Nov.04

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Let Us Proposition You

Yesterday, we had a rundown of the most important elections for political office that will be on the ballot in today's elections. Now, let's round that out by running down some of the propositions on ballots across the country. There are a total of 30 of them (which is a little below the midterm average of 33.5); here are some of the most notable:

• California Proposition 50: This is the biggie. In fact, it is big enough that we actually covered it in yesterday's item, which was otherwise about candidates and not propositions. However, there is a little bit more context worth adding here, namely the ways in which this campaign centered on seats in the U.S. House could also have presidential implications.
  
  In a manner of speaking, this is Gov. Gavin Newsom's (D-CA) first national campaign. It is true that it is a California initiative, but the fundraising has been national and the messaging has had a national character (more on that in a moment). And the Governor is not the only one getting a little practice running this kind of campaign; his Prop 50 efforts have been backed by his political operation, which is turning into a more and more finely tuned machine.
  
  For example, one of the key players in the Yes on 50 campaign has been Newsom's pollster, David Binder. For anyone who has been watching the campaign (specifically, the commercials that have been aired as part of the campaign), Binder's influence has been noticeable. The early wave of commercials was basically focused on "we must defend democracy." But in the last month or so, they've all been like this one:
  
  
  
  That was paid for by Tom Steyer, but the ads paid for by MoveOn, by Newsom's PAC, and by everyone else are all the same these days. The message is not "save democracy" anymore, it's "fu** Trump." And to deliver that message, it's been an All-Star team of lefties, including not only Steyer, but also Barack Obama, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
  
  If the proposition somehow loses, that will be disastrous for Newsom. After all, if he can't pull 50% in his blue home state, how can he do it nationally? If it wins narrowly, then Newsom will present that as a resounding triumph, but others (donors, political operatives) might not share that view. And if it wins big, then it will give a lot of momentum to him AND will be a big poke in the eye to Trump.
  
  
• Maine: The battle between Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME) and oysterman Graham Platner is next year, not tomorrow. Sorry. Nevertheless, there is an important election statewide in Maine called Question 1. In effect, the question is: "Should we make it hard to vote in Maine?" Conservatives dreamed up an initiative that will make it much harder to vote absentee if it passes. In 2024, 40% of the voters voted by mail, including 61% of seniors. For example, Sarah Trites (60) lives a 10-minute drive from her polling place but she has vision problems and can't drive. There is no public transit anywhere near her. If she can't vote by mail, she can't vote at all.
  
  One of the things Question 1 does is disallow requesting an absentee ballot by phone, which will effectively disenfranchise Trites and other eligible voters with disabilities. It will also require all absentee voters to show up at the elections office in person to request a ballot each time there is an election. This is the opposite of the many states, including Maine (at the moment), where you can register as a permanent absentee voter once and that automatically continues until you cancel. Question 1 would repeal the automatic mailing of absentee ballots for each election.
  
  Who is backing Question 1? If you dig, you find that it is a Republican activist named Alex Titcomb, who is being funded by Leonard Leo, chairman of the board of the Federalist Society. Surprise! There may be no organization that hates democracy more than the Federalist Society. Maybe the KGB circa 1975, but it's close, either way.
  
  Maine also has a second initiative, Question 2. This one would allow courts to temporarily take guns away from people who have been deemed a threat to themselves or others. The primary opponent of this one is... Janet Mills. The Governor argues that police in Maine already have this authority, and shifting the burden to the courts would actually put more people in danger. Her basic thinking is that it's much easier for someone to find a police officer and say "My spouse was brandishing their gun at me!" than it is for them to go into court and tell a judge "My spouse was brandishing their gun at me!"
  
  
• Texas: Prop. 3 would require judges to deny bail to defendants accused of certain felonies. Prop. 15 would codify parents' rights to make decisions over their children's upbringing. This may sometimes put them on a collision course with the schools. Prop. 16 is a "show" vote, by which the people of Texas can (and surely will) decide to bar undocumented immigrants from voting. Since that is already forbidden in federal elections by federal law, and in state elections by state law, the passage of the proposition will affect approximately zero people. Eight other states have adopted nearly identical propositions in the past few years.
  
  
• Colorado: Given what's going on with the federal government and SNAP, this is awfully on-point. Colorado has a program called Healthy School Meals for All, which does exactly what its name says—provide free lunch for all of the students in the state. But, of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and the program requires about $50 million more per year than the state has allocated. What Coloradoans will be voting on is whether to make up that shortfall by increasing taxes on rich people (specifically, those making $300,000+ per year). This would not be done through a new tax, but instead by reducing certain tax deductions.
  
  
• Washington: Olympia, the state capital, has an initiative on the ballot that would raise the minimum wage to $20/hr. While the highest state minimum wage is in Washington, at $16.66, some cities in Washington are even higher than $20. Seattle is at $20.76, for example. Still, yet another blue city going to $20 is a sign that raising the minimum wage is a winning issue in some places. If Democrats want to attract blue-collar workers in 2026, raising the minimum wage nationally from $7.25/hr to something much higher could be a winning issue with them, especially if it has been implemented in a few states and hasn't caused unemployment to surge.
  
  
• New York: New York City also has an initiative, Prop. 6, to move municipal elections to even-numbered years. In cities that have done that, turnout has soared. In addition, Props. 2, 3, and 4, if passed, would weaken the city council's power over development projects. This would allow developers to get permits more quickly and with less political interference. Proponents of the propositions say this is necessary to help with the city's housing shortage.

And as long as we are on the subject of New York City, everyone is going to be watching the mayoral election there today, possibly more closely than even the gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey. We have written a bunch about that subject, and we covered the final furlongs of that race yesterday, but we thought we would share this assessment from reader J.E. in Manhattan, NY:

I am about to go out and cast a vote for Zohran Mamdani, and I am going to explain why and what this New Yorker thinks the implications are nationally.

In the second mayoral debate, Democrat-turned-"Independent" Andrew Cuomo attempted to connect Mamdani to the idea that "globalize the intifada" and "global jihad" are the same thing. They aren't, and this Jewish New Yorker would actually commend Mamdani for not taking the bait. I am not sure that will work as Cuomo probably hopes, but the fact is it is a bigoted line of attack and I suspect the days when it would work are starting to fade, which is a good thing. I should also say that I don't feel unsafe around pro-Palestinian protesters because they weren't the people who shot up the Tree of Life synagogue; not one leftist of any stripe at all has engaged in that kind of attack on Jewish people in recent years. These are not the folks espousing Great Replacement theory.

Speaking of which, the idea that criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic ignores that the movement against the genocide in Gaza has been led by Jewish Voice for Peace; there is a major schism within the Jewish community how to respond to this, and a lot of it is generational. Cuomo is, in part, trying to appeal to Upper West Side Jewish folks who are by and large older (it's also one of the neighborhoods he did well in). I think of the time I tried to buttonhole Jerrold Nadler on this issue (we met at a local store; I live in his district) and he said to me that history demonstrates the need for Israel; I would differ on that strongly (that's a whole other discussion) but it's not like I don't understand the origins of that stance. With respect to Jewish voters, I would posit that you will see a very stark divide between people who are over-40 and those younger. And the fact is, a solid majority of Jewish people in New York City have said they want a ceasefire. So Cuomo's bid to make Mamdani appear unsafe for Jewish people or one who won't take antisemitism seriously might not fly. I should add that the moderators asked Cuomo about the people protesting the Netanyahu government in New York City, and they didn't challenge him on what constitutes antisemitic behavior. And as you at Electoral-Vote.com have pointed out, Cuomo has adopted some pretty ugly bigotries to scare people into voting for him over Mamdani. I can't support a candidate who does that.

Lastly I'd note that in an era where crime is at 50-year lows (even according to the NYPD), the candidates still harped on public safety and perceptions thereof during their debates. Speaking as one who lived in the city in the 90s, this always seems a bit surreal. I think we need to have a long conversation about whether "feeling unsafe on the subway" just means "I saw a Black homeless man." I, for one, don't feel particularly unsafe on the subway, and I use it daily to get to work in the Bronx. There are any number of problems with homeless people that more police won't solve. Curtis Sliwa (R) and Cuomo seem fixated on criminalizing the very existence of homeless people whereas Mamdani is not.

Mamdani is doing as well as he is, in part, because he is out there and campaigning in a way that I think upper-level Democrats have gotten away from. Mamdani has made it a focus to talk about what people need and to get out there into the neighborhoods. He isn't running on "not Trump"—which is fine as far as it goes, but has limitations. It's worth noting that the neighborhoods where Cuomo did well in the primaries were either heavily white or heavily black; essentially the most segregated regions of the city. Mamdani won in the more diverse districts (and that Queens is his base is no accident in that regard). Democrats like Cuomo have had a message for people of color that amounts to "you have nowhere else to go." Mamdani has decided to go beyond that, and while one might disagree with the way he approaches policy, it's notable that he has tried to offer people something to actually vote for.

It's also notable that the national and state level Democrats have done everything in their power to derail this guy; and not just Mamdani, a similar dynamic is playing out in Minneapolis. It's as if the Democratic leaders are actually fearful of what their own voters might ask for. Democrats at the higher levels seem to have decided that the rural white or white "working class" voters are the ones they want. There's a sense that rural white voters and their white counterparts in suburbs and a few cities are the volk that are real Americans; other people simply don't matter so much to electoral successes. This is despite the evidence (some from Electoral-Vote.com) that the appeal of white supremacy hasn't much to do with "economic anxiety." Trump's (and the GOP's) greatest success is among people who are hardly all that poor; the sweet spot seems to be among people with high-five-figure and low-six-figure incomes who haven't got college degrees, a category that includes a lot of small businesspeople and tradesmen. A better analogy might be to the support that the Junkers in Germany, as opposed to "working class" people, gave to the fascists. But Democratic leaders seem to have bought into the GOP narrative of who the government's real constituents are, and treating people of color as sources of votes that they needn't earn because the GOP is so much worse. I don't think "we will oppress slightly fewer people" is a winning strategy.

In any case, rank-and-file Democrats in at least two big cities—New York and Minneapolis—have shown that they want something else than what Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, or Cuomo might offer. I hope the Democratic leadership listens.

The bottom line is that we're in for a much more interesting off-year Election Day than would normally be the case. We'll have an early assessment of the results in tomorrow's posting, of course. (Z & V)