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Political Bytes, National Edition: The Day After

We don't normally lead with Political Bytes. However, the elections are the big story of the week, and there was a gaggle of interesting pieces about them yesterday. Meanwhile, there wasn't all that much "new" news. So:

Poll Position, Part I: In our election wrap-up yesterday, we noted that the polls of the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary were way off, just like the polls of the Michigan Democratic Senate primary. In both cases, the progressive candidate was projected to win big; in fact, one of them (Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan) won in a squeaker while the other (Francesca Hong in Wisconsin) lost in a squeaker.

We did not have the time to carefully examine the polls (it takes a while to compile those write-ups), but JVL at The Bulwark did. He points out that Hong's actual share of the vote (39%) was about what the polls predicted (roughly 42%). The miss came with ultimate winner David Crowley, whose actual share of the vote (40%) was way higher than the polls predicted (roughly 17%). JVL concludes that the pollsters failed to capture late deciders, nearly all of whom appear to have gone for Crowley. He agrees with something we pointed out, namely that there should have been some polls done in the last week of the race, especially since Mandela Barnes dropped out with 2 weeks to go, and Crowley dropped back in shortly after that. JVL also argues that Black voters, who are the backbone of the Democratic coalition, are being undercounted.

Our Take: We find nothing to disagree with in JVL's analysis. He was only writing about Wisconsin, but the same assessment applies to El-Sayed in Michigan. His actual share of the vote (49%) was also about what the polls predicted (roughly 51%); it was his opponent that was way underestimated. It makes a certain amount of sense that voters who aren't particularly enamored of either candidate, when they finally have to make a choice, would settle on the more moderate candidate. It's also worth considering the possibility that some "undecided" voters aren't really undecided; they may know who they are voting for, but could be using their poll response to signal dissatisfaction with the whole slate of candidates.


Poll Position, Part II: Josh Marshall, at TPM, also took a look at the way-off polling, though what he's interested in is whether the polls should be considered untrustworthy going forward. And his answer is that you should always be a little leery of polls, because of the nature of the beast, but that primaries are strange animals, and the Michigan Senate/Wisconsin governor primaries were particularly strange animals, and that this probably isn't an indictment of all polls.

Our Take: We would agree with this, too. Once we get to the general election, there won't exactly be a choice between the "more moderate" and "less moderate" candidate. So, the potential Michigan/Wisconsin lesson of "you should probably count the great majority of undecideds as votes for the more moderate candidate" won't be transferable to November. However, given that we're in a "throw the bums out" era, and what looks to be a "throw the bums out" election (keep reading), we would speculate that undecided voters, once they have to make a choice, will break for the challengers rather than the incumbents.


Throw the Bums Out: Four Congressional Republicans who were running for reelection have lost their primaries this cycle. They are:

In addition, seven Congressional Democrats have lost their primaries so far, with #7 joining the list this week. They are:

On top of this, there was an unusually high number of retirements this year, as some of the "bums" headed for the exit before they could get tossed out on their bum.

Our Take: There is no reason to think this won't continue in the general election. So, if a race between an incumbent and a challenger is a dead heat, or close to a dead heat, the challenger may be the better bet to win.


Kumbaya: David Crowley very respectfully did not claim victory in the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary until it had been called by all the major media outlets AND Francesca Hong had conceded. Yesterday, in his victory speech, he declared that now is the time for Democrats to come together, and that he hopes to welcome Hong's supporters into the tent.

Our Take: Politicians always give this basic speech after a bitter primary. However, we think Crowley is more likely to get what he's asking for than would usually be the case. The Republican nominee in this race, Rep. Tom Tiffany, is an election denier who voted against certifying the 2020 election results. If he wins, he would become the first state governor to have cast such a vote. It's just too risky to put the mother of all swing states under his control.


Some People Are Upset About Hong's Loss...: There was a lot of unhappiness yesterday about Francesca Hong's narrow defeat. And the majority of it seemed to be coming from... Republicans. For example, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) appeared on one of the panoply of Fox stations yesterday to describe Hong's loss as "concerning," and to observe that Tom Tiffany is now going to have "a more formidable opponent."

Our Take: Republicans were absolutely drooling over the chance to run against Hong. Not only did they like their chances of winning the Wisconsin governorship, but they also wanted to make her the face of the Democratic Party (or one of them, at least, alongside Abdul El-Sayed). Now, those dreams are up in smoke.


...Others, Not So Much: We speculated this would be the case in our item yesterday, and now several reports confirm that many progressives breathed a small sigh of relief when Francesca Hong lost. Yes, the lefties want progressive candidates, but progressive candidates who are also savvy politicians. If Hong had gone on to lose the general election due to her many unforced errors, which was a very real possibility, that would get pinned on the progressive wing of the party in general and the Democratic Socialists in particular. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), among others, were so leery of that happening that they declined to endorse Hong.

Our Take: This is why AOC has an excellent chance of being elected senator, and may one day be a serious contender for the presidency. She's plenty lefty, but she's also plenty savvy, and doesn't make a lot of big mistakes.


Self-Parody, Part I: Royce White, the former NBA player who just announced his "eligibility" for the WNBA draft, was absolutely crushed in the Minnesota GOP U.S.Senate primary. He finished a distant third to Michele Tafoya, taking just 11.2% of the vote. From this result, he concluded that the logical next step is to run for President of the United States. Yesterday, he announced his bid on eX-Twitter.

Our Take: Is it ego? A desperate need for attention? Stupidity? Could be all of these things. The world is full of fringy candidates these days, given how many people are saying, "If Trump can do it, why not me?" We think White will find that there is far, far less interest in his "campaign" than he thinks there is.


Self-Parody, Part II: Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy, also got crushed in Minnesota. He finished in second, which is better than Royce White did, but still trailed the winner, Speaker of the Minnesota House Lisa Demuth, by 11 points (43.4% to 32.5%). Lindell has taken a long, careful look at things, and has figured out why he lost: massive vote fraud.

Our Take: Is there anything more on-brand for Lindell than a response like this? It's interesting that the perpetrators of voter fraud are all Democrats right until he loses a primary, at which point the Republicans are doing it, too.


Oh! Darline!: The Republican establishment is lining up behind Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC), in hopes of propelling her to the win in her upcoming August 25 GOP U.S. Senate runoff against Rep. Ralph Norman.

Our Take: We are not sure what the motivation is here. It's South Carolina; either one of the two Republicans will win in the general. Maybe the goal is to protect Donald Trump's batting average/ego, since he endorsed Graham. Maybe the GOP thinks that if they can elect another woman or two to the Senate, they can argue the party is "diverse." Maybe they think Norman is a loose cannon and is likely to say stupid and unhelpful things when and if he gets the platform afforded by a seat in the Senate.


The Lesson?: Politico's Jonathan Martin had a piece yesterday headlined "Democrats Got Lucky in Wisconsin. They Should Learn From It." And what, exactly, should they learn from it? Here is the answer, in Martin's own words:

Wisconsin showed how easily a divided party can sleepwalk toward a nominee its own leaders believe cannot win—and how little time they may have to stop it once they wake up. This time, Democrats escaped that fate. In 2028, if they fail to absorb the lessons of this primary, they may not be so fortunate.

We saw several other pieces along these lines yesterday, but Martin's was the highest profile.

Our Take: This analysis is... just terrible. What, exactly, should the Democrats have done? For at least 2 months, the party's leaders have been scared witless about a potential win by Francesca Hong. This was not a secret. Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI), DNC Chair Ken Martin and other pooh-bahs pushed the flawed Mandela Barnes out of the race, and then pushed the less flawed David Crowley back in. And they did all of this with at least some subtlety, because if their thumbs are too obviously on the scale, some progressives could rebel and take a pass on the general election (think Hillary vs. Bernie in 2016). Crummy pieces like this are why it is hard to take "Democrats in disarray" pieces seriously.

That's 10 storylines. Hope that's enough for ya. (Z & A)

Leavitt Quitting as White House Press Secretary

Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that she will step down from her post at the end of the month, and will become an outside adviser.

Officially, Leavitt's reason for departing is that she wants to spend more time with her young children. Maybe that is true, but we won't be too surprised if she ends up on Fox's airwaves before the end of the year. There's a lot more money in lying and obfuscating on Fox than in lying and obfuscating for Trump. Oh, and it's fewer hours per week, plus you generally sign a multi-year contract, so you don't have to be constantly worried about being fired by a mercurial boss if he decides to blame you for this week's fiasco.

Lots of outlets had pieces suggesting this is a "bombshell" development that will reverberate widely. To take one example, the Mediaite headline was "Karoline Leavitt's Sudden Exit from Trump White House Sends Shockwaves." To take another, CNN had a piece headlined "Why Karoline Leavitt might be impossible for Trump to replace."

We don't really get it. It is true that Leavitt is part of the inner circle (which apparently is defined as "you get to ride on the actual Air Force One, rather than the decoy"). However, she'll still be available at the other end of the phone. As to her actual job, Trump basically acts as his own press secretary. You could make a pretty good argument that this is the only job he does effectively, because it's the only job he has enthusiasm for. Lest we forget, during Trump v1.0, he had a press secretary (Stephanie Grisham) who did not hold a single press conference during the entire 1½ years she held the position.

We suppose it's possible that Leavitt managed to rein Trump in on occasion, and that the loss of that restraint is not going to be helpful just 3 months before the midterms. But that's only a guess and, besides, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles should be just as able to rein Trump in, assuming that there is anyone who is actually able to do so. (Z)

Gas Prices Are Still High

The Strait of Hormuz is still basically closed, despite Donald Trump's claims to the contrary. Oil reserves around the world, and in particular in the U.S., are depleted. We are in the middle of summer, which means more travel, and more gas used during that travel due to cars' air conditioning. And yet, gas prices have not reached frightening levels, the way they did in the 1970s.

We have no ability to forecast petroleum futures. Truth be told, having paid pretty close attention to this subject for the past few months, we're not sure the "experts" in petroleum futures have that ability, either. But what we do know is this: The national average is currently over $4/gallon. That is the first time that has ever been true this late in the calendar year.

Obviously, that factoid comes with an "inflation" caveat—you really shouldn't directly compare 2026 prices to, say, 1976 prices because the 1976 equivalent of four 2026 dollars is about seventy-five cents. Still, the human mind does have a tendency to remember and fixate upon numbers that are round (like $4.00) and/or that are novel ("I've never paid four bucks a gallon for gas before!"). Also, if gas spikes in January of an election year for some reason, memory of that may fade by November. But the closer that November gets, the more likely the memory is to linger. Note that we are now 82 days from Election Day. (Z)

Will Republicans Never Learn?

Republican officials are determined to keep abortion front and center, despite it being a losing issue for them, politically. In just the past couple of weeks, Kansas and Missouri had ballot measures that, while not technically about abortion, were actually all about abortion. The voters knew it and, once again, voters of both parties voted overwhelmingly to protect abortion access.

In Kansas, in 2019, the state Supreme Court held that the state Constitution protects a woman's right to make health care decisions for herself, including whether to have an abortion. And in 2022, Kansas was the first state to vote on abortion rights following the Dobbs decision, when Republican legislators put an abortion ban on the August primary ballot. Kansans resoundingly defeated it, even though it was deliberately placed on the primary ballot, when turnout is lower and when more Republicans vote than Democrats.

Now, just ahead of the midterms, Republican legislators tried a different strategy—attacking the state Supreme Court that protected abortion rights. The idea was to shift the justiceships from appointed to elected positions, since that is more likely to produce extremist justices. But voters were not fooled. They understood the game plan: to turn the justices into partisan political actors that would uphold abortion bans, in spite of the language in the Kansas Constitution and voters' bipartisan support for abortion rights. And so, the measure was defeated by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.

In Missouri, Republican legislators took a different approach, but with the same goal of overturning abortion rights. There, following the Dobbs decision, citizens put a measure on the ballot to enshrine reproductive rights in Missouri law. After it passed, Republican state officials went ballistic and tried everything they could to overturn the will of the voters and continue banning abortion. When those efforts failed, they went to the ballot box with a measure that would raise the bar for citizen initiatives, while maintaining the status quo for their own. If that had passed, the Republicans in the legislature were open about their next move—putting a measure on the ballot to strike down the citizen-led initiative to protect abortion rights. The voters saw right through this as well and handed the Republican officials another decisive defeat, with only 19.7% voting in favor.

Thanks to these failed Republican efforts, voters are reminded, just in time for midterms, exactly where the GOP stands on women's reproductive rights and health. And Planned Parenthood will make sure they don't forget, with a $47 million ad blitz in competitive House races to target Republican candidates who voted to defund the organization.

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, Democrats are demonstrating what it looks like when politicians stop meddling in women's health care decisions. The state just passed a law protecting abortion rights throughout pregnancy, so that a woman faced with a life-threatening situation doesn't have to bleed out in a parking lot before she can receive the care she needs.

Contrast that with Republican cuts to Medicaid, increased prescription drug prices under Medicare, and the elimination of ACA subsidies, not to mention rural hospital closures, and it sure seems like Republicans don't care about Americans' health. When it comes to health care, the Republican party platform may as well be the motto emblazoned on Melania's jacket: "I really don't care. Do U?" (L)

Democratic Presidential Candidate of the Week: #20, Sherrod Brown

We are putting back a piece of this feature that we had previously (Donald Trump commenting on the candidate, and the candidate commenting on Donald Trump).

Here are the candidates we've profiled so far:

Runner-up: Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
Runner-up: Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ)
Runner-up: Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA)
Runner-up: Al Franken
Runner-up: Mitch Landrieu
Runner-up: Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT)
Runner-up: Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ)
Runner-up: Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA)
Runner-up: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
Runner-up: Jon Stewart
Runner-up: Jon Tester
Runner-up: Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA)
#25: Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)
#24: Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI)
#23: Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA)
#22: Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI)
#21: Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA)

And now, bad, bad, Sherrod Brown. The baddest man in the whole damned town.

Brown at some sort of committee meeting, with a smile and unruly curly gray hair

Next week, it is #19, businessman Mark Cuban. If readers have thoughts on a Cuban presidency, please send them to comments@electoral-vote.com. (Z)


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