On Sunday, George Whitesides stood smiling shyly at a crowd of 150 liberal boomers, one-percenters and political hacks in a Hope Ranch living room, quite mindful of the cameo role he was playing for the occasion.
"I know I'm the pretext for your gathering, but I am not the headline for why you're gathering," said Whitesides, a big brain business executive who happens to be the Democratic candidate in the tight race for California's 27th Congressional District seat.
The "headline" in his formulation was Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, who was standing a few feet away.
Jeffries had parachuted in to raise some quick cash for his party's guy in the 27th, the closest battleground to Santa Barbara, in hopes a Nov. 5 victory in that northern L.A. County, high desert district would bring him one seat closer to the handful he needs to flip to become Speaker.
Three weeks before the election, it was, forJeffries, one more in a steady stream of brief, speak-and-split appearances in a peripatetic odyssey around the nation -- Arizona, Iowa, Nebraska, New York, Oregon and, most of all, California -- as he wields his considerable charisma and political talent on behalf of Democratic challengers with fair odds of ousting Republican sitting members of Congress.
For Democrats, and perhaps for democracy, too, the stakes could not be higher.
Why the House really matters. With the GOP a heavy favorite to take over the Senate, the Kamala Harris-Donald Trump presidential contest a coin flip election, and a conservative supermajority firmly ensconced on the Supreme Court, the possibility that control of the House becomes the only Democratic firewall against an onslaught of right-wing, authoritarian extremism and MAGA madness is, alas, not a remote one.
"This is a fragile moment in time," Jeffries said at the Hope Ranch home of community hero Susan Rose, who'd opened her place up for the Democratic Women fundraiser. "We know that democracy is fragile, we know that democracy is under assault."
In the event, Jeffries, escorted by SB Rep. Salud Carbajal and aided by the energetic, arm-twisting, money raising skills of former state Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, secured about $100,000 for the campaign of Whitesides.
The candidate is a former NASA chief of staff and ex-CEO of the commercial spaceflight company Virgin Galactic, who is running to unseat two-term Republican congressman Mike Garcia, a red-hat Trump guy, who voted, in support the thugs who invaded the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, not to certify the 2020 election, and who has, in support of Evangelical Christian nationalism, backed a federal abortion ban.
The 27th district is the site of one of five key congressional battles Democrats are waging for seats now held by California Republicans -- in addition to an Orange County district where Rep. Katie Porter is vacating her seat -- that the parties consider crucial in determining who will run the House,
At the Santa Barbara event, Jeffries, Carbajal and Whitesides all told their audience the Dems need only "flip four seats" to capture the House, although the arithmetic -- and the political challenge -- is slightly more complicated.
By the numbers:
There are 435 seats in the House; 218 is the magic number to hold the majority.
Republicans currently hold a 220-212 edge over Democrats, with 3 vacancies created by deaths or early retirements of incumbents.
Two of those vacancies are in Democratic districts, one is Republican; so, for forecasting purposes, make the partisan breakdown heading into November 221-214. Hence the campaign season assertion that ousting four Republican incumbents would give Democrats the -- narrowest possible --majority of 218-217.
CYA mathematical disclaimer. There are about two dozen seats rated as true "toss-ups" by the authoritative Cook Political Report .
In most of these, one party seeks to beat an incumbent of the other, in districts with close partisan voter registration totals; in a few cases, partisans are competing for an open seat, also in close registration districts.
Altogether there are more than two dozen seats left open by House members retiring or running for other offices, which technically are up for grabs but where registration heavily favors a candidate of one or the other party.
This means that, in their drive to "flip four seats," Democrats also need to protect all their incumbents and hold onto open seats they now control as well.
Bottom line. That said, the most intrinsic chance for Democrats to hold at least a fraction of power in Washington rests in winning back the House of Representatives.
And while a seemingly infinite amount of media campaign coverage continues to rain down on the presidential race -- a campaign in which the Golden State politically is all but irrelevant -- don't sleep on the battle for the House.
One way or the other, the road to a majority most likely runs straight through California.
Stop paying attention to polls. At last count, there have been exactly 27,891,456,333,919 polls released of the Harris-Trump race. OK, that number's made up, but it's probably not far off.
Media polls. University polls. Independent polls. Non-profit polls. Campaign polls.
In the last 10 days or so, many of these polls purport to carry bad news for Harris: She's lost a point in Wisconsin! She's stalled out! She's slipping among first-time voting Black veterinarians! Her support among Philadelphia suburban moms who played soccer in their junior year and have at least two daughters appears to be eroding! Forget the Milwaukee Croatian polka vote!
For those afflicted with night terrors, political panic attacks or endemic existential dread, some savvy, battle-scarred perspective:
It is a tradition among Democrats in the Trump era. Around the first couple of weeks of October, we lose our minds and briefly forget everything we have learned about politics. Democratic electeds and operatives start panicking about the polls and dial up every reporter in their contacts to offload their anxiety in the least helpful ways possible.
We are in one of those moments now
Dan Pfeiffer is an expert on polling who was a senior political aide to Barack Obama, and who now hosts a podcast, and a Substack newsletter, called "The Message Box," both worth following as trepidation and alarm increase while the looming election draws ever nearer. Tick, tick, tick...
Here's some sound advice from a recent offering (helpfully titled, "It's time to stop panicking about the polls," in case you don't want to bother actually reading it).
On one hand, I get it. The stakes could not be higher and the race could not be closer. It’s equal parts mystifying and enraging that someone as dumb and dangerous as Donald Trump could win the election. However, to quote a famous meme from this exact moment in the 2008 campaign:
“Everyone needs to chill the fuck out.”
I am not telling anyone to stop “bedwetting.” And I am certainly NOT telling people that Kamala Harris will definitely win. Trump may still win this race. By some measures, Trump is stronger than he was in 2020. But the whiplash between the Democratic elation of a few weeks ago and the full-on panic of the last few days is detached from reality. This has been a remarkably stable race. The vibes changed, but the race hasn’t.
With three weeks to go, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are in a dead-heat race nationally and in all seven battleground states. That’s where the race was before the Democratic convention, after the second debate, and after the second assassination attempt on Trump. For an election beset by a series of unprecedented events, the Harris-Trump race remains remarkably steady.
Read the whole thing. Even better, check out Pfeiffer's recent interview on the subject with David Plouffe, who was Obama's campaign manager and is now a top adviser to Harris.
Political snuggle. And if you're in the market for an even more reassuring political snuggle, take a look at "Hopium Chronicles"by longtime Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg. A sample:
As we set off to do our work this week a reminder that Donald Trump never had super powers, or some magical connection with the American people. He only won in 2016 due to extraordinary interventions by the Russian government and the FBI…
Donald Trump is weak not strong. A loser not a winner. A baby man not a powerful man. A failure not a success. A criminal not a leader. A traitor not a patriot. He is unwell, unstable and deeply diminished. He and his failed extremist politics have had disappointing elections in 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023 and are about to have another one this year too. He is the ugliest political thing any of us has ever seen.
Trump is getting badly outraised in this election. It is not clear he has any ground game at all. He has spent enormous sums of his campaign cash on his legal bills and not the election itself. The opposition he’s facing from important leaders in his own party is unprecedented in the modern era of US politics. He didn’t show up for the last debate in the 2020 election, and isn’t showing up for the last debate this time too after getting his ass kicked by Vice President Harris.
Vance is the most unpopular VP candidate in history. There was so much doubt about Trump’s candidacy that Rs recruited three “independent” candidates to run this time, not just one. Every day Trump has to invent a party to run against because he can’t beat the one he actually faces. He is selling watches, bibles, crypto, a failed media company and other snake oil to line his pockets further diverting money from his campaign. He is a rapist, fraudster, traitor and 34 times felon. He badly bungled COVID and let hundreds of thousands of Americans die unnecessarily.
The economy crashed on his watch, and he was the first President since Hoover to have seen net job loss. Crime rose while he was President, as did the deficit, the uninsured rate and overdose deaths.
You get the idea. Read the whole thing.
JR
Image: Hakeem Jeffries speaks in Hope Ranch on Sunday (Marian Shapiro); (L-R) Salud Carbajal, George Whitesides, Hakeem Jeffries (jr photo).
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