Four Points to Give Democrats Hope

Political Wire‘s Taegan Goddard notes that though polling and historical midterm trends show Democrats potentially losing their majority in the House and with only a 50:50 chance of maintaining their slim margin in the Senate, there still are some reasons not to succumb to pessimism.

Four things Democrats can point to:

  • The economy isn’t as bad as some polling suggests. It’s true that inflation is at a 40-year high, but the economy is growing and there are still more job openings than people looking for work.
  • Abortion rights will be a motivating factor for many voters — particularly young women. It’s not often that a fundamental right is taken away in this country and we saw Democratic candidates outperform in a series of special elections over the summer. We also saw voters in Kansas come out in extraordinary numbers to make sure abortion stayed legal in their state.
  • The polls could be wrong — maybe even very wrong. In two of the last three election cycles polling proved wildly misleading. Though pollsters insist they have improved their “likely voter” screens, we have seen fewer polls this year from fewer pollsters. That could make even the polling averages unreliable.
  • The number of Americans who vote early continues to rise. It’s extremely hard to gain insights from early voting trends, but overall it is generally viewed as an advantage for Democrats.
  • Midterm Outlook for Dems Grows Hazy

    68-in-100

    Nate Silver: “Overall, Democrats’ chances of winning the Senate are 68-in-100, according to the Deluxe version of our forecast. That’s down from a high of 71-in-100, which persisted from Sept. 13 to Sept. 20, though that change isn’t large in the big scheme of things. In the House, Democrats’ chances are 31-in-100, which reflects an even smaller change; their chances were 32-in-100 on Sept. 23 and 24.”

    Dems Mount $15 Million Effort to Organize in Florida

    $15 million

    “In what may prove to be Florida’s last stand as a battleground state, Democrats are launching a $15 million voter organizing effort ahead of this year’s elections,” Politico reports. “Democratic candidates up and down the ballot — even those running in contested primaries — have agreed to pour in money that will be used to hire at least 200 organizers and open as many as 80 offices as part of a coordinated effort to pump up turnout across the state.”

    Dems Are Acing the Tests, but What About the Midterms?

    Jonathan Last: “The universe keeps setting up tests for the Democrats, daring them to show they’re not a normal political party:

    • Are you going to nominate a socialist as your presidential candidate?
    • Are you going to defund the police?
    • Are you going to pack the Supreme Court?
    • Are you going to blow up the filibuster?
    • Are you going to tolerate a sexual abuser as governor of New York?

    “And every time—every single time—the Democrats have passed.”

    Forget the Presidential Race. This One is Way More Important

    “We’ve already seen how he did, how he acted, the week after impeachment. Can you imagine this man after re-election?”
    — Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor to Pres. Obama and author

    Party affiliation of the Senate of the 111th Congress

    If impeachment taught us one thing, it has to be the importance of flipping the Senate from Republican majority to Democratic majority. Had Democrats controlled the Senate during the trial, evidence would have been pursued, witnesses would have been both called and believed, and Donald Trump would have been held accountable for his naked power grabbing.

    Likewise, even if Donald Trump wins in November, with a Democratically-controlled Senate joining the Democratically-controlled House, he will get nothing done. He will be rendered the ineffectual red-faced crybaby that he is if he has no enablers to make his dreams reality.

    Not convinced that the Senate races are more important in 2020 than the presidential contest? The next president will almost certainly get to nominate two Supreme Court justices — but those people will have to be approved by the Senate. We’ve already seen who Republicans approve. Having two more justices like the first two will change life as Americans, particularly progressive Americans, know it. […]

    Buttigieg’s Previous Vote Support Eclipses Biden’s

    You know what bothers me about the Biden electability argument? Numbers.

    The last time Biden was on a ballot by himself was his 2008 Senate re-election campaign. Biden was running in Delaware, the country’s 46th state in population, against Christine O’Donnell. You remember Christine O’Donnell:

    Biden triumphed over O’Donnell with 65 percent of the vote. You could not be blamed for wondering, what with people’s witch lineage in question, why that percentage wasn’t even higher. He was an entrenched incumbent running for his sixth term and 35 percent of Delawarians voted against Biden in favor of someone who paid for an ad to tell them she wasn’t a witch but was in fact them.*

    […]

    More than Half of Democrat or Dem-Leaning Voters Have Decided on a Candidate

    54%

    “After four months of campaigning, the Democratic presidential race remains wide open, with the bulk of the electorate still uncommitted,” according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. “Asked to name the candidate they currently support, 54% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents did not volunteer anyone. That figure is little changed from 56% in January, despite a slew of candidate announcements, vigorous campaigning in the early primary and caucus states, multiple cable television town halls and interviews and constant fundraising appeals.”

    Ron Desantis is Proud to Portray Himself as an Idiot to Show His Devotion to Trump

    Don’t skip this ad just because you don’t live in Florida. But first, tie a bow around your chin so your jaw won’t get hurt when it drops to the ground.

    Florida’s choices for governor are a Republican who is owned and operated by the NRA and Big Sugar (and whose agency stopped conducting background checks for concealed carry permits because it couldn’t remember its password), a Hillary Clinton-esque moderate Democrat who is almost guaranteed to lose because of the lack of enthusiasm she inspires among voters, and…this putz.

    To paraphrase the old saying about Mexico, “Poor Florida — so far from God and so close to the United States.”