2020 congressional elections

In 2012, Matt Cartwright waged a strong primary campaign against reactionary Blue Dog Tim Holden (one of the "Democrats" who joined with the GOP to vote against ObamaCare). Hoyer and Pelosi warned that a progressive like Cartwright could not win that red a seat in northeast Pennsylvania. Matt was one of Blue America's top candidates that year and we were in the trenches with him, while Hoyer ran around the district with a pack of lobbyists begging "people" to vote for Holden, a pro-frack-maniac.

-by Eva PutzovaIt’s been a bit over a month since my bid for a congressional seat ended with winning 41.4 percent of the vote in one of the largest districts in the country in the midst of a global pandemic.

Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg recently watched a series of focus groups of white working class voters in rural Wisconsin, the Mahoning Valley region in Ohio, northern Maine and suburban Macomb County, Michigan, all swing areas where Trump did well. Vote-rich Macomb County, for example, gave Trump a 53.6-42.1% victory over Hillary in 2016, after going for Obama both times he ran.

Congress is filled with multimillionaires representing the interests of their own class. This past April, OpenSectrets.org entitled a news piece by Karl Evers-Hillstrom Majority of lawmakers in 116th Congress are millionaires. It skewers policy drastically in favor of the status quo and in favor of the rich and against the working class. And not all the multimillionaires are Republicans-- not by a long-shot.

Let's end the day-- and launch into Labor Day-- with the best new Sheryl Crow song I've heard in years. My old pal, music critic Michael Snyder, turned me on to this live Zoom version (above) of "In the End" today.

Georgia's 5th congressional district-- most of Atlanta from the airport to Buckhead as well as Decatur plus Forest Park, Lake City and Morrow in Clayton County-- hasn't been in play since 1986, the legendary John Lewis' first term. In fact, Republicans have never run a serious campaign in the D+34 district and Lewis usually ran unopposed.

Trump's top Q-Anon candidate, Marjorie Taylor Greene-- who is guaranteed a seat in one of America's most backward districts, the one where they opened the schools where you saw all the crowded hallways... and then shut the schools down again when dozens of people came down with COVID-19. That's GA-14, the northwest corner of the state, where Trump beat Hillary 75.0% to 22.1% and where GOP extremist Tom Graves was reelected in 2018 with 76.5%.

A lot went into Markey's big win over Kennedy in Massachusetts Tuesday but Climate Change and the Green New Deal-- co-authored by Markey and passively supported by Kennedy-- was probably the single biggest factor. Perhaps, come November, it will be as big a factor is one of the most Climate-threatened states, Florida.

"Fargo" Revisited by Nancy OhanianIpsos has a new poll out that they took for Axios. It has doom for the GOP written all over it. Despite Trump's protestations that it's all a hoax to get him, 58% of Americans now say they personally know someone who has tested positive and a growing 22% say they know someone who has died.

Markey won his race handily tonight. Kennedy conceded. I bet Pelosi didn't call AOC and concede to her though. Every progressive group that endorsed Markey (other than Blue America) is trying to claim the credit but it really was a team effort that centered totally around Markey. Proof of that pudding.