Eugene Robinson/WaPo:
Dear Democrats: You can do this
It should be no surprise that what once looked like a Democratic landslide now appears, as my friend Dan Rather might say, “as tight as a tick.” Anyone who has been paying attention knows that the country is divided along regional, cultural and demographic fault lines. Republicans were bound to find or manufacture some issue, some reason to claim victimhood, that would incite the party’s base. A bedraggled group of men, women and children, nearly 2,000 miles away in southern Mexico, is apparently the best they could come up with.
But Democratic enthusiasm remains stronger — and, I believe, deeper. We saw that passion at the Women’s March following Trump’s inauguration and across the country after the Charlottesville horror. We saw it in the party’s success at recruiting young, dynamic candidates from coast to coast. The Democratic leadership may be a bit long in the tooth, but when you look at rising stars such as Stacey Abrams in Georgia, Andrew Gillum in Florida and O’Rourke in Texas, you realize that the future is now.
Don’t be dour and doubtful, Democrats. Be joyous and determined. Stop worrying about losing what you “ain’t got” and focus on winning elections district by district, state by state. Don’t let Republicans bluff you into folding. You’re playing a very good hand.
Sincerely,
A friend
A trio of how is the election going:
Politico:
Trump fears Florida wipeout
The president is mounting an 11th-hour effort to head off high-profile losses for governor and Senate in his adopted home state
Politico:
Democrats flood Wisconsin to take down Scott Walker
Everybody who’s anybody in the party is pitching in to help oust the GOP governor.
Politico:
Trump fumes after mail bomber ‘interrupts’ his campaign message
A failed terrorist in Florida succeeds in overshadowing the president's message, to Trump's annoyance.
Re the New Jersey Senate, moved to tossup by Cook Report:
No one is sure why. Menendez leads by an average of 7.7 points and NJ is a tough state these days for Rs to win. But Ben is right.
Nate Silver/FiveThirtyEight:
Democrats Have A Whac-A-Mole Problem In The Senate
A lot of the midterm outlook simply comes down to exposure: which party has more of it, and in which chamber.
In the House, there are 111 (!!) competitive seats, according to the Classic version of our model – races where each party has at least a 5 percent chance of winning. Because the national climate favors Democrats and because Republicans control most of the seats in swing districts as a result of their strong performance in the 2014 and 2016 elections, the overwhelming majority of those are currently held by Republicans. Granted, some seats from among that list of 111 are fringy pickup opportunities for Democrats – but Republicans are playing a lot of defense in a lot of different types of districts.
Just the opposite is true in the Senate, where 26 of the 35 seats up for election this year are currently held by Democrats, including 10 Democratic incumbents running in states won by President Trump. With that kind of map, Democrats would have to catch almost every possible break to win the Senate, and that’s not usually how politics works.
In fact, Democrats’ odds continue to become longer in the Senate, with their chances down to about 1 in 6 in all three versions of our forecast. This is despite the fact that their position has become better in some individual races, as you can see in the chart below, which compares our current Senate forecast against the last time we did a version of this exercise two weeks ago.
The Upshot poll has Mia Love trailing as of this writing.
Gilad Edelman/Washington Monthly:
Her Dispatches From Trump Country Are Perfect. Maybe Too Perfect.
There’s something suspicious about Salena Zito’s glowing profiles of Trump voters. Does anyone in conservative media care?
Indeed, the most notable gap in Zito’s reporting may be the role of conservative media itself. Why do white voters in Pennsylvania feel such a powerful sense of grievance? Where does Ed Harry get the idea that the U.S. has an open borders policy? By airbrushing her subjects’ more extreme beliefs, Zito avoids having to acknowledge their likely origin: Fox News and the broader right-wing media apparatus of which she is a part.
Local commentary! Forgotten Governor races!
Mitchell Stein/Portland Press Herald:
Commentary: Maine needs a governor who makes decisions based on evidence, empathy
Attorney General Janet Mills will be that governor, representing Maine at its best
Like a lot of Mainers, Janet Mills, the Democratic candidate for governor, knows what it’s like to struggle with the high cost of health care – it’s something she dealt with personally after her husband, Stan, suffered the stroke that ultimately claimed his life. That’s why I know Janet’s invested in making sure Maine families don’t have to go through what she went through.
Janet recently laid out her plans to lower the cost of health care for Maine people, and I was impressed by the depth and scope of it – it’s smart, pragmatic and compassionate. Just what Maine needs!
They talk caravan, we talk health care, media talks terrorist bombs. What a country!
Megan Garber/Atlantic:
Megyn Kelly’s Original Sin
The host claimed that her NBC morning show would be apolitical. It was a convenient act from the beginning.
None of it, from the shrugging racism to the golden parachute, comes as a surprise. Nor does the fact of the ways-parting itself. Yes, Andrew Lack, the chairman of NBC News, went out of his way this week to talk about how inappropriate Kelly’s comments were (“I condemn those remarks”; “very unfortunate”); yes, NBC Nightly News featured a discussion of the comments on its evening air; yes, the Today show featured an even more extensive one on Wednesday morning; yes, NBC employees gave interviews to media outlets expressing their own disdain for Kelly’s comments.
These, too, for NBC as a network, are performances of innocence. The overriding fact of the matter, after all, is that Kelly’s tenure at NBC has been a failure, by pretty much any measure but especially the one that network executives have been conditioned to care about: the commercial. Kelly’s first venture at NBC, the prime-time interview show during which she gave airtimeto Vladimir Putin and Alex Jones, faded, quietly, into television oblivion. The ratings for Megyn Kelly Today have been notoriously lackluster; the show never found its footing. That’s in part because the Megyn Kelly of Today never seemed to figure out how to be friendly to audiences without seeming, at the same time, faintly condescending to them. It’s also because politics exist even in spaces that have been insistently deemed “politics-free.”
Max Boot/WaPo:
Donald Trump embraces ‘nationalism’ of the worst kind
The word “nationalism” in modern America has often been preceded by a troubling adjective: “white.” Troubling, that is, if you believe in America as a multicultural democracy bound together by shared ideals, not by shared blood. Trump insists that his evocation of nationalism is not a code word for “white supremacy.” “No, I never heard that theory about being a nationalist,” Trump told reporters. He insisted that he is simply “somebody that loves our country.” But if that’s the case, why didn’t he just say so? Trump gave the game away at a Houston rally where he admitted, “We’re not supposed to use that word,” suggesting he knows exactly how toxic nationalism has become in the modern world.
Significantly, Trump preceded his declaration of nationalism with one of his trademark rants against “globalists” – “A globalist is a person that wants the globe to do well, frankly not caring about our country so much,” he said. Who are these villains who want America to suffer? Trump didn’t name anyone, but it’s a safe bet that he has in mind someone like George Soros, a Jewish billionaire who Trump supporters blame for everything from the caravan of Central American immigrants to the anti-Kavanaugh demonstrations. You know who else engages in this kind of anti-Semitic conspiracy-mongering? Trump’s fellow nationalists: Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban, and the Law and Justice Party in Poland. Like Trump, they also revile the press as the “enemies of the people.”
That Trump tweet was just before a suspect was apprehended.
Ashley Pratte/USA Today:
In a scary week of pipe bombs, will President Trump finally recognize that words matter?
It's beneath his office for Trump to fire up his base with flippant, accusatory, baseless claims on social media and at rallies. It's dangerous, too.
In my own personal experience as a political commentator critical of the administration, I have made frequent and various appearances on MSNBC, Fox News and Fox Business. I can tell you that I have received horrible tweets and letters, some threatening, some slandering and some degrading. I’ve been told my first-born child should be killed, I should be beheaded at my parents’ doorstep, I should “shut up b----,” and I should not be allowed to vote. Unfortunately, this is a risk those working in the public sphere now take.
These are frightening and divided times we are living in, but I would like to believe that all civility is not lost and that our country can grow and heal and learn to respect differences of all kinds: opinion, politics, skin color, gender, sexual orientation, and so on. In his quest to “Make America Great Again,” Trump has only divided our country further and used our differences to drive us apart rather than bring us together as Americans.
Ashley Pratte, a communications strategist who is on the board of Republican Women for Progress, previously served as director of media relations and public affairs at the American Legislative Exchange Council and director of media relations at Better For America.