SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

[Soontir C'boath]

Do note that I am NOT defending the decision to invade- it was a needless war sold to the public on lies (and then incompetently conducted at best). But I do think the reasons for it were more complex than you're acknowledging, and that reducing the causes to a one-line protest slogan simply encourages oversimplification and damages your own credibility.

Bruh, seriously?

Was that supposed to be a response? Oh, right, I forgot empty mockery is the inevitable go-to of trolls with nothing to say.

Considering you basically ignored the main point of Gandalf's argument. Yes, short and to the point which you never are.

[The Romulan Republic]

Back on the actual topic...

Bernie files amicus brief over New York primary, says "it's very very unlikely" that he will run for President again and the priority is uniting to defeat Donald Trump:

https://newsweek.com/bernie-moves-ensur ... er-1503292

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign filed an amicus brief with the Second Circuit Court of New York Monday seeking affirmation of the district court's decision to allowed the New York Presidential Primary to be held with all Democratic nominees on the ballot.

In April, the New York State Board of Elections (NYSBE) cancelled the primary, saying that in-person voting was a potential health threat during the coronavirus pandemic. Another factor in the NYSBE decision was that all Democratic candidates, except former Vice President Joe Biden, had exited the race.

Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang challenged the decision, later filing a lawsuit against the NYSBE on the grounds that his campaign was suspended, but not fully terminated.

In his lawsuit, Yang said the "unprecedented and unwarranted" decision by the NYSBE to cancel the primary "infringes the rights of Plaintiffs and all New York State Democratic Party voters, of which there are estimated to be more than six million, as it fundamentally denies them the right to choose our next candidate for the office of President of the United States."

Sanders also declared his intention to remain on the ballots. "We would like to get as many delegates as we can," Sanders told PBS in April, "so that we can have a stronger position at the Democratic Convention to help us shape the new platform of the Democratic Party and the other issues that the DNC [Democratic National Convention] deals with."

Judge Analisa Torres ruled in Yang's favor, saying that the removal of candidates' names from the ballot violated their rights.

"The removal of presidential contenders from the primary ballot not only deprived those candidates of the chance to garner votes for the Democratic Party's nomination," Judge Torres wrote in her May ruling, "but also deprived their pledged delegates of the opportunity to run for a position where they could influence the party platform, vote on party governance issues, pressure the eventual nominee on matters of personnel or policy, and react to unexpected developments at the Convention."

The Sanders campaign filed the amicus brief on Thursday in a bid to ensure the district court's decision is upheld.

"We are very disappointed that in the midst of an unprecedented crisis, the State of New York is spending taxpayer dollars undermining voting rights," Sanders' campaign manager Faiz Shakir said in a Monday statement. "At a time when Republicans are trying to make it more difficult for people to vote, Democrats should be making it easier-- not denying people the right to participate in the political process."

"The district court got it right," Shakir continued. "The State of New York acted unconstitutionally and the district court's decision should be upheld. The people of New York deserve to have their voices heard and their votes counted."

According to the Sanders campaign, even delegates who are allocated to candidates that do not win the nomination play a "central role" in the Democratic party's platform. Having Sanders delegates at the convention could lead to some more progressive policies being instituted by the party at the Democratic National Convention. This could be particularly important to Sanders, since he has indicated he will not be running for president again.

"I think the likelihood is very very slim at that," Sanders told C-SPAN Monday. "I think next time around you're going to see another candidate carrying the progressive banner. I think it's very very unlikely that I will be running for president ever again and I think right now the focus, I would say not only for progressives, not only of Democrats but Independents, moderate Republicans, has got to be how we come together to defeat this very dangerous president who is in office right now."

Newsweek reached out to the Sanders campaign for further comment. This story will be updated with any response.

New York is currently expected to hold its Democratic presidential primary on June 23. Mail-in ballots can be used by residents to avoid potentially crowded voting places.

[Gandalf]

I get that Trump era Republicanism has people looking back to GWB with rose glasses on, but best not to forget the guy who invaded a country for the benefit of oil companies.

And, see, lines like this are where I stop taking you seriously.

I'll live?

"Iraq was just for oil" is an oversimplistic reduction. There were likely several major reasons for the war: Bush and company wanting to finish the job his father started, profit for both oil companies and the military-industrial complex in general, possibly a move to counter Iran, spreading American values, probably some Christian neo-crusader sentiment from some of the more Bible belt types, maybe even hoping that a successful war would boost Bush's reelection prospects, if you're cynical enough... Most or all of the reasons are bad reasons, but its a bit more complicated than the simplified pop culture narrative of "Blood for oil".

Do note that I am NOT defending the decision to invade- it was a needless war sold to the public on lies (and then incompetently conducted at best). But I do think the reasons for it were more complex than you're acknowledging, and that reducing the causes to a one-line protest slogan simply encourages oversimplification and damages your own credibility.

Iraqi oil was the sine qua non for the whole wacky adventure, because US foreign policy serves US capitalistic interests.

Would you like an essay length statement for each claim in my posts? Do I owe you that for some reason?

[The Romulan Republic]

HOLY FUCK!

Biden has just named ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ as co-chair of his climate policy committee, despite the fact that she has yet to formally endorse him:

https://cnn.com/2020/05/12/politics/oca ... index.html

(CNN)Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will co-chair a task force for Joe Biden's campaign on climate change, a source with direct knowledge of the planning tells CNN, a move that adds progressive credentials to the former vice president's effort to unify the party ahead of the general election.

The group is one of several task forces being formed to bridge the divide between the polices of Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who ended his White House bid last month.

"I'm working with Bernie and with his people. And so, and we've made some changes. We've listened to Bernie supporters and, you know, for example, we have Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, she is on one of the panels," Biden said Tuesday in an interview with News8 in Las Vegas.

Ocasio-Cortez spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said in a statement that the congresswoman made the decision to join the task force "with members of the Climate Justice community - and she will be fully accountable to them and the larger advocacy community during this process."

"She believes the movement will only be successful if we continue to apply pressure both inside and outside the system. This is just one element of the broader fight for just policies," the statement said.

The task forces -- examining a variety of areas from the economy to criminal justice to health care -- were announced when Sanders endorsed Biden last month.

"It's no great secret out there, Joe, that you and I have our differences, and we're not going to paper them over. That's real," Sanders said when he endorsed Biden. "But I hope that these task forces will come together utilizing the best minds and people in your campaign and in my campaign to work out real solutions to these very, very important problems."

Ocasio-Cortez had previously signaled that she would support Biden's presidential bid in November but said that the process of uniting the party behind his campaign should be "uncomfortable for everyone involved."

"And if Biden is only doing things he's comfortable with, then it's not enough," the freshman congresswoman from New York told The New York Times last month.

Instead of "throwing the progressive wing of the party a couple of bones," Ocasio-Cortez said the conversation should be about "how we can win."

"I think people understand that there are limits to what Biden will do and that's understandable -- he didn't run as a progressive candidate," she told the paper.

"But, at the bare minimum, we should aspire to be better than what we have been before. And I just don't know if this message of 'We're going to go back to the way things were' is going to work for the people for who the way things were was really bad."

Say what you will about Biden, he is doing pretty much everything he can to prove that he is, at least, sincere about giving progressives a seat at the table, and listening to what we have to say. If Hillary had done half this much outreach, she'd probably be PotUS now.

[Ralin]

Say what you will about Biden, he is doing pretty much everything he can to prove that he is, at least, sincere about giving progressives a seat at the table, and listening to what we have to say. If Hillary had done half this much outreach, she'd probably be PotUS now.

Yeah, I admit, since Sanders basically conceded Biden has been doing a lot better than expected at appeasing and working with his supporters.

I'd be starting to feel genuinely optimistic if he weren't a rapist.

[The Romulan Republic]

Of course, this also gives a very strong incentive to progressives to vote for Biden, not just because it might lead to progressives having influence on the next President, but because if Biden makes all this effort to back progressives, and then progressives don't support him, and he loses, its going to send a message to the Democratic Party that there is no point in trying to win over progressives in the future.

The Republican base has influence because they show up and vote. Boomers are a courted voting block because they show up and vote. The black vote, especially the older black vote, gets to basically pick the Democratic nominee because they show up and vote. Young people and progressives, far too often, don't show up and vote.

If Biden does all this stuff to reach out to progressives, and a huge number of progressives still stay home or defect, the message the Democratic Party will take is not "we should have nominated a progressive". It will be "progressives are unreliable voters, its not worth wasting time trying to court them".

[The Romulan Republic]

Ventura will not run. The Greens will not get a celebrity candidate from a midwestern state who's cozy with the Kremlin. Best news I've read in days.

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/05/ ... president/

[The Romulan Republic]

Republicans have retaken the California Congressional seat previously held by Katie Hill (aka, the woman Republicans smeared with revenge porn to force her resignation):

https://theguardian.com/us-news/2020/ma ... -hill-seat

Republican Mike Garcia has beat Democrat Christy Smith in the special election to fill the seat of the former US representative Katie Hill, who resigned amid scandal in late 2019.

After a bitter political battle complicated and constrained by the pandemic, Garcia’s win was a blow for Democrats who in 2018 had secured the suburban Los Angeles district for the first time in since 1990. But the candidates will soon have a rematch. Garcia will serve only five months before the seat is up for a vote again in November.

The circumstances of Hill’s resignation – she quit amid allegations that she had an affair with a staffer, and after private photos of her had been published online without her consent – had brought national attention to the race. Donald Trump, who endorsed Garcia and alleged that the election was “rigged” because of the opening of a new voting center in the district, also ensured that the race was closely watched, especially by Democrats who believed it would be a referendum on the president.

In the election based almost entirely on mailed-in ballots amid stay-at-home orders due to the coronavirus pandemic, the full results likely won’t be clear for days. Officials will accept ballots postmarked by election day, even if they arrive up to three days later.

Still, Smith conceded on Wednesday afternoon as she trailed Garcia by 11 points in the results reported so far. “While it’s critical that we ensure every vote is counted and recorded, we believe that the current tally shows Mike Garcia is the likely victor in the 12 May special election,” she said in her concession statement. “That said, this is only one step in this process, and I look forward to having a vigorous debate about the issues in the upcoming November 2020 election.”

As victory appeared assured, Garcia said his campaign’s “message of lower taxes and ensuring we don’t take liberal Sacramento dysfunction to Washington prevailed”.

This is Garcia’s first time taking public office. He ran unencumbered by a voting record, on a typically conservative platform. Though Democrats tried to paint him as a mini-Trump, Garcia more closely aligns with a new guard of young, moderate Republicans the party has sent out to woo the typically blue state. “California Republicans have to learn to adapt to the local climate,” said Bill Whalen, a Republican campaign strategist based in Sacramento. Garcia’s victory may not guarantee he’ll win a rematch against Smith in November, but it does give him a leg up, Whalen said.

Smith, a state assembly member, lost despite earning the endorsements of Barack Obama and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Hill’s unpopularity in the district, post-scandal, was a hurdle. Prior to the election, the Cook Political Report changed its assessment of the race from “lean Democratic” to a “tossup” as the pandemic shut down traditional campaigning through door-knocking and town halls. Despite the challenges of campaigning, Democrats are still hopeful about Smith’s chances in the general election. “The electorate will be very different then,” said Rose Kapolczynski, a Democratic strategist based in Los Angeles. “And I still think Smith will have a strong chance.”

Special elections are usually plagued with low voter turnout, though early numbers indicated that more people voted in this election than expected. All registered voters were automatically mailed a ballot, making this election a test case for November. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, recently announced that all Californians would have the option to mail in their ballots during the general election, amid uncertainty over how long the coronavirus crisis will limit people’s ability to safely leave their homes.

But it is wise to avoid projecting too much about the November elections based on this race, said Paul Mitchell, with the campaign research firm Political Data Inc. “To do so would be like predicting the championship based on the results of two-on-two basketball game before the finals,” Mitchell said. He expects the same district will have 80% turnout in November, compared with less than half of that in the special election.

According to the data available so far, 30% of registered Democrats and 46% of registered Republicans in the district voted from home. More than 103,000 mailed in ballots, and about 4,200 ballots cast in person have been counted so far. Local officials said in-person voting should be an option for those who wanted to register and vote provisionally the same day, as well as people with disabilities who need assistance or adaptive devices to vote.

The president, who has previously disparaged efforts to increase voting opportunities, criticized Newsom’s decision to keep restaurants and bars closed while installing “a voting both [sic] system in a highly Democrat area (supposed to be mail in ballots only) because our great candidate, @MikeGarcia2020, is winning by a lot. CA25 Rigged Election!”

Traditionally, older, white, and Republican voters are overrepresented in special elections, Mitchell said. Younger and minority voters, who lean Democratic, are more likely to vote in larger numbers in November.

Although California is checkered with some red districts, it had been nearly 20 years since a Republican picked up a congressional seat in the state.

The California election was among two races being closely watched this week as preludes to the general election in November, when many states will move to mail-in voting amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In Wisconsin, the Republican Tom Tiffany, a state senator endorsed by Trump, easily won a special congressional election on Tuesday in a heavily conservative, rural Wisconsin district. But Democrats are likely to watch his margin of victory – and consider it evidence of that party’s gains if Tiffany’s opponent Tricia Zunker performs better than the 20-point defeat the Democrats faced in district in 2018. Preliminary results show Tiffany leading by 14 points.

“For Trump to win re-election, red areas have to get redder to balance out blue areas getting bluer,“ said the Wisconsin Democratic party spokeswoman, Courtney Beyer.

But Tiffany dismissed the argument. “Any time you lose by 14 points, I don’t think that’s a moral victory,” he said. “This is a decisive victory here.”

Agencies contributed reporting

This is very concerning, as this flip back to Republican is about the first indication in an actual major election that the Blue Wave might be running out of steam in 2020. However, its possible that this is more specific to this district, and not reflective of nation-wide trends.

Also, of course, California as a state is not competitive in the Presidential election. Wisconsin is, so the indications that Democrats have gained ground their since the 2018 election (and the strong turn out in the primary/judicial race a month ago) are arguably more significant than the loss of a traditionally red district in California.

Mostly, I'm disgusted that Republicans literally used revenge porn on a Congresswoman and the voters rewarded them for it.

[Knife]

Don't hyperventilate. Former Rep Hill won the seat from a GOPer. That guy had it for like 4 years, but the Rep before him was a Republican and had the seat for like 20 years. It's a red district that Hill won in 2018. That district was always going to be in play in 2020. Also to note, the GOPer who won, won the special election. They have to go through it all again next November.

[The Romulan Republic]

Don't hyperventilate. Former Rep Hill won the seat from a GOPer. That guy had it for like 4 years, but the Rep before him was a Republican and had the seat for like 20 years. It's a red district that Hill won in 2018. That district was always going to be in play in 2020. Also to note, the GOPer who won, won the special election. They have to go through it all again next November.

Noting that a Congressional seat switching back to Republican is concerning, but that it doesn't necessarily indicate a broader shift, is not "hyperventilating".

Being accused of "hyperventilating" or "hysterics" every fucking time I express concern about something, as this board is wont to do, is, however, harassment, bullying, and gaslighting.

[The Romulan Republic]

Full list of Biden/Bernie policy taskforce members, copied from Democrats Abroad Canada's Facebook page:



Most of the names are unknown to me, but I recognize AOC, Symone Sanders, and Pramila Jayapal as notable Bernie supporters, with John Kerry and Eric Holder as the most prominent "establishment" names.

Some other nice details are the relatively high racial and gender diversity of the task forces. If this is a look at the sort of approach Biden's cabinet is likely to take, I'm happy.

[The Romulan Republic]

Biden pledges that he will not pardon Trump, will not interfere with any DOJ investigation of Trump:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05 ... trump.html

Donald Trump has a new reason to want a victory in November, if there weren’t enough already: If Joe Biden becomes president, Trump might well be exposed to prosecution for his many questionable deeds. Biden has made it official, according to Politico:

Former Vice President Joe Biden vowed Thursday that, if elected to the White House in November, he would not use his new executive powers to pardon President Donald Trump of any potential crimes.



The pledge from the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee came during a virtual town hall on MSNBC, when Biden was asked by a voter whether he would be willing to commit “to not pulling a President Ford” and pardoning Trump “under the pretense of healing the nation.”



“Absolutely, yes. I commit,” Biden responded, adding: “It’s hands-off completely. Look, the attorney general of the United States is not the president’s lawyer. It’s the people’s lawyer.”

Since Trump’s Justice Department has taken the position that the president cannot be federally indicted while in office, the question of postpresidential criminal liability has been a lively issue, as Conor Shaw observed last year:

When a prosecutor grants a witness immunity in exchange for her cooperation and testimony, or when a prosecutor agrees not to prosecute a company in exchange for factual admissions and promises to take corrective actions, the government is bound by that agreement as long as the potential defendant holds up her or its end of the bargain. That is not so for an individual who no longer holds the public office that DOJ deems to be constitutionally protected from prosecution.

And were federal prosecutors inclined in that direction, there would be a lot of raw material to examine, notes Politico:

Trump has faced legal scrutiny throughout his administration for a variety of alleged misconduct related to his acceptance of foreign government money through his luxury Washington hotel, his participation in dubious tax schemes while building his real estate empire, and his involvement in a hush money payment to a porn star in the run-up to the 2016 election — which resulted in federal prosecutors implicating him in his former attorney’s campaign finance crimes.



Meanwhile, Trump has also drawn significant criticism from congressional Democrats and former federal law enforcement officials, who charge that the president has sought to manipulate the Justice Department to advance a political agenda and serve his personal interests rather than those of the nation.

Get unlimited access to Intelligencer and everything else New York LEARN MORE »
The precedent, of course, that motivated the question posed to Biden was the “full, free, and absolute pardon” that President Gerald Ford gave his immediate predecessor Richard Nixon shortly after succeeding the Tricky One upon his coerced resignation in 1974. It was a highly controversial act that likely damaged Ford’s 1976 presidential bid, in no small part because the timing suggested he might have promised Nixon a pardon either before he was lifted to the vice-presidency in 1973, or before the resignation made him president.

Since none of these intraparty complications are relevant to the Biden-Trump relationship, it’s unlikely anybody really thinks Biden would go to the aid of the man so many of his supporters find terrifying and evil. I mean, sure, Biden claims an interest in bringing back bipartisanship, but there would be rioting in the streets if he were to send Trump back to Mar-a-Lago with a clean legal bill of health. Besides, Trump in defeat might very well try to stage a comeback in 2024, so letting his misdeeds keep him tied up in court would only be prudent. And all Joe Biden has to do is keeps his “hands off” the prosecutors as they work through the vast landscape of Trumpian misconduct.

[The Romulan Republic]

Biden says that people who believe Tara Reade "probably shouldn't vote for me":

https://globalnews.ca/news/6947415/bide ... ara-reade/

Democratic candidate Joe Biden said Thursday that if he wins the presidency, he would not use his power to pardon Donald Trump or stop any investigations of Trump and his associates.

“It is not something the president is entitled to do, to direct a prosecution or decide to drop a case,” Biden said on MSNBC. “It’s a dereliction of duty.”

The former vice president made his statement in response to a voter who asked him on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show, “The Last Word,” whether Biden would “commit to not pulling a Gerald Ford in giving Donald Trump a pardon under the pretense of healing the nation.” Biden responded, “I commit,” before offering a more lengthy explanation of his view that the president must allow the Justice Department to operate without interference.

Ford became president in 1974 when Richard Nixon resigned under the threat of impeachment. Ford later pardoned his predecessor before any criminal charges related to the Watergate burglary could be filed. Ford went on to lose the 1976 presidential election.

The House impeached Trump in December on charges related to his effort to withhold congressionally appropriated funds from Ukraine in exchange for officials there assisting Trump in sullying Biden. The Senate acquitted him in February on a nearly party-line vote.

Biden also said on O’Donnell’s show that voters who believe the former Senate staffer who has accused him of sexually assaulting her in the early 1990s probably shouldn’t cast their ballots for him in November.

“I think they should vote their heart, and if they believe Tara Reade they probably shouldn’t vote for me,” Biden told O’Donnell. “I wouldn’t vote for me if I believed Tara Reade.”

Biden repeated his firm denial of Reade’s assertion that he assaulted her in a Senate hallway 27 years ago. Biden, who served in the Senate 36 years before two terms as vice president, said he does not recall Reade at all. He said any woman who makes a claim of harrassment or assault “should be taken seriously” but the account should be “thoroughly vetted in every case.” He noted “changes” in Reade’s account over time.

In 2019, Reade was among several women who accused Biden of touching them in ways that made them uncomfortable, but none of those accounts at the time including accusations of assault. Reade came forward anew in March with more explicit accusations against the former vice president.

“This is just totally, thoroughly, completely out of character, and the idea that in a public place, in a hallway I would assault a woman, I mean, anyway I promise you, it never happened,” Biden said.

The accusation has not derailed Biden’s path as the presumptive Democratic nominee, but it’s an uncomfortable circumstance for the 77-year-old who has pledged to name a woman as his running mate and often recounted his work as lead sponsor of the Violence Against Women Act.

Many Republicans have tried to amplify Reade’s story and hammered Biden and other Democrats as hypocrites because of their use of the mantra “Believe Women” during the #MeToo era, including when Christine Blasey Ford accused now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teens.

Trump, however, has not gone after Biden as eagerly as he typically savages opponents. More than a dozen women have accused Trump of varying levels of harassment and assault, charges he denies.

During the final segments of the MSNBC show Thursday night, Biden appeared split-screen alongside Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams, one of the women he’s believed to be considering for the vice presidency.

Abrams is among the most high-profile black women in the Democratic party, even though she lost the 2018 Georgia governor’s race. Abrams and Biden praised each other as they discussed voting rights and ballot access amid the coronavirus pandemic.

I'll admit, I was not expecting that. I'm not sure if its a surprisingly decent thing of him to say, or a surprisingly stupid thing.

If one wanted to be cynical, one could say that he's basically pressuring people to pick a side, either disbelieve Tara Reade or support Trump.

[The Romulan Republic]

A good breakdown of the possible scenarios if Trump tries to cancel the elections:

https://politico.com/news/magazine/2020 ... wer-192883

Since the moment he took office, Democrats—and even some Republicans—have worried that President Donald Trump just might be the kind of leader who tries to cling to power past November’s elections. Those concerns have sharply accelerated with the coronavirus pandemic, which raises the possibility that Americans might not be able to, or might not consider it safe to, vote in November—and, more darkly, that Trump would use that fear as an excuse to stay in office.

Anxious warnings about the elections are rife on Twitter, and the question has arisen in the Boston Globe, Politico and elsewhere. “[C]an one rule out an attempt to cancel or postpone the November election, justified on the grounds of preserving public safety?” asked Stephen Walt in Foreign Policy. In 2001, the president’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, reportedly sought to extend his term as mayor of New York, postponing the November election, after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

As most of those articles note, the legal answer is that he can’t: The Constitution empowers Congress, not the president, to select Election Day, so only an act of Congress could change it.

But Trump hasn’t exactly exhibited a profound understanding of the limits of his constitutional authority, and in recent days he’s made noises about expanding his power in new ways, on Monday declaring “total” authority to make governors reopen their states for business, or, on Wednesday, insisting he had authority to forcibly adjourn Congress.

So it seems worth at least considering the possibility that Trump—especially if the polls turned against him—would use our current public health emergency to cancel the 2020 election. What would really happen if he did, or tried to?

There are many unknowns in such a scenario, but the bottom line is that even if he does try to cancel the election, Trump can't be guaranteed that he stays in the White House. He would need either a great deal of luck or a coup to remain president. And the office might easily elude the likely Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, too.

Here’s why.

The main thing to understand is that Trump and Vice President Mike Pence could not simply continue to serve beyond Inauguration Day. The 20th Amendment clearly states that “[t]he terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January.” When the clock strikes 12 that day, Donald Trump and Mike Pence’s terms are over and neither has any more claim to the presidency than, say, Barack Obama or George W. Bush.

If that happens, the door opens to a wide array of scenarios, many of which are well within the complex rules set out in the Constitution for choosing presidents. Many of these rules have never come into play in American history, so the results might surprise Americans: There’s a slim chance Trump could emerge as the president, but we could also see a President Nancy Pelosi, President Elizabeth Warren, President Patrick Leahy, President Mitt Romney, or—who knows?—President Elaine Chao.

The bottom line is that if the 2020 presidential election is canceled and Trump wanted to stay in office past Jan. 20, he’d need to find some other way to get “elected.” Here are a few ways, some more likely than others, for how he might try to make that happen—or how opponents might try to block him.

Some states defy the president and hold elections anyway.
If the president declared the elections “canceled” without the support of Congress, some individual states could recognize that he lacks that authority and simply hold elections as scheduled. Elections are administered at the state level, anyway, so this wouldn’t require any special planning; it’s just business as usual for the states that hold them. It is difficult to see a court blocking such elections, or the military preventing them.

Which states would do so, however, is difficult to predict. Few Republican officials seem likely to defy the president, and which state official is crucial to that decision—the governor, the secretary of state or possibly even the attorney general—varies among the states. Democratic state officials could try to go this route, but it seems unlikely that enough states would do so that they could reach a total of 270 electors, the number ordinarily required to select a president.

Bottom line: Mostly Democratic states defy the president, but they do not produce enough electors to decide the election. Stalemate (for the moment—read on).

Some states use legislatures to select electors.
The Constitution requires electors to select the president, but it doesn’t mandate how states choose them—it leaves that decision up to state legislators. Since the middle of the 19th century, every state has chosen to appoint its electors by popular vote, but in the absence of a popular election the Legislature could reclaim the power to choose electors for itself, and it would be perfectly constitutional.

On the face of it, this could result in a resounding win for the president: The states in which Republicans currently control both chambers in the legislatures represent 300 electoral votes, while Democrats have solid control in states choosing 223 electors.

State laws, however, generally do not allow the legislatures to select electors by themselves, so to go this route the states would need to either break their own laws or amend them, plus avoid a gubernatorial veto. So if one excludes states with solid one party control of the legislature but a governor of the other party, we could wind up with 214 Republican electors and 195 Democratic ones. Democrats, however, have veto-proof majorities in the Maryland, Massachusetts and Vermont legislatures; if one assumes that they all passed laws allowing themselves to choose electors, overrode their Republican governors’ vetoes, and selected Democratic electors, the totals flip to 219 Democrats and 214 Republicans. In that version of state-vs.-state partisan hardball, Trump loses, barely. If, however, the nonpartisan legislature in Nebraska appoints Republican electors, we would have a 219-219 tie.

Although none of these numbers approaches the usual requirement of 270 electoral votes, Article II, section 1, clause 3 requires only “a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed.” So, if some states are deadlocked and unable to choose electors, a majority of those chosen might suffice. On the other hand, any single state’s failure to appoint electors would violate Article II, section 1, clause 2—which requires each state to appoint electors—casting a cloud over the whole process.

Bottom line: Trump probably loses.

The House of Representatives chooses the president.
If the Electoral College has not chosen a president when its votes are counted on January 6, Article II, section 1, clause 3, and the 12th Amendment require the House of Representatives to choose a president from those receiving the most votes from electors. But here’s the rub—if the November elections were canceled, would we even have a House of Representatives?

Presumably, we would at least until the beginning of January. Article I, section 2, requires elections for representatives every two years, but—unlike Article II, section 1—it does not prescribe finite terms. Some would argue that representatives who were elected by their constituents in the most recent election, and who played no part in aborting their constituents’ scheduled return to the polls, could not be deprived of legitimacy by the unconstitutional actions of the president.

On the other hand, the 20th Amendment states that “the terms of … Representatives [end] at noon on the 3rd day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.” One could argue that the availability of successors is an implied condition on terms ending, at least where the incumbents did not themselves prevent the selection of such successors.

But assuming that the current House stayed in place and were to choose the new president, Trump would start with a clear advantage. Article II, section 1, clause 3, and the 12th Amendment require representatives to vote as states, with each state having a single vote. In the current House, although Democrats hold a comfortable majority, Republicans control 26 state delegations to 22 for the Democrats (Michigan and Pennsylvania being evenly divided).

Of course, that could change if elections were held in some states in defiance of the president, if some members were to pass away (from Covid-19 or anything else), or if a few Republicans in closely divided delegations defect in protest over the president’s canceling the election.

Moreover, although the two most obvious candidates in the House would be Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, the 12th Amendment allows the House to choose among the top three candidates in the Electoral College; a few electors defecting from their parties to vote for a conservative Democrat or a “Never Trump” Republican (Senator Mitt Romney?) could scramble everyone’s calculations.

Bottom line: Trump probably wins.

The Senate selects the vice president, who becomes president.
If the House cannot assemble a majority of 26 state delegations for one candidate, the 20th Amendment provides that the vice presidential candidate selected by the Senate would become acting president. The Senate could choose only among the top two finishers in the Electoral College, so no attempted compromise candidate would be possible.

The Senate’s continuation without an election would seem to be more assured than that of the House, because 65 senators—33 Democrats, 2 independents who caucus with the Democrats, and 30 Republicans—still have time remaining on their terms.

Two problems nonetheless arise. First, Article I, section 3, and the 17th Amendment both provide for a Senate composed of two senators representing each state; without an election in November, 33 states would have only one senator and Georgia would have none at all. Second, Article I, section 3, and the 12th Amendment require a quorum of two-thirds of the senators to elect a vice president; the holdover senators’ number falls two short. If a few states with expiring Senate terms held elections, the Senate theoretically could achieve quorum.

Both these problems could be addressed by governors appointing senators to fill the resulting vacancies. If current governors appointed members of their own parties to join the 65 holdover senators, the result likely would be a 51-49 Democratic Senate. (Republicans would take Democratic seats in Alabama, Massachusetts and New Hampshire; Democrats would replace Republicans in Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Montana and North Carolina.)

Here again, loss of a single governor or senator could shift the outcome. Even if 100 senators are elected or appointed, the party expecting to lose could declare the process illegitimate and decline to help the majority achieve the two-thirds quorum.

Bottom line: Democrats take a slim majority and would most likely elect the Democratic vice presidential nominee.

The speaker of the House becomes president.
If neither the House nor the Senate could produce a majority to resolve an impasse in the Electoral College, the 20th Amendment calls for Congress to designate by statute who would then serve as acting president. That statute is section 19 of Title 3 of the U.S. Code, and it designates the speaker of the House as next in line to the acting presidency. The speaker would cease to be president if either the House settled on a president or the Senate settled on a vice president.

Here again, it would be crucial whether the House would still exist in the absence of November elections in much of the country. If it did not, the president pro tem of the Senate would become acting president, assuming again that the Senate would continue to exist without elections this fall. If Senate control passes to the Democrats—either because of their majority among holdover senators or because governors appoint replacements for senators whose terms expire, tradition dictates that they elect the most senior member of the majority party, Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, as president protTem.

Bottom line: Either House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or the Senate president pro tem, probably Patrick Leahy, becomes president.

The Secretary of State, or another Cabinet member, becomes president.
If the Electoral College deadlocks and neither chamber of Congress is functioning sufficiently to break that deadlock or even elect its own presiding officer, section 19 passes the acting presidency to confirmed Cabinet members, beginning with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Section 19, however, also disqualifies any Cabinet members who are currently under impeachment. The Democratic-led House of Representatives is unlikely to regard a Pompeo presidency as acceptable, particularly given his roles in the cutoff of aid to Ukraine and seeking to obstruct key witnesses’ testimony during the House’s inquiry into that matter, and they could strike him from the line of succession by impeaching him before going out of session on Jan. 3. The impeachment would suffice to bar him from the presidency without any action by the Senate.

If Pompeo could not serve, section 19 next would pass the acting presidency to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Mnuchin is one of the few top Trump Administration officials to have a functioning relationship with congressional Democrats, although his implementation of the coronavirus relief legislation is calling that into question.

The House could go further and conclude that any Cabinet member complicit in the unconstitutional cancellation of the November election merited impeachment. If so, the House could effectively select a president from among the sitting Cabinet members whom the Senate has confirmed. Democrats enjoy debating which Trump Cabinet member they think is worst; this could force them to decide which one they find most tolerable. Section 19 is silent on what would happen if the entire Cabinet were barred through impeachment or lack of Senate confirmation.

Bottom line: The Trump Cabinet member least objectionable to Democrats becomes president.

Notably, in only one of these six scenarios does Trump retain the presidency, and that scenario relies on every member of the House surviving the pandemic and individual members of Congress adhering strictly to their party line during what would be an extraordinary constitutional crisis.

So if Trump wants to remain president, there’s pretty much no way canceling the 2020 presidential election helps him do that, at least not constitutionally. If he wants to blow up the U.S. Constitution … well, that’s a whole different scenario.

Of course, the reality is that any of these scenarios would probably be contentious enough to lead to widespread civil unrest at minimum, especially with Trump stoking the flames. They also don't spend enough time considering the possibility of faithless Electors, in my opinion (I would not remotely put it past Trump to denounce any election as illegitimate and try to bully/bribe some Electors into going against their states' vote).

However, even in the worst case scenario of a contested Presidency and armed revolt, who the law says is President will still matter, as that claim of legal legitimacy will be used to try to rally support, and particularly gain the support of the armed forces, who swear an oath to the Constitution, not the President.

[Darth Yan]

I get that Trump era Republicanism has people looking back to GWB with rose glasses on, but best not to forget the guy who invaded a country for the benefit of oil companies.

And, see, lines like this are where I stop taking you seriously.

I'll live?

"Iraq was just for oil" is an oversimplistic reduction. There were likely several major reasons for the war: Bush and company wanting to finish the job his father started, profit for both oil companies and the military-industrial complex in general, possibly a move to counter Iran, spreading American values, probably some Christian neo-crusader sentiment from some of the more Bible belt types, maybe even hoping that a successful war would boost Bush's reelection prospects, if you're cynical enough... Most or all of the reasons are bad reasons, but its a bit more complicated than the simplified pop culture narrative of "Blood for oil".

Do note that I am NOT defending the decision to invade- it was a needless war sold to the public on lies (and then incompetently conducted at best). But I do think the reasons for it were more complex than you're acknowledging, and that reducing the causes to a one-line protest slogan simply encourages oversimplification and damages your own credibility.

Iraqi oil was the sine qua non for the whole wacky adventure, because US foreign policy serves US capitalistic interests.

Would you like an essay length statement for each claim in my posts? Do I owe you that for some reason?

No it's because you're an idiot. Bush was an open religious fundie (ranting about Gog and Magog.) Conservatives were also upset back in 91 when Bush didn't overthrow Saddam; republicans are also in bed with military industrial companies and THOSE fuckers benefitted almost as much. To say that it's "just oil" is idiotic. It's oversimplified.

I get that you think capitalism is the root of all evil and it is a deeply flawed and fucked up system in so many ways. But to say that such assholish behavior is unique to capitalism is a lie (Communist countries were ALSO imperialistic fucks who invaded and conquered for resources).

Bruh, seriously?

Was that supposed to be a response? Oh, right, I forgot empty mockery is the inevitable go-to of trolls with nothing to say.

Considering you basically ignored the main point of Gandalf's argument. Yes, short and to the point which you never are.

That's the thing. He really didn't. There were a TON of factors that went into invading Iraq. Imperialism. Religious nonsense. A desire to help military companies. Putting it down to just oil, which Gandalf did, is idiotic.

Romulan can be overly strident but his heart is in the right place and a lot of his points ARE legitimate

[Soontir C'boath]

Ok and? The only thing it looks like is you're just taking the last sentence of his entire argument and making a giant deal out of it. Get over yourself. It's been awhile, but I do believe this is called a strawman.

[Gandalf]

Ok and? The only thing it looks like is you're just taking the last sentence of his entire argument and making a giant deal out of it. Get over yourself. It's been awhile, but I do believe this is called a strawman.

Yan gets weirdly triggered when people badmouth capitalism, and rich people.

[Darth Yan]

Oh fuck you. I'm cheerfully able to acknowledge capitalism's flaws. What I'm annoyed about is that you tried to simplify everything down to "capitalism evil" rather than acknowledge it was multifaceted.

[Soontir C'boath]

So I am actually going to continue along Gandalf's line of thinking on the Democrat end, and also expand about the Iraq War so we can actually stay on point.

"I was a ranking member on the intelligence committee, even before I became part of the leadership, the gang of four. So I knew there was no nuclear weapons in Iraq. Just wasn't there. They had to show us, the gang of four, all the intelligence they had. The intelligence did not show that was the case. So I knew that was a misrepresentation to the public. But having said that, it was in my view, not grounds for impeachment."- Nancy Pelosi on CNN December 8, 2019

Note: While Pelosi and many other Democrats did oppose the war, they did it on grounds that the country didn't have anything related to OBL et al. Given how confident Pelosi gave the above statement in knowing there was no WMD at the time Bush was advocating to invade on this reason alone, it is at the very least downright irresponsible for the Democratic Party not to have hammered the Bush Administration on this.

P.S.-She also said at the time when outcry for impeachment was high, she, as Speaker, STILL chose not to. She notes Clinton's frivolous impeachment, but there was simply nothing frivolous about what Bush Jr. did. A blowjob does not comparable to invading another country. What a joke of an opposition party.

Is this multi-faceted enough for you? Gave a Democratic angle to it.

[The Romulan Republic]

Amash, like Ventura, has decided not to run:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4 ... -president

Rep. Justin Amash (L-Mich.) announced Saturday he will not run for president as a Libertarian, saying the circumstances do not "lend themselves" toward a successful third-party campaign.

"I've spent nearly three weeks assessing the race, appearing in media, talking to delegates and donors, watching the Libertarian Party's convention plan unfold, and gathering feedback from family, friends, and other advisers," Amash tweeted. "After much reflection, I've concluded that circumstances don't lend themselves to my success as a candidate for president this year, and therefore I will not be a candidate."

Amash maintained that a third-party candidate could contribute a fresh outlook on politics for American voters, but said the intensely partisan atmosphere surrounding the 2020 race would hinder a successful Libertarian campaign.

"I continue to believe that a candidate from outside the old parties, offering a vision of government grounded in liberty and equality, can break through in the right environment. But this environment presents extraordinary challenges," Amash said. "Polarization is near an all-time high. Electoral success requires an audience willing to consider alternatives, but both social media and traditional media are dominated by voices strongly averse to the political risks posed by a viable third candidate."

Amash teased a third-party campaign late last month when he launched an exploratory committee to seek the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination. The Michigan lawmaker, who formerly belonged to the Republican Party, had been toying for months with the prospect of launching a third-party White House bid.

Known as a conservative with an independent streak, Amash began souring on the GOP after President Trump's inauguration, accusing the party of abandoning fiscal conservatism and turning a blind eye to "misbehavior" to appease the president.

His national profile steadily rose with his increasingly vocal barbs against the president and some of his House colleagues, which came to a head when he said he would back Democrats in their impeachment effort and formally left the Republican Party.

"This president will be in power for only a short time, but excusing his misbehavior will forever tarnish your name. To my Republican colleagues: Step outside your media and social bubble. History will not look kindly on disingenuous, frivolous, and false defenses of this man," Amash said before supporting the House's impeachment resolution in October.

If he had run, Amash easily would have been the highest-profile third-party candidate in the race, with no candidate thus far this cycle enjoying the name recognition of the Green Party's Jill Stein or the Libertarian Party's Gary Johnson in 2016.

Amash expressed concerns over the Libertarian Party's organizational footing in the 2020 race, citing struggles to get on the ballot in all 50 states in November and unity around an ultimate nominee. However, he said he was optimistic about Libertarian candidates' chances down the ballot and said he will help the party make electoral gains.

"I've been speaking directly to delegates about this opportunity for only a short time, but these conversations have solidified my belief that the Libertarian Party is well positioned to become a major and consistent contender to win elections at all levels of government," he said. "I remain invested in helping the party realize these possibilities and look forward to the successes ahead."

Amash's decision frees him up to focus on reelection in his Michigan House district, which the GOP is eager to flip. The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election handicapper, rates Amash's seat as "Lean Republican."

Good for him. While there are obviously pragmatic/self-serving reasons here (see above), and its definitely not a great year for a third party run when most of the country is locked into either Loyalty to Dear Leader Donald or Stop Trump at All Costs, I'd like to think he also looked at the math and realized that his run would probably help Trump, and that that factored into his decisions.

I disagree with Amash about... probably most issues. But he strikes me as someone who genuinely cares about the country, or is at least smart enough not to tie his future to that of Trump. I can see the only Republican Congressman to advocate impeachment over the Mueller Report deciding not to run if he knew doing so might result in Trump's reelection.

[The Romulan Republic]

A group of Bernie staffers including Jeff Weaver created a Super PAC, naming it, after the old Bernie slogan, Future To Believe In.

Bernie, who opposes Super PACs was... not pleased:

https://vice.com/en_ca/article/qj44nq/b ... g-the-name

WASHINGTON — When a bunch of Bernie staffers formed a super PAC name-checking his old slogan “Future to Believe in,” he was none too pleased given his well-known hatred of groups that skirt campaign finance limits. So, they changed the name.

The group will now be known as America’s Promise PAC. The change was filed with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday.

“We wanted to be as clear as possible that there is no association between the PAC and the senator,” super PAC head and Sanders adviser Jeff Weaver told VICE News.

Weaver launched the group in late April with a number of other Sanders alumni shortly after Sanders dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Joe Biden. Their stated goal: To help elect Joe Biden to the presidency while pushing his policies to the left.

But Sanders has also spent the better part of his career crusading against “the millionaires and billionaires” looking to buy political power — and had a particular ire for super PACs, which can accept unlimited sums from individuals and corporations. Sanders hammered his opponents for taking help from super PACs during the 2016 and 2020 primaries. And by all accounts, he was rather furious when he found out some of his top advisers had decided to move ahead with one.

"The senator was informed about the creation of the super PAC before the paperwork was filed, and he was not happy about it,” Sanders political spokesman Mike Casca told VICE News.

Numerous other Sanders staff used more colorful language to describe Sanders’ reaction to the group.

“He didn’t authorize it, he doesn’t like Super PACs and doesn’t want it to exist.”

“He didn’t authorize it, he doesn’t like Super PACs and doesn’t want it to exist,” said one senior former Sanders staffer familiar with Sanders’ feelings about the group. “Bernie’s pissed off,” said another.

The organization has made it clear from the start that it didn’t have Sanders’ blessing. But plenty of other former Sanders staff are on board anyways, including former digital fundraising director Tim Tagaris, senior adviser Chuck Rocha, Sanders 2020 Treasurer Lora Haggard, former California state coordinator Shelli Jackson and former Sanders deputy communications director Sarah Ford.

Weaver declined to discuss the details of his conversations with Sanders, but was quick to admit his old boss wasn’t thrilled that he was creating a super PAC.

“Certainly he did not agree with the use of this particular vehicle as a means to the end which we both hope happens, which is the election of Joe Biden and defeat of Donald Trump,” he said.

“In this short amount of time given, the demands on people’s money, it’d be very difficult to mount this effort in an effective way” by creating a traditional PAC rather than a super PAC, Weaver argued. “That’s just a fact. It’s not a fact I’m not happy about, but that is a fact.”

Weaver dismissed grumblings from critics that he might be looking to cash in with the group, saying no one had taken salaries yet from the organization, and “we’ll probably make at or less than what we made before.”

Weaver has been among Sanders’ closest advisers for decades. He first worked for Sanders in 1986, serving as his driver on Sanders’ unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign that year before working his way up to be Sanders’ campaign manager on numerous campaigns including his 2016 presidential run as well as chief of staff in his congressional office for years. He was a senior adviser on Sanders’ 2020 campaign, part of Sanders’ inner circle.

Weaver continues to serve as a Sanders adviser, and said he remains involved in helping Sanders identify down-ticket candidates to endorse as well as legal fights like Sanders’ push to force New York to hold a Democratic primary.

But while Weaver had long played a top role in Sanders’ decision-making inner circle, he’s now serving in a more limited capacity, partly due to legal constraints — he can’t legally coordinate with or advise Sanders on any activities that overlap with his work for the super PAC.

Negotiating with Biden
Weaver had initially been involved alongside former Sanders Campaign Manager Faiz Shakir in negotiating the creation of six working groups between Sanders and Biden on key policy issues. But his involvement with the Biden-Sanders negotiations ended when he launched the super PAC, and Shakir finished the negotiations with other Sanders staff, chief among them former Sanders National Political Director Analilia Mejia. The groups’ members were announced on Wednesday.

Casca, Sanders’ spokesman, said Weaver is still serving as a Sanders consultant but “is no longer involved” in Sanders’ work with Biden.

This isn’t the first time a Weaver group has gotten off to a rocky start, partly because he sought unlimited funds. When Weaver was named the head of the pro-Sanders Our Revolution after Sanders’ 2016 campaign, more than half the staff resigned in protest — partly over personal differences but also because he’d decided to push for a large independent expenditure effort to power the organization rather than focus on small-dollar donations. Both Our Revolution and this new group can take unlimited contributions, though the new super PAC America’s Promise will eventually be required to disclose its donors, unlike Our Revolution.

Weaver said he hopes to raise millions, if not tens of millions, from large donors to target Sanders voters in key states to help encourage them to back Biden and defeat Trump. Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin are at the top of the list, and if the group raises enough money to expand its efforts, he said Maine’s second congressional district (the state assigns its electoral college vote by district) and North Carolina are potential future targets.

Cover: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) participates in a coronavirus public health roundtable with healthcare professionals as he continues his campaign swing through the Midwest on March 09, 2020 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Honestly, I'm glad Weaver is sidelined. I always kind of thought he was a bit of an ass, and a liability to Sanders.

[Gandalf]

No it's because you're an idiot. Bush was an open religious fundie (ranting about Gog and Magog.) Conservatives were also upset back in 91 when Bush didn't overthrow Saddam; republicans are also in bed with military industrial companies and THOSE fuckers benefitted almost as much. To say that it's "just oil" is idiotic. It's oversimplified.

I never said it was just oil. I said Iraqi oil was the sine qua non of the whole thing. Literacy is your friend.

I get that you think capitalism is the root of all evil and it is a deeply flawed and fucked up system in so many ways. But to say that such assholish behavior is unique to capitalism is a lie (Communist countries were ALSO imperialistic fucks who invaded and conquered for resources).

Uh, okay?

[The Romulan Republic]

Republicans plan to hold traditional big crowded convention, expect thousands of attendees despite covid:

https://npr.org/sections/coronavirus-li ... convention

Republicans say they're moving ahead with plans to gather tens of thousands of people at their presidential nominating convention in North Carolina this summer — even as Democrats weigh their options for convening during the coronavirus pandemic.

In a statement Saturday marking 100 days to go before the 2020 Republican National Convention, the Republican National Committee said it is expecting nearly 50,000 attendees, including delegates and members of the media, at the convention scheduled for the week of Aug. 24 in Charlotte.

And in an op-ed published Friday for Fox Business, convention President and CEO Marcia Lee Kelly said Republicans are preparing to gather "thousands" to mark the formal renomination of President Trump and Vice President Pence to lead the party's 2020 ticket. She said organizers are working on details including the carpet and lighting at the convention.

Kelly said convention planners have "recognized that large-scale events would need to look different in light of COVID-19."

Kelly did not specify how the convention would be different because of the virus, though she told Fox that organizers would follow guidelines from federal, state and local authorities, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She noted that the RNC has hired Dr. Jeffrey W. Runge — a physician, former medical director for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and former chairman of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — to oversee health and safety planning for the convention.

In an interview with NPR member station WFAE on Thursday, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said the RNC is committed to holding the convention in Charlotte, while adding that it's possible attendees may wear masks or hold some events in smaller venues or outside.

City leaders in Charlotte have been divided over how to move forward with convention planning given the public health threat. Some city council members in the heavily Democratic community have expressed fears that gathering thousands of people in a relatively small area could prompt a surge in COVID-19 cases. The city remains under a stay-at-home order and has limited mass gatherings to no more than 10 people.

And some Republicans, including North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, have cast doubt on the feasibility of moving ahead as planned. Tillis has said that hosting the party's convention could be "very difficult" under these circumstances.

In an interview this week with the Washington Examiner, Trump reiterated his determination to hold the convention, saying, "I think we'll be in good shape by that time." However, the president said he was concerned about the possibility of North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, "playing politics" with the convention. Cooper is running for reelection this year and, like every governor, is charged with making decisions about how quickly to reopen the state during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Democrats have delayed the Democratic National Convention, originally planned for the week of July 13 in Milwaukee, pushing it back to the week of Aug. 17 — one week prior to the RNC. Party leaders have been exploring options for safely holding an event where former Vice President Joe Biden is expected to be officially named the party's nominee amidst the pandemic.

Democrats have already taken steps to allow delegates to participate remotely and are exploring other contingency plans. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has tossed out suggestions that include shortening the convention or spacing out attendees in a "gigantic stadium."

In an interview with NPR, the Democratic convention's chief executive, Joe Solmonese, said it's too soon for organizers to know exactly how plans will need to be adjusted because of the virus.

"How many people we do that in front of, how many hotel rooms we occupy in the city of Milwaukee, how many buses and what sort of security infrastructure we end up having in terms of the uncertainty of the public health environment remains to be seen," Solmonese said.

More lives sacrificed for the Dear Leader.

The Democrats, meanwhile, are weighing options for their convention, as it appears most of their delegates are unwilling to attend a live convention in Milwaukee:

https://nytimes.com/2020/05/18/us/polit ... virus.html

WASHINGTON — Three months before their national convention is to kick off in Milwaukee, Democratic Party officials are planning for three scenarios depending on the severity of the coronavirus pandemic at the time. But the planners face a substantial problem in putting on the quadrennial event, recognizable to Americans as the traditional launch of the presidential general election campaign: Many of the delegates don’t want to go.

Interviews with 59 members of the Democratic National Committee and superdelegates who will formally nominate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in August found that the vast majority of them don’t want to risk their own health or the health of others by traveling to Milwaukee and congregating inside the convention facilities.

The reluctance was spread across all age groups and expressed by both longtime delegates and would-be first-time attendees. Even those who plan to go had reservations; one said he would haul his own boat from Tennessee and stay on Lake Michigan rather than risk a hotel room.

“I have heard from people who have gone to many conventions, people who are die-hards, saying, ‘I’m not going to that,’” said David Pepper, the Ohio Democratic Party chairman. “One thing that may drive the decision is people saying they’re not going to go.”

For now, Democratic officials have outlined three contingencies, people familiar with the planning say: a full convention, if health conditions permit; a mostly virtual convention that features a limited in-person presence in Milwaukee, or an entirely remote convention.

The uncertainty on the Democratic side stands in stark contrast to the Republicans, who at President Trump’s urging are moving “full steam ahead” in planning their convention, which is scheduled for Charlotte, N.C., the week after the Democratic event. On Saturday the Republican National Committee said “nearly 50,000 visitors” would gather for the G.O.P. convention.

The diverging approaches are part of the growing partisan divide over the coronavirus, with Democrats urging caution and respect for public health officials while Republicans are increasingly following the lead of Mr. Trump, whose skepticism about the virus and enthusiasm for reopening the nation’s economy have driven some states to end stay-at-home mandates.

“I can understand why people are more drawn to a message that gives a sense that trouble is behind us and the show must go on, but we have been and will always be transparent and honest with people about our planning,” said Joe Solmonese, the chief executive of the Democratic National Convention. “As often as not, that means the answer is we don’t know. It doesn’t feel as good as when you say, ‘We are certain and we’re plowing full speed ahead,’ but it’s the truth.”

Of the 59 delegates interviewed in the last week, nine said they are planning to attend the convention. Just seven said they’d made travel arrangements to get to Milwaukee and only two said they believe it will be safe to travel to and attend the event.

Delegates said they are worried about riding public transportation to the convention site and requiring thousands of hotel and arena employees in Milwaukee to work on their behalf in potentially unsafe conditions. They are also concerned about the possibility that people from who come from coronavirus hot spots will spread the virus in Wisconsin.

And while many of the delegates are in their 60s and 70s, age groups particularly vulnerable to the virus, younger Democrats expressed just as much concern about the public health implications of a mass gathering.

“As sad as I am to be missing out on my first convention, I know that the safer and more responsible thing is to not gather in large numbers,” said Sierra Yamanaka, a 25-year-old D.N.C. member from Arizona. “It would be devastating to the Democratic organizations across the country if there were to be an outbreak there.”

The possibility that Republicans would put on a full convention, with an arena thronged with cheering Trump supporters, the week after a scaled-down Democratic event to nominate Mr. Biden, has D.N.C. members concerned that Democrats will further cede the political spotlight and momentum to Mr. Trump, who already enjoys the advantage of the presidential bully pulpit.

If much of the Democratic convention is virtual, or if Mr. Biden himself remains quarantined in his Delaware home, planners will be left to produce an event for television without its star attraction.

“The unknown factor of a virtual convention is, how many people will get excited about seeing an acceptance speech from a basement with only a few people in the room?” said William Owen, a D.N.C. member from Tennessee who plans to attend the event if it is held. He said he had reserved a slip on Lake Michigan and plans to stay aboard his boat to avoid staying in one of the city’s hotels.

Over the years, the three major broadcast networks, the largest driver of viewers to party conventions, have slowly shrunk their prime time coverage at these events. The lack of a physical gathering spot is likely to extend that pattern. Without the familiar hallmarks of a traditional convention, other benefits of coverage like interviews with prominent officials and delegates would be lost.

While network executives cautioned that no decisions had been made, several said that reducing coverage to the convention’s final two nights was a possibility.

One network executive suggested that by August, the novelty of a live broadcast like a convention could hold great appeal to programmers stuck with few live sporting events and dwindling options for prime time entertainment, and with production on hold for many popular network shows.

The Biden campaign said it is delaying decisions about how large a footprint it will have in Milwaukee until more is known about the pandemic. “We are considering a variety of formats for this to take place, but we are certain that in the end it will capture the enthusiasm and spirit that we have to making Donald Trump a one-term president and transforming our country,” said a Biden spokesman, Bill Russo.

With an eye toward attracting network coverage, D.N.C. members said the convention could emulate recent television events like the annual WrestleMania extravaganza, which was televised from a studio without fans in Orlando, Fla., and the National Football League’s draft, which aired from the homes of the league’s executives, coaches and drafted players.

The convention is being planned by the veteran producer Ricky Kirshner, who has produced each Democratic National Convention since 1992 in addition to Super Bowl halftime shows and the Tony Awards. Stephanie Cutter, a Democratic strategist who worked on the campaigns of John Kerry and Barack Obama, is putting together the program of speakers, work that typically isn’t completed until the final month before the convention.

But because of the virus, some decisions will need to be made in the coming weeks. Veterans of past national conventions said it takes two months to retrofit an arena — everything from building a podium to laying cables and wiring.

The D.N.C. chairman, Tom Perez, has acknowledged privately that the scope of the convention will be far smaller than originally anticipated. Officials could move the event out of the Fiserv Forum, the city’s pro basketball arena, to a nearby theater or convention center, if it becomes clear that not enough delegates will travel to fill the seats. Mr. Perez, whose wife grew up in the Milwaukee suburbs, has insisted the convention will not move out of the city.

Mayor Tom Barrett said Milwaukee remains eager to host national Democrats and is being “nimble” with organizers.

“It’s not as though you have dozens of other events that need to be canceled to make room for this,” Mr. Barrett said.

Democrats believe the potential of days of network television exposure may be more important for Mr. Biden than it has for any candidate in decades. The former vice president has not made a public appearance outside his Delaware home since the final Democratic primary debate two months ago.

And while Mr. Biden and his team trumpet the number of people who have consumed the campaign’s content online, officials acknowledge the difficult balance between chasing an audience on network television and risking exacerbating the public health crisis.

Mr. Solmonese said he’s less concerned with the Nielsen ratings and more about how Mr. Biden’s message will be received among the small slice of the electorate that will be critical to an Electoral College victory.

“How many people watch it on the traditional networks is important, but we are focused on how many of the people that we need in the four or five states that we need to win can we reach,” he said.

Democratic officials have already taken the first steps toward preparing for a truncated convention; last week, the party’s rules committee voted to give authority to Mr. Solmonese to limit the size and scope of the gathering, if necessary. At the same time, Mr. Perez, in an email last week, gave explicit permission to D.N.C. members and delegates to skip the travel to Milwaukee and vote on the party’s platform and rules remotely.

D.N.C. members interviewed expressed confidence in the party’s ability to put on a largely remote convention, as many state parties have done in recent weeks. But they expressed little appetite for attending a mass gathering.

“You think about all of the ways a convention has to be done, I don’t see how it could be done in-person in August,” said Alexis Wiley, a D.N.C. member from Detroit. “I’m pregnant, so I’m high risk. I really want to participate, but in such a vulnerable category, it doesn’t make sense to even risk it.”

The Republicans will, of course, use this brush with sanity and social responsibility as proof that the Democrats are weak and cowardly, and sadly, it might work, as few things kill a candidate's chances like the perception of weakness.

On the plus side, we are less likely to lose tens of thousands of voters and have to replace dozens of candidates right before the election.

[Mr Bean]

I give it a 1 in 10 chance of in person conventions for either sides happening. But should they do ocurr.

I see nothing wrong with the Republican party gathering thousands of old white folks in a large enclosed area combined with their biggest money backers and their greatest true believers all while insisting masks are for losers. I'm sure there will be no sort of massive real life karmic irony.

As they say, everything will be fine God has their backs. Trust me this will not be an amazing HBO special in a decade.

[The Romulan Republic]

The key Senate races to watch:

https://vox.com/2020/5/18/21243174/most ... races-2020

Control of the Senate could be within Democrats’ grasp this November.

A Senate map that once looked out of reach has become a lot more competitive in the past few months. With former Vice President Joe Biden likely at the top of the ticket as the Democratic nominee for president and a once-humming economy cratering due to the coronavirus, Republicans acknowledge the political landscape looks much different.

“It’s an extraordinary turn of events,” Republican pollster Neil Newhouse told Vox. “This is not the political environment we expected at the beginning of the year. Things in politics change pretty quickly, but the environment’s been turned upside down.”

Democrats need to win back at least three seats to reclaim the majority, but they are also defending Sen. Doug Jones in deep-red Alabama — a state where President Donald Trump has a 28-point net approval rating. If Jones loses, that means Democrats need to win four seats and the White House (where their party’s vice president could vote to break ties in the Senate), or net five seats without the White House advantage.

Overall, Senate Republicans are defending more turf. Republicans have 23 seats (mostly in red states) to defend, compared to the 12 Senate Democrats who are up for reelection.

Even before the coronavirus hit, four states looked highly competitive for Democrats: Colorado, Arizona, Maine, and North Carolina. Republicans, meanwhile, are going on offense in two states: Alabama and Michigan. But now, several more seats are in play for Democrats — including Montana and a Georgia special election. Republicans are even worried about hanging on to seats in Iowa and extremely red Kansas if the polarizing politician Kris Kobach wins the Republican nomination there.

“There’s no denying that the Senate is very much in play, and I think a lot of Republicans are in denial about taking that for granted at this point,” Tim Cameron, a Republican strategist and a former chief digital strategist at the National Republican Senatorial Committee in the 2014 and 2016 cycles, told Vox.

A lot of the same GOP senators who swept into office during the Republican wave of the 2014 midterms are now staring down tough reelection battles in states that have rapidly diversified in the past six years. Many of those senators are making the calculation to stick closely with President Trump. It could be a risky bet, in light of stark new unemployment numbers and the ongoing coronavirus crisis in the US.

“For Covid, I think Republicans have acknowledged that, for better or for worse, they are going to be tied to the president,” Jessica Taylor, the Senate and governors editor at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, told Vox. “When the economy was doing well, that was a good thing, but now that has tanked.”

The election is mainly a referendum on Trump
Republicans had been hoping to make Trump’s impeachment the centerpiece of their attack on Democrats in 2020, but now they admit impeachment is no longer registering.

“Impeachment was three or four years ago, it feels like,” Newhouse said.

Instead, the government’s response to the coronavirus, the economy, and Trump’s own approval rating will be driving both the presidential race and many down-ballot races in November. Covid-19 has already thrown elements of campaigning into disarray. With the virus still disrupting American life, campaigns are having to rethink how to fundraise, organize, and get their message out to voters virtually.

“Everyone’s in uncharted territory here,” a Republican strategist told Vox. “I think coronavirus, the response ... might take on the largest focus. Right now there are a lot of things that are unpredictable.”

Republican senators may hope anti-Trump voters will split their tickets, but Newhouse said with more people voting straight party up and down the ticket, the fate of Trump and many GOP senators could be inextricably linked. Whereas the 2018 midterms were considered a referendum on Trump without the president being on the ballot, Trump is at the top of the ticket this time.

“The fate of our Senate majority lies in how Donald Trump does in some of these key states,” Newhouse said.

Democrats, meanwhile, are planning to run a playbook that was successful in many 2018 House races: backing moderate, “pragmatic” candidates and focusing on health care in the middle of a pandemic that has millions of newly unemployed people losing their health insurance along with their jobs. Democrats will highlight Medicaid expansion as an issue in states that didn’t expand it, including North Carolina, Kansas, Georgia, Texas, and Alabama. They’re already going after North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis (R) for his role in rejecting Medicaid expansion when he was leading the North Carolina state legislature.

Biden and Democratic Senate candidates alike are hoping disaffected suburban voters who voted for House Democrats in 2018 will vote blue in 2020 as well. And Taylor sees little effort on the part of the GOP to woo these more moderate voters back into the fold.

“I think that 2018 clearly showed there’s some buyer’s remorse,” said Taylor. “And we’re no longer talking about a hypothetical President Trump and what he could do — you’ve seen it in action. I don’t think [Trump] or Republicans writ large have done anything to get [moderate voters] back.”

With the deluge of news in an uncertain environment, political operatives in both parties concede that voters will be judging the president’s and Congress’s response to the pandemic and getting the economy up and running this fall.


President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing about coronavirus testing in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 11, 2020. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
“A lot of that is going to be determined in where we’re at as a country handling coronavirus this fall,” Cameron said. “Do these voters trust Trump or Biden more to bring us back from this recession that we’re either in or headed toward? It’s so hard to tell what the political environment is going to be like.”

Here’s where the Senate map stands so far.

Democrats’ four biggest opportunities: Colorado, Arizona, Maine, and North Carolina
Colorado
Who is the Republican? Sen. Cory Gardner, first elected to the Senate in 2014. Gardner reliably votes with Trump and Republicans, although he has split with the Trump administration on issues including marijuana decriminalization and immigration reform.

Who are the Democrats? Former Gov. John Hickenlooper and former speaker of the Colorado state House Andrew Romanoff are vying for the Democratic nomination in a June primary. Romanoff is running to the left of Hickenlooper, but Colorado political experts see the popular former governor as the likely nominee.

What are the odds? Cook Political Report rates this a toss-up. Sabato’s Crystal Ball rates it Lean Democratic.

What’s the background on the race? Election forecasters believe Colorado is Democrats’ likeliest pickup opportunity in the fall for one big reason: The state has become reliably blue since 2014. There’s a Democratic trifecta in the governor’s mansion and state legislature. Colorado is diversifying, its suburban voters are a prime demographic for Democrats, and polls show many of these voters do not like Trump. Immigration and gun control are two big issues in a state that is home to immigrants and has seen multiple mass shootings. Hickenlooper is double digits ahead of Gardner in recent polls and is fundraising successfully, but the incumbent still has a cash advantage.

Arizona’s special election
Who is the Republican? Sen. Martha McSally, who narrowly lost her 2018 race to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. McSally was appointed to fill the seat of the late Sen. John McCain in 2018.

Who is the Democrat? Mark Kelly, former US astronaut and husband of Gabrielle Giffords, the former US representative for Arizona and gun control activist.

What are the odds? Cook Political Report rates this a toss-up. Sabato’s Crystal Ball rates it Lean Democratic.

What’s the background on the race? Arizona will be an extremely tight race this fall, both Democrats and Republicans tell Vox. Once seen as a more moderate Republican House member, McSally tied herself closely to Trump in 2018 but lost her race against Sinema by a razor-thin margin. Since she was appointed by Arizona’s Republican governor to fill McCain’s seat in 2018, her favorability ratings with voters don’t look great. Kelly has consistently led polls there by high single digits.

Kelly has the financial resources to get his name out there; he has been raising gobs of cash to compete in the general election. He raised $11 million in the first quarter of 2020 and has more than $19 million cash on hand, compared to about $10 million for McSally. That money will become especially important as the coronavirus forces candidates to wage a campaign on voters’ screens in lieu of in-person events. Arizona certainly isn’t as liberal as Colorado, but Latino voters in the state could be a force to be reckoned with this fall. And McSally — having lost one Senate race — needs to prove she can win this one.

Maine
Who is the Republican? Sen. Susan Collins, in office since 1997.

Who are the Democrats? Maine Speaker of the House Sara Gideon is the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee-backed candidate. Other Democrats in the mix include progressive activist Betsy Sweet and attorney Bre Kidman.


Maine Speaker of the House Sara Gideon talks to the press in her office on July 3, 2017. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald/Getty Images
What are the odds? Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball both rate this a toss-up.

What’s the background on the race? Once seen as one of the most moderate Republicans in the US Senate, Collins is facing what could be her toughest reelection yet. Her reputation as an independent senator willing to break from her party has taken a hit in the Trump era — given her vote for a GOP tax bill and her key confirmation vote for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Collins is now the most unpopular senator in the country, according to Morning Consult, even more so than Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Still, Collins has proved her staying power in the state for decades and will be tough to beat. She has cruised to reelection in the past, and Republicans will spend heavily to protect her seat. Many Maine voters are fiercely independent — the state elected conservative firebrand Paul LePage twice as governor. Despite Maine going for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Democrats flipping a congressional district in 2018, there are still plenty of red areas in the rural, northern part of the state.

“[She] won in 2008 despite Obama winning the state pretty handily, and I think if anything, Sen. Collins has proven she’s a survivor,” Cameron said. “Folks there aren’t your typical Acela corridor-type liberals.”

North Carolina
Who is the Republican? Sen. Thom Tillis, elected to the Senate in 2014 and former speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives.

Who is the Democrat? Cal Cunningham, a former North Carolina state senator and veteran.

What are the odds? Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball both rate this a toss-up.

What’s the background on the race? North Carolina is considered a true swing state in the 2020 presidential election and Senate race because of its changing demographics and swing suburban voters outside of cities like Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte. Senate races in North Carolina are often razor-thin; Tillis won his seat in 2014 by just 46,000 votes — or a single percentage point. A recent poll showed a virtual tie in the race, with Tillis ahead by a point.

As Tillis closely aligns himself with Trump, Democrats aren’t just planning to seize on Tillis’s record in the US Senate, they are also delving into his tenure leading the North Carolina state House, where he opposed Medicaid expansion and was part of a Republican effort to reduce the state’s unemployment benefits — two things now hurting North Carolina residents out of work. Cunningham, an Iraq War veteran, will likely make the race about Trump as much as possible. Republicans say the state is still fundamentally red.

Republicans’ two pickup opportunities: Alabama and (maybe) Michigan
Alabama
Who is the Democrat? Sen. Doug Jones, who won a surprise victory in a 2017 special election against Republican Roy Moore.


Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) speaks with the press following a vote in the Senate impeachment trial that acquitted President Donald Trump of all charges on February 5, 2020, in Washington, DC. Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images
Who are the Republicans? Former Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions is running for his old Senate seat, competing against former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville in a July runoff. Moore, who lost to Jones in 2017 after allegations surfaced that he had sexually assaulted a minor, lost the Republican primary.

What are the odds? Cook Political Report rates this Lean Republican, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball rates it Likely Republican.

What’s the background on the race? The 2020 election is a test of whether Doug Jones’s 2017 win was an aberration or a testament to newfound Democratic strength in the South. The fundamentals of the race clearly favor Republicans; Alabama loves Trump, and the president’s net approval rating has been higher there than any other state. Jones is a moderate Democrat who emphasizes his bipartisan record, but also voted to remove the president after impeachment. The GOP is clearly feeling confident now that Moore is no longer an element in the race.

“Alabama, as far as I’m concerned, is a Republican seat,” a Republican strategist told Vox. “Roy Moore is not going to be the nominee, and I think that was Doug Jones’s only hope.” Democrats may cut their losses and put their money into other, more competitive races. They’re not yet spending to protect Jones, although the incumbent has out-fundraised both Sessions and Tuberville combined. As far as the Republican primary goes, Trump has endorsed Tuberville; clearly, there’s no love lost between the president and his former attorney general.

Michigan
Who is the Democrat? Sen. Gary Peters, elected to the Senate in 2014 and a US House member before that.

Who are the Republicans? Businessman and veteran John James and former US Rep. Bob Carr. James unsuccessfully challenged Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow in 2018.

What are the odds? Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball both rate this Likely Democrat.

What’s the background on the race? James has gotten hype from Republicans for out-fundraising Peters in the first quarter of 2020, but money alone may not be enough to flip the Michigan Senate seat. Peters, a long-serving House member before being elected to the Senate in 2014, is up for his first Senate reelection. He keeps a fairly low profile compared to other senators, focusing on issues like health care and jobs for his Upper Midwest state.

Earlier polls showed a potentially competitive race shaping up, but an April Fox News poll showed Peters leading James by 10 points. Michigan will be one of the most closely watched states of the presidential election, and that is sure to trickle down to the Senate race. Although Trump won there in 2016, the state elected a Democratic governor in 2018 and Biden is leading in recent polls. And Democrats, for their part, feel Peters’s record of winning his House races will translate to this seat.

“He’s been through tough elections and proven he can outperform,” a Democratic strategist told Vox. “Gary knew this was always going to be a tough race and walked into the election prepared.”

Other Republican pickup opportunities are limited
Beyond their likely pickup in Alabama and attempt to make Michigan competitive, Republican are looking at precious few other offensive opportunities this year. In Minnesota, former US Rep. Jason Lewis (known for once complaining that it was no longer socially acceptable to call women “sluts”) is challenging Democratic Sen. Tina Smith after losing his House seat in 2018. New Mexico has an open Senate race where three Republicans are competing in the primary, but that state is considered fairly blue. Both races are rated Likely Democratic by Cook and Sabato.

Democrats’ reach races in red states: Montana, Kansas, Iowa, and Georgia
Montana
Who is the Republican? Sen. Steve Daines, elected in 2014. Daines served as the at-large US House member from Montana before that.

Who are the Democrats? Term-limited Gov. Steve Bullock (who briefly ran for president in 2020) and veteran John Mues.


Montana Gov. Steve Bullock speaks at the Iowa State Fair on August 8, 2019. Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images
What are the odds? Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball both rate this Lean Republican.

What’s the background on the race? With the long-awaited entrance of Montana’s popular Democratic governor Bullock, this once long-shot Senate race is actually competitive. Montana voted for Trump by 20 points in 2016, but the state has an independent streak and reelected Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in 2018, despite an all-out blitz Trump launched against him. While Bullock out-fundraised Daines in the first quarter of the year, Daines has more money overall and a substantial war chest.

“It’s a red state, but it’s a very elastic state,” said election forecaster J. Miles Coleman of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, who thinks Montana is the next likeliest pickup opportunity for Democrats, beyond their “core four.” In other words, there’s a chance Montana could go for Trump in 2020 and elect Bullock to the Senate. A March poll showed a dead tie, while a more recent Montana State University poll showed Bullock ahead by five points. No matter what the outcome is, the race will be extremely close. But Bullock takes the race from being a Republican certainty to a massive question mark.

Georgia special election
Who are the Republicans? Sen. Kelly Loeffler, named to replace retired Sen. Johnny Isakson in 2019, and Rep. Doug Collins.

Who are the Democrats? Rev. Raphael Warnock and entrepreneur Matt Lieberman (son of former Sen. Joe Lieberman).

What are the odds? Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball both rate this Lean Republican.

What’s the background on the race? Georgia is yet another traditionally Republican state where the demographics are slowly getting more favorable for Democrats. The Atlanta suburbs are attracting a lot of college-educated voters who are moving away from the GOP. Add to that, the very wealthy Loeffler is facing substantial blowback for allegations that she dumped millions in stock and subsequently bought stock in a teleworking company after being briefed on coronavirus in the Senate (Loeffler said the stock sales were made without her knowledge). Georgia is being hit hard by the coronavirus, with at least a million people out of work before the state opened back up, so Loeffler’s extreme wealth and ability to self-fund could be as much of a liability as it is an asset.

In a normal election cycle, a GOP senator could likely survive Georgia’s changing political winds, but there’s an extra dash of weirdness in this special Senate election to replace Isakson. Rather than a straightforward Republican vs. Democrat contest, there will be an all-party primary on Election Day. The presence of Doug Collins, a Trump ally in the House, could be a massive thorn in Loeffler’s side. If no one wins a majority in November, the election could go to a January runoff where the top two candidates would compete. The DSCC has endorsed Warnock, the senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, but Matt Lieberman — the son of former Sen. Joe Lieberman — is also a Democratic candidate.

Georgia
Who is the Republican? Sen. David Perdue, a former businessman elected in 2014 and a close ally of Trump’s.

Who are the Democrats? Former congressional candidate Jon Ossoff, former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson, and 2018 candidate for lieutenant governor Sarah Riggs Amico.

What are the odds? Cook Political Report rates this Lean Republican, while Sabato’s Crystal Ball rates it Likely Republican.

What’s the background on the race? Perdue’s seat was considered less competitive than the Georgia special election with Loeffler, but new polling shows the race there could be tighter than expected. After an early May poll from a Republican firm showed Perdue leading Ossoff by just 2 points, following another Republican poll showing Perdue with a 6-point lead, Taylor recently moved Cook’s rating from Likely Republican to Lean Republican.

Compared to Loeffler, Perdue is not dealing with the same degree of personal baggage or a serious primary challenger, but he’s facing similar dynamics with Georgia’s shifting demographics. The suburbs outside Atlanta in particular are a tricky spot for the GOP, and gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’s narrow loss in the governor’s race in 2018 spooked Republicans. The Democratic primary has yet to play itself out, and Perdue has the upper hand. Democrats will undoubtedly have to spend and organize heavily in Georgia in order to make it truly competitive in November. But the poll numbers on Perdue’s race are still worth watching.

Kansas
Who is the Republican? With Sen. Pat Roberts retiring, there’s a crowded Republican primary. Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and US Rep. Roger Marshall are the two biggest names competing in the August 4 primary.

Who is the Democrat? Dr. Barbara Bollier, a state senator and former moderate Republican who switched parties in 2018.

What are the odds? Cook Political Report rates this Lean Republican, while Sabato’s Crystal Ball rates it Likely Republican.

What’s the background on the race? There’s only one way Democrats can make this open Senate seat in a conservative state competitive: if Kobach is the Republican nominee. The scenario of Kobach winning the Republican primary but losing the general is the stuff of nightmares for Washington Republicans. The National Republican Senatorial Committee blasted Kobach’s candidacy last summer, and both Trump and McConnell are still actively encouraging Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to run (Pompeo, a former Kansas Congress member, has said he’s not interested). But even if party leaders don’t want Kobach to run, Kansas Republicans don’t seem to have buyer’s remorse from his loss in the 2018 gubernatorial election. He is currently the narrow frontrunner of the Republican field, leading or tying Marshall in polls.

“Marshall says the right thing to appeal to Trump conservatives, but it looks halfhearted compared to Kris Kobach,” said Patrick Miller, a political science professor at the University of Kansas.

Democrats like what they see in Bollier, a doctor and former moderate Republican in the state Senate who recently switched parties. She’s relatively free to fundraise and wait for the Republican primary to play itself out. If Marshall emerges victorious, Bollier probably doesn’t have much of a chance. But if she’s facing off against Kobach, she could have a shot at winning; an April survey from Public Policy Polling showed her leading Kobach by 2 points.

“You can be a strong candidate as a Democrat and lose statewide, because it’s Kansas,” Miller said. “Where we are after the primary, who knows. But right now she’s doing what she needs to do to prepare for the primary.”

Iowa
Who is the Republican? Sen. Joni Ernst, elected in 2014. Ernst is a veteran and former Iowa state senator.

Who are the Democrats? Businesswoman Theresa Greenfield (endorsed by the DSCC) and Vice Adm. Mike Franken are the two biggest names in the field.

What are the odds? Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball both rate this Lean Republican.

What’s the background on the race? Ernst — a combat veteran and the first woman Iowa has sent to Congress — is up for her first reelection. Republicans see her in a good position, but Democrats are also pouring money into Iowa as they hope to flip it. While Iowa is still seen as a fairly conservative state, Democrats were able to win a couple of key congressional districts in 2018, and Ernst’s approval rating fell 10 points in the past year, according to a recent poll from respected Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer.

The Democratic primary in the Senate race is also competitive. While the DSCC is all in on behalf of Greenfield, some moderate Democratic House members who are veterans have endorsed Franken, a former Navy vice admiral. A recent Public Policy Polling poll showed Ernst a single point ahead of Greenfield, but the Democrat still has to make it through her primary.

“I think you have the Senate Majority PAC having to spend already on behalf of Greenfield, it’s not a good sign that they’re already spending there to get her through her primary,” Coleman said.

Democrats’ tough-to-flip states that still could be interesting to watch
The remaining races Cook rates Likely Republican will all be interesting to watch but difficult for Democrats to actually flip. These states include:

South Carolina, where Sen. Lindsey Graham is facing Democrat Jaime Harrison.
Texas, where Sen. John Cornyn will compete against either MJ Hegar or Royce West.
Kentucky, where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is up for reelection and fighter pilot Amy McGrath is raking in millions of dollars to see if she can unseat him (McGrath is the biggest name out of all 10 candidates in the Kentucky Democratic primary).
All of these races will cost millions of dollars, but the fundamentals in each of the states favor Republicans. McConnell’s race in particular is symbolic to Democrats who intensely dislike the majority leader. But while his main challenger, McGrath, fundraises impressive sums of money, he will be extraordinarily difficult to actually beat in a state where Trump has a 17-point approval rating.

At this point, while Democrats would certainly like to emerge victorious in any of these states, they’ll likely focus their efforts on the other, more plausible paths to a Senate majority they now have on the map.

I'm looking forward to voting to kick out that Tea Party shit Gardener, and complete Colorado's transition from swing state to reliably blue state.