fivethirtyeight--2020-07-09--We’re Not Going To See Trump’s Tax Returns Anytime Soon

President Trump is one of the only presidents in modern memory who has kept his tax returns private , and attempts to force their release have sparked a mountain of litigation , reaching all the way to the Supreme Court .
But the Supreme Court ’ s verdict on whether Trump ’ s banks and accounting firm can be required to release his personal financial records is a bit of a mixed bag .
On the one hand , the court delivered Trump a major defeat , dismissing his most expansive claims to presidential immunity .
Trump has argued that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can ’ t be criminally investigated .
But the court ruled in a 7-2 decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts that New York prosecutors do have the authority to subpoena his business records , sending the case back to the lower court .
But in the second ruling on Trump ’ s tax returns — which was also a 7-2 decision written by Roberts — which involved three House committees ’ subpoenas for his records , the court essentially punted .
The justices emphasized the House does have the authority to issue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ branch , but they said lower court judges didn ’ t properly weigh the separation of powers issues inherent in the requests — suggesting that Congress ’ s power to investigate the president is not unlimited .
The ruling also sent that case back to the lower courts for further consideration .
That means Trump ’ s much-sought-after tax returns will almost certainly remain under wraps until after the election in November .
In essence , neither side quite got what it wanted , which is why untangling the legal and practical implications @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In both sets of cases , Trump ’ s lawyers made extraordinarily far-reaching claims about what it means to be commander in chief .
And those arguments did not find an especially receptive audience with most of the justices — including Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh , who Trump appointed to the court .
( Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito were the two dissenting votes in both cases . )
In the case involving the New York prosecutor ’ s subpoena for his financial records , Trump ’ s legal team contended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t touch him while he was president — a claim that the justices roundly rejected .
“ Two hundred years ago , a great jurist of our Court established that no citizen , not even the President , is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding , ” Roberts wrote in his opinion .
“ We reaffirm that principle today and hold that the President is neither absolutely immune from state criminal subpoenas seeking his private papers nor entitled to a heightened standard of need.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Congress , Trump ’ s lawyers argued that the House couldn ’ t subpoena his financial records because they didn ’ t serve a legitimate legislative purpose .
House Democrats had argued that the documents were necessary to shed light on possible foreign entanglements by Trump and money laundering by Trump and his family .
Trump ’ s arguments didn ’ t get much traction here either , although the court also suggested that it was wary about the breadth of House Democrats ’ subpoena .
Bottom line : Congress emerged from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ branch oversight mostly intact , but in the short term , Trump got a big practical win , because it ’ s now virtually guaranteed that his tax returns will stay out of the public eye until after the election .
That ’ s because even though the court ruled that Trump ’ s arguments about sweeping presidential immunity don ’ t hold water , Roberts noted that Trump could still try to fight the subpoenas as an ordinary citizen , so the case could continue for some time .
And even if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a relatively timely way , they ’ ll remain under wraps as the criminal investigation moves forward , which is almost guaranteed to keep them out of public view at least until after the election , if they ’ re ever made public at all .
Meanwhile , the legal battle between Trump and House Democrats certainly won ’ t be resolved before November either as the cases are returning to the lower courts for more litigation .
And ultimately that ’ s a significant electoral victory for Trump , even if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mostly dismissed .
Because with four months until the election , the last thing Trump probably wanted was a news cycle devoted to the contents of his tax returns .
But it is striking that seven Supreme Court justices , including Roberts , Kavanaugh and Gorsuch , weren ’ t on Trump ’ s side when he claimed broad immunity from prosecution and investigation while in office .
Throughout his presidency , Trump has pushed an expansive view of presidential power that could reverberate long past his own time in the White House @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t buy it .

President Trump is one of the only presidents in modern memory who has kept his tax returns private, and attempts to force their release have sparked a mountain of litigation, reaching all the way to the Supreme Court.
But the Supreme Court’s verdict on whether Trump’s banks and accounting firm can be required to release his personal financial records is a bit of a mixed bag.
On the one hand, the court delivered Trump a major defeat, dismissing his most expansive claims to presidential immunity. Trump has argued that while in the White House, he can’t be criminally investigated. But the court ruled in a 7-2 decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts that New York prosecutors do have the authority to subpoena his business records, sending the case back to the lower court.
But in the second ruling on Trump’s tax returns — which was also a 7-2 decision written by Roberts — which involved three House committees’ subpoenas for his records, the court essentially punted. The justices emphasized the House does have the authority to issue subpoenas related to oversight of the executive branch, but they said lower court judges didn’t properly weigh the separation of powers issues inherent in the requests — suggesting that Congress’s power to investigate the president is not unlimited. The ruling also sent that case back to the lower courts for further consideration.
That means Trump’s much-sought-after tax returns will almost certainly remain under wraps until after the election in November.
In essence, neither side quite got what it wanted, which is why untangling the legal and practical implications of the two rulings is important. In both sets of cases, Trump’s lawyers made extraordinarily far-reaching claims about what it means to be commander in chief. And those arguments did not find an especially receptive audience with most of the justices — including Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, who Trump appointed to the court. (Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito were the two dissenting votes in both cases.)
In the case involving the New York prosecutor’s subpoena for his financial records, Trump’s legal team contended that the criminal legal process couldn’t touch him while he was president — a claim that the justices roundly rejected. “Two hundred years ago, a great jurist of our Court established that no citizen, not even the President, is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding,” Roberts wrote in his opinion. “We reaffirm that principle today and hold that the President is neither absolutely immune from state criminal subpoenas seeking his private papers nor entitled to a heightened standard of need.”
Similarly, in the case involving Congress, Trump’s lawyers argued that the House couldn’t subpoena his financial records because they didn’t serve a legitimate legislative purpose. House Democrats had argued that the documents were necessary to shed light on possible foreign entanglements by Trump and money laundering by Trump and his family. Trump’s arguments didn’t get much traction here either, although the court also suggested that it was wary about the breadth of House Democrats’ subpoena. Bottom line: Congress emerged from the case with its authority to conduct executive branch oversight mostly intact, but in the short term, Trump got a big practical win, because it’s now virtually guaranteed that his tax returns will stay out of the public eye until after the election.
That’s because even though the court ruled that Trump’s arguments about sweeping presidential immunity don’t hold water, Roberts noted that Trump could still try to fight the subpoenas as an ordinary citizen, so the case could continue for some time. And even if the New York prosecutors get the documents in a relatively timely way, they’ll remain under wraps as the criminal investigation moves forward, which is almost guaranteed to keep them out of public view at least until after the election, if they’re ever made public at all. Meanwhile, the legal battle between Trump and House Democrats certainly won’t be resolved before November either as the cases are returning to the lower courts for more litigation.
And ultimately that’s a significant electoral victory for Trump, even if his claims to sweeping executive power were mostly dismissed. Because with four months until the election, the last thing Trump probably wanted was a news cycle devoted to the contents of his tax returns. But it is striking that seven Supreme Court justices, including Roberts, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, weren’t on Trump’s side when he claimed broad immunity from prosecution and investigation while in office.
Throughout his presidency, Trump has pushed an expansive view of presidential power that could reverberate long past his own time in the White House. Today, the Supreme Court didn’t buy it.


fivethirtyeight--2020-07-10--Confidence Interval: Could Trump Win If He Replaces Pence?

Welcome to another episode of Confidence Interval , where we make a persuasive case for a hot take … and @ @ @ @ @ really feel about the idea .
This time , elections analyst Geoffrey Skelley wonders whether @ @ @ @ @ would help President Trump ’ s chances of reelection in November .

Welcome to another episode of Confidence Interval, where we make a persuasive case for a hot take … and then reveal how confident we really feel about the idea. This time, elections analyst Geoffrey Skelley wonders whether replacing Vice President Mike Pence would help President Trump’s chances of reelection in November.


fivethirtyeight--2020-07-10--Are Supreme Court Justices Influenced By Public Opinion?

In this week ’ s FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast , FiveThirtyEight senior writer Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux joins Galen Druke to look back @ @ @ @ @ term full of consequential cases .

In this week’s FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, FiveThirtyEight senior writer Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux joins Galen Druke to look back at a U.S. Supreme Court term full of consequential cases.


fivethirtyeight--2020-07-10--How Biden Is Winning An Identity Politics Election So Far

After President Trump won the 2016 election , there was a big debate over the role “ identity politics ” played in his victory .
Some scholars argued that many white voters without a college degree — a group that proved pivotal in that election — jumped from supporting then-President Barack Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016 largely because they liked Trump ’ s framing of identity issues , such as immigration , more than Hillary Clinton ’ s .
After the election , some ( usually white ) liberal and Democratic-leaning voices said that Democrats needed to abandon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defeats like Clinton ’ s .
Other liberal voices ( often Black ) said that Trump had successfully tapped into the racist views of many white Americans .
Both of those perspectives implied that debating issues of identity and race was bad for Clinton and good for Trump , and in the future it would be good for the GOP and bad for Democrats .
Never mind all that , at least for now .
America is talking about identity and race , and so are both presidential candidates .
And all that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , not Republicans .
Joe Biden led Trump by about 6 percentage points in national polls on May 25 , the day a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd .
Biden leads Trump by an average of nearly 10 points now , after weeks of race and racism dominating the national discussion .
Obviously a lot of factors could explain Trump ’ s decline in the polls , most notably the coronavirus outbreak and the president ’ s failure to come up with any real plan to limit the virus ’ s spread @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this question : Why aren ’ t identity politics backfiring on Biden and helping Trump ?
It ’ s hard to say for sure , but here are five theories , ordered roughly from strongest to weakest .
Trump is in the White House now Some political science research suggests that public opinion on major issues tends to move against the sitting president .
So if President John Doe says he hates Granny Smith apples , Americans will begin consuming them by the bushel .
And that pattern has already played out with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of immigrants and Obamacare , likely in reaction to the president ’ s attempts to limit immigration and repeal the health care law .
Current polling — and even polls from earlier in the Trump presidency — has shown Americans expressing more liberal views on racial issues .
Those numbers might suggest real change in racial attitudes among Americans .
( More on that in a bit . )
But what looks right now like increasing racial liberalism may really just be anti-Trump sentiment .
If Americans , particularly Democratic-leaning Americans , perceive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protests and to racial justice causes more broadly , they might become more supportive of such causes , consciously or unconsciously , simply as a reaction to the president ’ s sentiments .
So in terms of identity politics and their role in presidential elections , it may have been that a racialized discourse was electorally bad for Democrats when their party controlled the White House , like in 2016 .
But this kind of discourse is fine and perhaps even electorally beneficial for Democrats with a Republican president in office .
Also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Trump is a flawed candidate who was going to struggle in 2020 no matter what issues were dominating the news at the time .
After all , he was viewed unfavorably by 60 percent of voters on Election Day in 2016 , according to exit polls , and he has remained fairly unpopular throughout his presidency .
In 2019 and earlier this year , Democrats spent a lot of time debating which of their potential presidential candidates was most “ electable.
” But Biden ’ s almost-10-point lead suggests that basically any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would likely be leading Trump right now if he or she were the presumptive Democratic nominee .
2016 was a fluke and identity politics don ’ t always hurt Democrats Part of the focus on identity issues as an electoral liability stems from the current makeup of swing states and the Electoral College .
White voters without degrees have become increasingly Republican-leaning and represent a disproportionate share of the electorate in key swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin .
So Democrats need to worry more about appealing to white voters without degrees to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would if presidential elections were decided by a simple national plurality vote .
Thus , a lot of post-2016 coverage started from the assumption that Democrats have an identity and race problem because they must appeal to white voters without degrees and that voting bloc — at least based on the 2016 results — seemed to be put off by Democrats ’ approach to identity issues .
But that framing might be wrong , or at least a bit overstated .
Why ?
First , there ’ s an alternate reading of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t an unusually important factor in motivating the white voters who switched to Trump .
Second , the overall racial dynamics of American politics are not that bad for Democrats and perhaps even favorable to them .
Zoom out beyond 2016 and take the long view : The last seven presidential elections have featured four Democratic victories in both the popular vote and the Electoral College ( 1992 , 1996 , 2008 , 2012 ) ; one instance where the GOP won the popular vote and Electoral College ( 2004 ) ; and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which Republicans lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College ( 2000 , 2016 ) .
That long view doesn ’ t look great for Republicans , and identity and race help explain why .
Democrats have been handily winning the vote among Asian , Black and Hispanic Americans , who combined are growing as a share of the electorate .
( The share of nonwhite U.S. voters was about 26 percent in 2016 , compared to about 13 percent in 1980 . )
Democrats ’ status as the party of minorities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the GOP to consolidate an increasingly high percentage of the country ’ s white voters to win elections .
But it isn ’ t easy or necessarily guaranteed that the Republicans will overwhelmingly win the white vote overall or the white non-college vote specifically — even in an election that ’ s centered on race .
The 2017-2018 period was full of racialized political debate , most notably on immigration policy , but the exit polls suggest Democrats lost white voters without a college degree by 24 percentage points in 2018 , compared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ far in 2020 , polls show Biden losing white voters without a degree by a margin closer to 20 points .
Meanwhile , Biden might carry white voters with a college degree by a large margin , in part because those voters have been turned off by Trump ’ s approach to racial issues .
Indeed , white voters with a college degree or postgraduate education have been trending Democratic for years , and the GOP approach to race and ethnicity is likely a factor .
In short , the evidence suggests that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ never really appealed to people of color in the first place and , outside of November 2016 , it has also been really off-putting to white voters with degrees and not that appealing to white voters without degrees .
It ’ s harder to use Biden as a wedge On policy issues , including those around identity and race , Biden ’ s positions are clearly to the left of the ones Obama ran on in 2008 and arguably to the left of Clinton ’ s in 2016 .
In explicitly promising to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Black woman as Supreme Court justice , Biden has gone beyond Clinton or Obama in terms of allocating very important government posts based on gender and race .
And Biden ’ s rhetoric on racial issues is similar to Clinton ’ s in 2016 .
After Floyd ’ s death , while Trump largely dismissed the protests , Biden called for “ an era of action to reverse systemic racism.
” But Biden is an older white man .
So his identity likely makes it harder for Trump to run an identity-based @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to some extent , incumbent president Obama .
( The Atlantic ’ s Adam Serwer made this argument explicitly in a recent piece . )
Biden does not visually symbolize a changing America the way President Obama did and the way a President Hillary Clinton would have .
Also , Biden has self-consciously positioned himself as a more moderate Democrat and has distanced himself from more liberal elements of the party , including the causes favored by more liberal Black Americans , like defunding the police .
The electorate has really shifted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Trump ’ s identity politics are less effective in 2020 than they were in 2016 because the events of the last four years have resulted in a real leftward shift on racial issues among Americans .
And that shift is fundamental and real , not just about partisanship or anti-Trump sentiment , as I suggested above .
After all , in interviews with reporters , more liberal-leaning people and even some former Trump voters are suggesting that they understand racial inequality more deeply now than ever before .
Institutions are aligned with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , corporations and other elite institutions are typically wary of being perceived as partisan .
But in the wake of Floyd ’ s death , corporate America seems to have decided , for whatever reason , that support for Black Lives Matter and comprehensive , aggressive efforts to reduce racial inequality are either not that partisan or that they ’ re stances worth taking even if they annoy some Republicans .
So at least right now , it ’ s not really Biden and Democrats versus Trump and Republicans on issues of identity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s Biden , Democrats , Facebook , Merck , JPMorgan Chase , Netflix , Nike , Stanford and lots of other major institutions versus Trump and Republicans .
This dynamic is not totally unique to the spring and summer of 2020 .
Major companies in America are often aligned with liberal cultural values — for example , supporting gay marriage even before the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that invalidated any remaining bans on same-sex unions .
But even if corporate America ’ s recent posture on racial issues isn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ important .
With a lot of major institutions in America echoing his general message , it ’ s not surprising that Biden ’ s identity politics are resonating more than Trump ’ s .
I ’ m writing this article at a particular moment in time .
Perhaps there will be a backlash to the Floyd protests and public opinion will shift .
Maybe Trump will benefit from that .
If Biden picks a female vice presidential nominee , particularly one who is also a person of color , perhaps Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because he ’ ll then have a foil who is more like Clinton and Obama .
Alternatively , Trump could make up ground in the polls due to unrelated issues and factors .
And even if Biden wins , that won ’ t totally answer the question of whether identity politics is bad or good for Democrats .
LIke I said , perhaps basically any Democratic candidate would beat Trump amid a viral outbreak the president mishandled .
All that said , it appears right now that the identity politics of 2020 are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perhaps they weren ’ t too big a problem for Democrats in the first place .
It ’ s hard to prove any of this , but it ’ s an important discussion to have .
In 2008 , it seemed like Democrats won a presidential contest that was largely about race .
But even though the presidential nominees were white in 2016 and 2020 , those may have been more racialized campaigns .
And if the current polls hold up , Democrats , after losing a very racialized campaign , may show @ @ @ @ @ @

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

After President Trump won the 2016 election, there was a big debate over the role “identity politics” played in his victory. Some scholars argued that many white voters without a college degree — a group that proved pivotal in that election — jumped from supporting then-President Barack Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016 largely because they liked Trump’s framing of identity issues, such as immigration, more than Hillary Clinton’s. After the election, some (usually white) liberal and Democratic-leaning voices said that Democrats needed to abandon “identity politics” or face more defeats like Clinton’s. Other liberal voices (often Black) said that Trump had successfully tapped into the racist views of many white Americans. Both of those perspectives implied that debating issues of identity and race was bad for Clinton and good for Trump, and in the future it would be good for the GOP and bad for Democrats.
Never mind all that, at least for now. America is talking about identity and race, and so are both presidential candidates. And all that racial talk seems to be helping Democrats, not Republicans. Joe Biden led Trump by about 6 percentage points in national polls on May 25, the day a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd. Biden leads Trump by an average of nearly 10 points now, after weeks of race and racism dominating the national discussion.
Obviously a lot of factors could explain Trump’s decline in the polls, most notably the coronavirus outbreak and the president’s failure to come up with any real plan to limit the virus’s spread.
But it’s worth exploring this question: Why aren’t identity politics backfiring on Biden and helping Trump? It’s hard to say for sure, but here are five theories, ordered roughly from strongest to weakest.
Trump is in the White House now
Some political science research suggests that public opinion on major issues tends to move against the sitting president. So if President John Doe says he hates Granny Smith apples, Americans will begin consuming them by the bushel. And that pattern has already played out with Trump, with Americans becoming more supportive of immigrants and Obamacare, likely in reaction to the president’s attempts to limit immigration and repeal the health care law.
Current polling — and even polls from earlier in the Trump presidency — has shown Americans expressing more liberal views on racial issues. Those numbers might suggest real change in racial attitudes among Americans. (More on that in a bit.)
But what looks right now like increasing racial liberalism may really just be anti-Trump sentiment. If Americans, particularly Democratic-leaning Americans, perceive that Trump is opposed to the Floyd protests and to racial justice causes more broadly, they might become more supportive of such causes, consciously or unconsciously, simply as a reaction to the president’s sentiments.
[Related: Our 2020 National Polling Averages]
So in terms of identity politics and their role in presidential elections, it may have been that a racialized discourse was electorally bad for Democrats when their party controlled the White House, like in 2016. But this kind of discourse is fine and perhaps even electorally beneficial for Democrats with a Republican president in office.
Also, the story here could simply be that Trump is a flawed candidate who was going to struggle in 2020 no matter what issues were dominating the news at the time. After all, he was viewed unfavorably by 60 percent of voters on Election Day in 2016, according to exit polls, and he has remained fairly unpopular throughout his presidency. In 2019 and earlier this year, Democrats spent a lot of time debating which of their potential presidential candidates was most “electable.” But Biden’s almost-10-point lead suggests that basically any of the other 2020 Democratic presidential candidates would likely be leading Trump right now if he or she were the presumptive Democratic nominee.
2016 was a fluke and identity politics don’t always hurt Democrats
Part of the focus on identity issues as an electoral liability stems from the current makeup of swing states and the Electoral College. White voters without degrees have become increasingly Republican-leaning and represent a disproportionate share of the electorate in key swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin. So Democrats need to worry more about appealing to white voters without degrees to win an Electoral College majority than they would if presidential elections were decided by a simple national plurality vote. Thus, a lot of post-2016 coverage started from the assumption that Democrats have an identity and race problem because they must appeal to white voters without degrees and that voting bloc — at least based on the 2016 results — seemed to be put off by Democrats’ approach to identity issues.
But that framing might be wrong, or at least a bit overstated. Why? First, there’s an alternate reading of the 2016 results that suggests race wasn’t an unusually important factor in motivating the white voters who switched to Trump. Second, the overall racial dynamics of American politics are not that bad for Democrats and perhaps even favorable to them.
Zoom out beyond 2016 and take the long view: The last seven presidential elections have featured four Democratic victories in both the popular vote and the Electoral College (1992, 1996, 2008, 2012); one instance where the GOP won the popular vote and Electoral College (2004); and two kind of fluky GOP wins in which Republicans lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College (2000, 2016).
[Related: How Popular Is President Donald Trump?]
That long view doesn’t look great for Republicans, and identity and race help explain why. Democrats have been handily winning the vote among Asian, Black and Hispanic Americans, who combined are growing as a share of the electorate. (The share of nonwhite U.S. voters was about 26 percent in 2016, compared to about 13 percent in 1980.) Democrats’ status as the party of minorities helps them in some ways, requiring the GOP to consolidate an increasingly high percentage of the country’s white voters to win elections.
But it isn’t easy or necessarily guaranteed that the Republicans will overwhelmingly win the white vote overall or the white non-college vote specifically — even in an election that’s centered on race. The 2017-2018 period was full of racialized political debate, most notably on immigration policy, but the exit polls suggest Democrats lost white voters without a college degree by 24 percentage points in 2018, compared to 37 points in 2016. So far in 2020, polls show Biden losing white voters without a degree by a margin closer to 20 points.
Meanwhile, Biden might carry white voters with a college degree by a large margin, in part because those voters have been turned off by Trump’s approach to racial issues. Indeed, white voters with a college degree or postgraduate education have been trending Democratic for years, and the GOP approach to race and ethnicity is likely a factor.
In short, the evidence suggests that Trump’s approach on racial issues never really appealed to people of color in the first place and, outside of November 2016, it has also been really off-putting to white voters with degrees and not that appealing to white voters without degrees.
It’s harder to use Biden as a wedge
On policy issues, including those around identity and race, Biden’s positions are clearly to the left of the ones Obama ran on in 2008 and arguably to the left of Clinton’s in 2016. In explicitly promising to pick a woman as vice president and a Black woman as Supreme Court justice, Biden has gone beyond Clinton or Obama in terms of allocating very important government posts based on gender and race. And Biden’s rhetoric on racial issues is similar to Clinton’s in 2016. After Floyd’s death, while Trump largely dismissed the protests, Biden called for “an era of action to reverse systemic racism.”
But Biden is an older white man. So his identity likely makes it harder for Trump to run an identity-based campaign against Biden than against Clinton and, to some extent, incumbent president Obama. (The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer made this argument explicitly in a recent piece.) Biden does not visually symbolize a changing America the way President Obama did and the way a President Hillary Clinton would have.
Also, Biden has self-consciously positioned himself as a more moderate Democrat and has distanced himself from more liberal elements of the party, including the causes favored by more liberal Black Americans, like defunding the police.
The electorate has really shifted on racial issues
It’s possible that Trump’s identity politics are less effective in 2020 than they were in 2016 because the events of the last four years have resulted in a real leftward shift on racial issues among Americans. And that shift is fundamental and real, not just about partisanship or anti-Trump sentiment, as I suggested above. After all, in interviews with reporters, more liberal-leaning people and even some former Trump voters are suggesting that they understand racial inequality more deeply now than ever before.
Institutions are aligned with Biden on these issues
Major U.S. businesses, corporations and other elite institutions are typically wary of being perceived as partisan. But in the wake of Floyd’s death, corporate America seems to have decided, for whatever reason, that support for Black Lives Matter and comprehensive, aggressive efforts to reduce racial inequality are either not that partisan or that they’re stances worth taking even if they annoy some Republicans.
So at least right now, it’s not really Biden and Democrats versus Trump and Republicans on issues of identity and race in America; rather, it’s Biden, Democrats, Facebook, Merck, JPMorgan Chase, Netflix, Nike, Stanford and lots of other major institutions versus Trump and Republicans.
[Related: The Latest Political Polls Collected By FiveThirtyEight]
This dynamic is not totally unique to the spring and summer of 2020. Major companies in America are often aligned with liberal cultural values — for example, supporting gay marriage even before the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that invalidated any remaining bans on same-sex unions.
But even if corporate America’s recent posture on racial issues isn’t that surprising, it’s still important. With a lot of major institutions in America echoing his general message, it’s not surprising that Biden’s identity politics are resonating more than Trump’s.
I’m writing this article at a particular moment in time. Perhaps there will be a backlash to the Floyd protests and public opinion will shift. Maybe Trump will benefit from that. If Biden picks a female vice presidential nominee, particularly one who is also a person of color, perhaps Trump’s identity tactics will resonate more with voters because he’ll then have a foil who is more like Clinton and Obama. Alternatively, Trump could make up ground in the polls due to unrelated issues and factors.
And even if Biden wins, that won’t totally answer the question of whether identity politics is bad or good for Democrats. Like I said, perhaps basically any Democratic candidate would beat Trump amid a viral outbreak the president mishandled.
All that said, it appears right now that the identity politics of 2020 are a net plus for Democrats — and perhaps they weren’t too big a problem for Democrats in the first place. It’s hard to prove any of this, but it’s an important discussion to have. In 2008, it seemed like Democrats won a presidential contest that was largely about race. But even though the presidential nominees were white in 2016 and 2020, those may have been more racialized campaigns. And if the current polls hold up, Democrats, after losing a very racialized campaign, may show that they can win one.
‘I’m not sure (enthusiasm) will be enough to save (Trump)’ in 2020: Silver


fivethirtyeight--2020-07-13--The Supreme Court’s Big Rulings Were Surprisingly Mainstream This Year

The Supreme Court just wrapped up its first full term with two of Trump ’ s nominees on the bench .
But the court ’ s much-anticipated conservative revolution didn ’ t really happen this year .
To be sure , the last few weeks of the term were full of consequential decisions that hinged on just one vote .
But even though there were some fierce disagreements among the justices , the court ’ s final rulings were actually not very controversial at all — at least from the perspective of most Americans .
According to a recent survey @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Harvard and the University of Texas , Austin , which asked Americans about central issues facing the court , the justices ’ rulings were in line with public opinion in 8 out of 10 major cases .
There were just two exceptions .
One was in a case that questioned the constitutionality of the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ; the Supreme Court ruled , contrary to a majority of Americans ’ views , that the director of the CFPB was too insulated from executive branch oversight .
The second @ @ @ @ @ @ @ involving subpoenas seeking President Trump ’ s financial records .
A majority of Americans said that the president should not be able to stop his financial documents from being turned over to Congress , but the Supreme Court stopped short of fully siding with the public .
They didn ’ t entirely rule out Congress ’ s ability to subpoena these documents , but they did suggest there are serious limits on what Congress can demand from the president — suggesting he could block people from turning them over in some instances — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ courts .
Maya Sen , a political science professor at Harvard University who helped develop the survey , said she was a little surprised to see that Americans leaned to the left on so many of the cases .
“ It seemed to set the stage for some potential dissonance between public opinion and how the court ’ s conservative majority might rule , ” she said .
And it certainly wasn ’ t hard to imagine that this term ’ s Supreme Court decisions would cut against the prevailing public view on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But that ’ s not what happened .
So what does it mean that so many of the court ’ s high-profile rulings were also pretty mainstream ?
The justices are notoriously tight-lipped about how their decisions are made ( and they probably aren ’ t using this or any other poll to guide their decisions ) , but several of the experts I talked with saw this term as evidence that the Supreme Court isn ’ t immune to the winds of public opinion — particularly in an election year when the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ judges came up more than once .
For one thing , there ’ s evidence that it ’ s pretty rare for the Supreme Court to lurch too far from the mainstream .
Several studies have found that the court ’ s ideological tilt generally matches the public ’ s over time .
Of course , that isn ’ t because the justices are trying to tailor their opinions to match Americans ’ views .
These findings could simply indicate that the court is influenced by the same forces that shape public opinion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ possible that the demands of public opinion — and concerns about institutional legitimacy — were weighing particularly heavily on Chief Justice John Roberts this year .
After all , the partisan gap in approval of the Supreme Court has widened significantly in recent years .
And research by Peter K. Enns , a political science professor at Cornell University , suggests that nonideological considerations — like public opinion — have more of an impact on the justice who casts the decisive vote in close cases , which was a position Roberts occupied several @ @ @ @ @ @ @ came up multiple times in interviews is that Roberts may have wanted to bolster the image of the court as nonpartisan this term so it would have more freedom to release unpopular opinions in the future .
“ I think Roberts in particular is probably concerned about tarnishing the court with the reputation of being a wildly political branch that makes decisions the public doesn ’ t like , ” said Tom Clark , a political scientist at Emory University who studies the Supreme Court ’ s relationship with public opinion .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s legitimacy and build up a reservoir of goodwill so they can make unpopular decisions in the future without having it blow up in their face.
” Trump ’ s penchant for publicly asserting that judges are mere political actors may not have helped , either .
“ The fact that Trump is president and he is really explicit about characterizing the courts as political institutions could be a factor for Roberts , ” Enns said .
“ You have to wonder — would he feel more flexibility in his decisions if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politicization of the courts ?
” But another way to look at this term is that the court came very close to releasing some pretty unpopular opinions .
For instance , Roberts joined the liberal justices to cast the deciding vote in two of the most high-profile cases this term , which dealt with abortion rights and Trump ’ s ability to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program .
This was significant because in both of those cases , the other conservative justices made it clear that they would have been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And Roberts ’ s rulings in both of those cases were very narrow , which suggests he might be open to other challenges to abortion rights or another attempt by the Trump administration to end DACA .
So this wasn ’ t the year that the court ’ s new conservative majority took a swing to the right .
That doesn ’ t mean it won ’ t happen in the future .
But this term suggests that as long as Roberts is the deciding vote , we could be in for more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t see a slew of opinions that run counter to the country ’ s general mood .

The Supreme Court just wrapped up its first full term with two of Trump’s nominees on the bench. But the court’s much-anticipated conservative revolution didn’t really happen this year. To be sure, the last few weeks of the term were full of consequential decisions that hinged on just one vote. But even though there were some fierce disagreements among the justices, the court’s final rulings were actually not very controversial at all — at least from the perspective of most Americans.
According to a recent survey by a group of researchers at Stanford, Harvard and the University of Texas, Austin, which asked Americans about central issues facing the court, the justices’ rulings were in line with public opinion in 8 out of 10 major cases.
There were just two exceptions. One was in a case that questioned the constitutionality of the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; the Supreme Court ruled, contrary to a majority of Americans’ views, that the director of the CFPB was too insulated from executive branch oversight. The second was in one of the two rulings involving subpoenas seeking President Trump’s financial records. A majority of Americans said that the president should not be able to stop his financial documents from being turned over to Congress, but the Supreme Court stopped short of fully siding with the public. They didn’t entirely rule out Congress’s ability to subpoena these documents, but they did suggest there are serious limits on what Congress can demand from the president — suggesting he could block people from turning them over in some instances — and punted it back to the lower courts.
[Related: Is The Supreme Court Heading For A Conservative Revolution?]
Maya Sen, a political science professor at Harvard University who helped develop the survey, said she was a little surprised to see that Americans leaned to the left on so many of the cases. “It seemed to set the stage for some potential dissonance between public opinion and how the court’s conservative majority might rule,” she said. And it certainly wasn’t hard to imagine that this term’s Supreme Court decisions would cut against the prevailing public view on issues like abortion or gay rights.
But that’s not what happened. So what does it mean that so many of the court’s high-profile rulings were also pretty mainstream? The justices are notoriously tight-lipped about how their decisions are made (and they probably aren’t using this or any other poll to guide their decisions), but several of the experts I talked with saw this term as evidence that the Supreme Court isn’t immune to the winds of public opinion — particularly in an election year when the possibility of court-packing and term limits for judges came up more than once.
FiveThirtyEight Politics: Conservatives didn’t get the SCOTUS they wanted this term
For one thing, there’s evidence that it’s pretty rare for the Supreme Court to lurch too far from the mainstream. Several studies have found that the court’s ideological tilt generally matches the public’s over time. Of course, that isn’t because the justices are trying to tailor their opinions to match Americans’ views. These findings could simply indicate that the court is influenced by the same forces that shape public opinion overall.
But it’s also possible that the demands of public opinion — and concerns about institutional legitimacy — were weighing particularly heavily on Chief Justice John Roberts this year. After all, the partisan gap in approval of the Supreme Court has widened significantly in recent years. And research by Peter K. Enns, a political science professor at Cornell University, suggests that nonideological considerations — like public opinion — have more of an impact on the justice who casts the decisive vote in close cases, which was a position Roberts occupied several times this year.
[Related: Can The Supreme Court Stay Above The Partisan Fray?]
One explanation that came up multiple times in interviews is that Roberts may have wanted to bolster the image of the court as nonpartisan this term so it would have more freedom to release unpopular opinions in the future. “I think Roberts in particular is probably concerned about tarnishing the court with the reputation of being a wildly political branch that makes decisions the public doesn’t like,” said Tom Clark, a political scientist at Emory University who studies the Supreme Court’s relationship with public opinion. “He perhaps wants to preserve the court’s legitimacy and build up a reservoir of goodwill so they can make unpopular decisions in the future without having it blow up in their face.”
Trump’s penchant for publicly asserting that judges are mere political actors may not have helped, either. “The fact that Trump is president and he is really explicit about characterizing the courts as political institutions could be a factor for Roberts,” Enns said. “You have to wonder — would he feel more flexibility in his decisions if there wasn’t so much active politicization of the courts?”
[Related: Who Can Stop The Supreme Court?]
But another way to look at this term is that the court came very close to releasing some pretty unpopular opinions. For instance, Roberts joined the liberal justices to cast the deciding vote in two of the most high-profile cases this term, which dealt with abortion rights and Trump’s ability to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. This was significant because in both of those cases, the other conservative justices made it clear that they would have been happy to go the other way. And Roberts’s rulings in both of those cases were very narrow, which suggests he might be open to other challenges to abortion rights or another attempt by the Trump administration to end DACA.
So this wasn’t the year that the court’s new conservative majority took a swing to the right. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen in the future. But this term suggests that as long as Roberts is the deciding vote, we could be in for more terms like this one, where we don’t see a slew of opinions that run counter to the country’s general mood.


fivethirtyeight--2020-07-14--Politics Podcast: COVID-19 Deaths Are Rising. What Will The U.S. Do?

After more than two months of decline , the number of Americans dying from COVID-19 is increasing .
In this @ @ @ @ @ podcast , the crew discusses how Americans think the U.S. should respond to the crisis @ @ @ @ @ other politicians are in agreement .
They also interrogate a lesson that some Democrats took @ @ @ @ @ — that the party should focus less on “ identity politics.
” You can listen @ @ @ @ @ the “ play ” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in @ @ @ @ @ or your favorite podcast platform .
If you are new to podcasts , learn how @ @ @ @ @ Politics podcast publishes Mondays and Thursdays .
Help new listeners discover the show by leaving @ @ @ @ @ on iTunes .
Have a comment , question or suggestion for “ good polling vs. @ @ @ @ @ in touch by email , on Twitter or in the comments .

After more than two months of decline, the number of Americans dying from COVID-19 is increasing. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew discusses how Americans think the U.S. should respond to this crisis and whether President Trump and other politicians are in agreement. They also explore a lesson some Democrats took away from the 2016 election — that the party should focus less on identity politics.
FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast: COVID-19 deaths are rising. What will the U.S. do?
You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Mondays and Thursdays. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.


fivethirtyeight--2020-07-14--What You Need To Know About Today’s Elections In Alabama, Maine And Texas

It ’ s runoff Tuesday !
Alabama and Texas held their congressional primaries all the way back in March , but there were two competitive U.S. Senate elections ( in addition to six House races worth watching ) in which no candidate got a majority of the vote .
The runoffs in those races finally take place today , after months of delay because of the coronavirus pandemic .
In addition , Maine also holds its rescheduled primaries Tuesday .
Making a political comeback isn ’ t easy when you ’ ve infuriated your party ’ s boss .
Just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who is now an underdog in the race for his former U.S. Senate seat .
After resigning from this seat to join President Trump ’ s cabinet in 2017 , Sessions earned Trump ’ s scorn by recusing himself from special counsel Robert Mueller ’ s investigation into alleged links between Russia and the Trump campaign in the 2016 election .
Trump derided Sessions for months and then sent him packing after the 2018 midterm election .
Sessions then decided to run for his old seat , but the president is backing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to block Sessions ’ s return to Washington .
Trump ’ s endorsees have had mixed results in recent weeks , but Tuberville looks favored to advance and face vulnerable Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in November .
Tuberville and Sessions won a similar share of the vote in the March 3 primary — Tuberville narrowly led Sessions 33 percent to 32 percent — but the polls now show Tuberville with a clear advantage .
The most recent survey , from Auburn University , found Tuberville ahead 47 percent to 31 percent , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A poll from Jones ’ s campaign and one from Republican pollster Cygnal put Tuberville ahead by more than 20 points , 54 percent to 32 percent and 55 percent to 32 percent , respectively .
Even Sessions ’ s own polling put him behind : A late May poll conducted on behalf of his campaign put Tuberville up 6 points , 49 percent to 43 percent .
But recent revelations about Tuberville ’ s past financial dealings could open the door for a late Sessions recovery .
About a decade ago , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because of fraud and Tuberville played a substantial role in bringing in potential investors .
It ’ s unclear , though , just how much voters may care about his past financial ventures .
Instead , Alabama Republicans will probably decide the race based on how close each candidate is to Trump .
And Tuberville and his allies have been only too happy to make it clear whom Trump supports and opposes : Club for Growth Action is running ads highlighting Trump ’ s endorsement , and Tuberville ’ s campaign released an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that if he could change one thing about his presidency , he wouldn ’ t have chosen Sessions to be attorney general .
For his part , Sessions has tried to fight back .
He ’ s hit Tuberville for not living in Alabama , and the former senator has even portrayed himself as an anti-establishment candidate .
He ’ s also maintained he is loyal to Trump , although the president ’ s campaign seems disinclined to accept that support .
In April , it sent a letter to Sessions demanding he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in his Senate campaign because it might mislead voters into thinking Trump backs Sessions .
No matter who wins , though , the GOP nominee will probably be favored against Jones in November .
The Auburn poll tested Jones against each Republican contender , and found Jones behind by 6 to 8 points .
And with Trump likely to win Alabama by a sizable margin at the top of the ticket , that should boost the chances of whichever Republican wins today ’ s runoff .
Like the other two states voting today @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year is for U.S. Senate .
However , the Democratic primary to face vulnerable Republican Sen. Susan Collins is a mere formality : The party will almost certainly nominate state House Speaker Sara Gideon , whose campaign received the blessing of national Democrats over a year ago .
But Gideon ’ s nomination is still a milestone worth noting : The winner of the primary will automatically receive $ 4 million raised by left-leaning groups in the wake of Collins ’ s vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in 2018 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the fire of an already red-hot race , as Collins and Gideon have been virtually tied in most polls this year .
The Republican primary in northern Maine ’ s 2nd Congressional District also promises to be a notable race .
After winning by only 1 percentage point ( and by the grace of Maine ’ s unique ranked-choice voting system ) in 2018 , Democratic Rep. Jared Golden will once again be fighting for his electoral life here in November .
And his opponent this time around will be either former gubernatorial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sen. Eric Brakey or former state Rep. Dale Crafts .
Brakey , who was the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in 2018 , has long looked like the front-runner : His $ 798,246 raised through June 24 was more than Crafts ( $ 329,851 ) and Bennett ( $ 174,021 ) combined .
But in late June , a mysterious super PAC began sending campaign mail attacking the libertarian-leaning Brakey for his allegedly insufficient loyalty to Trump ( he initially supported Sen. Rand Paul for president in 2016 ) .
Since then , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a recent poll by SurveyUSA found that Crafts was the first choice of 37 percent of likely Republican primary voters , followed by Bennett with 25 percent and Brakey with 19 percent .
( With ranked-choice voting , that wouldn ’ t be enough to win the nomination outright , but the poll also found that Crafts was the top second choice of Bennett and Brakey supporters . )
Crafts , a more traditional conservative , has the endorsement of former Gov .
Paul LePage plus an inspiring story to tell as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now uses a wheelchair .
Texas has enough runoffs to fill a 10-gallon hat , but the big statewide race is the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate between former Air Force helicopter pilot MJ Hegar and state Sen. Royce West .
( The winner will advance to face three-term Republican Sen. John Cornyn in November . )
Hegar , who ran for the House in 2018 , is the preferred choice of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee , but West could very well win .
In the crowded March 3 primary , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent of the vote — Hegar ’ s 22 percent to West ’ s 15 percent — meaning there is a lot of unaligned support up for grabs today .
Notably for West , most of the other major candidates endorsed him — including Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez , who finished third with 13 percent — whereas none backed Hegar .
We have two recent polls of the runoff , and both show the race is very much up for grabs .
A survey from The Dallas Morning News/UT-Tyler found Hegar up by 12 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but with a huge number of undecideds , while a poll from Cornyn ’ s campaign found Hegar ahead by 4 points , 39 percent to West ’ s 35 percent .
But Hegar has a big fundraising edge : As of June 24 , she had raised about $ 6.5 million to West ’ s $ 1.8 million , and she had about 10 times as much in her campaign war chest — $ 1.6 million to $ 160,000 .
Hegar ’ s campaign and her allies at the DSCC and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2 million for ads in the final week of the campaign , giving her around an 85-to-1 spending advantage over West , according to calculations by the Texas Tribune .
But West ’ s campaign may be on the upswing because of the heightened focus on race and policing after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police in May .
West , who is African American , recently said the “ stars have aligned ” for his campaign because of his focus on criminal justice reform in the state legislature .
He has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Cornyn and for voting in the 2016 Republican presidential primary ( Hegar says she cast a protest vote for Carly Fiorina against Trump ) .
For her part , Hegar has run an ad opposing family separation at the border and systemic racism .
She ’ s also cast West as a political insider who ’ s worked on behalf of his personal self-interest rather than for his constituents .
Regardless of who wins , though , the nominee will start out as an underdog against Cornyn .
But with Joe Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Star State , the Senate race could be close , too .
There are also runoffs in four competitive House races : • 10th District Democratic runoff : In a familiar theme for 2020 primaries , this race has revolved around electability .
Physician Pritesh Gandhi has faulted civil-rights lawyer Mike Siegel for losing to GOP Rep. Michael McCaul here by 4 points in 2018 , even as former Rep. Beto O ’ Rourke was carrying this Austin-to-Houston district in the Senate race .
Siegel , who is endorsed by Sens .
Bernie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policies like the Green New Deal and Medicare for All , while Gandhi ’ s more cautious views align more with Joe Biden ’ s .
Siegel outpaced Gandhi 44 percent to 33 percent in the first round , but Gandhi spent more during the pre-runoff disclosure period ( April 1 through June 24 ) , $ 189,079 to $ 154,691 , and has been the beneficiary of six mailers and a TV ad from 314 Action , an outside group that supports scientists running for office .
• 22nd District Republican runoff @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republican-held open seat in suburban Houston , Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls finished well ahead of businesswoman Kathaleen Wall ( 40 percent to 19 percent ) .
But Wall has deployed her tremendous financial advantage ( she ’ s given or loaned almost $ 7.5 million to her own campaign ) to smear Nehls for not taking sex trafficking seriously as sheriff , with some provocative TV ads featuring a survivor and her parents .
Nehls has said he simply doesn ’ t have enough money for ads of his own , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his March supporters stay loyal .
• 23rd District Republican runoff : This Republican-held open seat along the Texas-Mexico border is seen as one of Democrats ’ best pickup opportunities in the entire nation , but GOP honchos like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy believe they have a formidable candidate in former Navy cryptologist Tony Gonzales .
That said , not every Republican is on board .
On June 30 , Sen. Ted Cruz endorsed Gonzales ’ s runoff opponent , Air Force veteran and businessman Raul Reyes , who many Republicans fear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ views .
In response , Trump weighed in on Gonzales ’ s behalf ( reportedly at McCarthy ’ s urging ) , pitting the two old rivals against each other once again .
This time , it could go either way , too : Gonzales only narrowly outpolled Reyes in the first round , 28 percent to 23 percent , and although he significantly outspent him in the pre-runoff period , $ 207,226 to $ 101,131 , that doesn ’ t account for the ( at least ) $ 109,788 Cruz is spending @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s behalf .
• 24th District Democratic runoff : This suburban Dallas-Fort Worth seat is yet another GOP-held open seat Democrats are trying to flip .
With few policy differences between the Democratic candidates — retired Air Force Colonel Kim Olson and former Carrollton-Farmers Branch school board member Candace Valenzuela — the runoff has turned on their identities and experience .
Valenzuela , a 36-year-old who would be the first Black Latina to serve in Congress , represents the new generation of Democratic politicians .
She has the support of several former presidential @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as well as all three components of the Congressional Tri-Caucus : the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus , the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus ( the first 2020 candidate to achieve that hat trick ) .
Meanwhile , Olson touts her extensive resume , first as one of the first female fighter pilots and then as human-resources director of the Dallas school district — though she ’ s come under fire for the district ’ s budget deficit and firing of hundreds of teachers ( problems that predated her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 41 percent to 30 percent in the first round of voting , a recent poll sponsored by one of Valenzuela ’ s endorsers found the reverse — Valenzuela 52 percent , Olson 37 percent — after a coalition of outside groups dropped “ high six figures ” on pro-Valenzuela mail , television and digital advertising .
A couple of safe Republican seats also have some intriguing runoffs , with the winner in each more or less guaranteed to head to the House .
Here ’ s what ’ s happening in those two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Lobbyist Josh Winegarner finished well ahead of former White House physician Ronny Jackson in the March 3 primary , 39 percent to 20 percent .
Winegarner might seem like a favorite , given his first-round edge and his endorsement from long-time Rep. Mac Thornberry , whose retirement opened up this North Texas seat .
However , Jackson has Trump ’ s backing , as well as the endorsement of Chris Ekstrom , who finished third in the primary with 15 percent .
Jackson has also outraised Winegarner since the runoff period began @ @ @ @ @ @ @ support as Winegarner .
Plus , the only surveys of the runoff show Jackson ahead , though they both come from groups allied with Jackson — the Club for Growth and Miles for Greatness Fund — but all in all , this race could go either way .
• 17th District Republican runoff : Jeff isn ’ t the only Sessions trying to mount a political comeback today .
Former Rep. Pete Sessions , who lost his 2018 reelection bid in Texas ’ s 32nd Congressional District , shifted his political aspirations 100 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 17th District , where his childhood home of Waco is located .
However , retiring GOP Rep. Bill Flores has opposed Sessions ’ s attempt to take over his seat , instead backing businesswoman Renee Swann in the runoff .
On March 3 , Sessions garnered 32 percent to Swann ’ s 19 percent in a crowded primary , and he ’ s since gotten the endorsement of third-place finisher George Hindman , who was just behind Swann with 18 percent .
But Swann ’ s attacks on Sessions ’ s carpetbagging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaign funds to pay legal bills , could be enough for her to beat him today .
As usual , don ’ t be surprised if we don ’ t get full results tonight .
All three states have seen an increase in the use of mail ballots , which take longer to count .
That said , relatively low turnout could make it easier for Alabama to report most of its votes on election night , and most Texans may still decide to vote in person since the state declined to allow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vote absentee .
Maine ’ s results will likely take the longest , due to the likelihood that voters ’ second or third choices on their ranked-choice ballots will decide the winner .

It’s runoff Tuesday! Alabama and Texas held their congressional primaries all the way back in March, but there were two competitive U.S. Senate elections (in addition to six House races worth watching) in which no candidate got a majority of the vote. The runoffs in those races finally take place today, after months of delay because of the coronavirus pandemic. In addition, Maine also holds its rescheduled primaries Tuesday.
Alabama
Making a political comeback isn’t easy when you’ve infuriated your party’s boss. Just ask former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is now an underdog in the race for his former U.S. Senate seat.
After resigning from this seat to join President Trump’s cabinet in 2017, Sessions earned Trump’s scorn by recusing himself from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged links between Russia and the Trump campaign in the 2016 election. Trump derided Sessions for months and then sent him packing after the 2018 midterm election. Sessions then decided to run for his old seat, but the president is backing former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville to block Sessions’s return to Washington. Trump’s endorsees have had mixed results in recent weeks, but Tuberville looks favored to advance and face vulnerable Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in November.
Tuberville and Sessions won a similar share of the vote in the March 3 primary — Tuberville narrowly led Sessions 33 percent to 32 percent — but the polls now show Tuberville with a clear advantage. The most recent survey, from Auburn University, found Tuberville ahead 47 percent to 31 percent, and two May surveys found similar results. A poll from Jones’s campaign and one from Republican pollster Cygnal put Tuberville ahead by more than 20 points, 54 percent to 32 percent and 55 percent to 32 percent, respectively. Even Sessions’s own polling put him behind: A late May poll conducted on behalf of his campaign put Tuberville up 6 points, 49 percent to 43 percent.
[Related: Our 2020 National Polling Averages]
But recent revelations about Tuberville’s past financial dealings could open the door for a late Sessions recovery. About a decade ago, Tuberville co-founded a hedge fund that collapsed because of fraud and Tuberville played a substantial role in bringing in potential investors. It’s unclear, though, just how much voters may care about his past financial ventures.
Instead, Alabama Republicans will probably decide the race based on how close each candidate is to Trump. And Tuberville and his allies have been only too happy to make it clear whom Trump supports and opposes: Club for Growth Action is running ads highlighting Trump’s endorsement, and Tuberville’s campaign released an ad featuring an interview of Trump saying that if he could change one thing about his presidency, he wouldn’t have chosen Sessions to be attorney general. For his part, Sessions has tried to fight back. He’s hit Tuberville for not living in Alabama, and the former senator has even portrayed himself as an anti-establishment candidate. He’s also maintained he is loyal to Trump, although the president’s campaign seems disinclined to accept that support. In April, it sent a letter to Sessions demanding he cease using the president’s name in his Senate campaign because it might mislead voters into thinking Trump backs Sessions.
No matter who wins, though, the GOP nominee will probably be favored against Jones in November. The Auburn poll tested Jones against each Republican contender, and found Jones behind by 6 to 8 points. And with Trump likely to win Alabama by a sizable margin at the top of the ticket, that should boost the chances of whichever Republican wins today’s runoff.
Maine
Like the other two states voting today, the marquee race in Maine this year is for U.S. Senate. However, the Democratic primary to face vulnerable Republican Sen. Susan Collins is a mere formality: The party will almost certainly nominate state House Speaker Sara Gideon, whose campaign received the blessing of national Democrats over a year ago. But Gideon’s nomination is still a milestone worth noting: The winner of the primary will automatically receive more than $4 million raised by left-leaning groups in relation to Collins’s vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in 2018. That should add more fuel to the fire of an already red-hot race, as Collins and Gideon have been virtually tied in most polls this year.
The Republican primary in northern Maine’s 2nd Congressional District also promises to be a notable race. After winning by only 1 percentage point (and by the grace of Maine’s unique ranked-choice voting system) in 2018, Democratic Rep. Jared Golden will once again be fighting for his electoral life here in November. And his opponent this time around will be either former gubernatorial press secretary Adrienne Bennett, former state Sen. Eric Brakey or former state Rep. Dale Crafts.
[Related: How Popular Is President Donald Trump?]
Brakey, who was the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in 2018, has long looked like the front-runner: His $798,246 raised through June 24 was more than Crafts ($329,851) and Bennett ($174,021) combined. But in late June, a mysterious super PAC began sending campaign mail attacking the libertarian-leaning Brakey for his allegedly insufficient loyalty to Trump (he initially supported Sen. Rand Paul for president in 2016). Since then, Brakey has acted like an underdog, and a recent poll by SurveyUSA found that Crafts was the first choice of 37 percent of likely Republican primary voters, followed by Bennett with 25 percent and Brakey with 19 percent. (With ranked-choice voting, that wouldn’t be enough to win the nomination outright, but the poll also found that Crafts was the top second choice of Bennett and Brakey supporters.) Crafts, a more traditional conservative, has the endorsement of former Gov. Paul LePage plus an inspiring story to tell as the survivor of a 1983 accident who now uses a wheelchair.
Texas
Texas has enough runoffs to fill a 10-gallon hat, but the big statewide race is the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate between former Air Force helicopter pilot MJ Hegar and state Sen. Royce West. (The winner will advance to face three-term Republican Sen. John Cornyn in November.)
Hegar, who ran for the House in 2018, is the preferred choice of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, but West could very well win. In the crowded March 3 primary, the two candidates combined to win about 37 percent of the vote — Hegar’s 22 percent to West’s 15 percent — meaning there is a lot of unaligned support up for grabs today. Notably for West, most of the other major candidates endorsed him — including Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, who finished third with 13 percent — whereas none backed Hegar.
We have two recent polls of the runoff, and both show the race is very much up for grabs. A survey from The Dallas Morning News/UT-Tyler found Hegar up by 12 points, 32 percent to 20 percent, but with a huge number of undecideds, while a poll from Cornyn’s campaign found Hegar ahead by 4 points, 39 percent to West’s 35 percent. But Hegar has a big fundraising edge: As of June 24, she had raised about $6.5 million to West’s $1.8 million, and she had about 10 times as much in her campaign war chest — $1.6 million to $160,000. Hegar’s campaign and her allies at the DSCC and Emily’s List allocated about $2 million for ads in the final week of the campaign, giving her around an 85-to-1 spending advantage over West, according to calculations by the Texas Tribune.
[Related: An Updating Estimate Of The Congressional Generic Ballot]
But West’s campaign may be on the upswing because of the heightened focus on race and policing after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police in May. West, who is African American, recently said the “stars have aligned” for his campaign because of his focus on criminal justice reform in the state legislature. He has also hit Hegar for a past donation to Cornyn and for voting in the 2016 Republican presidential primary (Hegar says she cast a protest vote for Carly Fiorina against Trump). For her part, Hegar has run an ad opposing family separation at the border and systemic racism. She’s also cast West as a political insider who’s worked on behalf of his personal self-interest rather than for his constituents.
Regardless of who wins, though, the nominee will start out as an underdog against Cornyn. But with Joe Biden running neck-and-neck with Trump in the Lone Star State, the Senate race could be close, too.
There are also runoffs in four competitive House races:
A couple of safe Republican seats also have some intriguing runoffs, with the winner in each more or less guaranteed to head to the House. Here’s what’s happening in those two races:
As usual, don’t be surprised if we don’t get full results tonight. All three states have seen an increase in the use of mail ballots, which take longer to count. That said, relatively low turnout could make it easier for Alabama to report most of its votes on election night, and most Texans may still decide to vote in person since the state declined to allow the pandemic as a valid excuse to vote absentee. Maine’s results will likely take the longest, due to the likelihood that voters’ second or third choices on their ranked-choice ballots will decide the winner.
CLARIFICATION (July 14, 2020, 11:32 a.m.): This story has been updated to reflect the fact that while left-leaning groups raised money because of Sen. Collins’s vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, most of this money was raised before the confirmation vote took place. To date, the groups have raised more than $4.1 million.
FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast: COVID-19 deaths are rising. What will the U.S. do?