Josh Gottheimer

The deeper they dig into federal and state election results, some Democrats are coming to a harsh, humbling conclusion: America rejected soft liberalism.Why it matters: You see it in Hispanic men turning against Democrats ... L.A. and San Francisco dumping Democrats seen as soft on crime and homelessness ... white men taking to podcasts to lament word-policing and strict DEI policies ... California voting to undo social justice reforms ... a growing number of Democrats scolding their party for condescending political correctness.Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn). tweeted Sunday that the left is "out of touch with the crisis of meaning/purpose fueling MAGA. We refuse to pick big fights. Our tent is too small.""We don't listen enough; we tell people what's good for them," he added.Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from the Bronx, tweeted the morning after the election: "Donald Trump has no greater friend than the far left, which has managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like 'Defund the Police.'""The working class is not buying the ivory-towered nonsense that the far left is selling," Torres added.The big picture: It's striking how dramatically the pendulum swung. A few short years ago, COVID caution, DEI activism, big-city drug decriminalization, police scrutiny, and tents to alleviate homelessness were fully ascendant. Not just with liberals.These ideas fused into Democratic orthodoxy that seeped fast and deep into companies and the media. They were seen as a new expression of compassion, inclusivity and penitence for sins of the past and present.Republicans who rebelled or recoiled were chastised as bigoted, anachronistic — or simply protecting a world dominated by the white men running their party.Between the lines: Democrats sought to give voice to groups long marginalized and silenced in politics. But little by little, the backlash unfurled. In retrospect, the signs were clear, a number of top Democrats told us.It started with COVID, where the prevailing view was to listen to the government, and health professionals who demanded vaccines and lockdowns. But the cost of what a lot of people saw as acting cautiously hit hard for families: lost jobs or businesses, the sadness of isolation, kids growing more screen-addicted and distant.The murder of George Floyd, by a white cop, preserved on camera, jarred the nation. Horrified, millions marched, protested, demanded swift change.A movement to defund the police caught fire, despite evidence that crime rises when officers leave. "We could never wash off the stench of it," Democratic strategist James Carville told the N.Y. Times' Maureen Dowd for a column with the print headline, "A Wake for Woke."Carville said "defund the police" were "the three stupidest words in the English language." Crime rose. Eventually, most Democrats who called to defund the police scrambled to undo the political and practical damage. It was too late.The reality of liberal-run cities, gutted by crime and citizens fleeing — dotted with large tent communities for homeless people, ravaged by drugs — went viral. Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco were seen as case studies of unmitigated permissiveness.How people felt didn't always match the data: As Axios' Russell Contreras has thoroughly covered, violent crime dropped in major U.S. cities as the COVID-era crime wave receded.But last week's elections rendered a harsh verdict. Political outsider Keith Wilson was elected mayor of Portland after campaigning against tent cities and drug freedoms. "It's time to end unsheltered homelessness and open drug use, and it's time to restore public safety in Portland," he said in his victory speech.In San Francisco, moderate Democrat Daniel Lurie won his mayoral race with similar promises. "We are going to get tough on those that are dealing drugs, and we are going to be compassionate but tough about the conditions of our streets as well," Lurie said at a press conference last week.Zoom out: Something bigger had been exploding across society, politics and business. Democrats, business and the media pushed diversity, equity and inclusion from an aspiration to a de facto mandate.The new language of inclusivity included Latinx, a word that even many Latino groups rolled their eyes at. "Some Democrats are finally waking up and realizing that woke is broke," Dowd wrote.These topics stirred white college men to vote in unusually high numbers. College women, stirred by concerns over abortion restrictions, were expected to offset the male surge. It didn't happen.While the political correctness spike was hitting its apex, millions of people were storming the Southwest border, believing the Democratic administration would let them in.Many watched as every Democrat, including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, raised their hands on a jammed presidential debate stage in 2019 in favor of decriminalizing the border.This was the ruling view until Hispanic Democratic congressmen sounded the alarm that the borders were being overrun — and that their mostly Hispanic population was livid.The earliest days of the Biden presidency showed what was to come. It was Democrats who said a radical shift was urgent to avoid peril.Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) told CNN in 2021 that Biden's policies were catastrophic: "I can assure you it won't be long before we have tens of thousands of people showing up to our border, and it'll be catastrophic for our party, for our country, for my region, for my district."Zoom in: Eventually, Biden, Harris and most Democrats changed. But it was too late to undo the damage. Immigration dominated the campaign, mostly to Trump's advantage.Lots of Democrats want to chalk up defeat to inflation concerns and a global backlash against ruling parties. There's lots of data to back this up. People are too complicated to assign one cause of death in politics.But if you look at the tone of Trump's ads in the waning weeks, it was dark warnings about crime and transgender rights. The combination produced a drop for Democrats that few saw coming.Did anyone think Trump would do 23 points better in the district of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)? Or romp in Hispanic-heavy areas, especially along the border? Or roll up much bigger support in big blue cities nationwide?Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), who co-chairs the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, told us: "Everything's a secondary issue when you're worried about paying your rent and feeding your family. We didn't convince them that we're laser-focused on the basics."By the numbers: As Democrats stare into exit polls, they see the harsh reality with new clarity: Trump improved his margins with women by three points and young women by 11; Hispanics by 13 and African American men by 25. CNN's Harry Enten found Trump produced the GOP's best showing among younger voters (18-29) in 20 years ... among Black voters in 48 years ... and among Hispanic voters in the 52-year history of exit polls."Democrats need to take a hard look at our party's brand, because it is repelling too many voters that should be with us," Democratic strategist Doug Thornell, CEO of the strategic communications firm SKDK."We used to be the party of working people, the middle class. Our story included everyone, including men. I believe we still are, but many voters aren't feeling it and we should find out why."Sign up for Axios Hill Leaders, our new weekday newsletter on Congress.

New Jersey lawmakers are seeking to protect children from skin cancer risks by removing restrictions on sunscreen in schools, as the state is known for its sunny beaches and outdoor activities.

Westchester County Executive George Latimer discussed what his race against incumbent U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman means about the Democratic Party.

The ACLU is ringing the alarm bell over S.B. 1287, which the group believes will chill free speech on California campuses.The post The “Dangerous” California Bill Inspired by Pro-Palestine Campus Protest Is Still Alive appeared first on The Intercept.

The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.Subscribe to The Downballot, our weekly podcast Embedded ContentLeading Off● Primary Night: We've entered the homestretch of the 2024 primary season, but as Jeff Singer details in our election night preview, there's still plenty to watch Tuesday in Wisconsin and Minnesota.Badger State Democrats have a competitive battle to decide who will take on freshman Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden in an ancestrally blue southwestern Wisconsin seat that veered hard to the right after Donald Trump took over the GOP. This area, though, may not be lost to the Democrats. Van Orden only beat state Sen. Brad Pfaff 52-48 in 2022 after national Democrats canceled their ad reservations, while progressive Janet Protasiewicz decisively carried it months later in the officially nonpartisan state Supreme Court race.Van Orden is one of the last vulnerable House members anywhere in the nation who doesn't yet know the identity of his general election opponent. We'll all find out soon, though, if he'll be going up against businesswoman Rebecca Cooke, who took second to Pfaff in the last primary, or state Rep. Katrina Shankland. House Majority PAC has reserved millions in ad time to support whichever Democrat wins on Tuesday.There's more to see in the Upper Midwest on Tuesday. One Wisconsin Republican is about to find out if voters will nominate him after Trump himself told him to drop out, while the state GOP is hoping voters will approve two state constitutional amendments that would strip Democratic Gov. Tony Evers of key powers.Over in Minnesota, we're going to find out if Republicans are willing to gift the thumbs up to a far-right conspiracy theorist who, among other things, shared a map of public drinking fountains by writing, "Crime in Minneapolis...Out of control." You can find more on these races, and more, in Singer's preview.We'll be liveblogging the results at Daily Kos Elections on Tuesday night, starting when the first polls close in the Midwest at 9 PM ET/8 PM local time. Join us for our complete coverage!Senate● OH-Sen: The National Republican Senatorial Committee has canceled its entire $700,000 TV reservation for Ohio's Senate race, reports AdImpact, but an unnamed source soon relayed to Politico's Ally Mutnick that it would instead run so-called hybrid ads with Republican nominee Bernie Moreno's campaign.This arrangement, as we explained when Democrats ran similar ads in an Oregon primary earlier this year, allows the NRSC and Moreno to share the cost of advertising and take advantage of federal rules requiring stations to charge lower rates to candidates rather than the higher rates third-party groups face.These hybrid spots, though, are subject to more stringent content requirements than commercials from candidates or outside groups. Most notably, the ads are required to reference a political party writ large, as opposed to just a single candidate.This rule, however, won't be much of an obstacle in a red state like Ohio: With the GOP poised to do well at the top of the ticket, a message broadly attacking the Democratic Party will likely be popular. Conversely, don't expect Democrats to pursue a similar strategy, because Sen. Sherrod Brown is trying to win over voters who are prepared to back Republicans in other races, including Donald Trump for president.The NRSC also utilized hybrid ads last cycle, though it didn't work out well. Rick Scott, the committee's chair, insisted that hybrid ads would allow the party to get more bang for its buck, but critics argued it would unnecessarily restrict the kind of messages it could run. In the end, the Senate Republican caucus wound up shrinking a seat thanks to the GOP's loss in Pennsylvania.But the NRSC's new chair, Steve Daines, seems convinced that this particular element of Scott's strategy wasn't to blame and has forged ahead with a new onslaught of hybrid ads. One unnamed operative, however, seemed to acknowledge the limitations of this approach, telling Reese Gorman of NOTUS that the committee "is relying on [the Senate Leadership Fund] and other outside groups to carry the super PAC message in Ohio and Montana."Governors● NJ-Gov: Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill recently confirmed her long-reported interest in running to succeed termed-out Gov. Phil Murphy by telling Axios, "I'm strongly considering running for governor in 2025. I'd make that decision after Election Day."Fellow Rep. Josh Gottheimer is also publicly mulling entering next year's Democratic primary, though not everyone thinks either House member still needs to decide on anything. Politico's Matt Friedman wrote in June that both Gottheimer and Sherrill will each announce they're in after they're reelected in November even though they're already "all-but-running."The Democratic field to succeed Murphy already includes the mayors of New Jersey's two largest cities, Ras Baraka of Newark and Steven Fulop of Jersey City. The primary also features former state Senate President Steve Sweeney and New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller, who recently finished his stint as mayor of Montclair.House● NH-02: Former Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern has earned the endorsement of SEA/SEIU Local 1984, an influential labor group that represents state employees, ahead of the Sept. 10 Democratic primary for the 2nd District.● NJ-09: Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell was "rushed back to the hospital" on Sunday evening less than a week after he was discharged from a rehabilitation facility, the New Jersey Globe was first to report. The 87-year-old congressman's team did not initially provide information about his condition.The Globe also relays that local Democrats are now working to fill vacant seats on the local county committees in case they're needed to pick a new nominee should Pascrell end his reelection campaign. The story notes that Aug. 27 is the deadline for Pascrell to drop out in time for him to be replaced on the ballot, though judges have given parties extra time in the past. New Jersey's 9th District, which is based in North Jersey, favored Joe Biden 59-40 in 2020.● OH-13: The NRCC has released an internal survey from Cygnal that shows freshman Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes with a small 44-40 advantage over Republican Kevin Coughlin in the race for Ohio's 13th District, a contest where we hadn't previously seen any polling.The memo for this poll, which was first publicized by the National Journal's James Downs, did not include 2024 presidential numbers. President Joe Biden four years ago scored a small 51-48 win in this constituency, which includes the Akron and Canton areas.● TX-18: Former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner has released a list of endorsements from 30 of the 88 precinct chairs in the Harris County Democratic Party who will decide Tuesday who will replace the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee on the general election ballot. The eventual nominee will have no trouble in this dark blue seat, which includes parts of central and northern Houston.Turner is one of several notable names who are competing to succeed Jackson Lee in the next Congress. The roster includes two notable candidates who unsuccessfully challenged Jackson Lee for renomination: state Rep. Jarvis Johnson, who lost in 2010, and former Houston City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards, who failed to beat the incumbent earlier this year. The field also features state Rep. Christina Morales, Houston City Council member Letitia Plummer, and Corisha Rogers, who is a local party official.Obituaries● Steve Symms: Idaho Republican Steve Symms, an ardent conservative who won his Senate seat in 1980 by narrowly unseating the state's last Democratic senator, Frank Church, died Friday at the age of 86. The Idaho Statesman's Ian Max Stevenson has more on Symms' volatile career, including his narrow 1986 reelection win and his role spreading a damaging smear against Democrats in the 1988 presidential campaign, in his obituary.Poll PileMI-Sen: Siena College for the New York Times: Elissa Slotkin (D): 46, Mike Rogers (R): 43 (50-46 Harris in two-way, 48-43 Harris with third-party candidates)MI-Sen: Bullfinch Group for The Independent Center: Slotkin (D): 48, Rogers (R): 38 (48-43 Harris in two-way, 46-40 Harris with third-party candidates)PA-Sen: Siena College for the New York Times: Bob Casey (D-inc): 51, Dave McCormick (R): 37 (50-46 Harris in two-way, 46-44 Harris with third-party candidates) (July: 50-42 Casey)PA-Sen: Bullfinch Group for The Independent Center: Casey (D-inc): 51, McCormick (R): 39 (49-45 Harris in two-way, 45-41 Harris with third-party candidates)WI-Sen: Siena College for the New York Times: Tammy Baldwin (D-inc): 51, Eric Hovde (R): 44 (50-46 Harris in two-way, 49-43 Harris with third-party candidates) (May: 49-42 Baldwin) WI-Sen: Bullfinch Group for The Independent Center: Baldwin (D-inc): 50, Hovde (R): 41 (51-42 Harris in two-way, 49-40 Harris with third-party candidates) NC-Gov: YouGov Blue (D) for Carolina Forward: Josh Stein (D): 46, Mark Robinson (R): 36 (46-46 presidential tie with third-party candidates) NC-AG: YouGov Blue (D) for Carolina Forward: Jeff Jackson (D): 42, Dan Bishop (R): 40 NC Supreme Court: YouGov Blue (D) for Carolina Forward: Allison Riggs (D-inc): 42, Jefferson Griffin (R): 41Ad PileFL-Sen: Stanley Campbell (D)NV-Sen: Sam Brown (R); Brown and the NRSCPA-Sen: Dave McCormick (R) - anti-Bob Casey (D-inc)DE-Gov: Matt Meyer (D)FL-01: Matt Gaetz (R-inc)MI-08: Kristen McDonald Rivet (D) - anti-Paul Junge (R)MT-01: Monica Tranel (D) - anti-Ryan Zinke (R-inc)NH-01: Russell Prescott (R)PA-01: Ashley Ehasz (D) - anti-Brian Fitzpatrick (R-inc)Campaign Action

Conservatives have sought to block environmental and socially conscious standards for investing, arguing that such initiatives can lead to unfair discrimination.