Conventions Are Still On ... For Now

Emily Glazer and John McCormick at The Wall Street Journal:

When the Democratic National Committee decided to move its convention up to mid-July—roughly two weeks earlier than in 2016—it was billed as a way to give the party’s nominee more time to focus on President Trump and spend general election dollars earlier.

The coronavirus pandemic is making that move seem riskier in retrospect, as Democrats face the possibility that much of the nation will be hunkered down for weeks or months to come. The earlier timetable is placing greater pressure on the party to decide whether the convention will move forward as planned.

Organizers of the Milwaukee gathering held hastily scheduled calls last week with groups involved in planning to discuss contingency scenarios, people familiar with the discussions said. Options mentioned on some of the calls included shortening the four-day convention by a day or holding a mostly remote event.

DNC spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa said the committee is “not considering a rules change at this time,” which would be required for a remote option to move forward. Chairman Tom Perez also said earlier this month that such changes weren’t in the works.

...
Blair Ellis, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Convention planned for late August in Charlotte, N.C., declined to answer questions about whether specific contingency plans are being discussed or donors are asking questions. That gathering is also expected to draw about 50,000 people.

Comment from Charlie on Previous Post: Political Money

"I think this point reinforces the idea that you can’t buy an election. If money is not the most important variable in making a successful campaign, what is? Is it support from the party establishment, or is it how much the candidate’s  message resonates with voters?" — Charlie Mounts

Bloomberg Fails and Reneges

Shane Goldmacher at NYT:

It was a billion-dollar flop.

Michael R. Bloomberg spent more than $900 million on his failed bid for the White House by the end of February, a spectacular sum and the most ever for a self-funded politician in American history. But it was not enough to help the billionaire candidate win a single state before he dropped out of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary in early March.

Mr. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, poured more than $500 million into television advertising and $100 million on digital ads during the course of his roughly 100-day campaign, according to a new filing made Friday with the Federal Election Commission. He spent tens of millions of dollars more on a raft of media consultants, pollsters and digital strategists, the filing showed.

Mr. Bloomberg paid more than $15 million for polling, including $11.5 million to the firm of the pollster Douglas Schoen. He spent more than $11 million on the firm created by ad-maker Bill Knapp to work on the 2020 campaign and another $4.8 million on the firm of Jimmy Siegel, another ad-maker. He directed $45 million to Hawkfish LLC, a private digital firm he owned and created before he entered the race. More than $30 million was spent on direct mail. And more than $1 million on meals for his staff that swelled to more than 2,000 in a few short months.

...
The lavish spending came to a crashing halt after Mr. Bloomberg exited the race. Mr. Bloomberg had attracted aides with outsize salaries, perks that included Manhattan apartments for some in his headquarters and the promise of a steady job — whether he won the nomination or not — trying to defeat President Trump through November.

 But plans for an independent super PAC have since been scrapped and former Bloomberg campaign officials said Friday they were transferring $18 million in leftover campaign funds to the Democratic National Committee instead. Campaign aides could reapply for jobs — at reduced salaries.

Molly Hensley-Clancy, Ruby Cramer, and  Rosie Gray at Buzzfeed:

That means many Bloomberg organizers are out of a job. Organizers in six swing states were informed this morning that they were being let go and given instructions for applying to the DNC.

“He’s chopping his employees in a pandemic,” said one staffer in Florida, who asked to remain anonymous because they had signed a nondisclosure agreement. “My life is now uprooted and I’m effectively homeless.

... 

”Bloomberg had already broken a promise of employment through November to some of the vast army of organizers he had hired throughout his three-month presidential campaign, on which he spent a record $687 million of his personal fortune. Staffers who were not in swing states were let go earlier this month.

But at the time, said the Florida staffer, they were still under the impression they would be employed by a Bloomberg campaign entity. “We got the message, ‘Hey don’t worry, you guys are fine.'”

The Bloomberg spokesperson said staffers were being encouraged to apply to work for the DNC: “The DNC Coordinated Campaign is hiring in every one of the six battleground states we identified — and more. And we will assist the DNC as much as we are able to, including by providing names of staff and working to help them onboard and grow their program as expediently as possible.”

Party in Government and Potential Scandal

James Walker at Newsweek:

Senators Richard Burr and Kelly Loeffler have faced calls to resign after it was revealed that the Republican lawmakers sold off stock holdings before the COVID-19 epidemic crashed markets.

Both of the senators reportedly attended briefings on the novel coronavirus outbreak and publicly sought to calm nerves as they dumped chunks of their portfolios ahead of market turmoil in March.

ProPublica reported on Thursday night that North Carolina Sen. Burr, the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, sold between $628,000 and $1.7 million worth of stock on February 13.

The stock dump came days after he co-authored a Fox News op-ed claiming the United States was "better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus."

Following the news of Sen. Burr's stock sell off, the Daily Beast reported that Sen. Loeffler of Georgia recorded a sale of stock on January 24—the day of an all-senators briefing with administration health officials that covered the COVID-19 outbreak.

Sen Loeffler responds:

This is a ridiculous and baseless attack. I do not make investment decisions for my portfolio. Investment decisions are made by multiple third-party advisors without my or my husband's knowledge or involvement.

— Senator Kelly Loeffler (@SenatorLoeffler) March 20, 2020

Joy Reid notes:

Even before her alleged crisis trading she was put on the committee REGULATING HER SPOUSE. Who’s he? “Jeffrey Sprecher is CEO of Intercontinental Exchange which is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and owns the New York Stock Exchange.” https://t.co/GrZjzUsWdz

— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) March 20, 2020

Burr won reelection in 2016. Long before the story broke, he said that he would not seek a fourth term in 2022.

Loeffler is an appointed senator.  In December, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp chose her to replace Johnny Isaskson, who resigned because of poor health.  Rep. Doug Collins wanted the appointment, and is running against Loeffler in a special "jungle primary" in November.  This primary is like top-two in California but with a key difference:  in the California top two system, the top two finishers always advance to the November electionr even if one gets a majority in the first round.  In the jungle primary, a candidate who gets a majority the first time wins the election outright.

NRSC has a policy of backing the party's incumbents, even appointed ones, and harshly attacked Collins:

Following Doug Collins’ Senate announcement, the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s Executive Director Kevin McLaughlin released the following statement in support of Senator Kelly Loeffler (R-GA):

“The shortsightedness in this decision is stunning. Doug Collins’ selfishness will hurt David Perdue, Kelly Loeffler, and President Trump. Not to mention the people of Georgia who stand to bear the burden of it for years to come. All he has done is put two senate seats, multiple house seats, and Georgia’s 16 electoral votes in play. The NRSC stands firmly behind Sen. Kelly Loeffler and urges anyone who wants to re-elect President Trump, hold the GOP senate majority, and stop socialism to do the same.”

A Negative View of the Top Two Primary

Joe Mathews at Fox and Hounds writes about results in the 38th Assembly District of California.

Top two has scored another victory for its supporters, which is to say there’s been yet another defeat for California democracy.

This dubious victory was in the Santa Clarita Valley, where a March election advanced two Republicans to November’s run-off elections. This happened in a district currently represented by a Democrat.

What happened?

Top two.

The ballot had only two Republicans—one got over 30 percent, and the other over 18 percent. But it had five Democrats, who split the vote almost perfectly. So the two Republicans advance.

Judging by the percentages of votes, Democrats and Republicans are relatively evenly split in the district. In a rational system, there would be one Democrat and Republican advancing. In a truly democratic system, of course, there would be split representation, but such proportional systems make too much sense to be considered sensible in the United States.

We are now 10 years into the top-two regime in California. I’ve been told for years by top two backers that in time, Californians would figure it out. We’ve been told that this would make our politics more competitive and more moderate.

None of that has happened.

It’s time to stop complaining about top two—and to end the experiment entirely.

PO, PIE, and Coronavirus

Suzanne Smalley at Yahoo:

The race for the White House against the backdrop of the coronavirus will scramble this summer’s political conventions, requiring the political parties to scrap their planned gatherings and replace them with “virtual” online events, veteran political strategist Joe Trippi predicted on the Yahoo News “Skullduggery” podcast on Wednesday.

“Both parties have to prepare for some kind of virtual convention ... where delegates can vote by phone securely,” said Trippi, who pioneered an internet-driven campaign strategy when he was campaign manager for upstart Democratic candidate Howard Dean in 2004.

Calling the conventions “produced television shows for the party,” Trippi said the Republican and Democratic national committees will likely treat conventions as one night of a produced television show followed by a second night during which candidates give speeches and announce vice presidential picks

No doubt the national party chairs are talking with staff and electeds about this subject. RNC chair Ronna Romney McDaniel, BTW, has tested negative for COVID-19.

In class, we discussed models for forecasting presidential elections. Alan Abramowitz, who developed the most accurate model, writes that current events could mean big electoral trouble for the incumbent:

Table 2 presents the conditional forecasts of the electoral vote for President Trump depending on his net approval rating in late June and the growth rate of the U.S. economy during the second quarter. It takes 270 electoral votes to win a presidential election. The results indicate that, despite the huge boost that Trump is predicted to receive as a first-term incumbent, an economic downturn in the second quarter, combined with a net approval rating in negative territory, would very likely doom Trump’s chances of winning a second term. The only scenario here in which Trump would be favored to win a second term would be modest economic growth combined with a small improvement in his net approval rating, which has been stuck in the vicinity of -10 for many months according to the FiveThirtyEight average. The model suggests that a major recession would likely result in an Electoral College landslide for Trump’s Democratic challenger, especially if it is accompanied by a further decline in the president’s approval rating.

BUT NOTE:  A poll shows that a majority approves of Trump's handling of the crisis, which could have an effect on his overall job approval in the weeks ahead.  

AZ, FL, IL

At The Guardian, Lloyd Green sums up:

On Tuesday, Joe Biden delivered a crushing blow to Bernie Sanders’ already dimming chances. The former vice-president scored imposing wins in Arizona, Florida and Illinois.

Pro tip: turning a race into a referendum on Fidel Castro as Sanders did is a bad idea. In the Sunshine state, Biden’s margin was nearly 40 points. Looking back, the Vermont senator’s 2016 performance was more a function of disdain for Hillary Clinton than his call to revolution.

Biden has built a rainbow coalition that cuts across class. Indeed, the Delaware Democrat captured the votes of white people without college degrees, a prize that eluded Clinton and a bloc Donald Trump calls his own. A global pandemic and a market crash will sorely test the president’s hold.

As for Sanders, his quest has morphed into the quixotic, an exercise in rule or ruin, or all of the above. Reportedly, he will continue to tilt at windmills into late April, waging war in Pennsylvania and New York. But he lost both states four years ago and there is no reason to assume this time will be different.

Biden has now amassed more than 1,000 delegates, more than half way to clinching the nomination. The primary battle is over in all but name.

INBOX: Statement from Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager Faiz Shakir after last night’s primary losses to Joe Biden pic.twitter.com/dyD0dboIhq

— Laura Litvan (@LauraLitvan) March 18, 2020

There was some good news for Democatic progressives.  CMC alum Cameron Joseph reports at Vice:

One of the last — and loudest — pro-life Democrats left in Congress lost his primary Tuesday night.

Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) lost to former advertising executive Marie Newman, trailing by 48%-44% with 90% of precincts reporting.

Newman came just short of beating Lipinski two years ago, with the backing of a broad coalition of progressive groups. This time, she jumped into the election early, and they lined up to boost her past Lipinski, outspending him by a wide margin. EMILY’s List, which backs pro-choice Democratic women, backed Newman early on, as did a plethora of other groups including NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, MoveOn, Indivisible, The Sierra Club, Service Employees International Union and Our Revolution.

And note Cam's observations on the decline of traditional machine politics:

[Lipinski had] largely avoided tough primaries in the solidly Democratic district because of strong support from the Chicago Democratic machine. Lipinski was handed his seat in Congress by his father, former Rep. Bill Lipinski (D-Ill.), and has a close relationship with Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan (D), who runs the state party and the city’s machine.

But that machine has weakened in recent years — and Lipinski’s district has continued to grow more liberal and more heavily Hispanic. After barely surviving in 2018, it was too much for him this time around.

Fun fact:  Lipinski is a political scientist and Congress scholar (with a book on congressional communication).