1. We learned A LOT about the electorate last night.
The new game in town is education: there are "two Americas:" the educated vs the non-educated, conditioned on amount of racial diversity in the state.
Maine Senate tells you that Ds MUST change their wonky, issue-based
2. electioneering methodology. Keep in mind, the Trump campaign's "legal strategy" is not a legal strategy, it's a legal assault. It has two goals: clog the courts with what amounts to "doomed to fail" lawsuits that can prevent a potential Biden win from being certified and two-
3. creates the aura of the ballots being sketchy. It will be up to you MEDIA, to disallow that. Simply by covering the story you'll be opening the possibility of discrediting ballots that are absolutely credible, legal ballots cast legally in WI, PA, and MI. So the media will
4. need to be aggressive in their coverage to push back on Trump & his smear. AS @SRuhle just said, media must not allow themselves to become "actors in [Trump's] unstable show and the media must not give him (and his team) what he wants which is for the media to pull a Clinton
5. email scandal here and start covering ballot fraud and what they will they look for and here is a pile of ballots over here stuff. Don't do it!!!!
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The GOP legislatures refused to allow early counting of the mail vote in order to assist Trump w his "Red Mirage" plan. The goal was that IF the election was super close, he'd need to create the illusion of fraudulent ballots, so they needed a "live count"
2. process to be able to work the media and to be able to work the courts. BC FL basically invested the mail vote (absentee vote-by-mail system) the infrastructure for it has been codified- that is to say the GOP couldn't easily do what they did in MI, PA, & WI bc they'd have
3. pass laws & have @GovRonDeSantis sign them. So it was decided to rely on the Blue Wall states- which added/expanded their very weak vote-by-mail systems dramatically to deal w the pandemic. As everyone knows. the WI GOP f'ed w the Dems hard in the spring Dem primary bc it also
1. There's an uncomfortable pause in my int w @JulieOliverTX, @wendydavis, and @SiegelForTexas- 3 candidates for the House in TX who had great odds for flipping seats this cycle until they ran into the brick wall that is the @dccc's Red to Blue program tinyurl.com/y2697uoa
2. Under the leadership of @CheriBustos the program has failed to adapt to an environment in which Ds are winning in places w high levels of college edu and/or diversity & losing otherwise. The 2020 class has already been scrubbed from the site, web.archive.org/web/2020081703…
3. but they'll live on forever on the wayback machine's archive. The 2018 class was one thing, but when I saw that the 2020 class was not being driven by realignment analytics exposed by my forecasting work, frankly, I was shocked. Even though the DCCC hadn't reached out to me,
1. When I hear @clairecmc talk about Dems learning to talk to the Piggly Wiggly crowd, I hope she'll want to join/help w my moderate messaging electioneering overall for Ds effort. BC its CRUCIAL to understand- Ds & outside groups tried already to cater to these voters on the
2. persuasion. That in fact, this cycle was the product of a very concerted effort of that strategy driven by high profile data firms on the D side (many of which who've been critical of my work) & it was a complete and total failure for 2 reasons. The main 1 is that it wants
3. to ignore the effect that polarization is having on voter behavior & the limitations that is placing on certain electioneering techniques that USED TO BE EFFECTIVE and are now not. I want to make something really clear- it is only in places where at least 1 element of the D's
1. Let me tell you something about the value of @ProjectLincoln this cycle. They wanted their work to influence actual Reps & as an expert, I told them that was unlikely bc of hyperpartisanship. But their work NO DOUBT was a KEY diff maker in turnout & vote share for Biden in the
2. key swing states (& likely Biden's win shares in AZ, WI, MI, & hopefully PA) & in these key Senate races. Their ads contained both persuasion & mobilization elements & their work expanded to include GOTV & Direct Mail. If you gave $ to the @ProjectLincoln- it was well-spent &
3. in my opinion, was likely the diff maker in AZ where due to what I call McCain Reps- the @ProjectLincoln likely did produce a crossover effect. The 8 principles of the LP built a large campaign organization that became a major player this cycle & I hope is going to reorg
1. The hot take that "D's need to learn to talk to the other side of the electorate" is absolutely the WRONG take.
I mean my god. Biden, Lincoln, the outside groups: they threw the best persuasion messaging in the history of persuasion campaigns at them.
What Ds need to do is
2. is come to terms that when it comes to the electorate, the very 1st thing that matters is party ID, and this includes Indie leaners. This data is from June, but last night's results make clear that it reflects the actual results as well. Right leaning Indies- which make up
3. a disproportionate share of the overall Indie pool, are closet Reps: they are not persuadable no matter how much you cater to them or whether or not Cindy McCain is on your side. The Biden campaign, all of the Senate Dems, and the House Dem candidates bet their candidacies
1. My book explaining polarization deals w it. It argues the entire phenomenon in the U.S. - and throughout the West- is due to the collapse of the power paradigm that has governed human civilizations since they1st emerged: the dominance of the white male. We are in transition
2. into a new power paradigm- what I call the Egalitairiam Paradigm, where power & control is dispersed & shared among women & minorities/ethnic groups. In the U.S., due to our presidential system & institutional design producing the two-party system, we ended up w polarization
3. & hyperpartisanship because of it. So that's it, that the "root cause" of our woes. Something I have been working on since 2012 & its taken me a long time to thinking through the "what caused it" element: but I feel strongly its the loss of power by white men. And education is