Category Archives: Democrat

ALBANY, N.Y. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren entered an unexpected clash on Tuesday with New York Democratic leaders over the fate of a progressive third party.

The dispute stems from a political flier paid for by the state party featuring Joseph R. Biden Jr., his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, and Senators Warren and Sanders, all smiling and pleading with New Yorkers to vote Democratic all the way!

But Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders said they were not consulted about the flier, and had they been, they would not have consented to the ad, which pushes voters to cast ballots on the Democratic Party line.

Both senators support the Biden-Harris ticket, but want ballots cast for the candidates on the Working Families Party line, which has backed them in the past.

Mr. Sanders accused the state Democratic Party, which is effectively controlled by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, of trying to sabotage the Working Families Party.

It is absolutely unacceptable for the New York Democratic Party, which just a few short months ago supported canceling the presidential primary, to now use my image in a push to punish the Working Families Party, Mr. Sanders, an independent from Vermont, said in a statement.

They never asked my permission and I wouldnt have given it if they had, he said. I believe New Yorkers should vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on the Working Families Party line.

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That sentiment was echoed by Kristen Orthman, a spokeswoman for Ms. Warren, who said the Massachusetts senator didnt approve this ad and asked that digital versions of it be taken down.

Under state law, candidates in New York can collect votes on several different party lines, a system known as fusion voting. But under a new law adopted this year, political parties in New York have to earn 130,000 votes or 2 percent of the total vote every two years in order to automatically retain their ballot lines. Parties that do not reach that threshold would have to petition for their candidates to appear.

State Democratic officials acknowledged that they did not seek permission from either senator, or the Biden ticket, to use their images, but defended the $357,000 campaign, which also included digital advertisements using images of Senators Warren and Sanders.

My interaction with them is none, said Jay Jacobs, the chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee and a longtime ally of Mr. Cuomos. The entire piece simply speaks to voting for Democrats up and down the ballot.

My job is to get voters out to vote on the Democratic line, he added. And theres nothing wrong with that.

Mr. Jacobs said that the mailer and digital ads were meant to increase down-ballot voting for Democrats, some of whom do not appear on the Working Families line.

I dont see how Elizabeth Warren would be upset with that, he said. And I dont see how, frankly, Bernie Sanders would be upset with that.

Mr. Cuomos unpleasant history with the Working Families Party dates back several years, including a fraught nomination process in 2014. It reached a low point in 2018, when the W.F.P., which had been founded in the late 1990s and backed by various labor groups, chose to support Cynthia Nixon, the actress, in her challenge to Mr. Cuomo in the Democratic primary.

Oct. 27, 2020, 9:49 p.m. ET

Some of those labor supporters fled, and Mr. Cuomo won the September primary easily after spending more than $20 million. He was subsequently elected to a third term, as the W.F.P. capitulated and gave the governor its line, where he received more than 114,000 votes.

In 2019, Mr. Cuomo announced the formation of a new commission to look into public financing of campaigns, albeit with an unusual caveat: The panel could also examine ballot eligibility levels for third parties, such as the W.F.P.

Third-party leaders feared that the governor intended to threaten their existence, and two parties the Working Families Party and the Conservative Party sued to challenge the commissions authority. The parties fears were soon realized: In November 2019, the commission voted to increase the eligibility levels.

The parties won their lawsuit earlier this year, but the commissions recommendations still went forward after being incorporated into this years budget deal.

In recent weeks, a roster of progressive lawmakers including Senator Warren and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York have called on voters to cast ballots for Mr. Biden on the W.F.P. line: Row D. They note that those votes count the same, to beat Trump.

That message was voiced again on Tuesday at a Lower Manhattan rally attended by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the New York City public advocate, Jumaane Williams, and an array of state legislators.

Mr. Williams, who was Ms. Nixons running mate in 2018, was critical of the state party, saying it would not have moved where it is as quickly as it did if it wasnt for the Working Families.

There are only a few people who dont want you to vote on the Working Families line, Mr. Williams said. Conservatives, Republicans and Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Mr. Cuomo has steadfastly denied any ulterior motives regarding the W.F.P., and on Tuesday, Richard Azzopardi, a senior adviser to the governor, discounted Mr. Williamss remarks, noting the governors good poll numbers with liberal voters.

The governor is the proud head of the New York Democratic Party and makes no apologies for that, Mr. Azzopardi said. But maybe the public advocate should find a better bogyman for his silly conspiracy.

Mr. Jacobs said he found it striking that with a week to go in the most consequential election in our history, the W.F.P. is worried about itself.

The W.F.P. has a self-image problem, said Mr. Jacobs. Everythings about them.

Juliana Kim contributed reporting from New York.

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Sanders and Warren Accuse N.Y. Democrats of False Advertising - The New York Times

These Republicans of the 1860s werent angels. Their motives were not uniformly pure. And they didnt always agree with each other. But in response to decades of anti-democratic incitement by white politicians from slaveholding states, who represented roughly just 25 percent of the countrys population in 1860, Republicans in the age of Lincoln and Grant united to make the rules work for the majority, even when doing so required rewriting the rules wholesale.

Its the playbook Democrats today should follow if they win the White House and the Congress next week.

For several decades now, modern Republicans have used every tool at their disposalvoter suppression, gerrymandering, court packing at all levels, midnight bills to curb the powers of incoming Democratic governors, parliamentary chicanery that applies different rules to presidents of each partyto ram a minoritarian agenda down the majoritys throat. How else, after all, could a party that has lost the popular vote in six of the past seven electionsand which will likely lose the eighth, already in progresswield so much power?

If a Biden administration and the Democratic Congress are to have any chance of leveraging the authority that voters may confer on themif they truly want to enact and protect a popular, majoritarian agendathey should look to an earlier generation of politicians that understood the uses of power and the ends to which it could be applied. That generation didnt quiver in the face of established procedure and precedentand neither should Democrats today.

Slavery was first and foremost a violent crime against African Americans. But it also eroded the countrys political and social fabric. In the three decades preceding the Civil War, pro-slavery Southerners and their supporters in the North had degraded democratic institutions and flouted the rights of everyone elsewhite and Blackin the service of preserving the Peculiar Institution. They imposed a gag rule in the 1830s, barring antislavery Northern congressmen from presenting abolitionist petitions in the House. They remanded that the Post Office bar the delivery of abolitionist literature. They crafted a highly unpopular Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 that required Northerners to be actively complicit in detaining Black persons accused of being runaway slaves, at penalty of trial and imprisonment. In the 1850s, after they nullified the Missouri Compromise that barred slavery in certain Western territories, they deployed violence and election fraud with impunity to ram a pro-slavery state constitution through the Kansas territorial Legislature. When Charles Sumner, the fiery Masachussetts politician, dared deliver an antislavery address in the U.S. Senate, a Southern congressman beat him nearly to death.

When, in a culminating moment, 11 Southern states decided to secede rather than accept the outcome of a free and fair election, Republicans finally enjoyed an opportunity to reinvigorate democratic institutions long been under assault by the Slave Power and pursue a bold economic and social agenda that established a foundation for the postwar world.

From 1861 to 1865, during the Civil War years, Republicans used their majorities to pass legislation authorizing the seizure of rebels land and slaves; the Homestead Act, granting federal land to American families who agreed to settle and improve it; the Land Grant College Act, which conferred on each state federal acreage to support the cost of establishing public universities; legislation funding the construction of a transcontinental railroad, which promised to draw homesteaders into a national market, but which alsotragicallyset in motion the violent destruction of Native American communities everywhere the iron tracks took root; and laws abolishing slavery in Washington, D.C., and the territoriesand, later, everywhere in the United States. In effect, the Civil War Republicans fundamentally altered the character of American life.

Despite their supermajorities in Congress and hold on the White House, Republicans left little to chance.

Fearing the federal judiciary, whose membership skewed conservative and pro-slavery, might invalidate their legislative agenda or limit President Abraham Lincolns ability to prosecute the war, in 1863, Republicans added a 10th seat to the Supreme Court.

There was strong precedent for doing so. As the country admitted new territories as states, it required additional federal circuit courts. In 1807 and 1837 Congress had enlarged the Supreme Court to keep the number of justices on par with the number of appellate courts, a practice that reflected the justices dual function as chief circuit judges. During the Civil War, with the population of California and other Western states growing at a steady clip, Republicans saw an opportunity to justify the creation of a new circuit and, thus, a 10th seat on the high court. But principle converged closely with politics. The court was scheduled to consider a case challenging the Unions blockade of the Confederacy; if the justices ruled against Lincoln, their decision threatened to cripple the war effort. They intended to pad their slim majority.

The governing party also restructured the shape of the circuit courts to dilute the influence of pro-slavery judges and create new vacancies for Lincoln to fill, with the advice and consent of the Republcan-controlled Senate.

In other ways, too, Lincoln and his congressional allies threw sharp elbows. In 1864, the president introduced his Ten Percent Plan, which extended an offer of amnesty to all Southerners who would pledge allegiance to the United States and invited any state that could muster up enough such loyal men, equal to 10 percent of those who had voted in 1860, to form a new state government and send representatives to Congress. Radicals introduced their own plan, which required a 50 percent threshold and a stronger, iron-clad oath that few Confederates could meet, but Lincoln pocket vetoed their bill. He wanted a lower bar for readmission, not because he was soft on treason, but to foster political dissent and chaos behind enemy lines. He also wanted to create (on paper, at least) newly reconstituted Southern statesled by men loyal to the Unionthat could cast Electoral College votes for the Republican ticket and help ratify the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery. Ultimately, the reconstituted but hardly reconstructed states of Louisiana, Tennessee and Arkansaswhich were readmitted under Lincolns termsapproved the abolition amendment before the presidents death

In the same way, when the western counties of Virginialargely populated by white yeoman farmers who held the states slaveholding elite in bitter contemptdeclared their independence from the Confederacy, congressional Republicans passed legislation, which Lincoln signed, admitting them as the new state West Virginia in 1863. A year later, they made the sparsely populated Nevada territory a state. Thus the party gained four new U.S. senators, a reliable slate of presidential electors and a support for a broad assault on slavery.

Lincolns death complicated matters. In what was surely his worst decision in public life, the president had replaced Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, a reliable antislavery politician, with Andrew Johnson, a deeply insecure white supremacist from Tennessee who had remained loyal to the Union, but whose sympathies lay with his native South. The next four years witnessed acrimonious conflict between a revanchist, racist president and a Republican supermajority that repeatedly overrode his vetoes and governed over his head.

Between Lincolns death in April 1865 and the opening session of the new Congress that December, Johnson unilaterally readmitted Southern states and invited them to hold elections. This, despite their widespread enactment of Black Codes that reintroduced slavery in all but nameimpressing free Black children into apprenticeships, proscribing the right of Black persons to free expression and assembly, barring ex-slaves from owning guns and compelling them to sign labor contracts that bound them to their former owners. Adding insult to injury, the Southern states sent a slate of prominent ex-Confederates to Congress, including Alexander Stephens, the former Confederate vice president who arrived in Washington that winter as a senator-elect from Georgia. In Johnsons mind, the war was over and slavery dead, at least on paper; the rebellious states should be welcomed back to their prior relationship with the federal government immediately.

But congressional Republicans viewed matters otherwise. They saw an unreconstructed minority refusing to accept its defeat. On December 4, 1865, amid widespread anticipation of the impending political crisis, the newly arrived members of the 39th Congress descended on the Capitol for the opening session. At noon, the House clerk, Edward McPherson, a former two-term congressman and protg of Thaddeus Stevens, stepped up to the rostrum and gaveled the House into session. Stevens, the radical leader, if not dictator, of the House, by one members estimation, served as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, a position akin in the 1860s to majority leader. An uncompromising opponent of slavery and unforgiving foe of slaveholders, he cut an austere figure. Stevens instructed McPherson to skip the names of the Southern members-elect as he read the roll call. When a Northern Democrat rose to intercede on behalf of Congressman-elect Horace Maynard of Tennessee, Stevens replied tartly that all motions were out of order pending election of a new speaker. I cannot yield to any gentleman who does not belong to this bodywho is an outsider, he remarked. The House flat-out refused to accept the credentials of the Southern members-elect, as did the Senate. The non-congressmen packed up their bags and went home.

Over the next 3 years, the Republican Congress overrode Johnsons vetoes to enact legislation enshrining civil rights for freedmen and splicing the former Confederate states into five military districts. Until Southern states accepted the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery and the 14th Amendment, establishing a broad swath of civil rights for all natural born citizens, including freedmenand until they established new state governments on the basis of universal male suffragethey would remain under martial law and go unrepresented in Washington.

Republicans invoked a number of justifications for their procedural and policy measures. Stevens held that the Confederate states were conquered provinces whose citizens had forfeited their citizenship rights. Charles Sumner, the radical senator from Massachusetts, held that Southerners had committed state suicide. But most Republicans hung their hats on a section of the Constitution that guarantee[s] to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government. If loyal white persons and Black freedmen were denied their right to property, free expression and assemblyif elections were marred by fraud, violence and disenfranchisementCongress had an obligation to intervene on their behalf.

Governing in opposition to Johnson, the Republican supermajorities in Congress bent the system as far as it would go. Fearing the new president might pack the judiciary with loyalists, in 1866 they once again changed the composition of the Supreme Court, eliminating three seats by means of attrition. The next three vacancies would go unfilled until the number of justices fell to seven, thus depriving Johnson of the power to appoint anyone to the bench. (In 1869, after Republican Ulysses S. Grant assumed the presidency, they reset the number of justices at nine, where it remains today.) They passed a constitutionally dubious act barring Johnson from dismissing Cabinet officials without congressional approval, a measure intended to protect radical War Secretary Edwin Stanton, who effectively administered the Armys occupation of former Southern states.

In 1867, Republicans admitted another reliable western stateNebraska (1867)and in so doing, gained new senators and electoral votes. Beginning in the 1870s after Johnson left office, but as their hold on power began to slip, they granted statehood to a trove of thinly populated but (at the time) reliably Republican territories: Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. They did so out of concern that the very rebels who had, in recent memory, raised arms against their country would soon regain control of the federal government.

Remarkably, these bare-knuckle mean and ends were broadly popular. In 1866, the GOP swept off-year elections, bolstering its capacity to govern over Johnsons head. Equally of note, the partya hotchpotch coalition of former Whigs, Democrats, Free Soilers and Know Nothings, which had been a party for only 10 yearsremained fundamentally unified. Despite their pronounced differences over policy and politics, moderates like Henry Raymond and William Pitt Fessenden worked in lockstep with radicals like Stevens and Sumner. With the exception of Andrew Johnsons impeachment trial, in which several moderates broke ranks and voted to acquit the president, on every critical votethe Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Freedmens Bureau Bill, the Reconstruction Act of 1867, and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitutionthe alliance held.

For many years, Americans remembered Reconstruction as a failed experiment, at besta Tragic Era, at worst, an Angry Scar. Its violent overthrow by white Southerners betrayed the early economic and political advancements of millions of freedmen who, for a brief moment in time, experienced self-government and a free labor economy, until the onset of Jim Crow stamped out their gains.

Since the 1960s, however, historians have acknowledged the era for its more lasting, if gradual, revolution. The Reconstruction amendments not only forged a basis for civil rights legislation in the 1960s, and for the legalization of abortion and marriage equality in subsequent decades. From the 1920s onward, the Supreme Court used the 14th Amendment to incorporate the Bill of Rights and extend its federal guarantees to the states. If youre glad that the state of Texas or Florida is bound to respect your rights to free expression, speech and religionyour right not to incriminate yourself or face unlawful search and seizureyou have the Reconstruction-era Republicans to thank.

To be sure, were not living in the shadow of a Civil War. As bad as things are, theyre nowhere near as violent or divisive. But the parallels to our own era are striking. For well over a decade, Republican politicians at the state and federal levels have feverishly assaulted democratic norms and processes to advance a hard-hitting minoritarian agendathe abolition of reproductive rights, dismantling of the Affordable Care Act, deregulation of environmental and safety standards, tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americansthat is deeply unpopular. They know its unpopular. Which is why theyve made it harder for people to vote; manipulated Senate rules to hold judicial seats vacant under Barack Obama, only to fill them under Donald Trump; incited domestic terrorists and extremistsProud Boys, QAnon fanatics, the Klan and neo-Nazisto meet lawful political assembly with violence. The president has openly flirted with nullifying the election if he doesnt like the results. Indeed, the pro-slavery zealots of 1860 could hardly have done it better.

Democrats, should they earn a governing majority, may soon have an opportunity to restore and improve the institutions that a minoritarian party has broken piece by piece over so many years. If so, the lessons of the Reconstruction era are clear: You cant achieve the ends if you dont embrace the means.

To pass elements of the "Green New Deal" or protect and expand the ACA, Democrats might need to dismantle the filibuster, an anti-majoritarian instrument that threatens to scuttle the expressed will of the voters. They might have to unpack the federal courts and expand the Supreme Court by four seats, thus returning to the original standard of one justice per circuit. Theyll surely want to admit new statesWashington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, perhaps other territoriesto the Union, not just because doing so will enlarge the Senate and Electoral College, but because it extends democratic rights to disenfranchised Americans who live in those place. They might even consider expanding the size of the House of Representatives to recalibrate the ratio of those governing to those being governed.

Taking a cue from Thaddeus Stevens, Democratic majorities in the House and Senate should refuse to seat members-elect whose claim to sit in Congress is compromised. In close congressional elections, if uncounted ballots lay piled up in U.S. Postal Service sorting centers, or hundreds of people were unable to vote due to 12-hour-long lines and the arbitrary rejection of absentee ballots, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer can and should invoke the constitutional guarantee of a republican form of government. Make the offending states hold new electionsthis time, properly.

If the Supreme Courtwith Amy Coney Barrett newly installedcancels out a narrow but clear Joe Biden victory by ordering officials in Pennsylvania to throw out ballots that were postmarked before, but arrived after, the election, Congress should accept the competing slate of electors that the governor, a Democrat, certifies. If state officials in Georgia repeat their egregious efforts to suppress the votes of Black citizens, the House and Senate should throw out Georgias entire slate of presidential electors. They should take these measures even if Biden wins the requisite 270 electoral votes elsewhere, to send a clear message: The era of minoritarian rule is over.

Biden, should he occupy the Oval Office, should appoint judges who support a reinvigoration of the Reconstruction amendments, particularly the 14th Amendments clause stipulating that the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states. Intended by its framers to create a robust federal guarantee of civil rights, the clause fell into disuse in later decades, the victim of an increasingly reactionary Supreme Court that willfully abnegated its purpose. As historian Eric Foner argued in his recent book The Second Founding, there is no reason why it shouldnt be excavated. A rising generation of 14th Amendment originalists might use it to address all manner of issues, from cash bail and police excesses to environmental standards.

Few politicians in American history have understood the uses and ends of power as well as the congressional Republicans of the 1860s. Faced with an existential threat to American democracy, they stared down a violet and revanchist minority and summoned authority earned at the polls to expand the very meaning of citizenship. If next weeks elections go their way, thats the lesson Democrats should take away.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misstated the number of military districts comprising the former Confederate States.

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How Democrats Can Learn Hardball From the Republicans of 1861 - POLITICO

Jamal Collins took the trouble to vote four years ago even though, like a lot of people in Cleveland, he didnt imagine it would change very much.

Eight years of deflated hopes for Barack Obama had left the African American teacher wondering if any president could really make that much difference to the lives and livelihoods Collins saw around him. He even thought there might be an upside to the election of Donald Trump.

Im kinda glad it happened, Collins said a few weeks after the new president moved into the White House. It really is an eye-opener on whats really going on. The real truth about America. The real truth that theres still a lot of racism. People voted for this sort of stuff.

A lot of people in Cleveland chose not to vote. Driven by disillusionment with Obama and dislike for Hillary Clinton, turnout fell in the overwhelmingly Democratic city where nearly half the population is black, as it did in others across the midwest, helping to usher Trump to victory.

This year, Collins sees it differently.

Trumps presidency, the last four years, have been absolutely horrible. Trump blew life back into white supremacy. Him being so open and unapologetic about the stuff he says, and things that hes done, really gave that power, he said.

Plus coronavirus, because now we have tens of thousands of people, especially in the black community, really suffering from Covid-19. We have an economy decimated to almost the proportions of the depression. The loss of jobs and loss of wealth is worse than Ive ever seen before.

Collins will be voting for Biden and encouraging anyone else he can to do the same because the election hangs in good part on the turnout in major midwestern cities. Trump decisively won Ohio four years ago after the state had voted twice for Obama. But with the president holding a lead of just 1% in the aggregate of recent polls, the result in Ohio may come down to just a few thousand votes in Cleveland.

Four years ago, Clinton won nearly 50,000 fewer votes than Obama in Cuyahoga county, which includes Cleveland and its small satellite cities, in part because so many Democrats stayed home.

In neighbouring Michigan, Democratic turnout in Detroit fell by about 60,000 votes in 2016. Trump took the state with a majority of just 10,704 votes. Similarly, the drop in turnout between presidential elections in the Democratic stronghold of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was more than double the number of votes just 23,000 that Trump won the state by.

Those victories were key to the president winning the electoral college and taking the White House.

The Democrats have reason to hope Biden can turn that around on 3 November. More than 8m people have registered to vote in Ohio, the second highest on record after Obamas 2008 race. The number registering as Democrats has surged 20% in the state this year while Republicans have fallen 6% although they still have a slight lead in total registrations. Little more than half of the electorate are independents.

Two-thirds of the drop in Republican voters is in Cuyahoga county. Those retreating from Trump include blue collar workers and white women living in the Cleveland suburbs.

Voting for him was a big mistake, said a shop assistant, Lynn, who is married to a factory worker, after a campaign worker knocked on her door. We both didnt like Hillary and thought Trump would be good for bringing jobs back. I lost it with him that first year. I realised he was completely unfit to be president. But my husband hung on, believing in him until Covid. Were both voting Biden just to get him out. I dont know what Biden will do but at this point I dont care.

Like others who once backed Trump and have turned away she did not want to be identified because we have some crazy neighbours around here.

Lynn is among about 2.5m Ohioans who applied for absentee ballots, double the number in 2016. Nearly one quarter of the electorate has already voted in Cuyahoga county, whether by post or in person.

What were seeing right now is astronomical volumes of people voting by mail, said Erika Anthony of Cleveland Votes, a nonpartisan get out the vote group. Weirdly, despite the fact that every sort of tactic that we normally would be deploying to get people to vote has been compromised because of the pandemic, I will say theres been an increased excitement when we are engaging with residents, potential voters.

But for all that, less than half of the population of Cleveland registered to vote. Some in the city have never been to the polls. Others turned out for Obama but not since.

Voter apathy is a real thing, said Anthony. If Im a black person particularly, I really am not seeing anything thats demonstrating to me that democracy is working for me.

Cleveland is among the most racially segregated cities in the country and one in three residents lives below the poverty line. It struggled through the Obama years, never really recovering from the 2001 recession or the national economic collapse seven years later. Then came coronavirus.

Amanda King, an African American volunteer working to register voters in Cleveland said some voters are more motivated to turn out this year.

I think that among young and educated voters, theres a feeling that this is our duty to vote in this election because its consequential. It feels more pressing than the Trump-Hillary election, she said. I think for some people, their bubble has been burst. After the Obama presidency they were thinking were a progressive society, things are great. And then this four years of Trump has really made some people come to the realisation that our country is not the democracy that it could be or should be.

But King, who runs an art collective, and who helped curate City Champions, the Guardians week-long focus on the city last year, said she met far less enthusiasm in one of the citys poorest neighbourhoods, Hough, where she visited barbershops, a popular gathering place for discussion among African American men.

When I do voter registration in Hough, which is a majority black neighbourhood that has been disinvested from, redlined, a lot of that population is functionally illiterate, its a very different response over there. Theres a lot of people who are not interested and who dont believe in electoral politics, she said.

Many of their arguments were that whether its Trump, whether its Obama, whether its Bush, whether its Clinton, theyve never cared about me. Me choosing them as leadership has never changed the conditions in which Im living. And you look at that neighbourhood, and you look at those statistics, and you say, youre damn right. I understand that frustration.

King said dire predictions for four more years of Trump are doing little to galvanise people in neighbourhoods like Hough.

That might work for white women who voted for Trump last time but thats not going to work necessarily for the people on the fence. You cant say to someone who has nothing, to someone who is constantly in a state of struggle, well this guy is gonna make it worse. Theres no more fear to be had. Theyre not selling greatness here, theyre selling well, its worse or worse, she said.

Im thinking that theres a lot of barbershops around the midwest where this conversation is happening. It scares me because I know that we need to turn out for this election.

Detroit and Milwaukee also saw a drop in voting in African American neighbourhoods in 2016 that local activists in part attributed to a lack of interest because Obama was not on the ballot or disillusionment because he was able to achieve less than they had hoped, in part because of Republican obstruction.

Collins grew up in overwhelmingly black East Cleveland where his father worked for General Electric and his mother was a bus driver.

People feel like their vote is not going to make a difference. And people may be too concerned with other stuff thats going on right in front of their face versus getting into politics. They dont trust politicians, never have, he said. Up until Obama, there were never a lot of people voting around here because I dont think they really saw them making a change.

Collins, who teaches at a school and a community centre, said coronavirus forced his classes online but some of young people he teaches dont have computers. Others lack decent internet connections. They might rely on their phones for social media but that doesnt work for interactive lessons.

These are the kinds of problems a lot of their families are focused on, not voting, he said.

Democratic politicians remain confident but have a different concern.

Kent Smith is running unopposed for re-election as a state representative in Euclid, a majority black small city within Cuyahoga county that is effectively a suburb of Cleveland. He is less worried about turnout than whether the votes get counted.

I really think that in 2020, because of the global pandemic and the change in how people are voting, its really going to be turnout versus the number of votes that are ruled ineligible, he said.

Smith said a combination of voters not being used to filling out postal ballots a common error is to put the date instead of date of birth and efforts by Ohios Republican secretary of state, Frank LaRose, to throw roadblocks in the way of voting by post which is more favoured by Democrats, has raised concerns of large numbers of ballots being discounted.

Projections of turnout are healthy for the Democrats. Its a matter of how many of those votes will actually count, said Smith.

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Many midwest Democrats stayed home in 2016. Will they turn out for Biden? - The Guardian

After Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed Monday evening, we got a sneak peek at both the stylistic and substantive rift that could come to dominate the Democratic Party in 2021 and 2022, should they win the Senate and the White House. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo

ONE WEEK until Election Day. 45 DAYS until government funding runs dry. 85 DAYS until Inauguration Day.

THE MCCONNELL COURT: Senate Majority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL has used DONALD TRUMPS presidency to orchestrate a complete overhaul of the federal judiciary. After Monday nights confirmation of AMY CONEY BARRETT to the Supreme Court, TRUMP has appointed one third of the nations highest court. And, according to SEUNG MIN KIM of the WaPo, TRUMP has appointed 220 judges.

-- NYT front: BARRETT SWORN IN TO SUPREME COURT AFTER A 52-48 VOTE: A Scalia Protge Tilts a Bench Remade by Trump Further to the Right

AFTER BARRETT was confirmed Monday evening, we got a sneak peek at both the stylistic and substantive rift that could come to dominate the Democratic Party in 2021 and 2022, should they win the Senate and the White House.

CHUCK SCHUMER, the Democratic Senate leader from New York who is up for reelection in 2022, said this while leaving the Capitol, per the Hill pool: I have two words for McConnells speech: very defensive. ON THE SENATE FLOOR, SCHUMER looked over to the Republican side of the chamber and said, You will have forfeited the right to tell us how to run the majority. The American people will never forget this blatant act of bad faith. (FWIW: We didnt think MCCONNELL sounded defensive at all, but rather gleeful. Also, who thought Republicans had the right to tell Democrats how to run their majority in the first place?)

COMPARE THAT to Rep. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-N.Y.). AOC tweeted this: Expand the court. Republicans do this because they dont believe Dems have the stones to play hardball like they do. And for a long time theyve been correct. But do not let them bully the public into thinking their bulldozing is normal but a response isnt. There is a legal process for expansion.

THIS KIND OF rift should not be overlooked, because it will come to dominate governance should Washington turn all blue. AOC is seen as one of SCHUMERS top potential primary challengers. The simplicity and bare-knuckled nature of her message could resonate among a Democratic base thats looking for knife fights, not senatorial process arguments. While SCHUMER and JOE BIDEN say changing the size of the court is on the table, the left is screaming that it should play by the same rules as the GOP -- which is to say Democrats should not worry about tradition and instead blow up what they consider the quaint processes that govern official Washington.

AND IT CANNOT BE IGNORED that its much easier to shout from the House than govern and lead the Senate. But there will be a hell of a lot of shouting coming from whats expected to be a large and loud Democratic majority in 2021.

THE POLITICO TICK TOCK TODAYS MUST READ: BURGESS EVERETT and MARIANNE LEVINE: How the Senate GOPs right turn paved the way for Barrett: One day after Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, President Donald Trump told Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that lots of people thought Barbara Lagoa would be the best pick for the Supreme Court. After all, the Cuban American judge from Florida could give a huge political boost to the president in a key swing state.

McConnell had a rebuttal: Pick Amy Coney Barrett instead, according to GOP leadership and White House aides. McConnell argued Barrett, an ardent social conservative, would have the best chance of uniting the party and if Trump even thought of picking someone else, he needed to call McConnell and give him a chance to change the presidents mind.

-- WAPOS PAUL KANE: Angry Democrats try to focus on health care as they watch Barrett confirmation

SOMETIMES IT SEEMS LIKE TRUMP is running a campaign in a parallel universe, detached from the issues of the day. DURING THREE RALLIES Monday:

-- HE MENTIONED BARRETT three times, each time seemingly in passing. And HE DIDNT ONCE talk about the standoff over stimulus, or rail on Speaker NANCY PELOSI for her negotiating tactics.

Good Tuesday morning.

SPOTTED: Tucker Carlson and Tony Bobulinski eating at the Waldorf in Los Angeles on Monday evening. Carlson is interviewing Bobulinski on his show tonight.

A message from the Partnership for Americas Health Care Future:

When it comes to health care, lowering costs is voters highest priority but the public option could force the average worker to pay $2,500 more a year in payroll taxes in addition to the cost of their current coverage. Get the facts.

POLITICO SCOOP -- Medicare and Medicaid to cover early Covid vaccine, by Dan Diamond and Adam Cancryn: The Trump administration this week will announce a plan to cover the out-of-pocket costs of Covid-19 vaccines for millions of Americans who receive Medicare or Medicaid, said four people with knowledge of the pending announcement.

Under the planned rule, Medicare and Medicaid will now cover vaccines that receive emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, the people said, which is a change from current policy. The regulations, which have been under development for weeks, are likely to be announced by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Tuesday or Wednesday. At least two Covid-19 vaccine developers have said they plan to apply for an emergency use authorization before the end of the year. POLITICO

CORONAVIRUS RAGING -- Worst place, worst time: Trump faces virus spike in Midwest, by APs Tom Beaumont in Oshkosh, Wis.: [N]ow the virus is getting worse in states that the president needs the most, at the least opportune time. New infections are raging in Wisconsin and elsewhere in the upper Midwest. In Iowa, polls suggest Trump is in a toss-up race with Biden after carrying the state by 9.4 percentage points four years ago.

Trumps pandemic response threatens his hold on Wisconsin, where he won by fewer than 23,000 votes in 2016, said Marquette University Law School poll director Charles Franklin. Approval of his handling of COVID is the next-strongest predictor of vote choice, behind voters party affiliation and their overall approval of Trumps performance as president, Franklin said. And its not just a fluke of a single survey.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Sunday that among U.S. states, Wisconsin had the third highest rate of new cases for the previous seven days. Iowa was 10th.

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NANCY COOK: Trumps closing argument: Forget about Covid

MARKET WATCH -- Stocks Slide on Coronavirus Uptick, Fading Stimulus Hopes, by WSJs Anna Hirtenstein and Paul Vigna

-- BEN WHITE: Why Wall Street is banking on a blue wave: President Donald Trump loves to say that if Joe Biden wins the White House, stocks will crash, retirement accounts will vanish and an economic depression the likes of which youve never seen will engulf the nation. But much of Wall Street is already betting on a Biden win with a much different take on what the results will mean.

Traders in recent weeks have been piling into bets that a blue wave election, in which Democrats also seize the Senate, will produce an economy-juicing blast of fresh fiscal stimulus of $3 trillion or more that carries the U.S. past the coronavirus crisis and into a more normal environment for markets.

Far from panicking at the prospect of a Biden win, Wall Street CEOs, traders and investment managers now mostly say they would be fine with a change in the White House that reduces the Trump noise, lowers the threat of further trade wars and ensures a continuation of the government spending theyve seen in recent years.

NYT, A19: Swing-District Democrats, Defying Predictions, Poised to Help Keep House, by Luke Broadwater in Henrico County, Va.

ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION: In Georgia, a Senate GOP firewall is under attack by resurgent Democrats, by Greg Bluestein and Patricia Murphy: In a fight to keep control of the U.S. Senate, national Republicans viewed Georgias twin contests as part of a last-ditch firewall. With a week until Election Day, resurgent Democrats are chipping away at that foundation.

The latest Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll shows Jon Ossoff deadlocked with Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue, who was once heavily favored to win a second term. And Democrat Raphael Warnock, a pastor and first-time candidate, is the clear front-runner in the chaotic special election for U.S. Sen. Kelly Loefflers seat.

The two Democrats are leveraging President Donald Trumps struggling poll numbers, and Warnock is taking advantage of the bitter internal rift between Loeffler and U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, her most formidable Republican opponent in the 21-candidate race. The poll pegged Collins at 21% and Loeffler at 20% with roughly 15% of Republican voters undecided in that race.

A message from the Partnership for Americas Health Care Future:

The public option could raise the average workers taxes by $2,500/year in addition to the cost of their current coverage. Get the facts.

COURT WATCH ... JOSH GERSTEIN: In Wisconsin decision, Supreme Court foreshadows election night cliffhanger: As a divided Supreme Court on Monday resolved a fight over absentee voting rules in Wisconsin, the justices exchanged warnings about a troublesome scenario: the possibility that next weeks presidential election leads to days or even weeks of legal maneuvering and uncertainty about the winner.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh conjured up the specter of such a protracted battle as he argued in favor of allowing states to maintain firm deadlines requiring absentee ballots to be received by election officials on Election Day.

Those States want to avoid the chaos and suspicions of impropriety that can ensue if thousands of absentee ballots flow in after election day and potentially flip the results of an election, Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion released Monday night. And those States also want to be able to definitively announce the results of the election on election night, or as soon as possible thereafter. POLITICO

MEANWHILE -- Twitter labels Trump post about mail ballots as disputed and misleading, by Myah Ward

TRUMPS TUESDAY -- The president will leave the White House at 12:30 p.m. en route to Lansing, Mich. He will arrive at the Capital Region International Airport at 2:25 p.m. and give a campaign speech. Trump will depart at 4 p.m. en route to West Salem, Wis. He will arrive at MotorSports Management Company at 4:40 p.m. CDT and will speak at a campaign rally. Afterward, he will travel to Omaha, Neb. He will arrive at Eppley Airfield at 7:50 p.m. and give another campaign speech. Afterward, he will travel to Las Vegas. He will arrive at 9:50 p.m. PDT and spend the night.

ON THE TRAIL BIDEN will travel to Warm Springs, Ga., and deliver a campaign speech in the afternoon. He will also attend a drive-in event in Atlanta focused on early voting. JILL BIDEN will travel to Bangor, Maine, for a GOTV rally. Sen. KAMALA HARRIS (D-Calif.) will travel to Reno, Nev., and Las Vegas to participate in early voter mobilization events.

PHOTO DU JOUR: A firefighter battles the Silverado Fire, a fast-moving wildfire that forced evacuation orders for 60,000 people in Southern California on Monday, Oct. 26. | Jae C. Hong/AP Photo

LAURA BARRN-LPEZ and HOLLY OTTERBEIN in Bethlehem, Pa.: The demographic that could tip Pennsylvania: For 17 years, La Mega, a Spanish language radio station serving Lehigh Valleys rapidly growing Puerto Rican population, has been playing it safe. Sure, they criticized Donald Trump when he called Mexicans rapists back in 2015. But theyve never endorsed a presidential candidate. We [didnt] want to get anybody upset, said Victor Martinez, owner of the station and host of the morning show El Relajo de la Maana, or The Morning Commotion.

This year is different: La Mega is firmly behind Democratic nominee Joe Biden. And its not stopping at an endorsement. The station is educating listeners on how to vote safely in the pandemic, how to find ride-share options to the polls and even showing up at campaign events. Bidens running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, recently appeared on the show. We are all in this year, Martinez said. Were not leaving anything behind. Puerto Ricans are not happy with Trump.

With a week left until the election, Biden, Trump and their surrogates are spending much of the little face time they have left in Pennsylvania, sometimes specifically courting Latino voters. Though Latinos make up only roughly 6 percent of the electorate in Pennsylvania, they could prove pivotal to Bidens chances in a close contest. In 2016, Trump won the state by less than 1 point and both campaigns are girding for another nail-biter. POLITICO

A message from the Partnership for Americas Health Care Future:

American families cant afford the public option. Learn why.

ADELSON WATCH -- Adelsons Las Vegas Sands Exploring $6 Billion Sale of Vegas Casinos, by Bloombergs Gillian Tan and Christopher Palmeri: Sheldon Adelsons Las Vegas Sands Corp. is exploring the sale of its casinos in Las Vegas, according to people with knowledge of the matter, a move that would leave the mogul focused on Asia and mark his exit, for now, from the U.S. gambling industry.

The worlds largest casino company, Sands is working with an adviser to solicit interest for the Venetian Resort Las Vegas, the Palazzo and the Sands Expo Convention Center, which together may fetch $6 billion or more, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the talks are private. The properties are all connected along the citys famous strip.

BOOK CLUB -- Retired Lt. Col. ALEXANDER VINDMAN will publish a memoir next spring, currently titled Here, Right Matters: An American Story, about his family story, his career and his experience in the Trump administration and impeachment process. Harper has the North American rights. The cover

MEDIAWATCH -- BuzzFeed Expects to Break Even This Year, Thanks to Heavy Cost Cuts, by WSJs Lukas Alpert: [The] belt-tightening is part of a greater reckoning for the once-highflying digital media startup, whose board had become increasingly frustrated with slowing growth and persistent losses in recent years, the people said. Over the past two years, the company has reduced costs by as much as $80 million, they said.

Send tips to Eli Okun and Garrett Ross at [emailprotected].

WHITE HOUSE ARRIVAL LOUNGE -- Jayme Chandler is now director of correspondence at the White Houses Office of Presidential Personnel. She most recently was coalitions coordinator for the Trump campaign.

TRANSITION -- John Coghlan is now deputy assistant A.G. for the federal program branch of the civil division. He previously was an associate counsel in the White House counsels office.

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Judy Smith, founder and CEO of Smith & Co. A trend she thinks doesnt get enough attention: The effect that the pandemic has had on women and the alarming rate at which they are leaving the workforce can have an impact on generations to come. This is an issue that we need to make sure we continue to pay attention to and figure out how we can support women and help address these challenges. Playbook Q&A

BIRTHDAYS: Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) is 47 Matt Drudge is 54 Vanity Fairs Michael Calderone Teal Baker (h/t Heather Podesta) NYTs Ali Watkins Nina Easton Richard Clarke, CEO of Good Harbor, is 7-0 Stuart Roy, president of Strategic Action Public Affairs (h/t Blain Rethmeier) Phil Anderson, president and founder of Navigators Global Jon Doggett, CEO of the National Corn Growers Association Chris Vlasto is 54 Mike McCurry, of counsel at Public Strategies Washington and distinguished professor of public theology at Wesley Theological Seminary, is 66 (h/t Jon Haber) Jackie Bray Jonathan Sender Gretchen Lee Salter (h/ts Teresa Vilmain) Clark Reid of the Office of Inspector General at Commerce Will Ris

Zoe Chace of This American Life Lora Ries, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation Lori Otto Punke, president of the Washington Council on International Trade and founder of LOP Strategies (h/ts Stewart Verdery) Sara Latham (h/t Brynne, Elrod, Hornbrook) Red Balloon Securitys Andrew Taub is 31 Kenneth Katzman Zo Zeigler Christina Mountz Donnelly, senior associate at the Glover Park Group (h/t Mike Feldman) Emily Vander Weele, manager at Weber Shandwick ... Chrissy Terrell Murray, director of corporate comms and PR for Gannett/USA Today Network The Economists Tom Nuttall Greg Gorman Ed Dippold ... Jennifer Mandel Abbey Shilling Victoria Hargis ... George Landrith ... Leslie Churchwell Nicholas Roosevelt

A message from the Partnership for Americas Health Care Future:

During this critical time, access to affordable, high-quality health care is more important than ever, but creating the public option could result in higher taxes or premiums for American families. In fact, a recent study finds the public option would become the third most expensive government program behind Medicare and Social Security, both of which are already at risk for those who rely on them.

Lets build on and improve whats working where private coverage, Medicare and Medicaid work together, not start over with a one-size-fits-all government health insurance system like the public option. Learn more.

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POLITICO Playbook: The rift that could dominate the Democratic Party next year - Politico

The day after the election, Isabelle Anderson, 33, went to a get-to-know-your-colleagues happy hour for staff members of the Bay Area middle school where she worked as a psychologist. Many of their students were undocumented immigrants.

Oct. 27, 2020, 9:49 p.m. ET

It was the unhappiest of gatherings.

Everyone just sat there, feeling so lethargic, said Ms. Anderson, who now lives in St. Louis. Some people were crying. We were wondering what was going to happen to our students, to the parents. The wake-like atmosphere became so oppressive that everyone finally just went home.

In Woodstock, N.Y., Abbe Aronson is still haunted by the wrenching experience of her 2016 election party, which began as a celebration and ended with a group of zombified adults weeping in the living room.

Ms. Aronson, a publicist, has not organized anything this year. She is battling pre-election stress with an arsenal of diversionary activities: baking, volunteering, doing crossword puzzles, potting plants, posting innocuous feel-good images on social media, taking sanity walks in the woods with a tiny pod of friends.

The walk lasts until everybody is feeling better or at least not crying, she said.

But anything can set her off. Recently, her longtime mail carrier, an older man who brings biscuits for her dog and to whom she gives a Christmas present every year, mentioned that he had started listening to this really funny guy named Rush Limbaugh on the radio. Do you know what a feminazi is? he asked.

I told him, Ernie, I am one, she said.

They have not spoken since. She is sleeping between two and five hours a night. Im talking to you and my neck is throbbing and Im having a visceral response, she said. I have a recurring pain in my left shoulder and my left neck, from being middle-aged and furious.

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The Election Is Almost Over. That Doesn't Mean Democrats Are Relaxed. - The New York Times

Biden and his team have stayed engaged, as Trumps campaign has continued to visit and otherwise actively campaign in the state. Biden has visited several times, and may be back. In the past week alone, the Biden campaign has sent Jill Biden; Kamala Harriss husband, Doug Emhoff; Pete Buttigieg; and the pop star Lizzo all over the state, and Harris and Emhoff were back there today. (Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were also in Michigan this past week.) Democrats TV spending has remained high, and issue-specific, such as the campaign ad that started running earlier this month, just in the Traverse City market, highlighting the effect of climate change on fruit farmers. Clintons Michigan ads in 2016 mostly focused on calling Trump terrible, without a clear positive message about her or the Democratic Party.

Read: A warning from Michigan

Despite these efforts, Democrats know that much will likely hinge on the Black vote. So in late September, when Harris came to Michigan for her first in-person trip since joining the ticket, she started the day in Flint, another largely Black city that, like Detroit, saw lower turnout in 2016 than it had four years before. Sticking to the campaigns strategy of speaking directly to local issues, she took a walking tour of Black-owned small businesses with Stabenow and the Flint native and former WNBA player Deanna Nolan, visiting a barbershop, then a bookstore, then a clothing store. At a market a few blocks away, she laughed with farmers as she bought honeycrisp apples, corn, and jalapeos, talking up Bidens economic-recovery plan to each person she met.

In front of another barbershop that afternoon, in Detroit, Harris laid into the Trump administration for trying to end the Affordable Care Act and health-insurance protections for preexisting conditions. She talked about how poverty is trauma-inducing, and called the push for a $15 hourly minimum wage a floor that didnt do anything to build Black equity. We have an opportunity to declare and demonstrate the power to shape the future, she said, urging listeners not to be cowed into giving up and not voting. Let us not let them take our power.

With less than two weeks to go until Election Day, more than 1.6 million Michiganders have voted, about a third of the expected vote total (which assumes a higher turnout than in 2016). Democrats like those numbers, but they also worry that they dont actually represent additional supportersthey may just be eating into the votes that in past years came on Election Day.

Even if the Democrats Michigan strategy comes together, flipping just this one state wont get Biden to 270 electoral votes. But the Biden campaign knows that Michigan is central to its chances. Im traveling around the country, but I keep coming back to Detroit, Harris said today at a polling place there. You know, in 2016, right, we remember what happened? When we got hit by this natural disaster whos now in the White House, right? In 2016, they won by just on an average two votes per precinct So lets make sure that doesnt happen again, shall we? And that means: Lets make sure everybody votes.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

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The 11,000 Votes That Haunt Michigan Democrats - The Atlantic

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When Democrat Brandy Chambers read in The Dallas Morning News last month that her opponent, state Rep. Angie Chen Button, R-Richardson, now supports Medicaid expansion, Chambers could not believe it.

Shocked would be a good word, Chambers recalled in an interview.

Button and other Texas Republicans have long resisted expanding Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program, even though Texas has the countrys highest uninsured rate. But Button said she now sees the need for expanding the program due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has left many Texans jobless and without health insurance.

Button is not the only Republican lawmaker raising eyebrows about seemingly new policy positions now that the partys majority in the Texas House is on the line. Another endangered incumbent, Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, recently expressed regret for supporting the divisive bathroom bill that sought to limit public restroom access for transgender people and headlined the 2017 legislative year without ever becoming law.

That legislation, along with Medicaid expansion, is among a litany of issues that are cropping up in the final weeks of the Nov. 3 election that will decide the balance of power in the Legislatures lower chamber. The stakes are high, with the battle unfolding ahead of the 2021 redistricting process during which lawmakers will draw new political boundaries for the state.

Democrats are nine seats away from the majority after picking up 12 seats in 2018, some of which Republicans are serious about winning back. But in many cases, Republican lawmakers who have held the House majority since the 2003 session are facing the first truly competitive general elections of their lives and being forced to answer for votes in a way they have never had to before.

Take for example the Legislatures massive cuts to public education in 2011, which Democrats are using to try to undercut the GOPs renewed focus on school funding during the most recent session.

That was 10 years ago, and over the last four sessions since, weve steadily increased public education funding, Rep. Sarah Davis, R-Houston, said in a recent interview, playing down the issue.

While Democrats press Republicans over health care and public education, the GOP is hoping to portray their Democratic opponents as too liberal and beholden to national Democrats, seeking to put them on defense over issues including police funding and taxes.

For example, as Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Killeen, fights for reelection, he is airing a TV ad that claims the policies of his Democratic opponent, Keke Williams, would threaten Texas economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Its no surprise Keke Williams doesnt fight for us, a narrator says. Williams is bankrolled by out-of-state liberal extremists.

National Democratic super PAC Forward Majority is spending over $12 million in the state House fight this fall, and health care is its top issue. The Democrats dominant focus on health care mirrors the strategy they led with to help flip the U.S. House in 2018 and are relying on again this year to pad their ranks, especially in Texas.

Forward Majority is flooding state House districts with ads tying Republicans on the ballot to their partys yearslong push to repeal the Affordable Care Act and with it, its protections for people with preexisting conditions. The U.S. Supreme Court is slated to hear a Texas-led challenge to the federal health care law Nov. 10.

Forward Majoritys ads accuse GOP lawmakers of doing the bidding of insurance and drug companies when it comes to health care. And who suffers? a narrator asks. Patients with preexisting conditions like heart disease or cancer, denied coverage.

Republicans are pushing back by pointing to their passage of Senate Bill 1940 last session. If Obamacare went away, that law would allow the Texas Department of Insurance to take initial steps to temporarily bring back the high-risk insurance pool that the Legislature abolished in 2013. That option provided high-priced coverage to Texans with preexisting conditions who could not find it elsewhere, and by the time it was ended, it covered a small number of Texans 23,000.

One health-care expert Stacey Pogue, senior policy analyst at the left-leaning Every Texan think tank in Austin said the law is a wholly inadequate substitute for the Affordable Care Act.

It does nothing, Pogue said. Its perplexing that anybody would point to that as an achievement.

The dominant issue Republicans are using to criticize Democrats is law enforcement, with GOP candidates touting their support for police and seeking to tie their Democratic opponents to the defund the police movement. The term means different things to different people, but among some activists protesting police brutality, the movement aims to redirect some funds from police budgets to social services.

Abbott has done his part to make support for law enforcement the central issue of the general election for Republicans, asking candidates to sign a pledge against defunding the police and releasing multiple legislative proposals to punish local governments who cut police budgets.

While no Democrat running in a battleground district is known to have explicitly embraced the idea, Republicans are working to portray their opponents as being anti-law enforcement. A prime example is House District 67, where Leach, the incumbent Plano Republican, is airing a TV ad that labels his Democratic rival, Lorenzo Sanchez, an anti-police zealot.

The attack is based on anti-police Facebook posts from a Sanchez campaign staffer, including one calling police a terrorist organization, as well as a June campaign event where Sanchez said he agreed after a speaker advocated for taking guns away from police.

When the issues first came up earlier this fall, Sanchez issued a statement that did not directly address them but said he does not support defunding police. As for the staffers comments, The Dallas Morning News editorial board reported that Sanchez told them that he cant be responsible for everything anyone associated with his campaign says. And in a story published last week by the Plano Star Courier, Sanchez said he believes in deadly force as a last resort but that it would be foolish to de-arm cops.

In other contests, the police-related attacks appear to have less of a basis. Rep. Steve Allison, R-San Antonio, is airing a TV ad in which he says, I stand with our police; my opponent wants to defund them. But the Tribune could not find any evidence of his opponent, Celina Montoya, expressing such support, and Allisons campaign has not provided any backup.

I think that theres absolutely, without question, room for us to have some criminal justice reform, but none of us are calling to, you know, abolish the police or anything of that sort. Its silliness, Akilah Bacy, the Democrat running against Republican Lacey Hull for an open Houston seat, said during a Texas Tribune event Friday.

Some Republican candidates are acknowledging they also have to say what they support when it comes to police reform. Justin Berry, an Austin police officer challenging Rep. Vikki Goodwin, D-Austin, is broadcasting a TV ad where he calls for "de-escalation training and body cameras for all officers. Those ideas also appear in a commercial from Jacey Jetton, the GOP nominee for an open seat in Fort Bend County. Jettons spot additionally advocates for ensuring our police look more like the communities they serve.

Republicans are also trying to put Democrats on defense on fiscal issues, claiming the partys candidates would support higher taxes and even a state income tax. In most cases, that claim appears to be based on Democratic opposition to Proposition 4, the 2019 constitutional amendment that made it harder than ever for Texas to institute a state income tax. Critics called the proposition a political stunt that could hamstring future generations when the Texas economy is not doing as well.

While Democrats insist that opposing the proposition does not equate to supporting a state income tax, Republicans say the optics are tough for Democrats.

Thats a very painful position, said Dave Carney, the governors top political adviser.

Abbotts campaign conducted a statewide survey in August and settled on taxes as one of the four most effective lines of attack against Democrats in battleground House contests.

In one race where the issue has flared up, Elizabeth Beck, the Democratic nominee against Rep. Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth, is asking TV stations to take down an ad hes airing that attacks her on taxes, saying it contains blatant lies. Among other things, the commercial claims she supports a statewide income tax, citing a 2019 tweet from her urging followers to vote against Proposition 4.

The ad also seizes on an October event where she talked about creating new streams of revenue New revenue means new taxes, a narrator says though it leaves out part of the event where she clarifies that she would not be in favor of raising taxes or creating a state income tax.

Gun violence is also factoring into some races, mainly at the behest of Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, the national gun control group. It announced last month that it would spend $2.2 million on digital ads and direct mail across 12 districts, seeking to elect a gun sense majority to the Texas House.

Everytowns ads invoke the 2019 El Paso Walmart shooting in which a gunman killed 23 people and injured 23 others while targeting Hispanic Texans to criticize Texas Republicans for inaction on universal background checks. One spot says the coronavirus pandemic is not the only public health crisis facing Texas families.

A few Democratic challengers are bringing up gun issues on their own. In one of Democrats best pickup opportunities, Joanna Cattanach is running a TV spot against Rep. Morgan Meyer, R-Dallas, that says he has stuck to the far rights agenda voting to allow guns in schools. The commercial cites Meyers vote for House Bill 1387, the 2019 law that lifted the cap on the number of school marshals who could be armed on public school campuses.

Public education has also been an issue thats come up in a number of competitive races, with Republicans highlighting an $11.6 billion school finance reform bill the Legislature passed in 2019.

In Tarrant County, Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, has aired a TV ad casting himself as a lawmaker "on a new mission to improve Texas schools."

Tinderholt, a member of the hardline conservative Texas House Freedom Caucus, voted for the legislation, which was championed by GOP state leaders and received bipartisan support. But his ad is notable it marks yet another push by Republicans to bolster their credentials and track records at the Legislature on public education. Tinderholt faces a challenge from Democrat Alisa Simmons.

Democrats facing competitive reelection bids are also trying to capitalize on the school finance bill from last year. In Williamson County, Rep. James Talarico, a Round Rock Democrat, recently released a TV ad titled A teacher in the House. The ad highlights his experience as a teacher and how that helped him work across the aisle to pass historic school reform in 2019. Talarico faces a challenge from Republican Lucio Valdez.

Candidate-specific issues have, of course, also emerged in certain races. In the open race for House District 96 in Tarrant County, the national Democratic group Forward Majority has criticized the Republican in the race, David Cook, for overseeing an attempt while serving as Mansfield mayor in 2016 to fund an indoor ice rink using a $1.8 million contribution from Mansfield schools.

The Mansfield City Council ultimately reversed course and decided against asking Mansfield ISD to be a funding partner after school district taxpayers pushed back on it, Cook told The Dallas Morning News in September. But Forward Majority still seized on the issue, saying in an ad it aired for the race that Democrat Joe Drago will "put kids ahead of politicians wasteful pet projects."

In another Dallas-area race, Linda Koop, a Republican running for the seat she lost last cycle to Democratic Rep. Ana-Maria Ramos, recently aired an ad knocking Ramos over her lone vote against a bill in 2019 to legalize childrens lemonade stands. Ramos, for her part, has argued that she voted against the legislation because it takes away local control and is about public safety."

Its unclear whether any of the issues that have emerged in some of the most competitive races will end up getting much play at the Legislature when it convenes for its regular session in January.

On top of questions over how exactly the Capitol will operate in the era of the pandemic, the uncertainty over which party will control the House is looming over what issues lawmakers could debate.

Matt Mackowiak, a GOP strategist and chair of the Travis County Republican Party, said the legislative session will likely be consumed by grappling with the billions of dollars in shortfalls facing the state budget and responding to the pandemic, among other issues.

The 2021 legislative session is going to be a very difficult one, he said, and its hard to predict which direction things will go until we see the makeup of the Texas House and learn who the new Speaker will be."

Every Texan, Everytown for Gun Safety and Facebook have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Texas Republicans, Democrats battle for control of House in 2020 election - The Texas Tribune

MACON, Ga. President Trump held a rally in Georgia on Friday, 18 days before the November general election. It wasnt a good sign for him.

That Mr. Trump is still campaigning in what should be a safely Republican state and in others that should be solidly in his column like Iowa and Ohio is evidence to many Democrats that Joseph R. Biden Jr.s polling lead in the presidential race is solid and durable. Mr. Trump spent Monday in Arizona, too, a state that was once reliably Republican but where his unpopularity has helped make Mr. Biden competitive.

For some Democrats, Mr. Trumps attention to red states is also a sign of something else something few in the party want to discuss out loud, given their scars from Mr. Trumps surprise victory in 2016. Its an indication that Mr. Biden could pull off a landslide in November, achieving an ambitious and rare electoral blowout that some Democrats think is necessary to quell any doubts or disputes by Mr. Trump that Mr. Biden won the election.

On one level, such a scenario is entirely plausible based on the weeks and the breadth of public polls that show Mr. Biden with leads or edges in key states. But this possibility runs headlong into the political difficulties of pulling off such a win, and perhaps even more, the psychological hurdles for Democrats to entertain the idea. Many think that Mr. Trump, having pulled off a stunning win before, could do it again, even if there are differences from 2016 that hurt his chances.

This much is clear: Landslide presidential victories have become rare the last big one was in 1988, and a more modest one in 2008 and Mr. Trump is still ahead of or running closely with Mr. Biden in many of the states he won in 2016 when the margin of error is factored in.

Democrats see flipping states like Texas and Georgia as key to a possible landslide; Texas hasnt voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1976, and Georgia since 1992. A New York Times and Siena College poll published on Tuesday found Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump tied among likely voters in Georgia.

Until Democrats win a statewide election, were not a purple state, said Brian Robinson, a Republican political consultant in Georgia. We may be a purpling state. But until they win, this is a red state.

It is just such a historic rout of Mr. Trump that some Democrats increasingly believe is necessary to send a political message to Republicans, a moral one to the rest of the world, and serve a key logistical purpose: getting a clear Electoral College winner on Nov. 3, rather than waiting for an extended ballot counting process.

To many, a commanding victory that sweeps Democrats to control of the Senate as well would set the stage for a consequential presidency, not just one that evicts Mr. Trump.

What theyre going to need in order to move the country forward is to demonstrate that a ton of people are with him and are aligned with his agenda, said Mara Teresa Kumar, chief executive officer at Voto Latino, a voter mobilization group that has endorsed Mr. Biden. That the people want to address climate change in a big bold way. They want to address health care in a big bold way. And they want to address education in a big bold way.

Keep up with Election 2020

She added: The only way to make Republicans find a spine is if this is a massive turnout election.

For a party still traumatized by the ghosts of 2016, overconfidence or overreach are the last things most Democrats feel or want to project.

This race is far closer than some of the punditry were seeing on Twitter and on TV would suggest, read a memo last week from Mr. Bidens campaign manager, Jennifer OMalley Dillon. In the key battleground states where this election will be decided, we remain neck and neck with Donald Trump.

But even some Republicans have begun talking about a possible drubbing in a second Blue Wave that would power Mr. Biden to a huge Electoral College victory and help Democrats retake the Senate.

Last week, one Republican, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, warned constituents of a possible Republican blood bath in November, earning the ire of the president in the process. The conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch has told friends he expects Mr. Biden to win in a landslide, according to a published report he did not deny.

Mr. Bidens campaign has also stepped up travel and investment in states that were expected to be out of reach for Democrats sending Jill Biden to Texas, and scheduling events for Senator Kamala Harris and her husband in Georgia and Ohio, before a staffer tested positive for coronavirus and her travel schedule was limited.

But perhaps the biggest sign of an expanded Democratic map is the signals coming out of the Trump campaign as he finds himself in places like Macon rather than trying to expend resources in states Hillary Clinton won in 2016.

The subtle shift in thinking among some Democrats that the goal for Election Day should not only be to defeat Mr. Trump but do so by a large margin is about setting the tone for the post-Trump era.

A crushing Electoral College victory, the thinking goes, would deliver an unmistakable rejection of Mr. Trumps political brand and minimize the impact of Mr. Trumps rhetorical war against mail-in ballots and any attempts to undermine the legitimacy of the election.

Mr. Biden, a cautious moderate, without the limitless charisma of President Obama, who has portrayed himself as more a transitional figure than a transformative one, might seem an unlikely figure to produce a political tsunami. He has balked at progressive litmus test issues such as the Green New Deal or expanding the number of Supreme Court justices.

Oct. 27, 2020, 9:49 p.m. ET

But Waleed Shahid, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, which seeks to add left-wing Democrats to Congress by challenging more moderate incumbents, said his group is at peace with Mr. Bidens current positioning; the goal is to create a movement so vast that Mr. Biden has to shift his thinking. This election is the first step, he said.

Lincoln was not an abolitionist, F.D.R. not a socialist or trade unionist, and L.B.J. not a civil rights activist, Mr. Shahid said. Three of the most transformative presidents never fully embraced the movements of their time, and yet the movements won because they organized and shaped public opinion.

He added: A major victory would help provide Democrats even more of a mandate to govern through the bold policy unseen since the era of F.D.R. and L.B.J.

And Mr. Biden, for all his low-key style, has shown signs of thinking big. After all, he promised during the primary not just to win but to beat Mr. Trump like a drum and restore the soul of the nation with a robust rejection of the white grievance politics the administration has embraced.

Jon Ossoff, the Democratic candidate in one of the two contested Senate races in Georgia, said he appreciated Mr. Bidens greater investment in the state. He argued that Democrats winning in the state would represent more than an additional Senate seat, or 16 electoral votes in a presidential election, but would break the Republican vise grip on the South and beat back the Southern Strategy of racial division that has kept the region solidly Republican for decades.

A win, Mr. Ossoff said, would prove it is no longer possible to divide Southerners on racial lines in order to win elections. Because there will be a multiracial coalition that is demanding more progressive leadership.

In a recent interview, the former presidential candidate Beto ORourke made a similar case in regard to his home state of Texas.

Texas, more than any other state, has the ability to decide this on election night, he said. And what would be so powerful, and have so much political and poetic justice, is if the most voter-suppressed state in the union, with such a diverse electorate, turned out in the greatest numbers that put Joe Biden over the top.

The last two weeks have also mobilized a particular wave of optimism among Democratic political operatives based on Mr. Trumps erratic performance in the first debate and Mr. Bidens surging lead in amassing financial resources for the campaign finale.

On Friday, a group of progressives launched a new super PAC for the campaigns final stretch, investing $2.5 million to flip Georgia. The group, called New South, had a clear message for Mr. Biden and Democrats: the future of the party is here and the moment to embrace it is now.

In Georgia, two Senate races are up for grabs, we have the opportunity to clinch the election for Biden and Harris, and we can flip the state house heading into the crucial redistricting, said Ryan Brown, who leads the group. Both the stakes and the possibilities of the Georgia elections this year warrant our attention and this large-scale investment.

However, voters in both parties reflect tempered expectations shaped by 2016 and Georgias political history.

Mr. Robinson, the Republican operative, said he believes polling has over-sampled Democratic constituencies.

We have seen for years, polls showing Democrats tied or ahead in the middle of October, Mr. Robinson said. The media gets in a tizzy, and the Democrats get confidence, and then the Republicans win.

He said, If the polls are tied in Georgia, that means the Republicans are winning.

Dennis Jackson, a 58-year-old Democrat who voted early in Atlanta a day before Mr. Trumps rally, shared Mr. Robinsons skepticism, after the heartbreak of the 2016 election and the 2018 governors race, when Stacey Abrams, the former state House minority leader and the Democratic nominee, lost to the Republican Brian Kemp by a narrow margin.

More people are getting involved, Mr. Jackson said, but some people dont know how this goes. I do.

Jonathan Martin contributed reporting from Washington.

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Could Biden Win the Election in a Landslide? Some Democrats Cant Help Whispering - The New York Times

The damage to Americans faith in these institutions could be lasting, he said. So, before we go any further, we should shut off the cameras, close the Senate, and talk face to face about what this might mean for the country.

Republicans wanted no such discussion. They voted within a matter of minutes to reopen the proceedings and move ahead with considering Judge Barrett.

Its just harassment, said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. Its not about substance.

But it was left to Mr. McConnell, the architect of Republicans takeover of the federal courts, to offer a fuller response. Turning away from the cameras to speak directly to Republican members seated at their desks, he offered a selectively curated history of the devolving judicial nominations process in the Senate, reaching back to Democrats rejection of Robert Bork, a conservative nominee, in 1987.

Mr. McConnell argued that the decision to block Judge Garland had been consistent with history and so was the decision to confirm Judge Barrett because now, unlike then, the same party controls the White House and the Senate. Democrats view the Garland blockade as a serious escalation from which the chamber has not recovered.

This is not spin. This is fact, Mr. McConnell said. Referring to Democrats, he added: Every new escalation, every new step, every new shattered precedent, every one of them was initiated over there. No exceptions.

In a sign of how toxic the relationship between the two leaders had become four years after Mr. Schumer assumed his leadership post, Mr. McConnell suggested his counterpart was merely reaping what he had sown.

I hope our colleague from New York is happy with what hes built, Mr. McConnell said. I hope hes happy with where his ingenuity has gotten the Senate.

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Democrats Try to Shut Down Senate, Seeking to Stain Barrett Confirmation - The New York Times

Johnson, a second-term senator who hasnt said whether hell run again, has been an adamant defender of President Donald Trump and Democrats think that record will not play well in the perennial battleground in 2022.

While an announcement eight days before the presidential election might rankle some in the party for sidetracking from an all-hands-on-deck attempt to oust President Donald Trump from the White House, the move gives Nelson a head start on other Democrats expected to flock to challenge Johnson in the weeks after the presidential election.

The early start could allow Nelson to take advantage of sky-high Democratic enthusiasm thats translated into fundraising records across the country, which could wane after Nov. 3, especially if Joe Biden wins.

Other Democrats whose names are already circulating as possible candidates include Milwaukee Bucks senior vice president Alex Lasry, who also served as the Democratic National Convention host committee finance chair. Lasry, the son of billionaire hedge fund manager and Democratic bundler Marc Lasry, could quickly mount of a formidable, well-funded campaign.

Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who took on a national role speaking for Wisconsin in the wake of police shooting of Jacob Blake and the subsequent Kenosha riots, is another name in the mix, as well as state Attorney General Josh Kaul.

Nelsons announcement coincides with an expected Monday confirmation vote on Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court. Nelson criticized Johnson, who, after testing positive for Covid-19 earlier this month, vowed to wear a moon suit to return to the Senate and cast a vote in favor of Barrett if needed.

I think his record, I think his behavior and what he has done and what he has said not just the last couple of years but for the last nine years makes him very vulnerable, Nelson said. Ron Johnson is an unmitigated disaster and a conspiracy nut, among other qualities. Every time he opens his mouth he embarrasses himself and our state.

Nelson said his county about an hour-and-a-half north of Milwaukee has been one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus, putting him on the frontlines of the pandemic as the state has undergone one of the most severe spikes in the nation.

Nelson assailed Johnson for recent remarks seeming to underplay the virus, as well as Johnsons decision to attend a fundraiser while he awaited the results of a Covid-19 test. He later tested positive. Nelson said the senator was especially vulnerable electorally because he had voted against the first coronavirus relief package.

Nelson, who rolled out an announcement video on Monday, served as a Bernie Sanders delegate earlier this year. He argues hes well-positioned to win statewide because hes demonstrated he can win over voters in a key swing area. He was elected three times to the state assembly and elected three times as Outagamie county executive, most recently in April. The county, which voted twice for Barack Obama, swung to Trump in 2016, along with the rest of the state.

That year, Nelson ran unsuccessfully for an open seat in Congress, losing to now-Rep. Mike Gallagher by more than 20 points.

For his part, Johnson, first elected in 2010, has not announced his 2022 intentions, refusing to rule out any of three scenarios: retirement, reelection or a potential run for governor against Democratic incumbent Tony Evers. When he last ran for reelection in 2016, Johnson said it would be his final term in the Senate but he backtracked last year.

Sen. Johnson will make any decision about 2022 after the upcoming election, said Ben Voelkel, a Johnson spokesperson.

Even if they retain control of the Senate in next week's elections, the 2022 cycle will be a challenging one for the GOP. Two swing-state Republican senators, Richard Burr of North Carolina and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, have already said they will retire in 2022 rather than run for reelection. Also on the ballot in two years are Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who will be 89 years old on Election Day 2022.

If he does seek a third term, Democrats view Johnson as vulnerable because of his steady loyalty to Trump and controversial remarks about the Covid crisis, including downplaying the severity of the virus, even as Wisconsin hospitalizations have soared.

We have unfortunately been snookered into this mass hysteria that isnt even close to the real risk, Johnson said in recent remarks to Wisconsin business leaders. And so weve shut down our economy. Weve had this economic devastation.

Democrats have also cast Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, as hyper-partisan because of his role in releasing a conflict-of-interest report on Biden's son, Hunter, and attempting to bring outsize attention on his business dealings overseas. Democrats have also hammered Johnson for comments he's made about everything from outsourcing to calling media coverage of coronavirus "panic porn." He also drew a rebuke from Dr. Anthony Fauci for comparing deaths caused by coronavirus to traffic accidents: We dont shut down our economy because tens of thousands of people die on the highways, Johnson remarked.

Since January, Johnsons favorability numbers have hovered in the 30s, according to the Marquette Law School poll, under-performing Trump, Evers and Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin.

He has defended Donald Trump to the hilt, Nelson added, predicting that would come back to haunt Johnson.

But Republicans point back to 2016, when Democrats predicted Johnson was headed for sure defeat, only to watch him overcome former Sen. Russ Feingold, the liberal icon he had ousted six years earlier.

He's been a dead man walking two times before, and it just never really sticks when it comes down to the ballot box, says Brian Reisinger, a former Johnson adviser, also referencing Johnson's 2010 victory. He's the sort of person that it becomes fashionable for the Democrats and for the national Beltway media to bash him because he sticks his neck out there."

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Democrats already angling to take out Ron Johnson in 2022 - POLITICO