Sixers and the Senate Cycle

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

The six-year cycle of Senate elections is crucial to understanding the chamber's partisan makeup.

A Senate class elected in a midterm will face reelection in a presidential ytors.ear, and vice versa.  The political conditions of the second will be different from the first.  A wave election brings in a set of senators who are vulnerable to defeat six years later.  The GOP took control of the Senate in the Reagan sweep of 1980, and lost it in 1986.  The GOP tied in 2000, suffered a big setback in 2006.  

STEVEN SHEPARD and KATHERINE TULLY-MCMANUS at Politico:

Democratic Sens. Jon Tester, Sherrod Brown and Bob Casey have had a lucky streak of election environments since they first came to the chamber in 2006. That luck seems to have run out.

The first elections for Tester (Mont.), Brown (Ohio) and Casey (Pa.) coincided with a Democratic midterm wave after six years of George W. Bush in the White House. In their second campaigns, their party’s presidential nominee won the popular vote by 4 percentage points. The third? Another blue wave repudiating Donald Trump.

But 2024 is a different story. At best, the two parties face a neutral political environment, as evidenced by tied polling from the presidential race down to Senate contests.

...

The first elections for Tester (Mont.), Brown (Ohio) and Casey (Pa.) coincided with a Democratic midterm wave after six years of George W. Bush in the White House. In their second campaigns, their party’s presidential nominee won the popular vote by 4 percentage points. The third? Another blue wave repudiating Donald Trump.

Musk Schemes

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses party organizations and campaign finance.

Rick Hasen:

Hugo Lowell: “Elon Musk says on stage at a town hall that America PAC will be awarding $1 million every day until the election to a registered Pennsylvania voter who has signed his petition. Musk awarded the first $1 million this evening to someone at the town hall, bringing the guy onto the stage and handing him a jumbo check, lotto-style. Musk is essentially incentivizing likely Trump voters in PA to register to vote: Petition is to support for 1A and 2A, so basically R voters. But they also have to be registered to vote, so if they weren’t already, they would do it now.”

Though maybe some of the other things Musk was doing were of murky legality, this one is clearly illegal. See 52 U.S.C. 10307(c): “Whoever knowingly or willfully gives false information as to his name, address or period of residence in the voting district for the purpose of establishing his eligibility to register or vote, or conspires with another individual for the purpose of encouraging his false registration to vote or illegal voting, or pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both…” (Emphasis added.)

Wow this is shady. Elon Musk is funding a PAC that’s running two ads against Kamala Harris with messages that directly contradict each other.

The opposing messages are microtargeted to specific groups of voters, so each see one ad, but neither see both. pic.twitter.com/YTahGxzQYq

— Max Flugrath🗳️ (@MaxFlugrath) October 19, 2024

Game of Slivers: Trump's Band Bros, Harris's Republicans, and Losing By Less

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020.ections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses party organizations and campaign finance.

Political scientists tend to downplay the role of campaign organization in presidential races, saying that it only matters at the margins.

But in a tight race, the margins are everything.

 Alex Isenstadt at Politico:

Donald Trump is betting that support from young men will help propel him to the White House. And he’s getting an assist from a crew of pro-Trump millennial pranksters who are capitalizing on college football tailgates, Tinder and even the “Hawk Tuah Girl” podcast.

The Nelk Boys, digital content creators and hosts of the popular “Full Send” podcast, are mounting a multi-million-dollar voter registration push aimed at turning out young men. They plan to sign up voters at a “Send the Vote” music festival later this month that will feature a performance by pro-Trump rapper Waka Flocka Flame, and at a pair of Penn State football games.

James Rickerton at Newsweek:

The proportion of self-identified Republicans who say they plan to vote for Kamala Harris in November has nearly doubled over the past month according to a major new survey from The New York Times/Siena College.

It found nine percent of likely voters who describe themselves as Republican plan to back the Democratic candidate in November, up from five percent in the last New York Times/Siena College poll a month earlier. By contrast just three percent of Democratic identifying voters said they will vote for Donald Trump, while 96 percent said they support Harris.

A number of prominent Republicans have said they will vote for Harris over Trump, including former vice president Dick Cheney, who in September said: "As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for vice president Kamala Harris."

Ari Shapiro et al. at NPR:

In many ways, “lose by less” has become the key term in the presidential campaign, according to Anthony Chergosky, who teaches political science at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

“Because Wisconsin elections are so competitive and so closely decided, the parties understand that any little gain anywhere could make the difference,” he said.

In Walworth County, Holly said the Wisconsin Democrats have a specific goal.

“I think the state figured out if we can pull 42%, then the state is good … everything we do here helps,” she said.

In 2020, President Biden won Wisconsin by just over 20,000 votes. Holly said that’s because of the work of places like the Elkhorn Democrats’ office.

  Theodoric Meyer and Leigh Ann Caldwell at WP:

Vice President Kamala Harris is not going to win Somerset County, Pa.

She’s not even going to come close.

Former president Donald Trump carried this rural county about 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh by 55 points in 2016, when he won Pennsylvania. He did even better there in 2020, despite losing the state to Joe Biden.

But Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) traveled to Somerset County anyway late last month to rally local Democrats. It’s one of more than a half-dozen events Fetterman has headlined across Pennsylvania in recent weeks in counties that Trump won by at least 20 points in 2020, including a stop last week in York County with Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

The stops align with the Harris campaign’s strategy to win Pennsylvania in part by running a little stronger in rural Republican strongholds than Biden in 2020 — a message that Fetterman echoed at a Somerset County Democratic Party fundraising dinner.

“It’s not about the color on the map,” Fetterman told more than 120 Democrats gathered in a century-old red barn on a Saturday evening a few miles from the field where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed on Sept. 11, 2001. “It’s about the margins in these counties.”

Harris’s strategy for cutting into Trump’s margins is built around out-organizing his campaign

The Harris campaign says it has 50 offices across Pennsylvania, including 16 in counties that Trump won by double-digits in 2020.

 

 

Ground Game

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses party organizations and campaign finance.  Trump is outsourcing his ground game.

Sophia Cai and Torey Van Oot at Axios:

Donald Trump's campaign, lacking the on-the-ground muscle to match Kamala Harris' team, has been rolling out a strategy to target swing-state voters who've shown interest in Trump but often don't vote.

Why it matters: Trump campaign training materials obtained by Axios offer an inside look into the strategy the ex-president's team is betting on to turn out voters in Pennsylvania and at least six other key states.

The big picture: The materials describe the 2020 Trump campaign's reach-out efforts as "inefficient," and emphasize the campaign's priorities of reaching more "quality" contacts in its race to the Nov. 5 election.Trump's team is outgunned in sheer resources: The campaign says it has about 27,000 volunteers on the ground overall, while Harris' campaign claims to have 60,000 in Pennsylvania alone.

As Axios has reported, Trump's campaign has focused more on developing an "election integrity" team of 175,000 poll workers and poll watchers nationwide, a program rooted in the ex-president's false claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election was fraudulent.

Shelby Talcott at Semafor:

Turning Point Action, one of the more high profile groups involved in helping turn out the vote, has touted its efforts in the field and expressed pride in their initiatives. Founded by Charlie Kirk, it’s the political advocacy arm of Turning Point USA, a group that’s been controversial within some party circles for its flamboyant culture-war emphasis. One veteran GOP strategist described the group to Semafor as “a total grifting operation,” and others have had questions about standard metrics like the number of doors knocked and wondered how much work the group is actually doing.

One official with Turning Point Action emphasized they were not intended to lead the party’s overall efforts, but had a specific role which they said is “narrowly focused on low-propensity, disengaged Republican voters — a universe that comprises 300,000+ in Arizona and 300,000+ in Wisconsin, and then 40,000 in Michigan 7[th district] and 30,000 in Nevada’s 3rd.” According to an internal memo reported on in April, the group had a lofty goal of raising and spending over $108 million on a Chase the Vote program: They have not reached that aspirational number, Semafor was told, and can’t use funding from Turning Point USA, which is a 501(c)(3).

“I wish we had the resources to blanket Michigan and to blanket Nevada and blanket Georgia, like we’re doing [in] Arizona [and] Wisconsin,” spokesman Andrew Kolvet said in a statement. “But barring a last minute major infusion of resources we’re just simply not able to staff those regions like we’d want to.”

Hugo Lowell at The Guardian:

But the Pacs, which are supposed to bridging the gap, have been slow to spool up, according to people with direct access to the data for groups like America Pac, Turnout for America, Turning Point Action and America First Works.

They have only started to hire at a rapid clip in recent weeks, the people said, meaning they are reaching Trump supporters late in the cycle when it often takes repeated “voter contacts” to get them to return a ballot.

 

 

Kamala Harris, the Choice of Reaganites

Our most recent book is Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Less than 48 hours after Biden's withdrawal, Kamala Harris became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee.

The last night of the Democratic convention features flags, veterans, and Adam Kinzinger.

Parts of Harris's acceptance speech sounded like ... Reagan.

Aaron Navarro at CBS:

Seventeen former staff members of the late Republican President Ronald Reagan are endorsing the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.

In a joint statement first obtained by CBS News, the staff members wrote that Reagan, if alive, would have supported Harris.

"President Ronald Reagan famously spoke about a 'Time for Choosing.' While he is not here to experience the current moment, we who worked for him in the White House, in the administration, in campaigns and on his personal staff, know he would join us in supporting the Harris-Walz ticket," the group writes. "The time for choosing we face today is a choice between integrity and demagoguery, and the choice must be Harris-Walz," the group added. "Our votes in this election are less about supporting the Democratic Party and more about our resounding support for democracy."

Over 230 former officials for Republican presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush have also backed Harris, in addition to campaign staffers for Republican presidential nominees John McCain and Mitt Romney. Biden received a similar amount of GOP support in his 2020 run against Trump.

Former Reagan staff backing Harris includes Ken Adelman, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and U.S. arms control director under Reagan, as well as B. Jay Cooper, the special assistant and deputy press secretary to Reagan. Adelman had endorsed former President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, as well as President Biden's 2020 run. He backed Republican Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign, but was against Trump's 2016 run.

ROBBIE GRAMER and ERIC BAZAIL-EIMIL  at Politico:

Democratic super PAC is unveiling a new ad campaign across battleground states targeting Americans of Eastern European descent. The message? It touts Vice President KAMALA HARRIS’ record on Ukraine and bashes former President DONALD TRUMP’s approach to Russia.

The campaign, run by the America’s Future Majority Fund super PAC, is expected to include rounds of TV and digital ads in Pennsylvania, followed by two more crucial swing states — Michigan and Wisconsin. All three states have sizable populations with roots in Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania and elsewhere across Eastern Europe.

In the presidential debate on Tuesday, Harris appealed directly to the “800,000 Polish Americans right here in Pennsylvania,” arguing that Poland would be Russia’s next target after Ukraine. “If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now,” Harris asserted.

Coupled together, these represent a new tack for the Democrats to take in battleground states, tying their campaign pitch to communities for whom the war in Ukraine has more personal resonance and working to convince them that Trump would abandon Ukraine and allies along NATO’s eastern flank.

...

More than 700,000 people in Pennsylvania, or some 5 percent of the state’s population, are Polish American and around 122,000 are Ukrainian American. Michigan has around 900,000 Polish Americans and 40,000 Ukrainian-Americans and Wisconsin has around 480,000 Polish Americans. In 2020, Biden beat Trump in Pennsylvania by 80,000 votes, Michigan by 154,000 votes and Wisconsin by 20,000 votes.

 

NY3 and PA: A Good Night for Democrats

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

The past year has been very good for Democrats.

In a special election last night, Tom Suozzi won NY3, the seat that George Santos had held.  Despite predictions of a "nailbiter," the result was a comfortable 54-46.

Hannah Knowles and Julie Zauzmer Weil at WP:

National issues dominated the campaign, making Tuesday’s vote this year’s first high-profile test of the parties’ messages on abortion, the economy and, above all, immigration. Suozzi represented the area for six years previously and campaigned as a moderate who wanted to work across the aisle. But with New York City struggling to absorb more than 100,000 migrants arriving from the southern border, much of the campaign centered on what polling suggests is Democrats’ toughest issue.

Democrat Jim Prokopiak was also projected to win a Tuesday special election for a state House seat in Pennsylvania, building his party’s narrow edge in a chamber that until recently was deadlocked 101-101. He beat Candace Cabanas after tying her to Trump and what he called “extremists” in the GOP, echoing national Democrats’ 2024 message.

In New York, Suozzi’s victory capped a long list of Democratic wins in recent special elections, which have showcased the party’s ability to turn out its base and tap into anger at GOP-backed abortion restrictions since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Democrats spent millions of dollars attacking Pilip’s “pro-life” stance even though she said she would not support a national ban on abortion.

The victory also validated Suozzi’s decision to invest heavily in countering the GOP on immigration, suggesting that Democrats in tight races can benefit from talking tougher on the border and highlighting Republicans’ abrupt abandonment of a bipartisan deal on the matter negotiated in Congress. Biden, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) and other Democrats have similarly sought to go on offense on immigration by criticizing the deal’s failure.

Trump, of course, dishonestly blamed the R candidate:

 

As expected, Trump blames everyone but himself for the election loss tonight. Trump claimed Mazi Pilip lost because “she didn't endorse me.”

This is a lie. Pilip said she voted for Trump in 2020 and endorsed him for the 2024 election. #NY03 pic.twitter.com/aiPuizqBuM

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) February 14, 2024

Specials

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

Welcome to the last special elections until Nov, and what a day it was - w/ Dems flipping a crucial R-held Trump seat in NH by 12%, and securing their PA State House majority w/ a 8% overperformance!

Final Pre-EDay Score: Dems have outperformed Biden by ~6% in 2023 Special Elex! pic.twitter.com/D8mYAGlBXW

— Ethan C7 (@ECaliberSeven) September 20, 2023

Good Night for Dems

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and local elections.  Republicans have lost ground in big cities.

Caroline Vakil at The Hill:

Democrats had a lot to celebrate on Tuesday night.

In one of the most closely watched races of the year, Democratic candidate Heather Boyd beat Republican Katie Ford in the special election for a Pennsylvania state House seat outside Philadelphia, allowing them to keep control of the lower chamber.

The race was seen as particularly critical since Democrats feared Republicans would use a potential majority to push through restrictive measures relating to abortion and LGBTQ issues.

Meanwhile, in Jacksonville, Fla., Democrats scored an upset after Donna Deegan (D) won the mayoral race there against Republican Daniel Davis, who was backed by DeSantis. The election offered Democrats some relief given Duval County’s red leanings, suggesting that Democrats can still be competitive in the state even as Florida has trended Republican in recent years.

Meanwhile, in Colorado Springs, independent candidate Yemi Mobolade won the mayoral race against Republican Wayne Williams, a former Colorado secretary of state. The election delivered yet another blow to Republicans given that El Paso County, where Colorado Springs is situated, was a county that former President Trump won by 11 points in 2020.

With the Jacksonville flip, the largest city with a Republican mayor is Fort Worth, TX (pop.  918,915).

For folks who don't know Jacksonville, the city and county are the same government. Wrong to think this is another "big" Dem city. It has outlying rural areas and a significant number of military retirees. It's a slightly red-leaning bellweather for the state. Why this is a bfd

— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) May 17, 2023

Aaron Blake at WP:

All told, according to the Daily Kos Elections numbers, Democrats have overperformed the 2020 presidential results by an average of six points across 18 state legislative races this year. (And again, that was a good election for them.) They’ve also beaten their 2016 margins by an average of 10 points.

And that doesn’t include the highest offices on the ballot thus far in 2023. In a crucial Wisconsin state Supreme Court race, the Democratic-aligned candidate won by 11 points, ending 15 years of conservative control of the court. And in the only special congressional election of 2023 so far, in Virginia, Democrats beat their 2020 margin by double digits.

Pennsylvania Poll

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

According to a Rose Institute survey, 87% of Pennsylvania Democrats see Trump as a threat to democracy, and 80% of Democrats say the same of Biden.

Fetterman's Impaired Debate Performance

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

Ryan Lizza and Eugene Daniels at Politico:

The conventional wisdom over the summer was that Oz was a deeply flawed candidate who couldn’t win, but the race is a toss-up. Republicans just decided to pour an additional $6 million into Pennsylvania to help Oz. “We believe if we win Pennsylvania, we win the majority,” STEVEN LAW, who runs the most important Senate GOP super PAC, told POLITICO Tuesday.

And then Fetterman failed to meet even the low expectations his own campaign set for him Monday in a memo that predicted “awkward pauses, missing some words, and mushing other words together” as well as “temporary miscommunications at times.”

...
It’s obvious that Rep. DAN CRENSHAW is sightless in one eye or that Sen. TAMMY DUCKWORTH lost her legs. Nobody questions whether those injuries have an impact on their ability to serve in Congress.

But Fetterman’s disability is different. It prevents him from performing adequately in a candidate ritual — the campaign debate — that has long been associated, correctly or not, with electability and effectiveness in Congress. The plain fact is that Fetterman was not capable of debating Oz. He could have skipped the debate, as some Democrats suggested he should have after it was over, but the Fetterman campaign gambled that the media would educate voters about his auditory issues and then referee any attacks on him with charges of ableism.
...

BUT, BUT, BUT — There are two well-worn cliches about debates: (1) They are rarely won but can sometimes be lost. (2) They are decided by the coverage in subsequent days rather than on debate night itself.

Fetterman clearly lost last night. ”[T]he biggest issue was John Fetterman's health and his ability to comprehend speech, and to then speak coherently on the issues of the day," said LELAND VITTERT of NewsNation, which sponsored the debate, in what was typical of the immediate coverage.

But the Fetterman campaign is betting that Oz will lose the all-important post-debate conversation. Fetterman has a potent weapon: Oz’s statement that abortion should be left up to “women, doctors, local political leaders.”

Problematic Candidate Update

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.  In a normal year, Republicans could be confident of regaining a majority in the Senate.  But in some places, they are running abnormal candidates.

FFS!

Dr Oz at a fundraiser in Orange County, CA, last night literally standing alongside a vehicle once owned by & used as a touring wagon by Adolph Hitlerhttps://t.co/DXDQ0CRAQY

c: @JohnFetterman @giselefetterman @AriMelber @kurtbardella @dscc @sueonthetown @kylietcheung pic.twitter.com/AKDu1ztwso

— 𝙻𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚢 𝚃𝚎𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚢 📷 🏳️‍🌈Make #GoodTrouble (@LarryTenney) October 7, 2022

NEW from @kylietcheung: Dr. Oz's research experiments at Columbia killed 329 dogs and inflicted extensive suffering on them, violating the Animal Welfare Act multiple times, for which Columbia quietly paid a fine. https://t.co/WzQfPzlTuI

— Laura Bassett (@LEBassett) October 3, 2022

EXCLUSIVE: Herschel Walker's wife has reached out to the woman who said that they had an abortion. The woman is now revealing truly stunning details about Walker's behavior as a father, backed up with texts, photos, and court records. Me @thedailybeast https://t.co/lqgK3jQDlD

— Roger Sollenberger (@SollenbergerRC) October 8, 2022

Is the Akin Ploy Working?

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

In the 2012 Missouri  Senate race, incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill ran ads during the GOP primary campaign saying that Todd Akin was "too conservative."  The idea of the "attack ad" was to drive GOP voters to Akin, her weakest potential foe.  It worked.  Other campaigns have tried variations of the "pick your opponent" ploy.

Democrats meddled in some 2022 GOP primaries in hopes of drawing weak opponents.

Myah Ward at Politico:

It was a risky bet, but at the moment, it appears to be paying off. In the six races where Democrats were successful in boosting hard-right candidates to the GOP nomination, many of the Republicans are lagging in the polls, struggling to raise money and forced to explain past controversial statements. In three governors races where Democrats played a role in shaping the primary outcome — Pennsylvania, Maryland and Illinois — cash-poor GOP candidates haven’t aired any TV ads since winning their primaries.

In the Illinois governor’s race, incumbent Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker has led Republican Darren Bailey by double digits in nearly every poll since July. Even a recent poll sponsored by Bailey’s campaign showed Pritzker ahead by 7 percentage points.

...

There hasn’t been much polling in Maryland’s gubernatorial race, but what’s out there shows a huge advantage for Democrat Wes Moore. You can tell Republican Dan Cox is feeling the heat: He’s upped his attacks against Moore since the unflattering numbers were published.

Popular outgoing GOP Gov. Larry Hogan has already predicted Cox’s downfall in November and said he won’t vote for him. Election forecasters have been equally dismissive: Last month, the University of Virginia’s Sabato’s Crystal Ball changed the race’s rating from “likely Democratic” to “safe Democratic.”

The closely watched race for Pennsylvania governor’s mansion has had a few more polls to examine than the other races. FiveThirtyEight’s polling average has Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro leading Republican Doug Mastriano by 10.4 points.

Trump Goes Q

Our book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.  Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession. 

Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman at NYT

Former President Donald J. Trump appeared to more fully embrace QAnon on Saturday, playing a song at a political rally in Ohio that prompted attendees to respond with a salute in reference to the cultlike conspiracy theory’s theme song.

While speaking in Youngstown in support of J.D. Vance, whom he has endorsed as Ohio’s Republican nominee for the Senate, Mr. Trump delivered a dark address about the decline of America over music that was all but identical to a song called “Wwg1wga” — an abbreviation for the QAnon slogan, “Where we go one, we go all.”

As Mr. Trump spoke, scores of people in the crowd raised fingers in the air in an apparent reference to the “1” in what they thought was the song’s title. It was the first time in the memory of some Trump aides that such a display had occurred at one of his rallies.

...

As president, Mr. Trump often had a winking relationship with QAnon, amplifying social media posts related to the conspiracy theory movement, which holds that when he was in the White House he was locked in a war against satanic, child-trafficking liberals and Democrats. A chief tenet of the movement, which has gradually spread from the fringes of the far right closer to the center of the Republican Party, is that Mr. Trump will ultimately be returned to power.

But what was once a flirtation with a movement that the F.B.I. has warned could increasingly turn violent now appears to be a full embrace.

Last week, for example, Mr. Trump posted an image of himself on Truth Social, wearing a Q pin on his lapel and under a slogan reading “The Storm is Coming.” Adherents to QAnon believe that the “storm” is the moment when Mr. Trump will retake power after vanquishing his enemies, having them arrested and potentially executed on live TV.

 

If you missed it last night, you should know that the fascists adopted a straight-arm salute reminiscent of the nazi salute at a Trump rally last night. pic.twitter.com/45EOn2ewN2

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) September 18, 2022

PA MAGA Gov nominee Doug Mastriano rally: “Put your right hand in the air … America will have a new birth of liberty.” pic.twitter.com/UfcLDNoJD4

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) September 18, 2022

MAGA Threatens Democracy

Our most recent book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and Trump's disregard for law.

Jason Lange at Reuters:

Days after Democratic President Joe Biden gave a fiery speech attacking former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies as an extremist threat, a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Wednesday found a majority of Americans believe Trump's movement is undermining democracy.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents in the two-day poll - including one in four Republicans - said Trump's "Make America Great Again" movement is threatening America's democratic foundations.

Biden's Sept. 1 speech marked a sharp turn for his efforts to boost Democrats in the Nov. 8 midterm elections, when Republicans aim to win control of the U.S. Congress. read more

At Rolling Stone, Tim Dickinson reports on Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano:

A WEEK BEFORE Jan. 6, on a Zoom call organized by far-right Christian Nationalists seeking to reinstall Donald Trump in the White House, a man with a booming baritone voice bowed his bald head and began to pray. “We remember the promises of old,” he said, before invoking the book of Revelations and its account of the End Times: “We know we overcome Satan by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony and not loving our lives unto death.”

Seated before a Revolutionary War flag with the motto “An Appeal to Heaven,” the man spoke of the nation’s founding in biblical terms: “We remember 1776, our Declaration of Independence, speaking God’s Truth and Word over what would become the United States of America.” He tied Pennsylvania to God’s divine plan, from the Battle of Gettysbug to the fate of Flight 93, which crashed after a “strong Christian man” confronted Islamist hijackers on 9/11, with the cry, “Let’s roll!”

“God I ask you that you help us roll in these dark times, that we fear not the darkness, that we will seize our Esther and Gideon moments,” the man said, invoking a pair of Old Testament heroes who made themselves instruments of God’s vengeance. “We’re surrounded by wickedness and fear, and dithering, and inaction,” he added, “But that’s not our problem. Our problem is following Your lead.” Looking ahead to Jan 6, the man said: “I pray that… we’ll seize the power that we had given to us by the Constitution, and as well by You, providentially. I pray for the leaders also in the federal government, God, on the Sixth of January that they will rise up with boldness.”

 

Problematic Statewide GOP Candidates

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

 Alayna Treene, Hans Nichols, Zachary Basu at Axios:

A trio of Trump-endorsed Senate candidates in three crucial battleground states are under fresh scrutiny after a 24-hour barrage of negative headlines, raising new questions about their liabilies in the general election:

• In Georgia, an explosive Daily Beast scoop alleged GOP nominee Herschel Walker lied to his own campaign staff about his undisclosed children. The story paints a picture of a volatile, unprepared candidate whom three sources independently called a "pathological liar."
• In Arizona, the New York Times reported on old writings in which Trump-backed candidate Blake Masters "approvingly quoted a Nazi war criminal" and said he opposed U.S. involvement in both world wars.
• In Pennsylvania, a Politico piece titled "Where in the world is Dr. Oz?" details Republican fears about the GOP nominee falling behind in the polls, going dark on the airwaves since May 21, and struggling to unite the party after a bruising primary.

AP:

A leading contender for the Republican nomination for governor in Michigan was sued in the 1990s, accused of using racial slurs about Black people in the workplace and sexually harassing his employees.

One of his rivals pleaded not guilty in federal court on Thursday to misdemeanor charges after authorities said he rallied Donald Trump’s supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection. Another candidate is a chiropractor and self-help guru who hawked supplements he falsely claimed treated COVID-19.

And even the contender who has garnered mainstream support had an “admittedly lame” hobby acting in low-budget horror pictures, one of which included a zombie biting off a man’s genitals.

In one of the most politically consequential states in the U.S., the Republican primary for governor is shaping up as a battle of whose personal baggage is the least disqualifying. In an otherwise favorable election year for Republicans, the spectacle surrounding the Aug. 2 contest could hobble the party’s effort to defeat Democratic incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in the fall.

Mastriano

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.  Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession. 

Greg Jaffe at WP:

Two decades before he was Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor, Doug Mastriano warned in a master’s thesis that the United States was vulnerable to a left-wing “Hitlerian Putsch” that would begin with the dismantling of the U.S. military and end with the destruction of the country’s democracy.

The thesis, written in 2001 when Mastriano was a major at the Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College, is highly unusual for its doomsaying and often fearful point of view, and its prediction that only the U.S. military could save the country from the depredations of the country’s morally debauched civilian leaders. The paper is posted on an official Defense Department website and lists Mastriano as the author at a time when he said he received a master’s degree from the school.

In it, Mastriano adopts the point of view of a colonel who is living in 2018 — some 17 years in the future — and has taken refuge in an “isolated cavern” in the George Washington National Forest. The military’s collapse, in his telling, allowed a left-wing leader obsessed with “political correctness” and backed militarily by the United Nations and the European Union to rise to power in a struggle that led to the deaths of millions of Americans.

“Domestically, life was bleak with a rampant drug culture, hedonism and a plethora of ‘alternate’ religions dominating the American youth,” wrote Mastriano in the voice of his fictional colonel. “We were a people without vision or direction.”

Ultimately, Mastriano concluded that the U.S. military was the “only institution to prevent the destruction of the republic.”

The document displays a disgust for anyone who doesn’t hold his view that homosexuality is a form of “aberrant sexual conduct” and presages the worldview that has led Mastriano to blame rampant fraud for Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat and to join a crowd headed toward the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“This thesis proves that Mastriano’s embrace of activity that undermines the U.S. Constitution is no recent corruption,” said Peter Feaver, a former senior White House official in the George W. Bush administration who was written extensively about civil-military relations. “It stems from poisonous views and misunderstandings that he has held for a very long time.”

Trump on the PA Senate Race

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

This man needs to be held accountable at some point by someone. He is an authoritarian. pic.twitter.com/QNnmx2JNXn

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) May 18, 2022

😂😂😂😂RIGGED!!!😂😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/KFicOdUXy5

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) May 18, 2022

The Falcon Cannot Hear the Falconer

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

Michael C. Bender at NYT:

A late surge from Kathy Barnette in Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate primary is officially on former President Trump’s radar.

Mr. Trump criticized Ms. Barnette, a conservative author and political commentator, on Thursday and said she was unvetted and unelectable. “Kathy Barnette will never be able to win the general election against the radical left Democrats,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.

Ms. Barnett’s momentum in the polls has jeopardized Mr. Trump’s second attempt to influence the primary race, which comes to a close on Tuesday. He endorsed Dr. Mehmet Oz, a longtime television host, after his first choice for the seat, Sean Parnell, suspended his campaign in November amid a court battle over the custody of his children.

Ms. Barnette’s sudden rise comes as Dr. Oz has been locked in a contentious primary fight with David McCormick, a former hedge fund executive with deep ties to Mr. Trump’s political orbit. A Fox News Poll on Tuesday showed her at 19 percent, behind Mr. McCormick at 20 percent and Dr. Oz at 22 percent.

Her climb has surprised many watching the Pennsylvania race — including Mr. Trump, who never seriously considered supporting her before he announced his endorsement of Dr. Oz less than five weeks ago, according to two people familiar with the decision who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private conversations.

 

If I were Trump(!) I would have thought about jumping to Barnette: “Dramatic!”

But this is clever in a more conventional if lizard-brain sort of way: Vaguely disqualify Barnette while opening door to her running again and Trump supporting her next time.

Oz 2022! Barnette 2024! https://t.co/6ajCj6JbDI

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) May 12, 2022

The Akin Ploy, 2022

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

In the 2012 Missouri  Senate race, incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill ran ads during the GOP primary campaign saying that Todd Akin was "too conservative."  The idea of the "attack ad" was to drive GOP voters to Akin, her weakest potential foe.  It worked.  Other campaigns have tried the same thing.

Henry J. Gomez and Natasha Korecki at NBC:

Democrats bracing for devastating midterm losses this fall are zeroing in on a strategy that lands them on the battlefield now.

They are investing millions of dollars to meddle in Republican primaries for governor, attempting to elevate their preferred competitors in November or weaken their biggest threats.

Next week's messy GOP fight in Pennsylvania is the most blatant example. State Sen. Doug Mastriano is ahead in recent polls — and his would-be Democratic opponent wouldn’t mind if it stayed that way.

Democrat Josh Shapiro, the state attorney general running unopposed in his party's primary for governor, is airing an ad that brandishes Mastriano’s conservative credentials, making sure to say a Mastriano victory is a win "for what Donald Trump stands for." That's all but an endorsement in a GOP primary, but it could hurt later in a race where even some Republicans have doubts about Mastriano's electability.

That a Democrat is behind the ad underscores the lengths to which the party will go to engineer an easier general election in what's expected to be a volatile environment this fall.

"Both public and private polling indicate that Doug Mastriano is poised to become the Republican nominee on May 17 — and our campaign is prepared to start the general election now and make sure Pennsylvanians know his real record," Shapiro spokesperson Will Simons said in a statement to NBC News.

Trump for Oz

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

Zachary Petrizzo at The Daily Beast:

Late Saturday evening, former President Donald Trump officially endorsed his old TV pal Dr. Mehmet Oz in the raucous Republican U.S. Senate primary race in Pennsylvania.

In doing so, Trump, while speaking at a rally in North Carolina, ignited fury and ridicule among some of the loudest voices in Trumpworld.

At issue among Trump’s most fervent supporters is the belief that Oz, a Turkish-American TV physician who has hobnobbed with Hollywood’s elite and has flip-flopped on the issue of abortion, isn’t a trustworthy “America First” Republican candidate, compared to fellow candidate Dave McCormick, who has ex-Trump administration official Hope Hicks by his side. (Another Trumpworld stalwart, Stephen Miller, stopped all involvement and employment with the McCormick campaign after Trump’s Oz endorsement, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told The Daily Beast after this story was published.)

“I have enormous respect for President Trump. I was honored to have his endorsement in PA. Twice,” Sean Parnell, the former Trump-backed candidate, who dropped out of the race after an abuse allegation surfaced from his estranged ex-wife, wrote on Twitter. “But I’m disappointed by this. Oz is the antithesis of everything that made Trump the best president of my lifetime.”