Gallup: “In 2019, on average, 47% of U.S. adults identified politically as Democrats or said they were independents who leaned toward the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, 42% identified as Republicans or were Republican-leaning independents.”
“Americans’ political leanings have been quite stable since 2016, the year Donald Trump was elected president. The Democratic figure has not changed in the past four years, and the Republican figure has been 41% or 42% each year since 2012.”
“In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party.”
— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), in an interview with New York magazine.
“The future of the Democratic Party is not Pete Buttigieg. It’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”
— Will Rodriguez-Kennedy, president of the California Young Democrats, quoted by Politico.
The RNC goes into the presidential election year with more than seven times as much cash on hand as the DNC: $63 million vs. $8.3 million, according to FEC filings.
Mike Allen: “This is a stark new sign of what we’ve been reporting all year — that President Trump’s digitally driven campaign is giving him a massive fundraising and organizing advantage over whoever emerges from the Democratic race.”
Walter Shapiro: “It is fashionable to argue that only losers fail to mobilize a national following seven weeks before the Iowa caucuses. But since the days when Eugene McCarthy stunned Lyndon Johnson amid the snows of New Hampshire in 1968 and a little-known governor named Jimmy Carter swept the opening contests in 1976, Democratic voters have reveled in surprising the handicappers.”
“One simple rule change would solve the majority of the problems surrounding the debates: Give an automatic seat on the stage to any Democrat who has won a statewide election or served in the Cabinet in the last 10 years. Only true outsiders like Yang and Steyer would have to prove that they have enough of a following to qualify for the debate stage.”
Jonathan Freedland: “Well, guess what. Labour’s ‘radical’ manifesto of 2019 achieved precisely nothing. Not one proposal in it will be implemented, not one pound in it will be spent. It is worthless. And if judged not by the academic standard of ‘expanding the discourse,’ but by the hard, practical measure of improving actual people’s actual lives, those hate figures of Corbynism — Tony Blair and Gordon Brown — achieved more in four hours than Corbyn achieved in four years. Why? Because they did what it took to win power.”
“That’s what a political party is for. It’s not a hobby; it’s not a pressure group that exists to open the Overton window a little wider; it’s not an association for making friends or hosting stimulating conversations and seminars; it’s not ‘a 30-year project.’ Its purpose is to win and exercise power in the here and now. It is either a plausible vehicle for government or it is nothing.”
Alexander Heffner: “The Trump impeachment is spotlighting the Founders’ fears of foreign influence on US security and leaders, and turning liberals into originalists.”
New York Times: “Being a national chairman for the party that doesn’t hold the White House is among the worst jobs in American politics. It’s a high-profile position with little power. There is endless grief from fretting party regulars and nonstop comparisons to the president’s party, which has the president himself as its chief fund-raiser.”
Gallup: “More Americans continue to identify as Democrats or as ‘Democratic-leaning’ independents than as Republicans or ‘Republican-leaning’ independents. The current 47% to 42% Democratic edge is largely in line with what Gallup has measured over the past five years.”
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Jonathan Rauch and Ray La Raja: “Americans rarely pause to consider just how bizarre the presidential nominating process has become. No other major democracy routinely uses primaries to choose its political candidates, nor did the Founders of this country intend for primaries to play a role in the republican system they devised.”
“Abraham Lincoln did not win his party’s nomination because he ran a good ground game in New Hampshire; rather, Republican elders saw in him a candidate who could unite rival factions within the party and defeat the Democratic nominee in the general election. Today’s system amounts to a radical experiment in direct democracy, one without precedent even in America’s own political history.”
Thomas Pepinsky: “For decades, Republicans and Democrats fought over the same things: Whose values and policies work best for American democracy. But now, those age-old fights are changing. What was once run-of-the-mill partisan competition is being replaced by a disagreement over democracy itself.”
“This is particularly evident as the president and many of his allies crow about the illegitimacy of the House impeachment inquiry, calling it an attempted coup, and as the White House refuses to comply with multiple congressional subpoenas as part of the probe.”
“This marks a new phase in American politics. Democrats and Republicans might still disagree about policy, but they are increasingly also at odds over the very foundations of our constitutional order.”
“They’re vicious and they stick together. They don’t have Mitt Romney in their midst.”
— President Trump, quoted by The Guardian, on the Democrats.
Alexander Agadjanian: “Political science research suggests that moderates generally fare better in elections, but much of our current understanding is speculative: There has been little directly relevant data on how voters are reacting in the moment. Are swing voters being put off? Are Democratic voters excited and more likely to stick with their party?”
“In a recent survey experiment I conducted, the evidence pointed to both these possibilities, but with one pattern much more pronounced than the other.”
“The embrace of progressivism solidifies support among Democratic survey respondents when thinking about the 2020 general election. But it repels independents, with a negative effect that is stronger and clearer than the signs of enthusiasm generated among Democrats.”
The DNC said that at least 12 presidential hopefuls are expected to appear together on a single night at next month’s televised debate in Ohio, the New York Times reports.
“The Ohio debate, on Oct. 15, is set to include the 10 candidates who appeared at this month’s debate in Houston… In addition to that group, the billionaire Tom Steyer and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard are scheduled to take the stage.”
New York Times: “The online ticker for ActBlue, the company that processes most online Democratic donations, showed that Tuesday was one of the bigger fund-raising days in recent months that was not linked to a Democratic debate or a monthly deadline. The site showed $4.6 million in donations on Tuesday, after $4.2 million on Monday.”
Politico: “It began as nothing more than a device to govern an unruly primary field. But the bar set for Democrats to qualify for this year’s presidential debates has become a force in its own right, more consequential than any of the early debates it administered… And the rules are now metastasizing in unexpected ways.”
“In Iowa, some prominent Democrats are privately urging struggling campaigns to stay in the contest even if they cannot qualify for the debates, incredulous that metrics imposed by national Democratic Party officials could stamp out lesser contenders … Democrats raising money for down-ticket candidates are complaining that the presidential candidates’ imperative to raise money to meet debate thresholds is drawing attention away from congressional and state house contests — and perverting the Democratic Party’s messaging overall.”
“It’s being destroyed from within.”
— Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL), quoted by the Montgomery Advertiser, on the Alabama Democratic Party.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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