🧵 I know peak Ozempic discourse was earlier in the year, but I did want to talk about some things that I think get overlooked amidst the "miracle drug" talk and contribute to the backlash. First the good: I lost 50 pounds on it in 10 months. There are the typical side-benefits 1/ My knees don't hurt, I get tired less easily, I work out more, my cholesterol and triglycerides are in line, etc. etc. It was 100% worth it. WITH THAT SAID. Ozempic is not some miracle drug that melts off fat while you stick with your old bad habits. 2/

You know, when Obama broke on to the scene, the one thing that took me aback was his comment before his DNC that he wasn't nervous because "I'm LeBron Baby!" But you know what? He kind of was. Rs obviously underestimated him but in a weird way Ds did as well. 1/

https://twitter.com/NealEmmet/status/1854905900005240843

There's been a sort of attitude toward the Obama coalition about "we just need to rebuild that" without appreciating just how unique and powerful his skillset was. There just aren't many people with his life experience: 2/

I've posted this a couple of times, but here are 40 pages on the 2021-23 elections. It's dense, but the pictures tell a story, and the story is that people were either badly misled or misled themselves about that election. 1/

aei.org/research-produ…

aei.org/research-produ… The commentary turned an obviously disappointing Republican night into a repudiation of Republicans, and a demonstration that Trump was radioactive. But if you scratched the surface, you saw that wasn't true. First, a majority of Americans voted for Rs by 2-3 points. 2/

And FWIW, my meta-take on the election is this: I thought Harris would walk away with it when she got the nomination, because the calendar was so favorable. Nominee -> Veep pick -> Convention -> Debate -> Early Voting starts. 1/ What I missed was that, by not going through a primary process, she never really had a chance to define herself. I have no idea what her elevator pitch is, except Not Trump. Which is not a terrible pitch, but I'm not sure it's a winning one either. 2/

On supposed conservative hypocrisy re Gay (setting aside whether plagiarism really =s "canceling") there's a deep split among conservatives going back to the (highly consequential, in hindsight) @DavidAFrench vs. @SohrabAhmari fight. Rufo, Linsday and Gov. DeSantis 1/ are clearly in the Ahmari camp. That camp basically boils down to "if they want a war, we'll give them a war good and hard." There's no hypocrisy there. They're clear that they're coming for lefties, even if it means losing some conservatives in the process. 2/

The biggest re-alignment of the last 100 yrs -- the sudden movement of Black voters from Republicans to Democrats -- caught both parties utterly flat-footed in 1936. In some ways it made no sense: Democrats still had segregationists throught their party. 1/

https://twitter.com/NickBaumann/status/1735088629725151608

But for most, the economic issues trumped the social issues (interestingly, wealthier Blacks stayed Republican until the 1960s). Rs didn't fully appreciate those voters weren't coming back until the 60s. Italians flipped R in 1940 because of a speech FDR gave. 2/

I've been saying this over and over again, but: This is why inflation is so destructive to presidencies. With unemployment, overwhelming # of people are still employed, lots of unemployed expect to get hired back, etc. When you get your job, it's largely done. 1/

https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1734960624835158342

Inflation is different. People at all income levels notice it, whether it's the $10 happy meal or the $150 Outback delivery or [whatever good someone really rich buys and notices, I don't know]. 2/

So I finally had the time to sit down and look at the questions below the headline in that WSJ poll and, um . . . wow.

s.wsj.net/public/resourc… Trump has double digit leads on being able to best handle the economy, inflation, crime, securing the border, the Ukraine War, and the Israeli conflict. Biden has a double digit lead on abortion rights. Everything else is single digits which sounds good except . . . 1/

Today is my son Judson's 16th Birthday. Sixteen years ago, I thought about how on today we'd drive together to the DMV, get his driver's license, and how proud I'd be of him for passing, and frankly myself for teaching him how to drive, the way my Dad taught me and his him. 1/ That's not how today is going. Judd was diagnosed with autism at age 2.5. At the time, his doctor said he just had a "touch" of autism. I viewed it as a roadbump. To the extent I'm smart, it isn't in a traditional way, it's in a "think way outside the box" way. 2/

I continue to hold to the position that we should not prosecute former presidents or candidates for the presidency except in extreme circumstances. I thought the NY indictment fell far short of that threshold. This one is different. Basically, it is true the president shouldn't be above the law. If Trump had actually shot someone on Fifth Avenue, yes, he should have been prosecuted. If they had found hookers buried in the basement of Trump Tower -- which would not have surprised me -- indict.

So I think people are being a bit cavalier in the takes on the AL decision being Roberts and Kavanaugh afraid of running afoul of public opinion with the VRA. Justices really do cast sincere votes from time-to-time, and this case wasn't as cut-and-dried as some thought. 1/ In particular, the notion that stare decisis is much stronger in statutory cases than constitutional ones is real, and long-standing. Where there isn't a central constitutional argument, it isn't surprising that these justices might look askance at modifying Gingles. 2/

I went ahead and clicked on one of those "AI generated these iconic movie stars from descriptions" things from Facebook, and some of them aren't so bad. Lara Croft has an eye infection, but otherwise is believable. Others, however . . . I might even identify "AI Wednesday" without being told who it is! But . . .

Now that the ballots are mostly counted, my take on what happened
realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/… I think it's important to realize that, in a system based on districts that elect one member, votes don't always translate directly to seats for a party. In fact, there are years where the relationship of votes and seats is outright inverted (1976, 1988, 1998, 2004).

On the uncontested House races, it is obviously proper to try to estimate vote totals for those seats. It's weird that people are suddenly super keyed in on this known-for-decades-but-always-ignore-issue, but whatevs. There are 10R uncontested and 2D. BUT . . . 1/ there are also 6 races in CA where Rs didn't make the runoff. This meant that you get vote totals out of here for 12 D candidates and no R candidates. Finally, of those 10R races, 2 of the states (FL and LA) count no votes at all, meaning it actually hurts R vote totals. 2/

One of the quiet stories under the hood is that Republicans are looking like they'll win the popular vote. Probably a popular vote swing of 5% (depending on how CA votes work out), swinging about 2% of the chamber. IOW, the generic polls are likely to be about spot on. Why? 1/ An easy story is uncontested seats; there were about 8 more GOP uncontested than Democrats. But in some of those, they don't count any votes, so it net hurts the GOP. And there are seats where two Democrats ran against each other, so Ds double dip. 2/

It's pretty hard, at this point, to imagine how Rs take the Senate. In fact, Ds picking up a seat seems more likely right now. Look, polling errors tend to be correlated. It's weird that Rs are doing about what we expected in NC/WI/OH given other stuff, but running behind in AZ/PA/GA -- not a great sign. The path is win NV and then win a runoff in GA which . . . maybe it happens? I guess?

Basic take on the Senate: There are 5 true tossups, with a handful of states on the periphery. Most of the R states have broken away in the last couple of weeks. So, for example, Budd v. Beasley might have been an upset pick, but it is going the wrong way. 1/ Laxalt v. Cortez Masto is one that I think a lot of people assumed a month ago was on the NC race trajectory, but Laxalt's momentum stalled early. Early vote isn't what he wants to see, but we also don't know how Indies are voting this time. Thought it would tilt, but pure TU. 2/

My basic view of this election hasn’t changed over the cycle; it’s the same frame I carry into every election: they are referenda on the party in power, not choices. 1/ And presidential job approval is a great predictor of things, although it is bounded (eg eventually you rise to partisan who will never vote for you or dip into those who always will). 2/

Book titles/reviews get lots of attention from people who don't read books but want to sound smart. Emerging Democratic Majority isn't a "Democrats will rule for 30 years b/c demographics book," it's a "coalition is emerging that, if Ds govern carefully, will help them" book. 1/ But because of the title/reviews, the former interpretation took over. Which brings me to "What's the Matter with Kansas." The thesis of that book isn't that voters in Kansas are rubes who confuse social issues with their best interest. 2/

Since Twitter seems reasonably likely to go away in the next couple of years, my 2c: Obvs the site is miserable, but there's an entire generation of top-notch young analysts like @JMilesColeman who probably would have gone unnoticed but for Twitter. 1/ For me, it is/was a way to get on the radar screens of the truly big accounts and network with people even though I don't live in DC. Of course, there's a lot of clickbait-y analysts who owe their careers to Twitter, but whatever. There is a real value-add from this site. 2/2

When elections analysts point to previous times when polls have been way off, particularly in the Midwest, the lesson isn't "don't pay any attention to polls."The lesson is to remind people that polls are imperfect instruments and have had trouble recently in particular areas. 1/ In 2012 and 2016, the mantra was to treat polls as akin to God's spoken word. The polls were unusually good in 2008, and of course we had Nate Silver's breakthrough going 100 for 102 or whatever (in his defense, Silver was always forthright about poll uncertainty) 2/