Close Read

It’ll be weeks and months till we have a detailed understanding of how people voted, but the hot take factory is operating at full speed and Democrats are already arguing about what happened—including contentiously in the press. I break down some of the arguments from progressive and moderate Democratic House members. So far, the progressives have the data on their side. But let’s ask a bigger question: what if Democrats, after they won, simply acted like it?> 2020 Popular Vote Tracker (Cook Political Report)> High turnout in swing state cities helped deliver those states. (The Nation)> Black Lives Matter uprisings over the summer increased voter registration. (Tom Bonier)> Democratic members who sponsored Medicare for All and won re-election in swing districts. (Jonathan Cohn)> 3 out of 4 Democrats who sponsored the Green New Deal in swing districts won re-election. (Earther)> Centrist Democrats punching left on a caucus call with reporters (Washington Post)> Nate Cohn explains what went wrong with the polls (New Yorker)> Messaging guidance for restorative justice and rethinking discipline (Race Class Narrative Action)> In-depth study of non-voters. (Knight Foundation)

Campaign helpdesks are huge operations—and good ones can empower volunteers to serve as frontline communicators for a campaign. The Sanders 2020 team did a ton of innovation for helpdesks, including building a large volunteer corps and even letting people slide into Sanders's DMs. Daniela Lapidous ran the helpdesk and joins us to discuss what she learned and lessons for other campaigns and causes.Find Close Read on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon and Google Podcasts. Or subscribe via RSS feed.> Follow Daniela Lapidous on Twitter (@danielalapidous)> Bernie 2020 Help Desk: Yes, we actually read your messages and here’s how (Medium)> TikTok from a grassroots supporter after they got a DM from Sanders (TikTok)

Email is one of the most important tools we have for communicating with supporters. But it often gets a bad rap because donors and volunteers get frustrated with unsolicited messages and gimmicky, high pressure tactics. The good news is that there are tons of high quality email programs out there, too. They integrate with a campaign's grassroots fundraising strategy as well as its volunteering and advocacy work. Tisya Mavuram, a digital organizer with Act on Mass and a former staffer for Elizabeth Warren's presidential run, joins us for this discussion.> Follow Mavuram on Twitter @tmavuram> Medium post with the three Warren 2020 emails we discuss.> ActBlue has become a critical piece of infrastructure for Democratic campaigns and causes (Boston Globe)> Warren's grassroots donor success was second only to Sanders's (New York Times)> Warren debating Mike Bloomberg (NBC News) 

Pundits, advocates and think tankers spend a lot of time arguing that a majority of Americans are on their side. And conservatives often inflate the popularity of their positions by claiming to represent “half” of all Americans. That's far from the truth. When they can’t do that, they focus on small subsets of voters and try to portray them as important or representative of a much broader set of people. This episode deconstructs two versions of this argument, including a particularly ham-fisted one from Bret Stephens. > Washington Post interactive map > Cook Political Report interactive map> Bret Stephens’s Worst Column Yet? (New Republic)> The missing 100 million voters (Knight Foundation)> Projecting eligible voters by state (UVA)> The case for youth voting rights is better than you think (Medium)> List of Trump 2016 rallies with attendance stats (Wikipedia)> 2016 election results in NYC (ABC 7)> 2016 exit polls (CNN)> Chuck Schumer’s imaginary couple the Baileys (New Yorker)> Joe Biden “Come On Man” compilation (Youtube)

Process arguments are important in a democracy. They're about who gets to make decisions, how they make them, and on what timeline. But process arguments can be weaponized to undermine functioning government and distract from the actual issues we care about. Adam Jentleson, a former deputy chief of staff for Harry Reid, has a clear-eyed view of how Republican senators have abused the chamber's processes to hold onto power—and what Democrats can do to fight back. Jentleson's forthcoming book: Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy Jentleson's  New York Times oped laying out how Democrats can use process arguments to fight a Supreme Court nomination Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) explaining his opposition to honoring Obama's Supreme Court nomination in the last year of his term, a position he's now had to obviate Jimmy Stewart's filibuster from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) Mark Levin threatening democracy advocates with a good time

Ed Markey’s primary campaign in Massachusetts broke new ground for digital organizing, especially during a pandemic. Markey's long-standing ties to the youth climate movement—and his innovative campaign structure—meant organizers could work hand-in-hand with grassroots supporters, including Sunrise Movement, to deeply integrate digital media and field operations. We talk to Emma Friend and Paul Bologna, two Markey campaigners who helped make his movement-fueled primary victory possible.> Don’t Agonize, Organize: The Ed Markey Organizing Model by Rory Clark, Joe Thibodea, and Emma Friend w/ Joe Kent> Ed Markey’s original desk ad> Ed Markey’s ad with Sunrise Movement> We spoke with Emma Friend (@EmmaYourFriend), Director of Distributed Campaigning for Ed Markey’s campaign and Paul Bologna (@pawlbologna), the campaign’s Digital Communications Director and Creative Director> Special shout out for other members of the Markeyverse: Nicole Bardasz (@nicole_bardasz), Olivia Whitaker (@OliviaTwitaker), Brian Hanley (@brianjhanley), Grace Fernandes (@FernandesGrace), Sean Reardon (@sreardon15), Lauryn Allen (@laurynallen_) > And an additional very special shout out to Ed’s Reply Guys (@edsreplyguys)> Everyone is a Digital Organizer panel from Blue State

When we talk about “narrative” in political communication we often use the term very broadly. But it has a specific meaning: how campaigns use storytelling to advance an agenda and galvanize more attention in their preferred frame. There are a lot of narrative methods out there that can be useful for political communication. This episode examines two: Randy Olson’s “And, But, Therefore” framework, which has roots in science communication and scriptwriting, and Marshall Ganz’s “story of self, story of us, story of now," which comes to us through grassroots organizing.  Randy Olson’s Houston We Have a Narrative: Why Science Needs Story Olson discussing the "And, But, Therefore" framework with The Business of Story Marshall Ganz’s public narrative framework Barack Obama's 2020 DNC speech and transcript Bernie Sanders's Iowa rally speech from March 8, 2019

Media coverage of protests—from marches to uprisings to street conflict—is incredibly contentious. Protesters themselves attempt to get attention for their demands while advocacy groups, media outlets and policymakers try to both shape and gauge their effects on public opinion. We should think critically about how political actors attempt to use protest coverage while putting the focus back on what protests are actually trying to achieve.Sources cited in this podcast:> Full Spectrum Resistance by Aric McBay> The Whole World is Watching by Tom Gitlin> Agenda Seeding: How 1960s Black Protests Moved Elites, Public Opinion and Voting by Omar Wasow> Police Erupt in Violence Nationwide by Matthew Dessem> It’s time to change the way the media reports on protests. Here are some ideas. by Kendra Pierre-Louis> M4BL Policy Platform> Stop Helping Conservatives Spread Propaganda About Protests by Aaron Huertas> Unrest is not the enemy, fascism is by Kelly Hayes (You can support Hayes and her work on her Patreon page!)