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'17 Specials & '18 Midterms Thread

Saw on Politico that the ND Pub rep is going to stay in that position rather than challenge Heitkamp. Probably the smart move for him, but she'll breathe a bit easier. Dems should still worry about IN, MO and maybe WI and FL.
 
Republican super PACs surge into Pennsylvania special election

Ending Spending Inc., funded in large part by the billionaire Ricketts family, announced a $1 million ad buy on Thursday in the district — beating both Democrat Conor Lamb and Republican Rick Saccone to the airwaves ahead of the March 13 special election.
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Cubs owners funneling money into a district outside Pittsburgh.

 
cville deac said:
Saw on Politico that the ND Pub rep is going to stay in that position rather than challenge Heitkamp. Probably the smart move for him, but she'll breathe a bit easier. Dems should still worry about IN, MO and maybe WI and FL.
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McCaskill has a 12 million dollar war chest but it probably won't be enough. HRC had all the money in the world and it didn't matter. Donnelly in IN actually has a better than 50/50 shot to hold the seat. WI is probably a toss up & if Scott stays out in FL, Nelson will easily hold that seat. Might be even better than 50/50 even if Scott were to get in.
 
avalon said:
Absolutely, and the timing is so important.
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It will be interesting to see what happens in 2018 and the next few years in terms of new faces in politics. If VA is any indicator (which it very likely is), so many of those House of Delegates winners got off the couch and ran because of the 2017 presidential results. Women, minorities, and others.

Since the election, Emily's List says 26,000 women have signed up to run for office. I don't remember what the previous number was that they would typically get in a year, but I think it's closer to like 500?

Run For Something has also gotten tremendous results from people wanting to get involved.

On an anecdotal level I have a friend in VA that ran for an won a seat on the Charlottesville city council, another friend in Loudon who just got appointed to some local board, and others who are WAY more involved now than they ever were before.
 
A class of 2000 friend (and fellow Science & Math grad) is running the TX Fifth District Court of Appeals.
https://www.facebook.com/nowellforjustice/

A friend from back home is running Superior Court Judge in Gwinnett County.

I think the political ascent of Gen X women is going to be the big story of 2018 and 2020.


A friend of mine who used to work on the Hill is friends with Conor Lamb so I've been following this race a bit. Lamb is an impressive young guy. He came out this week against Pelosi for party leader which I think is mandatory for any Dems running in purple or red districts.
 
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LadyDeac03 said:
It will be interesting to see what happens in 2018 and the next few years in terms of new faces in politics. If VA is any indicator (which it very likely is), so many of those House of Delegates winners got off the couch and ran because of the 2017 presidential results. Women, minorities, and others.

Since the election, Emily's List says 26,000 women have signed up to run for office. I don't remember what the previous number was that they would typically get in a year, but I think it's closer to like 500?

Run For Something has also gotten tremendous results from people wanting to get involved.

On an anecdotal level I have a friend in VA that ran for an won a seat on the Charlottesville city council, another friend in Loudon who just got appointed to some local board, and others who are WAY more involved now than they ever were before.
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What has happened since the election is giving me hope going forward. So many people have stepped up... from running, to canvassing, phone banking, protesting, calling. Things like Run for Something and Indivisible, started by people that were involved in politics before who have just be overwhelmed by the response.

No friends that have run for office, but so many that have been more active and that have volunteered for campaigns for the first time. One worked on Doug Jones' campaign and said she basically just talked to people. You're right, it will be interesting to see if we can keep this up.

And everyone listens to Pod Save America. It's crazy.
 
One thing that's been cool over the last year is community building around politics. A friend of mine started a Facebook page for friends to commiserate and do something. I met a couple on the page and did a meeting with them at Rubio's Tampa office. That same couple hosted a sign making party for the March for Science a few weeks later. We became friends with them and started going out regularly with them and the friend who started the page and her husband. This year, each of our kids are in the same 3rd grade class and we coordinate class activities together.

A lot of old friends on Facebook are more politically vocal as well. I didn't really know the politics of a lot them until this year. It's crazy to me how many of my Wake friends, particularly who were involved in Christian organizations, are a lot more liberal than they were 20 years ago.
 
PhDeac said:
One thing that's been cool over the last year is community building around politics. A friend of mine started a Facebook page for friends to commiserate and do something. I met a couple on the page and did a meeting with them at Rubio's Tampa office. That same couple hosted a sign making party for the March for Science a few weeks later. We became friends with them and started going out regularly with them and the friend who started the page and her husband. This year, each of our kids are in the same 3rd grade class and we coordinate class activities together.

A lot of old friends on Facebook are more politically vocal as well. I didn't really know the politics of a lot them until this year. It's crazy to me how many of my Wake friends, particularly who were involved in Christian organizations, are a lot more liberal than they were 20 years ago.
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Ph about to be like “I’m talking about swinging, man! As in to swing?”
 
LadyDeac03 said:
It will be interesting to see what happens in 2018 and the next few years in terms of new faces in politics. If VA is any indicator (which it very likely is), so many of those House of Delegates winners got off the couch and ran because of the 2017 presidential results. Women, minorities, and others.

Since the election, Emily's List says 26,000 women have signed up to run for office. I don't remember what the previous number was that they would typically get in a year, but I think it's closer to like 500?

Run For Something has also gotten tremendous results from people wanting to get involved.

On an anecdotal level I have a friend in VA that ran for an won a seat on the Charlottesville city council, another friend in Loudon who just got appointed to some local board, and others who are WAY more involved now than they ever were before.
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Condolences to your Cville friend. Our city council is nuttier and more dysfunctional than it has ever been. And council meetings are even worse.
 
To Ph's point about community building. One of my neighbors started a "Huddle" after the women's match and invited some friends to the first meeting last February. We just had our 12th monthly meeting last night and were "celebrating" some of our successes over the year. One of which was growing the group from about 11 at the first meeting to an email list of at least 50 with 20+ people at each meeting.

We've raised over $2000 for a local immigrant services org by selling yard signs. We raised over $4000 for local Va house races. We did post carding, phone banking, and canvassing to GOTV in Va. We also had some folks testify at the D.C. council meetings and call locally about various issues. Plus a bunch of members attended probably 10+ marches and protests this year.

Most of these women were not at all politically engaged before. And everyone's even more fired up going into 2018.

Not to mention the spur to donations. We used to do some ad hoc giving throughout the year, but now have monthly "sustaining" donations going to 5 different organizations (ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Sierra Club, NPR, and the Greater DC Diaper Bank). I'm somewhat ashamed that I wasn't more supportive earlier, but I guess this is one good thing from the current administration?
 
LadyDeac03 said:
To Ph's point about community building. One of my neighbors started a "Huddle" after the women's match and invited some friends to the first meeting last February. We just had our 12th monthly meeting last night and were "celebrating" some of our successes over the year. One of which was growing the group from about 11 at the first meeting to an email list of at least 50 with 20+ people at each meeting.

We've raised over $2000 for a local immigrant services org by selling yard signs. We raised over $4000 for local Va house races. We did post carding, phone banking, and canvassing to GOTV in Va. We also had some folks testify at the D.C. council meetings and call locally about various issues. Plus a bunch of members attended probably 10+ marches and protests this year.

Most of these women were not at all politically engaged before. And everyone's even more fired up going into 2018.

Not to mention the spur to donations. We used to do some ad hoc giving throughout the year, but now have monthly "sustaining" donations going to 5 different organizations (ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Sierra Club, NPR, and the Greater DC Diaper Bank). I'm somewhat ashamed that I wasn't more supportive earlier, but I guess this is one good thing from the current administration?
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Same story here in east Alabama. "Alabama together" emerged from the ashes of a local "pantsuit nation" facebook group. It's led by women and it has been very successful at mobilizing people. They held a fundraiser for Doug Jones and pulled in $10K, organized their own phone banking and canvassing for Jones. They organized their own local march for science, have held a mock town hall with Mike Roger's (our absentee congressman) empty chair on the stage and invited local media...and lots of other events. They were a big part of the 44 point flipping of Lee County from Trump to Jones and are now targeting Mike Rogers' seat in 2018.
 
bym051d said:
Well, I won’t vote for her.
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Who TF would? She's an effin' traitor. She should count her lucky stars that Obama commuted her sentence. She's delusional if she thinks she'll get any traction. But then again, it was already pretty apparent she has some mental health issues. Thankfully, she shouldn't even be a road bump for Cardin.
 
The next GOP panic: Governors races

It’s a far cry from last summer, when Democrats bottomed out at the state level. Back then, after West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice switched allegiance to the GOP, the number of governorships in Democratic Party hands fell to just 15, a historic low.

But the atmospheric conditions have changed since then. Republicans are hampered by an unpopular President Donald Trump. Suburban voters are threatening to desert the party en masse. And Democrats have seen a massive increase in their fundraising numbers after gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey in November.

The GOP is forced to defend 13 states that former President Barack Obama won — from Maine to New Mexico to Wisconsin — while Democrats are protecting just one — Pennsylvania — that fell to Trump.
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Yeah, should net a few pick-ups in governors races as well.

So here's a question for y'all. Would you rather pick up the senate or house in 2018? Dems are much more likely to pick up the house, but I'd much rather pick up the senate and lose the house by a few votes. Folks are so virulently anti-Trump, that I'm afraid a Dem house would want to impeach Trump right away regardless of the status of the Mueller investigation. Add to that a Dem senate could apply a whole lot of brakes to Trump's judicial nominees, many of whom haven't been competent. Am I right to think there might be a backlash in 2020 against the Dems if they win the house and try to impeach Trump right away?
 
I would hope cooler heads prevail on impeachment. So far I haven’t seen Dems running on impeachment. I hope that stands for two reasons. First of all, if Dems stand for actually doing investigations in the Senate and House and exposing the sham “investigations” that are ongoing, they adopt a “wait for the facts” position and force Republicans to continue to defend Trump. Second, if they’re in the position to impeach him, they’re in the position to neutralize the GOP agenda. Impeaching Trump isn’t going to do anything to stop the EOs. President Pence will just do more of the same.

I’ll add one more to the list. Why would Dems promise to get rid of Trump in 2019 when they can put it on voters to do in 2020. Avoid the appearance that the job is done. Don’t take victory laps.
 
I think when we get into the actual races, there will be quite a bit of demand for impeachment from vocal sections of the base. I just hope that leadership actually leads.
 
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