THE SHOW NOTES: The Switch is Flipped
Welcome! The switch has flipped. I ran campaigns, served as a campaign strategist, and have covered campaigns in my professional career. Wave years have a distinctive pattern. Three to four weeks before the election, a switch flips. Undecided, independent voters all begin breaking one way. That’s happening now, and they’re breaking to the GOP decisively. The GOP leads the generic ballot in ten of the last eleven polls and that one poll has had the most notorious oversampling of Democrats all year and the Democrats are still only up by one point. The GOP now has a 3.4% lead in the generic ballot, which is higher than 2014.
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If you’re in a Republican wave year, the media is desperate to ignore the top issues and then suddenly can’t stop. In the last twenty-four hours, MSNBC is blowing up Democrats for not taking crime seriously; Philadephia voters are telling national Democratic audiences just how bad crime is in the city and suburbs; the masses get to question John Fetterman’s health openly; in Arizona, CBS talks to voters blasting crime waves and the economy; etc.
This is what happens in wave years. In Democratic wave years, the media never stops pounding the GOP on the Democrats’ issues. In Republican wave years, the media pounds the GOP on Democrat issues *cough* abortion *cough* until the end then pivots so fast they could break their necks. The pivot is to GOP issues like crime and the economy as the press hopes the voters don’t realize the press has been carrying Democrat water.
It is happening. Three weeks out, undecided independent voters are breaking more than two to one for the GOP. GOP voting enthusiasm now outpaces Democrat enthusiasm in every swing state. Democrats have stopped sharing their internal polling with the press. Democrats are pulling money out of races that they wanted to win and now using that money to shore up stronger Democratic candidates the GOP should have no chance of beating. And nationally, they’ve started focusing not on 2022, but bitching about how awful Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell are going to be — suggesting the GOP is toast in 2024. Those are all signs the wave is on the horizon. Doom is upon us and the day of Democratic dread is near.
Of course, it will also create a problem. For two years, Democrats have said they must do everything possible to keep Republicans from power. Their base now believes epistemically the GOP is an authoritarian party that, once it has the power, won’t let it go. So just how maliciously and/or violently will Democrats respond after Election Day?
On to the rest of the news…
TikTok Is Not Your Friend
The parent company of TikTok planned to use one of its China-based teams to monitor the personal locations of specific U.S. users of the app. ByteDance claims the location data collected was used to provide users with personalized ads but documents obtained by Forbes suggest the data collection was specifically for surveillance purposes.
Not So Fast, Elon
The U.S. government is considering a security review of Elon Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter which would give President Biden the ability to end the purchase under the guise of national security. The security concerns stem from Musk’s funding sources which include businesses with ties to Saudi Arabia and China.
Bonus: News broke last night that Musk plans to cut 75% of Twitter’s workforce after the deal is complete.
Americans For Prosperity
My friends at Americans for Prosperity hate dysfunctional government almost as much as I do. Unlike think tanks that produce esoteric term papers, Americans for Prosperity is focused on policy solutions that will directly improve people’s lives. They have the largest network of community activists in the country and need your help. Learn more at AmericansForProsperity.org/Erick
The rest of the news: