Previous | Next | Senate page
New polls: AZ CA NC OH TX WI
Dem pickups: AZ FL GA MI OH PA WI
GOP pickups: (None)
Note: We have updated a number of Senate races after Tuesday's primaries.
Esper Doesn't Want the Army to Fight Americans...
In politics, a week is a long time. Have we mentioned that before? A week ago, all the news was about COVID-19 and opening the economy and the 100,000 Americans who have died from the disease. Now: COVID-19 is on the back-burner, and the news is about whether the U.S. Army will fight—Americans. Donald Trump doesn't see any problems with that. It's his army after all. However, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper isn't quite on the same page as Trump. Yesterday, he said that he doesn't want that. Specifically: "The option to use active duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort, and only in the most urgent and dire of situations. We are not in one of those situations now. I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act." He went on to say that the killing of George Floyd was a "horrible crime" and the officers who committed it should be held accountable.
Once in a while, a senator contradicts Trump, only to back down when the inevitable tweet is launched. It is very rare, however, for a high-ranking member of the administration to openly contradict Trump. Usually, when administration members displease Trump, they are fired, demoted, or pushed into the background (see: Fauci, St. Anthony).
Will Esper now be dumped? It seems unlikely, because if Trump did that, the new nominee would face a Senate committee with all the members asking: "Do you approve of using the military against Americans who are exercising their right to protest?" Anyone who said "Yup!" is not likely to get confirmed and anyone who said "Nope" will be destroyed in the media if he subsequently allows it. That said, Trump could fire Esper and avoid a confirmation battle by naming an acting secretary until the election. However, the optics of putting an un-vetted and unconfirmed person in the job, and then having them oversee the use of armed force against private citizens, are just a tad bit authoritarian, to say the least. (V)
...and Jim Mattis Agrees
It is not too common for a sitting cabinet secretary to very publicly oppose the president under whom they serve. And it is not too common for a former cabinet secretary to rip into the president under whom they served. These days, however, the uncommon, the unusual, and the unheard of have become familiar. And so it is that at the same time Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is publicly trying to tap the brakes on Donald Trump's "open fire on the citizenry" plan, Esper's predecessor—Jim Mattis—issued a statement ripping Donald Trump a new one.
The former secretary and retired Marine Corps general is unimpressed with Trump's leadership, to say the least. After expressing strong opposition to turning American cities into "battlespaces," Mattis wrote:
Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.
So, yeah, not exactly a glowing review of the fellow in the White House.
Over the past three years, the 60% or so of Americans who are not Trump's base have marveled at how easily the 40% who are part of the base can dismiss bad behavior by, criticism of, and adverse information about the President. Even so, ignoring the words of a 44-year career military officer, one who actually served as opposed to claiming bone spurs, really takes it to another level. And yet, Mattis surely will be ignored by the Trump faithful.
For those who might like a silver lining, though, there is one here. Mattis' letter, and Esper's pushback for that matter, are excellent proof of concept of something we've said numerous times: If Trump tries to stay in office beyond the expiration of his term, there is no chance that the military establishment plays along. And without its backing, Trump would merely become the world's highest-profile trespasser, right up until he became the highest-profile person in the world to be jailed for trespassing. (Z)
The CIA Is Worried--about America
CIA analysts are familiar with the pattern. People are very angry with the government. They pour into the streets, they scream and yell, and they set fires. The government mounts a show of force to show who's in charge and to project power. Usually the army is called out to start shooting. Often the government wins but sometimes an unpopular leader is driven out, as were the Shah of Iran and Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine.
Now, the scenario may be playing out in real time in the United States. Gail Helt, a former CIA analyst who studied popular protest movements in Asia and elsewhere said of the developments this week: "This is what happens in countries before a collapse. It really does unnerve me."
Marc Polymeropoulos, who formerly ran the CIA's operations in Europe and Asia, said about the tear gas and rubber bullets: "It reminded me of what I reported on for years in the third world. Saddam. Bashar. Qaddafi. They all did this." Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), who worked at the CIA before being elected to the House, said: "As a former CIA officer, I know this playbook." Other CIA officials told the Post that the administration's militaristic response is something they would flag as an unstable regime in trouble if they were writing this up about a foreign country.
But there are other consequences as well. Brett McGurk, a former top envoy to the Middle East, said that the president's actions would embolden other autocrats around the world. After all, how could the U.S. complain if Turkey or Saudi Arabia or China used tanks and military weapons to attack protesters if Trump wants to do the same thing? He also said it is pretty tough to lecture other countries about the virtues of democracy if your own country wants to use the army to stop legal protests. (V)
Senate Republicans Are Against More $1,200 Checks
Although COVID-19 and unemployment are off the front pages this week, they are still very much around. Consequently, the Senate may grudgingly pass another relief bill. However, Republican senators are very skeptical about sending out another round of $1,200 checks, or any other form of aid to people hurt by the economic crisis. For example, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who is on the Senate Finance Committee, said: "Most folks are very grateful for the help at that point. But I don't think we should set up a situation where we're doing a check month after month after month." Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) called another round of checks "unlikely." Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) put it this way: "I'm not enthused about another round of rebate checks." Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has long been on record opposing more checks.
Given that opposition from Republicans, House Democrats are pushing for aid to cash-strapped state and local governments and for doing something about the ineffective Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program. Also potentially on the agenda is help to Social Security recipients who have no other source of income.
Despite their ideological opposition to giving free money to anyone, many Republican senators realize that the economy is not going to fix itself before November and their jobs may depend on that little problem. Consequently, they may eventually pass a bill along the lines of what the Democrats are asking for, provided that it doesn't provide any direct aid to people (except Social Security recipients, who skew Republican). Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), for example, has sponsored a bill giving free money to companies who rehire workers they recently laid off. Something like that might attract enough support to pass. (V)
Thirty Percent of the Voters Think the Country is Doing Well
Politico's headline for this Morning Consult poll is "Americans think America is in bad shape." The actual numbers are 69% of the voters think the country is on the wrong track and 31% think it is on the right track. We think the real news here is that despite more than 100,000 Americans dead from a disease that continues to rage, an unemployment rate that is officially 15% but in reality much higher, and riots from coast to coast, nearly a third of the country thinks everything is hunky dory. Americans are clearly an optimistic bunch. It's pretty amazing. What would it take for everyone to think things weren't doing well? An asteroid hit wiping out 100 million people? A Chinese invasion and occupation of the country? A full-blown nuclear attack from North Korea? Another "Jersey Shore" reboot?
Although the 31% "right direction" is a new low for the Morning Consult poll, it is only 3 points lower than last week. Still, it is down 12 points from February, before the coronavirus raised its ugly little head (OK, viruses don't have heads, but that sounds better than its 74 glycoprotein homotrimetric spikes).
Will this hurt Trump's reelection chances? Maybe, but both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama won reelection when the number of people saying the country was on the right track was low. Political observers tend to look at the president's approval rating as a better indicator of his reelection chances than the right track/wrong track question. Currently. Trump's approval is 41% and his disapproval is 55% and those numbers are basically stable. Trump knows that he probably can't improve his disapproval numbers much, so he is not going to try. What he will do is spend tens of millions of dollars to try to drag Joe Biden's numbers even lower than his. That's really his only chance. (V)
The NRSC Wakes Up
After months of radio silence (and television silence), the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has decided it is time to begin answering Democratic attack ads in key Senate races, especially in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, and North Carolina. For most of this year, Democrats have been raising mountains of cash for Senate races and spending it to go after Republican incumbents with hammer and tongs. This has resulted in polling that shows the Democrats likely to capture the Senate. The NRSC has seen these polls, of course, and has decided to fight tongs with tongs. The intention is to flood the air with negative ads attacking the challengers in all the close states. The initial round of investment will be $33 million. The first states on the agenda are Arizona, Michigan, and Maine. The others will follow.
Of course, Democrats aren't going to stop advertising just because Republicans are starting. They have more money and are going to step up their game. When many people are unhappy with how things are going, it is easier to run "throw the bums out" ads rather than "stay the course" ads. Also, incumbents always have made votes that are going to anger some constituents and ads can remind people of that. You may have forgotten that Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, but by October, every man, woman, child, dog, and moose in Maine is going to hear about this—five times a day.
In contrast, what is the NRSC going to say about Theresa Greenfield (D) in Iowa? She's never been in politics and has no track record. Furthermore, she's had a tough life and survived (her family almost lost their farm is the 1980s farm crisis and later her husband died just before she gave birth to her second child). In the computer security world, one might say there isn't much of an attack surface there. What are they going to say about Mark Kelly (D) in Arizona? That he flew too fast when he was a Navy pilot in the Gulf War? That he didn't bring enough potato chips when he flew in the Endeavour in 2001 to resupply the International Space Station? It is simply harder to attack challengers than incumbents because the ad makers have less material to work with. Typically, incumbent ads talk about all the great things the incumbents have done and how many tons of bacon they have brought home, but Congress' only significant legislation since 2017 is the tax cut, and that is quite unpopular.
The state that has had the most spending on its Senate race this cycle has been Maine, despite its small population. Challenger Sara Gideon (D) has spent $14 million already and Collins has spent $10 million. In Arizona, Kelly and his allies have spent $6 million to $3 million for Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ). The biggest gap, though, is Colorado, where John Hickenlooper's (D) team has outspent that of Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) $4 million to $330,000. The new NRSC campaign is intended to right the ship. (V)
Trump Is Betting the Farm on the Suburbs
Richard Nixon gambled that the riots that occurred in 1968 after the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, and at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, would play badly in the suburbs and he could win the election there. He got it right and it worked (although other factors were at play as well; see below). Could it work for Trump?
It's complicated. Most of Trump's support in 2016 did not come from rural areas, as is widely believed. Yes, he won rural counties by huge margins, but they are thinly populated. That is true in both red states and in blue states. In Illinois, for example, DuPage County, west of Chicago's Cook County, has more people than Illinois' 45 least populous counties combined. There aren't any more votes to be squeezed out of rural counties and the cities detest Trump. Consequently, Trump lives or dies by what happens in suburban counties, which he won by 4 points in 2016. If voters there are repelled by the images of people burning or looting stores and decide that what the country needs is to come down hard on lawbreakers, it could propel Trump to victory again.
But the suburbs of 2020 aren't the suburbs of 1968. They are more diverse than they used to be. Blue-collar workers have moved to the suburbs in large numbers in the past 50 years and well-off suburbanites have moved to gentrifying cities. This means that Trump can't send off mailings with carefully crafted messages to certain zip codes and expect to hit a homogeneous population.
Also important is that in 1968, the suburbs were all nice houses with nice yards and nice white picket fences and the yards were full of nice kids and nice dogs and were quite Republican-friendly to start with, such that the law-and-order message was quickly accepted. The suburbs are anything but Republican-friendly now. The Democrats picked up most of their new 40 House seats in the suburbs in 2018 and the affluent professionals there mostly dislike or even despise Trump. Will they suddenly come to love him on account of the riots? Whom will they blame? If they see the main issue here as civil rights, affluent professionals will side with Democrats. If they see the main issue here as lawlessness, they could side with the Republicans. Thus the framing of the riots could be critical. If they are seen as the consequence of a fight against police racism, the Democrats will win the suburbs. If they are seen as criminals committing arson and theft, the Republicans will win the suburbs. The battle for public opinion now is probably more important than the battle for the streets. (V)
Is Trump Nixon or Johnson?
The year 1968 is much in the news now because there are many similarities with then and now: An angry country, for various reasons, and now riots. That the causes of the anger aren't exactly the same doesn't change the fact that a lot of people (69% according to the poll cited above), are in a sour mood. Consequently, many writers, us included, are wondering out loud if Trump is the second coming of Richard Nixon. Historian Joshua Zeitz has written a piece that takes a different view of Trump and 1968. He argues that Trump is the second coming of Lyndon Johnson.
Nixon's message wasn't just about law-and-order and the riots. It was about the economy (inflation then), racial unrest, crime, the sexual revolution, and changes in society that made many voters fearful, and all this against the background of the unpopular war in Vietnam. When things are going badly in the country, the person who tends to get the blame is the president, then Lyndon Johnson. A lot of that unhappiness rubbed off on his veep, Hubert Humphrey. Respected Journalist Walter Lippmann then said: "The world has never been more disorderly within memory of living man." Just replace "living man" by "anyone living" and you have a pretty good description of June 2020.
Zeitz says that to understand 1968, you have to go back to 1964. Barry Goldwater ran a racist campaign long before Nixon discovered his "Southern strategy." But the country was in good shape in 1964, so it didn't catch on because up until 1964, people generally voted in their own economic interest and the economy was good. By 1968, everything had deteriorated, so dog whistles about crime and references to dirty smelly hippies were much more potent. Nixon tried to get people to forget their own economic interests and vote their view of a proper society (in other words, what later became the culture wars). Blue-collar workers who had been Democrats for decades and didn't like what was going on in the country warmed to Nixon's call to return the country to what it had been only a few years earlier.
Nixon and Humphrey weren't the only candidates in 1968. George Wallace ran on the slogan "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." For younger readers who don't even know what he was talking about, "segregation" means no "colored" people at white restaurants, white neighborhoods, white waiting rooms at bus terminals, white schools, white universities, and white a lot of other things. Here is a common sign from those times.
Wallace carried five states in the deep South, which got him 46 electoral votes. He conflated civil rights advocates with rioters and aimed a lot of his fire at "over-educated ivory-tower folks with pointed heads looking down their noses at us." Sound familiar? The more the pointy-headed intellectuals attacked Wallace, the more popular he became (sound familiar?). He decried the use of four-letter words used by the dirty smelly hippies and said he had a couple of new ones for them: S-O-A-P and W-O-R-K. In the end, Wallace helped Nixon by siphoning off blue-collar workers who had been Democrats since FDR was in office and who would otherwise probably have mostly broken for Humphrey on economic issues.
Zeitz says Trump pretends to be Richard Nixon and George Wallace combined, but in reality, he is the incumbent Lyndon Johnson, who has lost control of the machine. Just imagine that Trump were running against President Hillary Clinton with 100,000 people dead from COVID-19, the economy in shambles, corruption that makes the Harding administration look like a Sunday school choir, and riots in the streets. Also imagine that she had already been impeached for abuse of power. Nixon and Wallace were outsiders who successfully blamed Johnson for everything that was wrong with the country. Trump may walk like Nixon and talk like Wallace, but he looks like Johnson. In the end, his party, like Johnson's, is in charge and it's mighty hard to run an insurgent campaign when your party occupies the White House, and controls the Senate and Supreme Court. (V)
Biden Plans to Attend George Floyd's Funeral
One strategy Joe Biden is slowly adopting is this: Since the President is not acting like a president, he should act like a president. Specifically, he is planning to attend George Floyd's funeral in Houston next week. Floyd was originally from Houston.
What a contrast it will be if Trump avoids the funeral and Biden goes there and gives a speech talking about how America's original sin hasn't been absolved and how we need a new civil rights movement to stop the senseless killings of unarmed black men and new laws to punish the perpetrators. He could even quote parts of the famous speech Bobby Kennedy gave standing on a flatbed truck in a black area of Indianapolis the day Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It would make him look presidential and Trump look like an angry and petty little man. (V)
Bush Administration Officials Form a Pro-Biden Super PAC
A number of officials from George W. Bush's administration have formed a Super PAC to support Joe Biden and filed the paperwork with the FEC. The group is called 43 Alumni for Biden. The organizer is apparently Karen Kirksey, who served in Bush's treasury department. It isn't known whether Bush is even aware of the project, let alone whether he supports it or whom he plans to vote for. It is no secret that Barack Obama supports Biden 100% and will campaign for him. Once he is out there (or "in there," as the case may be in this campaignless campaign), no doubt reporters are going to ask Bush whom he supports and whom he plans to vote for. It's hard to imagine that he supports Trump or even likes him, but so far his postpresidency has been about painting, not politicking. But if he were to join this new group and openly say: "I'm voting for Biden but also for John Cornyn for the Senate," Trump would blow a gasket and say things that would anger many traditional Republicans who still like the Bushes.
This isn't the first group of Republicans now actively working to defeat Trump. The Lincoln Project, which is the brainchild of George Conway and Republican strategists John Weaver and Rick Wilson, is already collecting money and running anti-Trump ads on television and on the Internet.
Yet another batch of anti-Trump Republicans consists of Charlie Sykes, Bill Kristol, and friends, who founded thebulwark.com. It's kind of what the National Review used to be: A somewhat intellectual place where traditional conservatives can gather and discuss politics while drinking their tea. Almost every article on The Bulwark is from a high-profile conservative Republican who hates Trump and makes no bones about it. A few of the articles up there yesterday (and their authors) are:
- Trump should put down the Bible, Open it, and Read (Linda Chavez)
- A Tale of Two Church Visits (Mona Charen)
- This is How Kent State Happened (Johnathan Last)
- Trump's Republican National Convention and the Psychology of Obedience (David Shaywitz)
What is absent from this picture is a "Democrats for Trump" group populated by the alumni of the Obama and Clinton administrations. It doesn't exist. And no, Dick Morris doesn't count. (V)
Is the Fight for the House Already Over?
None of the major political handicappers—Charlie Cook, Larry Sabato, and Nathan Gonzales—think that the Republicans have any chance to win the House. They simply don't see it as being in play. All the Party needs is to flip 17 seats. What is even more remarkable is that 30 House Democrats are from districts that Donald Trump won in 2016 while only six Republicans are in Clinton districts. So it ought to be child's play, but none of the election gurus think it is even doable, let alone easy.
The big problem is the guy at the head of the ticket. Trump alienated so many college-educated whites in his first two years in office that he personally turned over around 20-30 suburban districts to Democrats in 2018 (depending on what exactly qualifies as "suburban"). Since then, he not only has not changed his abrasive style, but has doubled down and called people names, lied, and pushed policies from health care to gun rights that don't play well at all in the suburbs. Democratic candidates are going to hang Trump's comments around the necks of GOP House candidates like an albatross.
In addition, in many districts, Republican challengers have the wrong stuff. The candidates who might have been competitive were swept away in Republican primaries across the country, where each candidate claimed to be Trumpier than all the others. Combine that with a massive Democratic fundraising lead and the GOP has a big problem in the newly Democratic districts. In addition, even more Republican seats are in danger. In 11 districts with an incumbent Republican representative, the Democratic challenger has outraised the incumbent. This is a very unusual and a bad omen for the GOP. There are only three districts with a Democratic incumbent who has been outraised by a Republican challenger.
Another Republican failure lies in recruiting. Consider, for example, NY-19. It covers all or part of 10 counties north of New York City and is largely rural and mostly white. In 2018, Antonio Delgado (D), a black lawyer with no previous political experience, knocked off John Faso (R) by 5 points. The district is R+2 so it should be competitive, but Delgado has only nominal opposition this year and will glide to a second term.
Even when the Republicans got a solid candidate, it's often going to be a steep hill to climb. In NJ-07, the Republicans got Tom Kean Jr., the state Senate minority leader and son of a popular former Republican governor, to run against a first-term Democrat, Rep. Tom Malinowski. Even though the district is R+3, all three handicappers rate it as leans Democratic. There are many examples like these two. For these reasons, none of the handicappers see a Republican takeover of the House as plausible. (V)
New Mexico May Have a House Delegation Consisting Entirely of Women of Color
The results of Tuesday's primary may very well lead to a situation in which all three of New Mexico's seats in the House are occupied by women of color. Here is the lineup for November, where an asterisk denotes an incumbent:
| District | PVI | Location | Democrat | Republican |
| NM-01 | D+7 | Albuquerque area | Debra Haaland* | Michelle Garcia Holmes |
| NM-02 | R+6 | Southern New Mexico | Xochitl Torres Small* | Yvette Herrell |
| NM-03 | D+8 | Northern New Mexico | Teresa Leger Fernandez | Alexis Johnson (probably) |
NM-01 is heavily Democratic, so Rep. Debra Haaland (D-NM), a member of the Laguna Pueblo Tribe, is likely to beat Michelle Garcia Holmes, who is a Latina. Either way, it is a woman of color.
NM-02 leans Republican, so Yvette Herrell has at least some chance of unseating Xochitl Torres Small, the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants. Herrell is a member of the Cherokee Nation, so no matter who wins, it will be a woman of color.
NM-03 is the most Democratic district in the state, so Teresa Leger Fernandez, a Latina, is the likely winner of the seat currently occupied by Ben-Ray Luján, who is retiring and running for the Senate. The likely Republican candidate in NM-03 is Alexis Johnson, who is also a Latina, but that race hasn't been called yet. But even if one of the other candidates wins the GOP nomination, Fernandez is the strong favorite.
While other states have an all-female House delegation, none currently has a multi-person delegation made up entirely of women of color. (though Hawaii had one in the past, and Delaware's sole representative right now is a woman of color). (V)
Today's Presidential Polls
Today we have the tenth consecutive poll showing Joe Biden ahead in Arizona. Donald Trump is going to have to spend a lot of money in once-red Arizona. There is a fairly good chance that come January, its 11 electoral votes will be cast for the Democrat and the counting in Congress will be witnessed by two Democratic senators from Arizona. North Carolina is going to be close. Expect it to flip back and forth all year. This is not due to any change in people's preferences, but when the true difference between Biden and Trump is maybe 1% and the margin of error in the polls in 4%, this is what happens. Ditto Ohio.
What should really worry Brad Parscale are the polls in Texas and Wisconsin. We doubt Biden can win Texas in the end, but it is not supposed to be a statistical tie. This has to be worrisome because there are many red states that haven't been polled and as Texas goes, so goes Oklahoma. And Nebraska. And other red states. Michigan and Pennsylvania are the two "easy" Rust Belt states for Biden. Wisconsin is the tough one. But Biden is up by 9 points there. Oops. (V)
| State | Biden | Trump | Start | End | Pollster |
| Arizona | 46% | 42% | May 30 | Jun 02 | Fox News |
| California | 57% | 33% | May 17 | May 26 | Public Policy Inst. of Calif. |
| North Carolina | 44% | 47% | May 26 | May 28 | Harper Polling |
| Ohio | 45% | 43% | May 30 | Jun 02 | Fox News |
| Texas | 43% | 44% | May 28 | Jun 01 | Quinnipiac U. |
| Wisconsin | 49% | 40% | May 30 | Jun 02 | Fox News |
Today's Senate Polls
The Arizona Senate race is even worse for the GOP than the presidential race. There have now been 12 consecutive polls of it, going back to Jan. 4, showing Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) about to become former senator Martha McSally. The North Carolina Senate race is going to be as close as the presidential race there. North Carolina is going to be ground zero of this election. (V)
| State | Democrat | D % | Republican | R % | Start | End | Pollster |
| Arizona | Mark Kelly | 50% | Martha McSally* | 37% | May 30 | Jun 02 | Fox News |
| North Carolina | Cal Cunningham | 36% | Thom Tillis* | 38% | May 26 | May 28 | Harper Polling |
* Denotes incumbent
Back to the main page