Political Roundup, Friday April 5th: Nebraska, No Labels, Abortion & The Rock

In which I round up some interesting political stories from the week

Hi All!

Trying something new this week for the Friday EYP broadcast! Let me know if you like this type of content!

Best,

Emily 

1. Why Everyone Is Talking About Nebraska: 

Nebraska has 5 electoral votes and Trump-supporting forces are pushing the state to move to a winner-takes-all situation. Biden and Obama each got 1 electoral vote from the state because of the competitive NE-02 congressional district which includes Omaha. 

Here are some takes on this:

Nate Silver: Silver says the rule change probably won’t happen (the Legislature has nearly wrapped its session, there would need to be a special session), and the 1 electoral vote would be the deciding factor in only 1 of the 64 possible outcomes in the 2024 election (i.e. where Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are all at play).

Dan Pfeiffer: Pfeiffer says this is the “most important event in the 2024 election”  because of one specific scenario that he sees as likely: Biden wins Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania and Trump wins Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. With the 1 Nebraska vote lost, this puts us at 269 v 269 electoral votes. In this scenario, a tie gets sent to the House of Representatives with 1 vote per state (Republicans will win the tiebreaker).

Newsweek: A pro-Trump pastor from the Omaha area is using his pulpit to push for this change.

Twitter: Charlie Kirk from Turning Point USA is going to Omaha to push for a special session. 

2. Interactive Electoral College Widget Based on Demographic Data

538 put up an interactive electoral college map that lets you futz with demographic data to see how that will impact the presidential election.  Ever thought you have better insight than the polls? Here’s your chance to see what it means. 

Here’s another widget that shows you how various states going red or blue affects the electoral college.

3. Third parties: No Labels No More 

After months of running a campaign only ChatGPT could come up with, No Labels has finally announced they can’t find a candidate so they are dropping out. The group made offers to 30 potential candidates, including the likes of Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Larry Hogan, Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, Liz Cheney and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (according to Politico).

They were successful at raising a lot of money and exploiting a massive dark money loophole which could be taken advantage of in the future by an organization that understands the concept of rizz. They did not rule out running someone in 2028. 

As part of Wrestlemania promotion, The Rock did a special interview with Fox News today stating that he will not be endorsing Biden in 2024 (like he did in 2020) and went out of his way to clarify that he’s an Independent. When we think about the future of third party runs, someone like The Rock with massive name recognition and brand appeal - and, critically, the ability to access an unlimited amount of dark money - is a potent political force. At this point, we don’t actually know what the policy platform of The Rocks (or another person similarly situated) is, but it’s a topic ripe for discussion. 

4. Abortion in Texas 

Jessica Valenti: The Austin American-Statesman reports that more than 80% of Texas women of reproductive age don’t have an accurate understanding of the state’s abortion ban. 

The Texas Tribune: A woman who was jailed for 3 days in 2022 under a murder charge after taking the abortion pill at 19 weeks pregnant, despite the fact that the 6 week ban which was law at the time exempted women from criminal charges for having an abortion, is suing the DA for violating her civil rights.  

A leaked video shows Texas Republican officials attending a presentation by Abolish Abortion Texas arguing that contraception, Plan B, IVF and abortion are murder, declaring that they do not support exceptions for incest or rape, and anyone who has or helps with abortion should be charged with murder. 

5. A Book Trying to Understand Trump Voters:

We started off the week with New York magazine’s takedown of podcaster Andrew Huberman. Dr. Andrea Love wrote a great article in Slate debunking the science of his platform also. 

But there are some other BIG THINKING MEN who have dominated my feed this week. 

Political scientist Tom Schaller and journalist Paul Waldman published White Rural Rage about a month ago. The book argues that these voters (about 16% of the electorate) are a threat to democracy due to their inclination towards supporting xenophobia/racism/violence/etc and predilection for supporting authoritarianism. (Interestingly, Gen Z likes dictators too.)

Salon: Amanda Marcotte liked the book for essentially telling these voters they need to bootstrap themselves back to reality and cut it out blaming all their problems on liberals and cities. She interviews the authors and goes into why these people are considered “real Americans” and the three things that determine a rural area’s economic success (schools, broadband accessibility & contraception access.)

Politico: Nicholas Jacobs, an author of some of the studies cited in the book, argues that it doesn’t correctly represent his work or these voters. Largely he says no one has found evidence of the “rage” referenced in the title but rather it is resentment (which he defines as a rational reaction based on some sort of negative experience.)

6. Liberal Messaging Vacuum

FWIW put out a newsletter about the waning digital relevance of liberal groups because of their continued reliance on Facebook as opposed to new mediums like TikTok has left them hampered by Meta’s increasing throttling of political content.