Adam Gray Flips CA-13

It is "official" now. Democrat Adam Gray has defeated Rep. John Duarte (R-CA) in CA-13. The AP has now called the close race for Gray.

Gray won by 187 votes. This is even closer than the 2022 race, when Duarte won by 567 votes. The contest, in the California farm belt, was mostly about agricultural policies.

The net result is that Democrats will have 215 seats in the House and Republicans will have 220. When Reps.-elect Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Michael Waltz (R-FL) resign in January and Rep.-elect Matt Gaetz (R-FL) either is sworn in and then resigns or declines to be sworn in, the House will be 215D, 217R until around April, when the special elections are held. Not a lot of margin for error. If Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) runs for speaker again and wins, he is surely going to regret it before long, especially since Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has big plans for legislation in January and February. (V)

"What's Actionable Here?", Part III: Does Trump Have a Mandate?

Donald Trump is acting like he has a mandate to do whatever he wants. In reality, the election was close. Yes, he won the Electoral College 312-226, but that is not a good measure of closeness due to its winner-take-all nature (except in two states). Imagine that a candidate wins every state and D.C. 50.1% to 49.9%. The candidate would win the Electoral College 538-0, but it would still be a close election.

How does the 2024 election compare to other recent ones? Here is a nice chart showing the popular vote for the two major parties since 2000:

About 96% of the vote has been counted so far. Most of the remaining vote is on the West Coast and is largely about provisional ballots and ballots that need to be cured of something before vaccinations are banned. It is likely that Donald Trump's margin will continue to shrink when the full count is in. The most recent count has Trump winning by 77.1 million to 74.7 million votes or 49.78% to 48.23%, a margin of 1.55%. You have to go back to 2000 to find an election that close. Trump's margin in the three blue wall states was even smaller, 1.3%.

As we have pointed out before, Trump got 2.7 million more votes in 2024 than in 2020, but the big story is that Kamala Harris got 6.8 million fewer votes than Biden. Even if 2.7 million Democrats switched sides in 2024, that's still 4.1 million Democrats who sat it out rather than vote for her. They didn't vote third-party because the third-party vote this year was 540,000 votes fewer than in 2020. Four million Democrats decided they didn't like any candidate and didn't vote. If they had voted, maybe they would have voted for Kamala Harris, maybe they would not have. Clearly they didn't like her enough to bother voting. But in any event, their not voting is not a mandate for Trump.

Now let's look at the issues. Did voters like what Trump was selling? There were two large exit polls, the Edison exit poll and the VoteCast sample, of the actual electorate. They give us some information on various issues. To start with, 70% of the voters were unhappy with the direction of the country and two thirds of those voted for Trump. Here are the electorate's views on specific issues:

• Deportations: When voters were asked about deportations and given a choice between allowing illegal immigrants to apply for residency and being deported, 55% preferred allowing them to stay. Some voters were vehemently for deportation, but on the whole, Harris' view was more popular.
  
  
• Tariffs: When asked if they supported increasing "taxes" on imported goods, the score was 49% in favor and 50% against. When the word "tariffs" was used instead of "taxes," the balance shifted toward Trump's view. But it is far from a mandate and people don't even know what a tariff really is. It is the importer—say, Walmart—who pays it, not the manufacturer in China. And, of course, Walmart does not eat that cost out of the goodness of their heart, they pass it on to consumers.
  
  
• Energy: Trump supports "Drill, baby, drill." But the voters don't. When given a choice, only 43% favored more fossil fuel production while 55% favored more alternative energy, such as solar and wind power.
  
  
• Ukraine: On surveys of all American adults, opinion on Ukraine is closely divided. But when actual voters were asked, 55% wanted to continue supporting Ukraine and 44% opposed it.
  
  
• Abortion: Trump says he is pro-life, with exceptions for rape, incest, and saving the life of the mother. The exit poll showed that 60% of the voters want abortion to be legal all or most of the time. Only one-third want to ban it. Trump is clearly in the minority.
  
  
• Health care: When asked about the Affordable Care Act and whether government should be more involved or less involved in health care, a solid 57% wanted more government involvement and 21% wanted less government involvement. Maybe the voters don't trust the insurance companies to look out for them (as opposed to looking out for their stockholders). What about vaccines? Fifty percent wanted government to do more to see that children are vaccinated, 26% liked the current level of government involvement, and only 22% wanted less. RFK Jr. will ban vaccines at Trump's peril.
  
  
• Guns: What about guns and the Second Amendment? Trump said he would protect everyone's right to own whatever guns they wanted. However, 57% of the voters want stricter gun laws and only 12% want looser ones.
  
  
• Transgender rights: Here Trump has a win, possibly aided by $65 million worth of ads about transgender surgery on the two prisoners who had it. On this, 55% say the left has overreached and 22% say it hasn't gone far enough. A slight majority (51% to 47%) opposed laws that ban hormone blockers and treatments for minors. More on this subject very soon, as soon as the school year is over.
  
  
• Extremism: In the VoteCast sample, 46% were very concerned about Trump's extremism and nearly 60% were at least somewhat concerned. Some of them voted for him anyway, despite their concerns.
  
  
• Authoritarianism: In the VoteCast survey, 45% were very concerned that Trump would "bring the U.S. closer to being an authoritarian country, where a single leader has unchecked power." Another 10% were somewhat concerned. That's a majority.
  

One issue not reported here is Gaza. However, CNN did an exit poll of Michigan, the state with the largest percentage of Arab Americans by far, at 2.1%. Even in Michigan, only 30% of the voters said the U.S. support of Israel has been too much, and even among them, 61% still voted for Harris, with 37% of the 30% (11%) voting for Trump. This doesn't seem to have been a big factor.

So, did Trump win a mandate? On nine of the ten top issues, the voters actually disagree with him on policy issues. Only on transgender treatments of minors did he have a majority on his side. The inescapable conclusion is that Trump did not get a mandate based on the issues, since the voters don't like his positions on the overwhelming majority of them. He won because eggs cost more than they used to and 4 million Democrats pouted and stayed home to punish Biden. It is also possible—but it is hard to prove—that some of the nonvoting Democrats were racist and/or sexist and that is why they didn't vote. In any event, this is not 1964 or 1980, where the president had a clear mandate. Trump won a squeaker based on external factors that no one had control over, not because voters wanted what he was selling.

So, is this actionable for the Democrats? That is to say, can they use this information to course-correct in the next election? We have three thoughts.

First, it is clear the Democrats had trouble convincing voters that they (the Democratic Party) are much more in alignment with the public than the Republicans are. However, this has been true for at least 20 years, if not longer. Maybe the voters are not being 100% truthful about what they really care about. Maybe the voters don't really know all that well what they want, and the exit polls give a false impression. Maybe the issues the Republicans happen to be "right" on are the dealbreaker issues. In any event, "Do a better job of communicating your ideas, Democrats!" sounds good on paper. But clearly it's not that simple, whatever the reasons may be.

Second, the sort of data you see here is often used to support the idea that the Democratic Party should be pursuing a Howard Dean-style 50-state strategy. That is to say, "The Party is with the voters on the issues, but needs to interact with voters outside the 20 or so blue/swing states, so that those voters know, and so that those voters feel heard." We don't necessarily disagree with this argument, but it's a long-term play. You're not going to reverse trends that are now decades-old in one election. So, this is not particularly actionable when it comes to the 2028 election.

Third, and we have a more detailed piece on this coming soon, if the economy is going to override most/all other concerns, then that largely turns the election into a crapshoot. Presidents and presidential candidates have relatively limited power to make the economy better in the short term (though they CAN make it worse). They have even less power to change voters' perceptions of the economy. This is not to say that political leaders cannot or should not do things to correct obvious problems, like the growing wealth gap between rich and poor, or home ownership becoming increasingly inaccessible, or the costs of daily needs. However, this is also a long-term play.

What happened in 2024 clearly indicates that the Democrats need to come up with a compelling message on the economy in 2028. But guess what? They already knew that. They knew it heading into the most recent election, and the one before that, and the one before that, and the last 30 before that. It's another thing that's easy to say, and nearly impossible to do. Think about everyone in the last century who has clearly won an election based on the poor state of the economy—Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Donald Trump. They did not win primarily because they could enunciate a compelling vision for the economy. Some of them didn't even HAVE a vision for the economy (ahem, Mr. Trump). They all won primarily because they could point to the guy/party in office and talk about how bad that person was doing, and how they (the challenger) could do better.

The point is that it is interesting and useful to get some fine-grained details on why the election turned out the way it did, but that information is not necessarily all that helpful for future elections. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is "this is vaguely worth keeping in mind, I guess" and 10 is "forget 2028, this is something the Democrats should be doing tomorrow," we'd say the exit poll data is about a 2.5. It may seem useful in theory, but it's very tough to turn that theory into practice. Many very skillful politicians have tried, few have succeeded.

On the other hand, the personality of the presidential nominee speaks volumes. Bill Clinton said "I feel your pain" and was a good enough actor that people believed him. Barack Obama was a once-in-a-generation talent. Kamala Harris lost the 2019 Democratic primary before the voting even started. She is at best an average politician and not someone most voters look at and say: "That person understands me." She was supposed to bring out millions of new young Democrats who were awed by having a Black woman to vote for. Not only did that not happen, but fewer Democrats voted in 2024 than for the boring old white guy in 2020. Maybe the economy will suck in 2026 and/or 2028 and any Democrat can win any competitive race, but that is not a strategy. Finding an authentic, charismatic candidate who the voters love is a strategy, but not necessarily an easy one to execute, especially since the 2028 primaries will be free-for-alls. (V & Z)

Is Trump the Next Erdogan?

Last week we had an item summarizing what Hungarian journalist Gábor Scheiring had to say about how Viktor Orbán became an authoritarian. It took a while, but eventually he eliminated the guardrails and had absolute power. The item ended with the journalist's view on how to prevent Donald Trump from following that path.

Today we have a summary of an article written by Turkish journalist Asli Aydintasbas about what Recep Tayyip Erdoğan did in Turkey, and lessons for the U.S. under Donald Trump.

• Don't Panic: Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is an autocracy. It takes time to convert a democratic state into an autocratic one. It took Erdoğan well over a decade to consolidate power, and Trump doesn't have a decade (either in office, or, well...). Also, the U.S. governmental system is highly decentralized, with states and governors having actual power that cannot be overridden, judges having lifetime tenure who cannot be fired, and a media world protected by the First Amendment with a century of precedents, along with courts that move slowly. Even though Republicans have the trifecta now, the margins are razor-thin and are likely to be thinner yet, or gone, in Jan. 2027.
  
  
• Don't Disengage: People in Hungary and Turkey disengaged after Orbán's and Erdoğan's victories. Bad idea. The answer is not to disconnect, but to organize and create more resistance. And more than anything to vote in the next election. There are two gubernatorial elections and multiple local elections in 2025. Get out the vote and make it clear that people are engaged and fighting for democracy.
  
  
• Don't Fear Infighting: After every electoral loss, the losing party spends a certain amount of time pointing fingers and assigning blame. Fine. Do it for a bit, but then get back to work. The authoritarians in Hungary and Turkey convinced the people that their opponents were elites against the people. Democrats have to shake that image and come up with a program that speaks to ordinary people. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president four times. Maybe he knew something. Time to hit the Roosevelt biographies.
  
  
• Charismatic Leadership: Party platforms are one thing, but to be successful, Democrats need a charismatic leader, someone people like, respect, and want to follow. Joe Biden wasn't that person and probably Kamala Harris wasn't either. There are 180 million adults over 35 in the U.S. Half of them are Democrats. Surely in a pool of 90 million people, there is one charismatic leader to be found. It doesn't have to be a governor or senator. It could be a local politician or someone outside of politics. In fact, the further from D.C. the person is, the better.
  
  
• Skip the Protests and Identity Politics: In Turkey, the opposition held street demonstrations and promoted secularism (Turkey's version of identity politics). That spoke to the upper middle class, but not beyond it. Demonstrations repel many suburban voters and go nowhere. Education campaigns and voter registration drives don't repel anyone. Grassroots action needs to be coupled with a clear economic message that voters understand. Governors and mayors can try to carry out the message, and if it fails, make sure everyone understands who blocked it.
  
  
• Have Hope: Nothing lasts forever. After Barry Goldwater's crushing defeat in 1964 (he won Arizona and five states in the old Confederacy), things looked bleak for the Republicans. But in 1968, Richard Nixon arose from the dead and won. Trump is stocking his administration with incompetent zealots. They are sure to make mistakes. Democrats need to capitalize on each of them and harp on a message like "Republicans are corrupt" or "Republicans are sleazebags," "Republicans can't govern," depending on the mistake. No matter who made the mistake, Trump chose that person so Trump can be blamed for having terrible judgment. Keep harping on his inability to get good people to work for him.
  

In short, the world keeps changing, and nothing is forever, but instigating change takes hard work. (V)

The Hegseth Follies Are Continuing

Matt Gaetz was the first of Donald Trump's nominees to withdraw, but might not be the last. Gaetz' withdrawal has now put Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth in the spotlight. He has more baggage than can fit in an Airbus A380-800. And Republican senators are beginning to detect it.

Let's start with the e-mail Hegseth's own mother sent him in 2018 accusing him of repeatedly mistreating many women. She encouraged him to get help. In the e-mail, Penelope Hegseth wrote: "I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth." Not a great recommendation. Is it true? We can't imagine a mother making this up. Also, a woman accused Hegseth of sexual assault. After the incident, she went to a hospital and showed the doctors bruises consistent with that story. Hegseth later paid her hush money to keep quiet. We don't know what happened, but that incident is consistent with what his mother wrote. When asked about the e-mail, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said: "Well, that's why God made confirmation hearings."

On Sunday, The New Yorker ran a disastrous profile of Hegseth based on a trail of documents and interviews with former colleagues. He has a history of alcohol abuse, sexual misconduct, and poor management at veterans organizations he ran and was subsequently fired from. Sounds like just the guy to manage 3 million people, some of them women, and a budget of $800 billion.

Hours after the New Yorker article hit the web, Hegseth met with senators. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), no liberal, said: "You're gonna have to have all your ducks in a row." Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said: "Let him take the oath, let him answer questions." One good question might be: "What is the biggest organization you have managed so far and what was its annual budget?" A good follow-up might be: "How long did you work there and how did your employment end?"

On the other hand, Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) said of the allegations: "But it's very clear that this guy is the guy who, at a time when Americans are losing confidence in their own military and our ability to project strength around the world, that Pete Hegseth is the answer to that concern." We read and reread that quote five times to see where we missed the "not" in there, but there isn't one. Is Lummis that stupid or merely lying through her teeth? Of the 604 active duty generals and admirals, many former ones, and hundreds of high-level defense department employees, she really thinks Fox News anchor Hegseth is the man for the job, even if you ignore all the scandals? (V)

Key Republican Senators Say FBI Vetting of Cabinet Nominees Isn't Needed

FBI background checks on Cabinet-level nominations used to be standard. They are not in the Constitution (of course, the Cabinet is not in the Constitution either) but have been done for generations. Donald Trump is talking about skipping them, nominally to speed up the confirmation process, but in reality because he probably knows the kind of sleazy people he is choosing are likely to have multiple red flags turn up that the senators might not like.

So what's a senator to do? Sen. Michael Crapo (R-ID), who will chair the Senate Finance Committee, which will vet some of the nominees, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., had this to say: "My position is what President Trump decides to do is what I will support." Is this a United States senator or a talking trained squirrel? Apparently he missed class at Harvard Law School the day the professor was discussing the concept of the Senate's responsibility to "advise and consent."

Other senators have said that background checks are important, but haven't said that they will insist on FBI checks. The poop will hit the ventilator when Trump submits a nominee who has been thoroughly vetted by Melania, when she invited him over for tea.

Needless to say, if Trump forces the issue, which is likely, then once one candidate has been approved without an FBI check, Trump will demand that all of his candidates be approved without an FBI check. Trump can also grant security clearances just by doing so, with no background check.

The senators are not thinking ahead. That is not unusual for politicians, but most senators aren't newbies to politics and ought to be doing so. Given how scummy Trump's picks have been, reporters are going to be out there doing their own background checks. It is certainly possible that all of the nominees are purer than the driven snow, but we have our doubts. All kinds of scandals could come out after someone has been confirmed. There could be sexual assaults with multiple witnesses, financial scandals, criminal convictions, and heaven knows what else. If so, there will be demands from Democrats and the media that so-and-so resign due to some scandal. They will probably refuse. Then the senators will own the nominations and their willingness to overlook various scandals could become a major issue in the midterm elections. It's not hard to imagine some Democrat campaigning on: "Sen. X voted to confirm a sexual predator to run [X]. The senator failed miserably to do his job. Time to replace him."

Late yesterday it was announced that the transition team had signed a memorandum of understanding that will allow the team to submit certain names for background checks and security clearances. Some positions require clearances but most do not. What this means in practice remains to be seen. (V)

To Leave or Not to Leave? That Is the Question

As eX-Twitter acquires an increasingly Musky odor, more and more journalists, politicians, and celebrities are fleeing it for the greener (bluer?) pastures of Bluesky, a Twitter clone. Among recent refugees from ex-Twitter are Nicolle Wallace, Don Lemon, LeBron James (rumored), and Stephen King. Bluesky was created in 2019 by then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey as an experiment in giving users more control over their data and experience. In particular, it gives users control over their feeds. It was spun off in 2021 and became widely available in March 2024. It now has 20 million users and since the election has been acquiring another million a day.

Many people are leaving because eX-Twitter has become an open sewer full of garbage and hate, with trashy ads, scammy replies, and porn bots. Over 150 pro-Nazi accounts flourish on the site and their posts have been viewed millions of times. Many journalists used to use the direct messaging tools, but now are concerned that Elon Musk or his staffers might be reading their messages in violation of the site's stated terms and conditions. They also believe that not only is the former filtering of disinformation gone, but Musk is actively posting disinformation to help Donald Trump. In short, it is no longer what it was and no longer a desirable neighborhood for many people other than right-wing trolls. Hence the exodus to Bluesky.

However, others, including Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), are arguing that abandoning it will make it a right-wing paradise with no push-back at all. One of the problems the Democrats had in the election is that they don't engage much with people outside their very well-educated bubble. Leaving eX-Twitter and moving to the safe confines of Bluesky just makes the problem worse. Kamala Harris lost the popular vote. Saying "I'm going to take my marbles and go home" may not be the best way to inform all those people who voted based on disinformation. Living in a friendly space may feel good but it doesn't win elections. In fact, it may help lose them by letting outright lies go unchallenged. A journalist or politician who will happily appear on MSNBC but declines to appear on Fox News is not going to change many hearts and minds.

For people who have built up a huge following, leaving and starting all over is a tough call. For example, environmentalist Bill McKibben had 380,000 followers but he decided to give them up, saying he did not trust Musk. Former New York City Public Advocate Mark Green signed off, saying: "Lots to say and do as we approach the start of the Trump-Musk oligarchy." The Guardian, with 10.7 million followers, has also left, calling the platform "toxic." Many of the people leaving feel that having high-value journalists and others leave the platform decreases advertiser interest and thus causes Musk to lose even more money than he is already losing there.

Plus, if you are popular, you can build up a new following from scratch. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) just became the first person to amass a million followers on Bluesky. It can be done.

The old Twitter was moderately left wing, but a new study shows it currently has a 50-50 partisan split. If the migration continues for a few months, we could end up with two roughly equal platforms, one for Democrats and one for Republicans, and neither one paying attention to the other. The split between Fox News and MSNBC would then have carried over to microblogging platforms as well. Everything is partisan these days. What's next? Sports? Hockey and basketball are for Democrats and baseball and football are for Republicans? Actually, that's kind of already true. (V)

House Democrats May Have Battles for Ranking Member Positions

With great difficulty and much pain, the Democrats managed to dump the aging Joe Biden and replace him with Kamala Harris. Would Biden have done better than Harris? We don't know. We do know that Biden carried all three blue wall states in 2020 and also that 100% of female nominees for president have lost.

Nevertheless, Democrats in Congress are also thinking that maybe it is time for a new generation of chairs and, in the 119th Congress, ranking members. Many of them don't think all the elderly ranking members have what it takes to oppose Donald Trump's plans to abuse his power.

The first test case is the Judiciary Committee. The current ranking member is Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), the dean of the New York congressional delegation. He is 77. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), 61, is considering a challenge to Nadler. Before entering politics (being elected to the Maryland Senate in 2006), Raskin was a professor of constitutional law. He was on the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 coup attempt. Many of Raskin's colleagues see him as more aggressive, articulate, and shrewd than Nadler when taking on Trump. These colleagues include Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who wants him to challenge Nadler. The House Democratic leadership is nominally neutral and said the caucus "should work its will." That may sound innocent, but previous policy was to protect committee chairs and discourage challengers. The writing is now on the wall. Will Raskin read it? Or more important, will Nadler read it? Going away quietly would be a lot less painful than losing an internal election to a young whippersnapper. (V)

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