Democrats have been boosting ultra-right candidates. It coul

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Rupert Murdoch-funded Fox Corp. PAC contributes to Democrat Joe Manchin’s campaign
by Brian Schwartz
@SCHWARTZBCNBC
CNBC
PUBLISHED THU, JUL 15 20211:08 PM EDTUPDATED THU, JUL 15 20211:49 PM EDT

* The Fox News parent company’s PAC donated money to moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s reelection campaign, a new filing shows.

* The Fox Corp. political action committee, which is funded in part by conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch, gave $1,500 to Manchin’s 2024 reelection campaign in June.

* The disclosure comes as Manchin faces pressure from conservative voices on Fox News and elsewhere to obstruct and limit President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders’ ambitious and expensive agenda.

A political action committee for Fox News’ parent company donated money to moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s reelection campaign, a new filing shows.

The Fox Corp. PAC, which is funded in part by conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch, gave $1,500 to Manchin’s 2024 reelection campaign in June, according to a disclosure to the Federal Election Commission. The campaign raised just over $1.4 million in the second quarter.

It would mark the first time Manchin has received a donation from the Fox Corp. PAC, according to a CNBC review of FEC records and data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

The disclosure comes as Manchin, who represents the deep-red state of West Virginia, faces pressure from conservative voices on Fox News and elsewhere to obstruct and limit President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders’ ambitious and expensive agenda.

Manchin is a pivotal vote in the Senate, where Democrats have a thin majority by virtue of Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote. The donation from Fox Corp. came the same month that Manchin wrote an op-ed to describe his opposition to eliminating the filibuster and to the Democrats’ For the People Act voting rights bill.

Manchin has been under siege by outside groups, including those linked to billionaire Charles Koch, to oppose key elements of his party’s agenda.

In the second quarter, Manchin also received contributions from many other big corporations, including Pfizer, T-Mobile, Nucor, Honeywell and Herbalife.

A Fox Corp. spokesperson and representatives for Manchin didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

CRP data shows that during the 2020 election cycle, Murdoch, the chairman of the company, donated $10,000 to the Fox Corp. PAC. Lachlan Murdoch, his son and the CEO of Fox Corp., gave just over $2,000 to the committee.

During the previous election, the PAC gave more than $180,000 to candidates, splitting the sum almost evenly between Democratic and Republican lawmakers.

Democrats who received donations from the Fox Corp. PAC last cycle include Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Sens. Chris Coons of Delaware and Mark Warner of Virginia.

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"Alarming": GOP quietly funnels millions into Democratic primaries to wipe out progressives
Despite claiming bipartisan interest, the United Democracy Project hasn't spent money on a single Republican race
by Igor Derysh
Deputy Politics Editor
Salon
PUBLISHED AUGUST 8, 2022 6:00AM (EDT)

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has spent more than $24 million to defeat progressive candidates in this year's Democratic primaries.

The United Democracy Project (UDP), an AIPAC-affiliated super PAC, has already spent $24.2 million on Democratic primaries this cycle, including millions that it raised from top Republican megadonors like Paul Singer and Bernard Marcus. The money has helped AIPAC-backed candidates wipe out progressives in primaries in Michigan, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, California and Ohio.

UDP and other pro-Israel groups tied to AIPAC – Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), Urban Empowerment Action PAC and Pro-Israel America PAC — spent more than $10 million combined in three Michigan primaries, The Intercept reported, to defeat progressive candidates, including last week's loss for Rep. Andy Levin, D-Mich., who has been called the most progressive Jewish member of the House.

"I'm really Jewish," Levin, a former synagogue president, told MSNBC last week. "But AIPAC can't stand the idea that I am the clearest, strongest Jewish voice in Congress standing for a simple proposition: that there is no way to have a secure, democratic homeland for the Jewish people unless we achieve the political and human rights of the Palestinian people."

UDP spent more than $4 million on ads opposing Levin and backing his opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., after they both opted to run in the state's 11th District following redistricting. Stevens on Tuesday defeated Levin, 60-40.

It's unclear how much impact spending by the Israel lobby, or other groups like Emily's List, which also backed Stevens, had on the actual race. The Atlantic's Yair Rosenberg argued that UDP was merely backing the more electable candidate in Michigan and other races. But critics denounced the group for funneling Republican money into Democratic contests.

Levin after his defeat lamented that he was the "target of a largely Republican-funded campaign set on defeating the movement I represent."

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., during a campaign rally with Levin last week, argued that AIPAC's involvement in the race had "nothing to do, in my view, with Israel."

"It is simply trying to defeat candidates and members of Congress who stand for working families and are prepared to demand that the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share of taxes," he said, calling on Democratic leaders to ban super PAC money from its primaries.

An AIPAC-affiliated super PAC has already spent $24.2 million on Democratic primaries this cycle, including millions that it raised from top Republican megadonors like Paul Singer and Bernard Marcus.

UDP fired back at Sanders over his criticism.

"Bernie and his allies are struggling with the fact that the majority of progressive Democrats in the country are pro-Israel," Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for UDP, told Salon. "They come up with attack after attack because they don't like the pro-Israel nature of the Democratic Party."

Dorton was quick to note that UDP has also received donations from Democrats, including megadonor Haim Saban.

"UDP is funded by Democratic and Republican donors who have set aside their partisan preferences in a hyperpolarized political environment to support a better U.S-Israel relationship," Dorton said.

He argued that it was "hypocritical" for Sanders to complain about pro-Israel spending because "all kinds of Bernie-allied groups are spending in these primaries," criticizing the "nasty attacks" from groups like J Street targeting Stevens in the primary.

J Street, a liberal Jewish group, called out AIPAC for endorsing and funding 109 Republicans who voted to overturn the election on January 6 while attacking candidates like Levin as "extremists."

"It is alarming that this race, like many other Democratic primaries this cycle, was heavily impacted by the aggressive outside spending of AIPAC and its super PAC, the United Democracy Project," the group said in a statement, calling on other Democratic candidates to "disavow and decline the support of AIPAC and its super PAC—which have come as a surprise to at least some of them."

"We are proud to engage in the democratic process to help elect leaders who will strengthen the US-Israel relationship – including scores of progressive candidates," Marshall Wittmann, a spokesperson for AIPAC-PAC, said in a statement to Salon. "In fact, we have supported over half of the Congressional Black Caucus and Hispanic Caucus and nearly half of the Progressive Caucus. It is completely consistent with progressive values to stand with the Jewish state. We will continue to support progressive candidates who will stand with our democratic ally, Israel – and oppose detractors of the Jewish state."

AIPAC was less successful in campaigning to elect Michigan state Sen. Adam Hollier in the 13th District despite funneling more than $4 million into the race. State Rep. Shri Thanedar, who spent $5 million of his own money, ultimately prevailed in the race with just 28% of the vote, benefiting from a nine-candidate field. But the group has seen a strong return on its investment in other states.

UDP and DMFI spent about $1.5 million to help Rep. Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, take down progressive Sanders ally Nina Turner. UDP spent $2.3 million to help attorney Steve Irwin, a former Republican Senate staffer, defeat progressive state Rep. Summer Lee in Pennsylvania after she led by 25 points. UDP dropped nearly $2 million to help Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, beat back progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros in a tight matchup. And it's not just Sanders-allied progressives: UDP spent a whopping $6 million to help former prosecutor Glenn Ivey beat former Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md., who was backed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other top Democrats, because she was seen as not pro-Israel enough.

All of the candidates targeted by the PACs have expressed support for Palestinian rights or have criticized the billions in aid the U.S. provides to the Israeli military. They have also supported prominent progressive proposals like Medicare for All, climate action and more left-wing economic policies. Despite spending heavily to influence Democratic primaries, UDP "has not been similarly active in Republican primaries, even in races where Republican candidates have been widely criticized for antisemitic comments," The American Prospect reported. But AIPAC has endorsed numerous controversial Republicans, including Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., who last year compared Democrats to Nazis.

AIPAC has funded ads lashing out at some far-right Republicans like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., pressuring them to support funding for Israel's Iron Dome defense system. AIPAC-PAC backed Rep. Young Kim, R-Calif., in her primary, though UDP has not been involved in any Republican primaries.

All of the candidates targeted by the PACs have expressed support for Palestinian rights or have criticized the billions in aid the U.S. provides to the Israeli military.

"We're looking at Republican races, we're looking at Democratic races," Dorton insisted. "Our goal is to build the largest bipartisan coalition in Congress. Unlike other groups, we don't feel like the way to do that is to support candidates that align themselves with the most persistent critics of Israel in the U.S."

Dorton said that UDP focuses on races "where there is a contrast between a pro-Israel candidate and a candidate who is an active detractor of Israel."

"We also take into account viability, demographics of the district and other factors that would impact an election, number of candidates, that kind of thing," he said. "So we are looking to help pro-Israel candidates win races."

This election cycle has marked a drastic change for AIPAC, which did not have a PAC or even endorse candidates until earlier this year. Former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich cited the group's heavy expenditures to label them "the single most influential big money group in Democratic electoral politics."

Though UDP has argued that its funding is aimed at helping candidates who will be more friendly to Israel, some observers argue that it is just a pretense to defeat more progressive Democrats.

"Very often when these establishment pro-Israel organizations target a progressive candidate, those candidates are also targeted by groups that are not focused on Israel-Palestine but simply want to defeat that person because that person may be to progressive on questions of healthcare, or they may support the Green New Deal," Peter Beinart, a professor at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and editor-at-large at the conservative Jewish Currents, told Democracy Now. In some cases, he added, groups like the Democratic Majority for Israel "work out of the same offices with the same staff" as seemingly unrelated groups that target progressives on issues that have nothing to do with Israel.

Dorton argued that UDP is merely "exercising our First Amendment right to bring voters publicly available information," dismissing criticism that the ads aren't focused on Israel because, he said, "there was a clear contrast" that voters were already aware of.

J Street, which has far less money to spend than its deep-pocketed rivals at AIPAC, has sought to counter the group's influence by funding ads backing progressives in these races, including spots attacking Stevens in Michigan, though the group's PAC has only spent about one-tenth as much as UDP alone this cycle. J Street warned after the latest defeat that AIPAC's intervention, funded in part by Republican megadonors, threatens to harm the Democratic Party, foreign policy and "ultimately the state of Israel."

Dorton disputed the argument.

"There is increasing danger to the historical, bipartisan support for Israel in Congress because of politicians mostly on the left, but some on the far-right, but mostly on the far-left, who claim to be pro-Israel but aren't," he told Salon.

Though AIPAC's focus has been fairly limited on a couple of handfuls of races, the big money pouring into the races could have a chilling effect on other Democrats, J Street warned.

"With their overwhelming spending, AIPAC hopes to send an intimidating message to others: Cross our red lines, and you could be next," the group said in a statement. "While political space for open and healthy debate over US foreign policy has opened up considerably in recent years, they appear determined to close it down. Instead of building sustainable bipartisan support for Israel, AIPAC has harmfully turned Israel into one of the sharpest wedge issues in American politics."

Igor Derysh is Salon's Deputy News and Politics Editor. His work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald and Baltimore Sun.

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New Dark Money Group Spending Against Progressives is Suspiciously Well Aligned With Powerful Democrats. Opportunity for All Action Fund has spent more than $500,000 in four primaries to support conservative House Democrats.
by Akela Lacy
the Intercept
June 8 2022, 8:47 a.m.

A DARK-MONEY GROUP formed by longtime Democratic operatives has spent more than half a million dollars since May to back conservative Democrats in safe blue seats in three upcoming primaries, according to its most recent disclosures — and is boosting another by spending to attack their main Republican opponent. Opportunity for All Action Fund, which incorporated in August, represents yet another incursion into dark money and outside spending from mainstream Democrats desperate to defend against progressive challengers.

Each incumbent backed by Opportunity for All Action Fund is facing a primary challenge from their left: Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., is facing Kina Collins, an organizer and anti-gun violence activist who first challenged him in 2020; Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., is facing Amy Vilela, who ran unsuccessfully in a Nevada Democratic congressional primary in 2018; on Tuesday, Rep. Donald Payne Jr., D-N.J., beat organizer Imani Oakley and Akil Khalfani, a professor who ran against him in the 2020 primary as an independent. Justice Democrats is backing Collins’s campaign this cycle, and on Wednesday, she will campaign virtually alongside Justice Democrats-endorsed primary candidates Jessica Cisneros, whose Texas campaign is awaiting a recount, and Summer Lee, who won the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania’s 12th District last month.

Opportunity for All Action Fund started running digital ads on Facebook backing the three incumbents last month.

The cutout has not revealed who ultimately decided to launch the operation or who is funding it, but several public details give clues about its origins. For one, each of the incumbents is also backed by Team Blue PAC, launched last June by House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries of New York, New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer, and Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell to protect caucus members facing primary challenges. Team Blue PAC endorsed five incumbents in February and has given $5,000 to each of their campaigns, including Davis, Titus, Payne, and Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, who beat former state Sen. Nina Turner last month. Jeffries campaigned alongside Davis in Chicago last week, and also campaigned for Payne and Brown.

Opportunity for All Action Fund also spent in an effort to defeat Frank Pallotta, the winner of the Republican primary who will face Gottheimer, one of the Democratic caucus’s most conservative members and Team Blue PAC’s co-founder, in November. The group spent more than $150,000 to oppose candidate Pallotta, a Trump Republican who won the GOP race on Tuesday. Pallotta came within 8 points of unseating Gottheimer in 2020. The group also sent mailers in the race attacking Pallotta.

The slew of spending comes as Jeffries and Gottheimer escalate an ongoing battle with the progressive wing of the party and Jeffries pursues a path toward becoming House speaker or minority leader, replacing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she eventually retires. Neither office responded to a request for comment.

Opportunity for All Action Fund’s bare-bones website and “OFA” logo led a local New Jersey site writing about the fund to wonder whether it was “a misleading bid to implicate Obama for America.” The group is indeed run by Patti Solis Doyle, a partner at the Brunswick Group and a former adviser to President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign who also managed Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid; Darrel Thompson, a partner with theGROUP who was previously a top staffer for former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, chief of staff for Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign, and financial services director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee; and Mike McKay, founding and managing partner at the Miami-based Empire Consulting Group and a former staffer for Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y. Empire Consulting Group’s co-managing partner, Chaka Burgess, is on the board of the Congressional Black Caucus PAC along with Jeffries, who is also a CBC member alongside Sewell, Payne, and Meeks. Opportunity for All Action Fund lists as its incorporator Emma Olson Sharkey, an associate at Elias Law Group, a firm founded in August by lawyer Marc Elias, who was general counsel for Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Top House Democrats and outside groups have backed embattled incumbents facing progressive candidates in several competitive primaries this year, including the caucus’s last member to oppose abortion rights, conservative Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar. Another group called Mainstream Democrats PAC, backed by LinkedIn founder and major Democratic donor Reid Hoffman, is also boosting those efforts and has spent more than $1 million since April to fight progressives in three competitive races, including Cuellar’s opponent, Cisneros, as well as Turner and Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who beat Rep. Kurt Schrader in Oregon.

Correction: June 9, 2022
A previous version of this article stated that House Majority PAC shares space with OFA. The office, a House Majority PAC spokesperson clarified, is a mailing address used by multiple political organizations and the mention has been removed.

Update: June 8, 2022, 12:02 p.m.
This article has been updated to reflect that Rep. Donald Payne Jr. won his primary election on Tuesday.

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Voting behavior
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/14/22

Voting behavior is a form of electoral behavior. Understanding voters' behavior can explain how and why decisions were made either by public decision-makers, which has been a central concern for political scientists,[1] or by the electorate. To interpret voting behavior both political science and psychology expertise were necessary and therefore the field of political psychology emerged including electoral psychology.[2] Political psychology researchers study ways in which affective influence may help voters make more informed voting choices, with some proposing that affect may explain how the electorate makes informed political choices in spite of low overall levels of political attentiveness and sophistication. Conversely, Bruter and Harrison suggest that electoral psychology encompasses the ways in which personality, memory, emotions, and other psychological factors affect citizens' electoral experience and behavior.[2]

To make inferences and predictions about behavior concerning a voting decision, certain factors such as gender, race, culture or religion must be considered. Furthermore, a more theoretical approach can be taken when viewing electoral behaviour; such as viewing wealth and region in which a voter lives which will impact upon their electoral choices. Moreover, key public influences include the role of emotions, political socialization, tolerance of diversity of political views and the media. The effect of these influences on voting behavior is best understood through theories on the formation of attitudes, beliefs, schema, knowledge structures and the practice of information processing. For example, surveys from different countries indicate that people are generally happier in individualistic cultures where they have rights such as the right to vote.[3] Additionally, social influence and peer effects, as originating from family and friends, also play an important role in elections and voting behavior.[4] The degree to which voting decision is affected by internal processes and external influences alters the quality of making truly democratic decisions. Bruter and Harrison also suggest that the decision is not a mere expression of a preference as they say that voters embrace a role in elections and differentiate between 'referees' and 'supporters'.[5]

Voting behavior types

Voter behavior is often influenced by voter loyalty.[6] There is a mix of satisfaction and how issues are dealt with by the party. There is a correlation between how the voter finds the satisfaction of what the party has achieved and dealt with a situation, and then the intention of voting for the same party again. Something the author calls satisfaction and intention to purchase.[6] Information is important to discuss when talking about voting in general. The information provided to the voter, not only influences who to vote for, but if they are intending to vote or not.[7] Palfrey and Poole discuss this in their paper on information and voting behaviour. These elements have a direct effect on where one's party identification lies. This is largely due to the ability to have the party agendas available and increase the understanding and recognition of the topics which are being dealt with. This in combination with Schofield and Reeves means that the progression of the identification comes from recognition and the loyalty is followed if they find satisfaction in how the party performed, then the likelihood of a re-occurring vote in the next election is high.

When speaking of voting behavior in relation to cleavages, there are some which are interesting factors to look into. The three cleavage-based voting factors focused on in research are class, gender and religion.[8] Firstly, religion is often a factor which influences one's party choice. In recent years this voting cleavage has moved away from concerns of Protestant vs Catholic to having a larger focus on religious vs non-religious leanings.[8] A second influential factor is class. If one is in what is considered the working class, they are typically more likely to vote for a party on the right side of the political scale, whereas middle class voters are more likely to identify with a party on the left side of the political scale.[8] Lastly, it is the influence of gender. Women are more likely to support left-leaning parties.[8] One explanation for this is employment, as women are more likely to work in the public sector.[8] Parties on the left tend to support a more involved welfare state and more funding for public sector jobs, and people dependent on a job within government-driven sectors would benefit from a leftist party political agenda. Many cleavage-based voting behaviors are interconnected and frequently build on each other.[8] These factors also tend to hold different levels of weight depending on the country in question. There is no universal explanation for a voting cleavage, and there is no general answer which explains a cleavage of all democratic countries.[8] Each factor will have a different level of importance and influence on one's vote dependent on the country one is voting in.

Individuals use different criteria when we vote, based on the type of election it is. Therefore, voting behavior is also conditional to the election which is held. Different factors are in play in a national election vs. a regional election based on the voter's preferred outcome. For each individual, the order of importance of factors like loyalty, satisfaction, employment, gender, religion and class may look very different in a national or regional elections, even when the elections occur with relatively similar candidates, issues and time frames. For example, religion may play a larger role in a national election than in regional one, or vice versa.

The existing literature does not provide an explicit classification of voting behavior types. However, research following the Cypriot referendum of 2004 identified four distinct voting behaviors depending on the election type. Citizens use different decision criteria if they are called to exercise their right to vote in presidential, legislative, local elections or in a referendum.[9] In national elections it is usually the norm for people to vote based on their political beliefs. In local and regional elections, people tend to elect those who seem more capable to contribute to their area. A referendum follows another logic as people are specifically asked to vote for or against a clearly defined policy.[9]

Partisan (politics) voting is also an important motive behind an individual's vote and can influence voting behavior to some extent. In 2000, a research study on partisanship voting in the US found evidence that partisan voting has a large effect. However, partisan voting has a larger effect on national elections, such as a presidential election, than it does on congressional elections.[10] Furthermore, there is also a distinction of partisan voting behavior relative to a voter's age and education. Those over 50 years old and those without a high school diploma are more likely to vote based on partisan loyalty.[10] This research is based on the US [10] and has not been confirmed to accurately predict voting patterns in other democracies.

A 1960 study of postwar Japan found that urban citizens were more likely to be supportive of socialist or progressive parties, while rural citizens were favorable of conservative parties.[11] Regardless of the political preference, this is an interesting differentiation that can be attributed to effective influence.

Voters have also been seen to be affected by coalition and alliance politics, whether such coalitions form before or after the election. In these cases, voters can be swayed by feelings on coalition partners when considering their feelings toward their preferred party.[12]

The concept of electoral ergonomics was created by Michael Brute and Sarah Harrison, who defined it as the interface between electoral arrangements and organization and the psychology of voters.[2] In other words, it examines how the structure of an election or voting process influences the psychology of voters in a given election.

It is important to consider how electoral arrangements affect the emotions of the voter and therefore their electoral behavior. In the week running up to elections, 20 to 30% of voters either decide who they will vote for or change their initial decisions, with around half of them on election day.[2] One study has found that people are more likely to vote for conservative candidates if polling stations are located in a church, and another study finds voters aged 18–24 are nearly twice as likely to vote for parties on the extreme right if voting is done through the post.[2]

Affective influence

A growing body of literature on the significance of affect in politics finds that affective states play a role in public voting behavior that can be both beneficial and biasing. Affect here refers to the experience of emotion or feeling, which is often described in contrast to cognition. This work largely follows from findings in psychology regarding the ways in which affective states are involved in human judgment and decision-making.[13]

Research in political science has traditionally ignored non-rational considerations in its theories of mass political behavior, but the incorporation of social psychology has become increasingly common. In exploring the benefits of affect on voting, researchers have argued that affective states such as anxiety and enthusiasm encourage the evaluation of new political information and thus benefit political behavior by leading to more considered choices.[14] Others, however, have discovered ways in which affect such as emotion and mood can significantly bias the voting choices of the electorate. For example, evidence has shown that a variety of events that are irrelevant to the evaluation of candidates but can stir emotions, such as the outcome of football matches[15] and weather,[16] can significantly affect voting decisions.

Several variables have been proposed that may moderate the relationship between emotion and voting. Researchers have shown that one such variable may be political sophistication, with higher sophistication voters more likely to experience emotions in response to political stimuli and thus more prone to emotional biases in voting choice.[17] Affective intensity has also been shown to moderate the relationship between affect and voting, with one study finding a doubling of estimated effect for higher-intensity affective shocks.[15]

Another variable which has been shown to influence voting behaviour is the weather. Hot temperatures can have divergent effects on human behaviour,[18] due to the fact that it can lead to heightened arousal. As such, increases in arousal due to increases in temperature might impact the result of an election, because of its proposed impact on collective behaviours such as voter turnout.[19] Previous studies have found that hot temperatures increase anger,[20] which, in turn, motivates people to vote.[21]

Mechanisms of affective influence on voting

The differential effect of several specific emotions have been studied on voting behavior:

Surprise – Recent research suggests that the emotion of surprise may magnify the effect of emotions on voting. In assessing the effect of home-team sports victories on voting, Healy et al. showed that surprising victories provided close to twice the benefit to the incumbent party compared to victories overall.[15]

Anger – Affective theory would predict that anger increases the use of generalized knowledge and reliance upon stereotypes and other heuristics. An experiment on students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst showed that people who had been primed with an anger condition relied less upon issue-concordance when choosing between candidates than those who had been primed with fear.[22] In a separate laboratory study, subjects primed with the anger emotion were significantly less likely to seek information about a candidate and spent less time reviewing a candidate's policy positions on the web.[23]

Anxiety – Affective intelligence theory identifies anxiety as an emotion that increases political attentiveness while decreasing reliance on party identification when deciding between candidates, thus improving decision-making capabilities. Voters who report anxiety regarding an election are more likely to vote for candidates whose policies they prefer, and party members who report feeling anxious regarding a candidate are twice as likely to defect and vote for the opposition candidate.[14] Others have denied that anxiety's indirect influence on voting behavior has been proven to the exclusion of alternative explanations, such as the possibility that less preferred candidates produce feelings of anxiety, as opposed to the reverse.[24]

Fear – Studies in psychology has shown that people experiencing fear rely on more detailed processing when making choices.[25] One study found that subjects primed with fear spent more time seeking information on the web before a hypothetical voting exercise than those primed with anger.[22]

Pride – Results from the American National Elections Survey found that pride, along with hope and fear, explained a significant amount of the variance in peoples' 2008 voting choices. The size of the effect of expressions of pride on voting for McCain was roughly one third of the size of the effect of party identification, typically the strongest predictor.[26] Appeals to pride were also found to be effective in motivating voter turnout among high-propensity voters, though the effect was not as strong as appeals to shame.[27]

Neuroticism- This is usually defined as emotional instability characterized by more extreme and maladaptive responses to stressors and a higher likelihood of negative emotions (e.g., anxiety, anger, and fear).[28] This has become a big influencer in recent elections and referendums, like the 2016 EU referendum and 2016 Presidential Election, have been run from a populist standpoint, where they have played upon voters fears.[28] This conception of neuroticism as a lowered threshold for detecting and responding to stimuli as threatening or dangerous suggests that individuals high on this trait will be more receptive to campaigns, such as populism, which specifically prey on fears of looming threats and dangers. Research shows that once these fears have been activated, they can affect decisions of all kinds, including voting behaviour.[29]

Effects of voting on emotion

The act of voting itself can produce emotional responses that may bias the choices voters make and potentially affect subsequent emotional states.

A recent study on voters in Israel found that voters' cortisol levels, the so-called "stress hormone," were significantly higher immediately before entering a polling place than personal baseline levels measured on a similar, non-election day.[30] This may be significant for voting choices since cortisol is known to affect memory consolidation, memory retrieval, and reward- and risk-seeking behavior.[31] Acute stress may disrupt decision making and affect cognition.[32]

Additionally, research done on voters in Ann Arbor and Durham after the US 2008 elections showed partial evidence that voting for the losing candidate may lead to increased cortisol levels relative to levels among voters who chose the winning candidate.[33]

Moreover, Rui Antunes indicated within a 2010 academic study that a personal relationship created with the political parties in America. This may be due to the strong influence in the USA of the development of this relationship through a socialisation process which is somewhat caused by the nature of the individual's background.[34]

Practical implications

Political campaigns

The use of emotional appeals in political campaigns to increase support for a candidate or decrease support for a challenger is a widely recognized practice and a common element of any campaign strategy.[35] Campaigns often seek to instill positive emotions such as enthusiasm and hopefulness about their candidate among party bases to improve turnout and political activism while seeking to raise fear and anxiety about the challenger. Enthusiasm tends to reinforce preferences, whereas fear and anxiety tends to interrupt behavioral patterns and leads individuals to look for new sources of information.[14]

Political surveys

Research findings illustrate that it is possible to influence a persons' attitudes toward a political candidate using carefully crafted survey questions, which in turn may influence his or her voting behavior.[36] A laboratory study in the UK focused on participants' attitude toward former Prime Minister Tony Blair during the 2001 pre-election period via a telephone survey. After gauging participants' interest in politics, the survey asked the participants to list either i) two positive characteristics of the Prime Minister, ii) five positive characteristics of the Prime Minister, iii) two negative characteristics of the Prime Minister, or iv) five negative characteristics of the Prime Minister. Participants were then asked to rate their attitude toward Blair on a scale from 1 to 7 where higher values reflected higher favorability.[37]

Listing five positive or negative characteristics for the Prime Minister was challenging; especially for those with little or no interest in politics. The ones asked to list five positive characteristics were primed negatively towards the politicians because it was too hard to name five good traits. On the contrary, following the same logic, those who were to list five negative, came to like the politician better than before. This conclusion was reflected in the final survey stage when participants evaluated their attitude toward the Prime Minister.[38]

Military voting behavior

Recent research into whether military personnel vote or behave politically than the general population has challenged some long-held conventional wisdom. The political behavior of officers has been extensively studied by Holsti,[39] Van Riper & Unwalla,[40] and Feaver & Kohn[41][42] In the United States, particularly since the end of the Vietnam War, officers are strongly conservative in nature and tend to identify with the Republican Party in the United States.

Enlisted personnel political behavior has only been studied more recently, notably by Dempsey,[43] and Inbody.[44][45][46] Enlisted personnel, often thought to behave and vote as did officers, do not. They more nearly represent the general population. In general, the usual demographic predictors of voting and other political behavior apply to military personnel.

Technological implications

Access to technology

We are currently living in an era within which we are becoming increasingly reliant upon the use of technology; many of us have become accustomed to using technology and therefore would find it very difficult to function and make decisions without it. As a result of this, voting behaviour has been changing significantly in recent years due to these advancements in technology and media, "tracing the rise of email, party websites, social media, online videos and gamification, scholars have shown, since the 1990s, parties have become heavily dependent on digital technology."[47] This portrays just how important access to technology is, as many will alter their views on which political party to vote for, whether to vote at all and whether they encourage the next generation to vote based upon what they learn whilst using technology. Figures show that even in a country like India, ravaged with poverty, the high importance of technology in comparison to the importance of hygiene as: "far more people in India have access to a cell phone than to a toilet and improved sanitation."[48] Evidently, access to technology is not only important, it will soon become essential to allow a voter to gain a full understanding of their voters rights as well as helping them to make the important decision of whom to vote for since "casting a vote is the main way in which people participate in the democratic process."[49]

Impacts of social media

Research has shown that due to the advancements in technology over the last two decades, politicians and their political parties are becoming heavily reliant on technology and in particular social media outlets such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. Martin Moore supported this view in his book, "A survey conducted amongst British journalists that summer found that seventy per cent were using Twitter for reporting."[50] Therefore voters are now accessing information from less conventional outlets; yet the ease allows for politicians to expand their reach from the eldest generations, right down to the younger generations. Although social media has many positive implications, the lack of monitoring and accessibility opens a gateway for foreign interference in elections and indoctrination of voters.

Statistics

In the 2016 US Presidential Election, 61.4 percent of the citizen voting-age population reported voting, a number not statistically different from the 61.8 percent who reported voting in 2012. In 2016, turnout increased to 65.3 percent for non-Hispanic whites, but decreased to 59.6 percent for non-Hispanic blacks. 2016 was only the second election ever where the share of non-Hispanic black voters decreased, from 12.9 percent in 2012 to 11.9 percent in 2016. When analyzed together, reported turnout by age, race and Hispanic origin differed in 2016 as well. In comparison to 2012, younger non-Hispanic whites between the ages of 18 to 29 and between the ages of 30 to 44 reported higher turnout in 2016, while voting rates for the two oldest groups of non-Hispanic whites were not statistically different. Meanwhile, for non-Hispanic blacks, turnout rates decreased in 2016 for every age group. For other race non-Hispanics and Hispanics of any race, voting rates between 2012 and 2016 were not statistically different for any age groups.[51]

Loss aversion

The loss aversion theory[52] by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman is often associated with voting behavior as people are more likely to use their vote to avoid the effect of an unfavorable policy rather than supporting a favorable policy. From a psychological perspective, value references are crucial to determine individual preferences.[53] Furthermore, it could be argued that the fact that loss aversion is found only in high stakes serves as a validation of loss aversion, because it shows that even when people care much about the outcome of their decision they are still biased.[54] This is evident when it comes to elections and referendums, as voters make their choices based on the cost benefit analysis. For instance, it has been suggested that the loss aversion theory can be used to explain why negativity bias played a crucial role in the 2014 campaign for the Scottish independence referendum.[55]

See also

• Psychology portal
• Philosophy portal
• Politics portal
• Altruism theory of voting
• Emotion
• Emotional bias
• Emotions in decision making
• Voting correctly
• Voting gender gap
• Political Cognition

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 See also: "Works by Jason K. Dempsey".
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 See also: "Works by Donald S. Inbody". 2018-06-26.
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 See also: Kahneman, Daniel; Tversky, Amos, eds. (2000). Choices, values, and frames. New York Cambridge, UK: Russell sage Foundation Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521627498.
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The Democrats Are Trying To Lose
by David Sirota
Dec 19, 2021

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

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Cognitive dissonance is one of the defining traits of American politics, but with this weekend’s blow against the Build Back Better bill, we’ve now reached an inflection point: Americans are being simultaneously asked to believe that Democrats are mounting a valiant last-ditch defense of democracy against insurrectionists and election deniers, and yet we’re also watching Democrats proudly surrender the midterm elections to those same fascists, knowingly creating Weimar-esque conditions for an authoritarian takeover.

Taken together, this is far more than hypocrisy: In JFK lingo, this is an admission that the ruling party wants the bear-any-burden brand of democracy defenders, but without the pay-any-price actions that might assure the survival and success of liberty.

In the last week, the contradictions have been too blatant to miss, even if corporate news outlets continue doing their best to ignore, omit, downplay, and distract from them.

On the one hand, we see congressional Democrats casting themselves as the heroes of a West Wing episode, rightly screaming about all the web of connections between the January 6th rioters, right-wing news outlets, and top Trump officials, who appear to have been entertaining plans for an actual coup.

On the other hand, we see Democrats fully leaning into a likely 2022 disaster. They are going far beyond merely refusing to give Americans an affirmative reason to vote for them; in sabotaging their own purported agenda, they seem to be deliberately trying to lose to the very fascists they claim to oppose, going out of their way to insult and harm as many voters as possible before their likely collapse.

A Barrage Of Betrayals, Capitulations, And Insults

This weekend’s big news is the likely death of the Build Back Better bill, which includes most of the party’s climate, health care, housing, and other social spending promises. But this plot twist is only the latest chapter in a larger story. Consider what’s happened in the lead up:

• Upon assuming office, one of President Joe Biden’s first moves was to tell governors that his $15 minimum wage campaign promise was effectively a lie — and congressional Democrats then insulted everyone’s intelligence by blaming their own fireable parliamentary adviser, an appointed bureaucrat with no real power, for the betrayal.
• While flirting with cuts to housing programs, Democrats have mismanaged meager rental assistance programs and allowed the eviction moratorium to end — a one-two punch that is now creating a mass eviction process reminiscent of the meltdown that caused Democrats’ 2010 electoral massacre.
• Democrats spent months touting their plan for permanent tax breaks for wealthy mansion owners in affluent blue-state locales, while limiting a proposed child tax credit extension to just one year, even as survey data suggest the tax credit is one of the only things that has made some Trump voters like Democrats a bit more.
• Just 48 hours after new polling data showed swing-state voters are most concerned about rampant political corruption, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., made national headlines brushing off the idea of anti-corruption legislation to stop her and other lawmakers from personally enriching themselves off inside information they receive as government officials. She rejected the concept even after a new report showed lawmakers and their staffers flagrantly violating existing ethics rules governing stock trades.
• Amid the Omicron surge, the Democratic White House scoffed at the idea of providing free COVID tests, has refused to use its executive authority to share vaccine recipes, and has completely discarded its promised public health insurance option, instead offering its insurance donors more subsidies in exchange for inadequate insurance that bankrupts people.
• Biden is now heading into the election year openly reneging on his student debt relief promise as he hemorrhages support from young people. Instead, he is pledging to restart loan repayment, even as new research shows that this debt is contributing to the housing crisis. Meanwhile, the eviction machine is firing on all cylinders.

All of this culminated in the modern expression of austerity, corruption, ineptitude, and let-them-eat-cakeism that coincided with the rise of fascism in Europe less than a century ago: In this iteration, a Maserati-driving coal magnate from one of the country’s poorest states stepped off his luxury yacht and told the country that he’s rescinding his promised support for any relief, just after he proudly backed a giant defense spending authorization bill, and after he previously demanded a giant bailout for his Wall Street donors. The declaration by the Wolf of West Virginia was a huge win for corporate lobbyists, Manchin’s billionaire donors, and his family’s fossil fuel business.

It was also a turn of events that seemed preordained by Democratic leaders who never once put Manchin on the spot, never once forced him to cast a single uncomfortable vote, never once tried to generate local pressure on him, and never once compelled him to explain his actions to his destitute constituents. Remember when a few protesters paddled up to Manchin's yacht to beg him to support the Build Back Better bill? That represented more pressure than the entire national Democratic Party machine and its Washington advocacy groups were willing to aim at the West Virginia senator.

And let’s not forget that in letting Manchin off the hook, Democratic leaders got a big assist from the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), most of whose members dutifully followed White House orders and abandoned their promise to keep the relief bill tied to the infrastructure bill that Manchin helped write.

That high-profile CPC capitulation has been depicted as “know when to hold’em, know when to fold ‘em” savviness — but it came as Biden has been telegraphing his real intent all along. He pushed to slash the original Build Back Better bill, and has spent the year loafing around the White House with a pile of executive actions that he could issue under existing law but that he has refused to bother with.

Liberals and pundits in the capital have obediently tried to shift the blame for the impending political disaster to anyone other than the “get things done” president who was long touted as a legislative mastermind and Giant Of The Senate™. At the same time, there’s now a cottage industry of Washington media folk feigning confusion about why-oh-why Biden’s approval ratings have plummeted.


Biden
Biden refusing to use exec authority to fulfill promises
Libs: "Blame Manchin & Sinema!"

But the reason is obvious to any minimally functioning brain stem outside the Beltway: The pass-the-blame game isn’t working. As in the 2009-2010 period, Americans were promised specific economic benefits, the ruling party has made a show of refusing to deliver those things, and is now making an even bigger, bolder spectacle of betrayal. Naturally, voters don’t appreciate being given the middle finger, especially when they are engulfed in multiple crises.

Corporate media doesn’t like to acknowledge this simple story because it’s not exciting and doesn’t serve media owners’ interests, but every now and again there’s a begrudging admission like the one at the very bottom of a recent much-discussed New York Times article about the “socialism” label and declining Democratic support among Latinos. In the 12th paragraph of the piece, the newspaper finally admitted that “the majority of those surveyed said they wished that Mr. Biden could have enacted more change than he has so far, which pollsters tied to ‘deep anxiety about the economy.’”

Of course, had these capitulations, betrayals and insults risked the 2022 midterms in service of some larger moral-but-politically-divisive cause like combating the climate crisis, perhaps you could make a case that it was all worth it.

But, in fact, quite the opposite has happened: While flattering credulous liberals with “believe science” rhetoric, Biden has used his executive authority to ignore climate science, boost tar sands pipelines and vastly expand fossil fuel drilling, in some cases at an even faster clip than his Republican predecessor.

While Biden fans have spent months pretending the president somehow has no power to fight his own party members like Manchin, Biden’s White House has also been proving the opposite as it helps the fossil fuel industry stomp on Michigan’s Democratic governor and make the climate cataclysm even worse.

A Broken Formula

In October, The Daily Poster wrote that if Democrats were really serious about passing the Build Back Better bill, they would hold a vote and force Manchin to show whether he has the guts to publicly vote down so much aid to his own West Virginia constituents. Some House progressives are only now echoing that demand. Better late than never, but it might be too late.

If the legislation is dead, Democrats will now stumble into 2022 banking on two last arguments: They’ll protect abortion and voting rights. But in this tragicomedy of errors, they can’t seem to even stand by those most bedrock promises.

As the Supreme Court tries to transform America into Gilead, the party has been raising money off promising that “we will always fight tooth and nail to protect access to safe, legal abortion.” And yet Democratic congressional leaders have bottled up long-promised legislation to codify Roe in federal law, and the Biden White House doesn’t seem interested in a fight against corporate lobbyists to seriously reform the GOP’s radicalized Supreme Court. At the state level, it’s just as bad: Democratic legislative leaders in Virginia reportedly won’t even return from vacation to protect reproductive rights ahead of that state’s Republican takeover.

Likewise on voting rights, as Republicans spent months telegraphing their intent to gerrymander the next decade of congressional elections, Democrats bottled up their anti-gerrymandering legislation until after the key Census deadline that now allows such GOP manipulation to happen. Democrats have now performatively turned back to the voting rights bill, knowing that Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., have never faced the necessary public pressure campaign that might get them to stop propping up the filibuster blockade.

Tellingly, the Democratic Senate didn’t make time to even debate the voting rights legislation that Democrats suddenly purport to care about, but somehow the same Senate found time to secure a plum job for disgraced former mayor Rahm Emanuel.

It is profoundly illuminating that Democrats are betting on a half-hearted, likely-doomed-to-fail voting-rights initiative as their 2022 savior. It evinces a deeply cynical belief that voters will keep being fooled by their Lucy-and-the-football act of pretending to be for things while setting those things up to never actually happen. And even if you think the belated initiative somehow represents a serious attempt to legislate, it nonetheless illustrates party leaders’ warped world view, their sense of entitlement, and their assumption of inevitability.

For decades, the basic formula in Democratic politics involved three steps: 1) You get elected on promises, 2) you deliver on said promises, and 3) you then make it as easy as possible for people to vote for you in the next election.

But since Obama won in 2008, modern-era Democrats seem intent on skipping the second step and maybe even the third, as if governing and delivering aren’t important to electoral success — and as if serving the donor class is the only thing that matters. Back then it was enriching Wall Street donors while millions were foreclosed on, today it is demanding an infrastructure bill that oil lobbyists want while killing social programs that everyone else needs. The details change, but the story remains the same.

The presumption seems to be that come election time, voters owe the Democrats their support, rather than Democrats owing voters the promised policies that improve people’s lives. Democrats also seem to believe that democratic institutions unto themselves — in absence of policy followthrough — will automatically generate positive political outcomes for their party. The idea is that people will vote harder, because they have to, given the alternative.

The national elections of 2010, 2014 and 2016 — as well as Virginia’s 2021 election — prove the opposite. They show that when a ruling party so obviously sides with its corporate sponsors, voters are perfectly willing to stay home or use those democratic institutions to throw that party out of office — even if that means electing an even worse set of villains.

In this era, those villains aren’t just the anti-tax zealots or libertarians of old — they are Republican extremists willing to exacerbate a deadly pandemic, threaten violence, and destroy the last shreds of democracy in order to seize power.

In what should be an archetypal good-versus-evil Hollywood story, Democratic leaders have changed up the script — they’ve made clear they are unwilling to do what’s necessary to ward off this menace. Indeed, some of them have explicitly ridiculed the idea of any kind of FDR-esque response to the very real, very explicit rise of fascism.

Intent on owning the left and serving their donors, Democrats are waving the white flag of surrender. Though in truth, even that metaphor isn’t apt. Now more than ever it seems as if Democrats are willing participants in a theatrical production whose conclusion is already scripted. Forced to choose between their sponsors’ demands and fulfilling the campaign promises necessary to win the midterms, these Democrats have chosen the former — with most of them knowing they’ll be richly rewarded with post-government payouts as the rest of the country burns.

This is a parable that has been told countless times in history — the story of an effete ruling party trying to satiate the greedy rich and also somehow placate the desperately destitute, and then that contradiction being ridiculed, shamed, and exploited by right-wing opportunists.

It is a gut-wrenching tale that never ends well, but it is a tale worth telling — if only to know what went so horribly wrong, so that perhaps this fate can be avoided when the Democratic gerontocracy is long gone.

Maybe then all the obvious cautionary lessons from the Weimar era to the present won’t fall on such deaf ears. Thanks to what’s happening right now, it will be a long and difficult path to that future — but if we want any kind of future at all, that future must start now.

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They Are Not Even Pretending Anymore: Top Democratic leaders are joining with oligarchs to try to permanently destroy the progressive movement.
by David Sirota
May 17, 2022

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Republicans want a revolution, Democrats want to go to brunch — that’s been a concise way to understand American politics, but 2022’s primary season has made clear it is not exactly accurate.

Democratic leaders don’t just want avocado toast and mimosas — they want an outright counterrevolution. Only not against the GOP insurrection — against the Democratic rank and file, and in many cases for the politicians most hostile to the party’s (purported) agenda.

Last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) sounded an important alarm about all this, slamming billionaires and conservative advocacy groups blanketing the airwaves with television ads supporting corporate candidates in this week’s pivotal Democratic congressional primaries. But the Vermont senator understated the situation.

The perpetrators rigging these elections aren’t just meddling oligarchs operating on their own. This call is coming from inside the Democratic house from party leaders, who are at minimum passively condoning the trend, and in many cases actively fueling it with endorsements and its machine.

In all, more than a dozen consulting firms that have worked directly for either Democratic Party committees or President Joe Biden’s political apparatus have been paid more than $12 million by the allegedly independent super PACs now buying primary elections for corporate candidates, according to federal disclosures reviewed by The Lever.

Among the firms is SKDK, led by Biden White House senior advisor Anita Dunn, and Waterfront Strategies, an affiliate of the Democratic media buying firm GMMB that works with the super PACs for both House and Senate Democrats. One of the committees is run by longtime Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, who has advised the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), which elects House Democrats, as well as corporate clients in the health insurance and pharmaceutical sectors.

The first few months of 2022 tell the story of their leadership-sanctioned crusade to snuff out the progressive movement:

- In Oregon’s newly drawn 5th congressional district, Biden defied local Democratic county organizations and endorsed incumbent Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader over his more progressive challenger Jamie McLeod-Skinner. Biden said that “when it has mattered most, Kurt has been there for me” — despite Schrader opposing and then helping gut Biden’s long-promised legislation to reduce the price of medicine. Schrader also helped Republicans sever Biden’s social spending legislation from a bipartisan, corporate-friendly infrastructure bill — effectively killing the former. Schrader’s campaign is being boosted by a super PAC bankrolled by a Big Pharma front group.

- Also in Oregon, House Democrats’ super PAC has spent $1 million for Carrick Flynn, who The Oregonian notes is “an electoral novice who’s barely participated in Oregon civic life,” supporting him over progressive State Rep. Andrea Salinas. The move appears to be designed to ingratiate House Democrats with cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, a top Biden donor who is bankrolling a separate super PAC boosting Flynn and other corporate Democratic primary candidates across the country. Meanwhile, in Oregon’s 4th congressional district, top Democratic leaders are intervening to tilt that open-seat primary toward former Labor Commissioner Val Hoyle, who has backed a controversial fracked gas pipeline.

- In Ohio, Biden and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) intervened to secure the election for corporate-friendly Democrat Shontel Brown in Cleveland’s newly-drawn safe Democratic House seat. In that race, the Democratic leaders aligned themselves against progressive Nina Turner and with an oil-industry-funded super PAC called Democratic Majority For Israel (DMFI) in support of a candidate who refused to co-sponsor the party’s major climate legislation. The effort to crush Turner also got a boost from the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, which endorsed Brown. DMFI is led by the pollster Mellman and an ally to the pro-Israel lobby American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

- In Pennsylvania, Democratic power brokers are joining an AIPAC-funded super PAC’s effort to try to tank progressive state Rep. Summer Lee (D) in her battle against Steve Irwin, who previously led the “union avoidance” division of a corporate law firm.The spending has reportedly erased Lee’s lead in the race.

- In North Carolina, Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam, a Green New Deal supporter, is being flamethrowered by DMFI, AIPAC donors and Bankman-Fried’s super PAC, which are backing a more conservative candidate.

- In Texas, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Clyburn responded to the likely overturning of Roe v. Wade by reiterating their support for incumbent anti-abortion Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar in his primary with pro-choice candidate Jessica Cisneros. The House leadership is sticking by Cuellar even after law enforcement officials raided his home. "I'm supporting Henry Cuellar, he's a valued member of our caucus," Pelosi declared, adding: “The FBI has said he is not under investigation."

There Is No Pretense Anymore

Taken together, the endorsements, the donor overlap, and the party ties of the allegedly independent committees show there is no real separation between the Democratic leadership and the “outside” spending. This is one large party-sanctioned operation aimed at the left, even when corporatists are undermining the party’s agenda and its own president. Indeed, rather than amping up potential progressive primary pressure on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Biden’s political machine actually ran ads touting her as she was killing his signature economic legislation and driving down his approval ratings.

This lack of pretense, where the leadership isn’t even pretending to be impartial or progressive, represents a significant break from the past.

Once upon a time (read: up to the mid 2000s), Democratic leaders typically stayed officially neutral in intraparty battles. These weren’t exactly halcyon days — the power brokers still quietly encouraged donor support for preferred candidates. However, that kind of rigging was hidden in the shadows, so as to not publicly violate the once-sacrosanct idea that Democratic voters should be trusted to choose nominees and — by extension — the party’s ideological complexion.

That tradition began to change in 2006 after Rahm Emanuel bought a Chicago-area congressional seat and began hand-picking House Democratic nominees through the party’s campaign apparatus. Later, the party’s political machine went all in against Sanders’ 2020 presidential primary campaign and then went in even stronger for corporate candidates in contested Senate primaries in Iowa, Maine, Kentucky, North Carolina, Texas and Colorado — and in the latter case, even progressives like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) participated in the scale-thumbing.

All of this escalated to the DCCC literally blacklisting political consultants who worked for unapproved Democratic candidates.

For their part, Democratic operatives don’t ever admit they are trying to help business donors pulverize rank-and-file voters and perform a hostile takeover of the party. Instead, they often make the “pragmatism” argument, asserting (with few facts) their primary interventions are designed to help corporate candidates who are allegedly the most “electable” in tough general elections.

The existence of reasonably progressive red- and purple-state senators like Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin should debunk such assumptions, but also: Many of the party leadership’s interventions were and continue to happen in Democratic-leaning locales whose general elections inherently favor the eventual Democratic nominees, regardless of their ideological moorings.

Meanwhile, in purple states, many of those corporate-friendly candidates picked by party bosses for their alleged “electability” last cycle were summarily crushed in their general elections.

None of those losses prompted accountability or change — it’s still the same gerontocracy and consultants calling the shots, which spotlights an important truth.

Democratic leaders are bad at defeating Republicans in competitive races, bad at passing meaningful legislation, bad at coming up with a coherent message, and — according to new polling data -— bad at convincing most voters to like their party. The new redistricting maps in New York show they are even bad at protecting their own representation in blue states.

But they are extremely good at two things: preserving their own power inside their party and destroying the American Left.

Movements Cannot Be Built With Unicorns

Of course, there are always exceptions.

In 2018, the exception was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeating lobbyist favorite and Biff Tannen doppleganger Joe Crowley in a New York City Democratic primary.

In 2020, it was Cori Bush defeating the Clay machine in a St. Louis Democratic primary.

This year, with a little luck it could be Lt. Gov. John Fetterman defeating corporate-bankrolled, establishment-backed Rep. Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania’s Senate Democratic primary.

The problem is that so far, such victories — laudable as they are — seem to be unicorn stories rather than reflections of a systemic power shift in primary politics that can be reliably replicated.

Ocasio-Cortez snuck up on a lazy Democratic incumbent who was both ideologically and demographically out of touch with his district.

Bush had run once before and then won a low-turnout primary against an incumbent who was so preposterously corrupt and loyal to bankers that he was portrayed as at odds even with Wall Street favorite Barack Obama — an electoral death sentence in a Democratic primary in a majority African American district.

As for Fetterman, he may be the closest to creating a replicable model, but there are caveats.

He’s been running for a Senate seat for seven straight years, and vaulted himself into a statewide office by winning a primary against a scandal-plagued incumbent. In that interim, he has used sartorial iconoclasm and tireless campaigning to develop a quasi-celebrity brand, build a grassroots fundraising base, and deter Senate Democrats from officially intervening in the Pennsylvania primary like they previously had in 2020 primaries.

All of that is to his credit. Fetterman is now in the rare position of being a serious Senate contender with progressive positions that have drawn powerful corporate enemies — and if he wins Tuesday’s primary, it is undoubtedly a major defeat for the Democratic machine.

-- JOHN FETTERMAN WINS PENNSYLVANIA DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY BY THROWING OUT THE DEMOCRATIC PLAYBOOK, by Abigail Tracy, Vanity Fair, May 17, 2022

However, Fetterman’s playbook is difficult to employ further down the ballot in lower profile House races or state legislative battles where candidates struggle to achieve any name recognition at all. The same goes for many Senate and gubernatorial races.

Sure, if you’ve never worked on a campaign, it’s easy to blame progressive candidates and insist they should all just find a way to pull off miracles like AOC or Bush or (hopefully) Fetterman. But American politics isn’t Moneyball. There’s no way that progressive candidates in most races can be Billy Bean’s Oakland A’s engineering a Cinderella story by finding a glitch in the numbers — at least not consistently.

Yes, the occasional unicorn with a unique brand and notoriety in the exact right situation can win a primary every now and again (and I say that as the spouse of a Democratic legislator who did that). But a national movement up and down the ballot to dethrone a corrupt and decrepit Democratic Party establishment almost certainly will not be successful if it must rely only on once-in-a-blue-moon candidates running in extremely rare conditions.

Put another way: Movements are built not from anomalies, but from the day to day slog of normalcy. A movement’s success can be judged on whether the political infrastructure exists not just to help a rare unicorn win a high-profile office, but to also win primaries for rank-and-file, non-celebrity candidates running for the lowest tier offices that voters barely know exist.

There are certainly parts of that infrastructure being constructed in fits and starts — from the Working Families Party to the Democratic Socialists of America, the latter of whose slate of successful New York legislative candidates dealt a blow to that state’s corrupt Democratic machine. Justice Democrats has also racked up a few congressional wins.

Those groups, though, still remain largely locked out of power. Indeed, much-touted Bush-era projects like the Democracy Alliance and liberals’ constellation of anti-GOP think tanks have spent nearly 20 years and $2 billion failing to halt the right, but they did win oligarch control of a crippled Democratic Party.

And so let’s be honest about where things stand: A full-fledged electoral movement for progressive representation in government still doesn’t exist — and now the Democratic leadership and its corporate donors have decided to do everything they can to make sure it never exists.

“Big Money corporate interests, with the aid of the House Democratic leadership and corporatist elements in the White House, are coming for the millions of progressive and economically populist voters who joined with center-left corporatists to elect Joe Biden and a Democratic Congress,” Sanders’ longtime top aide Jeff Weaver wrote this week. “The goal of (their) war is to make elected progressives extinct and to extinguish the agenda of higher wages, affordable health care, criminal justice reform, addressing climate change, and putting more economic and political power in the hands of everyday people of all races.”

There are no quick fixes here, no single trick that will make everything better. But at least there is no more pretending. Now we know the contours of this war, and as the old G.I. Joe cartoon told every kid my age: Knowing is half the battle.

[admin]

Donald Trump’s bond with the GOP deepens after primary wins, FBI search
by PBS
Politics
Aug 11, 2022 2:46 PM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s pick for governor in the swing state of Wisconsin easily defeated a favorite of the Republican establishment. As the 2022 midterm season enters its final phase, the Republicans on the November ballot are tied to the divisive former president as never before — whether they like it or not.

In Connecticut, the state that launched the Bush family and its brand of compassionate conservatism, a fiery Senate contender who promoted Trump’s election lies upset the state GOP’s endorsed candidate. Meanwhile in Washington, Republicans ranging from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene defended Trump against an unprecedented FBI search.

And that was just this week.

The rapid developments crystalized the former president’s singular status atop a party he has spent the past seven years breaking down and rebuilding in his image. Facing mounting legal vulnerabilities and considering another presidential run, he needs support from the party to maintain his political career. But, whether they like it or not, many in the party also need Trump, whose endorsement has proven crucial for those seeking to advance to the November ballot.

“For a pretty good stretch, it felt like the Trump movement was losing more ground than it was gaining,” said Georgia Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who is urging his party to move past Trump. But now, he said, Trump is benefiting from “an incredibly swift tail wind.”

The Republican response to the FBI’s search of Trump’s Florida estate this week was an especially stark example of how the party is keeping Trump nearby. Some of the Republicans considering challenges to Trump in a 2024 presidential primary, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, were among those defending him. Even long-established Trump critics like Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan questioned the search, pressing for details about its circumstances.

But even before the FBI showed up at Mar-a-Lago, Trump was gaining momentum in his post-presidential effort to shape the GOP. In all, nearly 180 Trump-endorsed candidates up and down the ballot have won their primaries since May while fewer than 20 have lost.

Only two of the 10 House Republicans who supported Trump’s impeachment after the Jan. 6 insurrection are expected back in Congress next year. Rep. Jaime Herrera-Beutler, R-Wash., who conceded defeat after her Tuesday primary, was the latest to fall. Leading Trump antagonist Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., is at risk of joining her next week.

The Trump victories include a clean sweep of statewide primary elections in Arizona last week — including an election denier in the race for the state’s chief elections official. Trump’s allies also prevailed Tuesday across Wisconsin and Connecticut, a state long known for its moderate Republican leanings.

In Wisconsin’s Republican primary for governor, wealthy Trump-backed businessman Tim Michels defeated former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, an establishment favorite. And in Connecticut, Leora Levy, who promoted Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen, surged to an unexpected victory over a more moderate rival after earning Trump’s official endorsement.

On Monday, just hours after the FBI search, Trump hosted a tele-town hall rally on her behalf. Levy thanked Trump in her acceptance speech, while railing against the FBI’s search.

“All of us can tell him how upset and offended and disgusted we were at what happened to him,” she said. “That is un-American. That is what they do in Cuba, in China, in dictatorships. And that will stop.”

Despite his recent dominance, Trump — and the Republicans close to him — face political and legal threats that could undermine their momentum as the GOP fights for control of Congress and statehouses across the nation this fall.

While Trump’s picks have notched notable victories in primaries this summer, they may struggle in the fall. That’s especially true in several governor’s races in Democratic-leaning states such as Connecticut and Maryland, where GOP candidates must track to the center to win a general election.

Meanwhile, several Republicans with White House ambitions are moving forward with a busy travel schedule that will take them to politically important states where they can back candidates on the ballot this year and build relationships heading into 2024.

DeSantis plans to boost high-profile Republican contenders across Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Former Vice President Mike Pence, another potential 2024 presidential contender, is scheduled to appear next week in New Hampshire.

On the legal front, the FBI search was part of an investigation into whether the former president took classified records from the White House to his Florida residence. While Republicans have rallied behind Trump, very few facts about the case have been released publicly. Trump’s attorneys have so far declined to release details from the search warrant.

Prosecutors in Washington and Georgia are also investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election he falsely claimed was stolen. The Jan. 6 congressional commission has exposed damning details about Trump’s behavior from Republican witnesses in recent hearings, which have prompted new concerns, at least privately, among the GOP establishment and donor class.

And on Wednesday, Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination as he testified under oath Wednesday in the New York attorney general’s long-running civil investigation into his business dealings.

Trump’s legal entanglements represent a distraction at best for Republican candidates who’d rather focus on President Joe Biden’s leadership, sky-high inflation and immigration troubles to help court moderate voters and independents in the general election.

“Today, every Republican in every state in this country should be talking about how bad Joe Biden is, how bad inflation is, how difficult it is to run a business and run a household,” said Duncan, the Georgia lieutenant governor. “But instead, we’re talking about some investigation, we’re talking about Donald Trump pleading the Fifth, we’re talking about Donald Trump endorsing some conspiracy theorist.”

Trump critics in both parties are ready and willing to highlight Trump’s shortcomings — and his relationship with midterm candidates — as more voters begin to pay attention to politics this fall.

“This is, and always has been, Donald Trump’s Republican Party,” Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said in an interview, condemning “MAGA Republicans” and their “extreme agenda” on abortion and other issues.

At the same time, the Republican Accountability Project and Protect Democracy launched a $3 million television and digital advertising campaign this week across seven swing states focused on Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 insurrection. The ads, which will run in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, feature testimonials from Republican voters who condemn Trump’s lies about nonexistent election fraud that fueled the Capitol attack.

One ad features congressional testimony from Cheney, the Wyoming Republican who has publicly declared that Trump should never hold public office again.

Still, Cheney faces her own primary election against a Trump-backed challenger next week in Wyoming. One of Trump’s top political targets this year, she is expected to lose. Anticipating a loss, Cheney’s allies suggest she may be better positioned to run for president in 2024, either as a Republican or independent.

Trump’s allies are supremely confident about his ability to win the GOP’s presidential nomination in 2024. In fact, aides who had initially pushed him to launch his campaign after the November midterms are now encouraging him to announce sooner to help freeze out would-be Republican challengers.

“It’s going to be very difficult for anyone to take the nomination away from him in 2024,” said Stephen Moore, a former Trump economic adviser who has spoken with Trump about his 2024 intentions. “He is running. That is a certainty.”

Rep. Tom Rice, R-S.C., predicted that Trump would “lose in a landslide” if he sought the presidency again, adding that the former president’s overall grasp on the party is “eroding on the edges.”

“In a normal election, you’ve got to win not just the base. You’ve got to win the middle, too, right, and maybe crossover on the other side,” said Rice, who lost his recent primary after voting in favor of Trump’s second impeachment.

Rice warned that Trump far-right candidates could lead to unnecessary losses for the party in November. “Donald Trump is pushing things so far to the right,” he said in an interview.

Meanwhile, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, eyeing a 2024 bid himself, warned against making bold political predictions two years before the Republican Party selects its next presidential nominee.

“We’re sitting here in August of 2022,” Christie said in an interview. “My sense is there’s a lot of water over the dam still to come before anybody can determine anybody’s individual position in the primaries of ’24 — except to say that if Donald Trump runs, he will certainly be a factor.”

Associated Press writers Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, and Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.