We frequently talk about how important it is to run a candidate in every district, even when winning the seat is a long shot. It’s not just because sometimes long shots pay off. Progressive candidates running in red districts help educate swing voters who may not otherwise hear anything but Fox and Hate Talk Radio. And those progressive candidates may turn out voters— often abandoned by moribund the state parties— who will vote for Democrats up and down the ticket.
So, for example, a solid Berniecrat like Derek Marshall may not prevail over Jay Obernolte in a rural/suburban southern California district with an R+15 partisan lean that Trump won by 10 points in 2020. But in 2022, Marshall worked hard and nearly 66 thousand people voted for him. Some of those people will vote for him again this year— and probably cast ballots for Biden and Schiff while they’re at it. Neither Biden nor Schiff needs to win the district but every vote in it counts towards the statewide total, which is what each does need. 5 votes in Hesperia, Victorville, Barstow, Yucaipa and Big Bear are worth just as much as 5 votes in Los Angeles, San Jose, San Diego, San Francisco and Sacramento, cities where Biden, Schiff, Kamala Harris are campaigning. They’re not campaigning in Hesperia, Victorville, Barstow, Yucaipa or Big Bear. Derek Marshall is though— intensely and with all he’s got.
It’s one of the things that drives me crazy about the DCCC and their dismissive attitude towards candidates running in red districts. Last cycle they were so busy pouring millions of dollars into CA-22, a blue district with a shitty candidate— Rudy Salas— with a D+5 PVI, that they ignored AZ-01, with a decent candidate, Kevin Hodge, but a PVI of R+2. Salas lost by 3 points, Hodge lost by a fraction of a point. The DCCC wasted $5,521,046 on Salas’ doomed campaign while only spending $95,095 on Hodge’s campaign. Spending a million dollars less on Salas would have changed nothing. Spending that million on Hodge would have won the district. But that’s not the point— although I should mention that the DCCC recruited Salas to run again and that AZ-01 again has a better candidate than that, Conor O’Callaghan. (The DCCC has already spent over a million dollars on Salas— nothing in AZ-01).
Someone in the Biden campaign has figured out how this works— kind of. In swing states like North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Biden is counting on popular statewide candidates to help bring him more votes. Elena Schneider and Eli Stokols explained how the Biden campaign sees it playing out in North Carolina, where the MAGAts nominated, Mark Robinson, a psychopath for governor, and the Democrats nominated the state’s nice normal attorney general, Josh Stein. The state has a PVI of R+3— swingy but leaning red. Trump beat Biden 2,758,775 (49.9%) to 2,684,292 (48.6%) 4 years ago. The Biden campaign expects Stein, already ahead in the polls, (and Robinson) to help him flip it in November, “an inversion of the traditional dynamic where down-ballot candidates historically draft off the popularity of candidates for the White House.”
Stein’s race is one of a handful of key down-ballot contests that, Democrats hope, could have major implications for the presidential race. They are, to a degree, banking on a number of Trump-allied conservative candidates running in key states— candidates whose vulnerabilities complement and amplify Trump’s own— turning out Democrats and helping Biden crystallize his argument about the dangers of “MAGA Republicans.”
“It goes against everything we know about politics, but yes, there are statewide coattails this year. There’s plenty of data showing Democrats, especially where there’s a Democratic incumbent, are winning in places Biden is not doing as well,” said Jefrey Pollock, a Democratic pollster. “Now, is that because they’re better defined than their Republican opponent? Yes. But they also have their own brands.”
Democrats, hoping to draw a more favorable contrast with Republicans, see the best opportunity for an up-ballot effect in two critical battlegrounds: Arizona and North Carolina.
Donald Trump, now his party’s presumptive nominee for a third time, will share the Arizona ballot with former TV news anchor Kari Lake, a Senate nominee whose Trumpian bombast cost her a gubernatorial bid in 2022. And in North Carolina, a state that Biden’s campaign team views as in play, Robinson offers voters even more Trumpism atop the ticket. Robinson, the state’s lieutenant governor, has trashed Martin Luther King Jr., quoted Adolf Hitler— though he’s defended his quotations as not equating to support for Hitler— and given and given oppo researchers reams of misogynistic and anti-LGBTQ material.
…In 2024, Democrats hope their collective brand will again offer Trump-wary suburban voters a safe haven. Key to this is whether Biden can successfully frame the election not as a referendum on his presidency but as a choice between two political movements, one of which, he’ll argue, threatens the future of American democracy. Prosecuting that case offers another way to animate Democrats and moderates who are unenthused about his own candidacy but determined to prevent more Trump-styled candidates from taking over governors’ offices and senate seats.
[GOP strategist Paul] Shumaker, who serves as an adviser for Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who also didn’t endorse Robinson in the GOP primary, noted that Biden would be specifically helped by Robinson in the wealthier— and rapidly growing— suburban counties of Wake and Mecklenburg, which are home to Raleigh and Charlotte respectively.
A sign that the Biden campaign takes this possibility seriously comes in its acknowledgements that North Carolina may be a more fruitful target in 2024 than Georgia, a state the president won four years ago but that will not feature a competitive statewide race this year. In a campaign memo Tuesday morning, campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodriguez identified both states as tipping point states and linchpins of its southern strategy and places where they intend to capitalize on the “sharp contrasts” between Biden and “MAGA Republicans” who have sought to roll back abortion protections and voting rights.
…While reverse coattails may be historically rare, there are data points to suggest the outcome can happen. In 2022, Democrats performed best in states where two MAGA-styled candidates shared the ticket, most notably in Pennsylvania and Arizona. And in a slate of public polling in battleground states, statewide Democratic incumbents are currently outrunning Biden, from Nevada to Wisconsin to Michigan.
In a WRAL News poll released earlier this month, Trump is leading Biden among unaffiliated voters, 49 percent to 41 percent. But Stein is backed by 50 percent of unaffiliated voters, while Robinson has 34 percent of them.
“Voters often see presidential races as far off and governors races as very close and affecting them individually. In that way, the governor’s race can generate a reaction from voters that goes upstream to Trump,” said Morgan Jackson, Stein’s chief strategist. “It’s the cumulative weight of them together that you’ll have voters who say, ‘I just can’t do this.’”
Mike Lonergan, Robinson’s communications director, said in a statement that “Biden and his far-left agenda [are] so deeply unpopular in North Carolina, the idea that their liberal candidate for governor Josh Stein will bail them out is absurd.”
And some Republicans in the state argue that Biden’s challenges with Black voters— especially young Black voters who have wavered on supporting the president— present an opportunity for Robinson, who is Black, to cut into the president’s base.
[Meanwhile, in Arizona, Lake] has outlined a plan to tack more to the center this year after narrowly losing a governor’s race to a milquetoast Democrat. But, so far, she hasn’t walked away from some of her more controversial positions, including continuing legal challenges over her 2022 loss.
But Biden himself has also made a strong play for more traditional Arizona Republicans, effectively laying claim to the mantle of the late Sen. John McCain. The president appointed his former colleague’s widow Cindy McCain as an envoy to the United Nations and as the director of the World Food Programme.
Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), who is expected to win the Senate Democratic nomination, is also keying in on these voters, tapping into moderate, suburban voters feeling lingering revulsion to Lake as a means of lifting the party in a high-stakes cycle.
…Pollsters are keeping a close watch on “this unique dynamic,” as both Biden and Trump remain broadly unpopular, “but on the state level, these stronger Democratic candidates, potentially lifting up the top-of-the-ticket,” said Mike Noble, an Arizona-based pollster.
“Historically, that’s not been the case, but we’re in a new era of politics and frankly, it’d be foolish to ignore this,” Noble said. “It also shows Biden’s inherent weaknesses that these other candidates might be helping him across the finish line.”
No one expects Biden to win Ohio— and the Democratic Party there is barely alive— but the vigorous campaigns being run by Jerrad Christian (against Troy Balderson), Tamie Wilson (against Gym Jordan), Keith Mundy (against Bob Latta) and Adam Miller (against Mike Carey) will bring votes in for Sherrod Brown in red counties where Democrats might not otherwise bother voting.
The Biden campaign is also looking at Florida wistfully. In 2020 Trump only beat him by around 3 points. This cycle the DSCC has recruited the weakest possible candidate to run for Senate— Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who will be a drag on the ticket if she wins the primary— and neither the DCCC nor the Florida Democratic Party has bothered recruiting solid candidates anywhere. In fact there is no one running against Gaetz (where Pensacola Democrats could be activated), no one running against Rutherford (where Dems in the suburbs south of Jacksonville along the coast to St Augustine have been ignored by the party entirely), no-one running against Waltz (OK, I get that one, although there’s got to be some Democrats in Daytona Beach), no-one running against Bilirakis (Yeah, yeah, I get that one too), probably no-one running against Lee (HUGE mistake since there are plenty of Dems in the Hillsborough suburbs), and no-one running against Diaz-Balart (Miami-Dade and Collier counties both need to turn out their Democratic voters in November if Biden is going to have any chance at all in Florida).
Did anyone expect this nice red to blue flip yesterday? Maybe... but not by a 25 point margin! There's always hope... IF there's a candidate. No candidate, not hope, right?
