Most Americans Have A Negative Opinion Of Billionaires Donating In Elections

 

The charts above are from a Washington Post / Ipsos Poll -- done between September 11th and 15th of a nationwide sample of 2,513 adults, with a 2 point margin of error.

The Writing Is On The Wall - Can Republicans Read It?

Elon Musk thought he was a political genius, and decided to buy the GOP a state Supreme Court judge. He spent millions of dollars on the campaign - and even gave away a couple of million dollar checks to try and raise the enthusiasm among voters. It was all for naught.

On Tuesday, voters elected Democrat Susan Crawford to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. And it wasn't even close. Crawford won by a 10-point margin. If Musk isn't embarrassed, he should be. He took what would probably have been a close race and turned it into a blowout for the candidate he didn't support.

I have been wondering when the public would create a backlash against the actions of Musk and Trump. It began on Tuesday.

The voters were clear. Musk was not about to buy the election. He could have spent millions more, and it wouldn't have made any difference. The voters were making a statement.

They don't like Musk - and they don't like what he's doing to programs that are important to them (Social Security, Veterans affairs, Medicare/Medicaid, Education, etc.). The voters were unhappy, and you can't buy the vote of an unhappy voter.

But it wasn't just Wisconsin. Voters in Florida gave the GOP something to think about, too. There were elections in two Florida House districts. Bot districts were bright red - having given Trump and the GOP House candidates over 30 point margins last November. Those vote margins were cut in half on Tuesday.

Republicans probably don't have to worry about these two districts in November of 2026. But there are dozens of GOP seats with muck smaller winning margins - and the representative holding those seats should start to worry. The voters aren't happy with Trump's tariffs, Musk's chaotic destruction of agencies, and the GOP congress that allows that without any resistance.

The writing is on the wall. Can Republicans read it? Or are they too busy kissing Trump's but to notice?

Democrats Flip Seat Formally Held By Santos

A special election was held Tuesday night to fill the House seat vacated by the ouster of George Santos. Democrat Tom Suozzi won the seat by nearly 8 points over Republican Maze Pilip. That 8 point victory represents a huge swing in House District #3, and could portend a nice election for Democrats next November.

Voters Should Be Be Worried About A Second Trump Term

 

Robert Reich explains why we should be worried about a second term for Donald Trump:

When I read a few days ago in The Washington Post that Trump and his allies have specific plans in a second Trump term to use the Justice Department to target Trump’s enemies, I was doubtful. Trump doesn’t plan. He reacts. He condemns. He lashes out. But he does not carefully think through anything in advance.

 

Then I checked in with my circle of Washington political operatives, several of whom are familiar with the people who are doing the “planning” for Trump’s second term — a group of bottom-feeding, power-hungry, right-wing opportunists who know that the way to build influence with Trump is to give him and tell him exactly what he wants to hear. 

There’s no question that planning is underway. Trump isn’t doing it, but he has given it his blessing. 

The difference between the first Trump administration-in-waiting and this second one is this: The first was ready to help Trump navigate the shoals of official Washington. The second is ready to help Trump destroy official Washington. 

If Trump learned one thing during his four years as president, it’s that he doesn’t want anyone to tell him what he cannot do. All he wants are people to help him do what he wants to do. 

And what he wants to do is sow enough chaos that he can take over. 

According to a Times story last week, the plan is to install more aggressive and loyal lawyers committed to Trump’s agenda — people “willing to endure the personal and professional risks of association with Mr. Trump” and “willing to use theories that more establishment lawyers would reject.”

Among their goals is to pursue criminal cases against President Biden and high-profile former Trump allies who have turned critical of Trump (including ex-attorney general William P. Barr, ex-Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, and ex-White House chief of staff John F. Kelly).

While punishing opponents, the plan is also to reward those who have fought for Trump (sometimes quite literally). 

Trump and his allies are planning to pardon many January 6 defendants, whose conduct he has not only excused but lionized. “I mean full pardons with an apology to many,” he said last year. He added in a CNN town hall this year that he is inclined to pardon a “large portion” of the hundreds of defendants, while exempting “a couple of them” who perhaps “got out of control.”

He will also pardon himself from any and all federal criminal charges, even though it’s far from clear that the Constitution permits it. 

Trump and his allies are also planning to invoke the Insurrection Act to quell any demonstrations on Trump’s first day.

The more chaos, the better. This is part of what I’ve referred to as Trump’s “chaos agenda.” The more chaos Trump and his allies can create, the more pessimistic Americans will feel about the capacities of our democratic institutions to govern the nation — which advances their authoritarian agenda.

That chaos agenda has already been activated inside the GOP. Shut down the government! Impeach Biden! Investigate the judges and prosecutors in Trump’s civil and criminal trials! Stop funding Ukraine! Don’t trust the intelligence community!

“How do Americans feel about politics?” The New York Times asked a few weeks ago, answering in the same headline: “Disgust isn’t a strong enough word.”

Trump and his allies want us to be disgusted. They want us to believe that America is ungovernable – and is becoming more so, as long as power remains diffused. They want us to think we need an authoritarian strongman — Trump — to concentrate power and take over everything.

That’s part of the plan. They’re aiming to reclassify as many as 50,000 federal employees now in charge of national security, intelligence, the State Department, law enforcement, and the military — so that they would lose employment protections and could more easily be replaced (presidents usually get to replace only about 4,000 political appointees).

As Trump said at a speech in June, “This is the final battle. With you at my side we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists, we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.”

They want to consolidate Trump’s authority over virtually every part of the federal government, including such independent agencies as the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, and even the Fed. “What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them,” former Trump budget director Russ Vought told the Times.

Finally, Trump and his allies are planning a far more aggressive immigration policy. He has promised to ramp up his controversial travel ban targeting majority-Muslim countries, “halt all of the refugee settlements to the United States,” and embark on the “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history. 

This would involve expanding the powers of National Guard and state officials to arrest and deport people — despite long-standing limits on the military conducting law enforcement activities.

As I said, I’m skeptical of any “planning” going on inside Trump’s head. But I’ve become convinced that a small band of Trump sycophants (likely including the lapdog authoritarian trio of Roger Stone, Mike Flynn, and Steve Bannon) is right now clearing the runway for an even more neofascist regime than was Trump 1. 

As I said, I don’t believe he’ll be reelected. But if he is, there’s reason to be worried. Very worried.

Tuesday Showed Women Want Rights. Who Knew? (Satire)

The following is satire by Alexandra Petri in The Washington Post: 

Tuesday’s election results suggest that the Republican legislativestrategy of “taking people’s rights away for no clear reason” was not an overwhelming success at the ballot box. Potential Childbearing Vessels on Legs contumaciously insist on continuing to see themselves as fully realized people deserving of the protection of the law, and, unfortunately, they can still vote, and some of them even have friends who vote with them.

Given the options of “people have constitutionally protected rights over their own bodies and the course of their own lives” or “people can potentially see those rights whisked away at any time without warning,” Ohio voters overwhelmingly preferred the first thing. Given the option of creating a Republican majority in their state legislature that could permit their governor to sign a 15-week abortion ban into law, Virginia voters refused, apparently indifferent to the fact that the governor would be wearing a fleece vest and speaking in soft tones when he did so!

When confronted with questions such as “What should be in my library? Books, or just empty shelves and a scowling member of Moms for Liberty standing with folded arms and hissing whenever anyone dares approach?” people overwhelmingly selected the first thing. When they were given a choice between Deciding and Having Things Decided For Them, Deciding proved surprisingly popular.

These results were a setback for those who viewed letting people exercise rights over their own bodies as exhausting, pointless and sometimes icky. This trend also baffled many Republicans who had been running campaigns confidently asserting that they knew what was best for enormous swaths of the population, who would doubtless be relieved not to have to wake up each morning and keep pretending to be people who could make their own decisions.

It has been suggested that this is why voting is such a flawed method for determining what ought to happen, and some people are working so hard to do away with it. “Let Dave decide everything on everyone else’s behalf,” while popular with Dave, tends not to be popular with everyone else. And the thing is, as Justice Samuel Alito noted in his Dobbsdecision, “Women are not without electoral or political power.”

Tuesday’s election suggests that people being treated like people, rather than not, is still inexplicably popular. Who can say how long this fad will last? If through 2024, there might be more problems!

Ohio GOP's Voter Scam Suffers Ignominious Defeat

There is a constitutional amendment on the November ballot in Ohio that would guarantee the right to an abortion. Ohio Republican officials realized that the amendment stood a very good chance of passing, and that would do away with their anti-abortion law - a law that forced an 11 year old to carry a child to completion.

So, those Republicans came up with a scam that they thought would protect their sick law. They scheduled another constitutional amendment to be voted on before November -- one that would require a 60% vote to pass a new constitutional amendment. And they scheduled that vote for August 8th, believing few people would vote in the dog days of summer.

They were wrong!. Over 3 million people turned out to vote on August 8th. And their ridiculous amendment went down to a crushing defeat (57.01% to 42.99%). 

That means it will only take 50.01% to pas the abortion rights amendment in November. Considering the results of the August 8th election, the abortion rights amendment is almost sure to pass.

The American people, in Ohio and elsewhere, support abortion rights. They want Roe vs. Wade re-instated. And it's a powerful issue in elections. It will be powerful in 2024.

Republicans brought this on themselves. And it could likely be the issue that drives them out of power!
 

Why Does Speaker Election Bother GOP Voters? (Satire)

Another delicious bit of satire from Alexandra Petri in The Washington Post: 

Wow, this is embarrassing!

No, not the once-in-a-century mess around electing a speaker of the House! Not the fact that, on Tuesday, after three ballots, none of which succeeded in putting Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in charge, the House had to adjourn speakerlessly. Not the fact that, again, failing to elect a speaker on the first vote has not happened since 1923! Not the fact that, if anything, the votes were trending further from McCarthy rather than closer to him when the House adjourned, and not the fact that a fourth and fifth and sixth vote failed Wednesday!

None of that is embarrassing at all! What’s embarrassing is that you were expecting anything else.

Honestly, we are a little confused you are taking this so poorly. This is like electing a bunch of clowns to office and being disappointed when they put on a magnificent clown show for you. Here is precisely the clown show you ordered! You shouldn’t be ashamed. You should be applauding. It is like ordering a decorative salad made entirely from Legos and being mad that you can’t eat it. It is like voting for Lauren Boebert and then becoming upset that a legislature that contains her is not productively working for the American people.

I’m sorry, what did you think you were getting? Did you really say to yourself, when you voted for Matt Gaetz, “Here is a man who is going to build coalitions and pass sensible, bipartisan legislation that will improve our lives?” No! You said, “I’m voting for Gaetz!”

Do you realize that this party contains Marjorie Taylor Greene? Actually, in this particular speaker scenario, Greene is the middle-of-the-road institutionalist, a sentence that is as surprising to us as it is to you! When you are counting on Greene as one of the founding blocks of your coalition, the writing is on the wall.

We thought you were serious about just electing people to be squeaky wheels, and specifically squeaky wheels that keep setting off the House metal detector because they are armed with guns for no clear reason. We said to ourselves, “If they wanted to move legislative priorities through Congress in a functional way, they knew whom they ought to have voted for: not us! We came here to make pointless noise and pass nothing, and we are never going to be out of noise!”

Get pumped for the debt-ceiling debate, when we are excited to maybe cause the country to default, which will be very bad for the economy but will allow us to showcase the distinctive brand of shouting to no purpose for which you’ve come to rely on us! We are not here to make the government better. We are here to investigate every member of the Biden administration six times.

To those few of you who voted for a Republican in a swing district who made some wild claim about governing or enacting any piece of legislation, we say, “Whoops! Next time, look at the whole party you’re putting into power when you cast your vote! Because we have a QAnon caucus now!”

Our party is always yelling that Washington is a broken, dysfunctional mess. What is embarrassing is that you thought we meant we were going to govern to change that. What is embarrassing is that you thought we were going to govern at all.

American Attitudes Toward Poll Workers

 These charts are from a YouGov Poll -- done between October 19th and 24th of a nationwide sample of 1,000 adults, with a 3 point margin of error.

Kansas Shows Abortion Is A Potent Force In 2022 Election

Pundits have been wondering whether the banning of abortion in many states is going to be an important factor in the upcoming midterm election. Kansas voters answered that question on Tuesday night. The voter turnout was more than twice as big there as in the last two off-year primaries -- and voters made sure that abortion would remain available by rejecting a constitution amendment that would allow abortion to be banned. And it wasn't even close, with pro-choice forces winning by about 18 points!

The following is part of an op-ed on this by Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post:

A political earthquake shook Kansas on Tuesday. Voters in the deep-red state turned out in droves to reject a measure that would have taken abortion protection out of the state constitution. With more than 90 percent of the vote reported, the “no” vote (which would preserve abortion access) led by nearly 20 points as of Wednesday morning.

President Biden put out a rare statement on a state referendum, praising the turnout and result. “Voters in Kansas turned out in record numbers to reject extreme efforts to amend the state constitution to take away a woman’s right to choose and open the door for a state-wide ban,” he said. “This vote makes clear what we know: the majority of Americans agree that women should have access to abortion and should have the right to make their own health care decisions.” He urged Congress to “listen to the will of the American people and restore the protections of Roe as federal law.”

This is the first concrete evidence of a major backlash against the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. Forced-birth advocates in Kansas thought that by putting the measure on a primary ballot, for which turnout is historically lower, conservative voters could dominate. Instead, they drove Democrats and a lot of pro-choice independents and Republicans who might not otherwise vote to the polls.

Republicans in other states should pay attention to Tuesday’s results. They have been zealously passing bans in states such as Kentucky and Louisiana, and severely restricting access in others such as Florida. There is still time for lawmakers in some states to heed the warning from Kansas. . . .

In the wake of Kansas, states should also consider how abortion bans affect the medical profession. Wisner emphasizes that the mental health toll on doctors and other medical personnel, already stressed to the breaking point with covid, will increase as their caseloads rise dramatically in abortion-safe states. In red states, they’ll be forced to weigh the needs of patients against their own risk of prosecution. She expects “burnout” to escalate.

Kansas, however, provides an alternative outcome to the parade of disasters. Voters there have sounded a wake-up call for lawmakers to consider not only the unpopularity of bans but also the wave of suffering they will unleash. The Kansas vote should prompt states to pause before joining the forced-birth movement.

We Must Protect The Right To Vote Or Lose Our Democracy

 

Anyone who has been paying attention knows our democracy is in trouble. The loser in our last presidential election has been telling a big lie -- that he won the 2020 election, but it was stolen from him through massive fraud. It's not true, but he has convinced many people that it is.

He even encouraged his deluded supporters to stage a violent insurrection at our U.S. Capitol building. When that failed, Republicans in red states began passing a whole raft of laws to suppress voting and give GOP legislatures the ability to change the outcome of voting in many states. The goal, of course, is to make sure Republicans will win future elections -- even if they have to cheat to do so.

If we allow these anti-democracy Republicans to be successful, we will lose our democracy. It will be replaced by an authoritarian government that refuses to recognize the will of the voters.

This must be stopped, and the only way to stop it is to pass federal laws to protect the right of citizens to vote and to protect the valid outcome of that voting. There are bills to do exactly that. They have been passed in the House, and are currently pending approval in the Senate.

The problem is that Democrats (who support the bills) only have 50 votes in the Senate. And the Republicans are filibustering the voting rights bills -- meaning it will take 60 votes to pass them. There is no chance of getting those 60 votes, since the Republicans are unanimous in their opposition.

The only way the bills can be passed to protect voting (and our democracy) is for the filibuster to be banned on voting rights bills. This could be done if all 50 Democrats voted to do that, and Vice-President Harris casts the tie-breaking vote.

Unfortunately, there are two Democrats -- Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema -- who love the filibuster. They even refuse to carve out an exception for voting rights and to protect election results. They seem to think that an archaic Senate rule (the filibuster) that is not in the Constitution is more important than the right of every citizen to vote. More important than democracy itself, which depends on the right to vote.

Their refusal is making it possible for Republicans to suppress the vote, and possibly even overturn the will of the voters in some states. They are enabling a future coup by anti democracy Republicans. 

Their behavior is shameful!

NY Doesn't Want Cuomo To Resign Or Run For Re-Election

 The charts above reflect the results of a new Siena College Poll -- done between March 8th and 12th of 805 New York State registered voters, with a 4.1 point margin of error.

Georgia Run-Off Will Determine Either Progress Or Gridlock

How important are the run-offs for the two senate seats in Georgia? Extremely important! It will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate for the next two years.

The current situation favors the Republicans. They have 50 senators to 48 for the Democrats. If the Republicans win just one of the two Georgia seats, they will have 51 votes and Mitch McConnell will remain the Majority Leader. That means he will be able to block anything the Biden administration or the Democratic House of Representatives tries to do, and his past actions show that is exactly what he will do.

He successfully blocked most things in President Obama's second term. In the last couple of years, he refused to allow a vote on hundreds of bills passed by the Democratically-controlled House of Representatives. He single-handedly created a gridlock in the federal government -- making sure almost nothing got done.

He will do that again. He won't allow the minimum wage to be raised. He will block efforts to create a public option for health insurance that would cover all citizens. He would stop efforts to strengthen unions and increase the middle class. And he would kill any effort to have the rich and corporations pay their fair share of taxes. He could also block any progressive judges from the federal bench.

There is only one way to stop that kind of McConnell-inspired gridlock. The Democrats must win both of the senate seats in Georgia. If they do, the Democrats and Republicans would each have 50 senators, and Vice-President Harris would be the tie vote. That would make Schumer the Majority Leader, and the Senate would at least get to vote on the bills passed by the House or introduced by the Biden administration.

Nearly 7 Ot Of 10 In U.S. Support Marijuana Legalization

 The support for the legalization of marijuana in the United States continues to climb. Now nearly 7 out of 10 Americans support legalization (68%). That's the highest percentage ever recorded.

And it showed in this election, as voters in four more states approved legalization for recreational use -- Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota. That makes 15 states that have now approved the legal recreational use of marijuana.

The charts above are from a recent Gallup Poll -- done between September 30th and October 15th of a national sample of 1,035 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

The Most Expensive Election In U.S. History

 The chart above is from CNBC.com. It shows that this election will have a cost of over $10 billion -- significantly more than any past election.

56% of Americans Say Trump Doesn't Deserve Re-Election

 

The chart above reflects the results of a recent Gallup Poll -- done between September 30th and October 15th of a national sample of 1,035 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

It shows that 56% of Americans say Trump does not deserve to be re-elected, while only 43% believes he does -- a negative gap of 13 points.

Texas Dems Ask For Mail Voting (& Prepare For Online Conv.)

The Texas State Democratic Convention is scheduled to be held in San Antonio from June 4th thru June 6th. But the Coronavirus may well throw a kink in that plan. Many experts predict the Coronavirus crisis may not be over by then. If it's not, and San Antonio officials prohibit a gathering of several thousand people, the convention will not be able to be held. What is to be done?

State Democratic Party officials have been wrestling with that very possible scenario. And they have plans to conduct an online convention. Executive Director Manny Garcia said delegates to the state convention will be registered online -- after being chosen in their county or senatorial district conventions. Garcia said, “If the city of San Antonio shuts us down, we’ll have an online convention with online voting and an online show”. 

Delaying the convention is not really an option, since the national convention is slated for early July.

And that's not the only thing that may require some changes. When Texas had its primary on March 3rd, not all races were decided. Some will require a run-off election -- like the race for U.S. Senate on the Democratic ticket. These races would be decided by an election scheduled for May (when the Coronavirus crisis will most likely still be going on).

State Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa is requesting that the run-off elections be conducted only by mail-in ballots. Here is the letter he sent to officials in the office of the Texas Secretary of State (which oversees Texas elections):

The letter we sent to the Texas Secretary of State: 

Dear Keith, Christina, and Kristi,

Our team is still eager to talk to you by phone to discuss the planning for the May 2 and May 26 elections, as I emailed you about last week. However, since COVID-19 contingency planning should be moving quickly, we wanted to put our thoughts and suggested course of action on the table as soon as possible. 

Under the current and projected conditions involving COVID-19, it does not seem viable for Texas to hold meaningful elections in May in which all eligible voters can participate if those elections involve polling place-based voting. Many of the facilities typically used for polling places are closing down and the majority of our election workers are older adults who have now been advised by the CDC to remain at home in order to avoid exposure to COVID-19. 

We should develop contingency plans now that allow the May 2 and May 26 elections to be held entirely by mail to avoid the risks of spreading COVID-19 at polling places and to avoid the many logistical barriers that we are likely to face as this crisis intensifies, polling places close, and our normal pool of poll workers practice social distancing and seclusion. Simply reducing the number of polling places is not a viable option, as that will present insurmountable barriers for many voters to be able to cast their ballots. An all-mail election in which county election officials mail a ballot to every registered voter is the only realistic option that ensures meaningful participation in the elections while also protecting public health.   Fortunately, the basic infrastructure to implement wide scale, mail-in voting already exists.

We have already seen other states like Georgia and Louisiana postpone their presidential primary elections, originally scheduled for March 24 and April 4, respectively. Since we have six weeks until our next election, we have the opportunity to develop contingency plans rather than resorting to such drastic measures. 

As part of the emergency declarations the Governor issues, he should immediately order that the May 2 and May 26 elections be held entirely by mail. In order for elections offices to obtain the supplies and otherwise manage the logistics of mailing ballots to every eligible voter for the May elections (the first of which are only six weeks away), we must act quickly.

We appreciate you reviewing this recommendation, and we look forward to further discussing it with your team or whomever in the Executive you believe best to take up this conversation. 

Thank you, 

Gilberto Hinojosa
Chair, Texas Democratic Party