Judgment Day

Judge Juan Merchan instructed the 12 jurors in Donald Trump's hush-money trial and they began deliberations yesterday. How long they will take is up to them. The first juror selected has been appointed as the foreperson, so no time need be wasted as the jurors campaign for the job. That person has the opportunity to lead the discussions, but not everyone is a natural-born leader. If things go astray quickly, two of the jurors are lawyers and one of them might be able to right the ship to get on with the job. The jury did not reach a verdict yesterday and will continue deliberations today at 9:30 a.m. ET. Given that there are 34 separate counts, each of which requires a verdict, it is not surprising that one afternoon wasn't enough time to finish the case.

Since there is an impenetrable wall between the jurors and the outside world, reporters have taken to reporting about the room. It is just off the courtroom, painted municipal blue (that is not a compliment), and has a table big enough for 12 people surrounded by rolling chairs. There are two bathrooms because deliberations can take days, even weeks, and sometimes jurors just can't wait that long. There is a court officer standing guard outside. On the table is a buzzer the foreperson can use to summon the officer to hand him or her a note to bring to the judge, for example, asking for a clarification about the evidence or the law. Once the officer enters the room, all the jurors must immediately stop talking. There is also a laptop computer in the room that contains all the exhibits presented during the trial. The jurors are free to use it as they wish, but playing Minecraft is frowned upon. If one of the jurors dies, becomes sick, or is unable to continue for any reason, one of the alternates will be called on to join the jury. Being an alternate is probably a terrible job, even worse than being vice president or Prince Harry.

While deliberations are going on, the defendant, the judge, and all the lawyers must hang around. With the judge's permission, they can play with their phones. Reporters are allowed to leave, but woe be to any one who leaves and then the jury returns and announces the verdict while he or she is gone.

Suppose Trump is convicted. Then what happens? He will have to go to the probation office on the 10th floor of the courthouse building for a presentencing interview. He will be asked about his personal history, his mental health, and the circumstances that led to his conviction. It is reported to be humiliating. But the report goes to the judge and can affect the sentence, so he can't blow it off. First time offenders, like Trump, often get a fine rather than prison time, but New York Mayor Eric Adams said that if the judge sentences him to prison, Rikers Island can handle it. Maybe Trump could get the U.S.S.S. to park his plane at LaGuardia. It's only about 1,000 feet from Rikers to the airport. Then he could look at his plane. Unfortunately, the 1,000 feet consists of the East River and Trump is in no condition to swim 1,000 feet. A conviction would not disqualify Trump from running for president or serving. In any event, he has a total of 7 months to file an appeal and would certainly file it on the last day. Then the appeals court could take weeks or months to make a decision and that decision could be appealed to the New York Court of Appeals. A final verdict could be years away.

But the Court of Public Opinion often moves faster than the New York State courts. If a quarter of the Republicans who voted for Nikki Haley long after she dropped out say this is the last straw and decide not to vote in November, that could have a noticeable effect on Trump's chances.

If you want a brief rundown on all the jurors and alternates, here it is. (V)

Follow the Money

Where is the presidential campaign being fought? Long-time readers of this site can probably name the half-dozen or so swing states without batting an eyelash. But are all swing states equal, or are some swing states more equal? And how do the campaigns view this? To find out, just follow the money. Campaign spending shows the campaigns' priorities with crystal clarity.

Here are the spending totals for both Joe Biden and Donald Trump in the swing states, including both actual spending from the campaigns and money from allied (super) PACs:

There are a couple of clear takeaways from these charts. First, both parties see Pennsylvania as the keystone state [sic], with the Republicans seeing it more important than all the other swing states combined (and probably more important than all 49 other states combined). They clearly believe that if Biden wins Pennsylvania, the show is over. This makes some sense since it has more electoral votes than any other swing state. The Democrats see it as important, too, but they also see Michigan as important, possibly due to the 2% of the Michigan population that is Muslim and is unhappy with Biden on account of Gaza. They may not have heard of Trump's plans to deport foreign students who are demonstrating for the Palestinians or Jared Kushner's plans to remove all the Gazans so he can develop Gaza into Miami Beach East. The ads may help fill in this information vacuum.

A second thing to note about the charts is that so far, the Democrats are greatly outspending the Republicans, largely because they have more money. Total Democratic spending is $49 million vs. $22 million for Republicans. The recent GOP haul may change this imbalance in the coming months, though.

A third thing to note is that Trump's campaign hasn't spent a dime yet. All the Republican spending is from outside groups. The reason here is not so much that Trump is a penny pincher, but that a large amount of the incoming money is being funneled to the lawyers defending Trump in his various trials. When Trump sends out appeals for funding, he is careful that the embedded links go to organizations that can legally spend the money defending him, rather than running ads or organizing GOTV efforts.

A fourth thing is that the Republicans have spent a mere $666,000 on Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina combined. This seems odd to us. The first two are definitely in play and the third one is likely to be in play, especially with the hot gubernatorial race between fiery, all-around bigot Mark Robinson (R) and mild-mannered AG Josh Stein (D). That race is very close and could easily have coattails for the presidential race. (V)

Biden Will Spend over $10 Million Wooing Black Voters

Continuing on the theme of money, Joe Biden has seen poll after poll showing that he is bleeding support among Blacks and Latinos, especially men. It has definitely sunk in. He has now announced a drive to reach Black voters and has committed over $10 million to it. Not surprisingly, given the above item, his first stop was in Pennsylvania, specifically Philadelphia, where he spoke at Girard College and met with leaders of Black-owned businesses yesterday. He also made use of his not-so-secret weapon, Kamala Harris, by having a joint appearance with her. Joint appearances of both members of a ticket are rare because it is an inefficient use of a critical resource, the candidates' time. But it demonstrates how serious Biden is about winning back Black voters. Going forward, Harris will surely play a big role in outreach to Black voters.

Biden is not focusing on issues like civil rights, but more on kitchen-table economic issues that many Black voters are concerned about. He is going to talk about how he has lowered prescription drug prices, invested in HBCUs, and is working to close the gaps in wealth and employment between white and Black Americans. Another bit of the campaign is to run ads showing that Donald Trump is a lifelong racist. This is Biden's sixth visit to Pennsylvania this year. There will surely be more, especially to cities with large Black populations that need mobilizing.

It's Deja Vu All Over Again

The Republican Party's mascot is the elephant. Maybe this is not a good choice. Elephants famously have very long memories. When an elephant sees a former friend from 50 years ago, he or she often gets wildly excited. Maybe the goldfish would be a better choice for the GOP. The GOP's memory span is clearly less than 2 years, since it appears to be determined to make the same mistakes that it made in 2022 all over again. The problem, as usual, is candidate quality, especially in tough Senate races.

The core problem is that the NRSC keeps giving into temptation. Finding a good-looking, popular, or extremely wealthy outsider who has never been in politics (especially one who is prepared to self-fund the campaign) is irresistible. Only it doesn't seem to work well, especially when the Senate candidate doesn't even live in the state where the Senate election is. Democrats don't do this. When they need someone new in a Senate race, they typically go for people with an electoral track record, such as Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) in Arizona, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in California, Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) in Delaware, former representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in Florida, County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) in Maryland, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) in Michigan, Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ) in New Jersey, and Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) in Texas. Every one of these has won at least one election in the state where the Senate race is. That means they know something about the politics of the state and also can't be accused of being carpetbaggers.

Here's the Republican line-up in some races where candidate quality is sure to play a role.

• Arizona: Kari Lake is the mother of all people with candidate quality problems. In 2022, at a campaign event, she asked if there were any McCain supporters in the room, and said that if any were present, they should get the hell out of there. After losing the 2022 gubernatorial race, she declared herself the winner and has been talking about that ever since. She has flip-flopped on abortion a couple of times. She told her supporters to strap on a Glock, something that could come back to haunt her. After all, Glocks are made by the Austrian company Glock Ges.m.b.H. Why not an American pistol? What's wrong with a good old American Smith & Wesson .38 Special? Lake spent so much time at Mar-a-Lago that Trump told her to go back to Arizona to campaign. She's also not very good at fundraising and informally the NRSC has already written her off as hopeless. Polls show Ruben Gallego with a consistent lead. If former governor Doug Ducey (R) had run, he could have won it.
  
  
• Montana: Republican candidate Tim Sheehy is a former Navy Seal, owns a big cattle ranch in Montana, and is worth north of $200 million. What's not to like? Well, his military service is controversial. He has said he was shot in Afghanistan, possibly by friendly fire, but he has also said that he lied to a park ranger in Glacier National Park about shooting himself in the foot there, which would be a federal crime. This confusion led to this ad:
  
  
  
  Now about that ranch. Sheehy grew up in a mansion in Minnesota and used that as his voting address until 2016. When he bought that big ranch in Montana, he closed it off to local elk hunters and allows only people who pay him over $10,000 to hunt there. This won't go over big with local hunters. Finally, his aerial firefighting company is indeed worth over $200 million, but the vast majority of its income comes from government contracts. So much for his rugged individualism.
  
  
• Ohio: Wealthy Mercedes dealer Bernie Moreno started to run for the Senate after Rob Portman announced his retirement in 2021. Moreno met with Donald Trump and then quickly dropped out. Reportedly, Trump secured his exit from the race with a promise to support him if he ran against Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in 2024. Moreno did run and Trump did support him, which seems to suggest there really was a deal. The amazing part is that Trump kept up his part of the bargain.
  
  Earlier this year, it was reported that someone with access to Moreno's e-mail account signed up for an adult website looking for "Young guys to have fun with." Moreno claims it wasn't him, but questions linger, keeping in mind that with many Republican voters, it remains the case that gay is not OK. Also, Moreno is now very Trumpy, but in 2016 he described Trump as a "lunatic invading the Republican Party." Expect that to surface again this year. In short, the only things going for him are Trump's endorsement and a lot of money, but Brown has won three Senate races in Ohio due to his brand of populism.
  
  
• Pennsylvania: In 2022, Connecticut resident David McCormick ran against New Jersey resident Mehmet Oz in the Pennsylvania Republican senatorial primary and Oz won, presumably because New Jersey is closer to Pennsylvania than Connecticut is. Oz lost the general election to now-Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA). But McCormick is taking another whack at the piñata, even though he still lives in a $16 million house on Long Island Sound. He does own a property in Pittsburgh, but he doesn't live there and hadn't voted in Pennsylvania for 16 years prior to his 2022 run. Wealth is not a new thing in his family. He claims that he grew up on a family farm, son of a teacher. Well, dad was a "teacher" of sorts. He was president of Bloomsburg University and the "family farm" was the president's mansion. McCormick does own land in Pennsylvania, but it has been rented out for decades and is merely income-producing property that happens to be in Pennsylvania.
  
  
• Wisconsin: Again, the Republicans picked a rich carpetbagger with a tin ear. The candidate opposing Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) is Eric Hovde, a wealthy bank owner who was born in Wisconsin but now lives in California. The bank is in Utah. He is also CEO of a private equity firm and real estate development company. He can definitely self-fund. In a radio show, he once proclaimed that people in nursing homes shouldn't be allowed to vote because you're going to die soon and don't have any real skin in the game. He has also been sued by the family of a former resident of a nursing home his bank has owned for years. The suit alleges that elder abuse and negligence led to the resident's death. All this is going to go over big with seniors and their families. Hovde has also attacked single mothers for destroying the family unit. But he isn't only against poor people. He has attacked George Soros and the Rothschild family in ways that can be considered antisemitic.
  

The Nevada Senate race is slightly different. There is a Republican primary between Army veteran Sam Brown (who also has no political experience) and Jeff Gunter, a wealthy doctor who was Trump's ambassador to Iceland. He's been running ads claiming he is 110% pro-Trump. He is hoping for Trump's endorsement. If he gets it and wins the nomination, he will be another candidate with a quality problem. (V)

Herschel Walker Still Has $4.3 Million in His Campaign Warchest

Speaking of folks with a candidate quality problem, let's revisit Herschel Walker, who ran for the Senate in 2022 and lost to Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA). Walker, a former football player, had apparently been hit on the head one time too many and was such a bad candidate that his campaign manager stuffed him in a closet and wouldn't let him campaign. There was plenty of cash, so an all-air-war, no-ground-war campaign was feasible. Now it has been revealed that Walker still has a campaign bank account and it has $4.3 million in it. This does raise the question of why it wasn't spent on even more ads, GOTV operations, and other things that might have allowed him to win the race.

Additionally, the Georgia Republican Party is broke and is asking Walker to donate it to the state party to help Republicans. Walker is apparently not interested. By law, the money can only be used for political campaigns—either Walker's or someone else's—or donated to charity. He has made small donations to the NRSC and some charities, but has kept the bulk of the money in the campaign account. Given how bad Walker is as a candidate, it is unlikely he will run again himself, so why doesn't he give the rest of the money to some other Republican or party committee? He's not saying, which is not making other Republicans happy. A true team player in (in)action. (V)

Alito to Congress: Go Shove It

OK, he was marginally more polite, but in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL), who has called for Associate Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from cases relating to the Jan. 6 riots, Alito told the senator he is not going to recuse himself on account of a couple of flags. He wrote: "I had nothing whatsoever to do with the flying of that flag. I was not even aware of the upside-down flag until it was called to my attention. As soon as I saw it, I asked my wife to take it down, but for several days, she refused." This is formally known as the "blame-the-wife defense." Alito also noted that since the house is jointly owned, she has the "legal right to use the property as she sees fit." Of course, since he is a co-owner, he also had the legal right to tell her to take the flag down. If they couldn't agree, they could have gone to court over it, but then the case might have gotten to the Supreme Court, in which case he would get a vote and she would not. Maybe binding arbitration would be better.

Alito also addressed the "Appeal to Heaven" flag that flew at the couple's house in Long Beach Island, NJ. Alito said he didn't know the flag was used by Christian nationalists. Then he went into a more detailed "blame-the-wife" defense, saying: "My wife is fond of flying flags. I am not. My wife was solely responsible for having flagpoles put up at our residence and our vacation home and has flown a wide variety of flags over the years." That's that. At least we now know who wears the pants in the Alito family.

In reality, of course, Alito knows that until such time as the Democrats have the trifecta and abolish the filibuster, he is completely safe as Congress won't do anything to rein him in. And even if Congress created a code of ethics for the Supreme Court, how could Congress enforce it if a justice FLAGrantly violated it? If they controlled the House, the Democrats could impeach Alito, but getting a two-thirds majority in the Senate would never happen. (V)

Kennedy Opposes Tearing Down Statues of Confederate Leaders

A hot topic in recent years is what to do with statues honoring Confederate leaders. Was Robert E. Lee a hero or a traitor who should have been hanged? Now Robert Kennedy Jr. has joined the fray. He was against the 2021 removal of Lee's statue in Charlottesville, which was later melted down in a furnace. He doesn't want to erase history. He said: "There were heroes in the Confederacy who didn't have slaves."

Whether Lee himself owned any slaves is complicated. His mother owned 35 slaves. Her will left five of them to her daughter and directed that after all her debts were paid, her property (which included the 30 other slaves) was to be divided equally among her three sons. Lee inherited at least a few slaves but was in the Army at the time and didn't need them, so he may have rented them out to local slaveholders for the income. But in any event, he was a slaveowner (sorry, RFK). And he did wage war against the United States, so the question of whether there ought to be statues honoring him is separate from the slavery issue.

Kennedy also said: "We should celebrate the good qualities of everybody. If we want to find people who were completely virtuous on every issue throughout history, we would erase all of history." He noted that Lee was an extraordinary leader. It would be interesting to have a reporter ask him: "Is it fine with you if Germany has statues honoring Adolf Hitler, if Italy has statues honoring Benito Mussolini, and if Cambodia has statues honoring Pol Pot? What about the U.S. having statues honoring Isoroku Yamamoto? After all, he played an important role in U.S. history." Kennedy also said he is in favor of keeping Columbus Day and has no interest in replacing it with Indigenous Peoples' Day. We would love to see what would happen if the Young Conservatives invited him to speak at Columbia University.

What is Kennedy up to? Is he saying this stuff to get on the ballot in Alabama? Do his backers know what he is doing? If he is basically a Republican plant who is being put there to pull votes away from Joe Biden, backing Confederate insurrectionists is probably a poor way to do it, as it might win over otherwise-Trump voters in the swing states of North Carolina and Georgia. Is he planning to run for governor of Mississippi when Gov. Tate Reeves (R-MS) is term-limited in 2027? Who knows. (V)

Blue Tent Is Back

In 2020, the progressive organization Blue Tent gave recommendations of where Democrats could donate money for the maximum impact. None of them were for the presidential race or high-profile Senate races. All of those candidates had money out the wazoo and whether a television viewer saw 14 commercials some night for the candidate, or 15, had approximately zero effect. Instead they were pitching things like individual state Senate races in states where flipping a couple of seats could flip the chamber. The amount of money raised for state legislatures is tiny by national standards. For example, the average amount raised for an Arizona state legislative seat 2018-2020 was about $50,000. Ruben Gallego has raised 400x that amount ($20 million) already and he has 5 months to go. In North Carolina, Republicans running for the General Assembly raised about $70,000 and Democrats raised about $60,000. In Wisconsin, another swing state, the average legislative candidate raised about $20,000. Clearly $100 would be welcomed and $1,000 is big money. For $10,000, you own the candidate.

Blue Tent is back this year, but the recommendations are different this time. Instead of recommending individual candidates, the organization is recommending four groups to donate to, each with different goals:

• The Center for Voter Information focuses on mobilizing Black, Latino, and young voters.
• Galvanize Action focuses on moderate women in suburban and rural areas.
• Rural Democracy Initiative focuses on rural areas since losing by only 40 points instead of 50 can swing a state.
• Working America is aimed at working-class voters without college degrees in swing states.

You can donate using Blue Tent's website or ActBlue Express.

We have searched for a Red Tent organization that makes recommendations for Republicans, but haven't found one. If you know of something comparable to Blue Tent, let us know and we'll write it up. (V)

Today's Presidential Polls

The last poll of Virginia was done by Tony Fabrizio (R) and John Anzalone (D). They had Virginia as D+1. Maybe it is that close. If it is, this is not a good sign for Joe Biden. (V)

State	Joe Biden	Donald Trump	Start	End	Pollster
Virginia	42%	42%	May 12	May 21	Roanoke Coll.

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

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