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Its the holidays, which means you need something long to read while lounging around the house. Luckily, were taking a break from the news to give you an in-depth look at each of the Flyover states as we head into 2020. With the help of cleveland.com data guru Rich Exner, weve compiled all sorts of facts and figures from the past two elections to really understand whats happening on the ground in our seven states.

Today we head to Illinois. Heres where you can find our write-ups about Indiana, Wisconsin and Ohio.

The largest of the Flyover states, Illinois also happens to be one of the largest Democratic strongholds in the country. The home state of former President Barack Obama is bolstered by Chicago, the third largest metro area in the country.

Considering the term Chicago politics is now an epithet against Democratic machine politics, its pretty safe to say that you can put this one in the D column for 2020. The state hasnt voted for a Republican for president since George H.W. Bush in 1988 (though notably voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 as well). Democrats control all branches of state government, including supermajorities in both the state House and Senate.

Its not just voting trends, either. Chicago has served as a sort of Midwest epicenter for the anti-President Donald Trump movement. It was in Chicago that Trump was forced to shut down a rally after protesters shouted him off stage. And its no wonder why. Perhaps no city in America is Trumps favorite punching bag more than Chicago a feud that likely started over his downtown hotel there.

Oh, and you cant forget the corruption, including a sweeping probe going on right now. Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, is currently sitting in prison possibly awaiting a Trump pardon. Former Gov. George Ryan, a Republican and Blagojevichs predecessor, got out of prison in 2013.

Nevertheless, the state is often much more competitive than people give it credit for. Since 1990, three of the last six governors have been Republicans, though the latest only served one term. In the 2020 elections, the importance of Illinois actually lies in several of its congressional districts, which could play a key part in determining who wins the House.

Illinois is the largest of all the Flyover states, but is also the only one that has shrunk since 2012, meaning it will almost certainly lose a congressional seat after redistricting in 2020.

The full set of data can be found here.

2010: 12,830,602

2012: 12,884,119

2016: 12,826,195

2018: 12,741,080

Net change: -89,552

Net change in Flyover states: 724,790

U.S. change: 18,421,896

Percentage change: -0.70%

Flyover percentage: 1.17%

U.S. percentage: 5.97%

Voting age citizens 2012: 8,934,979

Voting age citizens 2016: 9,038,458

Voting age citizens 2018: 9,074,766

Net change: 139,787

Flyover change: 950,932

U.S. change: 13,557,146

Percentage change: 1.56%

Flyover percentage: 2.07%

U.S. change: 6.16%

Illinois is the most diverse of the Flyover states, largely anchored by Chicago. It is the only Flyover state that closely resembles the United States as a whole, demographically speaking. In fact, it is slightly more diverse than the U.S. overall.

The full set of data can be found here.

White: 71.7%

Flyover median: 81.0%

U.S.: 72.2%

Black: 14.1%

Flyover median: 11.2%

U.S.: 12.7%

Asian: 5.6%

Flyover median: 2.8%

U.S.: 5.6%

Other or multi-race: 8.6%

Flyover median: 5.2%

U.S.: 9.5%

Hispanic: 17.3%

Flyover median: 6.9%

U.S.: 18.3%

Foreign Born: 14.1%

Flyover median: 5.5%

U.S.: 13.7%

Median age: 38.3

Flyover median: 39.5

U.S. median: 38.2

Illinois is far and away the most educated of the Flyover states. It has a higher rate of high school graduation, bachelors degrees and professional degrees for residents aged 25 and up than the country as a whole. It also has, by far, the highest median family income of Flyover states.

The full set of data can be found here.

High school degree or higher (25+): 89.5%

Flyover median: 91%

United States: 88.3%

Bachelors or higher (25+): 35.1%

Flyover median: 29.6%

United States: 32.6%

Graduate or professional degree (25+): 14.0%

Flyover median: 11.1%

United States: 12.6%

Median family income: $81,313

Flyover median: $76,068

United States: $76,401

When we decided to put together this list, we wanted to look at the jobs and unemployment figures around the time of the presidential election. Illinois was hit harder during the recession, with unemployment climbing to the highest of any Flyover state and higher than the U.S. unemployment rate. Its recovery was also slower, in terms of job growth, from 2013-2017. But since 2017, Illinois has outpaced its neighbors in terms of job growth.

The full set of data can be found here.

Jan. 2013 jobs: 5,782,000

Jan. 2017 jobs: 6,043,000

Oct. 2019 jobs: 6,192,300

2013-2017 change: 261,000

Illinois percentage change: 4.5%

Flyover percentage change: 5%

U.S. percentage change: 7.7%

2017-2019 change: 149,300

Illinois percentage change: 2.5%

Flyover percentage change: 1.9%

U.S. percentage change: 4.3%

Jan. 2013 unemployment: 9.2%

Flyover median: 7.9%

U.S. rate: 8%

Jan. 2017 unemployment: 5.3% (-3.9)

Flyover median: 4.9

U.S. rate: 4.7% (-3.3)

Oct. 2019 unemployment: 3.9% (-1.4)

Flyover median: 3.9%

U.S. rate: 3.9% (-0.8)

As I said at the top of this edition, Democrats have a stranglehold on Illinois state government. Led by House Speaker Michael Madigan, they have supermajorities in both chambers. Now-Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat and one of the richest men in the state, ousted former Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican and also one of the richest men in the state, in 2018. Democrats hold the rest of the statewide offices as well, though with more ebb and flow between parties in the past decade.

Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, both Democrats, represent the state in the U.S. Senate. Durbin is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumers top deputy. The 18 members of Congress are split 13-5 in favor of Democrats, largely due to heavy partisan gerrymandering. Illinois is also home to Rep. Cheri Bustos, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

President Barack Obama easily won the state in 2012 by 884,000 votes. Illinois was the only Flyover state where Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in 2016, which she did by a 944,000-vote margin.

Democrats have won the U.S. House vote every year since 2012 by anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000 votes, though the delegation has fluctuated. However, in 2018 the blue wave overtook much of the state, with Democrats winning the U.S. House vote by more than 1,000,000 votes, picking up two seats in the process.

The full set of data can be found here.

2012 presidential election margin: D, 884,296

Flyover: D, 1,847,011

U.S.: D, 4,982,291

2016 presidential election margin: D, 944,714

Flyover: R, 251,345

U.S.: D, 2,868,686

2012 Illinois congressional vote margin: D, 535,884

Flyover: D, 539,951

Continue reading here:
Illinois provides the Democrats with a Midwestern base: The Flyover - cleveland.com

WASHINGTON The high costs of health care are a driving force animating House Democrats in the swing districts that will decide control of Congress next year, with the electoral consequences of their votes to impeach President Trump unclear and a court ruling that left the fate of the Affordable Care Act in limbo.

From the suburbs of Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia and Richmond, Va., to East Lansing, Mich., and Southern California, first-term Democrats see the worries about health care that secured their 2018 elections playing out again in 2020, and they are eager to run toward them.

I have done 15 town halls in my district this year and the top issue I have talked about is lowering prescription drug costs, said Representative Andy Kim, Democrat of New Jersey, who has made addressing health care costs the central point of his legislative agenda and his re-election campaign. The cost side of things is something people see on a daily basis. Its something tangible that they understand is a problem.

The House majority in 2020 will be decided in roughly two dozen districts like Mr. Kims in south central New Jersey, where Republican voters outnumber Democrats, but where a Democrat nonetheless picked off a Republican incumbent in 2018. Democrats hope the debate over rising health care costs will give them a decisive advantage, especially in suburban districts where Mr. Trump, who has failed to deliver on his promises to lower drug prices, remains unpopular.

The Republicans relentless attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act when they were in charge helped Democrats take back the House in 2018. Now, even as the future of the law hangs in the balance in the court system, with an appeals court striking down the individual mandate last week but further delaying any resolution, much of the Democrats political message has moved from how to save health care to how to pay for it.

Im confident health care will be a huge part of the election discussion next year, said Nathan Gonzales, the editor of Inside Elections, a nonpartisan analysis of congressional races. Democrats want to talk about health care, in part because they believe it was a key factor in helping them win back the House in 2018.

Representative Abigail Spanberger, Democrat of Virginia, recalled how in 2017, when she was running for her first term, a major concern she heard from voters was the potential loss of protections for those with pre-existing conditions.

That was top of mind, she said. Then it would go into the cost of premiums and cost of prescription drugs. Now the starting point is the cost of drugs, and, Oh by the way, I want to make sure pre-existing conditions are protected.

House Democrats passed far-reaching legislation this month that would empower the federal government to negotiate lower prices for scores of prescription medications, all but force pharmaceutical companies to offer those prices to all consumers and cap out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries.

Republicans have labeled the House bill a form of socialism, and they dislike the notion of the government negotiating directly with drugmakers, even though Mr. Trump was among the first people in Washington to promote the idea. The Republican-controlled Senate is unlikely to take up the House bill. But Democrats are set to run hard on it, providing them another point of contrast as they go back to their districts.

Over 80 percent of Americans believe that Congress should work to lower prescription drug costs for as many Americans as possible, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has been tracking public opinion on health care issues for two decades. The foundation found that Americans viewed lowering prescription drug costs and continuing the A.C.A.s protections for people with pre-existing conditions as the most important priorities for Congress.

When Representative Elissa Slotkin, Democrat of Michigan, went looking for a district office in Lansing after her 2018 victory, she picked a building that housed a large health care center that served low-income residents, underscoring the central policy theme of her campaign. On a recent Monday morning, she attended a round-table event at the center with health care workers and Michigans governor. A patient advocate who lives in Ms. Slotkins district, Sarah Stark, held up vials of insulin that she said now cost her $335 each. People are losing their homes, and their ability to put food on the table, Ms. Stark said.

Ms. Slotkin said the single most common question she hears while speaking to constituents involves health care costs: People will pull me aside and clutch my arm and say: I cant afford my prescription drugs. My son is rationing his insulin. I cant afford my coverage. Im paying more in health care and prescription drugs per month than I am for my mortgage. Im underwater.

Voters cite the rising costs of insurance premiums, higher deductibles, surprise bills from out-of-network providers and price increases for popular and often lifesaving drugs. Even those with employer-based insurance, once viewed as protection against rising costs, have watched their average annual premiums increase by 54 percent over the last decade. Added up, rising health care costs are hitting nearly everyone, nullifying the nominal gains in their paychecks.

The Republican efforts at repeal and replace ironically highlighted the protections in the A.C.A. that would be lost and generated more public support for the law than at any time since its passage, said Mark A. Peterson, a professor at the Meyer and Renee Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles. Now more attention has turned to the other live issue that remains, that has largely always been present and that the A.C.A. has done little to forestall, and in some cases is perceived to have made even worse: out-of-pocket health care costs for individuals and families.

Over the last few months, House Democrats, including many in their first term, have been churning out a slew of bills to address health care costs, holding town hall meetings in their districts on the topic, visiting health care centers and patient groups, and joining forces with advocates for lower drug prices.

Democrats are betting heavily that they have solidified an image as the protectors and defenders of the health care system, just as Republicans long dominated voters confidence on national security issues. They are aided in large part by their attacks on the pharmaceutical industry and a growing trend among Democratic candidates to loudly refuse drugmakers political donations. American voters have disdain for the pharmaceutical industry, according to polling by Gallup. The House Democrats playbook for 2020 will be to paint the Republican Party as doing big pharmas bidding.

The president has been playing Ping-Pong, said Representative Lauren Underwood, Democrat of Illinois. He stood in the House chamber and asked us for the authority to negotiate drug prices, and we delivered, and he walked away.

Health care, Ms. Underwood said, is central to her re-election campaign. She has written 30 pieces of legislation this year, much of it health care related, like a bill signed Monday by Mr. Trump that was designed to make a cheaper generic form of insulin available to consumers more quickly.

Representative Kim Schrier, Democrat of Washington and a pediatrician, said that making her constituents aware of the House prescription drug bill is her biggest campaign priority. She recalled a recent town hall event in her district, shortly before Mr. Trump was impeached, where she expected the impeachment proceedings to dominate the conversation. But what really got peoples attention was H.R. 3, she said, referring to the bill. That was like the grand slam.

Most voters had never heard of the bill, she conceded. This is why I am doing a lot of town halls, sending out mail to people in my district, and frankly it is what I will have to spend a lot of time on the stump and Facebook talking about, she said. Every time I am on TV, I talk about the cost of prescription drugs.

Another factor that has highlighted the high costs of health care is the back-and-forth over Medicare for All, which has been central to the Democratic primary for the White House. The debate shines a light on total spending, said Allison K. Hoffman, an expert on health care law and policy at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

In our current system, the health care spending burden is divided among many parties, including employers, employees, the government and charities, she said. In Medicare for All, its all shifted to the federal budget, which makes people ask, Why are we spending nearly 20 percent of gross domestic product on health care?

Republicans, who are fully aware of the drubbing they took over their attempts to unravel the Affordable Care Act, insist that they will not be caught flat-footed again, and that the debate over Medicare for All only fortifies them this time around.

Republicans are on much better ground this cycle, said Bob Salera, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. Voters want bipartisan action to lower the cost of health care and prescription drugs, not socialized medicine.

Democrats like Ms. Schrier, who does not support the Medicare for All approach that has been embraced by several presidential candidates and large swaths of her party, may well find themselves caught between their most liberal constituents, who crave Medicare for All, and Republicans and more centrist Democrats who do not.

I know there is a big movement to blow up the system, but I dont know that we need to do that to make a meaningful change in peoples lives, she said.

The rest is here:
Democrats Who Flipped Seats in 2018 Have a 2020 Playbook: Focus on Drug Costs - The New York Times

Some politicians running for federal office make it sound as if the biggest problem facing our country is that we dont send enough of our paychecks to Washington, D.C.

They propose increasing or creating new federal taxes on income, payrolls, business profits, carbon emissions, financial transactions, wealth, and more.

Before they start trying to spend more and more of our money, they would do well to consider just how much theyre already spending. Looking back over the last decade, its clear theyve already entered the drunken sailor stage.

SENATE OKS SPENDING BILLS TO AVOID GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, SENDING THEM TO TRUMP'S DESK

From 2010 through 2019, U.S. households sent an average of $228,000 to Washington. Heres the math.

The Office of Management and Budget reports that federal revenues totaled $29.3 trillion during that period. The Census Bureau estimates there are currently 128 million households in the country. Thus, each households share of the tax burden comes out to around $228,000.

And this number is conservative, as in low. Adjusting for inflation and the smaller number of households at the start of the decade would cause the estimate to go even higher.

The federal government collected an average of $27,000 in revenue per household in 2019.

According to the latest data from the Congressional Budget Office, federal revenue hit an all-time high of $3.46 trillion in 2019, or roughly $27,000 per household. The vast majority of the haul comes from individual income and payroll taxes. Thats money directly out of your pocket.

The federal bill is hefty enough. When we consider state and local taxes, the full burden of government grows larger. The Tax Foundation estimates that workers need January, February, March, and half of April just to cover their full tax bill.

Federal revenue in 2019 matched the combined economic output of 13 states. It is difficult to comprehend the total amount.

If measured in terms of state economies, it would require the combined output of Indiana, Arizona, Wisconsin, Missouri, Connecticut, Louisiana, Oregon, South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Utah to reach $3.46 trillion.

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The fruits of that much labor ought to be more than enough to satisfy our politicians.

Each households share of the decades deferred taxes (debt) is $88,000.

We can think of government debt as deferred taxes. Washington placed an absolutely staggering $11.3 trillion on the national credit card over the decade.

That averages out to $88,000 in new federal debt per household.

Some would argue that the debt justifies a significant increase in taxes. This is the wrong prescription. Federal spending has grown far too fast, and is projected to increase even faster as more of the baby boomer generation receives benefits from Social Security and Medicare.

Real alternatives exist. By eliminating wasteful programs and reforming others, we could reduce federal spending and the national debt while protecting families from tax hikes.

A massive expansion of the federal government would require big tax hikes on the middle class.

Some politicians would have you believe it is possible to fund grandiose plans such as "Medicare for-all" and a Green New Deal while only raising taxes on the rich. Its not.

Even if Washington confiscated every dollar of corporate income and every penny of income from those earning above $200,000 per year, it wouldnt come close to paying for the full progressive agenda.

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In reality, a European-style social welfare state requires European-style taxes. Yes, that means higher income tax rates on high earners. But it also means dramatically higher taxes on incomes of $40,000, punishing sales taxes, and anemic economic growth.

American families would be better off keeping more of their hard-earned money in the decade to come. Washingtonis already taking plenty.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY DAVID DITCH

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David Ditch: Uncle Sam is picking your pocket with high taxes Democrats want to raise them even higher - Fox News

On a warm, hazy afternoon, supporters spilled out along the famed Venice boardwalk as Sanders, his back to the Pacific Ocean, thundered in his trademark rasp against the fossil fuel industry, drug companies, Wall Street and a "corrupt political system." As if sent by central casting, a seagull sat perched atop a streetlight high above Sanders' shoulder as he spoke.

But by this week, the leading Democrats in the 2020 field were all scheduled to return to their usual haunts in New Hampshire and especially Iowa, the states that have consumed the vast majority of their efforts this year. Compared to that sustained courtship, the visits to California looked more like a weekend fling.

The flicker of attention may have done more to underscore than alleviate California's perpetual frustration at being eclipsed in the presidential nominating process. California will award 415 pledged delegates to the Democratic convention next summer, far more than any state. History suggests it's likely that more than five million people will vote in the state's Democratic primary.

That will probably be least 20 times as many people -- and much as 25 times as many -- as vote in either Iowa or New Hampshire. California has more college students than Iowa or New Hampshire has adults aged 18 or older, and its Latino population alone is about triple the total population of both states together. And yet no one in California feels confident that the state will exert even a fraction of the influence over the outcome of the race than the two smaller, predominately white states that kick off the nominating process.

"We're definitely getting much more attention and not just for our money," said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti in an interview. "People are doing real events and they are interacting with real people. I think it's absolutely forward progress, but we haven't arrived at a place where we are comfortable with the culture of asking and demanding from candidates enough and vice versa. I think California is still so big that it's confusing to a lot of campaigns."

Early, then late, then back again

For decades, no state has agonized more openly about how to magnify its influence over the presidential nominating process than California. In the search for more leverage, California over the past quarter century has shifted the date of its primary forward, back and then forward again. But each choice has left activists in the state frustrated at its inability to convert bulk into clout.

"Literally in the modern day, starting really in the '80s, California has not had influence no matter where it's been," says Mickey Kantor, a longtime Los Angeles-based Democratic strategist who managed Jerry Brown's 1976 national presidential campaign, ran Walter Mondale's 1984 effort in California and chaired Bill Clinton's 1992 national campaign.

Through the second half of the 20th century, California anchored a familiar position as the final lap of the primary marathon. After holding its primary in May from 1912 through 1944, the state in 1946 moved its primary for both the presidential and local contests to the first Tuesday in June. That's where the primary remained for the next 50 years, according to data provided by Bob Mulholland, the former longtime political director of the state Democratic Party.

This period provided the heyday of California's influence over the nominating process in both parties. It effectively sealed the Republican presidential nomination in 1964 when Barry Goldwater beat Nelson Rockefeller and the Democratic nomination in 1972 when George McGovern beat Hubert Humphrey. Robert F. Kennedy's win here in 1968 placed him on the cusp of the Democratic nomination until he was tragically assassinated on primary night at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

But from the early 1970s to the 1990s, California in its June position was either an afterthought or an exclamation point on races that had been decided by the time the candidates arrived. Jimmy Carter twice lost here (to then-Gov. Jerry Brown in 1976 and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in 1980), but that didn't stop him from claiming the Democratic nomination both times; likewise, Gary Hart's decisive victory over Mondale here in 1984 came too late to prevent the former vice president's nomination. Beyond the timing, California's influence was also diminished by the Democratic Party rules changes after 1972 that outlawed its previous practice of awarding all of the state's delegates to the statewide winner.

Frustrated by its eroding position, state political leaders in both parties engineered legislation that moved up the state's presidential primary to March 1996. The primary stayed in March through 2004 and then California in 2008 joined a procession of states that leapfrogged even earlier to February. "The catalyst for California moving early was nobody pays attention to us, but part two was: all these other states moved early so why can't we?" says Los Angeles based-Democratic strategist Bill Carrick, who has run Sen. Dianne Feinstein's campaigns in the state.

Restoring influence

The move to an earlier primary date restored some influence for California. George W. Bush's win here in the 2000 Republican primary helped him beat back the unexpected challenge from the late Arizona Sen. John McCain; in the 2008 Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton invested heavily in the state and routed Barack Obama by over 400,000 votes.

But even in those instances, the California outcome was just one drop in a nationwide cascade. In both those races, California was part of the bulging concentration of states that held their primaries on Super Tuesday. In Bush's case, California reinforced the results of the other major contests and effectively ended McCain's insurgency. But in the 2008 Democratic race, California blended into the crowd: though it was the largest prize on the board, press coverage emphasized that Obama won more of the 23 states that voted that day than Clinton did. And in fact, after Clinton's decisive California win, Obama beat her in the next 11 states that voted.

With Democrats disappointed again by their limited national influence, and state legislators unhappy with facing a primary so far before the general election, California then voted to move back its primary to June, where it was held in both 2012 and 2016. In 2016, Sanders barnstormed the state for weeks in what was probably the most sustained California presidential primary effort since Gary Hart in 1984. But Clinton had effectively clinched the nomination even before she won California, and the same was true for Mitt Romney in the GOP race in 2012.

Frustrated once more, the state legislature voted to shift the primary in 2020 back to March, when it will again jostle with the other 13 states (not to mention American Samoa) elbowing for influence on Super Tuesday. California offers more delegates than any of them, but its competitors include several other larger states (Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, Minnesota and Colorado) that the campaigns cannot ignore. Combined, the other Super Tuesday states will award more than twice as many delegates as California does, according to tabulations by the CNN political unit.

The realities of the 2020 calendar

That daunting map will pressure almost every Democratic campaign into difficult choices about which states to prioritize on Super Tuesday. Across such a sprawling battlefield, "It is hard to compete simultaneously in terms of dollars and people on the ground," says Kate Bedingfield, Biden's deputy campaign manager and communications director.

In fact, with most of the delegates in the Democratic race awarded based on the outcome in individual congressional districts, campaign strategists say they will be forced to target down to the local level. "Every campaign, including well-funded campaigns, are going to have to make hard choices on Super Tuesday," says Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to Sanders.

Given those pressures, it's likely that California will be disappointed again in the amount of attention the candidates devote to it.

Sanders likely has California's most energetic grassroots organization. After his sustained campaigning here in 2016, he ran well in California, drawing about 46% against Clinton, nearly 2.4 million votes in all. As important, Weaver says, Sanders built a huge volunteer base that he is deploying again in 2020. Last weekend, Sanders' organizers knocked on about 25,000 doors across the state, Weaver said.

"No one can match that," he says, "and that number will ramp up considerably over the coming months."

The question in a state this big is whether any campaign can afford an organizing or advertising effort large enough to move a critical mass of voters, especially given how many other states will be demanding the candidates' attention at the same time. Many local observers believe that, instead, the results in California are likely to be heavily shaped by the results in the earlier states.

While many Californians vote by mail, and the first ballots will reach them between Iowa and New Hampshire next February, Mulholland says that typically 90% of all votes are cast either on Election Day or the 10 days preceding it. That means Californians will be voting precisely as the results emerge from the first contests of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and particularly South Carolina, which will vote on February 29, just three days before the Super Tuesday states.

Once again, California appears more likely to be submerged in a political wave than to start one. That prospect highlights what many see as the flaw in California's calculations over the years. It has focused its search for influence in the nominating process on moving toward the head of the line. But apart from the four states that are granted the privileged position at the very front of the calendar, influence in the primaries has usually come not from being early; it has come from being alone.

States that have carved out a place on the calendar where they have little or no competition from other states -- like Wisconsin in early April or New York and Pennsylvania in late April -- have typically drawn sustained attention from the campaigns and proved influential in the outcome, even if they vote later. Whatever California decides next March, it will share the spotlight with over a dozen other states -- and given how long it usually takes California to count all of its ballots, its results may not be fully apparent until well after the primary cavalcade has rolled onto other contests. "Being on Super Tuesday is not meaningful to a state the size of California," says Carrick. "In fact, it diminishes your meaning."

Even as California revels in more attention from the 2020 Democratic field, it may be on track to learn that uncomfortable lesson again in the new year.

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The biggest state feels the most excluded in the Democratic race - CNN

Capitol Hill on Tuesday was a curiously static place. The impeachment of the President was just a day away, and yet there were no protests, for or against. A dense, gray-white bank of fog settled so low over the Capitol that it covered even the Statue of Freedom atop the building, making the Hill feel even more secluded and cut off. At their caucus meeting that morning the Democrats had only briefly discussed the impeachment vote. With a few known exceptions, the members of the House would vote with their parties. The mood was at once momentous and tension-free. The Democrats would vote to impeach the President, and the Republicans would vote against it. No one was trying to persuade, because persuasion seemed impossible.

Among the last Democrats to announce their support for impeachment was a group of seven freshmenthe national-security Democrats. All seven have records of intelligence or military service, and all of them won in 2018 in previously Republican districts. On September 23rd, the groupElaine Luria and Abigail Spanberger, of Virginia, Mikie Sherrill, of New Jersey, Gil Cisneros, of California, Chrissy Houlahan, of Pennsylvania, Jason Crow, of Colorado, and Elissa Slotkin, of Michiganjointly published an op-ed in the Washington Post, declaring that, if the allegations that President Trump solicited foreign interference in the 2020 election were correct, we believe these actions represent an impeachable offense. Their statement turned the Democrats decisively toward impeachment. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, announced a formal impeachment inquiry the day after the op-ed was published; she has said that she began taking notes for her speech as she read the piece, on a plane to Washington.

The impeachment inquiry, as it unfolded, this fall, did not stray from the security Democrats concerns: it was not broadly about the Presidents corruption but narrowly about his efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government to help him win relection. The stars of last months impeachment hearings were foreign-policy professionalsMarie Yovanovitch, Fiona Hill, Alexander Vindman, William Taylor, George Kentwhose persistent work to keep Ukrainian democracy on track made for a poignant contrast with the Presidents personal emissaries flailing efforts to bend the government in Kyiv toward him. There was an obvious political advantage to leading with the national-security Democrats earnest and even quaint concerns, about duty and sacrifice and oaths. It was the Democrats best guess at the principles that they and their Republican colleagues might still share, when nothing else seemed to do the trick.

On Tuesday afternoon, I visited Crow at his Washington office. A forty-year-old lawyer who served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne, Crow conveys a serious, almost pained sense of responsibility. When he was asked on CNN this week what he would say to persuade Colorados Republican senator, Cory Gardner, Crow said that he would tell him to remember his oaths. There are some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who have service backgrounds, and Ive had conversations with them where Ive been very clear about what I think the right thing is to do for the country, he told me. It didnt sound like those conversations had established much common ground. The trouble was that were not operating off the same set of information anymore, Crow said. Im not going to be able to solve from my perch here the media challenge. It left him talking about shared sacrifice to only half of the country. Crow said, I do think, you know, long, long term, history will certainly treat those who do the right thing favorably. The long, long term sounded very far away.

The contrast between the chyron-assisted intensity of impeachment on the cable networks and the hushed atmosphere on the Hill this week suggested an event made for a television audience. Or, really, two television audiences, each with its own protagonists and themes. The divide between the two parties begins at the most basic, demographic levelninety per cent of House Republicans are white men, while, among Democrats, the figure is less than forty per centbut, during the final debate of impeachment on Wednesday, it appeared at every other level, too. Democrats talked sometimes about the facts of the Ukraine scandal, but more often about first principles like patriotism and democracy, while Republicans talked angrily about processthat it had been closed off and partisan from the outset, that the President had no chance to make his case. Interesting figures flattened into generic ones. Tom Cole, the veteran Republican congressman from Oklahoma, who wrote a doctoral thesis on a working-class enclave of London and spent much of his career fighting for the Native Americans in his home state, said that the process had been unfair and rushed. Representative Will Hurd, of Texasa former C.I.A. officer and a frequent Trump critic, and the lone black Republican in the Housewarned that Democrats were setting a dangerous precedent that risked turning impeachment into a weaponized political tool. Speaking times were as short as thirty seconds, so that none of the House members had time to respond to one anothers points.

Shortly before the vote, Steny Hoyer, the Democratic House Majority Leader, from Maryland, appealed directly to Republicans, urging them to recognize that the republic must defend itself. We have seen Republican courage throughout our history, from the Civil War to the Cold War, Hoyer said. Each man, each woman must look into their own soul. At times, some Republicans interrupted Hoyer by jeering. Obnoxious as that was, it also made an obvious point: the parties shared so little that Hoyers earnest efforts at outreach drifted into impossibly vague abstractions. Stay with your party and you had votes, donations, support for your favored initiatives. Break with it, and what was Hoyer offering? Just metaphysical stuff. An inner conviction of courage. Some satisfaction in your soul. The vote was a victory for Democrats, and an expression of their electoral triumph in the 2018 midterms, but it sounded as if they were grieving something, while Republicans were preparing for war.

Thursday in Washington, the last day before Congress left town for the holidays and the first with the President having been impeached, was clear and freezing. A frenetic series of votes was scheduledmost notably, on the U.S.M.C.A., the trade deal that would replace NAFTAwhich suggested a very different Congress than the one that had grown so entrenched and embittered about impeachment. In the midst of all this, I stopped by to see Representative Chrissy Houlahan, a former Air Force officer who represents a newly blue district outside of Philadelphia. Whats been really fascinating for a neophyte and a freshman like me is to see the kind of cognitive dissonance that happened here this week, she told me. The place was indisputably broken, and it was also, in a different sense, humming along just fine. Houlahan mentioned the bills that were passing that week, which included not only the U.S.M.C.A. but also tax reforms (which would help residents of wealthy blue states) and a $1.4 trillion spending package to avert a government shutdown. These are huge, huge things that have been peoples lifes work coming together, and in the middle of all that there was the impeachment vote, she said. Its kind of hard to contain in your brain all at one time.

When I interviewed several of the national-security Democrats in September, Id found Houlahan the most obviously distressed by the notion that the country was being torn apart. That remained true. Im just really alarmed by where weve devolved to as a people, and what behaviors are permissible, she told me on Thursday. But she also sounded like shed begun to accommodate herself to it.

I know that what I did in my vote and in my actions is hurtful. I know that it was divisive, she said, of impeachment. There would be long-term consequences, for the next Administration and for how will we pull ourselves together and trust each other, she said. But it had to happen, you know. I had to take this vote. It was my oath to do the right thing, to look at the evidence and to make a hard call.

An hour later, I met Representative Elaine Luria, a former Navy commander who won a formerly Republican seat in greater Virginia Beach. Thinking back over the fall, she said that it had seemed that it might be possible to persuade some Republicans to turn on the President. When Lieutenant Colonel Vindman spoke, I thought, This is going to be the day. You have an Army lieutenant colonel, wearing a Purple Heart, she said. How can anyone not take what he says at face value and respect his service and respect his physical sacrifice? Of course, that was not what had happened, as Republicans suggested that Vindman, who emigrated from Kyiv as a child, could have dual loyalty to Ukraine. Luria said, To see people attacking him, I just thought, My God, where have we sunk as a country?

Luria is a centrist. She belongs to three bipartisan caucuses, and she said that they tend to function pretty well. I guess whats confusing about it is a lot of people who are arguing against impeachment are just denying the facts, Luria said. Some people, in these hearings and in their public statements, have gone so far as to say a phone call didnt even happen. Thats absurd. Or, if a phone call happened, nothing was done wrong, he never asked Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. He said he did, his personal lawyer said he did, the transcript he released said he did, and he stood on the White House lawn and said, Ukraine, please investigate, and, while youre at it, China you should investigate, too. This is all public knowledge. She went on, And so whats incredibly confusing to me is how that has been an effective argument in compelling some peopleto say it didnt even happen.

This seemed to be where the long impeachment episode had left the new centrist Democrats: with the realization that, although their politics required Republican negotiating partners, they could only intermittently count on Republicans good faith. Last week, Luria had stood behind the President while he signed an executive order on anti-Semitism. During the impeachment hearing, she recounted that she had said, I stood with the President in the White House last week, but Im standing up to him in this House today. That sounds a little clich, but you only have one minute. Meanwhile, conservative groups were running ads targeting her on impeachment. I didnt think, like, Oh, my gosh, I cant do this because its risky for my relection, Luria said, of her vote for impeachment. I mean, no shit! She was grinning; this was just politics. Its risky for me in a Republican district, no matter whether this happened or not.

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The Political Education of the Security Democrats - The New Yorker