Beshear

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The 2028 campaign is just starting.

Hannah Knowles at WP:

PAWLEYS ISLAND, S.C.Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear had plenty to say about the culture wars that have divided his party as he laid groundwork here this week for a possible 2028 presidential run.

As some prominent Democrats warn that the party has gone too far left on trans rights, the governor from the deep-red South quoted scripture to explain why he vetoed “every single piece of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation” that GOP state lawmakers sent to his desk. As some institutions back off racial justice initiatives that have faced a fierce backlash and that Republicans call “woke,” Beshear said he was proud to make Juneteenth an executive branch holiday and remove a statue of Confederate president Jefferson Davis from the Kentucky Capitol.

“I’m a proud pro-choice governor, I’m a proud pro-LGBTQ+ governor, and I’m a proud pro-diversity governor,” Beshear said at his final stop, a dinner for Democrats in conservative Georgetown County. “Now some people would tell you that a Democrat can’t win in a state like mine or yours with that resume. Yet here I am.”

Beshear occupies a singular position in the early 2028 Democratic sweepstakes as a two-term governor in a state President Donald Trump won by 30 points who is pitching himself as a blueprint for the party to start winning again. As Democrats fight over whether they paid a price for moving too far left on some social issues, Beshear is using his red-state experience to argue the party need not run away from those topics.

The Lavatory Lady

Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.  

Andrew Kaczynski, CNN:

Republican Rep. Nancy Mace as recently as last year called herself “pro-transgender rights” and said she supported children exploring gender identities with different hairstyles, clothing and preferred pronouns, a stark contrast to more recent comments that have put her in the national spotlight.

Last week, the South Carolina Republican introduced a resolution to amend the rules of the US House of Representatives to ban transgender women from using women’s restrooms at the Capitol and filed broader legislation that would apply to every federal building and federally funded school.

The resolution came in direct response to the election of Democratic Rep.-elect Sarah McBride of Delaware, the first out transgender person elected to Congress.

In hundreds of tweets over the last week, Mace has used a flood of anti-transgender rhetoric, including repeatedly calling transgender people “mentally ill,” which is a stark — and unexplained — departure from her past positioning as a self-proclaimed pro-LGBTQ Republican.

In July 2023, Mace described herself as “pro-transgender rights” and voiced support for children exploring their identities, such as by changing pronouns, hairstyles or clothing.

“If they wanna take on a different pronoun or a different gender identity or grow their hair out, or wear a dress or wear pants, or do those things as a minor –— those are all things that I think most people would support. Be who you want to be, but don’t make permanent changes as a child,” Mace said in an interview last year.

Mace made the comments in the context of saying she opposed gender-affirming care for minors.

The Stakes of State Legislative Elections

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.

Robert Gebelhoff and Amanda Shendruk at WP:

National politics getting you down? Are you tired of reading about the same old presidential and Senate races?

Good news: Legislatures in 44 states are also up for election this year, and they feature a bushel of nail-biters. Even more important: What happens in these races will reverberate in American politics for years to come.

Though Republicans enjoy a considerable state-level advantage — they control 28 state legislatures, to Democrats’ 20 — a healthy number of chambers are toss-ups. If Republicans have a good night, they’ll fortify their grip on state governments. But if Democrats outperform expectations, they could cut into the GOP’s 770-seat lead in state legislative seats nationally — and might even break some supermajorities in Republican strongholds.

Why does this matter? Because states are where much of today’s political action happens. Consider some of the top hot-button political issues of the past few years. Congress rarely passes bills on any of these topics, but state legislatures have enacted a flood of laws on them:

Johnson: The Morning After

 Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. 

After multiple tries and candidates, the House GOP finally settled on a speaker: Mike Johnson of Louisiana.  He has never chaired a committee or held a high leadership post.  He got the job because his lack of experience (elected 2016) left him with few enemies.  He is largely unknown outside of his district and the House GOP.  Picking someone who has never withstood national scrutiny has some disadvantages.

Shane Goldmacher

The decision to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker and replace him with a little-known congressman, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, has left a glaring financial gap for House Republicans headed into 2024 when the party has to defend its narrow and fragile majority.

Mr. McCarthy’s political operation brought in more than 100 times the amount of money that Mr. Johnson has collected so far in 2023 — $78 million to roughly $608,000, according to federal records and public disclosures. And in Mr. Johnson’s entire congressional career, dating to his first run in 2016, the Louisiana Republican has raised a total of $6.1 million — less than Mr. McCarthy’s average monthly take this year.

The willingness of House Republicans to trade a party rainmaker for a member who has raised less than some more junior colleagues has caused a deep sense of uncertainty at the highest levels of the conference, even as relieved lawmakers united behind Mr. Johnson to end weeks of political paralysis.

“Mike Johnson is not known to be a prolific fund-raiser. He’s raised money to meet his needs in a noncompetitive seat in Louisiana,” said Tom Reynolds, a former New York congressman and past chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “It remains to be seen: Can he raise money to help the members when it comes time next year?”

 Andrew Kaczynski and Allison Gordon, CNN:

In editorials that ran in his local Shreveport, Louisiana, paper, The Times, Johnson called homosexuality a “inherently unnatural” and “dangerous lifestyle” that would lead to legalized pedophilia and possibly even destroy “the entire democratic system.”

And, in another editorial, “Your race, creed, and sex are what you are, while homosexuality and cross-dressing are things you do,” he wrote. “This is a free country, but we don’t give special protections for every person’s bizarre choices.

At the time, Johnson was an attorney and spokesman for Alliance Defense Fund, known today as Alliance Defending Freedom, where he also authored his opposition to the Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas – which overturned state laws that criminalized homosexual activity between consenting adults.

ADF wrote an amicus brief in the case which supported maintaining criminalization.

“States have many legitimate grounds to proscribe same-sex deviate sexual intercourse,” Johnson wrote in a July 2003 op-ed, calling it a public health concern.

“By closing these bedroom doors, they have opened a Pandora’s box,” he added.

On Thursday, Johnson was asked to respond to KFile’s report on the editorials during a lengthy interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

“I don’t even remember some of them,” Johnson told Hannity.

The Zoomer Trump Effect

Our more recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses voter demographics .

Greg Sargent at WP:

New data supplied to me by the Harvard Youth Poll sheds light on the powerful undercurrents driving these developments. Young voters have shifted in a markedly progressive direction on multiple issues that are deeply important to them: Climate change, gun violence, economic inequality and LGBTQ+ rights.

John Della Volpe, director of the poll, refers to those issues as the “big four.” They all speak to the sense of precarity that young voters feel about their physical safety, their economic future, their basic rights and even the ecological stability of the planet.

“This generation has never felt secure — personally, physically, financially,” Della Volpe told me.

Here’s a chart showing how opinion among 18-to-29-year-olds has shifted on those issues, according to data that the Harvard Youth Poll crunched at my request:

Those numbers — which come from the Harvard Youth Poll of 18-to-29-year-olds released each spring — all suggest that today’s young voters are substantially more progressive on these issues than young voters were even five or 10 years ago. Sizable majorities now reject the idea that same-sex relationships are morally wrong (53 percent), support stricter gun laws (63 percent) and want government to provide basic necessities (62 percent).

They are not enthusiastic about Biden. 

Yet national developments could continue exerting a powerful pull on these voters. For example, the chart above suggests that Trump’s rise to the presidency might have accelerated their progressive evolution. The former president continues looming over our politics and will likely be the GOP nominee.

“That data clearly shows a Zoomer Trump effect,” Della Volpe, the author of a book about Gen Z, told me. “Every single variable has gotten more progressive.”