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Javier E

Why Do Voters See Joe Biden as the Most Electable? - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...597904

electability 2020 candidates politics

shared by Javier E on 13 Sep 19 - No Cached
  • Ninety-seven percent of them called defeating him either “extremely” or “very” important. But only about half of the primary voters the group surveyed called it “extremely” or “very” likely that Democrats would in fact do so. “The tension between Democrats’ urgency to beat Trump and their uncertainty that it will happen is why electability is driving the primary process,”
  • More than three-fifths of Democrats said they preferred a nominee with the best chance of beating Trump, even if they didn’t agree with him or her on most issues; only about one-fifth prioritized a candidate they agreed with most of the time
  • “But how Democrats conceive of electability—specifically as it relates to the adoptable characteristics that they think make a candidate electable—is more complicated,
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  • Maybe the most striking pattern in how Democratic voters assessed electability was what they did not prominently mention. In open-ended questions, the race and gender of a candidate did not surface frequently as an important factor: In other words, at least in how people responded, electability was not just code for “old white man.”
  • “People did not say race and gender—they didn’t volunteer that.
  • The share of respondents who thought that an aggressively liberal path improved the Democrats’ odds against Trump was slightly larger than the share who favored centrist positioning. But these ideology-focused voters amounted to only 6 percent of the respondents.
  • Democratic primary voters generally don’t believe that ideology will be the key to beating Trump in 2020.
  • Not many more voters said that they believe the issues a candidate stresses will be crucial to beating Trump
  • only about one in five cited a strong emphasis on any issue as central to victory.
  • By far, more voters—about two-thirds in all—picked a candidate’s personal qualities rather than any other choice. According to the analysis, the most common response was honesty and integrity, followed by compassion, strength, and then competence
  • three in 10 primary voters thought that specific tactical choices the nominee pursues before Election Day would be crucial to beating Trump.
  • The action that most of the Democratic voters surveyed thought would help beat Trump was taking the high road and uniting the country. But what ranked next was the exact opposite: fighting back and standing up for beliefs.
  • The same divergence was apparent when the survey asked Democrats head-on which traits in a nominee would cause them the most concern. “Too left” and “socialist” led the list, but combined for only about one-fifth of the primary voters
  • Slightly more voters said that they worried about an alternative set of concerns that included “too old,” “too middle,” “man,” and “white.” Older voters worried more about “too left”; younger voters expressed more concern about “too middle,” “man,” and “white.”
  • Different wings of the party are operating on very different theories about what it will take to oust Trump
katherineharron

Bernie Sanders wins Democrats Abroad primary - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katherineharron on 23 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders won the Democrats Abroad primary and secured nine delegates, Democrats Abroad announced on Monday.
  • Democrats Abroad is the official arm of the Democratic Party for Americans living overseas, and voters in 180 countries cast their ballots in the primary. Sanders won 57.9% of the vote and 9 delegates, and former Vice President Joe Biden won 22.7% of the vote and 4 delegates.
  • As of Monday, Biden has a more than 300-delegate lead over Sanders, according to CNN's estimate.
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  • "Americans abroad are consistently a very blue voting bloc, and the turnout we've seen during the primary, as well as in voter turnout of general elections in 2016 and 2018, reflect that. Our voters believe in affordable healthcare and education, and a government that looks after its people -- both those citizens at home and abroad," said Amanda Mohar, the communications director for Democrats Abroad.
Javier E

Bernie's Choice: Ride or Die - The Bulwark - 0 views

thebulwark.com/bernies-choice-ride-or-die

progressive politics Democratic party

shared by Javier E on 19 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • That starts with internalizing an unpalatable truth: from its outset Sanders’ campaign was fatally flawed.
  • First, Sanders failed to transcend his limited demographic appeal.
  • “Sanders has made no effort to reach out beyond his voters, his movement, his revolution. It just has not grown. It is an utterly stable vote that is grounded in the very liberal portion of the Democratic party, but he’s so disdainful of any outreach beyond that base. He seems content to just keep hitting that drum.”
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  • “Sanders’ political failings are his own, and black people are not here to channel the political yearnings of white progressives. We are not here to carry your water or clean up your mess. It’s not that black people don’t believe you… You quite literally need more people.”
  • Including white people. So far in 2020, Sanders has lost college-educated whites, badly. More surprising, he has hemorrhaged the same working-class whites he carried in 2016—which suggests that their transient adherence was driven more by aversion to Hillary Clinton than enthusiasm for Sanders himself.
  • [M]any progressive activists misread public opinion. Their answer to almost every question of political strategy is to insist that Americans are a profoundly progressive people who haven’t yet been inspired to vote the way they think… They are conflating our own opinions with smart political advice. They are choosing to believe what they want to believe.
  • Second, Sanders’ alternative turnout model was delusional.
  • Sanders claimed that he could fuse young people with the previously disengaged—people who rarely, if ever, vote—into a decisive bloc of new voters who would respond to him alone. Wrong. In primary upon primary, Sanders’ phantom army never materialized.
  • In an extensive study of non-voters by the Knight Foundation the authors conclude that “If they all voted in 2020, non-voters would add an almost equal share of votes to Democratic and Republican candidates.”
  • In sum Sanders, his campaign, and too many of his followers embraced an electoral strategy premised on magical thinking.
  • Finally, Sanders “democratic-socialist” agenda unnerved many voters.
  • Actual votes here tell the story. To succeed, Democrats must begin with their base—the coalition which Sander is losing by a wide margin. But they also need to add the votes of the same people who buoyed Democratic candidates in 2018: moderates, independents, persuadable Republicans, suburbanites, and college-educated women.
  • Sanders insists that his campaign is winning on the issues, and losing only because primary voters fear that he’s not electable. But this misses the point: Voters fear he’s unelectable because of his positions on the issues.
  • And doing his damnedest to help Biden become president.
  • Take his centerpiece proposal: single-payer healthcare. A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 60 percent of swing voters in the pivotal states of Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin consider it “a bad idea.” Without winning at least two of those states—and in reality they probably need all three —Democrats will lose to Trump.
  • To be sure, some of Sanders’ individual proposals are popular among Democrats. But Sanders should contemplate that the adverse verdict of primary voters implicates his overall agenda—and that, if anything, this judgement minimizes the misgivings among the electorate writ large.
  • Certain of Sanders’ fellow progressives get that. Here’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on appealing to voters: “I come from the lens of an organizer, and if someone doesn’t do what you want, you don’t blame them—you ask why. And you don’t demand that answer of that person—you reflect. And that reflection is where you can grow.”
  • It’s one thing to criticize Biden on the issues. But if one worries about Trump beating Biden at such terrible cost to the globe, then it would be best not to call Uncle Joe, as Robinson has, “a sleazy dishonest person, the kind who should not be rewarded with a position of extreme trust like the presidency.”
  • that’s what comes of treating the Democratic party as the target of a hostile takeover—as Sanders himself so often does. Soon enough, for his acolytes the party itself becomes the enemy, along with everyone within it who disagrees with their leader
  • From there, it is but one step further to sabotaging Biden as an act of revenge. After the Michigan primary, pro-Sanders commentator Krystal Ball said: “The responsibility is placed solely on the voters to suck it up and vote Joe. I’m not buying it. If the choice is Donald Trump or Joe Biden, you can mark me down as officially undecided.”
  • The essential choice for Sanders in 2020 is between facilitating Trump’s second term, and helping Biden become a candidate more of his voters can accept.
  • That involves doing four hard things:
  • Nudging Biden closer to his position, but only in areas where Biden has room to move
  • Reminding his supporters that their campaign was a cause, not a suicide mission.
  • Denouncing the rancor through which principled advocacy becomes personal animus.
  • Overall, Sanders never reached large chunks of the Obama coalition – an essential predicate to any chance of long-term success.
  • Very soon Sanders and his supporters will have to stop fabricating fantastical excuses for losing to Biden, look in the mirror, and decide what to do about Donald Trump.
  • But will he?
  • Trump must be defeated,” Bernie Sanders insists, “and I will do everything in my power to make that happen.”
andrespardo

'We can lose this election': what top Democrats fear could go wrong in 2020 | US news |... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ats-on-factors-losing-election

politics US election trump

shared by andrespardo on 07 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • Donald Trump has a huge campaign war chest and a vast, aggressive digital operation. And the US economy has shown stubborn resilience throughout the president’s three years in office, keeping unemployment levels low and stock markets high.
  • hat’s the overall sentiment of Democrats based on interviews with over a dozen senior party figures – including ex-mayors and former governors – and top strategists during a chaotic month in the Democratic primary leading up to the Iowa caucuses.
  • Bernie Sanders surging in Iowa, to the chagrin of centrist Democratic leaders who hoped a candidate like former vice-president Joe Biden or even the young and charismatic former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg might score an early win.
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  • “I’m still very bullish on 2020. I think Trump’s going to have a very difficult time winning re-election,” said the former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe.
  • Money money money!
  • Incumbency
  • “I don’t think it’s going to be hard to raise all the money you need but that early advantage is not inconsequential given that this is coming down to a few voters in a few states,” Emanuel said.
  • $20m on more than 218,000 Facebook ads. And Democrats have noticed.
  • “I think someone who’s not worried about the money is crazy. Trump’s sitting on $100m right now and we’re nowhere close to having a nominee and they will be able to raise money but we’re still so fractured,”
  • But Trump is a divisive figure, to put it mildly. Democrats point to their gains in suburban districts across the country and flipping seven governor’s mansions in the 2018 midterm elections. They see that as a herald of Democratic competitiveness in Republican-leaning parts of the country. Democratic strategists hope fatigue from seemingly daily national crises will see reluctant moderates and swing voters vote Trump out of office.
  • Emanuel said the deciding issues will be the key aspects of the economy versus a set of issues Democrats have run and won on in recent years.
  • The most persistent source of Democratic handwringing is a traditional aspect of any presidential cycle: the months-long primary where fellow candidates turn on each other. After months of relatively respectful campaigning, the knives are finally coming out just before the first vote in Iowa next week.
  • Running out of money – and a brokered convention?
  • Democrats worry a long, bloody primary could advantage Trump. It could also drain Democrats’ resources.
  • ppealing to swing voters A persistent fear throughout the Democratic primary has been picking a viable nominee. The 2020 Democratic primary has been full of ideological and policy debates over Medicare for All, immigration, a Green New Deal and whether a veteran or young charismatic leader can beat Trump.
  • “The thing that concerns me the absolute most right now is Bernie being the nominee,” a veteran Democratic strategist with ties to multiple candidates said.
  • The veteran Democratic strategist pointed to questions about where Warren stands on healthcare and Medicare for All. “I think Warren’s a problem. I think any candidate who would lose the healthcare debate to Trump is a problem. I think her stance is a problem. I think a lot of what’s ailing her is correctable. I think it’s not correctable with Bernie and he has no desire to correct it.”
Javier E

Opinion | Bernie Sanders Has Already Won the Democratic Primary - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...anders-democratic-primary.html

Democratic party progressive left 2020 politics

shared by Javier E on 07 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • “Look, we all have big progressive plans,” Biden said, as if to reassure Democratic voters. Michael Bennet touted bipartisan immigration legislation that he helped to write as “the most progressive DREAM Act” ever put together.
  • He won it when his rivals talked more about whether Medicare for All could ever get through Congress than about whether such a huge expansion of the federal government was a good idea in the first place.
  • He won it when they competed to throw many more trillions than the next candidate at climate change. He won it when the disagreement became not about free tuition at public colleges but about the eligibility of students from families above a certain income level.
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  • He and his supporters shouldn’t feel defeated after Super Tuesday. They should take a bow.
  • In the context of previous presidential elections, Biden isn’t so very moderate. Nor are Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg or other Democratic aspirants lumped in that category. They have carved out positions to the left of the party’s nominees over the past two decades, including the most recent three: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Kerry.
  • And you know who gets the most credit for that? Sanders.
  • While Sanders’s fellow candidates didn’t parrot his vocabulary and denounce “oligarchs” and “oligarchy,” they spoke expansively about gross income inequality and the need to tackle it. That largely reflected how wealth had been concentrated over recent decades. But it owed something, too, to Sanders’s right and righteous demand that America have this conversation.
  • Biden’s proposed tax increases of about $3.4 trillion over a decade are more than double what Clinton was advocating in 2016, while Buttigieg’s were more than quadruple. How is that moderate?
  • Although there is scant evidence in recent elections that a Democrat running on Sanders’s platform can win anywhere but in decidedly blue districts and states, that platform colored the Democratic primary in a bold and indelible way. Candidates disrespected it at their peril.
  • Klobuchar asserted herself — and was frequently characterized as — a sort of common-sense centrist. But her actual positions and proposals told a different story. As my fellow Times Op-Ed columnist David Leonhardt recently wrote: “She wants to raise taxes on the rich, break up monopolies, vastly expand Medicare, fight climate change, admit more refugees, allow undocumented immigrants to become citizens, ban assault weapons and require universal background checks. A Klobuchar administration would probably be well to the left of the Obama administration.” It would be closer to Sanders territory.
  • “All the lead contenders are running on the most progressive agendas to ever dominate a Democratic primary,” wrote Vox’s Ezra Klein and Roge Karma late last year. They noted that this primary’s moderates would have been considered leftists in the recent past. “As a result,” they added, “if Biden or Buttigieg actually win the nomination, they will be running on the most progressive platform of any Democratic nominee in history.”
  • Biden was designated a moderate despite declaring that the Equality Act, which would offer sweeping federal protection against discrimination for L.G.B.T.Q. people, didn’t merely have his support; it would be his top legislative priority. He was designated a moderate despite being among the 10 candidates at a Democratic debate early on who all raised their hands when asked if they supported extending health care benefits to undocumented immigrants.
  • Sanders’s grilling was a long time coming. The wonder of most of the debates was how carefully his competitors tiptoed around him, acutely conscious of the moral force that he had come to wield in the party and the passion of his supporters, whom they didn’t want to alienate. He became the enemy that no Democrat wanted to have.
  • Biden’s backing extends well beyond corporations. His proposals demonstrate concern for those working families. And his goals echo Sanders’s goals, for one reason above all others. Sanders already won.
clairemann

Yes, Texas Could Go Blue This Year | Time - 0 views

time.com/...texas-blue-biden-trump

US politics election trump gop Texas

shared by clairemann on 30 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • The outcome of the 2020 Presidential election is more uncertain than any in modern history—and nowhere is that uncertainty on better display than in Texas, a state that could very well go Democratic for the first time since 1976.
  • “If I were to guess, I would say 10-15% who vote in a Republican primary aren’t true Republicans,” Ryan says, adding that the percentage might be a notch higher for Democratic primaries, particularly in more partisan areas where the primary is functionally the general election.
  • (to quote Frank Drake, the founder of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, that’s “a wonderful way to organize our ignorance).
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  • The polls in Texas are all over the place, ranging from a 7-point margin for U.S. President Donald Trump, who won the state by 9 percentage points in 2016, to a four-point Biden victory.
  • Turnout in Texas this year will greatly surpass any previous cycle. In 2016, just shy of 9 million Texans cast a vote for president, amounting to 51.4% of the voting-eligible population, according to the United States Election Project.
  • Many more voters are expected to turn out on Nov. 3. A recent University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll found that 75% of respondents consider it safe to vote in person on Election Day, though there’s a rift along party lines: 57% of Democrats said they felt safe compared to 91% of Republicans, suggesting Trump voters are more likely than Biden voters to vote in person.
  • “significantly different electorate than in 2016,” says Joshua Blank, research director at the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Nationwide, the conventional wisdom that higher turnout benefits Democrats does not hold up when one considers President Trump’s core base
  • As of Wednesday, early voters with a history of voting in a Republican primary outpaced those who voted in Democratic primaries by 6 points, though the largest percentage voted in neither.
  • More to the point, those on the ballot for state races, Blank says, form an organic field operation across the state, armed with their own volunteers and knowledge of their districts that a statewide or national campaign could never generate from scratch.
  • “They’re only afraid of extremely high turnout.” Meanwhile, he says that Democrats have long held that Texas “is not a Republican state. It is a non-voting state.”
  • This is a particularly common misconception regarding eligible Hispanic voters, plenty of whom, polling by Blank’s organization and others suggests, are generally supportive of the Republican Party.
  • There is a strong possibility that Democrats will retake the Texas House of Representatives this year, which Republicans have controlled—along with the Texas Senate and governorship—since 2003.
  • the Texas Democratic Party has widened the front in terms of slating better candidates. For more than a decade, Blank says, the Party was “catch as catch can” in terms of finding viable candidates for district races, a process that restarted every cycle, with many seats going uncontested
  • “If you’re a candidate who loses narrowly but runs again, it gives you a lot more parity with the Republican incumbent,” Blank says.
  • Arguably the more relevant question is: how many Texans who otherwise would not have voted are excited about local candidates, and are thus more likely to vote and perhaps boost Biden?
  • both shifted Texas from leaning or tilting Republican to a genuine toss up, while the University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato places it in “Leans Republican,” just one category to the right.
  • Whether that’s enough to make a difference is, of course, ultimately unknowable before the election. When I asked Sabato why he was keeping Texas in the “Leans Republican” category, he said that “I’ve been hearing every four years that Texas is going Democratic, and it never happens.”
  • Austin Q. Sarker-Young on 31 Oct 20
     
    Dear Claire, While I appreciate the optimism, I think the Democratic Party has cried victory too early this year, and claiming that Texas could go blue simply reinforces this. The Democratic Party seems to have gone a little too far on the offensive, much in the same way as they did in 2016, and this could have disastrous results for the cause of Joe Biden. As for your evidence, I do not trust Larry Sabato, since his prediction given right before election night in 2016 was WILDLY wrong (Clinton 322 - Trump 216). In that prediction, linked here (https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/our-final-2016-picks/), he predicted that Wisconsin was a "Likely D" and said "Lean D" for the myriad swing states that we all know went for Trump that year. When it comes to Sabato's 2020 predictions, linked here (https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2020-president/), a great many of the states he marks as toss-up or lean Democrat went Republican in 2016. We also all remember the "Blue Wave" disappointment of 2018 that took the House but failed to take the Senate. Considering all this, I have reason to be quite skeptical of what pollsters say. And my opinion? I cannot have one yet. As of today, and probably even at the end of election day on November 3, the final winner of the election is unknowable.
criscimagnael

Why Republicans Campaign on Guns While Democrats Choose Not To - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...republicans-campaign-guns.html

shared by criscimagnael on 01 Jun 22 - No Cached
  • In Alabama, Gov. Kay Ivey unpacked lipstick, an iPhone and something else from her purse in one campaign advertisement — “a little Smith & Wesson .38,” she said. A Republican candidate for governor in Georgia declared in a different spot, “I believe in Jesus, guns and babies.”
  • As the nation reels from a massacre at a Texas elementary school in which a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers, a review of Republican and Democratic advertising during the first months of 2022 highlights the giant cultural chasm over guns in America. As both parties have navigated their respective primary seasons, Republicans have been far more likely to use messaging about guns to galvanize their base in the midterms than Democrats — who are largely in agreement on the issue of combating gun violence, but have seen one legislative effort after another collapse.
  • But more than 100 television ads from Republican candidates and supportive groups have used guns as talking points or visual motifs this year. Guns are shown being fired or brandished, or are discussed but not displayed as candidates praise the Second Amendment, vow to block gun-control legislation or simply identify themselves as “pro-gun.”
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  • “You basically have Republican primary candidates trying to explain to Republican primary voters that they are going to be on their side when it comes to the cultural cold civil war that’s being fought right now,”
  • Within hours after the Texas shooting, shaken Democrats in Washington vowed to try again to pursue a compromise with Republicans on gun legislation that could move through the divided Senate. But the challenges were immediately evident, and Democratic outrage and frustration were palpable.
  • How or whether the Texas school shooting, the deadliest since Sandy Hook, will change the midterm election landscape remains unclear.
  • Ads for Josh Mandel, the former Ohio treasurer who lost the Republican primary for Senate, used the tagline “Pro-God, pro-gun, pro-Trump.”
  • “Babies, borders, bullets”
  • In New York, Representative Thomas Suozzi, who is waging a long-shot primary campaign against Gov. Kathy Hochul, is highlighting her support years ago from the National Rifle Association. For her part, a Hochul ad cites her work “cracking down on illegal guns to make our neighborhoods safer.”
  • On the campaign trail, though, Mr. Fetterman has faced scrutiny over a 2013 incident in which, as mayor of Braddock, Pa., he brandished a shotgun to stop and detain an unarmed Black jogger, telling police he had heard gunshots. He has declined to apologize or say he did anything wrong.
  • “We are exhausted,” she continued, “because we cannot continue to be the only country in the world where we let this happen again and again and again.”
redavistinnell

Five states expected to help Trump and Clinton widen their leads - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...6-8ab8-9ad050f76d7d_story.html

states expected help trump leads

shared by redavistinnell on 26 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • s Five states expected to help Trump and Clinton widen their leads
  • For Republicans, the race for delegates remains a key focus, with Trump hoping to secure the 1,237 delegates needed before the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July.
  • On the Democratic side, polls in recent days suggest that Clinton could win all but one or two of the five states up for grabs —Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware — or potentially sweep the table.
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  • Sen. Bernie Sanders, the upstart White House hopeful who has stirred the passions of liberals, made a final appeal for support in Philadelphia on Monday ahead of primaries that could render his already narrow path to the Democratic nomination virtually nonexistent.
  • “Honestly, it shows such total weakness, and it’s pathetic when two longtime insider politicians — establishment guys, whether you like it or not — have to collude, have to get together to try to beat a guy that really speaks what the people want,” Trump said during a campaign event in Warwick, R.I., on Monday
  • Trump, who has stirred outcry over remarks about women during the campaign, took sharper aim at Clinton, declaring she would be a “terrible president“ who is playing up the fact that she is a woman.
  • “Donald Trump says wages are too high in America and he doesn’t support raising the minimum wage,” Clinton said on Monday. “I have said come out of those towers named for yourself and actually come out and talk and listen to people.
  • “I call her crooked Hillary because she’s crooked and the only thing she’s got is the woman card. That’s all she’s got. . . . It’s a weak card in her hands,” Trump said on Fox. “I’d love to see a woman president, but she’s the wrong person. She’s a disaster.”
  • But less than 12 hours after the pact was announced, Kasich undercut the idea by declaring Monday that his supporters in Indiana should still vote for him. The Ohio governor also plans to keep raising money in the state and to meet Tuesday with Republican Gov. Mike Pence.
  • Cruz, meanwhile, said that Kasich was “pulling out” of the state. A super PAC supporting the senator from Texas also said it would continue to air an anti-Kasich ad in the state — a sign the Cruz camp fears Kasich could still peel away enough support to sink Cruz’s chances in Indiana.
  • And Cruz declared that his supporters should continue to cast ballots for him. He attempted to paint himself as the only candidate who could win both the primary and general elections. Trump, he said, could win the nomination but not the general election and Kasich could win the general election but not the primary.
  • The tumult fueled doubts about the arrangement among voters and Republican elites, who worried that Cruz and Kasich have handed Trump a ready-made argument that the party establishment is plotting against him. The mogul said as much in a series of stump speeches on the eve of primary voting.
sarahbalick

US election 2016: New York primaries crucial for Clinton and Trump - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...election-us-2016-36079804

election new york clinton trump

shared by sarahbalick on 19 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • US election 2016: New York primaries crucial for Clinton and Trump
  • New York is holding presidential primaries seen as key for both Republican and Democratic front-runners after their recent defeats.
  • Wins will put Mrs Clinton and Mr Trump closer to securing their nominations.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • As Mr Trump cast his votes at Central Synagogue in Manhattan on Tuesday morning, he said: "It's just an honour, and my whole reason for doing this is to make America great again."
  • Hillary Clinton was twice elected senator for New York, and a defeat there would be a devastating political blow.
  • For Mr Trump, a win in New York will reduce the chances of a contested nomination at the Republican party convention in July.The big question is whether he will make a clean sweep of all 95 Republican delegates at stake in New York by earning the majority of votes.
  • "We are not taking anything for granted,'' Mrs Clinton said. "Tell your friends and your family, everyone, to please vote tomorrow [Tuesday]."
  • The Democratic campaign has turned increasingly negative, with both candidates trading barbs about their qualifications.
  • The primaries are the state's most decisive in decades in selecting the candidates, and polls will be open until 21:00 (01:00 GMT Wednesday)
  • In a campaign event in Buffalo, Mr Trump told his supporters that "no New Yorker" could vote for Mr Cruz, who did "not represent what we need.''
  • "It's very close to my heart because I was down there, and I watched our police and our firemen down at 7/11, down at the World Trade Center right after it came down, and I saw the greatest people I've ever seen in action," Mr Trump said.
Javier E

Six weeks to sanity: The anti-Trump surge is finally here - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...ti-trump-surge-is-finally-here

gop conservatism demagogue crisis politics

shared by Javier E on 20 Jun 16 - No Cached
  • Why couldn’t the GOP have figured all this out before Trump got to 1,237 delegates?
  • Right-wingers will smell a plot. (The MSM held back until he had the nomination!) But there were a number of factors in the primary — a huge field (dividing the not-Trump vote and shielding him in debates), a press entranced with his media show, the novelty of his “act,” and the collapse of his opponents at critical times (e.g., Sen. Marco Rubio’s pre-New Hampshire primary debate) — that aided Trump.
  • there is something fundamentally amiss on the right that in a mere six weeks the country has figured out Trump, whereas Republicans in nine months plainly could not see the character they were embracing. That should highlight some troubling deficiencies on the right.
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  • First, the anti-immigration obsession that had transfixed the right-wing inured many supposed gate-keepers (e.g., magazines, pundits) as well as the base to a candidate peddling a dangerous brew of nativism, protectionism and isolationism. If the “respectable” publications rant and rave about “amnesty,” one can imagine why Trump’s idea for a wall might have gotten traction rather than guffaws
  • Second, over the past seven years, the anti-government tirades from talk radio, from Beltway groups such as Heritage Action and even from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) saturated the base, convincing them that everyone with experience “betrayed them” and only outsiders devoid of exposure to governance had the secret sauce for peace and prosperity.
  • Third, the “establishment” — the officialdom of the Republican National Committee — facilitated Trump’s rise, convinced he’d run as an independent
  • One, therefore, is left with an unpleasant reality: A plurality of GOP voters wanted Trump
  • A significant segment of the GOP primary electorate itself lacked common sense, standards of decency, and intolerance of bigotry and cruelty. No group was worse than the evangelical “leaders” who cheered him along the way.
  • A Republican wag joked that the GOP needs not only a new candidate but also a new base. There is something to that. In the 2016 postmortem, it will be worth examining the extent to which the GOP has promoted crackpots, become ghettoized in distorted right-wing media and lost track of what 21st-century America believes and looks like
  • the party as a whole has to expand its vision and its base. It’s time to stop reveling in ignorance and celebrating lost causes.
  • It’s a problem when the rest of the country has to rescue the GOP and the country from Republican voters’ terrible judgment.
jlessner

Why a 'Virtual Tie' in Iowa Is Better for Clinton Than Sanders - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...owa-helps-hillary-clinton.html

iowa clinton sanders politics history US culture policy

shared by jlessner on 02 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • The Iowa Democratic caucuses were a “virtual tie,” especially after you consider that the results aren’t even actual vote tallies, but state delegate equivalents subject to all kinds of messy rounding rules and potential geographic biases.
  • he official tally, for now, is Hillary Clinton at 49.9 percent, and Mr. Sanders at 49.6 percent with 97 percent of precincts reporting early Tuesday morning.
  • But in the end, a virtual tie in Iowa is an acceptable, if not ideal, result for Mrs. Clinton and an ominous one for Mr. Sanders. He failed to win a state tailor made to his strengths.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • He fares best among white voters. The electorate was 91 percent white, per the entrance polls. He does well with less affluent voters. The caucus electorate was far less affluent than the national primary electorate in 2008. He’s heavily dependent on turnout from young voters, and he had months to build a robust field operation. As the primaries quickly unfold, he won’t have that luxury.
  • Iowa is not just a white state, but also a relatively liberal one
  • But these strengths were neatly canceled by Mrs. Clinton’s strengths. She won older voters, more affluent voters, along with “somewhat liberal” and “moderate” Democrats.
  • He has nearly no chance to do as well among nonwhite voters as Mr. Obama did in 2008
  • The polls say that her supporters are more likely to be firmly decided than Mr. Sanders’s voters.
  • Mr. Sanders will have another opportunity to gain momentum after the New Hampshire primary. He might not get as much credit for a victory there as he would have in Iowa, since New Hampshire borders his home state of Vermont. But it could nonetheless give him another opportunity to overcome his weaknesses among nonwhite voters.
  • As a general rule, though, momentum is overrated in primary politics. In 2008, for instance, momentum never really changed the contours of the race. Mr. Obama’s victory in Iowa allowed him to make huge gains among black voters, but not much more — the sort of exception that would seem to prove the rule. Mr. Obama couldn’t even put Mrs. Clinton away after winning a string of states in early February.
  • ick Santorum, Pat Buchanan or Mike Huckabee, who failed to turn early-state victories into broader coalitions.
  • Mrs. Clinton holds more than 50 percent of the vote in national surveys; her share of the vote never declined in 2008.
  • In the end, Mr. Sanders failed to score a clear win in a state where Mr. Obama easily defeated Mrs. Clinton among white voters.
  • Why a ‘Virtual Tie’ in Iowa Is Better for Clinton Than Sanders
jongardner04

Marco Rubio wins Puerto Rico primary | US elections | News | The Independent - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...rto-rico-primary-a6916391.html

elections Rubio

shared by jongardner04 on 07 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Marco Rubio is set to win the Puerto Rico primary.
  • With a quarter of the votes counted, Rubio received nearly 75 per cent of votes in the US territory, the Associated Press reports.
  • “The numbers are overwhelming,” Jenniffer Gonzalez, chairwoman of Puerto Rico's Republican Party, told the news agency. “This primary in Puerto Rico... will demonstrate that the Hispanic vote is important.”
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Rubio was the only Republican candidate to campaign in Puerto Rico. Voters in the US territory are not able to vote in presidential elections but they do participate in each party’s nominating process.
katyshannon

Jim Webb drops out of Democratic presidential primary - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...m-webb-2016-election-drops-out

jim webb drops democrat presidential race US politics primary

shared by katyshannon on 21 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Jim Webb ended his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination at a press conference Tuesday, telling reporters he will consider an independent bid.
  • Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, Webb argued the Democratic Party has moved away from "millions of dedicated, hard-working Americans.""For this reason, I am withdrawing from any consideration of being the Democratic Party's nominee for the presidency," he said.
  • "The very nature of our democracy is under siege due to the power structure and the money that finances both political parities," Webb said, adding later that it is "time for a new Declaration of Independence -- not from an outside power but from the paralysis of a federal system that no longer serves the interests of the vast majority of the American people."Webb, who said he couldn't see himself endorsing any other candidate, said he is considering an independent run and will spend the "next couple of weeks talking to people, people I have not felt comfortable talking with as a Democratic Party candidate."
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Webb's campaign never really got off the ground and was seen by even some close Webb aides as more of a vanity play than an actual presidential bid. In total, Webb spent four days campaigning in New Hampshire and 20 days in Iowa, far fewer than the senator's challengers.
  • Webb has long expressed outright frustration with the Democratic Party -- and did so again in announcing the end of his bid -- questioning its strategy and the support they were providing him. During the first Democratic debate earlier this month, Webb spent considerable time complaining about the amount of time he was given to speak.
  • "Some people say I am a Republican who became a Democrat, but that I often sound like a Republican in a room full of Democrats or a Democrat in a room full of Republicans," Webb said. "Actually, I take that as a compliment."
  • Webb, then a Republican, notably served as secretary of the Navy under then-President Ronald Reagan after a decorated military career.
  • katyshannon on 21 Oct 15
     
    Jim Webb drops out the Democratic presidential primary, may still run as an independent.
Javier E

Who Are the Angriest Republicans? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-the-angriest-republicans.html

gop working class white voters election

shared by Javier E on 31 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • The virulent attacks on less affluent Republican voters by Williamson et al raise the question: As a matter of practical politics, how can a party that is losing ground in virtually every growing constituency — Hispanics, Asians, single women and the young — even consider jettisoning a single voter, much less the struggling white working class?
  • The Republican Party has seen its core — married white Christians — decline from 62 percent of the population of the United States to 28 percent in 2015, according to the Public Religion Research Institute.
  • Trump has won his biggest primary margins among less financially secure, less educated voters, turning the traditional winning coalition in Republican primaries upside down. Mitt Romney consistently did best among the most educated and most affluent Republican primary voters. So did John McCain in 2008.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • 69 percent of respondents described themselves as “angry because our political system seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power;” 54 percent said that both the economic and political systems were “stacked” against them.
Javier E

Opinion | France's Combustible Climate Politics - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...llow-vests-climate-change.html

climate change france

shared by Javier E on 07 Dec 18 - No Cached
  • None of this is to say that the world should give up. Beyond nuclear power, we need to be placing medium-sized bets on potentially transformative technologies not funded by regressive taxes or industrial subsidies, and not dependent on future breakthroughs that might still be decades off, if they happen at all. Let thousands of climate-startups bloom — and let markets, not governments, figure out which ones work.
  • Bret There are many practical solutions to this most difficult problem and heaping facile criticism on a selected set to disparage the lot is not helping Paul Hawkin's Project Drawdown ranks 100 solutions in order of impact on reducing CO2 based on the input of scientists https://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank Why don't you use your political acumen and prominent voice to contribute positively by ranking them by political sale-ability to the the persuadable right wing and other opponents so something can get done? For your kids...
  • To have a diagnosis is not to have a cure, and bad cures can be worse than the disease. Those who think otherwise are also living in denial
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • PaulNJ10h ago
  • CLParisDec. 6
  • But a long history of climate policy failures might also cause climate activists and the politicians they support to be more humble about their convictions, more sensitive to the human effects of their policy, and more willing to listen to criticism.
  • JDec. 6Times PickSo Stephens' position is that nothing can be done, so we should do nothing? He may be right; but future generations would curse us for not even trying to address the problems that will imperil not only their way of life but possibly their lives. I am weary of the trope that "we can't instantly and painlessly solve climate change, so we should not even try." Let's begin with a carbon tax and by removing the myriad tax subsidies for fossil fuels. Let's commit to reaching meaningful international agreements, rather than backing out of the few that now exist. Let's try ANYthing other than denying the consensus of 97% of climate scientists and whistling past the proverbial graveyard.
  • CEABurnetDec. 6Times PickWhile getting old is not for wimps, there are some times that being old is just fine. This is one of those moments. Currently at 62, I will likely be dead by the time the worst climate change effects make life as we know it very difficult to sustain. That is small comfort when thinking about the fate of our children and grandchildren, who will have to survive in a world besieged by more frequent and severe storms, droughts, and wild fires. And if we think the swelling migrant masses are a problem for Europe and the US, just wait until water becomes more scarce and crops fail to appear in Africa and South and Central America. No wall or amount of “safe” tear gas will be able to contain them.
  • Climate change policy, by its nature, can't work on a national level. The taxes imposed by the government were meant to make up for a budget shortfall caused by repealing a wealth tax (ISF). Taxing the poor and working classes to pay for a reduction in taxes on the wealthy is probably not a good way to charm the vast majority of French people into supporting your neoliberal "reforms"
  • While solutions to the climate change problem are difficult and complex, the fact remains that inaction is not the answer. And it will take not only governments and politicians to do something, but the collaboration of all of us. Instead of saying we love our children and grandchildren let’s do something about it. But obviously, we do not have the will to do it. Want proof? Consumers in the US are shunning fuel efficient passenger cars and opting for gas guzzling trucks. We are just like the lemmings marching steadily, and apparently willingly, to the edge of the cliff
knudsenlu

Are we seeing signs of a Democratic wave in the primaries? | Jill Abramson | Opinion | ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...primaries-democratic-wave-2020

trump gop shift politics US history culture

shared by knudsenlu on 12 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • ith new Democratic voters racing to the polls in big numbers in Tuesday’s primaries, Texas is looking purple rather than Republican red. That’s big news, especially on the heels of Democrats winning recently in Alabama, where Doug Jones beat Roy Moore, and Virginia, where Democrat Ralph Northam was elected governor.
  • Though winning control of the House of Representatives in 2018 is their focus, my Democratic sources say that there are already 20 credible presidential challengers giving serious thought to opposing Donald Trump in 2020. The list, unsurprisingly, includes a raft of Democratic senators, and, perhaps surprisingly, at least three strong women, New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand, Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar and Massachusetts’s Elizabeth Warren.
  • Unlikely southern stars have aligned to boost Democrats’ confidence. West Virginia, a state that was once a stronghold, had slipped out of the party’s reach in 2000 and in 2016 gave 68% of its vote to Trump. But there’s a tide of anger over issues like the scandalously low pay of teachers, who defied the state’s right to work law and went out on strike.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • A critic of the war on drugs, he’s for legalizing pot and banning assault weapons. A graduate of Columbia University in New York, he performed for a time in a punk band. But Texas likes quirky politicians and O’Rourke defeated an entrenched incumbent in a primary in 2012, the same year Texas sent Cruz, now 47, to the Senate.
  • Besides Cruz’s personal unpopularity, there is Trump’s unpopularity affecting the mood in Texas. According to the Washington Post, Gallup’s 2017 year-long average found Trump’s job approval rating at 39% among Texas adults.
  • It’s easy to look at what’s happening in Washington DC and despair. That’s why I carry a little plastic Obama doll in my purse. I pull him out every now and then to remind myself that the United States had a progressive, African American president until very recently. Some people find this strange, but you have to take comfort where you can find it in Donald Trump’s America.
jayhandwerk

Flake calls for Trump to face 2020 primary challenge - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...to-face-2020-primary-challenge

trump primary Politics US policy economics

shared by jayhandwerk on 11 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether he thinks Trump needs to square off against a Republican who espouses Flake’s more traditionally conservative views on free trade and more, the retiring senator said, “Yes, I do. I do. It would be a tough go in a Republican primary. The Republican Party is the Trump party right now. But that’s not to say it will stay that way.”
  • Flake is also planning to introduce legislation to nullify Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, set to take effect later this month.
katherineharron

Michigan primary: Sanders faces dire moment in Michigan showdown with Biden - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katherineharron on 09 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • Just as suddenly as the Democratic race narrowed to a one-on-one showdown between the Vermont senator and former Vice President Joe Biden, it's brought a primary that Sanders needs to win -- or his path to the Democratic nomination could quickly evaporate.
  • Four years ago, Sanders' stunning victory in Michigan slowed Hillary Clinton's march to the party's nomination and foreshadowed a struggle with working-class voters across the upper Midwest that would ultimately lead to President Donald Trump's election.
aidenborst

Ranked choice voting: Why the process could take weeks to deliver New York City primary... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

US politics history crisis Culture policy election Midterm New-York

shared by aidenborst on 03 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • Democrats running for New York City mayor will square off in a crucial debate Wednesday night, but they won't just be trying to convince voters that they're the best candidate for the job -- being someone's second, third, fourth or even fifth favorite could be almost as good.
  • Unlike past elections, Big Apple voters will pick their party nominees for mayor on June 22 using ranked-choice voting, and it could take weeks to determine the winners.
  • This will be the first time voters will be able to rank their top five choices in order of preference for mayor, public advocate, comptroller, borough president and city council instead of selecting just one candidate for each spot.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • As of Tuesday, 152,817 absentee ballots had been sent out by elections officials. Citywide, more than 12,000 had already been returned.
  • To calculate the winner, the first-choice votes of each ballot are counted. If no one receives a majority of the vote (which is unlikely in such a large field), the candidate with the least support is eliminated from contention, and votes for that candidate are redistributed to whomever the voter marked as their second choice. That process continues until a winner is determined.
  • The stakes are high. Thirteen candidates are running for the Democratic nomination for mayor, with the winner heavily favored in November's general election. (Two Republicans are vying for their party's nomination.)
  • "In order to do this process in the best way, we need to balance the public's right to know who won the election and the individual voter's right to cast absentee and affidavit ballots that will be counted and counted in an anonymous manner," Frederic Umane, the election board's president, said at a meeting last week.
  • While the system is new to New York, it's been used in other places for years, according to FairVote, an organization that advocates for election reforms. New York City is the largest jurisdiction in the country to adopt ranked-choice voting, but it's been used for congressional and presidential elections in Maine since 2018. Alaska will begin using it next year.
  • Almost three-quarters of New York City voters picked ranked-choice voting for primaries and special elections in a 2019 referendum.
  • Under the old system, if no primary candidate won 40% of the vote, the top two advanced to a runoff.November's general election will not use ranked-choice voting.
  • In April, the city launched a $15 million voter education plan, including advertising and community outreach.
  • In a statement announcing the initiative, Mayor Bill de Blasio committed to a "full court press to ensure every New Yorker has the information they need to make their voice heard."
  • "Studies have shown that a disproportionate number of Black Democrats, particularly older voters, vote for only one candidate, so a Black candidate that finishes ahead with first place votes can ultimately lose if White voters fully avail themselves of the RCV option," Hazel wrote. "In essence, those votes by White voters would count more than the older Black single candidate voters since the Black voters' second choices would not come into play."
  • Despite those concerns, Dukes wrote that she was committed to helping educate voters about the process to "ensure voters know what to expect when they go to the polls this June."
  • "We're hoping that it will be a positive experience in the end," Quigg said. "That people can see 'maybe my first choice candidate didn't win, but hey look my second or third choice candidate won and so that effort that I put into figuring that out made a difference.'"
  • "I think a lot of a lot of voters have sort of 2020 fatigue, if you will and are frankly, still a little traumatized from that election cycle. So, you know, a lot of people just haven't really been tuning in yet," she said. "I think a lot of New Yorkers want to participate, but they just need to know about it and they need to know that it's actually not that complicated."
edencottone

'Clear and present danger': Republicans fret about Greitens' comeback - POLITICO - 0 views

www.politico.com/...-eric-greitens-comeback-475737

Politics us

shared by edencottone on 17 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • isgraced former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens is moving closer to a 2022 Senate bid, alarming top Republicans who worry he will jeopardize the party’s grip on the seat and imperil their prospects of seizing the majority.
  • The maneuvering, which follows Republican Sen. Roy Blunt’s surprise retirement announcement last week, is giving Republicans nightmarish flashbacks to 2012, when they nominated a problematic Missouri Senate candidate, Todd Akin, who went on to lose the election.
  • ranging from members of the Missouri congressional delegation to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s political operation — have been united in their worry about the former governor and spent the week having conversations about the situation, according to people familiar with the discussions.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Missouri Republicans, meanwhile, have begun to contemplate how to prevent a splintered field of candidates from developing that could give Greitens a path. Top Republicans say they’ve yet to devise a plan for dealing with the former governor given that the primary isn’t until August 2022 but stress they’re keeping an eye on him.
  • Senate GOP leaders have confronted similar battles against potentially problematic primary candidates. In the 2017 Alabama special election, they failed to stop accused child molester Roy Moore, who won the GOP nomination before losing to a Democrat. They fared better in 2020, when they thwarted controversial Kansas Republican Kris Kobach in the primary, paving the way for a general election win.
  • Greitens is also benefiting from what is expected to be a wide-open field of Republican candidates, leading to concerns they will divvy up the vote and give the ex-governor a plurality. Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft — the son of John Ashcroft, the former governor, senator and Bush-era attorney general — was regarded as someone who could have consolidated the party behind him but has opted against running.
  • “In official Washington, there’s a lot of concern because this was originally a seat that would be in Republican hands to stop the left,” said Gregg Keller, a longtime Missouri-based Republican strategist. “The easiest way to give this seat to a Biden acolyte is to have a divisive Republican primary, followed by someone incredibly damaged like Eric Greitens being the candidate in the general election.”
  • Greitens has also lost some of his biggest contributors, including wealthy business executive David Humphreys, who gave more than $2 million to his 2016 campaign. Humphreys said there was “not a chance” he’d back a Greitens Senate bid, adding that he stood by his 2018 statement calling on the former governor to resign.
  • It was a stunning downfall for an up-and-coming politician who was once regarded as a potential future White House contender. But Greitens, a 46-year old, Oxford-educated Rhodes Scholar and Navy SEAL veteran, is now attempting a comeback.
  • Those who’ve spoken to Greitens say it’s apparent that Greitens is seeking redemption and is convinced he can win.
  • Greitens has an even bigger impediment to winning Trump’s support: Republican Sen. Josh Hawley. As state attorney general, Hawley was among the prominent Republicans who called on Greitens to step down, and the former governor was widely known to have despised Hawley for investigating him.
  • “We’re talking about a man in Eric Greitens who we have every reason to believe is a woman-beater running for Senate in Missouri,” said Keller, a charge Greitens has denied. “It’s very concerning.”
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