It was pretty remarkable that Senate Democrats went from 45 seats in 2005 to 60 seats in mid-2009. Just took two cycles and a party switch!
No party has had a one-two punch of Senate election cycles since. (Rs gained seats in 2010, 2014, 2018, Ds in 2012, 2016, 2020)
The long stretch of GOP *underperformance* in Senate elections is also notable.
Think of the number of states won by the pres. nominee as the "fundamentals" for Senate seat expectation. Ds have consistently done better than that since 2000, until 2020, which was right on target
Meanwhile, one very Senate-relevant metric Dem presidential nominees have performed poorly on is "number of states won." This predated Trump — when Gore won the popular vote he won just 20 states. But it's gotten worse. HRC won more of the 2-party vote but also had 20 states
Last time the D pres. nominee won 30+ states was Bill Clinton in '96. Rs have done it 3 times since then (2000, 2004, 2016) despite only winning the popular vote 1 of those times.
But they have not been able to translate those state wins into enduring Senate dominance... yet
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Legally it doesn't seem to matter (they haven't been charged with anything), but regarding the narrative Durham is trying to put out, it's an important distinction.
Were they trying to drum up a thin/bogus Trump/Russia tie? Or did they genuinely believe in what they'd found?
Durham's indictment of Dem lawyer Michael Sussmann is a "speaking indictment." Is written with much detail to advance narrative that Trump was victim of foul play re: the "secret Russian server" story
Durham’s belief, expressed in this indictment, is basically that Clinton supporters drummed up a thin/bogus Trump Russia tie, fed it to the FBI to get Trump under investigation, then had it leaked to the press to hurt Trump’s campaign.
But Durham does not say any of that is criminal.
The crime he alleges is a false statement made by one person involved, attorney Michael Sussmann, during a meeting with the FBI.
Alleges Sussman said he was not acting on a client's behalf, but that he really was.
That is: Republican voters chose to elevate a bombastic, polarizing candidate and hope he could squeak through the weird recall process, rather than someone who could have plausibly been actually popular in a blue state
And the takeaway is apparently that Elder is the frontrunner to be the GOP's candidate again next year... except in a head-to-head matchup with Newsom that he's far *less* likely to win.
This goes rather too far for me (it depends on the author!) but I do think the value-added from good reported political books is more often about added detail, depth, context, and an eye toward posterity rather than scoops
I have no idea what the "scoops" were in Woodward's "Obama's Wars" at this point but I referred back to it recently because it's a detailed, meeting-by-meeting reconstruction of the policy process that simply couldn't be done in ordinary reporting
But I do tend to be more skeptical of the headline-grabbing, big scoops that get spotlighted to sell the books.
George Tenet had a strong case that "Plan of Attack" exaggerated the significance of the "slam dunk" comment in convincing Bush to go to war newyorker.com/magazine/2007/…
Unpopular take on here but IMO:
-Books are a legitimate medium for reporting
-Reporting and writing them takes time.
-Timing of book release should be up to author and publisher.
I'd say if a reporter unearths information someone set to be executed is innocent, it would be pretty shitty to wait till after they're executed to publish.
When you get to politics, the question of what impact the new information would make gets hazier
Urging Dem voters to abstain from the replacement question is self-interested strategy (Newsom wants to frame the choice as between him and a Republican).
But the replacement vote only matters *if* Newsom loses the recall vote. Picking a replacement candidate doesn't hurt Newsom