Harris calls out Trump, Vance and the GOP for their hate

 She tells you what she really thinks -- and feels.

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— janinsanfran (@janinsanfran) September 18, 2024

The assault from Donald Trump and JD Vance on the community of Springfield, OH, got to her. I don't usually post videos of this length. But, in an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists, meet our next president.

"... my heart breaks for these children ... a whole community put in fear. ... your words have meaning. ... when you are bestowed with a microphone that big, there is a profound responsibility that comes with that. ... you are responsible for your words, [for] how you conduct yourself. ... it's a crying shame what is happening to those children in that community ... the American people deserve better than this. ... I know that regardless of their race, their gender, their location, that people are deeply troubled by what is happening to that community in Springfield,Ohio ... We have got to say that you cannot be entrusted with standing behind that seal of the President of the United States of America and engaging in that hateful rhetoric .. that is designed to divide us. ... I think most people in this country are beginning to see through this nonsense and to say let's turn the page on this. It's exhausting and it's harmful. ... Let's turn the page and chart a new way forward and say that you can't have that microphone again."

This is presidential.

A summer election to watch

When people have a chance to vote on abortion rights, abortion rights win. We've seen that in Kansas. We've seen that in Wisconsin when voters statewide had the chance to elect a state Supreme Court justice who supported the right to inclusive reproductive health care.

So politicians in Ohio who want to ban abortion thought up a simple remedy for voter unrest which might lead to protecting abortion access: raise the number of voters required for a state constitutional initiative from 50 percent +1 to 60 percent. And schedule the vote on their change in the rules for an obscure Tuesday in August when no one is paying attention.

According to the Bowling Green Independent News, lifelong Republican, former Wood County prosecuting attorney, Ohio senator, state auditor and state attorney general Betty Montgomery is having none of it.

Issue 1, which if passed by 50% plus one vote, would require 60% support to pass any future citizen-initiated amendment to the state constitution. That is wrong on many levels, Montgomery said during a weekend phone interview. 

“There is so much about Issue 1 that is anti-democratic,” she said.

Her concerns about Issue 1 include the basics of who, what, where, when, why, and who’s paying? Specifically:

• The traditionally low voter turnout in August that will be deciding the future of Ohio citizen initiatives.
• The new petition signature requirements that go far beyond any other state’s requirements and open the process up to corruption.
• The hypocrisy of using special interest money to fund an issue that is being presented as a way of stopping special interests in Ohio.
• The reasonable safeguards already in place for citizen proposed amendments.
• The obvious “nefarious” legislative motives behind the issue to promote anti-abortion law in Ohio and continue refusal to comply with redistricting laws.

In general, voters like the initiative process -- often more than political junkies or legislators and even if they grumble -- and will reaffirm it when it is challenged. But right now the democratic rights of people in Ohio are threatened. 

The campaign to Vote NO in August needs any help anyone can give, even from out-of-state friends concerned about democracy. Early voting has already begun. As so often these days, our democracy is on the line, but we can and must fight back.

The people push back

Amid the din of Trump spewing lies, DeSantis endorsing hate, and most GOPers enjoying the ride to strongman rule, it's worth noting more muted developments which signal majorities of us aren't ready to give up on a more equitable, more inclusive country. 

Ohio: Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom this week dropped off 422 boxes of signature petitions with the Republican Secretary of State, aiming to qualify an initiative on the November ballot to protect abortion rights through the state constitution. They claim these contain about 700,000 names, far more the 414,000 needed.

Campaigners must first contend with an August vote by which abortion opponents aim to increase the winning margin required to amend the Ohio constitution from 50 percent plus 1 to 60 percent. So right now abortion rights advocates are campaigning to keep the current rules. This will be a tough fight, requiring intense organization to prevail in a very low turnout environment. But polls show that if they can prevail, well over 50 percent of Ohioans want to keep abortion legal in the November election. 

We can help #ProtectChoiceOhio climb these tough hills by donating here.

National: If you are like me, your email at the end of June was flooded with appeals from Democratic candidates for cash they could report at a fundraising deadline. (And if you are like me, you try to be strategic about these urgent messages, using trash liberally.)

But a summary in The Hill reports small donors on the Democratic side of politics are punching above our numbers.

Democrats are more likely to have donated to a political campaign within the past two years than Republicans, according to a new poll. 

The NBC News poll of 1,000 registered votes found that, in total, 30 percent of registered voters made campaign contributions within that period.  

Out of those voters, 37 percent were Democrats, 26 percent were Republicans and 22 percent were independents, according to the outlet. 

“It speaks to the new era we’re in where the small-money Democrats are just swamping the small-money Republicans,” Bill McInturff, a GOP pollster with Public Opinion Strategies, told NBC.  

As a practitioner of retail politics, I try to remember that I can become mesmerized by visible signs of political enthusiasm, like candidates' lawn and window signs, and usually don't know whether such manifestations mean anything. But small donor contributions at this scale make for a meaningful measure, much as number of doors knocked and voter conversations do. One hopes the campaigns figure out how to use the money well, but simply collecting it from so many donors increases democratic (small-d) engagement.

Let's enjoy this for a day or so ...

 

The election of an abortion rights-defending state judge in Wisconsin yesterday marks another step in Democrats reclaiming majority power in the states of the upper Midwest.

Citizens of Wisconsin have proved repeatedly that in statewide elections they will vote for Democrats they find attractive. The state legislature remains rigged by a Republican gerrymander: Dems get over 50 percent of the state vote, but GOPers occupy almost two thirds of the seats thanks to uncompetitive district lines. Next up for Wisconsin: re-electing Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin in 2024.

Michigan did Wisconsin one better: because it was possible put a citizen referendum on redistricting on the ballot and win it, gerrymandered districts were redrawn to be more fair. Democrats not only elected a powerful majority in the state legislature, but also an energetic, all-women, team to statewide offices. In 2024, Michiganders will fill an open U.S. Senate seat -- it's early but the likely Democratic nominee looks to be another woman.

Meanwhile, Dems shored up majority power in Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Illinois over the last two years. 

Might Ohio be next? Looks awfully hard, but pro-choice Ohioans are working to put a reproductive rights referendum on the ballot. It remains to be seen whether they'll be able to navigate a legal minefield laid out by their opponents. Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom need all the help they can get.

Note to the Democratic Party: struggling for abortion rights is a political winner. Get with it!

Michigan goes blue; Ohio stays red; Nevada splits the difference

Here's an interesting discussion of why Michigan and Ohio, states which might seem similar, have diverged politically since 2016. In that year, both voted for Donald Trump. By 2022, Michigan elected Democrats to state offices across the board, while Ohio elected Republicans to the U.S. Senate and statewide. The latter is now considered a solid "red state," while Michigan looks solidly "blue."

These are apparently demographically similar places, with only small differences:

Michigan and Ohio have similar white populations, 78% and 80%, respectively; Black populations, 14% and 12%; bachelor’s degree recipients, both 18%; people over 65, both 17%; median household incomes, both $59,000 in 2020 dollars; and workers belonging to unions, 13% and 12%.

 

The study's authors go on to discuss whether perhaps different voting laws shape different electorates. Michigan has put in place automatic voter registration through the DMV and election day registration. Ohio makes potential voters sign up a month in advance. Michigan's easier voting laws may make for increased participation.

According to the Michigan secretary of state’s official election results, there were 4.5 million total votes in the gubernatorial election, the highest office contested in 2022. Meanwhile in Ohio, the secretary of state reported 4.2 million total official votes cast for governor. ... The total number of voters in Ohio dropped by 295,466 between 2018 and 2022.

Well - maybe. But I have reservations, based having worked the election in Nevada in 2022. Under a Democratic governor and legislature, both elected in 2018, that state put in place election laws that do everything possible to make voting easy. Every Nevadan got a ballot in the mail, could mail it in or vote it in person as much as two weeks before election day, or register on election day if somehow they'd missed out on the mailing or at the DMV. 

And Nevada remained its deeply divided self in 2022, replacing its Democratic governor with a Republican, and re-electing a Democratic U.S. Senator, both by razor thin margins.

So very easy voting in Nevada (easier than in Michigan I think) wasn't enough to shape the partisan outcome.

The authors of the Michigan/Ohio comparison note one considerable discrepancy between but don't discuss it much:

Ohio voters were less likely to reside in a union household – 21% to 27% – and were much more likely to identify as Republicans, 41% to 32%.

Did the labor movement in Michigan get out the vote?

From what I saw in Nevada, it was the massive commitment of the hospitality union -- Culinary/UniteHERE -- to electing the Democrat that saved Senator Catherine Cortez Masto. Union membership in Nevada is not so different than in the other two states, between 11 and 12%. But a determined, high functioning union sector can make a difference in outcomes. And, so far, union membership does keep a lot of Nevadans identifying as Democrats. 

Perhaps unions in Ohio, despite their nominal membership, are not doing the work of communicating the advantages of Democratic governance to their people. Or maybe, their members have irrevocably soured on messages from these unions. These study authors conclude that whatever is going on, it may not be irrevocable --"... writing off Ohio as a noncompetitive state may be premature." Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown will be testing this out in 2024.