This Week in Election Night, 2020 (Week 16)
good morning, tildes--this is not a test. we are 482 days and dropping away from possibly the biggest election day in recent american history. no opinion pieces or longform this week; this week was pretty quiet, as was true of last week. a few polls also dropped, and they are included here.
the usual note: common sense should be able to generally dictate what does and does not get posted in this thread. if it's big news or feels like big news, probably make it its own post instead of lobbing it in here. like the other weekly threads, this one is going to try to focus on things that are still discussion worthy, but wouldn't necessarily make good/unique/non-repetitive discussion starters as their own posts.
News
Polling
- from Emerson (B+ on 538): National poll
Biden: 30%
Sanders: 15%
Warren: 15%
Harris: 15%
Buttigieg: 5%
All others below 5%.
- from Morning Consult (B- on 538): National poll
Biden: 31%
Sanders: 19%
Harris: 14%
Warren: 13%
Buttigieg: 6%
All others below 5%
General Stuff
- from CBS News: 2020 Democratic presidential candidates reveal second quarter fundraising efforts. we begin this week with the fundraising news, as the second quarter ended at the end of last month. candidates are not obligated to report their numbers until july 15, but many candidates (particularly those with good numbers) like to report early. the current leaderboard, as of this morning:
Buttigieg: 24.8 million
Sanders: 24 million (18 million fundraised, 6 million transferred)
Biden: 21.5 million
Warren: 19.1 million
Harris: 12 million
Bennet: 3.5 million (2.8 million fundraised, 700k transferred)
Bullock: 2 million
Hickenlooper: 1 million
Swalwell (dropped out): 850k
- from the Atlantic: The Most Critical Argument Democrats Will Have in 2020. healthcare is again going to loom pretty heavily over this race, consistently being one of the top issues for americans. the healthcare debate is part of what led to the democratic wave in the 2018 elections and, if republicans don't get better messaging in short order, is probably going to be one of the many things which leads to trump losing re-election in 2020. of course, what the democratic plan for healthcare looks like to the eventual nominee isn't set in stone either; most of the frontrunners define their plan as some form of medicare for all and would get rid of private insurance, most of the perennial 1%ers want something less "socialisty". given that the party is to the left of where it used to be and that biden is the only person really standing on the status quo who has a chance at winning at this point, i'd bet on M4A winning out ultimately.
- from the Atlantic: The Long-Shot Candidacy Conundrum. one of the candidates in this piece has already dropped out (swalwell), but the weird slate of swalwell, seth moulton, and tim ryan as candidates in the presidential race is still interesting because they really have few if any compelling reasons to be running and most people have no idea why they're running at all. ryan perhaps has the best case: ohio, likely to lose a congressional district in 2020, will possibly redistrict him out and leave him having to run in a less friendly district; there are no such excuses for swalwell (now dropped out and committed to his house seat) or moulton (in a safe seat but almost certainly limited in his ability to climb the political rungs by his anti-pelosi posturing). nonetheless, running is almost certain to land them all more political capital or better positions than the ones they currently have, which makes the presidency pretty alluring even if they come nowhere near it.
Elizabeth Warren
- from the Guardian: 105 town halls and 35,000 selfies: how Warren has shaken up the 2020 race. warren's strategy which early on in the race seemed to be leading her down a road to inevitable failure has turned around quite significantly in the past few months, as this article by the guardian explores. in practice, this piece on warren's strategy is also a candidate profile, talking mostly about warren's policy focus and her eventual aims to save capitalism from itself.
- from POLITICO: Elizabeth Warren shuns conventional wisdom for a new kind of campaign. warren's campaign is also crafting a new path by eschewing the standard model of campaigns where you just hire a shit ton of consultants who advise you on everything. warren's campaign has no consultants, no in-house pollster, plans to do its ad-making in-house, and has an extensive payroll of staffers, all of which is funded by the idea that her fundraising will continue as it has this quarter (19.1 million). this model has no guarantees of working, since it is entirely underpinned by warren continuing to raise absurd amounts of money, but if it manages to stay afloat, it could be quite formidable and serve as a future model for campaigns.
- from CBS News: Elizabeth Warren proposes executive orders to address race and gender pay gap. warren has some policy that she intends to push through with executive orders on the race pay gap and the gender pay gap. per CBS: "...companies and contractors with historically poor records on diversity and equality [would be] den[ied] contracts with the federal government." also a part of this plan:
To address the underrepresentation of women of color in leadership in the federal workforce, Warren says she would issue an order to recruit from historically black colleges and other minority-serving institutions; establish paid fellowships for federal jobs for minority and low-income applicants, including formerly incarcerated people; and require federal agencies to incorporate diversity into their strategic plans and mentorship efforts.
- from Jacobin: Elizabeth Warren’s Next Step on Medicare for All. warren embraced medicare for all at the debates, which was not especially surprising; however, it remains to be seen how much warren makes talking about it a focus of her campaign. warren has been pretty silent on healthcare issues despite having polices on significantly more esoteric issues and her website still lacks a healthcare page as of now. jacobin makes the case here that warren would be smart, if she cares about medicare for all genuinely, to defend it at every opportunity and sell it to the american public, lest it be rendered unpassable in the future.
Kamala Harris
- from CBS News: Harris proposes 100 billion plan to increase minority homeownership. kamala harris has some new policy aimed at promoting minority house ownership. CBS reports that the plan "...calls for 100 billion Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grant to provide homeowners or homebuyers who rent or live in historically red-lining communities, where minority home and business owners were largely blocked from accessing capital for investment, up to a $25,000 down payment in assistance and closing costs." there are some other fairly esoteric qualifications involved here, but i won't quote those because they're mildly confusing and don't necessarily contribute to an understanding of the policy.
- from VICE: Iowa Is Getting Serious About Kamala Harris. unsurprisingly, harris's meteoric rise following the first set of debates continues. harris and biden both swung through iowa over the fourth of july and harris was immediately greeted to significantly more reception than she presumably would have gotten prior to the the debates. biden remains the slight frontrunner, of course, but despite harris prioritizing the more diverse early states of south carolina and nevada in her electoral strategy, she increasingly looks competitive in iowa.
Everybody Else
- from Jacobin: Bernie Is the Best Candidate on Palestine. jacobin makes the case for sanders being the best candidate on palestinian issues. this is relatively straightforward; sanders is probably the only candidate in the race currently who has consistently pushed for palestinian issues and really his only contemporary with a comparable record is warren, who used to be staunchly pro-israel before gradually moderating on the issue. sanders still has many rough spots around the edges when it comes to palestinians, namely the fact that he's anti-BDS (but against banning of the movement), but there are no perfect candidates.
- from Jacobin: We Don’t Need Pete Buttigieg’s National Service Program. jacobin is also unsparing in its criticism of buttigieg's national service program which is, admittedly, pretty silly in its justification. in the article's words:
But more to the point, the basic diagnosis behind Buttigieg’s proposal (and others like it) is simply incorrect. True enough, few would probably challenge the suggestion that America is a deeply fragmented and polarized society. Revealingly, though, Buttigieg thinks the causes are spiritual and cultural rather than material and political: people have different identities, backgrounds, income levels, religious beliefs, and party affiliations, with these differences being hardened by epistemological bubbles online; ergo, a divided country that might become more unified if people were brought together in common cause.
It’s a tidy narrative, and one that conveniently sidesteps America’s maldistribution of wealth, its general dearth of quality public programs and services, and the numerous ways these injustices and others contribute to a coarsening of its social fabric.
- from CBS News: Tulsi Gabbard says Kamala Harris hatched "political ploy" to "smear" Joe Biden on race. y'all remember tulsi? she's still around, and she's making headlines for the wrong reasons yet again. for some reason, she's decided to die on the hill of kamala harris smearing biden on race issues, saying harris was "leveling this accusation that Joe Biden is a racist — when he's clearly not — as a way to try to smear him." this is interesting: harris not only never said that biden was a racist, but in fact immediately prefaced her comments with "I do not believe you are a racist"; i suppose tulsi is trying to argue that harris was lying or something similar here. either way, it's a bizarre line of attack that doesn't really make a lot of sense, not least because gabbard has literally nothing to do with the whole situation.
- from CNN: 2020 Democrats Klobuchar and Inslee unveil education plans ahead of summit. jay inslee and amy klobuchar meanwhile unveiled some education plans. here are the highlights:
klobuchar:
- would end the Trump administration's push for a school choice tax credit
- proposes a federal-state partnership program under which states would tackle education funding equity and recommend how school services can better meet the needs of working parents
inslee:
- will end the diversion of federal funds to private charter schools
- would provide universal preschool, double funding for magnet schools and fully fund the federal Title I program for schools that serve low-income areas
- promises to help states fund pay increases for educators, providing student loan forgiveness for educators and protecting teacher pensions
- supports giving federal funds to districts that switch to zero-emission buses and investing in climate change education and STEM programs at K-12 schools and historically black colleges and universities
both:
- promise to fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and to provide protections for the LGBTQ community
- want to ban the use of federal funds to arm teachers or for firearms training
- from NBC News: Swalwell ends presidential campaign less than two weeks after first debate. eric swalwell, one percenter extraordinaire and man whose name is impossible to spell correctly on the first try, is hanging up his presidential campaign after lackluster polling and fundraising. swalwell's most recognizable moment for people will probably be his tagline "pass the torch"; unfortunately, it does seem that he's passed the torch himself to candidates who can actually gain traction with the american public. swalwell remains a house representative, and will be seeking reelection in 2020.
- from Vox: “I call her a modern-day prophet”: Marianne Williamson’s followers want you to give her a chance. marianne williamson remains the media's token "wacky candidate", for which she receives occasional media attention including this article focused on the people who support her. broadly, her main demographic is wine moms, but williamson also has a number of younger supporters to her campaign and message. williamson supporters are, unsurprisingly, not "williamson or bust" types: just as other candidates's supporters, they're more than happy to get behind other people and the eventual nominee, whether that's marianne or not. williamson's supporters will probably remain behind her for the duration of her campaign, though.
anyways, feel free to as always contribute other interesting articles you stumble across, or comment on some of the ones up there. see also: Why America is Ignoring Kirsten Gillibrand, Warren Rising: Massachusetts Progressive Announces $19 Million Fundraising Haul, Any Democrat Who Wants to Be President Should Reject War with Iran, Not Hide Behind Process Criticisms
Oy this quote is maddeningly frustrating:
A yeah the mind behind JEB! is who we want to defer to as the final authority on running a successful, modern campaign? Give me a break!
This is such a DC insider attitude to have where you pretend the guy you've heard of must be some indispensible genius by virtue of the fact that you've heard of him. How much of a prestige obsessed dork would you have to be make "I know this guy" the lynchpin of your decision-making? That adage about how nobody ever got fired for hiring IBM doesn't mean IBM was the best for the job, it just means it's the CYA choice if you're too fearful to stand by making your own decisions. No wonder the traditional political world is so inept at actually reaching anyone outside the Boomer generation.
The actual math around interpreting polls is pretty basic quantitative analysis that anyone with some basic background in stats can do. The background to be able to contextualize and make decisions based on that information does need some skill and experience, but your campaign strategy people can do that just fine if the quants you have are good communicators. It's not some esoteric mutant power that only a chosen few have, but of course Mike Murphy is going to assume that just because he is bad at math that must mean only a genius can be good at it. I'm bad at lots of things that perfectly average people are good at. The world is full of people with diverse sets of skills, differentials in how we allocate prestige or wealth don't determine how rare or special those skills are.
Besides it's not like his buddy, Jim, is doing any of the grunt work himself either. Either way it's gonna get done by Larry in a cubicle, the only question is whether Larry works for your campaign or is some mercenary foot soldier. I know if I was running I'd rather have the person who gets me and my message
instead of someone cut from the DC consultant class cloth.
I understand that you can't just hire a random pile of good quants and expect to get good results, you do need to build your organization around setting them up to succeed, managing them properly, know when and how to leverage their specific skills and tendencies, and understand how to avoid leaning on or unduly biasing the information you get from them so you can make good decisions with it. But if you do that, you're gonna be a lot better than some mercenary polling firm that doesn't care about whether you win or lose. Maybe it's just my bias from a background as a data analyst that makes me overvalue the utility of good data analytics, but the idea that it was normal to outsource something as fundamental as intelligence about the political landscape and leave it up to outside consultants sounds insane to me! If there is one kind of expertise you would want to groom in house I would think it would be that. Knowledge is power! Why wouldn't you want to keep it close?
And that goes double for communication. Literally the entire point of a campaign is to communicate what you're about. If your campaign isn't doing that directly, then why does it exist? Why do you even exist as a politician if this isn't a core skillset within you and your retinue!? COMMUNICATING YOUR AGENDA IS A CRITICAL PART OF YOUR JOB!
Not sure if this is big enough to warrant its own thread, but Tom Steyer has reversed course and now plans on running for president, according to the NYT.
I'm all out of swears about this. Steyer has a long history of liberal political activism, and he's just bought the ability to steer the public political narrative in a way that can't be achieved easily (legally, anyway) with direct campaign contributions or advertising. While Steyer's intent may be good, and his methods are more transparent than the Kochs, the ability of individual billionaires to engage in these shenanigans is poison to democracy.
It allows people to establish themselves as an authority on a particular issue, which gives them more of a pulpit when trying to pass legislation or makes them viable for cabinet positions down the road. For example, a big media takeaway from the last debate was that Julian Castro was framing the immigration debate and was the 'leader' on that front. Swalwell established gun control as his signature issue in that debate as well. I wouldn't be surprised if Castro get a cabinet position in a potential Democratic cabinet, or if Swalwell becomes a more prominent voice in the gun debate.
Because it means that millions of people who had never heard of them are now talking about them and giving them money. Even the people polling down at the bottom of the barrel are still receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars and getting national attention. They might not be president, but they can still profit off of running for the office.
I expect they won't care if anyone remembers them by that point as they will likely already be milking whatever benefits that temporary name recognition gave them dry.
Yeah, they can't use it for their own personal expenses, but they can have a friend's consulting service provide most of the expertise for their presidential run and then take a job with that company after the fact. It's not really hard to find loopholes for that kind of thing.
It's more of a "why not run?" Steyer has so much money that he can do literally anything and it makes no difference on how much money he has and what his life his like. My guess would be that he's bored and egotistical enough to think that he has something to add to the conversation.
Wait, Buttigieg raised 25 million?! How have I not heard of this? Have I been living in a cave?
Yeah this seems like a big fucking deal and yet nobody is talking about this. To be fair, this election season just keeps on bringing more and more surprises.
it's probably not being focused on because buttigieg has slipped in the polls and is pretty comfortably out of the pack with the frontrunners at this point. raising 24.8 million doesn't mean that much if you're only polling at 6% and most of that is from a single bump you got.
rounding out the morning are some more ridiculous fundraisers downballot, showing that the democratic money machine is still printing at full speed for most people:
Buttigieg released "The Douglass Plan - A Comprehensive Investment in the Empowerment of Black America" today.
I haven't read it at all yet myself, but a few initial impressions I've seen around seem quite positive.
the beto o'rourke campaign is probably officially dead with this abysmal fundraising effort coupled with the collapse of his polling numbers:
for comparison with the rest of the field:
should have just challenged cornyn, my dude.
NowThis has two more 20 questions for 2020 up, starring kamala harris and bernie sanders.
I'm not a big fan of Biden, and I think what Harris told him was apt, but I also believe she was clearly alluding to racism by this (and it worked). This isn't the first time we've seen apophasis rhetorics used in political squabbles. Trump, in fact, has done this constantly in his campaign (and still is). "I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo", remember?
we have two new polls out today:
national poll, NBC/WSJ:
south carolina poll, Fox News
these results demonstrate the weird problem of polling primaries (and to a lesser extent, general elections): an erosion at the top does not necessarily equal erosion in some states. biden is still holding his own quite well in south carolina (he'd actually be the only person to get delegates in south carolina if that polling shook out until primary day) while collapsing nationally, which is an entirely possible if unlikely outcome.
the new republic has a piece which i think is supposed to be satirizing pete buttigieg and actually makes good points but which mostly just comes off as actual homophobia and buries them unavoidably in that homophobia. good job, guys: My Mayor Pete Problem
literally did not need to include this bit whatsoever but apparently the editor let that one stand, for worse:
as an update to this subplot: they nuked this piece from the earth pretty quickly (within 24 hours of posting), probably because it trended on twitter because blue checkmarks took up the banner of calling it out for its high-key homophobia. TNR didn't apologize for the homophobia, though, just for it being "too invasive" which is... uh, a novel way of completely skirting the actual issues people had with the piece.
moral of this story: editors, folks, get good ones who don't let this shit get through. go get the guy who marked up milo's shitty book or something. he'll put a stop to garbage like this quite quickly.