I’m a bit nervous about the Michigan race. The Republican candidate, James, is doing much better than Trump is in the state, and he’s actually outraised Gary Peters in many quarters. With so many challengers awash in huge sums of money, I’d like to devote some resources to making sure Gary Peters, an excellent Senator, gets re-elected.
You can see all the candidates we are supporting here. Doug Jones is another incumbent in a tough race. I think Tina Smith is safe now.
Betty
It looks like Peters has slipped with Black voters. Is it because his opponent is Black and comes off as more sympathetic to their concerns?
TheTruffle
Just donated.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
word is the Devos family is going all in on James
I’m only surprised this race wasn’t tighter earlier. From what I’ve seen of James he’s a very good retail politician, comes across as a normal human being, and with a resume that would make a political consultant see stars, if not unicorns leaping over rainbows
Soprano2
I heard that the black Republican candidate isn’t putting his party affiliation on his signs, and neither is Peters, which seems to lead many voters to believe the black candidate is the Democrat and the white candidate is the Republican. He needs to get out there quickly and correct this! I can see why the Republican manipulated it like that. I also read that he’s running away from Trump.
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
I’ve got Peters on my monthly donation list, but this is my third booster shot to him in less than a week. I’m officially worried. My anxiety level is pretty high right now anyway, and politics isn’t helping.
At least Warnock in GA is doing well. It looks like he’ll definitely make the runoff, and is in striking distance of the 50% needed to avoid the runoff altogether
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
@Soprano2: He is in quarantine because he sat next to plague-spreader Sen. Lee, who was infected and not wearing a mask at a Judiciary Committee meeting last week? The week before? Anyway, he’s being responsible because Lee wasn’t, so he can’t get out there right now.
H.E.Wolf
Reassuring commentary from Electoral Vote blog this morning… but it’s still a good idea to run up the fund-raising (and GOTV) flag. Thank you!
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2020/Pres/Maps/Oct13.html#item-9
glory b
@Soprano2: Yes, I have a cousin in Michigan, he said the same thing, nothing saying anything about his party affiliation.
As I recall, Michael Steele, now a never Trumper, did the same thing in Maryland when he ran for governor. It became something of a story. I even think he had signs or ads indicating he was a Dem. It was close, but he still lost.
Cheryl from Maryland
Donated.
mali muso
Donated to Peters again last night.
Elizabelle
@H.E.Wolf: I like that site. Thank you.
I hope that, beginning now, politicians find it safe to claim “Democrat” on their campaign signs and materials. Especially the Dems!
Don’t run away from the label Democrat/ic, or from liberal, although Republicans have tried to make them dirty words.
Reclaim them. The Democratic party stands for a lot of popular, humane and farsighted policies. We are actually better stewards of the economy, and of foreign policy.
It is sad that our political Villagers/careerist media and opinion leaders cannot see that, but there is an enormous difference between the parties, and ours has not gone whack job.
oldster
okay, I hit the tip jar.
Now I am officially maxed out of all donating. There’s going to be a lot of cold sweat between here and Nov. 3 (or 4 or 5 or whenever we get all the votes counted).
sanjeevs
Morning Consult has Peters up by 9
https://mobile.twitter.com/USA_Polling/status/1316005115711684608
Tenar Arha
Done. Been meaning to do it this week anyway. Read the Elle article & heard he needed funds
Dorothy A. Winsor
Election related: My mail in ballot was sent to Iowa by mistake. The county clerk’s site now says a new one was issued for me on Sunday. So they’re working weekends.
guachi
Because of people like my wife who voted for Biden and voted for James.
kindness
When did Upper Mid-Western nice become Republican tribal? In my youth those states had their crazies but were on the whole moderates who elected good Democrats and middle of the road Republicans. Gerry Ford springs to mind.
Mai Naem mobile
@Betty: James is a Putin Puppy so I have to wonder if Russian bots are aiming at Peters.
mvr
Done! Thanks Doug. I had intended to donate yesterday after finding the article linked below, but then got busy. You prompted me to do what I intended.
This made me happy to see: https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a34339956/senator-gary-peters-abortion/
Seems like a bit of political courage.
DougJ
Thanks a lot everyone
WaterGirl
@Tenar Arha: I think the issue was that you used a different email address in the earlier comment, one you had never used before. That means we have to manually approve the first comment with the new email. Same thing if you change your nym.
I will delete the comment above as requested. It was definitely a different email address than you used for this comment.
lee
FYI. Tried to early vote in North Texas with my wife and kid.
The lines were the longest I’ve ever seen at 2 separate locations. We had to put it off until this afternoon as the kid has a college class this morning.
Lots of POC in the lines.
Soprano2
@KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager)): Ah, didn’t know that. I didn’t mean literally “get out there”, I meant more with advertising, to make it clear that he’s the Democratic candidate.
Gin & Tonic
My friend in finance says that Bloomberg analysts are growing a little more skeptical of a Dem Senate and are predicting a downturn in most asset classes on that basis. But I thought Republicans were *good* for the markets?
lee
@Gin & Tonic: The analysts know that if the GOP has the Senate nothing will get done and the economy will suffer.
evap
Done! We need the Senate!!
RaflW
@Elizabelle: “We are actually better stewards of the economy.”
It drives me wild that so many in both the political press and the business press still don’t get this. A few cracks in the wall are appearing (Goldman Sachs saying it pain may finally help a bit).
But it does show how stupidly resistant to the realignment our press is. “It’s been like like this the whole time I’ve been a reporter” isn’t actually … reporting. (It also has been true since at least Clinton that the economy does better under a ‘D’ presidency!).
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well, if that isn’t reason enough to donate, I don’t know what is!
WaterGirl
@KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager)): So what’s going on with Lieberman? I thought he was in the way of Warnock making the runoff?
Baud
@KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager)):
oh wow. That would be amazing.
RaflW
@kindness: The Minnesota GOP is losing their minds. Total FOX brain lunacy. It’s really pretty shocking.
And the decent Republicans have left the fold. Two term MN Governor Arne Carlson very visibly split with the GOP in the late 00s, and of late has endorsed Hillary Clinton. I met him about a dozen years ago and he was bluntly disparaging of Tim Pawlenty, a person with milktoast demeanor but viciously conservative policies.
Baud
@RaflW: The media is stuck on their conventional wisdoms, but we also don’t do a good enough job selling ourselves as good for the economy. When we talk about economic issues, we instead tend to focus on helping people who are falling through the cracks of the economy. That’s important too, but it’s a different message for a different audience.
RaflW
@WaterGirl: From what I’ve seen, Lieberman gave a very whiny “I’m not a spoiler!” speech when attention finally turned to this two-past-the-post primary mess, and he was in a fairly poor fourth place already.
Add in his dad’s craptastic record (great job endorsing pariah Susan Collins, Joe!) and I think his veneer of support cracked. His polling up to then was probably family name recognition, and once people connected the dots, he fell back fast.
Citizen Alan
Apropos of the title if nothing else, I woke up this morning at around 4:30 am from a nightmare in which Shitgibbon won. I mention it because I rarely have nightmares capable of waking me up, and the last one I had was weeks ago when I dreamed I’d been enrolled in the Battle Royale School from the Japanese school of the same name, and I was forced to evade death traps and murder fellow students just to survive. It is a testament to my feelings about the Shitgibbon administration that the thought of him winning fills me with the same dread as being forced to fight and kill for my life.
Barbara
@kindness: I can’t speak definitively, but obviously Fox News is an important part of it. So is the radicalized religious politics that seems to have infected the Republican Party. Obviously, Barrett is an example of that. “Just us” Amy is telegraphing loud and clear that justice is for those who can pay for it, either through lobbyists or lawyers. And she is wrapping that up in her happy shiny family. As if we are supposed to bow down before her and defer to her wisdom because she birthed a bunch of babies. TBH, I think many of these people are reacting viscerally to the rejection of their beliefs and elevated status, frequently even by their own children. They see their world slipping away. They are looking for people to blame.
WaterGirl
@RaflW: Yay for that! Thanks
mad citizen
So checking Real Clear Politics Senate map, they have 47 likely D and 46 R, so D’s have to get 3 of these 7 to achieve a 50-50 tie in the Senate:
GA1: Perdue (R)
IA: Ernst (R)
ME: Collins (R)
MI: Peters (D)
MT: Daines (R)
NC: Tillis (R)
SC: Graham (R)
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/senate/2020_elections_senate_map.html
RaflW
@Baud: Agree. Our ‘lift all boats’ message needs to include the fact that we help the water rise*, we don’t just just patch the hulls.
*Not meant to be a commentary on climate change.
Though we do need to find better ways to communicate on that, too. I’ OK with the Green New Deal moniker, but that isn’t really super clear what it does — and the other New Deal was a long time ago. Younger voters only know it as some paragraphs in a history textbook.
How many jobs does a new natgas power plan create? 30? How many jobs does installing 1,000,000 home solar arrays create — thousands! Elon Musk is an absolute ass, but he’s shown us that electric cars aren’t some p.o.s. gokart with 16 miles of put-put range. Let’s electrify the bulk of US cars! etc.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I think step one in that is getting it through people’s heads that health care is an economic issue. You can’t have economic security without access to health care, and the great recession and now the pandemic recession have shown that the employer-based model isn’t enough
evap
@WaterGirl: The Democrats have coalesced around Warnock and I think he is getting/will get almost all of the Dem vote. The GOP voters are split between Collins and Loeffler. I fear that this will be a repeat of the Ossoff vs. Handel race in 2017 — Warnock will just miss the 50%+1 threshold and will lose to Collins in the run-off in January.
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
@WaterGirl:
@Baud: My “in striking distance” may be a bit of hyperbole, but Warnock is at 41%, and has been pretty steadily increasing. Lieberman is only pulling 3% at this point. Loeffler & Collins are pulling 24% & 22% respectively. It looks like Lieberman hasn’t gotten above 3% in any polls taken since September. I guess Dems are getting serious about putting their eggs in one basket.
RaflW
I’ve been wondering about Cunningham, since he seems to be a person with extra-curricular wants that may be deemed unseemly (I have no idea what his wife may privately know or agree to, but politically, fidelity still has some resonance – Falwell’s fall may be helping some with shifting that negative??).
I guess so far it has nibbled at support but not caused a collapse. Still three weeks for the news to filter in, though.
Nicole
@Barbara:
This, a thousand times over. I have seen more than one person in my life go from reasonable to out of their freaking minds over the course of a 20+ year relationship with FOX News. And, of course, it happened gradually. I’ve been watching The Vow on HBO, about the NXIUM cult, and as one of the ex-members said, no one sets out to join a cult. But, years later, there you are, drinking the Flavor Aid at gunpoint.
(Or, in the case of NXIUM, getting branded in your nethers.)
Fair Economist
@WaterGirl: Obama endorsed Warnock, and then Lieberman criticized Obama for being a Dem establishment sellout or some such buzzword bingo, and then his support fell to 3% or so. Killed his political career. Couldn’t have happened to a much more deserving backstabber.
anon
MI resident here. I wouldn’t worry about Peters. His opponent lost to Stabenow in 2018 by 6 pts in a cycle that was brutal for senate dems. He was first elected in 2014 in a cycle even more brutal for senate dems. In 2018 they also elected dems to all statewide offices (gov, AG, SOS) so I think we’re alright.
Glad you’re raising money for him but I wouldn’t donate to him at the expense of AZ or ME.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@anon: trying not to play amateur pundit, but do you think an Obama endorsment/ad would help?
ETA: and by endorsement, I mean a media push to underscore an endorsement I suspect has already happened.
Baud
@KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager)):
That’s too bad. Highly unlikely that he’ll avoid a runoff absent a historic collapse by the GOP.
Marcopolo
Good morning folks.
As of this morning over 11 million votes have been cast. We are now over 8% of the total votes cast in 2020. Three weeks before the election! The first day of voting in GA yesterday saw a ~50% increase over the number of voters on the first day in 2016. Yesterday the voter registrar in Tarrant County TX (3rd most populous county in TX and home to Fort Worth) announced that 97% of eligible voters were now registered there–hat tip to voter registration efforts there. And Beto O’Rourke helmed a TX GoTV phone bank yesterday that made calls to over 2.9 million voters.
So far all of the signs on the ground are looking good.
The only place where we need to do work is in getting younger folks out. Compared to the other age groups who are voting early they are under performing (honestly, this is a perennial issue). So, if you have family, friends, co-workers, etc.. who are 35 or under please ask them if they have voted/made a plan to vote.
WaterGirl
@evap: May our hopes come true, not our fears.
Jeffro
Hmm…so that’s where all our Virginia GOP crazy people went!
(just kidding, unfortunately there are still plenty of them around here…)
WaterGirl
@Fair Economist:
I hope you’re right and he doesn’t rise from the near-dead in the future. He is a boil on the democratic party.
Marcopolo
@anon: 2018 was brutal for Democrats in red states (ND, MO, IN) but not for Ds in blue states. James actually over performed slightly in 2018. While I wouldn’t rate the James/Peters race a toss up atm, it is closer than it should be due to Peters just being a lackadaisical candidate (poor fundraiser, doesn’t exactly ooze charisma, not a great campaigner). The belief is that Biden & other down ticket D candidates will pull him over the line. That is probably right as Prez/Senate ticket splitting has declined a lot over the last decade or two. Also, MI does have the option of straight party voting on their ballot. That should also help Peters.
Edited to add, Kelly (AZ) and Gideon (ME) don’t need money. The best bang for the buck atm where they could use money are AK & MT & TX. Everyone else seems to be pretty well funded. However, if you really want to get some return for your money find some state legislative races in MI, NC, TX, or PA.
This DLCC 48 for 10 list (48 state legislative races to flip 10 state legislatures) is a great place to find someone you’ve never heard of to send them some money.
Remember, when you give money to a down ticket state legislative race in a state with a US Senate contest you are helping with D GoTV for that as well.
Jeffro
@mad citizen: I like our chances…but I’m also going to drop some coin on 4-5 of these races
because nothing would make me happier than knowing in some small way, I’ve rid the Senate of Graham, Collins, and Ernst, that’s for sure.
Jeffro
@Nicole: it’s the constant outrage-trolling, the constant state of fear Fox keeps its viewers in. You can’t live like that and not end up a different person.
they ping that ‘Breaking News’ gong every 20 minutes for a reason
Kent
@Jeffro: Some of them have moved out here to the Pacific Northwest also, judging from the small town “constitutional sheriff” second amendment extremist idiot they are running against Inslee for WA governor, and the Q-Anon crazy lady they are running against Merkley for OR Senate.
Neither of who has much chance of winning, thankfully. There is a profile of a moderate accomplished business type Republican that can win out here. These two aren’t that. And apparently those types can’t win the GOP primaries anymore. Or “jungle primary” here in WA.
anon
@Marcopolo Thanks for correcting me on the other senate races.
This is the second online board I read that is freaking out over Peters. Take a deep breath people…
Jeffro
@Kent: or maybe the GOP is just devolving in front of our very eyes. Or both.
Similar case in point: Chris Coons up in DE has a genuine ‘Q’ nutcase running against him for Senate. For Senate! How does a national party not come in and lay down the law when it comes to something like that? (Narrator: what national party, Jeffro?)
I’ll say this for Coons, he does have some serious luck when it comes to opponents.
James E Powell
Maybe Peters could ask for some help from Forever FLOTUS Michelle Obama.
Gin & Tonic
@anon: After 2016 people are gun-shy. Including me. Can’t blame them.
Hildebrand
@anon: James freaks Dems in Michigan out because he is bland enough to somewhat obscure the fact that he is a DeVos sock-puppet. He ‘seems’ normal – which is enough to lure some the white suburban voters in the ring around Detroit into voting for him. They can also tell themselves, ‘see, I’m not racist, I’m voting for the black guy’.
The Black community in Detroit? They know he is bad news. Start to finish. They sorted him out years ago. His votes won’t be coming from Wayne County.
Marcopolo
@Jeffro: Hmm. You must have a short memory. DE is the state where Christine “I’m not a witch” O’Donnell ran as a tea party candidate against Coons in 2010. She might not have been as crazy as the current R candidate but she definitely was a bit off.
Kent
This is really a thing among a certain set of conservatives, especially the fundies. They like to collect their token black folk who tell them exactly what they want to hear so they can put on their “see, I’m not racist” hat. Like Candace Owens and Bevelyn Beatty.
Jeffro
@Marcopolo: What/who did you think my last line referred to when I said, “I’ll say this for Coons, he does have some serious luck when it comes to opponents” ?
I lived in DE at the time; it was hysterical then and it’s hysterical now. And here he is drawing another even wackier wack-job
So uh…no memory problems here, MP. ;)
Walker
@kindness: Mid-western nice has always meant “nice to white people only”. That is what happened.
A Ghost to Most
@Walker: Yup. The same as “southern hospitality.” Horseshit.
Bless their hearts.
MCA1
@evap: That’s how I see this one going, too. It’s a lock to turn out that way if Ossof were to somehow knock out Perdue: I think high Republican turnout, from fear of having 2 D Senators, would probably be a deciding factor in the runoff.
I think generally speaking the path to Senate control goes (a) Kelly and Hickenlooper have to win, Peters has to hold; then, (b) assuming Jones loses, Dems need to win 2 more, with the following order of likelihood: Cunningham, Greenfield, Gideon, Bullock, Harrison, one of the GA’s, Bollier, Hegar, Espy. A true blue wave could give a working margin.
I feel like the most likely outcome is the D’s get to 51. I don’t quite get why Daines has been so resilient against a popular former governor in Bullock, but it feels like he’s going to retain a R seat in Montana; and as much as I want to see Harrision take out Graham I just will have to see it to believe it.
Separate note, but why is RCP so lowercase c conservative? Is it the power of incumbency? Ernst is down by an average of 5% over half a dozen polls over the last month – why is that a toss-up? Cunningham’s up 5.6% on average but it’s not “lean D?”
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
I don’t know if this has been posted yet but apparently Texas first day of early voting is showing massive turn out:
Massive turnout on first day of Texas early voting
People lined up to vote at NRG area site in Houston at 5am
Every vote Counts!
Humanities Prof
@MCA1: I think the problem Bullock has in Montana is the same problem Harrison faces in South Carolina and (especially) Espy faces in Mississippi.
Those are all red states. Sometimes, in a state race (Governor) there’s enough different issues at play that someone like Bullock can sneak through. But for national races, there’s a reversion to partisan ID, and no matter how good a candidate is (Harrison, for example, looks like a future superstar), the Dems just run out of bodies first.
Baud
@Humanities Prof:
Montana’s other Senator is a Dem, however.
hoosierspud
Just got off a Michigan phone banking shift. Lots of support for both Biden and Peters, but let’s keep bringing the heat.
WaterGirl
@anon: When key people – who I have a lot of respect for – in the Democratic Party say that this is a key race to focus on this week, I believe them.
Uncle Cosmo
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I put in an online request for a mail-in ballot** Friday afternoon & got an e-mail Sunday afternoon from the MD Board of Elections saying the request had been processed. So they’re working weekends in MD as well.
I anticipate receiving the ballot NLT the end of next week & then filling it out & depositing it in the drop box at one of Baltimore City’s more scenic locations, the Baltimore Museum of Art.
** After the MD AG’s office assured me that GOV Hogan had issued an executive order to allow counting mail-in ballots prior to the day after Election Day (superseding the applicable section of the MD Election Law) and that under the declared state of emergency he had the statutory authority to do so. Seems fairly unratfuckable to me.
WaterGirl
@James E Powell: What a brilliant way to clarify the situation. If only they were listening!
Tenar Arha
@WaterGirl: thanks!
lee
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Went to try and vote this morning. The lines were so long that we are trying again after our kid’s college class is over this afternoon.
I’ve never seen lines this long out in the very red suburbs of Dallas.
Matt McIrvin
I’m hoping that some of these long lines for the opening of in-person early voting are pent-up demand on the first day, and will abate in a day or two.
anon
Yes, every race is important but cmon, Peters won by over 13% in 2014 against the then-SOS, whose name was on my license renewal, voter registration and who knows what else. She also lead Peters in fundraising. The guy he’s running against lost in 2018 by 6%. And those were midterm years without presidential coattails. No offense, but this feels like those ads in my facebook feed for SC or KY that show a close race or trailing and ask me to donate.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@lee: I hope your second attempt is easier, I am hoping it’s a good sign, I am not from or in Texas although some of my family used to live in Lubbock. I would love to see Texas flip Blue, but also would love to see some of the State races go Blue even if the Presidential race does not. I have to remind my fellow Dems in the North East that the South, and South West do not deserve to get the “just secede” treatment. There are many Dem and progressive people in those regions, but they have been gerry-mandered to death and often feel their votes don’t count. Also there a way too many racist Trump voters up here…It’s always a bit of a surprise to see the random “Heritage Not Hate” don’t tread on me bumper sticker or COnfederate flag in someones yard in rural NY…My lefty liberal husband from Tennessee was gobsmacked. Howard Dean had a point with the 50 state strategy.
janesays
Doug Jones isn’t in a tough race, he’s in a lost cause.
I hope he gets a great job with the Biden Administration, possibly something high up in DOJ, because he’s a good man and has been a good senator. But it’s fucking Alabama, which is easily one of the five Trump-iest state in the nation. And Jones’ opponent isn’t Roy Moore. Some races are just unwinnable. This is one of them.
janesays
@MCA1: Regarding RCP…
Greenfield is up by 4.8 points in the current aggregate, but she’s only polling at 47.3%, which means there’s a lot of undecided voters out there. I’m guessing that’s why they still list the race as a toss-up. Same goes for Cunningham – he’s up by 5.6 points, but he’s polling at 48%, which means there’s still a lot of undecideds out there. Tina Smith is only polling at 46% in the aggregate, but the state is listed “Lean D” because she’s up by 8.3 points.
andy
Tina Smith is lucky in that she’s running against an idiot. Though truth be told, the only Republican to win a US Senate set in the 21st century (Coleman) was running against a dead man.
phdesmond
just saw Peters on Rachel Maddow and plunked some money in the pot.
Kayla Rudbek
I’ve been making a lot of donations tonight. So many that ActBlue froze up on me and I’m hoping that I don’t get a fraud alert on my credit card. My tally so far for this election: Barbara Bollier, Texas House, Al Gross, Mike Espy, Raphael Warnock, MJ Hegar, Harrison, Biden, Democratic Party of VA (not all of these were tonight). Any recommendations for other races?
Al Z.
My distinct fight – NY 24th Congressional District election – is tight.
https://www.syracuse.com/politics/cny/2020/10/john-katko-has-1-million-more-to-spend-than-dana-balter-in-final-weeks-of-campaign.html
Will throw some cash Balter’s way next pay cycle…