So how does a Democratic U.S. Senator in a very red state run to keep his seat? Sen. Jon Tester provides the emblematic example in his bid to hold his senate seat in Montana. Stephen Neukam shares some observations at Axios: “Tester’s campaign in deep-red Montana could be the difference between Democrats keeping control of the Senate or relinquishing it to the GOP….Some of the earliest advertising from the Tester camp have elevated his splits with Biden, including an ad that said the Democrat “fought to stop President Biden from letting migrants stay in America instead of remain in Mexico.”….B ..read more

Some excerpts from “Democrats Aren’t Campaigning to Win the Working Class” by Jared Abbott and Fred Deveaux at Jacobin: Democrats are losing the working class — and if the trend continues, it’ll reshape American politics for generations. Simply, there’s no sustainable path to victory in national elections without these voters, a more affluent Democratic base means less electoral support for progressive economic policies, and losing the working class will accelerate the rise of far-right populism. While there is growing debate about whether and how Democrats can win back the working class, re ..read more

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter and co-author with John B. Judis of the new Book “Where Have All the Democrats Gone?,” is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot: “Be realistic—demand the impossible!” So went the slogan of the young revolutionaries who thronged the streets of Paris in May, 1968. At the time, the slogan was viewed by mass working-class parties as profoundly misguided, regardless of the high idealism that lay behind it. But over half a century later, it could well be the sl ..read more

A lot of people who weren’t alive to witness the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago are wondering if it’s legendary chaos. I evaluated that possibility at New York: When the Democratic National Committee chose Chicago as the site of the party’s 2024 national convention a year ago, no one knew incumbent presidential nominee Joe Biden would become the target of major antiwar demonstrations. The fateful events of October 7 were nearly six months away, and Biden had yet to formally announce his candidacy for reelection. So there was no reason to anticipate compari ..read more

A lot of people who weren’t alive to witness the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago are wondering if it’s legendary chaos. I evaluated that possibility at New York: When the Democratic National Committee chose Chicago as the site of the party’s 2024 national convention a year ago, no one knew incumbent presidential nominee Joe Biden would become the target of major antiwar demonstrations. The fateful events of October 7 were nearly six months away, and Biden had yet to formally announce his candidacy for reelection. So there was no reason to anticipate compari ..read more

Some nuggets from “Does it matter that Democrats are raising more money than Republicans?,” a 538 panel with Nathaniel Rakich, Kaleigh Rogers and Geoffrey Skelley: Nathaniel Rakich: “President Joe Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee say they raised a combined $90 million in March, while former President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee say they combined for $66 million. Democrats have an even wider advantage in cash on hand: $192 million to $93 million. But my first question is simple: Does it really matter that Republicans are so far behind in ..read more

Ronald Brownstein explains why “Why Biden’s fate may be settled in the Rust Belt not the Sun Belt” at CNN Politics: “The shift in expectations reflects the upside-down racial dynamics of the 2024 race,with most national and state polls showing Biden largely holding his 2020 support among White voters, while facing, at this point, unprecedented erosion among Black and Latino voters. Biden, as I wrote last year, is likewise maintaining his 2020 support better among older than younger voters. These surprising patterns have made the relatively older and Whiter three industrial blue wall states app ..read more

RFK Jr. and MTG are using the same dismissive term for major-party differences. I took at look at this phenomenon at New York: Partisan polarization has been steadily growing in the U.S. since roughly the 1960s. Ironically, during this time, the complaint that the two parties are actually too alike has become increasingly prevalent. For years, right-wing Republicans have called people in the GOP who don’t share their exact degree of ideological extremism RINOs, or “Republicans in name only,” suggesting they’re basically Democrats. Left-wing Democrats occasionally echo these epithets by c ..read more

Read the memo ..read more

There is a sector of working class voters who can be persuaded to vote for Democrats in 2024 – but only if candidates understand how to win their support. Read the memo ..read more