Political Fundraising

At first glance, Democrats’ performance last night in the North Carolina specials looks pretty crappy. They ran slightly behind Hillary ’16 in NC-3 and about ten points better in NC-9. The average of the two then was almost exactly the 5.5 over-performance that Dems have averaged in 34 specials since the mid-term. If the all-but-inevitable Williamson-Moulton ticket does 5.5 points better nationwide than Clinton-Kaine did, then they’ll win the popular vote by 7.5 points, which would be a fairly easy win.

Here’s a scary point, by the way: Dems win the popular vote by less than 4 points, Trump has a good chance to prevail in the Electoral College. And here’s another scary point: if the election comes out exactly like last time only with Dems flipping PA, MI, and WI, and in one of those three the margin is under 2 points or so, I think Trump is likely to contest the results and refuse to leave office. I don’t think anyone other than Jonathan Turley and Marc Thiessen will fully support him on that, on the other hand.

Anyway, I thought now might be a good time to do some fundraising. The Dem performance in NC-9 certainly frightens Republicans. Let’s raise some more money for the 17 most endangered House Democrats and help them put up fundraising totals that will scare away potential challengers.

Whatever happened to predictability?Post + Comments (161)

I didn’t go all in on fundraising for the NC-9 special election earlier because I had heard the poll numbers didn’t look that good for Democrats a few weeks ago. They look pretty good now.

The survey, conducted Aug. 26-28 by Harper Polling and Clarity Campaign Labs, showed McCready (D) with a 46-42 percent advantage over Bishop (R), and two third party candidates receiving a combined 3 percent. When leaners are included, McCready’s advantage extended to 49-44 percent.

Trump won this district by 11 points in 2016.

If we can flip this seat, expect a pretty big Republican freak-out and some more retirements. There have already been quite a few. So let’s raise a little more. I think this is a real opportunity.

So fucking specialPost + Comments (25)

Let’s do some fundraising for the special in NC-09. It takes place in two weeks, so we are in the stretch run. McCready is a great candidate. If we win this, expect some more Republican retirements. I upped the goal to $2500.

This blog has become a fundraising powerhouse. We raised 375K in the 2018 cycle. Thanks everybody! We backed *a lot* of candidates who flipped seats. Let’s back one more.

Update. Comments are slow so I’ll give you a topic: two of my all-time favorite movie endings are Godfather II (with the flash-back to Michael joining the army) and The Limey (with a flashback to a different movie starring Terence Stamp when he was younger)..what are some other movies that end with flash-backs?

Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboysPost + Comments (93)

I’ve been slacking on fundraising so I’m going to do a bunch at once now. Early money is important.

Here’s the Balloon Juice Senate Fund, split between nominee funds in several competitive states where we have a chance to flip a seat. (You can allocate as you like when you click on the contributed button.)

The Balloon Juice for Virginia Fund, which gives to the Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus and Virginia House Democratic Caucus. Flipping the legislature in Virginia (where Rs have a one-seat majority in each house) is probably the most important state Democratic goal in 2019.

For those in a more defensive mood, here’s the Balloon Juice House fund, split between the most vulnerable members of the federal Democratic House caucus. A lot of the people in here are first-terms whom we helped win in November 2018 (we raised 375K for the 2018 cycle here, btw).

Stop, collaborate, and listenPost + Comments (64)

Mistermix mentioned a big retirement in Texas, Will Hurd from TX-23. Let’s raise some money for the eventual Democratic nominee.

Texas is one of the most interesting states in the country politically right now, because of two political trends. One is moving more slowly than many thought it would — that’s the change in voting patterns as Latinos become a larger portion of the state’s population. The other is moving much more quickly — and that’s the movement of the suburbs, especially suburban women, away from the Republican party. I love this tweet from Dave Weigel

If the parties realize suburban voters are more gettable than working class whites, I'm excited for the new campaign rhetoric.

"I was forged by towns like this. My daddy was a simple Princeton-educated IT manager. I worked the morning shift at Panera."

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) November 15, 2017

Here’s a picture of Benny!

A song of old San AntonePost + Comments (17)

I got a lot of requests from people to start raising money for the Virginia state elections. Both the Senate and House are barely Republican (one seat majorities in both). Let’s raise some money for Democrats in Virginia (the fund here is split equally between the House and Senate Democratic caucuses, both of which have announced aggressive campaigns to flip their respective chambers).

I’ll be on the radio today at 1 pm on this program discussing the 2020 presidential election.

I thought of a topic, sort of related to the post title here (Exile on Main Street is my all-time favorite record but had only one radio hit on it): what are some examples of great bands whose biggest radio hits were awful? I thought of this because someone mentioned that Elvis Costello’s biggest hits were Alison and Veronica, and Veronica is in my opinion one of Elvis’s very worst songs. Another example is Neil Young with Heart of Gold (I’m not a huge Neil Young fan but he wrote some great songs and that’s not one of them). And another is Tom Waits, who didn’t have any real radio hits, but has a few songs they will play on smaller radio stations and one of them is “Jersey Girl”, which I hate.

Update. And here’s a Benny pic.

Come on, come on down, you got it in yaPost + Comments (47)

Susan Collins just got a great Democratic challenger:

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) drew a high-profile Democratic challenger Monday, as Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon announced her candidacy with a video that sought to undermine Collins’s carefully tended moderate image.

I upped the goal on the Balloon Juice Senate challenger fund. (Update: I had the wrong link up below but I fixed it now.)

It’s you and me foreverPost + Comments (33)