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Biden Crows about Infrastructure
While the results of last week's elections were not heartening for Democrats (other than those in very blue cities), the passage of the trillion-dollar infrastructure bill has given Joe Biden a chance to reset the news from "Democrats suck" to "Democrats get things done for the country." Needless to say, he is going to milk this for all it is worth, and he has already started. As we have mentioned before, in politics a week is a long time, and if the reconciliation bill also passes, Democrats will have something concrete to talk about next year.
Specifically, Biden told reporters: "We took a monumental step forward as a nation. We did something that's long overdue... a once-in-a-generation investment that's going to create millions of jobs modernizing infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, our broadband, all range of things." Here is a clip of his speech after the infrastructure bill passed the House. While he was at it, Biden took a potshot at Donald Trump's frequent call for an "infrastructure week":
Biden also took the trouble to thank the 6% of the House Republicans who voted for the bill for making it a bipartisan effort. This remark is clearly aimed at the bipartisanship fetishists who think what you achieve doesn't matter unless it was bipartisan. He didn't ask why 94% of the House Republicans are against fixing the roads and bringing broadband Internet to their own constituents. That's not his style.
If Biden can get the front pages to describe all the things this bill (and the next one) will do for people, most people will forget about how the sausage was made, what Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) did or did not do, and how much it cost, and will focus on what the bills will do for them. Who knows, but we guess: "We fixed the roads and created millions of jobs for ordinary Americans" might just be able to compete with "We're going to ban critical race theory in kindergarten."
Victories like this—even if they are far from what Biden at first envisioned—also have a psychological effect. Absent this bill, Democrats would be depressed by last week's elections. Now they can focus on something positive and envision a campaign in which they have something to offer the voters. The defeat of Terry McAuliffe (D) suggests that merely taking potshots at Trump doesn't cut it anymore, but telling people "as a result of our bill, millions of Americans who didn't have high-speed Internet will get it very soon" might work much better. Of course, the structural issues that favor the Republicans (history, redistricting, gerrymandering, etc.) are still there, but with a positive message to use, the Democrats might at least have a fighting chance to hold the House, especially if the economy is really humming a year from now. (V)
Trump Rants about Infrastructure
While Joe Biden was telling everyone how great the infrastructure bill is and how thankful he is to the Republicans who helped pass it, Donald Trump was telling everyone how awful the bill is and how angry he is with the people who helped pass it. Specifically, Trump is furious with the 13 House Republicans who voted for the bill. With six progressive Democrats voting against the bill, it would have gone down in flames without the Republican votes. Trump is determined to see the 13 Republicans who supported the bill driven from the House.
It is not only Trump who feels that way. The Trumpiest Republicans are mirroring what he said. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) tweeted: "RINOS just passed this wasteful $1.2 trillion dollar 'infrastructure' bill. Pelosi did not have the votes in her party to pass this garbage. Time to name names and hold these fake republicans accountable." Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) said: "Vote for this infrastructure bill and I will primary the hell out of you." Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) can always be counted to chime in to support Trump, so she said: "Republicans who hand over their voting card to Nancy Pelosi to pass Biden's Communist takeover of America will feel the anger of the GOP voter." So fixing roads and providing rural Republicans with Internet service is a Communist plot. Why didn't we realize that? This whole time, we were thinking it was a Canadian plot. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) added: "I can't believe Republicans just gave the Democrats their socialism bill." One has to wonder how these representatives would have responded if Trump had passed the identical bill. (V)
Exit Polls Show How Youngkin Won
The Virginia election results are going to be picked apart for quite a while. The exit polls are a good place to start the picking. One thing that immediately stands out is Terry McAuliffe did very badly with young voters when compared to Gov. Ralph Northam (D) in 2017:
The first thing that pops up is how badly McAuliffe did among 18-24 year-old voters. He won by 5 points, compared to Northam's winning this group by 35 points. Among 25-29 year voters, the Democrat went from +42 to +11, a loss of 31 points. McAuliffe also did poorly with 30-39 year olds. In contrast, his showing with seniors was only 4 points worse than Northam's.
Another important way to look at the results is by education and race:
Here we see that in most categories, there wasn't a lot of change. However, one stands out: white women with no college degree. Northam lost this group by 35 points. McAuliffe lost it by 49 points. Another way of putting it is that McAuliffe lost noncollege women by 3 to 1, despite the fact that women tend to be Democratic. Of course, he did even worse with noncollege men, but that was to be expected.
McAuliffe also did worse with moderates, doing 6 points worse than Northam. He did worse with white evangelicals, doing 10 points worse than Northam. Of course, some of this may be due to McAuliffe himself and his long association with the Clintons, but there are certainly warning signs for the Democrats here. (V)
Democrats Have No Solution to Their Problem in Rural America
The infrastructure bill notwithstanding, Democrats are now starting to look more closely at last week's elections. What they will see is that they did very badly in rural areas. Same as last time. Same as the time before. Each time they resolve to do better next time, but they don't have a clue how to do it.
Their focus continues to be on young voters, urban and suburban voters, and minority voters. They don't seem to have much to offer to rural voters, especially not those who want to move the country back to 1950, when white Christian men had all the power. Former North Dakota Democratic senator Heidi Heitkamp said: "The problem did not start with Trump. If you make it all about Donald Trump, then it's transactional, as opposed to an institutional failure that the Democratic Party has had in the last how many years of not paying attention to rural America." North Dakota used to be associated with prairie populism. In the early 2000s, all three members of North Dakota's congressional delegation were Democrats. Now none are.
The change predated Trump. In 2010, when Trump wasn't in the picture, the Republicans flipped 31 House seats that were pure rural and another 20 that were a mix of rural and suburban. Rural Howard County, IA, for example, gave 60% of its votes to Barack Obama in 2012 but 57% of its votes to Trump in 2016, a massive swing of 42%. In 2020, it went to 63%. Somehow Democrats are losing in places they used to win.
One view is that Trump gave people there a sense of pride, whereas Democrats tend to disrespect them as dumb yokels with a stupid lifestyle that needs to be changed. That may count for more than offering to upgrade their Internet speed. Also, some of the things the left says, like "defund the police" and "birthing persons," strike a lot of voters as totally crazy. Democratic leaders would love to shut down this kind of talk, but that is not going to happen.
Another view is that many of the Trump voters are fundamentally racist and when George H.W. Bush was president they had no easy way to express that. But as the Republican Party has moved to the right over the past 20 years, culminating with Trump, they feel more comfortable with being more open about it.
One thing the Democrats could do is show up. It is hard to find good House candidates in deep red districts because everyone knows they will lose. However, in statewide elections, losing rural areas by 20 points is a lot better than losing them by 40 or 50 points. Democrats rarely campaign in rural areas. Maybe they should start now, especially with the infrastructure bill, which has a number of items that could appeal to rural voters. And in areas that are a mix of rural and suburban, Democrats tend to focus entirely in the suburban part. Maybe if they showed up in rural areas in statewide elections, they could do better, even if they didn't win rural counties. (V)
Cloning Youngkin May Not Be So Easy
Republicans may think they have the key to winning elections in swing states now, but that may not be as easy as they think. In fact, the Youngkinian model may not work at all in many other states. Fundamentally, what Glenn Youngkin did was ignore Donald Trump and talk about local issues, especially education. Local issues do matter in a gubernatorial race, where the governor has influence over them. They matter much less in a Senate race because senators have no direct control over local issues.
Further, the image that Youngkin carefully cultivated was that of a kind suburban dad who loves children and dogs and wouldn't hurt a fly. Is that really going to work for former Missouri governor Eric Greitens, who tied up his mistress and took nude photos of her against her will in order to blackmail her?
Also, some candidates cannot just ignore Trump, and Trump won't just ignore some candidates. In Georgia, Herschel Walker is Trump's creation. Without Trump, he would simply be another aging former football star. It is Trump who made him a viable candidate. Even if Walker wanted to ignore Trump, Trump is going to insert himself into the race to remind everyone that Walker is his guy. Youngkin's strategy of ignoring Trump is never going to work in a race where Trump is actively pitching the Republican candidate because the Democrat will use Trump's presence in the race to drive turnout.
Finally, some candidates have baggage that the media is going to highlight to the detriment of the candidate. For example, Trump endorsee Max Miller in Ohio has been accused by former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham of abusing her. Pennsylvania Senate candidate Sean Parnell is going to have to deal with his estranged wife stating that he pinned her down and called her a "whore" and a "piece of sh*t." No one said anything at all like that about the kindly fleece-wearing Mr. Youngkin. There is no way Miller or Parnell can run Youngkin's campaign, even if Trump stays out of it, which he is not going to do. They are very different candidates from Youngkin.
In short, having a script is fine, but you need actors who can play the role. Casting Jack Nicholson as the kindly Albus Dumbledore would not have worked well. Casting Herschel Walker as Glenn Youngkin isn't going to either. (V)
Last Week's Results May Cause More Democrats to Retire
Politicians pay close attention to elections, and some of them may decide to get while the getting is good. Democratic House members who barely won in swing districts last time may be reading the tea leaves in Virginia and decide this is the time to find another line of work or to retire entirely. As a result, many more Democrats may announce that they are bowing out of politics in the next few weeks, in addition to the 14 Democrats who have already thrown in the towel. This can't possibly help the Democrats, since having an incumbent run in a swing district is a lot better than having to defend an open seat.
Who might some of these retirees be? Here is a list of Democratic representatives who won by under 5% in 2020:
| District | PVI | Incumbent | Dem 2020 | GOP 2020 | Dem - GOP |
| NJ-07 | R+3 | Tom Malinowski (D) | 50.61% | 49.39% | 1.22% |
| IL-14 | R+5 | Lauren Underwood (D) | 50.67% | 49.33% | 1.34% |
| IA-03 | R+1 | Cindy Axne (D) | 48.94% | 47.55% | 1.39% |
| VA-07 | R+6 | Abigail Spanberger (D) | 50.82% | 49.00% | 1.82% |
| MN-02 | R+2 | Angie Craig (D) | 48.18% | 45.92% | 2.26% |
| PA-17 | R+3 | Conor Lamb (D) | 51.15% | 48.85% | 2.29% |
| MI-11 | R+4 | Haley Stevens (D) | 50.20% | 47.82% | 2.38% |
| WI-03 | EVEN | Ron Kind (D) | 51.30% | 48.64% | 2.66% |
| GA-07 | R+9 | Carolyn Bourdeaux (D) | 51.39% | 48.61% | 2.78% |
| TX-15 | D+7 | Vicente González (D) | 50.50% | 47.62% | 2.88% |
| NV-03 | R+2 | Susie Lee (D) | 48.75% | 45.77% | 2.98% |
| AZ-01 | R+2 | Tom O'Halleran (D) | 51.61% | 48.39% | 3.22% |
| TX-07 | R+7 | Lizzie Fletcher (D) | 50.79% | 47.45% | 3.33% |
| PA-08 | R+1 | Matt Cartwright (D) | 51.77% | 48.23% | 3.54% |
| WA-08 | EVEN | Kim Schrier (D) | 51.71% | 48.15% | 3.57% |
| MI-08 | R+4 | Elissa Slotkin (D) | 50.88% | 47.28% | 3.59% |
| PA-07 | D+1 | Susan Wild (D) | 51.87% | 48.13% | 3.75% |
| IL-17 | D+3 | Cheri Bustos (D) | 52.02% | 47.97% | 4.05% |
| NV-04 | D+3 | Steven Horsford (D) | 50.67% | 45.80% | 4.86% |
Some of these have already said they are not going to run for their seat in 2022 for various reasons. These include Conor Lamb (running for the Senate), Ron Kind (retiring from politics), and Cheri Bustos (embarrassed about her failure as 2020 DCCC chair). But the other 16 are all potentially vulnerable and might decide to leave on a high note as a winner rather than go down to defeat and be involuntarily retired. Needless to say, if a substantial number of these call it quits, then the odds against the Democrats holding the House will worsen accordingly. (V)
Split in Nevada Democratic Party is Giving National Democrats a Headache
The ongoing battle within the Nevada Democratic Party between the old Harry Reid machine and supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is giving national Democrats nightmares. They center on Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) losing her race because supporters of one faction or the other are so angry with the other one that they decide to "punish" it by staying home on Election Day, letting Republican Adam Laxalt win. Joe Biden won Nevada by only 2 points, so it wouldn't take many Democrats staying home to sink Masto.
The fight between the factions is so acrimonious that the Reid machine has created a shadow state party operating out of Washoe County (Reno). The official state party is furious because it won the party election fair and square and says that Reid's people are just sore losers. Reid's people say that the people now in charge have absolutely no idea of how to win a statewide election and that going full-Bernie is never going to fly in a swing state full of Latinos.
The battle has affected the DSCC, which is hesitant to hand over a lot of money to the state party, which it considers a bunch of amateurs who would waste it. They would rather give it to the Washoe County operation, which makes the official party even more angry.
The head of the official Nevada Democratic Party is Judith Whitmer, who is fairly controversial. She put out a statement saying the country had turned "a blind eye to the injustice and violence committed by the Israeli government." This caused the state party's treasurer to resign in May, saying that her statement was divisive and would hamper fundraising.
Another fight broke out in September when the official party proposed changing the bylaws to revoke the charter of any group that collects funds in the name of Nevada Democrats without the party's official approval. This was intended to stop the Washoe Democrats. After a huge uproar, the proposal was withdrawn, but the Washoe group has accused the state party of fighting them rather than fighting the Republicans.
The power struggle at the top of the state party has practical implications as well. The two groups are locked in a struggle over who controls the state's voter database, the party's most important asset. The DNC has asked state parties to sign an agreement in which they agree to allow candidates to obtain voter data from the national party if they request it. The official party sees this as an end run around their power and opposes it. This issue has reverberated in other states which feel that it would weaken all the state parties by allowing fringe groups everywhere to bypass the state party. If this issue can't be resolved, Masto and Gov. Steve Sisolak (D), who is also up for reelection, will not get valuable voter data they will need for their campaigns.
The only saving grace for the Nevada Democrats is that the Nevada Republican Party is in worse shape. Two separate groups are claiming to be the official GOP party in Clark County (Las Vegas) with suits and countersuits flying. Still, if the two Democratic groups continue to fight each other, that will not be helpful for Masto or for continued Democratic control of the Senate. (V)
Adelson Is Back
No, Sheldon Adelson hasn't risen from the dead. But his widow, Miriam Adelson, is very much alive and is about to reenter politics using part of the $30 billion she inherited from Sheldon. In the past few days, the Israeli-born Adelson has held meetings with top Republicans and potential 2024 candidates seeking her blessing. Up until now, she has kept a low profile. Those days are apparently over. In the past decade, her husband shelled out half a billion dollars to favored Republican candidates, and his wife plans on continuing the tradition. This will make her one of the most powerful forces within the Republican Party and certainly the most powerful woman in the Party.
According to an inside source Politico talked with, Adelson has recently met with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), NRSC Chairman Rick Scott (R-FL), Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). This ring kissing probably has something to do with her power to make or break nearly any Republican candidate. It doesn't always work, but it certainly helps. In 2020, the Adelsons gave $91 million to Donald Trump's campaign. They were by far his biggest donors.
So far, Adelson hasn't made any promises to anyone. She said she would wait until closer to the election before opening her checkbook. It could be that she wants to first see how things develop. It is worth noting that she is no novice when it comes to politics. She and her husband were married for 30 years and she was directly involved in all his political decisions from the beginning. The two were inseparable and she was often the power behind the throne. As a consequence, we are not likely to see a shift in policy now that she is alone. Candidates and policies that Miriam supports are likely to be the same ones that Sheldon supported. Of course, the real test for her will be in races where a Trumpy candidate is running against a Trumpless candidate. How she handles that remains to be seen, but again, she is not a clueless newbie unaware of how to deal with lots of money and its effect on politics. (V)
New Poll: Biden and Democrats Are Sinking
A new USA Today/Suffolk University poll has Joe Biden's approval at 38% and his disapproval at 59%, appreciably worse than other recent polls. His 38% approval is a new low for Biden. When he took office, his approval was consistently above 50%. On the generic congressional poll, 46% of registered voters are planning to vote for a Republican for Congress vs. 38% who are planning to vote for a Democrat, reversing other recent polling that puts the Democrats ahead. However, the poll was taken before the infrastructure bill passed, while the news was about (1) Republican victories in Virginia and (2) Democrats are still fighting with each other. Now that the Democrats have actually achieved something, the next poll could be quite different.
If Biden remains under water for the next year, he would be advised to follow Donald Trump's Virginia playbook: Be scarce. Or maybe, he could campaign in places where he is popular and avoid places where he is not. Trump probably can't contain himself enough to follow the Trump playbook, though, and is likely to insert himself into races where he damages his candidate rather than helps him. Biden is smart enough not to do that. (V)
Can a State with Only Two Districts Be Gerrymandered?
Yup! New Hampshire has only two congressional districts and the boundary between them has been stable for decades. In fact, it has barely changed for 150 years. Those days may be over. In 2020, Republicans picked up the trifecta in New Hampshire and are starting to behave as if they were Texas Republicans. In particular, they want to gerrymander the hell out of their simple map. Here is the current map and the proposed new map.
Given that New Hampshire has only two House seats, both currently occupied by Democrats, the possibilities for carving up the state into lots of Republican districts aren't really there. The current districts are reasonably fair. Since 1960, Republicans have won NH-01 17 times and Democrats have won it 12 times. NH-02 has been historically more Republican, with 22 Republican and 9 Democratic wins since 1960. However, in the past eight elections, Democrats have triumphed in NH-01 six times and in NH-02 seven times. The PVI rating of NH-01 is R+2 and the rating of NH-02 is D+2. Reflecting that difference, Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) in NH-01 won by only 5 points in 2020, whereas Rep. Annie Kuster (D-NH) in NH-02 won by 10 points in 2020. Clearly time for the Republicans to do something about that.
So, in the new gerrymandered map, the conservative towns north of Concord are being moved into NH-01 while Conway, Rochester, and Portsmouth would be in NH-02. This map would make Kuster representative-for-life but would give the Republicans a good shot at unseating Pappas, since Donald Trump won the new version of NH-01 50% to 48%. So the gerrymander might pick up one seat while conceding the other seat to the blue team for the next 10 years.
The Democrats, who have nothing to say about the process, have proposed a map that would make only minor changes to the current map in order to equalize their populations but would not change the odds of winning for either party. New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley said: "Republicans are making it crystal clear that they fully intend to draw maps that prioritize their power and ignore the will of Granite State voters." Welcome to politics.
Gerrymandering is nothing new in New Hampshire. In the 1880s, the map intentionally split up Manchester and Nashua to make sure the large Catholic populations in those cities could not elect a Catholic representative. Religion is no longer an issue, but partisanship most certainly is. (V)
Sununu Will Decide on a Senate Run in a Week
New Hampshire is about to be in the news for a reason other than gerrymandering. Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) has pre-announced an announcement. He said that in a week or so, he would say whether he will challenge Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) next year. He said he has gone back and forth over the decision and has decided he needs to come to a decision, preferably before the holidays so it doesn't weigh on him and his family.
Surely he has really decided and is just drawing it out for some extra drama. It would be an anticlimax to say: "In a week I have a big announcement" then in a week to say: "I'm not running." This suggests that he is in.
Polls between Sununu and Hassan have shown a dead heat. It would be a close race, but Sununu is the only plausible candidate who could beat Hassan. If Sununu decides against running for the Senate, he can run for another term as governor and almost certainly win. Thus for him, the decision is a virtual certain victory for governor vs. a 50-50 shot at becoming a senator. That said, New Hampshire governors have to run for reelection every 2 years (though there are no term limits), whereas senators have to run every 6 years.
National Republicans absolutely want Sununu to run for the Senate. They know that even if he loses, his presence in the race will force the Democrats to spend a lot of money defending Hassan—money that they would prefer to spend in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and other states where they can play offense instead of defense. Sununu knows all of this, of course, but he also knows that another term as governor is his for the taking with no effort required. (V)
A Distant Mirror?
Much has been written about the large number of people who have apparently withdrawn from the labor force, despite many unfilled openings in some sectors of the economy. What's up? Two professors of social science have come up with the answer, based upon some research from the 14th century. If you are not current with 14th century European history, Barbara Tuchman's award-winning book, A Distant Mirror would be a good place to start catching up.
Probably the key event in the 14th century was a pandemic, although having two guys each claiming he was the pope was a good runner-up. The black plague of 1348-1351 killed an estimated 35-50% of all people in Europe. The only treatments available were blood letting and prayer; neither one did the job terribly well and Edward Jenner wouldn't be born for another 400 years. The plague also reordered the economic and social structures of Europe, with the biggest effects in places where the plague hit the hardest. It is about as close to a controlled experiment as you can get in history. Over most of Europe, feudalism was the system, with the nobility, the military, and the clergy on top and the serfs on the bottom. The nobles owned all the land (except for what the Church owned) and the peasants were pretty much tied to the land and obligated to give much of their produce to the local noble for the privilege of being permitted to till the land.
When the peasantry was nearly wiped out, the law of supply and demand kicked in. Nobles needed peasants to work the land and when they almost instantaneously became scarce, the peasants could demand a better deal. Scarce surviving peasants could suddenly confront their lords and say: "I'm not paying you 60% of my grain anymore. The noble in the next town is demanding only 40%. Toodle-oo." All of a sudden in the labor market, the sellers of labor (the "employees") had the power, not the buyers (the "employers"). In places where the plague claimed the most victims, primarily in Western Europe, where there was more trade with sh*thole—no, sorry, we mean rat-infested—countries, the effect was much bigger than in Eastern Europe, which had less trade and many fewer deaths from the plague.
In some towns in Western Europe, the peasants banded together to form "unions" or "town councils" and serfdom disappeared almost immediately. This was the start of local government, which became a new (previously nonexistent) seat of power. In some cases, they even formed armies and stormed the local castle. In many areas of Europe now, the places where the black plague hit the hardest are the places with the strongest local democracies.
The COVID-19 pandemic certainly is not going to kill off even 35% of any country's population, but it still is having an economic effect as workers reassess their lives and many don't want to go back to their crummy old jobs. But the companies they worked for need them so they are going to have to respond by offering the peasants a better deal (higher wages and less onerous working conditions). It is not surprising that it is worst paying jobs that are the ones going begging and the ones where wage increases are the most likely. So Bernie Sanders may get his wish for a $15/hr minimum wage after all, not top-down by the government imposing it, but bottom-up by employers forced to compete for scarce labor, just as they had to do in 1352. (V)
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