In the wake of renewed speculation about Democratic unhappiness with President Biden, I tried to offer a reality check at New York:

Joe Biden is at present an unpopular president whose performance has discouraged his party’s base. That’s a bad combination for Democrats, who are facing a 2022 midterm election with fragile control of both houses of Congress.

Just 12 days after November’s election, President Biden will turn 80, an occasion which will produce massive discussion about his age just as a new presidential-election cycle begins. If things go as badly as expected for Democrats on November 8, many in the party will quietly and not so quietly urge the 46th president to retire at the end of his term. But if he stubbornly refuses to pack it in, what then?

Such questions are being raised right now thanks to a New York Times–Siena poll showing that an imposing 64 percent of self-identified Democrats would prefer a different presidential nominee in 2024. Democrats saying Joe should go range from 47 percent among Black voters (who were so crucial to Biden in 2020) to an incredible 94 percent of voters under age 30 (who were cool to Biden in the primaries but supported him strongly in the general election).

This is just one poll, but you have to go back to Jimmy Carter to find anything like this level of intraparty disaffection with a Democratic president. One source of that discontent, Biden’s age, isn’t going to get any better; 33 percent of Democratic respondents who prefer someone else cited Biden’s age as the most important reason for wanting a new 2024 candidate — higher than any other single factor.

Other factors could actually reduce the pressure on Biden to bow out before the next election. Despite the apparent “red wave” building for November, Democrats are still even money to hang onto the Senate. Thanks to the shrinking number of competitive House seats, estimates of likely Democratic House losses are in the 20–35 range, far lower than what Democrats experienced in 2010. Concerns about the reversal of Roe v. Wade and the continued threat of a Donald Trump comeback could boost Democratic turnout and further insulate the party from disaster.

As for 2024, it’s worth remembering that the last two Democratic presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, bounced back from horrible midterms to get themselves reelected. And even in this terrible Times-Siena poll, Biden would be narrowly favored (44-41) over Donald Trump in a 2024 rematch. But Clinton was 50 years old and Obama 51 when they were reelected. Joe Biden was 50 in 1992, the year Clinton was first elected; if reelected in 2024, Biden would be 86 at the end of his second term. This cannot be wished away as anything less than problematic. As my colleague Gabriel Debenedetti concluded in May: “There is no substantial precedent for the volume of questions about Biden’s future.”

Let’s say that on Biden’s 80th birthday, there is powerful Democratic sentiment for sending him to the rest home. If he doesn’t go away quietly, can he be pushed aside?

The only Biden heir apparent, of course, is his vice-president. Kamala Harris is not going to turn on the man who placed her a heartbeat from the presidency. Even if she did, she’s currently less popular than Biden, and in fact, fears about Harris’s electability could lead some Biden disparagers to reconsider putting him on an ice floe. Meanwhile, Harris’s positioning as a future nominee could freeze some primary voters (particularly the Black voters among whom Biden already has a relative advantage) in his camp. More important, none of the many politicians being discussed as potential Biden successors (Gavin Newsom, J. B. Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer, Chris Murphy, Roy Cooper, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg) have the combination of name ID and broad-based support to topple an incumbent president.

Since Biden circa 2022 is often compared to 1970s Jimmy Carter due to a combination of sluggish job approval ratings, unhappy progressive activists, and big-time economic problems (especially inflation), it is germane to observe that Carter managed to soundly defeat Ted Kennedy — the liberal lion of the 1970s and subsequent decades — in the 1980 nomination contest.

Are there any Ted Kennedys around right now to mobilize progressive anti-administration grievances into a successful insurgent candidacy? Someday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may have that stature — but not now. Indeed, the only potential rival from any wing of the party who is in that position is Bernie Sanders, who is older than Biden. And even if there were some Kennedy-like figure available, would the fight disable the Democratic Party (as it arguably did in 1980) more than slogging ahead with the incumbent?

The most plausible precedents for pushing Biden out are those that occurred in 1952 and 1968, when unpopular incumbent presidents performed poorly against nuisance candidates in early primaries and took a hint. But this scenario still leaves the decision to fold the tent to a wounded but not defeated president. Biden doesn’t really resemble the Harry Truman of 1952 or the Lyndon Johnson of 1968 — presidents with great landmark achievements behind them. He’s where he’s fought to be for many decades and may still consider himself a good bet — perhaps the best bet — against a vengeful Trump in 2024. It’s unclear if even an early primary defeat would deter him; after all, he lost the first three contests in 2020 (the first two very badly) and was repeatedly left for dead.

All in all, the ball remains in the 46th president’s court. If he can get through the midterms without catastrophe and past his 80th birthday with some spring in his step, he could talk himself into one more campaign. And if his inner voice continues to tell him to defy the critics one more time, he may not listen to anyone else.

From “Something Bubbling in the Heartland” by Mike Lux at Daily Kos:

“A messaging strategy that combines economic populism with a focus on kitchen table economic solutions, and an organizing strategy that builds local communities, can help bring back these voters — both swing and base voters who have been less inclined to go to the polls  lately.

All of that, plus the simple idea of making sure Democrats pay enough attention to these kinds of voters and counties, is the path to winning back working-class voters who live outside of big cities.

The even better news is that Democrats are beginning to use this kind of approach in a lot of places in the region right now, and it seems like it has the potential to pay off. Look at what is going on in the states:

• In the local elections held in Wisconsin in April, despite a widely predicted “red wave” in a low turnout election, which traditionally favors Republicans, Democrats won 53% of the 276 contested local elections on the ballot, holding their own in the purple areas in the state. Meanwhile, Wisconsin Governor Evers is leading both Republican candidates fighting it out in the primary, one of them by four and the other by seven percentage points. Ron Johnson — who has a trail of controversies and damaging quotes a mile-long — trails three of the four Democrats running in the primary for the Senate seat.
• In Pennsylvania, Republicans are fleeing their far-right extremist gubernatorial nominee as fast as they can, while Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman is running a great populist campaign, and currently sports a 9-point lead in the public polling.
• In Ohio, where Republicans presided over what the Columbus Dispatch called the biggest scandal in the country, the Republican governor is sitting at only 45% in the polls in spite of having universal name ID after a 46-year political career in the state. Meanwhile, the latest public poll has Tim Ryan leading by 44-41 for the open Senate seat, and Democrats had a great year in mayoral races there last year.
• In Iowa, Democratic primary voters surprised the DC Democratic establishment by rejecting former Congresswoman Abby Finkenauer, who had much higher name recognition and a big fundraising start, and picking former Navy Admiral Mike Franken 55-40. Franken’s background and strong presence on the stump is making a big impression on Iowa voters. Given that only 27% of voters wanted 88-year-old Chuck Grassley to run again in an earlier poll, this could be a sleeper race.
• In Missouri, Republicans look likely to nominate Eric Greitens, the former governor forced to resign by the Republican legislature over multiple scandals. Democratic candidate Lucas Kunce, a 13-year Marine veteran who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and has a powerfully populist message, is leading in the Democratic primary. There is polling showing him essentially tied with Greitens right now. In the meantime, an added twist to the race is that a heavyweight Republican lawyer who was a clerk for Clarence Thomas, is entering the race as an Independent, saying he can’t stand the idea of Greitens becoming a senator. So Republicans will be splitting their votes.
• In Nebraska, there was a special election a couple of weeks back that was a huge surprise in historically Republican CD 1. In a special election ignored by the DCCC and most Democratically aligned groups, where the Republican heavily outspent the Democratic candidate, Democratic candidate Patty Pansing Brooks lost only 53-47. While this district still leans Republican, it actually got four percentage points more Democratic due to redistricting, and the district includes Lincoln, where the University of Nebraska is located and where Brooks is very strong. A big turnout of young people in the district could put Brooks in the winner’s seat.”

Lux adds, “The other point I want to make about the region as a whole is that Democrats are leaning into the Factory Towns strategy. John Fetterman, Tim Ryan, Nan Whaley, Mike Franken, and Lucas Kunce are all from medium-sized factory towns, and they are all running strong economically populist campaigns against far rightwing candidates who have embraced Trump and all his bullshit.

“The working-class industrial heartland — the Midwest plus Pennsylvania — has historically been the biggest battleground region in the country,” Lux concludes. “It moved strongly toward Reagan in the 1980s, toward Clinton in the 1990s, to Obama in 2008 and 2012, and then veered toward Trump in 2016. There is something bubbling out there this year that is going to surprise a lot of people.”

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

To Regain the Support of “Culturally Traditional but Not Extremist” Working Class Voters Democrats Need to Understand the Compelling Political Narrative That Leads Them to Vote for the GOP.
Andy Levison is just right about this. I highly recommend you read his excellent memo.

Levison summarizes his argument as follows:

1. As the 2022 elections approach, a critical question for Democratic strategists is why a significant group of working class voters choose to support Republican extremists even though they themselves are more accurately described as “cultural traditionalists” rather than extremists. In opinion surveys and focus groups this group of white (and now also increasingly Latino) working class voters make clear that they do not actually believe MAGA/Q-Anon/Tucker Carlson conspiracy theories or view all Democrats as literal “enemies” but they nonetheless vote for extremist candidates who assert these views on election day.

2. A major reason for this is that working class voters do not make their political choices primarily based on examining specific issues and policies. They evaluate candidates based on their broader outlook and philosophy – a perspective that the candidates frequently present as a basic “story” or “narrative” about America.

3. The basic extremist narrative is actually undergirded by three profoundly important subsidiary narratives that are nested within the larger narrative and which long predate the modern MAGA ideology. These three linked sub-narratives are not inherently extremist. They express a genuine and understandable frustration and sense of abandonment by the Democratic Party.

4. Democratic candidates can identify with these narratives and seek ways to address the legitimate concerns that are a deeply felt part of the working class experience in modern America without endorsing the extremist narrative that has incorporated and exploited them with such marked success.

Read it all here.

In “Ro Khanna Psychoanalyzes His Own Party” the Silicon Valley congressman, who is one of the sharpest thinkers of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, is interviewed by Puck’s Tara Palmer. Some excerpts: “Ro Khanna: I’ve had very good conversations with the White House. I’m hoping they will act on some of them. In addition to some of the ones I mentioned in the Times op-ed, I think having a temporary export ban would go a long way to reducing prices, and here’s how I know that: we did it before 2015. But if you look at the unfortunate explosion that happened in Louisiana, where natural gas was not able to be exported right after that, you had a massive decline in price in the United States. So there are tools that we have….Every day he [President Biden}has to be talking about the economy, the economy, the economy. He needs to be talking about prices and what he’s doing to lower prices. He needs to talk about what he’s going to do to put money in the pockets of Americans who are struggling. He needs to go much more aggressively against big oil and their price gouging. And he needs to mobilize the government in ways on baby formula. I mean actually start buying the baby formula from Europe. Tell the F.D.A. that if it’s safe enough for European babies, it’s safe enough for American babies. Start funding mass production of critical supplies. Give an Oval Office address on the semiconductor shortage, asking why we’re not passing this bill in Congress?….I think we need to spend 80 percent of our time, 90 percent of our time, talking about the domestic economy, and what we’re doing. I respect his foreign policy on Russia and his leadership, but I think that the key is to be talking about the economy, the economy, the economy….I would like him to see him be much bolder on economic policy and more focused on it, more imaginative. ”

Khanna continues, “I’m supporting the president. I believe everyone should try to strengthen the president because I fully expect him to run. It does us no good in my view to speculate on alternatives when he’s clearly said that he’s running….I think there’s a lot of talent in the party. Maybe other people could beat Trump, but I don’t think that they are going to beat Joe Biden in the primary….But to become president you have to have a vision, and you have to connect with people at an emotional level. Trump had a dystopian vision: They industrialized you, they shipped your jobs offshore, I’m going to bring them back! Now, he didn’t deliver, but I don’t see DeSantis, in my view, as having an emotional connection with the electorate. I think Biden could speak much more about how he’s going to improve the lives of people in Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin….We can pay attention to the state legislatures in a way that we haven’t. We need to pay attention to grooming a new generation of young law students, like The Federalist Society, but on our side. We need to take judicial appointments much more seriously. Hillary Clinton was right that even if you disagreed with her, not voting for her was giving up the Supreme Court.”

Harry Enten reports that “Democrats get bounce in polls after Roe v. Wade is overturned” at CNN Politics: “Last week, Monmouth University released its latest survey results on the generic congressional ballot. Among registered voters, Republicans still led by 2 points, 48% to 46%. The result closely matches the average of recent polls, which has Republicans with a 1-point advantage on the generic ballot, which usually asks respondents some form of the following question: “If the elections for Congress were held today, would you vote for the Democratic or Republican Party?”….The latest Monmouth result, though, marked an improvement for Democrats who had trailed 50% to 43% when the university last polled on the generic ballot in May….Normally, I’d dismiss movement from one poll to the next as statistical noise. These two Monmouth results are within the margin of error of each other….But a look at all polling shows the same thing: Democrats have been gaining on the generic ballot since Roe was overturned….By my count, there have been eight different pollsters who ask about the generic ballot and conducted a poll before and after the Supreme Court found there was no federal constitutional right to an abortion. Every single one of them found Democrats doing better in their poll taken post-abortion ruling compared with the one taken pre-abortion ruling. The average shift was about 3 points in Democrats’ favor….This 3-point change may not seem like a lot, and it could reverse itself as we get further away from the ruling. Still, it puts Democrats in their best position on the generic ballot in the last six months.”

In “Maybe Dobbs Did Change The Race. We’ll Need More Time To Know For Sure,” Nate Silver takes a similar view at FiveThirtyEight: “Usually, the generic ballot is a noisy measure, and if you know nothing about what’s causing the changes, the best empirical strategy is to be quite conservative in updating the average. If the polls move by several points and there’s no real underlying cause, it’s probably just noise….After all, most people — even most people who vote in congressional elections — are not following the news intensely on a day-to-day basis. Cable news ratings, for instance, reflect a tiny fraction of the American population: The most-watched cable news program is seen by something like 1 percent of Americans on a typical night….So, in figuring out whether shifts in a polling average represent signal or noise, the model averages out lots of times when there’s nothing much going on and a fewtimes when there is. The safe bet is usually “probably mostly noise, awaiting more evidence of signal.”….But given that we do have a huge story on our hands, let’s do a direct before-and-after comparison. Six pollsters¹ have released generic ballot polls both before and after the Dobbs decision.² All six of those polling firms have shown a shift toward Democrats. On average, Democrats trailed by 1.3 points in the pre-Dobbs version of these polls but led by 1.5 points in the most recent ones, a shift of almost 3 points toward the party….If this persists, then our generic ballot average — and also our midterm model — will eventually catch up and move toward Democrats. Of course, that might not happen. The change could still be a statistical quirk. Or it could be temporary, an artifact of partisan nonresponse bias. That is, if Democrats are more engaged than Republicans by news of the Supreme Court’s decision — and there’s evidence to suggest they are — they may be more likely to respond to polls for some period of time, at least until the next news story takes hold. Then again, if Democrats are more motivated than Republicans to vote by the decision, that could help them in a real way in November, too….Bottom line: Most of the time, polling averages are exceptionally useful, but be wary of using them in ways in which they weren’t intended. The FiveThirtyEight generic ballot polling average is designed to be conservative and slow-moving and not really equipped to deal with breaking-news developments.³ That our generic ballot polling average is steady in reaction to the news doesn’t really prove anything either way, then. But because of the Dobbs decision, there may be some electoral upside for Democrats beyond what our model currently shows.”

It’s kind of important for Democrats to think clearly, not wishfully, about the political implications of the Dobbs decision, which aren’t as important, to be clear, as the immediate consequences for those needing abortion services. I wrote up what we know at New York:

Soon after the Supreme Court agreed to hear a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade back in May 2021, speculation began that a radical decision abolishing constitutional abortion rights not long before the midterms could affect the trajectory and outcome of those elections. “It could become a major campaign issue for supporters of both parties and rare groups of swing voters in both federal and state elections,” I said in September of that year.

And here is why, I argued, a decision reversing Roe would likely produce a net benefit for Democrats:

“Since Roe at least, anti-abortion activists and their aligned voters have been thought to be more focused on elections and motivated to turn out for them than their pro-choice counterparts. The reason is obvious if you think about it: The status quo has been largely pro-choice thanks to Roe, so all the energy associated with any movement for change has been associated with the anti-abortion cause. Pro-choice folk could rely (or so they thought) on the Supreme Court to protect their rights …

“If SCOTUS goes the whole hog and kills or seriously wounds federal abortion rights next year, the topic could become a central focus of national Democratic messaging … because the perceived status quo would switch sides.”

Well, the Court did its worst two weeks ago, and in the meantime, midterm prospects for Democrats have steadily grown darker. So while the impact of the ruling in Dobbs on short-term Democratic electoral goals is hardly among the more important consequences of the decision, it does matter in terms of a 2022 election with serious implications for all sorts of policy issues, including abortion. So, understandably, Democrats are anxiously looking at polls to determine if the road to perdition in November might take an unexpected and favorable turn.

There are two major polling questions drawing particular attention: The first is whether Dobbs may have affected the balance of opinion favoring a relatively liberal regime on abortion. And there, at least initially, it seems Dobbs has increased an already sizable pro-choice majority. One would normally wait a while before reaching such a conclusion, but what makes Dobbs unique is that the eventual decision was leaked on May 2, giving us a longer period of pro-choice anxiety to measure. And as early as May 15, NBC News was finding record-high levels of support for abortion rights, with “nearly two-thirds of Americans” opposing overturning Roe. Perhaps more importantly, there is polling evidence that both the leaked and actual Dobbs opinions have raised the salience of abortion as an issue, particularly among pro-choice voters. A Monmouth survey taken between June 23 and June 27 showed abortion going from nowhere to 5 percent (9 percent among self-identified Democrats) in a question about the “biggest concern facing your family,” far below the 33 percent registered for inflation, but still impressive before and just after Dobbs came down on June 24. And a spanking new Pew survey confirms that opponents of Dobbs feel more strongly about the matter than supporters: Of the 57 percent disapproving of Dobbs, 43 do so strongly (25 percent of the 41 percent approving of Dobbs do so strongly).

But where the rubber meets the road is whether Dobbs and the backlash to the decision can materially help Democrats in November. Analysts peering at the congressional generic ballot (typically “Which party do you want to control the U.S. House of Representatives next year?”) have discerned an apparent immediate effect.  Actually, the polls are mixed on that topic, and the durability of any Dobbs “bounce” is unclear.

As I noted recently, the non–White House party usually gains ground on the generic ballot in midterm elections as actual voting grows nigh. So the big question is whether there is anything that can change the normal dynamics, whether it’s a potentially game-changing real-world development like Dobbs, or, say, Donald Trump announcing a 2024 presidential candidacy, as some believe he will soon do.

And to be clear, there are two distinct ways in which a “Dobbs effect,” if it exists, could help Democrats. The first and most obvious is that it could keep in the Democratic ranks a significant number of suburban swing voters who voted for the Donkey Party in 2018 and 2020 but who might swing back to the GOP without Trump totally dominating the landscape and with economic issues in the forefront. The second possible effect is to boost the turnout rates of certain pro-Democratic groups of voters who often skip non-presidential elections. It could be significant, for example, that under-30 voters most intensely support abortion rights: A recent Emerson poll showed 76 percent of voters ages 18 to 29 favor congressional action to shore up reproductive rights in the wake of Dobbs. Returning youth turnout to anything like the levels of 2020 or even 2018 could be a very big deal for Democrats, particularly given young voters’ lack of enthusiasm for Joe Biden.

But campaigns themselves will provide the real test of whether a
”Dobbs effect” is on the horizon to the benefit of Democrats. Some Democrats believe they glimpsed it in a June 28 special congressional election in Nebraska that a Republican won by a notably smaller margin than expected. But the real telltale sign will be if Democratic candidates put their money where their mouths are in talking frequently about abortion rights between now and November. Not that long ago, of course, the prevailing belief of the Democratic smart set was that the party should avoid “divisive” cultural issues like abortion and instead focus on tasty poll-tested proposals to place money in the pockets of voters. Thanks to the loss of Democratic credibility on pocketbook issues, and to the Supreme Court, that could all change. But we don’t know that just yet.

In “Progressives: Take the fight to the states, right now. It’s the only way to win,” Gaby Goldstein writes at Salon: “For decades progressives have over-invested in federal strategies, including legislation, advocacy and litigation. While conservatives have been consistent and ruthless in their efforts to build power at different levels of government, progressives have almost entirely neglected state-level power. Now, with state power dramatically expanding, progressives are structurally and rhetorically unprepared….It’s time for progressives to challenge their thinking about state power. It’s time to reject outdated and ahistorical nostalgia for a Supreme Court that stands on the side of rights and justice — something that only briefly and intermittently existed. It’s time to embrace the fight for state power as a necessary part of the progressive project, and it’s time to commit to reallocating energy and resources downward to political and policy battles in the states….Conservatives have spent generations building an entire political apparatus designed to stack the courts with ideological judges. At the same time, they have focused on winning state legislative races, knowing that these overlooked venues of power are the key to redistricting and voting rights, and that once the judiciary had been captured by conservative ideology, it would give states more discretion to write regressive laws. Republican power in state capitals accelerated dramatically after the post-2010 gerrymandering strategy known as Project REDMAP, which resulted in Republican control of 25 state legislatures. There’s a direct line between that state-level power and this wave of Supreme Court decisions, including the fall of Roe.”

“But while the right has woven state-level strategies into the very fabric of its efforts,” Goldstein adds, “the left has been almost exclusively preoccupied with federal strategies and an aversion to state-level power. For decades, Democrats prioritized federal elections over state-level races, and left-leaning interest groups — including national abortion advocacy organizations — often focused on federal strategies and institution-building, to the near exclusion of local and state ones….Democrats routinely invest far too much money in unwinnable federal elections, while underinvesting in state and local candidates who actually have a chance. FEC filings for federal candidates show that Democrats running in noncompetitive Senate races have raised more than $119 million for their 2022 races so far. To gain some perspective on that, in 2020 Arizona Democrats fell just four seats shy of flipping the state legislature, and raised less than $10 million. This year, Arizona’s Republican trifecta — both houses of the state legislature, plus the governor — passed and enacted an abortion ban….by ceding both institutional and narrative control about the importance and value of state power to their opponents, progressives have directly aided the conservative cause. Progressives’ staunch unwillingness to recognize the interdependence between state and federal power has created a false mutual exclusion between state and federal power-building efforts. That was never a good choice, and now it’s disastrous. We have to build power, sustain it and wield it at both levels of government. We’re behind, and we’ve got to work fast….That understanding can and must fuel a massive redistribution of progressive efforts, strategy and resources toward our states — beginning immediately….Let us reimagine what our states could do for us, envision them as expansive and transformative venues of positive power, and demand that our states create the conditions in which reproductive justice, climate justice and so much more can be achieved.”

Christopher Kang argues that “Democrats Are headed for Disaster With Unfilled Judicial Vacancies” at Slate, and writes: “It’s time for Senate Democrats and the Biden White House to push beyond their current practices in order to fill all of the judicial vacancies by the end of this Congress. As someone who worked on judicial nominations in the Senate and the Obama White House, I know how hard it can be for Democrats to challenge norms, but we have seen Republicans stop at nothing in their relentless push to take and retain control of the federal judiciary to impose their extreme, partisan agenda on a majority of Americans who oppose it. Our federal courts are so far out of balance that we need the president and the Senate to do everything in their power to ensure justice and equality. That means filling every vacancy, even if it means breaking with the few remaining judicial confirmation process norms left in McConnell’s wake or standing up to Republican senators. Beginning to bring balance to our judiciary is more important than respecting Senate traditions….A more aggressive approach to judicial confirmations starts at the White House. Today, there are more than 80 judicial vacancies without nominees, out of 119 announced vacancies. One of the driving causes for this is too much White House deference to senators—both Democratic and Republican. The Biden administration needs to take a more assertive approach and show it is willing to bypass Senate tradition if senators are not proving good partners….The White House must not undermine its well-earned legacy on the courts by curbing its focus on professional diversity or accepting deals that would include conservative extremists. Instead, it must rally Democrats together—at every stage of the nomination and confirmation process—to fill every vacancy with judges dedicated to justice and equality. More than 30 national organizations already agree.”

Noting recent polls indicating a slight bump for Democrats in the wake of the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling, Amy Walter writes at The Cook Political Report: “It’s not that these surveys are necessarily wrong. It’s that they are measuring the initial reactions of voters. As we go forward, the durability of this reaction is the more important. If Democrats’ interest and enthusiasm in the election has indeed been fundamentally impacted, we should see a generic advantage for Democrats hold over the course of several polls taken over several weeks. More importantly, we would see it hold once pollsters move to a tighter “Likely Voter” screen….However, given our polarized electorate, the generic ballot test is not always the best gauge for whether the issue of abortion will have a meaningful impact on the election….Instead, watch for where Democrats decide to ‘lean in’ on the issue (and where they don’t). If you want to know where Democrats think Roe v. Wade ruling could help, look at the states and districts where Democrats and/or Democratic-aligned outside groups are already advertising on the issue. Seven of the twelve states and districts where we’ve seen ads explicitly mention the overturning of Roe v. Wade (via the ad tracking firm AdImpact), are blue states: Connecticut GOV and SEN, Illinois GOV, Washington SEN, Rhode Island GOV, Maryland GOV, MI-11 (Stevens/Levin) and Vermont SEN. The other four states where we’ve seen these ads are in three swing states and two swing congressional districts: Nevada SEN, New Hampshire SEN, Pennsylvania SEN and GOV, NV-03 (Rep. Susie Lee) and WA-08 (Rep. Kim Schrier)….In other words, this issue will play much differently in certain states and districts than in others. Or, as one Democratic strategist put it to me the other day, this is an issue that has “has power in pockets” of the country.”

From “The End of Roe v. Wade Could Help Democrats in These Midterm Races: Instead of fighting each other over abortion, Democrats can fight these Republicans.” by Bill Scher at The Washington Monthly:

‘Legitimate arguments can be made about whether Democrats should take every conceivable action—without regard to existing law and Senate rules—to protect abortion rights now or whether party members should only work within the system because further erosion of norms would make all rights, reproductive and beyond, at the mercy of shifting political winds.

But why should Democrats get mired in an intraparty debate about tactics when they can unite against Republicans banning abortion?

Republicans are turning the clock back to the early 20th century—and in some cases, where dormant laws are being dusted off, the 19th—in about half of the states. The political scientists Jake Grumbach and Christopher Warshaw crunched survey data from multiple sources for The Washington Post and determined that “a majority of the public in about 40 states supports legal abortion rights.” In other words, several states present opportunities for Democrats to restore reproductive freedoms.”

Scher spotlights some of the key races he believes Dems can win by focusing on Republicans banning abortion, including the governorships of Florida, Georgia and Texas and maybe Arizona, Iowa, Ohio, South Carolina, and South Dakota. He also believes Dems can win the races for Attorney General in Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Texas, along with majority control of the state legislatures of Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Read the article for his detailed analysis of these races.

Scher concludes:

“To be clear, none of the above races are easy wins for Democrats. And we can’t know if the abortion issue on its own will be enough to make them more competitive. But that uncertainty only makes it more imperative for Democrats to employ strategies that maximize unity and appeal to swing voters. Party infighting over parliamentary procedures and norms fuels “Democrats in disarray” punch lines that accomplish the opposite.

To motivate the pro-choice majority—which extends well beyond progressive base voters in deep blue states—to prioritize abortion, Democrats need a laser focus on states where abortion is banned or severely restricted.

If such a strategy is successful, Democrats will broaden their geographic support. That would help secure abortion rights in more states and improve the odds of Democrats retaining U.S. Senate control. Holding the Senate keeps Democrats’ judicial confirmation power. If they can keep it long enough, they will be in a position to replace the eldest Supreme Court justices: Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.”

No doubt there are good arguments for targeting  U.S. Senate and House races Dems can win using the same attack strategy. What is certain is that the circular firing squad strategy is the one Republicans hope Dems will adopt.

As part of my continuing effort to identify the less obvious implications of Dobbs, I considered at New York the change in perceptions of Republicans supporting abortion bans might soon experience:

Until June 24, you heard occasional talk of former vice-president Mike Pence being awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by Joe Biden for his courage in rejecting Donald Trump’s pleas and demands that he overturn the 2020 election results on January 6, 2021. Obviously, the hearings of the House Select Committee investigating the events of January 6 reinforced a sense of gratitude toward Trump’s once-sycophantic veep, and the committee itself treated the Pence staffers who testified almost reverently.

Then the U.S. Supreme Court handed down Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, abolishing a federal constitutional right to abortion, and even before the words of Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion stopped echoing, Pence was telling Breitbart News how thrilled he was that women had lost the right to choose:

“Today, Life Won. By overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court of the United States has given the American people a new beginning for life, and I commend the justices in the majority for having the courage of their convictions,” Pence said in response to the 5-4 decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case.”

Pence treated this as just the starting point for the forced-birth cause:

“’Having been given this second chance for Life, we must not rest and must not relent until the sanctity of life is restored to the center of American law in every state in the land.’”

And the former vice-president also wanted to make sure Breitbart readers didn’t view him as a Johnny-come-lately to the anti-abortion cause:

“Pence also released a video through his organization Advancing American Freedom, which he also provided to Breitbart News exclusively ahead of its public release. In the slightly-over-three-minutes-long video, a narrator shows Pence’s history fighting for life beginning long before he was even elected to Congress. It then details how Pence offered the first-ever bill to defund Planned Parenthood in Congress—and then later as Vice President of the United States cast the tie-breaking vote to make sure a plan that gave that right to states passed Congress.”

Does that take the shine off his January 6 heroism? Maybe just a little?

Now Pence was famously the very favorite politician of the Christian Right before he stumbled over anti-LGBTQ measures in Indiana and was then lifted into the highest levels of national politics by Trump in 2016. But consider another Republican who has gained a fanbase among liberals and the center left: House Select Committee vice-chair Liz Cheney. Last year, after she defied Trump over his election lies, she soon became more popular among Democrats than Republicans. And even before the January 6 hearings that have won her further admiration from Dems, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman was encouraging Joe Biden to consider dumping Kamala Harris and running for reelection on a ticket with Cheney or someone like her. But in light of the thunderbolt that has struck American politics in the form of Dobbs, it is probably relevant that in the current Congress, Liz Cheney is a co-sponsor of legislation (HR 1011) endorsing an idea that even the conservative bloc on SCOTUS hasn’t endorsed: fetal personhood.

“Life at Conception Act

“This bill declares that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being at all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual comes into being.”

No, don’t think she’s going to be on any Democratic presidential ticket soon.

My point is not to minimize the good things some Republicans have done in some areas of public life. Standing up to Donald Trump is indeed important to the future of democracy, and for that matter, it’s important to the deeply endangered future of reproductive rights, since Trump is the president who produced Dobbs as part of a cynical deal he made with conservative Christians obsessed with outlawing abortion. But at the same time,
Dobbs should remind everyone there are nonnegotiable subjects in politics other than the events of January 6, and sadly, Republican officeholders are even more united in being wrong on abortion policy than they are in defending and revering the 45th president. It’s a matter of perspective and of priorities.

One realization in particular that must now come to the fore post-Dobbs involves the bad media habit of treating some Republicans as “moderate” on abortion policy because they are willing to show some compassion (or maybe just shame) on behalf the very small percentage of people needing abortion services because they are the victims of rape or incest. Now that it’s clear they have no problem with banning the other 98 percent of previously legal abortions, these “moderates” look like the anti-abortion zealots they’ve always really been.

You may object that in a dangerously polarized political environment, but the last thing we need is to shine a spotlight on one of those issues where D’s and R’s (at least among those holding or running for office) are on different planets. We should instead, I suppose, focus on celebrating every symbolic moment where even a shred of bipartisanship can be found, whether it’s a big infrastructure bill, a small tweak in federal gun policies, or the willingness of a few Republicans to own up to Trump’s crimes. But it’s far past time to understand that polarization is not always some sort of artificial phenomenon foisted on an a peace-loving electorate by politicians and other “elites.” It’s sometimes the product of deep differences of opinion on matters that affect the lives of real people. That’s definitely true of abortion policy. And now that lawmakers are in the position to respect or oppress the reproductive autonomy of women in ways that have consequences, it’s actively offensive to shrug and look the other way.

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

Democrats’ emerging problems with Hispanic working class voters are, in my opinion, both poorly understood and vastly underestimated in Democratic circles. That’s the subject of my latest at The Liberal Patriot:

“Hispanic working class (noncollege) voters are emerging as an Achilles heel for the Democrats. Here are some facts about Hispanic working class voters that help bring this challenge for Democrats into focus.

1. In the 2020 election, Hispanic voters moved sharply away from the Democrats. Both Catalist and States of Change (forthcoming) data agree that it was around a 16 point pro-GOP margin shift (two party vote). States of Change data indicate this shift was heavily driven by Hispanic working class voters, whose support for the Democrats declined by 18 points. This pattern could be seen all over the country, not just in states like Florida (working class Hispanic support down 18 margin points) where they fell short but also in states they narrowly won (Arizona down 22 points; Nevada down 15 points)….

10. Along these lines, consider these data from Catalist. Between the 2012 and 2020 elections—which Democrats won by similar popular vote margins—Democrats’ advantage among nonwhite working class voters was trimmed by 18 margin points. Over the same period, Democrats’ performance among white college-educated voters improved by 16 margin points. For a party that has already sustained drastic losses among white working class voters and has been clinging to its dominance of nonwhite working class voters as proof that it is still a working class party, these are very uncomfortable facts.

But facts they are. Here’s another fact: Hispanic working class voters are overwhelmingly upwardly mobile, patriotic, culturally moderate to conservative citizens with practical and down to earth concerns focused on jobs, the economy, health care, effective schools and public safety. Democrats will either learn to hit that target or they will continue to lose ground with this vital group of voters—and in the process invalidate their increasingly tenuous claim to represent the American working class.”

Read the whole thing at The Liberal Patriot. And subscribe!

Brent Budowsky writes at The Hill: “Fateful and indescribably important moments in the history of our democracy will occur from former President  Trump’s attempts to steal the 2020 election, the 2022 midterm elections, and — presumably — the 2024 presidential election. These also will shape the next decade of American democracy and American life….These matters will have a profound  impact on  our politics and  elections — more than experts think, because they  powerfully  and  personally  affect  either  every  one  of  us, either directly  or  the  people  we  love  deeply.  Upon  such  things  voters  will  vote,  our nation  will  rise,  and  change  will  come….I  doubt  that  our  troubled  nation  will  stand  with  five  Supreme  Court  justices,  on  a  court  with  only  25  percent  approval  according  to  Gallup,  packed  by  Senate  Minority  Leader  Mitch  McConnell  (R-Ky.),  whose  average  approval  rating  is  only  25.5  percent,  according  to  RealClearPolitics….Even  today  McConnell  threatens,  shamefully,  that  if  Republicans  win  power  in  the  Senate,  he  may  refuse  to  give  President  Biden’s  nominees  a  vote.  Biden  should  challenge  McConnell  aggressively  about  this.  If  he  does,  he  will  prevail….I  doubt  our  troubled  nation  will  stand  with  five  Supreme  Court  justices  who,  according  to  their  opinions,  might  next  outlaw  same-sex  marriage  and  contraceptives,  in  their  rigid  view  of  how  all  Americans  must  exercise  the  lifestyle  rooted  in  their  faith. These five Supreme Court justices  promised  the  opposite  of what  they  are  doing  now,  when  they  were  confirmed  under  oath….The legal  extremism  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  Roe, which follows an attack against gun control, after another mass murder that destroyed the lives of American children, has set  loose  a  hyper-motivated  movement  for  change  that  is  happening  in  towns,  cities  and  communities  across  the  nation. …Women  and  the  men  who  love  them  are  organizing,  registering,  voting,  speaking  at  town  meetings,  supporting  state  initiatives  and  pressuring  Congress  to  act.”

In “Americans’ Views On Abortion Are Pretty Stagnant. Their Views On The Supreme Court Are Not” at FiveThirtyEight, Zoha Qamar takes a deep dive into public opinion about the Supreme Court’s abortion decision and writes, “According to a poll conducted by YouGov/The Economist from June 18-21, 50 percent of Americans did not want the court to overturn Roe. And when YouGov ran a survey after the release of the Dobbs decision on June 24, it found that the same percentage of Americans disapproved of the court overruling Roe. (Support for overruling Roe didn’t waver much, either: Thirty-two percent were in favor of overturning Roe in the earlier survey, compared with 37 percent in the later survey.)….But it’s not just that Americans largely disapprove of the Dobbs decision. A third YouGov poll, this one fielded June 24-25, gave respondents 11 different choices to describe their reaction to the decision, and Americans reported feeling disgusted (34 percent) at a higher rate than any other emotion. This was closely followed by feeling sad (33 percent), angry (32 percent) and outraged (31 percent). A far smaller share of Americans reported positive emotions about the decision, such as feeling satisfied (19 percent), grateful (18 percent), happy (17 percent) and thrilled (12 percent). Notably, only 20 percent of Americans said they felt surprised by the decision, perhaps due to the notorious leaked draft opinion from early May as well as the court’s recent track record, which has been very conservative….the breakdown of Americans who believe abortion should be always legal, mostly legal, mostly illegal and always illegal has been relatively stable since then….While public opinion on abortion has remained fairly steady, public opinion on the Supreme Court has not. According to Gallup data, Americans’ confidence in the court has been trending mostly downward since peaking in 1988, but it nosedived in the past year. Last June, Americans’ confidence in the court sat at 36 percent; however, in June 2022 — ahead of the Dobbs decision but after its draft opinion was leaked — it plummeted to 25 percent. This is the lowest confidence level since Gallup began the surveys almost 50 years ago, and it was driven primarily by a dramatic drop in confidence among Democrats and independents.”

Cognitive dissonance researchers may want to explore the disconnect between Biden’s low approval rates and public attitudes toward Republican policies. In “Other Polling Bites,” FiveThirtyEight notes, “As the Jan. 6 hearings continue, 51 percent of likely voters agreed that Trump-supporting Republicans’ challenges to the results of the 2020 election, including during the Capitol insurrection, were “[a]n attempt to claim and hold power and overturn the will of the people,” according to a poll from Data for Progress conducted June 15-21. Among Democrats, a whopping 87 percent agreed with that view. Only 19 percent of Republicans thought so, however. By contrast, 66 percent of Republicans agreed with the idea that Trump-supporting Republicans’ challenges were “[b]ased on legitimate evidence of fraud, illegal voting, and false results.”….Most Americans also disagreed with its ruling that New York’s gun-control law was unconstitutional, according to a recent survey from Monmouth University. Fifty-six percent said that states should be allowed to limit the ability of people to carry concealed handguns through permits and other protocols.”

Centrist contrarian Doug Schoen opines in the Orange County Register that “First and foremost, it is highly unlikely that abortion replaces inflation or the economy as the top midterm issue. While abortion access is becoming a more salient issue as of late, Americans are still nearly three times more likely to cite economic issues (41%) – like inflation – as their top national voting concern this year over women’s issues (16%) – including abortion access – per a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll….Moreover, nearly two-thirds of voters blame President Biden’s policies for inflation (64%) – including a majority of Independent Voters, as well as of Democrats – according to recent IBD/TIPP polling….The second major reason that the decision to overturn Roe will have a muted impact on midterms is that Democrats’ own messaging on abortion has often times been varying. The party has struggled to come together around a cohesive stance – beyond their standard ‘choice’ articulation – about when and under what circumstances abortion should be legal…This failure, along with the electorate’s general lack of knowledge on the subject, has made it possible for G.O.P.-led states around the country to pass very restrictive abortion laws – i.e., banning abortions after six weeks, which is effectively a complete ban – without much national political blowback….Though the public broadly supports abortion legality, Americans want some limits. Even among abortion rights supporters – 61% of the public – a majority (68%) say that, in some cases, abortion should be illegal, per data collected by Pew Research Center….Thus, some of the messaging on the left from the progressive wing – about legalizing abortion access in all cases – is at times out of touch with the American public, and could be harmful to Democrats’ political prospects in swing-states….To that end, there is also a real chance that Roe ends up backfiring on Democrats politically, as President Biden is now calling on Congress to end the filibuster to codify Roe into law….This is one of the worst political and practical moves that Democrats could make. Talk of killing the filibuster shifts the national conversation away from Republicans being anti-choice and anti-women’s health to Democrats being anti-bipartisanship….Moreover, doing so would contradict the administration’s claim that they are willing to work across the aisle, damage their credibility, and negate Democrats’ ability to sell their bipartisan successes on infrastructure and gun control.” After the midterm elections, however, the argument for ditching the filibuster might make more sense — in the unlikely event that Democrats get a net gain of 2 or more Senate seats.