Despite the chaos and confrontations that Democrats generated in May as they expressed opposition to congressional maps aligned with the Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, they have now quietly dropped their lawsuit challenging the maps.
On Tuesday a lawsuit filed by the Tennessee Democratic Party and a handful of liberal state leaders was voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiffs, meaning they chose to drop the case. Technically, Democrats can choose to re-file the lawsuit at any time, though it is unlikely.
Democrat State Rep. Justin Pearson, who led the floor demonstrations against the new maps, said that the decision to drop the suit was based on legal advice.
“While we believed our Tennessee Democratic Party federal redistricting challenge was just, all plaintiffs were aligned and advised by attorneys that dismissing our case to restore District 9 to the previous map was the best course of action given the U.S. Supreme Court’s stance on Louisiana v. Callais,” he said in part.
Sounds like the lawyers properly advised them that they would lose, like all the other legal challenges across the country, and they decided to cut their losses rather than keep funding lawyers. Good call.
POLLS ARE IN THE FIELD! Several campaigns either are in the field currently or have been actively polling in recent weeks before entering the final push to August 6. We have thankfully moved past, for the most part, the straw poll season. And news media polling that used to be a thing “back in the day” has disappeared as political coverage and funding in newsrooms have been sliced dramatically along with staff.
But internal campaign polls remain relevant, both to gain insight on voter views and as fodder for campaign spin. So send them our way! (Psst, we won’t share who leaked them to us.)
SPEAKING OF POLLS: DO NEW CANDIDATE ADS REFLECT ISSUE-BASED POLLING DATA? As we enter the final sprint to the August Republican primary date the airwaves are starting to be filled with candidate ads. Not surprisingly, with President Trump’s nearly 100% success rate with candidate endorsements in primaries this cycle, virtually every candidate will be claiming a close affiliation with Trump. Voters are likely to find it hard to determine which are the real Trumpers versus those who simply claim it with no foundation or track record.
But beyond the sometimes questionable claim to be the best Trump advocate, what do the issues the candidates feature in their ads tell us about them or their polling? The biggest question I have when I see the issues that a candidate focuses upon in their ads is whether those topics reflect general voter concerns, for example gas prices (which a candidate may actually have little of any ability to impact), as opposed to those which are intended to move remaining undecided voters.
Also, are the issues hammered in the ad poised to distinguish the candidate from the position of their opponent? For example, “I oppose China buying our farmland!” Does the opponent support China buying farm land in Tennessee, or been involved in Chinese land acquisition deals in recent years? Or is the ad simply intended to generate an emotional response, which may be a good strategy, but not necessarily move a lot of undecided votes.
As you watch and hear commercials in the coming weeks, and are inundated with direct mail pieces in your mailbox, pay attention to the issues that the candidates focus upon. Are they able to cut through the noise and confusion resulting from every candidate for every office seeming to talk about the exact same things? Is there a creativity that makes you take notice? Or are they simply consultant driven off-the-shelf products intended to generate revenue for the consultant rather than actually produce results at the ballot box.
Campaigns that cannot differentiate themselves based on issues and candidate appeal in their ads over the coming weeks are unlikely to win on August 6. Pay attention and try to discern the difference between teams playing to win or playing it safe.
Steve Gill is editor and publisher of TriStar Daily.
