fivethirtyeight--2020-06-23--The Debate Over Biden’s VP Pick Is Full Of Half-Truths And Misleading Arguments

People who want Sen. Kamala Harris or another Black woman to be former Vice President Joe Biden ’ s running mate often claim that a Black woman will substantially boost enthusiasm among Black voters .
Supporters of Sen. Elizabeth Warren for vice presidential nominee say that she will help Biden solidify support with younger voters and people who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primaries .
Others say Harris or Warren or other candidates will doom Biden with voting bloc X or fail to help him with group Z .
Almost every case for or against a particular vice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But most of these electoral claims are highly contestable , at best .
It ’ s not that they should be dismissed out of hand .
They matter .
But as people in the Democratic Party advance their preferred candidates , they ’ re also doing a bit of hiding the ball .
Electoral claims — “ Person X will help win Michigan ” — are often seen as objective and fact-based , even when they ’ re flimsy .
But there are more obvious , non-electoral , cases for running mates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So let ’ s unpack some of the pitches being made for vice presidential nominees and what might actually be motivating them .
VP candidate ( s ) being promoted : Black women such as former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams , Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms , U.S. Rep. Val Demings of Florida , Harris and former National Security Adviser Susan Rice .
Advocates : Prominent Black female political pundits and Democratic strategists such as former interim Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile ; political commentators like Jonathan Capehart and Angela @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as Rep. James Clyburn and Rep. Alcee Hastings ; other liberal , Black figures such as the Rev .
Jesse Jackson .
The main public argument : Black turnout will increase with a Black woman on the ticket .
The real main argument : Representation .
Democrats owe this to Black women .
Could a Black woman help boost turnout among Black voters , which dipped in 2016 compared to 2012 ?
Maybe .
Some political science research shows that Black people vote at higher rates when a Black candidate is on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contested , and that research is about voting for a Black candidate , not a white candidate with a Black running mate .
That said , basically the only thing that Abrams , Bottoms , Demings , Rice and Harris have in common is that they are Black , women , and reportedly being considered as running mates by the Biden campaign .
It ’ s really hard to claim that both Demings and Rice — the latter of whom has never even run for elected office — would obviously generate an electoral @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be of similar size .
If the goal is to pick someone with skill in appealing to Black voters in particular , Abrams would seem to be head and shoulders above the rest of these Black women .
She ran for governor and nearly won in a state with a huge Black population , in an election that saw a surge in Black voter turnout that was likely the result of her campaign .
[ Related : How Will Biden Choose His Running Mate ? ]
So why have people been calling for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden with Black voters , rather than homing in on a specific Black woman ?
Because the real case that ’ s being made is that Biden should pick a Black woman because it ’ s the just , moral and right thing to do — electoral considerations aside .
There are two ideas at play here .
First , there is what a Black female vice presidential candidate ( and vice president ) would mean for Black women in America .
Political scientists have enumerated lots of kinds of political representation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ descriptive representation , ” or how similar an elected official is to the people voting for them ( so a Black female candidate ’ s physical presence would represent Black women ) , and “ symbolic representation , ” or what a candidate stands for in the minds of voters ( so a Black female candidate could represent a step toward equality for Black women and also represent the political attitudes and behaviors of Black women ) .
Both kinds of representation could be achieved if Biden chooses a Black woman as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ choosing a Black woman would be a nod toward both addressing the historic underrepresentation of Black women in high levels of American politics and rewarding Black women for their historic loyalty to the Democratic Party .
“ Though we have propped up the Democratic Party for decades , the return on our investment in the party might as well read , ‘ insufficient funds , ’ ” Rye and a group of other prominent Black women Democrats wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post in May , urging Biden to pick a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Those days are over .
We are here to collect , ” they continued .
“ Very simply , Vice President Biden : You owe us , you need us and you must not take our votes for granted — they must be earned.
” The attention on racial inequality in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis has further galvanized Black Democrats around this view .
But there is another huge factor , one that existed before Floyd ’ s death : the presence of Harris .
A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presidency is being a sitting or former governor or U.S. senator .
And many previous vice presidential candidates had run for president ( or at least tested the waters ) themselves , both raising their national profiles and usually demonstrating some competency in talking about major policy issues , even if their campaigns were ultimately unsuccessful .
But no state has ever had a Black woman as governor , and only two Black women — Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois and Harris — have ever been a U.S. senator .
So Harris , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in U.S. history , has the most traditional qualifications to be the vice presidential nominee .
In other words , this is a unique opportunity for anyone who wants to see a Black woman on the national ticket or serving as vice president — and they know it .
Anyone who is making a case for a Black woman to be Biden ’ s running mate is implicitly making a case for Harris — she is by far the most qualified candidate , at least by the criteria historically applied in the veepstakes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ promoted : Abrams , Bottoms , Demings , Harris , Rice .
Advocates : More centrist white Democrats such as Sen. Amy Klobuchar and ex-Sen. Heidi Heitkamp .
The main public argument : A Black woman must be on the ticket in the wake of the Floyd protests .
The real main argument : They oppose Warren being on the ticket on policy grounds .
As we wrote earlier this year , there is some evidence that a VP nominee can boost the ticket by about 2 or 3 points in her home @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , before Floyd ’ s death , revolved around fairly weak claims made by reporters , columnists and various Democrats and Trump-skeptical Republicans that choosing a nominee from the Midwest such as Sen. Amy Klobuchar or Gov .
Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan would boost Biden throughout that region .
At the same time , some Democratic Party big donors argued that Warren specifically would hurt Biden electorally , so he should pick basically anyone else — even as polls suggested that a Biden-Warren ticket was just as strong as or stronger than a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presidential candidates .
The Floyd protests and the resulting conversation about racial issues has tamped down talk of Democrats picking a white Midwestern woman .
The post-Floyd focus on racial inequality effectively ended Klobuchar ’ s chances of being the vice presidential nominee .
She had been the top prosecutor in Hennepin County , which includes Minneapolis , which is now at the center of America ’ s debate on race and policing .
Civil rights activists have criticized Klobuchar for rarely bringing charges against police officers in incidents when they injured or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ announced that she no longer wanted to be considered for the vice presidency ( she seemed very unlikely to be chosen ) and urged Biden to “ put a woman of color on that ticket ” in part to “ heal this nation right now.
” Other white Democratic moderates and white , Trump-skeptical Republicans are making the same case now too — or least hinting at it .
( Despite Klobuchar ’ s use of the term “ woman of color , ” the push is really for a Black woman .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ American and Black . )
I ’ m skeptical of the sincerity of the people pushing for a Black woman now and tying the push to the Floyd protests .
The representational case for a Black woman makes some sense and was being made by many prominent Black Democrats like Clyburn and Rye before Floyd ’ s death .
But the idea that a woman ( or person ) of color will heal the nation seems fantastical .
( Were these people alive from 2009-2016 ? )
And the idea that Abrams , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ women being considered have roughly equal abilities to heal the nation in the midst of the Floyd protests ( which is why advocates of this idea don ’ t feel the need to name a specific woman ) seems fairly unfounded too .
So what ’ s actually going on here ?
An-Anybody-But-Warren campaign , with people wary of the Massachusetts senator becoming the vice presidential nominee arguably finding a new rationale to prevent her from being on the ticket .
Warren has been clashing with America ’ s political and financial elite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are wary of her becoming the vice president for a 77-year-old man who may not seek a second term , meaning she might very well become president .
But her critics have little incentive to make that case in a straightforward way .
It ’ s less controversial to publicly say , “ We need a Black woman like Harris because America is divided on racial issues , ” than “ I oppose the fairly popular idea of a wealth tax because many of my clients in my lobbying job are very wealthy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Warren anywhere near the White House.
” But making the first argument accomplishes the goal of the second .
A lot of Democrats opposed Sanders and Warren on ideological grounds during the primary , and those people haven ’ t gone away .
I can ’ t prove that those people were lying or being disingenuous in touting Klobuchar or Whitmer ’ s appeal to moderate voters or Warren ’ s potential electoral downsides before Floyd ’ s death .
Perhaps their interest in a Black woman as VP is sincere now .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ She cast Warren as too liberal throughout the Democratic primary when the two women were rivals , blasted Medicare for All , which Warren supported , and never embraced other Warren-backed ideas like a wealth tax or breaking up Facebook .
And Klobuchar , who has long positioned herself as a more centrist Democrat , has probably read Biden ’ s list of potential running mates like you and I have , and that list doesn ’ t include more liberal Black women like U.S. Reps. Barbara Lee or Ayanna Pressley .
Inherently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to pick a woman of color is also a call to pick someone like Harris or Rice , who have each taken fewer very-liberal stands than Warren — and I suspect Klobuchar knows this .
VP candidate ( s ) being promoted : Warren .
Advocates : Progressive activists like actress Jane Fonda , grassroots organizer Taj James , former Labor secretary Robert Reich , Columbia University law professor Timothy Wu , leaders of progressive groups like African Communities Together , Democracy for America , the Sunrise Movement , Win Without War .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ boost the ticket electorally .
The real main argument : They support Warren on policy grounds .
Progressive groups like Data for Progress and Indivisible are releasing polls and surveys that make three core arguments : • Warren is the most popular VP choice among Democrats , particularly younger Democrats , voters who supported Sanders during the primaries and core party activists ; • Warren is about as popular a VP choice among Black voters as any of the other potential candidates ; and • Warren is more popular than Harris specifically with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hoping to get to turn out to vote in higher numbers and who seem kind of blah about Biden .
The progressives ’ arguments are supported by some other polling as well .
So they have a point .
These surveys are useful in that they illustrate that Black political figures like Clyburn pushing for a Black woman on the ticket are not necessarily representative of Black voters overall , particularly younger ones .
This polling , along with Warren ’ s popularity with some prominent Black progressives — which Klobuchar lacked even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ explains why the Massachusetts senator has not felt pressure to back out of the VP process even as more people call for a Black woman to be picked .
That said , the pro-Warren electoral argument from progressives is fairly weak .
Looking at the data , it doesn ’ t appear that Black Democrats are really clamoring for Warren to be the VP .
What ’ s most clear is that none of these potential VP candidates , neither the Black ones nor the non-Black ones , are the clear choice for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Warren all did terribly among Black Democrats when they ran for president themselves .
Also , of course Warren is ahead of Bottoms and Demings among Black Democrats in polls about the vice presidency !
Bottoms and Demings have not been major figures in national politics until recently , so many Democrats , Black and non-Black , likely have no idea who they are !
What ’ s really going on here : Progressives want Warren because she has a more liberal record than any of the other potential vice presidential candidates being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ want a Black woman on the ticket as a show of appreciation for Black women just said that and left the predictions about Black turnout out of it ?
What if the centrists just said they don ’ t want Warren because she is too liberal ?
What if liberals just said they want Warren because she is a lefty ?
Here ’ s why : The Democratic Party struggled to resolve major divides about policy and identity during the 2020 primary .
Those divides still exist .
Biden won the nomination because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to agree that they were uncomfortable with Sanders being the party ’ s standard-bearer .
But the more liberal and more centrist wings of the party still disagree on policy — and some of the party ’ s Black activists still feel like the party ’ s largely white leadership takes Black support for granted , and therefore does little to advance Black interests .
That ’ s what the veepstakes is really about .
Debates over electoral strategy obscure an argument about values and ideals .

Perry Bacon Jr. (perry.bacon@fivethirtyeight.com)

People who want Sen. Kamala Harris or another Black woman to be former Vice President Joe Biden’s running mate often claim that a Black woman will substantially boost enthusiasm among Black voters. Supporters of Sen. Elizabeth Warren for vice presidential nominee say that she will help Biden solidify support with younger voters and people who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primaries. Others say Harris or Warren or other candidates will doom Biden with voting bloc X or fail to help him with group Z.
Almost every case for or against a particular vice presidential candidate comes with an electoral argument. But most of these electoral claims are highly contestable, at best. It’s not that they should be dismissed out of hand. They matter. But as people in the Democratic Party advance their preferred candidates, they’re also doing a bit of hiding the ball. Electoral claims — “Person X will help win Michigan” — are often seen as objective and fact-based, even when they’re flimsy. But there are more obvious, non-electoral, cases for running mates that tend not to be voiced outright.
So let’s unpack some of the pitches being made for vice presidential nominees and what might actually be motivating them.
The case for a Black woman
VP candidate(s) being promoted: Black women such as former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms, U.S. Rep. Val Demings of Florida, Harris and former National Security Adviser Susan Rice.
Advocates: Prominent Black female political pundits and Democratic strategists such as former interim Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile; political commentators like Jonathan Capehart and Angela Rye; more establishment Black politicians such as Rep. James Clyburn and Rep. Alcee Hastings; other liberal, Black figures such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
The main public argument: Black turnout will increase with a Black woman on the ticket.
The real main argument: Representation. Democrats owe this to Black women.
Could a Black woman help boost turnout among Black voters, which dipped in 2016 compared to 2012? Maybe. Some political science research shows that Black people vote at higher rates when a Black candidate is on the ballot, although that finding is somewhat contested, and that research is about voting for a Black candidate, not a white candidate with a Black running mate.
That said, basically the only thing that Abrams, Bottoms, Demings, Rice and Harris have in common is that they are Black, women, and reportedly being considered as running mates by the Biden campaign. It’s really hard to claim that both Demings and Rice — the latter of whom has never even run for elected office — would obviously generate an electoral boost, and that those boosts would be of similar size. If the goal is to pick someone with skill in appealing to Black voters in particular, Abrams would seem to be head and shoulders above the rest of these Black women. She ran for governor and nearly won in a state with a huge Black population, in an election that saw a surge in Black voter turnout that was likely the result of her campaign.
[Related: How Will Biden Choose His Running Mate?]
So why have people been calling for a Black woman generically to help boost Biden with Black voters, rather than homing in on a specific Black woman?
Because the real case that’s being made is that Biden should pick a Black woman because it’s the just, moral and right thing to do — electoral considerations aside. There are two ideas at play here. First, there is what a Black female vice presidential candidate (and vice president) would mean for Black women in America. Political scientists have enumerated lots of kinds of political representation, and at least two apply here: “descriptive representation,” or how similar an elected official is to the people voting for them (so a Black female candidate’s physical presence would represent Black women), and “symbolic representation,” or what a candidate stands for in the minds of voters (so a Black female candidate could represent a step toward equality for Black women and also represent the political attitudes and behaviors of Black women). Both kinds of representation could be achieved if Biden chooses a Black woman as his running mate.
Secondly, Biden choosing a Black woman would be a nod toward both addressing the historic underrepresentation of Black women in high levels of American politics and rewarding Black women for their historic loyalty to the Democratic Party.
“Though we have propped up the Democratic Party for decades, the return on our investment in the party might as well read, ‘insufficient funds,’” Rye and a group of other prominent Black women Democrats wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post in May, urging Biden to pick a Black woman as his running mate.
“Those days are over. We are here to collect,” they continued. “Very simply, Vice President Biden: You owe us, you need us and you must not take our votes for granted — they must be earned.”
The attention on racial inequality in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis has further galvanized Black Democrats around this view. But there is another huge factor, one that existed before Floyd’s death: the presence of Harris.
A traditional qualification for nomination to the vice presidency is being a sitting or former governor or U.S. senator. And many previous vice presidential candidates had run for president (or at least tested the waters) themselves, both raising their national profiles and usually demonstrating some competency in talking about major policy issues, even if their campaigns were ultimately unsuccessful. But no state has ever had a Black woman as governor, and only two Black women — Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois and Harris — have ever been a U.S. senator.
So Harris, unlike all but one other Black woman in U.S. history, has the most traditional qualifications to be the vice presidential nominee. In other words, this is a unique opportunity for anyone who wants to see a Black woman on the national ticket or serving as vice president — and they know it. Anyone who is making a case for a Black woman to be Biden’s running mate is implicitly making a case for Harris — she is by far the most qualified candidate, at least by the criteria historically applied in the veepstakes.
The case for not-Warren
VP candidate(s) being promoted: Abrams, Bottoms, Demings, Harris, Rice.
Advocates: More centrist white Democrats such as Sen. Amy Klobuchar and ex-Sen. Heidi Heitkamp.
The main public argument: A Black woman must be on the ticket in the wake of the Floyd protests.
The real main argument: They oppose Warren being on the ticket on policy grounds.
As we wrote earlier this year, there is some evidence that a VP nominee can boost the ticket by about 2 or 3 points in her home state. But much of the veepstakes, before Floyd’s death, revolved around fairly weak claims made by reporters, columnists and various Democrats and Trump-skeptical Republicans that choosing a nominee from the Midwest such as Sen. Amy Klobuchar or Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan would boost Biden throughout that region. At the same time, some Democratic Party big donors argued that Warren specifically would hurt Biden electorally, so he should pick basically anyone else — even as polls suggested that a Biden-Warren ticket was just as strong as or stronger than a ticket pairing Biden with other potential vice presidential candidates.
The Floyd protests and the resulting conversation about racial issues has tamped down talk of Democrats picking a white Midwestern woman. The post-Floyd focus on racial inequality effectively ended Klobuchar’s chances of being the vice presidential nominee. She had been the top prosecutor in Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, which is now at the center of America’s debate on race and policing. Civil rights activists have criticized Klobuchar for rarely bringing charges against police officers in incidents when they injured or killed civilians. So Klobuchar on Thursday announced that she no longer wanted to be considered for the vice presidency (she seemed very unlikely to be chosen) and urged Biden to “put a woman of color on that ticket” in part to “heal this nation right now.”
Other white Democratic moderates and white, Trump-skeptical Republicans are making the same case now too — or least hinting at it. (Despite Klobuchar’s use of the term “woman of color,” the push is really for a Black woman. We should emphasize Harris is both Asian American and Black.)
I’m skeptical of the sincerity of the people pushing for a Black woman now and tying the push to the Floyd protests. The representational case for a Black woman makes some sense and was being made by many prominent Black Democrats like Clyburn and Rye before Floyd’s death. But the idea that a woman (or person) of color will heal the nation seems fantastical. (Were these people alive from 2009-2016?) And the idea that Abrams, Bottoms or any of the other Black women being considered have roughly equal abilities to heal the nation in the midst of the Floyd protests (which is why advocates of this idea don’t feel the need to name a specific woman) seems fairly unfounded too.
[Related: Our 2020 National Polling Averages]
So what’s actually going on here? An-Anybody-But-Warren campaign, with people wary of the Massachusetts senator becoming the vice presidential nominee arguably finding a new rationale to prevent her from being on the ticket.
Warren has been clashing with America’s political and financial elite for years. Many of those people are wary of her becoming the vice president for a 77-year-old man who may not seek a second term, meaning she might very well become president.
But her critics have little incentive to make that case in a straightforward way. It’s less controversial to publicly say, “We need a Black woman like Harris because America is divided on racial issues,” than “I oppose the fairly popular idea of a wealth tax because many of my clients in my lobbying job are very wealthy, so I don’t want Warren anywhere near the White House.” But making the first argument accomplishes the goal of the second.
A lot of Democrats opposed Sanders and Warren on ideological grounds during the primary, and those people haven’t gone away. I can’t prove that those people were lying or being disingenuous in touting Klobuchar or Whitmer’s appeal to moderate voters or Warren’s potential electoral downsides before Floyd’s death. Perhaps their interest in a Black woman as VP is sincere now.
But take Klobuchar as an example. She cast Warren as too liberal throughout the Democratic primary when the two women were rivals, blasted Medicare for All, which Warren supported, and never embraced other Warren-backed ideas like a wealth tax or breaking up Facebook. And Klobuchar, who has long positioned herself as a more centrist Democrat, has probably read Biden’s list of potential running mates like you and I have, and that list doesn’t include more liberal Black women like U.S. Reps. Barbara Lee or Ayanna Pressley.
Inherently, then, Klobuchar’s plea to pick a woman of color is also a call to pick someone like Harris or Rice, who have each taken fewer very-liberal stands than Warren — and I suspect Klobuchar knows this.
The case for Warren
VP candidate(s) being promoted: Warren.
Advocates: Progressive activists like actress Jane Fonda, grassroots organizer Taj James, former Labor secretary Robert Reich, Columbia University law professor Timothy Wu, leaders of progressive groups like African Communities Together, Democracy for America, the Sunrise Movement, Win Without War.
The main public argument: Warren will boost the ticket electorally.
The real main argument: They support Warren on policy grounds.
Progressive groups like Data for Progress and Indivisible are releasing polls and surveys that make three core arguments:
Warren is the most popular VP choice among Democrats, particularly younger Democrats, voters who supported Sanders during the primaries and core party activists; Warren is about as popular a VP choice among Black voters as any of the other potential candidates; and Warren is more popular than Harris specifically with young Black voters, who Democrats are hoping to get to turn out to vote in higher numbers and who seem kind of blah about Biden.
The progressives’ arguments are supported by some other polling as well. So they have a point. These surveys are useful in that they illustrate that Black political figures like Clyburn pushing for a Black woman on the ticket are not necessarily representative of Black voters overall, particularly younger ones. This polling, along with Warren’s popularity with some prominent Black progressives — which Klobuchar lacked even before Floyd’s death — help explains why the Massachusetts senator has not felt pressure to back out of the VP process even as more people call for a Black woman to be picked.
That said, the pro-Warren electoral argument from progressives is fairly weak. Looking at the data, it doesn’t appear that Black Democrats are really clamoring for Warren to be the VP. What’s most clear is that none of these potential VP candidates, neither the Black ones nor the non-Black ones, are the clear choice for Black Democrats. Harris, Klobuchar and Warren all did terribly among Black Democrats when they ran for president themselves.
Also, of course Warren is ahead of Bottoms and Demings among Black Democrats in polls about the vice presidency! Bottoms and Demings have not been major figures in national politics until recently, so many Democrats, Black and non-Black, likely have no idea who they are!
What’s really going on here: Progressives want Warren because she has a more liberal record than any of the other potential vice presidential candidates being considered.
What if the people who want a Black woman on the ticket as a show of appreciation for Black women just said that and left the predictions about Black turnout out of it? What if the centrists just said they don’t want Warren because she is too liberal? What if liberals just said they want Warren because she is a lefty?
Here’s why: The Democratic Party struggled to resolve major divides about policy and identity during the 2020 primary. Those divides still exist. Biden won the nomination because various factions in the party were able to agree that they were uncomfortable with Sanders being the party’s standard-bearer. But the more liberal and more centrist wings of the party still disagree on policy — and some of the party’s Black activists still feel like the party’s largely white leadership takes Black support for granted, and therefore does little to advance Black interests. That’s what the veepstakes is really about. Debates over electoral strategy obscure an argument about values and ideals.
FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast: Progressives challenge the Democratic establishment


fivethirtyeight--2020-06-23--What Economists Fear Most During This Recovery

As states push forward in their phased reopenings , we ’ re getting clues that the beleaguered U.S economy might be on its way to recovery .
Retail sales spiked by 17.7 percent in May , and the unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped in that month as well — suggesting that Americans were returning to work and opening their wallets earlier than many expected .
But experts still think that even if things are starting to look up now , we shouldn ’ t assume we ’ ll be back to normal anytime soon .
In fact , economists think there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tentative rebound , including a second wave of COVID-19 , an unwillingness to spend from consumers and an absence of an additional fiscal stimulus from Congress .
In partnership with the Initiative on Global Markets at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business , FiveThirtyEight asked 34 quantitative macroeconomic economists what they thought about a variety of subjects around the coronavirus recession and recovery efforts .
The most recent survey , which was conducted from June 19 through 22 , echoed many of the predictions from the last round — though there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their forecasts .
When we first asked about the shape of the recovery , 58 percent of respondents thought the trajectory of future U.S. gross domestic product looked like a Nike “ swoosh ” — a sharp downturn followed by a long , slow recovery .
This time around , however , a consensus has formed around a slightly different shape : a reverse radical ( i.e.
, a mirrored version of the square-root symbol ) .
This shape — which 73 percent of our economists predicted for the country ’ s economic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by a quick partial recovery and a longer period of slower , mixed growth .
But it isn ’ t necessarily an improvement over the swoosh .
“ There is nothing standard or smooth about this recovery , ” said Lisa Cook , professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University .
In her view , a reverse-radical-shaped recovery could be shaped by a spike in infections and hospitalizations , a wave of bankruptcies as unemployment benefits expire or consumers ’ unwillingness to return to gyms , nail salons or other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make the bounce back from this recession bumpier than previous recessions .
Twelve of the 17 economists who had predicted a swoosh in our survey in late May changed to the reverse radical this time , leaving just five respondents sticking with the swoosh in this round of the survey .
( And no economist switched to the swoosh , another sign that other patterns fit the trajectory of this economic recovery better . )
“ By now , the partial reopening of the economy , along with the new unemployment and retail @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effect for the economy , ” said Allan Timmermann , professor of finance and economics at the University of California , San Diego , who has been consulting with us on the design of the survey .
“ However , our panel is not convinced that this recovery will last , since they did not opt for the V-shaped recovery — in fact , it is interesting that not a single person opted for the V-shape.
” Overall , the surveyed group didn ’ t meaningfully budge on its projections for either GDP @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked .
Nor did it change its long-term timeline for when GDP might return to its pre-coronavirus benchmark .
Maybe it ’ s encouraging that the projections haven ’ t gotten worse — but the panelists still think it ’ s unlikely ( 33 percent probability ) that GDP will creep back up to where it was in the fourth quarter of 2019 any time before the first half of 2022 .
In a new question this round , we asked respondents what factors might bring about their worst-case predictions for fourth-quarter GDP @ @ @ @ @ @ @ participant gave the most weight to the possibility of a second wave of coronavirus later in the year .
But their next-most-significant fears were economic in nature : whether consumers would be unwilling to spend even after businesses open and whether Congress would choose not to pass further economic stimulus packages : We also can not understate the weirdness of these economic times .
This led to a few other noteworthy results in our survey , starting with very high projections for the personal saving rate , which ballooned to a record 33 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ metric , saving is expressed as a share of disposable personal income . )
Our group of economists doesn ’ t think it will stay quite that high going forward , but the respondents did predict a mean saving rate of 20.2 percent in June with an 80 percent confidence interval ranging from 13 percent on the low end to nearly 29 percent on the high side .
To put that in context : According to data going back to 1959 from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis , the U.S. personal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 17.3 percent before the coronavirus and had seldom gone into the double digits since the early 1990s .
Gloria Gonzalez-Rivera , a professor of economics at the University of California , Riverside , told us that she didn ’ t think the June saving rate would match April ’ s simply because Americans had fewer opportunities to spend their money at the height of the state-level lockdowns .
But she added that she still expected consumers to be “ conservative ” in June .
“ A high savings rate is a sign that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going to be low , ” said Jonathan Wright , an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University who , along with Timmermann , has been guiding the design of the survey .
“ My spending is someone else ’ s income .
So when people start to save a lot , that really slows down the recovery.
” The unusual nature of this recession also showed up in our respondents ’ prediction for which investments might deliver the highest return over the rest of the year .
As we wrote about last week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regaining most of its initial coronavirus-related losses since late March , even as the rest of the economy sits in a very tenuous place .
Our panel generally thinks that disconnect between the stock market and the broader economy will continue .
When given the choice among three investments , the panelists thought there was a 45 percent chance that NASDAQ — with its heavy emphasis on tech stocks — would perform best , followed by the S & P 500 at 34 percent .
The economists thought there was just a 21 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , traditionally a safe haven in an environment of uncertainty and low corporate earnings , would provide the highest rate of return by the end of 2020 .
Overall , the economists in our survey think the economy has a long way to go before it returns to normal .
Much of its path from here will hinge on the state of the virus itself , with additional emphasis on the government ’ s response .
But the panel also sees many of the stranger features of this particular recession continuing to some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s disconnect with the rest of the economy to the extraordinary levels of personal savings by Americans .
And of course , the error bars around the forecasts remain wide — as befits one of the most unpredictable economic moments in recent history .

As states push forward in their phased reopenings, we’re getting clues that the beleaguered U.S economy might be on its way to recovery. Retail sales spiked by 17.7 percent in May, and the unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped in that month as well — suggesting that Americans were returning to work and opening their wallets earlier than many expected. But experts still think that even if things are starting to look up now, we shouldn’t assume we’ll be back to normal anytime soon. In fact, economists think there are still significant economic risks despite the tentative rebound, including a second wave of COVID-19, an unwillingness to spend from consumers and an absence of an additional fiscal stimulus from Congress.
In partnership with the Initiative on Global Markets at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, FiveThirtyEight asked 34 quantitative macroeconomic economists what they thought about a variety of subjects around the coronavirus recession and recovery efforts. The most recent survey, which was conducted from June 19 through 22, echoed many of the predictions from the last round — though there were also a few new wrinkles in their forecasts.
When we first asked about the shape of the recovery, 58 percent of respondents thought the trajectory of future U.S. gross domestic product looked like a Nike “swoosh” — a sharp downturn followed by a long, slow recovery. This time around, however, a consensus has formed around a slightly different shape: a reverse radical (i.e., a mirrored version of the square-root symbol).
This shape — which 73 percent of our economists predicted for the country’s economic future — implies a steep drop followed by a quick partial recovery and a longer period of slower, mixed growth. But it isn’t necessarily an improvement over the swoosh. “There is nothing standard or smooth about this recovery,” said Lisa Cook, professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University. In her view, a reverse-radical-shaped recovery could be shaped by a spike in infections and hospitalizations, a wave of bankruptcies as unemployment benefits expire or consumers’ unwillingness to return to gyms, nail salons or other parts of their routine. That could make the bounce back from this recession bumpier than previous recessions.
Twelve of the 17 economists who had predicted a swoosh in our survey in late May changed to the reverse radical this time, leaving just five respondents sticking with the swoosh in this round of the survey. (And no economist switched to the swoosh, another sign that other patterns fit the trajectory of this economic recovery better.)
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“By now, the partial reopening of the economy, along with the new unemployment and retail sales numbers, suggest a substantial bounce-back effect for the economy,” said Allan Timmermann, professor of finance and economics at the University of California, San Diego, who has been consulting with us on the design of the survey. “However, our panel is not convinced that this recovery will last, since they did not opt for the V-shaped recovery — in fact, it is interesting that not a single person opted for the V-shape.”
Overall, the surveyed group didn’t meaningfully budge on its projections for either GDP or unemployment from the last time we asked. Nor did it change its long-term timeline for when GDP might return to its pre-coronavirus benchmark. Maybe it’s encouraging that the projections haven’t gotten worse — but the panelists still think it’s unlikely (33 percent probability) that GDP will creep back up to where it was in the fourth quarter of 2019 any time before the first half of 2022.
Outlook on the GDP hasn’t improved since early June Consensus forecasts for when U.S. gross domestic product will return to its pre-coronavirus level, in each round of the survey Probability TIME FRAME Rd. 1 (May 25) Rd. 2 (June 8) Rd. 3 (June 22) First half of 2021 or earlier 11% 10% 11% Second half of 2021 18 21 22 First half of 2022 18 23 22 Second half of 2022 21 22 22 Later than the second half of 2022 33 25 24 Probabilities are based on the average of the 28 economists who answered this question in all three surveys. Source: FIVETHIRTYEIGHT/IGM COVID-19 ECONOMIC outlook SURVEY
In a new question this round, we asked respondents what factors might bring about their worst-case predictions for fourth-quarter GDP growth. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the average participant gave the most weight to the possibility of a second wave of coronavirus later in the year. But their next-most-significant fears were economic in nature: whether consumers would be unwilling to spend even after businesses open and whether Congress would choose not to pass further economic stimulus packages:
What might cause a worst-case scenario? How much weight economists gave various scenarios when setting the lower bound of their GDP predictions for the fourth quarter of 2020 Factor Weight A bad “second wave” of coronavirus in the summer or fall 41.6% Public aversion to consumer spending even after businesses reopen 20.4 Decision by policymakers not to pass further fiscal stimulus 19.0 Weakness in the banking or financial system 9.7 Slower-than-expected development of a coronavirus vaccine 7.9 Other 1.3 Weights are an average of responses in a survey of 34 economists conducted June 19-22. Source: FIVETHIRTYEIGHT/IGM COVID-19 ECONOMIC OUTLOOK SURVEY
We also cannot understate the weirdness of these economic times. This led to a few other noteworthy results in our survey, starting with very high projections for the personal saving rate, which ballooned to a record 33 percent in April. (In that metric, saving is expressed as a share of disposable personal income.) Our group of economists doesn’t think it will stay quite that high going forward, but the respondents did predict a mean saving rate of 20.2 percent in June with an 80 percent confidence interval ranging from 13 percent on the low end to nearly 29 percent on the high side. To put that in context: According to data going back to 1959 from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the U.S. personal saving rate had never been higher than 17.3 percent before the coronavirus and had seldom gone into the double digits since the early 1990s.
Gloria Gonzalez-Rivera, a professor of economics at the University of California, Riverside, told us that she didn’t think the June saving rate would match April’s simply because Americans had fewer opportunities to spend their money at the height of the state-level lockdowns. But she added that she still expected consumers to be “conservative” in June.
“A high savings rate is a sign that consumer confidence is low and spending is going to be low,” said Jonathan Wright, an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University who, along with Timmermann, has been guiding the design of the survey. “My spending is someone else’s income. So when people start to save a lot, that really slows down the recovery.”
The unusual nature of this recession also showed up in our respondents’ prediction for which investments might deliver the highest return over the rest of the year. As we wrote about last week, the stock market has been busy regaining most of its initial coronavirus-related losses since late March, even as the rest of the economy sits in a very tenuous place. Our panel generally thinks that disconnect between the stock market and the broader economy will continue. When given the choice among three investments, the panelists thought there was a 45 percent chance that NASDAQ — with its heavy emphasis on tech stocks — would perform best, followed by the S&P 500 at 34 percent. The economists thought there was just a 21 percent chance that 10-year U.S Treasury bonds, traditionally a safe haven in an environment of uncertainty and low corporate earnings, would provide the highest rate of return by the end of 2020.
Overall, the economists in our survey think the economy has a long way to go before it returns to normal. Much of its path from here will hinge on the state of the virus itself, with additional emphasis on the government’s response. But the panel also sees many of the stranger features of this particular recession continuing to some degree — from the stock market’s disconnect with the rest of the economy to the extraordinary levels of personal savings by Americans. And of course, the error bars around the forecasts remain wide — as befits one of the most unpredictable economic moments in recent history.
How reports of a promising COVID-19 treatment was found to be fraudulent


The Republican Choice

In 1978 , Republican party chairman Bill Brock invited Jesse Jackson to talk to party notables in Washington , D.C. An intimate of King ’ s , Jackson was a political whirlwind who had proved to be a dynamic civil rights organizer .
“ He is one of the few militant blacks who is preaching racial reconciliation , ” New York Times reporter John Herbers had written of Jackson in 1969 .
His address trafficked in the language of incremental advantage so beloved by electorally avaricious political strategists .
Seven million unregistered Black voters were waiting to be wooed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Republican Party needs black people if it is to ever compete for national office — or , in fact , to keep it from becoming an extinct party.
” The New York Times wrote that “ Jackson ’ s proposition seems realistic enough ” given that “ thirty percent of Northern and 20 percent of Southern blacks already consider themselves independents.
” Jackson got a standing ovation from the crowd , and the good feelings of the day prompted Brock to say that the “ right ” 1980 presidential candidate “ could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent of the Black vote.
” Reagan would go on to win only 14 percent .
For a fleeting political moment in the wreckage of Watergate , the GOP seemed to be open ( once again ) to the idea that their future could lie with voters of color .
The conventional wisdom of that brief period , Perlstein told me in an email , “ was that the Republicans would go the way of the Whigs unless they recouped their appeal to blacks.
” ( Perlstein has a forthcoming book that covers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” it ’ s the latest volume in his multipart history of modern American conservatism . )
In the late 1970s , Jackson made the argument that Black voters should want the two parties to compete for their votes to attain greater political leverage .
He worried that the Democratic Party would come to take Black voters for granted .
( More than 40 years later , presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden would tell a Black radio host , “ I tell you what , if you have a problem figuring out whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , then you ain ’ t Black.
” ) Jackson ’ s own personal conservatism could be seen as emblematic of that of Black Americans , ones who could be potentially courted by the GOP .
A 1979 profile of Jackson by the journalist Paul Cowan described him at an anti-abortion rally : “ [ He ] denounced abortion as ‘ murder , ’ he insisted that ‘ when prayers leave the schools the guns come in ’ … he suggested that , while he supported women ’ s liberation , his wife @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — his home.
” But the good vibes after Jackson ’ s speech in 1978 did not last long .
Republican bureaucrats in the Reagan era coalesced around the idea that minority voters were unwinnable .
A few months before Jackson ’ s speech in Washington , President Carter had introduced electoral reforms — an end to the Electoral College and same-day universal voter registration — that were met with praise from Brock , the RNC chair .
But an essay that soon appeared in the conservative publication Human Events expressed an opposing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Phillips said that Carter ’ s proposal “ could blow the Republican Party sky-high ” given that most of the new voters in a higher-turnout election would be Democratic .
Phillips , who worked for Nixon ’ s 1968 campaign , was the author of the 1969 book “ The Emerging Republican Majority , ” which articulated a road map for the GOP to sweep up white voters .
Or as a 1970 New York Times profile of the Bronx native with “ a visage that looked half scholar and half black-Irishman ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the party that can cohesively hold together the largest number of ethnic prejudices , a circumstance which at last favors the Republicans.
” Phillips was one of many loud , young voices on the “ New Right ” that saw Reagan as the Republican future .
Reagan said the Carter proposal might as well be called “ The Universal Voter Fraud Bill , ” and pressured Brock into reneging on his support for it , which he did .
( Google NGram mentions of the term “ voter fraud ” spike starting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
Brock ’ s flip-flop embodies a contradiction inherent in many of the internal GOP struggles of the past few decades , and ones that continue today : Should the party invest in appeals to new voters or pluck racism ’ s low-hanging electoral fruit ?
Brock availed himself of the latter in his 1970 Tennessee Senate race .
His “ victory could be credited almost entirely to his sophisticated attempts to play on Tennessean ’ s [ sic ] racial fears and animosities , ” according to the Almanac of American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attempted to play both strategies , though the racial one usually seems to blot out the more ecumenical approach .
By the time Reagan appeared at a 1980 campaign stop at the National Urban League , the prominent civil rights organization , his appearance wasn ’ t to win over Black voters so much as to “ show moderates and liberals that Reagan wasn ’ t anti-black , ” one aide later said .
In 2005 , RNC chair Ken Mehlman appeared at the NAACP national convention to formally apologize for the GOP @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republicans gave up on winning the African American vote , looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization .
I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.
” It seemed an act befitting a party whose sitting president , George W. Bush , had run for office as a “ compassionate conservative.
” The branding was no accident .
In 2018 , Bush articulated why he felt the need to convey a more explicitly empathetic message .
“ I felt compelled to phrase @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ conservative ’ and they think heartless .
And my belief then and now is that the right conservative philosophies are compassionate and help people.
” Rove put it a bit more bluntly when he explained that “ compassionate conservatism ” helped Bush “ indicate that he was different from the previous Republicans.
” It was an extension of Bush ’ s past success with people outside the party ’ s usual base .
When he was governor of Texas , he won more than 50 percent of the Mexican American vote .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
His kids went to a large public high school in Austin that was very Hispanic , ” former adviser Stuart Stevens said .
“ Much of his appeal among Hispanics in Texas was attributed to his personal charm and charisma , ” Geraldo Cadava , a professor of history at Northwestern University , writes of Bush in his book , “ The Hispanic Republican.
” “ He spoke Spanish , ate Mexican sweetbreads in border cities , and for Christmas he made enchiladas and tamales that he , unlike President Ford , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hispanic population in Texas was “ highly entrepreneurial , ” signed up for the military at high rates , and was religious , “ so they tend to have socially traditional values , ” particularly on the abortion issue .
“ What ’ s not to like about that profile if you ’ re a Republican ?
” Bush ’ s platform aimed to be inclusive .
Stevens pointed to the potential of No Child Left Behind as one example , an education program that increased funds for low-income schools , many of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Bush signed the program into law with the support of liberal icon Ted Kennedy — there ’ s a picture of Kennedy standing behind Bush as he puts pen to paper .
Two Black children stand directly behind the president .
“ This is the kind of thing that the current Republican Party would present at a war crimes trial , ” Stevens said of the show of bipartisanship .
These days Stevens , who also served as Mitt Romney ’ s chief strategist during the 2012 presidential campaign , is disillusioned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ book ( his eighth ) all about it , “ It Was All a Lie , ” due out in August .
Progress with new , diverse coalitions could have been possible , Stevens said , but “ you need to have changed the substance.
” But for many in the Black community , the substance boiled down to what Kanye West said during a live 2005 telethon for Hurricane Katrina relief : “ George Bush doesn ’ t care about Black people.
” Despite the compassionate conservatism rhetoric , the GOP of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hostile to Americans of color .
The party deployed a warm and fuzzy message that belied the actions it took on voting rights .
It tried to turn out Hispanic voters while tapping into efficient ways to shut down minority voting under the “ voter fraud ” umbrella .
The abscess that George Romney had warned about not only had re-formed , it had grown .
“ The first stirrings of a new movement to restrict voting came after the 2000 Florida election fiasco , which taught the unfortunate lesson that even small @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in close races , ” Wendy Weiser , head of the Democracy Program at the left-leaning advocacy group the Brennan Center , wrote in 2014 .
As Carol Anderson of Emory University writes in “ One Person , No Vote , ” during the Bush years and beyond , Republicans who were “ respectable members of society leveled the charges [ of voter fraud ] — U.S. senators , attorneys with law degrees from the Ivy League.
” John Ashcroft led a Department of Justice that took up a full-throated rallying cry against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his own skin in the game — Ashcroft lost a 2000 Senate election in Missouri in which Republicans alleged mass voter fraud in Black precincts of St. Louis .
A newspaper investigation later found the claims to be all but nonexistent .
The Bush-era Civil Rights Division had the distinction of filing the first voting-discrimination suit on behalf of white voters in the history of the Voting Rights Act .
Perhaps no figure from the Bush Civil Rights Division emerged who was more controversial and long-lasting than Hans von Spakovsky .
He promoted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Georgia starting in the 1990s , and gained infamy once he landed at the Justice Department for pseudonymously writing a law review paper under the name “ Publius , ” which promoted voter ID laws .
Later , his identity revealed , he refused to recuse himself from a controversial case involving voter ID in Georgia .
The case , which was handled under the auspices of the Voting Rights Act , led career lawyers in the Civil Rights Division to resign and , as journalist Ari Berman writes , “ VRA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2001 to 2005 the DOJ objected to only forty-eight changes out of eighty-one thousand submitted , ten times fewer than during the first four years of the Reagan administration.
” Von Spakovsky has proved a durable advocate for his cause .
Now the head of the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation , he served on Trump ’ s now-disbanded Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity .
The commission was created to investigate whether Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton because of widespread voter fraud .
No evidence for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
When I spoke with von Spakovsky , I asked him if it disturbed him that so-called voter fraud protection efforts disproportionately affect minorities — academic studies in various states have shown this , as has a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office .
He told me my assumption was wrong , and said there were studies on voter ID and election turnout that found ID requirements had had no adverse effect .
He also pointed to the greater number of VRA cases brought by the Bush administration compared with the number @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But Democrats don ’ t see it as quite that simple .
“ Counting up the number of cases isn ’ t really meaningful , ” Justin Levitt , who worked in the Civil Rights Division during Obama ’ s presidency , wrote in an email when I asked him about von Spakovsky ’ s claim .
“ It ’ s a little bit like counting up the number of reps in a workout at the gym to try to figure out who ’ s more physically fit , without asking which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of difficulty .
Or counting up the number of words in a piece to try to figure out which is the best reporting.
” Testing claims about the effect that voter ID laws have on election turnout is tricky .
Findings about their effect have varied from state to state , which likely has to do with the nature of state laws and their voting populations .
But a measure like turnout also doesn ’ t take into account how the laws push some people to go through greater effort to cast a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now a constitutional law scholar at Loyola Marymount University , did an investigation into cases of election fraud that could have been stopped by the use of voter ID , and found , out of about a billion ballots cast , only 31 instances from the period of 2000 to 2014 .
The analysis and its results prompt an obvious question : If fraud is so rare , what ’ s the actual purpose of ID laws ?
Attacks on voter franchise are more broad than voter ID laws , of course .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ center in recent years thanks to events like the controversial 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election .
And last year , an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis found that the closure of polling places across the state had made it more difficult for Black voters to cast their ballots .
In 2005 , after Mehlman ’ s mea culpa to the NAACP , New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote that he found the RNC chair ’ s remarks disingenuous : “ My guess is that Mr. Mehlman ’ s apology was less about starting a stampede @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about softening the party ’ s image in the eyes of moderate white voters.
” For all of Bush ’ s campaign rhetoric about compassionate conservatism and his focus on Hispanic outreach , his Republican Party had remained as devoted as ever to the cause of suppressing the franchise of people of color .
“ If the apology was serious , it would mean the Southern strategy was kaput , ” Herbert wrote .
“ And we know that ’ s not true.
” The loss of the 2012 election prompted a crisis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I was close to RNC chairman Reince Priebus .
He came to me right after the election and was like , ‘ We need to do some soul-searching , ’ ” Henry Barbour , a Mississippi political strategist , told me recently .
Along with four others , he would go on to author what became glibly known as the 2012 Republican autopsy report — officially the “ Growth and Opportunity Project ” — that placed the GOP ’ s institutional problems in stark terms : “ Many minorities wrongly think that Republicans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the country.
” Yet three years after the report ’ s publication , the GOP nominated Donald Trump , an anti-immigrant , race-baiting candidate .
“ How did people abandon deeply held beliefs in four years ?
I think the only conclusion is they don ’ t .
They didn ’ t deeply hold them .
They were just marketing slogans , ” Stuart Stevens said .
“ I feel like the guy working for Bernie Madoff who thought we were beating the market.
” Priebus , who served as Trump ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ respond to my requests to talk about the report he commissioned , and what has happened in the party since .
What has happened is a circling of the wagons around Trump and his race-baiting rhetoric and policies .
Gone are the days of articulated philosophies like “ compassionate conservatism.
” Now , the GOP relies on contrarianism to distinguish itself and stoke good feelings among its core members .
Just look at the ease with which ideologically driven leaders like former House Speaker Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney have been cast aside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ geopolitical foe , ” yet the party is now led by a president who repeatedly heaps praise on his Russian counterpart , Vladimir Putin .
The one thing that the party has stayed true to is its reliance on the politics of race and racism .
While membership in the party wanes and America grows more diverse , the GOP has become practiced at speaking to its core members ’ desire to maintain a white-centric American society .
Trump ’ s appeal relies heavily on attacks against the media and “ PC culture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expression , respectively , of a diversifying country .
Republicans know the bargain they ’ ve made .
A 2007 Vanity Fair profile of Arizona Sen. John McCain during his presidential run speaks to an acute awareness that the short-term strategy of placating a white base would be damaging to the GOP ’ s long-term demographic expansion .
In the story , McCain is asked about the political ramifications of the immigration debate : “ ‘ In the short term , it probably galvanizes our base , ’ he said .
‘ In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Hispanics , you ’ ll pay a heavy price.
’ Then he added , unable to help himself , ‘ By the way , I think the fence is least effective .
But I ’ ll build the goddamned fence if they want it.
’ ” During his 2010 Senate reelection campaign at the height of the Tea Party movement , McCain cut a TV spot meant to annihilate any ambiguity over immigration that he might have expressed during his presidential run .
In the ad , McCain strolls along the U.S.-Mexico @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fence , ” to which a white sheriff responds , “ Senator , you ’ re one of us.
” It is perhaps the least subtle advertisement involving a politician since Bob Dole and Britney Spears appeared in that 2001 Pepsi commercial .
The post-2012 election report urged Republicans to return to what sounded a lot like Bush-era immigration stances and semantics : “ We are not a policy committee , but … we must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform .
If we do not , our Party ’ s appeal will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only.
” The strategist types I spoke with all seemed in agreement on the wisdom of this : “ You grow a party with addition , ” Barbour told me .
“ Politics is ultimately about addition , not subtraction , ” Stevens said .
“ It ’ s completely dumb and destructive for their interests every time you say you ’ re going to target a smaller and smaller pool of voters to win , ” was former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd ’ s take .
Both he and Rove seemed irritated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ misrepresentation of their infamous “ base strategy ” that used issues like same-sex marriage to generate the high turnout of core Republican constituencies , like evangelical voters .
“ You win an election by having enthusiastic turnout in your base , by swiping people from the opposition and doing well among the independents , ” Rove said .
To suggest otherwise was “ ridiculous.
” So , had other Republicans misinterpreted that strategy as an excuse not to go after voters outside the traditional GOP core ?
“ Oh , yeah , absolutely.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ we lost the popular vote in 2000 .
What were we going to do , win again that way ?
” Trump had , I pointed out .
“ Yeah , well , and look , it ’ s happened five times in American history , ” Rove said , reeling off the dates from memory .
I asked whether he was saying it ’ s a fluke of history .
“ Oh , yeah , ” he replied .
So , Trump would need to win the popular vote in order to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , knowing I ’ d pushed a little too close to the present day .
“ Look , stop it , stop it , stop it , ” Rove said .
The conversation ended soon afterward .
Republicans with more immigrant-friendly views remain on the outs in an era when the party has focused on things like a family separation policy at the U.S.-Mexico border .
There are reports that Bush won ’ t vote for Trump in the fall .
It feels as if a breaking point has been reached , given @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and violence following the police killing of George Floyd .
Trump ’ s leadership has been called into question , especially on race : 58 percent of Americans in a recent poll said they disapproved of how Trump was handling race relations in the country .
The number is remarkable , if only for the fact that these days it ’ s difficult to get 58 percent of Americans to agree on anything except perhaps distaste for airline travel and love of Dolly Parton .
As the booming economy crumbled in the midst @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more moderate Republicans ’ support for the president .
As Trump tweeted about “ thugs ” and dispersed peaceful protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets , Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said the move wasn ’ t reflective of “ the America that I know , ” while Bush issued a rare public statement sympathizing with the plight of Black Americans : “ Black people see the repeated violation of their rights without an urgent and adequate response from American institutions.
” The country has taken note , and Trump ’ s poll @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remain consistently below Biden ’ s , sometimes showing the Democrat with a double-digit lead .
But there ’ s no sure thing in American politics these days .
The election itself could be a chaotic , unpredictable enterprise .
The potential for disenfranchisement is very real in the upcoming presidential vote .
The pandemic has given experts real concern that a poorly administered election could see thousands who want to vote essentially denied the right to do so .
With that , seeds of distrust will be sown in the outcome .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ RIGGED ELECTION 2020 : MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES , AND OTHERS .
IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES !
” “ I am most worried in places that have had the lowest levels of mail voting , where the election officials are least prepared , where they don ’ t have the resources and where the rules are also hotly contested .
So , states like Wisconsin , states like Georgia , where the political culture has been voting in person , there have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ access , where the rules need a lot of adjustment in order to have fair access to mail voting , ” Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center told me .
Democrats and Republicans are currently locked in legal battles in various states over the rules that will govern November ’ s election , which could largely take place by mail .
It is a fractured process and the types of cases litigated cover mail ballot deadlines , early voting access , ballot collection , prepaid postage and a host of other issues .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ each side has their own website with clickable maps showing what fight is happening in each state .
“ Across the country we ’ ve seen Democrats under the guise of [ the ] COVID-19 crisis in a wholesale way try to change the election to fit their election agenda items that have existed long before this crisis , ” RNC Chair McDaniel said .
“ We believe that many of the lawsuits they have initiated would destroy the integrity of our elections , so we ’ re fighting back.
” One complication @ @ @ @ @ @ @ validation , which often requires a signature .
Barry Burden of the University of Wisconsin ’ s Elections Research Center told me that young and Black voters tend to experience higher rates of ballot rejection based on that requirement .
“ Young people and minorities are less likely to have a signature on file with the state , ” he said .
Plus , young people might have not developed a good cursive signature , and there might be an implicit bias on the part of poll workers if an African American or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Marc Elias , who got his start as a recount lawyer and is now directing the Democrats ’ broad expanse of election-related litigation , told me that differential rejection rates on ballot signatures “ has always been the silent epidemic of American voting.
” The COVID-19 pandemic just helped make more people aware of it .
Von Spakovsky , for his part , told me that concerns for voting in person were overblown this year .
“ I think you can safely hold an election under these circumstances , ” he said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ places like grocery stores , as well as for a recent election in South Korea .
But not all Republicans share that sentiment .
“ I think our messaging is all wrong , frankly , ” Barbour said .
There are legitimate concerns being expressed by Republicans over a largely vote-by-mail election , he said .
But in the midst of a pandemic , people ’ s fears of infection should be taken into account .
“ Forget the political angle , eligible voters must be able to vote.
” Some Republicans do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ booth , Barbour said .
He recounted his own experience in the 2014 primary race between Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran and Chris McDaniel .
“ There was this runoff — we knew we were probably going to lose if we didn ’ t treat it like a general election , ” he said of the Cochran campaign .
They courted all voters , Black , white , and Democratic .
“ People were furious .
‘ How dare y ’ all ?
’ ” Barbour said of the reaction to the strategy .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Georgia , saying , ‘ We ’ re going to be at these polling places , and if you show up , you ’ re not going to be able to vote.
’ I will say , as a Republican , I was embarrassed.
” “ I kind of got a taste of what it ’ s like to be on the other side , seeing that happen , and I found it offensive and clearly wrong.
” CORRECTION ( June 24 , 7:43 a.m. ) : An earlier version of this article @ @ @ @ @ @ @ president in the Nixon administration .
He was vice president under President Ford .

THE LATE 1970s
“The Republican Party needs black people”
In 1978, Republican party chairman Bill Brock invited Jesse Jackson to talk to party notables in Washington, D.C. An intimate of King’s, Jackson was a political whirlwind who had proved to be a dynamic civil rights organizer. “He is one of the few militant blacks who is preaching racial reconciliation,” New York Times reporter John Herbers had written of Jackson in 1969. His address trafficked in the language of incremental advantage so beloved by electorally avaricious political strategists. Seven million unregistered Black voters were waiting to be wooed by the GOP, Jackson said. “The Republican Party needs black people if it is to ever compete for national office — or, in fact, to keep it from becoming an extinct party.” The New York Times wrote that “Jackson’s proposition seems realistic enough” given that “thirty percent of Northern and 20 percent of Southern blacks already consider themselves independents.”
Jackson got a standing ovation from the crowd, and the good feelings of the day prompted Brock to say that the “right” 1980 presidential candidate “could hope for anywhere from 30 to 40 percent of the Black vote.”
Reagan would go on to win only 14 percent.
For a fleeting political moment in the wreckage of Watergate, the GOP seemed to be open (once again) to the idea that their future could lie with voters of color. The conventional wisdom of that brief period, Perlstein told me in an email, “was that the Republicans would go the way of the Whigs unless they recouped their appeal to blacks.” (Perlstein has a forthcoming book that covers this period. Called “Reaganland,” it’s the latest volume in his multipart history of modern American conservatism.)
In the late 1970s, Jackson made the argument that Black voters should want the two parties to compete for their votes to attain greater political leverage. He worried that the Democratic Party would come to take Black voters for granted. (More than 40 years later, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden would tell a Black radio host, “I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black.”) Jackson’s own personal conservatism could be seen as emblematic of that of Black Americans, ones who could be potentially courted by the GOP. A 1979 profile of Jackson by the journalist Paul Cowan described him at an anti-abortion rally: “[He] denounced abortion as ‘murder,’ he insisted that ‘when prayers leave the schools the guns come in’ … he suggested that, while he supported women’s liberation, his wife at least should stay in her place — his home.”
But the good vibes after Jackson’s speech in 1978 did not last long. Republican bureaucrats in the Reagan era coalesced around the idea that minority voters were unwinnable.
A few months before Jackson’s speech in Washington, President Carter had introduced electoral reforms — an end to the Electoral College and same-day universal voter registration — that were met with praise from Brock, the RNC chair. But an essay that soon appeared in the conservative publication Human Events expressed an opposing view in the party. Writer Kevin Phillips said that Carter’s proposal “could blow the Republican Party sky-high” given that most of the new voters in a higher-turnout election would be Democratic.
Phillips, who worked for Nixon’s 1968 campaign, was the author of the 1969 book “The Emerging Republican Majority,” which articulated a road map for the GOP to sweep up white voters. Or as a 1970 New York Times profile of the Bronx native with “a visage that looked half scholar and half black-Irishman” put it: “Political success goes to the party that can cohesively hold together the largest number of ethnic prejudices, a circumstance which at last favors the Republicans.”
Phillips was one of many loud, young voices on the “New Right” that saw Reagan as the Republican future. Reagan said the Carter proposal might as well be called “The Universal Voter Fraud Bill,” and pressured Brock into reneging on his support for it, which he did. (Google NGram mentions of the term “voter fraud” spike starting in the late 1970s and early 1980s.)
Brock’s flip-flop embodies a contradiction inherent in many of the internal GOP struggles of the past few decades, and ones that continue today: Should the party invest in appeals to new voters or pluck racism’s low-hanging electoral fruit? Brock availed himself of the latter in his 1970 Tennessee Senate race. His “victory could be credited almost entirely to his sophisticated attempts to play on Tennessean’s [sic] racial fears and animosities,” according to the Almanac of American Politics. Often, the party has attempted to play both strategies, though the racial one usually seems to blot out the more ecumenical approach.
By the time Reagan appeared at a 1980 campaign stop at the National Urban League, the prominent civil rights organization, his appearance wasn’t to win over Black voters so much as to “show moderates and liberals that Reagan wasn’t anti-black,” one aide later said.
THE 2000s
Double-talk
In 2005, RNC chair Ken Mehlman appeared at the NAACP national convention to formally apologize for the GOP’s Southern strategy. “Some Republicans gave up on winning the African American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.”
It seemed an act befitting a party whose sitting president, George W. Bush, had run for office as a “compassionate conservative.” The branding was no accident. In 2018, Bush articulated why he felt the need to convey a more explicitly empathetic message. “I felt compelled to phrase it this way, because people hear ‘conservative’ and they think heartless. And my belief then and now is that the right conservative philosophies are compassionate and help people.” Rove put it a bit more bluntly when he explained that “compassionate conservatism” helped Bush “indicate that he was different from the previous Republicans.”
It was an extension of Bush’s past success with people outside the party’s usual base. When he was governor of Texas, he won more than 50 percent of the Mexican American vote. “He was comfortable with Hispanic culture. His kids went to a large public high school in Austin that was very Hispanic,” former adviser Stuart Stevens said. “Much of his appeal among Hispanics in Texas was attributed to his personal charm and charisma,” Geraldo Cadava, a professor of history at Northwestern University, writes of Bush in his book, “The Hispanic Republican.” “He spoke Spanish, ate Mexican sweetbreads in border cities, and for Christmas he made enchiladas and tamales that he, unlike President Ford, shucked before eating.” Rove said the Hispanic population in Texas was “highly entrepreneurial,” signed up for the military at high rates, and was religious, “so they tend to have socially traditional values,” particularly on the abortion issue. “What’s not to like about that profile if you’re a Republican?”
Bush’s platform aimed to be inclusive. Stevens pointed to the potential of No Child Left Behind as one example, an education program that increased funds for low-income schools, many of them home to Black and Hispanic students. Bush signed the program into law with the support of liberal icon Ted Kennedy — there’s a picture of Kennedy standing behind Bush as he puts pen to paper. Two Black children stand directly behind the president. “This is the kind of thing that the current Republican Party would present at a war crimes trial,” Stevens said of the show of bipartisanship. These days Stevens, who also served as Mitt Romney’s chief strategist during the 2012 presidential campaign, is disillusioned with the Republican Party and has a book (his eighth) all about it, “It Was All a Lie,” due out in August.
Progress with new, diverse coalitions could have been possible, Stevens said, but “you need to have changed the substance.”
But for many in the Black community, the substance boiled down to what Kanye West said during a live 2005 telethon for Hurricane Katrina relief: “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.”
Despite the compassionate conservatism rhetoric, the GOP of the Bush era continued to pursue policies hostile to Americans of color. The party deployed a warm and fuzzy message that belied the actions it took on voting rights. It tried to turn out Hispanic voters while tapping into efficient ways to shut down minority voting under the “voter fraud” umbrella. The abscess that George Romney had warned about not only had re-formed, it had grown.
“The first stirrings of a new movement to restrict voting came after the 2000 Florida election fiasco, which taught the unfortunate lesson that even small manipulations of election procedures could affect outcomes in close races,” Wendy Weiser, head of the Democracy Program at the left-leaning advocacy group the Brennan Center, wrote in 2014. As Carol Anderson of Emory University writes in “One Person, No Vote,” during the Bush years and beyond, Republicans who were “respectable members of society leveled the charges [of voter fraud] — U.S. senators, attorneys with law degrees from the Ivy League.”
John Ashcroft led a Department of Justice that took up a full-throated rallying cry against voter fraud. He had some of his own skin in the game — Ashcroft lost a 2000 Senate election in Missouri in which Republicans alleged mass voter fraud in Black precincts of St. Louis. A newspaper investigation later found the claims to be all but nonexistent. The Bush-era Civil Rights Division had the distinction of filing the first voting-discrimination suit on behalf of white voters in the history of the Voting Rights Act.
Perhaps no figure from the Bush Civil Rights Division emerged who was more controversial and long-lasting than Hans von Spakovsky. He promoted voter ID laws in his home state of Georgia starting in the 1990s, and gained infamy once he landed at the Justice Department for pseudonymously writing a law review paper under the name “Publius,” which promoted voter ID laws. Later, his identity revealed, he refused to recuse himself from a controversial case involving voter ID in Georgia. The case, which was handled under the auspices of the Voting Rights Act, led career lawyers in the Civil Rights Division to resign and, as journalist Ari Berman writes, “VRA enforcement came to a standstill. From 2001 to 2005 the DOJ objected to only forty-eight changes out of eighty-one thousand submitted, ten times fewer than during the first four years of the Reagan administration.”
Von Spakovsky has proved a durable advocate for his cause. Now the head of the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation, he served on Trump’s now-disbanded Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. The commission was created to investigate whether Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton because of widespread voter fraud. No evidence for the claim has yet to be produced.
When I spoke with von Spakovsky, I asked him if it disturbed him that so-called voter fraud protection efforts disproportionately affect minorities — academic studies in various states have shown this, as has a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. He told me my assumption was wrong, and said there were studies on voter ID and election turnout that found ID requirements had had no adverse effect. He also pointed to the greater number of VRA cases brought by the Bush administration compared with the number undertaken during the administration of Barack Obama.
But Democrats don’t see it as quite that simple. “Counting up the number of cases isn’t really meaningful,” Justin Levitt, who worked in the Civil Rights Division during Obama’s presidency, wrote in an email when I asked him about von Spakovsky’s claim. “It’s a little bit like counting up the number of reps in a workout at the gym to try to figure out who’s more physically fit, without asking which exercises, which weights, which degree of difficulty. Or counting up the number of words in a piece to try to figure out which is the best reporting.”
Testing claims about the effect that voter ID laws have on election turnout is tricky. Findings about their effect have varied from state to state, which likely has to do with the nature of state laws and their voting populations. But a measure like turnout also doesn’t take into account how the laws push some people to go through greater effort to cast a ballot successfully.
Levitt, who is now a constitutional law scholar at Loyola Marymount University, did an investigation into cases of election fraud that could have been stopped by the use of voter ID, and found, out of about a billion ballots cast, only 31 instances from the period of 2000 to 2014. The analysis and its results prompt an obvious question: If fraud is so rare, what’s the actual purpose of ID laws?
Attacks on voter franchise are more broad than voter ID laws, of course. Voter roll purges have moved front and center in recent years thanks to events like the controversial 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election. And last year, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis found that the closure of polling places across the state had made it more difficult for Black voters to cast their ballots.
In 2005, after Mehlman’s mea culpa to the NAACP, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote that he found the RNC chair’s remarks disingenuous: “My guess is that Mr. Mehlman’s apology was less about starting a stampede of blacks into the G.O.P. than about softening the party’s image in the eyes of moderate white voters.” For all of Bush’s campaign rhetoric about compassionate conservatism and his focus on Hispanic outreach, his Republican Party had remained as devoted as ever to the cause of suppressing the franchise of people of color.
“If the apology was serious, it would mean the Southern strategy was kaput,” Herbert wrote. “And we know that’s not true.”