Voters Feel Like Trump Is On The Ballot

 

The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done on October 19th and 20th of a nationwide sample of 1,501 registered voters, with a 3 point margin of error.

Trump Gets His Wish - He Is On The Ballot (And Voters Know it)

When Trump appeared at his "convention" in Texas (which was watched by very few people),  he asked voters to vote like his name was on the ballot. He has repeated that several times since.

In his narcissistic delirium, Trump believes he is the greatest president the United States has ever had, and he's presiding over the greatest economy the country has ever had (he has actually said both). He seems to believe that the only reason Republicans are in trouble is because he's not on the ballot, and if he was he would carry them to a huge victory in November.

But Trump lives in a bubble of his own construction - having surrounded himself with only sycophants who tell him what he wants to hear (which is nowhere near the truth).

The fact is that Donald Trump is already on the ballot - at least in the minds of most voters. All of the mistakes he has made are fresh in the minds of most voters.

His insistence of placing tariffs on many other countries is on the ballot. Most people know this was just a tax on U.S. consumers that raised the price of many good.

His vicious and cruel immigration deportation plan is on the ballot. He promised to deport criminals (the "worst of the worst"), but instead is separating families and deporting tax-paying, hard-working, immigrants who have never committed a crime - and his ICE thugs have arrested over 500 citizens and shot dozens of people without cause.

His "big beautiful bill", which cut taxes for the rich while cutting millions off Medicaid and cutting off help to pay for private insurance for millions more, is on the ballot. It also kicked millions off the SNAP program so they can't get the food aid they need.

His unending war on Iran is on the ballot. That war raised gas and diesel prices to exorbitant levels - and the higher diesel prices are raising the price of everything else, which must be grown or produced on a farm or shipped to a store by truck.

The inability of a large part of the population to be able to afford a decent life in on the ballot. Trump has called affordability a "hoax", but it is very real to many millions of Americans.

Those issues being on the ballot means Trump is on the ballot, because he is responsible for all of them.

Some Republicans are starting to realize how toxic Trump is to their chances of re-election, and are trying to put some distance between him and them. But it is far too late. For the last two years, they have rubber-stamped everything Trump wanted to do - no matter how bad it was.

Voters now realize that a vote for a GOP representative or senator is just a vote to allow Trump to continue trashing our country for another two years.  Every Republican running for federal office shares his position on the ballot with Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is effectively (if not actually) on the ballot of every voter.

A blue wave is coming. The only question is how big it will be. How angry are the voters with Trump. If the polls are right, they are VERY ANGRY - and they are going to show it with their votes.

Supreme Court Puts Trump Back On The Ballot

The Supreme Court reversed the Colorado Supreme Court decision that had removed Donald Trump from the primary ballot in that state. The Colorado court had ruled that Trump committed insurrection, and therefore could not run for office.

This is not a surprise. The only surprise was that it was a 9 to 0 decision, with the 3 liberal justices agreeing with the six right-wingers on the court. The court rules that a single state could not disqualify a candidate for national office. They went on to say there would be "disruption and chaos" id a candidate was barred in some states but not in others.

The court cowardly dodged the real question -- whether Trump committed insurrection and should be constitutionally barred from office. Even if the Colorado court did not have the authority to decide that, the U.S. Supreme Court did have that authority. But they did not have the courage.

I hope they will show more judicial courage in deciding whether Trump has immunity from prosecution, but I am not expecting it. They will probably dodge that question also, and make only a limited ruling.

This is the most pitiful excuse for a Supreme Court this nation has had since the awful Dred Scott decision a century and a half ago.

Is Keeping Trump Off The Ballot Anti-Democratic?

Two states (Colorado and Maine) have banned Donald Trump from appearing on primary ballots. Trump has said he would appeal the decisions.

It is not yet known whether those bans will be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, or whether the court will even take up the appeals. But right-wingers are floating a new argument to keep Trump on the ballot in all states. They say the bans are purely political, and anti-democratic.

Those are specious arguments. First, the bans are not political - they are legal arguments. Trump fomented and directed an effort to overturn the result of the 2020 election. And he sent a violent crowd to the Capitol to prevent the electoral votes from being counted and verified. That was insurrection, and the Constitution clearly prohibits those guilty of insurrection from running for or holding any public office in the United States.

It is also not anti-democratic. Democracy cannot work without rules that are respected and obeyed by citizens and political leaders. Without rules, we would live in a dod-eat-dog nation where anything goes - including the overturning of the will of voters. That's not democracy - it is anarchy.

Our democracy is based on rules. Those rules are contained in the Constitution. Ignoring the constitutional rules is the opposite of democracy.

Trump wants to seize power in spite of the fact that he was rejected by voters. In addition to having the fewest electoral votes, he had 7 million fewer citizen votes.

Would the right-wingers wanting Trump on the ballot think it was anti-democratic if a Democrat wanted to run after committing an act of insurrection. Of course not. They would be screaming about Article 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution - and they would be right. The anti-democratic part is making an exception to the rules for they favorite Republican candidate.

Will The Supreme Court Put Trump Back On Primary Ballots?

Two states (Colorado and Maine) have ruled that Donald Trump is not qualified to be on the primary ballots in their states, and the question will soon be decided in some other states. The Colorado Supreme Court and the Maine Secretary of State both base their rulings on Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

That section of the Constitution prohibits anyone who has engaged in "insurrection or rebellion" from holding "any office, civilian or military, under the United States, or under any State". It seems obvious to me that the phrase "any office" would have to include the presidency.

Did Trump commit insurrection (a violent uprising against an authority or government)? That also seems obvious. On January 6th, immediately before Congress was to meet to count and ratify the electoral votes, Trump urged his followers to go to Congress and stop that vote certification -- and they did so in a violent way (with people hurt, lives lost, and property damaged).

Another state (Michigan) has decided the Fourteenth Amendment does not apply, and said Trump could be on the ballot in that state. Most people now expect the matter to be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Two things could happen. One, they could decide it was up to each state to decide who qualifies for the ballot. Two, they could take the case and either rules Trump was or was not qualified to be on the ballot. 

I think they will take the case. But the conservative majority is extremely unlikely to take Trump off of all state ballots. So there most likely ruling is that Trump must be on all state ballots. They will probably dodge the insurrection issue by ruling he has yet to be convicted of that. 

Should Trump be removed from all ballots - YES. Will Trump be removed from any ballots - NO. After all, they are right-wing Republicans, and right-wing Republicans don't think rules, laws, or constitutional provisions should apply to themselves.

Don't expect this Supreme Court to do the constitutional thing -- or the right thing.

Public Disagrees With Trump/GOP About Mail-In Voting

The chart above is from the NBC News / Wall Street Journal Poll -- done between April 13th and 15th of a national sample of 900 registered voters, with a 3.27 point margin of error.

Donald Trump is opposed to voting by mail. He said it promotes fraud. And the congressional Republicans are backing him on that. They have blocked attempts by Democrats to pass a nationwide mail-in voting bill (at least for this election during the Coronavirus pandemic).

There is no evidence of widespread fraud with mail-in voting. The Republicans are just trying, once again, to suppress voting. They know that when the voters turn out in large numbers, it tends to favor the Democrats. This is just one more effort to keep as many people from voting as possible.

But it puts them at odds with most Americans. About 58% would support a law allowing all Americans to vote by mail, and another 9% would support allowing it for this election only. That's two-thirds (67%) of voters who would support allowing mail-in voting in this November's election. People want to vote in this important election, and they would prefer to do it safely.

The Republican opposition to mail-in voting may actually hurt their own candidates -- at least in red states. Democrats have been chomping at the bit to vote Trump out of office for over three years now. They will vote -- even if they have to crawl over broken glass on their hands and knees to do it. They will put on their masks and gloves and show up at the polls.

But will red-state Republicans and Independents? They could well think that because they live in a red state, their vote is not really needed -- and stay at home rather than possibly expose themselves to a deadly virus.

Republicans could be hurting themselves as much as they hope to hurt their opponents by refusing to allow mail-in voting.

The Green Party Fails To Qualify For The Texas Ballot

In the state of Texas, a political party qualifies for a place on the statewide ballot if they got 5% of the vote in any statewide race in the previous election. In 2016, only three political parties accomplished that -- the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and the Libertarian Party. The libertarians squeaked by getting 5.3% of the vote in a race for Railroad Commissioner.

For the first time in several elections, the Green Party failed to get 5% in any statewide race. That meant they had to get 50,000 valid signatures on a petition to get on the ballot -- and those signatures had to be from people who did not vote in either the Democratic or Republican primaries. They failed to do that, and that means they will not be on the Texas ballot in November.

The Green Party's candidate for governor, Jan Richards, has said she will be running as a write-in candidate -- and possibly some other Green Party candidates will do the same. But write-in candidates get notoriously few votes, and that means it is extremely unlikely they will qualify for the 2020 ballot. They will again have to go the petition route, and that might be very difficult in a year where most voters will be concerned with either re-electing or ousting Donald Trump (and will therefore be supporting one of the two major parties).

Will the Green Party ever get back on the Texas ballot? I think they will, but it will probably have to wait until Trump is gone and the political process returns to more normality.

The Green Party May Not Be On The 2018 Texas Ballot

To automatically qualify for a position on the ballot in a statewide Texas election, a political party must get 5% of the vote in at least one statewide race.

The Green Party of Texas failed to do that in 2016. Their leading statewide vote-getter was Martina Salinas, who ran for Railroad Commissioner. She got about 287,000 votes, or about 3.2% of the votes cast in that race. That means the party does not automatically qualify for the 2018 ballot.

In the past, the Green Party has qualified by running candidates in the few statewide races that no Democrat was in (thus getting some votes from progressive Democrats). But in 2016, Democrats ran a lot more statewide candidates, and the Greens were not able to take advantage of races without a Democrat.

That means the party must get 47,183 signatures on a petition to put them on the ballot by May 29th, and those signatures must be from people who did NOT vote in any other party's primary election.

That could be tough. The petition drive would cost at least $200,000, and the party has very little money. It could also be tough because both Democrats and Republicans had very large turnouts in the March primary (making those people ineligible to sign a petition).

The last time this happened was 2010, and the Greens were saved by an out-of-state Republican group who funded the petition drive with a $532,000 donation. It's possible that some rich Republican might do the same this year, thinking that in an election as close as some are predicting a Green Party candidate getting 2% to 3% of the vote could save a Republican seat in a competitive district.

Right now, it's a long shot that the Green Party will be on the Texas ballot in November -- but they still have a little over a month to make it happen.

Dems Still Hold Advantage On Generic Congressional Ballot

This chart uses information from the latest Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between January 28th and 30th of a random national sample of 1,500 adults (including 1,264 registered voters). The margin of error for all adults is 3 points, and for registered voters is 2.9 points.

It shows that Democrats still retain a 5 point advantage in the general public (and among registered voters).

When you break it down demographically, Republicans have a slim advantage among Men, Whites, and those 65 and older. But those advantages are countered by bigger margins for Democrats among Women, other races/ethnicities, and other age groups.

The 2018 election is a golden opportunity to flip Congress (at least one house of it). But that will only happen if the Democrats actually turn up at the polls in November.

Libertarian And Green Parties Are Not On All 50 State Ballots

There a sizable chunk of Republicans that don't like Donald Trump, and some Sanders supporters that don't want to support Hillary Clinton. Some of these people, who voted in the Republican or Democratic primaries, are now saying they might vote for a third party candidate -- either Jill Stein of the Green Party, or Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party.

But they might be disappointed when they see their ballot. That's because those two parties, while the largest of the third parties, are not on the ballot in all 50 states. They are still trying to get on all state ballots, but it is unlikely they'll be able to do so (and neither party was on all 50 state ballots back in 2012 either).

Currently Jill Stein of the Green Party is on the ballot in only 35 states plus the District of Columbia (representing about 425 electoral votes). Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party is doing a little better, being on the ballot in 43 states plus the District of Columbia. That means voters in 15 states would not be able to vote for Stein, while voters in 7 states would not be able to vote for Johnson.

There's only about 10 weeks left until the election, and states are starting to close ballot access and finalize those ballots. I doubt that either the Greens or the Libertarians will be able to improve their current positions very much.

Texas Ballot Positions Of Democratic Presidential Candidates

Bernie Sanders can't say he is being treated unfairly in Texas (although I'm sure some of his most vocal supporters will try to claim that). Look at the ballot position of the presidential candidates in Texas. Bernie has the prime position -- being listed first on the ballot. Hillary Clinton is listed far down the ballot in seventh place.

ALL COUNTIES

President

o Bernie Sanders

o Martin J. O’Malley

o Keith Judd

o Calvis L. Hawes

o Roque “Rocky” De La Fuente

o Star Locke

o Hillary Clinton

o Willie J. Wilson

The Green Party Will Be On The 2016 Texas Ballot

Progressives have to look hard to see anything good about the election results in Texas. The 2014 election was a crushing defeat for progressives, and a huge win for the right-wing extremist teabaggers. That can't be denied. But there are a few bright spots, and one of them for me is that the Green Party scored enough votes to qualify them for the Texas ballot in 2016.

To qualify for the ballot in the next election, a party must have at least one candidate in a statewide race that garners at least 5% of the vote. The Green Party had three candidates (in statewide judicial races) that did that -- and Judith Sanders-Castro (running for Place 4 on the Court of Criminal Appeals) set a new record for statewide Green Party candidates by getting 10.45% of the vote (the first statewide Green candidate to get a double-digit percentage).

Some of the Greens running for a seat in the U.S. Congress did even better (taking advantage of races without a Democratic candidate). Her is a list of how the statewide and congressional Green Party candidates did in last Tuesday's election.

Statewide

US Senate - Emily "Spicy Brown" Sanchez - 1.17%

Governor - Brandon Parmer - .39%

Lieutenant Governor - Chandrakantha Courtney - .59%

Attorney General - Jamar Osborne - .63%

Comptroller of Public Accounts - Deb Shafto - .97%

Commissioner of Agriculture - Kenneth Kendrick - 1.68%

Railroad Commissioner - Martina Salinas - 2.04%

Commissioner of General Land Office - Valerie Alessi - 1.28%

Supreme Court Justice Place 7 - Charles E. Waterbury - .74%

Supreme Court Justice Place 8 - Jim Chisolm - 9.24%

Court of Criminal Appeals Place 4 - Judith Sanders-Castro - 10.45%

Court of Criminal Appeals Place 9 - George Joseph Altgelt - 8.56%

Districts

US Representative District 2 - Mark Roberts - .87%

US Representative District 3 - Paul Blair - 18%

US Representative District 13 - Don Cook - .70%

US Representative District 18 - Remington Alessi - 1.22%

US Representative District 21 - Antonio Diaz - 14.71%

US Representative District 28 - Michael D. Cary - 4.56%

US Representative District 35 - kat swift - 1.34%

US Representative District 36 - Hal J. Ridley, Jr - .51%

State Senate District 10 - John Tunmire - .60%

State Senate District 17 - David Courtney - .72%

State Representative District 42 - Nicholas Serna III - 11.55%

State Representative District 64 - Braeden Wright - 2.83%

State Representative District 80 - Marco Buentello - 10.4%

State Representative District 123 - Paul Ingmundson - 13.72%

State Representative District 130 - Art Browning - 9.23%

State Representative District 146 - Morgan Bradford - 8.12%

Have Kansas Officials Lost Their Minds ?

All I can figure is that certain state officials in the state of Kansas have lost their damn minds! The Kansas State Objections Board (compromised of Secretary of State Kris Kobach, Attorney General Derek Schmidt, and Lt. Governor Jeff Colyer -- all Republicans) has decided it isn't sure that President Obama qualifies to be on the ballot in Kansas. This board is the body that makes decisions on whether people should remain or be removed from the ballot in Kansas, and they are reacting to a complaint from a single citizen in Manhattan -- a birther who thinks the president wasn't born in the United States.

This board should have immediately rejected this bogus and ridiculous claim, but they didn't. Instead, they have delayed their decision on whether President Obama should be removed from the Kansas ballot (leaving the Democrats with no presidential candidate in that state). They say they don't have enough information, and have sent requests to Hawaii, Arizona(?), and Mississippi(?) to "secure copies of the president's birth records". They have done this in spite of the following facts:

* The president has released both short and long forms of his official birth certificates.

* Hawaiian state officials have all stated those birth certificates are correct, and the president was indeed born in their state.

* The president's birth in Hawaii has been verified by Hawaiian newspapers at the time of the birth, and by doctors and nurses who were present at the birth.

* All "birther" court cases claiming the president was not born in the U.S. have been rejected by federal courts, and none of them have been accepted on appeal by the Supreme Court of the United States.

* The president's family (especially his grandmother and great-grandparents) have established roots in the state of Kansas -- the very state that now doubts his citizenship.

* Mr. Obama has now completed over three and a half years as president of the United States.

Add to this the fact that there is almost no chance of President Obama actually carrying the state of Kansas this November (a snowball probably has a better chance of surviving a summer in the Mojave Desert), and I have to wonder why these state officials are even bothering with the ludicrous objection from the Manhattan "birther". It simply makes no sense.

Have the teabaggers gained such a chokehold on the Kansas Republican Party that they can now force Republican state officials to do stupid and ridiculous things? Or have these officials just lost their damn minds? Either way, it's a sad commentary on the state of the Republican Party -- in Kansas and in the nation as a whole.