July 1 Poll Report

            Good morning everybody.   Cory Booker won yesterday’s poll in a landslide, burying Kirsten Gillibrand by a 57-24 margin.   This is the summary of yesterday’s vote:

            I think there is a general perception that Booker may have helped himself in the debate of last week, but also, Gillibrand may not have helped herself.  In the modern Democratic party, the more you represent a marginalized group, the more of a natural base you have.  Buttigieg has a natural base of support in the LBGT community, Castro among Latinos, Yang among Asian-Americans.  An attractive woman presenting a mainstream appearance is not at a disadvantage, I don’t think, but anyone presenting a centrist appearance needs to project as  substantial.   My impression was that by returning constantly to the theme of reproductive rights, she was trying to build on a base of support that’s not really there; I mean, it is there, but (a) it’s not very large, and (b) she doesn’t actually own it. 

            Anyway, Booker had a good day, which doesn’t help him tremendously because Gililbrand, who is a lightweight, was the heavyweight among those he was beating; he beat Gillibrand 57-24 vs. an expected 46-35, but he beat Ryan only 57-13 vs. an expected 46-10, which isn’t actually a win, at all.  Removed from the data was the poll of May 11^th, which was Abrams (47%), Trump (28%), Yang (15%) and Gabbard (11%).  The essential effect of the removal of that poll is to transfer a certain amount of support from Abrams to Yang.  Since yesterday:

            Andrew Yang is up 30 points as a result of the May 11^th poll no longer being considered relevant.  This pushes Yang ahead of Gillibrand and ahead of Abrams, moving him from 12^th place to 10^th, and with a rapidly sinking target just ahead of him in 9^th place.  It also puts Yang on the "green list" for the first time, the green list being the candidates highlighted in green below because they are up 25% in the last 30 days. 

            Cory Booker is up 14 points as a result of yesterday’s poll.

            Tulsi Gabbard is up 9 points as a result of the removal of the May 11^th poll from the data.

            Tim Ryan, who I praised after the debate for making the valid point that the Democratic Party needs to be concerned about its elitist image, is up 8 points as a result of his performance in yesterday’s poll.

            Stacey Abrams, who is not running but who has not said that she will not run, is down 36 points as a result of the elimination of the May 11^th poll from the data.  She was also in the May 12^th poll, and will probably lose some more points tomorrow as a result of the elimination of that one. 

            These are the current standings:

            If you will forgive me an off-topic rant here, not off-topic because it is about politics, but not about the election.  Last week the Supreme Court ruled more or less against the Trump Administration in the fight over whether the census forms can ask people whether they are citizens.  The essence of the decision was (a) there is no reason the government can’t put a question about citizenship on the census form; it’s been done many times before, but (b) YOU can’t do it NOW because you lied to us about why you wanted to do it.  I mean, I read John Roberts’ opinion, and that’s what I got out of it, which seems to be different than what anybody else got out of it: Roberts was really annoyed with the Trump administration because they lied to the court about why they were trying to do this, and you are not supposed to do that; you are not supposed to lie to the court in court filings.   You may be right on the law, but you are not deserving of what you are asking for. 

            We have these periodic battles about Supreme Court cases that seem to be immense at the time, but then later you look back at them and say "What was that all about?"   That’s my take on this one:  we’re going to look back on it and say that it doesn’t amount to anything, and also that Roberts was the one guy who got it right all the way down the line:  that IS the law, but you cannot win Court cases by lying to the Court. 

            But why did the Trump Administration adopt a pretense about why they were doing this?  Because they couldn’t tell the truth.  If they had told the truth about why they were doing this, they would have been admitting bias, and also  admitting that they were using the census system for political advantage.  Had they done so, they would have lost the case because you cannot use the census system for political advantage. 

            But there is something in this which is very good for the Republican party, and this is the point that I was trying to get to; it seemed like an obvious point to me, but nobody else has made it so I am going to.   Another case like this, a kind of tempest in a teapot type issue that may make its way to the Supreme Court in 2020 or possibly in 2021 if Trump is re-elected, has to do with the President’s tax returns.   The Democrats are trying to get the IRS to turn loose of Trump’s tax returns, but they cannot state honestly in court filings why it is that they want access to the tax returns.  They want to get them to embarrass the President.  If they state honestly that they want to get them to embarrass the President then they will lose the case, so they are adopting a pretext. 

            If Roberts uses the same logic in the IRS case that he used in the census forms case, then Trump will win the case.  And I would predict that he will win the case, because I would predict that Roberts will use the same logic—that a case which has as its foundation a misrepresentation of the facts cannot prevail on the basis of that misrepresentation.   The legal system just doesn’t work if people are allowed to lie to the court about what it is that they are actually trying to do.