The fate of a state rests with 20 votes and a doomsday preacher
The GOP is not sending its best
Welcome to a Monday evening edition of Progress Report.
We’ve got a key special election story tonight, followed by some news from state capitols around the country. Those news stories tonight reflect the two very different nations that now exist within the United States, while the election pits representatives of those two nations against one another in the swingiest swing state of them all.
By the way, as I continue to revamp Progress Report, I’d love to hear from you about what you’d love to see is cover. Is there a contentious election happening near you? Have the conservative moms overtaken a nearby school? Is your hospital in danger of closing? Is there a cool grassroots movement brewing? Please respond in the comments, in an email response to this post, or just email me separately: JordanZakarin@gmail.com.
Alright, now time for content!
Please consider a subscribing and/or donating to keep this work sustainable. Far-right extremists are financed by billionaires and corporations, who invest in conservative outlets, think tanks, and law firms to advance their interests. We rely on forward-thinking readers like you.
New Hampshire
Race: State House, Rockingham District 1
Date: September 19th, 2023
Candidates: Hal Rafter (D), James Guzofski (R)
The Details
Politics is no spectator sport in New Hampshire, where the fate of reproductive rights, public schools, and the environment were essentially sealed last November by a total of 30 votes in a town of 5000 people.
The nation’s ninth smallest population is governed by a legislature that’s two times larger than that of any other state. At the moment, the GOP holds a three seat lead in the 400-seat New Hampshire House of Representatives, but it’s an advantage that the party is in serious danger of losing this fall, starting with a special election scheduled for later this month.
The special election is for one of three seats assigned to Rockingham’s District 1, the closely divided town mentioned above. Called after the seat’s GOP occupant was forced to resign due to health issues, the election has all the ingredients for a Democratic flip: A favorable local and national environment, a quality Democratic candidate who is back on the ballot after an achingly near miss in November, and a cretinous Republican candidate with a long history of disturbing and incendiary rhetoric.
Hal Rafter, the Democratic nominee, fell short of winning one of the district’s three seats by just 25 votes last year. He’s a solid progressive running a grassroots campaign focused on canvassing everywhere and in-person conversations with voters. Progress Report spoke to Rafter late last week about the election, the issues at play, and what his campaign looks like.
We’ll discuss those things here, too, but the reality is that it’s GOP nominee James Guzofski, a Pentecostal minister with a history of fringe-right fire and brimstone sermons, that will likely wind up being the biggest issue in this election.
“I think he's pretty radical, I think he has some extreme views, and I don't think he's a good representative for the district,” Rafter says, naturally understated. “He has some sermons on YouTube. I guess people should just look at his sermons and judge him by his own words. I'll just leave it at that.”
Take Rafter’s advice at your own peril, because Guzofski’s pulpit playlist is far from spiritually uplifting. In his most recent Palm Sunday sermon, Guzofski likened Jesus’s donkey ride into Jerusalem to the January 6th insurrection and antivax conspiracies, while sermons feature him railing against gay rights, abortion, and the totally unfair accusations that he’s a white supremacist, among other enlightening topics.
Befitting of a perennial swing state, New Hampshire has a more moderate state Republican Party leadership, and those in charge had their eyes on a far different candidate. There’s an extreme disconnect between leadership and the modern GOP voting base, however, and ultimately Guzofski was far more reflective of the latter. As a result, he turned out that base during inevitably a low-turnout primary and handily defeated Jessica Sternberg, who was an official in the state College Republicans until she graduated this past spring.
The resultant match up will not have many voters wringing their hands with uncertainty over who should get their vote. They stand on complete sides of just about every issue; Rafter cites the New Hampshire GOP’s recent votes to pass an abortion ban, expanded school vouchers, and a version of Florida’s law banning “divisive” concepts in education as part of why he’s running again.
It’s going to be entirely about turnout, and Rafter, who spent years working in the community as a school board member, is hoping that his conversations with voters help him prioritize the issues that matter most to them. Neither demons or traps set by the devil come up during those talks. instead, its bread and butter stuff — the cost of living, housing, and the state’s failure to adequately fund education and subsequent sky high local property taxes — that are mentioned most frequently.
Rafter is cautiously confident about his chances, and notes that a win would put Democrats one safe seat special election in November away from pulling even and winning a power sharing agreement in the legislature. Now, as the cliche goes, it all comes down to turnout.
“There's obviously no polling at this level, but supporters we’ve talked to are very supportive and say they'll be there to vote,” he says. “It's an off year, it’s an unusual date, so it’s tough to get the word out and make sure that people put it on their calendar. It's a very close district, it'll probably be a close election. We're just doing what we can to swing it.”
Let’s run through some important headlines!
Florida: Ron DeSantis was booed mercilessly by hundreds of people in Jacksonville — his hometown! — on Sunday when he showed up at a memorial for three Black community members who were murdered by a white supremacist shooter at a Dollar General a day earlier.
The killings are already under investigation by the Department of Justice as a potential hate crime, a determination that shouldn’t require too much digging by federal agents. The shooter left a series of unhinged white supremacist manifestos on his computer before going to a Black part of town and opening fire with an AR15 adorned with swastikas.
A few hours later, DeSantis, under pressure to seem like a human being, broke with his normal tradition of refusing to condemn hate crimes by Nazis (see my site about that here) and released a dead-eyed, disinterested statement that could quite possibly be worse than silence.
Just watch this sociopath talk:
For those of you who can’t listen right now or simply can’t process what’s in the video above, here’s the key line: "He was targeting people based on their race. That is totally unacceptable.”
Totally unacceptable! This is a guy who has a bottomless well of vitriol for children and school teachers, and all he can muster in response to a racist mass murder is that it was “totally unacceptable.” He can’t even pretend to be mad about it.
Ohio: They couldn’t trick people into sabotaging a pro-choice constitutional amendment with a deceptive ballot question earlier this month, so now Ohio Republicans are giving Plan B a shot: Trying to sabotage a pro-choice constitutional amendment with deceptive language on the ballot question this November.
The state election board made heavy edits to the language of the upcoming constitutional amendment to guarantee abortion rights in Ohio, injecting it with unnecessary and ideological venom. “Fetus” became “unborn baby,” for one thing, and the amendment is now called Issue 1, the same title for the GOP’s miserable failure of an attempt to trick people into raising the threshold to pass any constitutional amendment.
The board is run by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who is running for Senate and humiliated himself last month. This is his way of trying to save face with GOP primary voters. Pro-choice advocates have appealed to the state Supreme Court.
Michigan: How about some good state news, yeah? Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wants the state to keep the progressive legislative accomplishments coming, and will use her State of the State speech on Wednesday to make specific requests and recommendations. Among them:
Passing paid family leave
A transition to 100% clean energy
The repeal of antiquated anti-choice laws, including a 24 hour waiting period before an abortion.
Codifying Affordable Care Act protections into state law
New voting protections.
The new session begins on September 5th.
Minnesota: The only state with a larger set of progressive accomplishments this year, Minnesota just restored the voting rights of 55,000 former felons, who will get a voter registration packet with their discharge papers.
Workers’ Rights: This NLRB board ruling is a huge deal and will help break the backs of the “union avoidance” industry and the anti-worker companies that hire them.
Medical Debt: Organizers in Philly worked with the visionary group RIP Medical Debt to purchase $1.6 million in residents’ medical debt, which it symbolically lit on fire over the weekend. They spent $17,000 to purchase the debt, and and over the next few weeks, 1700 people will receive letters telling them that some or all of their debt is gone.
More to come this week…
Wait, Before You Leave!
Progress Report has raised over $7 million dollars for progressive candidates and causes, breaks national stories about corrupt politicians, and delivers incisive analysis, and goes deep into the grassroots.
This is a second full-time job, and I’m looking to expand. There are no corporations, dark money think tanks, or big grants sponsoring this work. It’s all people-powered. So, I need your help.
For just $5 a month, you can buy a premium subscription that includes premium member-only newsletters with original reporting and supports our other projects.
You can also make a one-time donation to Progress Report’s GoFundMe campaign — doing so will earn you a shout-out in the next weekend edition of the newsletter!
AI could do better than DeSantolini. The guy has acid in his veins - a real monster.