The Democrats are a functioning political party -- for now. New post following up on previous post calling for less personalized politics: open.substack.com/pub/markschmit…

50 years ago this week--my family got a color TV. House Judiciary Cmte was voting on Nixon impeachment. Our B&W TV broke. Regular TV repair guy was on vacation. My frantic parents found another, Carlos, who had a color TV on his truck for $23. So we became a color TV family.

Interesting contrast: Harris and Walz began their electoral careers in municipal office and Congress -- grassroots world -- while Trump jumped straight to President and Vance to Senate in 7th largest state, boosted by Trump endorsement rather than local connections.

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Something I've learned from two year of working on fusion voting is that every state has its own history and culture of multi-party democracy, esp. in 19th C. Kansas is one of the liveliest & most competitive, until shut down. See our new paper: newamerica.org/political-refo…

It's been a wild journey from Bush-era "America is the greatest country ever, and you're a traitor if you disagree!!!" conservatism to the modern "America is a filthy shithole, but perhaps, with hard work and a lot of deportations, we might rise to the level of Hungary" line.

The Heritage Foundation's 1981 "Mandate for Leadership" package for the Reagan admin has long been seen as among the most politically consequential products of a think tank. The same will be said of Project 2025, but for a very different reason.

One reason the horse race lives the high life is that "who's gonna win?" is not seen as an ideological question. The more you focus on it, the more innocent you feel.

Trump's 15-min closed-McDonald's photo op made me think about the late Florida governor/Senator Bob Graham, whose signature "work days" involved working full shifts at real jobs, in part to appreciate what different jobs were like. He did more than 400: miamiherald.com/news/local/com…

"Nothing matters" isn't a description of how political discourse works, it's an instruction. When you ACT like something matters, then all the various feedback loops in our political and media ecosystem can click into place, and suddenly it might end up mattering A LOT.

I'm enthusiastic to vote for DC's Initiative 83--ranked-choice voting along w/ open primaries. Not necessarily best combo for every state or city, but ideal for DC to encourage competition, ensure majority winners, and open the system in a city where most choices are intra-party.

Some thoughts from me and my colleagues at Political Reform (Maresa Strano, Lee Drutman ⚙️🏛, @oscarpocasangre, Ilyse Hogue, Hollie Russon Gilman & Sarah Jacob) on what we're looking at in the election, beyond the actual result: newamerica.org/political-refo…

Some Election Day thoughts: - Ds been overperforming since Dobbs, likely to do so again today. Dobbs before/after moment in US politics. - Early vote, polling got better for Harris this week. Ds enter E-D in stronger battleground EV position than 2020. Encouraging sign. 1/

I'd argue that Tim Shenk's new book, LEFT ADRIFT, is what you should read to think more clearly about the problems and dilemmas the Democratic Party is now facing: penguinrandomhouse.com/books/779833/l…