Amy Walter/Cook Political Report with a must read explainer:
How to Define a Wave
This year, Republicans have 23 seats in toss-up and six in lean Democrat or worse. That means Democrats would need to hold all of their own seats in toss-up (2), win the six leaning their way, and win 17 — or 73 percent of the toss-up seats.
That 73 percent win goal is a much steeper one than Democrats faced in 2006 or Republicans had to hit in 2010. It means that the biggest challenge for Democrats is to make the 27 GOP-held seats that are sitting in Lean Republican, more competitive by this fall.
Ultimately, if those seats that now advantage Republicans start to look more competitive, we can feel more confident we are in the midst of a wave. If not, Republicans may be able to hold down their losses and hold onto their majority.
Amy has made the point that the best chance for Democrats is to make more seats competitive. That’s not always up to them, but it’s something to watch.
Harry Enten/CNN:
A blue wave could happen and still hit a wall
As we get closer to November, I gain confidence that an electoral "wave" will develop the likes of 1946, 1994, 2006 and 2010.
Unlike the elections in those years, however, I'm not sure a wave will necessarily mean the minority party will wrestle away control of the House.
How is this possible?
It gets back to a question the New York Times' Nate Cohn and the Cook Political Report's Amy Walter
asked: what is a wave? I'd argue a wave doesn't just need to be measured by seats won. It can be measured by votes won. It's on this score that Democrats are in a very strong position historically speaking….
It just strikes me as unreasonable to expect that Democrats to win a net gain of much more than 23 seats given the vote/seat disparity and that no minority party in a midterm in the modern era has done better than an 8.5-point popular vote win. If Democrats are able to do that, it would be extraordinary.
Hint to pundits: what makes a wave happen is the conviction that Congress can't get anything done... and doesn't want to and doesn't care. See health care and immigration.
Paul Waldman/WaPo:
Republicans embrace a hideously unpopular position just before the election
It’s so foolish, in fact, that it could wind up making something like single-payer health care — gasp! — a reality.
For now, I don’t want to go too deeply into the legal issues at play; this post from Nicholas Bagley explains it all. The short version is that the administration is refusing to defend the ACA in court, even though it’s standard practice for the Justice Department to defend laws even when they don’t agree with them. Jonathan Cohn summarizes the position they’re taking, particularly with regard to pre-existing conditions:
The lawsuit’s key argument is that Congress intended for the pre-existing condition protections to work in tandem with the law’s individual mandate, the provision that people have insurance or pay a penalty. Now that Congress has decided to zero out the penalty, as Republicans did last year as part of the 2017 tax cut, the pre-existing conditions have to go, too.
That would mean insurers would no longer be subject to “guaranteed issue” (a requirement that they sell policies to anybody, regardless of medical status) or “community rating” (a prohibition on charging higher premiums to people with pre-existing conditions).
Most legal scholars seem to think this suit is unlikely to succeed. But take a moment to marvel at the position the administration has taken: They think insurance companies should once again be able to deny you coverage or charge you outrageous premiums because you have a pre-existing condition.
BTW, state AG’s from MO (Hawley) and WV (Morrissey) are challenging the law. Good luck with that when you run against Democratic incumbents in November. And a reminder also, if you think Manchin and McCaskill are too conservative, look who they run against.
Gutting preexisting conditions as the Trump administration proposes, or making health care harder to obtain, won’t make that any easier to deal with.
John Harwood/CNBC:
More Americans are crediting Trump with the stronger economy, but that isn't helping the GOP with voters: NBC/WSJ poll
The survey shows familiar partisan splits on some issues. Voters listing the economy and taxes as top concerns express a solid preference for Republicans, while those who cite health care strongly favor Democrats.
But the poll suggests events during the Trump presidency, from recent school shootings to his policies on the Mexican border, have shifted the terrain for other issues.
Voters citing the importance of guns — traditionally a source of GOP enthusiasm, favor Democrats for Congress by 58 percent to 33 percent. Those citing immigration favor Republicans by just 5 points, 49 percent to 44 percent.
One persistent challenge for Democrats remains motivating the young voters who favor them to show up on Election Day. The share of voters 50 and older expressing high interest in the election (67 percent) more than doubles the share of those aged 18 to 34 (30 percent)…
Despite the uptick in Trump's approval, and his robust 84 percent support among Republicans, the president remains a heavy general election burden for GOP candidates. By 53 percent to 31 percent, voters say they'd be less likely to support a lawmaker who votes with Trump down the line.
By 48 percent to 23 percent, they'd warm to a candidate promising to provide a check on Trump's presidency. Support for Trump's border and tax priorities, the poll shows, would hurt a candidate more than it would help in November.
"Trump remains at the center of the bulls-eye," concluded Democratic pollster Hart. "It all will come back to Trump, one way or another."
Yahoo Sports:
After months of circling President Donald Trump during NFL depositions and discovery, Colin Kaepernick’s lawyers are expected to force Trump directly into the ongoing legal battle between the quarterback and league.
Kaepernick’s legal team is expected to seek federal subpoenas in the coming weeks to compel testimony from Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and other officials familiar with the president’s agenda on protesting NFL players, sources with knowledge of the quarterback’s collusion case against the NFL told Yahoo Sports.
Eugene Scott/WaPo (my bold):
Not as many Americans support Trump’s view of NFL protests as he implies
The reasons for not accurately portraying the protests in the way organizers intended are not clear. Some have said it is because Trump knows that doing things like calling any protesting player a “son of a bitch” or that they “shouldn’t be in the country” plays well with his base.
Based on the recent poll, he’s right.
The overwhelming majority of Republicans — 81 percent — say that players do not have the right to protest on the playing field. And more than half of white voters, a group Trump won in 2016 that continues to give him favorable marks, say athletes do not have the right to protest. But most Americans are not Republicans and a growing number of people in the country are not white. And their views on the issue are worth considering — particularly because some of these other groups view the issue so differently than Trump.
- Most independent voters say professional athletes have the right to protest on the field or court.
- Nearly 7 in 10 Hispanic voters say athletes have the right to protest.
- The overwhelming majority — 85 percent — of black voters say the NFL players have the right to protest.
Take Care blog:
In the government’s brief, the Trump DOJ makes two arguments. (A) The individual mandate, which the Supreme Court upheld in NFIB v. Sebelius, is unconstitutional; and (B) because the mandate is unconstitutional, the most important provisions of the Affordable Care Act should also be struck down, on the ground that they are not severable from the now-unconstitutional mandate.
The first of these arguments is excruciatingly stupid, but has the complementary virtue of being irrelevant on its own.
Oliver is right. Health care was already the most important issue to Americans.
Susan Glasser/New Yorker:
Under Trump, “America First” Really Is Turning Out to Be America Alone
From trade to the Iran deal to NAFTA, the President has created the highest level of tension between the U.S. and its allies in decades.
Ever since Trump took office, America’s allies have desperately sought to avoid this moment. Over the last year and a half, though, many of them have come to realize, with growing dread, that it was inevitable. The rift between the world’s great democracies that Trump’s election portended is coming to pass, and it is about far more than Iran policy, obscure trade provisions, or whether Germany spends two per cent of its G.D.P. on nato. Many senior European officials speak of it, as one Ambassador to Washington did to me recently, as nothing less than a “crisis of the West.”
Trump was already on the ballot.
Why didn’t more Americans see Trump as unfit? A reminder from Shorenstein Center (from 2016):
News Coverage of the 2016 General Election: How the Press Failed the Voters
The study found that, on topics relating to the candidates’ fitness for office, Clinton and Trump’s coverage was virtually identical in terms of its negative tone. “Were the allegations surrounding Clinton of the same order of magnitude as those surrounding Trump?” asks Patterson. “It’s a question that political reporters made no serious effort to answer during the 2016 campaign.”..
False equivalencies abound in today’s reporting. When journalists can’t, or won’t, distinguish between allegations directed at the Trump Foundation and those directed at the Clinton Foundation, there’s something seriously amiss. And false equivalencies are developing on a grand scale as a result of relentlessly negative news. If everything and everyone is portrayed negatively, there’s a leveling effect that opens the door to charlatans. The press historically has helped citizens recognize the difference between the earnest politician and the pretender. Today’s news coverage blurs the distinction.
Only 4% of stories were devoted to whether someone is qualified (and 4% on personal traits) while 42% were who was ahead? No wonder the public thought Trump might be fit for office. Media was telling them leadership, experience and personal traits were not important.
Except they are.