The Golden Hour
Twilight of ticket-splitters continues in tranquility.
The election isn’t over yet. But some things are coming into focus, like the crucial role ticket-splitters will play. Check out this headline: New poll finds Jared Golden and Donald Trump leading Maine’s 2nd District.
The poll, by the highly-rated SurveyUSA, shows a seventeen point gap between the Democratic incumbent and Trump.
Every time I think of Jared Golden winning Trump voters - which is a lot, as readers may recall from Reaching Escape Velocity, Golden Miracle, What the Polarization Hawks Aren’t Saying, Democrats should try harder to win tough races, etc. - a few old columns from The New York Times come to mind.1 Here’s Jamelle Bouie from August 2021 on how Golden was “Making a Big Mistake:”
We are well past the age of split-ticket voting. If and when voters turn against Biden, they’ll turn against congressional Democrats too. Try as they might, these Democratic skeptics will struggle to distance themselves from their party and its leadership. If past elections are any evidence, they’ll fail.
Well, Golden did not fail in the midterms - he won his Trump district by even more than in 2020, which was by more than 2018. And this cycle, he’s teamed up with two other Trump-district winners, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Mary Peltola, to spread the good news of how to win a tough district as Blue Dog Democrats.
Cook Political Report just announced their final race ratings, which fall into categories: Likely Dem, Lean Dem, Toss-Up, Lean GOP, and Likely GOP. One of those Blue Dog-endorsed candidates, Adam Frisch, got a big bump from “Likely GOP” to the more competitive “Lean GOP”.
The six WelcomePAC-backed challengers ended up evenly dispersed across the three GOP-skewed categories: two are Republican Toss-Ups, two Lean Republican, and two Likely Republican.
Every evening when the sun sets, the golden hour of soft light is followed by the “blue hour”, which photographers prefer for a tranquil mood. Win or lose (or, God forbid, draw) we’ll need some tranquility next week. And will certainly have work to do.
Welcome co-founder
has the lede quote in today’s big story in The Atlantic:… politicians need to start thinking of Black men—in contrast to more reliably Democratic Black women—as politically independent.
“I’ve been telling people for months: Black men, Hispanic men, minority men are independent voters,” she said. “People need to look past the concept that if you’re a Black man with a college degree, you’re going to vote for a Democrat. No. Absolutely not. I’ve got plenty of Black friends who have college degrees who are from the South, not from the South, whatever, who are genuinely concerned about things the Democratic Party is doing.”
Read the rest here: Of Course Black Men Are Drifting Towards Trump.
PS Shocked to be writing this, but … did we predict the cover of Maxim?
In yesterday’s breakdown of polling problems and swing voters, we noted that MAGA Rep. Anna Paulina Luna was an aspiring Maxim model before becoming a “conservative influencer” and then political candidate. Less than 24 hours later, Luna announced “I am excited to announce I have been given the November and December cover of Maxim.”
Lauren covered another NYT column in the same category in Why Ezra Klein is Polarizing