While we’re all sitting around waiting for Donald Trump to start a nuclear war to protect our precious bodily fluids from sapping or impurification or whatever, we might as well wile away our remaining time together enjoying some good news in state politics.
Rejoice, it’s Statehouse Action!
Campaign Action
Good news, everyone! I know I talk about Democrats winning special elections in this space quite a lot, but they keep doing it, and what kind of Statehouse Action harbinger would I be if I didn’t share the glad tidings?
- This time the win came in Iowa, in a district Democrats could well have lost. Rural House District 82 trended heavily for the GOP after going for Obama 50-48 in 2012: Four years later, the 82nd gave Trump a massive 58-37 percent win. Yet Democrat (and large animal veterinarian) Phil Miller won Tuesday’s special election 54-44, improving on Clinton’s performance in the district just last fall by 30 points.
- Snatching away a district Republicans should have easily won is super satisfying, but it might not even be as satisfying as the backfiring of a disgusting GOP stratagem. Last month, the Republican in this race attempted to smear Miller with vile ads attacking the Democrat for his vote to uphold the rights of transgender students to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify.
(And, as if the transphobic ads weren’t disgusting enough on their own, the Republican ran them just a month after a transgender teen from this district committed suicide.)
More good news, if not quite AS good: Two other special elections were held on Tuesday night in bright-red Missouri. The Democratic candidates didn’t win the contests for House District 50 and Senate District 28, but they continued the persistent trend of Democratic over-performance in almost every contested congressional and state legislative special election held since November.
In short, Democrats keep winning and overperforming, and Republicans not only haven’t flipped a single contested Democratic seat this cycle, but they’re also barely holding on to seats they should have no trouble winning.
Enough old business. On to new business while we still have time.
More like the bomb-onwealth of Virginia, amirite? Because I can’t possibly talk about Virginia enough (if you think I can, then, respectfully, you’re incorrect), I’m going to do it some more here.
- Because all 100 House of Delegates seats are on the ballot this year, a brand-new Quinnipiac poll helpfully asked voters which party they’d prefer to be in charge of the legislature. Their responses have Democrats ahead on the generic ballot 49-38. A slightly older poll from VCU was fairly similar, with Democrats ahead 49-41.
- The relevance of a generic ballot question is somewhat blunted by the extent to which House districts in Virginia have been gerrymandered to favor the GOP (the state went for Clinton last fall, yet Democrats hold only 34 percent of state House seats), but these poll numbers are still a great sign for Democrats running downballot this year.
And because it’s very nearly negligent of me to mention state House elections in Virginia this year without mentioning the incredible crop of women who have stepped up to run for these seats, I’m going to be a Very Responsible Person and mention the heck out of them right here.
But actually … maybe I should let someone else do the mentioning for me.
From a great new piece in The Nation:
Democrats are running 54 challengers against GOP incumbents, up from only 21 in 2015. And of all the Democrats running for the House of Delegates, including incumbents, 42 are women and 28 are people of color. … The diversity of Virginia’s women candidates is thrilling: They’re doctors, lawyers, teachers, social workers, cybersecurity experts, real-estate brokers, veterans, retirees, and stay-at-home moms. One military veteran who has declared is also a stay-at-home mom. They are black, white, Latina, Asian, and mixed-race; straight, lesbian, and transgender; immigrants and natives; Sanders supporters and Clinton diehards (and sometimes both).
Despite this diversity, they support common priorities. They all back Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, which has been blocked by Republicans in the House of Delegates. They are all pro-choice and pro–immigrant rights. They support a hike in the minimum wage—most to $15 an hour—and in education spending. A remarkable number say they returned from a Women’s March—either in Washington, DC, or in towns and cities across Virginia; a few of them organized those local marches—and decided then and there that they would run for office.
Cool, right?
Gone South (to avoid fallout): This week’s missive is coming to you LIVE! from Atlanta at Netroots Nation 2017. The Daily Kos Elections crew had a killer question-and-answer session panel Thursday morning, and if the FOMO is killing you, fear not! You can watch it right here. Or on C-SPAN, because that’s neat. I’m on another panel on Saturday morning at 9 AM ET (ugh yes I know I it’s wicked early but seriously do you really think that time was MY idea?), which you can livestream here. Jon Ossoff will be joining other cool, smart people (and me) to talk about the 2018 midterms.
(Don’t Fear) the Data: I keep yammering about how Democrats are over-performing Republicans in the vast majority of special elections this cycle (not to mention flipping seats from red to blue), but did you know you don’t have to take my word for it?
- If you want to know when and where these special elections have been held, whether or how much Democrats outperformed Clinton’s numbers last fall (or Obama’s!), we’ve got this sweet spreadsheet with all that data RIGHT HERE. You should check it out, it’s amazing. I literally never close this tab. And it’ll keep getting updated as the cycle progresses. Bookmark it today!
So I’m off to spend time with my loved ones cat comic book collection fellow Netroots attendees while I’m waiting for Trump to tweet-start a nuclear war. Until next week (if we still have electricity and the internet after the nuclear EMP)!