This is the next of our series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide three steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020.
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It is far from an ideal situation. 75% of American voters think Joe Biden is too old to run for President, simply because Joe Biden IS too old to run for President. Complain all you want about the inappropriate statement of special counsel Robert Hur, or the absence of a similar age concern being applied to Donald Trump. The simplest truth is Joe Biden always wanted to be President, and accordingly does not want to stop being President. It was good fortune for us that he got his wish in 2020. His performance has been strong. Because he cannot repeal the laws of aging, it is bad news for us that he is insisting on running again.
Late last year David Brooks argued otherwise. He said that asking Joe Biden to retire after one term was the bigger risk for Democrats, given that the alternative risk is introducing voters to candidates with whom they are not familiar. As Americans watch Biden slow way down, this critical equation has changed.
It is still possible that neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump will be on the ballot. If Jack Smith is questioning Mark Meadows in Federal District Court in April, Donald Trump could be a convicted felon by June. As many as 70 percent of Americans say they will not vote for a candidate convicted of a felony. On the Democratic side, it is possible that someone or some event will talk Joe out of it.
In the meantime, we can celebrate that Donald Trump has appointed himself Joe Biden’s campaign manager. What a lucky break! What an appropriate time for Trump and his closest cronies to continue their bromance with the Ukraine-attacking, Navalny-killing, nuclear arms in space-promoting Russian leader. Donald Trump remains smitten with Putin and wants to remind us about it.
Trump remains key to Democratic salvation. Mar-A-Lago is the basilica of the Church of Himself, and Rudy Giuliani is the cardinal no longer permitted to be an officiant. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz lift the hem of Trump’s robes lest they touch the ground, and Tucker Carlson offers liturgical guidance.
All of which means it isn’t the worst thing in the world to work with what we’ve got. We can and must win whether or not Joe Biden is on the ballot. We hate every day that Trump is in the news, but we are probably stuck with him. Nikki Haley is no moderate and she would be the more formidable opponent, recognizing every day the existence of NATO, the Constitution, and other people beside her supplicants.
Since 2016, we have built more organizations, written more postcards, completed more calls, registered more voters, visited more residences, and donated more money than ever before. As early as 2018, we used the ballot box to prevent most but not all the worst that Trump had to offer. Many of us know where we want to go and what we want we want to do, but there are still things to remember,
- If we are involved in any kind of campaigning the quality of our sponsoring organization is critical. Postcards to Voters is time tested as is Vote Forward There isn’t a better organization in the country to train you and get your boots on the ground (always with a local sponsoring organization) than Common Power
- There is no mystery regarding when to get going on campaigning or donating. The time is now. On the donations side, this is going to take more money than you had planned to give. It will give you democracy-protecting rewards.
- Donate where it matters the most. Swing states deserve enormous emphasis. Swing Left does an excellent job of identifying targeted Congressional and Senate races. Unless you know about a candidate in a blue or red state who deserves special attention (Senators Jon Tester in Montana and Sherrod Brown in Ohio, and Representatives Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Kim Schrier in Washington). sticking to swing states is not a bad idea. In those places your support for local or statewide candidates will help our presidential candidate as well. Swing Left’s swing states for the presidential race are Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
- Swing Left is also very conscious of the 14 Congressional seats held by Republicans in districts that voted for Joe Biden. They are especially vulnerable because of the disastrous performance of the House Republican Caucus on virtually every issue that has come before them.
- Don’t get so focused on individual candidates that you forget about organizations that register voters and make certain they vote. That’s often where the biggest bang for the buck is. In 2020, swing states like Nevada and Arizona would have been lost without the efforts of Latino-registering organizations like Mi Familia Vota We would not have won Georgia without Stacey Abrams’s organizing efforts.
We have been presented with nine distinct favorable issues and approaches if we work to make it so. These are the issues and approaches, and some of the organizations who need to be supported in getting this work done,
1) Advancing the Right to Choose
The power of pro-choice campaigning has been demonstrated in every single election since Roe v Wade was overturned, including in epic statewide votes in Kansas and Ohio. Even in places where initiatives are not on the ballot, appealing to voters on choice can give Democratic candidates an additional advantage in the range of 3 percent, and can be a major factor in increasing the number of young people voting.
The states most likely to have initiatives on the ballot supporting this fundamental right are Nevada, Arizona, Maryland, New York, and Colorado. There are more tenuous efforts in play in Florida, South Dakota, Missouri, and Nebraska. NARAL Pro-Choice America is a leader in this battle. They have renamed themselves Reproductive Freedom for All.
2) Getting Younger Voters to the Polls
Democratic candidates have a greater advantage among young people than any other demographic. Around 70 percent of voters aged 18-34 voted for Joe Biden in 2020. However, this age group represents a smaller percentage of the population as America ages, and their electoral participation is not to be taken for granted. This is all about registration and signing up for mail in ballots. There will be ten million youth voters in 2024 who were not eligible in 2020. Local efforts in swing states are there to be found. The premier national organization going way beyond Taylor Swift’s ongoing commitment to voter registration is Rock the Vote.
3) Recognizing Economic Success
Polling on voters and the economy has been misleading because Republican voters have proven allergic to Joe Biden’s success. Their disapproval levels of Biden are historically consistent with the approval ratings of presidents facing a 12% unemployment rate. Under Biden, the unemployment rate is 3.7%. With independent voters, we can still take advantage of the fact that the United States is the world’s post Covid economic success story. Much of the responsibility for making that “sale” falls to the Biden campaign itself. The Center for American Progress is an organization that articulates these truths, which should be self-evident.
4) Taking Advantage of Mail- In Ballots
Donald Trump continues to associate mail-in ballots with voter fraud, which depresses the number of his voters that seek them and thus the eventual turnout. The further good news is that it has become far easier to vote at home, and voting at home produces the higher turnout that traditionally is good for Democrats. In the last four years, the percentage of American voters who can request the automatic provision of a mail-in ballot for each election has grown from 19.7% to 30%, It is the National Vote at Home Institute that continues to lead this charge.
5) Boosting the Latino Vote
Over time, the Democratic share of the Latino vote in a general election has receded, but it remains above 60%. Moreover, there are swing states where the number of Latino voters has grown dramatically. This is true of North Carolina, where the Latino population has grown to over a million people, up from 200,000 in 1990. Mi Familia Vota has started a new campaign in North Carolina to take advantage of this shift, even more important because the presidential race in North Carolina could well be decided by 20,000 votes.
6) Keeping Donald Trump in the News
Donald Trump got under 47% of the vote in both 2016 and 2020. The strategy he has employed to try to secure his base has proven to be anathema to independent voters, so he should keep it up. Plus, the upcoming criminal trials in Manhattan and Washington DC will keep the media locked into the dominant felonious side of his personality.
It's not wrong to help make sure he has Republican opposition. Primary Pivot is an organization that outlines in which states independents or even Democrats can cross over in the primary, and what you might want to do if you live in that state.
7) Preserving NATO and Defending Ukraine
Trump’s unbelievable utterances regarding Vladimir Putin will draw more attention during the upcoming months than they have to date. That’s because the focus on the killing of Alexei Navalny isn’t going away. This will abundantly reveal Trump as the dupe he has been for years. The majority position among voters is that Putin is an autocrat. His interest in nuclear weapons in space underscores that Russia remains a significant threat to American security. Trump’s opposition to funding for Ukraine will be unfavorably viewed by independents.
In response to Trump’s attacks on NATO, Congress added an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act severely limiting a President’s ability to withdraw from NATO. It isn’t enough because the wrong President could wound NATO severely even without withdrawing. Outside of the aging Mitch McConnell, the best defense is with pro-NATO and pro-Ukraine Republican House committee chairs, like Foreign Affairs Chair Mike McCaul. Call him at 225-2401 to ask him to continue to protect NATO and Ukraine. Then make sure the votes are there in the future by helping to take back the House.
8) Supporting Redistricting Reform
This is a year where the results of the back-and-forth redistricting battles will fall slightly in the favor of Democrats. That is because Justice Brett Kavanagh joined John Roberts and the three Supreme Court liberals is protecting the Voting Rights Act from additional evisceration. That means further protection of black voters in Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana which will produce as many as three more Democratic House seats. The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University is to be commended and supported for this outcome and for their longer-term goal of taking redistricting away from parties and putting it back into the hands of the citizenry.
9) Pick a Swing State
In this hugely consequential year, there is no better strategy than picking one or two swing states and sticking with them. As previously noted, Swing Left is targeting Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. They are adding Senate races in non-swing Montana and Ohio and races to win back the House. Many of these are in California and New York, which underperformed in 2022, helping us to lose the House by 6,500 votes.
The trick in picking swing states is determining how to invest time and money beyond the support of individual candidates, primarily by strengthening organizations that are registering voters and making certain they vote, Personal research is valuable, and one could email any number of sources for further information, including this missive.
These six organizations each have a proven record:
Mission for Arizona (Arizona)
You Can Vote (North Carolina)
Seed the Vote (Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia)
Fair Fight (Georgia)
When We All Vote (national, founded by Michelle Obama)
Common Power (several states)
And, or course, the League of Women Voters continues to do important voter registration work throughout the country.
It has been said before and can be said again. Let’s not wake up on November 6 and wish we had done more. We already know what we must do, and we know we can get it done.
David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington
