EPIC JOURNEY

This blog continues the discussion that we began with Epic Journey: The 2008 Elections and American Politics (Rowman and Littlefield, 2009).The latest book in this series is Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.

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Divided We Stand

Divided We Stand
New book about the 2020 election.

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Campaign Finance: Advantage Trump

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign. The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. The 2020 race, the subject of our next book, is well under  way.  

Coronavirus presents unprecedented challenges to public policy and the electoral process.

Shane Goldmacher at NYT:
Joseph R. Biden Jr. is working the phones with top donors while cloistered in his Delaware home. His digital team is searching for the right tone to ask small contributors for cash during the sharpest economic downturn in their lifetimes. And his finance operation is plotting how to keep the checks coming when catered parties for big contributors are on hold — indefinitely.
Top Biden fund-raisers and donors, as well as campaign, super PAC and Democratic Party officials, described urgent efforts to reimagine the ways they raise money during a pandemic and global economic slowdown. And in nearly two dozen interviews, they expressed deepening concern that the downturn could choke off the flow of small online donations as millions of people lose their jobs.
The coronavirus shut down much of the American economy just as the former vice president took control of the Democratic presidential race, upending his plans to consolidate support among party donors who had previously supported other candidates and diminishing his ability to replenish his cash reserves to compete with President Trump’s well-funded re-election campaign.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden face the same headwinds. But the president began March with an enormous financial advantage over the Democrats: a combined roughly $225 million in cash on hand between his re-election campaign, the Republican National Committee and their shared committees. Mr. Biden and the Democratic National Committee had only $20 million, after accounting for debts.
Jonathan Martin and Shane Goldmacher at NYT:
Two of the most prominent outside Democratic groups are forming a partnership to pool resources and research to help elect former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. this fall, an attempt at consolidating fund-raising in an increasingly competitive marketplace for third-party organizations.
Unite the Country, the super PAC formed late last year to support Mr. Biden, and the progressive group American Bridge are teaming up to coordinate their efforts in hopes of raising about $175 million together to defeat President Trump in November, leaders from the two groups said Monday.
Posted by Pitney at 7:27 AM
Labels: Biden, Campaign Finance, coronavirus, government, political science, Politics, super PAC, Trump

Monday, March 30, 2020

The Social Media Gap

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign. The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. The 2020 race, the subject of our next book, is well under  way.  



Read this morning's Technology 202 newsletter for the latest updates on Twitter's "manipulated media" flag. Facebook has now also labeled Dan Scavino's post of the edited video: https://t.co/IpgKIJ8Xr1
— Cat Zakrzewski (@Cat_Zakrzewski) March 9, 2020

Jim Rutenberg and Matthew Rosenberg at NY Times:
The doctored video didn’t originate with one of the extremist sites that trade in left-bashing disinformation. It was posted on Twitter by Mr. Trump’s own social media director. From there, it collected shares, retweets and likes from the social media accounts of the president, his eldest son and the multitudinous conservative influencers and websites that carry his message to voters’ palms hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second.
The video, based on a speech Mr. Biden gave earlier this month, registered five million views in a day before his campaign responded — with statements to the press and cable interviews that largely focused on persuading Facebook to follow the example of Twitter, which had labeled the content “manipulated media.” A direct social media counterattack, aides said later, would have risked spreading the damage.
Yet the Biden camp would have been hard-pressed to mount a proportional response had it tried: Mr. Biden has only 4.6 million Twitter followers to Mr. Trump’s 75 million, 1.7 million Facebook fans to Mr. Trump’s 28 million, and nothing resembling the president’s robust ecosystem of amplifying accounts.
...
Part of the Democrats’ technological degradation could be attributed to brain drain. Many of Mr. Obama’s 2012 digital operatives found jobs in Silicon Valley or started their own companies.
But in interviews, Democrats also argued that Mr. Obama had not adequately worked to rebuild the party for his successors. After 2012, he started his own competing political operation, Organizing for Action, and Democrats complained he was slow to share his valuable data and email lists.
“Obama effectively left the party alone for eight years,” said Mr. Dean, a former Democratic Party chairman, adding that such neglect was not uncommon among second-term presidents.
Mr. Obama has acknowledged failing “to rebuild the Democratic Party at the ground level,” as he told ABC in 2017, explaining that he had been focused on presidential responsibilities at a time of war and economic recovery.
The article goes on with detail about the GOP's more effective use of partisan outside groups.

Posted by Pitney at 8:30 AM
Labels: 2020 election, Biden, campaign technology, Democratic Party, Facebook, government, Obama, Political Parties, political science, Politics, social media, Trump, twitter

The Late Vote in the California Primary

In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race. The update looks at political and demographic trends through the 2018 midterm.  Our next book will explain 2020.

California has very slow vote counts, and the late vote strongly tends to favor Democrats, who usually send in their ballots later than Republicans.

John Wildermuth at the San Francisco Chronicle:
In Orange County, home to four of the seven targeted congressional races, the early voting numbers tell the story.

The week before the primary, about 24,000 more Republican ballots had been received, Avila said. But a surge of Democratic ballots over the pre-election weekend slashed the GOP edge to just 34, a lead that vanished over the next two days.
The effect of that late rush of Democratic votes in Orange County shows up in the results. Democratic Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine picked up more than three percentage points after election night, moving from 48% to 51%. Rep. Harley Rouda of Laguna Beach was lifted to a double-digit lead over GOP Orange County Supervisor Michelle Steel, and Rep. Mike Levin of San Juan Capistrano bumped his margin over Republican Brian Mayott from six percentage points on election night to 13 by Friday.
While Republican Young Kim of Fullerton kept her election night lead over Democratic Rep. Gil Cisneros, she saw it cut by five percentage points, leaving her with a 48% to 47% lead.
Closer to the Bay Area, Democratic Rep. Josh Harder of Turlock (Stanislaus County) picked up nearly seven percentage points after election night, giving him a nine-point lead over Republican Ted Howze. In the Cox-Valadao rematch, the Democrat moved from 17 points down to 12.

Personal gatherings? Supervisor — OC residents should stay home. Period.

Last week, I wrote a letter asking to clarify your confusing shelter-in-place order to our constituents. It seems that you didn’t get the message.

This misleading info puts OC families at risk. https://t.co/UUTHIfmCFT
— Harley Rouda (@HarleyRouda) March 28, 2020
Posted by Pitney at 7:29 AM
Labels: California, congressional elections, government, mail ballots, political science, Politics, primaries

Sunday, March 29, 2020

What Happened

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign.  The update  -- recently published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.  In 2020, a good economy could tip the election in Trump's favor.  A bad economy would drag him down. Coronavirus threatens the economy -- as well as American lives.

The initial outbreak occurred in Wuhan sometime late last year.  At Axios, Scott Rosenberg sums up what happened then.  
  • In early January, China posted the virus' genome for all to study — and later that month, China put strict measures in place that helped eventually limit its outbreak.
  • Communities around the globe that had previous experience with the SARS outbreak prepared early and have so far avoided the worst impacts.
  • The U.S. bought itself some extra time by screening passengers from Wuhan mid-January and advising against unnecessary travel to China later that month.
  • But the U.S. squandered that time — failing to resolve the breakdown of its testing system, to ramp up production of masks and ventilators, or to move quickly on social distancing measures.
  • Invalid comparisons with seasonal flu outbreaks led individuals and leaders to downplay the virus’ danger.
.He concludes:
  • Our errors have all been on the side of underestimating the virus and, despite warnings, under-preparing for the crisis.
The New York Times has a timeline of the administration's failure on testing.

The mess continues.  Toluse Olorunnipa and Josh Dawsey at WP:
Eager to demonstrate that he is in control of a viral outbreak that is spreading rapidly across the country, President Trump has ramped up efforts to show he is using some of his broadest powers as commander in chief.

But the unprecedented push has been plagued by growing confusion about how far his authorities actually extend and how much he is willing to use them.

He blindsided New York’s governor Saturday by publicly announcing a potential quarantine order on the state’s residents, only to retreat from the idea hours later. This came a day after he authorized his government to use the Defense Production Act, a move on which he’d been taking an on-again, off-again stance, but it remains unclear whether that power will be used.

And he is due to issue new guidelines next week about whether the country should continue social distancing practices — but he’s vacillated between all but declaring victory against the coronavirus and acceding to experts who say the national slowdown may have to continue for several more weeks.
Posted by Pitney at 7:57 AM
Labels: bureaucracy, coronavirus, government, New York, political science, Politics, Trump

Saturday, March 28, 2020

Why Bernie Fell

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign. The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. The 2020 race, the subject of our next book, is well under  way.  

At NYT, Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin explain the fall of Bernie Sanders:
  • Failing to expand his base and reach African Americans;
  • Underestimating Biden's strength in South Carolina;
  • Attacking the Democratic Party, and neglecting to court even friendly party figures;
  • Letting internal campaign divisions fester;
  • Forgoing tough attacks on Biden
At WP, Sean Sullivan expands on the first point:
As the 78-year-old democratic socialist considers how long to continue his historic campaign, his disconnect from black voters threatens to sharply limit his influence in a party that is soon expected to belong to Biden.

Now some who worked on the front lines of his campaign, including black staffers and surrogates, are speaking out about what they believe was a negligent strategy that underestimated the significance of the first primary with a majority-black electorate — a blueprint they said they tried and failed to redirect, and one that ultimately put the campaign on a devastating trajectory.
Sanders sees the United States through the prism of class, but the 2020 primary has in some ways reaffirmed that for many Americans, the racial divide is more urgent. The senator built a coalition of millennials, working-class whites and Latinos, wagering that a strong showing in the first three states — none of which has many black voters — would power him through South Carolina and beyond.

As a result, many African Americans felt disconnected from him. “I think the distinguishing attitude for Sanders, that you didn’t see associated with Biden, was an angry white man,” said Ivory Thigpen, a state representative who served as co-chair for Sanders in South Carolina and believes strongly in his message. “In the African American culture,” he said, “nonverbal communication and body language is huge.”

Conveying a personal touch was never Sanders’s strength, Thigpen added. But he added, “I think being accessible would have made up for it.”
Posted by Pitney at 8:06 AM
Labels: 2020 election, African American, Bernie Sanders, Biden, Democratic Party, government, political science, Politics, primaries, South Carolina

Friday, March 27, 2020

Trump's Tepid Rally Effect

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign.  The update  -- recently published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.  In 2020, a good economy could tip the election in Trump's favor.  A bad economy would drag him down. Coronavirus threatens the economy -- as well as American lives.

Jacqueline Alemany at The Washington Post:
President Trump is seeing a small spike in public support in the face of the coronavirus crisis: Six in 10 Americans say they approve of the job he's doing to combat the pandemic, and his approval rating is back up to match the highest in his presidency, according to a new Gallup poll.

By the numbers: Trump is seeing what Gallup calls a “fairly sudden increase” in job approval ratings — and among independents and Democrats no less. These dynamics — which Gallup senior editor Jeffrey M. Jones calls “both highly unusual for Trump in particular” — signal a boost amid the outbreak, which has infected nearly 55,000 and claimed the lives of more than 700 people in the U.S. as of this morning, despite efforts to slow the spread.
  • Forty-nine percent of U.S. adults, up from 44 percent earlier this month, approve of the job Trump is doing as president. As Gallup notes, Trump also saw 49% job approval ratings in late January and early February around the Senate impeachment trial that resulted in his acquittal.
  • Trump's job approval ratings are up 8 points among independents and 6 points among Democrats in the poll conducted March 13-22, compared to earlier in the month.
  • The 60 percent of Americans who approve of his response to coronavirus crisis includes 94 percent of Republicans, 60 percent of independents and 27 percent of Democrats. 38 percent of Americans say they disapprove of his response.
The numbers are striking especially since many public health experts, medical professionals and Democrats have criticized Trump for a delayed and disorganized initial response to the coronavirus crisis – including struggling to ramp up testing capacity and downplaying the severity of the early threat and potential for massive crisis.
In keeping with past trends: “Historically, presidential job approval has increased when the nation is under threat,” according to Jones. “Every president from Franklin Roosevelt through George W. Bush saw their approval rating surge at least 10 points after a significant national event of this kind. [George W.] Bush's 35-point increase after 9/11 is the most notable rally effect on record. During these rallies, independents and supporters of the opposing party to the president typically show heightened support for the commander in chief.”
David W. Moore, Gallup, September 24, 2001
:

Note that this spike occurred before Bush even started military action against the terrorists in Afghanistan on October 7.

Partisan polarization is part of the reason for Trump's limited rally.  Obama got only a modest bounce after the killing of bin Laden.
Posted by Pitney at 5:50 AM
Labels: Bush, coronavirus, government, political science, Politics, Presidents, Public Opinion, terrorism, Trump

Fumbling Coronavirus Response

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign.  The update  -- recently published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.  In 2020, a good economy could tip the election in Trump's favor.  A bad economy would drag him down. Coronavirus threatens the economy -- as well as American lives.

Sunday:
Ford, General Motors and Tesla are being given the go ahead to make ventilators and other metal products, FAST! @fema Go for it auto execs, lets see how good you are? @RepMarkMeadows @GOPLeader @senatemajldr
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2020
Thursday:

David E. Sanger, Maggie Haberman and Zolan Kanno-Youngs at NYT:
The White House had been preparing to reveal on Wednesday a joint venture between General Motors and Ventec Life Systems that would allow for the production of as many as 80,000 desperately needed ventilators to respond to an escalating pandemic when word suddenly came down that the announcement was off.
The decision to cancel the announcement, government officials say, came after the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it needed more time to assess whether the estimated cost was prohibitive. That price tag was more than $1 billion, with several hundred million dollars to be paid upfront to General Motors to retool a car parts plant in Kokomo, Ind., where the ventilators would be made with Ventec’s technology.
Government officials said that the deal might still happen but that they are examining at least a dozen other proposals. And they contend that an initial promise that the joint venture could turn out 20,000 ventilators in short order had shrunk to 7,500, with even that number in doubt. Longtime emergency managers at FEMA are working with military officials to sort through the competing offers and federal procurement rules while under pressure to give President Trump something to announce.
By early Thursday evening, at the coronavirus task force’s regular news briefing, where the president often appears, there was still nothing to disclose, and the outcome of the deliberations remained unclear.
Matthew Choi at Politico:
Speaking with Sean Hannity on Fox News on Thursday night, Trump again minimized the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic, casting doubt on the need for tens of thousands of ventilators for hospitals responding to the crisis.
“I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be,” he said. “I don't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You go into major hospitals sometimes, and they’ll have two ventilators. And now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’”
Jennifer Steinhauer and Zolan Kanno-Youngs at NYT:
Of the 75 senior positions at the Department of Homeland Security, 20 are either vacant or filled by acting officials, including Chad F. Wolf, the acting secretary who recently was unable to tell a Senate committee how many respirators and protective face masks were available in the United States.
The National Park Service, which like many federal agencies is full of vacancies in key posts, tried this week to fill the job of a director for the national capital region after hordes of visitors flocked to see the cherry blossoms near the National Mall, creating a potential public health hazard as the coronavirus continues to spread.
At the Department of Veterans Affairs, workers are scrambling to order medical supplies on Amazon after its leaders, lacking experience in disaster responses, failed to prepare for the onslaught of patients at its medical centers.
Ever since President Trump came into office, a record high turnover and unfilled jobs have emptied offices across wide sections of the federal bureaucracy. Now, current and former administration officials and disaster experts say the coronavirus has exposed those failings as never before and left parts of the federal government unprepared and ill equipped for what may be the largest public health crisis in a century.
Some 80 percent of the senior positions in the White House below the cabinet level have turned over during Mr. Trump’s administration, with about 500 people having departed since the inauguration. Mr. Trump is on his fourth chief of staff, his fourth national security adviser and his fifth secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Posted by Pitney at 5:27 AM
Labels: bureaucracy, coronavirus, government, political science, Politics, Trump, veterans

Thursday, March 26, 2020

Deadly Mistakes

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign.  The update  -- recently published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.  In 2020, a good economy could tip the election in Trump's favor.  A bad economy would drag him down. Coronavirus threatens the economy -- as well as American lives.
An epidemiological model suggests that opening the country up at Easter, as President Trump wants to, rather than two weeks later would kill an additional 450,000 Americans https://t.co/um9NI8ZzjT

If you want to reopen the economy, you need widespread testing first
— Ana Swanson (@AnaSwanson) March 26, 2020

.@atrupar writes that urging Americans to flock to churches on Easter Sunday is the starkest example yet of how much Trump does not understand the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic. https://t.co/b8BYvscgz6
— Vox (@voxdotcom) March 25, 2020

“Ford’s timeline suggested that if the administration had reacted to the acute shortage of ventilators in February, the joint effort between Ford and General Electric might have produced lifesaving equipment sometime in mid- to late April” https://t.co/mnuTJbvPEQ
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 25, 2020

SCOOP: We obtained the detailed National Security Council “pandemic response playbook” left by the Obama team for the Trump team. It was, basically, “thrown onto a shelf.” w/ @ddiamond https://t.co/BPQYLLkyL0
— Nahal Toosi (@nahaltoosi) March 26, 2020

Health officials world-wide are warning about using antimalarial drugs to treat coronavirus after Trump’s comments about them sparked panic-buying and overdoses https://t.co/vDSocdlM9g via @WSJ
— James Bedsworth (@JamesBedsworth) March 26, 2020
Posted by Pitney at 6:01 AM
Labels: coronavirus, government, health, lying, political science, Politics, Trump

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Exploiting Government Mailings During a Presidential Campaign

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign. The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. The 2020 race, the subject of our next book, is well under way.  

Coronavirus presents unprecedented challenges to public policy and the electoral process.

In 1972, Nixon used a government-funded mailing to remind nearly 25 millions Social Security recipients that he had signed a bill raising payments and establishing future COLAs. (See Edward Tufte, Political Control of the Economy (Princeton University Press, 1978), 32.


Trump is doing something similar with coronavirus.




Posted by Pitney at 6:30 AM
Labels: 2020 election, coronavirus, government, Nixon, political science, Politics, Trump

Sunday, March 22, 2020

Bad Coronavirus Messaging

In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race. The update looks at political and demographic trends through the 2018 midterm.  Our next book will explain 2020.  Coronavirus has suddenly become a major part of the story.  


Sen. John Cornyn: "China is to blame because the culture where people eat bats & snakes & dogs & things like that, these viruses are transmitted from the animal to the people and that's why China has been the source of a lot of these viruses like SARS, like MERS, the Swine Flu." pic.twitter.com/N4TIlGFqAL
— The Hill (@thehill) March 18, 2020


Alex Samuels at Texas Tribune:
The comment echoes a now-debunked myth that the outbreak began after a woman ate bat soup. The misinformation emerged after a video went viral showing a woman eating bat soup for a travel show, however the video was filmed in 2016 and she was not in China.
USA Today reported that the National Council of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders replied to the remarks in a tweet, saying that “there are over 1M Asian Americans in your state. These are wildly irresponsible comments when anti asian hate crimes are on the rise.”
Cornyn’s comments also drew swift criticism from the two Democrats competing to challenge him in November, MJ Hegar and Royce West. Hegar, the former Air Force helicopter pilot, tweeted that Texans “deserve better than racist dog whistles,” and West, the Dallas state senator, tweeted at Cornyn that his “focus should be on how to solve this crisis, not rhetoric and scapegoating.”
Still, when asked whether his comments could be seen as racist toward Asian Americans, Cornyn implied that he didn’t see a correlation.
“We’re not talking about Asians,” he said. “We’re talking about China, where these viruses emanate from, which … created this pandemic.”
“China has been the source of a lot of these viruses like SARS, like MERS and swine flu and now the coronavirus,” he said. “So I think they have a fundamental problem, and I don’t object to geographically identifying where it's coming from.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, swine flu was first detected in the United States in 2009. MERS, meanwhile, was first identified in Jordan in 2012.
In Defying the Odds, we also discuss the role of the media, particularly conservative media.
  
HANNITY, March 9: "This scaring the living hell out of people -- I see it, again, as like, let's bludgeon Trump with this new hoax."

HANNITY, March 18: "By the way, this program has always taken the coronavirus seriously. We've never called the virus a hoax." pic.twitter.com/yLKpojA7BI
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 19, 2020
Posted by Pitney at 6:50 AM
Labels: China, congressional elections, coronavirus, fox news, government, mass media, political science, Politics, Senate

Advantage Trump, Advantage Biden

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign. The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. The 2020 race, the subject of our next book, is well under  way.  

Coronavirus presents unprecedented challenges to public policy and the electoral process.

Trump is on the air every day and has a massive warchest, which he did not have to tap for a nomination campaign.  Bill Weld and Joe Walsh, who never got measurable support, have withdrawn. South Carolina,  Arizona and Kansas canceled GOP primaries and Nevada canceled its caucuses. 

Biden never built a big warchest of his own. Scott Bland and Elena Schneider at Politico:
And new campaign finance disclosures filed late Friday highlight how Biden captured the Democratic nomination on momentum and message instead of organizational prowess — and the work his operation has to do to build up for a grueling general election campaign against President Donald Trump.
Biden, who brought in $18.1 million in February, was outraised by four other Democratic presidential contenders that month: Bernie Sanders ($47.7 million), Elizabeth Warren ($29.5 million), Amy Klobuchar ($18.7 million) and Pete Buttigieg ($18.6 million).
While Biden’s fundraising took off in March as he started reeling off primary wins, his campaign operation lagged well behind others’. Sanders had 1,215 people on the payroll in February, according to his campaign finance report, while Warren paid salaries to 1,203 different staffers. Buttigieg had over 550 people on his campaign at that point.
Meanwhile, Biden’s payroll stood at 477, as his lower fundraising totals throughout 2019 and early 2020 meant his campaign had to try to keep costs low. Sanders outspent Biden $46 million to $13 million in February — and still finished the month with more cash in the bank, $18.7 million to $12.1 million.
It will be hard for him to catch up.

Maggie Severns and James Arkin at Politico:
The severe economic shock from coronavirus could upend the 2020 election. And Democrats see themselves as having more to lose: President Donald Trump bungled the early days of the coronavirus crisis, they say, and while that could cost him politically, the tanking economy will hurt Democrats’ ability to raise the money challengers need to campaign for the White House and other offices in 2020. Trump’s well-stocked reelection campaign has less to lose amid the current financial uncertainty than does Joe Biden, who is emerging from a costly primary, they argue.
Major donors from both parties already are beginning to scale back after years of riding high off of a booming stock market, donors and fundraisers told POLITICO.
"I’m personally postponing anything where more than two people need to get together until we have an understanding of what the dangers are. And in terms of spending money, I’m trying to cut back as much as possible," said Democratic megadonor and philanthropist Bernard Schwartz, who has given at least $2.8 million to Democratic causes this cycle, including helping a pro-Biden super PAC.
Biden and Trump are starting to work donors via the phone and video meetups, while anxiety rattles through congressional campaigns and some organizations grow nervous about whether they will be able to stay in the black.
It won't take long until campaigns feel the sting, said Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run for Something, which supports down-ballot candidates.
"I think the thing people don’t realize is that campaigns and organizations — both political and nonprofits — don’t keep that much cash on hand," Litman said. "You’re running month to month. One bad month, you can make it through. Two or three, and it can be catastrophic."
Even worse, Bloomberg is breaking his promise to mount a big independent-expenditure effort in the fall.

But Trump has a problem, too.
Alex Isenstadt and Natasha Korecki at Politico:
With the death toll rising and daily life grinding to a halt, Trump’s sprawling political operation has put on hold any plans to use its nine-figure war chest to unload on the former vice president. The strategy, mimicking the playbook of Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign against Mitt Romney, was aimed at crippling the lesser-funded Biden before he could unify the Democratic Party behind him and marshal his forces for November.

The reprieve is a blessing for Biden: Rather than spending valuable time fending off an assault, he is free to present himself as a steady leader amid a national crisis and to regroup for the general election.
The Trump operation’s reassessment underscores how the pandemic has disrupted virtually every element of the campaign for both parties. With less than eight months until Election Day, Trump and Biden are being forced to rethink their plans on everything from fundraising to field operations to staffing.
“With Biden running away with it now, this would have been a good time to define him right off the bat. But it won't break through now, nor would it look good,” said Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary in the George W. Bush White House. “This hiatus in many ways helps Biden.”
But they are still trying in the fundaising messages:
Inbox from the Trump campaign: "America is under attack – not just by an invisible virus, but by the Chinese."

"What is Joe Biden up to as all this is happening? Siding with the Chinese and attacking the presidential candidate China fears most: Donald Trump." pic.twitter.com/SRgyEMVebN
— Vera Bergengruen (@VeraMBergen) March 18, 2020
Posted by Pitney at 6:46 AM
Labels: Biden, Campaign Finance, coronavirus, government, Political Parties, Politics, Trump

Saturday, March 21, 2020

Bloomberg: Expensive Flop, Promise-Breaker

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign. The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. The 2020 race, the subject of our next book, is well under  way.  

Coronavirus presents unprecedented challenges to public policy and the electoral process.

Shane Goldmacher at NYT:
It was a billion-dollar flop.
Michael R. Bloomberg spent more than $900 million on his failed bid for the White House by the end of February, a spectacular sum and the most ever for a self-funded politician in American history. But it was not enough to help the billionaire candidate win a single state before he dropped out of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary in early March.
Mr. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, poured more than $500 million into television advertising and $100 million on digital ads during the course of his roughly 100-day campaign, according to a new filing made Friday with the Federal Election Commission. He spent tens of millions of dollars more on a raft of media consultants, pollsters and digital strategists, the filing showed.
Mr. Bloomberg paid more than $15 million for polling, including $11.5 million to the firm of the pollster Douglas Schoen. He spent more than $11 million on the firm created by ad-maker Bill Knapp to work on the 2020 campaign and another $4.8 million on the firm of Jimmy Siegel, another ad-maker. He directed $45 million to Hawkfish LLC, a private digital firm he owned and created before he entered the race. More than $30 million was spent on direct mail. And more than $1 million on meals for his staff that swelled to more than 2,000 in a few short months.
...
The lavish spending came to a crashing halt after Mr. Bloomberg exited the race. Mr. Bloomberg had attracted aides with outsize salaries, perks that included Manhattan apartments for some in his headquarters and the promise of a steady job — whether he won the nomination or not — trying to defeat President Trump through November.
 But plans for an independent super PAC have since been scrapped and former Bloomberg campaign officials said Friday they were transferring $18 million in leftover campaign funds to the Democratic National Committee instead. Campaign aides could reapply for jobs — at reduced salaries.
Molly Hensley-Clancy, Ruby Cramer, and  Rosie Gray at Buzzfeed:
That means many Bloomberg organizers are out of a job. Organizers in six swing states were informed this morning that they were being let go and given instructions for applying to the DNC.

“He’s chopping his employees in a pandemic,” said one staffer in Florida, who asked to remain anonymous because they had signed a nondisclosure agreement. “My life is now uprooted and I’m effectively homeless.
... 
”Bloomberg had already broken a promise of employment through November to some of the vast army of organizers he had hired throughout his three-month presidential campaign, on which he spent a record $687 million of his personal fortune. Staffers who were not in swing states were let go earlier this month.
But at the time, said the Florida staffer, they were still under the impression they would be employed by a Bloomberg campaign entity. “We got the message, ‘Hey don’t worry, you guys are fine.'”
The Bloomberg spokesperson said staffers were being encouraged to apply to work for the DNC: “The DNC Coordinated Campaign is hiring in every one of the six battleground states we identified — and more. And we will assist the DNC as much as we are able to, including by providing names of staff and working to help them onboard and grow their program as expediently as possible.”
Posted by Pitney at 7:20 AM
Labels: Campaign Finance, government, lying, Michael Bloomberg, political science, Politics

Friday, March 20, 2020

Senators, Coronavirus, and Stock Trades

In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race. The update looks at political and demographic trends through the 2018 midterm.  Our next book will explain 2020.  Coronavirus has suddenly become a major part of the story.  

Tim Mak at NPR:
The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee warned a small group of well-connected constituents three weeks ago to prepare for dire economic and societal effects of the coronavirus, according to a secret recording obtained by NPR.
The remarks from U.S. Sen. Richard Burr were more stark than any he had delivered in more public forums.
On Feb. 27, when the United States had 15 confirmed cases of COVID-19, President Trump was tamping down fears and suggesting that the virus could be seasonal.
"It's going to disappear. One day, it's like a miracle. It will disappear," the president said then, before adding, "it could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. We'll see what happens."
On that same day, Burr attended a luncheon held at a social club called the Capitol Hill Club. And he delivered a much more alarming message.
"There's one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history," he said, according to a secret recording of the remarks obtained by NPR. "It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic."
Burr did not give a similar warning to the general public in his home state.

Robert Faturechi and Derek Willis at ProPublica:
Soon after he offered public assurances that the government was ready to battle the coronavirus, the powerful chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, sold off a significant percentage of his stocks, unloading between $628,000 and $1.72 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 33 separate transactions.
As the head of the intelligence committee, Burr, a North Carolina Republican, has access to the government’s most highly classified information about threats to America’s security. His committee was receiving daily coronavirus briefings around this time, according to a Reuters story.
A week after Burr’s sales, the stock market began a sharp decline and has lost about 30% since.
Lachlan Markay,  William Bredderman, and Sam Brodey at The Daily Beast:
 The Senate’s newest member sold off seven figures’ worth of stock holdings in the days and weeks after a private, all-senators meeting on the novel coronavirus that subsequently hammered U.S. equities.
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) reported the first sale of stock jointly owned by her and her husband on Jan. 24, the very day that her committee, the Senate Health Committee, hosted a private, all-senators briefing from administration officials, including the CDC director and Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on the coronavirus. 
“Appreciate today’s briefing from the President’s top health officials on the novel coronavirus outbreak,” she tweeted about the briefing at the time.
That first transaction was a sale of stock in the company Resideo Technologies valued at between $50,001 and $100,000. The company’s stock price has fallen by more than half since then, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average overall has shed approximately 10,000 points, dropping about a third of its value.
...
Loeffler’s office did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Beast on the transactions and whether they were prompted or informed by information shared at that late January briefing. It’s illegal for members of Congress to trade on non-public information gleaned through their official duties. 
Late Thursday night, she did offer a statement, tweeting: “This is a ridiculous and baseless attack. I do not make investment decisions for my portfolio. Investment decisions are made by multiple third-party advisors without my or my husband’s knowledge or involvement.
“As confirmed in the periodic transaction report to Senate Ethics, I was informed of these purchases and sales on February 16, 2020—three weeks after they were made.”
Posted by Pitney at 6:32 AM
Labels: coronavirus, Georgia, government, North Carolina, political science, Politics, scandal, Trump
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