Monday, November 26, 2018

How NC Republicans meddled with judicial elections, and defeated their candidate

North Carolina Republicans may be America's worst for gerrymandering. They control 10 of the state's 13 Congressional seats, despite being in a battleground state Obama won in 2008. This year they tried manipulating other election rules. The story of their failure may brighten your day.

The NC Supreme Court keeps objecting to Republican gerrymanders. Republicans had one of their favorite judges up for re-election this year, and they didn't want Democrats to defeat her.

So Republicans decided to end judicial primaries. They expected the Republican judge's incumbency to prevent other Republicans from entering the race. But since Democrats had an open field, multiple Democrats were likely to run. With Democratic votes divided, the Republican incumbent would win. It's basically Gore-Bush-Nader 2000, except with the Nader (G) changed to (D).

This whole plurality-wins system isn't a great way to run an election. But if you're in that system, you need primaries! That way, one side doesn't lose an election simply because it had more candidates. Republicans were trying to rip down that safeguard for temporary partisan gain. They would soon learn how important it was.

Democrats informally coordinated amongst themselves and put up only one candidate. Well, kind of. Anita Earls, who had done important legal work against Republican gerrymandering, ran as the only official Democrat. Another Democrat named Chris Anglin switched to the Republican Party and ran. He and Republican incumbent Barbara Jackson would both be on the ballot with (R) after their names.

Republicans soon realized what had happened. They thought they were going to divide the Democratic vote, but Democrats had created a bogus Republican to divide their vote instead. Republicans tried passing a new law that would prevent Anglin from running with the (R) because he hadn't been a Republican long enough. But they hadn't passed the law soon enough. Courts ruled that Anglin could run with the (R).

Anglin mostly kept a straight face through the whole thing, but sometimes he just seemed to be having fun. From his op-ed in the Charlotte Observer, where he repeatedly taunted the Republican state legislature:
When I announced, I stated I was running as a Republican to be a voice for the many disaffected, conservative, constitutional Republicans who believe the party has left them, and to make the point that partisan judicial elections are a mistake. They force judges to kowtow more to parties, and it is how you get judges like Roy Moore. 
Some have questioned if I’m a “genuine” Republican. That is a fair question for many elected GOP leaders today. Is Donald Trump?
Infuriated Republicans tried to get their people to vote for Jackson rather than Anglin. But people don't pay enough attention to state Supreme Court races to receive the message. The election results were:
Anita Earls (D) 49.56%
Barbara Jackson (R) 34.07%
Chris Anglin (R) 16.37%

If it didn't stop the percentages from summing properly, I'd add: "Schadenfreude: 100%".

Sunday, November 11, 2018

Run for Senate!

People like to talk about their favorite Democrats running for President. But if those Democrats aren’t Senators, I want them running for Senate instead.

The 2020 Democratic presidential field will be crowded. Senator Merkley once told me that every Republican in the Senate looks at Trump and thinks, “I could do that job so much better!” while every Democrat in the Senate thinks, “I could beat him in 2020!”

Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Elizabeth Warren are all testing the waters, and I expect most of them to run. Probably we get a bunch of other Senators (Jeff, were you talking about yourself too?), various governors, and a few celebrities.

This isn’t a primary where a Hillary Clinton figure will have locked down near-unanimous support from major Democratic party actors like labor unions, national pro-choice groups, and influential legislators like John Lewis and James Clyburn. I’m not seeing that any one candidate has consolidated that much early support among party actors. (That’s the term the political scientists use, though “party actors” often makes me think of Lindsay Lohan.)

It might seem easier to win a primary that’s anybody’s game. You don’t have to go up against Hillary! But it’s actually really hard. You have to go up against everybody. It may be harder to beat everybody.

With so many candidates, I expect the best and second-best ones to be almost equally good, when ranked in terms of all the good things like having the right policy ideas, general competence, and being able to win the general election. Even assuming that Beto is in total a better Presidential candidate than Kamala, Kamala for President and Beto for another Texas Senate challenge in 2020 could easily be better for progressives than Beto for President and a definite loser for the Texas Senate race.

Why? Because having more Democratic Senators is a huge deal. One fewer Democrat in 2010, and Obamacare would’ve been filibustered to death. One fewer Democrat in 2017, and Obamacare repeal would’ve passed.

There’s also the issue of judicial nominations. I expect we’ll be ready to quickly refresh our Supreme Court bench if we win the White House in 2020. Trouble is, Mitch McConnell can just refuse to hold votes on our nominees if he controls the Senate, like he did with Merrick Garland. What you can do as President depends on whether you have legislative majorities. It’s best if your majorities don’t depend on Joe Manchin.

So when I hear about a red-state Democrat who put in as awesome an electoral showing as Beto, I think to myself: please, just run for Senate (again) – you’re worth much more to us there. Montana governor Steve Bullock is talking about running for President, since he’s pretty popular there and term-limited out… and Steve, your state has a Senate race in 2020! Maybe some of these people are happy just to raise their national profiles with Presidential attention, which is totally fine, as long as they're okay with running for Senate in the end.

I say this with Sinema likely to win AZ, and Nelson still having a fighting chance in FL. Winning those seats probably won't affect that much in 2019-2020, but they could be huge in 2021-2024. That's why I donate most heavily to Senate races. Good Democrats should take my money.

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

2018 midterm predictions, donor's eye view

While Election Eve is a good time for predictions, my donation strategy has depended on them all along. I want my money to tip the balance in important races, so I need to predict how close those races are. My predictions are below, combined with discussion of how they've guided my campaign contributions over 2017-2018.

I should thank everyone else who listened to my donation advice. I contributed over $25K of my own money over the last two years, and it seems that I've guided close to that amount in other people's donations. I hope I've advised you well, and that we can make tomorrow night a happy turning point in these terrible times.

The House: I'm guessing that Democrats gain around 36 seats and win a 231-204 majority. This is roughly the consensus forecast between 538 and insiders with access to private polls. Polls suggest that Trump's awful responses to recent right-wing violence slightly hurt Republican chances over the last week.

I only donated $250 to a House candidate this year (Sean Casten in Illinois -- 538 has him down by 50.1% to 49.9% right now, so that's where I like to send my money). Winning the House matters big for blocking Trump's policies and protecting Mueller, but running up the score doesn't help that much. Since it seemed to me that I had a better chance of tipping an important balance in other races, I didn't donate much to House campaigns.

The Senate: My median forecast is for the Senate to stay 51R-49D. That forecast could easily be off by one, and perhaps more. I have Democrats winning NV, FL, and two out of three in AZ, MO, and IN. (I donated to AZ and MO -- IN snuck up on me.) I could easily see 3/3 or 1/3, though -- things are really close. I'd be delighted to see Beto win in TX, Taylor Swift's army pick up a Democratic victory in TN, and another Heitkamp miracle in ND. If you're in these states, you have a real chance and I dearly hope you win! My guess has always been that Beto's coattails would generate some House wins but that he'd fall just short. But his poll numbers have strengthened in the last days, and I hope my Texas activist friends can prove me wrong.

The sheer number of Senate races in play, plus the bonus effectiveness of donating through Leadership PACs, made the Senate central to my donation strategy. I put in $15K in Senate Leadership PAC contributions over 2017-2018, plus $3K in direct donations. Some of my 2017 money went to Sherrod Brown in OH and Tammy Baldwin in WI, who seem safe, but insofar as early contributions have the effect of intimidating challengers, those may have been worthwhile. The top challenger in OH dropped out earlier this year, so Brown got to run against a second-tier guy. I'd love to win the Senate and block any further Republican nominations. But even if that's out of reach, making things close could have a nomination-disrupting effect, and I dearly want a Senate majority in 2021 to make major legislation possible.

Governors: I'll basically take the 538 model with Democratic wins in FL, OH, WI, NV, and IA, and assume one out of two in KS and GA based on late-breaking news. In KS, the pointless independent candidate's campaign treasurer resigned and endorsed the Democrat. In GA, the Republican's spurious allegations of Democratic hacking have at least a decent chance of working against him, and in any case aren't the kind of risky move you make if you're confident of victory.

I didn't have early knowledge about the state-level details important to these races, so I didn't donate any money here. But a lot of them are very important, especially where the governor has significant power over voting and redistricting, which are a big deal for 2020.

State Secretary of State in AZ, CO, IA, MI, OH: Hard races to predict, because polling is scarce and murky for offices at this level. Michigan looks good; the others are close. But in view of good Democratic trends in IA and OH, I'll say we win Michigan and 3 of the 4 others.

State SoS races have been my #1 donation priority this year, and many of you gave to them. They let you have a huge impact on 2020 by controlling voting procedures, and are probably the most cost-effective way you'll ever find to defeat Trump. My donations here totaled $8320, and I hit the state-level ceiling in CO. Facebook friends donated even more! I hope I have happy things to say about these races in the days to come, and again two years from now when they've done their work on the 2020 election.

Monday, November 5, 2018

If we lose

Seeing the early voting numbers from Nevada makes me optimistic about this election. (Most of this year's votes are in, Dems up 3%.) I think we win the House, keep the Republican Senate majority around 51-49, and pick up some Governor and state-level offices that set up 2020 well. I'll make more specific predictions on Election Eve.

But suppose that doesn't happen. Suppose we don't even win the House and Republicans pick up a few Senators. Nate Silver has this as a 15% outcome. Best to be prepared, so here are my thoughts in advance for a bad Election Night:

We are, of course, going to have two more years of bad things because Republicans are in power. They'll expend resources on arbitrary cruelty towards vulnerable people when Democrats would expend them on solving major national and global problems. There are all kinds of things that could go horribly wrong on larger scales too.

But there will still be time to prevent the total collapse of democracy, with total Republican dominance, that defeat in 2020 might bring about. If Republicans win 2020, they'll have the Supreme Court and new gerrymandering and the vote suppression offices. Then it may be 10 years or more of Trump-like Republicans rather than two, and I don't even know what kind of dystopia we'll be at the end of that. But losing 2018 doesn't mean we lose 2020.

Maybe in 2020, the stock buyback bubble just popped and Trump botched the response so the market crashed more. And even after Mueller was fired, a State AG picked up the pieces and convicted Trump of giving $200 million in Magnitsky Act fines back to the Russian mafia in exchange for hacking Hillary. If none of this had happened in 2018 and we came close, having it by 2020 probably adds up to a winning year.

I've hoped to win 2020 in 2018. Winning the offices that control voting in 2018 and just letting natural Democratic majorities do their work in 2020 is a big part of the strategy. Protecting Mueller will help too. And the Senators we win now, we keep until 2024.

If you're doing a lot this year (thank you so much people who are calling/ texting voters or knocking on doors!) you're doing amazing things to build the path out of the Trump Administration. But if we lose this time, please don't stop. I'll be right here with you for the next two years doing the weird set of things I do to help. They won't have beaten us yet.