2022 Congressional & State Elections

[LFC]

The Democrats are doing a sane review of why their 2020 polling was off. The trick is to figure out how to adjust without listening to any number of pundits or consultants who would whipsaw them around every election cycle. Here are the first two suggestions (without the details in the article).

1. TV ad spending isn’t working well — go digital instead.

2. People are voting earlier. Fundraising and advertising timelines need to reflect that.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 13, 2021 21:51:28 GMT LFC said:

The Democrats are doing a sane review of why their 2020 polling was off. The trick is to figure out how to adjust without listening to any number of pundits or consultants who would whipsaw them around every election cycle. Here are the first two suggestions (without the details in the article).

1. TV ad spending isn’t working well — go digital instead.

2. People are voting earlier. Fundraising and advertising timelines need to reflect that.

Number 5 on that list is about polling 

Even while the pollsters plumbed the depths of potential factors in the polling misses, they were quick to warn of the dangers of overcorrecting. The polling misses were most pronounced in 2016 and 2020 — when Trump was on the ballot.

“We have to realize polling error has been far more pronounced in presidential elections, especially those with Donald Trump on the ballot, so we should be careful not to overcorrect for an error that may be geared to one man who will, hopefully, never be on the ballot again,” the analysis said.

It's not just polling.  I think Trump's presence on the ballot affected turnout and other voter behavior.  I'd love to know how many ballots cast only addressed the presidential race and nothing else on the ballot.  I strongly suspect those voters will never vote again.  What impact did his presence have on Congressional and US Senate races?  I saw ads at that level that came down to "I'm with Trump."  How many candidates running that kind of ad won in close races?  So many questions need answers but I fear some of the answers are "time will tell."

[LFC]

Josh Marshall (paywalled) discusses polling, the upcoming mid-term election, and the stark possibility (probability?) that we live in a post-policy America where things that a politician actually accomplishes means very little to the voters.

There’s a sizable batch of new polling out which shows that President Biden’s infrastructure plan is popular with a broad cross-section of the public. The popularity isn’t quite as overwhelming as it was for the American Rescue Plan. But by almost every standard in a polarized age the numbers are still overwhelming. A new poll sponsored by the Times shows 64% support. Democrats almost unanimously support it (97%). 72% of Independents support it. And even 29% of Republicans support it. The support is spread broadly across demographic groups and the individual components of the plan poll well too.

According to the Times, Republicans plan to focus their opposition on raising the corporate tax rate, a move that would reverse a central part of the 2017 Trump tax cuts. But polling from Quinnipiac and (to some extent) Morning Consult suggests an infrastructure bill becomes more popular, not less, if it is funded through corporate tax hikes as opposed to borrowing alone.

This is all good news for Biden’s bill. But it also highlights one of the central oddities of the political moment. I believe I’m on firm ground when I say that most political observers believe Democrats will lose control of Congress next year. That creates so much of the urgency of the political moment. I don’t mean a certainty but more likely than not. I’m less pessimistic than most. But at least for the House that’s my assumption too.

There’s redistricting which is expected to be a windfall for Republicans. Incumbent Presidents seldom do well in midterm elections, a big problem when the margins in both chambers are so close. And yet here we have a President who is reasonably popular. He is pushing bills which range between very popular and overwhelmingly popular. And the opposition party is 100% unified in total opposition.

Something here doesn’t fit.

Either our assumptions are wrong or there’s some part of the apparatus of government that isn’t working. A party operating significantly out of step with public opinion should pay a price at the polls. But our assumption is that that party will be rewarded at the polls. This diagnosis isn’t new and it’s central to much Democratic thinking and reform proposals: the substantial built in advantages which American electoral machinery grants to the current version of the GOP. Small states have more power. Rural areas are advantaged versus cities. ‘Excess’ Democratic votes are wasted in cities while Republicans win consistent if not overwhelming numbers in exurban regions. Each feature compounds on the others and is magnified by partisan redistricting.

But is that it entirely?

Another possibility is that voters won’t vote on the legislative political issues we see as central. Perhaps Biden can be popular and his legislation can be popular. But voters will say thank you very much for the great bill but vote on their polarized political identities regardless.

I don’t know the answers to these questions, though as I noted I’m not as sure we know what the 2022 will look like as many seem to be. But all of this does make for a persistent oddity to the politics of the moment. The fly wheels connecting public opinion to electoral outcomes seem broken. The President is pushing massive spending bills which were deemed anathema for decades and yet is garnering widespread public support. Finally, Republicans continue their lockstep support for President Trump even as he seems to drift further and further from the political scene. Together these disconnects and surprises create an uncanny and unsteady political moment. Political gravity doesn’t seem to function. The political equation on so many fronts doesn’t add up. And the reason is that some basic assumptions we have about the political moment and the coming years are simply wrong.

[LFC]

Utter nutters Josh Hawley and Marjorie Taylor Greene bragged about their big campaign hauls. Turns out they're just fleecing the same old flock and doing it with a fundraising company known to pocket the lion's share of the cash. I wish I could find a shred of empathy for these people who are being sheared but I really can't.

Two of the leading Republican firebrands in Congress touted big fundraising hauls as a show of grassroots support for their high-profile stands against accepting the 2020 election results.

But new financial disclosures show that Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., relied on an email marketing vendor that takes as much as 80 cents on the dollar. That means their headline-grabbing numbers were more the product of expensively soliciting hardcore Republicans than an organic groundswell of far-reaching support.

Hawley and Greene each reported raising more than $3 million in the first three months of the year, an unusually large sum for freshman lawmakers, according to new filings with the Federal Election Commission. That’s more than the average House member raises in an entire two-year cycle, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. The tallies generated favorable press coverage for Hawley and Greene, and they both seized on the numbers to claim a popular mandate.

It wasn’t until later, when the campaigns disclosed their spending details in last week’s FEC reports, that it became clearer how they raised so much money: by paying to borrow another organization’s mailing list.

“List rental” was the No. 1 expense for both campaigns, totaling almost $600,000 for each of them. It’s common for campaigns to rent lists from outside groups or other candidates to broaden their reach. But for Hawley and Greene, the cost was unusually high, amounting to almost 20% of all the money they raised in January, February and March.

The actual return on renting the lists was likely even lower, since it’s probable that not all their donations came from emailing those lists. It’s not possible to tell from the FEC filings which contributions resulted from which solicitations. Firms that sell lists sometimes demand huge cuts: The top vendor for Hawley and Greene, LGM Consulting Group, charges as much as 80%, according to a contract disclosed in Florida court records as part of a dispute involving Lacy Johnson’s long-shot bid to unseat Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.

The Hawley and Greene campaigns did not respond to requests for comment. LGM Consulting Group’s principal, Bryan G. Rudnick, also did not respond to phone messages or an email.

Coincidentally as I'm typing this the song "Cult of Personality" by Living Colour is playing on my shuffle. I mention this because I literally just heard them sing these lyrics:

    I exploit you.

    Still you love me.

    I tell you one and one makes 3!

    I'm the cult of personality.

[pnwguy]

Stockholm Syndrome?

I'll bet the MyPillow guy would love to rent those email lists. Actually anyone who sells para-military gear, survival food, home-schooling material, etc. It's a ripe base of people to exploit.

[LFC]

The ultimate entitled Ken (male version of a Karen) who, along with his wife, showed the nation why people with training shouldn't be allowed to own firearms now says he wants to run for a Senate seat. It's beyond parody. Of course he'll be running as a Republican. He's totally qualified for the GOP.

Imagine having the confidence to believe that waggling a gun at some Black Lives Matters protesters makes you qualified to create laws. Mark McCloskey, the St. Louis attorney who became an object of both ridicule and hero-worship for brandishing an assault rifle at demonstrators last summer, has told Politico that he has ambitions for elected office. Asked in an interview if he was mulling a run for Missouri’s open Senate seat, McCloskey replied: “I can confirm that it’s a consideration, yes.” McCloskey and his wife, Patricia, waved guns at protesters who were making their way past the McCloskey mansion in June of last year, and they were later indicted on charges of unlawful use of a weapon and evidence tampering. Former President Donald Trump voiced his support for them during an interview last year, saying without evidence that the protesters might have burned down the mansion if the couple hadn’t brandished their guns.

I'm afraid I have to differ with the TDB journalist who wrote this piece. It's been well over a decade since being able to write, or even understand, laws was a qualification for a GOP Congressional seat.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 21, 2021 14:47:42 GMT pnwguy said:

Stockholm Syndrome?

I'll bet the MyPillow guy would love to rent those email lists. Actually anyone who sells para-military gear, survival food, home-schooling material, etc. It's a ripe base of people to exploit.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the consultants that raised money for Hawley and MTG rented those lists.  

If anyone ever wonders where all that money raised and spent in campaigns goes, just read that TPM article LFC quoted above.  It doesn't go to tv ads or walking around money so much as it goes to these unknown companies that fundraise, consult, poll, create fundraising and campaign social media campaigns, PR people...it's quite an expensive way to elect people to office.  

[pnwguy]

Apr 21, 2021 20:33:31 GMT LFC said:

I'm afraid I have to differ with the TDB journalist who wrote this piece. It's been well over a decade since being able to write, or even understand, laws was a qualification for a GOP Congressional seat.

Seems like that's also an optional skill for some of their judicial appointments, and of course for President.

[LFC]

Trump seems to be all in on taking out Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona over not stealing the election for him. His obsession over these two states makes me more convinced that the plan all along was for Georgia and Arizona to steal those states' elections. Then Congressional Republicans would vote in goose step to create a crisis and try to steal PA in the chaos. That could conceivably have given Trump the "win" if he went full on fascist and tried to declare martial law. Without GA and AZ it fell apart. (I'm not saying it was a good plan, just that it was quite possibly Trump's and multiple Republicans' plan because they are both fascist and insane.)

It’s April 2021, and Donald Trump still can’t get past his grudge with Republican Gov. Doug Ducey for refusing to overturn the 2020 election results in Arizona.

The ex-president is still so bothered by Ducey’s refusal to try to throw out Democratic votes in Arizona that he’s told associates he would gladly and personally spoil any of Ducey’s future political plans.

In recent weeks, the twice-impeached former president has gone so far as to tell some close associates that if Ducey decided to run for Senate and managed to lock up the Republican nomination in 2022, he would consider traveling to Arizona to campaign for Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, according to two people familiar with the ex-president’s private rantings.

Neither of the sources believed the former president was being entirely serious, in the sense that Trump and his current political operation aren’t going to be “caught dead campaigning to keep the Senate more Democrat[ic],” as one of them said. But his offhand remarks drove home the point of how much Trump wishes to see the Arizona governor run out of the Republican Party.

[LFC]

House seat reallocation due to the census is going to make it even harder for Democrats to retain a majority.

Texas is the big winner in this decade’s reapportionment process, as it will gain two congressional seats from the results of the 2020 census.

Six other states — mainly in the south and west — will gain House seats, while seven states will lose congressional representation.

The shift of seven seats among 13 states was much smaller than what some prognosticators were anticipating. The survey counted 331,449,281 people living in the United States on April 1, 2020 — a growth of 7.4 percent in the last decade. That was the second slowest growth rate in U.S. history.

The state-by-state population totals in the 2020 census, and what they mean for how many House seats each state gets, were announced Monday by the Census Bureau, which cleared a major landmark in a decennial count that faced unprecedented challenges

The gains for states in the south and west come at cost to other parts of the country, where the population growth has slowed.

The states that will gain one congressional seat each are Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon.

California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia each lost a seat.

[jackd]

Texas, however, is getting more blue so this may not be the big advantage to Republicans that some think.

[andydp]

Apr 27, 2021 16:08:34 GMT jackd said:

Texas, however, is getting more blue so this may not be the big advantage to Republicans that some think.

My feelings exactly.  All those librul, commine pinkos moving south will have an effect even in Texas.

[Deleted]

Apr 27, 2021 16:08:34 GMT jackd said:

Texas, however, is getting more blue so this may not be the big advantage to Republicans that some think.

Not if the Republicans can help it. Supremes have said political gerrymandering is a function of a functioning democracy. Have at it.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 27, 2021 16:15:07 GMT @probabilistic3 said:

Apr 27, 2021 16:08:34 GMT jackd said:

Texas, however, is getting more blue so this may not be the big advantage to Republicans that some think.

Not if the Republicans can help it. Supremes have said political gerrymandering is a function of a functioning democracy. Have at it.

Sadly they did say that.  Texas is quite capable of gerrymandering just as they have been at challenging voter rights and passing legislation to make it more difficult to register and to vote.  They've been proving it.

As to people moving in to Texas, we'll see.  Those from California are mostly fleeing high housing costs.  Let's see if they think cheaper housing (but not cheaper property tax) is worth voting red for.  

[Bact PhD]

Apr 27, 2021 16:21:42 GMT goldenvalley said:

As to people moving in to Texas, we'll see.  Those from California are mostly fleeing high housing costs.  Let's see if they think cheaper housing (but not cheaper property tax) is worth voting red for.  

However, the Cali expats also lost a state income tax when they relocated to TX (but I will admit to being uncertain about any differences in sales taxes), so the overall tax burden may well be substantially lower.

[LFC]

Apr 27, 2021 17:27:33 GMT Bact PhD said:

However, the Cali expats also lost a state income tax when they relocated to TX (but I will admit to being uncertain about any differences in sales taxes), so the overall tax burden may well be substantially lower.

The tax burden is lower but for two main reasons. First, much of Texass is grindingly poor and they're not about to put money into helping "those people." Second, they are heavily dependent upon fossil fuel revenue for taxes. As the adoption of green energy continues that particular extractive pillar of their economy is going to crumble badly. Sure they might be able to generate green electricity and sell it (if they can get attached to the real grid rather than their own shaky, podunk one) but that's a lot less money than is being generated by drilling, extraction, pipelining, and refinement.

[AnBr]

Also as you privatize more, the more you have to pay for services that you once paid for by taxes.

[andydp]

Apr 28, 2021 11:44:13 GMT AnBr said:

Also as you privatize more, the more you have to pay for services that you once paid for by taxes.

The sad part of that equation is the taxes aren't reduced.  

Our town has private trash hawlers.  Until about two years ago, there was only one.  Then an "upstart" came along with substantially lower rates (Close to 50%). All of a sudden, the original hawler was able to discount their fees.  Amazing what a little competition can do.  For the record: we get our transfer station permits for about $ 25 year (Senior discounts) and go to the transfer station about 1x a week.  BIG savings and not that big a deal.  We usually tie it in with other trips.

Many of our friends are abandoning NJ for Florida citing the lower taxes.  I have told them not to expect much in return for their "savings".  

[LFC]

Figuring out cost of living using the actual maths rather than "OOG! Taxes LOW!" is an activity well beyond most Americans.

[Bact PhD]

Apr 28, 2021 11:58:57 GMT andydp said:

Many of our friends are abandoning NJ for Florida citing the lower taxes.  I have told them not to expect much in return for their "savings".  

Unless your friends are bringing along their school-age children, the lack of return may not be all that noticeable. Our public schools regularly fall in the lower quartile. Where they may notice the difference in "you really do get what you play for" is in things like parks (fairly sparse in urban & suburban areas) and roads -- in the urban areas the road capacity is about 20 YEARS behind the population needs. Even in this fairly forward-thinking county, the roads are in AWFUL shape, and the traffic backups are pretty routine from 6 AM to 8 PM.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 28, 2021 15:13:32 GMT Bact PhD said:

Apr 28, 2021 11:58:57 GMT andydp said:

Many of our friends are abandoning NJ for Florida citing the lower taxes.  I have told them not to expect much in return for their "savings".  

Unless your friends are bringing along their school-age children, the lack of return may not be all that noticeable. Our public schools regularly fall in the lower quartile. Where they may notice the difference in "you really do get what you play for" is in things like parks (fairly sparse in urban & suburban areas) and roads -- in the urban areas the road capacity is about 20 YEARS behind the population needs. Even in this fairly forward-thinking county, the roads are in AWFUL shape, and the traffic backups are pretty routine from 6 AM to 8 PM.

People have become so accustomed to the traffic that they don't complain anymore around my part of the world. We had a nice pause in traffic last spring but everything traffic seems back to normal now even with so many people working from home.  Where are all these people going? 

[andydp]

Apr 28, 2021 15:13:32 GMT Bact PhD said:

Apr 28, 2021 11:58:57 GMT andydp said:

Many of our friends are abandoning NJ for Florida citing the lower taxes.  I have told them not to expect much in return for their "savings".  

Unless your friends are bringing along their school-age children, the lack of return may not be all that noticeable. Our public schools regularly fall in the lower quartile. Where they may notice the difference in "you really do get what you play for" is in things like parks (fairly sparse in urban & suburban areas) and roads -- in the urban areas the road capacity is about 20 YEARS behind the population needs. Even in this fairly forward-thinking county, the roads are in AWFUL shape, and the traffic backups are pretty routine from 6 AM to 8 PM.

My daugher lives in Colorado, she tells me the same thing: NY residents have grown accustomed to a level of service most other states do not provide.  

[LFC]

Kansas Kris Kobach is taking another swing at getting elected office ... ANY office. I guess this is what we see when somebody is so utterly incompetent that they can't cut it in the real world.

Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who became infamous for his aggressive anti-immigration and voter suppression efforts, is reportedly planning to make yet another bid for office after his gubernatorial and Senate campaigns flopped.

The Kansas City Star reports that Kobach has submitted a campaign filing for attorney general. He is also expected to make a “special announcement” on Thursday afternoon.

Laura Tawater, the person reportedly listed as Kobach’s campaign treasurer in the paperwork, went to ex-president Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6 that led to the Capitol insurrection.

The campaign is Kobach’s third attempt at a comeback after he was defeated in the Kansas GOP primary for Senate in 2020, which came after the former secretary of state lost to Democrat Laura Kelly in the gubernatorial race in 2018.

Kobach’s bid for attorney general also strike a note of irony given how he’d successfully pushed for a law that allowed secretaries of state to bypass the authority of the attorney general to independently open the kind of bogus voter fraud investigations that Kobach pursued relentlessly while in office.

The obvious should be noted: Kobach pursued several of these "investigations" and was successful in finding voter fraud in none of them.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 29, 2021 20:06:04 GMT LFC said:

Kansas Kris Kobach is taking another swing at getting elected office ... ANY office. I guess this is what we see when somebody is so utterly incompetent that they can't cut it in the real world.

Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who became infamous for his aggressive anti-immigration and voter suppression efforts, is reportedly planning to make yet another bid for office after his gubernatorial and Senate campaigns flopped.

The Kansas City Star reports that Kobach has submitted a campaign filing for attorney general. He is also expected to make a “special announcement” on Thursday afternoon.

Laura Tawater, the person reportedly listed as Kobach’s campaign treasurer in the paperwork, went to ex-president Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6 that led to the Capitol insurrection.

The campaign is Kobach’s third attempt at a comeback after he was defeated in the Kansas GOP primary for Senate in 2020, which came after the former secretary of state lost to Democrat Laura Kelly in the gubernatorial race in 2018.

Kobach’s bid for attorney general also strike a note of irony given how he’d successfully pushed for a law that allowed secretaries of state to bypass the authority of the attorney general to independently open the kind of bogus voter fraud investigations that Kobach pursued relentlessly while in office.

The obvious should be noted: Kobach pursued several of these "investigations" and was successful in finding voter fraud in none of them.

Anyone who runs against him for that office will have great material to use against him.  He got his hand slapped in litigation about the fraud he said he found several times for failing to comply with basic court rules.  Sounds like just the guy to be an attorney general protecting the state of Kansas.

[LFC]

Remember Ryan Zinke, Trump's scandal-plagued Sec of the Interior? He's planning on running for a Congressional seat. I guess being a totally corrupt shitbag is a bonus in the GOP.

Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has filed papers with the Federal Election Commission to seek a new term in Congress. He previously represented Montana’s only congressional district until leaving office to join the Trump administration — a job which he departed from in 2018, trailing a web of splashy travel-induced scandal and questionable business dealings.

The Hill first reported Zinke’s filing, which previews his plans to run after Montana was awarded a second congressional district when the 2020 Census Bureau announced the forthcoming distribution of each state’s apportionment earlier this week.

Zinke had previously represented Montana’s sole congressional district until he was tapped for the Cabinet position in former President Donald Trump’s administration.

Zinke resigned under pressure from that job in 2018 over a series of ethics investigations into his business and real estate dealings.

“After 30 years of public service, I cannot justify spending thousands of dollars defending myself and my family against false allegations,” he said at the time, denying any wrongdoing.

The former secretary had also come under scrutiny for opting to take expensive charter jets and private planes sometimes owned by oil-and-gas executives at high expense to taxpayers.