Archive for the ‘DCCC’ Category

The big blue wave that never really existed is getting exposed, as I suspected it would, as a regional wave. Though I never had polling proof of this theory, I thought that much of the wave potential and enthusiasm gap was limited to bi-coastal regions. Lately, though, there’s some proof that that’s the case. Ed Morrissey highlights this ‘phenomenon’ in this post:

This mirrors a poll last week from the Washington Post and ABC News. Their poll put Democrats up 11 points on the generic ballot, but Republicans at +1 in the 66 battleground districts, also a big swing from their earlier polling. That suggests that Democratic enthusiasm intensified in districts where they were already safe, and that Republican enthusiasm has changed the election where the House majority will be determined.

This doesn’t mean that Republicans won’t lose seats in the House. I’m thinking, though, that it means their losses in the House will be significantly smaller than predicted.

In sum:

1) D’s +9 in national generic ballot
2) In House battlegrounds generic ballot tied
3) Trump approval rating highest of presidency
4) GOP largest lead on economy in poll history

Those do not sound like the components of a “blue wave.” https://t.co/CZMK6qSeOY

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) October 21, 2018

This close to an election, it’s smarter to pay attention to where the alphabets (DCCC, NRCC, etc.) are putting money into or pulling money out of than to pay attention to polls. The fact that the DCCC pulled its money out of MN-8 indicates that Democrats have given up on that race.

Last spring, Democrats tried convincing people that there truly was a blue wave coming by announcing that they were expanding their map from 40+ seats to 60+ seats. I wasn’t convinced of the wave because of that. Democrats expanding the map didn’t prove that voters bought into the blue wave. As it turns out, more voters each week are picking accomplishments over attacks.

The DFL’s CD-8 food fight, aka CD-8 DFL Primary, is starting to take shape. The latest news is that “State Rep. Jason Metsa is not done yet in his bid to replace Rep. Rick Nolan in Congress. On Sunday, Metsa said he will continue his campaign, targeting the 8th Congressional District DFL primary election in August.” Sunday morning, Metsa said “With no result from the DFL endorsement process, I have chosen to continue my campaign to be the DFL nominee for Congress in #MN08. The best way to identify the strongest candidate to win in November is through a primary campaign,” Metsa said in his statement. “I look forward to running a robust grassroots campaign focused on our shared values of fairness and responsibility.”

According to the Duluth Tribune, “Metsa joins Phifer, Radinovich and Michelle Lee as candidates vying for the primary.”

Thus far, each of the candidates is staking out their territory:

“We need to make sure that equal access to healthcare, education, the right to put food on your table and a roof over your head is something that all Americans can achieve, not just those who can afford it,” Phifer said.
Radinovich emphasized the importance of education.

“I got myself elected to state legislature where I got myself on the Education Finance Committee and I passed legislation to make sure that there was no gaps between the richest and poorest schools in our state,” Radinovich said.

Phifer said she would fight for sensible gun control, climate change, DACA, protecting treaty rights as the supreme law of the land, and raising minimum wage. “The DFL is the party that fights for our safety and wellbeing. We are the party that believes in economic justice. In congress I will lead the fight for $15 an hour minimum wage,” Phifer said.

Metsa hadn’t jumped into the race at the time of the WDIO article, which was written on Saturday.

Thus far, this is the field for the CD-8 DFL Primary:

Let the food fight begin.

Democrats are going on the offense in their attempt to retake the US House. They’re targeting 101 GOP House seats. The way things are going in Minnesota, they’d better target 150 seats because they’re likely going to lose 2 seats in Minnesota.

When Tim Walz announced that he wasn’t running for re-election so he could run for governor, that seat was all-but-officially lost for the DFL. The DFL’s bench is virtually nonexistent while Republicans have 2 quality candidates who are ready to rock.

Today, Rick Nolan surprised people by announcing that he isn’t seeking re-election in MN-08. That immediately threw that race into toss-up status. Early this afternoon, Stewart Mills announced via Twitter that he’s considering jumping into the race:

I have received numerous calls, emails, and messages. I am very seriously considering another run for U.S. Congress to represent Minnesota’s 8th District. There is no timeline on when a decision might be made.https://t.co/pL3EYmQftu

— Stewart Mills (@StewartMillsMN) February 9, 2018

Then there’s this:

Other new DCCC targets include South Carolina’s 5th Congressional District, where Democrat Archie Parnell outperformed expectations in a special election last year and is running again; New Jersey’s 4th Congressional District, represented by veteran GOP Rep. Chris Smith; Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District, held by Rep. Sean Duffy; and Maryland’s 1st Congressional District, which includes the state’s conservative Eastern Shore, where Democrats initially planned to have their retreat.

The DCCC can target Sean Duffy if they’d like but it’s a waste of time. Further, with the economy getting stronger and the tax cuts getting more popular, Democrats won’t be able to stay on the offensive much longer.

Once the ads start running showing every Democrat voting against the tax cuts, Democrats will be in God’s little acre — east of the rock, west of the hard place.

For the past 6-9 months, we’ve heard predictions that Democrats would retake the majority in the House and possibly in the Senate, too. According to James Freeman’s latest column, that’s looking less likely.

According to Freeman’s column, “Mr. Trump remains underwater on the general question of his handling of the presidency, with a majority in virtually every poll expressing disapproval. But he is showing increasing strength on the issue of the economy, which just happens to be the issue that frequently decides elections. This week, the Economist/YouGov survey shows him ten points above water, with 49% approving of his handling of the economy compared to only 39% who disapprove.”

As more people notice bigger monthly paychecks and as people feel the effects of cheaper electric bills, Trump’s approval rating will strengthen. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though. The latest Star Tribune-Minnesota Poll isn’t great news for the DFL:

Minnesotans are more narrowly divided on whether they are likely to vote for a Democrat or a Republican in November’s congressional elections than the rest of the country. A new Star Tribune Minnesota Poll found that 47 percent are now inclined to vote for a Democrat, while 45 percent said they’ll probably vote for a Republican — a statistical tie given the poll’s 3.5 percentage point margin of error.

That’s great news for the MnGOP. This will help them hold the seats they currently have while giving them a shot at flipping Tim Walz’s seat in Southern Minnesota.

I’d be surprised if Democrats weren’t counting on flipping MN-3 and MN-2 while holding MN-1. If the DCCC’s dream isn’t realized, that’s a major blow to them retaking the House.

Why should 2018 be any different? When lawmakers enacted the Reagan tax cuts in 1981, Republicans blundered by agreeing to delay the implementation of many provisions. Without the immediate pro-growth boost, the U.S. economy shrank by nearly 2% in 1982 and voters registered their displeasure.

This notion that the party that holds the White House loses seats is statistically accurate but it isn’t automatic. Patterns are patterns until they aren’t anymore.

Ninety-five percent of Democrats and the same percentage of Republicans said they’re inclined to vote for candidates from their own parties. Among independents, 43 percent said they lean Democratic and an identical percentage said they’re more likely to vote for Republicans.

Based on the fact that the Minnesota Poll consistently oversamples Democrats, I’d argue that the DFL ought to be worried. This isn’t good news for the DFL.

If the economy keeps improving nationally, that will help Republicans across the nation. Additionally, the RNC has pulverized the DNC in terms of fundraising and organizing:

Perez started off his tenure with some lofty goals and inspiring promises. In addition to funding the Democrats’ national efforts for the midterms, the new chairman recognized that their state-level organization was in disrepair. He pledged an additional ten million dollar fund specifically allocated for state parties to rebuild and staff up for the 2018 battles. Thus far, however, Vice reports that it simply hasn’t happened. In fact, not only have they not sent ten million dollars to the state parties, they don’t even have ten million on hand.

It’s still a long ways off and momentum can shift at least 20 times between now and Election Day. Still, the fundraising numbers and the popularity of the Trump/GOP tax cuts are things Republicans can feel good about heading into 2018.

Finally, the Schumer Shutdown is hurting Democrats. While they’re fighting for illegal immigrants, Republicans are blistering them with criticisms. This video is mild compared to some of the McConnell speeches:

This is the most recent year that Democrats insist that they’ll retake the House. While it’s their best opportunity to retake it, that isn’t the same as saying they’re guaranteed to win.

If there wasn’t video of Suzanne Malveaux saying it, I wouldn’t have believed she’d said something so stupid. During Ms. Malveaux’s reporting, she stated “Make no mistake about this. This is very similar to what we saw in 2010 with Democrats and Obamacare, which was highly unpopular and it was along partisan lines, many people, including Nancy Pelosi, saying that they hadn’t read the bill in its entirety. Well, now Republicans, they too are looking at this very unpopular legislation, are making the case that as more people learn more about it, or see or feel the effects of it, the more that they will approve or like it.”

With all due respect to Ms. Malveaux, the Tax Cut and Jobs Act is virtually totally dissimilar from the ACA. With the ACA, the government told people that they had to either buy a product they didn’t choose to buy or they’d pay a fine for not buying a product they didn’t want to buy. With these tax cuts, the government is telling people that they can keep more of the money that they earned. I’d love hearing Ms. Malveaux explain how being told that you can keep the money you earned is the same as being told that you have to spend the money you’ve earned in a way that the government tells you to spend it.

Like I said, they’re virtually opposites.

Meanwhile, Democrats are betting that the media’s biased reporting will create a wave that will help them win back a majority in either the House or Senate. That’s a terrible bet:

The passage of an unpopular GOP tax bill going into a hostile midterm election rings with discomforting familiarity. It’s 2010 all over again, but in a starkly reverse image.

In August, 2009, the American people showed up at town hall meetings and told Democrats not to pass the ACA. When did anyone show up at a taxes town hall and do this?

It didn’t happen with taxes. It repeatedly happened with Obamacare. Again, the comparisons are ridiculous. Later, at the same townhall meeting, this young lady spoke:

Then Steve Israel said this:

Having failed to pass any significant measures to excite their base, Republicans are caught between probably losing their majority next year by passing no bill and possibly losing their majority next year by passing a bad bill. It’s a dangerous midterm calculation when you have to throw a bone to your base that a broad majority of voters are choking on.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind people that Israel chaired the DCCC in 2012 and 2014. Those weren’t great years for Democrats so his analysis isn’t bulletproof by any stretch. Finally, there’s this:

In March 2010, there was explosive applause on the House floor when ObamaCare passed. In the Members Only elevator returning us to our offices, Republicans had Cheshire Cat grins. They knew that we may have won the legislative battle, but we may have lost our majority.

Republicans knew in 2009 that Democrats had lost their majority. I remember talking with Michael Barone about how the polling hadn’t moved much since August, 2009. Sure, there were some ups and downs but they weren’t high highs, just extremely low lows for Democrats. We haven’t seen anything like that this cycle.

Further, Republicans had a positive agenda to run on in 2010. Democrats are still fighting amongst themselves about whether impeaching President Trump is enough or whether they need a socialist economic message needs to be included. Whichever direction Democrats take, they’ll be forced to take an unpopular path to the majority.

This article starts from a faulty premise, then goes downhill from there. The first hint that the article was built on a faulty premise came when it said “I found that Democrats might be able to win by running a 2010 strategy while getting 2006 numbers in the battleground districts. By that I mean that Democrats could win the House by grabbing swing and light-red districts without reclaiming the conservative, ancestrally Democratic areas that padded their numbers in the not-so-distant past.”

The faulty premise is that Democrats are still taken seriously. The fact is that they aren’t taken seriously anymore. They’ve abandoned construction unions. They’ve essentially told farmers that they aren’t welcome in the Democratic Party. Thomas Perez, the chair of the DNC, announced that pro-life voters weren’t welcome in the Democratic Party.

Let’s remember why 2010 was a great year for Republicans. It was great because Democrats refused to listen to voters who told them they didn’t want universal health care. In 2010, people across America were upset and then some. There’s no sense running a wave election campaign if the passion isn’t there.

Another faulty premise is the thought that Democrats could win as many battleground districts in 2018 as they won in 2006. Anyone that thinks that’s possible is kidding themselves. With Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren pulling the Democratic Party farther to the left each day, there are fewer battleground districts.

I’m not saying that because Republicans are doing a great job. They aren’t. It’s that Democrats are alienating lots of groups that used to form their base. You’d think people would notice that blue collar districts went for President Trump but apparently, they haven’t. The question we should be asking is this: how many districts that President Trump won will Democrats have to flip in 2018? Another important consideration that isn’t getting talked about is simple, too. Why isn’t anyone remembering that there’s a different group of voters that turn out for midterm election than turn out in presidential elections?

But there are some signs that could help election watchers gauge if we’re in 2006 again. Incumbency is a real advantage in congressional elections, so more GOP retirements would be a good sign for Democrats. A continued low job approval rating for Trump, coupled with poor GOP showings in generic ballot polls would also signal trouble for the GOP. Additionally, if races that we don’t currently expect to become competitive start to look that way (i.e. district-by-district polling shows tight races, parties unexpectedly start spending resources there, etc.) that might be a sign that it’s 2006 again.

I’ll save you the trouble of determining whether this election will be like 2006. It won’t be. In 2006, voters were mad as hell about the war. Democrats recruited lots of moderates that year, too. These were good fits for their districts. This year, Democrats are going “full socialist“. Redistricting eliminated lots of swing districts. DCCC recruitment chairman Denny Heck has his work cut out for him.

According to Peter Doocy’s article, Democrats are targeting 80 Republican districts. Doocy wrote “It’s ambitious, to say the least. Right now, national Democratic organizers believe that battlefield encompasses an eye-popping 80 districts across America – even though they’ve lost all four of this year’s special election contests for seats held by Republicans.”

I’m a bit skeptical of those figures. Last year, Nancy Pelosi predicted “they’d take the House back” and “win 30 seats.” I said it then and I’ll repeat it now — that’s a partisan pipe dream. Republicans will grow their majority in 2018. They won’t lose their majority.

Caleb Burns is an election law attorney. He’s quoted as saying “Big data has been harnessed to draw these maps with real precision, on a block-by-block, house-by-house basis. We’ve seen over the last eight years, the number of competitive districts go from about a hundred to about two dozen.” The article then says “this means the list of realistic pickups for Democrats remains short.”

The thing to pay attention to isn’t the number of seats the Democrats target at the start of the campaign. Each year, Democrats start with high hopes and wild predictions. Each cycle, Democrats limp away with their confidence shattered and their credibility in tatters.

Until they moderate their policies and tell the environmentalist wing of the Democratic Party to get real, Democrats will have difficulty winning legislative, House and Senate races. It’s that simple.

This isn’t about redistricting or gerrymandering. It’s about people perceiving Democrats as not being willing to listen to them. President Trump won Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan as much because the people in those states trusted then-Candidate Trump when he told them he’d bring their coal mining and their steel jobs back. That’s a place where the Environmental Left won’t let the Democratic Party go.

Technorati: Nancy Pelosi, Battleground Districts, House of Representatives, DCCC, Election 2018

Is it possible that Mark Penn is a voice for Democratic sanity? In this article, it certainly sounds that way.

Penn is right in saying “I am for the Democratic Party to move back to the center. The center is where America is.” The far left isn’t appealing to many Americans. That being said, the far left, where Bill de Blasio, Bernie Sanders and Tom Steyer live, is where the energy is.

Still, the Democratic Party is a long ways away from recapturing the majority in the House or Senate. This past week, the DCCC sent out an email blast asking people to vote on potential bumper sticker slogans. One slogan option that the DCCC asked people to vote on was “Resist & Persist.” Another option was “She persisted, we resisted.” Then there was the slogan “Democrats 2018 — I mean, have you seen the other guys?”

These are actual slogans that the DCCC is considering. Frankly, they sound like a bunch of slogans that grade school students wrote. Last night, Greg Gutfeld had a little fun at the DCCC’s expense:

Democrats deserve to get mocked. At this point, they’re a joke totally reliant on identity politics. Why shouldn’t Democrats be mocked mercilessly? Their leadership is virtually nonexistent. Whatever the Republicans’ faults are, and they definitely exist, Democrats don’t have ideas to rally around. Until that changes, Democrats should expect their losing streak to continue.

Technorati: DCCC, Mark Penn, Pollster, Consultant, Election 2018

With all of the articles pontificating about the meaning of Karen Handel’s victory in Georgia’s Sixth District, it isn’t surprising that Newt Gingrich’s article provided the most enduring insight. Newt said “Meanwhile, Republicans rose to the challenge. Handel was their champion, and they went all out to win. I have a friend who lives in the district and visited every home in her neighborhood on Election Day to ensure not a single voter failed to turn out.”

While it’s true that this loss has to sting Democrats, it’s important not to overlook the blocking and tackling part of winning elections. Without enthusiastic foot soldiers making calls and knocking on doors, victories are harder to come by.

Footnote: This feels a lot like 2004 in that Democrats were fired up about John Kerry and put together a pretty good GOTV operation. What people didn’t talk about until after the election was that Republicans put together a pretty good GOTV operation, too, and defeated the Democrats’ GOTV operation.

It isn’t that Democrats weren’t fired up for this runoff. It’s that Republicans were pretty fired up, too. This shouldn’t be overlooked:

Throughout the race, the elite media was consistently negative, but Trump’s use of social media ended up reaching a larger audience than the three major networks combined. In Georgia, a similar situation occurred. The longer the race went on, the more vicious the leftwing media became, the more Handel grew, and the more Ossoff shrank.

I’m more than a little skeptical of this article. Here’s why:

In Washington, Representative Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, moved to calm the party overnight, circulating a memo that outlined in detail how Democrats aim to capture a majority in 2018. In the document, which was sent to lawmakers and staff, Mr. Luján wrote that there was “no doubt that Democrats can take back the House next fall” in the midterm elections.

Acknowledging that the Georgia result was a setback, Mr. Luján wrote on Wednesday that there were between six and eight dozen seats held by Republican lawmakers that would be easier for Democrats to capture than Georgia’s Sixth. He said the next few months would become a “recruitment blitz” for Democrats as they enlist candidates in those elections.

“Let’s look outside of the traditional mold to keep recruiting local leaders, veterans, business owners, women, job creators and health professionals,” Mr. Luján wrote. “Let’s take the time to find people who fit their districts, have compelling stories, and work hard to earn support from voters.”

The hard left won’t like that. They aren’t looking for “people who fit their district.” They’re looking for the next Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Footnote: this is a picture of Ben Ray Lujan, the man tasked with restoring Nancy Pelosi to her speakership:

First, I’m skeptical that there are between 75 and 100 seats across the U.S. that are easier for Democrats to win than Georgia’s Sixth. It’s more likely that there’s a maximum of 25 toss-up districts in the entire U.S. This sounds more like Lujan attempting to entice reluctant politicians into being willing to run in 2018. Further, it takes a wave election to have that many competitive districts in an election cycle.

If anything’s painfully obvious about Brian Fallon, it’s that he’s using this transition period to audition for a new job at one of the Democratic Party’s alphabet organizations. (Think of the DNC, the DCCC or the DSCC.) His TV appearances aren’t particularly impressive. The only thing noteworthy about Fallon’s appearances are his flashing his pearly whites and his constant whining about the election. If you think that’s bad news for him, think again. That’s virtually guaranteeing him a job at one of these mean-spirited organizations.

The thing you’ve got to understand is that the DNC and the DCCC peddle negativity for a living. That isn’t just what they do. That’s who they are.

This article highlights that fact. In the second paragraph of the article, S.A. Miller wrote “Brian Fallon, a former spokesman for the Clinton presidential campaign, has said there’s ‘too much evidence’ that Mr. Trump was in league with Russian spies trying to rig the election.” I haven’t seen any evidence of that. In fact, it’s quite the contrary. Has Fallon seen top secret or confidential documents that haven’t been made public? That’s certainly possible, especially considering who his former boss is.

This video is from his appearance on the opening installment of Martha MacCallum’s terrific new show “The First 100 Days”:

Saying that Fallon was filled with criticism is understatement. If you took out all of his whining, that 4:45 video could’ve been reduced to 28 seconds, if that. It’s all whining all the time. Then there’s this:

Mr. Fallon said in a Twitter post Sunday that Americans can’t trust Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s denial that the Trump team was in contact with Russia during the campaign. “Sorry, but we cannot take their word for it on this. There is too much evidence suggesting otherwise,” he tweeted.

Says the chief spokesman for the woman who blamed the assassination of a US ambassador on a Youtube video in public, then told her daughter it was a terrorist attack. Fallon shouldn’t talk about people without credibility. He was employed by a person who didn’t have credibility or integrity.

Technorati: Brian Fallon, Hillary Clinton, Benghazi, Christopher Stevens, Honest and Trustworthy, DNC, DCCC, Democrats, Election 2016, Election 2018