A documentary about four women -- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) of New York, Amy Vilela of Nevada, Cori Bush of Missouri, and Paula Jean Swearengin of West Virginia -- who "fought back against injustice" by getting involved in politics, taking on entrenched politicians in 2018, and winning seats in Congress. http://www.knockdownthehouse.com Wikipedia backround AOC, who describes... Continue Reading →
Missouri, Tennessee, Florida, North Dakota and Indiana continue to trend Republican because Democrats don't seem to have a strategy to appeal to rural voters, or those high school educated working class voters who work in manufacturing. Democrats lost two Senate seats in 2018, reducing their status to 47 seats compared to Republicans' 53-seat majority. Democrats... Continue Reading →
Democrats, despite gerrymandering and the so-called problem of clustering, ultimately won more than 40 seats or 54 percent of the House of Representatives in the 116th Congress. They will hold 237 seats compared to 198 for Republicans -- 218 are needed to govern. The parties precisely reversed ratios in the House of Representatives from the previous Congress. Democratic gains... Continue Reading →
2018 before the midterm elections was filled with divisive news of social conflicts that might have influenced voter decisions. The news probably influenced turnout. More than 114 million citizens voted, the highest midterm turnout since 1914 (49.3 percent), compared to 36.4 percent of eligible voters who turned out in 2014, and 55.7 percent in the... Continue Reading →
Party enthusiasm determines turn-out in midterms, which generally averages one-third of eligible voters compared to more than 50 percent of voters in presidential years. Thomas Mills of Politics North Carolina pointed out that Democrats essentially sat out the last two midterm elections. "In 2010 and 2014, over half of registered Republicans voted as opposed to 44%... Continue Reading →
A record number of women ran for office in 2018, and a record number of them won. More than 100 women will serve in the House of Representatives; 21 will serve in the Senate. This recalls the first "Year of the Woman," 1992, when a record number of women won seats in Congress after the... Continue Reading →
Americans have historically chosen pragmatism over ideology, the political center over the far right or far left. After descending into cynicism about politics and politicians in 2016, they can now embrace policies to clean up the mess -- the corrosive influence of money in politics, encouraging candidates to rely on small donations, addressing the lack... Continue Reading →
Community organizer job opportunities are growing. Start-ups like Swing Left are seeking to create a national grassroots network of more than 300,000 volunteers to help take back the US House of Representatives by targeting the 78 most competitive races, enough to flip party control and change the country's political agenda. One of the biggest disappointments of... Continue Reading →
The Trump Administration and congressional Republicans are trying to eliminate insurance coverage for "pre-existing conditions" and sabotage the Affordable Care Act. Democrats in 2018 have an opportunity to enrage their base of voters about this. If they can produce strong enough turn-out in the off-year elections to retake the House, a bipartisan compromise to strengthen... Continue Reading →
Carter Wrenn, a longtime Republican political strategist in North Carolina, expertly defined a "wave election" in this blog post: "One party's turnout plummets...Swing voters overwhelmingly vote for one party over another..."
400 Years of American Politics 