbers on Nov. 6, as the early-voting data suggests is happening in some key states, it will be in spite of these barriers, not because they didn’t exist or didn’t matter…Despite rampant suppression efforts, there is some hope. In seven states, ballot initiatives would restore voting rights to ex-felons, make it easier to register to vote and crack down on gerrymandering. If these pass, we could see 2018 as a turning point for expanding voting rights, instead of an election tainted by voter suppression. But first people need to have the right to cast a ballot.”

If a frog had a glass ass, he could only jump once. But Emily Badger’s “What If Everyone Voted?” at The Upshot does include an instructive observation, which sharply underscores the importance of better Democratic GOTV in key states: “It’s impossible to know what would have happened had the people sitting out elections voted. But Bernard Fraga, an Indiana University political scientist, has tried to gauge that alternative reality using data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, which annually surveys thousands of Americans…The survey asks which candidates people preferred even if they did not vote. And if we add their preferences to the voting population in the last several elections, we get different election results…“If everybody voted, Clinton wins. If minority turnout was equal to white turnout, Clinton wins,” said Mr. Fraga, who describes these patterns in a new book, “The Turnout Gap.” Many white voters who preferred Mr. Trump sat out 2016 as well. So in this full-turnout counterfactual, Mrs. Clinton doesn’t overcome Mr. Trump’s narrow victories in Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvania. Rather, she flips Florida, North Carolina and Texas.” And what if, more realistically, not everyone voted, but local activists mobilized a 10 percent improvement in turnout among African American, Latino and young voters in those 3 states?

At The National Journal, John Kraushaur notes, quoted by Ruy Teixeira, that ““Privately, Republican leaders expect to lose around 30 seats—and the House majority—but acknowledge that there could be a number of unexpected outcomes pushing those numbers higher on Election Night. That’s an all-too-realistic scenario given the supercharged liberal engagement in districts across the country, lackluster re-election efforts from unprepared GOP members of Congress, and impressive fundraising figures from even long-shot Democratic challengers…But there are many other districts where Trump won less than 55 percent of the vote that feature Democratic challengers who have gone under-the-radar…All told, that means Republicans are likely to lose around 30-35 House seats—but the potential for a larger total is higher than the likelihood they can salvage their majority.”

And if you wanna get wonky, Teixeira also flags a “Forecastapalooza!,” and notes, “The good folks at PS, one of the American Political Science Association’s journals, have made the articles from their special forecasting issue available online. These are all academic models, of course, which use a handful of variables to predict the outcome of the 2018 election. They are not continuously updated with polling information, etc, in the manner of 538 and other models on various websites….But they’re interesting and, if you can take the poli sci jargon, well worth strolling through.”

In additon to 538’s model, “Are Republicans Losing The Health Care Debate?” by Janie Velencia and Dhrumil Mehta, notes that “unfortunately for Trump and the Republican party, Democrats seem to be winning the health care public opinion battle: 53 percent of Americans said they trust Democrats to do a better job with health care than Republicans in a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll. Just 35 percent of respondents said they trusted Republicans over Democrats. Similarly, a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that Americans were more likely to trust Democrats over Republicans on specific health care issues like continuing protections for pre-existing medical conditions and reducing health care costs. Even independents have gotten behind Democrats: 60 percent placed their faith in Democrats to protect pre-existing conditions (compared to 19 percent who trusted Republicans) in the Kaiser poll.”

Anthony Adragna’s Politico headline says it well “The powerful weapon House Republicans handed Democrats: A GOP rule change handed unilateral subpoena authority to many House committee chairmen. Democrats cried foul, but now they hope to use it against Trump.” As Adragna elaborates, “House Republicans changed the rules in 2015 to allow many of their committee chairmen to issue subpoenas without consulting the minority party, overriding Democrats objections that likened the tactic to something out of the McCarthy era…Now the weapon that the GOP wielded dozens of times against President Barack Obama’s agencies could allow Democrats to bombard President Donald Trump’s most controversial appointees with demands for information. And many Democrats are itching to use it…“The Republicans have set the standard and, by God, we’re going to emulate that standard,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) told POLITICO.” Adragna notes that some Democrats are relectant to use the power, but “Many Democrats argue that Republicans have only themselves to blame for weaponizing the subpoena process, and that their own party should not unilaterally disarm now that the power has been unleashed.”

Democrat Beto O’Rourke is fighting an uphill battle in Texas to take Ted Cruz’s senate seat. But, in his article, “Here’s One Way Beto O’Rourke And Democrats Nationwide Could Win. It Won’t Be Easy: Demographics isn’t destiny in Texas. But 2018 could mark a turning point for Latino turnout” at HuffPo, Roque Planas notes this ray of hope: “…Most polls measure the preferences of likely voters, an inconsistently defined classification that ranges from people who say they’re likely to cast a ballot to people whom pollsters can confirm voted in recent elections. That makes this Texas election harder to predict. In recent years, Texas has averaged an annual increase of 100,000 new voters. But between the last presidential election and last week, when the Texas Secretary of State’s Office released its final tally, the number of new voters skyrocketed by nearly 700,000…Some of that growth benefits Cruz. Suburban counties, many of which lean Republican, saw some of the highest growth in registration rates. But the top four counties to gain voters — Harris, Bexar, Travis and Dallas — all went blue in 2016 and amassed more than a quarter-million extra voters between them. The border’s largest counties saw voter growth outpacing the state’s average as a whole. Registration in Hidalgo County, where Cambio Texas works, jumped by 7 percent.”

“The share of 18- to 29-year-old voters who say they will definitely vote has jumped from 26 percent in the run-up to the last midterm election in 2014 to 40 percent this fall, according to a new poll obtained from the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government,” Amy Garner writes in “Pushing for a ‘youth wave’: Can Democrats channel dissent into action at the ballot box?” at The Washington Post. “One driving factor: widespread support for government intervention to curb gun violence and reduce college debt and health-care costs…A national analysis by the Democratic data firm TargetSmart shows voter registration — and voting in primaries — has risen slightly nationally among young voters since the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., last February…In Pennsylvania, youth voters have made up nearly 60 percent of all new registrants, Target­Smart reported in September. The share of the electorate that is under age 30 has grown since 2017 in several key states, including Nevada, North Carolina and Florida, according to state voter registration data tracked by the firm L2. In Virginia, requests for student absentee ballots, at about 30,000, are about 50 percent higher than in last year’s gubernatorial election.”

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

How important are Latinos to Democratic prospects in the 2018 election? On one level, this seems like an easy question to answer. They are a fast-growing group and are now America’s largest minority group, surpassing blacks as a percentage of the population. They tend to vote Democratic, on average at about a 2:1 rate. Therefore, it seems logical to assume that they will play a big role in in an expected “blue wave” of Democratic victories this fall, especially given Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric toward Latino immigrants.

But all is not as it seems. The reality is that, while Latinos will certainly be helpful to the Democrats in this election, they may not play as big a role as many Democrats hope.

Start with the question of turnout. Some articles report anecdotal evidence of a lack of excitement among Hispanic voters, despite the presumed threat posed by President Trump and his allies. And a nationwide tracking poll of Latinos by the Latino Decisions polling firm reports that well over half (55 percent) of Hispanic registered voters have not been contacted in any way about the upcoming election.

However, traditional indicators of campaign interest paint a different picture. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found 73 percent of Latinos now expressing very high interest in the midterms—a higher level than among all registered voters—and up from just 49 percent a month ago.

Thus it is quite possible that Hispanic turnout will be relatively high this election—as indeed it could be for the electorate as a whole looking across various indicators of interest and enthusiasm. But it should be kept in mind the Hispanic turnout starts from a low base (just 27 percent in 2014, the last midterm election) so that, even it goes up, it is still likely to be substantially below that of whites and blacks.

As for Democratic support, average levels among Latinos appear strong and consistent with historical patterns. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll put national Hispanic support for Democratic Congressional candidates at 66-26, while the Latino Decisions tracking poll has it a bit higher at 69-24.

But we also see considerable variation in Latino support when we look at specific races around the country. Looking across a range of competitive Congressional races that the New York Times is polling, Democratic candidates generally have solid leads among Hispanic voters, but in some key races fall short of the 2:1 lead that Democrats would ideally like to see. Even allowing for the notorious difficulties of polling Hispanics and relatively small sample sizes, these are concerning figures.

In key statewide races, we also see some strong but not overwhelming leads for Democrats among Latinos. For example, in Texas, where Democrat Beto O’Rourke is hoping to unseat the very conservative GOP Senator Ted Cruz, Democrats had hoped for crushing margins among Latino voters. Recent polls, however, have Cruz pulling 37 percent of the Hispanic vote and keeping Democratic margins in the 20-25 point range. This is very good of course but does not suggest the tsunami of Latino support Democrats probably need to counter their weakness among white, particularly noncollege, voters in Texas.

Thus, while Democrats will clearly benefit this cycle from the Hispanic vote—and the higher the turnout of this group, the better for them—available data indicate that these voters, by themselves, are not some sort of magic elixir for the party. They are a part, but only a part, of the political puzzle Democrats seek to solve.

As the midterms approach, it’s hard for many Democrats to forget what happened in the last nationwide general election. I wrote about the positive side of that trauma for New York:

Things looked even sunnier for Democrats this time two years ago, right? And then the nightmare began …

The sense of déjà vu is intensifying with reports of increased Republican enthusiasm, and in some places, better polling numbers for the GOP. Could it all be happening again?

That’s the question being posed by Orange County, California, Democrats in a close-up piece by the Washington Post’s Matt Viser:

“[V]oters there seemed racked with uncertainty. They want to feel optimistic, but they said that after Trump’s unexpected victory, they will never trust their expectations again.

“‘I’m getting anxious. I’m getting very anxious,’ said Carol Barnes, a 70-year-old retired clinical laboratory scientist from East Anaheim. ‘We just have to keep going and hope for the best. I don’t want to go home crying again.’

But at least one Democratic congressional candidate in the area, Katie Hill, is actually using the bad memories to keep her supporters motivated:

“Terrified of reliving the dejection they awoke to on the morning of Nov. 9, 2016, they are attempting to harness those nervous emotions and inject a bit of fear in the hearts of their supporters.

“Katie Hill, who has emerged as one of the party’s most promising first-time congressional candidates, looked out at a group of about 100 supporters days ago and revealed that new polling indicated a four-point swing against her in what for decades has been a conservative stronghold, driven by consolidation by Republican voters into the camp of her opponent.

“‘We were ahead by a few points just a few weeks ago,’ she said from a campaign headquarters sandwiched between a vape shop and a gun store. ‘The last poll we got back a couple days ago has us exactly tied.'”

This isn’t the first time Democrats have exhibited Post-Trump Stress Disorder, as I observed at a similar juncture last year during the off-year Virginia gubernatorial contest:

“Earlier this week the Daily Beast’s veteran political reporter Sam Stein wrote that Democrats were ‘panicked’ over Virginia, worried about a lack of enthusiasm for their candidate and the absence of the kind of massive national small-dollar investments in the campaign that characterized the congressional special election in Georgia earlier this year. A prominent Virginia activist penned a piece that rocketed around the internet with this headline: ‘Heads Up — An Impending Disaster in Virginia.’ And Vox’s Jeff Stein penned a classic glass-half-empty assessment noting that polls showed the race as ‘surprisingly close’ while ‘worried’ Democrats fretted over Gillespie’s ‘culture war’ attacks on Northam.”

Then, as now, Republicans were getting very Trumpy in their efforts to motivate conservative voters with savage cultural themes.

“[T]he more Gillespie’s campaign begins to resemble Trump’s in its borderline-racist savagery about criminal gangs of immigrants and politically correct efforts to take down Confederate monuments, the more Democrats relive Election Night 2016, when all those objective indicators of a Clinton victory proved illusory.”

But it all turned out well on Election Day in Virginia, when Democrat Ralph Northam actually over-performed his polling expectations. It’s unclear whether the “Democratic panic” so palpable in the home stretch of that race helped motivate Northam’s supporters, or tempted them to hide under their beds. And it’s also unclear whether gambits like Katie Hall’s will make a positive difference in her prospects on November 6. It is very clear that if Democrats failed to win the House after a solid year or more of talk about a “Democratic wave,” left-of-center voters may not trust election punditry or projections for a good while.

For those wondering how Democrats should respond to the wave of terrorist bombing attempts against Democrats, progressives and media, the title of William Saletan’s slate.com article, “Trump Is Celebrating Violence and Nationalism at His Rallies: Republicans aren’t pushing back” puts the terrorist attacks in perspective. Saletan elaborates: “Trump has been testing the GOP’s tolerance for demagoguery that explicitly promotes brutality. And so far, Republicans seem willing to go along. Trump has repeatedly invited his supporters to beat up protesters at his rallies…To build support for political violence, you need potential adversaries within your party to clam up or look the other way. Trump is getting that from the GOP. CNBC says it asked Republican lawmakers, “including every Republican senator,” for reactions to the president’s comments. The network got no replies.”

Yochai Benkler’s “The Russians didn’t swing the 2016 election to Trump. But Fox News might have” at The Washington Post merits a thoughtful read by those who are charged with developing media strategy for Democratic candidates. Among Benkler’s insights: “the fundamental driver of disinformation in American politics of the past three years has not been Russia, but Fox News and the insular right-wing media ecosystem it anchors. All the Russians did was jump on the right-wing propaganda bandwagon: Their efforts were small in scope, relative to homegrown media efforts. And what propaganda victories the Russians achieved occurred only when the right-wing media machine picked up stories and, often, embellished them…For a new book, “Network Propaganda,” Robert Faris, Hal Roberts and I — colleagues at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society — analyzed millions of articles: any story, on any website, mainstream and fringe, that mentioned any candidate for the election and the major parties, from 2015 to 2018…Throughout our work, we find clear patterns, before and after the election. The Russians are there. They are trying. But in all these cases, American right-wing media did the heavy lifting to originate and propagate disinformation.”

In his syndicated column, “Republicans are scared of Stacey Abrams. They should be,” E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes, “By engaging in voter suppression, Stacey Abrams’s opponents are paying her the highest possible compliment…The former Democratic minority leader of the state House of Representatives, Yale Law School grad and the first African American woman to be nominated by a major party for governor is so close to winning that Republicans seem to think the only way to stop her is to keep thousands from casting ballots…Abrams’s identity would make her election historic. But her campaign also matters because she represents the growing strength of a pragmatic style of progressivism that could transform the politics of states long cast as conservative bastions.” A good point — the Abrams campaign’s impressive ability to make a close race of it in a red state, where others have failed merits study by Democrats.

From a new AP-NORC and MTV poll of 1,052 young Americans age 15-34, conducted Sept. 20 to Oct. 8, 2018, as reported by A. P.’s Juana Summers: “Large majorities of young Americans want to see an expansion of government services, including a single-payer health care program, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and MTV…According to the poll, 69 percent of young Americans between the ages of 15 and 34 favor a national health plan, known as a single-payer program. Eighty-eight percent of young Democrats and 40 percent of young Republicans favor a government-run health insurance program, according to the poll. Roughly two-thirds of young independents are in favor.”

Nate Cohn’s “Many Possible Paths to a House Majority for Democrats, None Guaranteed” at The Upshot provides a field guide typology to possible House swing districts: Cohn’s taxonomy  includes: “The First 13” — the most lkely Democratic pick-ups; “Well-Educated Republican Suburbs”; “Diverse Democratic Districts” — districts with pro-Democratic demographic profiles; “Mostly White, Middle-Class Districts”; “White Working-Class Trump Surge Districts” — basically Obama to Trump blue collar districts; “Democratic Stars, Republican Problems” –disticts where Dems have unusually strong candidates and/or Republicans are divided; “Republican-Leaning Gerrymanders” — districts that still have some pro-Democratic precincts, despite having lots of GOP supporters dumped in by redistricting; “A Stealthy Open Seat” — Republican-leaning districts that have no GOP incumbent; and “A Democratic Surprise” — a significant number of districts where there are no good polls to indicate trends toward either party.

“In the Senate,” Nathaniel Rakich writes at FiveThirtyEight, “our 80-percent confidence interval spans everything from Democrats picking up two seats to Republicans picking up three. And in the House, there’s an 80 percent chance that Democratic gains will be somewhere between 20 and 61 seats — that’s a big range!…What fuels this wide range of outcomes? A big part of it is lack of data. Even at this late stage in the election cycle, many states and districts — even potentially decisive ones — have seen little to no polling, which forces our model to lean on other factors like an area’s fundamentals, possibly missing sentiments stirring on the ground. Of course, we don’t need polls everywhere; many states and districts are safe for one party or the other. But if we just look at places that our model considers to be competitive, some get all the polling love, while several others are woefully under-surveyed…Overall, it appears that pollsters may be behind the curve on which districts are truly competitive given Democrats’ increasingly strong position in the House.”

Democratic strategist Joe Trippi has some comments about the effects of Trump fatigue on voters in the closing weeks. As reported by Tara Golshan at vox.com, “Trump’s creating energy among the Democratic base that wants to come out and wants to make the change and wants to do something to fight back against what’s happening. At the same time, he’s creating enough chaos and divisiveness and hostility that Republicans who would never ordinarily vote for a Democrat say, “Okay, well I’ve got all the chaos and hostility I can handle right now. I’ll vote for somebody who wants to try to find common ground and get things done for me, even if they’re a Democrat.” Golshan also quotes an anonomous “Democratic campaign aide,” who observed “People are over the drama…They are tired of the fighting. They want us to talk about the issue and the issue is not the border wall — their issue is whether their kid is going to get off of opioids.”

At The Washington Monthly, Megan Hart reports on “The Senate race That Climate Change Could Tip,” and offers insights about the largest swing state’s demographic dynamics, “Voter interest in environmental issues is exceptionally high this year, according to Jonathan Webber, the deputy director of Florida Conservation Voters.” Hart notes Republican Governor Rick Scott’s vulnerabilities regarding environmental concerns. “Under Scott and Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature, the environment has taken big hits. Webber said his organization has heard from many Republicans who are upset with the way their party has managed the climate crisis. “There are many older Republicans who miss the days when Republicans did really good things for Florida’s environment,” he said.” Also, notes Hart, “Florida’s electorate is getting younger. An analysis by TargetSmart showed that the rate of voter registration among 18- to 29-year-old Floridians increased by 8 percent following the Parkland shooting in February. Though the Sunshine State is known for its large population of retirees, more than 50 percent of Florida’s registered voters now come from the Z, Millennial, and X generations, according to MacManus, who is considered the state’s leading political authority. “These younger generations are environmental voters much more heavily than the older ones,” she said. Should they turnout on November 6, Scott’s chances of winning will diminish.”

Igor Bobic argues that “Democrats Hope Legal Weed Will Smoke GOP at the Ballot Box: The blue wave the party seeks may be more green than you think” at HuffPo. Bobic writes, “In races at the local, state, and federal level, Democratic candidates are embracing the legalization of some form of marijuana ― if not for recreational use, then purely for medicinal purposes ― at a rate not seen in previous elections…Not surprisingly, progressives like Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum and Texas Senate candidate Rep. Beto O’Rourke have made legalizing cannabis a major plank of their campaign platform. But more centrist-minded Democrats in Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania have made similar appeals to voters…The growing influence of cannabis on the campaign trail this cycle is a reflection of change over the decades in public attitudes about its use. According to a Gallup poll released this week, 66% of Americans now support legalizing marijuana ― a new record.”

From Gallup:

Something popped up in the political news this week that brought back some personal memories, so I wrote about it at New York:

On a rainy Monday morning in June of 1992, I happened to have a meeting in the Georgia State Capitol (I was communications director for U.S. senator Sam Nunn at the time). Upon arriving, I learned a demonstration against the Confederate flag insignia that segregationists added to the state flag in 1956 would soon begin on the steps outside. But it looked like a war was imminent: Just inside the doors at the Capitol, there was a phalanx of State Building Authority police officers in full riot gear. Walking behind their ranks, peering over them to see what was happening at the protest site, was none other than former governor Lester Maddox, the last of the state’s segregationist governors. Turns out he was, like me, just there for a meeting, but for all the world it looked like those mostly black cops were there protecting ol’ Lester from civil-rights protesters.

I went about my business, and I suppose Maddox did, too; meanwhile a brief protest took place just outside the building. The general feeling at the time was that the state had massively overreacted to a small, peaceful demonstration. The reason was obvious: Just over a month earlier violent protests had erupted in Atlanta (as in other cities) after the Rodney King verdict in Los Angeles. At one point, a car parked just outside the Capitol (belonging, ironically, to then–Governor Zell Miller’s top African-American staffer) was overturned. There were no deaths, fortunately, but there were many injuries.

And so in June the flag protesters were outnumbered not just by nearby riot police, but by Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents taking snapshots and trying to intimidate the young college students carrying out the protest. They briefly set fire to the 1956 flag. The rain probably extinguished the fire pretty quickly.

Another piece of context is crucial to this story: Just two weeks earlier, Governor Miller, a Democrat who had once been Maddox’s chief of staff (and who would be a supporter of many conservative candidates later in his career), had called for getting rid of the Confederate emblems on the Georgia flag — a stance that quickly gained the support of soon-to-be U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a conservative Republican from Georgia. So the position, if not the incendiary behavior, of the June protesters was very much in the political mainstream (though it would take another near-decade for the flag to change, under Governor Roy Barnes in 2001).

All this would be a forgotten footnote to the long story of social change in the Deep South had not one of those protesters at the Georgia Capitol been Stacey Abrams, who is running to become the first Democratic governor since Barnes won 20 years ago. Someone dug up a 1992 article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that showed Abrams among the flag-burners, and posted it on Facebook. The New York Times wrote it all up, omitting most of the context I outlined above.

It’s unclear whether this will become an issue in the red-hot, very close contest between Abrams and her conservative Republican opponent, Brian Kemp. Abrams’s underlying position on the flag is now, of course, accepted by everyone other than hard-core neo-Confederates. She has taken far more controversial positions on other divisive relics, such as the giant marble billboard of Confederate leaders chiseled onto the face of state-owned Stone Mountain. But in a racially as well as ideologically polarized gubernatorial election in which Kemp has worked hard to depict Abrams as some sort of lawless radical (particularly in the context of Abrams’s long-standing effortsto register poor and minority voters), the symbolism of flag-burning is easy to exploit, and the larger Lost Cause will also rouse not-so-quiet racists.

The protests in which Abrams participated were righteous then and now, and posed no threat to public safety or order.

A creative ad from Kathleen Williams, Democratic candidate for Montana’s sole House seat. Recent polling indicates that she is now in position for an upset victory over Rep. Gianforte. Here’s her ActBlue page.

At nbcnews.com Heidi Przybyla reports on what could be the largest transfer of wealth from working people to the rich in history and the messaging strategies Democrats are deploying to challenge it in the midterm camapigns:

Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee issued the study, based on calculations by the nonprofit Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, late last week. It shows that the estimated $2 trillion cost of the Bush and Trump-era tax cuts through 2025 is the same amount Republicans have proposed cutting from Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Obamacare.

“It is a dollar-for-dollar transfer of benefits to those who need help the least paid for by those who need help the most,” said Phil Schiliro, a Democrat who’s served in several government positions including as President Barack Obama’s legislative director.

At The St. Louis American, Charles Jaco zeros in on the GOP’s game:

These are not unintended consequences. By slashing taxes for the rich and corporations, Republican lawmakers are maneuvering the United States into a position where deep cuts in Social Security and Medicare will be necessary within six years to keep the government from going bankrupt. That’s the GOP long game. Cutting government revenue to the point where social programs will have to be reduced or eliminated is the entire point.

Przybyla adds that the report, “Families & Seniors Foot the Bill for GOP Tax Cuts,” also “concludes that the average beneficiary from social safety net programs would stand to lose $1,500 a year under proposed cuts.” Further,

It underscores a message that Democratic congressional candidates, like Danny O’Connor in Ohio’s 12th Congressional District that voted overwhelmingly for Trump, have been trying to make in television advertising, stump speeches, press releases and polling memos.

Of all the issues polled by NBC News in September, entitlement cuts are uniquely unpopular, with 82 percent of Americans opposing cutting Social Security and Medicare to pay for the tax cuts…Senate Democratic leadership is now urging all vulnerable Democrats to seize on the link between the tax cuts and entitlements.

Katrina vanden Heuval, editor of The Nation and Washington Post columnist, notes further,

A Morning Consult-Politico poll taken Oct. 11-14 reports that among voters who prioritize senior issues such as Social Security and Medicare, Democrats enjoy a 19-point advantage (52-33) over Republicans…Seniors have been the most conservative voting cohort, while having the highest turnout. Republicans won the senior vote convincingly in the 2010 and 2014 midterms. Trump won 53 percent of the senior vote in 2016. However, notes vanden Heuval, “If these concerns dent the Republican margin among seniors, a blue wave would be virtually assured.”

The Boston Globe’s Michael A. Cohen adds,

According to a report last week from Bloomberg News, an internal Republican National Committee poll shows that the GOP’s top legislative accomplishment has become an albatross around the neck of the party. By a margin of 61 percent to 30 percent, those polled view the tax cut as benefiting “large corporations and rich Americans” over “middle class families.” A majority of voters fear that the measure will lead to cuts in Social Security and Medicare to reduce the deficit, something that Republicans have already hinted at.

Przybyla writes that “Democrats are seizing on the issue in affluent areas like the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., as well as working-class Trump strongholds in the north (Maine’s 2nd Congressional District); the south (Arkansas’s 2nd District) as well as the industrial Midwest…In central Ohio’s 12th District, which voted for Trump by 11 points, [Democratic candidate Danny] O’Connor is running an ad attacking incumbent Republican Troy Balderson for protecting “big corporations” by backing “their huge tax giveaway.”

Przybyla concludes: “It’s a message that proved potent in 2006, the last Democratic wave election, after then-President George W. Bush formed a commission to study privatizing Social Security…It also marks a shift in messaging for a party that recognizes simply decrying “tax cuts for the rich” is a losing strategy without explaining its impact on the federal budget and individual households.”