Santos and the Decline of Local News

Many posts have dealt with media problems such as ghost newspapers and news deserts.

Some national outlets are doing fine, but local newspapers are struggling.

Sarah Ellison at WP:

Months before the New York Times published a December article suggesting Rep.-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) had fabricated much of his résumé and biography, a tiny publication on Long Island was ringing alarm bells about its local candidate. The North Shore Leader wrote in September, when few others were covering Santos, about his “inexplicable rise” in reported net worth — from essentially nothing in 2020 to as much as $11 million two years later. … The Leader reluctantly endorsed Santos’s Democratic opponent the next month. “This newspaper would like to endorse a Republican,” it wrote, but Santos “is so bizarre, unprincipled and sketchy that we cannot. … He boasts like an insecure child — but he’s most likely just a fabulist — a fake.”

It was the stuff national headlines are supposed to be built on: A hyperlocal outlet like the Leader does the leg work, regional papers verify and amplify the story, and before long an emerging political scandal is being broadcast coast-to-coast. But that system, which has atrophied for decades amid the destruction of news economies, appears to have failed completely this time. Despite a well-heeled and well-connected readership — the Leader’s publisher says it counts among its subscribers Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Jesse Watters and several senior people at Newsday, a once-mighty Long Island-based tabloid that has won 19 Pulitzers — no one followed its story before Election Day.

Partisan Diploma Divide

Katherine Knott at Inside Higher Ed:

The recent midterm elections highlighted the growing educational divide between voters as well as the increasing political polarization in the country—both of which are areas of concern for higher education but not ones that colleges and universities can address on their own.

An initial analysis of polling data from the midterm elections showed that 52 percent of voters with a bachelor’s degree cast their ballots for Democrats; 42 percent of those with a high school degree or less voted for Democrats, according to The Washington Post. In the 2018 election, the gap was about five percentage points.

Polling data from the American Council on Education showed a similar shift. In the 2016 election, 50 percent of voters with a college degree voted for Republicans while 48 percent voted for Democrats. Two years later, 43 percent voted for Republicans while 55 percent voted for Democrats. In 2022, about 46 percent voted for Republicans while 52 percent voted for Democrats.

A Most Unusual Midterm

The 2022 midterm is most unusual. The vote count will continue for many days to come, but it is clear that the Democrats have at least broken even in the Senate and will at most lose a few seats in the House. There is even a chance that they could retain control.  These outcomes represent a departure from historical patterns.

Campaign Finance in the 2022 Midterm

 Open Secrets:

The total cost of 2022 midterm elections is projected to exceed $9.3 billion, according to an early, conservative estimate by OpenSecrets. More than $4.8 billion has already been spent on 2022 midterms, setting federal election spending on track to surpass the inflation-adjusted 2018 midterm record of $7.1 billion.

“We’re seeing much more money, more candidates and more political division than we did in 2018,” said OpenSecrets Executive Director Sheila Krumholz. “Spending is surging across the board this midterm cycle, fueling a polarization vortex that shows no signs of slowing.”

That $4.8 billion figure includes spending disclosed to the Federal Election Commission by candidates, political parties, political action committees and other groups during the 2022 midterm election cycle as of Sept. 20, 2022. Total spending will likely jump in mid-October, as most third-quarter filings are not due to the FEC until Oct. 15, the first disclosure deadline for most federal candidates since mid-year disclosures were filed.

While OpenSecrets’ $9.3 billion estimate is slightly less than the $9.9 billion – adjusted for inflation – spent on U.S. congressional races in the 2020 election cycle, 2022 election spending is on pace to exceed the $8 billion in inflation-adjusted spending on congressional and presidential races during the 2016 election cycle.

Most Expensive Midterm

From Open Secrets:

It’s official: the 2018 election was the most expensive midterm ever by a large margin, with total spending surpassing $5.7 billion, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The final tally surpasses the conservative $5.2 billion projection the Center released in October.

With more than $5.7 billion shelled out by candidates, parties, committees, PACs and outside groups, the 2018 midterm leapfrogs even the then-record breaking 2008 presidential election which saw nearly $5.3 billion in total spending. It also smashes the previous midterm spending record of $3.8 billion in 2014.

“Just as the 2018 elections brought historic wins for a more diverse group of candidates, they also saw greater spending than we’ve ever seen or anticipated for a midterm election, capitalizing on years of loosened campaign finance regulation and oversight,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics.

Midterm Election Spending (1998-2018)
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Veterans and the Midterm Election

Rebecca Burgess at AEI:

On Election Day 2018, 173 veterans remained on the ballots. At least 21 races became a veteran vs. veteran showdown, nearly guaranteeing that the total number of veterans in the 116th Congress would be fewer than the initial number of veterans serving in the 115th Congress. By the time November rolled around, the 115th Congress had dropped to fewer than 100 veterans (96), due to several veteran legislators taking up posts in the Trump administration, resigning, or passing away. However, even with several more veterans deciding not to pursue reelection, there should be at least 95 serving in the 116th Congress — 77 in the House, and 18 in the Senate (15 veteran Senators were not up for reelection this term). And while the numbers skew Republican as in the past, a little more than a third of veteran candidates ran as Democrats. Out of the 14 military women on ballots this November, the three who will be freshmen members in January are Democrats.

Lobbying After the Midterm

The 2018 midterm election gave Democrats a majority in the House.  Interest groups are adapting.

Theodoric Meyer and Marianne Levine at Politico:

Washington offices of major corporations now are grappling with how to work a Democratic House full of newly elected members, many of whom ran on promises to resist special interests and who are generallyyounger and more diverse than the denizens of K Street.

“Who knows House leadership?” said Heather Podesta, a top Democratic lobbyist, describing the conversations in companies’ Washington offices right now. “Who knows Pelosi? Who is the Congressional Black Caucus lobbyist that we need to hire?”

Some lobbying firms — the biggest of which are typically bipartisan and pride themselves on their ability to thrive no matter which party is in power — and companies have already hired new Democratic lobbyists in anticipation the party might take back the House. The law and lobbying firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck over the summer hired Nadeam Elshami, a former chief of staff to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who’s poised to return to the speakership if she can survive a potential rebellion among her members.

“We’ve got a former chief of staff to Mitch McConnell and a former chief of staff to Nancy Pelosi,” said Marc Lampkin, a Republican and the managing partner of Brownstein Hyatt’s Washington office.

Others waited until after the election to see which way the winds blew, meaning the scramble to snap up Democratic Hill staffers and others with policy expertise is far from over, said Ivan Adler, a headhunter who specializes in the lobbying business.

“Either you have enough Democrats or don’t, and if you don’t, you’re playing catch-up,” Adler said.

State Legislative Elections

GOP gains at the state level were striking, as Mark Thiessen writes at The Washington Post:

While President Obama has downplayed Tuesday’s Senate results, arguing that Democrats were fighting on GOP ground, Republicans also picked up governorships from Democrats in liberal strongholds like Massachusetts, Maryland and Illinois, as well as in Arkansas. Result? The number of GOP governors has risen from 21 to 31 since Obama took office (32 if Gov. Sean Parnell holds on in Alaska) — just short of the all-time high of 34 Republican governors in the 1920s.

Voters have also given those governors Republican legislatures to enact their agendas. When Obama first took office, Republicans held just 3,220 state legislative seats. After Tuesday’s vote, the number stands at 4,111 — a net gain of nearly 900 seats on Obama’s watch. Thanks to the 291 state legislative seats Republicans added in 61 chambers across the country last week, there are now more Republican state legislators than at any time since 1920.

Put another way: In 2008, the GOP controlled just 36 state legislative chambers. It soon will control 69 — and voters have given the GOP total control of state government in nearly half the country. In 2008, Republicans held both the legislature and governors’ mansion in just eight states. Today, the number is 24. By contrast, Democrats now control both the legislature and governor’s office in just seven states, down from 15before the 2014 election. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, that is the lowest number of states Democrats have controlled since 1860.

Polling Problems in 2014

A number of posts have discussed problems with survey research.  At Politico, Steven Shepard reports that public pollsters tended to underestimate GOP support in the 2014 midterm.

The results were another black eye for pollsters in what are already some tough times. Just five months after then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s surprise ouster, it was another out-of-nowhere Virginia race that left political observers scratching their heads.

And as Americans become even harder to reach by phone – and emerging methodologies, such as Internet polling, remain unproven – the poor performance of pollsters this year casts serious doubt on the reliability of surveys during the 2016 presidential race.
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Republicans have long claimed that public polls, usually conducted by randomly dialing phone numbers rather than only contacting voters with a history of turning out in midterm elections, include too many people who won’t ultimately cast a ballot – a group that tends to lean Democratic.

Those public surveys, they say, also weight, or peg, their demographic data to known Census parameters, ignoring historical trends of the midterm electorate – which is usually older and more white.

“I think the media polls were dramatically off because too many media pollsters use Census weights,” said Republican consultant Brad Todd, whose firm, OnMessage Inc., conducts polls and creates TV ads for GOP candidates. “In a midterm electorate, using the Census as a reference point would have the same value as using a grocery list as a reference point.”

Opposition Research and the Midterm

A Washington Post article points out two themes that we discuss in our book. First, campaigns typically use opposition research to discredit the other side -- a practice that dates back to the Founding era. Second, midterm elections tend to reflect judgments on the president's performance.

Democratic leaders are trying to frame the November midterm elections not as a national referendum on the party in power but as local choices between two candidates.

"We can win the contrast, but not the referendum," Democratic strategist Steve Murphy said. "What is critical in this election cycle is for Democratic candidates to hold Republican candidates accountable for their views."

Republicans see the Democrats' strategy as a sign of weakness.

"When the issues are cutting against you, it is typical for a party in trouble to resort to other means," said Ken Spain, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. "With the unemployment rate unacceptably high and President Obama's approval rating falling, they have nothing left to run on other than character assassination."

Democratic officials are advising campaigns to hire trackers to follow their Republican opponents to public events with video cameras, ready to catch any gaffe or misstatement. And the Democratic National Committee last week issued a call to the public to submit any embarrassing audio or video of Republicans, as well as copies of their direct-mail advertisements.

Party officials would not say how many staffers are working on opposition research. Such work used to be farmed out to campaign consultants, but the DCCC brought research operations in-house in 2008 to be more nimble. "It may appear to be more aggressive this cycle because what we're finding on Republicans is so rich," Vogel said.