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🗳 2020 Primary Election

General Discussion
#284

Hallelujah! Let’s flip Joni Ernst’s Iowa Senate seat to Blue. I don’t know much about Franken, but I liked his ad and I like what I’ve read about him. There are others in the race, too, so we’ll see how things shape up in the coming months – it’s good to see some strong contenders challenging Ernst.

Is this seat flippable? Yes! Recall that before Ernst took the seat in 2015 it was occupied since 1985 by Democrat Tom Harkin. So there is precedent there. And Ernst’s reputation in Iowa has been badly tarnished by her unwavering support of Trump. – See the Politico article at the end of this post.

Michael Franken, a retired Navy admiral and Sioux Center native, announced Monday he will join the Democratic race for Senate in an effort to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst next November.

Franken released a video to the Des Moines Register highlighting his nearly 40 years in the Navy and his opposition to invading Iraq in 2002.

"I was trained to not bow to political pressure and to do what’s right," he says in the video, adding that he would take that mentality to Washington, D.C.

"Republicans are afraid to ever stand up to Donald Trump," he says. “And D.C. Democrats aren’t bold enough to confront the climate crisis, the health care industry and Wall Street. … Join me, because now, more than ever, Iowans need a senator who will go against the grain in Washington to do what’s right for Iowa.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkBgenyFs6w

There is a strong anti-Trump current running in Iowa right now and that’s hurting Ernst’s re-election chances:

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#285

Per Axios - The battle lines have been drawn - looks like T is slipping in every battleground state -
Both R’s and Dems are vying for Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin…which were the pivotal states that got T elected by that small 70K+ vote count.

T’s campaign eying - Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire and New Mexico

the Dems - are hoping to go after Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Texas and Georgia.

President Trump’s net approval rating has plunged in every key battleground state since taking office in January 2017, according to Morning Consult’s tracking poll.

Why it matters: These are the states that Republicans and Democrats are vying for in 2020 and where, as of now, the campaigns think the presidential election will be decided, according to conversations with several Trump and Democratic campaign staffers.

In addition to the key purple states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — that both sides recognize as targets, the Trump campaign has its sights set on Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire and New Mexico, all states Trump lost in 2016, several campaign officials said.

  • “We are trying to actively expand the map — aggressively,” one official said. “These 4 states in particular are all areas [Trump campaign manager Brad] Parscale is set on winning.”
  • The official added that the campaign, which is planning to beef up its communications and rapid response team with additional hires before the end of the year, will soon be flooding these states with stories that don’t get a lot of attention at the national level — such as Trump’s work on opioids and the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal.
  • “President Trump will again win the states he carried in 2016, and we believe there are a number that he can add to his column in 2020,” said Tim Murtaugh, director of communications for the campaign.

Meanwhile, Democrats are hoping they can pick up Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Texas and Georgia, per talks with campaign aides and Democratic strategists.

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#286

Looks like there will be two open senate seats in 2020

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#287
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#288

Democrats are down to ten candidates in the next debate.

The 10 candidates who have qualified already are: Biden, Warren, Sanders, Harris, Buttigieg, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, former Housing Secretary Julián Castro, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

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#289

Please tell me CNN isn’t running it, they’ll try to make it a battle royale.

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#290

Women voters? Who writes these headlines? Female Voters guys, women voters makes you sound simple.
Anyways…

But recent polling indicates that the same white female voters who propelled Trump to victory in 2016 might send him to defeat in 2020 if current trends hold.

A Quinnipiac University survey released Wednesday found Trump trailing the top five Democratic contenders by between 9 points and 16 points overall, with each leading the president by 23 points or more among all women.

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#291

No CNN…ABC will be running it. :grin:

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#292

One more R not running in 2020 - Rep John Shimkus/Illinois.

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#293

We know that the 2020 election will be off-the-charts in terms of media campaigns. Here’s some of the tactics that will be utilized by T 'n Co. (Trending on Current Status)

President Trump’s campaign and key allies plan to make allegations of bias by social media platforms a core part of their 2020 strategy, officials tell Axios.

The big picture: Look for ads, speeches and sustained attacks on Facebook and Twitter in particular, the sources say. The irony: The social platforms are created and staffed largely by liberals — but often used most effectively in politics by conservatives, the data shows.

Why it matters: Trump successfully turned the vast majority of his supporters against traditional media, and he hopes to do the same against the social media companies.

  • Republicans’ internal data shows it stirs up the base like few other topics.
  • "In the same way we’ve seen trust in legacy media organizations deteriorate over the past year, there are similarities with social media companies," a top Republican operative involved in the effort told me.

Between the lines: The charges of overt bias by social media platforms are way overblown, several studies have found. But, if the exaggerated claims stick, it could increase the chances of regulatory action by Republicans.

  • "People feel they’re being manipulated, whether it’s by what they’re being shown in their feeds or actions the companies have taken against conservatives," the operative said.
  • "It’s easy for people to understand how these giant corporations could influence them and direct them toward a certain favored candidate."

How tech execs see it : They know the escalation is coming, so they are cranking up outreach to leading conservatives and trying to push hard on data showing that conservative voices often outperform liberal ones.

Reality check, from Axios chief tech correspondent Ina Fried: What is real is that most of the platforms have policies against bias that some conservative figures have run afoul of.

  • Managing editor Scott Rosenberg notes that Twitter is Trump’s megaphone, while Facebook is often his favorite place to run ads.

What’s next: By the time 2020 is over, trust in all sources of information will be low, and perhaps unrecoverable.

  • A nation without shared truth will be hard-to-impossible to govern
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#294

Anyone who wants to evict Trump from the Oval Office needs to go all in on this race. It is actually the last House contest of 2018, but more importantly, it’s a harbinger of 2020.

Make no mistake: This vote is a referendum on Trump. Here’s why:

  • Bishop is running 100% as a Trumpster.

  • Trump is putting his reputation as a Republican vote getter on the line. He’s been vigorously promoting Bishop and trashing McCready. He’s holding a rally for Bishop on the eve of the election.

If Bishop loses the day after Trump’s rally, what will the President’s rallies then be worth to Republicans clinging to their House and Senate seats in 2020? They will be worth dirt – and those Republicans will know it. At the very least, they will not be begging Trump for rallies or endorsements. It’s even more likely that some will distance themselves from Trump and even repudiate him.

Imagine what a body blow that would be to Trump. He will go from being the magic sauce that wins elections to a crippling poison. Fewer rallies and fewer candidates bragging about their love for Trump will, in turn, damage Trump’s chances for re-election. The three-way synergy between Trump, Republican candidates, and his base will suddenly evaporate.

On the other hand, if Bishop wins – Trump, his candidates and his fans will gloat gleefully and forge ahead with their mutually beneficial alliance. We need to divide and conquer now!

This race is a chance to deliver a devastating, preemptive strike against Trump. One dollar spent on this race now will have far, far greater impact than a dollar spent down the line. We all need to reflect on that and consider how we can help McCready knock the wind out of that bloviating Trump and his minions on September 10.

This Washington Times article is from a couple weeks ago, but its analysis is still spot on as the race continues neck-and-neck:

The Republican Party is hitting the panic button and pouring money into a special election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District.

Republicans have held the seat since 1963, but …, this year’s race is a dead heat, according to GOP insiders who fear President Trump’s party will suffer a major embarrassment if they lose the first test of the 2020 cycle.

Republican state Sen. Dan Bishop faces Democrat Dan McCready in the 9th District, which stretches across south-central North Carolina from Charlotte to Fayetteville.

The special election is a do-over of last year’s midterm contest in which Republican Mark Harris beat Mr. McCready by 905 votes but the results were scratched because of absentee ballot fraud linked to the Harris campaign.

Following the high drama of the election scandal, both sides say voters have tuned out the summer campaigns and extremely low turnout expected for the Sept. 10 special election make the outcome a crapshoot.

Democrats are licking their chops about winning a district Mr. Trump carried by 11 points in 2016.

“If Dan McCready wins that election, Republicans will be running scared across the country,” said Thomas Mills, a Democratic strategist and commentator in North Carolina.

North Carolina GOP Chairman Michael Whatley described Mr. Bishop as playing catch-up in the race but voiced optimism he would win.
…
Mr. Bishop gained national prominence as the author of the state’s “bathroom bill” that required people to use the public restrooms corresponding with their biological sex. The 2016 law touched off protests and boycotts of North Carolina before it was repealed a year later as part of a bipartisan deal.
…
Eyeing [low] turnout, Mr. Bishop is playing strictly to the GOP base with a pro-Trump message. He is promising to fight “crazy liberal clowns” in Washington.

Mr. McCready, a Marine veteran, is running a replay of the midterm race with a focus on health care reform, the same message that helped get enough moderate Democrats elected last year to take control of the House.

He is also avoiding attacks on Mr. Trump that could energize his opponent’s supporters.

“This campaign is for the people who bring us together and put country before political party and fight for people again instead of this broken partisan politics,” Mr. McCready said at a candidate forum Monday…
…
In recent weeks, two GOP groups [the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Congressional Leadership Fund] poured $4 million into TV ads to boost Mr. Bishop. …
…
Democratic committees … are funneling money into a get-out-the-vote effort.

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#295

Link courtesy of currentstatus.io.

It’s nice to have some encouraging news over the holiday! :sunny:

This article is hard to excerpt since it’s concisely written as it is. So if you’re interested in how our chances of taking the Senate keep improving (having moved from “nigh impossible” to “actually doable”), I’ll leave it to you to read this analysis. Or you could catch Chuck Todd’s 90-second video explainer at the top of the article.

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#296

What goes around, comes around. Turns out that Collins’s vote for Kavanaugh is costing her dearly. It could even be the nail in the coffin of her re-election chances. The latest fall out from that vote is that she may be losing the support from unions that were so instrumental to her previous Senate campaign victories…

Some labor unions that helped U.S. Sen. Susan Collins win in 2014 say it’s too early to decide whether they’ll support her again in 2020 as her Democratic opponents courted workers over the Labor Day weekend.

Collins, a Republican, was supported by several labor unions in her last re-election race. Her campaign touted the endorsements heavily, and they were notable because unions typically support Democrats, though her race was uncompetitive and she won with two-thirds of votes.

Things could be different in 2020. Collins’ seat is expected the subject of one of the most expensive Senate campaigns of the 2020 cycle after her key October vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Democrats have used that vote to try to tie Collins — a pro-abortion rights Republican who voted against her party in 2017 to preserve the Affordable Care Act — to her more conservative colleagues on health care policy. But unions also took issue with his nomination.

Last year, the liberal AFL-CIO said Kavanaugh has “a dangerous track record of protecting the privileges of the wealthy and powerful at the expense of working people.” That sentiment and more competitive race could create an issue for Collins with groups that backed her in the past.

Collins’ 2014 endorsements included all four Bath Iron Works unions, a construction workers union covering Massachusetts and northern New England, two statewide police unions and four local firefighter unions. The Maine AFL-CIO backed Shenna Bellows, her longshot Democratic challenger five years ago.

Three unions — the BIW Local S6, the LiUNA Local 327 and the Maine State Police Association — that previously endorsed Collins say factors like health care, job security, labor rights and Collins’ support of Kavanaugh are weighing on their minds.

Several unions said ahead of the Labor Day weekend the process of deciding who — and if — to endorse will not start for at least a few more months.
…
Two of Collins’ Democratic opponents, House Speaker Sara Gideon and lobbyist Betsy Sweet, were courting union voters over the holiday weekend. They attended a Southern Maine Labor Council breakfast in Portland on Monday and Central Maine Labor Council barbeque in Winslow on Sunday and planned to hit other events on Monday. …

Here’s a great article about how Collins’s popularity has plummeted (the headline says it all):

And here’s an encouraging article about how one of the Democratic challengers, Sara Gideon, is an experienced heavy hitter with a solid chance of flipping Collins’s seat to Blue.

Sen. Susan Collins hasn’t even announced she’s running for reelection, but she already has a serious Democratic challenger angling to take her down. Last week, Democrat Sara Gideon announced her campaign for Senate in Maine. As speaker of the state House of Representatives, Gideon could be the challenger Democrats need to defeat Collins, who first won her seat in 1996. Maine’s Democratic lean and Collins’s increasingly polarized profile could make the incumbent vulnerable, and Gideon’s entry into the race reflects this.

Experienced candidates are better candidates. Political scientists have found that candidates who have previously held elected office tend to do well in congressional elections because they have qualities that make them more electable, such as strong political skills and connections to donors. But importantly, experienced challengers are also more likely to run when they believe they have at least a decent chance of winning.

And based on Maine’s political makeup, it’s easy to see why Gideon thinks she has a chance of defeating Collins. As the table below shows, Collins holds the most Democratic-leaning seat held by a Republican that’s on the ballot in 2020, based on FiveThirtyEight’s partisan lean metric…

Naysayers said we couldn’t take the House in 2018. But we did … resoundingly. So again in 2020, let’s just say “no” to naysayers. We can take the Senate and we will take the Senate. Onward! :muscle:

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#297

Ok…a big win for heading off the prolific R gerrymandering…a win in N. Carolina.

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#298

Good news! :+1:

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin (WV) is not up for re-election in 2020 so he will now simply hang on to his seat (he dosen’t run again 2024). However, if he had decided to leave the Senate this year and run for Governor of West Virginia, then his seat would have been up for grabs in 2020 – and it would have been almost impossible to keep the seat Blue in such a Red state.

Now, thanks to Manchin’s decision to stay in the Senate, we know that the seat will remain securely Democratic in 2020, plus we won’t need to divert time and money from other crucial races to ward off a Republican take over of the seat.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., will not mount a gubernatorial campaign in his home state, a move which helps the odds of Democrats regaining control of the upper chamber in the 2020 elections.
…
His potential gubernatorial ambitions roused concern among Democrats. Although Manchin has been criticized by some in the party as insufficiently liberal, he represents a state that voted for President Donald Trump by 42 points in the 2016 election. Thus, it would have been an uphill battle for another Democrat to win Manchin’s seat if had decided to step down. …

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#299

Warren picks up Jay Inslee’s climate policy. :boom::raised_hands:

Ms. Warren’s new climate plan explicitly adopts ideas from Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington, who focused his presidential campaign on combating climate change but dropped out last month after it became clear he was unlikely to qualify for the next primary debate. Ms. Warren met with Mr. Inslee last week in Seattle, according to two people familiar with their discussions.

“While his presidential campaign may be over, his ideas should remain at the center of the agenda,” Ms. Warren wrote in her new climate plan.

Mr. Inslee released six detailed climate plans, totaling over 200 pages, which were widely praised by environmental policy experts for their rigor. He said he hoped they would help “raise the ambition” of other candidates’ climate policies, and he has since had conversations with several candidates about how to incorporate his ideas into their plans, said his former campaign spokesman, Jared Leopold.

In her new proposal, Ms. Warren adopts Mr. Inslee’s plan to eliminate planet-warming emissions from power plants, vehicles and buildings over 10 years, and adds an additional $1 trillion in spending to subsidize that transition. The spending would be paid for, she says, by reversing the Trump administration’s tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations.

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#300

Texas is seeing another R member of Congress decide to leave - Rep Bill Flores will not seek re-election.

More potential for turning this Red-Purple state more Blue. :slight_smile:

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#301

:eyes:

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#302

A lot can be learned from Canada’s approach to securing their elections…very pro-active and setting out wih smart strategies against the dark, foreign campaigns to disrupt democracies.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government passed new transparency rules last year for online political ads that run on platforms including Facebook and Twitter — further than what’s required in the U.S. It ordered the country’s usually tight-lipped intelligence services to go public about foreign threats. Canada also housed a G-7 project to share the latest intelligence between allies about possible foreign disinformation and created a non-partisan group to warn political parties and the public about outside interference.

“The way the Canadians have responded to the problem of technology and democracy is much more impressive than what we’ve seen in Washington,” said Ben Scott, a former Hillary Clinton official, now based in Toronto, who has tracked disinformation campaigns in elections across the West. “Pound for pound, Canada is way ahead of the U.S. in terms of policy development on these issues.”

…

Not all successful…as there are some targetted campaigns against certain people. Ie Christa Freelman.

Russia, for instance, banned Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland because of her support for[ sanctions (Foreign Affairs Minister Freeland rejects Russian offer to lift travel ban - The Globe and Mail) and targeted her in an online smear campaign. Saudi Arabia became angry after Freeland promoted human rights in the Middle Eastern country. China also arrested Canadiansand blocked imports of Canadian canola and meatfollowing the arrest of senior Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition request.

But with many of Canada’s new tactics yet to be tested by real-world attacks, some lawmakers and officials are skeptical the country can successfully fend off online disinformation, cyberattacks and other foreign interference.

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#303

Rep Sensenbrenner (R-WI) not running. Can not do much if the Dems hold Congress.

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