There Is a Solar Eclipse Today

The big news today is the total eclipse of the sun—at least, for people with a Ph.D. in astrophysics who wrote a thesis on the sun's atmosphere, like (V). Also for people who want to use Big Data to study astronomy, like this:

But this is a politics-oriented site so we need a connection between the sun and politics. How about: "We are near solar max and it is making the politicians crazier than usual?" Nah, solar max is too hard to predict exactly; it could be next year instead of this year.

But wait. Large Marge to the rescue! Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), always a good source for exciting political news, tweeted: "God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent. Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens." And don't forget, after her earlier comment about Jewish space lasers causing wildfires, she is a recognized authority on the causality between space and stuff down here on the earth. The Good News here is that after repenting, we get 20 years to party again, as the next solar eclipse visible in the U.S. will not be until August 2044.

We will know by this evening whether the eclipse happened; it's the interpretation that is the difficult part. Greene isn't the only one who connects celestial mechanics with the Bible. Watch this video. It's 8 minutes long, but extremely well produced and shows the connection between the war in Ukraine, the Hebrew alphabet, the 2022 midterm elections, and the eclipse. You can't make this stuff up.

Anyway, enjoy the eclipse, and even if you are a staunch supporter of the former president, PLEASE do not look at the sun today without protective glasses as he did during the 2017 eclipse.

If you do, you may not be able to read our blog tomorrow. Or see anything again. Ever. So please be careful. In a pinch, try a home-made camera obscura and look at the projected image of the sun, not the sun itself. That is completely safe. This technique for studying solar eclipses goes back centuries. (V)

The Money Is Flowing Like Water

The Biden campaign has announced that it pulled in $90 million in March, compared to the $66 million that the Trump campaign raised in the same period. Joe Biden has raised $422 million since he started his campaign in April 2023. Biden now has $192 million in the bank, more than double the $93 million Donald Trump has. The Biden campaign said that 96% of its money came in small (under $200) donations. Fundraising is one of the bright spots for Biden, since his approval rating tends to hover around 40% and Trump has been leading in most national and swing-state polls.

However, an event Trump hosted at the home of a billionaire in Palm Beach, FL, on Saturday raised over $50 million. This is more than the three-presidents event in New York last month, which raised $26 million in one day, so Trump's April totals may beat Biden's. Trump is planning another big shindig on Wednesday in Atlanta.

It looks like these huge fundraisers are now back in style for both parties. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there weren't many such events. Now they are roaring back. Big donors love fancy events with celebrities and photo ops. Biden has the advantage of the availability of two former Democratic presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who can show up at events. Clinton is popular with boomers; Obama is popular with younger voters. The other living former Republican president, George W. Bush, hates Trump and won't help him.

Going forward, Biden has two advantages in terms of fundraising. First, Democratic small donors may not be worn out yet, whereas Republican ones are really getting tired of receiving eight fundraising e-mails a day, which they've been getting now for years and years. Second, all the money Biden raises goes to his campaign. With Trump, a substantial amount is going to pay his numerous lawyers. (V)

Time to Swing

Have you ever wondered what would happen if young voters turned out at the same rate as seniors, or Donald Trump captured 40% of the Black vote? Now you can try out many different scenarios thanks to an interactive model built by the crew at FiveThirtyEight, which no longer has Nate Silver as chief cook and bottle washer. It is called the Swing-O-Matic. The model slices and dices the electorate five ways: by age, education, sex, income, and race. You can change how any of the groups votes and their turnout, and see which states flip, what the popular vote will be, and what the electoral vote will be. Here is a screenshot of the model's dashboard based on the exit-poll data from the 2020 election:

Here's how it works, using an example. Suppose you want to know what would happen if voters 18-29 went from D+29 to D+40 and simultaneously increased their turnout from 46% to 60% (for example, on account of abortion). This is what the results would be:

As you can see, North Carolina turns blue and Joe Biden picks up an additional 16 electoral votes. Now let's see what happens additionally if the Black vote for Biden drops from 82% to 60% but the youth vote increases as above. Here's what we get:

Now North Carolina flips back to being red and Georgia goes for Trump as well. This is not surprising since both states have large Black populations and losses among Blacks would hit Biden hard in those states. In this scenario, with Biden doing better among young voters and worse among Black voters, Biden still wins, but with only 287 EVs now. The model is additive and correctly accounts for what happens to young Black voters who would be pulled in opposite directions.

The model has several built-in scenarios to try, but why not just try your hand at changing the parameters and see what happens? As an aside, this could be a valuable tool for either party. If Republicans want to know what is the easiest way to flip, say, Arizona, a staffer could fiddle with the parameters. For example, Arizona has a lot of seniors. So the staffer could increase the Republican edge in the 65+ age bracket from R+11 to R+12, then R+13, etc., one point at a time, to see when Arizona flips. Turns out at R+12, Trump already wins it. This would suggest a strategy of polling Arizona seniors to find out what their biggest issues are and then planning a campaign there to increase Trump's margin from 11 points to 12 points among seniors.

Similarly, Democrats could play with the model to see what it takes to flip North Carolina. There are many Black voters in North Carolina, so how about seeing what happens if their turnout increases. Turns out going from 60% turnout among Blacks to 65% turnout doesn't do the job. But going to 66% turnout among Blacks turns North Carolina blue. That suggests a strategy of opening offices in all the big cities of North Carolina, working with Black churches, and getting lots of new Black voters registered and informed about the election. Maybe get the pastors of the Black churches to talk about how important voting is in swingy North Carolina. Stuff like that. As long as the pastors just preach about getting registered and voting and don't give advice about who to vote for, they are in the clear.

One thing you might want to explore is a possible electoral realignment. There is some tentative evidence that Biden is doing worse with young voters than 4 years ago but better with older voters. Maybe this is specific to Biden, rather than to partisanship in general. Possibly younger voters see Biden as an old fogey and seniors also see him as an old fogey. They just disagree on whether fogeyism is a bad thing or a good thing. It could also be about Israel (older voters tend to be more sympathetic) vs. Palestine (younger voters tend to be more sympathetic). But again, abortion could work against all of this.

By all means, play with the tool, but not until you have finished reading the blog. We have plenty of other important news items today. And thank you, FiveThirtyEight, for producing this marvelous tool! (V)

Today's Abortion News

You are going to hear about abortion every day if the Democrats have anything to say about it. Here's today's abortion dump:

• Ballot initiatives: Abortion might be on the ballot in as many as 11 States in November. Abortion measures have already qualified in New York, Maryland and Florida, and are in progress in eight other states, as shown on this map.
  
  
  
  The status of the initiative varies quite a bit from state to state. In Arizona, organizers already have enough signatures, but need to have them certified. In Arkansas, advocates need to get 91,000 signatures by July 5. In Colorado, there are competing measures, one of which would amend the state Constitution to make abortion legal and one to amend the Constitution to make it a felony. If both pass, we'd kind of be in uncharted waters. The Missouri constitutional amendment to legalize abortion needs 171,500 valid signatures by May 5 but there is also one to ban the procedure completely. In Montana, 60,000 signatures are needed by June 21 to put a measure to legalize abortion on the November ballot. In Nebraska, three competing measures have been proposed; one would make abortion legal until the point of viability, one would ban it after 13 weeks, and one would ban it except to save the life of the mother. The Nevada organizers think they have enough signatures already to get a pro-choice measure on the ballot. The South Dakota measure lays out different procedures for each trimester. It needs 35,000 signatures by May 7. For more information on the initiatives, see this article.
  
  
• Will it help Biden?: It is known that about two-thirds of Americans are pro-choice. But will that translate into votes for Joe Biden? That is the $64,000 question. Right now Biden is facing an enthusiasm gap and possible defections of minority men. It is likely that in states with an abortion initiative on the ballot, some young people who might otherwise not vote might show up to vote on the initiative, but will young voters who are angry with Biden over Gaza also vote for him, or just vote for the initiative and leave it at that?
  
  As to minority voters, many of them, especially religious Latinos who are Catholic, are not automatically votes for either abortion or Biden, and if Biden is tied too closely to abortion, the initiatives and campaign theme may be counterproductive. Also, for many of these voters, economic issues may dominate and some of them may remember the Trump administration fondly, with almost no inflation and government checks with Trump's name on them arriving from time to time.
  
  
• Abortion provider is running for Congress: When Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) announced that he will resign from Congress on April 19, it set off a frenzy in his R+10 district. One of the first people to announce was Dr. Kristin Lyerly, an OB/GYN who performs abortions. In the states above, voters will be able to vote on abortion; in WI-08, they will be able to vote for or against an actual abortion provider. Lyerly has already said that her whole campaign will be about abortion. Since Green Bay is in the district, maybe a bit of attention to the Packers would also be helpful. The district is quite red, but abortion rights are also quite popular, so Lyerly might have a chance.
  
  
• Trump takes a stand: Donald Trump has bravely ventured into the abortion wars. Yesterday he said that as dealmaker-in-chief, he would make a deal that pleased everyone. Only he didn't specify what would be in the deal. He did "suggest," however, that allowing abortions up to the 15th week of pregnancy would make everyone happy.
  
  Good luck with that one. Neither side will accept it. One GOP strategist who has worked on multiple presidential campaigns said: "You're getting the worst of both worlds by pitching a 15-week ban. Pro-life groups still aren't going to be happy, and you're still supporting a nationwide limit that Democrats will attack." Abortion hard-liners, which includes a very large fraction of Republican voters, will see allowing abortion well into the second trimester as legalizing baby murder. They want a (near) total ban, and nothing less. A recent Fox News poll found that 54% of voters oppose a 15-week ban, albeit for various reasons. The idea was tested on a much bigger scale in Virginia in 2023 when Republicans running for the state legislature ran on a 15-week limit as a "reasonable" compromise. This resulted in the Democrats capturing both chambers of the legislature, after having lost the state House in 2022.
  

These are just some of the questions surrounding abortion, but there will surely be more. (V)

Jury Selection Process for Trump's First Trial Is Beginning

As of the moment, Donald Trump's first criminal trial is scheduled to start April 15. Next Monday's headline everywhere: Trump on Trial. Of course, Trump's lawyers will file every conceivable motion they can think of. For example, it is not fair to try him a week after an eclipse because the eclipse is a sign that God is against the trial. Judge Juan Merchan will probably swat all of them down. He's clearly had enough of this.

This trial stuff is starting to be serious. About 500 potential jury members have been sent notices to be at the Manhattan criminal court next Monday. This is a staggering number. They may or may not know that they are in the jury pool. All of them will be asked to fill out extensive questionnaires in an attempt to eliminate people who are overtly biased. One of the questions is "Do you believe the 2020 election was stolen?" The judge and all the lawyers will look at the answer to this and related questions quite keenly.

The survivors will be questioned in court to see if they have already made up their minds about the case. This would be a good opportunity for anyone who doesn't want to be on the jury to show up wearing a MAGA hat and announce that Donald Trump is a god-king and is thus exempt from the laws of the State of New York. Being registered as a Democrat or Republican is not a de facto disqualification.

There may also be people who have already made up their minds and very much want to be on the jury and will try to give the answers they think the judge wants. To try to catch these folks, both sides have jury consultants who will go over the public lives of the potential jurors, to see what Google knows about them and especially what Facebook, eX-Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok know about them. Folks with strong and public opinions about Trump are going to bite the dust here. The group will eventually be whittled down to 12 jury members and several alternates (in case a member or two dies or is incapacitated during the trial). It is almost certain that the names of the jury members will not be made public and the jurors may be hidden behind a screen or even be in a different room during the trial.

Saturday, Trump went after Judge Juan Merchan's gag order, posting: "If this Partisan Hack wants to put me in the clink for speaking the open and obvious TRUTH, I will gladly become a Modern Day Nelson Mandela—It will be my GREAT HONOR" to his boutique-but-overpriced social media website. However, Merchan probably wouldn't do that. More likely if Trump violates the judge's most recent gag order, he will punish Trump by releasing the names of the jurors to the prosecution but not to Trump's lawyers. The gag order specifically said: "Any right he may have to access to juror names will be forfeited by continued harassing or disruptive conduct." This would allow the prosecution to learn more about the jurors to see what kind of arguments might work with them.

Trump's lawyers are sure to claim that it will be impossible to empanel an unbiased jury due to all the pretrial publicity. However, Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg is then going to say the pretrial publicity was caused by Trump himself so it's his own fault. (V)

Democrats Will Spend $186 Million to Retake the House

Democrats need to flip four House seats to get to a majority. They are planning to spend $146 million on TV ads and another $40 million on digital ads in an attempt to do the job. So in case you survive the onslaught of ads for president, you might be hit with an additional onslaught of ads for House seats. However, there are only about 100 seats that are seriously in play, so if you are in one of the other 335 districts you are safe—unless you are in the same media market as a nearby swing seat.

In addition to targeting specific House races, the House Majority PAC will go after certain demographics in those districts. These include Latinos, Asian-Americans, Black voters, and even Republicans who are disgusted by the inability of the House to function at all.

The Democrats will play offense in 16 districts that Joe Biden won in 2020 but that have a Republican representative now. Oddly enough, most of them are in two very blue states, California and New York. The plan is to drop $18 million in the L.A. media market and $17 million in the NYC media market, where several seats are in play. There are also a few in Arizona, Michigan, and maybe even Montana. They will also fight in some districts that Trump won. However, they are also playing defense in many districts where they have to protect a Democrat in a reddish district.

The Republican counterpart has raised $142 million and will fight back vigorously. Our suggestion: Turn off your television until mid-November. (V)

Boebert Will Be Listed First on the CO-04 Primary Ballot

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) decided to switch districts because she almost lost her CO-03 district in 2022 and the same Democrat is running there again. She is going to run in CO-04, in the eastern part of the state. Under Colorado law, getting on the primary ballot is kind of wonky. There are several ways to do it. One is to get 1,500 valid signatures from district residents. Another is to get 30% of the vote from the convention. You can also mix and match.

At the convention, Boebert got 41% of the vote, more than any other candidate and way more than enough to qualify. Nine Republicans tried to get on the ballot. Boebert will definitely make it and will be listed first. Deborah Flora of Douglas County will also be on the ballot. It won't be known until the signatures are verified how many other Republicans made it. In any event, Boebert will be on the ballot and at least one non-Boebert will be there, allowing Republicans who don't like Boebert to vote for someone else. (V)

FCC Will Restore Net Neutrality This Month

Of the many things that Donald Trump did as president that were bad for the country, one of the worst was appointing people to the FCC who eventually abolished net neutrality. This is the principle that Internet providers must treat all content equally. By way of analogy, the USPS operates under "postal neutrality." It would be illegal if Postmaster General Louis DeJoy were to decide that all mail destined for the DNC or election boards in Michigan were to be intentionally delayed for a week. All mail of equal price must be treated equally.

After the FCC, under the leadership of Trump appointee Ajit Pai, eliminated net neutrality, it would have been legal for some Internet provider to slow down all traffic to DailyKos.com and speed up all traffic to FoxNews.com, possibly in return for a monetary payment from Fox to the provider. Also, a provider could legally speed up videos from Amazon Prime while slowing down streaming traffic from Netflix (or vice versa), in return for some moolah. The absence of net neutrality allows Internet providers to pick sides in many matters, from commercial to political, based on money and the CEO's politics.

However, under the leadership of the current FCC chairwoman, Jessica Rosenworcel, the FCC will vote on April 25 on whether to restore net neutrality. Rosenworcel wants to restore it and has the votes to pass it, 3-2. The ruling will take effect 60 days after it is published in the federal register. The next time Republicans have a majority on the FCC, they will probably abolish net neutrality again. The only way to stop this ping-ponging is to have Congress pass a law establishing Internet providers as common carriers. Neither party is against that, per se, but the telephone and cable companies are wildly against it because it makes it impossible for them to squeeze money out of Amazon, Facebook, Google, CNN, and other major websites in return for top-quality service. As far as the phone and cable companies are concerned, they would be happy to provide good service to the 500 most-popular websites on the Internet and turn off the other 200 million.

A related issue is freedom of speech. Nothing about net neutrality deals with that. What Facebook puts on its website is up to Facebook. Net neutrality merely says Verizon and AT&T can't speed up or slow down traffic from Facebook, for example, because some company is paying them either way.

One other issue is that classifying the Internet as a common carrier will give the FCC power to order Internet providers to take certain measures in the name of national security. That could include keeping Chinese telecomm firms completely out of the U.S. and beefing up U.S. infrastructure against foreign, terrorist, and other attacks. (V)

Mississippi Can't Count to Five

After the Republican-controlled Mississippi state legislature decided not to expand Medicaid, even though the federal government would provide 90% of the funding via the Affordable Care Act (as in, "poor people deserve to be sick"), a citizens group tried to bypass the legislature using a ballot initiative. This sort of thing has happened before and is not unusual per se.

What is unusual is that the state Constitution specifically states that ballot initiatives must collect a minimum number of signatures in each of the state's five congressional districts. This was put in to prevent citizens from collecting all the signatures in MS-02, which covers the western 40% of the state (including Jackson, Natchez, and Vicksburg) and is 63% Black. This is the D+11 district of Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), who chaired the 1/6 select committee.

Now here's the problem. In the 2000 reapportionment, Mississippi lost a House seat and now has only four House seats. In 2021, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that the Medicaid initiative was invalid because it didn't have enough signatures from the (nonexistent) MS-05. Specifically, the state Constitution says that no congressional district may supply more than one-fifth of the required number of signatures, which is 12% of the total vote for governor in the most-recent gubernatorial election. So not only did the Medicaid initiative fail, but no new initiatives are possible anymore. At least, not until the state Constitution is amended to say that each district must supply at least N/k valid signatures, where N is 12% of the total vote in the previous gubernatorial election and k is the current number of congressional districts. Maybe if the Mississippi legislature spent more time passing laws requiring all students to take elementary algebra and less time passing laws banning critical race theory, problems like this wouldn't occur. But maybe the legislature considers this a feature of its Constitution, not a bug. (V)

What Happens If an Election Is a Tie?

California's law requiring all-party primaries with the top two finishers advancing to the general election has a well-known problem that sometimes the general election is between two Democrats or two Republicans, leaving millions of voters with no one from their party even on the ballot. But there is another (less-well-known) problem as well. What if the race for second place is an exact tie? Can't happen, you think. Think again. Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), who represents part of Silicon Valley, is retiring. Her district is D+26. Not surprisingly, a number of Democrats decided to jump into the primary.

In the primary, former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo (D) came in first with 38,489 votes, so he made it to the November ballot. Next were state Assemblyman Evan Low (D) and Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian (D), each with exactly 30,249 votes. Oops. Now what? Toss a coin? Nope. California law specifically states "in no case shall the tie be determined by lot." A tie for first place wouldn't be a problem. Both candidates would then duke it out in November. But a tie for second place with no tiebreaker is tough and has never happened before. To make it worse, as absentee ballots drifted slowly in, the lead shifted multiple times during the counting process. It was quite the roller coaster for the candidates. People who didn't vote are now thinking: "Maybe I shoulda voted."

What appears to be the solution is to have a three-way race in November. But since California does not have runoffs, it is possible for the top candidate to win with only 34% of the vote, not exactly a mandate.

This is not the only California race giving California Secretary of State Shirley Weber a headache. Assemblyman Vince Fong (R) is running simultaneously for reelection to the Assembly and also for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy's old House seat. Weber doesn't believe that is allowed and is challenging Fong in court. In the end, the California Supreme Court will have to figure out what to do. In the meantime, maybe the state legislature ought to make a law stating that no candidate may be on the same ballot for two different offices, forcing candidates, not the courts, to make the choice. (V)

Today's Presidential Polls

We have never heard anything about the Bullfinch group before, but we can't find any reason to believe they are cheating in any way, so we have included their recent poll of Michigan. This brings Biden to 256 EVs and Trump to 282. The most recent poll of nearby Wisconsin has Trump ahead 46-45. If the Badger State also flips then Biden gets to 266 EVs. Then it gets real exciting. Biden could also win NE-01 and ME-02, getting him to 268. He needs 270 to win.

State	Joe Biden	Donald Trump	Start	End	Pollster
Michigan	42%	39%	Mar 29	Apr 03	Bullfinch Group

Click on a state name for a graph of its polling history.

---

If you wish to contact us, please use one of these addresses. For the first two, please include your initials and city.

• questions@electoral-vote.com    For questions about politics, civics, history, etc. to be answered on a Saturday
• comments@electoral-vote.com   For "letters to the editor" for possible publication on a Sunday
• corrections@electoral-vote.com To tell us about typos or factual errors we should fix
• items@electoral-vote.com            For general suggestions, ideas, etc.

To download a poster about the site to hang up, please click here.

---

Email a link to a friend or share:

---The Votemaster and Zenger