How Minority Parties (Might) Compete in One-Party States

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Key Points
• In an increasingly polarized nation, one party often dominates in a state while the other is seemingly consigned to permanent irrelevance. In such states, primary voters for the dominant party are able to flex their muscles to nominate a comparatively extreme candidate, who is all but assured a victory in the general election.
• One creative way that minority parties in at least some of these states could fight back is to stop running candidates for major offices like senator and governor, and instead encourage their voters to vote for the more moderate candidate in the dominant party’s primary. This is at least theoretically possible in states where primaries are “open” to all voters, rather than just those registered to the party in question.
• Another is to back an independent candidate instead of nominating their own candidate, as Democrats recently chose to do in Utah. CONTINUED

Louis Jacobson, Sabato’s Crystal Ball

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Why California Wants to Recall Its Most Progressive Prosecutors

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San Francisco and Los Angeles are two of America’s most liberal large counties. Democrats dominate their elected offices up and down the ballot. Yet in both places, serious efforts are under way to recall left-leaning district attorneys who have not even completed their first term.

San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin and L.A.’s George Gascón each ran for office on confronting structural racial inequities, reducing incarceration, and toughening accountability for law enforcement. Their victories, in 2019 and 2020, respectively, represented landmark moments in the nationwide “progressive prosecutor” movement. But in San Francisco, opponents have already collected enough signatures to force a June 7 recall election for Boudin that most local political professionals doubt he can survive. While Gascón’s situation isn’t quite as dire, opponents say they have collected hundreds of thousands of signatures toward the 566,857 they need by July 6 to prompt a recall election against him. And polls show substantial disapproval of his performance.

The drives to remove both men have drawn energy from local controversies specific to each city. But the similarities in these twin struggles far outweigh the differences. And those similarities underline the structural challenges confronting the broader push for criminal-justice reform that exploded into massive public protests after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. CONTINUED

Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic

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China’s Partnership With Russia Seen as Serious Problem for the U.S.

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As war rages in Ukraine – one which China thus far has refused to condemn – Americans are acutely concerned about the partnership between China and Russia. Around nine-in-ten U.S. adults say it’s at least a somewhat serious problem for the United States, and a 62% majority say it’s a very serious problem – more than say the same about any of the other six problems asked about, including China’s involvement in politics in the U.S., its policies on human rights and tensions between China and Taiwan, among others. CONTINUED

Pew Research Center

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Could Roe Change the Subject This November?

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… Suffice it to say, Democrats should not want this election to be about Biden, or for that matter, about how voters perceive the Democratic Congress’s performance. On a scale of completely dysfunctional to ticking like a precision Swiss watch, the last 14 months has been far closer to the former than the latter. Whether Biden and Democrats under-delivered on what they had promised or under-promised what they could deliver, both led to bad outcomes for them.

Democrats need the subject of this election to change, to shift away from them and toward Republicans—a tall order indeed when the GOP is out of power and not held responsible for much that does or does not happen. Keeping in mind that election years are notoriously unproductive in terms of legislation, if something happens to shift the focus of this election, it is more likely to come from the opposite side of First Street than where the Senate and House chambers are situated: that is, the Supreme Court. CONTINUED

Charlie Cook, Cook Political Report with Amy Walter

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Misinformation about the invasion of Ukraine viewed as a major problem

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As the war in Ukraine enters its third month, most Americans agree that the spread of misinformation about the Russian invasion is a problem. Sixty-one percent, including 63% of Democrats and 59% of Republicans, say it is a major issue. Only 7% say it is not a problem at all.

Older Americans are more likely than younger Americans to view the spread of misinformation as an issue, with 68% of those age 60 and older saying it is a major problem compared to 44% of those age 18-29. CONTINUED

AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research

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California: More than Four in Ten Parents Say Their Children Have Fallen Behind Academically during the Pandemic

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As conditions in California schools get closer to normal, more than four in ten parents say their children have fallen behind academically during the pandemic. Most Californians approve of the way Governor Newsom is handling K–12 public education, while around half say that a shortage of teachers in public schools is a big problem. These are among the key findings of a statewide survey released today by the Public Policy Institute of California. …

While the governor’s handling of K–12 education has garnered majority approval since 2019, his approval rate has risen somewhat among public school parents since a year ago (from 64% to 73%). Most adults (57%), likely voters (52%), and public school parents (70%) believe the state’s K–12 system is going in the right direction. The share of public school parents holding this view is somewhat larger than it was a year ago (70% vs. 61%). CONTINUED

Public Policy Institute of California

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