Ryan Burge/Graphs About Religion:
How Do Religious Groups View Joe Biden Right Now?
And, does this tell us anything about his chances in 2024?
Biden did well in these [2020 primary] polls. Which makes sense because he did manage to win the nomination. In fact, he won a majority of the votes in most religious groups. That includes basically all Christians. Fifty-seven percent of white Catholics backed him in the primary and he got the same share of the Jewish vote.
There are some groups where he struggled a bit, though. That’s the most glaring when looking at the nones. He only got 42% of the ballots cast by nothing in particulars. He did even worse among agnostics (32%) and atheists (30%). In fact, there were only two instances where Biden wasn’t the plurality vote choice.
Thirty-eight percent of atheists were Sanders’s voters. It was thirty-five percent of agnostics. Biden’s real weakness in the 2020 primary was secular folks. In the data about thirteen percent of all Democratic primary voters in 2020 were in the atheist or agnostic category.
Recall earlier that agnostics and atheists believed Sanders to be very liberal. This is clearly a case of “Sanders is really liberal and that’s why we are voting for him.” Not a situation where it’s, “Sanders is very liberal and that’s too liberal for me.”
Benjy Sarlin/Semafor:
You need to calm down, Democratic pollsters argue
But there are reasons campaign professionals tend to wave off early surveys, which have notoriously overstated threats to incumbents. Here’s why pollsters and strategists we spoke to say they’re not panicking yet.
There is no campaign. Every time you see a poll showing Biden’s approval in the 30s, mentally add an asterisk that says “before Democrats spend $1 billion.”
This isn’t so much about a prohibitive spending advantage (Republicans will have money too), but about what that money goes towards. In this case, it’s a message that so far has worked for Democrats in real-life conditions.
In the midterms, postmortems found that Democrats performed poorly in noncompetitive contests, but they won big in highly contested, swing state races where they could devote millions to ads on issues like abortion, drug prices, and entitlements while painting their opponents as “MAGA extremists.” The same formula has held up well in off-year elections since then, including a blowout judicial race in Wisconsin centered on abortion rights and gerrymandering.
Jill Lawrence/The Bulwark:
Joe Biden’s Problem Isn’t His Age, It’s Our Age
Trump’s cruelty theater is distorting politics and people’s views of the president.
As usual, Donald Trump is at the root of the mess. From the minute he entered the 2016 presidential race on a golden escalator in a building blaring his name, U.S. politics has been a twisted reality show that elevates outrage, insults, and cruelty in a spirit of sadistic fun. That’s entertainment, at least for Trump’s many millions of devoted fans.
Theatrics are not unheard of in the political arena, yet scenes from the relatively recent past seem so innocent now.
Jennifer Rubin/The Washington Post:
Wisconsin GOP entertains a constitutional crisis. Again.
Republicans are openly talking of impeaching Protasiewicz before she has heard a single case. Led by right-wing radical Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, Republicans accuse Protasiewicz of “prejudging” redistricting cases pending before the Supreme Court because of comments she made during her campaign. However, as the Associated Press reported, “She never promised to rule one way or another,” although she observed the lines were “unfair” and “rigged.” Republicans also claim she must recuse herself because she accepted money from the Democratic Party. She has promised to do so in any case in which the party is a litigant. (In the redistricting case, the Democratic Party is not a litigant.)
Republicans have threatened to move forward unless she recuses herself from the case challenging the redistricting lines. Because Wisconsin limits impeachment to cases of corruption or commission of a crime, neither of which apply here, this would be a blatant misuse of the constitution, a usurpation of judicial powers and a violation of the separation of powers.
Philip Bump/The Washington Post:
Wisconsin’s gerrymandering rides to the rescue of its gerrymandering
Allowing Protasiewicz to vote on the maps would probably mean that the boundaries will be redrawn, weakening the disproportionate power Republicans have wielded in the state legislature for years. So they’re using that disproportionate power in consideration of impeachment and removal.
Wisconsin Democrats pledge a $4 million-plus blitz to counter GOP on impeaching Protasiewicz
In the month since Protasiewicz was sworn in after winning her April 2022 election with an 11-point margin — an unusually lopsided election in a state known for hotly contested statewide races — behind-the-scenes battles among justices and court employees have escalated with the court’s conservative chief justice accusing its new liberal majority of pulling off “an unprecedented coup.”
Additionally, Republican lawmakers have raised the prospect of impeaching Protasiewicz if she does not step away from challenges to the state’s electoral maps that are currently under the court’s consideration. Such proceedings would begin in the state Assembly, where a simple majority must vote to impeach before the state Senate can take it up. From there, the Senate can conduct a trial based on the evidence. If two-thirds of the senators present vote to convict, the official is removed from office.
In the case of a judicial officer, once the Assembly votes to impeach, the official cannot perform the duties of their office without being acquitted by the Senate. That leaves open the possibility the Senate could sit on the Assembly action without scheduling a trial, effectively sidelining Protasiewicz and leaving the court evenly divided at 3-3 on ideological lines.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said it’s “common sense” that Protasiewicz should not rule on a case she has “prejudged,” referring to the redistricting lawsuits.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Fulton judge ‘very skeptical’ of trying all 19 Trump defendants together
“It seems a bit unrealistic that we could handle all 19 in 40-something days,” [State Judge] McAfee said. “That’s my initial reaction.”
McAfee gave prosecutors until Tuesday to respond in a court brief.
The judge’s comments came during a 90-minute hearing in which attorneys for two of the case’s co-defendants, lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, argued that they should be tried separately from one another and the larger group.
At the end of the hearing, McAfee granted Powell’s demand for a speedy trial, setting her trial date for Oct. 23, the same day as Chesebro’s. He denied a push from Chesebro to sever his case from Powell and a motion from Powell to sever her case from Chesebro’s.
The cheese won’t stand alone.
Chris Geidner/Law Dork:
Alabama continues fighting to ignore SCOTUS voting rights decision
Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen plans to go back to the Supreme Court on Thursday to ask the justices to ignore the fact that Alabama ignored the court’s own June voting rights ruling, as well as lower court rulings ordering Alabama to give Black voters in the state the opportunity to elect two congressional representatives of their choosing.
Allen, supported by Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, wants the justices to allow the state to implement its latest illegal map that only contains one such “opportunity district” — with the intention of using it in the 2024 elections.
The real question is whether the Supreme Court will allow this brazen effort to ignore the law, the federal courts, and its own ruling.
Guilty pleasures — Cliff Schecter on Peter Navarro (who was convicted yesterday of Contempt of Congress):
