Category: Midterms

If Democrats do the impossible this November, it could drive a stake through the MAGA-GOP coalition

Posted on (Updated by Kerry Eleveld

In 2020, Democrats fantasized about defeating Donald Trump at the ballot box, retaking the White House, and finally ending the MAGA nightmare that had consumed the country for four years.

The hope was that once Trump had helped surrender both the House and the White House to Democrats, Republican Party leaders would realize that staying politically wed to him was a one-way ticket to Loserville and ditch him.

The reality was both better and worse. Trump lost the White House, then doomed Republicans in two Senate runoffs that handed full control of Congress to Democrats—but he also turned out more than 74 million voters for Republicans. Even as Democrats claimed a trifecta in Washington, Republicans whittled down Democratic control of the House by 13 seats while cementing their grip on state legislatures across the country. Republicans simply couldn't believe so many Americans had voted for them. State party officials were thrilled. And when it came time to cut Trump loose following the Jan. 6 insurrection, GOP congressional leaders demonstrated the valor of a groundhog confronting its own shadow before scampering for cover.

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Fast forward to two months out from the 2022 midterms. After being told they were doomed for the better part of a year, Democrats are now in a competitive race to keep both chambers. On Thursday, Democrats rose to +1.9 points in FiveThirtyEight's generic ballot aggregate—their biggest edge all year. Out of the 38 polls taken in September, just six found a Republican advantage—five of them were from GOP-aligned groups.

As New Democrat Network President Simon Rosenberg noted, every one of the nine polls released this week (as of Thursday) shows movement toward Democrats, including Rasmussen and Fox News.

  • +3 toward Dems: Rasmussen, Fox News
  • +2 toward Dems: NBC News
  • +1 toward Dems: New York Times, Economist, Echelon Insights, Morning Consult, Democracy Corps, Navigator Research

Nothing is assured, but Democrats managing to keep both chambers of Congress is now more plausible than the emergence of the red wave we were assured was coming for most of this year. Perhaps the most likely scenario is a split decision with Democrats keeping the Senate (even though some specific races have been tightening) but losing the House.

Such a scenario would not only entirely stall President Joe Biden's agenda, it would consume the lower chamber with a ridiculous round of wackadoodle partisan exercises, including investigations of Biden, his son Hunter, and absolutely anything else Republican extremists can dream up. The only thing worse than losing the House would be losing the Senate on top of it, forestalling any progress on Biden’s judicial and government nominees for the next two years.

However, Democrats—having finally broken from their defensive crouch after consistently overperforming in this year’s special elections—have just begun to imagine a far sunnier outcome. Just maybe they could keep both chambers, build on Biden’s judicial advances in the Senate, and continue making legislative progress on a host of issues related to economic justice, racial justice, and the safeguarding of our democracy.

Certainly those would be several critical upsides of Democrats prevailing outright in November.

But if Democrats manage to do what we were told was impossible and keep both chambers, the most profound impact could come in the form of dealing a death blow to a Republican coalition that has been overrun by Trumpism—or what Biden refers to as MAGA Republicans.

When so-called establishment Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell dislocated their spines during Trump's second impeachment trial, they gambled on the notion that they could keep Trump and his liabilities at arm's length while still benefitting from the slice of new voters he brought into the GOP fold in 2020.

Heading into this year, Republicans were so cocky about their takeover prospects that they declined to even outline an agenda for voters. When McConnell was asked in January about what Republicans planned to do with a congressional majority, he pompously replied, "That is a very good question. And I'll let you know when we take it back.”

McConnell's stunning lack of leadership since Jan. 6 has come back to bite him in the ass, leading to underlings with bloated egos filling the vacuum. Not only did Senate GOP campaign chief Rick Scott promise a Republican majority would raise taxes on 100 million working Americans and sunset Medicare/Social Security, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina unveiled a national 15-week abortion ban last week that he pledged would get a vote in a GOP-led Senate.

Asked on Fox News Thursday about the heat he has taken from fellow Republicans for giving away the game, Graham responded, “We owe it to the American people to tell them who we are, and here’s who we are as a national party.” Sorry, Mitch.

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy plans to finally unveil a four-point plan Friday (it's never too late!), which will reportedly echo Scott's themes of slashing Social Security and Medicare, among other things. McConnell has insisted that Republicans will neither raise taxes nor sunset Medicare and Social Security. He has also promised they would never find the 60 votes necessary to pass a national abortion ban. That from the same man who nuked the filibuster on Supreme Court nominations so that he could steal three seats for Republicans under an entirely new regime.

In any case, Republicans in Washington are currently finishing out the final stretch of the campaign season in sloppier, more chaotic form than any party in recent memory. It is the epitome of disarray, mainly because GOP leaders quit leading, gifted their party to Trump, and he has gleefully tied them in knots.

Still, if Democrats manage to keep both chambers, even by the slimmest of margins, that victory would be an epically embarrassing defeat for a party that spent that last nine months fantasizing about the size of the red wave getting ready to wash over the country. In fact, coming up dry could potentially obliterate the coalition establishment Republicans embraced after Jan. 6 when they thought they could have their cake and eat it too.

If establishment Republicans are ever going sever ties with Trump's MAGA base, it will have to be on the heels of a defeat so stunning and agonizing that it leaves them no choice but to embark on the process of rebuilding their party. Losing the House, the Senate, the White House, and a slam-dunk midterm in three consecutive cycles to a pro-democracy coalition of Democrats, independents, and even some Republicans could quite possibly fracture the GOP base, finally severing Republican ties to the anti-democratic MAGA insurgency.

So when you think about the potential upsides of voting this November and getting every single one of your friends, neighbors, and family members to vote, don't just think about Democrats retaining congressional majorities. Instead, imagine crushing the MAGA extremists who seek to end America as we know it.

Let’s crush it in the Senate. Smash and donate! 

Let’s crush it everywhere. Smash and donate!

Since Dobbs, women have registered to vote in unprecedented numbers across the country, and the first person to dig into these stunning trends was TargetSmart CEO Tom Bonier, who's our guest on this week's episode of The Downballot. Bonier explains how his firm gathers data on the electorate; why this surge is likely a leading indicator showing stepped-up enthusiasm among many groups of voters, including women, young people, and people of color; how we know these new registrants disproportionately lean toward Democrats; and what it all might mean for November.

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Incumbents Are Getting Wiped Out In Primaries At Historic Levels

Posted on by Becky Noble

Something incredible is happening so far in the 2022 Congressional races.

So far this year, 2022 has seen the second-highest number of incumbent House members losing their primaries since 1948. Only 1992, the eve of the Republican Revolution of 1994, saw more incumbents get dumped in primaries.

While this may not seem surprising given disastrous polls for President Biden and a supermajority of Americans disapproving of the direction of the country, many other election years have seen similar dissatisfaction without a large scale dumping of incumbents. 

Keep in mind: according to a Pew Research report, in 2020, the reelection rate for House members was nearly a whopping 95%.

RELATED: FBI Agent Accused By Whistleblowers Of Shielding Hunter Biden Resigns, Escorted From Building: Report

Trump Influence

One reason behind the shift is none other than President Donald Trump, who has laid waste to incumbent Republicans who voted to impeach him.

The most shocking example happened in Wyoming. Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, was completely blown out of the water by Trump-backed challenger Harriet Hageman. 

Despite being political royalty in the state, Cheney was trounced by over 30 points. 

Trump-backed challenger John Gibbs defeated Rep. Peter Meijer, who was first elected just two years ago. 

In Washington, America First candidate Joe Kent defeated Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler. And so it goes.

Of the ten House members who voted to impeach Donald Trump, only two remain in the running for their respective districts. Four are retired or not running for reelection, and four lost their primaries.

But the same thing is happening on the left, with a struggle for power between liberals and the far-left.

RELATED: Washington D.C. Delays Enforcement Of Student Vaccine Mandate After Mass Noncompliance

Trouble For All

With roughly two months to go before the election, Republicans have some work to do.

With predictions of a red November as basically a done deal for Republicans, the recent win in a special election in New York’s 19th Congressional District by Democrat Pat Ryan over Republican Dan Molinaro should be a wake up call for the GOP.

Ryan had been behind by double digits in a few polls in the lead up to the election. But the poll on election night was the one that counted, and Democrats won.

The problem for Democrats, trying to distance themselves from Joe Biden and his record.

Several Democrat campaign ads have the candidate touting their breaking away from Biden and the Democrat Party on issues like taxes and defunding the police.

But as Biden and other White House officials hit the campaign trail to explain their legislative victories, candidates in tight races might just be stuck with Joe Biden tagging along for the ride.

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The post Incumbents Are Getting Wiped Out In Primaries At Historic Levels appeared first on The Political Insider.

Take heart: Democrats will beat expectations this November

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Remember when there was no way Democrats could win two Senate seats in Georgia to take control of the upper chamber? Remember when Ukrainian forces were going to crumble under Russia's elite military onslaught in a matter of days?

Things don't always go the way Washington analysts project they will, and it's going to take some time to talk ourselves down from the steady red-wave drumbeat we’ve endured for the last six months. But let's take a stab at it, shall we?

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Democrats—voters and lawmakers—have at least a handful of reasons (if not more) for some guarded optimism as we barrel toward November.

1) As halting as the White House response to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade has been, President Joe Biden has started to step up. His support for a Senate filibuster carve out on abortion along with his pledge to immediately sign a bill codifying Roe into federal law once it hits his desk are the makings of an electoral rallying cry.

"We need two additional pro-choice senators and a pro-choice House to codify Roe as federal law. Your vote can make that a reality," Biden said Friday at the White House as he vehemently denounced the Supreme Court ruling.

“We cannot allow an out-of-control Supreme Court, working in conjunction with extremist elements of the Republican Party, to take away freedoms and our personal autonomy,” he said.

The president also framed the high court as a political entity acting outside of its rightful legal domain, teeing up the possibility that he could at some point take on court reform as an issue.

"What we’re witnessing wasn’t a constitutional judgment. It was an exercise in raw political power," Biden charged.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Biden gave a great speech on Friday, channeling activists' rage, pledging to codify Roe, promising to veto any GOP-passed federal abortion ban, encouraging Americans to register their rage at the polls this fall, and being specific about needing at least two more pro-choice senators and a pro-choice House in order to pass federal abortion protections.

Biden hasn't delivered everything abortion activists want, but that's certainly enough to work for a midterm message.

2) House Democrats have keyed in on the only viable path for them to blunt losses this fall and just maybe salvage their majority: boldly attacking extremist GOP candidates.

Retiring Rep. John Yarmuth of Kentucky summed up the strategy best: “If we win, it’s because we scared the crap out of people about the maniacs who will be in charge.”

Democrats aggressively pounding extremist Republicans who are pushing a national abortion ban, clinging to 2020 election fraud conspiracy theories, and backing Jan. 6 rioters as patriotic protesters exercising First Amendment rights are the best plays Democrats have. They’re both base motivators and appeals to the few sane Republicans and swingy abortion supporters who still exist.

Political strategists vary between predicting the midterms will either primarily be driven by economic dissatisfaction or anger over the Supreme Court's gutting of abortion protections and other privacy rights down the road.

But in a telephone briefing last week, Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg predicted November would mainly be another matchup between the MAGA movement and the anti-MAGA majority that has carried the day in the last two elections.

Running toward Donald Trump after his 2020 loss and failed January coup attempt "was always an enormous political risk," Rosenberg said of the GOP, adding that Republicans haven't done anything in the interim to sway swing voters.

3) The generic ballot has moved several points in the direction of Democrats since the Supreme Court overturned Roe.

CNN's Harry Enten has counted eight different polls in which Democrats gained ground in a generic matchup since the Dobbs ruling.

"The average shift was about 3 points in Democrats’ favor," Enten writes. "This 3-point change may not seem like a lot, and it could reverse itself as we get further away from the ruling. Still, it puts Democrats in their best position on the generic ballot in the last six months."

4) Trump falling, DeSantis rising—that about sums up a dynamic that could increasingly begin to take center stage amid jockeying for position in the 2024 GOP presidential contest. While Trump is arguably still the most popular person within the Republican Party, even his voters have begun to sour on the idea of him making another run for the GOP nomination. And as Trump’s star begins to fall, DeSantis is increasingly gaining steam.

Democrats can only hope Trump does something impulsive, like make a surprise candidacy announcement before November as he feels the Jan. 6 panel (and maybe even the Justice Department) increasingly breathing down his neck. He would lose a ton of fundraising flexibility by announcing early, but hey, once you’ve orchestrated a coup to overthrow your own government, all bets are off.

But even if he doesn't, Trump is wounded—perhaps not fatally, but wounded nonetheless. Republicans and even the MAGA faithful are beginning to debate and sometimes doubt whether he should run again in 2024. That tinge of uncertainty could lead to fissures ahead of a midterm where Republicans had hoped their base would be singularly focused on inflation and rage against President Biden.

5) The Jan. 6 hearings are the best political thriller going. Forget House of Cards—that was kid stuff compared to this coup-dunit mystery unfolding in real time on screens across the country. Did the president of the United States really intend to get his vice president killed? Did he plan to personally do it himself, or did he just envision ordering his troop of ragtag domestic terrorists to hang Pence from the gallows? Who's going to tell us, who's talking, who isn't, and who's going to end up in jail?  

Every hearing seems to get more riveting and exponentially worse for Trump, his demented braintrust, and the GOP lawmakers who helped plot the attempted overthrow of the republic. Several headlines last month suggested not many people were watching the hearings in real time, but that’s not the measure of whether the hearings are breaking through. The progressive consortium Navigator Research released a poll Monday showing that 64% of Americans report having seen, read, or heard about the hearings (28% heard “a lot” while 36% reported hearing “some”)—perfectly consistent with the 63% who said they had heard some or a lot about last month's hearings. So interest hasn’t trailed off one bit.

So regardless of whether Trump announces a presidential bid before November, the Jan. 6 hearings are reminding all the people who voted against him in 2020 (more than 81 million Americans) exactly why they voted him out of office. And for Trumpers, the hearings are just making him look weak, out of control, and powerless. Unlike both of his impeachment proceedings, Trump doesn't have an entourage of talking heads defending him because the usual suspects are either ducking subpoenas or dodging cameras. So Trump's out there just dangling with an occasional statement on his spectacularly flailing Truth(er) Social, but that's about it.

Again, this isn't what Republicans were hoping for several months out from Election Day—a series of ongoing public hearings that they are powerless to stop and have no earthly idea of what will be uncovered.

All of these factors along with the GOP's field of D-list candidates should give Democrats fuel to fight another day. Just like every other election since 2016, this year's midterms will likely yield unprecedented results to match the unprecedented times in which we live.

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Republicans aren’t worried about the midterms … as long as no one says the word ‘abortion’

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Veteran Republican strategist Mike Madrid gets points for being honest about the current political landscape after the GOP’s radical Supreme Court majority upended 50 years of settled law on abortion rights.

“With inflation as high as it is, for the first time I think it’s a jump ball. The Democrats are now back in it,” Madrid told NBC News.

The high court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade was, Madrid said, "a massive gift to the Democrats and one they could not have conjured up for themselves."

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True enough—congressional Democrats couldn’t have dreamed up anything more enraging than conservatives taking a hatchet to the fundamental rights of some 50% of the country. Still, Republicans have only themselves to thank for putting Congress in play amid such a thorny political cycle for Democrats. They could have neutered Donald Trump's political future during his second impeachment following the deadly Jan. 6 coup attempt. But instead Republicans made Trump the epicenter of their party for at least another cycle or more. If Republicans had shown the fortitude to vanquish Trump, their entire slate of candidates would look entirely different heading into November. Imagine, for example, if word-challenged former football star and alleged wife abuser Herschel Walker weren’t the GOP's best shot at scoring a pickup in the Senate.

Republicans had hoped a uniquely unified party would head to the polls in November to register their disgust with soaring inflation and President Joe Biden's leadership after an election many Republican voters baselessly believe Trump won.

Instead, the abortion ruling upended the cycle by firing up Democrats and independent women, while the Jan. 6 probe has left a weakened Trump leading a party that is starting to fray at the edges. By November, GOP voters might already be duking it out over whether to stick with Trump in 2024 or toss him for a fresher face like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

But Republicans are either still in denial about their shifting fortunes or they're lying through their teeth. NBC reports that on one hand, most GOP officials in Washington dismiss the fallout from the Dobbs ruling. At the same time, however, they are advising GOP candidates to steer clear of talking about abortion.

In other words, we're not worried … but whatever you do, don’t utter the word “abortion.”

Even politicians like former Maine Gov. Paul LePage, who revels in controversy and hopes to recapture the governor's mansion this fall, said, "I don't have time for abortion" when questioned about it last week.

That type of dodge is a far cry from May just after the decision first leaked, when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was assuring everyone the final decision would be a "wash" in federal races even if it might impact state contests.  

At the time, endangered GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin pooh-poohed the notion that overturning Roe would even register in the Badger State.

“It might be a little messy for some people, but abortion is not going away,” Johnson said, adding that Wisconsinites could still drive across state lines to Illinois for reproductive care. “I just don’t think this is going to be the big political issue everybody thinks it is, because it’s not going to be that big a change.”  

Easy for the white male conspiracy-pusher with the cushy job to say. But last month, Johnson got a little taste of reality when the Marquette Law School poll found him trailing three of his potential Democratic challengers.

DeSantis is taking a more circumspect approach, settling for the moment for a 15-week ban on abortion as he seeks reelection.

“The strategy is obvious,” one GOP operative told NBC. “Do it after the gubernatorial so as to not piss off suburban women, then screw them over after the election in order to appease fire-breathing pro-lifers in a presidential primary.”

In other words, the guy who took on Disney for political sport doesn’t want to get anywhere near abortion until he has secured another four years.

Highlights from The Downballot: Ben Wikler on how Democrats can win big in Wisconsin

Posted on by Dorothy He

This week on The Downballot, hosts David Nir and David Beard recapped recent elections, including a special election for a congressional seat in Texas and primaries in South Carolina that saw one pro-impeachment Republican go down in defeat. The pair also discussed an unusual Saturday special election in Alaska for the seat that had been held for decades by the late Republican Rep. Don Young.

Nir and Beard welcomed the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Ben Wikler, as this week’s guest. Wikler shared more about what a state party like his does and the key races they're focusing on this November.

You can listen below or subscribe to The Downballot wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also find a transcript for this week right here. New episodes come out every Thursday!

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Beard kicked off the program with the top headlines from Tuesday night.

Texas held a special election to fill the remaining term for Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela, who resigned earlier this year to take a job with a lobbying firm. Conservative activist Mayra Flores flipped this Rio Grande Valley-based district to the GOP, winning about 51% of the vote. There were four candidates on the ballot, but just one major Republican and one major Democrat. Flores won 51% of the vote, and the major Democratic candidate, former Cameron County commissioner Dan Sanchez won about 43% of the vote.

Beard noted that there wasn't a ton of investment in trying to hold this seat on the Democratic side and that Republicans noticed an opportunity and spent heavily on the race:

Republicans spent over a million dollars on this race. They really invested. Democrats only began airing TV ads in the final week. They didn't spend very much money. This district is changing a significant amount. Biden won the current district, which is still from the 2010 redistricting cycle, by a 52-48 margin, but Biden wins the new district that will go into effect this November by a 57-42 margin, so it's getting noticeably more Democratic.

“That being said, that's definitely a shift in the margin from 52-48 Biden to—if you combine the Democrats and the Republicans—about 53% voted Republican and 47% voted Democrat, so that's a noticeable shift. It's certainly in line with a more Republican-leaning year, which is what we've been seeing with the polling and with other information that's been coming in,” Beard added. “The other factor here that's certainly worth noting is that it was very, very low turnout, so that can also be a factor in why there was somewhat of a shift. So you don't want to take this and just say, ‘Oh, we saw this shift. It'll translate all the way to November in every way,’ but it's certainly a signal worth acknowledging that it is certainly a sign of a Republican-leaning environment right now.”

The hosts then recapped primaries in South Carolina, which some have framed as “Trump's revenge.” Trump did, in fact, exact revenge against a Republican congressman in the 7th district, Tom Rice, who was one of the ten GOP House members who voted for impeachment. Rice was soundly defeated by state Rep. Russell Fry, who beat him 51-25. “What was even more remarkable about this is there were five Republicans total challenging race so for Fry to get a majority of the vote was pretty unexpected. Even Fry claimed that his own polling showed the race going to a runoff,” Nir said.

The other South Carolina race that was really closely watched this week was in the 1st District, where Rep. Nancy Mace beat former state Rep. Katie Arrington 53-45, thus avoiding a runoff. Trump endorsed Arrington, as he was furious at a few of Mace’s critical comments of him after Jan. 6, even though she very quickly backed off.

On Saturday, Alaska held a special election for Alaska's at-large congressional seat, which has been vacant since GOP Rep. Don Young passed away earlier this year. Alaska has a fairly distinct electoral system: all of the candidates were on the ballot in this first round, and the top four candidates will advance to a second round on Aug. 16. That ballot will use ranked-choice voting to determine the winner. Ballots are still being counted, but the AP has declared three of the four candidates who will advance to the second round, the first being former Gov. Sarah Palin, who has a clear lead so far with about 30% of the vote.

Beard summarized the outcome so far:

Of course, Palin is a Republican, as is the so far second-place candidate, businessman Nick Begich, who has about 19% of the vote. And then independent Al Gross, who is also the former 2020 Democratic nominee for Senate but is running now as an Independent; he's also been called to advance. He has about 13% of the vote so far. And then, the fourth slot hasn't been called yet, but former Democratic state Rep. Mary Peltola is currently in that spot and will likely advance as well, unless late-breaking ballots are radically different than what's been counted so far.

Palin's strong first-round showing, getting over 30% of the vote, makes it likely that she will be one of the last two candidates standing when this ranked-choice voting takes place. The big question, Beard points out, is: Who is going to make it into that other slot where the fourth-place candidate and then the third-place candidate are eliminated?

While Palin has always been a polarizing figure, she has Donald Trump's endorsement, which makes it much more likely that Begich would pick up Independents and Democrats, if it is those two facing off against each other at the very end of the instant runoff tabulations.

At this point, Wikler joined the hosts to discuss the crucial work of the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

“Let's talk a little bit about what that rollercoaster ride has been like. I'm sure that some of our listeners are probably pretty plugged into their own state Democratic parties. But I'll bet that many folks aren't necessarily all that familiar with what their state parties do. And of course, the goal of any party organization is to get its candidates elected. But what exactly does the Wisconsin Democratic Party do to make that happen?” Nir asked.

The biggest part of the organization’s budget and its crown jewel, Wikler asserts, is its organization model, which allows it to reach voters in every corner of the state:

Our state party unusually uses the Obama campaign model, where our organizers actually build teams of volunteers that run door-to-door canvassing and phone banking operations in their own communities. And when you do that on a continuous basis, as we've done now since my predecessor, who launched these neighborhood teams in the spring of 2017, and we've built and built and built them; we now have hundreds across the state. When you do that continuously, you actually build momentum over time. So, every dollar you spend on organizing goes further, because you can have one organizer who's working with multiple teams to coach and support them and make sure they have the data they need.

A robust voter protection operation that is run on a year-round basis is now a mainstay of the organization’s work, as well. Wikler highlighted how the party has increasingly focused on voting rights over these last few years to make sure that local clerks aren't rolling back voting rights. The state Democratic Party also recruits and supports poll workers, poll observers, and lawyers who are able to help voters resolve issues. A voter protection hotline is also available for anyone in Wisconsin to call at 608-DEM-3232.

Last, but not least, the party’s data team helps make sure they’re figuring out where the voters they need to mobilize are and who they need to persuade.

Next, the trio delved into Wikler and his team’s plan to defeat Republican Sen. Ron Johnson this fall. As Wikler put it, “Ron Johnson is so, so appallingly extraordinarily bad”:

It’s not just that he says that COVID can be cured with mouthwash or says that the Jan. 6 insurrectionists were patriots who love their country and love law enforcement—which is something he actually said. He said he would've been scared if it had been Black Lives Matter protestors, but he wasn't scared with the protestors that were actually there. It's not just all that stuff. It's that he's profoundly self-serving. His claim to fame as a senator is that he insisted on an extra tax break on top of Trump's giant tax scam that personally benefited him and his biggest donor massively. It's one of the most regressive tax cuts ever passed through the United States Congress that he insisted on putting in, and that he's been billing taxpayers to fly him back to Congress from his vacation home in Florida.

So we've been making this case against him, and so many independent and grassroots organizations have done the same thing. His approval rating is now 36%, which is stunning in a year that's supposed to be tough for Democrats and good for Republicans. The Political Report called him the most vulnerable incumbent from either party in the Senate in 2022. And meanwhile, on the Democratic side, there's a contested primary. There's a bunch of candidates who've made the ballot, but we won't know our nominee until Aug. 9. And so this is a perfect kind of case in point for why having a strong party matters, because we have to build the whole general election apparatus before Aug. 9. It's like building a spaceship right on the launchpad. And then once we have the nominee, they jump into the cockpit and they hit ignition.

“Can you tell us a little bit more about this spaceship that you're building on the launchpad for the eventual Democratic nominee for the Senate race?” Nir asked.

Wikler discussed the intersection of the digital, the data, the organizing, the voter protection, the communications—all the different elements. He also mentioned that, due to state party rules, the Wisconsin Democratic Party is bound and committed to remaining neutral in the primary. “So we're not putting our thumb on the scale, but all the candidates have told us that once we have a nominee, they will work with the infrastructure that we've put in place,” he added. “As opposed to doing what has often happened in different states around the country, which is: you get a Senate nominee, and they decide they want to reshuffle all the staff and reshape how the program works and all this kind of stuff.”

As far as goals from the point of view of the state party for the state legislative elections that are coming in November, and candidates to highlight for those races, Wikler had the following to say:

Republicans have managed to re-gerrymander the maps, at least for now, with some help, I should mention, from the U.S. Supreme Court, which unlike in other states, decided to reach down and strike down our state legislative maps for reasons that will puzzle constitutional scholars for decades. So we have really, really tough maps this cycle.

Republicans are explicitly trying to get supermajorities in both chambers yet again, and we are explicitly determinedly working to stop them. We have great Democratic leaders in both chambers that we're working closely with: Greta Neubauer in the Assembly, Janet Bewley in the state Senate. We have strong candidates across the state. ...

Then next year, just to squeeze this in, in April of 2023, we have a state Supreme Court race. There will not be a lot happening across the country in elections that spring, but that race will be for the majority in Wisconsin state Supreme Court. If we can sustain the governor's veto and if we have a non-hyper right wing majority in our state Supreme court, that sets us up to have a secure and fair and legitimate election in 2024, when Wisconsin will probably be the tipping point state yet again.

Lastly, Beard asked Wikler how listeners could help: “So how can our Wisconsinite listeners get in touch with the Democratic Party in their state and get more involved?”

Wikler replied:

Wherever you might be, you can support Democrats and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin in fighting for victory for Gov. Evers and defeating Ron Johnson. I think Dems up and down the ballot, including defeating Derek van Orden, who's an insurrectionist currently on probation for trying to bring a gun on a plane. He's running for Congress in the third congressional district, which is an open seat. We need help across the board, and you can get involved. You can become a monthly donor. That is the single, my favorite thing you can do.

If you go to wisdems.org/monthly, you can sign up to give a few bucks a month; that helps us to hire and know that we'll be able to keep our staff on month over month, year over year, and that in turn allows us to do the kind of deep, long term organizing, building neighborhood teams … that help us win, especially in these tough elections like the spring state Supreme Court race next year. And finally, I'll give the link wisdems.org/volunteer. You can join our virtual phone banks. You can join our volunteer operation to turn out every possible Democratic voter. Races here are so close, so often.

The Downballot comes out every Thursday everywhere you listen to podcasts. As a reminder, you can reach our hosts by email at thedownballot@dailykos.com. Please send in any questions you may have for next week's mailbag. You can also reach out via Twitter: @DKElections.

Tuesday Was A Huge Night For Trump – And J.D. Vance

Posted on by RealClearWire

By Susan Crabtree for RealClearPolitics

In his 2016 bestselling autobiography “Hillbilly Elegy,” J.D. Vance thanks his grandparents – his “Mamaw” and “Remember in 2019 when workers were doing well in this country, not struggling terribly. Thanks [to] the president for everything, for endorsing me.”

Tuesday night, as Vance stepped closer to his goal of joining the most exclusive club in the country – the U.S. Senate – he thanked his grandparents again, along with President Trump.

“I absolutely gotta thank the 45th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, for providing, ladies and gentlemen, an example of what could be in this country,” Vance, 37, said in his primary victory speech. “Remember in 2019 when workers doing well in this county, not struggling terribly, thanks for the president for everything, for endorsing me.”

RELATED: Trump Endorsement Vaults J.D. Vance To Top Of Contentious Ohio GOP Senate Primary Race

Vance then pulled a trademark Trump maneuver, slamming the “fake news media” for wanting to write a story that “this campaign would be the death of Donald Trump’s America First agenda … Ladies and gentlemen, it ain’t the death of the America First agenda.”

It’s been a heady, evolutionary six years for Vance, the Yale law school graduate and venture capitalist who burst on the scene with his book about growing up “dirt poor’ in Appalachia. Coastal elites immediately embraced his life story as a way to understand Trump’s appeal among the white working class.

During the 2016 campaign, though, Vance declared himself a Never Trumper, dubbing the casino-developer-turned-reality-TV-star-turned-politician “cultural heroin” for the masses, and argued he was leading working-class voters into a dark place.

However, during the Trump presidency, Vance shifted sharply to become an avid Trump supporter, citing the tumultuous Supreme Court confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as a significant turning point. (His wife, Usha Chilukuri, had clerked for Kavanaugh when he was an appeals court judge.)

Meanwhile, Ohio transformed from a Republican-leaning swing state to a solidly red GOP bastion, supporting Trump by nine percentage points in 2016 and double digits in 2020.

Vance’s win brings to a close a crowded and contentious Republican contest to fill the seat of retiring GOP Sen. Rob Portman, a respected moderate. It also marks a major victory night for Trump, who has taken the unusual step for a former president of picking sides in primaries – a way to solidify his role as party kingmaker while he weighs another White House run in 2024.

Trump undoubtedly tilted the race in Vance’s favor. Before his endorsement, Vance was trailing former Ohio state treasurer Josh Mandel, another Trump acolyte, 28%-23%, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average of polls. Meanwhile, State Sen. Matt Dolan faded in the final stretch.

With more than 95% of the vote reporting late Tuesday night, Vance won 32.2% compared to Mandel’s 23.9% and Dolan’s 23.3%.

RELATED: There Are 11 Million Unfilled Jobs In America – Where Are The Workers?

Before and after Trump endorsed Vance, his GOP opponents spent millions of advertising dollars reminding voters that Vance had called himself a “Never Trumper” just a few years ago. The conservative Club for Growth’s sister PAC, which backed Mandel, funded an ad that Factcheck.org labeled “misleading” for suggesting that Vance had said some Trump supporters were motivated to back him because they are racist. In fact, the full Vance quote said most of Trump’s voters were inspired by his economic policies or “jobs, jobs, jobs.”

Peter Thiel, the billionaire founder of PayPal, channeled $13.5 million into a political action committee backing Vance in the race. Vance had worked for Theil as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley before moving back to Ohio. Thiel, along with Trump, influenced Vance’s politics, especially when it comes to opposing China and placing stricter limits on immigration. Despite the infusion, Vance continued to run behind in the polls until Trump’s endorsement.

“The question presented in this primary was, ‘Do we want a border that protects our citizens? Do we want to ship our jobs to China or keep them right here in America for American workers? Do we want a Republican Party who stands for the donors who write checks to the Club for Growth or do we want the Republican Party for the people right here in Ohio?” he asked the crowd Tuesday evening.

Even though Trump’s endorsement inevitably boosted Vance’s candidacy, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. Just two days before the primary, Trump appeared to flub J.D. Vance’s name when citing his endorsement, seemingly merging it with Vance’s opponent’s last name. A Newsmax host claimed that it wasn’t a gaffe by Trump but a way to hedge his bets in the race.

“We’ve endorsed … J.P? Right?” Trump asked during his Ohio stumping on Vance’s part Sunday. “J.D. Mandel – and he’s doing great.”

On Monday, Vance minimized the gaffe, saying Trump speaks with such enthusiasm and so often that he was bound to “misspeak” sometimes. Vance now faces Democrat Rep. Tim Ryan, who handily won his party’s primary with 69.7%, with approximately 96.1 of the votes counted, according to the Associated Press.

Another big boon for Trump in Ohio Tuesday was the primary victory of Max Miller, a former Trump campaign and White House aide, who won the Republican nomination for the newly written 7th Congressional District in Northeast Ohio. Miller led the pack as of late Tuesday night despite abuse allegations from his ex-girlfriend, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham. Miller has denied it.

Miller was initially recruited to challenge Republican Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, one of 10 House Republicans who voted in favor of Trump’s impeachment. But Gonzalez opted to retire instead.

J.R. Majewski, an Air Force veteran who painted a giant “Trump 2020” sign on his front lawn ahead of the last presidential election, won a crowded GOP nomination and this fall will face Rep. Marcy Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in the history of the House of Representatives. (Kaptur was first elected in 1982.) Majewski defeated Theresa Gavarone, Craig Riedel, and Beth Decker.

RELATED: Repair Shop Owner Who Serviced Hunter Biden’s Laptop Files Lawsuit Against Adam Schiff, CNN

And in a close contest in Ohio’s 13th district, southeast of Cleveland, Madison Gesiotto Gilbert, a lawyer, political commentator, and former Miss Ohio whom Trump endorsed, is projected to win her crowded GOP primary, defeating six other Republicans. She will face Emilia Sykes, the former House minority leader, who ran unopposed in her primary.

At the top of the Ohio state ticket, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine also survived the primary even though he is considered a moderate who does not back Trump. Still, the crowded primary kept DeWine’s showing under 50% even though he has served in some elected capacity in the state for more than 40 years.

DeWine was widely criticized by Republicans over the state’s COVID shutdowns, drawing three Republican opponents, including U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, former state Rep. Ron Hood, and farmer Joe Blyston. The three, however, split the Trump vote, leaving DeWine to pick up a solid 48.1% compared to Renacci’s 28%, Joe Blyston’s 21.8%, and Ron Hood’s 2.1%. DeWine will face Democrat Nan Whaley, the former mayor of Dayton in the general election.

Syndicated with permission from Real Clear Wire.

Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics’ White House/national political correspondent.

The post Tuesday Was A Huge Night For Trump – And J.D. Vance appeared first on The Political Insider.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Slams Democrats, Media After Lawsuit to Block Her Re-election is Allowed to Proceed

Posted on by Rusty Weiss

Marjorie Taylor Greene fired back at Democrats and the media following news that a lawsuit seeking to block her from running for re-election is being allowed to proceed.

The lawsuit alleging that she is unfit for office due to her supposed support for Capitol rioters was allowed to go forward by Judge Amy Totenberg of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

You may recall media outrage over a Trump-appointed judge dropping the mask mandate earlier this week? There is little mention that Totenberg is an appointee of Barack Obama.

RELATED: Judge Slams DOJ For ‘Trampling’ Rights Of Capitol Riot Defendant – ‘No Excuse To Treat A Human Being Like That’

Lawsuit Against Marjorie Taylor Greene Allowed to Proceed

The case, filed by a group of voters, claims Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) violated a provision of the U.S. Constitution passed after the U.S. Civil War known as the “Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause.”

The clause, under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, is a rarely cited Civil War-era provision that bars people from holding office if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or “given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

Obviously, this clause was meant to punish Confederate soldiers, officers, and politicians who engaged in war.

Totenberg, in allowing the case to proceed, argued Greene had failed “to establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits” of her legal claims and “failed to meet the burden of persuasion.”

Greene sought a temporary injunction in the case, arguing it was unlikely to be resolved before Georgia’s primary elections on May 24.

RELATED: Democrats Have A Back-Up Plan That Might Still Bar Trump From Running Again If Impeachment Fails

Greene Upset That Media Will Distort Hearings

A similar legal challenge was filed against Representative Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) with the North Carolina State Board of Elections, but a federal judge blocked that effort noting that allowing such frivolous lawsuits to continue would open up similar retaliatory efforts by political opponents.

“The federal court is tasked with protecting the soapbox, the ballot box, and the jury box,” U.S. District Court Judge Richard Myers II said. “And when these fail, people proceed to the ammunition box.”

Greene has said she “never encouraged political violence and never will,” but will now be forced to testify in the case. And the media, she fears, will have a field day.

“It’s absurd what they are claiming and lying about,” said Greene in an interview with former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis.

“They’re going to allow the press in the courtroom,” she worried. “They’re going to allow the whole thing to be videoed live out to go anywhere in the world that they want to.”

“And you know what that’s going to look like — the Democrats and the nasty mainstream media … they’re going to be able to twist and turn, and clip out any little piece they want of the horrible things that these funded attorneys are going to try to say about me,” Greene continued.

Remember – Democrats objected to the election results in 2016 officially and during the proceedings certifying electoral votes 11 times:

  • Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) objected based on “the confirmed and illegal activities engaged by the government of Russia.”
  • Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) argued Florida’s electoral votes “violated Florida’s prohibition against dual officeholders.”
  • Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) objected to Georgia’s vote certificate.
  • Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) objected due to “the overwhelming evidence of Russian interference in our election.”
  • Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) suggested the election saw “massive voter suppression.”
  • Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) objected on violations of the Voting Rights Act.
  • Jackson Lee tried to support Grijalva’s objection.
  • Jackson Lee again chimed in objecting to South Carolina’s electoral votes.
  • Barbara Lee again tried to raise an objection before having her microphone cut off.
  • Jackson Lee once again tried to make an objection on the grounds of Russian interference in the election.
  • Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) begged a Senator to join her own objection after the final state’s votes had been read.

And don’t for a minute let them cast doubt that their undermining of the election results in 2016 did not lead to violence in Washington, D.C.

They may not have swarmed the Capitol complex, but there was violence in the streets and Democrat lawmakers were most assuredly trying to “obstruct, influence, impede or delay” the certification of the presidential election, just as Republicans are accused of doing on January 6.

If Totenberg can allow the case to proceed against Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican voters can surely launch at least seven of their own lawsuits against the aforementioned list of Democrats.

The post Marjorie Taylor Greene Slams Democrats, Media After Lawsuit to Block Her Re-election is Allowed to Proceed appeared first on The Political Insider.

Trump’s ‘parade of supplicants’ advised to woo the ocher ape with big fonts and color photos

Posted on by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

I’m trying to think of anything more undignified than sucking up to colossal loser Donald Trump after everything that’s happened in the past few years—telling him he won elections he lost, groveling for his endorsement, buying overpriced tchotchkes at his cult compound/golf resort, and pretending you’re not staring directly into the sallow, rheumy eyes of primordial evil.

I wouldn’t hire Trump to manage a Chuck E. Cheese, unless I actually wanted to open a strip club with an animatronic jug band and didn’t know who to bribe or murder to make that happen. And yet, according to a profoundly pathetic Sunday New York Times story, Republicans as a whole still can’t get enough of his unique blend of feral charisma and sultry lunch meat sweats.

The story is long, sad, and eye-gougingly horrific, but we pretty much already knew the broad strokes of everything that’s in there. Republicans are cashing in their souls for endorsements, and Trump is devouring those souls like so many saucy McNuggets. Pretty standard fare for the sell-out-democracy party.

That said, one portion of the story did grab my eye, because there’s such a huge disconnect between what these GOP hopefuls—almost all of whom went to college—are likely thinking in the parts of their brains they’ve decided to keep alive and what they’re actually doing these days to curry Trump’s favor.

Mr. Trump enjoys flattery and is not above rewarding sycophants. But insiders say bringing compelling visual material matters, too. Big fonts are crucial. With photos and graphics. In color.

“He’s not a real big digital guy, so we had printouts,” said Joe Kent, who has since won Mr. Trump’s backing for his effort to unseat Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, one of the 10 Republican impeachment votes.

...

When he likes what he sees, Mr. Trump will mail words of encouragement, scrawled on news clippings with a Sharpie. “You are doing great!” he wrote in January to Mr. Kent. “You are doing great!” he wrote last October to Harriet Hageman, who is challenging Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

Good God, is being in Congress really worth this degradation? Is being in the GOP worth it? If I had to choose between behaving this way to stay politically relevant or chaining a pair of slumbering antelopes to my vintage Sam and Frodo nipple rings, it would probably come down to a coin flip.

The Times charitably refers to the GOPsters visiting Trump at Mar-a-Lago as a “parade of supplicants”—possibly because “caravan of ass-kissers” was deemed too déclassé for the paper of record. But Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio sums up these ingratiation celebrations pretty well.

“What was The Apprentice but a sad scramble of people behaving like crabs in a bucket to be lifted out by him?” said D’Antonio. “How are these people anything other than contestants vying for his approval?”

That’s a good analogy, but like most analogies, it’s a bit imprecise. Crabs in a bucket have far more dignity. If the GOP ever reaches crabs-in-a-bucket levels of seriousness again, maybe we can talk. But for now, they’re still beholden to the worst sentient being on this or any planet. And, well, the vast majority of them seem just fine with it. 

It made comedian Sarah Silverman say, “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT,” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE. 

This week on The Brief: The ‘existential fight’ for freedom and democracy at home and abroad

Posted on by Dorothy He

This week on The Brief, hosts Kerry Eleveld and Markos Moulitsas analyzed how a month of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has played out, discussed the continued slide of the Republican Party into authoritarianism, and talked about Biden’s approval rating and how the electoral landscape is looking for Democrats heading into this fall.

As the attack on Ukraine continues, Eleveld and Moulitsas considered what the news coverage has gotten right—and wrong—so far, and how Daily Kos is offering important perspective, especially to help readers understand that the situation on the ground may not be as dire as it was initially portrayed.

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine, or Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy—this battle between Soviet-style authoritarian regime and Western democracy, Eleveld notes, has crystalized for a lot of Americans the fact that this type of battle is still going on in the world. And what’s more, it is ongoing and poses a huge, continuing threat not just externally, but also internally here in the United States. While progressives and Democrats had sounded the alarm throughout Trump’s tenure about where the Republican Party has been headed, few are hearing this message of, “Look, this is an authoritarian party. They want fewer people to vote, they want to control the outcomes of the vote, they’re fine being beholden to one person as long as that person manages to secure power. They really don’t seem that interested in a peaceful transfer of power,” Eleveld added.

Eleveld also thinks that the fact that Republicans haven’t wanted to explore the events of January 6, 2021, examine it, learn from it, make sure it doesn’t happen again—and have instead become denialist— is alarming in and of itself: “And it seems like independents [and those feeling on the fence about both parties] … they haven’t really grasped what this fight, what this existential fight for democracy is about.”

This conflict has really resonated and showed us exactly what’s at stake, both at home and abroad, linking war on the international stage to democracy in the U.S., she explained:

I feel like this horrific and gut-wrenching war that we have seen play out in Ukraine has crystalized for Americans, in a way, that threat that we haven’t felt in a very real way in some way since the end of World War II. I’m not saying there haven’t been instances of attacks and people feeling vulnerable, but the existential threat ... that the whole country feels hasn’t been brought home since WWII in the way that it has been brought home here. We’ve got to win this battle in Ukraine and we’ve got to do what we can to help them and hopefully at the same time deescalate tensions there. But we’ve got to win this battle at home too, and … I don’t want to dismiss what’s happening abroad at all, but this is a fight here at home in the United States. It’s an existential threat. One of our [political] parties is no longer invested in democracy, and you can see what that yields with someone like Vladimir Putin.

Moulitsas offered additional context, tying Trump and the Republican Party’s interests to Russia and Putin: “I don’t want it lost ... that the first impeachment of Donald Trump was because he was extorting Zelenskyy over javelin missiles — the same javelin missiles that have basically stopped the Russian hordes. Those were the missiles that Donald Trump was holding hostage unless Zelenskyy literally made up an investigation against Hunter Biden.”

Highlighting the urgency and interconnectedness of all these issues, Eleveld urged, “If there were ever a time to unmask the Republican Party for how profoundly unserious it is in this serious moment in history, it is now there for the Democrats, and there for their taking.”

Moulitsas agreed, highlighting gas prices—which he noted was “a plank of the Republican 2022 playbook”—as an example of how Democrats could show leadership in this moment:

Right now, the gas companies all have record profits. It’s not like it’s just a percentage or two. We’re talking like massive windfall records. The price of crude oil has been going down; the price of gasoline at the pump has not been going down. They’re pocketing that difference. It’s really easy for Democrats—I don’t understand why this isn’t happening—where you say, ‘We’re going to cut down, we’re going to eliminate the gas taxes and then we’re going to make it up with a windfall tax on energy companies.’ Boom. You’ve just shaved 30-40 cents off of a gallon of gas right off the bat, and you have the gas companies pay for it, and make it indefinite. And go above and beyond that, but there’s a way to shift this narrative [of] ‘this is Joe Biden’s gas prices’—shift that to the gas companies and make that relentless. Gas companies and Putin and war profiteers, there is plenty of that going around. Punish those people. Dare Joe Manchin to vote against it. I don’t even think Joe Manchin would dare vote against a windfall tax on gas companies.

Where does this leave Democrats today? How are things looking as the midterms approach? Moulitsas and Eleveld shifted the conversation to focus on what trends in polling from Civiqs are telling us about this fall. Eleveld signaled that Biden seems to be coming back from a very difficult few months, as polling has shown:

I don’t think we should be super worried about exact numbers right now as much as we should be worried about trends. When I [left for medical leave a few weeks ago], Joe Biden had been on a steady downward trajectory on Civiqs for months on months on end with a few minor breaks, and it might plateau for a second, but then it was going back down. Since then, what we have seen is that it’s started to rebound, right? After the State of the Union address, it started to rebound, and I’m inclined to think that because that rebound on Civiqs has continued, that Joe Biden is getting credit for competent handling of this global response to Putin and his aggression and this completely unprovoked war. It has been, objectively, a great response.

I think that this has been a reminder for both Democrats … and independents; [among them] he’s gotten a net plus gain of about six point or seven points since Russia invaded Ukraine … I think for Democrats, some of them, it’s really reminded them, ‘Oh my God, this is why we elected Joe Biden,’ for competent handling of the pandemic. Some people have different opinions on how competent that’s been. No doubt that the rollout of the vaccine program was incredibly competent and swift—we just couldn’t get everybody to buy into it because the Republican Party was by and large telling people, ‘Don’t do it.’ … I think it reminded independents why they voted for Joe Biden.

The sentiment seems to be common even among Trump-Biden voters, the cohosts noted, citing recent focus groups. As Eleveld summarized, “Over and over, they [are] kind of saying, ‘Look at the situation in Ukraine. Like, can you imagine if Donald Trump was [in office]? We might have World War III right now, because Donald Trump is just that [unpredictable.] I mean, maybe not, but you just don’t know what he would have done. And then [they] were talking about Trump saying Putin is ‘genius’ and just saying how ‘disgraceful’ that was. It’s just disgraceful that he built Putin up for four years and now he feels this need to weigh in.”

The big picture crystallization of authoritarianism versus democracy has been brought home to the American people as they watch the conflict in Ukraine unfold, and polling is showing a slow but sure uptick in Biden’s approval ratings as this situation in Ukraine continues to play out. Eleveld thinks that ultimately, this has put Biden and Democrats on better footing:

I can’t tell you whether or not they’re going to be able to totally capitalize on this moment here, but I can tell you, as we always say, I’m not just trying to play politics here. This upcoming election is as important to the global fight for democracy and freedom as anything else that is going on, including what is happening in Ukraine. We have to win here at home, we have to win there, we have to win everywhere.

You can watch the full episode here:

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The Democrats’ complicated dance with neoconservative heiress Liz Cheney

Posted on by The New Republic

This article, written by TNR deputy editor Jason Linkins, first appeared on newrepublic.com and in Power Mad, a weekly TNR newsletter. Sign up here.

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, who in recent years has emerged as the Harley Quinn of Washington’s Never Trump suicide squad, is facing a tough reelection fight against Harriet Hageman, a former Cheney adviser who has since been Trump-pilled. Hageman has won the former president’s endorsement, but Cheney still has friends in high places: Republicans from the pre-Trump era continue to support her, fueling speculation that she’s “laying the groundwork for something more,” according to CNN, which notes that she has “demonstrated impressive fundraising prowess, including raising a personal record $2 million in the final quarter of 2021.” And yet, for all that prowess, it’s becoming clear that she will probably need some additional assistance to win back her seat—specifically, from Democrats.

It’s truly an odd thing to contemplate. Not too long ago, the thought of a Cheney-less Capitol Hill would have been a dream of Beltway Democrats, who saw Liz ride on her father’s coattails to a seat in Congress. But that was all before her opposition to Donald Trump—and her votes to impeach him—earned her a place in the Resistance and a perch on the Jan. 6 commission.

To defeat Hageman in the GOP primary in August, Cheney will need a certain percentage of Democrats to become crossover voters. (Wyoming allows voters to change their party affiliation as late as Election Day. A pro-Trump attempt to change that law failed last week.) As POLITICO’s Tara Palmeri reported this week, “Wyoming political strategists say the only path to victory for Cheney is with the help of Democrats and independents.” Party-switchers have, notably, come through for Republicans before: Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon relied on such voters to propel him to victory over a far-right opponent.

It’s one thing for voters in Wyoming to strategically align themselves for the best of a bad result; it’s another thing entirely for institutional Democrats to put their heft behind Liz Cheney. But that’s what some Democratic donors are doing, despite the massive headwinds facing the party’s own candidates in the fall midterms. As CNBC’s Brian Schwartz reported last October, liberal buckrakers of real renown have lately lined Cheney’s larder, including Ron Conway, one of President Joe Biden’s “top campaign bundlers,” and John Pritzker, cousin of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker.

I get that Cheney has done an inspiring job clearing the very low bar of opposing Trump’s corruption and assault on democracy. But is this truly a good use of finite resources, to ensure that Wyoming’s ruby-red House seat remains in the hands of someone who only voted with Trump 93% of the time, instead of one who will exceed that loyalty by a few percentage points? While it would be unfair to dismiss Cheney’s opposition to Trumpism as insincere—she’s surely seen little political benefit for taking the stances she’s taken—this might be a good occasion for Democrats to consider how much longer they want to be in the Liz Cheney business, given what a poor defender of democracy she has actually been during her career.

In fact, Democrats should ponder whether to seek out the Never Trumpers as dance partners at all. That movement’s only clear success has been to draw outsize media attention. While Trumpists are snatching up key positions in the country’s electoral mechanics, with an eye toward tilting the next presidential contest, Never Trumpers are writing op-eds, retiring from the fight, and occasionally making a complete mess of trying to help Democrats win elections.

Perhaps the most worrisome part of this partnership is the extent to which the Democrats have allowed these disaffected Republicans to colonize the Democratic Party’s aesthetic. Biden’s own Democratic National Convention was an often perverse display of moderate Republican courtship, with spare-no-expense production values given to Ohio Republican John Kasich to stand at a literal crossroads to make a point about a figurative crossroads, while Maine’s Sara Gideon was reduced to introducing a musical guest despite being in a competitive Senate race against Susan Collins—a seat that Democrats would dearly love to have now.

Writing for The New Republic, Samuel Moyn pinpointed an even more troubling aspect of this partnership: the extent to which Never Trumpism was being driven primarily by the foreign policy lifers of the Bush-Cheney era, the “stalwart crew” who “feared that Trump threatened the Cold War national security consensus” that gave rise to so much neoconservative misadventure. It’s worth noting that earlier this week, Commentary’s John Podhoretz crowed that neoconservatism had been vindicated, in part because “hip liberals” are no longer its loudest critics (instead, he argues, “‘traditional conservatives’ … have taken their place as the leading anti-American voices of our time”).

Do Democrats believe that the vindication of neoconservatism is an acceptable trade-off for the chance to have Liz Cheney as an occasional ally? It seems a bad deal to me, especially in a week when the fruits of neoconservatism have been so vividly on display in reports that a Kuwaiti detainee, rendered to a CIA black site in Afghanistan, was used as a “living prop to teach trainee interrogators, who lined up to take turns at knocking his head against a plywood wall, leaving him with brain damage.” With democracy on the line, is neoconservatism truly something that Democrats want to associate with? This marriage of convenience should be headed for a divorce.

This article first appeared on newrepublic.com and in Power Mad, a weekly TNR newsletter. Sign up here.