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Nate Cohn Profile picture
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6 Jan, 7 tweets, 2 min read
Twitter, as you know, is not real life. But what happens on Twitter is not isolated from reality.
A Sanders/Warren left may not be a majority of Dems, but it's real/important! You can tell on Twitter.
On Twitter today, you can tell COVID politics have shifted, even decisively
Today, you can see a sizable and increasingly passionate *intra-Democratic* fight on COVID. Obama-era Dem stalwarts--think, other Nate or Yglesias--are in revolt against COVID emergency precautions.
And OTOH, there's still a vigorous group arguing for strong measures
Twitter, again, is not real life. For ex: IDK the size of these factions in the Dem electorate.
But for national political purposes, a vigorous intra-D elite fight on COVID tells you all you need to know about the politics at this point: it's shifted against emergency measures
I think this was basically inevitable with the rise of omicron, with its huge numbers of asymptomatic breakthrough cases. It'll be interesting to see the next wave of polls, and just how far this has advanced
IDK if it's the worst possible time for Dems. It's January.
And I don't think it's hard to imagine the combination of diminished severity and rapid omicron burnthrough creating the conditions for Joe Biden to pivot on the issue in fairly short order
Democratic politicians are rudderless, and have been since delta.
They know the politics don't allow for emergency measures anymore.
But Biden/Dems aren't ready to lead and chart a path to normalcy yet, either, whether it's bc of politics or real concern
Politically, this post-Delta COVID muddle has obviously been a disaster for Dems, regardless of whether it is the right policy. They've drifted around without a message/goal/plan or a case for optimism for five months. Omicron may be bringing the conditions for a shift

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More from @Nate_Cohn

Nate Cohn Profile picture
29 Dec 21
For the handful of you complaining that the commission-drawn California map is a gerrymander
This is a state Biden won by 30. I'm not saying Republicans should be grateful that they get districts, but no one should have any illusions about what a real gerrymander would mean for the CA GOP
There are lots of angry people insisting that California is a gerrymander. They don't even feel the need to argue it, because they think it's so obvious. (i think it's obvious the other way)
So before I explain my case, let me ask: why do you think California is a gerrymander?
Read 23 tweets
Nate Cohn Profile picture
29 Dec 21
I broadly agree with this, though I'd add one additional twist on how to think about redistricting by seat: whether we're comparing to the actual outcome in 2020 or a hypothetical expected outcome on the old map in 2022
Take VA, for instance.
Dave treats this as an R+1 shift, since Dems aren't favored to hold VA-2 (which is true).
But they probably would have won VA-2 in 2020 (this is still a Biden CD). So I'm not sure I'd call this a loss due to redistricting
And on the other hand, Democrats might have been underdogs in both VA-2/7 on the old map in '22. By that forward looking measure, one could say the Democrats might be favored to gain a seat due to redistricting
Read 9 tweets
Nate Cohn Profile picture
27 Dec 21
It seems people are struggling to believe this @EricLevitz piece, based on @Wertwhile analysis, so let me add a few hard numbers to help clarify
Take the 'mean-median gap', maybe the very simplest measure of whether a party will struggle to translate their popular majority into a congressional majority.
Across the 241 districts drawn so far, the mean-median gap is 0.00, down from R+2.4 in these same states in 2020 pres.
So, to this point, the map is not simply 'not as bad' for Democrats as feared. The first 241 districts so far are basically fair, thanks to a mix of both Democratic and Republican gerrymandering cancelling the other out
Read 9 tweets
Nate Cohn Profile picture
27 Dec 21
I think this piece is broadly right, but a lot of what looks like a huge surprise in redistricting comes from two separate measures of the effect of redistricting: change in party control v. change in PVI nymag.com/intelligencer/…
Take NV. It had a 3-1 Dem delegation in '20; it will have a 3-1 map in '21. No change, as expected before redistricting.
But the districts got quite a bit stronger for Democrats.
In '20, it was 3-1 to the right of the national vote, now it's 3-1 to the left.
Before redistricting, most of the analysis was done in terms of that former measure--expected seat flips.
Now that we have actual districts, most of the analysis is being done with the latter.
Read 10 tweets
Nate Cohn Profile picture
23 Dec 21
I think there's a lot to agree with here, especially if you're still optimistic about BBB's prospects.
The better question is why it feels that Biden's accomplished so little
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
The rescue package really stands out for me in that regard. Doesn't really feel like Biden/Democrats already spent $2tn in party line spending this year, does it?
I don't remember the backstory on why the CTC wasn't made permanent at that point, but that's an example of how it could have done more. Or maybe they could have gotten paid leave in there (framed as making sure people can take off work if they test positive)
Read 5 tweets
Nate Cohn Profile picture
19 Dec 21
Obviously we'll see soon enough, but are we 100.0% convinced Manchin just killed BBB? His statement led with "cannot vote to continue," which sounds like whether to start debate on the current bill (which he was against).
Now, he used some really strong "can't get there" language--so maybe it's the whole thing, not just the House blueprint. But you can also construe his comments to still allow for, say, 1.7bn over 10 years with fully funded programs, as he's implied before. Worth clarifying
After all, he later leveled his long-standing critique of the House bill: it didn't fully fund programs, but instead partially funded a bunch of things.
Perhaps it still leaves the door open for fully funded/prioritized bill, as he's argued over and over
Read 8 tweets

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