Is this supposed to inspire the Democratic base to turn out?The recruitment theory at the DSCC and DCCC was grounded in a Hillary landslide. Piss-poor, unpopular candidates who Schumer and Tester spent millions of dollars to get the nomination-- particularly Patrick Murphy (FL), Katie McGinty (PA) and Ted Strickland (OH)-- crushing far better and more viable candidates in the process, could only possibly get through on Hillary's coattails in the anti-Trump tsunami that imagined was building. But the tsunami is nowhere in sight... and the DSCC has all but given up on Strickland and Murphy already. Yesterday's CBS/New York Times poll of likely voters shows Clinton with 46% and Trump closing in with 44%. If respondents are given a choice that includes Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, Hillary and Trump tie at 42% each.
Discontent with the major party candidates is widespread. Among those who say they intend to vote for Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton, slightly more than half express strong support. The rest say that they harbor reservations about their candidate, or that they are simply voting to thwart the other nominee.
This whole "lesser-of-two-evils" theory of politics could work out to be a catastrophe for the Democratic Party and a catastrophe for America. Thanks a lot Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, Jon Tester, Nancy Pelosi, Steve Israel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the whole wretched DC party establishment than is so loathed-- so deservedly loathed-- throughout the country.Strickland, down by double digitsInstead of counting on Hillary's coattails to drag pathetic excuses for candidates like Ted Strickland and Patrick Murphy over the finish line, these kinds of examples of the dysfunction within a once-vibrant and hard-charging Democratic Party could be pulling Hillary's campaign down in two of the most important states in the country, Ohio and Florida. In fact, let's look at how the race in Florida is shaping up as we head into the home stretch. Politico points out that "the nation’s biggest battleground state should have buried Donald Trump’s White House hopes. With Florida’s booming Hispanic population, Trump’s harsh immigration rhetoric sounded like political suicide. In a state where TV ads drive the electorate, Trump penny-pinched on air time. And though organization is a must here, Trump had no field offices for months and he replaced his Florida campaign manager in a shakeup less than a month before officials mail out absentee ballots to voters. Yet he is essentially tied with Hillary Clinton and even leads her in some polls, a gravity-defying feat that is keeping Florida’s 29 electoral votes in play-- and Trump’s chances in the Electoral College alive."The Democrats'-- or at least Hillary's-- superior ground game can still counter his celebrity and his uncanny ability to tap into-- and manipulate-- the mood of the electorate.
But at its core, the race is about race, about motivating white versus non-white voters. The whiter the electorate, the likelier it is Trump wins. And older whites are keeping Trump in the hunt.Without the backing of older whites, polls indicate Trump would lose Florida-- in this retirement mecca, the elderly are still a force at the ballot box. Of Florida’s 12.4 million active registered voters, more than 3.3 million are older than 65 years old, making them the largest age group on the rolls (followed by those 50 to 64). The elderly also have the highest turnout rate in Florida.When it comes to race, non-Hispanic whites are 65 percent of the overall voter rolls and are the most-reliable voters. So Trump’s base is easier to turn out in big numbers. If he can keep Clinton’s white support below 35 percent (Obama won 37 percent, according to 2012 exit polls) and boost white turnout by just a few points, Florida operatives say he’ll likely win the state.Polling from local legislative and congressional races throughout Florida shows Trump is running stronger than 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney in the suburban areas of the Tampa Bay media market and Southwest Florida, according to results of confidential campaign surveys shared with Politico on condition of anonymity. Enthusiasm also appears high in Republican-rich North Florida and the Space Coast.Clinton’s base-- African-Americans, mixed-race voters, Hispanics-- are historically harder to turn out, although they do a better job showing up in presidential election years as opposed to midterm elections. But they disproportionately support her.An Univision poll this week had the Democratic presidential nominee leading Trump by 24 points among likely Hispanic voters, about 3 points more than President Obama beat Romney by four years ago to win Florida.Because of the influence of Republican-leaning Cuban-Americans, Clinton’s poll numbers among Florida Latinos-- slightly lower when compared to other battleground states. Another problem for Clinton: a plurality of Florida Hispanics, 46 percent, agreed with the sentiment that she is a “liar,” although they trusted her more than Trump in the poll that was conducted by Bendixen & Amandi International and the Tarrance Group.Clinton’s campaign says it’s heavily investing in turnout of Puerto Rican voters. Puerto Ricans are the fastest-growing Latino group in the state-- and could eclipse the 1.5 million Cuban-Americans in raw numbers by the next presidential election. Clinton’s focus: the urban counties of Southeast Florida, and the cities of Tampa, Daytona Beach, Jacksonville and Orlando, home to the Puerto Rican diaspora.If the majority of Florida polls are right and non-white voters turn out at the statewide average, she’s expected to win Florida-- an outcome that could rest on Puerto Rican turnout near Disney World....For Trump, the biggest potential problem of all rests in the one county he lost to Sen. Marco Rubio in his blowout Florida primary win March 15: Miami-Dade County. It’s the most-populous in the state and has the largest concentration of Republicans, 72 percent of whom are Hispanic and mainly Cuban-American.Even with the backing of Cuban-American leaders, Romney lost Miami-Dade to Obama by 208,000 votes in 2012. That gave the Democrat enough of a cushion to win Florida overall by just 74,000. Unlike Romney, Trump has little institutional support in the county. Among those not backing Trump: the GOP mayor of Miami; Miami-Dade's Republican mayor and his challenger; Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera; former Gov. Jeb Bush and two of the area’s three Cuban-American Republican U.S. House members.If that lack of elite Miami GOP support is indicative of broader rank-and-file sentiment in the county, one Republican organizer in Florida said, Trump could see a “nightmare scenario … Clinton gets a 300,000 vote margin in Miami-Dade. If that happens, we should just start drinking early.”Only Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart says he would-- but he wants Trump to clarify some “basic policy positions” on issues like Cuba, Israel and Russia. But Trump hasn't even replied to his repeated letters.“As far as an organized effort, a campaign, I haven’t seen it,” Diaz-Balart said. “I’ve not seen a real attempt to engage the community. What Trump has going for him is the Cuban-American community’s serious disgust with Hillary Clinton. But many are looking for a reason to vote for Trump and have received no reassurance on the issues that are important to them.”
Look how incredibly easy bad DSCC recruitment can make it for the Republicans. Could the NRSC ever ask for a better target for their ad-making machinery? This one was released this morning:Wealthy, anti-populist former Republican Patrick Murphy is a Wall Street candidate and, at the risk of sounding unkind, a talentless sieve who was pushed into the nomination by Wall Street's own best friend in DC, Chuck Schumer. Schumer had the DSCC go on an out-of-control rampage of slander and calumny against Alan Grayson and spent $1,013,760 of Senate Majority PAC money, $235,867 of DSCC money and $441,350 of Murphy's father's money against Grayson to get the nomination for Patrick. Even with multiple letters from Obama to every Democratic household in Florida and a barrage of dishonest Obama ads to minority voters, Grayson still won in the parts of Florida where Puerto Rican votes are most heavily concentrated. Murphy could conceivably help Clinton with rich Republicans who find Trump crude and deplorable, but that isn't where she needs the help and Murphy is up shit's creek without a paddle when it comes to those voters with whom he has nothing in common, no rapport and no experience-- and to whom he has nothing to offer whatsoever.Meanwhile, demographic shifts-- whether in Florida or across the nation-- don't seem to be working the magic Democratic Party leaders were counting on. As Nate Cohn reported in the NY Times yesterday, turnout and enthusiasm are far more powerful than demographic change. Hillary, he wrote, "is not poised to match the gains Mr. Obama made among nonwhite voters over previous Democratic nominees... [which] brings the pace of Democratic gains down to the slow crawl of demographic change."Want more of this?Inspiring down-ballot candidates-- a Russ Feingold in Wisconsin or stellar, outside-the-box House candidates like Zephyr Teachout in upstate New York, Pramila Jayapal in Seattle, Paul Clements in Kalamazoo and Tom Wakely in Austin/San Antonio-- will motivate voters, especially millennials, it turn out in November. Ted Strickland, Patrick Murphy, Katie McGinty? Not so much. They're sitting around praying that Hillary has coattails. And the DCCC's favored candidates. Last night we looked at who they're spending their money on-- dreary anti-populist New Dems, Blue Dogs and establishment dregs like Brad Ashford (NE), Josh Gottheimer (NJ), Jacky Rosen (NV), Kim Myers (NY), Tom O'Halleran (AZ)... These are candidates tailor-made to suppress Democratic turnout, not inspire it!You can find this cycle's most inspiring candidates-- the kinds who the DCCC and DSCC flee from in terror-- by tapping the thermometer below. Once again, it looks like it will be up to grassroots progressives to save the Democratic Party from its geriatric institutional leaders' own worst instincts and practices!
