POLITICO NIGHTLY: A midterm alarm for Dems in California

 

View in browser   BY DAVID SIDERS With help from Lauren Gardner A sign reading 'I Voted' stands outside a voting center in Los Angeles, California. | Mario Tama/Getty Images EARLY WARNING SYSTEM — After this week’s break in the primary calendar, seven states will hold elections on Tuesday. In the biggest of them, California, Democrats are already looking at some troubling early turnout numbers: So far, only about 2.2 million Californians have returned ballots. That’s less than a third of the total early vote at this point in California’s recall election last year. Primary turnout is traditionally apoor indicator of general election turnout. But Paul Mitchell, a leading political data expert in California, says Democrats have reason to be concerned this year. Nightly spoke with Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc., which works with Democrats and in nonpartisan races, about what turnout can — and can’t — tell us about the state of the electorate nearly halfway through this midterm election year. This conversation has been edited. Why is early turnout so low in California? Voter registration is at a record high in California going back to like the 1910s. Mailing everybody a ballot is now statewide, post-Covid. All ballots can be mailed without even having a postage stamp. You don’t even have to mail your ballot. In a lot of areas, you’ll have campaigns calling supporters and offering to pick up their ballots. So, all the mechanical pieces are there to make voting easier. And we would expect that to either create higher turnout or at least create a higher floor, so that no matter how boring an election is, at least X percent of voters are going to vote. Why aren’t they? The election is just so damn boring. You’ve got statewide elections for governor on down that have a lot of candidates nobody’s ever heard of, outside of the obvious winners that we’re going see like Gavin Newsom. There’s not a lot of attention being paid to those races. It’s just not that interesting. There are no ballot measures. Locally, we would expect more enthusiasm because redistricting has kind of shook up the ant farm, and now we have new districts, new open seats. We’ve had this exodus from the Assembly where there are more open Assembly seats than we’ve seen in over a decade. So, there are some things afoot that would make you think, Hey, this is going to be an interesting election, but the voters just aren't buying it. Should Democrats be worried? At the top of the ticket, it probably doesn’t matter. I would expect the Democrats to be the top vote getters in all these statewide primary elections. And unless something goes awry, they’re probably all going to have easily beatable Republican opponents, and those races are not going to be competitive. Where Democrats do need to worry is those competitive congressional districts. California has a number of congressional districts that could be considered swing districts. If Democrats aren’t successful in reelecting Katie Porter and Mike Levin and Josh Harder and then maybe even picking up the Mike Garcia seat in North L.A. County or pushing Michelle Steel and that district to potentially either pick it up or maybe pick that up 2024 — that’s where macro-level turnout can make a big difference. If there’s nothing interesting on the statewide ballot in the 2022 general and voters aren’t enthusiastic, just like they are here now in this primary, then, in those kinds of elections, Republicans could win some of these seats. And the reason is that when turnout drops, it doesn’t drop evenly for all groups. It drops most precipitously for lower income, minorities, younger people. And suburban white affluent voters who are homeowners always stay relatively high turnout. And so, when the floor falls out on a low turnout election and you have those critical Democratic core groups voting at 18 percent turnout and core Republican groups voting at 70 percent turnout, then you have a recipe for disaster in those competitive congressional districts. So, should Democrats in Washington and elsewhere be freaking out? I think the question Democrats nationally need to be asking about California is, How do we make that election interesting to our voters? You look at Georgia — right now, Georgia’s having primary election turnout that’s through the roof. They don’t have the mechanical pieces that make voting easy in Georgia. But what they have is an enthusiasm around elections that are polarizing the electorate, getting them excited and getting them to turn out and vote. Democrats nationally need to be looking at California and saying, How do we kind of jolt the electorate into caring about this election cycle and turning out? All of this, for Democrats — going back to the last redistricting, to Republican control of the House, going to the Donald Trump success, all this stuff — it all started by Democrats not turning out in 2010. And Democrats not turning out in 2022 would be potentially just as catastrophic for the next decade. So 2022 could be a redux of 2010 and 2014 in terms of having these huge impacts. It’s one of these things where Democrats win an election in a presidential year, and then they sit on the couch in a gubernatorial and go, “Oh, you know, voting? I already did that.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at dsiders@politico.com on Twitter at @davidsiders.   DON'T MISS DIGITAL FUTURE DAILY - OUR TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER, RE-IMAGINED:  Technology is always evolving, and our new tech-obsessed newsletter is too! Digital Future Daily unlocks the most important stories determining the future of technology, from Washington to Silicon Valley and innovation power centers around the world. Readers get an in-depth look at how the next wave of tech will reshape civic and political life, including activism, fundraising, lobbying and legislating. Go inside the minds of the biggest tech players, policymakers and regulators to learn how their decisions affect our lives. Don't miss out, subscribe today.     WHAT'D I MISS? — In a rare prime-time address, Biden demands action on guns: It was, at once, a call for action and the first true attempt by President Joe Biden to outline the specific proposals that he wanted to see enacted . Biden called for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and, if such policies couldn’t be passed, the raising of the age that one could purchase an assault weapon from 18 to 21. He called for strengthening background checks, repealing the legal immunity that gun manufacturers enjoy, and codifying a ban on so-called ghost guns. And he called for addressing what he deemed the “mental health crisis” in America while expanding “red flag” laws. — Covid vaccination for kids under 5 expected to start June 21: States can start ordering children’s vaccines on Friday, White House coronavirus response coordinator Ashish Jha said during a White House press briefing, but orders won’t ship until the Food and Drug Administration authorizes the shots for kids between 6 months and 5 years old. The FDA’s vaccine advisory committee is set to discuss Pfizer’s and Moderna’s applications — both of which call for a smaller dose than adults receive — in two weeks. — Economic recovery buoys Social Security, Medicare: The financial health of Social Security improved slightly over the past year, though the program’s trust fund remains on track to be depleted by the mid-2030s, according to the annual trustee report released today. The report projects that the program’s combined reserves will be depleted by 2035, one year later than was projected last August. A key Medicare fund also had an improved outlook, with a two-year solvency extension. — Florida Supreme Court locks in DeSantis-backed redistricting map: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ push to redraw the state’s congressional map and give a substantial advantage to Republicans will likely remain in place for this year’s elections. The state Supreme Court — in a 4-1 divided ruling in which two justices recused themselves — declined to wade into an ongoing legal dispute over the map. Voting and civil rights groups opposed to the GOP-approved redistricting map asked the state high court to block it in late May. — Trump to meet with House Freedom Caucus: A group of House Freedom Caucus members are slated to meet with Donald Trump next week to discuss the group’s “strategy” heading into the next Congress, two Republicans familiar with the matter tell POLITICO. The meeting is expected to address how GOP primary season has played out so far, and what the party’s base voters are looking for heading toward November. — Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial nominee shares documents with Jan. 6 panel, agrees to interview: The Jan. 6 select committee received materials this week from Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano — and with them, perhaps, a new dilemma. Mastriano’s previously unreported cooperation with the Capitol attack probe came in the form of a submission, obtained by POLITICO, that includes documents about his work to arrange buses that carried pro-Trump protesters to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. — Avenatti gets 4 years in prison for cheating Stormy Daniels: Michael Avenatti was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison for cheating client Stormy Daniels, the porn actor who catapulted him to fame, of hundreds of thousands of dollars in book proceeds. The California lawyer, currently incarcerated, learned his fate in Manhattan federal court, where Judge Jesse M. Furman said the sentence will mean that Avenatti will spend another 2 1/2 years in prison on top of the 2 1/2 years he is already serving after another fraud conviction. FROM THE HEALTH DESK GOVERNMENT BY TWEET — The FDA’s Twitter account has been an unexpected pandemic star. In one memorable instance, which racked up 51,000 retweets, it reminded sentient Americans thatthey're not, in fact, horses . “Seriously, y’all,” the agency instructed. “Stop it.” The account uses humor to raise awareness — like riffing off an SNL skit to warn bodybuilders about the unknowns of supplements — while taking more serious approaches to some issues. FDA reporter Lauren Gardner chatted with Brad Kimberly, the agency's social media director, how his content strategy and why he likes amplifying former wrestlers so much. This conversation has been edited. OK, so you are responsible for "you are not a horse"? Yes. I did make those words happen. When you took over the Twitter account in 2018, why did you decide to mix humor with the serious stuff? Did your approach change during the pandemic, or have you been this meme-y all along? The pandemic has given us an opportunity to talk a little more directly to people. In the last year, we've really focused on speaking in first person from the FDA account -- the FDA account is a personality -- and we want to be able to communicate with people in a way that they can understand. We're pretty science heavy; there's a lot of complicated messages that we're trying to get across, and not everybody out there has an M.D. or a PhD. So how can I communicate these complicated ideas to the masses? How can I get my mom to understand them? Things like "you're not a horse, you're not a cow” are little moments of experimentation where we're like, Well, let's change our tone a little bit and our voice and see what happens. Who is your target audience? You mentioned making sure that your mom can understand this. Twitter users, you would think, generally skew a bit younger. But at the same time, my mom and dad are on Twitter to complain about Philadelphia sports and to vote on “The Voice.”  I want to be able to communicate clearly in a way, and sometimes maybe cleverly in a way, that when people share it among their friends — who are people who don't necessarily follow us — that it is useful information. As much as I want to make a pun about a peanut butter recall being a sticky situation, should I put that on social media? I want us to sound like we're just another friend that you're talking to about the news of the day. In our case, it's news about the Food and Drug Administration and the amazing work that a lot of people here do. We want to bring some attention to a lot of issues — using humor to maybe poke a little fun at the use of veterinary-grade ivermectin in an effort to get people to maybe stop doing that. That is certainly not the way we would normally speak. But it made a huge difference. You seem to have an affinity for former wrestlers — retweeting when they've gotten their boosters and such.  We want people to go out and get vaccinated if they're eligible and go get boosted if they're eligible. And so sometimes we'll engage with celebrities or even amplify celebrities. We did something with Lucy Lawless. I engaged with Conan O'Brien at one point last year, where he was talking about the milk crate challenge. Mark Hamill, Mr. T. And if somebody sees a tweet from Mr. T, and he's getting his booster and says, Hey, maybe I want to do that, that’s great. Read Friday’s Prescription Pulse for more of this interview. AROUND THE WORLD OPEC BOOSTS OUTPUT — OPEC+ announced today that members of the oil cartel agreed to a larger-than-expected hike in output , signaling a potential thaw in relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia ahead of a potential trip by Biden’s trip to the Middle East. A derek pumps in a oil field in Kuwait near the Saudi Arabian border. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images The White House offered measured praise for the move, giving credit to Riyadh for acknowledging tight market conditions and pushing OPEC members to boost their production. “We welcome the important decision from OPEC+ today to increase supply in July and August based on new market conditions,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Twitter after OPEC+’s announcement. “We recognize the role of Saudi Arabia as the chair of OPEC+ and its largest producer in achieving this consensus amongst the group members.” Members of the oil-producing group said they would increase collective production by 648,000 barrels a day in July and August rather than the 400,000 barrels a day they had originally planned to add. The announcement, made after representatives of OPEC and Russia met, comes as Biden is considering visiting with leaders of Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries.   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     NIGHTLY NUMBER 550 The number of confirmed monkeypox cases the World Health Organization has reported since May 13 in 30 countries where the virus isn’t endemic. PARTING IMAGE Elise Schering displays a simple message during a National Gun Violence Awareness Day rally at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif. | Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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