Worksheet for the 2018 Midterms (“Wave” Districts, Immigration, and the Supply Chain)

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1. DonCoyote June 26, 2018 at 2:14 pm

   According to this Yahoo article, (TX-31) may be on play:

   Democrat’s viral campaign video could be trouble for tea party Republican in deep-red Texas

   After the 2016 election, we all hopefully learned to be suspicious of polling data. So take it with however much salt you want or need. But I do think there will be some “surprises” like this, for both Team-D and Team-R. Much of the country is still very much in “tear it down/throw the {family blog}s out”, which probably means incumbents won’t do quite as well as normal. One possible “wave” indicator if there are more of these surprise wins for Team-D, vs an equal number for each side.

   btw, no issues page on her website. Is one viral video enough?
2. Rebecca June 26, 2018 at 2:14 pm

   Clarification on NY-19: Gareth Rhodes supports Medicare for All. Flynn supports the M4A bill in the Senate, but does not support the House bill (the one he’d have a chance to vote on). The candidates that support the House bill (HR 676) are Beals, Clegg, and Rhodes. Collier and Flynn support the Senate bill (S1804). Delgado and Ryan favor a public option.

   The supporting the Senate bill but not the House bill seems sneaky to me – you get to say you support M4A but weasel out of having to actually vote for it…

   https://s3.amazonaws.com/content.sitezoogle.com/u/283758/ae29c17a2d8b1b053e2438c4581614fb5a627c56/original/candidate-rubric-abridged-4.pdf?response-content-type=application/pdf&scheme=&X-Amz-Expires=7200&X-Amz-Date=20180626T180852Z&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAJUKM2ICUMTYS6ISA/20180626/us-east-1/s3/aws4_request&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=0eec4ac165d211b5597206e48625ac124b718496ec7147cb4368a8fc2132b188
   1. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 26, 2018 at 5:48 pm

      I’ve updated the database accordingly, but it will not appear here until I have completed my weeding.
   2. Utah June 26, 2018 at 7:30 pm

      There was a pretty decent “This American Life” podcast that came out last weekend about NY-19/ Jeff Beals and the Democratic party rivalry. Beals is the only M4A supporter, according to the aforementioned podcast.

      https://www.thisamericanlife.org/649/its-my-party-and-ill-try-if-i-want-to
      1. BitterIn19 June 27, 2018 at 11:42 am

         I live in this district, and am very involved in local post-Bernie organizing. That is not true. Four candidates ran explicitly on M4A. They received 60% of the total vote. The left vote was divided, and Beals was an incredibly polarizing candidate with a lot of media connections. Bennet Ratcliff and Matt Siegel were both attached to his campaign, early on. Ratcliff is a former media consultant for the Clintons who also did PR for the coup government in Honduras. He is now teaming up with tea party operative John Pudner to write a playbook about how to win a “people-powered” campaign:
         http://pluribusproject.org/representation/take-back-our-republic

         Beals quickly positioned himself as the sole “Bernie” candidate in the race, and propagated this narrative on the national level. Unfortunately, he had no record of issue advcocacy or activism prior to the 2016 election – and even there, could not demonstrate that he had actually volunteered for Bernie in anyway. He was new to the district, taught at an expensive private school (this is only his second year as a teacher there) and led a pretty dilletantish existence since leaving the state department – wrote an unpublished book, directed an unreleased film, and managed his father’s gentleman Turkey farm (featuring a $million+ house). He had none of the authenticity of a candidate like Ocasio-Cortez, and came off as very smug and arrogant. Some people adored him and his willingness to “call out the system”, but many others found him unpleasant at best.

         We had another candidate with an almost identical platform, Dave Clegg – a trial lawyer and a local Deacon with 37 years of volunteer work in the community. Clegg was a basketball coach at the YMCA. He taught classes at a local prison and helped with parole re-entry. He helped found a local habitat for humanity chapter and serves on the board of a group committed to securing affordable housing in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. And that’s truthfully just a fraction of his service resume. As both a Methodist Deacon and a member of the regional Boy Scouts Council, Clegg has an in with many Republican and unaffiliated voters who know him personally and respect him. We need those constituents to win in the general (but of course they can’t vote in the primary) – the district is split almost evenly three ways.

         Unfortunately, Clegg did not take naturally to campaigning. He was asked to run by locals who didn’t want to see a “carpetbagger” lose for the third time in a row and now his stature in the community. But he had to wind down his law practice and myriad volunteer commitments, and couldn’t fully throw himself into the race in the crucial early months. He is one of those honest people who doesn’t want to commit publicly to something if he hasn’t fully researched it. That translates into looking unprepared. His early stump speech was weak. The 5 other campaigns snatched up most of the early field talent.

         While Clegg fumbled, Beals made his move to strategically wrap up the “Bernie” vote early on. This worked everywhere but in Ulster County, where everyone knows Dave (and he came in a close second to Delgado last night). Local activists in Ulster were split, wanting to support Dave but feeling underwhelmed by his performance. He was the only candidate with deep, longstanding ties to the grassroots, but was outshined by both Beals and Rhodes, a 29 year old former press secretary for Cuomo, who also campaigned primarily on M4A, visited every town in the massive district in an RV, was born and raised in the district, and scored a ton of union endorsements.

         Efforts were made to early on decide on a left candidate and unite the left vote, but it was a very difficult choice and put a real strain on the activist community. In my personal experience, Beals was rather uncomradely towards his competitors who shared his platform, and felt entitled to our support even though he had not put the work in the way Clegg had. I think Beals would have been creamed in the general, whereas Clegg had the right material to work with but just wasn’t a quick enough study because campaigning started unusually early. By Election Day he was much stronger on his feet, but the damage was already done. People wanted to vote for a winner, and I know many people who preferred Clegg but voted Beals or Rhodes because they thought with all the national media there was more momentum behind those candidates. A very difficult and frustrating race, all around. Luckily we have some very strong grassroots candidates running to state senate to coalaesce behind.
         1. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 27, 2018 at 2:50 pm

            Beals seems like an opportunistic infection. Ugh.
         2. drumlin woodchuckles June 28, 2018 at 1:16 am

            So many people wanted to vote for a winner . . .

            This is a perceptual and behaviorial disorder afflicting many citizens. Perhaps it is induced and implanted by the overwhelming horse-race obsession of the MSM and the “alternative MSM” ?

            At what point do people who “want someone in particular” decide to vote for him/her without worrying about whether he/she ” can win”?
3. Mike Mc June 26, 2018 at 2:42 pm

   On May 15, 2018, the NE-02 Democratic primary victor was Kara Eastman (woohoo!), an actual progressive Medicare For All Democrat in Red State Nebraska, albeit in slightly purple Omaha.

   I may be late to the Worksheet – and completely ignorant of protocol for same – but Kara’s victory is a Big Effing Deal for Nebraska Democrats (both of us…) and definitely a part of progressive women Democrats winning primaries in 2018.
   1. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 26, 2018 at 2:59 pm

      I will update accordingly; I have been following Jane Kleeb….
4. David June 26, 2018 at 2:48 pm

   The CA district map may not be current. See here and here.

   IMO, immigration and sanctuary status will be key for red voters, like 2014. Will the blue voters turn up?

   Also, Rouda will be the challenger for CA-48 (source).
   1. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 26, 2018 at 2:57 pm

      The second map (from WikiPedia) looks like a better version of the one I used. When I have a moment I will double check.
      1. Kael June 26, 2018 at 3:09 pm

         Re CA-10, it’s populations centers are now 2 cities along US HWY-99 in the Northern San Joaquin Valley: approx district 18 in the post’s maps. Culturally and politically quite distinct from the Port of Oakland area.
         1. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 26, 2018 at 5:36 pm

            Thanks. I removed it.
   2. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 26, 2018 at 5:40 pm

      The revised map — truly, the NC commentariat is the best commentariat — centers on the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. I’m comfortable with that, given the enormous impact of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach (“133,000 jobs in Los Angeles, 479,000 jobs in the five-county region”).
5. John k June 26, 2018 at 2:57 pm

   Reps so far spent 17 mil to get Ca ballot initiative that repeals gas tax (earmarked to fix roads on ballot), Ryan’s overall purpose to bring conservative voters to polls this nov.
   Wonder who gave them the money… and how much of dem donor money the dems plan to spend to get their own to the polls… maybe they’ll propose m4a…
6. Synoia June 26, 2018 at 3:52 pm

   Of the three “must flip” seats in Southern CA, one is in Riverside, and two in San Diego (Home of the Pacific Fleet, and Marines).

   10 Is a Rural Area south of Sacramento, traditionally R

   25 appears to be San Bernardino/Riverside which leans R all the time (must be the heat)

   48 Appears to be the Marine or Tech Area in San Diego

   49 Appears to be the Naval Area – Whose retirees lean heavily Republican.

   Repealing the Gas Tax in CA is a wonderful idea, because the money is used to fund roads. I cannot conceive of a better way to destroy the highways in CA, and force people not to commute.
   1. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 26, 2018 at 5:41 pm

      I’ve revised the map, and 10 is no longer relevant (sadly).
7. Synoia June 26, 2018 at 3:56 pm

   The closest I have come, so far, is that the Democrats are a gang that control the ballot line instead of a street corner,

   Ballot Boxes are a means to an end.

   Think of them as controllers of Federal Spending, and all becomes much clearer.
8. PKMKII June 26, 2018 at 5:00 pm

   Some observations on the race for NY’s 11th: Rose is about as straight out of DCCC casting as you can possibly get. Vague, muddled “stances,” military service (which his logo is meant to allude to). Most likely will win. Emig is somewhere between centrist and progressive. I see him getting the lion’s share of the non-Rose vote. Vaid is the closest to being a Berniecrat in the field, but he only recently moved back to the district, and he lives in the Brooklyn side of it, which is a guarantee of losing. Whichever Dem wins, they’ll most likely lose. However, there’s a good chance that Donovan will get primary’d by former Rep Michael Grimm, he of convicted felon, threatening to throw journalists off balconies fame. The last time a Dem won the district, it was a combination of the Obama wave and the incumbent having an extra-marital child scandal, so Grimm winning would give the Dem candidate an outside chance.
   1. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 26, 2018 at 5:42 pm

      Emig the bond trader was quite the character. Part of his platform was a comic book and the platform as a whole was a PDF of 50 pages or so that he clearly wrote himself!
9. audrey jr June 26, 2018 at 9:37 pm

   If I might chime in on San Bernardino/Riverside, since I was once a homeowner there and still have family in S.B. County whom I visit a least once a month, the residents of these two counties are the “deplorables” of Southern California.
   Many of them are poor Latino/Black families who cannot afford the “good life” that the rest of the localities in So. Cal. enjoy, i.e., quickly rising home values, lots of eating away from home and the jobs and schools there are of a lower standard than that of their neighboring counties.
   In the High Desert area of Hesperia, Victorville and Apple Valley many are descendants of the “okies” who settled there during the Great Depression. These are good and hard working folk who tend to vote Republican because their parents and grandparents did. No kidding. I am always out talking to people and I am old so I get away with quizzing folks on such matters.
   California regularly dumps the convicted sexual predators and other “undesirables” in these two counties, disproportionately.
   That said, Kern County does not fare much better, along those lines.
   Beautiful job here, Lambert. Thanks for all your hard work.
   1. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 27, 2018 at 2:48 pm

      You’re welcome!

      I actually lived in the High Desert for awhile, and its got its problems. (Like I didn’t know until then that going into abandoned meth labs, sucking up the soil, and filtering out the chemicals was a business model until that point.)

      Nevertheless, during my stay Borders air-dropped an enormous box store into the area and it was instantly filled, and the customers weren’t all looking for devotional literature, either. My reading was that this showed a great hunger for learning (which humans actually like to do; it’s adaptive).
10. timotheus June 26, 2018 at 10:11 pm

    Huge upset for Ocasio-Cortez in NY14, not even close (57-43). Very Important People had said zero chance.
11. Marie Parham June 27, 2018 at 12:00 am

    New York 21st now in play. Tedra Cobb emerged from the pack as a strong challenger. She has the organization to take New York 21st from Paul Ryan’s protege, Elise Stefanik. Watch this race and support Tedra. http://www.wwnytv.com/story/38516314/tedra-cobb-takes-early-lead-in-cong
12. RW June 27, 2018 at 12:24 am

    I’m a fan, skeptical that this is in fact a ‘family blog’.
13. kernel June 27, 2018 at 5:26 pm

    ME-2 Primary was won by Jared Golden, so you can drop the other Challengers now. That’s the only House seat in New England held by GOP, and I’m looking to fix that.

    Thanks for running this – I’m using it (and other sources) to choose where to apply some out-of-state help.
14. DonCoyote July 11, 2018 at 8:36 am

    Some Democratic incumbents are trailing Republican challengers (the article is about Senate seats, and the worksheet is House, so this is more about the mood–when you’ve lost Salon…)

    OTOH, Team-D winning the Senate was always a long shot to begin with. And two of these (Donnelly, Heitkamp) are Republican-lite anyway. “Any blue just won’t do.” (ht Nina Turner).

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