The Loneliest Democrat in America

Hamilton Nolan
10/03/18

Greg Sagan is 70 years old. He has the swept-back gray hair and assured, learned manner of a former corporate consultant, which he is. When he campaigns he wears a navy blue suit jacket and a blue name tag that reads: “Greg Sagan. Democrat for U.S. House. District 13.” Even though he had a column in the local newspaper for 14 years, he needs the name tag, because he hasn’t run any television ads. He hasn’t put up any billboards. His opponent, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, has raised $1.1 million, and Sagan has raised a little over $20,000. He’s spent most of that money driving around the district for the past year, holding town halls, asking people what they want. His driver is his wife Dianne, who is also his campaign manager. The fact that he is, statistically, the Democrat with the biggest uphill battle in the nation does not appear to bother him a bit.

[...]

We’re sitting in a red upholstered booth in a Denny’s in late September, just off I-40 in east Amarillo, TX. We’re in the middle of Texas’ 13th Congressional District, rated as +33 points Republican, which makes it the reddest district you will find anywhere in our 50 states.

[...]

Sagan had never thought of going into politics before. He is not exactly the activist type. He has the sort of strong but silent moral code that builds up in families that serve in the military for generation after generation. “The people I feel an affinity for are people like me who, out of the best intentions, went off to a terrible war, did their best in that war, and came off feeling guilty about it,” he says. His entire career path—military, strategic consulting, economics—has led him to value precision, competency, and dependability. It is not hard to see how a man like Donald Trump offends virtually every sensibility that he possesses. “There’s been nobody more dangerous in the White House in my lifetime,” he says. “And the Republican Party, as I feared they would, turned into a bunch of facilitators of his conduct.”

[...]

He has a plan. He is ceding the political money and advertising fight to his opponent in favor of a grassroots (read: he and Dianne) effort to turn out the vote, by targeting young people and black people, LGBTQ people and Latinos and women and people who work hard and don’t make enough money. These are the people he sees as his base. They are not served by the Republican Party; they constitute a majority of the residents of the district; and, by and large, they do not vote.

[...]

But Sagan points out that given the area’s low voter turnout, even that margin means that far less than half of the potential voters in the district actually voted for Thornberry. “If I can get half of the people who didn’t vote last time to come out and vote for me, I win,” Sagan says. It sounds so straightforward, in the same way that a pledge to climb Mount Everest does.

[...]

Vote, because many are prevented

Republicans have used gerrymandering, voter purges, and voter suppression in Florida, Georgia, North Dakota, Kansas, Alabama, Texas, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and elsewhere to bend elections to their desires. Disenfranchised voters can't fix it; it's up to those of us who can vote to get out and do so.

The Long-Term Solution to Voter Suppression
Efforts to expand the franchise could ultimately counteract efforts to shrink it.

Sam Wang Oct 31, 2018

News stories on voting this campaign season have focused on suppression tactics that make casting a ballot more difficult for citizens. Less appreciated is the fact that next week’s midterm elections could result in a vast expansion of voting rights. All told, the expansion measures could broaden the franchise more than current suppression measures shrink it.

These opportunities come via voter initiatives in three areas: redistricting reform, automatic voter registration, and restoration of voting rights to felons who have served their time.

[...]

https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/574441/

US mid-terms: What are the claims of voter suppression?

Many states, the majority of them governed by Republicans, have put in place new legislation, saying it is needed to prevent rampant voter fraud.

Those opposed to the measures say the threat is extremely low and argue that their true goal is to prevent specific groups - such as minorities, who tend to favour Democrats - from voting.

"They're occurring in places where Republicans currently have partisan control but they're concerned they might lose it," says Vanessa Williamson, a governance studies fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington, DC, who has written about the topic.

"It's indisputable that these choices are strategic for several reasons because often enough, local and state election officials have said out loud the intention of removing certain demographics from voting rolls."

[...]