Into the Great Wide Open
Into the Great Wide Open
Democrats weigh pulling the goalie, trust the process on delegates selecting a nominee, and must Protect This House
Over the two weeks since The Debate, it has been especially important to remember our mantra from January: it is time to calmly freak out.
Emphasis on calmly!
Amid all the potential risk lay comforting truths: volatility can be good, and there is much work to be done.
First, a quick data point for calm: in our poll released Monday, it is clear that Democratic voters view convention delegates selecting a nominee as completely legitimate. Just 2% of a large sample of 955 Democratic primary voters polled from July 3-5 viewed a nominee selected by delegates as illegitimate, compared to 87% viewing as legitimate.
As Tom Petty sang, “Sure as night will follow day, most things I worry about never happen anyway.” A freakout over convention delegates may not be one of them.
You Need Volatility
Worries may not come true, but embracing the unexpected is always a good bet. The oft-invoked fear of “risk” over the past two weeks has emphasized the zero sum nature of two-party politics.
And how to evaluate a case for shaking things up.
When a hockey team is losing late in a game, they pull their goalie to add an additional offensive player. The reason is simple: winning or losing is a binary outcome. If the team loses by three, they’ve still lost. But if they can score a goal, they are back in the game. What they really need is for more goals to be scored in general, even if it is more likely the other team will score.
In statistical terms, the losing team is trying to increase variance. By drastically changing the dynamics of the game, the goalie-pulling team creates a situation that puts the other team off-guard and perhaps allows for more goals to be scored. Even if the other team is more likely to score.
This metaphor can apply to politics as well. When a candidate is losing, they tend to request more debates: they want more opportunities for either candidate to stumble or land a key strike. We’ve argued before that the parties under-value variance. They do not value non-traditional, ideologically heterodox candidates that could put districts in play. Parties typically spend an overwhelming amount of their money on a narrow battleground and run similar ads in every district.
Right now, Democrats recognize they are losing and are considering pulling the goalie. But unlike in hockey, where pulling the goalie is common and has been happening earlier in games by the season, it is clear that Trump’s team is not ready for a switch.
The Renewed Importance Of The House
Whatever Biden does, it is clear that the possibility of a Trump Return has increased dramatically. But for those who lived through the first Trump Presidency, there was a dramatic difference between 2017-2018, when Trump governed with a trifecta and 2019-2020, when Trump was forced to compromise with Speaker Pelosi after Democrats took the House. Between 2017 and 2018, Trump tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act and succeeded in overturning environmental protections and passing a massive deficit finance tax cut. We’re not saying another Trump Presidency will be easy. But without a check in the House, it will be significantly more disastrous. Right now, rating agencies have the House as the most likely chamber to be led by Democrats, and in the past, the losing Presidential party has been able to gain seats in the House.
That’s why it’s concerning that a recent Welcome Democracy Institute report finds that there are 68 House seats that should be contested that parties have not fielded well-funded challengers. We are working to put money to the under-funded majority makers, people like Jared Golden, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Mary Peltola, Janelle Stelson, Becca Cooke and Janelle Bynum who are expanding the map.