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News from Virginia demonstrates again how elections can be self-fulfilling prophecies. This is from its state legislature. Republicans have dominated the House of Delegates, the lower chamber, and hold 66 of the 100 seats going into their election this year (Virginia and New Jersey both hold state legislative elections this year, although the Virginia state Senate is not on the ballot).

Donald Trump's unpopularity in Virginia, and the burst of Democratic energy in reaction to his presidency, have convinced potential candidates there to run for office and for the party to raise tons of money for them. Democrats will contest 48 of those 66 Republican-held seats rather than not even bothering to try, as has been the case in the past. It's likely that some of the challengers will be newcomers who will fizzle once the election gets closer. It's also possible, however, that some of those inexperienced challengers will turn out to be very good at politics (after all, everyone has to start somewhere), and it's likely that those 48 challengers also include some relatively seasoned strategic politicians who see this as a good year to run and will make excellent candidates.

What all that means is that if Trump's popularity craters even more by November, Virginia Democrats are ready to exploit it, including a best-case scenario in which they pick up the bulk of the 17 Republican-held seats in districts carried by Hillary Clinton and actually win a chamber majority. On the other hand, if Trump rallies, Democrats will still probably win a few they wouldn't have otherwise. The early enthusiasm means that candidates have filed and resources will be available tothem.

If Trump remains unpopular for another few months, the same thing will be true at every level for the 2018 midterms. Already, far more Democrats than usual have filed to run for U.S. House seats. It's very early for 2018 state legislative elections, but you can be sure that potential candidates are already scouting out opportunities, and they'll be closely watching those Virginia and New Jersey results as well as Trump's approval numbers.

None of that guarantees a great year for Democrats in 2018. But the more things go their way -- the more Democrats think 2018 will be a great year for them (and Republicans think it will be a bad one, and behave accordingly) -- the more Democrats will be able to exploit the opportunities they wind up having, and the more they'll be able to overcome obstacles if the tides shift against them.

1. Charles Stewart III on the Pence commission's letter to state election officials.

2. Rick Hasen also has problems with what the commission is asking from the states.

3. Back to the Monkey Cage with Victoria Tin-bor Hui on Hong Kong and China.

4. My Bloomberg View colleague Francis Wilkinson on Trump and phony voter fraud stories.

5. Amy Walter and David Wasserman on the 2018 House election playing field.

6. Ezra Klein on the health-care bill and what it says about the Republican Party.

A daily round-up of superb political insights.

Jonathan Bernstein's Early Returns

7. And Byron York remembers that Republicans knew in 2013 that once the Affordable Care Act was fully implemented that it wouldn't be repealed. A large part of this is just the status quo bias in U.S. politics, which made it so difficult to pass health-care reform in the first place.The rest? My guess is that it's not at all about those who now benefit from Obamacare changing their minds; it's about most other people who, having seen that it's possible to expand health care to more people, don't want to take it away.

Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Clickhereto subscribe.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story: Jonathan Bernstein at jbernstein62@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Brooke Sample at bsample1@bloomberg.net

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Democrats Seize on Opportunity in Virginia - Bloomberg - Bloomberg

The Buzz is the Registers weekly political news column.

Ardent opposition to President Donald Trump is motivating veteran and first-time activists in Orange Countys four Republican congressional districts, but unseating the incumbents remains an uphill road.

Three of those GOP members won reelection by more than 10 percentage points last year. And while polls show dissatisfaction with Congress as a whole, historic polling shows constituents view their own representatives far more favorably.

Hillary Clinton won all four districts, but a new report by the Public Policy Institute of California details how Democrats strongest demographic groups are also the least likely to vote in midterm general elections.

The population of eligible voters among Latinos and Asian Americans is growing faster in California and the county than elsewhere in the country while the overall voter registration rate is falling faster. In 2014 the last midterm election the states voter registration rate was about 5 percent less than the nations rate, according to the PPIC. Thats because Latinos and Asian Americans arent registering to vote at the rate of other eligible adults. The lack of registered Latino voters in the county could particularly hurt Democrats next year.

Meanwhile, the strongest age group for county Democrats is those 25 and younger. But those voters low turnout in midterm elections is the biggest reason the state slid from 70 percent turnout in the 1982 midterm general election to 42 percent in 2014, according to PPIC.

Orange County Democrats were watching the June 20 special election in Georgia because it was similar in some ways to the GOP districts in Orange County: Educated voters who usually favored Republicans but were wary of Trump (Trump won the district by just 1 percentage point). But the outcome was bad news for those Democrats, with Republican Karen Handel beating Democrat Jon Ossoff 52 percent to 48 percent.

Thats more than Trumps margin of victory and an indication that distaste of the president wasnt enough to carry the Democrat to victory.

If you know where to look, you can find bits of good polling news that reflect well on Trump.

Approval among Republicans remains strong at 85 percent, according to the most recent Gallup poll. Thats leagues beyond their approval of the GOP-controlled Congress, which is at a lowly 28 percent, according to Gallup.

And Republicans are far more optimistic about the future of the country since Trump took office, with 69 percent saying the country is going in the right direction, according to a just-released Morning Consult poll. Thats rocketed from 11 percent last July. Meanwhile, Democrats optimism for the country has dropped from 37 percent to 19 percent over the same period.

The problem is that less than half the country is Republican, especially when accounting for independents.

Trump took office with a historic low approval rating among all voters, 45 percent. And its been a slow drift downward since, with his latest rating at 39 percent, according to Gallup.

Within the party, theres a significant divide. When asked if the GOP generally cares about people like you, 72 percent of self-described conservatives said yes but just 49 percent of moderates thought so, according to the Morning Consult data.

The weakest demographic among Democrats is those ages 18 to 29, with 73 percent of that group saying the party cares about people like them. All other age groups are at 80 percent or higher. Overall, 80 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of Republicans said their party cares about people like them.

Measuring patriotism can be treacherous, but that didnt stop the approaching Independence Day from spurring WalletHub to rank the 50 states. That ranking is based on 13 factors divided into two categories: military engagement (a states number of military enlistees counted for 25 percent of their score) and civic engagement (the share of adults who voted last November accounted for 10 percent).

Virginia ranked first overall, Alaska ranked first in military engagement (and 36th in civic engagement) and Vermont ranked first in civic engagement (and 39th in military engagement).

CaliforniIa ranked 44th overall, 38th in military engagement and 42nd in civic engagement. It had the third lowest veterans per capita, but otherwise didnt crack the top five or bottom five in key categories.

Excerpt from:
Study highlights Democrats' campaign hurdles in 2018 - OCRegister

A government watchdog group and the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland urged state election officials on Friday to refuse to comply with a data request made by the Trump administration as part of an investigation into the integrity of elections.

The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, created by Republican President Donald J. Trump in May, has asked Maryland and every other state to supply voter data including names, addresses, party affiliation, voting history and partial social security numbers.

Damon Effingham, Common Cause Maryland's legal and policy director, said the request raises "significant concerns among voting rights and privacy advocates."

"The request is breathtakingly broad," Effingham said in a statement.

David Rocah, a senior attorney with the ACLU of Maryland, said Friday "the request is improper under Maryland law on multiple levels."

Much of the requested information is public under Maryland law but must be requested by a registered voter of the state and cannot be used for commercial purposes. Many political campaigns, for instance, obtains such information for purposes of advertising and door-knocking.

The request came in a letter from commission vice-chair and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. The letter does not ask for private information, but rather public voter-roll information.

"In order for the Commission to fully analyze vulnerabilities and issues related to voter registration and voting, I am requesting that you provide to the Commission the publicly-available voter roll data for Maryland," Kobach wrote in the letter.

Nevertheless, Common Cause argues that state law "forbids granting a request made under these circumstances."

"Secretary of State Kobach is a registered voter in Kansas," Effingham said.

State law also says a Maryland voter must submit to the State Board of Elections a statement signed under oath that the requested voter information will not be used for purposes unrelated to the electoral process.

Linda H. Lamone, Maryland's elections administrator, said she has asked Attorney General Brian E. Frosh for guidance in how to respond.

A spokeswoman for Frosh, a Democrat, said the office would evaluate the request and provide Lamone with guidance.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, emphasized that the State Board of Elections "functions as an independent agency."

State laws vary, but the request was met with pushback in some states. Officials from Kentucky, Virginia and New York, for instance, said they would not comply.

In Maryland, leading Democrats condemned the commission's work.

"President Trump's 'voter fraud investigation' is an attempt to suppress and disenfranchise voters, plain and simple," Democratic Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz tweeted. He went on to say that Maryland must join with Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, "and refuse to honor this alarming, politically motivated request."

State Sen. Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat, called the panel a "voter suppression commission."

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Friday called the outrage over the request "mostly a political stunt."

"This is a commission that's asking for publicly available data," she said.

The commission was created after Trump claimed on Twitter in November that he "won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally." Trump won the Electoral College vote, but Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 2.9 million votes.

The president has never offered evidence to back up his claim. He has been rebuked by both Democratic and Republican officials for undermining confidence in the nation's electoral system.

Frosh said in a letter to Congress this year that voter fraud is not a significant problem in Maryland.

"To date, there are no cases in which it has been determined that an individual who cast a vote in the federal elections held in November 2016 was legally prohibited from doing so...," Frosh wrote. "With only two instances of confirmed voter fraud from the total voter turnout of 2,734,176 in the 2012 Presidential General Election, we can safely say that there is no evidence of coordinated or systematic voter fraud in Maryland."

Baltimore Sun reporter John Fritze contributed to this article.

lbroadwater@baltsun.com

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Common Cause, Democrats urge Maryland not to comply with Trump election data request - Baltimore Sun

A new study finds far more Republican Senate offices pay their interns than Democrat offices do.

Nearly 51 percent of Republican Senate offices offer paid internship compared to just 31 percent of Democrat offices, according to a new study from the bipartisan group Pay Our Interns. On the House side, only 8 percent of Republican offices pay their interns compared to just 3.6 percent of Democrat offices.

"Democrats like to say, Well, you know, you're getting paid with knowing that you're making a difference, Republicans have no illusions that people should get paid for their work," Carlos Mark Vera, one of the study's authors told the Washington Examiner.

From 1973 to 1993 it was standard practice to pay interns working in the House of Representatives under the Lyndon Baines Johnson Congressional Intern Program. The program provided a $1,000 two-month internship to students. However, Congress has not appropriated funds for it since the early 1990s.

Much of the reason many internships are unpaid on Capitol Hill can be attributed to hiring caps. Each representative is limited to 18 paid positions and an additional four positions on their staff.

Vera, says the lack of paid internships provided by Congress combined with high cost of living in the District of Columbia is preventing minorities from pursuing internships on Capitol Hill. He notes there is a great disparity between the participation of Caucasians in internship programs compared to Hispanics and African-Americans.

His study finds Hispanic-Americans have the lowest rate of internship participation, at 53.3 percent, compared to Caucasians at 68.2 percent. African-American participation stands at 59.5 percent, while Asian-American participation is 63.2 percent.

Vera argues unpaid internships favor those of higher socio-economic status because only those who can afford to work for free or have parents that can support their child can seek those opportunities. As a first-generation immigrant from Colombia, Vera says the goal of Pay our Interns is to make public service careers more accessible to minorities and those of all socioeconomic backgrounds, not just on racial lines.

"We're also fighting for the sons of coal miners in West Virginia, this is about opportunities for anyone to enter public service," Vera said.

Pay Our Interns collected their data by contacting members of Congress directly, often meeting directly with representatives and surveying their websites.

The report concludes that while unpaid internships often provide valuable learning experiences, a lack of adequate pay adversely affects minorities, producing a less diverse Capitol Hill workforce. It also recommends raising hiring caps and more transparency concerning how much members, if at all, pay their interns.

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More Republicans pay their interns than Democrats: Study - Washington Examiner

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks during a Stop 'Trumpcare' rally in front of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. in May. Alex Wong/Getty Images hide caption

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks during a Stop 'Trumpcare' rally in front of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. in May.

When Senate Republican leaders delayed the vote on their bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was quick to not declare victory.

"We're not resting on any laurels, nor do we feel any sense yet of accomplishment," Schumer said at his weekly press conference, shortly after the surprise GOP decision to punt on a vote. "Other than we are making progress, because the American people are listening to our arguments."

The push to repeal key parts of the Affordable Care Act will succeed or fail based entirely on Republican votes. So arguing is the most that Democrats can do.

Perhaps it's enough. The bill's popularity has cratered as the debate has dragged on. An NPR-PBS Newshour-Marist poll out this week put its approval at 17 percent. As Republicans have scrambled to pull together the bare minimum of votes they need to pass their bill, Democrats have done something the GOP mastered over recent electoral cycles: Oppose a complicated legislative effort by focusing on how it could potentially disrupt voters' lives.

"Health care, in general, is a complicated policy, but for people to understand what this bill would do to them has been pretty simple," said Meghan Smith, a strategist at the public relations firm SKD Knickerbocker.

Smith is helping coordinate messaging for a number of progressive groups trying to block the repeal-and-replace effort. She said the groups are focusing on big-picture ideas, like projections the legislation would lead to higher health care costs for many Americans. The Congressional Budget Office's projection that an additional 22 million people would be uninsured if the Senate bill becomes law has been easy to communicate, as well.

As outside groups have organized ad campaigns and activism efforts, Schumer and the rest of the Senate Democratic Caucus has been holding event after event in and around the Capitol. There's been a clear effort by lawmakers to bring their arguments down to a personal scale.

On Tuesday, most of the Democratic caucus stood on the Senate steps holding large posters of constituents who rely on the Affordable Care Act or Medicaid. As it wound down, Schumer spelled out the messaging strategy. "We ask you those of you from local papers and outlets, to talk to your senator about the person that they are holding up," he urged reporters covering the event.

As the debate has gone on, Democratic lawmakers keep returning to one main attack point. The Senate Republican-drafted bill, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said Thursday, provides "massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. And to pay for that, we're taking away health care from millions and millions of Americans. It's as plain as that."

Democrat after Democrat has made similar arguments on the Senate floor and at various rallies and press conferences in recent days.

Booker orchestrated one of the Democrats' more viral moments on Monday a three-and-a-half-hour live video stream on the Capitol steps, focused on blasting the bill. The video initially began with Booker and Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. Other lawmakers joined in, and, by the end, a large crowd of supporters was there, too.

"It was truly a special moment," Booker said. "It shows the spontaneous outpouring that people have, who feel very passionate about this issue."

Planned Parenthood and other organizations also organized a larger Capitol rally Thursday.

But the question is whether any of this matters. The bill's fate comes down to a dozen or so Republican senators lawmakers who likely don't have much support from the types of people who are showing up at Capitol rallies anyway.

That's why efforts by people like Stephanie Powell may be more important. Powell lives in Anchorage, Alaska, and every morning at around 8 o'clock, she calls the office of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican who represents the state. "I call her Anchorage office, her Juneau office, her Fairbanks office, her Washington office," Powell said.

Powell is progressive, but said she voted for Murkowski. "She's always been Alaska first," she said. But Powell and her family all rely on Medicaid, which she is quick to tell Murkowski's staffers when they pick up the phone. "They know more about my health history than maybe my own mother at this point, because I've been very up front about what this means to us."

The Senate is in recess for the next week. Which means Murkowski and other Republicans who are either on the fence or opposed to the legislation including Maine's Susan Collins, Nevada's Dean Heller, Ohio's Rob Portman, and West Virgina's Shelley Moore Capito will likely be hearing from a lot of people like Powell.

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How Democrats Are Fighting The GOP Health Care Bill - NPR