John Avlon, formerly a CNN reporter, was the Democrat who ran for the NY-1 House seat and lost. Here’s his report from the trenches:
That’s why the core message of my campaign was a commitment to “rebuild the middle”—both the middle of our politics and the middle of our economy. These things are directly connected. It’s not a coincidence that the middle of our politics has been hollowed out at the same time that the middle of our economy has been hollowed out. Until we rebuild a strong middle class, our politics won’t have the ballast needed to steady the increasingly intense partisan swings.
The irony is that Democrats ran on this. Joe Biden consistently warned about the dangers of the middle-class squeeze since it accelerated during the Reagan era, when American manufacturing began moving overseas. He was more of a pro-union president than any other occupant of the White House in recent memory.
And while no one wants to hear this right now, President Biden’s record also included landmark legislation that over time—if it is not repealed out of partisan spite—will do a lot to rebuild the middle class through the re-shoring of essential manufacturing and through historic infrastructure spending. While inflation spiked early on his watch, America’s economy is “the envy of the world” in the words of the Economist.
But President Biden was hobbled by legitimate perceptions of reduced vigor while Democrats were denied credit for the bipartisan legislation they passed during his presidency. At stops at diners while on the campaign trail, I noticed that Biden’s age was a punch-line offered up by kids while their parents offered a pox-on-both-houses assessment of the two parties, often mentioning things like defund-the-police. There was pervasive anger at Albany for bail-reform laws, despite the fact that violent crime has fallen under Biden.
Talking with those voters, I was often reminded of one of my favorite quotes from the late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.” The results of this election show that collective reasoning around common facts in hopes of finding common ground is an increasingly rare quality.
NY-1 is eastern Long Island. It was recently redistricted and is supposedly R+3, but it went for Trump by solid margins in 2016 and 2020, and Avlon got beat by 11%, and Trump won by 11% in 2024, so I think R+3 is going to be revised upwards.
Also, AOC is having a AMA on Bluesky and it’s pretty good. Hit the “Replies” link to see it.
Hildebrand
A whole bunch of folks who voted for Biden stayed home this time – somewhere around 6-7 million. Biden got 81 million, Harris just north of 74. Trump’s numbers stayed about the same.
Maybe the red shift is just a blue snit fit for any number of reasons.
eclare
What’s an AMA? All I know is American Medical Association and Against Medical Advice.
Baud
@eclare:
Ask me anything.
More and more Dems on blue sky.
@mistermix.bsky.social
Also, Mace is widely disliked, according to AOC.
eclare
@Baud:
Thanks!
zhena gogolia
@@mistermix.bsky.social: That’s a shocker!
piratedan
@eclare: ama=ASK ME ANYTHING
Martin
@Hildebrand: yeah, the exit poll analysis from swing states show that Harris picked up about as many votes from Trump 2020 as she lost from Biden 2020 to Trump 2024. IOW, Some individual voters were convinced – 1%-3% of each group (0.5%-1.5% of the electorate) but in aggregate there was no swing. Georgia was an exception – Trump did pick up votes there. Not a huge amount, but enough.
Trump lost some of his 2020 voters who didn’t turn out (normal – people die if nothing else) but Harris lost a lot more of Biden 2020 voters who stayed home – 8% or thereabouts.
My argument, again, has been that all of the effort to swing voters is extremely bad investment. It’s expensive, it’s risky to your base, and it yields almost nothing. Appealing to your base, ensuring they turn out, is cheaper, easier, and works better. For ever voter Harris won from Trump 2020, it looks like 4-12 Biden voters stayed home depending on state.
Elections are not zero sum. The other guys pool is not the only place to find votes. In fact it’s usually the worst place.
Art
Bill Palmer | 4:37 pm EST November 21, 2024
Palmer Report » Analysis
Two ambulances leaving MAL.
Quietly, without any real hope or outward enthusiasm, my little demon voice is cheering heartily for a cerebral aneurysm.
Van Buren
I am at the far western end of NY-1. It’s disgustingly MAGA. Nick LaLota is portrayed as a moderate R who believes in bipartisanship, but he ran on anti-trans paranoia, anti-immigrant bigotry, and lies about rampant crime. I hold special contempt for him as a USNA grad who worships that POS who has denigrated military service repeatedly.
(Spits)
gene108
I think the structural advantages Republicans have over Democrats came to bear on this election. It’s not just the right-wing media or on-line influencer presence or billionaires throwing 100’s of millions of dollars at Republicans, but the fact Republicans will win the majority of the white vote and white people make up the majority of the country.
The Obama coalition that managed to maximize minority turnout to makeup for Republicans advantage with white voters worked in 2008, 2012, and should’ve worked in 2016 but for the EC.
Biden, despite getting a smaller share of the minority vote than Hillary, won because he did better with white voters, especially white men, than Hillary did in 2016.
I don’t know what all this means, but I think we’ve reached the end of the Obama coalition being a strong path to the White House. The makeup of Democratic voters is different than it was 16 years ago.
Martin
@Van Buren: I mean, as someone who lived on Long Island, and recently had a 2 hour visit there, I’m not surprised. I was returning my uncle from an effort to get him into assisted living to his old house (my grandparents home). He was ready to sell the house and move into assisted living, but got a call from his old neighbor who somehow convinced him to not sell and to return home, and I was called for an emergency flight to drive him home. By the end of the adventure we had worked out from various parties that the neighbors caught wind the the buyer of the house was not white (Indian or Pakistani) and talked my uncle out of selling making whatever promises necessary.
My wife was shocked by that, and I said I was a little surprised, but only that things hadn’t changed much on Long Island in the 35 years since I last lived there. You see, I’m in California for a reason. My relatives spread mostly around Brooklyn and Queens for quite some time effectively ran the FDNY. My dad’s cousin was head of the union on 9/11 and had his smarmy mug on tv every fucking day. And if you recall a FDNY scandal that prevented black applicants from becoming firefighters – yeah, that’s my family’s work there. So when my aunt met a guy and got knocked up, and that guy happened to be black, well, we fucking packed up and ran to the other side of the country to get away from those racist assholes, who are still racist, Trumpy assholes, the lot of them. And also Yankees fans, of course. The end.
realworldrj
Basically comes to Dems get their news from Earth and Republicans get it from Vhoorl
Bokonon
As someone who used to canvas and do political organizing (and who also worked for Pat Moynihan as a lowly Senate intern), this post nails it in so many ways. People are selecting their own truths, and they are ACTIVELY not listening.
That means that it has become very difficult to reach people with reason and logical arguments. Most people have their own heads down in their own small-screen media, and feelings and memes and anecdotes and tribal truths form a fence around their political views. They also brush aside good government and cynically accept corruption (if it’s from their preferred side). Which removes the main incentive for politicians to behave well in office and actually serve the public interest. If nobody cares or notices, and there’s little accountability, why bother?
From recent experience, you can point out something concrete and beneficial and smart like Biden’s infrastructure bill, that actually works, and they will resist it with some slap-back meme or insult or whattaboutism, usually coupled with words of disengagement “well, I just FEEL that Biden isn’t getting much done” or “well, I just FEEL that the economy was better under Trump”.
You can’t engage or change minds with people who are dug in like this.
trollhattan
Think your healthcare is safe in blue California, women and girls? Let’s ask the Catholic health care folks!
It doesn’t get any better following that excerpt. Please don’t concern yourselves over whether Mercy will retain their nonprofit status. All good there!
YY_Sima Qian
There is a one third of Americans (nearly half of active voters) committed to a Herrenvolk white nationalist America where White & “honorary Whites” (who buy into the framework) preserve their [relatively] privileged positions in society by the way of illiberal democracy. There is no point for Dems to try to win such voters.
SomeRandomGuy
Funny thing, when *I* say this, and that people aren’t as petty and nasty-minded and deliberately cruel and evil, as the 2024 election makes them fear, people talk to me about how every voter is perfectly informed about how terrible the candidate, or knew how to become so.
Look, I know y’all know I’m the kind of guy who got bullied. Some of you all, if you saw me, probably be tempted to do, but, be warned: a gimp is allowed to fall, right the fuck on you, and palmstrike you RIGHT in the BALLS, claiming he was just striking the floor to absorb the impact.
Where was I? Right: instinctively warning off physical bullies. It becomes an instinct.
*I* know human pettiness and nastiness and evil; I’ve had plenty of Joe Biden moments, where people look at me, and suddenly, *bam*, they’re horrified, or disgusted, or furious. I know a lot of people will *never* try to get their licks in, EVEN THOUGH IT FEELS LIKE EVERYONE IS. I know a lot more people will be disgusted, not by me, but by the empty cruelty and bigotry they see in others.
That’s why I’ll always say misinformation is more important than cruelty – because I know better. What I was naive about was how WIDESPREAD the cruelty is, see. Now, since I seem to have warn out my welcome, so to speak, I’ll vanish, and never use the F__L word again.
trollhattan
Caught up this p.m. with an old friend/former workmate. Still works at the corporation where we toiled together for a long, long decade and I’ve just learned about a new cynical cost-cutting scheme from America’s cheapest engineering firm℗.
There’s no more formal vacation accrual. You can take time off, but only “after you have discussed and come to an agreement with your supervisor.”
I can’t see any problem with that. Oh, except for being paid for unused leave on departing, that’s been wiped clean forever and ever.
America’s cheapest engineering firm℗
Gin & Tonic
@Martin: I grew up there. Ran away in 1976 and never looked back. It hasn’t changed a bit.
Jackie
That didn’t take long!:
Martin
@gene108: Keep in mind, the number and share of white people in this country is falling – fast. The number of christians in this country is falling – even faster. That structural advantage is MUCH worse now than it was in the last election or the one before it or the one before that.
It’s why I’m not buying the ‘electorate is racist/sexist’ argument. Voters didn’t swing from Harris – democrats didn’t turn out. Women of color like AOC retained their vote share even as Trump gained votes in their district. There are a LOT of counter indicators to the theory that gender/race played a significant factor here (I’m sure it played some factor). Tester and Brown weren’t saved by their race and gender and yet we got Sarah McBride elected. Be skeptical of simplistic answers.
LAO
@Jackie: She’s terrible (we all know), a member of Stephen Millers America First Team. Yikes. But I’m surprised it wasn’t Paxton.
Geminid
CBS radio news tells me that Trump hss chosen former Florida Artorney General Pam Bondi to be his Attorney General.
This is somewhat of a retro pick. Bondi did her best to deliver Florida to Bush in 2000, but she hasn’t made much of an impact since.
PST
@Baud:
Including me. I suspect that statistics about the number of people who have quit X greatly understates the case. I have dropped the app from my home screens and don’t plan to use it any more as a source of information, but I keep it around in case I need to follow up a reference not available elsewhere. So for all practical purposes I’m gone, and there must be many more like me.
zhena gogolia
@Geminid: She defended him in the first impeachment. She’s vile.
different-church-lady
In other words: we now have American Fascism because [Bevis and Butthead noises here].
At least the Germans had the excuse of being genuinely stressed.
Jackie
@LAO: Paxton may not bend the knee as far as TCFG demands.
Bondi will.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Bluesky will not save us.
LAO
@Jackie: Maybe. I’m sure she had Miller’s backing as well.
Geminid
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, there’s no doubt that Bondi is vile. And even if she is over the hill– and I’m just guessing at that– more vigorous deputies can do a lot of damage.
different-church-lady
@SomeRandomGuy:
[squints] How do you know this?
different-church-lady
Unmod please: all I did was quote something already visible!
different-church-lady
@PST: It’s not going to matter until you stop seeing the logo on the utility bill envelopes.
trollhattan
@Geminid: Just saw her pic and swore it was Tiffany.
“Now that Gaetz won’t be around, get me more blondes.”
Peale
@Geminid: At the same time, this pick is conventional enough with the usual amount of corruption that she’ll pass. At least she’s been an attorney general somewhere.
Geminid
@Peale: Bondi is a safe pick in that respect. With a 53-47 majority, Senate Republicans will confirm just about anyone not named Matt Gaetz. Hedgseth and Gabbard might be exceptions.
Jackie
@Peale: Agreed. She’ll be confirmed. And, she is indeed vile.
I wonder who TCFG as waiting in the wings to replace Hegseth.
Martin
@trollhattan: I mean, that’s the way it’s always been. When Harris was AG she forced St Joseph to transport patients at their expense to abortion serving clinics/hospitals when they merged with Hoag, which used to perform abortions. That agreement was for 30 years. Recently St Joes and Hoag broke back up and St Joes went to the AG to get out of the agreement and he dutifully said fuck you – agreement stands.
Yeah, it’s a patchwork, but it’s a patchwork that when opportunities present the state reliably patches correctly.
I mean, if you don’t in this day and age know what you’re going to receive at a Catholic hospital and still choose to go there, I don’t know what to tell you. My son was born at a Catholic hospital that had contracted capacity for Kaiser and we asked her OB what the rules there were and he said ‘I’m a Kaiser doctor and they can’t interfere with the care I prescribe – if you need a procedure you’ll get the procedure’. It was only with that knowledge and that he was on duty there the day she went into labor that we didn’t drive past to the nearest Kaiser.
I mean, there’s a Kaiser hospital 3 miles from Mercy San Juan they could have gone to, on the other side of Carmichael that would have been covered for an ER visit under any insurance plan in the state (because we have good insurance regulation).
USSC Catholics have done a remarkable job of protecting their own. That needs to be baked into the American psyche. There’s relatively little the state can do about it.
Jackie
TCFG’s official announcement:
I think Bondi was selected days ago. Maybe even TCFG’s original choice before Gaetz (and Musk?) sold himself at the spur of the moment on his plane.
Danielx
@Geminid:
Now she has her chance to impose her views on an even larger group of people, and with greater power and evil.
frosty
Rats. The Inky sez Casey just conceded. The outstanding ballots aren’t enough to overcome McCormick’s lead.
Good on him for fighting to the end.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Only Balloon Juice has that power.
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: Are you mixing her up with Katherine Harris? Or do you have the year wrong?
Danielx
@Jackie:
Going way out on a limb, I’m guessing Crime includes any form of opposition to or disagreement with Donald Trump and any of his works.
cmorenc
@gene108: Speaking of the “Obama coalition”, it’s painful now to remember election night 2008 through inauguration day while it truly, convincingly seemed the country had turned a supernova-class leap forward toward a brighter future. And then Mitch McConnell and Rush Limbaugh went to work in overdrive. Ok, so Mitch & Rush aren’t the whole story of how it all went to Hell by 2010, but you know what I mean – the forces of malevolence came out in force to deliberately try to cripple Obama’s Presidency at every turn.
Gretchen
@Martin: I’ve worried about that. My daughter married an Indian-American guy and they bought a house on Staten Island. I’ve wondered how their Italian neighbors see them. SIL wouldn’t let her put a Harris sign in their yard.
Martin
@Gretchen: From what I’ve seen, Staten Island was a lot nicer when it was just a dump.
frosty
@Gretchen: I’ve never put a yard sign out for a Democratic candidate. Well, one, for a Representative that my neighbors wouldn’t have heard of. And his sign was red!
trollhattan
@Martin:
Yeah, the rest of the article said they’d gone to Mercy for their prenatal support and planned on birthing there, too. After being sent home they went to Kaiser who determined the fetus had died and performed the necessary D&C.
What a clusterflock. I don’t think enough folks go through a “what if” analysis before choosing where to get prenatal care. OTOH there’s a new racket of OB/Gyn practices demanding full payment for birthing services up front. The cynicism is boggling.
Danielx
@schrodingers_cat:
Had to refresh my memory regarding Katherine Harris, but I would guess Pam Bondi would do the same or worse.
trollhattan
@Gretchen:
Staten Island welcomes vampires!
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: Thank you for the correction. Now I remember, it was Harris. Bondi came later.
Suzanne
@Martin: I was born in Suffolk County, Long Island. We moved when I was a kid. I remember the Central Park Five, Tawana Brawley, etc…. all that stuff is part of my early public consciousness.
Don’t want to go back.
Another Scott
@Martin:
But we don’t know what the characteristics of the Biden but not Harris voters were. They didn’t vote, so they won’t show up in exit polling (and, AFAIK, exit polling doesn’t cover folks who vote by mail). We don’t know if they were Biden Democrats who didn’t show up, or Biden Independents who didn’t show up, or Biden Republicans who didn’t show up. Or some combination.
We just don’t know yet.
We know the election was close again, and small changes probably made a difference. Maybe mailed ballots going out and being returned faster. Maybe more ads in the last 3 weeks online. Maybe more ads in red media. Maybe lots of things.
Maybe, also, a big part of it was continued efforts at voter suppression by the GQP:
I figure that winning national elections these days is a complicated problem, but efforts by the GQP to ensure that their voters pick the winners while our voters have increasing difficulty in making their choices heard tells me that it’s not mostly a messaging problem on our side.
Harris-Walz ran a great campaign. There are always improvements that can be made and working hard to figure out what those improvements need to be is important. But I don’t think we’ll figure it out a little over 2 weeks after the election…
YMMV.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
different-church-lady
@Another Scott:
It’s a zombie misconception that will not go away.
Dan B
@trollhattan: My partner’s family lived in Bellingham, WA whose only hospital was Catholic. My partner’s sister died if uterine cancer and the hospital refused assisted suicide when the pain medications were no longer working. Our best friend’s sister and her husband moved to Bellingham and her mother is as well. My partner warned them about the hospital. We need to beware of healthcare in this country.
Gretchen
@Suzanne: They’re not going to leave Staten Island now that they have small children. His entire extended family is nearby including his helpful mom and several cousins close in age to their children. And his first impression of our part of Kansas was “ it’s so white!” Which I have to admit is true. Daughter’s twin sister moved back here recently, and the house across the street from her twin went up for sale. When that didn’t bring them here, I don’t think anything will.
Gretchen
@Dan B: That’s terrible! And something I wouldn’t think to ask about.
Gretchen
Geminid
@Jackie: The Gaetz pick did seem like an improvisation. Bondi may well have been at the top of of the list, and Gaetz might have brown-nosed his way past her.
Trump seemed ambivalent about the nomination. A report in Politico Playbook a couple days ago described phone calls Trump had made to Republican Senators. “Just give [Gaetz] a shot,” Trump asked one of them. That did not sound like Trump was all-in on the Gaetz nomination.
Another aspect of this affair: I didn’t see Susie Wiles’ name come up once. I’m not surprised; Trump’s campaign manager and now Chief of Staff is a smooth operator, I think.
billcoop4
As a Jersey boy I have words about Staten Islanders but it involves an ethnic slur. So I’ll let it go.
BC
trollhattan
@Dan B: Tragic, so sorry the sister and family had to endure that.
Of highest importance the healthcare infrastructure gets deep scrutiny before relocating, doubly so anywhere rural or isolated. What were they supposed to do, drive to Vancouver?
Martin
@Another Scott: This analysis included a survey of vote by mail. It was complete in accounting for all voters in the election.
Voter suppression may have been a factor, but unlikely across all swing states equally, and apart from Georgia where there was a switch to Trump, the same pattern existed in all other states from PA to MI to AZ. And I’m skeptical that a voter suppression effort could target Trump to Harris voters without also targeting Biden to Trump ones. That’s not how those work. But depressing Democratic voters – the main cause of the loss would fall in that category. But again, the trend was consistent across all states – including ones with Dem legislatures and governors. So, sure, maybe that’s why we lost GA, but it’s not why we lost MI. Maybe that cost us the popular vote, but it didn’t cost us the EC.
I don’t think Harris Walz ran a bad campaign. Remember, I come out of education. When a student is struggling to get something right, we don’t call them an idiot. Like, we can struggle to understand things – particularly things that are unmeasurable – without being bad at what we do. Some shit is just hard. This stuff is hard.
The moment for me was when Harris said she wouldn’t change anything and I immediately sensed that was the wrong answer. I didn’t know why. A lot of others felt the same way. They also didn’t know why. Gaza protestors knew what they wanted changed, as did a host of other groups, but my sense was a lot bigger than something like that. Like, that was big wrong. And some was that Biden saddled her with some problems that were difficult or impossible to escape from. Again, not saying he was bad, but those were the circumstances.
I posited a theory a few threads back that I can pull forward if people want that for me threads the various needles here. Could be completely wrong, but I think it checks the big boxes and is to some degree actionable.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@different-church-lady: I know a Biden but not Harris voter. It was inflation mostly, and some business contacts with Vance that made this person see dollar signs.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Martin: When she said she would didn’t change anything, she threw away her advantage in an election where the bulk of voters wanted change.
PJ
@Martin:
The thing is, we don’t know if the 7 million or so Biden voters who stayed home were regular Democratic voters (the base) or independents or Never Trumpers who couldn’t stomach voting for a woman (and particularly a black woman.)
Non-voters don’t captured by exit polls. Not that many of those not voting (or voting for Trump) because they are sexist or racist would admit it to a pollster (or even themselves.)
ETA: @Another Scott got there before me: https://balloon-juice.com/2024/11/21/on-the-ground-report/#comment-9439891
Chris T.
@trollhattan:
Some here head down to Skagit Valley hospital. I don’t know if they’re actually any better. Others head in to greater Seattle (e.g., UWMed).
StJoe’s (Bellingham) seems OK for routine stuff, not that I’ve actually had anything done there (yet?).
SomeRandomGuy
@different-church-lady: Sorry to springboard off your post, but:
I said I was leaving, I don’t need to be the toxic turd in the punchbowl no one talks about, who can’t be quoted, etc..