Nate Cohn

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@kkondik @PoliticsWolf i wouldn't quite say michigan counts as a dummymander, if that term requires it to outright backfire, but i don't think the gop has any more seats in the state than it would on a nonpartisan map and possibly fewer, depending on plausible alternatives in 5/9 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@PoliticsWolf @kkondik ah missed it — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@PoliticsWolf @kkondik perhaps the better critique of that map, from the dummymander standpoint, may be that it was very easy to draw one solidly democratic seat linking little rock and the delta — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@BenjySarlin But i think 1) he’s doing a broad agenda under relatively neutral *auspices*; 2) i don’t think that agenda is as ideologically charged as transforming the health care system like the ACA push, even if it was as a standalone bill framed ashealth care — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@BenjySarlin Maybe both? Rereading, I don’t think I was precise enough about what I think he is doing and took that as a given, rather than something to be explicated. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@BenjySarlin Maybe I’m missing something or maybe I’m being imprecise because I saw my argument as fairly simple and it turns out to be more nuanced. But I don’t see that as comparable to an ACA push on either substantive or superficial grounds — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@BenjySarlin I may not have been clear about exactly what Biden's policy *is* in the article, but that is more-or-less my point. A broad and diverse agenda proceeding under neutral auspices of 'infrastructure' or procedural terms like 'reconciliation,' rather than a more charged framework — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Whether that's enough for Democrats, given the macro-pattern and their very limited room for error, is a very different question. But I'm not inclined to assume the Democrats are on track to lose the national vote by 4 points, either (i'm not sure that they won't, either!) — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Anyway, as I said, I'm fundamentally agonistic on these sort of macro v. micro debates in election forecasting, but I do think it's worth noting that Democrats are largely avoiding the cautionary tales that you'd tell in the micro-level story of recent midterm defeats. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

And on the other hand, when you look at the (admittedly relatively few) cases without a big health care push or a bad economy, you see fewer signs of a big drop-off between now and the midterm — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Most (though not all, to be fair: 2014 for ex) of the cases where the president's party loses a lot of ground between now and the midterm feature some pretty poor circumstances, like an ambitious and unpopular legislative agenda, or a mediocre economy/war (1966, 1982, 1994, 2010) — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

My general disposition toward this important question is a sort of fatalistic agnosticism. But I think it is worth trying both lenses on and see how things look from time to time. In this case, I think things look different and the micro-analysis seems fairly credible. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

The short answer is probably "both." But one of the great challenges of electoral analysis is balancing micro and macro theory. It's particularly challenging due to the limits of the data. There aren't many elections. You can't easily control for many things you'd like to — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

That observation is absolutely right. But it is worth asking ourselves a simple question about that tendency: why is it true? To what extent is it a function of particular circumstances, like mediocre economies or unpopular legislative agendas, versus something more fundamental? — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

I'd like to add an arcane point about something I've seen many people remark upon: the tendency for the president's party to lose ground heading into the midterms. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

https://t.co/eA1gYXr5kz — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@RyanDEnos @rdawkins22 this seems like the sort of thing that was easier to appreciate in the era of, for lack of a better term, white ethnoreligious politics, but it's harder to engage in an era of racial and ideological polarization (though some Obama era 'American nations' stuff was relevant here) — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

RT @sahilkapur: SEAN HANNITY: "Please take Covid seriously. I can't say it enough. Enough people have died. We don't need any more death. R… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

RT @kabir_here: Ds see risk to their electoral fortunes if voting is made harder, while Rs see risk to theirs if it's made easier Ds say h… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

RT @kabir_here: New @CBSNewsPoll study this week on voting in U.S. In first installment, we find that most Americans say they prefer the v… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

RT @micahanglais: Back in April, @j_kalla and I released a working paper testing the effect of racial equality and class frames on support… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

RT @noamscheiber: I have a new piece on how green jobs are often more like gig work than the middle-class jobs they’re made out to be. “It’… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

RT @IChotiner: New Interview: I talked to Robin DiAngelo about her anti-racism trainings, why she is so popular in corporate America, and w… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

and as a consequence, we now have a deeply polarized american political culture. 'blame' is certainly a politically important question, but fundamentally there aren't too many ways to rewrite this story — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

i think most people would also agree that conservatives have spent more of the last fifty years of culture war *politics* on offense--using the culture wars as an electoral issue--even as they've been on defense culturally — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

any reasonable person would also agree that this has triggered multiple waves of conservative reaction, often (though not always) to GOP electoral benefit, even though they've only fleetingly arrested the inexorable left-liberal shift since WW2 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

any reasonable person would agree that the left-liberal coalition has fought to move american culture far from its traditional mores over the last half-century, that these changes continue to the present, and that left-liberals want them to continue — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

i've watched this fight over the last several weeks, and the main thing that's notable to me is that the facts aren't really in contest. https://t.co/6BDot1kFla — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

RT @BrendanNyhan: New @BrightLineWatch on state of US democracy https://t.co/iBaHz60WwY -Experts: Overturning pop. vote key risk; legal cha… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

RT @IChotiner: Everyone knows about Michael Wolff’s shoddy journalism. Fewer people know about his sentences. Just try reading these out lo… — PolitiTweet.org