The Challenge of Biden’s 2020 Campaign: How Democratic Candidates (and Their Congressional Consultants) Can Compete on Issues of Abortion
It was easier to put the different parts of the program together on the page than in the real world. By the time of Mr. Obama’s star-making turn at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, his policy ambitions had narrowed considerably. He continued to follow key elements of the game plan. It wasn’t dopey celebration of national harmony when Mr. Obama scolded pundits for slicing America into red states and blue states. It was a strategic attempt to drain the venom out of the culture wars, allowing Democrats to win back working-class voters who had been polarized into the G.O.P. And it elected him president, twice.
An electoral strategy designed to make Democrats the party of working people, a policy agenda oriented around economic reform, and a faith in American democracy are all parts of Mr. Obama’s plan. Democrats could revive the March on Washington coalition if they mix political calculation with moral vision.
Democrats have failed to address the Americans who are struggling due to the high cost of living with many predicting a classic election rebuke of Biden’s economic management and presidency.
The Democratic candidates are leading in four of the six key states but only in Nevada and Wisconsin, which is close to Biden’s home state of Delaware. Across those states, Democrats generally are winning an unusually high percentage of voters who say they disapprove of Biden. Kelly won more voters who disapproved of Biden than Obama did, according to CNN, which is why he was able to capture so many of them. By contrast, no Republican Senate candidate in a competitive race won more than 8% of voters who disapproved of Trump during 2018, exit polls found.
John Brabender, a Republican consultant, says that voters were incensed over the Supreme Court decision to overturn abortion rights. More recently, though, he argues, “they realized they couldn’t afford to get the gas to get there.” That’s shifted the relative priority on the issue for many voters, he maintains: “Is there some intensity on abortion? Yes. It is not what it was a few weeks ago. It is putting pressure on some of the Democrats because they did not have to say that they were in favor of abortion.
The push and pull between these competing priorities have been vividly displayed over the past week during the first flurry of general election Senate debates in states like Wisconsin, North Carolina and Arizona. During last week’s televised Arizona encounter, for instance, Republican challenger Blake Masters came out of the gate very strong and kept Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly on the defensive by relentlessly linking him to Biden while the conversation initially focused on inflation and border security. But as the discussion shifted toward abortion and election integrity, Kelly clearly regained the momentum, as Masters struggled to explain his support during the GOP primary for a near total ban on abortion and his embrace of Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud in 2020.
There are not many precedents for Senate candidates from the president’s party to win races in states where his approval rating is low. In 2018, Republicans lost all 10 Senate races in states where Trump’s approval rating stood at 48% or less, according to exit polls. In the 2010 Republican sweep, Democrats lost 13 of the 15 Senate races in states where exit polls placed Barack Obama’s approval rating at 47% of less; only Harry Reid in Nevada (where Obama stood at 46%) and Joe Manchin in West Virginia (who, rather incredibly, carried a state where just 30% of voters approved of Obama’s performance) surmounted that tide. In 2006 Republican Senate candidates lost in states where exit polls put George W. Bush’s approval at 45% or less.
These results show that a lack of interest in our politics is the result of our modern political divisions. Republicans have been hurt by nominating candidates that many voters view as both unqualified and extreme in the Senate races in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.
More than half of Republicans voted for Congress because of voters who focused on inflation, as opposed to those who prioritized immigration. But Democrats attracted about three-fourths of those who emphasized abortion or health care, and over three-fifths of those focused on preserving democracy.
Democrats everywhere are stressing issues related to rights and values, as well as warning about the threat to democracy posed by Trump and his movement. CNN recently reported that Democrats have spent over 100 million dollars on abortion-themed ads since June, more than Republicans.
Building a Sea Wall against the Current of Economic Discontent: Democrat Campaigning in the era of the Biden Reionization
In the long run, the most important of these may be the argument that the incentives for domestic production embedded in the trio of central Biden legislative accomplishments – the bills to rebuild infrastructure, promote semiconductor manufacturing and accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy – will produce a boom in US employment, particularly in manufacturing jobs that don’t require a college degree.
Some Democrats are emphasizing the possibilities this year, but most plant openings are still in the future.
Democrats stress legislation the party has passed that provides relief on specific costs like the Inflation Reduction Act, which will allow Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. Democratic pollster Geoff Garin says that highlighting such specific initiatives can allow individual candidates to overcome the negative overall judgment on Biden’s economic management. His main concern is that too many Democrats are sublimating any economic message while focusing preponderantly on abortion.
Piece by piece with these arguments – the coming manufacturing boom, the cost-saving provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, the case that they are offering struggling families opportunities to better their condition – Democrats are trying to build a sea wall against the swelling currents of economic discontent. The campaign’s final weeks will show whether or not that current surpasses the defenses of the party.
Here’s the thing about elections: When they break, they usually break in one direction. All the indicators on my political dashboard are turning red, in favor of Republicans.
The Future of the United States: Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden at a defining moment for the nation
As John Halpin, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, wrote recently in his newsletter, “inflation is a political wrecking ball for incumbent governments” around the world. Why should the United States be different?
The latest New York Times/Siena poll, my colleague Nate Cohn wrote this week, suggests that “the conditions that helped Democrats gain over the summer no longer seem to be in place,” with voters’ sour view of the economy driving the downturn in the party’s prospects.
Republicans are increasingly bullish on winning big in Tuesday’s midterm elections, as they slam Democrats over raging inflation and crime while President Joe Biden seeks a late reprieve by warning that GOP election deniers could destroy democracy.
According to an exclusive interview with CNN, the next speaker of the US House of Representatives will tackle inflation, border security, and rising crime. He promised to investigate the administration’s handling of parents and school board meetings, the origins of Covid-19, and the Afghanistan withdrawal. He was not sure about an eventual push to impeach Biden.
Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden all went to the campaign trail over the weekend in a sign of the critical stakes and growing angst among Democrats.
Ex-president Donald Trump will end his campaign for president in 2020 with a rally for senate nominee J. D. vean on Monday. In his speech Sunday, Trump said that voters would bring in an incredible slate of true MAGA warriors to Congress.
Biden, who spent Saturday getting out the vote in the critical Pennsylvania Senate race with Obama, warned that the nation’s core values are in peril from Republicans who denied the truth about the US Capitol insurrection and following the brutal attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul.
It’s on the ballot. This is a defining moment for the nation. And we all must speak with one voice regardless of our party. There’s no place in America for political violence,” Biden said.
The president will end his effort to stave off a rebuke from voters at a Democratic event in Maryland. The fact that he will be in a liberal bastion and not trying to boost an endangered lawmaker in a key race on the final night reflects his compromised standing in an election that has reverted to a referendum on his tattered credibility and low approval ratings.
Democrats are trying to retain their control of the House of Representatives in places like New York, Washington and Oregon. The Republicans need five seats to win back control. A handful of swing state showdowns will decide the destiny of the Senate, currently split 50-50, including in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Republicans are also showing renewed interest in the race in New Hampshire between Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan and retired Army Brig. Democrats branding Gen. DonBolduc an election-denying Extremist was a part of his campaign.
On “State of the Union”, the chair of the Republican National Committee predicted that the party would win both the House and Senate, and criticized Biden for warnings about democracy.
But the president warned in a speech in Pittsburgh on Saturday night alongside Obama that Republican concern over the economy was a ruse and claimed that the GOP would cut Social Security and Medicare if they won majorities.
They’re all about the wealthier getting wealthy. And the wealthier staying wealthy. The middle class gets stiffed. Biden said that the poor get poorer under their policy.
The First Majority Controversies in the GOP Nominating Contest: When Ron DeSantis and Kathy Hochul stepped into action
The midterms are the first national vote since the chaos and violence triggered by Trump’s refusal to accept the result of the last presidential election and there are already fears that some Republican candidates may follow his example and try to defy the will of voters if they don’t win. Some, like Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, have already raised concerns about the integrity of the vote.
On Sunday, a staffer at the headquarters of Kari Lake, the pro-Trump nominee in the Arizona governor’s race, opened a letter with suspicious white powder. Lake’s opponent, current Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, condemned the incident as “incredibly concerning.”
Democrats were able to flip the open US Senate seat of retiring Republican Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania with the election of John Fetterman.
The first major clashes of the GOP nominating contest in 2046 broke out in Florida, with Trump and Ron DeSantis each holding rallies on Sunday. The ex-president has a new nickname for the man who could prove to be his toughest primary opponent: Ron DeSanctimonious.
But the Florida governor chose not to engage, turning his ire instead on Biden and calling his Democratic opponent, Charlie Crist, “a donkey” while taking credit for defying Washington officials and experts during the pandemic.
As he rallied for Rubio, who is seeking reelection, Trump didn’t repeat his mockery of DeSantis on Sunday but again teased the likelihood of a presidential run. In another sign the next presidential race is stirring, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who has long eyed higher office, announced he would not join the Republican primary.
Former President Bill Clinton was also called into action on Saturday, stumping for New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in Brooklyn. The Empire state should be safe territory for his party but Hochul’s closer-than-expected reelection race against Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin underscores the toughness of the national environment for Democrats.
Your life is at risk, but you know the average election rally is just a vote for me. Clinton told the young people in the audience that their lives were on the line.
CNN Exit Polls: Voter Perception of Biden’s 2022 Democratic Presidential Candidate Run in the House of Representatives
If they win back the House, the Republicans will be able to hold Biden responsible for overspending and raise the debtceiling in a series of political battles. They will be conducting hearings and investigating everything from the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the surge in migrants across the southern border to Biden’s son, Hunter.
A majority in the Republican Party would be used to damage the president by candidates in Trump’s extreme image, ahead of a potential second match with him in 2024. And a Republican Senate would frustrate Biden’s hopes of balancing out the judiciary after four years of Trump nominating conservative judges.
It remains uncertain which party will control the Senate or the House of Representatives next year, with votes still being counted and key races too early to call. The Republicans wanted a red wave in 2022, but it didn’t happen.
26% of voters call abortion their top issue since the Supreme Court gave birth to abortion rights. A large number of voters felt negatively about the decision, with almost 4 in 10 expressing anger. The Democrats had a 11 point edge over the Republicans when it came to which party voters would handle abortion issues.
Trump was on voters’ minds just as much as the incumbent. Roughly 28% of voters said they intended their vote to express opposition to him, only a few points lower than the roughly one-third who said they were expressing opposition to Biden.
In Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race, the projected Democratic winner, Josh Shapiro, picked up roughly one-quarter of commonwealth voters who disapproved of Biden. In a number of races, Democratic candidates won outright among voters who somewhat disapproved of Biden.
CNN Exit Polls are a combination of in-person interviews with Election Day voters and in-person interviews, telephone and online polls measuring the views of early and absentee by-mail voters. They were conducted by Edison Research on behalf of the National Election Pool. Read more here.
Building a Bridge Between the Parties: State of the Union of Michigan Gov. Whitmer and Pennsylvania Governor-elect Josh Shapiro
Two Democrats who won gubernatorial races in the swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania delivered similar messages to their national party on Sunday, saying their keen focus on kitchen table issues helped them secure their wins.
“I can tell you we stayed focused on the fundamentals, right, whether it’s fixing the damn roads or making sure our kids are back on track after an incredible disruption in their learning, or just simply solving problems and being honest with the people,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro told Bash in a separate interview on “State of the Union” that his campaign’s success came from connecting with voters in often forgotten areas across rural, suburban and urban parts of the commonwealth. He said he spoke to them about practical things that make their lives better.
Shaprio, Pennsylvania’s attorney general, will defeat Republican Doug Mastriano, CNN has projected, in the open-seat race to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.
Mastriano lost his race for the presidency in 2020 and is among a number of deniers of the legitimacy of that election. Dixon in Michigan has also made false claims about the 2020 election.
Whitmer’s and Shapiro’s comments underscore the different approaches taken by Democrats during the final stretch of the election, when some members of the party, particularly those in key swing states, stressed that the party’s closing message should be focused on the economy and not on global issues or more esoteric themes, like saving democracy.
“A governor can’t fix global inflation. Keeping more money in people’s pockets, protects our right to make our own decisions on our bodies, is one of the actions we can take. I suppose it was the case for a lot of Michigan voters and I think it is the case for many voters across the country.
He said they ignored the noise coming out of Washington, DC and focused on the people of Washington County, Pennsylvania, so they could help voters understand how you can build a bridge between the parties.
The mayor of NY City is a former state senator. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.
But this move must be more than symbolic. A new push must address the concerns of all people of color, working class people and people with disabilities who feel the party has misrepresented their beliefs. In short, this is a pivotal opportunity to reprioritize our party’s primary policies as well.
The Democratic National Committee has a rules and bylaws committee that voted to approve the plans to change the presidential nominating calendar. The DNC meeting in early next year is when the proposal needs to be approved.
Bringing Back the Color: The Rise and Fall of the Evangelical Right-Between Party in the Largest City in the United States
This bold move feels like faith rewarded in a party that many of us from lower-income, Black backgrounds feel has taken our communities for granted. And as the leader of the largest city in the United States, with a Black population of about 2 million people, I am thrilled that we are making this statement.
Much of the anger from working-class and lower-income Americans over the last decade is a product of these failures. Many of them left the Democratic Party because of their feelings of betrayal, and White working-class voters have decreased their support in recent years.
Pouncing on discontent among working-class people of color, Republicans have been ruthless in exploiting cultural divisions. The share of Black voters backing Republicans increased by 4 percentage points from the 2018 midterms to the 2022 midterms, according to network exit polling. Latino support for the Republicans increased by 10 points and Asian support for the Republicans increased by 17 points during the same time period.
The foundation of our base cracked in key states and congressional districts in New York, California and Florida, and much of that depressed vote was a result of lower turnout of Black and Latino voters, alongside a Republican resurgence with moderate Latinos and Asian voters.
“Get What You’ve Done”: Why Americans Don’t Want Help, Or What They Can’t (Don’t) Ask for
In my experience, they do not want help. They want what they’ve already earned. They shouldn’t be worried about crime, schools, child care or health care because they work hard. This is not some socialist dream. Those are the basics that they paid for by doing the jobs that keep our country running.
That means our platform must include radically practical approaches to complicated challenges. For instance, the federal government must get back in the business of funding affordable housing.
As the cost to build and subsidize new homes skyrockets, federal investment in housing could free millions of Americans from poverty. Similarly, a further expansion of funding for child care would reduce a major household expense while giving children a stronger start in life and freeing up mothers to work and advance in their careers.
Extra money put into the pockets of working people by measures such as the earned income tax credit and child care credits helps to secure their finances, protect them from debt, and gives them access to social services.
These are not handouts. There are prudent investments. And while we as a party have those policies in our platform, they are not our brand because they are not our main message.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/13/opinions/democrats-2024-primary-calendar-black-voters-adams/index.html
The Second Myth Buster: Working People Aren’t Working: The Case for a Better Future of Public Safety and Public Safety
That brings me to my second myth buster: Working people don’t have time for a culture war. They’re not on Twitter; they’re working. Let’s not waste time attacking this or that group. We need to acknowledge the inefficiencies they are experiencing and then show how we can fix them. Outrage is not a plan.
I haven’t been to a meeting in a lower income or working class neighborhood where residents want fewer police. The most entrepreneurial, pro-business people I know are immigrants and first-generation Americans. People in my party vote against practical public safety and give the opportunity for economic growth.
To make historically Black South Carolina our first primary state, we need to make the practical agenda of working people our primary platform.
The New Democrats, a Generation of Conservatives, and the Phenomenology of Freedom: What Do They Want to Do? How Do They Get Their Way?
That was the plan. And it succeeded. The Democrats were defeated in the war of their party by the New Democrats. They were given a lot of chances to rule. They hunted for grand bargains and triangulated. Today we live in the future to which they built their celebrated bridge, with a deregulated Wall Street, a devitalized heartland and college diplomas held up as the answer to all problems. Turning their backs on the populism they loathed, our future-minded, new-style Democrats declined to take the opportunity offered by the 2008-09 financial crisis to remake the financial system. Instead, some of them came to identify with that system.
The combination of high net worth and high moral virtue that the Democrats offer is a richly satisfying blend for some voters, a perfect summary of how they see themselves. It has meant more to the leaders of the party than anything, because it means lucrative second careers at Silicon Valley giants and presidential libraries that match those of the Republicans in soaring monumentalism. If perpetual stalemate is the price the country must pay for such things, maybe it’s a bargain.
Liberal measures like universal health care are desperately wanted by a majority of Americans. This deeply democratic nation is being rubbed the wrong way by existing liberalism’s top-down moralism.
The obvious things are obvious, but the liberals can’t figure them out. The Republicans continue to dream up new culture wars against the liberals despite the fact that they expect the right to die off.
What do liberals do? We dig in. We cheer for our side, we cheer some more, we demand that everyone else also cheer. We react to bad news with hysterical haste, refuse analysis that doesn’t start by referring to Satanism, and use the internet to scold those who don’t meet our standards. This is not strategy. It’s a community of fans.
The Democratic Coalition of Blacks and Whites: How Disproportionally Do Whites Oppose the Left? A Reply to Enos
a coalition of racial minorities (especially Blacks), and whites who are sympathetic to the inequities and challenges faced by minority groups in America. Racial identities and attitudes are the common thread that link wealthier, more educated whites with poorer minority constituencies.
was driven by racial group animus. Trump was particularly able to attract members of the white working class on the basis of racial (and other) group sentiments — with those disliking minority groups being uniquely attracted to Trump, in a continuation of the division of the working class along racial lines.
There are those who argue, however, that the contemporary Democratic coalition is more fragile than Wronski suggests. If you are a democrat, you may be concerned that the coalition is not stable, said Ryan Enos in an email.
Higher income white people don’t seem to care about the welfare of the working class or any other race, as long as they’re able to afford it. Many college educated whites are motivated by social issues that the working class of any race doesn’t usually support. It’s not clear that college educated whites are natural coalition partners because of their current ideological positions.
A Democratic strategist, Paul Begala is an explicit critic of the left wing of the party. “It is plain to me that the Democrats’ greatest challenge is the progressive left,” Begala wrote in an email:
TheProgressive Left makes up just 12 percent of the party, which is divided between Democrats and Democrat leaning independents. However, this group is the most politically engaged segment of the coalition, extremely liberal in every policy domain and, notably, 68 percent White non-Hispanic. In contrast, the three other Democratic-oriented groups are no more than about half White non-Hispanic.
This disproportionally white wing of the party, as I have previously discussed, provided crucial support for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley when they ran for Congress in 2018, putting them over the top in their first primary victories over powerful Democratic incumbents.
White liberals live in areas of affluence that are free of the economic and personal burdens of the low-income communities. They’re more motivated by race and identity issues, but not as much as liberals were in the sixties.
Parts of the Democratic coalition are talking past each other and sometimes clashing. In the case of climate change, white liberals want to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles that most low-income nonwhites cannot afford. During Covid white liberals could work from home, have food delivered to them by non white workers who left the packages at their doorstep, or suffer higher rates of illness since nonwhite workers often went to work.
When all said and done, “White liberals are still a better deal for nonwhites than the Republican Party,” Cain contended, “but it is revealing that the African Americans in South Carolina preferred Biden to Sanders or Warren.”
“Jobs are coming back, pride is coming back, because choices we made in the last two years,” Mr. Biden said on Tuesday. “This is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America and make a real difference in your lives.”
How Democratic Sen. Biden Addressed the Problems of Healthcare and Other Demographic Issues in the House of Representatives of the House Intelligence Committee
He highlighted his efforts to lower the cost of diabetes care and called outjunk fees, which he said were common to most consumers. He identified excessive bank overdraft charges, credit card late fees, hotel resort fees, change-of-service fees, and airline surcharges.
“Junk fees may not matter to the very wealthy, but they matter to most folks in homes like the one I grew up in,” Mr. Biden said. “They add up to hundreds of dollars a month.”
How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. Times staffers are not allowed toendorse, or campaign for, candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.
Other Democrats are taking a similar approach. On his first day in office, Pennsylvania’s new Democratic governor signed an order eliminating four years of college for thousands of state jobs.