(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Twelve Reasons I am Hopeful About Our Chances in November: Saturday's GNR [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-15 Y’all, it is a close race (which is insane, since we are running against a criminal who doesn’t understand both electricity and sharks) but here we are. Despite that, I am hopeful about our chances. If we work hard, and put what we have into this, we can win in November. Why? Well, many reasons, but here are twelve that jump out at me this week: It is good that crime is down because it is good that crime is down! But it is also good because this is one they keep trying to use against us but it is becoming less and less true. The Quarterly Uniform Crime Report (Q1), January-March, 2024, provides a preliminary look at crime trends for January through March 2024 compared to January through March 2023. A comparison of data from agencies that voluntarily submitted at least two or more common months of data for January through March 2023 and 2024 indicates reported violent crime decreased by 15.2 percent. Murder decreased by 26.4 percent, rape decreased by 25.7 percent, robbery decreased by 17.8 percent, and aggravated assault decreased by 12.5 percent. Reported property crime also decreased by 15.1 percent. 2. Our economy is the envy of the world People are starting to catch on to this. The U.S. Economy Reaches Superstar Status If the United States’ economy were an athlete, right now it would be peak LeBron James. If it were a pop star, it would be peak Taylor Swift. Four years ago, the pandemic temporarily brought much of the world economy to a halt. Since then, America’s economic performance has left other countries in the dust and even broken some of its own records. The growth rate is high, the unemployment rate is at historic lows, household wealth is surging, and wages are rising faster than costs, especially for the working class. There are many ways to define a good economy. America is in tremendous shape according to just about any of them. “It’s hard to think of a time when the U.S. economy has diverged so fundamentally from its peers,” Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told me. Over the past year, some of the world’s biggest economies, including those of Japan and Germany, have fallen into recession, complete with mass layoffs and angry street protests. In the U.S., however, the post-pandemic recession never arrived. The economy just keeps growing. As Vox’s Eric Levitz recently pointed out, prices have increased by 1,400 percent since 1947; that doesn’t mean Americans have less buying power today than at a time when a third of the country didn’t have running water and 40 percent lived in poverty. That’s largely because incomes have increased by 2,400 percent over the same stretch. If prices go up but people’s incomes go up faster, then the cost of living decreases. And that is exactly what has happened in the U.S. over the past five years. 3. Inflation was zero last month! This is huge progress on an issue that is really important! Inflation Was Zero In May Inflation cooled more than expected in May, new data showed Wednesday, delivering a welcome piece of news just hours before the Federal Reserve is set to make its latest announcement on interest rates. Consumer prices rose 3.3% from a year earlier, slowing from April’s 3.4% rate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest Consumer Price Index report released Wednesday. On a monthly basis, prices were flat, a slower pace from April’s 0.3% gain. It’s the first time since July 2022 that CPI did not rise on a monthly basis. “This is the best news we could’ve gotten this morning,” Philip T. Powell, executive director of the Indiana Business Research Center and clinical associate professor at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business, told CNN. “The Federal Reserve has been watching to make sure this [monthly] number came in below 0.2%.” “If it did, that means inflation is going to come down, which means [the Fed] could lower interest rates,” he added. Economists were expecting a 0.1% monthly increase and an annual gain of 3.4%, according to FactSet consensus estimates. Helping to slow inflation in May were falling gas prices, which dropped 3.6% from April. They’re still up 2.2% for the year. Grocery prices were flat and overall food prices went up by 0.1%, lifted by a slight acceleration in inflation at the restaurant level. 4. Equality has increased Gains in the economy are NOT just going to those on the top Wage inequality has been reduced under Biden A recent analysis from the Economic Policy Institute found that from the end of 2019 to the end of 2023, the lowest-paid decile of workers saw their wages rise four times faster than middle-class workers and more than 10 times faster than the richest decile. A recent working paper by Dube and two co-authors reached similar conclusions. Wage gains at the bottom, they found, have been so steep that they have erased a full third of the rise in wage inequality between the poorest and richest workers over the previous 40 years. This finding holds even when you account for the fact that lower-income Americans tend to spend a higher proportion of their income on the items that have experienced the largest price increases in recent years, such as food and gas. “We haven’t seen a reduction in wage inequality like this since the 1940s,” Dube told me. 5. A whole list of other good economic things I could make these each into items, but that seems like cheating so here are: Other Great aspects of Biden’s economic record GDP growth has averaged over 3% in Biden’s Presidency, 3 times higher than Trump averaged per year Lowest unemployment rate in a peacetime economy since WWII, jobs more plentiful today than at any time since the 1960s. 8 times as many Biden jobs in 40 months as last 3 GOP Presidents combined over 16 years. Overwhelming majority of Americans have never experienced a job market this robust and strong Inflation has fallen, dramatically, and prices of many goods, including many food items, continue to fall Very elevated wage gains, new business starts and prime-age worker participation rates Lowest uninsured rate in history, ACA signups this past year highest ever The annual deficit is trillions of dollars lower today than it was when Trump was in the White House Median wealth up 37% from 2020-2022; median wealth for 18-34 year olds in this period more than doubled The Biden Administration has erased more than $130b in student debt Homeownership rates for Gen Z were above both Millennials and Gen X at this point in their lives Many cities and states have raised the minimum wage in recent years, creating a much higher income floor for young and low-wage workers Domestic oil production set records in 2023, and we are setting records with renewable energy production too. America is more energy-independent than it has been in decades Biden’s ambitious investment agenda will create growth, innovation, and opportunities for American workers for decades to come, and is already dramatically accelerating our energy transition from carbon-based fuels 6. Polling is starting to look better I am skeptical of polls, but I’d rather have them moving in our direction than against Biden Gains In Five Polls Now As I wrote on Tuesday we’ve started seeing meaningful movement to Biden in new polling. 4 polls - CBS, NYT, Morning Consult, Yahoo/YouGov - have shown movement to Biden of 2 points or more. Today we got a fifth. Echelon, a Republican pollster, found Biden gaining 4 points since their last poll, going from 46-49 to 48-47. A highly credible Democratic polling consortium, Navigator, found Biden ahead nationally this week, 48-44 (4 pts). I think it would be reasonable for Trump’s 34 felony convictions to shift the election 2-3 points toward Biden, and that is what many polls are showing now. It’s why assertions that Trump leads or is favored can no longer be backed up by data. Yesterday I wrote about why this issue of who is doing better in polling is so central to the 2024 election. Simply, it’s all they have, and we need to take it away from them. It is a close, competitive election, with Biden having a bit of momentum now and a much clearer path to 270. If we do the work we can and should win. From 538 — the fundamentals favor Biden. our model reckons Biden has a 53-in-100 chance of winning the election, meaning he wins in slightly more than half of our model's simulations of how the election could unfold 7. The Biden team is putting out great ads Biden campaign uses awkward Trump-Arpaio 'kiss' in digital ad targeting Latino voters Donald Trump gave Democrats a golden moment when he embraced and then awkwardly kissed former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio near his ear at a town hall-style event in Phoenix last week. “I don’t kiss men, but I kissed him," Trump said afterward. The Biden campaign has turned the kiss into a digital campaign ad reminding voters of Arpaio’s history of racial profiling and misconduct, which many Latinos in the state recall as a time of fear. In the ad, the Trump-Arpaio embrace plays on a loop at the bottom of the screen throughout. At the top, a sequence of news clips are displayed, starting with Arpaio saying in an interview: “Well you know, they call you KKK. They did me, I think it’s an honor, right?” 8. Special elections, baby!!! Your know what predicts winning elections? Winning elections. OH-06 Dem just overperformed by up to 20 points. So, there was a special election for Ohio’s 6th U.S. House district this evening. The district is ranked as being either R+16 (according to Cook Political Report), R+20 (according to Dave’s Redistricting) or R+29 according to Lakshya Jain of Split Ticket. The Republican is a reasonably well-respected state Senator who spent $700,000. The Democrat, Michael Kripchak, is apparently a waiter who quit his job to run & only spent $25,000 total. The Republican did end up winning by 9 points It's a Trump +29 district, and the Democrat is currently on track to post a 15 point overperformance.The Democrat is a former waiter who quit his job to campaign. He spent $25K against a state senator who spent ~$700K. Why special elections should have Republicans panicking Democrats are now outperforming Biden by an average of 3.8 points across 58 special elections, both congressional and legislative, since the midterms—and Biden himself won the national popular vote by 4.5 points four years ago. As Daily Kos Elections contributing editor Daniel Donner has demonstrated, special election results, taken in aggregate, correlate closely with general election results Polling may currently paint a different picture for Democrats, but the same was in many cases true in 2022, even after a series of strong Democratic performances in special elections following the Dobbs decision called into question whether a much-prophesied red wave was gathering strength. That wave, of course, failed to materialize, and special elections are once again counseling against relying too much on the polls. 9. They are losing their ability to use the border as an issue Arrests at the U.S. border fall in April, bucking usual spring increase Arrests for illegally crossing the U.S. border from Mexico fell more than 6% in April to the fourth lowest month of the Biden administration, authorities said Wednesday, bucking the usual spring increase. 10. Some good decisions in Wisconsin Democrat Tapped to Lead Elections Agency Ahead of 2024 Race: ‘Wisconsin is ready’ After navigating a contentious 2020 election as head of the agency that enforces Wisconsin’s election laws, Ann Jacobs is back at the helm just in time for 2024. Jacobs was unanimously reelected chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission on Monday. She led the six-member commission during a particularly fraught time. Wisconsin was one of many states where Donald Trump alleged without evidence that widespread fraud was occurring in the 2020 election. Jacobs reported receiving online threats as the former president refused to acknowledge his loss. “I think part of what was different in 2020, in addition to COVID,” Jacobs told Democracy Docket, “was that the level of antagonism and distrust of the electoral system was really new. There had been complaints in the past, but nothing that rose to the level of abject conspiracy [theories], anger and vitriol over completely fake things. I don’t think any of us were really prepared for those events.” This time around, officials have an idea of what they’re up against. “We now understand, at least a little bit more, who the people are, who are making these accusations, the nature of the accusations … And I think that’s helpful because it helps us sort of ground how we talk about these elections,” Jacobs said. 11. And Michigan Michigan Judge Largely Denies RNC’s Challenge To Absentee Ballot Signature Matching Rules A Michigan judge today largely rejected the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) bid to tighten the state’s instructions for verifying signatures on absentee ballot applications and return envelopes ahead of the 2024 election. As a result of today’s ruling, election officials in the consequential battleground state may continue to apply most of the current signature matching rules promulgated by Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D). Election officials cannot, however, utilize a slightly more lenient standard contained in the state’s guidance — known as a “presumption of validity” — when verifying signatures, the judge concluded. The RNC has not yet indicated whether it plans to appeal today’s ruling. 12. Finally, I would never bet against us Since our “wake up” in 2016 we have shown up and made a difference. There is no way we can win without all hands on deck, but I am confident that each of us will do what we can. After all, no one wants to wake up in November thinking “oh shit. What if I messed this up????” Take action. Nothing makes you feel better than action. and/or Your donations will come bundled with others from our Good News community and will show the Democrats and the Biden team that there are many of us who support him and combine hard work with optimism in our battles for a better America! Looking for something else? GREAT! Here are some other ideas: On the Lighter Side What can you do to save democracy Take action. Nothing makes you feel better than action. and/or Your donations will come bundled with others from our Good News community and will show the Democrats and the Biden team that there are many of us who support him and combine hard work with optimism in our battles for a better America! Looking for something else? GREAT! Here are some other ideas: You can also educate people about how great Biden is! 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