Rachel Bitecofer -- DNC, Listen To Her

[ancianita]

Bitecofer was the ONLY predictor that got the 2016 win number right.

Lawrence O'Donnell just interviewed her, and her look at leaners and voters is the analysis that the DNC needs to drive its ground game.

Salon's interview with Bitecofer offers the best path because she knows how we won the House better than our leadership does. They need to listen to her. (all bolding is mine)

With a record like that, you’d think that Bitecofer's explanation of what happened would have drawn universal attention and become common sense — but you’d be sadly mistaken. She’s barely beginning to get the recognition she deserves, and more troubling for the country, the outdated assumptions her model dispensed with continue to cloud the thinking of pundits and Democratic Party leadership alike. (Follow her on Twitter here.)

This hampers efforts to counter Donald Trump’s destructive impact on a daily basis, and spreads confusion about both Democratic prospects and strategy in the 2020 election prospects. Above all, the mistaken belief that Democrats won in 2018 by gaining Republican support (aka winning back "Trump voters&quot fuels an illusory search for an ill-defined middle ground that could actually demobilize the Democratic leaners and voters who actually drove last year's blue wave.

from Bitecofer herself:

The explanation, of course, is that it was this giant turnout of core constituencies, that either are Democrats or favor Democrats — they’re independents who favor Democrats — and they have a huge turnout explosion. So it's not the same pool of voters changing their minds and voting Democrat after voting Republican because of the issue of health care. It's a whole different pool of voters.

They might have many reasons that they cite, and probably this is not the reason they would cite. But what made them enraged and show up is Trump Inc., the negative partisanship. I don't know why Nancy Pelosi, the DCCC or many of these moderate members are convinced that moderate Republicans crossed over and voted for them. I have the data for some of these districts and the data tells a very different, very clear story: If Republicans voted in huge numbers, they voted for Republicans.

It has to be within a realm of possibility. To illustrate that, in 2018 when we look at the Senate map, Arizona was an R+5 state — that meant it had a partisan advantage for Republicans of about five points. Tennessee was an R+15 state, and of course, as I predicted, Arizona flipped to the Democrats but Tennessee didn't even come close, despite multiple millions of dollars spent by Democrats in that effort.

The second thing that's most significant and influential — and this is totally unique and new — is the percentage of college-educated residents residing in the state or in the district. This is what I said would be unique and new in the Trump era. This was why I was able to look at maps, at these races that in 2018 people saw as toss-ups, and say, "No, no, no, no. These are going to flip."

In this new era that we’re moving into, we have college-educated voters moving towards the Democrats, and white working-class voters moving away from them. That allowed me to look months and months ahead at polling and say, these are the races where Democrats are going to do really well.

My model for 2020 starts off with Democrats at 278 Electoral College votes, and that's a problem for Trump, because of course you need 270 to win. It does that because of my model's prediction, based on turnout and predicted vote share, that Pennsylvania and Michigan will slip back to the Democrats. I'm uncertain about Ohio, but even if Trump wins Ohio, he can't win the other three Midwestern states. Then as you point out I have four tossup states: Arizona, North Carolina, Florida and Iowa. Even if he wins all four of them, the Democrats have already won the election — and the idea that he would win all four is pretty unlikely.

The Democratic leadership — the way they’ve chosen to navigate the Trump impeachment stuff, and certainly the way they talk about their House victories and how to maintain their House majority, it tells me that they’re still living in a understanding of the data that is outdated. If you don't understand how you won, and what the concurrent political data environment is telling you, that is concerning. So I do see a lot of evidence that Democrats don't get this.

If one group of candidates took more liberal issue positions, why did they win over independents?" It seems counterfactual, and the reason is what mattered was turnout. O’Rourke and Abrams carried independents because turnout surged, with different independents showing up to vote, motivated by the targeting strategy deployed by those campaigns, which were run under my suggested model rather than the old playbook that used to work back in the '90s and '80s.

https://www.salon.com/2019/08/17/this-political-scientist-completely-nailed-the-2018-blue-wave-heres-her-2020-forecast/




Here is her 2020 analysis.

[ancianita]

1. ...

[FM123]

2. Very interesting article!

"People reading your article, people following me on Twitter — we forget how atypical we are, even in terms of those who are going to vote in the Democratic primary. Primary voters are already more active and aware and more typically engaged than average Americans, but still not like us. They’re not paying attention at all, not watching the debates, they're not reading news stories, they're not on political Twitter, reading political news sites, but they will vote."

[dlk]

3. I Watched Bitecofer's Interview on Lawrence

She gave an excellent interview.

[ancianita]

4. That's what got me to getting some more info on her. Salon's was the most thorough I could find.

[Thekaspervote]

5. This article went round yesterday with a flurry of posts

She’s very interesting and it’s a great read.

My issue is it was done by Salon. The same group that supported Stein in 2016, and for me has just gone off the deep end.

There are a few contradictions, where she talks about how we need a candidate that is all about big change.. exciting, but then says President Obama went too far with the ACA and brought about the losses we suffered in 2010.

Here’s a different perspective from the Guardian and why voters don’t want a lot of “excitement” but would prefer a return to normal. It’s an interesting read as well.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/19/joe-biden-exciting-candidate

Be more informed!! Read both

[ancianita]

9. I hear you. I'm not a fan of Salon, either, by a long shot. Thanks for the Guardian link.

I was in such a hurry to throw this up before I got lost in a lot of other stuff, that I just went with Salon for now.

So thank you.

[Ponietz]

25. You made the same misrepresentation in an earlier post

“...but then says President Obama went too far with the ACA and brought about the losses we suffered in 2010.”

That’s not what it said. She refuted it.
Be more informed!
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1287&pid=244211

[elleng]

6. Thanks. USEFUL.

[JoeOtterbein]

7. K n R !

[Fiendish Thingy]

8. Her one sentence summary of how to win: "it's all about the (progressive) base"

She says don't focus on moderate voters or trying to flip Trump voters.

[ancianita]

10. Sounds much like what we (with some exceptions) say around here, yes?

[highplainsdem]

12. She's talking about the Democratic base, not the progressive fraction of it.

It's clear from her analysis and from what she's been tweeting that she thinks moderate Democrats will be crucial in choosing our nominee, and she writes about a Biden/Harris ticket:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287246150

[Fiendish Thingy]

13. She writes about a Biden/Harris ticket from the perspective that w/o Harris, Biden wouldn't inspire

The turnout of the base required to win.

She specifically said "don't worry about the moderates", and said the base needs a reason to turn out in record numbers.

[JI7]

14. the base includes moderates . black, hispanic, jewish moderates are more likely to vote democratic

than jill stein types that claim to be the most liberalists ones of all.

[Fiendish Thingy]

16. Not according to Bitecofer

She specifically said "don't worry about the moderates" implying they will stay with the Dems. Besides inspiring the base to turnout in massive numbers, in her Salon interview, she did say the Stein voting independents were worth going after- they're the ones who responded to anti-Trump/GOP campaigns in 2018, not the Trump voting independents.

[JI7]

18. that's my point, the base includes moderates. the base is people that vote democratic regularly

[highplainsdem]

15. She also wrote this in her predictions for 2020:

If the nominee hails from the progressive wing of the party, it will provoke massive handwringing both within the party and the media that if not controlled could become self-reinforcing.

And in the last two tweets from her that I quoted in my thread about her, she makes it clear she is NOT saying the Denocratic Party has to move left or take extreme positions.

She considers moderate Democrats a very important part of the party and seems to think they'll be decisive in this primary.

[Fiendish Thingy]

19. That's a systemic concern, not a political one.

She felt that a progressive running a strong, anti-Trump campaign could easily win, with her only hesitation Being around Sanders.

Yes, there would be hand wringing from the media and Dem establishment, and a progressive nominee would have to be both forceful and artful in dismantling that false narrative.,If that can be done, I don't see any problem inspiring the voters to turnout.

A safe candidate who fits the beltway narrative might not be as inspiring, especially to the crucial young voter bloc. If the youth vote turns out in significant numbers, WE WILL WIN. Bitecofer agrees.

[highplainsdem]

21. And Bitecofer also believes Biden can win. And that moderates are going to play the most

important role in the primary.

[highplainsdem]

17. Btw, the Twitter thread of hers that I quote in my thread about her has her saying there are 4

main voting groups or blocs in the party:

4 groups, if/when they move in lock step have the power to push the nomination to a certain candidate. In order of strength these are The mainstreams (IE The Moderates), AAs, progressives, young people. Yes, these groups overlap members. Women COULD be a group, but have not shown


a "grouping" behavior in primary elections ever.

If moderates are the strongest bloc (and the mainstream), according to her own statement, followed by black voters, what makes you think only the third group there, the progressives, are the base?


I think that sometimes when she's talkiing about moderates she means independents, as opposed to moderate Democrats.

She is definitely urging that we focus on Democratic turnout, as opposed to trying to win independents and Republicans.

But I believe Biden can do both.. Especially with a running mate who will appeal to progressives.

[Fiendish Thingy]

22. From her Salon interview:

"Absolutely. In fact, in the district-level analysis of the voter file in California and Virginia that I'll be releasing after Labor Day, I have competitive districts in those states. The data shows the turnout surge and how much different the composition of the electorate was between 2014 and 2018. I'm also able to show that even in these districts where Democrats ran Blue Dog candidates who were as unobtrusive as possible — with, exactly as you stated, the goal of not riling up Trump voters — the turnout for Republican voters in those districts was huge.

In fact, not only did Democrats not get the benefit of not stirring up the Trump base — the Trump base was stirred up and showed up in huge numbers — but by not tapping into anti-Trump sentiment in their own campaign strategy, by not intentionally activating that Trump angst, they paid a price in terms of their own base turnout. It was depressed, compared to other districts.

<snip>
So you might think, "Why is that? If one group of candidates took more liberal issue positions, why did they win over independents?" It seems counterfactual, and the reason is what mattered was turnout. O’Rourke and Abrams carried independents because turnout surged, with different independents showing up to vote, motivated by the targeting strategy deployed by those campaigns, which were run under my suggested model rather than the old playbook that used to work back in the '90s and '80s."

Targeting Anti-Trump sentiment with Liberal issue positions will drive turn out and win the election.

[highplainsdem]

23. Biden's targeting anti-Trump sentiment as much as, if not more than, the other candidates. And his

issue positions ARE liberal. They're not extreme left, but they're liberal.

[highplainsdem]

26. Just listened to her again. She's clearly using "moderates" to mean centrist independents

in that section of her appearance on The Last Word.

I don't have the exact quote, but she said, paraphrasing, "Moderates can be appealed to, but Democrats don't do it well."

She would NOT have said "but Democrats don't do it well" if she was talking about moderate Democrats.

I wish she'd be more careful with her terminology, since it's causing confusion.

Anyway, I'll get the exact quote later, or a video clip. The words "but Democrats don't do it well" are an exact quote, and follow her saying that moderates "can be appealed to."

[ancianita]

11. Here's the Big Chart of Bitecofer's 2020 projections -- look out, Nate Silver!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTWlh8hq-BlzaB8qnMqg4J6phsyejBzMDfYy_rGdZMZMRi_0v32_whbaE08xhrOCHMJ-7GSxKOhIL3B/pubhtml/sheet?headers=true&gid=0

[oasis]

20. Kick for L.O.'s show. Repeating now 10:00 pacific time.

[highplainsdem]

24. Bitecofer was on the last 10 minutes of the show, I think.