Dem
47
GOP
53
No, there isn't supposed to be a question mark there. As with Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the title of that Star Trek: The Next Generation episode is meant to be a declarative statement, not a question.
Anyhow, we had an item yesterday about plans by the Department of Justice to deploy "poll watchers" to various polling places in California. Officially, this is being done for... reasons. The truth of the matter, of course, is that it's a way of trying to intimidate voters, and keep them from voting. Most obviously, any voter who is of a darker hue has to be worried that some/most/all of the "poll watchers" are actually ICE agents with orders something along these lines:
Yes, we've shared that image before, because it so perfectly captures this administration's mindset.
We had some advice in that item yesterday for how blue-state governors should respond, both for elections this year and next. We can only assume that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) is one of our readers, because he's already followed one of our bits of advice. Yesterday, he and state AG Rob Bonta announced that the state government will deploy observers to make sure that the federal election monitors do not violate any voter's legal rights.
As a sidebar, if this was, say, a Monty Python movie or a Dr. Seuss book, this could turn into something really surreal. We've already got federal monitors to watch the voters and state monitors to watch the federal monitors. What if the DoJ announced it was going to dispatch special federal monitors to watch the state monitors? And then Newsom/Bonta announce they were going to send special state monitors to watch the special federal monitors? Someone should really hire us to write the script for the next Coen brothers film.
The part that we least understand here is this: Why did the DoJ lay its cards on the table so early? If they really and truly want to initiate a campaign of voter intimidation, doesn't cold, hard strategic logic dictate that they should have waited until the weekend, or even Monday? That would give the Californias and the New Jerseys of the world very little time to respond. But with well over a week? It should be no problem for the blue states to deploy a "defense," for lack of a better term.
Indeed, cold, hard strategic logic might well dictate that the administration should forego any mucking around this year, and should wait until next year. The two "prizes" are the New Jersey governorship and "No on Prop 50." Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) appears to be an unusually weak candidate, and polls say that her race against Jack Ciattarelli (R) is close, with Sherrill's lead between 1 and 5 points (i.e., within, or nearly within, the margin of error). We suppose the Trump administration might be able to steal that one.
"No on 50," by contrast, looks to be a lost cause. In theory, the anti-50 forces were going to raise $100 million. In fact, they've managed to raise and spend about a tenth of that. One implication of this is that the "No on 50" commercials have all but disappeared from TV. Another, considerably bigger, implication is that the "No on 50" millionaires and billionaires have concluded that victory is unlikely, and that they would be throwing their money down the toilet. Polls back this up. In mid-September, an Emerson poll had 51% of voters supporting Prop 50 and 34% opposing. In the poll Emerson released this past weekend, it was 57% and 37%. When Emerson forced respondents to choose "yes" or "no" (so, no "undecided"), the numbers were 60% and 40%. The newest CBS News/YouGov poll has it even slightly more lopsided, with 62% favoring Prop 50 and 38% opposing.
Our point is this: Is maybe flipping the New Jersey governor's race (and that's a big maybe) worth giving up the element of surprise in 2026? We understand this year is potentially a "practice run," but is the "practice" really that valuable? Everyone knows the old line about a million monkeys with a million typewriters eventually reproducing the works of Shakespeare. Well, this administration is a million bulls in a million china shops. Everything they do is clumsy and accomplished with brute force. There's no tactical skill, no apparent thought given to strategy. The current plan for California and New Jersey just seems to affirm that, from where we sit. And if we are right, that's good news, because people like Gavin Newsom and Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) DO have the ability to think strategically, and so may well be able to counter the anti-democratic moves made by the White House. (Z)