I am in the process of changing the donations page to six House races that didn’t look competitive until recently. These are all uphill races, but they are possible in a landslide. We really are building a Blue Wave. These are races where I am worried the Democrat needs more money, but on just that criterion I could have picked four times as many. I restricted myself to a list of the most reprehensible Republicans.

CO-03 (Diane Mitsch Busch over Lauren Boebert) Boebert is the Q-Anon nut who loves her Second Amendment and hates her mask. She might quit Congress when Nancy Pelosi tells her that guns are prohibited and masks are required on the House floor, but better not to send her in the first place.

NY-01 (Nancy Goroff over Lee Zeldin) Zeldin yields to no one in Islamophobia and connection to Israel’s right-wing. Time to put an end to bigotry.

OH-01 (Kate Schroder over Steve Chabot) Chabot has been a mediocrity even by GOP Standards (anti-evolution, anti-climate change, fanatical on abortion), but COVID–19 has truly given him an opportunity to come into his own, fulminating against China all the way into summer instead of doing anything here to stop it.

SC-02 (Adair Ford Boroughs over Joe Wilson) You remember Joe Wilson, right? He is the man who yelled “You lie!” at President Obama, back when the GOP was cool with disrespecting the President. Need I say more?

TX-02 (Sima Ladjevardian over Dan Crenshaw) Crenshaw got off to a promising start with a feel-good Saturday Night Live appearance, but since then he has gone Full Trump. There is often an undertone of violence towards Dems in his recent statements. Let’s help him get a new career as Fox TV Action Hero.

VA-05 (Cameron Webb over Bob Good) Good is bad. He upset the Republican incumbent in the primary with a message that a Republican Representative should lose because he officiated a gay wedding. Because of covid, he was able win a drive-by convention instead of a full primary. His opponent is an M.D. Has this district absorbed enough D.C. exurbanites to flip?

A post on Steven Vincent Benét and the Democrats’ longstanding reluctance to manipulate the courts.

Even today, while Blue Dog Democrat Joe Manchin is finally hopping mad over the hasty Barrett nomination, our own Dianne Feinstein is pooh-poohing the idea of court packing. It’s also become obvious that conservative Supreme Court justices pay attention to the timing of their replacements, and liberals do not. The only recent conservative justice to leave the bench under a Democratic President was Antonin Scalia, whose departure was unscheduled. (Last before him was the retirement of moderate-right Byron “Whizzer” White, in 1993.)

The connection to Benét is his famous short story “The Devil and Daniel Webster“, which he subsequently rewrote as a play and opera libretto. To summarize the plot, New Hampshire farmer Jabez Stone sells his soul to the Devil in return for years of good luck. Eventually Mr. Scratch returns to collect. Stone hires famed attorney Daniel Webster to try to save himself from Hell. Webster insists successfully that Stone is entitled to a trial, but the Devil in return picks the judge and jury. The judge is John Hathorne, who presided enthusiastically over some of the Salem Witch Trials. The jurors include the pirate Blackbeard and other malefactors.

Nevertheless, with his stirring advocacy (“You were men, once!”), Webster wins an acquittal, and moreover forces the Devil to agree never to bother a New Hampshireman again.

The Democratic leadership are all dreaming of their success as the modern-day Daniel Webster (who opposed the Democratic Party his entire career), who gets votes from Roberts, Gorsuch, the potential new Justice Barrett, perhaps even roué Brett Boofanaugh. Watch me salvage Obamacare, or even Roe! The conservative justices are not monolithic: Gorsuch appears to be the most sympathetic to Native Americans, including all the liberals, in at least a generation. But on cases that tilt the political playing field in the Republicans’ favor, they have never shown mercy. Bush v. Gore. Citizens United. Shelby County (Voting Rights Act). Voter ID cases. Cases on loosening rules for the 2020 pandemic. Not a single conservative defection.

Right now, the lily-white Republican Party, counting both its explicitly racist Trump vanguard and its business rump, attracts not more than 45% of the national electorate. Maintaining permanent minority rule is exactly why these Federalist Society judges are on the bench. Preservation of Republican supremacy has moved from the ballot box to the courts, and no amount of eloquence or legal brilliance will fix that. Six new progressive seats on the Supreme Court, on the other hand…

Check out the thermometer! We have blown past $35,000.

Two Action Items

1. We have been asked to write postcards for Julie Oliver (TX-25). She was coincidentally added to the Red to Blue list today, which means the DCCC has quietly done polling showing a meaningful chance of the upset. We have a very few names left; get them while you still can. We still have addresses. Email Naomi if you want some (25 minimum).
2. Download the Vote Joe app on your smartphone and you can use it to text contacts in swing states, find out which friends (?!?) are still not registered to vote and much more. Victory2020 offers trainings for the app every day lots of other great activities listed there as well: https://www.mobilize.us/2020victory/

My presentation. The key takeaways are largely unchanged: Biden is winning the legitimate election. Even before the tax returns, Trump and the Republicans had abandoned traditional electioneering in favor of F.U.D. [Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt], hoping for some grievance they can bring to the stacked Supreme Court. The Roberts Court may fear that if they rule for Trump during the election in any way, and Biden wins, he will reciprocate by adding new seats.

Florida is the key to a Biden win so big it can’t be tampered with. Absentee ballots can be counted before Election Day, so by midnight Eastern Time the winner may be obvious. Florida is close.

The most pressing need for volunteers appears to be phone banking. The Wellstone Club has joined with Flip the West. From their email—

Join us on Wednesday afternoons. We are teaming up with Flip the West for a phone bank focused on flipping U.S. Senate seats in Iowa and Kansas, every Wednesday 3-5 (Pacific) from now until the November election. To register, click here or below.

You will get instructions by email after you register for a phone bank session.  If you have questions about how to get your computer set up for the calls – or about the Senate races, please call or text!  Ann Schwartz 510-387-4761.  

Training available Oct 3-4.  Would you like to phone bank, but not sure how to get set up? Flip the West is providing a weekend of training sessions, Oct 3-4.  There’s a one-hour “basic” session at 10AM on Saturday and 11AM on Sunday, plus much more.  For schedule and registration, click here or below.

We have a link for Florida texting, courtesy of Judy Stacey:

Calling all young people! We are hosting a GenZ friendbank this Thursday at 8pm EST to talk with our friends about their plan to vote! RSVP Here: https://www.mobilize.us/fl2020victory/event/333504/not a young person? share it with a young person in your life!!

I don’t see why the young at heart are being excluded.

Also from Judy, a second texting group, helping young voters with vote by mail.

If you can’t read this, it isn’t for you. También tenemos un hipervínculo por ser voluntario a textear en español. Flórida es un objetivo.

Don’t miss Bruce’s links.

Agenda to follow. A busy two weeks.

Indivisible Elmwood
Time: Sep 27, 2020 04:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

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I don’t have a cool graph, but here is an updated look at Senate races. Most of the Cash on Hand figures are completely obsolete but it will be end of the month before anything more recent is available.

Besides changing my own bang-for-buck rating, I have changed the Pundit Assessments to match their current predictions. All changes went in our favor.

For an explanation of the re-rankings, see my longer post.

Jeff Carlock of EBAA has done his own calculation of bang for buck in the Senate races, which he has turned into the nifty graph below [filed under: Why didn’t I think of that!]

There’s one important variable that is missing, and not entirely easy to calculate, which is the candidates’ cash on hand, especially after the donation binge that followed RBG’s death.

Today’s NY Times article features Al Gross (AK), as having raised $3MM, doubling his cash on hand, and bringing him over the $8MM he told supporters was all he needed—with six weeks to go. Amy McGrath (who you can see in the chart is the least desirable competitive race for a donation) raked in many more millions out of spite.^{[footnote 1]} You also can’t tell from the chart that Bollier (KS) is far ahead of Marshall in cash, while Greenfield (IA) is not ahead of Ernst in cash, albeit she is in the polls.

I remain skeptical of Jaime Harrison’s chances or value as a contribution, fun as it is to watch Lindsey Graham squirm. In the latest 45-all polling, Harrison is already pulling 95% of Democrats while Lindsey has only 80-some of Republicans. Harrison needs them to skip the Senate race or vote third-party, and Graham will be abasing himself to the max in the confirmation hearings to avoid that. I wonder if it will be his opening or closing statement where he announces that Trump’s farts do, indeed, smell like roses. Harrison raised oodles this week, and more will accrue once the hearings are on TV.

Mike Espy in Mississippi is a better play than Harrison. He is running (again) against Cindy Hyde-Smith. She defeated him in the special election required when Thad Cochrane retired early for health reasons. Espy is now only 5 down in the polls, and should have been put on this chart, but he has a similar issue to Harrison’s: he is maxed out with the state’s large African American population and needs extraordinary good fortune with its whites. Espy’s haul this weekend was a record for him, but was still less than $1MM. I am sure he can use cash better than Harrison, who is reaching saturation.

You can see from the graph that Jon Ossoff (GA) remains an important recipient. The special election in Georgia is rounding into view: The Rev. Raphael Warnock is now ahead of Matt Lieberman in the polls, behind Republican Doug Collins, and close to appointed incumbent Republican Kelly Loeffler. Remember, this is a jungle primary. There is zero chance that either Republican will get 50%, so the point is for Warnock to finish in second place and be ready for the runoff. I don’t know if more money is what Warnock needs to get Matt Lieberman (and two other minor Democrats in single digits) out of the race, or whether some other form of persuasion is necessary. Lieberman was ahead of Warnock early in the race, but his fundraising is weak and almost all Democratic leaders have endorsed Warnock. Maybe this isn’t the year for the Dems to run two white liberal Jews in Georgia?

Incidentally, the other BIPoC Democratic Senate candidates are Adrian Perkins (LA), Marquita Bradshaw (TN), and Nez Perce tribal citizen Paulette Jordan (ID), all of whom will lose big, but who would certainly appreciate a token contribution. (I suppose I should also include Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, but he is an overwhelming favorite.)

I am replacing Gross with Steve Bullock (MT) on our ActBlue page later tonight, not because I am giving up on Gross (I think he is closer to winning than the graph suggests), but because I will take him at his word that he can’t spend more than $8MM, which he has now raised.

^{[note 1]} This left-wing site suggests that McGrath isn’t even a very good candidate, although I doubt anyone could beat McConnell, and has been offered up by the Democratic Establishment because she would have no trouble raising money from out-of-state supporters. (I am not quite sure what the DSCC’s motive would be here: whether to force Mitch to spend in his own backyard so that he can’t redistribute his own funds, or to hope that McGrath would have so much money she could funnel some to the DSCC, or both.)

One reason to feel good about the Presidential race is that House polls show the Democrats in a slightly better position than Biden, who, of course, is still ahead. According to Nate Silver of 538, this is the opposite of 2016, where House races were relatively weak for Democrats. The Democrats’ pickup of six House seats was not impressive. To quantify this, in 2016, Republican House candidates actually received more votes than Democrats. In 2018, that swung nine percentage points to the Blue.

Nathan Gonzales of Inside Elections and Cook Political Report have made some recent prediction changes, most, but not all, in the Democrats’ direction. (Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball is due for update.)

Of Gonzales’ ten Tossups, 7 are Republican-held. The other three are Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (FL-26), Kendra Horn (the big upset winner of OK-5 last cycle), and Max Rose (NY-11: Staten Island and part of Brooklyn). He has no current D seat worse than Tossup.

This actually makes Gonzales more optimistic than I am about TJ Cox (lean D) and Christy Smith (Tossup to defeat Mike Garcia this time). An early September poll had Cox 11 behind, and the bad news is that Valadao had about his same percentage as 2018. Cox has bled support. He needs enormous Biden turnout with no ticket splitting. Smith is also behind in polling. Neither candidate is particularly hurting for money; they just don’t seem to be connecting with voters.

Polling in Iowa is looking good for all three seats we are defending (Finkenauer, Axne, and Hart to replace Loebsack, in descending order of lead). Unfortunately, JD Scholten’s only chance was Republican renomination of bigot Steve King, and the Iowa Republicans retired him in the primary. Scholten is double-digits behind, which is also why Biden is less than 50-50 to take the state. I have no idea if he is related to Hilary Scholten, who is our relatively long-shot (but closer then JD) candidate to replace Republican-turned-Libertarian Justin Amash in MI-03.

The flip side is that both pundits and polls are now giving us real chances in VA-05 (Cameron Webb) and CO-03 (Diane Mitsch Bush), which became competitive only because Republicans nominated extremist nuts. I found no polls of NC-11 in the last month, where callow Republican youth Madison Cawthorn was caught lying about his education, and even whether his ex-girlfriend dumped him before or after he was paralyzed in an automobile accident. (Before.) He was about 5 ahead when these revelations hit.

Darrel Issa is only barely ahead of Ammar Campa-Najjar in CA-50, too.

Bottom line here is: we are probably losing one or two seats, and winning as many as twelve. We start with two locks in NC from redistricting, four in play in Texas (TX-23 with Gina Ortiz Jones is at least Lean D; three tossup seats with D momentum; two more at the edges of possibility), and have more than one viable candidate in PA, OH, and NY. Then there’s a smattering: the only seat in AK, the only one in MT (surprisingly strong poll this week; Republican is a recent arrival to the state), Schupp even in MO-02, etc. We are playing offense all over the map.

Every day that goes by is one more that Trump has been unable to change the election direction: Biden is ahead in polls, in swing state polls, and the Democrats are expanding the Congressional map. We have learned more details about Trump’s plans for martial law and combatting the “insurrection” that would follow an unjustified declaration of victory. My presentation is uploaded here.

We had a good poll (I admit, I am a little skeptical) for Joyce Elliott in Arkansas–02. Her web site. This isn’t a race with up-and-down-the-ballot potential, though.

All types of action items from Indivisible.

Indivisible’s texting schedule (from Judy).

If you want to join in on a letter-writing party Saturday, get in touch with Sally.

Help with texting? Karen volunteers to help, or Judy.

Bill promises some links to phone banks in a separate post.

Keep your spirits up. The thermometer is at almost $25,000.

Topic: Indivisible Elmwood

Agenda: We will talk about various ways to protect voting as well as update about action items.

Time: Sep 13, 2020 04:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

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I have worked as an Election Inspector in several recent elections. I am considering skipping this year because of COVID–19, but I want to encourage those of you with younger family members to have them sign up. This year voting will be over multiple days at consolidated Voting Centers, so the process will be different. Personal Protective Equipment will be supplied.