The election margins were tight, with Trump securing a win by about 1.7%. Not a landslide. Interestingly, around 1.7% of the votes went to third-party candidates. These candidates, often seen in past elections with their shiny tin foil hats, typically advocate for policies aimed at preserving family values. They oppose abortion, divorce, and sex education in schools, and push for limited government. They want to eliminate mandatory vaccinations and fluoridation in drinking water. A major theme among them is a distrust of science. Engaging with these folks can be challenging, as they often view the world through a distorted lens. Folks who voted for these candidates knew the day would never come there they could win an election.
So where does this leave Democrats? Our usual base among informed white, Black and Latinos voters went away. A small percentage of Latinos supported closing the border, while a few Black voters supported Trump’s racism. The Pandemic besides leaving hundreds of thousands dead and diminished public support for coronavirus restrictions gave way to a backlash against prolonged school closures; mask and vaccine mandates; and the public health experts who insisted on the measures. It eroded trust in government officials, elites, and the media. Trump skillfully used social media to introduce falsehoods, like Biden using US funds to financially support other NATO members, and his thirty-four felony fraud convictions were for crimes he did not commit. He floated the notion that Democrats attempted to assassinate him. Of course, factually, there is no rational evidence to support any of this. None whatsoever.
Fighting back by providing the facts was somewhat effective. But we need a candidate who is not perceived as woke, who like Bill Clinton was gifted with ability to explain things and like Obama could instill hope. Harris was not such a candidate, nor was Hillary. We need to start searching now, not wait for a few months before the election.
This was a lackluster analysis of what happened in the last general election. It’s all the same talking points: Joe Rogan, inflation, blah, blah, blah. The elephants in the room are misogyny and bigotry. Harris / Walz were terrific candidates. The only people who wanted a brokered Dem convention bloodbath with less than 100 days to the election were the media and bloggers.
Your logic is that we are right so it doesn't matter if we lose. It is the sexist, racists out there. If you disparage the public, be prepared to lose.
Actually my main objection is that if you just attribute your losses to the prejudices of the public - sexism, racism - rather than some self examination and understanding why people don't like Democrats (note that Dems lost all over the country by the same margins regardless of whether women or minority candidates were running in the Senate and HOR) then you have no method of self correction. It is like blaming the weather, just put down the electorate.
I was one of those people who would have wanted an open primary, granted it would have been difficult and it is simply because I believe in democracy, that the people should choose, rather than our leaders anoint people. Now, I agree it likely wouldn't have changed anything since the delegates had been chosen, but ideally Biden should have dropped out a year earlier. The Republicans actually got to make a choice, even if they picked an imbecile.
Yes, Jack Democrats faced some losses in down-ballot elections in 2024. Republicans managed to maintain their majority in the House of Representatives by a very narrow margin, winning 220 seats to the Democrats' 215. This means that while Democrats did win some seats, they ultimately did not gain control of the House.
In North Carolina, for example, Democrats saw a decrease in voter turnout compared to the 2020 presidential election. However, they did manage to win the governorship with Josh Stein defeating his Republican competitor. Jeff Jackson beat his Republican opposition to become Attorney General.
Overall, the 2024 elections were marked by a mix of wins and losses for both parties, with Republicans holding onto “a slim majority” in the House. Of course, as the song goes there will be “a morning after” in the not-too-distant future. The midterms could see more Democratic victories, spurred on by Trump’s erratic and childish behavior.
The Trifecta, as you call it, is balanced on a razor's edge. This delicate situation demands bipartisan cooperation. Trump, however, seems oblivious to this necessity. He will try to impose his authoritarian tendencies. Eventually, he will become a laughingstock. His supporters will lose faith in his leadership, and the politicians who once feared his primary threats will quickly abandon him. Some credible observers have suggested that Trump might be removed by invoking the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. I find this conclusion questionable and believe that opting for the impeachment process is more likely.
Recheck your facts old man, the balance of power in the U.S. legislature has shifted since the 2020-2022 period. Currently, Republicans hold a majority in both the House and the Senate. This is different from the 2020-2022 period when Democrats had control of both chambers and the presidency, forming a trifecta. During the 2020-2022 period, Democrats did indeed pass several significant pieces of legislation, including the Inflation Reduction Act, the American Rescue Plan, and the CHIPS Act. They also confirmed the first Black woman to the Supreme Court.
The legacy media has lost my trust by 'sanewashing' Trump and by having story after story after story about HIM, even when it was a story about him screwing up or his outrageousness. The result was the same - Joe Biden and the successes the Democrats had were ignored or bumped off the front page.
Nobody “nominated” Hillary, she conspired with the DNC Wasserman Schultz types to manipulate her coronation. Obama patched up an economic mess that began when Slick Willie strangled Glass/Steagall. All Obama did was bail out the criminals that caused the problem in the first place. The people who might vote for a Democrat, he made them homeless.
Regarding fixing the immigration system one might consider the fact that we metaphorically lock Monroe Doctrine victims into their churches, light them on fire, and when they try to save themselves by emigrating we shoot them down. We don’t take any responsibility for what we have done. Investigate Operation Condor
Once again, I did not vote for Donald Trump, but Russia Gate and all the other nonsense the MSM and Dem politicians forced him to contend with speaks for itself. It was disgusting display of dishonesty and gaslighting. The Dems deserved to lose.
Trump was indeed “booted from office”, but once again the Dems cheated to get the alzheimer patient elected.
An infrastructure bill? “One way to think about it is, if our first year was about the bill passing, and the second year was about the programs’ launching, this is about the money moving so we can get the dirt flying,” said Buttigieg.” A slow start it appears. And this is my cynical take: Our infrastructure has been long past seeking repair. We have not one inch of high speed rail; and this is probably one of those public/private investment deals in which much of that money is going to go into someone’s pocket “and nothing, will fundamentally change.
Democrats are done. You need to rebrand at the least, and if you want to survive you need to actually start improving the lives of your backers. Right now your backers are the oligarchs and you are indeed improving their existence; the rest of us, not so much.
Last time punctuation counted. Hopefully this time people address content.
Respectfully, the turnstile art here might have represented voters of the last century, but it doesn't represent the voters of today. Those of us who are neither Democrats nor Republicans are not "undecided." We are decidedly independent, having rejected the corrupt and inept duopoly. There's a big difference.
In North Carolina, independent voters are the largest plurality. (38% U, 32% D, 30% R, 1% other -- each rounded.) The trend is sharply upward. Among voters ages 26 to 40, independents make up 40% of the electorate. Among voters 18-25, independents are a majority (51%). Independents are not all centrists, but the legacy political clubs have lost us, perhaps for good.
But when you say "The right-wing media ecosystem was able to control the dialogue" that seems to be a rationalization. When you screw up, blame the media. This is the same media that gave us victories in 2008, 2012, and 2020. If you are expecting to wait until FOX starts giving a balanced viewpoint, you will be waiting a long time.
I think the reality is that inflation will always be more important an issue than any other economic arguments. Half the voters don't know what GDP is and few care. Unemployment is more a concern for the minority of unemployed The price of eggs stares 100% of us in the face daily. and it is harder on lower wage earners.
The argument that "well the economy is great" that I heard over and over from Dem activists, and indeed from you here, will not soothe a public upset over $4 gas and $4 bread. In fact it wasn't that Dems didn't make their arguments which is an odd point - there is no single Dem, you are talking about 1000s of leaders and media outlet, it is that the point was not believed by a public who are pissed off at bread prices, and indeed the "but the economy is good" argument only rubbed, salt in the wounds. It was the same myopia in regards to Covid that caused Trump's loss - minimizing serious problems. And most economists do feel that we overstimulated the economy with the various rescues that was not the cause of inflation but added 1-2%. Releasing lots of money into a system weak on supply only worsens inflation.
I am with you 100% on the we weren't given a choice. I was an early supporter of Dean Phillips after having seen my Roy Cooper for President go nowhere, but I found in Dem circles that was seen as apostacy. There was this circle the wagons mood among Dems even as we were getting ready to be McGoverned when Biden was riding approvals in the high 30s that no incumbent ever was elected with. Yet, Dean was considered a heretic, and two days before Pelosi tasered Biden enough to get him to quit, Bernie Sanders had an op ed in the NYTimes about why we should stick with Biden.
Harris was never a popular candidate. She had the albatross of being from CA where saying that you supported taxpayer funded gender surgery on prisoners is just normal, but it is not a popular position in Peoria, and if we had a Cooper or Bashear we might have improved our odds. An open primary would have been ideal, but Biden waiting until the last minute made that very difficult. Harris was never a good candidate, for what would have been an uphill battle for any, given the publics mood on immigration and inflation, but to me what demonstrated her weakness in a nutshell was when in the FOX interview she was asked in reference to the Biden administration "would you have done anything differently?" and her answer was "I cant think of anything". She was unwilling to distance herself from her unpopular administration. She was clearly running against Trump, but she also had to run against Biden. As one example- if in June 2024 the Biden administration implemented 'remain in Mexico' and no longer accepted record numbers of immigrants who only needed to say "I want asylum" thus reducing illegal entrants to 2020 levels, which is where it stands now, why not admit that the prior policy was a mistake. It was certainly unpopular with polls that asked voters which party they favored on various issues, consistently showing that the GOP was most favored on immigration. Harris could not play defense. She could play offense on abortion and healthcare where Dems are favored, but she lost on those issues where Dems are disliked - immigration, crime, inflation, and woke.
I agree with a lot of your assessment, but I think Harris was a fantastic candidate. When you’re running against a skillful liar and demagogue, you already start out 3 laps behind.
If she had been the same person but male, I bet the store that your impressions would have been much more positive. (Sorry, I’m assuming you’re not sexist, but that man versus woman thing is so ingrained you don’t even see it).
Same skilled liar and demagogue that Biden beat four years earlier and that Hillary at least won the popular vote against.
Now that may have just been the mood of the electorate, the tide of inflation, the record illegal immigration. I don't know. It wouldn't have been easy for any Democrat. And she was invariably running against Biden who was very unpopular and did nothing to distance herself from him.
Her approvals were not great. Sure, next to Biden, anything was an improvement, but she has never been popular. She was one of the first to scrub out in 2020.
As to my being a sexist, I would say you are using it like a loose canon without even knowing me, and if you really believe that everybody is sexist, I think you reflect that part of the Dem party that is its problem, judgmental. I supported Amy Klobuchar in 2016 and think she would have been better. And I think Gretchen Whitmer or Tammy Duckworth would have been better.
My take on Harris is that she just goes with the flow. She was a progressive when it suited her in CA, she never really defined herself in 2020. She didn't campaign progressive, but neither did she run center. It would have helped her to admit that record numbers of border crossers were a mistake. The country was not happy with the Democratic party and she didn't distinguish herself in any way from that.
Excellent generally but this misses the point that Dems lost all up and down the ballot. They have become the party of drag queen story hour and nothing that Harris could have done overrides that.
Second the main argument that everyone had for Harris was that she was a woman of color. Had they talked about policy positions instead of something that people either didn't care about or loathed about her they would have been better off.
Harris was a terrible choice for VP. (Would have been ideal for the Supreme Court.). Had Tammy Duckworth been the VP choice the outcome would have been different.
I agree with you Sharon. The Dem brand has been hurt by the Identarian moralists that are about telling people how racist they are. Get back to being the party of working people. Even Sanders has said as much.
Agree on the bad choice. There was a reason that she lost so badly and we need candidates who know how to win a swing state and that is generally not people from NY, CA, or MA at least since JFK.
The Dems lost the congressional vote by 2.7% worse than the presidency which was lost by 1.5%, It is exactly those positions - crime, immigration, woke culture that are associated with Democrats that hurt us. . It was not that Harris campaigned on the fact that they had record border crossings, but ignoring it as opposed to opposing it, you buy it.
Biden's limiting himself to only picking a black women, in a nutshell, was a lot of what is wrong with the Dems. If there was a strong black women, no problem, but it is this feeling that they have to constantly prove their virtue by being the most woke, that has lead them to be disliked.
The lesser half of the Council of State are Republicans. Those Democrats did not get the kind of money that the upper half got and they lost. It's a shame that they weren't supported the same as Jackson, Hunt, Marshall, and Green were. But we did break the supermajority and kept Allison Riggs on the Supreme Court. The Democrats did something right for sure, although Robinson really helped Josh Stein. Thomas wrote about this recently.
A reply from my NC friend when I reposted this : “Maybe the Dems need to lasso his brain and take it to heart to affect the changes that obviously need to be made to the party to get back into the White House, Senate and Congress in the next four years!!”
The campaign is already on! Thousands of state and local races on the ballot in the next two years. My Substack is tracking those and congressional races too!
The campaign started November 6. We're already behind. Let's get in it!
Democrats need to be more creative.
The election margins were tight, with Trump securing a win by about 1.7%. Not a landslide. Interestingly, around 1.7% of the votes went to third-party candidates. These candidates, often seen in past elections with their shiny tin foil hats, typically advocate for policies aimed at preserving family values. They oppose abortion, divorce, and sex education in schools, and push for limited government. They want to eliminate mandatory vaccinations and fluoridation in drinking water. A major theme among them is a distrust of science. Engaging with these folks can be challenging, as they often view the world through a distorted lens. Folks who voted for these candidates knew the day would never come there they could win an election.
So where does this leave Democrats? Our usual base among informed white, Black and Latinos voters went away. A small percentage of Latinos supported closing the border, while a few Black voters supported Trump’s racism. The Pandemic besides leaving hundreds of thousands dead and diminished public support for coronavirus restrictions gave way to a backlash against prolonged school closures; mask and vaccine mandates; and the public health experts who insisted on the measures. It eroded trust in government officials, elites, and the media. Trump skillfully used social media to introduce falsehoods, like Biden using US funds to financially support other NATO members, and his thirty-four felony fraud convictions were for crimes he did not commit. He floated the notion that Democrats attempted to assassinate him. Of course, factually, there is no rational evidence to support any of this. None whatsoever.
Fighting back by providing the facts was somewhat effective. But we need a candidate who is not perceived as woke, who like Bill Clinton was gifted with ability to explain things and like Obama could instill hope. Harris was not such a candidate, nor was Hillary. We need to start searching now, not wait for a few months before the election.
Totally agree! Democrats should figure out who they are and talk about pocketbook issues. Podcasts and social media are an excellent idea
This was a lackluster analysis of what happened in the last general election. It’s all the same talking points: Joe Rogan, inflation, blah, blah, blah. The elephants in the room are misogyny and bigotry. Harris / Walz were terrific candidates. The only people who wanted a brokered Dem convention bloodbath with less than 100 days to the election were the media and bloggers.
Your logic is that we are right so it doesn't matter if we lose. It is the sexist, racists out there. If you disparage the public, be prepared to lose.
I’m not sure what your point is.
Actually my main objection is that if you just attribute your losses to the prejudices of the public - sexism, racism - rather than some self examination and understanding why people don't like Democrats (note that Dems lost all over the country by the same margins regardless of whether women or minority candidates were running in the Senate and HOR) then you have no method of self correction. It is like blaming the weather, just put down the electorate.
I was one of those people who would have wanted an open primary, granted it would have been difficult and it is simply because I believe in democracy, that the people should choose, rather than our leaders anoint people. Now, I agree it likely wouldn't have changed anything since the delegates had been chosen, but ideally Biden should have dropped out a year earlier. The Republicans actually got to make a choice, even if they picked an imbecile.
Yes, Jack Democrats faced some losses in down-ballot elections in 2024. Republicans managed to maintain their majority in the House of Representatives by a very narrow margin, winning 220 seats to the Democrats' 215. This means that while Democrats did win some seats, they ultimately did not gain control of the House.
In North Carolina, for example, Democrats saw a decrease in voter turnout compared to the 2020 presidential election. However, they did manage to win the governorship with Josh Stein defeating his Republican competitor. Jeff Jackson beat his Republican opposition to become Attorney General.
Overall, the 2024 elections were marked by a mix of wins and losses for both parties, with Republicans holding onto “a slim majority” in the House. Of course, as the song goes there will be “a morning after” in the not-too-distant future. The midterms could see more Democratic victories, spurred on by Trump’s erratic and childish behavior.
Yes, and they took the Senate giving a Trifecta. I guess the inevitability of Trump screwing up gives some reassurance.
The Trifecta, as you call it, is balanced on a razor's edge. This delicate situation demands bipartisan cooperation. Trump, however, seems oblivious to this necessity. He will try to impose his authoritarian tendencies. Eventually, he will become a laughingstock. His supporters will lose faith in his leadership, and the politicians who once feared his primary threats will quickly abandon him. Some credible observers have suggested that Trump might be removed by invoking the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. I find this conclusion questionable and believe that opting for the impeachment process is more likely.
Typo: Democrats won 220 seats, Republicans won 225
Recheck your facts old man, the balance of power in the U.S. legislature has shifted since the 2020-2022 period. Currently, Republicans hold a majority in both the House and the Senate. This is different from the 2020-2022 period when Democrats had control of both chambers and the presidency, forming a trifecta. During the 2020-2022 period, Democrats did indeed pass several significant pieces of legislation, including the Inflation Reduction Act, the American Rescue Plan, and the CHIPS Act. They also confirmed the first Black woman to the Supreme Court.
Thomas, yours is as strong an analysis of our broken democracy as any I have ever read. Absolutely insightful and brave.
I wish every democratic elected official in America would read it, especially our likely candidates for president like the one you named.
You should consider starting a podcast, too.
The legacy media has lost my trust by 'sanewashing' Trump and by having story after story after story about HIM, even when it was a story about him screwing up or his outrageousness. The result was the same - Joe Biden and the successes the Democrats had were ignored or bumped off the front page.
https://open.substack.com/pub/sharonlawrence/p/governing-alternative-news-sources?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=a5esd. Lots of great nonprofit news sources out there. Find the ones that are working in your community or areas of interest and support them. I'm a monthly donor 1 national group, 1 issue specific group, and 2 state based ones.
Nobody “nominated” Hillary, she conspired with the DNC Wasserman Schultz types to manipulate her coronation. Obama patched up an economic mess that began when Slick Willie strangled Glass/Steagall. All Obama did was bail out the criminals that caused the problem in the first place. The people who might vote for a Democrat, he made them homeless.
Regarding fixing the immigration system one might consider the fact that we metaphorically lock Monroe Doctrine victims into their churches, light them on fire, and when they try to save themselves by emigrating we shoot them down. We don’t take any responsibility for what we have done. Investigate Operation Condor
Once again, I did not vote for Donald Trump, but Russia Gate and all the other nonsense the MSM and Dem politicians forced him to contend with speaks for itself. It was disgusting display of dishonesty and gaslighting. The Dems deserved to lose.
Trump was indeed “booted from office”, but once again the Dems cheated to get the alzheimer patient elected.
An infrastructure bill? “One way to think about it is, if our first year was about the bill passing, and the second year was about the programs’ launching, this is about the money moving so we can get the dirt flying,” said Buttigieg.” A slow start it appears. And this is my cynical take: Our infrastructure has been long past seeking repair. We have not one inch of high speed rail; and this is probably one of those public/private investment deals in which much of that money is going to go into someone’s pocket “and nothing, will fundamentally change.
Democrats are done. You need to rebrand at the least, and if you want to survive you need to actually start improving the lives of your backers. Right now your backers are the oligarchs and you are indeed improving their existence; the rest of us, not so much.
Last time punctuation counted. Hopefully this time people address content.
Respectfully, the turnstile art here might have represented voters of the last century, but it doesn't represent the voters of today. Those of us who are neither Democrats nor Republicans are not "undecided." We are decidedly independent, having rejected the corrupt and inept duopoly. There's a big difference.
In North Carolina, independent voters are the largest plurality. (38% U, 32% D, 30% R, 1% other -- each rounded.) The trend is sharply upward. Among voters ages 26 to 40, independents make up 40% of the electorate. Among voters 18-25, independents are a majority (51%). Independents are not all centrists, but the legacy political clubs have lost us, perhaps for good.
https://carolinademography.cpc.unc.edu/2024/10/10/who-are-north-carolinas-7-6-million-registered-voters-2024/
Independent nonpartisan here. You are on it Matthew
I think you hit a lot of nails on the head.
But when you say "The right-wing media ecosystem was able to control the dialogue" that seems to be a rationalization. When you screw up, blame the media. This is the same media that gave us victories in 2008, 2012, and 2020. If you are expecting to wait until FOX starts giving a balanced viewpoint, you will be waiting a long time.
I think the reality is that inflation will always be more important an issue than any other economic arguments. Half the voters don't know what GDP is and few care. Unemployment is more a concern for the minority of unemployed The price of eggs stares 100% of us in the face daily. and it is harder on lower wage earners.
The argument that "well the economy is great" that I heard over and over from Dem activists, and indeed from you here, will not soothe a public upset over $4 gas and $4 bread. In fact it wasn't that Dems didn't make their arguments which is an odd point - there is no single Dem, you are talking about 1000s of leaders and media outlet, it is that the point was not believed by a public who are pissed off at bread prices, and indeed the "but the economy is good" argument only rubbed, salt in the wounds. It was the same myopia in regards to Covid that caused Trump's loss - minimizing serious problems. And most economists do feel that we overstimulated the economy with the various rescues that was not the cause of inflation but added 1-2%. Releasing lots of money into a system weak on supply only worsens inflation.
I am with you 100% on the we weren't given a choice. I was an early supporter of Dean Phillips after having seen my Roy Cooper for President go nowhere, but I found in Dem circles that was seen as apostacy. There was this circle the wagons mood among Dems even as we were getting ready to be McGoverned when Biden was riding approvals in the high 30s that no incumbent ever was elected with. Yet, Dean was considered a heretic, and two days before Pelosi tasered Biden enough to get him to quit, Bernie Sanders had an op ed in the NYTimes about why we should stick with Biden.
Harris was never a popular candidate. She had the albatross of being from CA where saying that you supported taxpayer funded gender surgery on prisoners is just normal, but it is not a popular position in Peoria, and if we had a Cooper or Bashear we might have improved our odds. An open primary would have been ideal, but Biden waiting until the last minute made that very difficult. Harris was never a good candidate, for what would have been an uphill battle for any, given the publics mood on immigration and inflation, but to me what demonstrated her weakness in a nutshell was when in the FOX interview she was asked in reference to the Biden administration "would you have done anything differently?" and her answer was "I cant think of anything". She was unwilling to distance herself from her unpopular administration. She was clearly running against Trump, but she also had to run against Biden. As one example- if in June 2024 the Biden administration implemented 'remain in Mexico' and no longer accepted record numbers of immigrants who only needed to say "I want asylum" thus reducing illegal entrants to 2020 levels, which is where it stands now, why not admit that the prior policy was a mistake. It was certainly unpopular with polls that asked voters which party they favored on various issues, consistently showing that the GOP was most favored on immigration. Harris could not play defense. She could play offense on abortion and healthcare where Dems are favored, but she lost on those issues where Dems are disliked - immigration, crime, inflation, and woke.
I agree with a lot of your assessment, but I think Harris was a fantastic candidate. When you’re running against a skillful liar and demagogue, you already start out 3 laps behind.
If she had been the same person but male, I bet the store that your impressions would have been much more positive. (Sorry, I’m assuming you’re not sexist, but that man versus woman thing is so ingrained you don’t even see it).
Same skilled liar and demagogue that Biden beat four years earlier and that Hillary at least won the popular vote against.
Now that may have just been the mood of the electorate, the tide of inflation, the record illegal immigration. I don't know. It wouldn't have been easy for any Democrat. And she was invariably running against Biden who was very unpopular and did nothing to distance herself from him.
Her approvals were not great. Sure, next to Biden, anything was an improvement, but she has never been popular. She was one of the first to scrub out in 2020.
As to my being a sexist, I would say you are using it like a loose canon without even knowing me, and if you really believe that everybody is sexist, I think you reflect that part of the Dem party that is its problem, judgmental. I supported Amy Klobuchar in 2016 and think she would have been better. And I think Gretchen Whitmer or Tammy Duckworth would have been better.
My take on Harris is that she just goes with the flow. She was a progressive when it suited her in CA, she never really defined herself in 2020. She didn't campaign progressive, but neither did she run center. It would have helped her to admit that record numbers of border crossers were a mistake. The country was not happy with the Democratic party and she didn't distinguish herself in any way from that.
And btw Trump increased his vote relative to the Dems more among women than men. The margins moved to Trump 5% among women and 2% among men.
Excellent generally but this misses the point that Dems lost all up and down the ballot. They have become the party of drag queen story hour and nothing that Harris could have done overrides that.
Second the main argument that everyone had for Harris was that she was a woman of color. Had they talked about policy positions instead of something that people either didn't care about or loathed about her they would have been better off.
Harris was a terrible choice for VP. (Would have been ideal for the Supreme Court.). Had Tammy Duckworth been the VP choice the outcome would have been different.
I agree with you Sharon. The Dem brand has been hurt by the Identarian moralists that are about telling people how racist they are. Get back to being the party of working people. Even Sanders has said as much.
Agree on the bad choice. There was a reason that she lost so badly and we need candidates who know how to win a swing state and that is generally not people from NY, CA, or MA at least since JFK.
The Dems lost the congressional vote by 2.7% worse than the presidency which was lost by 1.5%, It is exactly those positions - crime, immigration, woke culture that are associated with Democrats that hurt us. . It was not that Harris campaigned on the fact that they had record border crossings, but ignoring it as opposed to opposing it, you buy it.
Biden's limiting himself to only picking a black women, in a nutshell, was a lot of what is wrong with the Dems. If there was a strong black women, no problem, but it is this feeling that they have to constantly prove their virtue by being the most woke, that has lead them to be disliked.
Not in NC. The only “Republican” that won NC is trump and maybe a state auditor or something. Very weird.
The lesser half of the Council of State are Republicans. Those Democrats did not get the kind of money that the upper half got and they lost. It's a shame that they weren't supported the same as Jackson, Hunt, Marshall, and Green were. But we did break the supermajority and kept Allison Riggs on the Supreme Court. The Democrats did something right for sure, although Robinson really helped Josh Stein. Thomas wrote about this recently.
You are a brilliant analyst. I don’t use that term often. Thank you👍
A reply from my NC friend when I reposted this : “Maybe the Dems need to lasso his brain and take it to heart to affect the changes that obviously need to be made to the party to get back into the White House, Senate and Congress in the next four years!!”
When should the campaign start? 2 years ahead?
I got a lot of pushback for telling people to get signatures before Christmas
https://open.substack.com/pub/sharonlawrence/p/elections-breaking-down-the-red-wall-a0b?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=a5esd
The campaign is already on! Thousands of state and local races on the ballot in the next two years. My Substack is tracking those and congressional races too!
The campaign started November 6. We're already behind. Let's get in it!
I’m referring to the top of the federal ticket
It should never stop.