Making Ideas Matter.
The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about the shift in attitudes- particularly among women- toward reopening.
Women now see that the country not working is not working. Their kids not being in school, missing key learning time, is not working either — for them, their children or their families. A majority has come to the conclusion that neither they nor the country can continue like this.
Read the full piece here.
In the interest of adding something positive to the political debate, the Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about some of the good news we have seen from the past couple of weeks’ headlines, and some of the reasons to be optimistic.
What makes this country great are its people. You can see why America works. When we turn things over to Americans in tough times, they are resilient. It’s the spirit of the country that has always seen it through difficult and even deadly times. We don’t give up. We never have.
Read the full piece here.
The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about the increasingly volatile and confused electorate, and what it may mean looking ahead to November.
It is possible that 2020 may see a rerun of two presidential candidates with very high unfavorables and, as a result, many voters having a negative view of both. This is not a choice voters want to make again. Both Biden and Trump are facing a volatile electorate that has come to understand the need for strong leadership, even if they don’t completely understand what’s happening to the country and why.
Read the full piece here.
The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about the major sociological disruption caused by the coronavirus and the new normal into which we are entering:
Beyond hardcore partisans, people are much more interested in who can lead in this new normal, not the color of a face mask or the appropriateness of a golf outing. Life for most Americans is much more serious than the less-than-serious media’s idea of news, and they are looking at their world through a new lens, wondering what a post-pandemic America will look like and knowing deep down that it can never be the same.
Read the full piece here.
The Winston Group’s David Winston returns to his column for Roll Call this week to write about the special election in California and its potential implications for the fall:
Mike Garcia exceeded expectations as a candidate. So did the party in a diverse district in one of the most difficult states for Republicans. It’s clear that Republicans overperformed in California on Tuesday and that means winning 20 House seats in November isn’t outside the realm of possibility.
Read the full piece here.
In today’s Roll Call, the Winston Group’s David Winston takes a look at some of the key takeaways from Super Tuesday and what they might mean for the Democratic primaries going forward.
The exit polls in the Super Tuesday and South Carolina contests paint a clear picture of Joe Biden’s winning strategy: He appealed to voters who saw themselves as somewhat liberal, winning that group in 10 of the 13 contests in which there were exit polls.
Read the full piece here.
By David Winston and Myra Miller
Since Joe Biden’s stunning reversal of fortune coming out of South Carolina and into Super Tuesday, much has been said about Biden “consolidating the moderate lane,” now that Buttigieg, Bloomberg and Klobuchar have dropped out and endorsed him. He may have consolidated the moderate lane of presidential candidates and re-emerged as the frontrunner over Sanders, but this doesn’t mean that the Democratic Party has suddenly become more moderate again in the past week.
As we have raised in Discussion Points before, a majority of Democratic voters are now self-identifying as liberal (51%) over moderate (38%) – a stark contrast to the composition of the party when Democrats won the majority in 2006 in which the party was more moderate (51%) than liberal (38%). Ever since then, the Democratic Party’s steady trajectory toward identifying as liberal over moderate has not changed. What happened in states like South Carolina and many other Super Tuesday states is that Biden won liberals overall, or at least performed well enough among liberal voters, particularly among “somewhat liberal” voters, then won by large margins among moderates to be able to pull off a win.
In South Carolina, exit polls show that Biden won among liberals (+17), including “very liberal” (+13), matching that with a large victory among moderates (+44). In states like Texas, Massachusetts and Minnesota, Sanders still won the overall liberal vote by single digits, but Biden was able to win among the “somewhat liberal” and gain a reasonable percentage of liberal voters, combined with large wins among moderates. In Virginia, Biden managed to win among liberals (+16). Though Sanders still won the “very liberal” by 4, Biden won 2:1 among the somewhat liberal, which was a much larger group (34% of the state’s Democratic primary voters) compared to the very liberal (19% of the state’s Democratic primary voters).
As a long term trend among Democratic voters, the moderate lane is becoming more of a shrinking side road, with the liberal lane becoming the main highway toward the Democratic nomination. Biden may have successfully performed among the two wings of his party, but this challenge has certainly not gone away, with implications for their convention, party platform and positioning for the general election.
The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about Joe Biden’s recent win in South Carolina and its implications going into Super Tuesday.
South Carolina was the first big inflection point of the primary season. It won’t be the last. Each of the top campaigns went into Super Tuesday with an advantage. For Mike Bloomberg, it was money. For Sanders, it was organization. For Biden, it was momentum.
Read the full piece here.
The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about the divisions within the Democratic party and 2020:
If the primaries have shown us anything to date it is that the ideological divide within the Democratic Party, embodied by Pelosi’s strained relationship with AOC, is far from a temporary fluke. The party’s shift to the left is real and should not be underestimated.
Read the full piece here.
The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about the economy and the Democratic Presidential Primary:
“By the time this column is published, New Hampshire will be over. But regardless of who wins the Granite State, or the nomination for that matter, every Democratic candidate has already embraced and is now saddled with an economic message that contradicts the general view of a majority of the electorate.”
Read the full piece here.