Reasons for Political Optimism

In what feels like a flood of bad news of late, here are some scraps of good-news flotsam and jetsam to grab ahold of.

(Composite / Photos: Shutterstock)

THE LAST FEW WEEKS were pretty dismal.

The United States continued to fail Ukraine, withholding badly needed support as House Republicans toe the Trump/Putin line. Pro-Palestinian protesters not only loudly promised not to vote for Joe Biden, but tried to ruin some Easter services and succeeded in shutting down a speech Rep. Jamie Raskin was invited to give at the University of Maryland titled “Democracy, Autocracy and the Threat to Reason in the Twenty-first Century.” Meanwhile Donald Trump is suddenly a billionaire, at least on paper. He made fun of Biden’s stutter, saluted the January 6th defendants, and launched more attacks against judges presiding over his criminal trials—as well as their families.

March was dispiriting.

The threats to Biden’s re-election, to the rule of law, and to the international order remain. But there were glimmers of good news, too—some cases of accountability, some promising polls, and some evidence of the kind of voter enthusiasm it will take to defeat Trump come Election Day. So let’s take a quick tour of some of the favorable tidings and reasons for optimism that March brought.

1. The third-party threat weakened considerably.

Though No Labels packed it in officially on April 4, the group’s pursuit of a unity ticket essentially ended in March when Chris Christie became the last big-name prospect to turn them down.

The collapse of this effort removes the worst spoiler threat to the anti-Trump coalition. While the candidacies of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West can also cut into Biden’s vote share, neither is as credible or serious as the Republicans and Democrats whom No Labels sought to nominate. And while Kennedy’s appeal to young voters, his TikTok following, and his war chest are concerning, his decision in March to name Nicole Shanahan as his running mate was a major blunder. She can fund his campaign, and help hold his anti-vax vote together—but that’s about it.

Shanahan’s thoughts about in vitro fertilization, now a hot political topic, are concerning—at best. She has attacked the IVF industry as “one of the biggest lies” being sold to women and suggested alternatives like exposure to sunlight for older infertile women trying to conceive.

IVF is enormously popular; in a large survey of American adults, 86 percent said they believe it ought to be legal. Candidates who don’t support IVF, whether Republicans or anti-corporatist types, will find themselves the targets of a sustained Democratic campaign about this issue. An Alabama hospital just announced it would stop all IVF treatments at the end of this year due to concerns over litigation. This conversation isn’t going away.

In addition, since the March 26 announcement Shanahan has disappeared, making no campaign or media appearances, missing from what was billed last week as a joint Fox News interview that Kennedy ended up doing alone.

So yes, Kennedy remains a factor, and a threat to Biden’s re-election, but it’s increasingly clear Kennedy is a MAGA ally who will likely take more vote share from Trump if Democrats do an adequate job of amplifying his past (rampant adultery he detailed in a diary that his wife, who would later take her life, found and read) as well as his positions, like feeling sorry for insurrectionists. He embraces a conspiracy theory about his father’s assassination rejected by his entire family. His candidacy is also opposed by his entire family. There is a lot to work with here.

2. Mike Pence makes history, snubs Trump.

This is the most important story of this election. (JVL is always right.) Perhaps another could top it later, but nothing has yet.

It would have been easy for Pence to criticize Trump but then wimp out—as Bill Barr has done—and call Biden a socialist anti-Christ before disappearing into political retirement. But Pence chose courage, isolation, and death threats—for his country. That is the bumper sticker of this campaign: the man who knows everything said no way.

Nikki Haley could still disappoint us, she tends to do that. But she has not endorsed Trump. Pence led with his example, maybe Haley will be bold enough this time to do the right thing. And all those voters turning out for her after she left the race ? She shouldn’t disappoint them.

The returns in the GOP presidential primary in March continued to show resistance to Trump in encouraging numbers. While Team Trump likes to dismiss all Haley voters as Democrats, closed primaries since Super Tuesday—with only registered Republicans—saw an average of 21 percent vote against Trump.

The Never Again Trump vote, post-January 6th, is critical. Which is why what Pence did, and what Haley can do if she joins him, is invaluable.

3. March was the month Biden found some mojo. 

After his March 7 State of the Union address, which energized Democrats and comforted voters worried about Biden’s age and stamina, the money started pouring in. Within 48 hours, the campaign raised $10 million, and then the three-president fundraiser featuring Barack Obama and Bill Clinton joining Biden in New York raised another $25 million.

Then those universally bad polls began to budge. Biden is now moving ahead of Trump in numerous general election polls and some swing state polling as well.

And both Nates have confirmed this is officially real: Silver here and Cohn here.

An actual trend line. It is finally happening—just like Dark Brandon kept telling us it would. It may not last, but breathe it in!

4. At long last the Human Crime Spree was given a court date.

For all the 88 criminal charges Trump is facing, he will likely only face one trial, in the New York State case involving his hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. Sure, this is a lame case and could boomerang and help him politically. So what—it’s overdue. Trump was named an unindicted co-conspirator in this case six years ago. He has to be a defendant sometime. Maybe there will be some surprises. Maybe he will become a convicted felon. The trial is set to start next Monday.

5. Republicans can practically taste the Senate majority, but they are polling behind Democrats.

Yes, all it will take is a Trump victory, because West Virginia will elect a Republican senator after Joe Manchin retires, for the GOP to control the Senate next year. At this point in the cycle, there aren’t many state surveys, so many of the polls are about a month old, but it’s remarkable that all Republican candidates are currently trailing Democrats in the most competitive contests. Even Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester are hanging tough in their dark red states. This is great news.

6. Democrats swing an Alabama GOP state legislature seat by 25 points. 

In a special election for the Alabama House of Representatives, the Democrat focused heavily on the IVF issue, abortion, and reproductive freedoms and beat the GOP candidate badly. Alabama is ground zero for this debate right now, as the state supreme court ruled frozen embryos are children and then the legislature attempted to remedy the decision with a new law trying to carve out protections for the practice. But the huge margin in this contest makes clear that these issues taken together—from the availability of mifepristone to fertility treatments to abortion—can turbocharge Democratic turnout.

7. John Eastman has been recommended for disbarment.

Election subversion has consequences. Finally.

Eastman is hoping he can stop this, and he’s bummed out he can’t participate in the next steal. In an interview on a right-wing propaganda show, he lamented: “If they keep us tied up, spending our resources on defense against these things, then those are resources and time and talent that cannot be deployed in furthering elections for people who are sensible and want to get our country back on track.”

And Jeffrey Clark could be next. Let’s hope so.

8. Kari Lake got busted for her lies.

After upending Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer’s life—and his family’s—with her false election claims, and being sued for defamation over it, Lake chose not to defend her statements. Because she can’t. Lake now faces the hearing and potential damages, and she continues to lie about the case.

This will hurt her campaign for the U.S. Senate—she lost her other statewide race only sixteen months ago; the voters know her, and they will learn that she had no evidence for her allegations. Rep. Ruben Gallego, her Democratic opponent, will see to that. And the race isn’t going well either. In the first week of March, Kyrsten Sinema’s retirement announcement scrambled the dynamics of a three-way contest Lake could have won.

Shiree Verdone, a longtime GOP fundraiser in Arizona, put it this way to NBC: “What I hear is, everybody has just resigned themselves that we’re going to be stuck with a Ruben Gallego—that’s what I hear from all the major players, the big-money people. . . . I haven’t heard anyone say, ‘Kari Lake is going to win.’”