How will RBG confirmation vote impact the 2020 Senate and Presidential races?

[stevenkesslar]

As the initial shock settles and the polls come out, my guess is this will help the Democrats on balance.  Specifically, it will intensify Democratic turnout.  It will likely help Biden win at the margin.  It will likely help Democrats win the Senate at the margin.  Although the Senate races vary depending on whether it's a red state or blue state or in between.

What do others think?  Does this help President Toxic and Republicans, or Biden and Democrats?

I'm going to go through a bunch of things I found noteworthy in the articles I've been reading.

First, Biden has said he won't comment on Court packing, which he has opposed before.  He said he doesn't want to let President Toxic change the subject.  I think that's wise.

My view is that we now get to test the 5th Ave. principle.  President Toxic thinks he can shoot someone on 5th Ave. and get away with it.  He was actually talking about his base being fine with it.  And he's right.  But how about everyone else?  What if he shoots a bullet and Obamacare is dead?  What if he shoots a bullet and same sex marriage is dead?  What if he shoots a bullet and abortion is dead?  What if he shoots a bullet and DREAMers are deported?  Do people care?  Who cares?  Do we know he will pull the trigger even?  Those are the questions I think we should focus on now.

If and when he shoots the bullet, then we should focus on what we do.  If he shoots the bullet before Election Day, obviously that does give voters an easy way to say whether they agree with what the Republicans did or not.  

Here's some bad news for you, proud tough gun-slinging President Toxic.  In a Politico poll, 50 % of voters say the seat should be filled by the election winner, and only 37 % say you should do it now.  Even your favorite pollster, Rasmussen, says 51 % of voters say you should leave the seat open and let the winner of the election fill it.  Now, I know you are a mean-spirited and cruel asshole, so you are going to do whatever you want.  But since there is this argument that somehow Republicans have a "mandate" based on how people voted in 2016 or in 2018, you might want to actually consider what the majority of Americans think for once.

Just kidding.  You'd never do that.  Just go ahead and pull the trigger and see what happens on Election Day.

The 50 % or so that think the election winner should choose the nominee is right around Biden's average support of 50 %.  The 37 % or so that think President Toxic should nominate now is less than his 43 % average vote share.  So that suggests there is no real downside for Biden in this, who has about half of the electorate either way.  But there may be downside for President Toxic.  There seem to supporters with whom he is on the wrong side of this issue.

That's even more true with the Independents.  In the Politico poll, 49 % of Independents say the election winner should choose, and only 31 % say President Toxic should choose now.  That suggests that moving ahead now is not likely to help President Toxic with Independents, and may hurt him with a voter group he badly needs.

It's generally assumed that the 2016 SCOTUS fight over Garland and Gorsuch may have helped Republicans. The 21 % of voters in 2016 who said SCOTUS was a priority leaned 56/41 to Trump over Clinton.  It could easily have made the difference in Pennsylvania or Michigan or Wisconsin, but no one will ever know for sure.

So far, it looks like it could have the opposite impact in 2020.  At least one poll says that the SCOTUS vacancy is more important to Democrats than Republicans now.

Here's a line that jumped out at me that may explain why this may have a very different impact in 2020 than 2016:

Quote

There is a fierce debate about whether a Supreme Court battle motivates liberals or conservatives more. One conservative who supports Biden argued that dynamic favors the Democrats.

“When I heard that Scalia died I was fit to be tied because at that point we were looking at a conservative icon being replaced by Hillary Clinton,” he said. “It was like seeing your life flash before your eyes. It was terrifying. Now the Democrats are experiencing that. It is going to light the liberals on fire.”

So far, that appears to be the case from what I've been reading.  I also think there may be an important difference between who this motivates on either side.  On President Toxic's side, it of course motivates his base.  But most Republicans say they are the ones who are most likely to turn out, anyway.  The polls above suggests that some of President Toxic's supporters DO NOT support him filling the vacancy now.  So it's at least possible this could hurt him with some of his softer support.  It also could hurt him with Independents who are still on the fence.

Meanwhile, this will likely light a fire under some of Biden's weakest support.  Progressives, Blacks, and Hispanics all have specific reasons to care about this, and to want Biden to be the one making the pick.  If Berniecrats or young Black or Hispanic men who are skittish about Biden or just ambivalent about voting need a reason to vote, this is a good one.  

I was very curious to see how Claire McCaskill would react to this on MSNBC.  If the Justice Rapist/Dr. Ford confirmation did not cost her her Missouri Senate seat in 2018, it certainly at least hurt her effort.  She said that she knew as soon as she hear Justice Kennedy was retiring she was in trouble.  Now she thinks it's the other way around.  Instead of putting Democrats in red to purple states in a tough position like in 2018, this puts Republicans in blue to purple states in a tough position.  I think she hit the nail on the head.

Another phrase that Charlie Cook used - "color intensifier" - also hit the nail on the head in 2018.  He predicted while the hearings were happening that the conflict would make red states redder, and blue states bluer.  I think the same is probably true today.

In 2018, I was sending money to all the key Senate Democrats in swing states.  So I was paying close attention to the state polls.  My take is that Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota was already in deep trouble before the vacancy opened, and would have lost anyway.  McCaskill in Missouri and Donnelly in Indiana are questions.  They both were leading in the Summer, when the focus was on health care.  As soon as the Justice Rapist thing hit, they started to tank in the polls - especially among White men. So the confirmation fight may have cost them their seats.  Meanwhile, there's a good case to be made that this helped Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona and Jackie Rosen in Nevada.  In Arizona, 50 % of Independents opposed Kavanaugh's nomination and only 37 % supported it.  Independents are about one-third of voters in the state.  Since Sinema was opposed to the nomination, it was probably more likely to help her with Independents than hurt her in a close race.

Here's some poll data about swing states in 2020:

Quote

Polling in three states with critical Senate races from The New York Times and Siena College showed an edge for Democrats, both on the ballot test and the court issue. In Arizona, where Democrat Mark Kelly leads McSally, 53 percent of voters said they would trust former Vice President Joe Biden to do a better job choosing a Supreme Court justice, and just 43 percent said Trump. In Maine, where Gideon led Collins, 59 percent of voters said Biden, while just 37 percent said Trump. In North Carolina, where Tillis trailed Democrat Cal Cunningham, the gap was narrower: 47 percent said Biden, and 44 percent said Trump.

I think McSally and Collins are the McCaskill and Donnelly of 2020.  Collins was next to dead anyway, and this won't help no matter what she does. McSally is going against the majority of her state.  This will work out badly for her in 2020, just like in 2018.  There's no polling from Colorado, but I'd guess it's one more big nail in Gardner's coffin, too.  Tillis is less clear, and there's no polls in yet at all on Iowa.  If it works out that this does energize Biden voters more than President Toxic voters, it could help defeat Republicans in both North Carolina and Iowa.

Georgia will be interesting.  Ossoff and Perdue are in a dead heat.  My guess is that this may help Ossoff win in  Georgia for the same "color intensifier" reason:  it could energize turnout among all the voters that are at the core of why the state is turning purple.  

There are two states where I'd guess this could hurt Democrats.

Montana is close, and it's a red state.  In theory, this should rally the state's Republicans around Daines.  That said, Jon Tester, who voted against Justice Rapist, held his seat in 2018. 

My guess is this helps Lindsey Graham.  South Carolina is a red state, and President Toxic has approval in the low 50's in some recent polls there.  I have no idea what is driving Graham's weakness there.  But if there's a state where Republicans will come home over this fight, I'd guess South Carolina is it.

The thing that matters to me is that if President Toxic does actually pull the trigger, I want Democrats to be in a position to respond next year.  We can only do that with President Biden and a Senate majority.  So I think we have to call the bluff.  They have the power to pull the trigger.  My guess is they're almost certain to pull it, probably in the lame duck session but maybe before the election. 

If they do pull the trigger, it's certainly fair to say that they'll have to deal with the consequences.   For right now, though, the focus should be on one thing.  Despite the American people, are you actually going to pull the trigger?  And if you do, what are the consequences?  What parts of American life - like access to abortion or voting rights - are going to die?

 

[Suckrates]

If the GOP can steal a Presidential election, they can easily steal a Senate seat..... Crooks will be crooks. 

[stevenkesslar]

I think we're all in store for a real good debate about democratic legitimacy.  Because the conservatives who want to pack the court with far right conservatives are going to claim that 1) we are not hypocrites, and 2) we have a "mandate" to do this.  This is what the American people want.

Here's a few examples.  This is what Republican Tom Cotton is saying:

Quote

“In 2014, the American people elected a Republican majority to the Senate to put the brakes on President Obama’s judicial nominations. In 2018, we had a referendum on this question,” Cotton told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday,” citing the contentious confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

“There could not have been a clearer mandate, because the American people didn’t just reelect Republicans. They expanded our majority,” Cotton said. “They defeated four Democratic senators who voted against Justice Kavanaugh. They reelected the one Democratic senator who did vote for Justice Kavanaugh.”

Here's my interpretation of that.  "Steven, I have your balls in a vise and I am going to crush them.  And I have a mandate to do it."

I can argue all I want that what these Republicans are saying directly contradicts what they said about Merrick Garland.  They don't give a shit.  They just want to crush my balls.  I can argue that right now even Trump's favorite pollster, Rasmussen, says 51 % of Americans want the seat to be filled by the President elected in November, versus 45 % who say Trump should fill it.  A Politico poll finds an even larger 13 point margin: 50 to 37, Americans say the President elected in November should fill it.  How's that for a "mandate", Tom?

What Cotton wants to do is crush my balls.  Period.  Why?  Because might makes right.  This is about how a minority of Americans, overwhelmingly Straight White Men, can keep power. 

Losing the 2016 popular vote by 2 million votes did not give President Toxic a mandate to do this.  You can argue anything you want about the Slavery Electoral College. It was designed to enslave Blacks, and did that well for half of US history.  But that has nothing to do with a "mandate" to fill RBG's seat.  If you want to talk about a 2016 "mandate", Americans elected Hillary Clinton President by a margin of 2 million votes.

Let's talk about 2018.  Republicans got their asses kicked.  They lost the House vote by a margin of about 9 points.  In the Senate, I was sending money every month to the key candidates.  I would tend to agree that McCaskill and Donnelly lost their seats on this issue.  In the Summer they led, and health care was the priority.  White men in Missouri and Indiana abandoned them in droves all Fall, as President Toxic argued that horrible women like Dr. Ford could destroy the life (and testicles!) of any man in America.  Those White men are entitled to their opinions.  And I'd buy the argument that the voters in Missouri and Indiana gave a Republican Senator a mandate to vote for far right judges. 

Meanwhile, Sinema in Arizona and Rosen in Nevada probably won on this issue.  Independents in Arizona opposed Justice Rapist's nomination 50-37.  John Tester, who opposed Justice Rapist, won re-election.  So if you want to argue about clear "mandates", the voters in Arizona already told McSally, specifically, that in 2018 she was on the wrong side of the majority.  Polls in Arizona right now say the majority believe the President elected in November should decide.  Did she not listen?  Is she not listening?  Do they need to tell her again?

There's no far right judge "mandate" to be found.  If you go by these four state elections,  it's more like a muddle.  But Tom Cotton doesn't care.  He just wants to crush my balls.

You want to talk about the "referendum" we had in 2018?  In the 2018 Senate elections 52.2 million Americans voted for a Democratic Senate candidate.  34.7 million Americans voted for a Republican Senate candidate.  So if Cotton wants to talk about "the American people", as opposed to the voters of Arizona or Missouri, the American people gave a mandate to Democrats to block Republicans from packing the court with far right judges. That's my read. 

Of course, the 2018 midterms were NOT a referendum on a 2020 SCOTUS vacancy.  But if you want to talk about "the American people", it was a 58/39 split.  Not even the Slavery Electoral College could subvert that big a majority.  This is about a minority built around Straight White men.  Pretty much everyone else agrees with the Democrats.  It's a majority.

But of course, they know that.  That's probably why they will crush my balls to pulp right now, before any election.  They don't want the people to decide.  Just don't be surprised if the polls are right, and the American people don't agree with what you did, Sen. Cotton.  It may work out okay in Arkansas, like it did in Missouri. But that's not "the American people".

Here's an interesting coincidence.  You can use that slavery "3/5ths a person" thing that allowed for the enslavement, torture, and murder of Blacks for 1/2 of US history and update it to make your "mandate" argument.  In the 2018 midterms, 52,260,651 Americans voted for Senate Democrats, and 34,723,013 Americans voted for Senate Republican candidates.  Do the math.  3/5ths of 52,260,651 is 31,356,390. 

So here's my suggestion.  If Republicans like Cotton want to argue 2018 was a "referendum" or "mandate" for far right judges, they should be honest and say Democrats are 3/5ths of a human being.  Then they will have a legitimate majority "mandate".  It's in the spirit of how Straight White male Americans have always handled these things - from uppity Blacks to uppity women to uppity Gays to uppity immigrants.  And it's actually a pretty good deal for Democrats.  Unlike with slaves, at least our 3/5ths of a vote is counted.  Unlike with DREAMers, we won't be at risk of being deported.  

Utah is also not "the American people".  Here's Romney's fiction as reported by Politico:

Quote

“My liberal friends have over many decades gotten very used to the idea of having a liberal court, but that's not written in the stars,” the Utah Republican told reporters after this decision. He called it “appropriate for a nation that is … center-right to have a court which reflects center-right points of view.”

Again, Sen. Romney is entitled to his opinion.  But if a minority wants to pack SCOTUS with far right judges who are against what the majority of Americans are for, "the American people" will get to decide.  Go ahead.  Crush my balls, Mitt.  Let's see what happens.

The religious right wing elected President Toxic and will do so again, if the Slavery Electoral College will let them, because they want far right judges who are hostile to abortion, Gays, immigrants, Muslims, Black voting rights, efforts to regulate corporate greed, and many other things.  Let's see where this could lead:

Same sex marriage - 5/4 split

Majority:  Kennedy, RBG, Sotomayor, Kagan, Breyer

Minority:  Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Thomas

This will not be the key issue for most Americans.  But it's my key issue.  I volunteered and fought for years for same sex marriage.  I opposed the Rentboy shutdown, wrote articles about it, and donated money to Jeffrey's legal defense.

My assumption, which I think is reasonable, is that a 6-3 far right court will be hostile to anything that begins with the letters L, G, B, T, or Q.  They may leave "+" alone.  Other than that, we're fine.

Oh, and Guys who like to wear dresses?  Websites that have something to do with escorts and people who like to get tied up and maybe pay somebody to do that?  I'm sure they'll be fine, just like Rentboy.  Don't worry guys.  You'll be just fine.

Or maybe not.  Jokes on you.  Suckers  Losers.  

Louisiana abortion ruling - 5/4 split

Majority:  Roberts, RBG, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan

Minority:  Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Thomas, Alito

My assumption, which I think is reasonable, is we will have a 5-4 court majority that is deeply hostile to a woman's basic right to choose.  On completely and openly trashing  Roe v. Wade, I mean.  On just chipping away at it so that it is mostly dead, it will probably be a 6-3 majority in many cases.

Obamacare - 5/4 split

Majority:  Roberts, RBG, Breyer, Kagan, Sotomayor

Minority:  Thomas, Alito, Scalia, Kennedy

My assumption, which I think is reasonable, is we will have a 5-4 majority to overthrow Obamacare.  Kiss your pre-existing conditions goodbye.

Oh, but don't worry.  They'll have something better than Obamacare, just like they did right after the 2016 election.

Or maybe not.  Suckers.  Losers.

DREAMers - 5/4 split

Majority:  Roberts, RBG, Sotomayer, Breyer, Kagan

Minority:  Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Thomas, Alito

My assumption, which is reasonable, is that the 800,000 DREAMers can kiss their culos goodbye in a 5-4 vote.  Bienvenidos a Mexico!

Voting Rights/21st Century Jim Crow - 5/4 split

Majority:  Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Kennedy, Scalia

Minority:  RBG, Sotomayor, Kagan, Breyer

This one is a no brainer.  There wasn't even a pretense of moderation by Roberts or Kennedy.  Blacks, kiss your voting rights protections goodbye.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - 5/4 split

Majority:  Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh

Minority:  RBG, Kagan, Sotomayor, Breyer.

This one is a little bit of  a stretch.  Warren cut it as a reaffirmation of the basic validity of her consumer protection effort.  I included it because the Republicans who are packing the Court with far right conservatives will of course make the principled argument that court packing is just the most awful thing ever.  The FDR issue was more than anything about the legitimacy of The New Deal.  It was another case where if you look at the 1932 and 1934 elections, "you couldn't have a clearer mandate", as Tom Cotton might say.  So my assumption, which I think is reasonable, is there is a 6-3 majority hostile to consumer protection and efforts to reign in corporate greed and corporate power. 

The wealth tax on Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates that 70 % of Americans support, including a majority of Republicans and Bill Gates?  Yeah, I'm sure they'll find that Constitutional.  Suckers.  Losers.

I almost feel sorry for these conservatives.

If we went to some horror film like Silence Of The Lambs, the sadist can't help himself.  The reason my balls are going to be crushed is that sadists are sadists.

I'd be the first to say that President Toxic and Mitch McConnell and The Divine Miss Graham are not sadists, or anything like that.  They are men of principle.  They stand by their word.

In this case, I'm not talking about what McConnell and Graham said publicly in 2016.  Only suckers and losers would have believed that.  I'm talking about all the far right religious voters who they promised to appoint far right judges to.  So even though they are no Hannibal Lector  or anything like that, the principle is the same.  They gotta do what they gotta do.  

The only difference in this case is the lambs are the majority, according to the polls and the 2016 and 2018 elections.  Don't count on them being silent.

Grab your popcorn, and buckle your seatbelts.  And, as always, guard your testicles, guys.  It's going to be a bumpy ride.

The movie this tragedy makes me think of is Orphul's The Sorrow And The Pity.   It was about how a minority, in that case Nazis, tries to work around the fact that majorities don't like them all that well.  It's about might makes right.  It's about how people are silent and go along.  It's about how minorities that the Straight White guys don't like get screwed. 

In Orphul's The Sorrow And The Pity, it was French Jews and Gays and anyone who stood up for them that got screwed.  In the 21st century remake, it's going to be about the groups I listed above.  Gays. Immigrants.  Muslims.  Blacks.  DREAMers.  Women seeking safe abortions.  People who hire escorts.  Escort websites.  It will only work if the majority stays silent, and allows the minority to pretend they are the majority.  And that they have some kind of mandate to be cruel.

For most of us, everything will be just fine.  I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

 

Edited September 23, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[tassojunior]

 

Burn everything down !

or maybe bitch about it over brunch

 

 

Just minutes ago this  "Wake the Fuck Up" march passed by my house. The police escort had to wait 15 minutes while half the revolutionaries ran into Trader Joe's to buy snacks when they passed it. To a centrist liberal "burning it down" = bitching at brunch. Same as when avocado toast or mimosas run out. It's like living in the show "Portlandia". Who needs Netflix when you live in this comedy. 

[stevenkesslar]

Here's a fact check that I found interesting. It tells me everything I need to know about partisanship and why President Toxic has to be crushed.

From McConnell's Senate page:

Quote

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY): “Of course it’s within the president’s authority to nominate a successor even in this very rare circumstance — remember that the Senate has not filled a vacancy arising in an election year when there was divided government since 1888, almost 130 years ago … ” (Sen. McConnell, Remarks, 2/22/2016)

I knew about that statement back in 2016.  I guess surprisingly for me, I didn't both to fact check it.  Today I finally did.  Technically, it is not a lie.  But I think it is fair to call it a gross misrepresentation.  The way it misrepresents the truth goes to the core of what this conflict is about - partisanship - and why it's going to make a really divided and sick nation more divided and sicker.

When I went to fact check, I found this:

Supreme Court vacancies in presidential election years

Quote

The historical record does not reveal any instances since at least 1900 of the president failing to nominate and/or the Senate failing to confirm a nominee in a presidential election year because of the impending election.  In that period, there were several nominations and confirmations of Justices during presidential election years.   

If you are like me, you probably already feel like that's a contradiction of what McConnell said.  The key question is:  what happens if there's a vacancy in an election year?  The answer in every case since 1900 has been:  you fill it.  Period.

We know Obama nominated Garland in 2016 and the nomination was not acted on in 2016.  So that sure sounds like it broke the continuous trend since 1900, right?  Every other time, in a Presidential election year, a SCOTUS vacancy was filled.  Every single time.  Why not 2016?

It's worth reading the whole article above that details each vacancy.  It's short.  The key thing it nails down is the issue of partisanship.

Here's a summary.  There are 5 vacancies listed between 1912 and 1940.  All ended in Senate confirmations in an election year.  But here's the thing.  In all five cases, three involving Democratic Presidents and two involving Republicans, the Senate was held by the same party as the President.  That was just fate.   

So that means McConnell is right, correct?  

No.  Not correct.

The 6th vacancy that was filled in a presidential election year was Anthony Kennedy, who was confirmed on February 3, 1988.  He was nominated by President Ronald Reagan.  He was confirmed 97 to 0.  The Senate was controlled by Democrats, who had 54 seats.  So a Republican President did nominate a SCOTUS justice who was confirmed by a Democratic Congress in 1988, an election year.

Technically, you can say that McConnell did not lie, because he said "arising in an election year".  McConnell is a venal political animal who is not interested in fairness.  But if this actually was about fair debate, he would argue the vacancy arose in 1987.  That was, of course, when Reagan nominated Robert Bork, and the confirmation failed.  Then he nominated Ginsburg, who Reagan withdrew.

I'll return to Bork, but before I do I think it's worth noting the two other exceptions.

Eisenhower made a recess appointment of Brennan, a liberal Democrat, a month before the election in 1956.  Wikipedia described it as a unifying move to help him in the 1956 election, which he won in a landslide.  Then in 1957 he renominated Brennan, who the Senate confirmed.  Ike governed like what I would call a "Kasich Republican".  Meaning he tried to unify and bring everyone along, even if he was right-of-center.  Romney just used this phrase "center-right".  It describes Eisenhower well.  It is not a good phrase to describe far right organizations picking right-wing justices based on far right litmus tests.

The one other vacancy involved the nomination of Abe Fortas by LBJ.  He was already on the Court, but LBJ nominated him to be Chief Justice.  So in this case there was no vacant seat to fill, and the Senate was controlled by Democrats.  Regardless, the nomination failed after a bipartisan filibuster.  The two reasons cited in this article are that there was a reaction by some Senators against the liberalism of the Warren Court, and ethical concerns about Fortas.  "Too many liberal justices" sounds ironic based on today's ideological conflict.  It is noteworthy that on a partisan basis, this could have been a slam dunk in a very Democratic Congress.  Regardless, there was a bipartisan concern about the Court not going off too far in one direction.

The details offer a clear lesson about partisanship to me.

In the majority of these cases since 1900, it was a slam dunk.  It was all handled by the same party, which controlled the White House and the Senate.  RBG's appointment was a great example of that dynamic.  It wasn't a Presidential election year.  But Clinton was President and Democrats had 57 seats in the Senate.  Slam dunk.  

In the two cases since 1900 when The White House and Senate were in opposite parties, it was essentially a test of bipartisanship.  In both instances, some type of bipartisan solution was worked out. 

What Reagan did with Ginsburg in 1987, is what I believe was one of two good options with Justice Rapist in 2018.  They could have withdrawn the nomination and ended up with a different - and better - conservative, like Reagan did in 1988.  Or they could have had a real FBI investigation.  It wasn't like President Toxic wasn't going to be President one or two months later.  Ginsburg's nomination was pulled because he smoked pot.  If Reagan could do that, President Toxic could have pulled Justice Rapist based on the seriousness of the multiple sexual assault allegations made. 

As it turned out, the conflict helped give Nancy Pelosi a commanding House majority.  Democrats probably lost two Senate seats in solid red states and gained two Senate seats in Arizona and Nevada.  That's a huge win, and a wash.  I'll say this as a Democrat.  Thanks, Dr. Ford.  

Jon Tester's analysis is even more favorable to Democrats than mine is.  He wouldn't argue 2018 was a win for Republicans in the House or Sernate:

Quote

But Democratic Sen. Jon Tester won reelection in 2018 in conservative Montana after voting against Kavanaugh; Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) beat McSally after coming out against Kavanaugh, as did Democratic incumbents from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin — all states Trump won in 2016.

“They won a mandate in 2018? They lost the frickin’ House,” Tester said in an interview. “They’re making excuses for something that they know is totally corrupt.”

The Bork example is what I'll end with.  And on this one I'll speak as a Gay man.  

Some Republicans say that fight really poisoned the well of bipartisanship.  They are entitled to their opinion.  But I vehemently disagree.  I've listened to Sen. Ted Kennedy's whole speech "Borking" Bork several times.  His central point, which I passionately agree with, is that Bork's tendency would have been to drag us back and force us to relitigate all the hot button fights of the past - on race, on gender, on everything.

I'm grateful to Ted Kennedy for what he did.  It did not leave a vacancy.  The process ended up in Justice Anthony Kennedy.  If you want an argument for "bipartisanship" or "Kasich Republicanism" - meaning right-of-center politics with an intent to unify - that's it.  If you want to know why I mostly respect SCOTUS, and why I deeply admire both Senator Kennedy and Justice Kennedy, that's it.

Ted Kennedy did not know how this would play out, of course.  But we do.  What if Bork, or someone like him, was the swing vote on same sex marriage?  Would the outcome have been different? 

On the face of it, yes.  Bork would have wanted to drag us back.  Justice Kennedy moved us forward.  If you need a good example of what Kennedy was talking about in 1988, what happened in America in 2015 is it.  As Jeb Bush said, thousands of years of culture and religion were changed at warp speed on same sex marriage, and he didn't get it.  Justice Kennedy did that for us, and I will always be grateful.  Would Bork have been for that?  I very much doubt it.

The precedent that was in place before 2016 was that the death of Scalia called for a bipartisan moment.  You could debate whether Merrick Garland was a unifier and centrist from the left in the same way Justice Kennedy was a unifier and centrist from the right.  But if the Republicans didn't like Garland, they could have forced Obama to pick someone else.  They shattered precedent by not even having a hearing.

What is happening now is the opposite of 1956, and 1969, and 1988.  In a moment that calls for bipartisanship, and that in one messy way or another was met with bipartisanship in those past three examples, we're likely getting President Toxic's and McConnell's venal partisanship.  It will be another nail in President Toxic's coffin.  So I'm fine with the outcome it will have for him.

I personally agree with Biden.  Up until now he's been the institutionalist saying court packing is a bad idea.  Now he's saying let's focus on what the Republicans do, and then go from there.  I think he's being wise.

I also personally agree with RBG.  She said court packing is going to degrade the institution.  And her most fervent wish was to be replaced by the President elected in November.  She's right on both counts.  For anyone who honors RBG, listening to her on both counts would be the honorable thing to do.  And you can't pick and choose.  I'm quite sure she knew that what's probably about to happen would just further poison bipartisanship, and be another nail in the coffin of a unifying Supreme Court.

If the Republicans fill the vacancy, my view is they continued to trash a continuous chain from 1900 to 2016.  Most of it was a chain of clean partisan action, due to fate.  But when it got messy, the solution was to get bipartisan.

If there's a 2021 discussion about court reform, I'd rather it address some of the problems in this history.  Maybe it's better not to leave some of this to fate.  Mostly, I'm with Biden.  This is another huge problem we don't need, after COVID-19 and a crippled economy.  We don't need to relitigate abortion, DREAMers, same sex marriage, and voting rights.  We don't need to empower the type of judicial conservatism that would shut down escorting websites and target men that hire escorts.

If the Republicans do what they are seemingly preparing to do, it will Bork America, send us backward rather than forward, and create more division.  Democrats should figure out how to respond to that wisely, and with the interests of all of America and it's future at heart, after Biden wins.  The one silver lining in this cloud is that President Toxic and McConnell have set such a low bar for decency and unity that it will be easy to do better than them.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 23, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[stevenkesslar]

How to Rebalance the Supreme Court

Combine an immediate expansion with a proposal for a constitutional amendment

 

This is a great article.  I think this is the debate Democrats should start having among themselves now. 

Meaning, Biden's public comments should be focused on what the Republicans are doing.  Period.  Like how hypocritical and divisive it is.  And what impact it will have:  on health care, pre-existing conditions, deporting DREAMers, unmarrying Gays, banning abortion, and a long list of other progressive victories that could be reversed or at least gradually chewed to the bone.  

Just as Republicans can and will decide among themselves what to do with Garland or Gorsuch or Justice Rapist or RBG, this is the Democrat's call.  That said, whatever we do should be based on the idea that Independents are the dilettantes who will reward or punish either party.  I think we can do a better job than the Republicans of doing something that makes sense to them.  

It is quite possible that Rich Mitch's bet in 2016 paid off.  President Toxic in 2016 got 2 million more votes than Romney in 2012.  Hillary got 100,000 less votes than Obama did in 2012.  No one can ever know why that was.  But it's easy to believe right wing thirst for court packing had something to do with it.  It's also easy to believe that was exactly what Mitch McConnell had in mind. 

Even if that is true, all the evidence suggests that Republicans hurt themselves badly with Independents in 2018.  In the House, it is undeniable.  You can debate the Senate, since it was win some lose some.  My way of looking at it, going forward, is that the SCOTUS issue has probably now flipped.  It used to energize Republicans more.  It will now likely energize Democrats more.  Just since RBG's death, there are already indications of that in polling and fundraising.

I could make up a list of more than 25 states where this will help Democrats win Senate seats in the future, I think.  If you accept the premise that it will help Republicans win in red states like Kentucky and South Carolina, there are fewer than 25 of those.  In fact, how this plays out in Senate races in South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, Montana, Kansas, Kentucky, and Georgia in 2020 will provide excellent data on how the liberal and conservative tectonic plates are being shifted.

In terms of the content of the article above, I've read several articles that propose a constitutional amendment.  I like the idea of combining immediate action Democrats can take unilaterally with longer term action that is oriented around bipartisanship and preserving the integrity of the Court.

In my mind, the long-term solution is the easier of the two.  I like the idea that we agree that we like a 9 judge court.  I like the idea that we limit it to terms. 

If we had 16 year terms, and each President appointed two during a four year term, that could solve a few problems.  I think RBG did wait too long.  That said, the way the system works now leaves lots of things to fate.  When will I get cancer?  Even if she resigned in January 2015, McConnell may have invented some other "rule" to block her replacement.  With 16 year appointments, "fate" will of course happen, anyway.  But I do think it would rationalize and improve the existing system.  And it would be more reform than revolution.  In a period like the FDR New Deal, it would allow liberals to dominate, resulting in something like the Warren Court.  If conservatives dominate, it would result in something like what we have right now.

All that said, I'm fine with proposing an amendment like this that goes absolutely nowhere.  Of the last 10 Presidential terms from 1980, including President Toxic, six were Republicans and four were Democrats.  If we do nothing, my guess is that Democrats will be more likely than Republicans to win the Presidential lottery for the next 40 years.  Speaking as a Democrat, why rush to change the permanent rules when it's finally our turn?  What I like about the idea of a permanent agreement like this is it leaves the permanent number at 9 and attempts to rationalize and reform how individual justices come and go.  Instead of encouraging them to hang on too long, it gives them 16 years to do their best work.  It also guarantees that just like a Senate that is replaced every six years, we'd have incremental changes in the court's makeup.

As far as the short term goes, this interview with Joe Manchin, which doesn't actually say a lot, would be my starting point:

Like Kasie Hunt, I would read Manchin's "institutionalist" comments as a "no" to the idea of court packing.  With Biden, we don't even have to guess.  He's always been an institutionalist, too.  That said, if he wins and Democrats have a Senate majority there will be huge pressure from the base to do "something".

Whatever anyone thinks of Manchin, if Democrats are able to get a majority there's a good chance his vote will be essential.  Another reason to wait is that if Democrats somehow ran the table and won 52 or 53 or 54 seats, that could be taken as a "mandate", and Manchin's vote might not be needed.  

I like the idea of adding one seat, period.  And I like the idea of doing it quick, with 50 votes.  COVID, vaccines, health care, jobs and the economy should be the urgent priorities.  That said, if you assume Democrats in 2021 have 50 votes for "something", it's worth thinking about whether "something" should be one liberal seat, or three liberal seats.   In part because a debate between 3 or 1 makes 1 look a lot more reasonable.

The difference between 3 and 1 would be transparent to most people.  3 (or more) new liberal judges sounds like court packing.  If there is an argument for it, it's that President Toxic was not a legitimate President because he actually lost in 2016. So we're just balancing out his three conservative picks.   It would actually leave a 6-6 spit SCOTUS.  I'd rather leave any arguments related to the Slavery Electoral College and President Toxic losing the popular vote in 2016 out of this.  Given the choice between packing the court and getting rid of the Slavery Electoral College, I'd choose the latter in a heart beat.  That's not going to happen quickly or easily, either.  For now, I'd rather focus on getting one more liberal on the court.

I think the idea of one would also be transparent.  This partisan war started in 2016, when McConnell "stole" one seat that should have been filled with Garland.  If you assume McConnell had allowed Obama to replace a conservative icon in 2016, and Garland was seated, it would follow that Republicans have every right to replace a liberal icon in 2020.  Republicans would of course see it differently.  But on the face of it, I think lots of Independents would see it as "fair and balanced"  (But not Fox News.)

Significantly, it would still leave the 10 member court with a 6-4 partisan split that favored Republicans.  In my mind, that would be intentional.  Rather than seeking to use raw power to instantly create a liberal majority, which is what FDR tried and failed to do, the argument would be we want to right ONE wrong from 2016.  And then agree to permanent fair rules.  Again, if Republicans had seated Garland and everything else worked out the same, fate worked out that they'd have a 5-4 majority after replacing RBG anyway.  5-4 and 6-4 are not the same.  But it does mean, for example, that one conservative (e.g. Roberts) could block an effort to repeal Obamacare by by creating a 5-5 split vote, which leaves precedent standing.  The idea would be to eventually get back to a more rationalized nine justice SCOTUS through bipartisan agreement.  Again, this is reform.  Not revolution.

If we assume Manchin and others will say they don't want to destroy the institution, this fits in.  The Republicans were the ones who gave Lincoln a 10th seat, temporarily.  They took 2 seats away from Johnson, temporarily.  I'd argue that this is the same thing: a temporary measure in extremely partisan times married to an explicit goal of finding our way back to a 9 justice SCOTUS with both formal and informal norms around bipartisanship and balance.  Republicans would never agree with this.  But I'd argue that Republicans took the institution hostage in 2016.  And we're balancing it back in 2021.  Democrats have the right to disincent what we can legitimately argue is hostage taking.  (In 2016, there are polls saying a majority of Americans wanted Garland confirmed.)  The thing both sides should want to incent is bipartisan problem solving.

There's also a precedent in terms of outcome, which is FDR.  While the formal court packing scheme failed, it did achieve the goal of getting ONE justice to essentially switch sides, from anti-New Deal to pro-New Deal.  It ended the extreme obstructionism.  Putting one more liberal on a Court run by conservatives, anyway, would send exactly the same message to a conservative majority court. 

There's one other explicitly political factor that the most cravenly political of Democrats (let's say Rahm Emmanuel) will like.  Rich Mitch has been effective in using the courts as bait to get people to turn out and vote Republican.  I have no problem with Democrats doing the same thing.  If progressives want a Green New Deal and Biden passes "mini-deal" incremental laws that the conservative Court blocks, that sends a clear message.  Vote Democratic, and we can create a Democratic-dominated court. We'll do it by following the bipartisan rules, rather than packing it.  It worked for McConnell.  It can work for Democrats, like it did with the Warren Court.

There's one other piece of this small "d" democracy puzzle that fits in.  As soon as Democrats have a simple majority we have to immediately go full steam ahead on making it easy and safe for everyone to vote.  I'd actually open the debate by making voting mandatory, and then work from there.  "Court packing" sounds inherently anti-democratic.  Making it easy and safe for every adult American to vote sounds like the essence of democracy.

That's where the Slavery Electoral College fits in to me.  For half of US history, it was literally built on the blood and tears of slaves.  Republicans will say that ended in the 18th century.  True.  But for another half of US history, it's been a way to undermine the principle of "one person one vote".  On this one, I'm now completely adamant.  It's the Slavery Electoral College.  If you are for it, you're endorsing an institution created to enslave Blacks that to this day undermines their right to vote.  And it violates the principle of "one person one vote" in a country that needs to finally except that all men and women and non-gendered people are created equal.

For a long time a majority of Americans have agreed that the Slavery Electoral College is an anachronism.  If President Toxic loses, it will be proof that not even this anachronism built on the blood of slaves could save his sorry, racist ass.  The time to dump the Slavery Electoral College as a vestige of a more racist America has come.

None of this will, or should, be debated by Biden and President Toxic.  I hope Biden just keeps putting the focus on the horror of what a 6-3 conservative packed court will do to health care, the ACA, and pre-existing conditions.  All during a pandemic that President Toxic allowed to kill 200,000+ Americans while he golfed and "played it down". 

This is the debate I think Democrats can happily look forward to in 2021.

 

 

[stevenkesslar]

Poll: 57 percent say election winner should fill Ginsburg's seat

Republicans thus far have not been deterred in their effort to reshape the ideological balance of the Supreme Court.

I'm hardly objective.  But I have a feeling this is going to work out real bad for Republicans. 

They knew the momentum was NOT on their side.  So maybe this is a political Hail Mary pass. 

Maybe they think it will help them, like they think it did in 2018.  Except, it hurt them in 2018.  As I said, they may have taken out McCaskill and Donnelly.  But it may have won Democrats Arizona and Nevada.  And as Sen. Tester pointed out in that quote a few posts up, most of the vulnerable seats in 2018 were Democrats.  In 2012 Obama did help drag every vulnerable Senate Democrat over the line.  So gaining a House majority and losing "only" two Senate seats was not really a loss.

This time it is the Republicans who are all the vulnerable ones, except for Doug Jones.  McCaskill herself said on MSNBC that now it is all Republicans that are in the position she was in in 2018.

One fundamental aspect of the 2018 fight was ignorance.  I will die still enraged about what I view as the Justice Rapist fiasco.  That said, if I were on a jury, I would never have convicted Kavanaugh.  How could anyone?  The defining thing was you had two credible people but no fully credible evidence.  Absent that, it forced everyone to come down on two sides of the culture war.  There was no middle ground.  President Toxic made it radioactive by being the poster child for how to portray an alleged female victim as a ditzy shrew who just wants to castrate men, with some billionaire Jew like George Soros backing her.

There's another thing about 2018 that may be worth mentioning.  At the time, I recall reading that right after the floor vote, Chuck Grassley left the Senate floor and went into a cloak room and started crying.  I've read his full final committee report, and I'll also die feeling like it was a shoddy cover up.  It brushed known facts under the rug and adamantly refused to look for any other facts that might not fit President Toxic's narrative.  But if what I read is true, I have to assume Grassley's tears were genuine.  I would guess the driver was relief.  I'd also guess Grassley felt justice was served.  I don't view him as an "I just don't give a shit" guy like McConnell is.

My point is that I've read stories about how that whole experience "radicalized" Republicans.  It's very hard for me to be objective about that, because it also radicalized me.  Then again, that's what President Toxic has done.  He took every significant rift in America and turned them all into a Grand Canyon.

I'm not sure that the Republicans are being very clear-eyed right now.  They did not "win" in 2018.  They may be surprised what happens in 2020.

However this plays out, this isn't about ignorance.  More the opposite.  The Republicans know very well that the majority of Americans don't want them to do what they are about to do.  That poll above seems like an even wider margin than the first snap polls.  Biden's RCP average right now is about 50/43, a seven point margin.  Voters are against filling the seat now 57/38, a 19 point margin, at least in this poll.  So as this plays out it seems like Biden has room to grow, and President Toxic has room to shrink. 

Wow.  The incredible shrinking asshole.  Sounds great for a porn movie.  But this is a horror story.

That's just based on the idea that the Republicans are not listening.  Add all the stuff about overturning Roe v. Wade, repealing Obamacare, letting people with pre-existing conditions suffer, making it still harder for everyone but Trump cult members to vote, and it doesn't look very pretty to me.   The Republicans are counting on the hearings being a "circus".  They may simply be a daily reminder that Republicans are 1000 % better at being cruel than they are at listening.  We'll see.

In addition, they will potentially be a daily reminder that President Toxic's sole reason for existence is to tear America apart unnecessarily, and then go directly to hell.

I read some article I won't post about Democratic Senate candidates like Kelly and Cunnigham that just made me laugh my ass off.  They are all saying that of course they are against court packing.  So if the idea was that this kills Democrats in swing states, good luck with that, Rich Mitch. 

McSally was actually quoted as saying that Kelly is another radical Democrat and he's lying about court packing.  She sounded desperate to me.  At least she got the "l" in lying right. This is about listening.  She was on the wrong side of this issue in 2018.  Now she's on the wrong side again.  She lost in 2018.  And what makes 2020 different?  She's still a sorry excuse for a Senator who listens to voters.

I decided to add Jaime Harrison to my list of donations.  South Carolina is a long shot.  And in red states I have to assume this will help Republicans like The Divine Miss Graham.  If this is 57/38 nationally, that probably means voters in South Carolina are a toss up on whether they should fill the seat now.  Which is exactly what the Harrison/Graham horse race polls show.  A tie.  So if Graham's committee just ignores voters and forces this through, I would not be so sure.  Harrison is using this brilliantly to tie it back to the ACA and Graham's original sin of giving a shit only about himself - and the racist who he thought was a racist in 2016 but now thinks is a great golf buddy.  

I made a math error above about possible Constitutional amendments that everyone may have caught, anyway.  Having each President appoint two justices with 16 year terms fits with an 8 justice court.  I meant to say 18 year terms, since that would be a nine justice court.  There would still be premature vacancies from retirements or heart attacks.  But that could be figured out if a majority agreed we want a bipartisan court and we want people to serve for 18 years, not try not to die while serving.

That poll above notes that voters are against "increasing the size of the nation's court" 54 to 32.  It confirms what I think we already knew.  "Court packing", defined as such, would be political suicide for Democrats.  After the election, I think it's a great debate.  The 1 in 3 or so voters who like the idea, no doubt mostly Democrats, can be loud about it.

What I thought about after posting above is that if Democrats do anything, it should be to put Merrick Garland on the bench as a temporary 10th member, hearkening back to what Republicans did a few times in the 19th century with Lincoln and Johnson. 

To me the wise position for Democrats, like I said above, is to fight for a bipartisan or nonpartisan 9 Justice Court that is appointed fairly.  Perhaps by adding an amendment to The Constitution.  That's not inconsistent with saying that McConnell did lots of things that were wrong and divisive.  And that what happened in 2016 was just wrong.  On a partisan level, it was a wrong to Democrats.  On a personal level, it was a wrong to Garland.  The majority of Americans felt in 2016 that he should be seated.  He's a center-left or "moderate" unifier.  And the debate around seating him, and the act of seating him, would send a very clear signal that we don't want a conservative SCOTUS to veer hard right.  I think that's a good debate to have.

 

 

[tassojunior]

 

All but 2 Democrats today voted not to wait until January, but to confirm Trump's pick for Federal judge for Virginia. (Just like Pelosi pushed through every penny that Trump asked for in the budget).

If this drama was on Netflix I'd give it a thumbs-up for superb acting. 

No new administration has made any real changes since 1932, so when Biden says "We will change nothing", don't expect much except better optics.. 

[stevenkesslar]

This is going to be interesting. 

I am assuming, and hoping, that we won't have the ambiguous sexual shenanigans and character quandaries we did with Justice Rapist.  The good news is that you can be a left-wing woman, or a right-wing woman, and you can be powerful in America 2020.  Both RBG and ACB sound like really good human beings, spouses, and parents.

I am also assuming, and hoping, that "the dogma lives loudly within you" is a preview of what is to come.  Republicans, being the paragons of decency and fairness they are, will of course complain about the attacks on religion.  And Catholicism in particular.  Let them.  As long as we're somewhere in the ballpark of abortion and the ACA, that's the debate I want.

This comment relates more to the Presidential debates than the hearings.  President Toxic didn't look so bad standing next to Hillary in part because Bill Clinton was always in the picture.  President Toxic standing next to Joe Biden is just a very different thing.

This is especially an area where I think voters are quite capable of figuring it out for themselves.   It's not about complicated or obscure policy.  It's about what kind of people Americans want leading them.  Simply by being a devout lifelong Catholic, Biden brings a whole different slant to this.  He's been on the national scene pretty much just as long as Roe v. Wade.  Go back to the 1970's or 1980's in particular and he said and did plenty that sounds like undermining Roe v. Wade.  Maybe President Toxic will try to use that against him.  But it undermines the idea that Biden is a radical. 

Mostly I think it will be easy and natural for Biden to look like a devout man of faith who over time has developed a strong conviction about a woman's right to chose.  President Toxic is the opposite.  He's not a man of faith, and he used to be in favor of abortion.  Not only is Trump on the wrong side of this issue.  It goes back to the basic idea that he has no principles, other than empowering and enriching himself. 

My guess is that neither man can pretend to be someone he is not.  Simply by being who they are, Biden wins this debate.  People don't want the seat filled now.  And they don't want it filled by someone who will either overturn Roe v. Wade, or substantially weaken it.  If anyone in America can say, "The dogma lives loudly in me, too, and I'm for a woman's right to choose," it's Joe Biden.    That's a good place for Democrats to be.

As the poll posted below shows, 56 % of Catholics think abortion should be legal in all or most cases.   As does a majority of every religious affiliation except White evangelical Protestants.

 

Public Opinion on Abortion

Views on abortion, 1995-2019

That's a very handy summary of where various segments of the US population have been on abortion, and are today.

The only thing that surprised me is that there's very little difference in views on abortion between men and woman.  So maybe Republicans are thinking this could help them with center-right women who are drifting away from the party.  And in some cases, I'm sure it will.  That said, 60 % of women and 61 % of men think abortion should be legal in all or most cases.  As that first chart in Pew's research shows, that's the highest it's ever been. 

Those are bad numbers for Republicans.  As are these:

75 % of conservative/moderate Democrats think abortion should be legal in all or most cases.  Meanwhile, 57 % of liberal/Republicans think the same.  That Pew study doesn't tell us what percentage of Americans are in each group.  But the number of anti-abortion Democrats who could tilt to President Toxic are probably way smaller than the number of pro-choice Republicans who could tilt to Biden.

Not surprisingly, the young - who are least likely to vote and most likely to become pregnant - are most in favor of abortion being legal all or most of the time, 70 to 29.  Right out of the gate, ACB is on the wrong side of more than 2/3rd of 18 to 29 year olds.  That can't hurt Democrats in terms of turnout.

The thing I find scary is that right now Rasmussen Polls says President Toxic has a + 4 (52/48) approval rating.  That's compared to a - 8 %  (45/53) RCP average net disapproval for President, and an outlier - 14 % disapproval for him  in one CNBC polls.  So there's an almost 20 % margin between the best and worst polls for Trump.  (As an aside, this morning Willie Geist on Morning Joe read part of a long ranting tweet by Trump about polls.  Geist ended by saying, "And the President's long tweet ends by saying something .......... something ................ Rasmussen.  Joe Scarborough just laughed.)

In the last few election cycles, the poll averages were very close to the final results, including the 2016 Presidential race and the 2016 and 2018 House Congressional vote.  So odds are the averages are right.  And as of today Biden would win.

I was reading this long and dry academic analysis of which prediction models (not polls) got it right in 2016.  Allan Lichtman was one of the few.  In the report, pollster John Zogby was quoted as saying something like this in Fall 2016:  "I can't tell you who is going to win the election.  If you tell me who is going to vote, I can tell you."  He gave a range for turnout and said if it's "x" Clinton will probably win and if it's "y" Trump will probably win. 

As it turned out Democratic turnout was flat and Republican turnout was up 2 million in 2016.  My own guess is that the revolt of Whites without college degrees in the Rust Belt states had way more to do with that than abortion.  The crumbling of the Blue Wall in the Rust Belt pretty much screams that.  My guess is also that the Justice Rapist fiasco in 2018 helped Democrats a lot more than it hurt them - first and foremost simply by driving up Democratic turnout.

The smart people in the room are saying there's no way to predict how this will turn out.  I agree.  But the polls are flashing lots of red warning signs for Republicans.  And they seem to be listening to them about as well as they are listening to the American people.

 

 

[stevenkesslar]

1 minute ago, tassojunior said:

Still waiting to see what the blue wave from 2018 gotten us

Exactly.

After winning both the House and Senate in 2016, President Toxic gave $1 million + tax cuts to billionaires.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi earlier this year followed Bernie's lame-brain idea of sending low- and moderate-income workers $600 a week.

This is not only essentially what Republicans would have done.  It is worse.  I'm quite sure Ritch Mitch would have sent $1 million to every low- and- moderate income worker in America.

The Democrats are obviously exactly the same as Republicans. 

Although Nancy has better taste in masks than President Toxic.  But, as you say, that's just optics.

[stevenkesslar]

Democrats’ SCOTUS Message Could Really Work in Swing States

Another great article by Ron Brownstein.

It's a little bit of an opposing view from what I said about abortion above. 

As always, Ron goes straight for the data.  And he grounds his argument in state data on abortion, although the references he hyperlinks don't actually give the state data.  His point is that there are solid (55 % +) majorities for what he calls "favoring abortion rights" in Arizona, Colorado, and Maine.  He quotes a left-of-center strategist as saying that Democratic focus on abortion is "net unhelpful" to Democrats in Iowa, North and South Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Montana, Kansas.  One reason that makes sense is that Rich Mitch is not stupid.  I have to presume that they thought pushing ahead was going to help them win, rather than lose. 

That said, all the numbers he cites are around 50 %.  Like 52 % favor abortion rights in Iowa.  49 % in North Carolina and Georgia.  The worst case is Alabama, where only about 40 % favor abortion rights, and poor Doug Jones is now even more likely to lose.  But even in most of these purple or red states it seems like this could just go either way.  Because at the statewide level you have an even split.  You'd need highly disaggregated data to figure out which voters in either camp this might move in any of these states.

Brownstein's other assumption is that focusing on the ACA and pre-existing conditions is cleaner.  But he states he has no state-level polls on that at all.  This very recent Kaiser study says 57 % of voters "disapprove" of President Toxic's effort to overturn the ACA.  Swing voters overwhelming side with Biden over Trump - like by 52 to 29 on who would be better to determine the future of the ACA. 

Those are obviously all very good numbers for Democrats.  But the polls I posted above say even more people, 60 %, are in favor of abortion rights.

The real no brainer on this issue is pre-existing conditions.  As Brownstein points out, that clearly helped the Democrats in 2018.  The Kaiser poll says 72 % of voters think it is "very important" that the protections for pre-existing conditions in the ACA stay in place.

Some of this data reinforces my views about Biden I expressed above.  Simply by virtue of his Catholicism and his legislative history, he's not going to come off as a radical abortionist.  So if there is a danger of hitting some hot button with moderate Republicans on abortion, Biden is not the one likely to hit it.  As Brownstein notes, Biden hit exactly the right button for Independents.  Instead of arguing to ratchet up the tone from nuclear to apocalyptic, he argued we should slow down and calm down.  It's a good thing Biden has little hair.  Because he's doing a pretty good job of letting President Toxic be the one to always light his hair on fire.

There could be a way for the Democrats to have their cake, and eat it, too.  The motto might be:  when you're attacking you're winning, and when you're explaining you're losing.

If there's any issue for Democrats to go to war on, Brownstein is probably right.  It probably is the ACA.  That's first up on the SCOTUS agenda after the election.  And if 72 % of Americans say pre-existing conditions are very important, that's almost certainly a majority in every state.  Other polls I've seen over a period of years suggest it is of particular concern to the part of President Toxic's base that is not well off - a big chunk of the Whites without college educations.  I think ACB has also made some statements that pretty much said Roberts' ruling to NOT overturn the ACA was wrong.  So it may be a cleaner way to attack her, based on her own words, as well.

With abortion, it could be that when you're explaining, your losing.  Democrats can ask her all kinds of questions without sounding radical.  She will have the phrase "precedent" pasted on her forehead, just like Justice Rapist did.  And a few of her rulings suggest that at least at the level she was at, she was willing to follow the SCOTUS precedents.  Anything beyond that is speculation.  But the very fact that we're talking about making abortion illegal or impossible should help get the message through to anyone who is paying at least a little bit of attention.

This reminds me of what Morning Joe said during the Justice Rapist fight in 2018.  He said that often in politics the winning side loses, and the losing side wins.  I would argue he was right about 2018.  The Democrats lost the confirmation fight.  But they won the House.  Republicans are very likely, if not certain, to confirm ACB on whatever timeline they want.  But all these numbers suggest to me it will contribute to them losing the Senate, and The White House.

Poor President Toxic.  He just can't catch a break.

 

Edited September 26, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[stevenkesslar]

My favorite community organizing mantra is Saul Alinsky's "the action is in the reaction".

The more I read about this SCOTUS nomination, and its potential long term consequences, the more I think this could be the mother of all political reactions for much of the 21st century.  

So far, the title of Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson's book has been more right than wrong.  In 2018, the Republican House majority died.  No one is even suggesting they'll get that back in 2020. 

For the next month we'll hear endlessly about the amazing mandate the Senate Republicans were given in 2018 to do what they're about to do.  One big clue that they had no mandate is that the majority of Americans oppose Republicans filling the seat now.  Another big clue is that in 2018 Democrats had 24 seats to defend, and Republicans only had 9.  So Republicans netting 2 seats isn't a mandate.  They won Missouri and North Dakota and Indiana - red states - in 2018.  But losing red states like Montana and purple states like Arizona wasn't exactly a huge Republican victory.

2020 will be the real test of Wilson's book title.  As of now, it's looking like the Republican Senate majority will die.  And the grand prize - the Toxic Presidency will die, too.

Boo hoo.  Boo hoo.

Now there's a new question.  If Barrett is seated, President Toxic will definitely have touched the Supreme Court.  So will it die, too?  

My guess is it will.  It will die in the sense that in a decade it will have lost much of the legitimacy it has today.

This article is a good compilation of what a bunch of legal scholars think about the likely impact of Barrett (and President Toxic's other justices).  I'm quoting two of scholars, who express one of the strongest themes of the various prognostications.

How Amy Coney Barrett Would Reshape The Court - And The Country

Quote

Barrett’s views on contentious issues like abortion, Obamacare, gun rights, sexual assault and immigration are well-documented and lean decidedly against majorities of the voting public. Her nomination is thus a political act of splitting. It is yet one more Trumpian assault on “We the People” of a democratic republic composed of many different views, beliefs and needs. And sadly, in the wake of Justice Ginsburg’s legacy of moderation and grace, pushing Barrett through a Republican-only Senate vote just days before an election that will determine the fate of American democracy is more fuel for the fires of hatred, extreme fear and violence. It does not bode well. She is the wrong choice for America right now.

Quote

For most of the nation’s history, the Supreme Court was a protector of the rights and interests of America’s elites against larger democratic forces. Its focus was the protection of property rights, corporate rights, slave owner rights and limits on the ability of legislatures to regulate. It struck down income taxes, child labor laws, minimum wage laws and civil rights legislation. It did very little to protect the rights and interests of those struggling for greater equality and opportunity. It prevented democratic majorities from advancing progressive agendas. It tried mightily to prevent the New Deal. In short, it was a conservative bulwark. With the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett — an undoubtedly qualified jurist with rock-solid conservative credentials — the court will revert to the role it performed for most of our history.

Of course, we don't know whether Barrett will be confirmed, let alone what she'll do.  But this seems to me like a grim and realistic prognosis.  If correct, it suggests that the legitimacy of SCOTUS will diminish.  Depending on how far they go, SCOTUS could simply be seen as an appendage of the Republican Party.  Or of corporate America.  Or of climate change deniers.  Or even the most right-wing religious organizations in America.

None of these legal scholars mention anything about political reactions if their predictions come true.   But the reactions could be massive.  It's one thing to be a conservative bulwark that blocks what even many Republicans in 2020 would view as progress:  child labor laws, minimum wage laws, income taxes that fund popular social programs.  It's another thing to actually roll back progress, or repeal it. 

I assume that a 6-3 conservative court will do everything they can think of to NOT repeal Roe. v. Wade.  Instead, they will incrementally kill it in all but name.  That won't work as easily with the ACA.  They've already killed part of it.  But now it's sort of all or nothing.  Another one of the themes of the Politico piece is that this is probably the end of the line for efforts by Justices like Kennedy and Roberts to zig zag in a way that kept SCOTUS near the center of American political gravity. 

No matter how well they try to disguise it, Americans will figure out that the Court has swung hard to the right.  That will likely cause a huge political reaction.  A lot of that reaction will happen at the state level.  Including in the state elections of two US Senators.  Long term, this could address the Democrats' biggest structural problem.  There's a lot of data being put up right now about how the Senate naturally favors Republicans.  I'll post some of it below.  My point is that a far right SCOTUS might have the effect of gradually loosening the Republicans' hold on some of those states, and thus the Senate.

I'll use abortion as an example.  I don't think anyone knows what the political implications of a repeal of Roe v. Wade will be.  I cited poll data above from Pew that suggests that right now 61 % of Americans support legal abortion in all or most cases, and 38 % oppose abortion in all or most cases.  Pew also found no difference between men and women - 60 % of both sexes support abortion in all or most cases.  This Gallup poll which is also recent provides a significantly different picture.  It is perhaps a classic example of the answer depending on how you ask the question.  When you ask about "pro-choice" or "pro-life",  it's much more of a 50/50 split. And a gender gap appears.  A slight majority of women are "pro-choice", and a slight majority of men are "pro-life".  On the bottom line question of whether it should be legal, Gallup's numbers suggest that as few as 43 % of Americans support abortion that is legal in most cases.  And up to 55 % of Americans want abortion to be legal "in only a few circumstances", or not at all.

If you believe the Pew numbers, Republicans appear to be asking for massive long-term pushback in most states, with the exceptions being ones like Alabama.  If you believe the Gallup data, it might explain why McConnell and The Divine Miss Graham are pushing full speed ahead.  They may believe this will help them in all red states, and most purple states.  The 2018 Senate results don't suggest that.  Nor do the polls in 2020, so far.  But nobody knows.  We will have a very good indication when we know what happened in Senate races in Montana, Kansas, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Texas.  (Of those purple to red state, three had Senate elections in 2018.  Democrats won Montana and Arizona, and came closer than expected in Texas.  Like I said, 2018 was not a Republican mandate.)

The same goes for the ACA and a long list of other issues.  My guess is that Mitch McConnell is politically unassailable in Kentucky.  But Andy Beshear just won the Kentucky Governor seat back in part because of the ACA, basically avenging his Dad's loss to a one-term right wing Governor.  If SCOTUS repeals the ACA, it's not completely clear what reaction that will cause even in a deep red state like Kentucky.  If we are doomed to repeat the obstructionist conservative court of the 1930's, it's even less clear what the political reaction will be when they throw out whatever watered-down parts of the Green New Deal Biden and Democrats are able to pass.

I agree with the authors I cited above.  The Supreme Court will likely revert to being what it was for much of US history:  a block against democratic and progressive majorities, and a protector of powerful minorities and elites.  The reaction at the state level could be to move more states to the left, driven by social issues like abortion and economic issues like health care and minimum wages.  If that happens, I could also see it eliminating any structural advantage Republicans have in the US Senate.

The Senate’s Rural Skew Makes It Very Hard For Democrats To Win The Supreme Court

That article has good data on two things:  the partisan lean of all 50 states, and the  urban/rural geography of all 50 states.  

I don't buy the idea the the Senate is the biggest obstacle to Democrats "winning" SCOTUS.  I think it's obvious the Slavery Electoral College is the biggest obstacle. Were Hillary Clinton  the winner in 2016, we'd potentially be looking at a 6-3 liberal majority (assuming Kennedy resigned.)  If you also assume Gore was President in 2000, there would never have been a Bush second term during which he appointed two justices.  Arguably, up to 8 of the 9 SCOTUS justices would have been appointed by Democrats.  What screwed Democrats (and democrats) first and foremost is not the Senate, or McConnell.  It's the Slavery Electoral College.  If we want democratic politics in America, we have to get rid of the Slavery Electoral College.  The idea that the woman who wins the most votes is the winner is NOT a radical idea.  

I'm assuming any court packing scheme designed to give liberals a court majority will be politically toxic.  An effort to restructure the Senate to look like more like the House would be even more politically toxic.  What Democrats should be thinking about is getting and keeping a 50+ vote majority in the Senate.   And then getting rid of the Senate filibuster, which relied on a level of bipartisanship and comity that is now just dead.  

I've read a bunch of good articles this year that suggest that "it's the geography, stupid" is even more important today than "it's the economy, stupid."  The way I understand the first phrase is that it incorporates the economy.  Areas that are more rural and Whiter tend to be more culturally conservative as well.  They tend to be the areas that feel, and often are, left behind economically.  Everything about the sunny and outward optimism of Reagan (California, pro-trade, pro-immigrant) is now associated with the Democratic Party.  Reagan was the one who said Hispanics are Republicans, but they just don't know it yet. The post-Trump Republican Party fits more into the pessimistic tradition that America and American values have been lost.  I love the phrase "coalition of restoration" to describe the Republican Party as it will probably exist for a long time to come. 

So if all that is accurate, if you look at that 538 list of states by partisan lean the Democrats can probably just forget about states that are the most rural.  They already have been the least Democratic:  like Wyoming and Idaho and perhaps Montana.  That said, Tester survived 2018, right after voting against Justice Rapist.  And they have a Democratic Governor that may be their other Senator soon.  There are only three states that have 0 % of their population in the big urban cores and small cities that are supposed to favor Democrats.  They are Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.    Given that Vermont is both one of the most rural AND the most Democratic, it's obviously more than just the geography, stupid.

Here's numbers 20-24 on the list of states by Republican partisan lean, in order:  South Carolina, Texas,  Georgia, Iowa, Ohio.  If those five states were always in play for Democrats, plus the next 25 states that are most favorable to Democrats, that would mean Democrats ought to be able to have realistic chances to get up to 60 Senate seats in any cycle.  Right now, it looks like Iowa and Georgia and even South Carolina are toss ups.  Again, what happens in 2020 will give us a really good read on how hospitable those states are to Democrats.   But my basic premise is that when the SCOTUS turns hard right, there will be a broad and deep reaction.  My guess is that as this plays out it will make it easier, not harder, to win Senate seats and state legislatures in states like Ohio, Georgia, Texas, and maybe South Carolina. 

I'm actually most pessimistic about Iowa, which used to be a pretty solid Democratic state.  It has neither significant concentrations of urban areas, nor significant concentrations of non-Whites, which are the the trends favoring Democrats the most.  South Carolina, Texas, Georgia, and Ohio do have concentrations of either urban areas, or minorities, or both.  So if Iowa is going to stay Democratic, it's going to be despite the trends rather than because of them.  

I'm trying to get my head around the bright side of a 6-3 conservative SCOTUS.  It pisses me off, because but for the Slavery Electoral College Democrats won 6 of the 7 last Presidential elections, and therefore should have "won" the SCOTUS as well.  But being pissed off isn't a good place to be.

For a lot of US history slave owners and robber barons and corporate interests used SCOTUS and the Slavery Electoral College to dominate and secure their interests, including owning Black people as property.  I don't have a big conceptual problem with letting them go back to being just that.   In a system of checks and balances, it will create a reaction.  The more conservative a little club of nine people gets, the more liberal the nation's reaction will likely be.  At least in a majority of states, which are the ones Democrats should target.  Arizona, Ohio, Georgia, Texas - those should all be in play.

In the last three Senate election cycles (2014, 2016, 2018), Republicans won a total of 57 seats, and Democrats won 46 (that includes special elections).  Meanwhile, Republican Senate candidates in those elections won a total of 100 million votes, whereas Democrats about 125 million votes.  That right there speaks to the structural advantage of Republicans winning all these smaller, Whiter, and rural states like Wyoming and Idaho.

I think Democrats have to elevate the issue of democracy and legitimacy.  I'm now ready to let the SCOTUS damn themselves.  Let them be the opposite of the Warren Court.  Let Blacks and Hispanics and lesbians and liberals and progressives see this club of nine as the place where religious bigots thrive, White racism has a welcome home, civil rights legislation is viewed with hostility, and progressive ideas go to die.  It would be consistent with much of US history.  It really did not have to be that way.  But the Slavery Electoral College, Gore and Hillary would have been elected.  And it would not have been that way.  But, as President Toxic says, it is what it is.

There is no mandate for conservatism.  So whenever Republicans say "mandate", we should do what President Toxic does and say, "No, assholes.  You stole it.  In a democracy, the person who gets 3 million more votes wins.  So yeah, asshole.  You stole it.  If Democrats get 125 million votes and Republicans get 100 million votes, that's not a Republican mandate.  Even if it means you got more Senate seats.

Mostly, I think what Democrats need to do is lock down the Presidency and the Senate.  Time and demography is on our side.  We ought to be able to win and hold both a lot more than Republicans do.  And a hard right wing SCOTUS ought to be able to help Democrats do it as this plays out.  It probably won't work in Alabama or Idaho.  But it should help tip states like Georgia and Texas.

We'll know a lot better whether I'm right or wrong two months from now.

 

 

Edited September 27, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[JKane]

 

 

 

 

[Suckrates]

Moscow Mitch is more dangerous and destructive than Trump.   Pushing Covid aside, the turtle-douch never attended  negotiations for the Covid relief package talks. Too busy... so the Relief was tabled......But he sprung into action to reverse his opinion and fill RBG's seat NOW..... SCUMBAG....

Behind Trump, this demon spawn fossil needs to be VOTED OUT !!!!!!!

[tassojunior]

Schumer and the DNC pushed hard to get a right-wing Democrat nominated to oppose McConnell and have given Amy McGrath tens of millions in funding. Last I saw she had dropped to 21 points behind McConnell. Charles Booker who the DNC fought against was a left-reformer Bernie supporter and Black who polls showed would have trounched McConnell. 

The DNC hates reformers more than Republicans.  

[stevenkesslar]

11 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

If you believe the Pew numbers, Republicans appear to be asking for massive long-term pushback in most states, with the exceptions being ones like Alabama.  If you believe the Gallup data, it might explain why McConnell and The Divine Miss Graham are pushing full speed ahead.  They may believe this will help them in all red states, and most purple states.  The 2018 Senate results don't suggest that.  Nor do the polls in 2020, so far.  But nobody knows.  We will have a very good indication when we know what happened in Senate races in Montana, Kansas, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Texas.  (Of those purple to red state, three had Senate elections in 2018.  Democrats won Montana and Arizona, and came closer than expected in Texas.  Like I said, 2018 was not a Republican mandate.)

This is a continuation of my debate with myself.  

This new NYT/Siena poll has some numbers on abortion that are very close to the Pew findings.  Which is to say, something like 60 % of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases.  All year long, the NYT/Siena polls have been  a bit more conservative (or favorable to President Toxic) than the poll averages.  What struck me about this poll is that Trump's net disapproval is only - 4 %  (46/50), which is better than the current poll averages.  So, if anything, this poll's assumptions are a little more favorable to President Toxic than the average poll.  They are NOT as favorable as Rasmussen, which has President Toxic at net approval of 4 %

So if this poll's findings are perhaps skewed a little bit conservative, this is mostly just awful news for Republicans, I think.

Here's what the abortion numbers say (on Page 5).

Do you think abortion should be .................... ?

Always legal  31 %

Mostly legal  29 %

Mostly illegal  19 %

Always illegal  14 %

Independents, who I assume are the only undecided/swing voters left, are slightly more pro-choice.  71 % of them say abortion should be legal all or most of the time.  These numbers are even more favorable to abortion being legal than the Pew survey I posted above.  Both suggest that 60 % of Americans are not sympathetic to Amy Coney Barrett's rulings and views on abortion.  As I said above, the Gallup poll draws a different picture and suggests more support for severe restrictions on abortion.  But having seen two polls by good pollsters with almost the same results, it seems likely that Pew and the NYT are right and Gallup got different results because they used different and vaguer wording.

In this survey, 62 % of voters support Roe v. Wade and only 20 % oppose it.  51 % of Americans, including 48 % of Independents, think it is very or somewhat likely that Roe v. Wade will be overturned if President Toxic is allowed to fill this seat.  That suggests to me that this may help Democrats more than Republicans in two ways:  1) getting pro-choice people to vote, and 2) getting Independents to vote for Biden.

There's one other area that this poll suggests could hurt Democrats, but probably won't.  Asked what they think should happen if President Toxic tries to fill the seat, which we know he will, the country is split.  48 % say the Senate should NOT act on the nomination, and 47 % say the Senate should.  Not surprisingly, almost all Republicans think the Senate should act on the nomination, and almost all Democrats think the Senate should not.  I am surprised that Independents skew to having the Senate NOT act by a 52/43 margin.  That's kind of good news for Democrats, too.  Independents usually seem like voters who say, "Yeah, you got screwed.  But be a good sport, for the good of the country, and don't make a big deal about it."  This poll suggests that the majority of Independents will be okay with Democrats making a big deal about it.  

The history of the ACA was that it was somewhat unpopular until the Republicans actually tried to kill it.  Now it has majority support.  So these numbers may actually underestimate the trouble the Republicans could get into.  They already have process working against them.  In this poll, 56 % of voters say the President elected in November should fill the seat.  So they are not listening.  But that's even worse when they are driving this through to do something a very solid majority of Americans oppose.  People were much more split on Justice Rapist, and it still hurt the GOP in 2018.  I think this has the potential to hurt the GOP even more than in 2018.  Like the ACA, legal abortion may look better than ever now that Republicans have a real chance of killing it.

Speaking of the ACA, this poll data reinforces some of the things I said on earlier posts.  In  this poll, 57 % of voters support the ACA, and 38 % oppose it.  Independents support the ACA by an even wider margin, 63/31.  So Ron Brownstein is right.  The Democrats should go nuts about how the Republicans don't give a shit about helping Americans through the pandemic, but they are hellbent on killing the ACA.  That said, at least in this poll support for legal abortion is even stronger than support for the ACA.  So I'm not sure I agree with Brownstein that it might be better for Democrats to downplay abortion.

Here's another thing that works very badly for Republicans.  The last question in the poll, on Page 10, asks Americans if they support a "new 2 trillion dollar stimulus package to extend increased unemployment insurance, send stimulus checks to most Americans, and provide financial support to state and local government."  That's basically the House Democrat's compromise.  They started at $3 trillion this Summer, Republicans said $1 trillion, and then Pelosi said let's do $2 trillion.  Americans support this, 72/23.  Independents support it, 69/26. 

In other words, support for pretty much exactly what the House Democrats want to do is even stronger than support for the ACA, or for legal abortion.  The hearings are on filling a SCOTUS seat.  But this will be part of the Democratic rant.  Why are we rushing to fill a seat that Americans don't want filled?  When we should be rushing to help them survive the pandemic - which is what they overwhelmingly want.

Going back to 2018, I checked from the 538 summary of the partisan lean of each state.  So here are the three Senate seats Republicans flipped in 2018, ranked by partisan lean.  (The # 1 most Republican state is Wyoming.  So the lower the number the more Republican)

7.  North Dakota  +34.2 % Republican lean

16.  Indiana   + 19.3 % Republican lean

18.  Missouri   + 18. 8 % Republican lean

So, yeah.  This helped Republicans.  But only in very red states.

Now here's the three Senate seats that Democrats either held, or flipped in 2018, where the Senate candidate opposed Justice Rapist being confirmed.

15.  Montana   +  21.1 % Republican lean

25.  Arizona   + 7.4 % Republican lean

33.  Nevada   + 1.0 % Democratic lean

Democrats had 24 seats to defend, compared to 9 Republican seats.  So the bottom line is no Democrat in a blue state came close to losing.  Democrats actually made inroads in red states like Arizona and held red states like Montana.

There's one other factor that probably matters.  Charlie Cook nailed it in 2018 when he said that the Justice Rapist fight was a "color intensifier".  That 538 chart proves it.  Part of the reason Democrats lost Senate seats in Missouri, Indiana, and North Dakota is that in 2016 all three seats got more red than in 2012.  Meanwhile, Arizona and Nevada got more blue.  Montana got more red, too, but Tester survived it.  Probably because he comes off as a decent, independent guy.  Mostly, what happened is that 2018 just intensified whatever the trend was from 2012 to 2016.

So here are the Senate seats that are up for grabs, like above ranked in order by partisan lean.   I also included whether the trend from 2012 to 2016 was more blue, more red, or little change.

15.  Montana   + 21.1 %  Republican lean   (moderately more red in 2016 than 2012, Democrats won Senate seat in 2018)

20.  South Carolina   + 15.9 % Republican lean  (no significant shift between 2016 and 2012)

21.  Texas  + 13.2 % Republican lean  (significantly more blue in 2016 than 2012, Republicans won Senate seat in 2018)

22.  Georgia  + 8.3 % Republican lean   (slightly more blue in 2016 than 2012)

23.  Iowa  + 8.1 % Republican lean  (significantly more red in 2016 than 2012)

25.  Arizona   +7.4 % Republican (significantly more blue in 2016 than 2012, Democrats won Senate seat in 2018)

35.  Colorado  +2.5 % Democratic lean  (no significant shift between 2016 and 2012)

36.  Maine   +3.5 %  Democratic lean   (significantly less blue in 2016 than 2012)

My assumption is that Doug Jones in Alabama has almost no chance of winning.  Meanwhile, I think Democrats have some chance of winning any of these nine seats.  I decided I'd send money to candidates in all but Texas, since Cornyn is a popular incumbent and it would take a 1980-like landslide to knock him out.  I think Beto fucked up.  I was desperately hoping he'd run for Texas Senate again in 2020.  Had he done that, I think he could have been like John Tower way back when.  The second time might well have been the charm in a blue year.

With the exception of Montana, which Democrats won in 2018, all nine seats are LESS Republican than the three seats Democrats lost in 2018.  In terms of partisan lean, Georgia is a lot like Arizona, except it is moving toward blue more slowly. 

There's four things Republicans are doing that are toxic.  1)  They are not listening to the solid majority of Americans who oppose filling this seat.   2) They are trying to kill the ACA.   3) They are trying to kill Roe v. Wade.   4) They are doing things Americans don't want them to do and not dealing with a Democratic House proposal on the pandemic which 3 in 4 Americans support.

Once again, everything President Toxic touches dies.  Any of the four by themselves would be toxic.  As a Republican brew, I won't be surprised in the least if this wipes out the Republican Senate majority and sends President Toxic packing.

 

[stevenkesslar]

1 hour ago, tassojunior said:

Schumer and the DNC pushed hard to get a right-wing Democrat nominated to oppose McConnell and have given Amy McGrath tens of millions in funding. Last I saw she had dropped to 21 points behind McConnell. Charles Booker who the DNC fought against was a left-reformer Bernie supporter and Black who polls showed would have trounched McConnell. 

The DNC hates reformers more than Republicans.  

Do you actually believe this shit when you write it?  It's sort of Q Anon grade bullshit.  You can do better.

Amy was one of my few House losses in 2018, meaning House candidates I sent money to.

My priority in 2018 and again in 2020 was my own back yard.  So in 2018 my money helped flip 6 CA House seats, including all three in Orange County.  Ammar is the only one who lost in 2018.  This year I'm only sending to 2 of the winners - Cox and Rouda, who seem the most vulnerable, as well as Garcia's seat to try to knock him out.  All of these CA seats have definitely been trending red to blue.  So essentially I am betting on the trend.

You can argue I love right-wing war monger Democrats because I supported both Rouda and Amy.  But here's the thing.  Rouda won.  Ammar lost.  So did Amy, of course.  That was entirely predictable.  So for people who want moral purity, and don't care if President Toxic wins and packs the Court with right wingers, go ahead and vote for The Green Party every time.  I view it as a vote for four more years of President Toxic.  But it's clear that people like Kyle are cute and stupid enough to prioritize purity over stopping the Republicans and right wingers.

This year the one House member I'm sending money to is Lucy McBath.  She's vulnerable, I admire her, and she has a powerful message on guns.  Plus my minimum for 2020 is I want Georgia and Arizona as blue states.  If we can do that and rebuild The Blue Wall and keep chipping away at Texas, that means three things to Republicans:  1) They are fucked, 2) They are fucked,  3) They are fucked.

In this context, supporting Amy in her 2018 House race was betting against the trend all along.  I knew that.  It was mostly a bet on whether "Ms. Bipartisan" could win.   I thought that could work in Kentucky.  It didn't.  In part because they don't see her as a right-wing Democrat, or warmonger.  They see her as a radical.  Her views on abortion alone probably disqualify her in Kentucky.

I didn't take a position on the 2020 Kentucky primary.  Other than that having two Democrats run against each other in a state either is very likely to lose probably was unhelpful.  This article explains why:

Quote

As Booker and McGrath battle for the Democratic nomination, the Civiqs survey showed McConnell easily beating all of his challengers in potential general election races this fall. In a head-to-head matchup with McGrath, McConnell was ahead by 20 points, with 53 percent backing the incumbent and 33 percent of voters favoring her. Against Booker, his lead was cut down to 14 points—or 52 percent saying they'd vote for McConnell and 38 percent supporting the state legislator.

 

I'm not sending money to Amy this year, despite my deep contempt for Rich Mitch, because I think it is a waste of money.  But I'd feel exactly the same way had Booker won.

I did decide to stop sending money to Doug Jones and instead send it to Harrison.  Jones is an emotional thing for me.  I like him, and I like the idea of a moderate Democrat being able to win in Arkansas.  I also like the idea of Black Senators from South Carolina and Georgia.  In October if things look better still for Democrats I'll stop sending money to Kelly and Hickenlooper and start sending to Rev. Warnock.  The key thing now is to get Rev. Warnock in the run off.  All eyes will be on the Senate race in Georgia after Election Day.  So that can wait.  

My main point is that I'm all for having more Black Senators, whether they are Establishment moderates or progressives.  But Booker is the wrong cause to fight.  To me, Democrats need 4 Senate pick ups.  Period.  It is a matter of basic success or failure.  Period.  So that's Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and probably Iowa.  If we can win the first three, which should be very doable, getting one more out of half a dozen possible races is very doable.  But to me Kentucky is not even in the running.  I think pulling a rabbit out of a hat in Alaska or Kansas are both more likely than Kentucky.

https://filesforprogress.org/memos/2020-senate-project/week-1/topline-reports/DFP_KY_Week1_Senate_toplines.pdf

I figured I'd check.  In the most recent poll, she's only 7 points behind Rich Mitch, 46/39.  The 12 % undecided are almost all Independents or Democrats.  So while I would say it's a waste of money, I would not say it's throwing money down the drain.  She could win.  It's just that there are so many other Senate races where a Democrat win is more likely.

Dumping Rich Mitch is simply a luxury I can't afford.  If Bloomberg or Soros have $100 million to blow, let them do it.  Even then, their $100 million is perhaps better spent elsewhere.  The only way Rich Mitch loses is a 1980-like landslide, which is possible but unlikely.   And if the goal is a 1980-like event that wipes out even Republicans like Cornyn and McConnell, Cute But Stupid Kyle ought to be shouting that nobody should vote Green Party in 2020.  But he won't do that, because he prefers purity to power.

Edited September 27, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[tassojunior]

I hope the polls are right but I have a feeling that in a sudden pandemic with suddenly mostly mail-in ballots and anyone saying they're for Trump being called a racist, polls could be really messed up this year. If ever there was a year they could be wrong this is it and I don't buy they "fixed" the 2016 problems either. I really hope I'm wrong and they're right.  

[tassojunior]

31 minutes ago, stevenkesslar said:

Do you actually believe this shit when you write it?  It's sort of Q Anon grade bullshit.  You can do better.

Amy was one of my few House losses in 2018, meaning House candidates I sent money to.

My priority in 2018 and again in 2020 was my own back yard.  So in 2018 my money helped flip 6 CA House seats, including all three in Orange County.  Ammar is the only one who lost in 2018.  This year I'm only sending to 2 of the winners - Cox and Rouda, who seem the most vulnerable, as well as Garcia's seat to try to knock him out.  All of these CA seats have definitely been trending red to blue.  So essentially I am betting on the trend.

You can argue I love right-wing war monger Democrats because I supported both Rouda and Ammar.  But here's the thing.  Rouda won.  Ammar lost.  That was entirely predictable.  So for people who want moral purity, and don't care if President Toxic wins and packs the Court with right wingers, go ahead and vote for The Green Party every time.  I view it as a vote for four more years of President Toxic.  But it's clear that people like Kyle are cute and stupid enough to prioritize purity over stopping the Republicans and right wingers.

This year the one House member I'm sending money to is Lucy McBath.  She's vulnerable, I admire her, and she has a powerful message on guns.  Plus my minimum for 2020 is I want Georgia and Arizona as blue states.  If we can do that and rebuild The Blue Wall and keep chipping away at Texas, that means three things to Republicans:  1) They are fucked, 2) They are fucked,  3) They are fucked.

In this context, Amy was betting against the trend all along.  I knew that.  It was mostly a bet on whether "Ms. Bipartisan".  I thought that could work in Kentucky.  It didn't.  In part because they don't see her as a right-wing Democrat, or warmonger.  They see her as a radical.  Her views on abortion alone probably disqualify her in Kentucky.

I didn't take a position on the primary.  Other than that having two Democrats run against each other in a state either is very likely to lose probably was unhelpful.  

 

Today's 538 has McGrath with a 4% chance of winning and McConnel with a 96% chance. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/senate/kentucky/

This in spite of the DNC still pouring money like water on the Kentucky race and every other time I open a window there's yet another McGrath ad (and I live no where near KY). 

Booker did 9 points better than McGrath against McConnell even as a little-known and that made the DNC make an open-ended commitment to McGrath if she could get rid of Booker. Campaign money wasted in a hopeless race that could switch seats in several other states. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/charles-booker-mcgrath-mcconnell/

Yes, I'm certain right-wing Democrats are more concerned with defeating reformer Democrats than in defeating Republicans. 

Edited September 27, 2020 by tassojunior

[stevenkesslar]

1 hour ago, tassojunior said:

Today's 538 has McGrath with a 4% chance of winning and McConnel with a 96% chance. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/senate/kentucky/

Which is exactly my point.  If Booker had been nominated, maybe it would be a 5 % chance.

By the way, I increasingly just ignore 538.   They can be very good at data, as in facts.  Like what I posted today from 538 about the partisan lean of each state, or the urban v. rural split of each state.  But this stuff you cited about probabilities isn't very helpful, or accurate.  Their guesses in 2018 on House races I followed were just so-so.

The problem with polls is that it's always a snapshot.  And it might be a blurry snapshot at that.  So what Silver does is takes snapshots and makes predictions of what will happen in the future.  It's borderline just stupid.  It encourages bad behavior.  It encourages people to think these horse race polls tell us what will happen in a day or a week or a month.  In another hour the horse may be dead.  The polls just can't tell you that.

I think what happened on Super Tuesday is a great example.  First, the polls as recently as 48 hours prior did not predict or foreshadow the Biden blowout.  Hindsight being 20/20, you can go back and either cite anecdotal statements or polls that showed a lot of churning and discontent among primary voters.  Arguably the most important poll findings all year were that people consistently said that picking a nominee who could win the November election was the biggest priority.  And, for whatever reason, people saw Biden as the guy most likely to actually beat President Toxic.  So, in hindsight, what happened on Super Tuesday was not the biggest shocker ever.  But nobody, including me, saw it coming.  The polls did not tell us it was coming.  They told us it would be a good night for Bernie.

Same goes for McConnell.  It is possible this election will be like 1980.  Very unlikely, but possible.  If something like that happens, it could take McConnell out.  But if that happens, I very much doubt we'd even know until it happens.  The polls may hint at it.  But they won't tell us.

The one valuable thing Nate Silver is doing is saying that if you want to send money to or volunteer for candidates who can win, you might want to look elsewhere.  

[stevenkesslar]

2 hours ago, tassojunior said:

I hope the polls are right but I have a feeling that in a sudden pandemic with suddenly mostly mail-in ballots and anyone saying they're for Trump being called a racist, polls could be really messed up this year. If ever there was a year they could be wrong this is it and I don't buy they "fixed" the 2016 problems either. I really hope I'm wrong and they're right.  

There's no 2016 problem to fix.

The RCP and 538 averages were right on the money in both 2016 and 2018.  Within about 1 %, which was much less than the margin of error on any polls, they predicted that Hillary would win the popular vote in 2016 by a few points, that the 2016 generic Congressional lean was a wash, and that in 2018 Democrats would win the House by about an 8 % margin.  If you go back to when RCP started their "poll of polls" around 2000 I think, they got every Presidential race right within about 1 %.  The biggest outlier was Obama 2012, when the RCP average said Obama would win by 1 % and he won b y 4 % instead.  It's pretty common in any election that there are a few points or more who are undecided.  And often there is a moderate to strong last minute break, which is what helped Obama in 2012 and helped Trump in 2016.  But at least at the national level, the polls pretty much captured that.

If there was a big mistake in 2016, it was that there wasn't a loud debate - like there is now - about President Toxic losing the election by millions of votes but still winning in the Slavery Electoral College.  To me anybody who is a progressive ought to be saying if you live in a swing state DO NOT vote third party, especially with the Slavery Electoral College in place.

I actually feel disenfranchised.  I'll vote, but it's a throwaway vote.  The outcome in California is clear.  So millions of votes are essentially not gonna count.  So you can consider me as 3/5ths or 4/5ths a voter, since my vote really does not have the same impact as a vote in Wisconsin.  

The real issue with these polls is that nobody knows who will turn out.  I think that is more true than in past decades, because turnout has been spiking up for both parties due to the partisan brawl.  So in 2016 Rasmussen was the most right, and in 2018 they were the most wrong.  My guess is their assumptions in both years were about the same.  But turnout changed.  If Rasmussen is right in 2020, President Toxic may win.

Whether it should or not, averaging the polls seems to get us very close to the "correct" result in terms of what actually happens on Election Day. 

That may or may not be the case in 2020.  The number of young people who say in polls that they are going to vote is off the charts, even compared to 2018 when there was a big surge in young voters.  If that plays out, all these polls could be underestimating Democratic turnout.  I certainly hope that's the case.

By the way, I've now heard various pundits talk about why this "red mirage" stuff is probably more media-generated BS than reality.  They mention that in states like Florida and Texas where early votes or mail-in votes are counted in advance, that actually favors Democrats in terms of initial returns.  One pundit mentioned that is exactly what Bloomberg has in mind in Florida.  The idea is not only for Biden to win, but also for Biden to win in a state that reports on Election Night.  So if he wins, that flashes, "Game Over! Biden wins!" on Election Night.

[stevenkesslar]

3 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

My main point is that I'm all for having more Black Senators, whether they are Establishment moderates or progressives.  But [Kentucky's] Booker is the wrong cause to fight.  To me, Democrats need 4 Senate pick ups.  Period.  It is a matter of basic success or failure.  Period.  So that's Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and probably Iowa.  If we can win the first three, which should be very doable, getting one more out of half a dozen possible races is very doable.  But to me Kentucky is not even in the running.  I think pulling a rabbit out of a hat in Alaska or Kansas are both more likely than Kentucky.

Oops.  Correction.

I feel like I'm getting dementia.  I said above that if each SCOTUS justice had 16 year terms, and each President appointed two, that would recycle a 9 Justice court.  As I said a few posts up, I meant 18 year terms.  I guess I suck at math.

Apparently I suck at geography, too.  I knew something was wrong when I typed that quote above.  I left out North Carolina.  The four Senate must wins are Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and North Carolina.  Iowa is one we don't have to win, and may not.

I caught it because I went to that 538 Senate odds thing @tassojunior posted above.  It's interesting that of the four must wins they give Mark Kelly the best odds (79 %) and Sara Gideon the worst (59 %).  I actually see Senator Susan Coverup as the most likely to lose.  

What Silver is saying makes sense.  Iowa is a true toss up, Montana is probably next best but Bullock is an underdog, and in all the other states - South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Kansas, Alaska - Democrats maybe have a 1 in 4 chance.  One way to look at that is that if Democrats pull off the four must wins, flip Iowa to offset losing Alabama, and then pick up just one of the long shots, that's a 52/48 Democratic majority.  If things mostly stay the same through November, that's a very realistic possibility.

But again I'll just double down on my point about polls.  Republicans must be hoping that Democrats will blow it and look like children throwing a temper tantrum, and Americans will soften when they see this nice, smart woman.  Democrats are hoping that they'll mostly ignore the individual nominated and attack the Republicans for process bullshit and wanting to repeal the ACA in the middle of a pandemic, as well as abortion and voting rights and God knows what else.  Silver can not tell us a thing about how any of that will impact any of these races.  He's way behind the curve, not ahead of it.

 

[tassojunior]

1 hour ago, stevenkesslar said:

There's no 2016 problem to fix.

The RCP and 538 averages were right on the money in both 2016 and 2018.  Within about 1 %, which was much less than the margin of error on any polls, they predicted that Hillary would win the popular vote in 2016 by a few points, that the 2016 generic Congressional lean was a wash, and that in 2018 Democrats would win the House by about an 8 % margin.  If you go back to when RCP started their "poll of polls" around 2000 I think, they got every Presidential race right within about 1 %.  The biggest outlier was Obama 2012, when the RCP average said Obama would win by 1 % and he won b y 4 % instead.  It's pretty common in any election that there are a few points or more who are undecided.  And often there is a moderate to strong last minute break, which is what helped Obama in 2012 and helped Trump in 2016.  But at least at the national level, the polls pretty much captured that.

If there was a big mistake in 2016, it was that there wasn't a loud debate - like there is now - about President Toxic losing the election by millions of votes but still winning in the Slavery Electoral College.  To me anybody who is a progressive ought to be saying if you live in a swing state DO NOT vote third party, especially with the Slavery Electoral College in place.

I actually feel disenfranchised.  I'll vote, but it's a throwaway vote.  The outcome in California is clear.  So millions of votes are essentially not gonna count.  So you can consider me as 3/5ths or 4/5ths a voter, since my vote really does not have the same impact as a vote in Wisconsin.  

The real issue with these polls is that nobody knows who will turn out.  I think that is more true than in past decades, because turnout has been spiking up for both parties due to the partisan brawl.  So in 2016 Rasmussen was the most right, and in 2018 they were the most wrong.  My guess is their assumptions in both years were about the same.  But turnout changed.  If Rasmussen is right in 2020, President Toxic may win.

Whether it should or not, averaging the polls seems to get us very close to the "correct" result in terms of what actually happens on Election Day. 

That may or may not be the case in 2020.  The number of young people who say in polls that they are going to vote is off the charts, even compared to 2018 when there was a big surge in young voters.  If that plays out, all these polls could be underestimating Democratic turnout.  I certainly hope that's the case.

By the way, I've now heard various pundits talk about why this "red mirage" stuff is probably more media-generated BS than reality.  They mention that in states like Florida and Texas where early votes or mail-in votes are counted in advance, that actually favors Democrats in terms of initial returns.  One pundit mentioned that is exactly what Bloomberg has in mind in Florida.  The idea is not only for Biden to win, but also for Biden to win in a state that reports on Election Night.  So if he wins, that flashes, "Game Over! Biden wins!" on Election Night.

I think picking the state you win in is a little premature. It smacks of 2016ish overconfidence lol. Bloomberg's 24/7 incessant advertising spending didn't help him in the primaries; it just caused a backlash to his arrogance of money. I doubt it's going to do better for Biden/Harris in Florida. If they do the same with their half-billion they'll also get backlash. Florida was what alerted me that polling might be fucked up this year for president. For half the year in Florida's 50/50 county I dared not say anything resembling Democratic support and saw nothing but Trumpists everywhere. Then I look online and the polls tell me Florida and Pinellas county are +7% Biden?? No way, no how. At least the polls have evened out now (although nothing changed) but at first they were very wrong in Florida. South Florida is not as controlling as it used to be. (and Cubans in Miami love Trump). 

When the pandemic first struck the primaries were ridiculous. Expecting people to risk covid to vote. Turnout and motivation usually matters most and it's still to be seen how our first almost-national mail-in election affects motivation and turnout . I don't see how the pollsters can know that yet. Some of them are saying 2-3% have already mailed ballots in many states, and I expect that to go up after the debate tuesday. But I don't see how they'll know if 50% or 80% are going to return their ballots (if automatically sent out) in new mail states or how many absentee ballots will be requested, much less returned in other states. It's a whole new ballgame in 2020 that pollsters can't possibly know yet. I'm not buying that they've figured the mail-in effect yet. (it should help the Dems a lot if it means more voters). 

The worst thing about polling in 2016 was not the national polls, they were within 1%; it was the battleground state polls. Many of them were way off like in Ohio (that was 7% off),  Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan. State polls are too unreliable in spite of how much pollsters defend them. I think this year there may be even more "shy" Trump voters in the midwest. When you're told 100 times a day that Trump is a racist and then asked if you're for Trump you may not be give the answer a voter will make in secret. We went through this for years with George Wallace who would poll barely double digits in states but then on election day would win states across the country by landslides. If there's social stigma to being for a candidate, people polled will often not answer truthfully.  And the media has put more social stigma on being for Trump than any candidate I can remember back to Wallace. Sometimes it's better to be more impartial and seem fair than to create a backlash by browbeating people. And it really affects polling.

Anyway, I still don't trust the state polls much (for prez or Senate) and I really doubt the pollsters have any idea what turnout and motivation is going to be with the pandemic mail balloting. It's a whole new ballgame. 

Booker was pretty unknown in Kentucky until the primary when he surged in popularity and the DNC had to step in to stop him from getting the nomination. McGrath was a known (loser) candidate. The DNC always thinks money=votes. McConnel is no more popular in KY than Graham is in SC and the races should have been similarly close, especially after Breonna Taylor.     

  

Edited September 28, 2020 by tassojunior

[stevenkesslar]

4 hours ago, tassojunior said:

Anyway, I still don't trust the state polls much (for prez or Senate) and I really doubt the pollsters have any idea what turnout and motivation is going to be with the pandemic mail balloting. It's a whole new ballgame. 

John Zogby of Zogby Polls would agree with you.   I posted it already in some other thread.  He told some academic writing about predictions and polls about 2016 that he could not say who was going to win in 2016.  He could tell you what the polls said on any given day.  And he said he could make a pretty good guess - if you told him the turnout.  But he couldn't predict turnout, of course.  Therefore he could not predict who would win.

That's even more true in 2020, as you say.  There's this idea that President Toxic has the best organized ground game ever.  And Democrats are freaking out that Biden folks are not knocking on doors.  So maybe the Trumpians will just roll over Biden.  Then there's also the idea, which is showing up in poll after poll, that youth turnout will be through the roof.  Much higher than in 2018 when it was enough to win a strong House majority.  We won't know how any of that plays out until it happens.  (Although we will have a preview in terms of the number of mail in ballots.)

The state polls are almost always weaker.  Usually they have higher margins of error.  And another problem is they tend to be older:

Pennsylvania 2016 Clinton Trump

I keep bringing up Pennsylvania as an example, because it's a good one.  The final poll average ( Clinton + 1.9) was not horribly wrong.  But that average included poll data that was up to a week old.  A lot can change in a week.  Especially if it is the LAST week of the campaign.  If you only count the two most recent state polls, which are themselves 3-5 days old, one says toss up and the other says Trump + 1.   The final result was Trump + 0.7 %.   Those last two polls were both very close.

Ohio 2016 Clinton Trump

Wisconsin 2016 Clinton Trump

Those are two good examples of what you are talking about.  Ohio was off by 4.5 %.  Wisconsin was off by 7 %.  In all four Rust Belt states Trump way did better than expected.  But it's not clear why Wisconsin would be off so much, compared for example to Pennsylvania.  That said, I think every one of those polls used to arrive at the Wisconsin average was a week or more old.  So the idea that nothing changed in a week is just not realistic.  In Pennsylvania the two most recent polls, several days old, turned out to be correct.

I think one big clue is that in all four Rust Belt States Hillary's percentage was pretty much dead on.  In Wisconsin she was predicted to get 46.8 and she got 46.5.  The real driver was President Toxic got 7 more points than the polls said he would.  That trend happened in all four states to one degree or another.

We know for sure from exit polls that the last minute deciders broke for President Toxic.  We also know that nationally Hillary got 100,000 fewer votes than Obama, and President Toxic got 2 million more than Romney.  That suggests it was likely most of the pollster's turnout models were all just off.  If they were going from 2012, which I'm sure was part of the model, they would overestimate Hillary's turnout and underestimate Trump's turnout.  

I don't find "quiet" Trump voting to be a good explanation.  These are states where White working class people were proudly saying this time they were voting for Trump.  I think the obvious thing is that there was a sort of grassroots movement, built on anger and frustration, that President Toxic tapped into - by design or luck or both.  There's just no way the pollsters could measure that.  Even though if you were paying attention, it was obvious.

We are both saying the same thing.  We both agree that polls can't tell you who is going to win - at least not when it's relatively close, which it was in 2016.  And we both agree that the national polls are marginally better.  In part because they are marginally fresher.  All the polls used to predict the final national popular vote  in 2016 were from November.  And they appear to be mostly Nov 3-7 data.  Again, all the Wisconsin polls were taken before then.  The oldest Wisconsin state poll used in the final average was Oct 26-27, almost two weeks before the election.  That is just asking for trouble in a fluid race.

Texas 2016 Clinton Trump

Arizona 2016 Clinton Trump

Nevada 2016 Clinton Trump

I posted those polls as well because they were wrong, too.  But in exactly the opposite way.  In Texas President Toxic won decisively, but by 3 points LESS than expected by the final polls.  He won Arizona, and it was close to the expected result, but still 0.5 % LESS for Trump.  In Nevada, the polls were also off by about 3 points.  The final average showed President Toxic winning narrowly.  He ended up losing by two points.  So in all three states, in a different region with different voters, the trend seemed to be going in Hillary's direction.  Hispanic voters in the Southwest seemingly were acting differently than White voters in the Rust Belt.

Again, the age of the polls matters.  The last two state polls in Nevada were 3-4 days old, and they indicated a small Clinton lead.  The state poll showing a big Trump lead was from the end of October.

I know for a fact that the last few days before the 2016 election I was worried.  I noticed that the final poll up on RCP in both Michigan and Pennsylvania showed a very small Trump lead.  I noticed that in the last week the race was tightening pretty rapidly.  That alone scared me.  It's not good news when the trend is going against you in the last week of an election.  So if people thought these polls were wrong, a big part of it is that just don't have much experience interacting with polls.

There's a whole bunch of things that could explain why Hillary lost those Rust Belt states that only have to do with Hillary:  1)  mediocre Black turnout, 2) medicore youth turnout, 3) votes for Jill Stein that exceeded Hillary's losing margin in all the key Blue Wall states.  Any one of those three factors, by itself, is sufficient to explain why Hillary came up 70,000 or so votes short.  Combined, those three factors account for way more than 70,000 votes.  That said, the polls were not that far off on Hillary in any of those states.

Where they were way off was on President Toxic.  They dramatically underestimated his turnout.  But that DID NOT happen in Texas, or Arizona, or Nevada.  They actually overestimated how well he would do in those states.

So if I had to pick one bumper sticker to explain 2016, it's this:  WHITES WITHOUT COLLEGE DEGREES ABANDONED HILLARY.

That's just a known fact.  It was stunning.  Bill Clinton is the only Democrat in my adult lifetime that split the vote of Whites without college degrees in both his 1992 and 1996 races.  His ability to appeal to the "Bubba" vote is what won him the Presidency, twice.  Hillary did way worse than any other Democrat, including Obama in 2008 and 2012, with Whites without colleges degrees. 

At this point, it's not a shocker that happened in 2016.  And now it's also not a shocker that a lot of those people have left Team Toxic in disgust.  

I would not be at all surprised if President Toxic in 2020 underperforms with his base, like Hillary did in 2016.  He's not just throwing red meat at them every day.  He's throwing the whole fucking cow at them, every hour.  It could be that means that they'll have record turnout.  Or it could mean he's desperate. 

I don't think we'll know until it happens.  But poor Brad.  He's supposed to be riding this wave of enthusiasm.  Not in a hospital on suicide watch.  That can't be a good sign.

When it's all said and done, the single best day of the year for me so far, in terms of this election, was when I read Lichtman saying Biden would win.  Obviously I pay a lot of attention to the polls.  But I agree with Lichtman that ultimately the election is about the big picture fundamentals.  He'd say 100 % of what happens with polls is just noise.  I'd say more like 80 %.  Either way, I agree with him.  It will be very hard for President Toxic to win this election, as long as Biden doesn't massively fuck it up in the last month. 

I don't mean that to say we should be overconfident.  We should donate and volunteer like we are losing.  But to me it is motivating to think that if we do this right we are on the cusp of bringing the baby home.  This feels more like 2008 than 2012 or 2016.  It feels like the task now is to be confident, execute, and bring the baby home.

 

 

 

Edited September 28, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[TotallyOz]

I'm a liberal Socialist. I am a Democrat. However, I see very little difference between candidates at many stages except for the past few years. I've always said the main reason I vote is based on who they will put on the bench. This is the most important election in my life. I can't think of any other one that is as important.