Kerry Eleveld’s Posts for Daily Kos

• Schumer on health care: 'What McConnell did in the last three days is a game changer for us'
  Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is sounding pretty bullish just a few days after GOP Majority Leader Mitch McConnell unveiled Republicans' deepest desires to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and take another whack at repealing the Affordable Care Act (which would also gut pre-existing conditions coverage). "Mitch McConnell gave us a gift in the […]
• Forget Trump's closing argument, Democrats should play the game they're winning: health care
  On Thursday, Trump explicitly told us which issue he wanted everyone to forget about—health care and pre-existing conditions coverage. "All Republicans support people with pre-existing conditions, and if they don’t, they will after I speak to them," he tweeted. "I am in total support. Also, Democrats will destroy your Medicare, and I will keep it […]
• Chief architect of the GOP tax scam runs from it on the campaign trail
  Illinois Rep. Peter Roskam of the 6th Congressional District had big plans for how the Republican tax giveaway to the rich was going to help lift the GOP to victory in the midterms. But now that same plan is being wielded against him on the campaign trail, writes TPM's Cameron Joseph.  While Roskam isn't airing any […]
• Where's all the mainstream lampooning of McConnell for handing Democrats a midterm gift?
  Conservative pundits have been all over Democrats in recent weeks for supposedly handing Republicans political gifts, such as Hillary Clinton and former Attorney General Eric Holder recently advocating for fighting Republicans more aggressively. "Democrats are blowing it, again," chided conservative New York Times columnist Bret Stephens last week in an op-ed that echoed several others in the Washington […]
• Democrats crushed fundraising in both 'Competitive' AND 'Republican-held' districts
  Earlier this week, we learned that Democratic candidates overall had outraised their GOP counterparts by about $80 million ($252 to $172 million), fueled in part by an insanely good third quarter. Now The Economist is giving us another layer of detail on where that third quarter money actually went in the House races and who […]
• Democrats pounce as McConnell lobbies for cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid
  Pundits are often quick to jump on Democrats for their messaging blunders, but frankly Mitch McConnell made about the biggest messaging gaffe possible Tuesday when he explicitly put some of the government's most popular programs on the chopping block. In an interview with Bloomberg News, McConnell pegged Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid as the key drivers of […]
• Journalists are obsessing over a new voter—suburban women—and not a moment too soon
  Oh, yes, surely we will still be hearing liberally from Trump voters whose only regret is their hero's failure thus far to actually drop someone on 5th Avenue. But even Washington journalists seem to have tired of them a bit. And just in time for the midterms, we are starting to meet a new crop of voters […]
• Ex-Trump attorney Michael Cohen has been spending A LOT of quality time with federal investigators
  Ex-Trump lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen seems intent on atoning for his work promoting Donald Trump and although you may not necessarily be excited about his switch in party ID, you likely will be enthused about Emily Jane Fox's latest reporting: Despite having no formal cooperation agreement with the government, Cohen has willingly assisted and provided information […]
• As Nate Silver reminds us: We gotta run all the way through the tape on Nov. 6
  Nate Silver has been issuing a lot of cautionary tweets lately about which party is likely to win which chamber (or both) and even about specific races, like the Texas Senate matchup between Beto O'Rourke and Ted Cruz. There’s one thing Silver is crystal clear about: journalists largely suck at this.  “Media understanding about probability, margin of error […]
• Democrats have democratized fundraising and it's overwhelming Republicans
  It's no secret by now that small-dollar donors are on fire this cycle and swamping Republican candidates with their cash push toward Democratic candidates. The New York Times crunched the third quarter numbers and found "Democrats outraised their Republican opponents in 32 of the closest 45 House races by a total margin of $154 million to $108 million since […]