Finally, some really great news in 2020
A history-making night
Welcome to the big Wednesday night edition of Progressives Everywhere!
Boy, do we have a lot of great news for you tonight. Seriously, great news, in the year 2020!! Let’s get to it!
A Midwestern Romp
Well, we can finally put that tired old “coastal liberal” trope to bed, as progressive candidates and causes won big time on Tuesday night. Yes, these were mostly primary elections, but what has become clear is that the progressive movement is organized, motivated, and very popular, driving turnout and excitement in a way that the staid party establishment had not done in years. Their energy is contagious across party lines and amplified by the current nightmare moment in which we all live.
I think it’s fair to say that the national energy is on our side.
We’ll get to the elections in a moment, but first, I want to highlight the successful passage of the ballot initiative to expand Medicaid in Missouri. Yet again, citizens showed up at the polls to approve a significant expansion in government-provided healthcare in a state where Republicans have been blocking its implementation since 2012. About 230,000 low-income Missourians will now be able to access healthcare without risking bankruptcy thanks to this expansion, which was approved by more than 53% of voters in the state.
Missouri will be the 38th state to expand Medicaid; voters in Oklahoma narrowly approved expansion there in July. Vox has a story today about the expansion in these two states and how COVID-19 is changing healthcare politics, but I don’t think you can say that the pandemic was the reason both of these states passed an expansion of Medicaid. After all, they’re following in the footsteps of the Nebraska, Idaho, and Utah, three decidedly not blue states, which all passed expansion via ballot initiative in 2018. Maine did the same in 2017.
This isn’t just about healthcare, either. In 2018, Missouri voters went to the polls and signaled support for a whole slate of progressive policies, including a rise in the minimum wage, the legalization of medical marijuana, limitations on lobbying, and the wholesale rejection of anti-union “right to work” laws.
A lot of the credit for all these great ballot initiative victories in states across the country goes to The Fairness Project, which has been a force for enacting progressive policy over the past few campaign cycles. I interviewed the organization’s executive director back in 2018 and they’re continuing to kill it.
It’s clear that tradition and identity politics are really the only things keeping Republicans in the game right now; a vast majority of people prefer progressive policies.
Further, city council, state legislators, and progressive prosecutors had a huge night on Tuesday, racking up wins in cities and counties across swing states (and a few blue states). In Ann Arbor, Michigan, a slate of progressive candidates ousted the remaining conservative Democrats in the city council, promising better and more equitable housing solutions in a city where racist zoning laws still dominate.
Washtenaw County, where Ann Arbor is located, also voted for progressive reformer Eli Savit in the prosecutor primary; Savit was backed by Bernie Sanders, and more significantly, had the support of my good friend Chris Savage, the chair of the Washtenaw County Democratic Party. Savit is going to bring changes to an office that’s been controlled by one person for the last 30 years — he supports abolishing cash bail and generally prefers to keep people out of prison when possible.
Other progressive prosecutor victories included big wins in Oakland County (suburban Detroit) as well as in Colorado and Arizona. I’ll have a longer interview on those races later this week for our paid subscribers.
Other nice victories include Ingrid Anderson’s primary win in Washington; a nurse and labor leader, she challenged corporate-backed Rep. Mark Mullet in the state’s 5th legislative district.
The biggest election headline is activist/nurse Cori Bush’s primary victory over longtime Democratic Rep. Lacy Clay in Missouri’s 1st Congressional district. A very safe blue district that encompasses St. Louis and some of its suburbs, it has been represented by Clay and his father, Bill Clay, for over half a century, making Bush’s victory a remarkable accomplishment and more like slaying a dragon than simply winning an election.
Bush, who has been at the center of the fight for civil rights in the St. Louis area since the police murder of Michael Brown, ran against Clay in 2018 and never stopped building her community organization. She’s already been anointed the next member of The Squad, which had its own big victory on Tuesday when Rep. Rashida Tlaib easily won her rematch against former Representative-for-a-minute Brenda Jones in Michigan’s 13th district.
This is a great interview with Bush and fellow progressive primary victory, New York’s Jamaal Bowman, who won his race against Rep. Eliot Engel last month. It also mentions Mondaire Jones, who we interviewed and backed and who won his own primary against centrist candidates in New York in July.
The next big opportunity for progressives to oust a corrupt, conservative, and long-serving member of the caucus is in September, when Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse (who we’ve interviewed and backed here) takes on Rep. Richard Neal in Massachusetts. As a reminder, Neal takes more lobbyist cash than anyone in Congress and deliberately botched the best chance we had to get Trump’s financial records.
Also: Check out this incredible answer from Jamaal Bowman, who was asked about Gov. Cuomo’s refusal to raise taxes on the richest New Yorkers. He is the kind of no-bullshit progressive we need to really change things.
Oh, one thing: Every weeknight, I fill a newsletter with headlines, analysis, and races that get overlooked most everywhere else. If you want the daily newsletter delivered right to your inbox, just sign up for the premium edition of Progressives Everywhere. On Wednesday, I send it out for free!
COVID-19 and Related Drama
President Trump’s lies about the virus he still insists “will just disappear” have gotten so egregious, Facebook has finally taken one of his posts down and Twitter is just straight-up blocking him from tweeting until he deletes the same post on their service. The lie in question is a clip from a Fox News interview in which he said children are “basically immune” from the virus, which would be laughable if it weren’t inspiring parents to send their children back into a death trap.
I know the school issue is complicated, but seeing headlines and photos like these do not inspire any confidence that overwhelmed teachers and school administrators are able to keep kids six feet apart at all times.
The story above came out of Paulding County, Georgia, where students are not required to wear masks. Kids have been hit particularly hard in Georgia (this summer camp story is infuriating) and yet, Gov. Brian Kemp still refuses to mandate masks. He did, however, just sign a bill that gives more protections to police in a state where cop murder has been inspiring protests for years.
In Wisconsin, Gov. Tony Evers did sign an executive order for a statewide mask mandate, but he’s been having trouble with sheriffs who don’t want to enforce it. Now, his administration is trying to go around the recalcitrant idealogue cops to make sure people mask up. It’s truly remarkable to read some of the statements from the sheriffs in the state, who have just decided that they don’t want to uphold certain laws, with zero legal justification. At least Milwaukee is starting to enforce it, though it’s against businesses and not individuals.
Elections (and Future Elections) and Voting Rights
The race to flip the Texas legislature is… heating up. Joanna Cattanach, who we interviewed in June, just released a poll that puts her five points ahead of the incumbent Republican in House District 108. She lost her race by just 220 votes in 2018 and looks like a good bet to finish this job this November; Beto O’Rourke won this district by 15 points two years ago. If Democrats are going to flip the State House, Cattanach has to win this race.
Last night, we laughed at Donald Trump’s sudden about-face when it came to absentee voting in Florida, where Democrats have built up a 600,000-voter advantage. But not everything is rosy there — though Dems lead in vote-by-mail requests, Republicans have registered more voters in Florida since the 2018 election. Democrats still have an overall lead in registered voters, but as we’ve seen, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to win.
This might be an entirely different story if the GOP in the state hadn’t passed an egregious Jim Crow poll tax that conservative courts have thus far upheld.
Speaking of voter suppression, Trump’s malicious new Postmaster General isn’t just slowing the mail down in an attempt to thwart democracy, he’s also trying to raise the price that states pay to send ballots to voters. Cash-strapped states will have even more difficulty fulfilling requests should this go through.
Republicans in swing states are taking advantage of Kanye West’s clear mental distress in hopes that it siphons off votes from Democrats and gives the GOP a narrow victory. I’d say they should be ashamed of themselves, but that’s never going to happen.
Evangelical Christian Democrats? Sure, as long as they’re progressive!
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