Archive for the ‘Democrat’ Category

Democrats national campaign arm throws weight behind Ammar Campa-Najjar in race for the 50th District – The San Diego Union-Tribune

Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar came within 3.4 percentage points of unseating former Rep. Duncan Hunter in 2018, despite receiving minimal help from national House Democrats.

This time around, as he squares off with former Rep. Darrell Issa in the same 50th Congressional District, hell get much more support.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee the campaign arm of House Democrats announced Wednesday that it was adding Campa-Najjar to its Red to Blue program, which focuses on candidates and races where Democratic strategists believe the party has the best opportunity to flip Republican seats.

The program provides candidates access to additional fundraising, training and strategy.

For example on Wednesday, The Hill reported that the DCCC made a $960,000 ad buy in the Philadelphia broadcast market, where two of their Red to Blue candidates are trying to flip seats.

Campa-Najjar, the 31-year-old East County native, and New York congressional candidate Nancy Goroff were the two candidates added to the program Wednesday, joining 31 other Democratic contenders.

This designation raises the profile of a community that has long been forgotten by Washington and for that Im grateful, Campa-Najjar said by text. Together Americans from all political stripes must meet this moment to ensure our government works for working people and not the special interests that have divided us for far too long.

The buy-in from the DCCC, which sat out the the 50th District race in 2018, comes as polls have tightened and suggests that national Democrats now believe they have real chance of flipping the longtime red district, which includes East and North Inland San Diego County, as well a small southern portion of Riverside County.

The 50th District seat now sits vacant because Hunter, an Alpine Republican, resigned in January after being convicted of a felony related to misusing campaign funds.

With his departure, a highly competitive primary emerged in which Campa-Najjar and Issa edged out conservative radio host Carl DeMaio for the two tops spots. Now polling suggests the competitive primary was not an aberration.

Earlier this month Politico reported that a poll conducted by J. Wallin Opinion Research on behalf of the conservative-leaning Deputy Sheriffs Association of San Diego County showed Campa-Najjar with 42 percent support and Issa with 39 percent.

According to Politico, the poll of 400 likely voters was conducted from May 29 to June 2, and had a 4.9 percentage point margin of error, leaving the candidates in a statistical tie.

The Deputy Sheriffs Association has endorsed Issa in the race.

Another poll conducted July 22-26 for the Campa-Najjar campaign by Strategies 360 had the Democrat trailing Issa, with 43 percent compared to the Republicans 47 percent. About 10 percent of voters were undecided in the poll, which also had a margin of error of 4.9 percent.

Issas campaign did not respond to a Union-Tribune inquiry about the DCCCs increased role.

However, the former congressman, who served in the House for nearly two decades, previously said he was not worried about the polling. He noted the Wallin poll did not include the entirety of the congressional district and specifically pointed to the absence of the districts portion of Riverside County, home to 19,238 registered Republicans and 14,171 registered Democrats.

Polling isnt how you do things, Issa said. Im not going to change stances based on polling.

Election Day is Nov. 3.

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Democrats national campaign arm throws weight behind Ammar Campa-Najjar in race for the 50th District - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Democrats are stronger favorites in tight race for Senate control – CNN

The Democrats' chance of wresting control away from Republicans has increased over the last few months. They are clearer favorites to take back Congress' upper chamber, though the race for Senate control is still well within the margin of error.

To gain a majority of seats, Democrats need a net pickup of between three seats (if Biden holds onto his lead over President Donald Trump, as his vice president would become the tie-breaking vote) or four seats (if Trump wins).

Democrats now have a little more than a 7-in-10 (70%) shot to win at least 3 seats and a little more than a 6-in-10 (60%) chance of winning at least 4 seats. In early May, it was 3-in-5 (60%) for at least a 3 seat gain and 1-in-2 (50%) for a 4 seat shift.

Democratic chances to win in a number of these races have gone up since May.

Specifically, Democrats are doing considerably better in a number of races that were either tossups or previously leaning toward the Republicans:

Beyond those four races, Democratic odds have not gone up greatly in any state.

Democrats, though, are now favorites to win four Republican-held seats: Arizona, Colorado, Maine and North Carolina. If they won all four, they'd be in a strong position to take control. In all of them, Democrats have at least a 2-in-3 (67%) chance. None of these are done deals by any stretch, though, and you could easily imagine Republicans winning a number of them.

Indeed, Republicans have worse than a 1-in-10 chance (10%) in every other Democratic held seat.

Democrats, on the other hand, have multiple, even beyond the ones we've already listed.

Next up is Kansas, where Democrat Barbara Bollier has about a 1-in-4 (25%) chance in a state that hasn't elected a Democratic senator in nearly 90 years. The big question mark in this historically red state remains who her fall opponent is. If it's arch-conservative Kris Kobach, Kansas' former secretary of state, Bollier's chances rise. If it's someone else (probably Roger Marshall), they go down.

Three other traditionally states on the outer radar for Democrats are Alaska, South Carolina and Texas. Republican incumbents are favorites in all three, though Democrats have roughly between a 1-in-10 (10%) and 1-in-7 (about 15%) in all of them.

Overall, though, the picture is rosier for the Democrats than it was a few months ago. The fight for the Senate leans in their direction. Republicans maintain a clear pathway to a Senate majority, but it's narrower than it was in May.

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Democrats are stronger favorites in tight race for Senate control - CNN

Why Montana Is a Test Case for Democrats Winning the Senate – The New York Times

Follow our latest coverage of the Biden vs. Trump 2020 election here.

BOZEMAN, Mont. In the deeply polarized election of 2016, every state that supported President Trump backed Republican senators and each state that Hillary Clinton carried voted for a Democratic Senate candidate.

But four years later, Democratic hopes for gaining a clear Senate majority depend in part on winning in conservative-leaning states where Mr. Trump may also prevail, even as he sags in the polls. In states like Alaska, Iowa, Georgia and here in Montana, Democrats are hoping their Senate candidates can outperform Joseph R. Biden Jr., their presumptive nominee.

Thats the dynamic Gov. Steve Bullock is counting on in Montana, where ticket-splitting is as much a way of life as fly-fishing.

Montanans have supported Republican presidential candidates, with one exception, for over a half-century. In that same period, though, they have elected a series of Democratic governors and senators. Senator Steve Daines, whom Mr. Bullock is challenging, was the first Republican elected to the Senate seat that he holds in over a century.

Yet as he faces off against Mr. Bullock, whose popularity has risen as he leads the states coronavirus response, Mr. Daines is counting on Montanans to act a little more like voters everywhere else and stick with one party as they make their way down the ballot.

The race here will measure the political impact of the pandemic many governors have grown in stature for their handling of the virus, and Mr. Bullock is the only sitting governor running for the Senate. It will also test Montanas iconoclastic identity in a time of encroaching red-and-blue homogeneity.

But for Democrats, going on the offensive in a red-leaning state in an age of polarization is no easy task. By nominating the more moderate Mr. Biden, they hope they can at least lose more closely, if not win outright, in states where Mrs. Clinton was thrashed and her partys Senate candidates went down with her.

The reason he was so strong in 16 is because you could go up and down here Democrats and Republicans would both tell you they hate Hillary, Jon Tester, a Democrat who is Montanas senior senator, said of Mr. Trump over an afternoon beer in Great Falls.

Even as Mrs. Clinton lost Montana overwhelmingly, though, Mr. Bullock still managed to get re-elected as governor.

A Helena-reared lawyer who made a foray for president last year, Mr. Bullock has won statewide office three times, first as attorney general before he became governor.

Montanans know me, he said in an interview, explaining how hed overcome Republican claims that hed abet liberal voices in Washington. Ive worked with Republicans to get things done.

Winning a federal race, in which the issues are more national in scope, is difficult enough for a Democrat in a red state. But Mr. Bullock made that task harder by leaving Montana for half of 2019 to run for president, drifting to the left on some issues and repeatedly insisting he would not fall back to seek the Senate seat.

Without prompting last week, though, he noted that he had stood up to President Barack Obamas administration on environmental policies he thought were harmful to Montanas agriculture and energy sectors.

Such talk was notably absent from his White House bid, when he sought the Democratic nomination by edging to the left on gun control and deeming Mr. Trump a lying con man from New York with orange hair and a golden toilet.

Asked if his ridicule of Mr. Trump was over the line, he suggested some regret.

By Washington standards, not at all, Mr. Bullock explained. By my typical standards, stronger than things that I would typically say.

Navigating Mr. Trump is a delicate issue for Montana Democrats, who must energize their liberal base without alienating the states ticket-splitters. Mr. Tester aired ads in his 2018 re-election campaign trumpeting his work with the president, which helped blunt the impact of Mr. Trumps four trips to the state that year.

Few G.O.P. senators have so happily linked themselves to Mr. Trump as Mr. Daines, a chemical engineer by training who represented Montana as its lone congressman before winning his Senate seat in 2014.

In an interview in his Bozeman campaign office, he said he was eager for the president to return to the state and revealed that Mr. Trump had asked to come, too.

However, just as Mr. Bullocks ill-fated bid for president has complicated his attempt to run again in Montana, the coronavirus has created headwinds for Mr. Daines.

Mr. Trumps standing here has fallen, as it has elsewhere, because of his ineffective response to the outbreak. Some Republican polling this summer suggests he is leading Mr. Biden only by single digits in Montana.

Asked to assess the presidents performance on the pandemic, Mr. Daines largely sidestepped the question, stating that he supported letting states and localities have primacy.

Further muddling matters for Mr. Daines: Any effort by him to embrace the national Republican strategy of pinning the blame on China for the viruss spread in America is complicated by his years of work for Procter & Gamble in China. Democrats are already airing commercials highlighting the senators work in the country.

More than anything, though, the health crisis has created challenges for Mr. Daines by delaying the parry-and-thrust of the campaign, allowing Mr. Bullock to enjoy what his opponent called a rally around the flag bounce.

Mr. Daines acknowledged that his role was more of constituent service specialist than candidate and that the virus was foremost on the minds of voters.

These are third-generation business owners that are crying on the phone to me, saying: Steve, Im losing everything, he recalled. And so in that moment youre not thinking so much about, Well, Steve Bullock got an F on guns and I got an A+. Its not the discussion.

That was easy enough to see as the two officials made their way across this sprawling state, where the metric for a candidates sweat equity is in tires changed, not shoes replaced.

In the Flathead region, near Glacier National Park, Mr. Bullock visited a food bank. As he toured a nearby timber facility, the governor was joined by an employee, a Trump voter now dejected by the countrys state of affairs, whose stepmother had contracted the virus.

Closer to Great Falls, Mr. Daines was similarly confronted with fallout from the pandemic.

He visited a small agricultural equipment dealer who thanked him for the paycheck protection loan that he had received through Congress. It was a big help, said the dealer, Steven Raska, explaining that he had been able to pay a few employees for over two months with the money.

Demonstrating his clout with the Trump administration, Mr. Daines also convened a round-table event for ranchers and farmers that featured Bill Northey, a top administrator at the Department of Agriculture. The growers gave both men an earful about how the virus had upended their livelihoods.

Covid could not have hit the sheep industry at a worse time, said Leah Johnson, who runs the Montana Wool Growers Association.

With the virus spiking in the state, Mr. Bullock finally issued a mask mandate on July 15 for any county with four or more active cases.

Former Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat who represented the state in Congress for nearly 40 years, said the pandemic had initially lifted Mr. Bullock.

But the trouble with Covid is you cant get out and shake hands, and that would help him compare himself to Daines, said Mr. Baucus, explaining that he had overcome Montanas national Republican leaning by cultivating individual voters. My main approach to the state was: people, people, people.

The uncertainty surrounding the virus, and Montanas heterodox political nature, were on display Thursday in Bozeman. A few dozen protesters in Trump gear hoisted signs and marched down the citys commercial center in opposition to the mask order.

They passed a number of storefronts that even before the mandate had asked customers to wear masks a reflection of the changing nature of Bozeman. Theres now a Lululemon, sitting across the street from a coffee shop plastered with anti-racism signs that could have been pulled from the most liberal college campus (De-Prioritize White Comfort).

Few places have as strong a sense of place as Montana, where politicians routinely invoke how many generations their families go back in the state. This focus on rootedness and the states sparse population have helped perpetuate its independent streak as races remain more about the individual.

We have six people per square mile and three times as many cows as people, so that makes for a lot of reliance, said Marc Racicot, a former Republican governor. The social connection is a little richer and not so contaminated with only electronic communications.

Yet even as it treasures its status as The Last, Best Place, one of its slogans, Montana, which has about one million people, is being reshaped by transplants. And nowhere more so than Bozeman, a community cherished for its proximity to Yellowstone Park that locals now call Bozeangeles.

Traditionally, Democrats won statewide by winning or breaking even in the county surrounding Billings, the population center of Montanas Republican-dominated east. Thats changing, though, because of the rising population in Gallatin County, which includes Bozeman and is the fastest-growing jurisdiction in the state.

Mr. Testers trajectory in Gallatin County tells the story of Montanas transformation: Over three elections, Mr. Tester has gone from winning 49 percent to 51.5 percent to 59.4 percent there.

Once rooted in labor, the Democratic coalition here increasingly reflects the national party, with its twin pillars of upscale whites and working-class minorities (Native Americans in the case of Montana).

These urban spaces are growing dramatically, and these spaces are becoming the heart of the Democratic base here, said David Parker, a Montana State University professor who wrote a book on the 2012 Senate race.

At the same time, though, Republicans are winning their heavily rural base by even larger margins today: Even Mr. Tester, a descendant of homesteaders who is the only working farmer in the Senate, has seen his support sag in sparsely populated counties since he first ran in 2006.

It adds up to a shrinking pool of persuadable voters.

Its not quite like what it was, Mr. Racicot acknowledged, before hinting at why so many people want to move to Montana. But its a lot closer to that ideal than the rest of the nation.

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Why Montana Is a Test Case for Democrats Winning the Senate - The New York Times

Heres the stock sector you want to be in if the Democrats sweep the November elections – MarketWatch

People and investors can become very emotional as a presidential election heats up, and this time around, feelings are obviously running high.

According to the polls, President Trump is likely to be shown the door and Joe Biden will have his party control both houses of Congress. Does this excite you? Does it fill you with dismay? Maybe the best thing for you to do as an investor is put your emotions aside and think rationally about which companies are likely to benefit from a Democratic sweep.

Ed Clissold, chief U.S. strategist at Ned Davis Research, a company that provides research to institutional investors, believes the managed health-care industry is ripe for strong performance in the event of a clean sweep by the Democrats.

He said the health-care sector tends to come under pressure heading into an election because both parties, but especially the Democrats, have talked about more regulation. But in an interview, he went on to say that following an election, health care tends to outperform the broad market because the regulation isnt as bad as expected.

Clissold believes Medicare for All, supported by many Democratic presidential candidates during the primaries, will never be the case. And even if Biden saying is able to add a public option to the insurance exchanges that use managed-care companies under the Affordable Care Act, he would expect the new program would still be run through the big managed-care companies, just like the Medicare Advantage programs.

In other words, more revenue for the managed-care companies.

Here are two charts showing how the S&P 500 managed health-care industry group has performed against the entire S&P 500 index SPX, +0.76%, with dividends reinvested.

First, total returns since Trumps election on November 8, 2016:

Here are total returns since Trump took office on Jan. 20 2017:

Under Trump, with the Republicans controlling both houses of Congress for the first two years of his term, the S&P 500 managed-care industry group greatly outperformed the broad U.S. stock market.

Clissold declined to name specific managed health-care companies for investment. However, there are only five industry players included in the S&P 500.

This table, sorted by market capitalization, includes them plus CVS Health Corp. CVS, -1.65%, which acquired Aetna in November 2018:

You can click the tickers for more about each company.

More on CVS: The company reported $63.1 billion in premium revenue during 2019. That exceeds total revenue for Cigna Corp. CI, -3.23%, Humana Inc. HUM, -1.52% Centine Corp. CNC, -2.33%.

Sell-side analysts have mostly positive opinions about the group:

There are no sell or equivalent ratings among any of the analysts polled by FactSet.

There are 99 days to go before Election Day on Nov. 3. At RealClear Politics, the national polls all show Biden ahead of Trump in the popular vote, with an average lead of 9.1%. Biden also leads most polls for battleground states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida, all of which were critically important for Trumps Electoral-College win in 2016.

Then again, most polls were also running against Trump before his surprise win in 2016. The Electoral College map at RealClear Politics shows Biden in the lead, but also has 201 toss ups out of 538 electoral votes.

Read:Trump is losing big to Biden in voter polls. Heres how this will likely play out on Election Day

The question is whether or not voters blame Trump for the economic severe recession and the scope of the COVID-19 pandemic, Clissold said. Pre-pandemic, one of the areas he received the highest marks on was the economy, he added.

If Trump is going to get re-elected, it will be because he can convince the electorate that he is the better candidate for the economy going forward. History is not on the incumbents side in this situation, Clissold said.

The Democrats are expected to maintain control over the House of Representatives. In the Senate, the Republicans have a 53-47 majority. The Republicans are defending 23 seats on Election Day, while the Democrats will be defending only 12 seats. The RealClear Politics Senate Map shows 47 Senate seats solidly Republican, with 46 Democratic and seven toss ups. But the Senate No Toss Ups map shows the Senate switching to a 52-48 Democrat majority.

Regardless of your emotional or financial investment in the outcome of the election, the overwhelming trend has been for the stock market to rally following a presidential election, no matter who wins.

Related:These 6 health-care stocks are buys because they can thrive under either Trump or Biden

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Heres the stock sector you want to be in if the Democrats sweep the November elections - MarketWatch

Democratic Congressman Believes a Black Woman on the Supreme Court Is a Priority Over VP – MSN Money

Erin Scott / Pool / AFP/Getty Chairman James Clyburn (D-SC) speaks during a House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis hearing on a national plan to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on July 31, 2020.

A top Democratic lawmaker said Friday that it was more important to have a Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court than as a running mate for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

"The V.P. is good on style, but, on substance, give me an African American woman on the Supreme Court," House Majority Whip James Clyburn said during a segment on PBS News Hour. "That's where we determine how our democracy will be preserved."

The South Carolina Democrat has maintained that Biden picking a Black woman as his running mate would be a "plus" not a "must," saying it was a bit "foolhardy" to be focusing solely on the Democratic Party's choice for vice president. Other things, like a Supreme Court nominee, are equally if not more important, Clyburn said.

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"I long for an African American woman to sit on the United States Supreme Court," he said. "It's a shame that we have had three women to sit on the United States Supreme Court, and no one has ever given the kind of consideration that is due to an African American woman."

Clyburn referenced the Court's 2013 5-4 decision regarding the Voting Rights Act of 1965, effectively giving nine states, primarily in the South, the freedom to change election laws without needing prior approval by the federal government.

"This Supreme Court has neutered the Voting Rights Act of 1965," Clyburn told PBS. "And so I am very concerned about the composition of the United States Supreme Court."

The Court's ruling was heavily criticized for upholding voter suppression on the basis of race, and former President Barack Obama had said at the time he was "deeply disappointed" by the ruling.

Newsweek contacted Clyburn's office for comment, but did not hear back in time for publication.

Biden has told reporters he would announce his pick for vice president during the first week of August, but shortlists for potential running mates have largely featured women, and particularly women of color.

Names that have been widely circulated include Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kamala Harris of California; Congressional Black Caucus Chair Karen Bass of California; and former White House national security adviser Susan Rice.

Clyburn, who has long been regarded as one of Biden's top allies, has previously stated Biden needs to pick a running mate who has "a lot of passion."

"Joe Biden is a guy full of compassion. He has much more compassion than he exhibits passion," Clyburn told MSNBC Friday. "So he needs a running mate with a lot of passion to connect to voters."

Clyburn advised Biden to survey voters to see who they think would best complement the ticket. A recent USA Today/Suffolk poll suggested that Democratic voters believe Biden should select a woman of color for his running mate.

Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of Democrats said it was "important" for the Democratic candidate to choose a woman of color, the poll found.

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Democratic Congressman Believes a Black Woman on the Supreme Court Is a Priority Over VP - MSN Money