Dissatisfied voters in deep-blue cities are looking for alternatives to the Democrats in power. Republicans aren't providing many viable options, perhaps independents should give it a shot.
Maybe it’s because the middle class folks who would vote against urban Democrats have already been using their feet to vote against them for years, leaving the cities to left-leaning young college graduates and the clients of social service agencies run by Democratic politicians and their GOTV organizers.
Where middle class flight has been stopped (Staten Island for instance, where cops and firefighters live because they are legally required to live within the city) Republicans get elected regularly.
As someone who was raised on Staten Island there was always an abundance of FDNY and NYPD; however they are permitted to live in 6 counties surrounding NYC.
Looking at Massachusetts, more independents will not run, not with current ballot access laws, though they are worse for Republicans and Democrats than for independents. Petitioners have in the past few years become far more expensive. Especially in large cities with highly mobile voters, large numbers of students and non-residents,... and people living in apartments rather than houses, getting on the ballot in, say, Boston is extremely challenging.
This is a great question. Perhaps we could learn from the Republican mayors in big cities. According to Claude, those include Eric Johnson in Dallas (9th largest city, and went 60/40 for Harris) and
Jerry Dyer in Fresno (33rd largest city, went for Harris by 8 points). There's also Ryan McMahon, the county executive of Onondaga County, NY, surrounding Syracuse (Harris won ~57%).
John, maybe you could dig into the secret to their success next!
Unfortunately the lack of genuine Independents, long predates Trump. To the extent they exist, "Independent' has long been code for a Dem in disguise. In Nebraska, Osborne is not especially moderate or Independent, but selling a Dem in Nebraska has always been difficult. So, Dems cleared a path to make way for an "Independent", akin to Coke Zero. Roughly the same product, but with new packaging, and less aftertaste.
One reason Reps have tossed in the towel in large Blue Cities, may be the Government Industrial Complex, for lack of a better phrase. As industry has fled many cities, replacement jobs often flow directly from govt or are govt adjacent. Nearly 10% of US employment now stems from NGOs, nonprofits or similar entities. Those jobs tend to be clustered in cities. Most are partially, or fully, taxpayer funded. Selling shrinking govt, to voters with taxpayer derived paychecks is difficult, to say the least.
Toss in self sorting. New York, LA . . . are very unlikely to ever again, see even an Independent, let alone a moderate Rep version of Giuliani or Riordan. Many voters that might have previously elected someone similar are long gone, safely ensconced in Red State suburbs.
The flip side of self sorting, how many voters fleeing Blue States for Red States, will vote to enact the same polices they fled? It is probably not a coincidence Independents have recently arrived in Red States like Idaho and Montana, just after they were flooded with Blue State refugees.
Dan Osborn: "Billy Bob in f------ Red Cloud, Nebraska, who lives next to the f----- Trump store as you pull into town is waving the Trump flag. All he knows is he's on the winning team," Osborn said. "He's been so effective at taking Billy Bob, his wife Mary Jane or Mary Jo, telling them, look we're winning, look we're winning, you're on the winning team and that's all they care about because their lives probably suck so f---."
Today, an Independent can be a Republican-in-disguise as well...after Trump's first election we lost a couple dozen Republicans in our CT town who haven't really come back...
A better question is why should any municipal candidate be associated with a party. As the joke goes, potholes do not have a partisan leaning.
Also, some mayors are elected to be the chief executive whereas in many cities, the mayor is just the chairman of the city council while a full time professional city managers does the day to day operations.
Control of the money and ballot access gives them the control. Go to: open primaries (no party affiliation), limit campaign financing to monies raised within the State of the election - from citizens of the State or operating companies domiciled there); runoff elections if no one candidate garners 50%+1. And NOT ranked choice voting!
We already have Libertarians, Greens, Constitutionalists, and now Forward Party and Liberal Party USA, the last of these being classical liberals, not American progressive liberals.
Last time I looked, 19 of the 20 U.S. cities with the highest rates of violent crime were Democrat run, with the one Republican city having only recently been wrested away from the Democrats. Can this change as John asks? I think it’s unlikely for two reasons. One is that most voters are loyal to a fault and are not well-informed or even open to being well-informed. The second reason is that Democrats are deeply entrenched in these cities at all levels, and they will fight hard to maintain the grift that their control of those municipalities makes possible. Like the IRGC in Iran, their loyalty is not to the people they claim to represent. It is to the party machine that rewards them with money and power.
Just because someone claims to be an "Independent" doesn't make it so. In Alaska, for instance, Bill Hill is in no way an "Independent", he just knows he can't win as a Democrat. It happens all the time in our Gubernatorial elections.
The only way to truly identify a real Independent is to look at who they donate to, their policy positions in detail, and their voting history if they have one. Most who try to assume the label are just Democrats trying to avoid the "D" stigma.
For instance, the two current elected "Independents" on the national level have always caucused with the Democrats and rarely, if ever, buck them on any substantive policy votes (that are at all close, where their "independence" could really matter, anyway).
Thinking about it, the closest thing to real "independents" in the Senate are RINO's like Murkowski and Collins. The Republican Party tolerates independent members far more than the Democrat machine when it comes to power politics.
Massachusetts is currently looking at a referendum to install Top 4 Jungle primary. Most legislative candidates run without opposition. Changing the primary will do nothing so long as ballot access race is the incumbent protection scheme.
I fault the Republican party. There are millions of gettable votes in big cities that the Republicans don’t even try to compete for. When they run a quality candidate (as Lee Zeldin) they can do well, but the green or freak-show candidates who are actually presented do nothing to provide even theoretical opposition and cast the party in contempt. They could also challenge anti-democratic practices such as closed primaries on the national level. It would be a longer term project with compensation for strong candidates willing to lose once for the party, but they have money and are far from powerless.
You can take so-called "independent" Dan Osborn off your list after the latest recording of him sneering about rural voters surfaced (a bunch of f'ing Billy Bobs). Also, Nebraska has a single legislature and although the dems are outnumbered, they are able to block every piece of legislation they want, so R's don't control the legislature in Nebraska.
The mechanics of running and financing a campaign weigh against Independents / Unaffiliateds who usually don't have a party apparatus to support them. I am a Republican, but my husband is an Independent and he wanted to get involved in local government. My local Republican Town Committee agreed to 'support' him, to 'run' him - place his name on placards etc. - I guess because I vouched for his earnestness and interest. Some Republicans members grumbled as he wasn't exactly on their team. And Democrats didn't exactly see him on their team either; They perceive him as being 'Republican-light'. Eventually, he did land a spot on the local Finance Committee as an 'Alternate' and hopes in time to be pushed into a full-time Committee spot when people realize that he just wants to use his expertise in Finance to help out. So there are huge barriers to for 'Independent Entry' into the political process: (1) no truly supportive party structure - we're tribal folks! (2) no definition of what an Independent represents, which makes the public question the candidate's intent.
Maybe because of this or maybe because Independents are by definition 'non-committal' they tend not to participate in our local government....but you've gotta start somewhere.
Maybe it’s because the middle class folks who would vote against urban Democrats have already been using their feet to vote against them for years, leaving the cities to left-leaning young college graduates and the clients of social service agencies run by Democratic politicians and their GOTV organizers.
Where middle class flight has been stopped (Staten Island for instance, where cops and firefighters live because they are legally required to live within the city) Republicans get elected regularly.
As someone who was raised on Staten Island there was always an abundance of FDNY and NYPD; however they are permitted to live in 6 counties surrounding NYC.
Appreciate the correction.
Looking at Massachusetts, more independents will not run, not with current ballot access laws, though they are worse for Republicans and Democrats than for independents. Petitioners have in the past few years become far more expensive. Especially in large cities with highly mobile voters, large numbers of students and non-residents,... and people living in apartments rather than houses, getting on the ballot in, say, Boston is extremely challenging.
Require runoffs if no candidate achieves 50%. Like LA and a number of southern states do.
This is a great question. Perhaps we could learn from the Republican mayors in big cities. According to Claude, those include Eric Johnson in Dallas (9th largest city, and went 60/40 for Harris) and
Jerry Dyer in Fresno (33rd largest city, went for Harris by 8 points). There's also Ryan McMahon, the county executive of Onondaga County, NY, surrounding Syracuse (Harris won ~57%).
John, maybe you could dig into the secret to their success next!
Johnson switched parties but I’ll look into the others. Good idea. Thanks, Michael!
Ugh, Johnson switched parties? That's...telling! Argh
I believe that the Dallas mayors race is non-partisan. The candidates do not have party affiliation next to their names.
Unfortunately the lack of genuine Independents, long predates Trump. To the extent they exist, "Independent' has long been code for a Dem in disguise. In Nebraska, Osborne is not especially moderate or Independent, but selling a Dem in Nebraska has always been difficult. So, Dems cleared a path to make way for an "Independent", akin to Coke Zero. Roughly the same product, but with new packaging, and less aftertaste.
One reason Reps have tossed in the towel in large Blue Cities, may be the Government Industrial Complex, for lack of a better phrase. As industry has fled many cities, replacement jobs often flow directly from govt or are govt adjacent. Nearly 10% of US employment now stems from NGOs, nonprofits or similar entities. Those jobs tend to be clustered in cities. Most are partially, or fully, taxpayer funded. Selling shrinking govt, to voters with taxpayer derived paychecks is difficult, to say the least.
Toss in self sorting. New York, LA . . . are very unlikely to ever again, see even an Independent, let alone a moderate Rep version of Giuliani or Riordan. Many voters that might have previously elected someone similar are long gone, safely ensconced in Red State suburbs.
The flip side of self sorting, how many voters fleeing Blue States for Red States, will vote to enact the same polices they fled? It is probably not a coincidence Independents have recently arrived in Red States like Idaho and Montana, just after they were flooded with Blue State refugees.
Dan Osborn: "Billy Bob in f------ Red Cloud, Nebraska, who lives next to the f----- Trump store as you pull into town is waving the Trump flag. All he knows is he's on the winning team," Osborn said. "He's been so effective at taking Billy Bob, his wife Mary Jane or Mary Jo, telling them, look we're winning, look we're winning, you're on the winning team and that's all they care about because their lives probably suck so f---."
Today, an Independent can be a Republican-in-disguise as well...after Trump's first election we lost a couple dozen Republicans in our CT town who haven't really come back...
A better question is why should any municipal candidate be associated with a party. As the joke goes, potholes do not have a partisan leaning.
Also, some mayors are elected to be the chief executive whereas in many cities, the mayor is just the chairman of the city council while a full time professional city managers does the day to day operations.
Control of the money and ballot access gives them the control. Go to: open primaries (no party affiliation), limit campaign financing to monies raised within the State of the election - from citizens of the State or operating companies domiciled there); runoff elections if no one candidate garners 50%+1. And NOT ranked choice voting!
We need a third party. It is time for that.
We already have Libertarians, Greens, Constitutionalists, and now Forward Party and Liberal Party USA, the last of these being classical liberals, not American progressive liberals.
Last time I looked, 19 of the 20 U.S. cities with the highest rates of violent crime were Democrat run, with the one Republican city having only recently been wrested away from the Democrats. Can this change as John asks? I think it’s unlikely for two reasons. One is that most voters are loyal to a fault and are not well-informed or even open to being well-informed. The second reason is that Democrats are deeply entrenched in these cities at all levels, and they will fight hard to maintain the grift that their control of those municipalities makes possible. Like the IRGC in Iran, their loyalty is not to the people they claim to represent. It is to the party machine that rewards them with money and power.
Spencer Pratt and mail in ballots
Yes, the top-two primary in L.A. required a lot of strategic coordination by non-Democratic outsiders.
Just because someone claims to be an "Independent" doesn't make it so. In Alaska, for instance, Bill Hill is in no way an "Independent", he just knows he can't win as a Democrat. It happens all the time in our Gubernatorial elections.
The only way to truly identify a real Independent is to look at who they donate to, their policy positions in detail, and their voting history if they have one. Most who try to assume the label are just Democrats trying to avoid the "D" stigma.
For instance, the two current elected "Independents" on the national level have always caucused with the Democrats and rarely, if ever, buck them on any substantive policy votes (that are at all close, where their "independence" could really matter, anyway).
Thinking about it, the closest thing to real "independents" in the Senate are RINO's like Murkowski and Collins. The Republican Party tolerates independent members far more than the Democrat machine when it comes to power politics.
"Independent" Dan Osborn was endorsed the the Nebraska Democrat party and he fundraises through ActBlue. I mean, come on...
Massachusetts is currently looking at a referendum to install Top 4 Jungle primary. Most legislative candidates run without opposition. Changing the primary will do nothing so long as ballot access race is the incumbent protection scheme.
In our State; a RED western state Independents have a hard times simply becuase they are dedicated liberals attempting to disguise themselves.
I fault the Republican party. There are millions of gettable votes in big cities that the Republicans don’t even try to compete for. When they run a quality candidate (as Lee Zeldin) they can do well, but the green or freak-show candidates who are actually presented do nothing to provide even theoretical opposition and cast the party in contempt. They could also challenge anti-democratic practices such as closed primaries on the national level. It would be a longer term project with compensation for strong candidates willing to lose once for the party, but they have money and are far from powerless.
By "do well" do you mean they still lose, but it's closer?
Yes. Zeldin came within 6%.
You can take so-called "independent" Dan Osborn off your list after the latest recording of him sneering about rural voters surfaced (a bunch of f'ing Billy Bobs). Also, Nebraska has a single legislature and although the dems are outnumbered, they are able to block every piece of legislation they want, so R's don't control the legislature in Nebraska.
The mechanics of running and financing a campaign weigh against Independents / Unaffiliateds who usually don't have a party apparatus to support them. I am a Republican, but my husband is an Independent and he wanted to get involved in local government. My local Republican Town Committee agreed to 'support' him, to 'run' him - place his name on placards etc. - I guess because I vouched for his earnestness and interest. Some Republicans members grumbled as he wasn't exactly on their team. And Democrats didn't exactly see him on their team either; They perceive him as being 'Republican-light'. Eventually, he did land a spot on the local Finance Committee as an 'Alternate' and hopes in time to be pushed into a full-time Committee spot when people realize that he just wants to use his expertise in Finance to help out. So there are huge barriers to for 'Independent Entry' into the political process: (1) no truly supportive party structure - we're tribal folks! (2) no definition of what an Independent represents, which makes the public question the candidate's intent.
Maybe because of this or maybe because Independents are by definition 'non-committal' they tend not to participate in our local government....but you've gotta start somewhere.