Good news for Democrats this week from BIG special election win to the economy and more!

Stop and enjoy the good news when we get it!

Too often in these challenging times the focus of political coverage is on the alarming and downright frightening developments we are witnessing. Those must be covered. But all of us—me included—need to take time to savor the good developments for Democrats in this all-important election year.  And over the past few days there has been an abundance of such good news—but it’s been overshadowed by all things Trump. So let’s go through it!

For starters—and this is big--on Tuesday in a special election in Florida that many viewed as a bellwether for Democratic chances in November, Democrat Tom Keen flipped what had been a Republican state House seat. This election in Florida’s District 35 in central Florida was for a seat that had been held by Republican Fred Hawkins who won the district in 2022 by 10 percentage points—but he recently resigned to head a college.

The contest pitted Democrat Keen, a Navy flight officer who works in the aerospace industry, against Republican Erika Booth, a teacher and member of the Osceola School Board.  The race was significant because District 35 is evenly divided in terms of political registration and—very importantly—became a contest between MAGA values versus Democratic values.

Keen campaigned as a “committed progressive” who would adamantly support abortion rights, protect the rights of LGBTQ citizens and also address local issues like affordable housing. His GOP opponent Erika Booth—who raised far more campaign funds ($323,000 to Keen’s $121,000)--campaign website was the MAGA agenda on display. Her top issue was pledging to “Fight Joe Biden’s Woke Agenda.” Her website called President Biden “Sleepy Joe” and stated, “Erika will fight side-by-side with Governor DeSantis and President Trump to end the disastrous Biden Presidency.”

She also vowed to “Protect Our Children from Indoctrination” and was outspoken “supporter of   the parental rights movement.” In reality, we know this code for the GOP banning books and subjects that they don’t approve of.

But despite the GOP financial advantage, a well-organized state GOP party and the fact the district went by 10 points to a Republican in 2022, the Democrat won 51 to 48 percent! Florida Democratic election analyst Matt Isbell instructively told The Orlando Sentinel: “What actually clinched the win for Democrats was this massive margin with [nonpartisan voters] and perhaps some Republican moderates, as well.” He added, “If anything, this should be concerning for the GOP because it indicates a voter anger that maybe they have not understood.”

That takes us to good news item #2 for Democrats. People are starting to feel that the economy is working for them. A new Axios poll released Wednesday found that 63% of Americans rate their current financial situation as being "good," including 19% of us who say it's "very good."  This is important because telling people the economic data is strong is one thing but people feeling THEIR personal economy is good is what wins elections. 

And Wednesday, we saw economic data that backed up that people are feeling good about the economy.  Holiday shopping turned out even better than expected in December as shoppers picked up the pace to close out a strong 2023. Overall, retail sales increased 0.6% for the month, far better than the 0.4% Dow Jones estimate.

A CNBC headline from a little over a week ago summed up so well what is fueling this: “U.S. payrolls increased by 216,000 in December, much better than expected.” The unemployment rate was 3.7% in December—compared to Trump’s last full month in office in December 2021 when it was 6.7 percent. Overall, unemployment has now been under 4% for almost two years — the longest streak since the Vietnam War.

Then there is the line we often hear from the right: “My 401k misses Trump.”  In reality, when Trump left office, the Dow closed at 30,930.52. Where is it today?  It’s now at over 37,100.  And the S&P 500 was at 3,798,91 on Trump’s final day. Today the S&P 500 is over 4,700.  These are more than 25 percent increases in just three years—with the first year of Biden’s administration still dealing with Trump’s failed handling of Covid which hurt the economy. If your 401k is lower today after these massive gains in the stock market over the past three years, don’t blame Biden, blame your stockbroker.

Another piece of good news for Democrats came out on Monday. That is when Biden and the DNC announced their fundraising numbers for the final three months of 2023. What did we learn? Biden and the Democrats had raised more than $97 million. Trump has not yet released his fundraising numbers for the final quarter of 2023, but for the quarter before, he had only raised $45.5 million. (Trump’s refusal to share these fundraising numbers likely indicate they are far lower than Biden’s.)

Even more impressive for Democrats was that the number of people donating the past three months had jumped from the prior quarter to more than 520,000 donors. Of that, 97 percent of all the fourth-quarter 2023 donations were under $200, with the average contribution totaling $41.88. (FYI Biden’s latest haul of $97 million outpaced that of President Barack Obama, who with the DNC raised an un-inflation adjusted $68 million in the final three months of 2011.)

We even had some more good news from the Iowa caucus further showing us that enthusiasm and excitement for Trump is dropping. This came in the area of TV ratings—which Trump is obsessed with.  In 2020, the Iowa caucus—which was only competitive for Democrats since Trump ran unopposed as the incumbent—saw nearly 9 million tuned on the big cable news channels to watch. 

This year, viewership of coverage was down by nearly 50 percent to an average of 4.67 million viewers across Fox News, CNN and MSNBC. That has to hurt Trump!

And the turnout at Monday’s GOP Iowa caucus was the lowest since 2000. Only about 109,000 voted on Monday (approx. 14% of all GOP voters) despite it being the MLK holiday, meaning many had the day off. In comparison, in the last competitive Iowa GOP caucus in 2016, 187,000 voted. Even in 2012 and 2008 when there were far less registered Republicans in Iowa than today, almost 122,000 participated in the caucus.

There will be many days the news will be filled with impending doom given Trump and his fascist MAGA movement. That makes savoring the good news that much more imperative. And what we’ve seen over the past few days is great for the Democrats!

---