Let me try to elaborate on what this right is seeing. The initial promise of the internet era was radical decentralization, but instead over the last 20 years, America’s major cultural institutions have become consolidated, with more influence in the hands of fewer institutions. The decline of newsprint has made a few national newspapers ever more influential, the most-trafficked portions of the internet have fallen under the effective control of a small group of giant tech companies, and the patterns of meritocracy have ensured that the people staffing these institutions are drawn from the same self-reproducing professional class. (A similar trend may be playing out with vertical integration in the entertainment business, while in academia, a declining student population promises to close smaller colleges and solidify the power of the biggest, most prestigious schools.)
Over the same period, in reaction to social atomization, economic disappointment and conspicuous elite failure, the younger members of the liberal upper class have become radicalized, embracing a new progressive orthodoxy that’s hard to distill but easy to recognize and that really is deployed to threaten careers when the unconvinced step out of line.
...[The} spread of online conspiracy theories has encouraged liberals in a belief that the only way to safeguard democracy is for this consolidated establishment to become more aggressive in its attempts at cultural control — which is how you get the strange phenomenon of some journalists fretting about the perils of the First Amendment and demanding that the big social-media enterprises exert a kind of prior restraint over the American conversation.
Sunday, October 18, 2020
The Right Fears the Left
Ross Douthat at NYT:
Texas
In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race.
Texas, once part of the GOP base, is competitive this year. Candace Valenzuela will probably succeed a Republican in representing a Dallas-area House seat.
The story of the political change in Texas begins with the enormous population growth the state has experienced over the past decade, with most of it concentrated in the major metropolitan areas of Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio and Austin.
Between 2010 and 2018, the 27 counties that comprise these major metropolitan areas collectively added nearly 3 million people — an increase of 19 percent — and today they make up one of the most vibrant economic areas in the entire country. Republican elected officials have bragged about the state’s ability to attract new businesses, but the added growth has helped to change the political balance in the state.
One change is the increased dominance of the big cities and suburbs in overall turnout. According to data compiled by Richard Murray and Renee Cross of the University of Houston, the 27 counties that make up the major metropolitan areas account for 69 percent of the statewide vote, compared with 60 percent in 1996 and 52 percent in 1968.
For a long time, the balance between metro and non-metro Texas didn’t make much difference. The metropolitan areas split their votes between Republicans and Democrats in about the same proportions as in the smaller towns and rural areas, according to Murray and Cross. That began to change in the past two decades and has quickened in the past five years. Not only do the big cities and surrounding suburbs account for a larger proportion of the statewide vote, they are increasingly voting Democratic.
Changing demographics are a major factor as well, as Texas becomes increasingly diverse. For years, Democrats have pointed to the growth in the Latino community as the pathway to turning Texas blue — the demographics-as-destiny argument. With birthrates in the Anglo community having slowed, the Latino population is on pace to equal or surpass the non-Hispanic White population by 2022.
Before Trump came on the scene, some Texas Republicans had made more significant inroads among Hispanic voters than, say, Republicans in California. Former president George W. Bush focused on Latinos and was rewarded in both his gubernatorial and presidential races. Other Republican elected officials are still able to attract good levels of Latino support.
The success of Republicans like Bush and others frustrated the predictions of Democrats of a more rapid red-to-blue shift in the state, as the party’s disappointing showing in gubernatorial and Senate races over the years has shown. But Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric has made it more difficult for Republicans to maintain, let alone expand, their Latino support.
Beyond the growth in the Latino population, another demographic change that is affecting the political balance is the rise of Asian Americans: Vietnamese, Indians, Chinese and others. Asian Americans are now the fastest-growing segment of the Texas population, and they are voting for Democrats more than they once did.
Saturday, October 17, 2020
The Bluing of the Sunbelt
In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race.
Arizona and Texas, once part of the GOP base, are competitive this year.
At Politico, Sabrina Rodriguez reports on Arizona:
Arizona’s state races haven’t gotten so much attention given the millions of dollars being pumped into the presidential matchup and expensive race between appointed Republican Sen. Martha McSally and Kelly, which could help tip the Senate over to Democrats. But it’s the possibility of flipping that state legislature that has many Republicans thinking about the long-term effects of Trump’s GOP.
“The Republican Party needs to understand that there’s a large number of us voting Democrat all down the ballot because of Trump, and they need to realize that their choice to blindly follow him will impact the state politics,” said Daniel Barker, a former Arizona Court of Appeals Judge who started Arizona Republicans Who Believe In Treating Others With Respect, a PAC that’s supporting Biden.
“We need to change direction,” he added.
The November election will provide the first indication of whether Arizona is becoming Democratic-leaning territory, like Colorado and Virginia — or a perennial swing state, like Florida. The state’s growing Latino population and shifting attitudes among college-educated white voters across the state have been a boon to Democrats. Almost a third of the state is Latino — and while only about half of them are expected to vote, they are likely to break heavily for Democrats: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema secured 70 percent Latino support in her 2018 run.
“Where things look really different in Texas politics right now are in these districts that have seen rapid population growth, and Californians have been a part of that growth,” said Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.
...
While the prospect of Texas as a swing state may shock those who associate the state with George W. Bush, it shouldn’t surprise anyone paying attention to its politics over the last decade. While Barack Obama lost Texas by 16 points in his 2012 re-election bid, in 2016 Hillary Clinton closed that gap to single-digits. Two years later, Democrat Beto O’Rourke lost to incumbent Republican Senator Ted Cruz by less than three points.
The improving performance of Texas Democrats tracks well with the exodus of Californians into Sun Belt states over the past two decades. Since 2008, more than 700,000 Californians have moved to Texas, at first propelled by the Great Recession and later by their home state’s increasingly untenable cost of living. ...
Henson warns it’s seductively reductionist to attribute Texas’ rapid statewide purpling simply to California expats. When you factor in the number of Texans that have moved to California over the last decade, the net political effect on a state with 29 million people is less progressive tidal wave and more trickling blue-ish tributary. With a rising Latino population and growing metropolitan areas, Texas’ internal demographic shifts have combined with out-of-state immigration (not just from California) to alter its politics.
It’s also a mistake to think everyone from California moving to Texas drove there in a Prius adorned with a “Billionaires can’t buy Bernie” bumper sticker. While precise polling on ex-Californians’ political persuasions is hard to find, loads of anecdotal evidence suggest a decent chunk of Golden State emigres are fleeing the state precisely because of its progressive culture.
But the parts of Texas where Californians are most likely to move — the sprawling suburbs of Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth — are now politically competitive in a way that was unfathomable 20 years ago. Even if progressive Californians aren’t numerous enough to push Texas away from Trump, they can still tilt congressional and state legislative races. In many places, they already have.
“Those areas, particularly the suburban and exurban areas outside of Texas metros, have become ground zero for a much more competitive Texas in which the Republican hegemony that has been so uniform here for the last twenty years has come under siege,” said Henson.
Patrick Svitek at The Texas Tribune:
All but one of the 10 Democrats running to flip nationally targeted U.S. House seats in Texas raised more than their Republican opponents over the past three months, according to the latest campaign finance reports.
In six of those nine races, the Republican ended the quarter with more cash on hand, a financial advantage heading into the last full month before Election Day. But the Democratic fundraising shows serious momentum as the national party reaches the finale of its drive to make Texas the top congressional battleground nationwide this November.
Republicans also had a bright spot in one of the two seats they are trying to win back, that of Democratic Rep. Lizzie Pannill Fletcher of Houston. Her GOP challenger, Wesley Hunt, soundly outraised her. She ended the quarter with a small cash-on-hand advantage.
Friday, October 16, 2020
Democratic Fundraging
Fundraising is an important part of the story.
“ ‘Fundraging’ very neatly summarizes low-dollar donor behavior, the collision of emotion and giving,” said Patrick Ruffini, a Republican pollster and digital strategist.
Across the 14 most-competitive Senate races, Democrats collectively raised nearly $200 million more than their Republican counterparts in the three-month period that ended Sept. 30, according to Federal Election Commission reports filed Thursday. Leading the pack was Mr. Harrison, who collected $58 million for the quarter, beating the previous quarterly Senate fundraising record by about $20 million. Mr. Graham, who has been vocal about his challenger’s formidable cash hauls, raised $28 million, the most ever for a Republican Senate candidate. Neither campaign responded to requests for comment.
Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock raised more than twice as much money for his Senate campaign as incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Steve Daines did in the latest reporting period, according to numbers released by their campaigns on Thursday.
Bullock reported raising $26.8 million in the three months between July 1 and Sept. 30, while Daines reported raising $11.5 million.
Bullock’s fundraising total now stands at nearly $38 million since he filed as a candidate in March while Daines’ total is $24.5 million since he began his first term in 2014, Lee Newspapers of Montana reports.
Bullock’s quarterly contributions exceed the nearly $26.6 million in total fundraising for Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and his Republican challenger Matt Rosendale in their 2018 race, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Tester raised $20.9 million.
Total spending in the 2018 U.S. Senate race in Montana was about $60 million. Spending by campaigns and outside groups in this year’s contest is expected to reach at least $146 million as the parties battle for control of the Senate.
Thursday, October 15, 2020
Bad Numbers for Trump as Time Starts Running Out
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 underway.
The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits rose last week by the most in two months, to 898,000, a historically high number and evidence that layoffs remain a hindrance to the economy’s recovery from the pandemic recession.
Thursday’s report from the Labor Department coincides with other recent data that have signaled a slowdown in hiring. The economy is still roughly 10.7 million jobs short of recovering all the 22 million jobs that were lost when the pandemic struck in early spring.
Talal Ansari and David Hall at WSJ:
New coronavirus cases in the U.S. neared 60,000, driven by a resurgence of infections in the Midwest and other areas of the country.
The U.S. reported more than 59,000 infections, bringing the nation’s total to more than 7.9 million confirmed cases, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The death toll surpassed 217,000.
The Democratic fundraising organization ActBlue reported on Thursday that it collected $1.5 billion on its online platform from July to September, the most it has ever raised in a quarter.
By comparison, WinRed, a major Republican fundraising platform, said on Monday that its platform collected $623.5 million in the third quarter.
The Democratic sum includes donations made to several groups and political candidates as well as the presidential campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden, who looks poised to head into the closing weeks of the race with a financial advantage.
Wednesday, October 14, 2020
Trump Has Problems with Weaponization of Government
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 underway. Trump is weaponizing the federal government for his political benefit.
President Donald Trump's campaign is running an online political ad that uses an image of his vice president, his Pentagon chief and his most senior military adviser watching the raid on ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from the Situation Room on Oct. 29, 2019.
"President Trump wants you to request your ballot," the ad says. Clicking on the ad, which includes the tagline "Paid for by Donald J. Trump for President, Inc," leads to the Trump campaign's voter sign-up page.
But the campaign didn't seek approval from Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley to use his image in the ad, a defense official said. “This photo, like many others, was not used with [Milley's] knowledge or consent,” said the official, who requested anonymity to speak about a sensitive topic.
Erin Banco and Justin Baragona at The Daily Beast:
The nation’s top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci demanded that the Trump campaign refrain from using him in future campaign ads, saying Monday that it would be “outrageous” and “terrible” if he was featured in another commercial and it could “come back to backfire” on Team Trump.
Asked by The Daily Beast if his comments were a thinly-veiled threat to leave his post if he ended up in a new campaign spot, Fauci replied: “Not a chance.”
"Not in my wildest freakin’ dreams,” he said, “did I ever think about quitting."
From there, Fauci went on to explain what he meant by “backfire.”
"By doing this against my will they are, in effect, harassing me,” Fauci said. “Since campaign ads are about getting votes, their harassment of me might have the opposite effect of turning some voters off."
President Trump’s plan to send 33 million Medicare beneficiaries a card that can be used to help pay for as much as $200 in prescription drug costs won’t be completed until after the election, according to a person familiar with the plan.Matt Zapotosky and Shane Harris at WP:
The cards will be mailed in phases, with some likely going out later in October but most not until after the Nov. 3 presidential election, the person said. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is spending an estimated $20 million for administrative costs to print and send letters to Medicare beneficiaries informing them that they will be getting cards, the person said.
Plans for the overall drug-discount program have been sent to the Office for Management and Budget, the person said. It is unclear if or when the office will approve the program, which could cost $8 billion, the person said. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees Medicare designed for people 65 and older, is unable to say exactly when the cards will go out because the proposal is still at OMB. Beneficiaries will have two years to use the discount cards, the person said.
The federal prosecutor appointed by Attorney General William P. Barr to review whether Obama-era officials improperly requested the identities of individuals whose names were redacted in intelligence documents has completed his work without finding any substantive wrongdoing, according to people familiar with the matter.
The revelation that U.S. Attorney John Bash, who left the department last week, had concluded his review without criminal charges or any public report will rankle President Trump at a moment when he is particularly upset at the Justice Department. The department has so far declined to release the results of Bash’s work, though people familiar with his findings say they would likely disappoint conservatives who have tried to paint the “unmasking” of names — a common practice in government to help understand classified documents — as a political conspiracy.
The president in recent days has pressed federal law enforcement to move against his political adversaries and complained that a different prosecutor tapped by Barr to investigate the FBI’s 2016 investigation of his campaign will not be issuing any public findings before the election.
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
House and Senate: Alia Iacta Est
In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race.
James Arkin and Elena Schneider at Politico:
In mid-April, senior advisers to a dozen Republican senators gathered on the second floor of the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s offices, where NRSC executive director Kevin McLaughlin detailed the stark online fundraising disparities that led to eight GOP incumbents getting outraised by Democrats in the first three months of 2020.
McLaughlin concluded his presentation with a dire warning: If campaigns didn’t improve their digital fundraising dramatically, they’d have no way to counter a “green tsunami” of Democratic spending in the fall, according to three people familiar with the meeting.
Six months later, the green tsunami is here. And it’s threatening to wipe out the Republican Senate majority.
The online fundraising edge that Democrats have enjoyed for years has mushroomed into an overpowering force, with small-dollar donors smashing “donate” buttons over the last three months to process their disgust for President Donald Trump, fury with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and grief for the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Propelled by the wave of money, Democrats have suddenly expanded the Senate battlefield to a dozen competitive races, burying long-contested states like Iowa and Maine in TV ads while also overwhelming Republican opponents in states like Alaska, Kansas and South Carolina that are suddenly tightening.
...
Josh Holmes, a top McConnell adviser, said every news development activates Democrats’ donor base and “their default is to give $5 every time something angers them.”
But “when your average Republican is watching Hannity and something upsets them, their response is to write something on Facebook,” Holmes added.
...
“You get to a certain point where the die is cast,” said one national Republican strategist, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly. “You can’t capitalize on a huge moment like SCOTUS vacancy if you haven’t spent the last 6 months or 12 months building the asset to maximize the value of it. There’s a limit to what you can accomplish if you haven’t done the work.”
Here’s how grim things look for House Republicans three weeks out from the election: They’re struggling to win back seats even in conservative bastions like Oklahoma and South Carolina, where Democrats staged shocking upsets in 2018.
About a half-dozen seats fall in that category — the lowest of low-hanging fruit for Republicans. But most private and public surveys from both parties show either dead heats or the Democratic incumbent with a modest lead, a startling position for a crop of candidates running in Trump country. The seats were won in 2018 by Reps. Kendra Horn (D-Okla.), Joe Cunningham (D-S.C.), Max Rose (D-N.Y.), Xochitl Torres Small (D-N.M.), Anthony Brindisi (D-N.Y.), Ben McAdams (D-Utah) and Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.).
...
Republicans' outlays against a handful of the most beatable Democrats have hampered their ability to craft a serious path back to the majority. Democrats have seized on their cash advantage to contest districts in deep-red territory, forcing the GOP to retrench and protect incumbents and open seats.
As of mid-October, national Republicans are playing more defense than offense, airing TV ads in 28 GOP-held districts compared to 25 Democratic-held ones, according to a POLITICO analysis of data from Advertising Analytics, a TV tracking firm.
“We’re able to flip the tables and focus on expanding the map. And I do think that that’s a shift,” said Abby Curran Horrell, the executive director of House Majority PAC, Democrats' main House super PAC. "They are tied down in districts that I think they expected that they would be able to win easily. But it is not that type of year."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)