LyrArc Article Gist
Simply put the party that makes the best case for the economy and for a better future consistently and constantly will prevail as at the end of the day white, black, rural and urban voters will be listening carefully. The cost of living, immigration, the economy, are major issues in 2024. Nate Cohn of the NYT looks at the 2020 election, the 2022 midterms and polling for 2024. He says Republicans are doing better in states they did well in the midterms in 2022. Nationally they are doing as well as in the midterms making gains in noncompetitive blue states such as New York and California where there is less impact of Roe vs Wade abortion rights and voters can show discontent with Democrats for the way they have governed. Trump can also gain with black and Hispanic voters but more in California and New York and Texas noncompetitive states.  Harris does well in Florida, and Texas, and in some red states for the same reason as voters look for alternatives from being tied down to the Republican party or the Trump Republicans.  In the key Electoral College states in midwest Harris is holding up well in polling- in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. In these states Black and Hispanics are not in the same population numbers as in other states. ...

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The closing days of the US campaign in October 2024. Walz campaigns in Nebraska, Harris in Michigan and Trump in Pennsylvania.

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See president Biden's address to the nation on July 14, 2024. Biden called on the nation to heal and avoid violence, to settle the future of the Nation not by violence- and he cited a train of events that led up to the shooting at the Pennsylvania rally yesterday- but at the ballot box. This is the way Americans have sought to tackle the wide difference in what the future of the nation should be. The vigorous and sincere words of president Biden on the way to set the nation's future and the need to unite, to lower the tone and step back, to reflect, come from the best in America.

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How third party candidates in 2016 put Trump in the White House is shown in graphs in the WSJ. Since 2000 about 2% of the vote goes to third party candidates such as Greens, Libertarian, and others, in 2016 this reached 6%. It hurt Clinton the most as the Trump lead in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin was merely 5-10% of 200,000-300,000 votes for independent candidates in Wisconsin,  in Michigan and in Pennsylvania. Hillary Clinton lacked clear focus in her campaign and her years as overseas traveling foreign minister left her out of touch with the alienation of the working class and fragmentation as Silicon valley tech and financial interests intruded into the Democratic party. This had the effect of muddying the focus on the Democrats FDR/Truman working class base and also with America's rural voters suffering from a toxic mix of problems. In 2024 the Kennedy candidacy takes as many or more votes from Mr. Trump says the WSJ. The Biden focus on workers and families gives the Democrats a clear direction along with wage gains by union labor and a resilient economy with low unemployment. This suggests that the independent candidates may not find more traction than the 2% of previous elections since 2000. ...

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The Democratic Party's better performance in the midwestern states of Michigan, and Wisconsin, and in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia,in the 2018 midterm elections.  These states are crucial to win in the presidential election of 2020.

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In the closing days of the Harris vs Trump election campaign in October 2024, Trump attends a rally in Madison Square Garden in New York city. Harris visits a Baptist church in Philadelphia, and talks to young black men at a barber shop, visits a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philly. The visit to the Puerto Rican restaurant comes as a comedian at the Trump Madison Square Garden rally makes racist remarks about Latinos, Blacks and Jews, and calls Puerto Rico an "island of garbage." About 579,000 Latinos and Puerto Ricans make up the voting public in Pennsylvania. Latino stars put up video clips of the comments on Latinos on social media expressing their disapproval.

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Yes millions of jobs created under Biden in 4 years- 19 million jobs. Yet the growth in jobs is uneven across counties and states in the US. A full 43 percent of counties have not fared as well with jobs not reaching 2019 prepandemic levels by the beginning of 2024. This includes Michigan with Wayne County having 2% less from 2019 levels. It includes Pennsylvania and the Pittsburgh area. It includes Wisconsin. Western and southern states did better with Arizona and Nevada going in opposite directions one gaining from investments in electric cars and green energy, and the other Nevada suffering from the hit taken by workers in hotels and hospitality.  NYT shows in graphical detail the situation today.

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On his first day Jan 18, 2023, Josh Shapiro, Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania, signed an executive order that eliminated the requirement of a college degree for 92% of jobs in the state government, 62,000 jobs. Utah and Maryland made similar changes last year with Republican Governors. The Editorial Board of NYT says- for far too long, too many Americans see  society and economy as unfairly skewed to serve the needs of well connected elites, and people with a college education, looking down and excluding the rest.

 

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During the Republican Senate campaign in 2022 to replace Pat Toomey, both candidates Oz and McCormick had assets over $100 million according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. This seat was won by Dan Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania. The contrast between the wealthy and the middle class candidates and their distance from average Americans struggling to make a living was very clear, almost similar to the billionaire former president and the Harris-Walz Middle class candidates vowing to rebuild the American middle class atrophied from outsourcing of jobs overseas and wages falling behind cost of living for ordinary workers.

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John Fetterman Democrat of Pennsylvania has maintained a friendship with Katie Britt, Republican freshman from Alabama, and even turned up in Congress to show Britt's son around the House and Senate buildings. It shows how some senators in the US Congress are taking stances independent of their parties different factions and staying true to their authentic selves about what they see as right. For example Fetterman and Britt are introducing legislation requiring children to be 13 years of age to use social media platforms. Texas Senator Cornyn and other Republicans are at ease talking to John Fetterman. It is the kind of bipartisanship that is emerging in 2024 in the US. Fetterman says he is behind president Biden and is campaigning in 7 states calling Biden "a decent, good guy," and a tough guy.

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Full transcript of Kamala Harris Interview on MSNBC with Stephanie Ruhle on September 25, 2024, the same day when she outlined her Economic Plan for the next 4 years at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh is where the US steel industry was built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Harris outlined a plan that would help rebuild American industry including the steel industry and other key industries of the future, in Chips and Science, in a partnership of the government with the private sector to compete with China and the European Union. 

She looked back to the ambition and vision of another era and to bring it back today-the Transcontinental Railroad under Lincoln, the Interstate Highway System under Eisenhower, the Space Endeavor under John F. Kennedy.

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In 2023 there are 4.3 million electric vehicles on American roads and 150,000 public charging ports. President Biden's goal is for 50% of cars to be EV's by 2030 with 500,000 public charging ports. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory affiliated with DOE forecasts need for 1 million charging ports. Ohio and Pennsylvania are leading the way in a slow start with other states joining in. A single public charging port can cost about $150,000. It will cost $31 billion to $55 billion to build the public portion of a national charging network. About $24 billion is planned investment.

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The blue collar city of Wilkes-Barre in Pennsylvania in October 2024- Harris makes the pledge to get rid of college degree requirement for jobs. Something Governor Shapiro had learned working in rural and working class parts of the state. All about respect and opportunity.

Governor Shapiro learning from his campaign in 2022 says-

 “I can remember some conversations I had early on in the campaign, about how they felt disrespected by the Democratic Party that only talked about helping people earn a college degree.”

Kamala Harris says in Wilkes-Barre-

For far too long, our nation has encouraged only one path to success.”

 

 

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The US Senate races in 2024. See if you can connect the names to the state in US where the contest is being decided November 5. Bob Casey Jon Tester Tammy Baldwin Angela Alsobrooks Jacky Rosen Ruben Gallego Colin Allred Which is the big upset race? Who are the Independent Senators who retired? Answers- Casey- Pennsylvania, Tester- Montana, Baldwin- Wisconsin, Alsobrooks-Maryland,  Rosen- Nevada, Gallego- Arizona Colin Allred- Texas The big upset US Senate race in Texas, Colin Allred to unseat Republican Ted Cruz. Independent Senators retiring Joe Manchin- West Virginia, Krysten Sinema-Arizona. With their support Biden passed the Inflation Reduction Act, other major legislation to invest in the renewal of America's infrastructure, American manufacturing,  CHIPS and Science.   ...

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Just 18% of the US population will decide who is the next president of the US. In 2020 even with a lead of 7 million votes Biden could have lost the election without 45,000 votes in Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona. Mrs. Clinton with 2.9 million vote lead lost the Electoral College without 80,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The US Electoral College is unique among western countries and is based on a concept that the passions of the "general mass" of the population should be moderated by giving more power to smaller states. The US president is elected not by a direct vote but by a vote cast by state and its electoral college, and the total electoral college votes determines who won and who lost. The focus is on swingable states of which there were 10 in 2020. 

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About 2.6 million eligible to vote people in Michigan and 3.5 million in Pennsylvania, and 1.3 million in Wisconsin did not vote in the 2016 election. The critical states this time are also Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and these three states went to the winner by less than 10,000 in Michigan, 20,000 in Wisconsin and 50,000 in Pennsylvania.  A NYT analysis of Census Bureau data for 2016 election reveals that most of these people who are eligible but do not vote have lost interest in both parties that show little interest in delivering for them. Many of them are shown to be lower income voters, voters doing 2 jobs, or voters struggling financially. Some are single child parents in today's social structures. Getting a small portion of this vote can make a difference in a close election.  From 1840 to 1900 the percent of voting age population that voted has been between 70 to 80%. By the 1920's this dropped to about 50%. And it has been around 55% since the period of the Great Depression except for elections in 1952 and 56 for General Eisenhower and 1960 for John Kennedy. Even Harry Truman's whistlestop train campaign in 1948 got only 51% out to vote. Even the Roosevelt FDR three campaigns in 1932, 1936 and 1940 got 52-58% of voting age population to vote. The highest of any election was the election that led to the Civil War in which Lincoln won where 81% of the voting age population voted. Is it possible that America was a relatively much more prosperous country in the period 1840-1900 before large scale immigration from poorer parts of Europe and then poorer parts of Latin America and Asia, and large scale urbanization. With ample land and independent farmers in the nineteenth century leaving less scope for the poverty that exists in urban areas and social decay in rural areas and small towns that is seen today. Resulting in a much more civic consciousness and awareness of America's future and destiny than exists today. By comparison voter turnout in India has increased to 66% in 2014 election and 67% in 2018 after alternating high and low between 50-60% since 1947. Some forecasts are for a high turnout in the U.S. in 2020 to exceed 60%. The bright side for democracy is shown by the 911 million people who voted in the last Indian election of 2018. ...

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The bonds developed between Kamala Harris as AG in the settlement with the banks for faulty mortgages with other AG's is shown here in NYT. Roy Cooper of North Carolina was one of the AG's Kamala had a lot of contact with in Washington and in Durham. Roy, 67 years, was elected governor twice in North Carolina. Beshear, 49 years, was AG in Kentucky at the time. He was elected governor of Kentucky, a Democrat in a state voting Republican. Roy took on the banks "for relief for homeowners who were wrongfully foreclosed upon,” Mr. Cooper said.  “I admired her tenacity then as I do now.” Mr Hood AG for Mississippi says Kamala was the fun AG with a sense of humor, and Roy Cooper was the affable low key guy, the gentleman lawyer who never raised his voice, and yet built coalitions and was effective. The AG of Pennsylvania who was elected as Kamala left office as AG and ran for the US Senate, is Ben Shapiro, 51 years. Shapiro came in as AG when Kamala left the AG office to run for the US Senate. He came to know Kamala when he was State Rep. and has stayed in touch over the years. He led a multistate effort that led to the Opioid settlement, and is popular in Pennsylvania with 61% approval and won the governor's office with help from the suburbs and rural counties in 2020. ...

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Competing oligopolies or Competition? American capitalism in reality is a mix of both. Government's role in American economy shifting from higher in the Great Depression to low in Globalization and now back to supporting business to compete with China/India/Germany's Subsidized Capitalism. This WSJ piece that take a circle around the bases for a home run is in reality not a true reflection of America's management of it's economy over the last 200 years since 1825. There is a high degree of individualism, yes because it is a land that is forever expanding on sparsely populated Indian territory in the west starting under Jefferson and Washington at the Ohio/Pennsylvania frontier. By 1900 there is the emergence of the great corporations and monopolies, oligopolies with TR's busting of monopolies by 1920, and much of that structure is still there in 2025, with some obsolescence for changing technology. Oligopolies in information technologies simply absorb the small companies, and government is itself run by powerful lobbying as in the pharma industry to the sheer and alarming detriment of all Americans. ...

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Would a generic Democrat do better? Mr. Biden's weakness is with less engaged voters says this analysis of a Times Siena poll showing less support in battleground states. One queer aspect of this poll is that Kamala Harris does slightly better because she does better with non white voters. Mr. Biden does well with white voters retaining all of his support achieved in the 2020 election with white voters. Another queer aspect of this poll is that a so called generic Democrat would win by large margins of over 5% in most of the battleground states over Mr. Trump, in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Another queer aspect of the poll is that Michigan has all three- the Governor's position, the State Assembly and other positions in the hands of Democrats who have performed well in the state.

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The Indian prime minister's choice for heading Indian Railways and the IT Ministry is similar to his choice of Mr. Jaishankar for the Ministry of External Affairs. He selected a person with the drive and conviction as well as the experience to tackle the important job of modernizing Indian Railways so that it provides the convenience and access that is seen in Europe with new investment and advances in technology. The 50 year old Vaishnaw is from Orissa, yet grew up in Jodhpur where he attended engineering school, before doing M Tech from IIT Kanpur. He had an all India rank of 27 in the Indian Civil Services exam. In 2003 he worked as Deputy Secretary in the prime minister's office when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was prime minister. He was private secretary to Mr. Vajpayee in 2004. He then studied for a Masters degree at the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, and worked for General Electric and Siemens in India in transportation related projects. By 2019 Ashwini Vaishnaw had caught the attention of the Indian prime minister as a capable administrator with a can do attitude in India's modernization efforts. He was nominated for the upper house of parliament. In 2021 July he was appointed to lead 2 important ministries - railways and IT. His first action in the first 48 hours was to ask senior officers in the rail ministry and IT ministry to work two shifts alternately from 7am to 3pm, and 3 pm to 12 midnight so that work can be pushed forward that needed to be done in great speed for modernization. Delivering on the vision of the prime minister for modernizing the country is now the task of this ministry and Mr. Vaishnaw. ...

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A detailed story on Fethullah Gulen, once an ally of president Erdogan in his effort to reduce the influence of the nation's military but now seen by him as a rival. Gulen lives in Pennsylvania. The recent coup in Turkey, and the efforts by Erdogan to reduce the influence of Gulen supporters in Turkey, has increased tensions between Turkey and the U.S. This is happening just as Turkey's relations with Germany are worsening after the failed coup, the  Erdogan response, and what is seen as a drift to authoritarian rule. Earlier corruption inquiries in 2014 critical of the Erdogan government by judges in the Gulen faction of the AK Party led to the split between the two factions, followed by Erdogan controlling judicial appointments and controlling the media.

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Janet Protasiewicz, a Democrat, wins 55% to 45% for Republican Daniel Kelly in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election. This gives Democrats a one vote majority in the Supreme Court. It will mean a challenge of a 1849 abortion law and the redrawing of the electoral maps that gives Republicans  a majority in the state assembly. The governor is Democrat Tony Evers and the legislature in Wisconsin has a Republican majority.  States in the midwest such as Michigan and Wisconsin played a part in Mr. Trump's gain of the presidency. Since then Ohio has moved into the Republican side, and the close contests are in places like Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia. Colorado moved to the Democratic side. Just 40,000 votes in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin separated Biden from Trump in the election of 2020 even though Biden had 7 million more votes than Biden because of the Electoral College system which goes by state's won. In 2016 Trump and Biden were separated by just 80,000 votes.   ...

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Experts say about 110,000 votes separate Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the three states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that decided the 2016 presidential election in the U.S. giving Trump the win. Post election reflection in the Democratic party points to a disconnect between the establishment in both parties and the white working class. It is described as something that was not thought enough about even though as pointed out in Lyrarc, and in The Washington Post by columnists, and in news coverage about the inequality movement long before Bernie Sanders appeared in 2015. In the period when banks were favored over millions of homeowners facing foreclosure in 2010-2014, the surging stock market and the zero to to half percent interest on savings that hurt savings of most of the working class and lower middle class without stock investments, and the continuing problems in communities facing job losses from trade for the third decade. The hollowing out of the regions in Ontario from job losses from the Canadian industry helped Justin Trudeau win the Canadian election. In this election it helped Trump in crucial midwestern states, combined with a degree of indifference shown by establishment Democrats. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean is planning to run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Bernie Sanders says he backs Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison to be the next chair of the DNC. Jeff Weaver, campaign manager for Sanders, says the problem lies in what has been clear for some time now "that the centrist wing of the democratic party has no standing with working class and middle class  voters in this country." In 2016 only 51% of union households supported Clinton the lowest since 1980, 43% supported Trump. Obama won 59% of union households in 2008 and 58% in 2012 to 40% for Republican Romney. Trump picked up 3% of union households, Clinton lost 7% of union households, creating about a 10 point gap that would be magnified in industrial states where union jobs are concentrated, for about 18% of the people who voted in the election, enough to create the shortfall in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsyslvania. Fed chairman Janet Yellen pointed out the problems at an Inequality conference in Boston in 2014, pretty stark in its reminder that inequality had surged to levels not seen since the depression of the thirties, with 62 million households having a net worth of $11,000. Krugman and other economists had pointed this out on the pages of the NYT. Yet the post election reflection in the media is as if this is some special insight when it was clear for all to see, and covered in depth in Lyrarc for years since 2008. There is voter fatigue after 8 years of one party in power as pointed out by Obama campaign strategist, David Axelrod. The loss of union enthusiasm made the task of  a third term for the Democratic party even more difficult.     ...

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New Hampshire is known from poet Robert Frost's days to chart out its own path. It did so yesterday in typical Robert Frost ways- "Two roads diverged in a wood and I- I took the road less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." Fettterman of Pennsylvania Masto of Nevada, Shaheen of New Hampshire and King of Maine all Senators who helped get 8 Senators to vote with Republicans on ending shutdown Nov 10, 2025. Tim Kaine of Virginia was pulled in because of the 300,000 federal workers in Virginia that are his constituents for whom he felt a special responsibility and negotiated with Republicans to reverse layoffs, get back pay. This may be a key achievement of Time Kaine that is truly bipartisan. New Yorkers Schumer and Jeffries not having a federal workforce to worry about had no such responsibility and led the effort against a compromise. Masto says she saw long lines in northern Nevada for food pantry that she had not seen since Covid. Maggie Hassan joined King and Shaheen from their part of Maine-New Hampshire, and Masto was able to pull in Jacky Rosen of Nevada. All these senators are not up for reelection next year and Dick Durbin is retiring next year. As an experienced leader of Democrats Durbin might have felt that the Schumer-Jeffries demand on ACA subsidies was only going to hurt Americans who needed help, that 40 days of shutdown was accomplishing little. ...

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A nuclear plant in a war zone with repeated shelling? This is taken up in this debate video of 44 minutes in FR24 which you can click on. The world has not seen this since the start of nuclear energy from plants in the 1950's. Calder Hall the first UK nuclear power station and the first in western Europe started in 1956. Eisenhower opened the first US nuclear power station Shippingport on the Ohio river in Pennsylvania, 50 kilometres from Pittsburgh in 1958 as part of the Atoms for Peace Program. The US built 54 nuclear plants that are operating today in 2022 generating 50% of the renewable energy in use today in the US. The question is what does the unthinkable conducted by the Russians and Ukrainians, by weaponizing a nuclear plant do to public perception of the safety of the Atoms for Peace Program initiated by president Eisenhower in 1954? What does this damaging of public safety perceptions after Fukushima do to the Atoms for Peace type of programs in China India, and European Union that are part of the emissions cutting programs in the world? These are serious questions at a time when climate change is not simply a word but means floods, fires, drought, and declining food production all over the world from Spain to Pakistan, from Germany to China. China and India are affected. China has 53 nuclear plants in 2021 with 50 GW and plans to double this by 2030. India has 22 nuclear plants  with 8 GW in 2021 and plans to triple this to 22 GW by 2030. How will climate change be tackled with public safety perceptions affected with another nuclear accident like that in Fukushima arising from shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. As the president of the UN Security Council Zhang Jun of China clearly stated at the UN SC meeting last week that China opposed use of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant by Russia (or Ukraine) in any way that could lead to damaging nuclear safety leading to an unintended accident. China only gets about 5% of its energy from nuclear, India about 3%, and this will need to increase multiple times to tackle climate change. France gets 70% of its energy from nuclear, the US 20%, by comparison. Nuclear energy safety and clear rules to prevent weaponizing of nuclear plant zones is essential and a solution like that developed for the food grain shipments from Odessa through Black Sea to the Mediterranean has to be arranged quickly. ...