Tag Archives: election 2020

If current results hold…

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If current results hold…

  1. Now that Warnock and Ossoff have won, will the GOP majority get rid of runoffs?
  2. Daniel Blackman, you did your absolute best to elevate the PSC to Democrats’ attention, and I really need you to stay in this fight as the DPG’s go-to organizer for future PSC races. You did an amazing job, and you’ve set the template for the PSC District 2 race next year. But please ask for a recount.
  3. We now live in the era of mixed statewide results, but we’ve shown that Democrats can win a majority statewide, and not just a plurality like Biden won in November. No looking back.
  4. I want Doug Jones for Attorney-General. Confirmation hearings for Biden’s cabinet this year should be fun to watch.
  5. I’m wondering if the VP-elect plans to have an office in the Senate because she’ll be tiebreaking a LOT
  6. Schumer becomes majority leader and the highest-ranking Jewish American in history, but Joe Manchin succeeds Robert Byrd to become the most powerful person in the Senate and secure West Virginia’s role in American politics once again.
  7. Warnock becomes the second Black Senator from the ex-Confederate South, 11th nationally, and one of three in the new Senate alongside Tim Scott of SC and Cory Booker of New Jersey (not including VP Harris). Ossoff becomes one of the youngest Senators and Han Solo cosplayers in U.S. history. He also becomes the fourth Jewish senator from the South, the first Southern Jewish Senator since Benjamin Jonas of Louisiana (served 1879-1885), and the first Jewish member of Congress from the non-Florida Deep South since Ben Erdreich of Alabama (served 1983-1993).
  8. Get used to this: Chairman Sanders (Budget Committee).
  9. The dam on those 500 bills will now break.
  10. $2000 checks y’all!
  11. I pay great tribute to the work of Laura Ratcliff Walker and Tonza Sheree Thomas for leading our Muscogee County Democratic Committee to overperforming in Muscogee County, and to Linda Parker for fighting for us on the Muscogee County Board of Elections against Alton Russell’s attempt to screw newly-registered voters. You are the MVPs here in Columbus.
  12. EDIT: Thanks to the county committees and candidates who commissioned me for websites this past year. Thanks to Cliff Albright and Black Voters Matter for hiring me earlier last year, and thanks to Jeremiah Chapman and Woke Vote for hiring me for the runoff. I began and ended this election season working for Black voter turnout, and that’s huge for me.

Script Idea for Ossoff/Warnock

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Please make this a script idea for a joint #OssoffWarnock ad:

Ossoff and Warnock walk along forked paths in a park which converges to a point.
Ossoff: “We believe the American people deserve more money from federal COVID relief.”
Warnock: “But Senate Republicans think that only $600 are good enough for you, even when Donald Trump and Joe Biden say it ain’t!”
Ossoff knocks over standee of Perdue: “David Perdue says no to $2000”
Warnock knocks over standee of Loeffler: “Kelly Loeffler ALSO says no to $2000”
Ossoff and Warnock stop at the fork.
Ossoff: “You know who will say yes to $2000?”
Ossoff/Warnock fist bump each other, saying together: “We will!”
Warnock: “We will vote for it”
Harris: “I will break the tie”
Schumer and Pelosi together: “We will pass it”
Biden: “And I will sign it”
Ossoff: “But none of this happens unless you vote to send us to the Senate by January 5th”
Warnock: “Vote for Ossoff and Warnock in the runoff so we can-“
Biden: “Run”
Harris: “You”
Schumer/Pelosi: “Your”
Ossoff/Warnock: “Money!”
Ossoff: “I’m Jon Ossoff”
Warnock: “I’m Raphael Warnock”
Ossoff/Warnock: “And we approve this message”

Winning the Senate is More Important than Anything

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I have voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and for Democrats down the ballot.

But when I did so, my enthusiasm was not focused on the top of the ticket. I’m learning to not fall in love with the top of the ticket, or to hold high expectations for what the president will do upon taking office.

Instead, I have high expectation from a Democratic majority Senate and House, and for President Biden to cooperate with this majority.

Nancy Pelosi, as Speaker, has set up some extremely high expectations in this 116th Congress for what the congressional agenda will be under the next Democratic trifecta. All of those bills that were passed by the Democratic House and blocked by the Republican Senate need to be passed again with a Democratic trifecta. And the Senate, under Schumer or whoever, absolutely needs to ditch the filibuster to make all of this happen.

Then I need this trifecta to try passing at least one (1) progressive constitutional amendment. There’s one that’s been waiting for over 40 years to become the 28th.

All I want from our 46th president is to sign all of those bills, take the credit and step out of the way. Don’t obstruct, don’t try to get in the way of the House.

That’s the only way I can get some sleep. The joke may be that we’re voting for “Sleepy Joe” so we can get some sleep, but I’m not resting (much) until the backlog of bills on McConnell’s desk is cleared into law in the 117th. I’m not resting until substantial federal COVID relief is passed. Not until a new VRA is passed, not until DC statehood is passed, not until the For the People Act, Equality Act, George Floyd Act, HR 40, Paycheck Fairness Act, SAFE Banking Act, Climate Action Now Act, and every other act passed by the 116th House gets sent to Joe Biden’s desk in the 117th. I look forward to the MORE Act, the Ending Qualified Immunity Act, and other bills which didn’t get consideration by this Congress moving forward in the next.

That’s what I’m voting for, no matter what happens at/with the increasingly-deligitimized SCOTUS, no matter the rage of right-wing governors, attorneys-general and secretaries of state.

I’m glad that Biden will be going into office without the high expectations which were accorded to Obama from his election, and without the high drama which dogged Clinton throughout her campaign. He will be boring, and maybe opaque, and that’s good. Hopefully, he won’t have too many Executive Orders to issue.

The main focus must be paid to the Democratic Congress, and to whether they will fulfill their promises to the people.

The regional discrepancy in early vote turnout for 2020, and other observations

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Looking at the Elect Project’s map of early voting turnout up to this point, I spent a week wondering why the turnout in the Midwest and Pennsylvania (especially Pennsylvania) was so low compared to most of the “Sun Belt” states.

Apparently, I learned that this is the first year in which most of the Midwest, Pennsylvania and New York was introduced to both early voting and no-excuse absentee voting, but no-excuse absentee was introduced as the only means of early voting in several Midwestern states. Gerrymandered Republican state legislatures had incredible misgivings about no-excuse absentee throughout this election cycle.

That partly explains why pre-Election Day turnout in the Midwest, New York and Pennsylvania is lower than Georgia, Florida, North Carolina (All three of which use both absentee and and either paper ballots or machines for in-person for 3 weeks), Texas (which largely used paper or machines for 3 weeks of early in-person voting while shunning expansion of absentee voting to those with no excuse), and most states west of the Mississippi.

(At least Michigan prepared a bit better with the passage of Proposal 3 in the Blue Wave of 2018, which legalized no-excuse absentee voting among other reforms via ballot initiative as a constitutional amendment, which has meant that Republicans have found other means of nipping at absentee voting in Michigan such as cutting counting time to Election Day).

The Midwest needed no-excuse absentee in the first place. Michigan was more prepared for COVID forcing a greater reliance on absentee voting, but not the other Midwestern states. The early voting turnout in the Midwest was leaps and bounds ahead of their 2016 early voting turnout, which is to be praised. BUT this sudden and exclusive switch to no-excuse absentee voting was a mistake, IMO, at least when looking at states which did both in-person paper/machine voting and absentee voting and almost eclipsed their 2016 totals (like Georgia and Florida). This amounted to a trial-by-fire for election administrations who were more accustomed to voters turning out on Election Day in person. Absentee voting (and especially early voting) absolutely should be kept and expanded in the Midwest, but maybe they should be kept as an option for at least a few more elections before going total absentee like Colorado and four other states. Or maybe this method of reserving early voting for absentee ballots will improve in future cycles.

Thanks to this early turnout for absentee ballots in the Midwest, GOTV for Dems is going to be a heavier lift in the Midwest/PA/NY for Election Day (but a lot easier for Dems compared to 2016), while GOTV for Dems in the Sun Belt has the easier(?) but more complicated necessity to be more precise with who to pull to the polls, especially Black and Brown voters in Florida. The worries over Black and Brown turnout are easy fodder for the usual “Dems in disarray” headlines, even as Biden has led an otherwise stellar campaign.

And the growing consensus among the prognosticators and election mappers I read on Twitter is that North Carolina’s early count of absentee ballots (currently 97% counted) will likely point to the Electoral College winner on what is erroneously called “Election Night”.

On Ice Cube

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All of the 13 points from Ice Cube’s “Contract with Black America” rely on legislation, all of this is the responsibility of Congress, few of these will withstand scrutiny as mere executive orders, and few (if any) of these will pass a 60-vote majority in the Republican Senate.

Furthermore, as we’ve seen throughout the last 3 years, Trump does not control the Republican Senate (he may have been key to a few election wins for them, but he’s currently being kept at arms’ length). Trump’s “Platinum Plan” will not get 60 votes, and the Republican Senators are damn sure not repealing the filibuster.

Similarly, Biden will not control the Democratic Senate, and his only job will be to pass or veto whatever is sent to him by a Democratic Congress.

So Ice Cube can collaborate with Trump’s advisors to perfect the “Platinum Plan” all he wants. Doesn’t mean it’s going to Trump’s desk, or the CWBA to Biden’s, unless the filibuster goes away next year.

And Biden’s campaign was right to answer that this will have to wait until after the election. It’s Schumer who will have to answer that anyway, not Biden. Don’t write a check that you can’t cash from the White House.

Thoughts on Biden/Harris

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The only one that fit the profile of a typical VP candidate is Harris. She’s relatively fresh to DC politics but has had some DC experience, and has little to no background that could excite the GOP beyond “something something Willie Brown”.

It was never going to be Warren, for one, thanks to the Native American issue (and I say this as someone who supported Warren for President). Rice was problematic because of the “Benghazi” fiction, and because foreign policy experience is an allergen to xenophobic conservatives. Abrams has no federal experience and sat out of two potential runs for Senate. Whitmer literally just got elected Governor. Bass has those Cuba and Scientology comments, making her a liability in Florida. Demings was even more of a cop and had a very exploitable background as a police chief, a potential lightning rod for the left and the anti-urban right.

The safest choice besides Harris was Duckworth. She’s even more boring, Midwestern and cuddlier to veterans. By the time that Duckworth was ruled out, I figured that Harris had it.

The Berniecrats may hate Harris, or hate the #KHive on Twitter (and the feeling is certainly mutual from the KHive). Harris was not the most progressive prosecutor in California. But Twitter is not real life, progressive prosecutors are still carving their way into the punitive prosecutorial establishment against political biases as we speak, and the Trump campaign will be tasked to come up with an attack line against Harris that could actually stick and not slide off like it’s been sliding off of Biden. The polls are still more favorable to a Biden win, at least for now, less than 90 days to the election.

And progressives who are situated to the left of this ticket still have room for being change agents, especially those who have won primaries this year.

So I’m not actually disappointed by this ticket. It’s not exciting, but this is not as much of an excitement election as it is an anti-incumbent election. I made peace with it a long time ago, and I’m thinking of the longer term. If this ticket wins along with a Senate majority (despite all the headwinds of voter suppression), we can stop the judicial bleeding at the federal level. But we need the Senate filibuster to be dropped so that the bleeding can reverse.

The die has been cast. We need to win it all.

Georgia Primary Advisory Questions and Results

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Working on a list of ballot questions which were placed on county primary ballots on June 9. I’m looking for the other questions placed on the ballot in 10 remaining counties.

There were 19 counties which had county-level party primary advisory questions on June 9, out which 7 had Democratic entries.

Forsyth by far had the most Democratic advisory questions with 11 questions. Cobb came in second with 6 questions, followed by Oconee and Walton which had 5 each, Dawson with 4, Glynn with 3 and Upson with 2. Clayton and Harris also had the most Republican questions with 8 each; Hart with 7; Barrow, Columbia and Rabun with 5; Forsyth and Glynn with 4; Brantley, Gordon, Henry and Jackson with 3; Union with 2; and Lincoln with 1.

Republicans had at least 6 counties where “2nd Amendment sanctuary county” questions were placed on the primary ballot. A few counties had Republican ballots replete with anti-immigrant language, including anti-sanctuary city, pro-border wall, anti-immigrant-student, anti-driver’s-license-for-immigrants, and so on.

Democrats had their own red-meat questions, ranging from climate change, pre-k education, Medicaid expansion, election reform and immigration reform.

A notable question was one asking Henry County Republicans on whether to legalize marijuana, which was supported at 51%. At least two counties asked Republicans on whether to legalize casino/horse/sports gambling, neither of which were affirmed.

Another notable exception was in Forsyth County, where one party question ended up on both primary ballots: “Should the County invest in beautification projects such as median landscaping, mast arms for stop lights, and upgraded signage similar to John’s Creek, Alpharetta, Roswell and Sugar Hill?” It was supported on both ballots.

A few may have legislative impact at the county level, with Cobb’s Democratic question 11 asking for a county non-discrimination ordinance (in lieu of Georgia’s lack of a civil rights law) being supported 97.41%.

After Mark Jones’ Victory, the Bigger Work Ahead

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This is part of why I did whatever I did with Mark’s campaign.

This year, we blew the judicial and DA elections, badly. 4 Supreme Court justices, 6 Court of Appeals judges, 138 Superior Court judges across 49 circuits, all nonpartisan.

Out of those 138 Superior Court seats, only 14 received challengers, across 9 circuits.

Out of the 35 District Attorney races up for election, 6 will have major party candidates go up against each other in November (in Alcovy, Augusta, Dublin, Eastern, Gwinnett and Houston). Dems decided 7 DA races by default in the primary, and the GOP decided 22 other races by default. All DA races are partisan.

So the next chance we get to make an impact on these judicial and DA elections should be seriously capitalized upon.

In 2022, 1 Supreme Court Justice, 2 Court of Appeals judges, 74 Superior Court judges in 36 circuits, 44 State Court judges in 30 counties, 17 chief magistrate judges, and district attorneys in 10 circuits will be up for election. Most of these hardly ever get challengers, and that needs to be changed.

We can’t say that we are pro-CJ reform but not get involved in pro-reform electoral bids for judicial and prosecutorial seats.

So I’m writing forum questions to ask judgeship candidates for 2022.

ENDORSEMENT: Mark Jones for District Attorney

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Full disclosure: I state the following in my own personal capacity.

This mail ballot was the first time in my life I have ever voted on paper, and I voted for Mark Jones for District Attorney.

However that I may have felt about his unorthodox campaign style for DA was obliterated by the developments of the last month. After seeing his dedication to his campaign and to those who he hopes to have as his constituents, as well as the attacks made against him by the law enforcement establishment in this region, I could not be more proud of voting for him.

I also could not be more proud of supporting his move into this campaign from the get-go. He reached out to me in late February after I made a post about the need for more primary contests in the upcoming qualifying week, and asked if there was room for him to run against Julia Slater for DA. He hesitated for a few weeks, and then I reached back to him and said that he – a lawyer, a resident of the circuit, a reform-minded person – is more than qualified to run as a Democrat, and that I wanted a good, clean primary contest to draw attention to this position and it’s role in corrections reform. The following week, he did not hesitate to jump in, drive to Atlanta to qualify, and loan himself money to buy signs and digital billboards, all before buying a website domain. He has been campaigning non-stop ever since, and being charged and staying for two nights at Muscogee County Jail has not stopped him one bit. Two of his supporters being arrested, charged and jailed has not stopped him fighting to get them released and their charges dropped.

I am angry at the behavior of the law enforcement establishment in this region against Mark, his supporters and BlackLivesMatter protesters in Columbus. I am angry that the jail is filled to such capacity as it is. I am angry that the police here are no better than the other police departments who should be defunded. I am angry at civil asset forfeiture, cannabis criminalization, cash bail and other stupidities committed by the laws and law enforcement establishment of this city and this state. Damn this authoritarian system, and damn this state and this city for perpetuating it.

Out of all of the votes I filled out on paper, I may have cast my first vote for Mark Jones for District Attorney.

Stacey Abrams is Right to Stay Away from the Senate Race

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Pundits on Twitter are still pissed that Stacey Abrams abstained from a Senate run.

It’s not her fault that all our candidates for Senate suck at fundraising, or that idiot Democrat donors from out of state are burning their money on the twin pyres of McGrath (KY) and Harrison (SC).

Her eyes have been set on the governorship and nothing else. If she ran for Senate (or even House) in 2020, she would be trashed as an also-ran chasing any office like Beto was.

I also don’t think she should be a VP pick. What would be the benefit? She would be distracted from her political plans, and whoever wins the nomination would be attacked for picking a state legislator without federal experience.

The candidates who qualified for Perdue’s Senate last week just need to step their game up and/or clear the field ASAP. It’s getting a bit late in the day, and state’s out west and in NC are deciding their Senate nominees real soon. Similarly, these Dems running for Loeffler’s seat in the jungle primary need to get their shit together to avoid a lockout from a likely runoff.

Also, as an aside, I don’t care much for Maya Dillard Smith because she’s transphobic AF. Accomplished, but not on my shortlist.