122 Comments
Aug 19Liked by David Nir, James Lambert

So happy to see the newly independent Downballot that I pitched in $10 to celebrate this inaugural edition. Best wishes.

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Thank you so so much! That's incredibly kind of you!

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Aug 19Liked by James Lambert, David Nir

Congratulations on the new beginning!

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Thank you, Goldy! We're so stoked!

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Serious question:

What is the agreed upon abbreviation of The-Downballot.com? We were DKE for years, SSP before that. Are we going with TDB? DB? What are we thinking here?

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I've been using DB.

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I like DB.

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Probably just a me problem, but DB makes me think of DeutscheBahn

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Genau.

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Internally, we've been calling it TDB just because "DB" is such a commonly used shorthand for "database."

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TDB or something clever yet TBD.

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Aug 19Liked by David Nir

"The Down-B"

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Aug 19Liked by David Nir

With football just around the corner, I prefer TD..jk

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So does Tim Walz LOL

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Lmao😂

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The writers of the Downballot should keep in mind that the Digest is sent out as an email, and some email services, such as Gmail, truncate emails that are longer than a certain length.

My Gmail truncated this morning's Digest in the middle of the section on the AZ ballot measure.

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As I was reading through it on the site this morning, I thought the same thing. I love a lot of info, but it was daunting and made we wonder what it would look like in gmail and opened it to see the same break point as you.

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DKE digests have also been truncated for the last couple of years. Nothing new.

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Yeah, this unfortunately is completely beyond our control and always has been. Substack's CMS actually warns you if it thinks an email might get truncated, but there's just nothing we can do about it. At this time of year in particular, there's simply a ton of news, and we've got a lot to say.

Fortunately, there's a better option than clicking Gmail's "View entire message" link - you can simply click on the graphical header for The Downballot or the headline inside the post to be taken to the web version.

Also, today's edition was a bit unusual in that it had an uncommonly long header so that we could explain the launch to folks who might not have heard about it yet. Those will typically be shorter.

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Aug 19Liked by Jeff Singer

I work in email marketing... it's very hard to avoid Gmail doing this without keeping emails well short of the possible break point. None of the benchmarks I've ever tried have worked consistently to avoid it.

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Aug 19Liked by David Nir, James Lambert

Wanted to drop a message to mark this new era. I’ve been a lurker for many years, loving to learn from all you great contributors. Started at SSP in the 2006 cycle and have been following along ever since. Absolutely had to sign up to help this great work continue. Maybe I’ll even start commenting some. Speaking of 2006, that class of senators and reps has had a special place in my memory since it was my first to follow closely, and we had such a transformative win. Glad to be rooting on that class again this year, especially Tester and Brown.

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What a lovely comment, Ben! We hope to see you around more often! And yeah, the class of 2006 is, in my heart, the Swing State Project class. Part of the reason I can't get enough of Tim Walz, the Ultimate Downballot Guy™!

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Aug 19·edited Aug 19Liked by David Nir

Good day. Gotta get used to this new format. Anyway, new poll from British pollster shows good US swing state results: https://www.semafor.com/article/08/18/2024/harris-leads-trump-in-five-of-seven-battlegrounds-poll

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Yep. Those look about right to me.

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The Nevada numbers look out of step with most of the other polling.

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I thought NV polling has proved consistently less reliable compared to other states?

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Looks plausible, but damn is PA close! It's all down to us fellow PA posters.

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True but Shapiro has a political machine that the Republicans can't equal.. Still gonna be close

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Do they share their crosstabs?

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I have been unable to login to discord despite being a paid subscriber. Frustrating!

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I am so sorry to hear this! Can you email me and I'll help troubleshoot? davidnir [at] the-downballot [dot] com.

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Same here. I will email you.

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I've come to the conclusion that the NC governor race may actually drag Trump down with it there.

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It’s all about making the case that the Robinsons of the world are a direct result of Trump. That there’s no separating the two.

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Even the worst candidates (like this one) don't usually have reverse coattails, though.

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I'm not saying it'll be a lot, but an overall factor.

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I hope you are right, but suspect all undecideds will hold their nose for Trump (and that the Governor numbers are narrower than the recent polls - I'd be thrilled with Stein +5).

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He could actually be a Republican drain on turnout as well as Democratic boost of turnout.. As long as he keeps doubling down on every vile obnoxious thing he has already said.. Even he has backtracked somewhat on abortion

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Fine with me!

Let's go Trump, let's go!

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If I lived in CA, I’d vote for Proposition 36.

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I do live in CA, and won’t be voting for Prop 36.

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I guess you like shoplifting and stealing. There’s some segment of progressives who are comfortable with crimes like that.

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I guess you think the reason the US is a global leader in incarceration rates is that we have a uniquely criminal populace and we just need to set new records to fix crime.

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People like you don’t want to address crime. “Criminal Justice Reform” has largely failed. You’re part of that segment of progressives who will tolerate crime.

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Really? Then why is it that criminal justice reform was passed into Congress with the help of Senators Cory Booker and Rand Paul?

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Normally I'd clamp down on this as "policy talk," but I realize that we're in a weird situation where an election is literally policy.

But c'mon folks, if you want to debate the issue, then engage with the issue. Hostil snark is really not about shedding light but only scoring points. And no one is scoring any points right now.

Let's be good to one another—this is Day One of the new site, after all!

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Aug 19Liked by David Nir

Yeah, you don’t need the aggravation today, I’d probably have disengaged after the first tit for tat without you saying something, but I’ll definitely do so now.

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Appreciate you, Ben.

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First of all, the shoplifting and smash-and-grab panic has been greatly blown up by the national and local media, because fear gets eyeballs.

Many states have a higher threshold for felony theft. Texas is over $2,000. Our current level of $950 is actually surprisingly low. I personally do not want people to get locked up years for dumb, minor offenses.

The real problem in the state is a lot of conservative DAs refusing to prosecute crimes because they only want to pursue charges that give people big sentences. Those DAs absolutely could set up systems or programs to prosecute lower level offenders, but they choose not to. The problem is the DAs in some of our biggest counties, many of whom are actually still Republicans or ex-Republicans.

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California DAs are using current law to address the problem, and Republicans/Fox News are misstating the problem to try to win elections for county attorney and swing districts. Unfortunately, I think Republicans might succeed in LA county. I like Ben am a Californian and will use my better judgment to vote against the proposition.

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As a fellow Californian, and specifically a SF resident - I just don't agree with you. The amounts of, granted, anecdotal examples and stories I have of people getting robbed, their cars broken into, etc. is absolutely insane.

I don't think the current system is working, and the fake, but very believable, sign that made headlines earlier this year - which was placed in Union Square and read “stolen goods must remain under $950,” kind of encapsulates it.

So does the fact that if I want to buy toothpaste, ice cream and pepto-bismol, I gotta call the poor worker, who's already busy ringing up people at the counter and stocking the shelves, 3 different times. It just isn't like that - not only in Europe or Asia - but also in many other places in the United States.

At least they finally closed the locked door loophole...

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Exactly!

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Aug 20·edited Aug 20

The reason for the increase in crimes you're referring to is in a large part because of pervasive psychology from the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, these problems weren't as much of an issue. However, the problems you're referring to do not need criminal justice reform in order to happen.

This is why Mayor London Breed is failing and why Mayoral Candidates like Aaron Peskin are gaining in traction. The broader sense is that communities are becoming distant from San Francisco City Government and this particularly applies to the response rate of police and security officers.

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Interesting article on how the Philly exurbs are trending Democratic.

https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/philly-suburbs-harris-trump-democrats-growth-20240814.html

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Behind a paywall.

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Sorry

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I’ll also say that I’m glad they’re doing something to go after shoplifting and qualify of life crimes.

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Wish someone would go at one of the big root causes of the current shoplifting problem: The ease of using amazon and ebay as a fence.

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Would be nice to finally get rid of Scott Perry, but I’m dubious.

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I think there's a well-founded hope that if there's a big turnout for Harris in that district, Perry will finally be voted out. But what I'd really like to know is why no members of Congress have been charged with crimes related to January 6 and other efforts to annul legal votes.

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Glad you left DKos—some of the DKos front posters were too far left.

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As a socialist, that was definitely not a problem for me. My main problem was laid out in the last DKE Weekend Open Thread, in which I mentioned how I was very unpleasantly surprised by the level and sustained quantity of intemperate vituperation in recommended diaries about President Biden being "betrayed" by "billionaire donors" to "subvert democracy" and eliminate progressivism - that kind of stuff. And as I clarified, it wasn't the arguments that bothered me, but the lack of reasoned arguments from quite a few users who instead engaged in screaming, accusations of a kind of treason and a cult of personally. Fortunately, that all died down pretty quickly after President Biden made his decision, but it was a very graphic display of the kinds of users who downgrade the quality of thought and argumentation at Daily Kos.

All that said, when SSP moved to Daily Kos, I was concerned that being under the umbrella of an avowedly partisan site would degrade the quality of discussions in response threads, and though we lost almost all the conservative folks who had participated at SSP and did risk occupying a liberal bubble, for the most part, that didn't happen. Instead, the last 13 years were generally excellent, additional terrific staff members came on, and various great posters found us from the wider DK community or through other means.

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"Instead, the last 13 years were generally excellent, additional terrific staff members came on, and various great posters found us from the wider DK community or through other means."

Concur with all of this!

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By the way, what was your moniker on Daily Kos? Mine was MichaelNY.

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I guess I'm a Luddite.. came here to check if my DK handle transferred over (it appears to?). What is the difference between this and what's on substack? And what do we donate to? Sorry for the questions on day one!

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Don't apologize! Very glad you are here, Anthony. You are *on* Substack right now! Even though the URL is "the-downballot.com," the site is hosted by Substack.

And thank you so much for wanting to support us. The best way you can do so is by becoming a paid subscriber, which you can do here: https://www.the-downballot.com/subscribe

Folks can also donate to us on ActBlue! https://secure.actblue.com/donate/thedownballot

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Aug 19Liked by David Nir

Here are my own 31-day and 14-day polling averages as we go into the convention. I've been using polls of registered voters with minor candidates included where possible. The state 14-day averages don't have many polls, so the number of polls for each state are in parentheses.

AZ 31-day T+0.4, 14-day (2) H+1.0

GA 31-day T+2.1, 14-day (2) T+5.0

MI 31-day H+1.8, 14-day (4) H+3.0

NV 31-day H+0.0, 14-day (2) H+1.5

NC 31-day T+0.5, 14-day (3) H+1.3

PA 31-day H+0.6, 14-day (6) H+1.5

WI 31-day H+2.3, 14-day (5) H+4.4

National 31-day H+1.3, 14-day H+1.9

Both the national and (limited) state polls show that Harris is generally polling better this month than last. I wouldn't expect Georgia to be her worst state, but go figure. We'll see what these look like after the convention.

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I'm a bit confused about GA as well. I suppose there must be a race/gender hesitation among 2020 Biden voters there?

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Maybe just noise but I too can’t see an obvious reason for GA to be Harris’s worst state from the group. I worry most about NV but as always PA way too close for comfort

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If Harris wins NC, she's already won GA.. Imo..those are the 2 states out of the Big 7 that are must Trump states.. And honestly, Harris can actually afford to lose them, while Trump simply can't

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The British poll without crosstab being published, sounds like a joke to me. I don’t know if they have any understanding of American electorate to operate here. Four years ago R&W, another reputable British pollster, had completely wacko findings.

Siena already acknowledged their sample might be a bit red leaning. If they considered all ATL metro counties voted Blue as inner suburbs, and rest as north Georgia or outer suburbs, then the sample is about 6pt less fair share of inner suburbs and 6pt too much outer/north. Don’t try unskew it, but if you do, you get a literal tie. LOL.

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I think Biden might have won Georgia by relying on the votes of a particular kind of conservative white people and military folks. I'm speculating, but those are two groups that might be more inclined to stay home or swing back to Trump.

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Some may respond to Walz being on the ticket though.

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You can look at Kemp-Walker difference to on what kind of moderate to conservative voters bolted from Walker, and get a good idea on Biden’d support 2yr back.

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Agreed.. I refer to them as 'sane' Republicans or 'no chaos' Republicans.. Folks that think Trump's every election is I lose must be 'stolen' is almost insane (if not actually)

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Trump and Vance both seem to be doing what they can to keep Trump’s underperformance with military families going.

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So you are being your best Nate Silver..??.. Thanks for doing the muscle work..very plausible numbers imo(I think GA is somewhat of an outlier here).. overall good news and before the Expected convention bump

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Not close to what Silver does, just simple averages. I exclude pollsters with a history of boosting the GOP to drive a narrative, though.

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Testing x2 (hoping I have re-named AND migrated successfully)

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Hearing you loud and clear, good buddy!

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