Monthly Archives: September 2022

Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, the gun safety group founded and primarily funded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is now priming pushback against the GOP on guns a strategy bolstered by a research project including interviews of nearly 18,000 likely voters across seven battleground states this summer in the wake of the Uvalde school massacre.

The project tested messages that explicitly linked anti-gun violence measures including background checks on gun sales and red flag laws with crime and public safety, including the safety of law enforcement officers. The results showed that putting that lens over gun safety issues boosted support for Democratic candidates, not only among the party base but among traditional swing voters the party needs to keep governorships and Senate and House seats this year.

Some Democrats are already deploying a similar strategy to defuse crime as a GOP attack on them, starting with President Joe Biden. Last month, Biden sought to wrest the moral high ground on crime from MAGA Republicans, arguing in one speech in Pennsylvania: Dont tell me you support law enforcement if you wont condemn what happened on [January] 6th, citing the insurrection on the Capitol. He condemned calls for defunding the FBI, after federal investigators searched former President Donald Trumps estate for classified documents.

Tying gun safety, crime and law enforcement together aims to reset that narrative that have traditionally put Democrats on the defense, said Charlie Kelly, a senior political adviser to Everytown. That was especially true in 2020, when slogans like defund the police, which were popular among activists on the left but not among voters in general, were wielded against Democrats in races around the country.

The fear tactics that they had success with in 2020, I dont think will work this time around, Kelly continued. We actually are the ones that are tough on these issues, and we need to be more vocal about it.

Maxwell Frost, a gun safety activist who won a contested Democratic House primary to represent a deep-blue chunk of central Florida, said its all about turning it on its head, calling out the hypocrisy.

We are not gun-grabbing liberals, Frost said. Yes, we want reform, but so do NRA members. Theres a disconnect between the public and the [Republican] rhetoric, and I am trying to call it out.

Some Democratic pollsters made it clear that their party should still want to focus other issues. Crime is an issue where Republicans are on offense almost everywhere, said Zac McCrary, a Democratic pollster.

But, he continued, if you are forced to engage on this issue, I do think showing strength, showing toughness, getting tough on illegal guns, is a way to talk about it effectively Youre trying to do enough on it for voters so you can move on to another issue, hopefully fighting to a draw on it and then moving on.

A Gallup poll this year found that 72 percent of Americans were dissatisfied with the nations policies to reduce crime, and 8 in 10 Americans said they worry about crime. And a recent NBC News poll showed that Republicans enjoy a 23-point advantage on the question of which party voters trusted more to handle crime.

Any time you mention crime or public safety, the advantage for Republicans is significant every time, said Robert Blizzard, a Republican pollster. If I were a Democrat, I dont think I would try to make the 2022 races about crime and public safety unless I absolutely had to.

Yet talking about crime may not be a choice for many Democratic candidates. In Pennsylvania, Republican Mehmet Oz, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Senate Leadership Fund, the partys flagship Senate super PAC, have all attacked Democrat John Fetterman over rising violent crime in five separate TV ads in recent weeks.

Fetterman pushed back with a TV ad of his own, saying that Dr. Oz wouldnt last two hours here in Braddock, cutting to images of Fettermans forearms, where he has the dates of murders inked into his skin from his time as mayor.

I ran for mayor to stop the violence, Fetterman says. I worked side-by-side with the police, showed up at the crime scene. We did whatever it took to fund our police and stop gun deaths.

In Georgia, a pro-Gov. Brian Kemp super PAC is out with a TV ad that says Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and left-wing politicians are demonizing the police, attacking her for calling to defund the police. Abrams, meanwhile, put out a response ad, featuring law enforcement officers who say that Kemp is flat-out lying.

In the legislature, she funded law enforcement all over the state and she worked with a Republican governor to make Georgia a national leader in criminal justice reform, the ad continues. Shell keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.

Elizabeth Sena, a Democratic pollster, said that the Uvalde school shooting was one of several recent turning points in voters minds about guns, prompting Democrats to campaign more aggressively on the issue. But Sena noted that for candidates with limited campaign budgets, where you only have two or three ads running in a major media market, the economy is still going to be number one, followed by maybe one other issue they get to highlight in TV ads.

It gets harder to find where guns fit in unless you have an unlimited budget, she continued.

Thats where outside super PACs and nonprofits, with larger budgets and contributors who can give six- or seven-figure donations, might come in. For example, Majority Forward, the nonprofit aligned with Senate Democrats main super PAC, released an ad in Wisconsins key Senate race earlier this year on the issue.

Buffalo, Uvalde and even Milwaukee, the ads narrator says, cutting to local TV coverage, when 17 people were injured in Milwaukee last night. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the ad continues, blocked common sense gun safety, like criminal background checks to keep guns away from the dangerous and mentally ill. Johnson even opposed funding for training and community policing to keep us safe.

Asked about Everytowns spending plans for the 2022 midterms, Kelly declined to get into specific figures but noted the group has been significant investors and participants before, I think youll see that again this cycle. So far, the group has spent about $2 million on 2022 midterm work. In 2020, Everytown pledged to spend about $60 million on its electoral program, including about $21 million in independent expenditures.

On this issue itself, we intend to be very muscular with our message approach, and I think in doing so, will help neutralize this, Kelly said.

In the memo describing the findings of its research project, Everytown tested messages that linked a candidate who opposes background checks on all gun sales and supports permitless carry with violent criminals can buy a gun with no questions asked. Compared to a control group, swing voters who saw that message moved 5 points toward Democratic candidates.

Another test, on keeping weapons out of the hands of domestic abusers, also saw a 4.7-point Democratic bump among swing voters over the control group.

This idea that law enforcement messaging can be weaponized against Republicans is not new, but its something wed shied away from for a long, long time. And Id be very interested to see how that works in real time, said Jason McGrath, a Democratic pollster.

I think you will see ads from law enforcement folks in states where theyre talking about Democrats support for them, McGrath continued, and itll be interesting to see if ads take the next step to include guns in that.

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How Democrats are trying to counter a wave of GOP attacks on crime - POLITICO

As Democrats voice growing confidence about their midterm election prospects, two trends suggest that the partys newfound sense of optimism may be misguided.

Taken together, unrelenting inflation and the potential for a 2020-like polling error that overestimates Democrats strength could indicate that the Democratic Party is in a more fragile position than most in the media are currently acknowledging or appreciating. Earlier in the year, a red-wave midterm election on par with1994, when Republicans gained 54 U.S. House seats and flipped control of both houses of Congress seemed almost inevitable.

But since mid-June, Democrats position has been strengthened by declining gas prices, the national backlash toRoe v. Wadebeing overturned and GOPcandidate-qualityissues in key Senate races. As things stand, Democrats are now favored to retain control of theSenateand are expected to just narrowly lose theHouse.

However, the release of the worse-than-expected August inflationreportthis week which showed that food, housing and healthcare costs continued to soar last month served as a pointed reminder that the economy still poses a significant threat to Democrats chances in November.

Reacting to Augusts inflation data and to the increasing possibility of a severe economic downturn in the U.S. stocks fellto their worst day since June 2020 last Tuesday.

Just as inflation is a palpable economic trend that directly impacts Americans daily lives, the stock market is a visible statistic that many use as a barometer for the health of the overall economy.

Thus, given the renewed national focus on rising prices and the sinking stock market, it is difficult to envision a scenario in which voters economic anxieties dont translate into a referendum on Democratic leadership in November.

Though, it does remain to be seen whether Republicans, whose midterm message has become increasingly erratic, will be able to use this latest economic news fully to their advantage.

The same day that the inflation report was released, GOP Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) introduced anational abortion banbill. This ultimately could buoy Democrats efforts to shift voter focus away from their greatest vulnerability the economy and toward protecting abortion rights, an issue that has helped Democrats climb in the polls.

That being said, Democrats strength in polls may actually be overstated.

In acolumnfor the New York Timeslastweek, political analyst Nate Cohn cautioned that the same polling warning signs are flashing again, as Democratic Senate candidates are outpacing expectations in the same places where the polls overestimated Joe Biden in 2020, most notably in Wisconsin.

His analysis finds that there is a consistent link between the strength of Democratic Senate candidates today and polling error in the 2020 presidential election. While Cohn is careful to note that we cannot immediately decipher why this is or if this will translate to a similar polling error in the 2022 election he does cite the problem of non-response bias since the Supreme Courts decision to overturn Roe v. Wade as a potential cause.

Put another way, if poll respondents in key swing states like Wisconsin are meaningfully more liberal or Democratic than those who are not answering polls, this could suggest that Democrats current public polling lead in those states could be significantly overstated.

If the polls end up being just as wrong as they were in 2020, per Cohns analysis, Democrats will end up losing Senate races in Wisconsin, North Carolina and Ohio, which they are currently favored to win. Democrats would still likely win Pennsylvania and Arizona; however, control of the Senate would come down to two states: Nevada and Georgia.

To be sure, many pollsters including my firm are making strides to deal with the challenges associated with non-response bias to avoid overstating Democrats current support levels.

Even if the polling error this year is less than in 2020, it would still be a mistake for Democrats to grow complacent or worse, to be overconfident based on their apparent lead, especially given the recent pessimistic economic news.

In the final weeks of the campaign, Democrats need to make a concerted effort to demonstrate fiscal prudence and discipline as the rising cost of living continues to weigh on American families. The party needs to show voters how they have worked and will continue to work to lower costs for American families, secure Americas energy independence and avoid additional tax increases.

In addition to doubling down on efforts to rally their base around the issue of abortion rights, speaking to voters economic anxieties and frustrations especially in swing states is absolutely critical in order for Democrats to have a fighting chance at keeping control of the Senate and cutting their losses in the House.

Douglas E. Schoen is a political consultant who served as an adviser to President Clinton and to the 2020 presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg. His new book is The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise and America in Retreat.

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Why Democrats' midterm optimism could be misguided - The Hill

ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY SCHERER

As Democrats prospects for the midterms have improved theyre now up to a 71 percent chance of keeping the Senate and a 29 percent chance of retaining the House, according to the 2022 FiveThirtyEight midterm election forecast Ive observed a corresponding increase in concern among liberals that the polls might overestimate Democrats position again, as they did in 2016 and 2020. Even among commenters who are analyzing the race from an arms-length distance, there sometimes seems to be a presumption that the polls will be biased toward Democrats.

The best version of this argument comes from Other Nate (Nate Cohn, of The New York Times). He pointed out in a piece on Monday that states such as Wisconsin and Ohio where Democratic Senate candidates are outperforming FiveThirtyEights fundamentals index like how the state has voted in other recent elections were also prone to significant polling errors in 2020. Cohns analysis is worth reading in full.

Here, Im going to present something of a rebuttal. Not necessarily to Cohns specific claims, but rather to the presumption I often see in discussion about polling that polling bias is predictable and necessarily favors Democrats. My contention is that while the polls could have another bad year, its hard to know right now whether that bias will benefit Democrats or Republicans. Peoples guesses about this are often wrong. In 2014, for example, there was a lot of discussion about whether the polls would have a pro-Republican bias, as they did in 2012. But they turned out to have a pro-Democratic bias instead.

Theres one important complication to this, however. Our model actually assumes that current polling probably does overstate the case for Democrats. Its just not necessarily for the reasons people assume.

As I mentioned, the Deluxe version of our forecast gives Democrats a 71 percent and 29 percent chance of keeping the Senate and House, respectively. But the Deluxe forecast isnt just based on polls: It incorporates the fundamentals I mentioned earlier, along with expert ratings about these races. Furthermore, it accounts for the historical tendency of the presidents party to perform poorly at the midterms, President Bidens mediocre (although improving) approval rating and the fact that Democrats may not perform as well in polls of likely voters as among registered voters. As the election approaches, it tends to put more weight on the polls and less on these other factors, but it never zeros them out completely. (In this respect, it differs from our presidential forecast.)

By contrast, the Lite version of our forecast, which is more or less a polls-only view of the race, gives Democrats an 81 percent chance of keeping the Senate and a 41 percent chance of keeping the House. It also suggests that theyll win somewhat more seats: There are 52.4 Democratic Senate seats in an average Lite simulation as compared with 50.8 in a Deluxe simulation, or 212 Democratic House seats in an average Lite simulation versus 209 in a Deluxe simulation. Notably, this corresponds to current polls overstating Democrats position by the equivalent of 1.5 or 2 percentage points. Put another way, we should think of a race in which the polling average shows Democrats 2 points ahead as being tied.

Thats not quite the same thing as saying that the polls are systematically biased, though. Polls reflect a snapshot of what is happening today, and Democrats might indeed do very well if the election were held now instead of in November. In states like Ohio, for instance, theyve enjoyed a significant advertising advantage thanks to superior fundraising, but that will probably even out to some extent by Election Day.

Meanwhile, Biden and Democrats have also been on something of a winning streak lately, between a series of policy accomplishments, inflation trending downward and the political backlash to the Supreme Courts unpopular decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. But a worse-than-expected inflation report this week and a narrowly averted rail workers strike, which could have caused substantial supply chain disruptions, are reminders that uncertain real-world events wont necessarily continue to play out in Democrats favor.

Its also the case that in individual races, information besides the polls can help make a more accurate prediction, even when you have a lot of polls. For example, the partisan lean of a state still tells you something. Lets say the polling average has the Democrat ahead by 10 points in a state where the fundamentals put the Republican up by 2. Empirically, the best forecast in a race like this uses a blend of mostly polls and some fundamentals (exactly how much weight is given to the polls depends on how many polls there are and how close it is to the election). And you might end up with a forecast that has the Democrat winning by 7 or 8 points rather than 10 points, for instance. In that sense, in races such as Wisconsin and Ohio where there is a significant divergence between polls and fundamentals, Democrats probably should have concerns.

What I resist, though, is the implication that it can be presumed that the polls have a predictable, persistent, systematic bias toward Democrats. Is Rep. Tim Ryan going to underperform his current polls in Ohios Senate race? Well see, but more likely than not, the answer is yes. But is it just a thing now that polls always overrate Democrats?

Im skeptical. Here are seven reasons why:

Our historical database of polls shows that theres not much in the way of consistent polling bias. Two cycles of a pro-Republican bias in 1998 and 2000 were followed by a Democratic bias in 2002. A fairly sharp Republican bias in 2012 reversed itself, and the polls were biased toward Democrats in both 2014 and 2016.

Weighted-average statistical bias in polls in final 21 days of thecampaign

Bias is calculated only for races in which the top two finishers are a Democrat and a Republican. Therefore, it is not calculated for presidential primaries. Pollsters that are banned by FiveThirtyEight are not included in the averages. So as not to give a more prolific pollster too much influence over the average, polls are weighted by one over the square root of the number of polls each pollster conducted in a specific category.

Historically, the correlation between the polling bias in a given cycle and the bias in the previous cycle is either essentially zero or slightly negative, depending on whether you define previous cycle as two years ago or four years ago.

Pollsters get a lot of crap from people, but one nice thing about their job is that they regularly get to compare their results against reality. Sure, its possible for a pollster to get unlucky because of sampling error if you survey 500 people, sometimes youll draw a sample showing the Republican winning even if the Democrat is really up by 5 points. For the most part, though, pollsters can and do consider changes to their methodology based on errors in past elections.

And precisely because pollsters are subject to public scrutiny and there are relatively objective ways to measure their performance, they have strong financial and professional incentives to scrutinize their methods for potential sources of error and fix them if they can. Its the same incentive that a professional golfer has to fix his swing: If hes consistently hitting every shot to the left side of the fairway, for instance, at some point hell make adjustments. Maybe hell even overcompensate and start hitting everything to the right side instead.

Even if pollsters dont change their methods, the market will change the polling landscape on its own, at least to some degree. Pollsters who performed well in previous elections will get more business, and those who performed poorly will lose it.

For instance, weve seen relatively few traditional gold standard polls sponsored by major media organizations this cycle, perhaps because those polls tended to have a Democratic bias in 2020. Thats a shame, because most of these polling organizations have good long-term track records despite some recent problems. But it does mean that polling averages are more weighted toward Republican-leaning firms that have done comparatively well in recent election cycles, such as Rasmussen Reports and Trafalgar Group. This is especially true for FiveThirtyEights polling averages, which weight polls in part based on their historical accuracy. Groups like Rasmussen, for instance, get more say in the polling average than they did in 2020 because their rating is now higher.

As you can see in the table in the first point, polls did not have a systematic Democratic bias in 2018. That seems relevant, considering that was the most recent midterm.

Polls have also generally not had a Democratic bias in other elections in the Trump era when Trump himself was not on the ballot. They didnt have one in the Alabama Senate special election in 2017, for instance, or the Georgia Senate runoffs in January 2021, or in last years Virginia gubernatorial race.

There have also been some races where Democrats have overperformed their polls, such as in last years California gubernatorial recall election and in the 2017 governors race in Virginia. But these errors dont tend to get as much attention from the media as those that underestimated Republicans.

It may be that Republicans benefit from higher turnout only when Trump himself is on the ballot. A certain number of voters were willing to walk over glass to vote for Trump: Would they do the same for J.D. Vance, Mehmet Oz, Ron Johnson or Blake Masters? Evidence from non-Trump elections in the Trump era suggests maybe not. I tend not to buy the so-called shy Trump theory, or that voters are reluctant to state their preference for Trump. But it may nonetheless be hard to reach Trump voters, who may be more socially isolated, or who may be irregular voters who are screened out by likely voter models.

Democrats have had a lot of success in elections since the Supreme Courts Dobbs decision and importantly for our purposes, theyve done as well or better than polls predicted in these races:

I couldnt find any polls for the special elections in New Yorks 23rd Congressional District or Nebrakas 1st Congressional District, also held since the Dobbs decision.

Ironically, polls conducted before large parts of the country were shut down in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic were more accurate than those conducted immediately before Election Day in 2020. Take the FiveThirtyEight polling average on March 1, 2020. It showed Biden up by 4.1 percentage points nationally, very close to his eventual 4.5-point popular vote margin. Our polling averages also correctly showed a very close race in states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

This may be because the pandemic profoundly affected who answered the polls. Specifically, Democrats were more likely to be in jurisdictions that implemented stay-at-home orders, and liberals were otherwise more likely to voluntarily limit their social interactions. Having more time at home on their hands, they may have been more likely to respond to polls. Thats less of a concern this year, with few voters treating COVID-19 as a high priority and few government restrictions in place.

Elections have consequences, and theyre relatively infrequent events. So the second-guessing and recriminations tend to linger for a while.

But that doesnt change the fact that peoples concerns about the polls stem mostly from a sample of exactly two elections, 2020 and 2016. You can point out that polls also had a Democratic bias in 2014. But, of course, they had a Republican bias in 2012, were largely unbiased in 2018, and have either tended to be unbiased or had a Republican bias in recent special elections.

True, in 2020 and 2016, polls were off the mark in a large number of races and states. But the whole notion of a systematic polling error is that its, well, systematic: It affects nearly all races, or at least the large majority of them. There just isnt a meaningful sample size to work with here, or anything close to it.

Again, that doesnt mean you should expect the polls to be spot-on. It may be that were living in a universe with larger polling errors than before in response to declining response rates. And there are some decent reasons to suspect that Democrats wont perform as well in November as they would in an election right now. Still, Ill stick to my usual advice: Prepare for the polls to be wrong in either direction.

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Will The Polls Overestimate Democrats Again? - FiveThirtyEight

Former Vice President Adlai Stevenson once said, The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning. Given todays political climate, and the Democratic focus on what they deem as misinformation, one would presume that not telling the truth about ones previous political party registration would be proof that someone is unworthy of winning. Yet, that is what Adam Frisch, the Democratic nominee for Colorados 3rd Congressional District, allegedly has done. Frisch will face Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert in the midterm elections.

But Frisch does not appear all that confident about his Democratic Party politics. While on the campaign trail, he has positioned himself as a centrist candidate, albeit as a Democrat. He has repeatedly denied ever being registered as a Democrat. Yet, a recent discovery of a previous political registration appears to refute such claims.

Frisch is a former currencies trader and member of the Aspen City Council, according to Bloomberg. He has generally shied away from identifying himself as a Democrat (and given the failures of the Democratic-controlled Congress and Biden administration, who can blame him?) Frisch describes himself as a Western business man who wants to build a bipartisan coalition but claims he has been unaffiliated with any political party until recently.

Its a claim Frisch has repeated on multiple occasions. He's said that until Dec. 27, 2021, less than nine months ago, he's been unaffiliated his entire life and never registered as a Democrat. But, unless the 54-year-old was somehow born in 1993, the facts dont seem to agree with him. A voter registration from New York City in 1992 shows Frisch was registered as a Democrat. And, assuming this registration is legitimate, and at the moment theres no reason to suspect otherwise, Frisch has some explaining to do.

At a recent debate, Boebert questioned Frisch about his previous voter registration. He claimed to not have remembered registering that way in 1992. Yet, Frisch's explanation that he "forgot" how he registered, doesn't feel like the truth. Plus, if he forgot about that, it raises the question, what else did he tell voters that he may have forgotten isn't true?

Being dishonest about ones political registration is such an odd thing. Strategically, it doesnt make any sense. Whats the point of Frisch trying to pretend hes never been a Democrat, especially when he is running against Republican Lauren Boebert as a Democrat? If he is that ashamed of his party affiliation, then why is he running as one?

Think about it. Frisch is a Democrat, running as a Democrat, who appears to be lying about previously being registered as a Democrat. Other than potentially trying to hide radical political views from his constituents, what is the point? Moreover, if someone has to lie about their voter registration history, whats that say about their belief in the political platform of that party?

Actions such as this suggest hes nothing more than an opportunist, desperately trying to get into power. And since theres now skepticism behind Frischs credibility, voters in Colorados 3rd District should be asking, what else has Frisch not told the truth about? Nevertheless, if it has revealed anything, it is, as Adlai Stevenson said, proof that Frisch is not worthy of winning.

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Lauren Boebert's Democratic opponent forgot he was previously registered as a Democrat - Washington Examiner

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said that his caucus fraught debate over whether to vote on public safety bills this month, for instance, remained a very important question, but one that might not be politically wise at the moment.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, left, walks with Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., at the Capitol in Washington, Feb. 11, 2020.|Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

It might not make sense for us to poke the bear. Lets win the majority back and then do what we can do then, the senior Black Caucus member said. I think we are working on reducing the likelihood of tumult.

Other Democrats, though, argue its still critical to show voters the party is supporting law enforcement after years of GOP attacks. Democrats need to demonstrate we can be pro-law enforcement while being against bad cops, and so Id like to see us vote on this package, moderate Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) said.

Such tension is a reminder that theres zero guarantee of a drama-free September. With the House slated for just eight more days in session this month, lawmakers face a high-stakes to-do list that includes averting a government shutdown, delivering military aid to Ukraine and resolving a contentious bicameral dispute over Sen. Joe Manchins (D-W.Va.) energy permitting push.

Democrats are also facing a pile-up of other priorities: Party leaders had already committed to tackling some delayed bills, including that policing and public safety package that openly split the caucus just weeks earlier. Theres keen interest in voting on a measure to ban stock trading for members of Congress.

Some hope to tackle even loftier ambitions, such as the nearly two year-old push to reform the 19th-century Electoral Count Act in the wake of the Capitol riot. Internal caucus discussions remain active on both topics.

We dont want to see a dustup over anything, said Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), describing the partys push for unity in its waning days before the election. Summing up Democrats main task this month, he quipped: Just brag about everything weve gotten done.

The most pressing matter for party leaders is government funding now ominously linked with a summertime accord between Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to pass a major energy permitting package by the end of September.

A group of House progressives, led by Natural Resources Chair Ral Grijalva (D-Ariz.), have taken a hard line against the deal, which theyve criticized as propping up the fossil fuel industry.

And theyve threatened they could oppose stopgap government funding if Manchins plan is included, though they say theyre intent on negotiating to avoid that outcome. The simpler solution, they say, is to separate the proposal from the must-pass funding bill, which would also avert a humiliating pre-election shutdown.

You avoid the drama. You avoid the pressure that members are going to be under. You avoid splitting our caucus. And you avoid a messy situation before the midterms, Grijalva said in an interview. Hed rather see the issue be punted until the lame-duck session: I think more time to negotiate is a good thing.

Democratic leaders have worked behind the scenes to mollify some of that angst: Schumer, for instance, has been phoning some House progressives who signed Grijalvas 70-plus-member letter, including Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) speaks to reporters outside of the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 23, 2021 in Washington, D.C.|Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Jayapal said shes spoken multiple times to Schumer in recent weeks, conversations where hes reiterated his commitment to the permitting agreement with Manchin, since it proved key to securing Democrats tax, climate and health care bill.

I get it, he is trying to move it. I am not just sure its going to be able to go forward [in the Senate], Jayapal said. I understand they felt they had to make some sort of a deal. But they didnt talk to the other chamber that has to pass it.

Other senior House Democrats, too, have stressed the need to avoid an end-of-September funding standoff at all costs. During Wednesdays first closed-door meeting in nearly two months, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told members that under no circumstance could Democrats allow a government shutdown come Oct. 1.

In the same meeting, both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democratic campaigns chief Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) talked about their brightening though still challenging prospects to cling to their majority in November. Maloney urged his fellow Democrats to remain focused on the goal ahead.

Stay focused and stay together, said Rep. Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.), echoing leaderships message to fellow Democrats. Meeks said most members are still cautious, observing no jumping for joy yet, but said hes begun to see a shift in attitude.

Meeks recalled, for example, Democrats flocking to Biden at his celebratory White House event earlier this week a long way from members who publicly declared just weeks ago that the president shouldnt seek reelection in 2024.

Republicans, needless to say, look across the aisle and see little but unearned optimism ahead of a midterm cycle that still trends their way overall.

Were confident, said House GOP campaigns chief Tom Emmer (R-Minn.). We have the best class of candidates ever. Were in the strongest financial position weve ever been in. And we have the messages that overwhelmingly resonate with the voters who are going to decide these elections.

Another major open question for Democrats is whether they can reach an agreement for floor votes on a slew of public safety and policing bills that several moderates have called critical to their own reelection chances.

That push came back to life this week as Pelosi sat down with moderate Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Congressional Black Caucus Chair Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio). But while the discussions seemed to be gaining momentum after two months of impasse, its not clear yet whether any accord could emerge that gets enough votes from Democrats four-seat majority.

Some even acknowledged there is little to gain politically if a public safety debate would trigger a fresh round of infighting.

Id much rather us not take any action if its going to mean pitting us against each other, said one Democratic lawmaker close to the talks.

Josh Siegel, Burgess Everett and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.

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Democrats' No. 1 fall goal: Try not to 'poke the bear' - POLITICO

Add to that the concurring opinion of Clarence Thomas, who wrote that the court should reconsider other decisionsincluding the decriminalization of same-sex relationships; the right to gay marriage; and 1965s Griswold v. Connecticut, which held that married couples have a right to contraception.

The two major parties do not operate as simple mirror images, the political scientists Matt Grossman and David Hopkins observe in their 2016 book, Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats. They write that even as Democrats have moved to the left on certain social issues, the partys governing style can be described as technocratic incrementalism over one guided by a comprehensive value system. Democratic voters largely expect their elected officials to compromiseboth among themselves, and, where possible, with the opposing party.

Republicans, by contrast, view politics as ideological conflict and demand that their elected officials adhere to doctrinal purity. They interpret electoral defeat as a consequence of insufficient, rather than excessive, ideological purity.

The tone of this very smart book is mild, as youd expect from two academics. I would take it further than they do: One of our political parties operates within the realm of reason and sanity. The other has crossed over into a world of dark and dangerous madness.

In 2016, a North Carolina man fired an AR-15 rifle inside a Washington pizza parlor, based on his belief that a Satanic child sex abuse ring involving Hillary Clinton and other Democrats was operating out of its basement. This was a fantasy spun out of the weirder corners of right-wing philosophy, and the attack, which became known as Pizzagate, was the first time that many Americans heard the crackpot beliefs of the online community that would soon be calling itself QAnon.

Six years later, polling by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 25 percent of Republicans believe in QAnons three core concepts, which PRRI defined as: The government, media and financial sector are run by Satan-worshipping pedophiles; there is a storm coming soon that will sweep elites from power; the nation is so far off track that American patriots may have to resort to violence to save it.

Theres an abundance of additional evidence that the American fringe is now the GOP mainstream. About 70 percent of Republicans believe the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. Republican elected officials, including members of Congress, now push the belief that Democrats are involved in grooming children for pedophiles.

Democrats tend to be diverse and eclectic, said Geoffrey Layman, chairman of the political science department at the University of Notre Dame. They dont buy the party talking points hook, line, and sinker.

Republicans lean toward authoritarianism, he continued. They believe what they are told by their leaders, whether its Fox News or their political leaders. Its no longer a Reagan-era vision of conservative government, God, and country. Trumpism has elements of that. But the base does not question when he quotes Two Corinthians. They accepted the Trumpist takeover of the party in order to win.

Professional Democrats are equally horrified by the content of the conservative messagingand by the fact that it works. Far-right, Trumpist rhetoric energizes the Republican base, and in 2020 drove a massive turnout, countering Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts and nearly giving Trump a second term.

Democrats have won in the nationwide vote count seven of the last eight presidential elections. But Republican messaging is having an impact where it counts: in battlegroundor newly battlegroundstates.

Pennsylvania is the best example. It looked safely Democratic, at least in presidential cycles, having voted for the partys nominee six consecutive times between 1992 and 2012, in all cases by comfortable margins. But Trump narrowly carried the state in 2016 over Hillary Clintonand Joe Biden won it back four years later in a contest that was nearly as close.

With a population that is older and whiter than the national average, Pennsylvania is full of voters who are especially vulnerable to Republican appeals. The same is true of Wisconsin and Michigan, two other states that have trended more Republican in the last decade. Theyre not selling anything or trying to do anything, Layman said. What unites them is MAGA-ismthe shared sense that America used to be a country that worked for us, and we need to get back to that greatness.

The backward-looking appeals are nakedly racistwhether the subject is border security, government spending, or even China and Covid. They basically only have one story to tell, said Shenker-Osorio. Its about status threat and racial grievance.

Some Democrats believe, or at least want to hope, that this is sort of a Republican last gasp. Their fundamental argument is, basically, we want to stand in the way of a country that is surging past us, Maslin said. Theyre a wounded animal fighting a last battle. Maybe so. But their story is unifying for a big chunk of Americans, even if it is not a majority. It demonizes enemies, gives voice to the aggrieved, and sends an army of angry working-class voters to the polls.

Its a common refrain now to say that U.S. politics are tribal, but what gets left out is that Democrats are not a good tribe and, in fact, are a long way from the Oxford English Dictionary definition of a close-knit community under a defined leader, chief, or ruling council. Democrats let their members wander off in all manner of unproductive directions. They dont go to war with winning as the sole value. They dont banish their dissidents.

Steven Greene is a professor of political science at North Carolina State University with an expertise in public opinion and elections. When I told him the questions I was exploring, he responded by highlighting the divisions in the Dem tribe: Are Democrats horrible at messaging? No. Liberal advocacy groups, who are not trying to win elections, are horrible at it. Theyre the ones talking about chest feeding, the ones arguing for Lia Thomas and other trans athletes to compete against women. Establishment Democrats, he continued, did not argue for defunding the police or use that phrase. But the left and its organized groups do. These are deeply unpopular opinions. The party, he said, is currently engaged in generational warfare. Theyre eating themselves from the inside.

In June, New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow observed that Democrats are pushing some issues too far and too fast and paying a price. TooFar is not a viral hashtagyet, Blow wrote, but it is the prevailing ethos of the moment and the sentiment animating our politics and our culture, the sense that is propelling a massive backlash across the political spectrum. (He pointed out that Republicans have their own too-far problems.) He predicted that Chesa Boudin, the San Francisco district attorney and a crusader for criminal justice reform, might lose his office in a recall election out of voters sense of too-farismwhich he did.

Two weeks after Blows column, his colleague at the Times, Jamelle Bouie, took the opposite position, attacking the partys sanguine complacency. Where Blow saw too little caution, Bouie wrote that Democratic elders, many of them in their seventies and eighties, were exercising too much of it. Whats missing from party leaders, an absence that is endlessly frustrating to younger liberals, is any sense of urgency and crisisany sense that our system is on the brink, he wrote.

Bouie is right, too. But the two positions are hard to square. Many more moderate Democrats look at the current state of affairsmass shootings, polar ice caps melting, threats to democracy itselfwith the same alarm that the partys progressive wing does. But their impatience is tempered by the reality of the partys precarious hold on power, currently a slim majority in the House and a one-vote edge in the Senate. (That margin comes with the necessity of a tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris and depends on Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona aligning with the Democratic tribe.)

A sense of patience and optimismthe feeling that if you just wait it out and keep working, life will get betterwas a hallmark of the postWorld War II generation of New Deal liberals. They emerged from a Depression and a triumphant battle with Nazism into a degree of comfort and wealth, and many passed their tomorrow-will-be-a-brighter-day outlook on to their boomer children.

But to this generation of younger Democrats, those feelings seem radically out of date. Progressive Democrats are pushing for measures to address a climate crisis they see as urgent. But then you have the moderates in the party who say we dont want to talk about the Green New Deal, Maslin said. Their feeling is: Were on the front lines and its going to get us beat. As Democrats, were in a box. We defend the system, defend government, and say we can make it work. The Republicans dont have that burden. Did anyone really believe Trump was going to build the wall?

A more cautious approach risks alienating younger voters, always the least reliable slice of the electorate. They turned out for Obama, and young Democrats, and especially young women, have been eager volunteers in recent elections. But a Washington Post story in July indicated that enthusiasm for Democrats among the youngest voters was lagging. If there isnt something substantive done on the issues they care about, there is a real danger that young voters will not vote or volunteer on campaigns to the same degree as they did in 2020, David McLennan, a political science professor and polling director at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina, told the Post. They are very unhappy with the ability of Democrats to get stuff done. (In late August, Biden did announce some student debt relief.)

Maslin told me his nightmare scenario. What I worry about, he said, is if the younger third, primarily millennials, throws up their hands and says this isnt fucking worth it. If that happens, God help us.

Democrats have been left with a narrow path to victory, both in assembling majorities in Congress and winning the presidency. The formula requires huge margins in the cities and close-in suburbs and a continued hold on female voters, Black voters, and college-educated whites. There was some slippage of Black support in 2020 and, more alarmingly, a bigger drop-off in the partys winning margins with Hispanics. Most of the rest of the electoratenoncollege-educated whites, churchgoing white Christians, just about everyone in that big swath of red across the nations midsectionis currently unreachable. Theyre the other tribe.

This leads to the perennial Democratic lament that working-class and poor voters in the Rust Beltin the hollows of West Virginia, in hamlets in Arkansasare voting against their economic self-interests. This is such a strongly held belief that it could almost be part of their party platforms.

Stop it already. Its like the classic definition of insanitydoing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Democrats will not win over hearts in the dug-in Republican base by, say, improving dental care options in the ACA. The likelihood is that Republicans in Washington would vote against it and then claim credit in their districts when it passes.

Theres a raft of political science research that voters, and maybe especially Republican voters, are led by emotion as much as rationality. They go with the team they feel is pulling for them. Is it really voting against their self-interest when they cast ballots to put people in office who speak their language and make them feel better?

The pursuit of happiness is right there in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence! It makes people happy to cast a vote that elevates their tribe. Its not rational, of course, but the Democrats consistent miscalculation is to believe that people address the world as they dowhich is to say, rationally. When its said that people are voting against their self-interest, its a mistake to define self-interest in purely economic terms, said Laurel Elder, a political science professor at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York, and the co-author, with Steven Greene, of The Politics of Parenthood. They vote on emotion, on what gives meaning to their lives.

Elder told me about panel datarepeated surveys of the same people over the course of timethat asked how they thought the economy was faring. When Obama was president, the Republicans said the economy was not doing well, Elder stated. The very same people said it was doing great as soon as Trump came into office.

What can Democrats do to unite their tribe and bring new members into the fold?

California Governor Gavin Newsom took the unusual step of running a TV advertisement this summer in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis and his Republican allies pushed through what became known as the Dont Say Gay lawthe measure that restricts what teachers can instruct about sexual orientation and gender identity. Florida is also a national leader in the dubious category of ripping controversial books from the shelves of school libraries. Freedom is under attack in your state, Newsom says in the ad. I urge all of you living in Florida to join the fight, or join us in California, where we believe in freedom.

Representative Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat and candidate for an open Senate seat, occupies a place on the ideological spectrum far to the right of the San Franciscoborn Newsom. In a July appearance on Meet the Press, he addressed the Supreme Courts reversal of Roe v. Wade. This is the largest governmental overreach in the private lives of citizens in my lifetime, Ryan said. This is big government coming into your doctors office, to your bedroom. Its crazy. This is not freedom. America is a country built on freedom. Everybodys free except for a woman when shes pregnant? Holy cow, thats a huge stretch.

Note the repeated use, from both men, of a single word: freedom.

In August, voters in deep-red Kansas resoundingly defeated a referendum that would have changed the states constitution to say that there was no right to abortion in the state, by a margin of 59 to 41 percent. The name of the organization that formed to defend the reproductive rights of women in the state: Kansans for Constitutional Freedom.

Freedom is one of the big words that Republicans have owned. Democrats dont want to talk about religion, faith, and freedom, Luntz told me. That comes off the Republican tongue like butter. Democrats choke on it.

I dont think Luntz is necessarily correct about the value of the first two words. In an increasingly secular nation, invoking religion can cut both ways. As for faithin what? The word has come to mean just one thing, religious faith, but many secular Americans would say they do have faithin family, in science, in Americas future.

Freedom, though, is the winning word for Democrats. It is the beacon that brought immigrants pouring into this country. In its fullest form, it is what the descendants of enslaved Africans have fought for over the whole of the nations 246-year history. Its the through line for the nations proudest accomplishments and purest ambitions.

The Supreme Court decision overturning Roe unmasked Republican hypocrisy over the word. Democrats have begun to reclaim it and should keep at it. And seize on every chance to attach it to their issues.

Freedom for women to have control over their own choices and bodies. Freedom to vote. Freedom to love who you want. Freedom to read what you want. Freedom to earn a living wage. Freedom to send your children off to school without fear theyll be riddled with bullets from an AR-15. Freedom for your kids and grandkids to dwell on a livable planet.

The last Republican president, Donald Trump, buddied up with former KGB agent Vladimir Putin. An organization led by establishment Republicans, the Conservative Political Action Conference, held a conference earlier this year in Hungary, which is led by Viktor Orban, an anti-gay, anti-immigrant strongman systematically dismantling his nations democracy. CPAC then welcomed Orban to its conference in Texas, days after he decried race-mixing and argued that Hungary should be for pure Europeansremarks so vile that a longtime ally resigned her position as an Orban adviser and decried the comments as a pure Nazi speech worthy of Goebbels.

This is the current direction of American conservatives. Toward authoritarianism, scapegoating of outsiders, and Soviet-style disinformation. The hard-right lurch of the conservative movement is a tragedy for the nation, an urgent threat to our democracy.

Its also an opportunity that Democrats cannot squander. They need to wrap themselves in the flag and use the words that hammer home that they represent the true, patriotic American values.

Above all, they need to improve on the ham-handed messaging that continually threatens to turn victory into defeat. In August, after months of bickering and sputtering, Democrats passed a historic package of legislation that will address climate change, lower the costs that Americans pay for health care, raise taxes on the biggest corporations, and reduce the federal deficit. It was a monumental victoryso sweeping that some compared it to the achievements of the first two years of Johnsons Great Society and FDRs New Deal.

Democrats, predictably, gave the Biden package a ponderous name: the Inflation Reduction Act. All that does is remind people that inflation is bad and invite ridicule if it is not brought under control quickly.

Go figure. Its like they wanted to give those Citizen Consultants something fresh to complain about.

I would have called it, I dont know, the Prosperity and Freedom Act. What exactly would that mean? Who cares?

Just keep talking about the ways the legislation helps ordinary Americans. Makes corporations pay their fair share of taxes. Keeps the planet livable for future generations.

Sell the brownie, not the recipeand see how that works.

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Is This When Democrats Finally Learn How to Message? - The New Republic