Anthony Brindisi (NY) and Joe Cunningham (SC) were elected to the House in the 2018 anti-red wave-- just when Blue Dog chairwoman Kyrsten Sinema graduated to the Senate. Sinema was the worst Democrat in Congress-- by far. She voted against anything and everything that smacked of progressivism. She voted with the GOP on progressive roll calls around 75% of the time.
When it comes to discussing the dangers of neoliberalism to the Democratic Party, Adolph Reed is amazing. (Politico should have asked him to interview neoliberal Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) instead of Tim Alberta.) Look, I hate and avoid zoom, but please watch this enlightening video of Katie Halper's show above (or you may never understand what "McWokeyism" is).
Freshman Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI) is aggressively anti-progressive. In the 2018 anti-red wave, she ousted Republican Mike Bishop 172,880 (50.6%) to 159,782 (46.8%), despite Trump having won the district 2 years earlier by 7 points. The Oakland-Ingraham-Livingston counties district has a PVI of R+4 and she just won her reelection bid 217,929 (50.9%) to 202,519 (47.3%).
We've been predicting for all this year that the Republicans would win seats in 2022. But... that was based on several assumptions, which turned out to me overly optimistic about the course of the 2020 cycle and the ability of Democrats to prosper even with a completely inept and incapable DCCC with the worst chairperson in living memory. The assumptions were:
House Democrats, under the guidance of Cheri Bustos-- who has already fallen on her sword-- and Pelosi-- who insists she is an indispensable historical figure and never will-- have spent close to half a billion dollars to lose. The cycle started well for the House Dems. The North Carolina Supreme Court redrew district lines and handed the Democrats two seats previously held by Republicans.
The latest election tallies show that Joe Biden is leading President Trump by 5,060,175 votes. That is a larger number than the margin between President Obama and Mitt Romney in 2012. In the 2012 election, Obama had 4,982,296 more votes than Romney. This morning's election counties have Trump losing by 5,060,175 votes and that number will keep growing as more votes are counted in New York and California. At the moment, it stands like this:
DCCC Chair Cheri Bustos, Born To Lose by Nancy Ohanian House Democrats are freaking out over more losses as the ballots get counted. According to a Politico piece, House Dems brace for more losses by Ally Mutnick and Sarah Ferris.
"A GOP Senate would mean the end of the Biden-Bernie Sanders 'unity' agenda. No death to the legislative filibuster, no new U.S. states, no Supreme Court packing, no confiscatory tax increases, no Green New Deal. If Mr. Biden wins and he wants to get something done, he would have to go through Mitch the Knife." For normal people, this sounds like the worst kind of post-election woe-is-me scenario.
Let's start at the top, in the northeast corner of Illinois, CD-17, carefully gerrymandered by the Democratic legislature to elect Democrats. But instead of a Democrat, it is represented by Blue Dog/New Dem Cheri Bustos, chair of the DCCC. When I woke this morning 55% of the votes had been counted and this is what it looks like:
Florida's 3rd congressional district is an unlikely place for one of the iconic races of the 2020 cycle. Obama lost the R+9 both times he ran-- with 44.2% in 2008 and 41.9% in 2012. Then Clinton did even worse-- 40.2%-- against Trump. Although Alachua County is solidly blue, it is the only one of FL-03's six counties that is. Alachua has the most voters but Clay County has nearly as many and it is far redder than Alachua is blue. And with Marion and Putnam counties this has made the district unfriendly territory for Democrats.
