Progressives Strike Back

This article attempts to give significant historical context for the progressive movement today.

Early Founding Fathers

The early founding fathers were a divided bunch, representing slave owners such as Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, and abolitionists including Adams, Franklin, and Hamilton. The abolitionist founding fathers are the antecedents of the modern Progressive movement, not just favoring socially liberal causes which were championed by John Locke but also championing economically liberal ideas which were written by their contemporary Adam Smith. The beginning of economic reforms can be seen clearly by Alexander Hamilton who championed the formation of America’s first National Bank, taxing alcohol, and funding national infrastructure. These original planks of the platform have continued to be part of progressive thought in the United States ever since.

National Republican Party

In 1824 President John Quincy Adams formed a new party which championed significant infrastructure spending, access to college, a national bankruptcy law, national banking, and had an ambitious agenda which was ahead of his time. The National Republican Party grew into the opposition during President Jackson’s time in office. It evolved into the Whig Party during Jackson’s second term.

Whig Party

The Whig Party was a party which existed from 1833 to 1856 which advocated for policies including a national bank and building infrastructure. They were divided over the issue of slavery, and this ended up to be their downfall. William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, and Millard Fillmore were members of the Whig Party. The only trifecta formed by the Whig Party was in 1841 when they accomplished the formation of a national bank and clear laws on bankruptcy.

Republican Party

The Republican Party was founded in 1854 by former Whigs and former Free Soilers who were opposed to the expansion of Slavery in to the West. Beyond slavery, economic reforms supported by the Republican Party included anti-trust reforms, infrastructure, national banking, and other economic reforms which can easily be traced as the precedents of reforms which were made during the early 20th century. President Theodore Roosevelt was the last progressive Republican President and he championed these economic policies with his reputation as a trust buster and economic reform, policies which live on with the progressive movement today.

Progressive Party

After President Taft was elected he turned the Republican Party into a much more conservative party. In response to this, President Roosevelt formed the Progressive Party to run in the 1912 Presidential election. This party included parts of the platform like campaign finance reform, trust-busting, workers rights, and other planks which can be found in the platforms of modern politicians like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. The Progressive movement joined the New Deal Coalition formed by President Roosevelt in the 1930s which adopted many of the Progressive Party’s main ideas.

New Deal

The current progressive movement traces itself back to the platform of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932. Comparing policies across such a wide time span is of course difficult because a lot has changed over the last 90 years, but when it comes to economic policies, there is a very clear line of descent from President Roosevelt extending through the Great Society of LBJ down to the Obama Presidency to the present day. This line is most clear through economic policies, and when it comes to social policies the progressive wing of the Democratic Party has moved significantly farther left over the last 90 years as I am about to describe.

President Roosevelt of course pushed for many economic ideas which are strongly supported by the progressive wing today, with the FDIC, public works, and Social Security. President Truman continued this with the foundation of many home ownership programs. These economic policies are clearly reflected in the economic policies of President Obama and the economic platforms of Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

During the 1960s we saw the continuation of massive progressive economic reforms including Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and more as part of President Johnson’s Great Society. During President Johnson’s term we saw the marriage of progressive economic policies with socially progressive policies into one platform which is very clearly connected with the policies of modern progressive candidates. This was the golden age of American progressivism, with massive progress being done for society.

The Great Hiatus

In 1968 President Johnson was resoundly defeated in the Presidential Primary and Hubert Humphrey was defeated by President Nixon. The main reason for this is the unpopularity of the Vietnam War, which is fairly complex in the scope of the global geopolitical situation era of the time. This point in history deserves an article of its own.

The last major victory for social progress of the previous era was Roe v. Wade in 1973.

The 1970s saw a great decline in the progressive movement, and in 1976 the standard bearer for the progressive movement was Senator Udall who was resoundly defeated by Governor Carter who then of course became President Carter. President Carter took a step back from the socially liberal policies of President Johnson by starting the NSA, and did not have any major accomplishments during his time in office. He faced a challenge from Ted Kennedy (representing the progressive wing) in the primary who he narrowly beat, and then was defeated by Governor Reagan.

The Reagan and first Bush administrations moved America’s culture significantly to the right on many issues. When 1992 came around the New Democrat Coalition’s candidate Bill Clinton won the election with no significant progressive competition and he of course became President. President Bill Clinton took a big step back from the progressive platform of his Democratic forebears by signing the Defense of Marriage Act, deregulating Wall Street, and intensifying the War on Drugs. President Bill Clinton also tried to pass health care reform during his first two years, but unfortunately that attempt failed.

Gore Defeated

The 2000 election was a massive blow to the Democratic Party of the United States. We saw a victory in the popular vote for Al Gore, a moderate New Democrat, while George W. Bush, a died in the wool neoconservative won the electoral college with 271 votes, only 2 more than was needed to prevent the results going to Congress. The 2000 Democratic Primary was an overwhelming landslide for Al Gore, and he almost won the presidency. Following his defeat, George Bush governed from as far right as it was possible to go in this country, slowly tightening the screws through his presidency to bring America into two new wars, a less progressive tax code, championing conservative social values, and signing the PATRIOT ACT into law less than 9 months after his inauguration, arguing that 9/11 gave the government the ability to  suspend Habeus Corpus. He appointed 2 justices to the Supreme Court, and his impact on our court system lasts to this day.

Americans grew fairly used to the increase in surveillance which hums in the background, the War on Terror continues to beat on 20 years later, and his economic policies widened the gap between the rich and the poor.

In the 2004 presidential primary Howard Dean carried the banner of the progressive movement and failed to win even a million votes. He was the first significant progressive Presidential candidate in 16 years.

Obama’s trifecta

On January 20, 2009, President Barack Obama became the President of the United States. He won a great deal because of his book Audacity of Hope , where he clearly lays out his agenda which included the need for health care reform, support for civil unions, how he is opposed to torture, the need to tax wealthy Americans at a higher rate than middle class Americans, and other items which placed him towards the left wing of the party. He proposed bills on all of these major issues as soon as he got into office, and there he faced significant opposition from his own party on his proposals. All were either significantly whittled down or blocked completely, making a victory in 2010 less likely due to reduced enthusiasm from within the Democratic Party.

In 2012 Obama faced reelection, and 51% of Americans supported gay marriage. On May 9, President Obama announced how he supported same sex marriage. In February 2015 gay marriage was sitting at 63% approval according to CNN. Obama significantly moved America to the left on gay marriage through his court appointments and public statements.

When it comes to health care, Americans have had positive views on the government expanding access to health care for the past 20 years. There was a drop during Obama’s presidency (probably due to the incessant comparison of the Affordable Care Act to the Soviet Union by Fox News) but over the last 3 years we have seen that public support for government being involved in health care has risen back up to historical levels. Medicare For All already had 2/3 approval when Obama was elected President. Despite such overwhelming support, the Democrats in Congress still killed the public option.

It seems to me that President Obama moved America to the left on social issues and brought back a lot of the reforms of President Franklin D. Roosevelt which had been killed b y President Clinton with the Dodd Frank Act, which is a monumental shift in the Democratic Party moving back to its mid century roots.

It is difficult to know how the health care polling would be different if the Affordable Care Act hadn’t been so significantly amended by Congress.

What is even more interesting is that even though Obama campaigned on breaking mass surveillance he failed to defend the Fourth Amendment once he was in office. This involved enforcing the laws which were put onto the books by his predecessor, not the implementation of new laws which continue to clearly violate the 4th Amendment day after day.

So, when we are trying to understand what was facing the Obama presidency, there were numerous challenges. The era of Social Security having a surplus was coming to a close, and that needed to be dealt with. The Federal deficit was large, and he entered during a massive economic crisis. When he was unable to close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, one of the most flagrant violations of the US Constitution, it became very clear that the moderate Democrats who controlled congress were not focused on social issues at that point in time. By the time the economy recovered and our social issue compass was moving forward to the point where there might have been enough public pressure to end mass surveillance, the Republicans had both houses of Congress and any chance of making a significant amendment to the PATRIOT ACT was not possible. Any amendment to a major bill which would have at least required the NSA to get a court approved warrant before a search of someone’s personal property was not possible. Obama could have made a stance on this, but he chose not to. Mass surveillance and drone strikes were probably his two biggest failures looking back from the perspective of the 2020s.

President Obama is one of the most consequential and fascinating Presidents in American history. The way in which he moved America forward on issues such as gay marriage and economic reforms are extremely significant, as well as the issues which took a back burner during his presidency such as unwarranted wire tapping and drone strikes.

But one thing is for sure, President Obama was the most progressive President for 40 years and he opened the door for the progressive movement to see a massive resurgence in the mid-2010s due to his work where he moved the Overton Window towards justice.

Progressive resurgence

The 2016 election saw the rise of Bernie Sanders as a candidate. He managed to win a large number of states which would end up voting for Hillary Clinton in the general election, although he came up significantly short when it came to the popular vote. This was the best performance for an unabashedly progressive Presidential candidate in a primary since 1964 when LBJ won after signing the Civil Rights Act. He received 13 million votes.

The 2020 election built off the ground work which Bernie Sanders made in the 2016 election. There were two progressive candidates this time, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders. Together they won 12 million votes. Vice President Biden beat them with 19 million votes.

While progressives were defeated in the primary they saw significant gains in congress relative to the New Democrat Caucus in the House. While many New Democrats lost seats, no progressives lost seats in the 2020 election for the House of Representatives.

What happens next remains to be seen. Since Obama was President the views of Americans have moved left on social issues significantly, and there are growing calls for health care reform. Opinion polling implies that the progressive platform is now the more popular vision for America’s future. As we tackle problems such as climate change, immigrant rights, mass surveillance, economic inequality, and others, the question going forward is whether Progressives will become the largest caucus among Democrats in 2022 and take the Senate. If Progressives do this right, we could become the dominant vision in the Democratic Party again.

We live in a world more interconnected than ever before with trade, which means that as countries become ever more interdependent on each other that large wars like we saw during the Cold War are unlikely to happen again. Without a Vietnam War type situation, the probability of a backlash against a Progressive Democratic President becomes increasingly unlikely.

The marriage of social liberalism with economic liberalism is now very strong in the Democratic Party, and is only showing signs of becoming stronger as time goes on.

By running experienced activists with good heads on their shoulders and a solid campaign strategy everywhere we can, I believe that is very possible that the progressive movement could become the dominant vision within the Democratic Party in the next 3 years.

This will allow us to essentially eliminate the Electoral College through the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact which will essentially guarantee that a modern Republican candidate will not be able to win. The Republican Party will lose a few elections and then need to restructure themselves and stop emphasizing far right viewpoints.

The main election over the next decade will then be the Democratic Primary, and if that translates into gains in the Senate and House, we can lead America into prosperity which will hopefully reduce the number of Americans who are attracted to simple answers which won’t work from extremist ideologies to solve their problems.

This will allow us to strengthen the social safety net, increase civil liberties and fight racism.

The Progressive movement has been with the United States since the beginning and will likely remain a major force in American politics for a long time to come. Every time we have married progressive economic reforms (government subsidized infrastructure, a strong national bank, economic opportunity) with progressive social issues we have dominated the American landscape.

Every time we have divorced social and economic reforms we have done relatively poorly.

We did this to various levels in the 1860s, 1960s, and 2010s. If we do this again over the next decade we are going to once again dominate American politics, and make America a more prosperous and freer country again.

Pass legislation, win the presidency

Here is a plan on how Progressive Democrats can win the Presidency in 2024. I am talking about the Warren wing of the Progressive caucus, given how most of Bernie Sanders’ closest allies got absolutely destroyed this year.

The first thing we need to do is make sure that we win more seats in the 2022 primary than the New Democrat coalition. If we end up winning this then we can remove Nancy Pelosi as speaker, given how she was a major obstacle to Obama’s health care, infrastructure, civil rights, and education proposals in 2009 and 2010. We elect a progressive to the position of Speaker of the House and win a majority in the Senate.

The next step is the filibuster must be fully removed from the rules of the Senate. The rules will now be similar to the following:  A simple majority is all that needs to be required in both houses to move to the previous question. If one representative or senator makes a motion to move to the previous question, and the motion is seconded, then there is a simple majority up or down vote to vote on passage. If that vote succeeds, then the vote will be taken and that vote is final. This will block Republican obstruction in both chambers.

Check.

The next step is that Progressive Democrats need to propose a set of legislation with 6 bills dealing with education, health care, climate change, infrastructure, taxation, and police brutality. The climate change bill will also deal with inequality because it will include an exemption free carbon tax and we can use the double dividend to fight income inequality. The taxation bill will also deal with income inequality.

These 6 bills will land on Biden’s desk, and he has no choice but to sign all 6 of them. If he vetoes any one of them then Kamala Harris will never be president and Biden will be the last New Democrat President in American History. The Progressive who succeeds him will do everything Biden chose not to do, become as notable as FDR or LBJ, and irreversibly change American political culture. If Biden signs the bills then he has irreversibly pushed the Democratic Party back to where it was in the 1960s and New Deal era, and effectively neutered his caucus by breaking every promise that New Democrats have made since the 1970s.

Either way, the New Democrat Coalition is going to permanently lose power, and Progressive Democrats will dominate the next 20 years of American politics.

Mate.

The Lincoln Project

Let’s take a quick look at the Lincoln Project, this one will be quick.

All data is from OpenSecrets and Ballotpedia.

In the 2020 cycle the Lincoln Project raised about $8 million. That’s it.

Biden for President raised $937.67 million, over 100 times the total amount raised by the Lincoln Project.

The Lincoln Project spent $1.3 million in Maine attacking Susan Collins. Sara Gideon raised $64 million.

The Lincoln Project was not a significant force in this election in terms of the money they raised.

It’s time to stop talking about them.

Consequences of Corporate Consolidation

In 2018 Wendover Productions made a video on YouTube where he discussed the issue facing airlines where they are not being able to get enough pilots, so they are cancelling routes.

There are a few reasons for this. The cost of training is absurdly high, the starting wages are very low, and the good routes are usually dominated by the pilots who are near the end of their career.

Since it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars of training and then you will likely make only about $30,000 a year at the beginning of your career as a pilot, airlines are having difficulty to get enough pilots to fly for them, so they are closing profitable routes.

At first this sounds crazy, but in reality it is exactly what economics predicts. The United States has seen a massive consolidation of airlines as is known by many. In 2019 American Airlines (the largest in the country) had more passengers than the total on Alaska Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Spirit Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Allegiant Air, Hawaiian Airlines, and Sun Country Airlines. The entire industry in the United States is dominated by American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines. This consolidation of airlines into a small number means that they can charge more for each flight they serve, and do not offer as many options as there would be if there were more major airlines in the country. If we take a major airport like Seattle,  you can fly to Chicago on 6 different airlines, you can fly to New York on 3 different airlines, but if you want to fly directly to Miami, you can only fly on American Airlines. This gives immense power to American Airlines who does charge monopoly prices for this Seattle-Miami route, just like any monopoly in the world. This means there are fewer flights, and if another airline were to try to take advantage of this monopoly pricing, American would be able to significantly reduce their prices and force the other airline out of business. This is why getting out of our current situation with monopoly pricing is going to be so difficult.

Part of this is also because the United States has laws about how foreign airlines are not allowed to fly domestic flights in the United States. But even more than this, even the route to London has only 3 year round flights, despite being a major hub, and Frankfurt has only two flights on either Condor or Lufthansa.

This problem is obviously bigger than just the United States. There are three Airlines Alliances which exist in the world, Star Alliance, SkyTeam, and OneWorld. These airlines codeshare on international routes so if you were to fly from Seattle to Amsterdam you would fly on a codeshare between Delta and KLM. Most small countries will only have one major airline as well, which will belong to one of these major alliances. The United States, Spain, Russia, and China are the only exceptions to this rule. This lack of competition reduces the number of flights available and makes travel more expensive. The airlines naturally will pocket this cash, and before this epidemic were generally profitable.

All of this leads to fewer flights available overall, which while this is better for the environment, leads to fewer flights available for people in smaller cities. Here in Bellingham, Washington, only Alaska Airlines flies to Seattle, and only Allegiant flies anywhere else outside of Washington State. In Medford, Oregon (near where my great grandparents lived) only Seattle and Los Angeles have any competition. In larger cities like Kansas City, there are only two airlines operating between there and Seattle, Minneapolis, or New York. This makes flying less accessible to people with limited means, reduces the amount of options.

This is by any definition a very clear market failure.

So, what are solutions?

For myself, when I look at flying being more expensive, I have two battles pulling in me, it makes it more expensive to fly so we have fewer people flying overall, but we also see a benefit to the environment with fewer plans flying. My personal desire is to see accessibility for people to travel in ways which are efficient, preferably better for the environment, provide a high quality of service, provide a lot of service, and are at a good price for consumers.

In economics, we find that we first have to determine the nature of the market. For this we see that on the supply side we have a limited number of runways in each city, limited airspace between any two city pairs, and ideally those runways will be allocated in a way which maximizes the number of people who are able to use those services so we don’t run empty planes.

One of the first things any student of economics will study is information theory, which is fundamental to all economics. The information which needs to be determined in order to find the price and quantity of people who will consider flying at any given price is the goal of many economists who are employed by transportation companies who build models to determine the ticket price. The goal of the average consumer is obviously to spend as little as possible to safely get to their destination in as little time as possible. The goal of the company is obviously to maximize their profit. With fewer airlines in the marketplace, the total amount of information the market is going to respond to will be smaller, which hurts America’s GDP by reducing the amount of people who are traveling.

With routes which go between major cities which have several airlines competing for customers there will be lower prices. The reason for this is because those airlines are trying to maximize their profit, but if one raised their price too far, their plane would run empty and they would end up making less money than they would with a higher price.

If I look for a flight from Seattle to Chicago, there are a lot of different airlines which are competing to get me there, so the price for a four day trip starting on December 17th will currently run for $177. I am about as far away from Monterrey, Mexico as I am from Chicago, and Monterrey is also a city of considerable size with a good sized airport. There are fewer airlines offering flights to Monterrey from the United States, and even including transfers the least expensive flight right now is for $518 for the same 4 day trip. The reason is simple, Alaska, Spirit, United, American, Delta, and Southwest all compete for the flight to Chicago, whereas only United and American are competing for flights to Monterrey. This is one example where we can clearly see competition lowering prices. These prices stay pretty stable regardless of which season you look for prices according to Google Flights.

If there were more airlines in the market, there would be more airlines looking to edge out another, but with only a handful of major airlines, airlines have no incentive to do this. It is also far  too easy for one company to respect another companies turf, and extremely difficult for regulators to prove collusion if collusion exists.

The answer then is to have more entrants to the market. Most flights in the United States are fairly short (under 600 km last I checked) which means that a flight from Seattle to Medford is about the average length of a flight in the United States. Most flights then are competitive with high speed rail, and if America were to build a high speed rail network, which airlines could not compete with in terms of the waiting time in airports, then that will force airlines to serve more long haul routes and save oil for the majority of routes in the United States.

This also hints at another consequence of corporate consolidation. America’s interurban railroads are (with the exception of the Northeast Corridor) all privately owned. The consequence of this is that the private railroad is not acting on behalf of the country but instead for the interests of their own pocket books and stock holders. They also do not upgrade their lines as much as other countries, meaning anyone who has traveled in the United States knows that we have far more single tracked railroads than any other developed country. This makes it so the United States does not provide the same level of rail service as most other developed countries, limiting the ability for mobility within the United States. Given that railroads are a natural monopoly, and the only reasonable competitor to large airlines, there are very few solutions to solve the corporate consolidation in America’s transportation sector.

One option would be for the government to break up the existing airlines companies under anti-trust lawsuits. Having 10 or 20 airlines would make it far easier for at least one airline to cheat if some try to form a cartel, making a cartel far less powerful. The other option is (assuming there will never be a large number of railroads between two cities) is to nationalize the railroads and treat them like our highways. Then having AMTRAK increase service will provide a reasonably fast, efficient, inexpensive way to travel on trips of up to 500 km which would provide direct competition to a large number of existing flights. We could allow private railroad companies to compete with AMTRAK as well which would both increase the amount of people being able to travel in the United States and provide further downward pressure on price.

This solution will also solve the original problem I proposed in this post. With more airlines competing in the United States they would be forced to increase the salaries of pilots, or another airline will hire the pilots instead. This will end the shortage of pilots in a very short amount of time.

This is how we can end the pilot shortage, increase the availability of travel in America, reduce prices for traveling, and make a more prosperous economy.

References:

https://www.propublica.org/article/airline-consolidation-democratic-lobbying-antitrust

How to win the 2022 Senate election

It’s quite simple… $10 million against a deeply entrenched establishment Republican with a deep war chest in a very red state or $500k each against 20 Republicans in deep blue states who are facing strong campaigns from community leaders…

It’s pretty clear from this which strategy is going to win in the 2022 Senate election.

Also, focusing on more down ballot candidates in state legislatures and arming them to the teeth so they can have a paid staff which can increase community engagement which easily translates into votes is going to be a winning strategy.

My vote totals will be assuming Democrats do not win in Georgia given how much Democrats under performed this year. Hopefully I am wrong

This January we are looking at two toss ups in Georgia, and if both are a 50/50 chance of flipping, it means there is a 25% chance of the Democrats having a trifecta in January. This is possible, but by no means do I consider that a comfortable probability, especially after large under performances in many states which have voted for Democrats in the last 20 years.

In the 75% chance that the Democrats do not gain a majority in the Senate this year, then the 2022 Senate election will become absolutely critical if Biden is to have any long lasting legacy.

Republicans won a plurality but did not win a majority of the vote in Alaska, Pennsylvania, or Missouri in the 2016. If the Democrats manage to flip these three seats and do not lose any then they will have 51 seats and a majority. Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Florida are also states where Republicans won small majorities.

I believe the easiest seat to get back will be Pennsylvania. Pat Toomey won only 51% of the vote in 2010 against Joe Sestak who had been in congress for 20 years. Biden and Obama both won Pennsylvania and with the right candidate and the right strategy, it should be easy to get Pennsylvania back. If Tom Wolf uses his power appropriately to get a fair redistricting map in the next 12 months then he is the natural pick.

D-47, R-51, I-2

The next easiest seat to win back is going to be Wisconsin. Ron Johnson won with only 51.9% of the vote in 2010, Joe Biden won a small majority in the state this year, and if we run the right candidate with the right national strategy, we will be able to pick Wisconsin up in 2022.

D-48, R-50, I-2

In order to gain a 50 seat majority (without the New England independents Bernie Sanders and Angus King) the Democrats will need to win two more seats. I believe with the right campaign strategy and boots on the ground campaigning that we can elect a Democrat in Florida. Marco Rubio won with only 48.9% of the vote in 2010, and in 2016 he ran against a former Republican and won 52% of the vote. Ted Deutch is a good candidate to succeed Marco Rubio. He is not a former Republican, he will have 12 years of experience in the House, and another 4 years of experience in the Florida Senate. He is strong on gun control, and environmental issues. As Florida is one of the states most threatened by climate change, given its low elevation and routine hurricanes which are becoming more serious as time goes on, I believe we can pick up Florida in 2022 as long as we don’t run a former Republican. If there is a massive hurricane in Florida over the next two years, his odds will improve significantly given his climate advocacy. He will be the best Democratic candidate for that seat in Florida since 1996, with the most political experience, and I think if he has a good strategy in his campaign he will win.

D-49, R-49, I-2

North Carolina is going to be an open Senate seat in 2022. Given how close Biden came to winning North Carolina this year, and that Obama won North Carolina in 2008, with the right strategy the Democrats should be able to win a narrow majority, which will bring the Republicans down to 48 seats.

D-50, R-48, I-2

That is the easiest way for Democrats to win the 2022 Senate election.

The Most Exciting Thing in American Politics

Over  the last 14 years, a movement has been growing to ensure that every President must win a majority of  the popular vote in order to be elected. This is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, and it’s really exciting.

It requires half of the Electoral College to come into effect, and it is more than halfway there to becoming ratified. It only needs 74 more electoral college votes in order to come into effect.

In the 2018 elections, Democrats picked up several critical governors races in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

This year we filled out a census, and every state is going to need to redraw is legislative boundaries within the next 12 months.

In all three of these states, the governor needs to approve of the legislative and congressional maps in order for them to be approved.

If these three states approve the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, it will be enacted in states worth 242 electoral votes.

Meaning we will only need 28 more votes in order to come into effect.

Nevada, Minnesota, and Virginia will likely have Democratic state legislatures by the next Presidential election, and they have 29 electoral college votes between them and have not ratified the compact yet.

If Tony Evers, and Tom Wolf use their power to force a fair legislative map, and Democrats pick up even a one seat majority each in all 6 chambers of their there state legislatures, we can approve the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact in those three states.

The Republicans have a one seat majority in the Minnesota State legislature. If we flip just one seat there and keep the governorship and the house, the first act to do is to pass the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact as soon as possible in 2023.

Democrats have a trifecta in Nevada, and we can have Nevada join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact at any point.

Democrats have a trifecta in Virginia, and we can have Virginia join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact at any point.

That will bring the compact to about 271 electoral college votes of the current apportionment

Except there is one snafu to this plan, the members of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (including Nevada, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) are likely going  to on net lose 5 seats in the Electoral College from the current redistricting, meaning that we will still need 4 more votes.

Fortunately for us, Maine has 4 electoral college votes and a Democratic Trifecta. If Maine joins the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact it will have 270 electoral college votes, which is enough to come into effect.

In this way, the governors of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have more power than anyone else in America right now.  Michigan approves via an independent commission. They will determine within the next 12 months not just whether the House of Representatives will be a fair shot for the Democrats or heavily gerrymandered for the Republicans advantage, but with cooperation of just three states where Democrats already have a trifecta and another state where Democrats could very easily have a trifecta in 2023, we can bring the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact into force in time for the 2024 Presidential election with the minimum required number of votes.

In order to make it stick we should also try to get at least one more so it will continue to be in effect in 2032. For this, Arizona is our best bet. Democrats need only two more seats in the State House and 3 more seats in the State Senate to take over the legislature, and if we can take the governorship in Virginia (because I highly doubt Doug Ducey is going to support such a plan) we can possibly get a trifecta in 2022 which would mean we can bring the compact up to 281 electoral college votes, which should protect us from redistricting following the 2030 and 2040 censuses.

To the governors of those 7 states, please make history and nullify the Electoral College.


Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

2024 winning strategy

I honestly believe that if Kamala Harris had stayed in the race Warren would be President elect. The reason is because most Democratic states had yet to vote, and I think Bernie’s anti-Democratic rhetoric would have ended up hurting him and seeing a split moderate vote would have encouraged more progressives to vote for the candidate who has actually sponsored legislation which was signed into law in the last 20 years.

Warren would have stayed in the race to the end, she would have done better in the early primaries (because fewer voters would have voted for Sanders). She would have continued to stump for down ballot candidates throughout the entire campaign and she would have done better than both Biden and Sanders. It says a lot really, when Warren announced her candidacy there was Kamala Harris in the center, and she had a very clear path to the nomination. Kamala Harris dropping out before 2020 even began made that path far less clear, and Warren still pulled over 5% of the vote. She had the best performance of a candidate who came in third place in a Democratic Presidential primary since Paul Tsongas in 1992.
With only one New Democrat really in the race, and two progressives, a lot of would be Warren voters played it safe by voting for Sanders (who got more attention, because being unable to pass any laws he sponsored in the last 20 years nullifies him as a threat to establishment) which is how we ended up with Sanders getting over 20% of the vote. When we get to the general, with Warren as the nominee we would have had a lot more work by her campaign on down ballot races, which would have improved our chances in Maine and Iowa and also improved the chances of progressive candidates in the primary last August which would have meant we would have done better in the House elections, and we would already have 50 seats in the Senate for a trifecta.

The last 20 years have made it very clear to me that New Democrats are not safe picks in the General, but they are very strategic in ensuring that they get the nomination.

We have seen a resurgence of progressive nominees over the last 15 years because in 2000 and 2004 we saw two moderate Democrats as our nominee, one of them just barely lost, and Kerry was absolutely destroyed.
After losing twice in a row, that gave Obama a significant advantage by running on progressive values, progressives got control of the DNC, campaigned to issues Americans care about, and we got the biggest trifecta since FDR was president.
Sanders was never a very good candidate to be honest, and it shows in how much he lost the African American vote. This year I believe Warren was the best pick for President, with the longest coat tails in the race, but she was too progressive for cable news.
Because of this, Sanders got more attention, Warren got either ignored and attacked by her opponents more than any other, and we both lost seats in the House and the Senate is dependent on two runoffs in a state which hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate in over 20 years.
It is a really big problem that the main narrative is that Biden won, so his strategy worked. His strategy worked because he was campaigning against a pandemic, a 33% drop in GDP, and unemployment which was over 10%.
The question now is… will a moderate message work in an economy which has been growing for 3 years, an unemployment rate of 5%, no spoiler for the Republicans, and no epidemic? The last moderate candidate President who did that was Jimmy Carter, running against Nixon’s ghost.

The last moderate Democratic President before Carter was Woodrow Wilson, who was elected before my great-grandmother was born and then only because of a massive spoiler effect. History seems to imply that moderate Democrats lose without extreme circumstances and all of this is as the Republican Party has just become more and more extreme over the last century. 2024 is going to be a significantly different election from 2020, and we are going to ensure that we keep the House and gain the Senate in 2 years and then give Republicans the spanking they deserve in 2024 to force them to rethink their platform. I don’t expect another candidate like Ross Perot in the future, because if we were going to see one we would have seen one this year.

Without a spoiler, epidemic, or recession, the two campaigns we need to study and emulate are those of Obama in 2008 and Kennedy in 1960.

That will be a winning strategy, a campaign which speaks to voters, and for once we need to learn from history.

What to expect in the near future

The next 6 months are going to determine the next decade of American politics. The decisions of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are going to deeply impact how many voters turn out in 2022, and this will significantly impact whether the Republicans win a trifecta in 2024.

I shouldn’t need to go in detail about how that would make a big difference, that would be a boring post.

But what is not boring is thinking about the few trajectories. There are several main questions which are going to significantly impact where our country is going to go into the long term.

Will Democrats win the Senate

The Senate races in Georgia are extraordinarily close, as I discussed in my previous post. Betting pools are swinging Republican and opinion polls are putting the races at a complete toss up. It will come down to the getting out the vote in Georgia on whether we get a trifecta in Georgia. The fact that it is a toss up at all is the result of an extreme amount of work by many people (primarily people of color) which is a shining example of the power of community organizing.

If the Democrats do not win the Senate (which opinion polls and betting pools are predicting) than we are looking at a minimum of two years of deadlock. Biden will have to do his governing by executive order, while ensuring that his executive orders do not get overturned by a court system which is extremely stacked by the last 4 Republican Presidents. The stacking of the courts over the last 6 years will significantly impact the ability of the Biden Administration to enforce important laws like the Voting Rights Act.

If the Democrats beat the odds and win the Senate, than it is of the utmost imperative that we do the following in order:

  1. Destroy the Filibuster, rendering the Republicans powerless
  2. Balance the courts
  3. COVID relief
  4. Health care reform
  5. Enforce the Voting Rights Act
  6. Win 2022 by getting out the vote and mobilizing on the momentum we build in the next congressional session

If we fail to take hold of the momentum we get if we win both seats in Georgia, we will pay for it in 2022.

If we succeed in getting the majority in the Senate, and Democrats govern and campaign in a way which makes it clear that any dysfunction is from the Senate holding up funding, then everyone in America will benefit.

If the Republicans succeed in maintaining control of the Senate, Democrats need to get their messaging on target and ensure that the blame is as much on McConnell as possible, get out the vote in the key states to take over the Senate so that we can pass important legislation in 2023.

We need to do everything in our power to control the narrative and make sure that McConnell is held responsible for holding up budgets and laws which the American people need. If we compromise or hold back from calling them out on not cooperating on very basic governance work (I’m not talking about abortion, enacting a carbon tax, or expanding AMTRAK, I’m talking about passing a bloody budget) then Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris need to do everything they can to make sure that it is abundantly clear to the American people that it will be Mitch McConnell’s fault that basic governing isn’t getting done. If we don’t get that right over the next two years in this scenario, we will pay for it in 2022 with lower voter turnout, and a disappointing election.

However, if we make it clear that government dysfunction is from the Senate blocking funding for essential government programs we all rely on then we will all benefit from it after Biden’s midterms.

We must get this right.

2020 Senate Elections, part 1

I’ll get this off my chest… this year’s Senate elections were the biggest electoral disappointment of my life. Massive epidemic, a historic recession, and the Democrats seriously under performed up and down the ballot.

The Senate election odds and polling were both favoring a Democratic win, and that fizzled out completely. https://bookies.com/news/senate-races-odds-tracker

Democrats were expected to pick up Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, and North Carolina (although Iowa’s odds flipped late in the election as it started to become clear the Democrats had very little steam), which brought them from a projected 50/50 majority (along with the Vice Presidency) to a Senate in peril.

The odds for both races in Georgia currently favor the Republicans to keep their 15 year hold on the Senate seats from Georgia.

This year’s election is likely going to be the first time since 1968 where a new President was elected without their party also taking or maintaining control of the Senate.

We must also remember that the last Democratic Senators from Georgia were very conservative as well.

Don’t misunderstand me, I am very grateful for the work Stacey Abrams and so many others are doing in Georgia which has made the state competitive, and everyone who wants to make a difference should do what they can to help the election of two Democrats in Georgia. We would have to defeat two incumbent Republicans to get a Democratic Senate. David Perdue was elected with 52.9% of the vote in 2014.

We must understand the odds currently favor Republicans in every way.

I want people to not be surprised in January when the Republicans will most likely keep control of the Senate. After the massive under performance outside of Georgia, we should avoid getting their hopes too high.

If the most likely outcome happens this year, we need to not lose hope and keep in mind that there are significant pick ups to be made in 2022 in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Iowa. Those three seats will give the Democrats a narrow majority.

But it is impossible for me to overstate how important it was this year for Democrats to win in both Iowa and Maine, and what a massive loss those two races are for our country.

I do not want this to be misconstrued as understating the amazing work which is being done in Georgia. Stacey Abrams and all of the other activists are an incredible force for good for this country, and they made an incredible difference already. the fact that they made the race against David Perdue competitive, when he won with 7 points more than his opponent 6 years ago is nothing short of incredible. They turned multiple solid Republican races into highly competitive races, almost out of the blue.

But we shouldn’t underestimate the deep cultural forces they are pushing against right now in the heart of the South, and keep in mind that in two years there are going to be several races where we could perform extremely well with the right candidates which will likely give the Democratic Party control of the Senate. That is where I am placing my hopes.

2020 Presidential election analysis

The 2020 Presidential election is finally over. Joe Biden is going to be the first New Democrat President since Bill Clinton.

This post will have 4 main parts, the first will look at how Joe Biden did compared to his predecessors over the last 30 years,  the second part will look at individual state results and how they have evolved to give Joe Biden the victory, the third part will look at nationwide exit poll data for 2004, 2008, 2016, and this year, and the conclusion part will ask how 2024 looks based on these trends and what an election without Trump might look like, and what sorts of strategies will likely work based on historical results.

Overall

In the 1992 and 1996 elections Bill Clinton won very narrow margins twice. He won only 43% of the vote in 1992 and 49.2% of the vote in 1996. Bill Clinton covered a number of southern states in both elections, which no Democrat has managed to do since.

In 2000 Al Gore almost won by a very narrow margin which of course many believe was stolen from him in the famous Bush v. Gore decision which stopped counting ballots before they finished. He carried the Midwest, but he lost Ohio and Florida giving Bush a very narrow win. He won the popular vote.

In 2004 George W. Bush won a majority of the popular vote, and picked up New Mexico and Iowa giving him a total of 286 electoral college votes.

President Obama became the first Democratic President since Jimmy Carter to win a majority of the popular vote, and won 365 electoral college votes. He ran a campaign focused on reforming health care and getting money out of politics. He carried the largest trifecta with more seats in the Senate than any time since 1976, the largest majority in the House since 1936, a majority of State governorships,This is the and a majority of State legislatures. Democrats gained trifectas in Wisconsin, New York, and Delaware.

The 2012 election continued to see Obama pull over 50% of the vote, expanding his campaign to be unabashadly pro-gay marriage and announcing how he supports free community college. Democrats won more votes for congress, but due to gerrymandering Republicans retained their majority from 2010.

In 2016 Hillary Clinton lost very narrow margins in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. She was the first Democrat to lose Michigan since Michael Dukakis in 1988, and the first Democrat to lose Wisconsin since Ronald Reagan in 1984. Republicans won slightly more votes for the House.

This year in 2020 Joe Biden became the first New Democrat to ever win a majority of the popular vote. He lost seats in the House from his caucus at the same time.

Incoming Presidents have lost seats in the House from their party in 2020, 2016, 2000, 1992,  and 1960.

Incoming Presidents have gained seats in the House from their party in 2008, 1980, 1976, and 1968.

There appears to be no correlation between a new President being elected and gaining or losing seats in congress. 1980 saw the largest gains for an incoming President with 34 new seats for Republicans, although no majority. 2008 saw the largest gain for an incoming President along with a majority in their party, with 21 new seats which provided 257 seats.

Over the last 92 years, there have  been Republican trifectas elected in 1928, 1930, 1952, 2002, 2004, and 2016. There have been Democratic trifectas in 1932, 1934, 1936, 1938, 1940, 1942, 1944, 1948, 1960, 1962, 1964, 1966, 1976, 1978, 1992, and 2008. We have had far more Democratic trifectas than Republican trifectas in recent American history.

One flaw with this simplistic type of analysis is that before 1994 there were a lot of Southern Democrats in the Democratic Party who were very different from Northern Democrats. Newt Gingrich defeated a lot of moderate Democrats which has ended up with the two parties having less overlap today than they used to.

The deeper finding in this data is what made 2008 different from every other year since the post-1994 realignment. I find there are two things different from 2008 as opposed to every other election since Gingrich’s contract with America.

  1. Our Presidential candidate was not from the New Democrat Coalition, and focused on a message of hope and change.
  2. The Democratic Party under the leadership of Howard Dean fully embraced a 50 state strategy which led to gains at every level of government.

The Democratic Party has not run a candidate who is not from the New Democratic Coalition along with the 50 state strategy in any other year since the realignment of 1994.

When you take into account the fact that the Democratic party was a lot more ideologically pure in 2008 it makes 2008 even more remarkable than a simple party count will do. After a few switches we had 60 seats (given two Independents who caucus with Democrats) which is enough to overcome a filibuster. This is the only time this has happened without a large number of Northern Republicans being required to override a filibuster.

There have only been three major gains for the Democratic Party in the House since 1994, those occurred in 2006, 2008, and 2018. Democrats had the largest gain of seats in Congress during a Presidential election year since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 2008. It is the first of only two times in the last 30 years where the Democrats did not run a New Democrat. The other time was President Obama’s reelection.

Individual States

*when I use the word “significant” I mean that it brought the candidate over 50% support in a demographic.

Arizona

Biden pulled his most impressive win in Arizona by far.  He was only the second Democrat to win Arizona since 1948. when Harry Truman was the last President to win it by over 50 points. Bill Clinton won a small majority in Arizona in 1996. The Democrats also performed extremely well in the Senate. This is going to be the first time the Democrats have controlled both seats in Arizona since 1953 when Ernest McFarland lost his seat. We also took over the State Senate and are only one seat behind in the State House. I will do a deeper analysis on which seats we won and lost in the State legislature in its own post.

It looks like President-elect Biden won the Hispanic vote by 63%, he won voters under the age of 30, and he won a majority of the vote in cities, particularly for people of color. Biden also won the white college graduate vote.

This strongly indicates that Democrats need to really focus on increasing ballot access for voters in cities if we are to win future elections. We should focus on getting out the vote on college campuses.

Florida

Florida was missed even though the polls expected Biden to win it. During the same night, Florida voted for a $15 minimum wage with a 2/3 majority as well.

Biden won the Black vote, Hispanic/Latino vote, voters under the age of 30, the college graduate vote, the city vote. Gender and whether you have a college degree was not a significant factor for turnout. Trump did better among noncollege graduates than college graduates, but not significantly. Trump won the Cuban vote which makes 6% of the population with 56% of the vote, just like he did in 2016.

Similar indicators for Arizona, Democrats need to make sure people of color in cities can vote easily.

We need to do everything we can to preserve no excuse mail in voting in Florida.

Georgia

This was the first time Georgia voted for a Democrat since 1992. What really made the difference was the incredible work Stacy Abrams did in getting out the vote in key Democratic demographics, primarily African Americans.

Biden won voters under the age of 45, African American and Hispanic voters, college graduates, families who make under $50,000 a year, and won a majority in Atlanta and Atlanta suburbs. Gender did not make a significant impact to the election, except among Latinos. Latino men voted for Trump, Latino women voted for Biden. There also were more Latino women voting than Latino men. College education did not make a significant impact, but Biden did do a lot better among people with a college degree.

Michigan

Michigan has voted for Democrats every year (except 2016) over the last 30 years.

Kerry, Gore, and Clinton all got around 51% of the vote.

President Obama got 54% and 57% of the vote, and Gretchen Whitmer got 53% of the vote.

New Democrats had their best performance in Michigan of 51% against Dole and Bush. Bill and Hillary Clinton failed to pass the 50% threshold in 1992 and 2016. They campaigned differently from Obama. President Biden is only barely scraping past the 50% mark, and he is about to become the first New Democrat to ever win a majority of the vote in Michigan, by just a hair.

Joe Biden is on track to win Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia with less than a majority after a recession and epidemic which the sitting President has not helped us recover from. These 5 states carry 63 electoral college votes.President Obama and Gretchen Whitmer offered very daring visions for the United States and direct solutions to the problems people faced in this state Democrats must win in order to win. Clinton and Biden ran more lukewarm campaigns which didn’t focus on the same issues Obama focused on and got lukewarm results.

Jimmy Carter is the only Democratic president in the last 70 years to win the Presidency and not win Michigan.

With all of this being said, we need to understand where we picked up voters in this critical state.

Biden won younger voters, people of color, families who make less than $50,000 per year, union voters, city voters, Wayne county and Southeast MIchigan, and white college graduates. Gender did not make a significant impact when controlling for race, although Biden did poll better with women. Women had better turnout then men.

Get out the vote on college campuses and to low income neighborhoods in Greater Detroit and Democrats will win Michigan in 2022 and 2024.

Biden flipped White college graduates as opposed to 2016. We must retain the White college graduate vote in future elections.

Given the core of the Democratic party, this should be easy. Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan came closer to winning the high school vote than Clinton did, but did significantly better than  both Clinton or Biden with voters who have some college or an Associates Degree.

Also, I do not believe that it was simply the issue of lead pipes in Flint, Michigan for her success. Thousands of U.S. Areas have issues with lead in their pipes, and those states continue to elect Republicans who do nothing. Whitmer won because of her campaigning style, moving Michigan from giving 58% of their vote to Snyder in 2010 to 53% of their vote to Whitmer in 2018.

If the Democratic Party is wise, they will learn from her success and replicate it.

Nevada

Similar to Michigan, President Obama appears like he will continue to be the only Democrat to win over 50% of the vote in Nevada since 1964.

I expect it is for the same reason.

Biden won voters under the age of 45, college graduates, suburb voters, Washoe county (Reno), nonwhite voters. Gender did not make a significant difference when controlling for race except among Latino voters. Biden tied Trump among White college graduates and lost White noncollege graduates.

Ohio

Joe Biden is the first Democratic President to lose Ohio since John F. Kennedy in 1960. Ohio has voted for the winner of the Electoral college in every Presidential election since 1900 except for in in 2020, 1960, 1944. It will likely continue  to be a bellwether in the future.

Biden won voters under the age of 45, college graduates, low income households, cities with over 50k people, and white college graduates, and people of color. Gender did not make a significant difference although Biden did poll better among women.

If we get out the vote in big cities we can win Ohio in 2024.

Pennsylvania

Al Gore and John Kerry just barely passed the 50% margin in Pennsylvania, and Obama won Pennsylvania by 52% in 2012 nonwhite people.and 54% in 2008. Bill and Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden failed to pass 50% of the vote in this state.

Biden won voters under the age of 45, college graduates, people who make under $50,000 per year, people in big cities. Gender did not make a significant difference controlling for race, although Biden did poll significantly better among white women who were more likely to turn out to vote. Biden won white college graduates.

Wisconsin

Barack Obama’s campaign was the only Presidential campaign since 1964 to win over 50% of the vote in Wisconsin. He did it twice.

Biden won the college graduate vote, people who make under $50,000 a year, cities with over 50k people. Wisconsin is unique among swing states in that gender made a significant difference among white people with Biden winning the vote of 52% of white women. He won white college graduates and people of color.

Nationwide exit poll data

Vote by Education:

Year No High School HS Graduate Some College College Graduate Post Grad
2004 0.5 0.47 0.46 0.46 0.55
2008 0.63 0.52 0.51 0.5 0.58
2012 0.64 0.51 0.49 0.47 0.55
2016 0.46 0.43 0.49 0.58
2020 0.48 0.52 0.51 0.62

Obama won such margins because his policies appealed to High School Graduates.

The only three successful Democratic Presidents to successfully pull voters from Republicans were Carter in 1976, Clinton both times, and Obama in 2008.


Obama’s platform was the first Democratic platform to capture voters whose family income is above $75k. This is probably due to the recession, given that Biden also managed to pull voters who make between $50k and $100k. This is also likely because Obama lost these voters in 2012 but still commanded 63% of voters who make under $30k and 57% of voters who make between 30k and 49k.

Obama’s platform was the only modern candidate to get a majority of the vote from people who only have a high school graduate.  People with only a high school education often vote for the winner of presidential elections, so we need to make sure that our platform appeals to them and win that demographic by at least 50%. People with some college have played kingmaker in all of the last 5 Presidential elections, and President Obama won them twice.

Let’s learn from our successes and not replicate our failures.

Going Forward

Given the results of this election night, the biggest most important rule of the elections going forward if not just in general for the rest of time is this…

Do NOT speak out against progressive initiatives which have won at the ballot box in swing states

This should be extremely obvious to anyone with any experience working in politics.

It took a recession with unemployment peaking over 10% and a literal epidemic under a Republican President to elect a New Democrat in the modern era. Even with that incredibly favorable situation, Joe Biden is on track to win Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia with less than a majority after a recession and epidemic which the sitting President has not helped us recover from. These 5 states carry 63 electoral college votes, and if they had flipped to Trump, Biden would have lost. 3 of those states worth 36 electoral college votes which have a total of do not have Republican Trifectas, which brought Biden down to only 270 if they had flipped to Trump.

If we want to win in swing states we need to do a deep autopsy of the campaign messaging of Barack Obama and ensure that whoever we run in 2024 will have similar messaging which works in critical swing states and carry significant benefits in down ballot races for state legislatures and congresses.

I absolutely do not think that we are seeing losses in these states “because of Donald Trump”. Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden are getting similar results to other New Democrats we have run in swing states. From this comparison of how New Democrats and Obama performed my conclusion is simple.

Moderate messaging does not work as well in swing states as opposed to a strong progressive platform focusing on health care, eliminating corruption, and free community college. Progressive messaging provides overwhelming wins for the Presidency which leads to historically strong performance in State Legislatures and Congress. There appears to be no significant impact between the first election of their candidate and their reelection.

All of the evidence from both Presidential and state races I have looked at supports this conclusion.

We should replicate our results in 2024.

References

New York  Times 2020 exit polls

Wikipedia for election results

2004 exit polls
2008 Exit polls
2012 exit polls