These state races could make all the difference

Spotlighting key candidates

Welcome to a Tuesday evening edition of Progress Report.

At the risk of sounding repetitive, it’s fair to say that this week has gotten off to a pretty rough start (save for Liverpool’s massive win over Man City at Anfield, of course).

• Trump and Kanye are joining forces to take on the Jews — we’ve had more competent persecutors, but it’s still not great news when a former president and unwell celebrity start to target you. I just wish Republican candidates would get asked about it like Democrats continue to get pushed on activists calls for defunding the police back in 2020

• The Amazon Labor Union lost its NLRB election in Albany (though I broke the news that ALU will appeal and seek a direct bargaining order in light of extreme union-busting).

• And polls find Democrats falling behind Republicans with three weeks to go until Election Day.

I could keep going, but I’d rather get to the newsletter. Tonight we’re going to look at our list of endorsed state legislative candidates, then talk a bit about how Democrats can salvage this election.

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After a disappointing 2020 election cycle in which Democratic candidates ran underwhelming campaigns that mismanaged ungodly sums of small dollar donations, I’ve been even pickier about who we endorse and raise money for here at Progress Report. Times are tough right now, so we’ve focused more than ever on remarkable candidates running in tight, very winnable races.

Much of our focus has been on state legislative elections, the stakes of which have become painfully obvious. Republicans’ continued dominance of statehouses guaranteed them control of most redistricting processes last year, leading to another decade of gerrymanders, and once the Supreme Court threw abortion rights to the states, GOP control ensured that half the country swiftly lost access to reproductive care.

After failing to flip any legislatures in 2020, Democrats will try again this year to turn several pivotal chambers blue. Our slate of endorsed legislative candidates hail from many of those states and are running in tight, winnable elections. A few of them are incumbents, most are challengers or running in open elections. We’ve interviewed a handful of them, and they’ve all been vetted. Here’s a breakdown of who is on the list thus far — we’ll be adding names this weekend.

Missouri

Leading off is Adrian Plank (HD-47), the union carpenter and activist who is running to running a populist campaign in a state that’s been trending red. We profiled him on Sunday. Democrats need to pickup six seats to break the GOP supermajority.

Rhode Island

Jennifer Rourke (SD-29) is remarkable activist who co-founded the Rhode Island Progressive Cooperative to take on the conservative Democrats that have an iron grip on the state. Rourke, running for survived an assault from a GOP rival in June and then party insiders’ poorly conceived attempt to sabotage her momentum with a racist firefighter. We profiled Rourke in June.

Michigan

Veronica Klinefelt (SD-11) is currently a commissioner in Macomb County. She recently had a nice cameo in a NY Times story that highlighted her door-to-door canvassing and work on local issues.

Kristen McDonald Rivet (SD-35) is a Bay City commissioner and long-time nonprofit executive. Thanks to the state’s new independent redistricting commission, created by ballot initiative in 2018, Michigan has gone from diabolically gerrymandered to much fairer districts.

Darrin Camilleri (SD-4) is a three-term state representative looking to take a step up after spending his time fighting for public education and workers’ rights.

Arizona

Jeanne Casteen (SD-2) is a longtime public school teacher and advocate for secularism in government, a concept that we so desperately need to revive. It’s particularly important in Arizona, where the right-wing fringe is threatening to take over state government. Progress Report interviewed Casteen back in July.

Christine Marsh (SD-28) is also a longtime educator. She’s running for re-election after winning a very competitive race in 2020. Laura Terech (HD-4) makes it a trifecta of teachers in Arizona, where education is under assault by a Republican Party that nixed a popular ballot measure that would have sent hundreds of millions of dollars to schools and instead want to push a voucher program.

Pennsylvania

Arvind Venkat (HD-30) is an emergency room physician running for this open district on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. The area in which the suburban district is nestled voted for Joe Biden by six points after backing Trump by five points in 2016.

Teachers running for office in swing districts is one of those quiet themes that you only notice when you’re digging through the finer points of legislative races. Debra Turici (HD-44), the former head of the Pennsylvania State Educator Association, is running to flip this very slightly red seat.

North Carolina

Terence Everitt (HD-35) is one of the more impressive, up-and-coming Democrats in North Carolina. He’s running for re-election in what will be a tough race, and he’s one of a number of candidates and lawmakers that we’re supporting over at our ActBlue page for North Carolina elections.

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The Personal Finance Election

Polling shows that the economy is far and away voters’ biggest concern heading into November, with inflation continuing to outpace wage growth and housing prices still all out of whack. Polls have largely mirrored the rollercoaster cost of gasoline this year, and an autumn surge driven by OPEC’s chicanery and among other things have done Democrats no favors.

The party hasn’t done much to help itself, either.

Democrats up to this point have largely shied away from acknowledging the economic hardships faced by voters throughout this campaign, focusing instead on abortion rights and the January 6th insurrection. As fundamentally important as they are, they don’t come close to being at the top of most voters’ list of priorities. This should be obvious, but the swift revival of their polling numbers after the Dobbs decision seemed to have convinced them that the election would be won on abortion. That illusion should be shattered by now, though Democrats will need to be convinced rather quickly that they have an affirmative case to make on the economy.

The conventional political wisdom is that midterm elections are a referendum on the party in power, and given current economic conditions, long-serving Democrats obviously feel on the defensive. Republicans have thus been given purchase to successfully portray Democrats’ legislative successes, like the American Rescue Plan, as drivers of inflation. It’s total bullshit, but instead of pushing back, Democrats have tried to change the topic.

There’s a campaign to be waged that promises to voters the enactment of the popular social programs from BBB with two more Senate seats whole takes aim at the corporations that are enjoying record profits from relentless price hikes. Oil companies have undoubtedly been price gouging, and Democrats should take them on for it, but the relief they put on offer could be far more comprehensive, including a plan for affordable housing to tame out-of-control housing costs (the NY Times finally just joined us in profiling tenants unions).

The United States is just not a country in which most people are willing to sacrifice all that much or all that long for the common good. For tens of millions of Americans, every day is another fight for survival, which makes it simply untenable for many people to regularly vote to advance civil liberties, personal freedoms, or environmental regulations.

I speak every day with people getting crushed by employers and insurers and the relentless grind of 12-hour workdays and sleepless nights. Democrats need to speak to that experience, as well as the concerns of middle class Americans who are paying out the nose for groceries and diapers. It’s a difficult thing to fake, which is one downside of pursuing so many wealthy candidates that can self-fund or dedicate their lives fully to running for office.

One other suggestion for the party: Given the fact that it’s really just white Gen Xers that are giving Republicans their lead, maybe Democrats should start soundtracking all of their campaign ads with Pearl Jam?

That’s it for tonight — the next two editions of the newsletter will be deep dives for premium members, written by other journalists. We’ve got to keep this operation sustainable, so please consider joining now!

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