MA Primary

In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race.  Progressives have done fairly well in Democratic primaries.

Russell Berman at The Atlantic:

Overall, the Massachusetts primary results did not fit neatly into a larger national narrative. They represented a vindication for incumbents but a mixed bag for progressives, who succeeded in protecting Markey but failed in their bid to oust long-serving Representative Richard Neal, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Neal defeated a young progressive challenger, Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse, in his bid for a 17th term.

...'

Kennedy jumped into the race a year ago after a pair of polls showed him well ahead of Markey in a hypothetical matchup; the surveys were a testament to both the Kennedy brand in Massachusetts and the lack of one for Markey, despite his having represented the state in Congress since before Joe Kennedy was born. By a margin of 18 points, Democratic voters in a Boston Globe poll identified Kennedy as the more liberal candidate. The genius of Markey’s campaign was that it took his biggest vulnerability and used it as an opportunity: The senator didn’t have much of a political identity in Massachusetts, so his supporters created one for him.

Markey became “someone who most people in Massachusetts who follow politics would say is unrecognizable,” Mary Anne Marsh, a veteran Democratic strategist in the Bay State, told me.

The identity Markey’s camp created—that of a tenacious progressive fighter who often took lonely stands against his party—closely resembled Sanders’s. They dug up a vintage 1970s TV ad from when Markey first ran for Congress, in which he boasted that party bosses had thrown his desk out into a hallway. The linchpin of the strategy was Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who endorsed Markey after he partnered with her to introduce the Green New Deal just weeks after she took office in 2019. Progressive groups such as the Sunrise Movement joined her in backing Markey, rewarding his leadership on climate change while forgiving his votes for the Iraq War, NAFTA, and the 1994 crime bill. (Activists on the left assailed former Vice President Joe Biden for a similar record during the Democratic presidential primary.) A three-minute video hailing Markey as the “Green New Dealmaker” and co-opting a famous Kennedy refrain became a sensation, and an ad featuring Ocasio-Cortez ran on TV in the state more than 1,200 times.

The Geography of the Vote

In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race. 
From USA Today:

Good read from @skoczela and @richparr79. https://t.co/3xmi9POpCW

Mass Republican Gov. Charlie Baker won 55% in the state’s 20 largest cities & towns, an anomaly at a time when GOP no longer competes in many big cities/major metro areas. Wasn’t always this bad. pic.twitter.com/blVLmgoQu0

— Charlie Mahtesian (@PoliticoCharlie) November 10, 2018

Jazmine Ulloa and Joe Mozingo at LAT:

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher has lost the congressional seat he held for 30 years in one of the most conservative stretches of Orange County, a stunning defeat for the GOP as other Republicans’ early leads receded in the latest ballot counts, putting the party in fear of losing all six tightly contested House races in California.

The defeat to Democrat real estate entrepreneur Harley Rouda represents a landmark shift away from the GOP for suburban America. No county — no part of a county — has been at the heart of conservatism since the 1960s like the coast between Dana Point and the Los Angeles County line.

“The district became much more of an anti-Trump suburb, and he no longer connected to the people there,” [Tony] Quinn said. “He had an opponent who was a former Republican businessman, not some wild-eyed lefty. And for at least two years, people were willing to try something new.”

It is a stark change for the region once embodied by the legendary movie cowboy John Wayne — its international airport’s namesake — who was an ultra-right John Birch Society member and lived on the harbor in Newport Beach.

Republicans have now lost three of the six races Democrats targeted most in the state. They have fallen behind or are holding thin leads in the remaining unresolved races, as suburban voters nationwide rebuked Trump and his allies in the House of Representatives.

Democrats earlier won the seats of GOP Reps. Darrell Issa of Vista, who declined to seek reelection, and Steve Knight of Palmdale, who was ousted by Katie Hill.

On Friday, Democrat Josh Harder overtook Republican Rep. Jeff Denham in the latest tally in a Modesto-area district.
...

“This is more than just a bad year,” said Mike Madrid, a GOP political strategist. “This is essentially a realignment in California politics, and the traditional base that has served the Republican Party no longer exists.”

Assuming Dana Rohrabacher loses, the GOP will be left with only 2 House seats that touch the Pacific Ocean, the WA-3 and AK-AL.

— Phil Klinkner (@pklinkne) November 9, 2018

David M. Drucker at The Washington Examiner:

“We’ve got to be worried about what’s happening in the suburbs. We get wiped out in the Dallas suburbs, Houston suburbs, Chicago suburbs, Denver suburbs — you know there’s a pattern — Detroit suburbs, Minneapolis suburbs, Orange County, Calif., suburbs,” [Karl] Rove said Saturday during a panel discussion for the Washington Examiner’s Sea Island Summit.

“When we start to lose in the suburbs, it says something to us,” Rove continued. “We can’t replace all of those people by simply picking up [Minnesota’s First Congressional District] — farm country and the Iron range of Minnesota — because, frankly, there’s more growth in suburban areas than there is in rural areas.”

Immigration Polls

Gallup reports:

With thousands of undocumented immigrant minors crossing the nation's southern border in recent months, the percentage of Americans citing immigration as the top problem has surged to 17% this month, up from 5% in June, and the highest seen since 2006. As a result, immigration now virtually ties "dissatisfaction with government," at 16%, as the primary issue Americans think of when asked to name the country's top problem. 

This is not the first time that immigration has spiked in the public's consciousness. Most recently, Gallup found the issue increasing to 10% in 2010, at a time when a new immigration law in Arizona was making news. And prior to that, it increased twice in 2006 to 15% or higher, amid congressional debate over immigration reform. 

Signaling that public mentions of immigration today could be stemming more from concern about illegal immigration than from support for immigration reform, mentions of the issue are significantly higher among Republicans (23%) than Democrats (11%). Gallup polling earlier this year showed Republicans with a preference for focusing on sealing the border, while Democrats prioritized addressing the status of illegal immigrants already here.

Even in Massachusetts, there is considerable opposition to taking the young migrants and other undocumented aliens.  The Boston Globe reports:

Massachusetts voters are split on Governor Deval Patrick’s plan to provide temporary shelter for up to 1,000 unaccompanied immigrant children on a state air base or military training installation, according to a new Boston Globe poll. 

Given the details of Patrick’s proposal, including the fact that the facilities would be staffed and paid for by the federal government and open for up to four months, 50 percent of those polled expressed support, with 43 percent opposed. That’s within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

But on national immigration initiatives, respondents were more skeptical. Asked more broadly whether the migrant children should be allowed to stay in the United States after judicial hearings, only 39 percent answered yes, compared with 43 percent who said the children should be deported.

Massachusetts Senate Race

The Boston Globe reports:

The decision by Edward M. Kennedy Jr. on Monday to pass on a run for US Senate in Massachusetts in 2013 eliminates one of the few Democrats with the star power to ward off serious challengers within his own party, increasing the odds of a tough Democratic primary fight that could damage the eventual nominee. 

Three Democratic congressmen, Edward Markey of Malden, Michael Capuano of Somerville, and Stephen Lynch of South Boston, have signaled interest in running for the Senate in a special election, for a seat expected to open with the nomination of Senator John Kerry to lead the State Department. None of the congressmen has declared a run. 

“I think people were waiting to see what Teddy would do,” said Philip W. Johnston, a former chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party.

Polls suggest that Republican Scott Brown, who lost to Elizabeth Warren in November, would be in a strong position to win the seat. Massachusetts was one of the few states in which President Obama had coattails in a Senate election. With lower turnout and without the president on the ballot, a special election might work to Brown's advantage.

Why are several House Democrats considering a run? The results of the 2012 House elections suggest that the GOP may be in the majority for years to come. These lawmakers may be reckoning that it is much better to belong to the Senate majority than the House minority. That's true even for Markey, who is now among the most senior House Democrats.

Why The Brown-Warren Race Stays Close

Why has Elizabeth Warren failed to leap ahead of Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race?  Alec MacGillis has a smart analysis in The New Republic:

Since entering the Senate, Brown has proved to be a remarkably agile politician—casting a symbolic vote against extending the Bush tax cuts while protecting the carried-interest loophole for investment managers; voting for financial reform, but not before weakening it at the behest of the banks who’ve given heavily to him. Still, he should be beatable in Massachusetts on the basis of one vote alone: the one he would cast to make Mitch McConnell majority leader of the Senate. And yet polls put his statewide approval rating at around 60.

One of Brown’s great advantages is that he has lived in Massachusetts virtually his entire life, and he never lets you forget it. He can be seen at opening day at Fenway Park; he’ll buy time on the Red Sox network to bid farewell to retiring players. Andrea Nuciforo Jr., a former Democratic state senator from Pittsfield who is running for Congress, recalls seeing Brown in action at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast in Sturbridge: “He talked about the Patriots, the Red Sox, and the weather.”

Warren is no carpetbagger—the Oklahoma native moved to Cambridge in 1995—but she lacks the same fluency in the state’s cultural preoccupations. She “doesn’t know that Ben Downing, the state senator from the Berkshires’ dad used to be the D.A. and he died of a heart attack shoveling snow,” says DiCara. “You can get briefed all you want, but it’s tough to understand that stuff.”

"You Didn't Build That" -- Massachusetts ed.

From James Hohmann at Politico:

MASSACHUSETTS SNEAK PEEK – BROWN HITTING WARREN ON “YOU DIDN’T BUILD THAT”: Scott Brown has prepared a powerful 2.5-minute web video that will give goose bumps to anyone offended by Obama’s “you didn’t build it” riff. It juxtaposes the clip of the president saying “somebody else made that happen” as it relates to success in the private sector against exhortations of free enterprise from John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan. Then it shows a clip of an angry-looking Elizabeth Warren saying, “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody!” It ends with a still photo of two adorable blonde girls selling glasses of lemonade for 25 cents. The tagline: “Let America be America again.” 

Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee?

Hillary Chabot writes at The Boston Herald:

Desperately scrambling to validate Democrat Elizabeth Warren’s Native American heritage amid questions about whether she used her minority status to further her career, the Harvard Law professor’s campaign last night finally came up with what they claim is a Cherokee connection — her great-great-great-grandmother.

“She would be 1⁄32nd of Elizabeth Warren’s total ancestry,” noted genealogist Christopher Child said, referring to the candidate’s great-great-great-grandmother, O.C. Sarah Smith, who is listed on an Oklahoma marriage certificate as Cherokee. Smith is an ancestor on Warren’s mother’s side, Child said.

The missing link comes after Warren’s embattled campaign faced sharp questions about her Native American background in the wake of Herald stories that showed both Harvard Law School and Warren herself had touted her tribal lineage and claimed she was a member of a minority for years.

Warren’s shaken campaign faced another crisis yesterday when it was revealed that beginning in 1986 and continuing through 1995, Warren had listed herself as a minority professor in the Association of American Law Schools desk book, a directory of law professors from participating schools.

Warren had flatly denied that she ever touted her Native American background professionally. 

The flap recalls a scene from The Sopranos.

In episode 42, members of the Soprano crime family meet Chief Doug Smith, a sleazy casino operator.

SIL:  No offense, chief, but, uh... you don't look much like an Indian.
SMITH:  Frankly I passed most of my life as white, until I had a racial awakening and discovered my Mohonk blood. My grandmother on my father's side, her mother was a quarter Mohonk.
TONY:  And all this happened when the casino bill got passed, right?
SMITH:  Better late than never. 

Crossroads: MA Senate Race & State of the Union

The Boston Herald reports:

A conservative group linked to GOP mastermind Karl Rove ripped a pledge between U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren to keep special interest-funded attack ads out of their race, saying the deal doesn’t go far enough.

American Crossroads, a group affiliated with Rove that has already been running anti-Warren ads, said the pact leaves gaping “loopholes” that will allow the Harvard professor to benefit from her strong union backing.

“Because the agreement allows union phone banks, direct mail, and get-out-the-vote drives — all union core specialties — Warren’s latest agreement has loopholes the Teamsters could drive a truck through, the longshoremen could steer a ship through, the machinists could fly a plane through and government unions could drive forklifts of paperwork through,” said American Crossroads CEO Steven Law.

Meanwhile, Law writes to supporters that the State of the Union provides the president's critics with an opportunity to highlight his record on the middle class.  A video drives home the point:

A Busy Crossroads Day

"From American Crossroads:

American Crossroads today called on Professor Elizabeth Warren to refund the campaign cash she bagged on Wall Street and to ask the Wall Street-funded Democrat Senate Committee to stop supporting her campaign. Warren previously refused to reject thefinancial support of the Wall Street-enriched Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC).

Professor Elizabeth Warren confirmed her abject hypocrisy when she disclosed accepting political cash from Wall Street despite her repeated cries against “Wall Street money” in politics. When asked about the source of her campaign funds by an audience member at a January 3rd event in Boston, Professor Warren admitted:
“…I do have donors on Wall Street…” (Robert Rizzuto, “Democratic U.S. Senate Challenger Elizabeth Warren Comes Out Swinging at Dorchester Town Hall Discussion,” The Springfield Republican, 01/03/2012)

Warren’s confession comes just days after she sent three fundraising emails at the close of the fundraising quarter which blasted “Wall Street funders,” “Wall Street backers,” “Wall Street financiers,” and “Wall Street and their armies of lobbyists” spending in political campaigns.

“Professor Warren’s hypocrisy continues as she denounces Wall Street campaign cash in her campaign’s fundraising emails yet openly takes money she bags on Wall Street into her own coffers,” said American Crossroads President and CEO Steven Law. “If Professor Warren had any integrity, she would refund these Wall Street contributions and at the same time ask the Wall Street-fueled DSCC to stop supporting her campaign.”

Meanwhile, at Crossroads GPS, Law spoke to another issue:

“Barack Obama said he would change Washington, but he’s making it worse with backroom tactics and massive power grabs like recess-appointing Richard Corday. Obama’s backroom tactics and political maneuvering further proves he can’t lead, and can only play typical Washington games.

"Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid failed to generate the votes to confirm Mr. Corday to run the CFPB in December due to concerns about accountability and transparency. Today’s ‘recess appointment’ violates at least half a century of bipartisan constitutional consensus about when such appointments are legally permitted – as presidents of both parties have long agreed they are entirely inappropriate when the Senate is in recess for a short time.”

Elizabeth Warren, Banks, and the Crossroads Groups

Crossroads GPS has gone after Elizabeth Warren on her ties to the financial services industry and Occupy Wall Street. Michael Beckel writes at The Open Secrets blog:

Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies -- the conservative nonprofit advocacy group founded with assistance from GOP strategist Karl Rove -- wants you to believe that Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren is too close to Big Finance. However, last month, the group criticized her for being too close to the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Warren has called Crossroads GPS' new ad “factually wrong and morally wrong.”

Who is funding these attacks? For its part, Crossroads GPS is not legally required to publicly disclose its donors, but its sister organization -- a super PAC known as American Crossroads -- is. And American Crossroads has significant ties to the finance sector and other wealthy business interests.

Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, called the pair of Crossroads GPS-produced ads some of the "least effective" ads he has seen.

"Rarely do you see such diametrically opposing attacks made by the same group within a short period of time," Sabato told OpenSecrets Blog. "Given her liberal ideology, a viewer could believe that Warren had some sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, but to make her somehow sympathetic to big bankers and Wall Street? That strains credulity."

For her part, Warren helped create the President Barack Obama's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- a new regulatory body that many finance sector interests spent heavily to oppose.

Romney Responds on Immigration and Health

Jennifer Rubin writes at The Washington Post:

Yesterday Texas Gov. Rick Perry (either his old or his new campaign) attacked Mitt Romney because illegal immigrants in Massachusetts are able to obtain medical benefits under the state’s health-care plan. There are a number of problems with this argument, including the need to provide medical care in order to prevent public health hazards. But for now I will focus on the sheer hypocrisy of the charge.

Katrina Trinko of National Review Online explains:

[T]he Romney campaign also argues that Texas provides medical care for illegal immigrants, too. Among the examples cited include $62 million the care of illegal immigrants cost the Texas Emergency Medicaid fund and the $33 million the Texas Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Perinatal Coverage is estimated to have spent on illegal immigrants.

It took the Romney campaign a few hours to uncover reams of other examples: Designated “emergency” care was provided to illegal immigrants on a non-emergency basis; state prenatal care is provided to “women living at up to 200% Federal Poverty Level (FPL) who do not otherwise qualify for Medicaid, typically due to their citizenship status”; substance abuse treatment is provided regardless of citizenship; and care is provided for special-needs children regardless of immigration status.

Foley and Massa

At The Daily Caller, a former House GOP leadership aide notes two ways in which the Massa scandal differs from the Mark Foley scandal that helped end the Republican majority in 2006:

The GOP had to deal with this story for roughly 30 days. After the election, no one really cared about Mark Foley, the damage was done and the House shifted power. Today, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has 235 days to try and save her job. That is a very long time for more shoes to drop, more allegations to surface and more questions that will need to be answered. And every time this comes back into the media, it will not go quietly, it will sit and fester causing more political damage to her party.

The second point is what will cause the most pain for the Democrats. Eric Massa is talking to the press. If there was one good thing that Mark Foley did after resigning it was that he went into hiding. This is not the case for Massa. He has already proved he is willing to speak on the record, to sit in on hour-long shows and drop random facts about his case. The more allegations that arise, the more he will feel the need to be heard, each time bringing this case to the surface. In fact, it is only a matter of time until he publishes a book, appears on late night TV and maybe signs up for a reality show.

Obama Approval in the States

The 2008 election continues to provide a useful baseline for understanding the political map. Gallup reports:

How the residents of each state view Obama continues to be strongly related to 2008 voting patterns. Approval toward him was particularly high in the states that gave him the most support in the 2008 election -- led by Hawaii and Washington, D.C. His lowest support as president came from states that voted strongly for John McCain -- particularly Wyoming and a number of other Western as well as Southern states.

But Obama approval does not translate into electoral success. The home state of Senator Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts) ranked sixth (with DC counting as number one).

West Virginia is the only state where Obama approval lags behind Democratic identification. The state thus continues its journey into the solid-R column in presidential politics. Before 2000, it was solid-D, going Republican only in landslide years. In that year, Karl Rove saw that cultural and environmental issues were pushing it away from the Democrats, so he poured resources into what seemed a quixotic effort to win its electoral votes. Had he not done so, Gore would have won.