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

Senator-elect Doug Jones with wife and partner Louise New Jones

Well, quite a night. How’d it happen–what got Doug Jones over the finish line ahead? The exit polls, interestingly, tell a story that was prefigured by an earlier poll that I posted about back on December 3:

The Washington Post/Schar School poll, a poll that gives Jones a 3 point lead among likely voters, shows how [a Jones victory] will happen, if it does happen. First, overwhelming support from blacks, combined with solid turnout (this poll has blacks at about a quarter of likely voters, which is good but not unreasonably high). Then mega-swings in the white vote relative to 2016. Trump carried the white vote by 70 points in Alabama in 2016. In this poll, Moore carries the white vote by a mere 30 points (63-33).

This scenario more or less came to pass, according to the exit polls. Black voters made up 28 percent of the electorate–beating their share in the Post poll– and supported Jones by 96-4. And Jones lost white voters by 36 points (31-67), pretty close to the deficit in the Post poll (especially when one keeps in mind that exit polls have a chronic tendency to overestimate Democratic deficits among whites). This 36 point deficit is about half the 70 point deficit Clinton ran up among white voters in the state in 2016.

Breaking down white voters between college and noncollege, noncollege whites supported Moore by 54 points–strong, but not as strong as the 77 point margin they gave Trump in 2016. White college graduates supported Moore by a mere 16 points (57-41), a mega-swing away from the GOP compared to the 55 point margin these voters gave Trump in 2016.

While I don’t have information on the gender breakdown of these voters in 2016, it’s worth noting that Jones had a mere 5 point deficit among white college women, according to this year’s exit poll. This suggests an unusually large swing by these voters toward Jones. A harbinger of what we’ll see in 2018?

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

Does this mean Jones is probably going to win? Nah. The RCP polling average still has Moore up by 2.5 points, so I guess I’d still make him the favorite. But you’ve gotta classify this latest poll–and the Fox News poll is typically a high-quality poll and therefore better than the a lot of the lower shelf pollsters who’ve worked this race–as good news. It ain’t over ’til it’s over.

The internals of the Fox poll look very good for Jones, hitting support benchmarks that should produce a victory for Jones if they happen in the real world: a 20 point deficit among whites, a near tie among white college graduates and a mere 33 point deficit among white noncollege voters (trust me, that’s good). But which voters will really show up?: not just the relative numbers of white and black voters but which type of voters within a given demographic; perhaps the likely white voters in the Fox News poll aren’t actually a good representation of the white voters who who will show up on Tuesday. Just how much things can move around depending on how you capture and weight that likely voter sample is shown very clearly here by SurveyMonkey’s Mark Blumenthal.

So hold on to your popcorn! It could be a wild ride.

On CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ Democrat Doug Jones got a break in his quest to win a U.S. Senate seat, when Republican Senator Richard C. Shelby “said repeatedly Sunday  that the state’s fellow Republicans can “do better” than Roy Moore, the conservative judge accused of sexual misconduct‘ who faces Democrat Doug Jones in Tuesday’s special election for the U.S. Senate,” report Rosalind S. Helderman and David Weigel at Post Politics. “Shelby has previously said he was not supporting Moore, but his words on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday offered a fresh denunciation of his party’s nominee just days before Alabamians go to the polls in an election to replace former senator Jeff Sessions, who now serves as attorney general…“I didn’t vote for Roy Moore,” Shelby said. “I wouldn’t vote for Roy Moore. I think the Republican Party can do better.” This may up the ‘shame ante’ surrounding Moore for Alabama voters a notch. Apparently the GOP establishment is too thru with the Steve Bannon as king-maker thing.

Edward-Isaac Dovere’s Politico post, “Why Democrats win even if they lose in Alabama: The party will either pick up a seat in the Deep South — or have Roy Moore to campaign against in the midterms,” explains:  “If Roy Moore wins, they’ll spend the next year yoking every Republican they can to the accused child predator and a president who welcomed him into the GOP fold. They’ll be quick to remind everyone of all the other comments Moore has made against Muslims and gays and in favor of Vladimir Putin’s view of America as evil, as well as his rosy view of slave-era America…Supporting Moore “already effects the [Republican National Committee] now trying to go out and raise money. A lot of people are saying, ‘Why in the world would I contribute to an organization that’s pushing an alleged pedophile and child molester?’ It’s a big problem,” Republican Sen. Jeff] Flake said. “He’ll be the gift that keeps on giving for Democrats. If you’re running in 2018, Roy Moore’s going to be your new best friend. As a Republican, to think that you can win without the baggage of Roy Moore is pretty naïve,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).”

To get a better understanding of the obstacles Democratic candidate Doug Jones still faces, howecver, read “What’s Missing From Reports on Alabama’s Black Turnout” by Vann R. Newkirk II at The Atlantic. Newkirk writes, “As the cornerstone of the movement for the franchise, Alabama has also played the part of headquarters of resistance, a long legal and legislative guerrilla war against voting rights that culminated in 2013’s Shelby County v. Holder case, one where officials in the Alabama county successfully sued for all of the former dominion of Jim Crow to be released from federal VRA oversight. That victory, and the structural barriers to voting erected in its aftermath, are a serious—and largely unacknowledged—impediment to Democrat Doug Jones’s chances in the special election for the state’s open Senate seat on Tuesday…Early voting, which has been a key factor for other states in increasing black turnout, is not permitted in Alabama. The state also doesn’t have no-fault absentee voting, preregistration for teens, or same-day registration.* In all, it’s harder to vote in Alabama than just about anywhere else, a dynamic that should tend towards cooling the turnout of people who’ve only been allowed to vote in the state for 50 years…Perhaps Jones will do enough canvassing in the black belt to eke out a victory this year, but the structural barriers to voting will likely remain, or worsen.”

In his New York Times column, “The Republican War on Children,” Paul Krugman writes about the GOP tax bill and the Republican’s failure to refund the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, which provided health care for 8.9 million kids: “Let me ask you a question; take your time in answering it. Would you be willing to take health care away from a thousand children with the bad luck to have been born into low-income families so that you could give millions of extra dollars to just one wealthy heir?…You might think that this question is silly, hypothetical and has an obvious answer. But it’s not at all hypothetical, and the answer apparently isn’t obvious. For it’s a literal description of the choice Republicans in Congress seem to be making as you read this.

The Republican tax bill, when finally enacted, may set a record of sorts. As Taegan Goddard reports at Political Wire, “A new USA Today/Suffolk University Poll finds just 32% support the GOP tax plan while 48% oppose it…Key finding: “That’s the lowest level of public support for any major piece of legislation enacted in the past three decades, including the Affordable Care Act in 2009.”…“Americans are skeptical of the fundamental arguments Republicans have made in selling the bill: A 53% majority of those surveyed predict their own families won’t pay lower taxes as a result of the measure, and an equal 53% say it won’t help the economy in a major way.”

From Ruy Teixeira’s post, “Can We Please Stop Saying Trump’s Base Is Immovable?” at The Optimistic Leftist:”Sure, Trump’s approval rating is still pretty high among Republicans and people who voted for him in 2016, but for chrissake what do people expect? This is a  polarized country; he’s not going to suddenly have a 30 percent approval rating among partisans of his own party…But he is losing ground. He is losing support among the very kind of voters you would describe as his base and that’s very important. He (and the GOP) need every vote they can get and when solid supporters start drifting off that’s very bad for them…Data from a recent Pew release show this drift very clearly. Since February, he’s lost 8 points in approval among Republican identifiers/leaners (from 84 to 76 percent), 17 points among white evangelical Protestants (from 78 to 61 percent) and 10 points among white noncollege voters (from 56 to 46 percent)…He’s a weak president and getting weaker, including among his own supporters.”

Minnesota’s Lt. Governor Tina Smith is aparently the front-runner to fiull Sen. Franken’s seat, reports Ella Nilsen at Vox. But there is a problem, as Nilsen explains: “Minnesota law says that if the lieutenant governor leaves office, the position will automatically be assumed by the president of the state Senate…Right now, the Minnesota state Senate president is Republican Michelle Fischbach, and the possibility she could become Dayton’s second-in-command is sure to be a huge consideration for the governor as he makes his choice. Fischbach’s possible ascendance, combined with Dayton’s own health problems (the governor revealed he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer earlier this year), are two reasons Minnesota Democrats have to be nervous about the possibility of Smith going to Washington.” Further, adds Nilsen, “She [Smith] is seen as a placeholder – someone who has no interest in running for Franken’s seat in 2018, clearing the field for an open race in November.” Nilsen writes that other contenders for Franken’s seat may include MN Reps. Tim Walz and Keith Ellison.

“Ultimately, we’ll need to see which candidates both Democrats and Republicans run in Minnesota to fully grasp each side’s chances,” Harry Enten writes at fivethirtyeifght.com. “Candidate quality still matters in Senate elections (see Alabama 2017). If Democrats can select a candidate who is able to separate her- or himself from Franken’s brand, she or he will probably have a better shot than a generic Democrat. On the other hand, if the Republicans choose a strong candidate, she or he may be able to capitalize on residual anger against Franken, whose approval rating plummeted following the allegations made against him…For now, the most we can say is that the 2018 Minnesota Senate race leans Democratic, but Republicans have a real shot.”

Politico’s David Sider writes that “Democrats scour map for sleeper races: To expand House playing field, party officials bet on long-shot districts,” and notes, “The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee quickly added 11 more Republican-held districts — long-shot seats that aren’t typically in play — to its existing list of 80 targeted races. Candidates in those newly added seats got a sudden dose of fundraising and organizational assistance, in addition to help with budgeting and media operations…The incumbent Republicans in those seats, some of them unaccustomed to vigorous challenges, are already feeling the squeeze.”

No matter what the doomsayers say, progresssives should not allow themselves to get unduly pessimistic about Democratic prospects for defeating Roy Moore in Alabama and picking up a U.S. Senate seat. According to Harry Enten’s fivethirtyeight.com post, “Doug Jones Is Just A Normal Polling Error Away From A Win In Alabama,”

A look at all U.S. Senate election polls since 1998² shows that their average error — how far off the polls were from the actual election result — is more than a percentage point higher than the average error in presidential polling. Also, Alabama polls have been volatile, this is an off-cycle special election with difficult-to-predict turnout, and there haven’t been many top-quality pollsters surveying the Alabama race. So even though Moore is a favorite, Democrat Doug Jones is just a normal polling error away from winning. (Or, by the same token, Moore could win comfortably.)

The polls in Alabama have swung back and forth between Moore and Jones over the past month. The Washington Post first reported on allegations against Moore on Nov. 9, and after that, surveys indicated that the race was moving in Jones’s direction. He held an average advantage of 5 percentage points in polls that were taken six or seven days following the story. Since then, polls have Moore ahead by 3 points, on average, although Jones led by 3 points in a Washington Post poll. (That’s the only recent survey that meets FiveThirtyEight’s gold standard.³)

Fair enough. There is not a lot of data to be bullish about there. But certainly it could be worse. Enten adds, “Simply put, Senate polling has not been especially predictive over the past 10 cycles. Among the 2,075 Senate polls in the FiveThirtyEight database that were taken within 21 days of an election, the average error has been 5.1 percentage points. And that has been fairly consistent across cycles. The 2016 Senate polls featured an average error of 5.2 percentage points.”

However, adds Enten, “the chance of a big error may be unusually high in Alabama. Because of the unusual timing of the election, pollsters may have a difficult time determining who is going to turn out to vote.”

Poll analyst Ruy Teixeira notes that, in the Washington Post poll, Jones pulled about 33 percent suppport from Alabama white voters, which is the same percentage another poll analyst Geoffrey Skelley says Jones must receive to win — provided there is a strong African American turnout favoring Jones at least 9-1.

In addition, Moore’s late-breaking gaffe,“I think it [America] was great at the time when families were united — even though we had slavery — they cared for one another…. Our families were strong, our country had a direction.” is the sort of comment that could energize African American voters, and possibly serve as a ‘last straw’ for other voters who may prefer to stay home, vote for the write-in candidate, or even vote for Democrat Doug Jones rather than cast a ballot for Moore. And there is always the possibility that write-in candidate Col. Lee “Hold My Beer” Busby will take a healthier than expected bite from Moore’s tally, energized by a crritical mass of upright conservatives who are embarrassed by Moore’s sleazy record.

That’s a lot of “ifs,” granted. But, overall Dems have done a little better than expected in 2017 special elections. We’re not expecting a blue wave here. But it’s just possible that a majority of Alabama voters on Tuesday will be ready to bring their state into the 21st century.

Could Al Franken’s resignation from the senate help to defeat Roy Moore? Don’t get trapped in a false equivalency snare here, because the magnitude and context of the allegations against Sen. Franken and Judge Moore are not the same. In fact, the difference in severity of the accusations may boost the vote  against Moore in the December 12th election. We can hope, at least, that some Alabama voters who have been on the fence about voting against Moore may now decide that Franken’s resignation signals an opportunity to set a higher standard of decency and dignity in the behavior of members of  ‘the world’s greatest deliberative body.’ Whatever happens in December 12th election, it will provide a symbolic metric for Alabama values in the minds of many. Kira Lerner reports at ThinkProgress that “The GOP for Doug Jones movement is real: Alabama Republicans are doing something they never thought possible: Voting for a Democrat.” Lerner notes that there is a “Republicans for Doug Jones” Facebook page with 2000 members. Those who want to support a higher standard of decency in the U.S. Senate can contribute to the Doug Jones campaign right here.

“Jones will also need solid turnout among African-American voters to have any chance of winning,” writes Geoffrey Skelley at Sabato’s Crystal Ball. “If black voters make up about 25% of the electorate and Jones wins at least 90% of them, that would mean that Jones would probably have to win at least one-third of the white vote to have a chance of winning, assuming a small portion of the white vote goes for a write-in choice and accounting for a small percentage of other nonwhite voters who are Democratic-leaning. The most recent available exit poll in Alabama is from 2012, which found that Barack Obama won just 15% of the white vote. In 2008, the exit poll found Obama just won 10%, and in 2004, it found John Kerry won about 20%. Even when accounting for the potential error in such findings, it’s clear that it’s been a while since a Democrat won anywhere near one-third of the white vote in Alabama.”

Dahlia Lithwick has a thought-provoking column on the wisdom of Democrats “going high, when they go low” at slate.com. Read her whole article for context, but give some thought to this section: “My own larger concern is that becoming the party of high morality will allow Democrats to live with themselves but that the party is also self-neutering in the face of unprecedented threats, in part to do the right thing and in part to take ammunition away from the right—a maneuver that never seems to work out these days. When Al Franken, who has been a champion for women’s rights in his tenure in the Senate, leaves, what rushes in to fill the space may well be a true feminist. But it may also be another Roy Moore. And there is something deeply naïve, in a game of asymmetrical warfare, and in a moment of unparalleled public misogyny, in assuming that the feminist gets the seat before it happens…This isn’t a call to become tolerant of awful behavior. It is a call for understanding that Democrats honored the blue slip, and Republicans didn’t. Democrats had hearings over the Affordable Care Act; Republicans had none over the tax bill. Democrats decry predators in the media; Republicans give them their own networks. And what do Democrats have to show for it? There is something almost eerily self-regarding in the notion that the only thing that matters is what Democrats do, without considering what the systemic consequences are for everyone.”

Don’t worry too much about Franken’s seat going to a Republican any time soon. “Democrats Will Likely Hold Franken’s Seat, But Minnesota’s Not As Blue As It Seems,” reports Harry Enten at fivethirtyeight.com. Enten adds, “Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton will appoint a replacement (possibly Lt. Gov. Tina Smith) who will hold the seat through the 2018 midterm elections. In 2018, a special election will take place to determine who will hold the seat until the regularly scheduled election in 2020. Whether Dayton’s pick runs in 2018 or not,¹ the eventual Democratic candidate will likely be favored to win that race — though it’s not a sure thing….The good news for Minnesota Democrats is that the political environment is, at this point, heavily in their favor. They hold an 8 percentage point lead on the generic congressional ballot.² If that holds through 2018 — not a bad bet…”

In any case, it looks like the issue of sexual harrassment by members of congress is not likely to fade away anytime soon. As Jake Novak reports at cncb.com, “Remember, this harassment storm is far from over. There are a total of 264 harassment settlements made by the House’s Office of Compliance just since 1997. Many more Democrats and Republicans in Congress seem likely to be forced out as the pressure mounts to reveal the details of those agreements and the names behind them. There’s a potential thinning out of the incumbent ranks that could spell doom for Pelosi even if people like Rice weren’t challenging her.

It appears that Trump has handed his Democratic adversaries a shiny new cudgel in his decision to return public lands, including beautiful natural treasures, to the states. As Christopher Barron, an ardent Trump supporter, writes at The Hill, “President Trump announced that he will dramatically reduce the Bears Ears National Monument and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Trump made the announcement in Utah, where both of these national monuments are located…During the Republican primaries, Trump…said, “we have to be great stewards of this land. This land is magnificent land. And we have to be great stewards of this land.”…Unlike the rest of the GOP field, who parroted the establishment talking points, Trump made it clear he would oppose efforts to return public lands to the states, saying, “I don’t like the idea because I want to keep the lands great, and you don’t know what the state is going to do with it…Now, despite these promises, Trump is choosing the Republican establishment over working-class Americans.”

Joining the fray, The Washington Post Editorial Board writes, “This single move constituted the largest ever reduction in protected federal lands. Then on Tuesday it emerged that Ryan Zinke, Mr. Trump’s fox-in-henhouse interior secretary, will recommend paring back or loosening restrictions on 10 more national monuments around the country…The federal government owns some lands that are simply too precious to permanently sully in pursuit of temporary economic gains. Bears Ears, with its spectacular canyons, buttes and unspoiled archaeological sites, is one such place. Grand Staircase, a natural wonderland of ancient topology and fossilized prehistory, is another. When administering such unique places, the government must err on the side of conservation.”

I think Tory Newmyer’s The Finance 202 post, “Democratic split on Wall Street threatens party’s economic message” may overstate divisions within the Democratic Party in calling out a “profound problem confronting the party as it struggles to refashion its message ahead of the 2018 midterms.” But Newmyer is more on target in saying that “Most Democrats think they have a potent case to make that Trump’s GOP pulled a bait-and-switch on voters by promising populism and delivering a cascade of breaks to financiers (read my colleagues John Wagner and Juliet Eilperin on how Trump is governing like a traditional conservative).”

Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson have a disturbing read at Vox, “The GOP is trying to pass a super-unpopular agenda — and that’s a bad sign for democracy: Political science (and common sense) says they ought to pay a price at the polls. They might not.” There’s a lot to worry about in this post, including, “They’ve gotten very good at distracting voters. Research on public opinion suggests that voters have relatively short memories and that voter attention is critical to vote choice. What voters are focusing on when they head to the polls may matter more than their more considered thoughts about the issues…Given Republican leaders’ control of Congress, as well as Republican voters’ fierce attachment to right-leaning media, Republicans now have much greater capacity than Democrats to shape the short-term political agenda. (The attention-grabbing capacity of the tweeter-in-chief surely doesn’t hurt.) This isn’t always a good thing for Republicans, but in the run-up to a fiercely contested election, the ability to direct attention away from unpopular policies and towards whatever stokes tribal loyalty could make the difference.”

I read McKay Coppins’ big profile of Vice President Mike Pence with interest. But while most observers focused on an incident when Pence supposedly signaled his willingness to replace Donald Trump when it looked like he might be forced from the ticket over the Access Hollywood revelations, I thought the big lesson was very different, as I wrote at New York.

[T]he far more enduring picture Coppins paints is of Mike Pence as a man who decided early on in his relationship with Trump that no one could look in the mirror at night and see a browner nose.

“In Pence, Trump has found an obedient deputy whose willingness to suffer indignity and humiliation at the pleasure of the president appears boundless. When Trump comes under fire for describing white nationalists as ‘very fine people,’ Pence is there to assure the world that he is actually a man of great decency. When Trump needs someone to fly across the country to an NFL game so he can walk out in protest of national-anthem kneelers, Pence heads for Air Force Two.”

This willingness to serve as First Toady was evident in Pence’s initial interview — on a Trump golf course — as a potential running mate:

“Pence had called Kellyanne Conway, a top Trump adviser, whom he’d known for years, and asked for her advice on how to handle the meeting. Conway had told him to talk about ‘stuff outside of politics,’ and suggested he show his eagerness to learn from the billionaire. ‘I knew they would enjoy each other’s company,’ Conway told me, adding, ‘Mike Pence is someone whose faith allows him to subvert his ego to the greater good.'”

“True to form, Pence spent much of their time on the course kissing Trump’s ring. You’re going to be the next president of the United States, he said. It would be the honor of a lifetime to serve you. Afterward, he made a point of gushing to the press about Trump’s golf game. ‘He beat me like a drum,’ Pence confessed, to Trump’s delight.”

This set the pattern for Pence, notwithstanding anything he might have contemplated during the brief but intense hours after the Access Hollywood revelations.

What makes Coppins’s take on Pence especially valuable is his understanding that sucking up to Trump was entirely in keeping with the Hoosier governor’s sense that God was working through the unlikely medium of the heathenish demagogue to lift up Pence and his godly agenda to the heights of power. Just as it has been forgotten that the Access Hollywood tapes nearly brought Trump down, it has rarely been understood outside Indiana that Pence was down and possibly out when Trump reached out to him to join his ticket.

“The very fact that he is standing behind a lectern bearing the vice-presidential seal is, one could argue, a loaves-and-fishes-level miracle. Just a year earlier, he was an embattled small-state governor with underwater approval ratings, dismal reelection prospects, and a national reputation in tatters.”

Pence’s apparent demise, moreover, came after his careful plans to position himself to run for president in 2016 went awry via his clumsy handling of a signature “religious liberty” bill and a fatal underestimation of the resulting backlash from the business community.

All of a sudden, he was lifted from this slough of despond and placed a heartbeat away from total power thanks to his ability to, as Kellyanne Conway put it, “subvert his ego” in the presence of his deliverer, whose own ego has no limits. He clearly has not forgotten this lesson of an ambition fed by self-abasement rather than self-promotion. And according to Coppins, he even has a theological justification for blind loyalty to Trump:

“Marc Short, a longtime adviser to Pence and a fellow Christian, told me that the vice president believes strongly in a scriptural concept evangelicals call ‘servant leadership.’ The idea is rooted in the Gospels, where Jesus models humility by washing his disciples’ feet and teaches, ‘Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.'”

Usually the idea is to be the “slave” of one’s followers and of the less fortunate, not the slave of the billionaire POTUS, but Pence has the “humility” part down pat.

Pence’s presumed reward in this redemption story could, of course, extend beyond the power he exercises as one of the more influential vice-presidents in history, and as Trump’s designated mediator with the Christian right and with those Republican elected officials who aren’t themselves in the great man’s retinue. He would be the obvious successor to Trump in 2024, when he will still be a relatively youthful 65 — whether or not Trump wins a second term in 2020. And in the meantime, as in the panic-stricken hours after the Access Hollywood tapes were released, Republicans will look to Pence as a reassuring and unifying figure whenever Trump’s presidency is endangered, whether it’s by the Mueller investigation or his own erratic conduct.

Pence has indeed come a long way since he was airlifted out of what was probably a losing gubernatorial race to the role of worshipful sidekick to Donald Trump. And he’s earned his actual and potential power via a habit of slavish loyalty that he may consider godly, but others find infernally corrupt if effective.

Writing in The Progressive, Ramon Catleblanch paints a frightening picture of the Republican vision for America’s health care, as previewed in their tax legislation. Catleblanch’s article, “The Tax Bill Is Just the First Strike in the GOP War on Medicare and Medicaid,” explains:

This month’s congressional Republican tax legislation is a planned first strike against Medicare, Medicaid, and many other essential federal programs. Senator Marco Rubio admitted as much last week when he said that Republicans will have to institute “structural changes to Social Security and Medicare” to pay for the increases in federal debt created by their tax plan.

The published House Republican plan, known as “A Better Way,” raises the eligibility age for Medicare from age 65 to 67. And it does not allow newly retired seniors to receive traditional Medicare, but rather forces them into buying medical insurance with a government voucher. As the voucher could be for much less than the prices of available insurance, these seniors could have to pay large premiums.

The insurance available for those seniors to buy would be inferior to current Medicare. House Republicans have specifically called for a 20 percent copay for all services, including hospital care. This plan would also raise the deductible for outpatient care to about $1,500 per year. With such a high deductible, many seniors would likely forego essential care, leading to illnesses and injuries getting out of control and, in some cases, deaths.

And, “even after the 20 percent copay, physicians would not have to accept Medicare insurance payment as payment-in-full,” adds Castellblanch. Further, “medical groups could send supplemental bills to patients. If the patients didn’t pay those bills, physicians could then send collections agents after Medicare patients.” As a result, he predicts “for the first time in over fifty years, America would have an uninsured senior crisis.”

The GOP plan for Medicaid is “no less Draconian.” Federal funding foer tyhe program would be gutted by block grants and service cutbacks, and there would be newe premium requirements imposed by states. Thewre would also be drastic cuts in Medicaid funds for nursing homes, forcing staff cutbacks and closures.

As for “the repeal of the individual mandate to buy health insurance,” Maggie Fox writes at nbcnews.com,

While the mandate is unpopular among voters, it was a must-have for health insurance companies. They demanded such a mandate to even take part in the health insurance exchanges set up by the 2010 Affordable Care Act, and without it, many more can be expected to hike premiums or drop out altogether from the Obamacare markets, experts predict.

“If the requirement to carry adequate health insurance disappears, so will the health care coverage of many Americans,” American Heart Association CEO Nancy Brown said in a statement…“As insurance rolls decrease, premiums will rise an average of 10 percent,” Brown said. “Paying more for health insurance will be a heavy weight to carry if you have a pre-existing condition like heart disease or stroke. We fervently believe this provision should be rejected and removed from the final legislation.”

In his New Yorker article, “The Passage of the Senate Republican Tax Bill Was a Travesty,” John Cassidy notes,

…The bill also included the repeal of the individual mandate to purchase health-care insurance, a provision that would undo much of the good Collins did when she voted against the Republican health-care bill. According to the Congressional Budget Office, it would raise the number of uninsured Americans by thirteen million, and raise the premiums on individual plans by ten per cent. Using a tax bill to abolish the individual mandate amounts to a backdoor way of sabotaging Obamacare. Collins, Murkowski, and McCain have yet to explain why they went along with it.

By even moderate progressive standards, the Republican tax bill that emerges from the conference committee will likely be a regressive monstrosity of historic proportions. What it will bode for their vision of America’s health care will be  even more disturbing. If Democrats needed more encouragement to mobilize a landslide for the 2018 midterm elections, that should do the trick.

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

It won’t be easy. But the Washington Post/Schar School poll, a poll that gives Jones a 3 point lead among likely voters, shows how it will happen, if it does happen. First, overwhelming support from blacks, combined with solid turnout (this poll has blacks at about a quarter of likely voters, which is good but not unreasonably high). Then mega-swings in the white vote relative to 2016. Trump carried the white vote by 70 points in Alabama in 2016. In this poll, Moore carries the white vote by a mere 30 points (63-33).

The Post poll allows one to break down the white vote by college and noncollege. The poll has white noncollege voters supporting Moore by “only” 42 points. That sounds like a lot but compared to Trump’s 77 point margin among this group in 2016, it’s not bad. And there are twice as many white noncollege voters as white college voters so that swing, if it happens, will loom pretty large in determining the outcome. We can’t break white noncollege down between men and women but judging from other data in the poll, it seems plausible that white noncollege women will drive the swing. How much they move could determine Alabama’s next Senator.

Tony Pugh of mcclatchydc .com makes a case that “Voting at black colleges has tumbled. Can Dems fix the apathy in time for 2018?” and observes “Voter turnout among the estimated 300,000 students at HBCUs fell nearly 11 percent from 2012 to 2016, according to a national survey by the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education at Tufts University. The decline, while consistent with a fall off among black voters of all ages in 2016, was a sharp departure…Certainly, the lower turnout reflected the absence of President Barack Obama from the Democratic ticket in 2016, a lack of enthusiasm for the new standard-bearer, Hillary Clinton, and a weakening of the longtime allegiance between the party and African-American youth. But the worst may be yet to come…If historic trends hold, Democrats could see black voter turnout drop 30 percent in 2018, resulting in 5.2 million fewer African-American voters, according to a report by the non-partisan Voter Participation Center and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake…In July, the DNC poured $1.5 million into the Virginia race. None of the money was used for television ads; all of it went toward mobilizing voters. Democrats more than doubled their grassroots organizing staff in Virginia from roughly 40 to about 90, locating most on or near college campuses and minority communities, the DNC said.”

Regarding the passage of the Republican tax bill, Sheryl Gay Stohlberg and Carl Hulse write at The New York Times that Democrats “believe that Republicans have made a political blunder because the reconfiguration of the tax structure — particularly new limits on the ability to deduct state and local taxes — will produce a tax increase for some voters who will be very unhappy when they realize it…“Today may be the first day of a new Republican Party — one that raises taxes on the middle class,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader. “The one thing Republicans always promised the middle class is ‘we are not going to raise your taxes.’” Only one Republican Senator, Bob Corker of TN, voted against the GOP tax bill.

Schumer also had this to say about the tax bill:

Karen Tumulty explores the nuances of “Another delicate challenge for Republicans: Reconciling House and Senate tax bills” at The Washington Post. Tumulty writes, “Lawmakers are expecting an intense period of work starting Monday as lobbyists descend on the conference committee that will negotiate differences between the two pieces of legislation. Of particular concern will be changes made hours before the Senate passed its final legislation early Saturday morning, when the Senate changed its bill to preserve a provision of the current tax code that sets an alternative minimum tax floor for very wealthy individuals. That provision would be eliminated in the House bill, and scrapping the alternative minimum tax has long been a priority for GOP tax writers.”

As for the political fallout of Michael Flynn’s plea deal, Harry Litman, former United States attorney and deputy assistant attorney general, writes in his op-ed “Michael Flynn’s Guilty Plea: 10 Key Takeaways” at The New York Times: “It seems Mr. Trump himself directed Mr. Flynn to make contact with the Russians. If Mr. Flynn testifies to this — ABC’s Brian Ross is reporting that he will — it presents another impeachable offense along with the possible obstruction of justice. Even more, it brings the whole matter well outside the purview of the criminal courts into the province of a political scandal, indicating abuses of power arguably well beyond those in the Watergate and Iran-contra affairs…The basis for the possible obstruction charge against the president has been his efforts to get the F.B.I. director, James Comey, to shut down the Flynn investigation during a Feb. 14 meeting in the Oval Office, coupled with his multiple lies on the subject. Obstruction is plainly an impeachable offense: It’s the offense for which Richard Nixon was threatened with impeachment.”

At The Nation, Steve Phillips, founder of Democracy in Color and senior fellow at The Center for American Progress, argues that “Democrats Don’t Need Trump Supporters to Win Elections: The 2017 elections made clear that the Obama coalition is the majority.” Phillips believes the Virginia elections, in which Democrats won with only 26 percent of  white, non-college voters indicates that Democrats no longer need white working-class voters to win major elections. Phillips explains that “What happened in 2016 was not a mass defection of Democratic voters to Trump. What happened was a dramatic decline in black voter turnout (because of voter suppression, grossly insufficient investment, and overall lack of inspiration from the all-white Democratic ticket), combined with a splintering of the Obama coalition that saw statistically significant numbers of Democratic voters defect to the third- and fourth-party candidacies of Gary Johnson and Jill Stein.” But a significant number of white working-class Obama voters switched to Trump in key states in 2016, and unfortunately, we are still stuck with the Electoral College, unless there is a Democratic landslide in 2018, and they get rid of it or increase the victory threshold. Phillips is right, however, in saying that Democrats need not tweak their message in a more moderate direction to win over white working-class voters. With just a little more support from this constituency, which was about 45 percent of the national electorate in 2016, Dems can insure a stable majority for years to come.

Susan Milligan’s “Return of the Rising American Electorate: In order to win, Democrats need to focus on new voters – and Rust Belt voters they lost in 2016” at U.S. News & Wortld Report tweaks the victory formula for Democrats in this direction as RAE (“Rising American Electorate”), plus some (not all, not even a majority of) white working-class votes. “Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., his party’s second-in-command in the House, reckons that there are 91 House seats in play next year, giving the party more than a fighting chance to pick up the 24 seats they’d need to take the majority. Part of that equation is motivating the Rising American Electorate and wooing back at least some of the disaffected white, working class voters (some of whom are now just as disaffected with Trump, Hoyer says)…”We believe our diversity is our strength. We’re the party of inclusion,” Hoyer says. But he stresses that the party needs to deliver a broader message about wages, jobs and the economy. “Are we concerned about our subsets? We are. Does the economy affect people differently? We know that to be the case,” Hoyer says. “But we know that all of them are interested in economic well-being. That’s the common thread that goes through us all.”…Hoyer says the plan is to appeal to all groups with a “make it in America” pitch.”

According to a new poll conducted by The Washington Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University,”With less than two weeks to go, support for Democrat Doug Jones stands at 50 percent vs. Moore’s 47 percent support among likely voters — a margin of a scant three points that sets up a nail-biter for the oddly timed Dec. 12 special election,” report Michael Scherer and Scott Clement. “Fifty-three percent of voters say Jones, a former federal prosecutor, has higher standards of personal moral conduct than Moore. In contrast, about a third of likely voters say Moore, who has cast his campaign as a “spiritual battle” with heavy religious overtones, has higher moral standards…Among the 1 in 4 voters who say the candidates’ moral conduct will be the most important factor in their vote, Jones leads, 67 percent to 30 percent…And Jones, whose strategy relies in part on peeling way Republican support from Moore, has the backing of 1 in 6 GOP-leaning likely voters. About 1 in 14 Democratic-leaning voters are backing Moore.”

At Campaigns & Elections, Deepak Puri discusses “How to Use Facebook to Nudge Low Propensity Voters to the Polls.” Puri, a co-founder of Democracy Labs, “a San Francisco-based non-profit that connects technical and media experts with progressive campaigns,” writes “Here are some of the lessons learned by DemLabs and Local Majority, a Democratic PAC…We discovered that it helps to use multiple targeting methods. We started with a list of LP voters from Catalist. This included people in four Virginia districts who had voted in 2016, but not in the prior gubernatorial cycle in 2013 election…This list was supplemented with more names using Facebook’s “lookalike audiences” feature. We wanted to focus our limited funds on the neighborhoods that really mattered. To do this, we targeted our social media campaign to certain zip codes in the district that we found through the Statistical Atlas…Videos perform extremely well on social media campaigns…The combination of compelling video with the precise targeting of social media is a powerful combination. We measured how many people saw the video and how many watched it all the way to the end. It cost less than $0.05 per viewer to have over 87,000 people watch the video message.”

After looking at the rapidly changing Senate landscape for 2018, I wrote this assessment for New York:

For Democrats, the 2018 Senate elections have been approaching like an Arctic cold front for years. In part the product of two exceptionally good years for Senate Democrats in 2006 (when they gained five net seats) and 2012 (when they gained two more), the 2018 landscape is one of the best in living memory for Republicans. They are defending only nine seats, as compared to 25 for Democrats (two of which — Bernie Sanders and Angus King — are technically independents, who caucus with Democrats). Only one Republican seat up this year is in a state (Nevada) carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016. Ten Democratic seats up this year are in states (Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wisconsin) carried by Donald Trump last year. On paper, this should be a year when the GOP makes sizable Senate gains, and indeed, early in the cycle there were elephant dreams of achieving a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the upper chamber.

But a combination of factors, including some unusually popular Democratic senators in red states, and an unusually unpopular Republican president generating stronger-than-normal anti–White House midterm headwinds, has changed the expected dynamics. Thanks to a potential GOP calamity in a special Senate election in Alabama on December 12, Democrats actually have a decent chance of making their own gains in 2018. And there is even a discernible (albeit tricky) path to a net-three-seat gain that would give Democrats control of the Senate. If it happens, that would be a disaster of the first order for the Trump administration and the conservative ideologues who are counting on a Republican Senate to rubber-stamp the president’s Executive and Judicial branch nominees, including (potentially) a fifth vote on the Supreme Court to reverse Roe v. Wade.

Midterm anti–White House dynamics have probably wiped out any fleeting GOP advantage in a number of states that went narrowly for Trump in 2016. According to September data from Morning Consult, Trump’s approval/disapproval ratings are now significantly underwater in Michigan (40/55), Pennsylvania (45/51), and Wisconsin (41/53), where Democratic senators are running for reelection, and also in the Republican-held states of Arizona (44/51) and Nevada (44/51). Some states where Trump remains very popular also happen to have especially popular Democratic senators as well. In West Virginia, for example, Trump’s approval ratio is an impressive 60/36, but Joe Manchin’s, at 53/36, isn’t bad, either. Similarly, Trump is at 51/44 in North Dakota, but Heidi Heitkamp looks even stronger at 55/32. And in Montana, Trump is at 50/45, but Jon Tester is at 53/33. There is no particular reason to think any of these incumbents is in deep peril at the moment so long as the president’s popularity continues to gradually erode. Joe Donnelly of Indiana (47/26) and Claire McCaskill of Missouri (42/39) are looking significantly more vulnerable; not coincidentally, both won six years ago when Republicans nominated unusually weak candidates who imploded after saying stupid things about rape.

At least two Democratic incumbents — Bill Nelson of Florida and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin — will be running in highly polarized states with very competitive gubernatorial elections where the campaign could become a long, painful, expensive slog. While Nelson is reasonably popular with an approval ratio of 50/26, he is likely to face Governor Rick Scott, who can self-finance to an enormous extent in a state with many pricey media markets. Baldwin (in dicier territory with an approval ratio of 41/38) may not face as formidable opponent, but her race could be overshadowed by Scott Walker’s attempt to win a third full term as governor.

Meanwhile, Republican problems in their own territory are by no means limited to Alabama. A potentially toxic primary for the Arizona seat of retiring Senator Jeff Flake makes this a strong pick-up possibility for Democrats, who have been steadily gaining strength in the state recently. And the GOP pain could be doubled if poor health forces John McCain to step down before next November. Nevada senator Dean Heller (whose approval ratio is among the worst in the Senate at 39/39) is vulnerable to both a primary challenge and to likely Democratic opponent Representative Jacky Rosen. And a potentially fractious and complicated GOP primary to choose a successor to retiring Tennessee senator Bob Corker could conceivably open a path for Democrats in that unlikely territory, particular if former governor Phil Bredesen decides to run.

Along the same lines, a real wild card for 2018 involves Steve Bannon’s threats to run right-wing insurgent primary challenges to several Republican incumbents who would otherwise be expected to stroll to reelection. The potential targets include Roger Wicker of Mississippi (already opposed by Chris McDaniel, who very nearly defeated Thad Cochran in 2014), Deb Fischer of Nebraska, John Barrasso of Wyoming, and Orrin Hatch of Utah (who may well retire, leaving the seat in all probability to Mitt Romney). These races are all in very safe Republican territory, but at a minimum could drain resources better deployed by the GOP elsewhere.

Nasty Republicans primaries could also cause trouble for the GOP in otherwise-promising Indiana, where U.S. representatives Luke Messer and Todd Rokita are holding a true grudge match; in Arizona, where Establishment Republican Martha McSally and fiery conservative Kelli Ward are likely to collide; and in West Virginia, where Representative Evan Jenkins and state Attorney General Patrick Morrissey are challenging each other’s pro-Trump credentials.

As always, there is the possibility of competitive races emerging that no one currently expects. One possibility involves New Jersey Democratic senator Robert Menendez, who recently underwent a much-publicized corruption trial that ended in a hung jury and a mistrial. Menendez’s approval/disapproval ratio is a dismal 32/41, according to Morning Consult, and the embattled senator could face new charges from federal prosecutors, or at least an ethics investigation by the GOP-controlled Senate. But leading New Jersey Democrats are without exception sticking with Menendez, and so far New Jersey Republicans have not found a credible challenger. Given the strong Democratic lean of the state, it’s no wonder the incumbent is favored to survive.

The big intangible for all 2018 races at every level is turnout. In recent elections Republicans have gained a distinct advantage in midterms as their voting base became aligned with the demographic categories (older, whiter voters) most likely to participate in non-presidential contests, even as Democrats became more reliant on the younger and minority voters most likely to sit out midterms. But if the special and off-year elections of 2017 are any indication, Democratic — or to be more precise, anti-Trump —enthusiasm could erase or even reverse that GOP advantage, at least for this one midterm.

All in all, it’s a Senate landscape that could produce any number of outcomes. At present the Cook Political Report, which is very cautious about its projections, shows ten highly competitive races (including the 2017 special election in Alabama); six are rated as tossups (Democratic-held seats in Indiana, Missouri, and West Virginia, and Republican-held seats in Alabama, Arizona and Alabama), and four more (all currently Democratic) are rated as leaning Democratic (Florida, Maine, North Dakota, and Ohio)….

For the obvious reason that only a third of the states are holding Senate elections next year, there is no national polling lens for judging the Senate landscape like the generic congressional ballot, which is highly correlated with the national House popular vote. But if the generic ballot remains as strongly pro-Democratic as it has been during much of 2017 (the Democratic advantage in the RealClearPolitics polling average is currently at 9.3 percent), the likelihood of Democratic gains or at least minimal losses will continue to grow. As Democrats looked ahead at 2018 a year ago, that scenario would have seemed idyllic. And it’s worth making a mental note that the 2020 Senate landscape is skewed toward Democrats nearly as much as this year’s is skewed toward Republicans. So if happy days are not yet here again for Senate Democrats, they could be arriving soon.