David Shor is telling Democrats what they don't want to hear.

[Tomconroy]

President Biden’s agenda is in peril. Democrats hold a bare 50 seats in the Senate, which gives any member of their caucus the power to block anything he or she chooses, at least in the absence of Republican support. And Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are wielding that leverage ruthlessly.

But here’s the truly frightening thought for frustrated Democrats: This might be the high-water mark of power they’ll have for the next decade.

Democrats are on the precipice of an era without any hope of a governing majority. The coming year, while they still control the House, the Senate and the White House, is their last, best chance to alter course. To pass a package of democracy reforms that makes voting fairer and easier. To offer statehood to Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. To overhaul how the party talks and acts and thinks to win back the working-class voters — white and nonwhite — who have left them behind the electoral eight ball. If they fail, they will not get another chance. Not anytime soon.

[Get more from Ezra Klein by listening to his Opinion podcast, “The Ezra Klein Show.”]

That, at least, is what David Shor thinks. Shor started modeling elections in 2008, when he was a 16-year-old blogger, and he proved good at it. By 2012, he was deep inside President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, putting together the fabled “Golden Report,” which modeled the election daily. The forecast proved spookily accurate: It ultimately called the popular vote within one-tenth of a percentage point in every swing state but Ohio. Math-geek data analysts became a hot item for Democratic Party campaigns, and Shor was one of the field’s young stars, pioneering ways to survey huge numbers of Americans and experimentally test their reactions to messages and ads

https://nyti.ms/2WRI2qT

https://news.yahoo.com/democratic-data-scientist-warns-party-133408235.html

[KPN]

1. I believe Shor is right. We kill the filibuster (or at least do a carve out) and strtengthen the

Voting Rights Act now or forget it for at least another decade if not longer. Ditto for the BBB agenda.

Failure to show results will only pile on the hurt.

[lagomorph777]

3. If we don't get SineManchin to fall in line, we won't lose power for a decade.

It will be permanent. America will be a fascist state.

[KPN]

5. Nothing's permanent, but from the standpoint of my life expectancy, I totally agree.

I'm envisioning having to consider joining the resistance.

[BComplex]

19. That's true. It will be permanent. And/or it will cause the civil war that Fox has been

pushing for 20 years. But if the republicans win and are in control of the military, the civil war will not be civil.

[kairos12]

22. People are too busy reading "the Gram" on their screens to know

democracy is departing the station.

[snowybirdie]

2. Seems to be

Lots of negativity here lately. UGH!

[SoCalDavidS]

6. Give Us Something To Be Positive About

Perhaps some of us are finally realizing that it's all BULLSHIT, and NOTHING has changed.

[Tomconroy]

9. Let's pass things that will get us votes: The infrastructure bill,

A substantial increase in minimum wage, negotiating drug prices for medicare for starters.

[Demsrule86]

15. You can only pass that which you have the votes for...it is simple math. Thus we pass what we can,

work to win the midterm...we all need to show up...and come back for more. Honestly, what do you expect to do with a 50-50 majority? We need Senators and we have good possibilities in 22.

[Tomconroy]

24. I expect the damn infrastructure bill to get passed yesterday.

Other stuff you can bring up for a vote about ten times between now and election.

[Demsrule86]

13. If we get the infrastructure bill though only, we can run on that so stop it...you think it would

better with Mitch calling the shots...and judges have changed. This is going to take lots of work and take some time...we as a party totally blew it in 16...there are and will be consequences, that doesn't mean we give up.

[Demsrule86]

17. Perhaps some of us should consider what it would be like if the GOP was in charge...we not only

risk hard-won Democratic policy but our Republic if we don't win the midterms...and this 'I give up attitude' I have seen here is not helpful'. Oh, woe is me...we can't get single-payer, or what have you. What we can get are judges. And we already got a stimulus...and we will get infrastructure if some don't have a big pout and screw it up. I sincerely hope we get reconciliation at some level. It won't be 3.5 trillion but something is always better than nothing.

However, if we don't, then pass the infrastructure bill. We need it for the midterms. And we come back for more. We won't win this war in two years or likely even four. We have to be prepared for incremental improvement. As long as we are moving forward and stopping the Republicans, we are winning the battle...and in time (I believe) we will win the war.

[leftstreet]

25. "incremental improvement" isn't much of a campaign slogan

You're not wrong about the pragmatism, but that's not why people vote

They vote to stay the course or they vote for change

"Infrastructure, reconciliation" etc - not on voter radars

[snowybirdie]

20. My point

Exactly. Life is good. Political times come and go.

[fishwax]

4. the reality of what republicans could do if they gain seats in the midterm is pretty scary

Holding onto seats or actually picking them up in a midterm is such a steep hill to climb, even without the opposition working redistricting to stack the deck against it. But the stakes are so high that we've got to find a way.

[Tomconroy]

7. More David Shor:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/03/david-shor-2020-democrats-autopsy-hispanic-vote-midterms-trump-gop.html

[Klaralven]

11. Interesting...

In other words, a voter’s level of educational attainment — whether they had a college degree — became more predictive of which party they voted for in 2020 than it had been in 2016, while a voter’s racial identity became less predictive?

Yeah. White voters as a whole trended toward the Democratic Party, and nonwhite voters trended away from us. So we’re now somewhere between 2004 and 2008 in terms of racial polarization. Which is interesting. I don’t think a lot of people expected Donald Trump’s GOP to have a much more diverse support base than Mitt Romney’s did in 2012. But that’s what happened.

Something like 80 percent of white conservatives vote for Republicans. But historically, Democrats have won nonwhite conservatives, often by very large margins. What happened in 2020 is that nonwhite conservatives voted for Republicans at higher rates; they started voting more like white conservatives.

[awesomerwb1]

8. So what was this genius's forecast for the 2014 elections?

Did he predict the bloodbath?

[brush]

10. That's not really news. Anyone who's been paying attention...

already knows that if the Dems don't pass both infrastructure bills our chances of holding onto Congressional majorities is almost nil, which would of course mean Joe Biden's agenda would be dead in the water after the mid-terms.

[Demsrule86]

14. That is untrue...I want to pass both bills. But passing infrastructure if that is all we can get wil

help considerably in the midterms...and we run on passing the reconciliation bill after we gain more senators.

[brush]

16. That's what I said. Why are you disagreeing with me?

[Demsrule86]

12. I make it a point to never listen to Ezra Klein.

[comradebillyboy]

18. A good policy indeed.

[Wingus Dingus]

21. Biden/Democrats won because enough people internalized the fact that Trump was terrible.

A terrible man surrounded by terrible people, embarrassing the nation daily, weakening institutions, and failing at policy. It's a mistake to think Biden's and other 2020 Dems' elections meant a clear cultural/political shift towards progressive/leftward ideas and goals. A lot of people in the mushy middle just thought maybe he could do a better job, or at least wouldn't be as terrible. They're not suddenly more enlightened or progressive. Edit to add: that explains Biden's sinking poll numbers as the media has hammered his competence at Afghanistan withdrawal and getting stalled on domestic stuff. It's not the actual policies, which people generally seem to like, it's the attack on his competence.

[andym]

23. 54% of the vote needed in 2024 according to Schor

"Mr Shor warned that his model, which he calls “the power simulator,” shows that if Democrats win 51 percent of the popular vote in 2024, they could lose seven seats and they would need to win it by at least 54 percent."