People hate JD Vance. The media is doing his dirty work.
Plus: Great polling news, landmark change in Texas, and more
Welcome to a Saturday night edition of Progress Report.
I’m on the mend again, health-wise, and will hopefully be back to normal in the next few weeks. The good news is that Liverpool are playing two exhibition matches tomorrow, so I’ll have plenty to do while couch-bound. Relatedly, Scunthorpe United, the historic non-league English team that I helped rescue from being nearly destroyed by a corrupt owner last year, won its first match of the season today.
(I’ve spoken about Scunthorpe United before, but if it’s unfamiliar, you can read more about it here. I did the quiet investigative work that produced many of the damning revelations that ultimately forced the owner out.)
There’s lots of political news to discuss tonight, from some big new polling results to major ballot initiatives, book bans, good news for working people, and more.
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The gambit is working.
Not even three weeks after President Joe Biden withdrew from his reelection campaign and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor, the race for the White House has completely shifted in nearly every conceivable way. Most importantly, voters are now flocking to the new Democratic nominees, both out of enthusiasm for the almost unprecedented switch as well as revulsion at the GOP’s increasingly toxic ticket.
A brand new New York Times poll finds Harris leading former President Donald Trump among likely voters in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, with a 50% to 46% margin in each critical Midwestern swing state. Among registered voters, the vice president has a five-point lead in Wisconsin and three-point lead in Pennsylvania, while she trails Trump by two points in Michigan.
The survey went into the field on August 5th, the day before Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, and concluded on Friday.
Here are some main top lines:
Most surprising to me are the racial and education breakdowns:
Trump leads Harris by just a single point with white voters (49% to 48%)
Trump leads Harris by just six points with non-college graduates (51% to 45%)
Among white non-college grads, Trump leads Harris by 13 points (53% to 40%)
Those white non-college voters chose Trump in 2020 by 16 points (53% to 37%)
65% of voters think Kamala Harris is intelligent, while 56% see Trump that way
For Democrats, the key to winning involves clawing back losses with non-college whites while maintaining historic leads with non-white voters. Harris looks to be putting that coalition together right now, something that would have very likely been impossible for Biden to have accomplished.
With fewer than 90 days left until the election, nothing is settled, but the remarkable turnaround thus far vindicates those of us who argued as far back as last year that Biden should step aside. Over and over again, we were told that doing so would be impossible and endanger the party, the default response among loyal supporters of a Democratic Party that offers populist rhetoric despite being controlled by politicians and professionals who would rather maintain personal fiefdoms than wield actual power for the American people. We can only hope this unprecedented series of events convinces people to be less deferential and demand better.
What do voters care about?
Harris has received criticism in some quarters for running an allegedly substance-free campaign, but the poll suggests that voters aren’t sitting around wondering what the sitting vice president would do in office. The results show that 53% of likely voters agreed that Harris “has a clear vision for the future of the country, while 60% of likely voters said the same about Donald Trump, who couldn’t be more blatant about the many ways he wants to destroy the nation.
Likely voters in these three states ranked the economy (22%), abortion (16%) and immigration (13%) as the issue most important to them. The second tier of biggest concerns includes democracy and corruption (8%), the character and competence of the parties’ nominees (6%) and disliking one of the party’s nominees (5%). One can probably guess whose character, competence, and likability were the source of most consternation.
Foreign policy (3%) and health care (2%) round out the top choices.
Notably, virtually nobody listed crime (less than .5%) or the chaos in the Middle East (less than 1%) as their top issue. There was even less concern about the US’s relationship with China, which did not register any support. That doesn’t mean that people don’t care about those issues — respondents were only supposed to rank their top concern — but it does indicate that some of the most common GOP attack lines may not have all that big of an impact.
JD Vance keeps going lower
Vice presidential candidates generally don’t wind up having all that much impact on an election either way, but it’s worth looking at how voters in these three Midwestern swing states view Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, who were each selected in part to connect with this demographic.
It’s not good news for the Hillbilly Elegist, as voters in these three states view him unfavorably by nine points, 38% to 47%. Even worse, 38% of them view him very unfavorably. As for Walz, he boasts a 39% to 28% favorability rating, though that comes with the caveat that just about a third of voters hadn’t heard enough about Walz to render judgment.
The lower name ID helps to explain why Vance launched a dishonest attack on Walz’s military service this week.
In short, Vance is going after Walz for never serving in a combat zone, accusing him of abandoned his fellow Guardsman by retiring from the National Guard when he got the word that his unit could possibly ship off to Iraq later in 2005.
The reality is that Walz seved in the National Guard for 24 years and had already launched his campaign for Congress long before any suggestion that he might have to go to Iraq. While he initially intended to go with his unit and run for Congress, he began to doubt that he would have the bandwidth to do both. This created a dilemma: stay enlisted or leave the military and run for Congress as a critic of the war in Iraq. People who know him say that he thought long and hard about the decision.
“He was asking what would be best for the soldiers,” Al Bonnifield, who served with Walz, told The Daily Beast. “His feeling was, where can I do best for my soldiers? He thought he could do more in Congress than he could do if he stayed with the unit. He went on for half an hour or more, talking to us, trying to figure out what to do.”
Ultimately, Walz decided he could do more in Congress. He advocated against Bush’s surge in 2006, which kept his former unit in Iraq for longer than anticipated, and became a leader of the anti-war faction in Congress.
The choice to retire rankled some of the younger guardsmen in his unit, but many have spoken highly of his service and decision. Either way, it’s a pretty cut and dry story, and absolutely nothing that would justify Vance’s cynical allegations of “stolen valor.”
But that’s beside the point for Republicans, who cycle through lies and slanders like potential Tinder matches until they find one that has a chance of sticking.
This inane smear bears some similarity to the attacks on John Kerry’s military service and heroism while commanding swift boats in Vietnam. The disingenuous lies about his conduct in battle were so successful down the stretch of the 2004 election that the strategy became known as Swiftboating, and the guy responsible for them just so happens to be running Trump’s campaign.
It was a manufactured scandal that blew up due to outsized media attention, a disgraceful failure of editorial judgment that, based on cable news segments and newspaper columns, today’s media seems primed to repeat.
This “scandal” is a clear fabrication, but instead of the story being that JD Vance lied, the news media has been centering the lie in its headlines and coverage. Repeatedly posting fact checks only serves to give more oxygen to the cynical allegation.
Even more frustrating are the stories that take the meta angle, framing the accusations against Walz in relation to Swiftboating. Look at this headline from yesterday’s Washington Post:
CNN did something similar, with the headline “With ‘Swift Boat’ architect at the helm, Trump campaign uses familiar playbook against Walz.”
I’m always astounded when major media outlets act as if they have no agency or impact on public opinion and the national agenda. These are people who prize their ability to drive conversations, yet they report on fights over the national narrative as if what they write doesn’t directly shape that national narrative.
It’s particularly egregious in situations like this one, when the strategy they’re reporting on is so blatantly sleazy and driven by brazen lies. It’s not any more acceptable to perpetuate lies when it’s in the context of “political analysis,” because readers and viewers are not making that distinction when they see the headlines.
Here’s a sampling of updates in critical ballot initiative and amendment campaigns. Our big list of referenda is constantly being adjusted and updated as new initiatives get certified and lawsuits get decided.
Texas: Two separate initiatives poised to make the November ballot will give voters a rare chance to reshape a major city’s identity, as Dallas could either become a police state or beacon of reform depending on their outcome.
The first measure would require the city to hire 900 new police officers, boosting its force from the current 3100 cops to 4000 officers. It would also require Dallas to raise the pay for all officers and dedicate a whopping 50% of the city’s revenue growth to pensions for the police and fire department.
All told, hiring 900 police officers and providing them training, equipment, and benefits would cost the city $175 million, which would blow a hole in the municipal budget.
"You would be looking at drastic, very extreme cuts we would have to make across the board," Dallas interim city manager Kim Tolbert said at a council meeting on Wednesday evening.
Councilman Chad West said that it could “seriously impact parks, libraries, and street repairs,” among other things that the city funds. And not even the Dallas chief of police is against the proposal.
"900 is nearly impossible to do in a year," Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia said. "It would be incredibly difficult. It would be a burden on the department, quite frankly, with regards to funding for other things."
Missouri: This isn’t a unique gambit; voters in the Show Me State narrowly approved a referendum this week that will require Kansas City to spend at least 25% of its budget on the city’s police force, up from the current 20%.
This is the second time that the state legislature has forced a statewide referendum on KC’s police budget, and the second time that voters have approved a mandate for increased funding. The first came in 2022, but the state Supreme Court threw it out and ordered a repeat election.
Texas: OK, let’s get back to Dallas.
Garcia, the Dallas chief of police, also opposes a ballot initiative that would decriminalize possession of up to 4 ounces of marijuana. The initiative would prohibit police from using the smell of marijuana as probable cause for a search and seizure and ban the use of city funds to test substances to see whether they meet the legal definition of marijuana.
The measure is backed by Ground Game Texas, the grassroots organization that has spent the past few campaign cycles enacting decriminalization and other progressive initiatives in mid-sized cities.
Dallas would represent the largest victory for the organization, which also passed a decriminalization initiative in Austin in 2022. Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton sued to overturn the voter-approved law, but it was upheld by a judge in mid-June. Ground Game Texas has also successfully passed decriminalization in the cities of Denton, Elgin, Harker Heights, Killeen and San Marcos.
Baltimore: A Maryland circuit court judge on Friday blocked a proposed city charter amendment that would have provided a $1000 check to the parents of every new child born or adopted in Baltimore.
Mayor Brandon Scott sued over the “Baby Bonus” proposal in June, arguing that it usurped the city government’s power. Lawyers for the Maryland Child Alliance argued that the proposal left the city council plenty of jurisdiction over how the checks would be distributed and who would be eligible, but that didn’t fly for the judge.
“While reducing childhood poverty is an undoubtedly worthy initiative, the proposed baby amendment unlawfully infringes upon the legislative authority of the City,” Maryland Circuit Court Judge John S. Nugent wrote.
South Dakota: The state Supreme Court this week revived a challenge to a constitutional amendment that would guarantee abortion rights through the first trimester. The high court overturned a judge’s decision to throw out the challenge by Life Defense Fund, which was built on a myriad of procedural objections. The case now returns to the judge for further consideration.
Let’s run through some important headlines that may have gotten buried this week:
Iowa: An appeals court lifted a temporary injunction on a sweeping book ban law in Iowa that was passed last year, opening the doors to mass censorship in school libraries.
The law bans books that describe sex acts, with exceptions for religious and medical texts, and prohibits curriculum and instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation up until the sixth grade. These are largely the same parameters of Florida’s Stop WOKE Act, which was recently permanently blocked by a judge.
More than 3400 books had already been pulled from the shelves under the law before the injunction was ordered over the winter.
Illinois: The federal government has given Illinois the green light to expand its Medicaid program to address root causes of health problems, including housing, nutrition, and domestic violence. With CMS’s approval of its waiver application, Illinois will now be able to provide assistance with rent, healthier meals, and other items outside its traditional purview.
Illinois is the ninth state to receive a Section 1115 waiver to cover these social determinants of health, in the parlance of the government. With regard to housing, Illinois’s Medicaid program can now pay for a first month’s rent, moving expenses, utilities, and temporary housing after a hospitalization.
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