Public Comment

Aside from defeating Donald Trump for President, probably the most important thing voters can do in this election year is return control of the Senate to Democrats. This article suggests nine close Senate races where Berkeleyans and other locals might contribute effectively and financially to help Democratic and Independent candidates for Senate. Republicans need to lose a minimum of four seats for Senate control to shift to the Democratic Party.

Our actual votes in national elections, at least in Berkeley, won’t matter much this November since Berkeley will certainly send a Democrat back to the House of Representatives, there are no California Senate seats on the ballot, and the State seems pretty solidly ready to vote for Biden and reject Trump for President.

So one of the best things we can do is donate to and otherwise support Democratic and independent incumbents and challengers for Congressional seats. It’s less than two months to election day, and absentee and early voting will start soon in many states. 

Democrats look in a good position to sustain and possibly expand their majority in the House of Representatives. (There are, however, a number of Democratic “pick-up” opportunities in the House which I won’t try to describe here.) 

The key is the Senate where Mr. McConnell, allied with those who are either scared of Trump or willing to act as his minions, has successfully ignored, delayed, buried, or turned backwards, almost any attempt at meaningful action on most of the key issues of the day—climate change, race relations, economic inequality and reform, and the COVID-19 crisis. 

Donating to Democratic candidates in key Senate races is one of the most consequential things we here in “safe” California can do to bring about change. But where might the money do the most good? 

I’m glad I waited late in the election season to write this, because the election landscape has been changing and most of those I would have donated to a few months ago in “close” races now seem either well funded or in a good position for the election. 

For example, the four top tier opportunities to replace incumbent Republican Senators with Democrats were and are in Arizona, North Carolina, Colorado, and Maine. The Democrats now seem to be ahead and well supported financially in all of those races. The odious Arizona Republican appointee Martha McSally, Tom Tillis in North Carolina, Cory Gardner in Colorado, and the lamentable faux “moderate” Susan Collins in Maine, all seem on their way to defeat, if current polling and political trends prevail. 

(A side note. I think the best political comment of the year comes from a Mainer disillusioned with Collins who pointed out that she tends to vote “with” Democrats on meaningless things, and with Trump on consequential things. The observation was something like this “Susan Collins is always there for you when you don’t need her.” Hah! I know some Berkeley politicians who are like that.) 

This is not to say don’t donate to the Democrats running in those four states. But their position, both in terms of polling, and fundraising, is better than it was earlier in the year so it gives us the luxury, if that’s the right word, of looking for pick-up opportunities elsewhere. 

(The Democratic candidates in those four races are John Hinkenlooper in Colorado, Sara Gideon in Maine, Cal Cunningham in North Carolina, and Mark Kelly in Arizona.) 

Beyond those four, however, there are at least six other Senate races where there’s a possible chance to achieve a Democratic majority in the Senate. If Democrats can win the four Senate races above, and two or three of the ones below, that would give them a slight cushion in the Senate and, if he’s elected President, Joe Biden will have a meaningful chance to undertake real progressive reform. 

And if Trump is re-elected or steals the election, a Democratic Senate and House for the next two years will be the last essential firewall protecting actual American democracy. (Well, Canadian American democracy may survive. But ours might not.) 

This is not written to give you all the details of the positions and backgrounds of the Democratic candidates in each race. It’s just an overview based on the premise that these particular Democrats are, in each and every case, better than their particular Republican opponents in their election contests. I’ve provided the campaign website links for the each of the Democrats so you can research them further. 

MONTANA
 

Governor Steve Bullock is the Democratic candidate running against incumbent Steve Daines. 

The small size of the Montana population and the affordable media markets also mean that contributions can have an outsized impact here. And Montana, although it usually votes Republican in presidential elections, does periodically elect Democrats to its Congressional seats and support for Trump has recently eroded there. Democrat Jon Tester currently holds the other Senate seat for the state. Bullock is reportedly a well known and popular figure in Montana and has already shown he can win a statewide election. 

Bullock for U.S. Senate website: stevebullock.com 

IOWA 

Theresa Greenfield is the Democratic candidate running against incumbent Republican Joni Ernest. Ernest has made herself into an odious Trumper, clinging tight to him, including supporting his COVID-19 non-response in what is now one of the top “hot spot” states for COVID-19 cases. 

Iowa has tended to vote for Republicans in recent years but is also a state where many Republican and independent voters are well educated so there’s a better chance of a reasonable and sensible Democratic candidate breaking through. Iowa also gave Barak Obama its electoral votes in 2004 and 2008 and elected Democrats to three of its four House seats in 2018. Most recently the state suffered a pretty severe natural disaster in August where windstorms devastated some of its southwestern counties, and Republican officeholders at the State and National level seem to have partially fumbled disaster response. 

Greenfield has a compelling personal narrative; she grew up on a Minnesota farm across the border from Iowa, and her first husband, a union electrician, died in a work accident. She was left at the age of 24 a pregnant widow with no job and a one year old child. She credits support from Social Security and Workers’ Comp for helping her family survive, and give her the means to return to college and learn a new career. Unlike many Republicans who have benefitted from government assistance personally, then politically spurned government social service programs, she takes the broader view that government has a role in helping the disadvantaged. 

Greenfield’s website is greenfieldforiowa.com 

KANSAS 

Barbara Bollier, the Democratic nominee, is running for an open Senate seat, after the retirement of Pat Roberts, Republican incumbent Senator. Roger Marshall is the Republican nominee in a generally Republican state, but he doesn’t have the usually considerable advantage of incumbency. 

Bollier is a doctor who was appointed to the State Legislature as a Republican in 2010; she ran for re-election either unopposed in the Republican primaries, or opposed by Republicans supported by business interests and right wingers. In 2018 she began to support Democrats for Statewide office and at the end of that year she was one of three Kansas legislators who formally changed their party affiliation from Republican to Democratic. She said at the time,“Morally, the party is not going where my compass resides.” Her main issues have been health care, including Medicaid expansion, and school funding. 

The one mark against her from our local perspective might be that she has a son who went to Stanford. :-) But we can certainly overlook that in this election year. 

Marshall, on the other hand, was one of the Republican House of Representative members who, last October, in an act of ludicrous grandstanding, broke into the House Intelligence Committee hearings investigating possible impeachment articles for Donald Trump. He also wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act. 

Having another woman in the Senate, especially a fact-based medical doctor, would be a great plus. And a win by Bollier would also show that actual moderate Republicans won’t destroy—and can even further—their careers by switching parties or defying Trumpism, something that Republicans running for election or re-election after 2020 will be well aware of. 

Bollier’s campaign website is bollierforkansas.com 

GEORGIA REGULAR ELECTION 

Georgia is a big toss-up this year. It’s generally been a reliable Republican state, but the Black Lives Matter movement, the tumultuous 2018 election there (that barely put into office a corrupt Republican and big Trump supporter as Governor) and the fact that both Senate seats are on the ballot—puts the State into play. 

Journalist Jon Ossoff is the Democratic nominee running against incumbent Senator David Perdue. In recent polls they are close to tied. Perdue has opposed climate change legislation and the Paris Agreement, wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and drastically cut legal immigration and has been a close ally of Trump. 

Ossoff’s campaign website is electjon.com 

(Note, there’s a fake anti-Ossoff site using the domain name jonossoff (com) DON’T make the mistake of using that.) 

GEORGIA - SPECIAL ELECTION
 

The second Georgia Senate election is a special election for the seat currently held by Republican appointee, Kelly Loeffler. In this election all candidates will be on the same ballot and if one doesn’t win more than 50% of the vote, there will be a special election in January between the top two vote-getters. 

Since there are two Republicans on the ballot, it’s possible that the runoff could be an all-Republican election. So the campaign focus is on getting the leading Democratic candidate, Rev. Ralph Warnock, into at least the second place for the runoff. 

Multi-millionaire appointee Loeffler has been tone deaf and repugnant for much of her short tenure in the Senate. Most recently there were the private investment shifts she allegedly made after private briefings on the likely economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis. Loffler’s better known endorsers include Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell, and Ivanka Trump. But the Republican side in the election is somewhat split since Loeffler wasn’t supported for appointment by Donald Trump, and Trump’s favorite, Representative Doug Collins, is also on the ballot as the second primary Republican candidate. 

Warnock is the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. He’s running on affordable health care, support for workers, and voting rights in particular. Voting rights is a huge issue in Georgia where the current Republican governor was elected when he was Secretary of State, and apparently actively aiding voter suppression. 

His website is warnockforgeorgia.com 

ALASKA 

Dan Sullivan is the Republican incumbent. Al Gross is the Independent challenger. 

There is actually no Democrat formally on the Senate ballot in Alaska this year, although Gross has been formally endorsed by the Alaska Democratic Party. But you can help defeat Trumpism by supporting a moderate independent. Gross, like Bollier in Kansas, is another actual doctor. Alaska media markets are inexpensive and the population is small so small amounts of money can have a big impact. 

Some people will argue that only those who run specifically as Democrats should be supported. In this case, that isn’t an option. I also tend to be of the opinion that legislatures can quite often be more healthy and representative and hear more diverse views if they are not essentially limited to two parties. 

(Look at the British House of Commons, for example, where there are elected representatives from no less than 11 formal parties. There are two major parties, but there are 75 out of 650 members of the House of Commons who do not belong to them. Partially for that reason, if you listen to Commons debates, they are often refreshingly specific and direct about actual issues and people, as compared to monochromatic Congressional “debates” in this country.) 

Back to Alaska. Electing Gross would reduce the Republican total in the Senate by one, and add another independent who, along with Maine’s Angus King and Vermont’s Bernie Sanders—also elected as independents—would presumably caucus with Democrats. 

Gross has an-only in Alaska backstory. His website says he “was born in the wake of an avalanche in Juneau in 1962. Their house, at the foot of Mt. Juneau, was nearly buried…” He worked as a commercial fisherman for ten summers, buying his own boat, to help pay for college and medical school. His opening campaign video also says he “killed a grizzly bear in self defense after it snuck up on him.” Hmmm. Cal Bears can overlook that this year in the interests of saving national democracy. 

His campaign website is dralgrossak.com 

OTHER SENATE OPPORTUNITIES 

In addition to those six Senate races, there are three other races where the Democrats may be less likely to win, but where a campaign contribution could help and would also be a moral statement against corruption and right wing extremism. 

SOUTH CAROLINA 

The election has incumbent Lindsey Graham against Jaime Harrison. Although Graham was a heavy favorite months ago, polling now shows the election very close. 

A few years ago Graham was a caustic and outspoken critic of Donald Trump and one of the supposedly “centrist” members of the Senate. During Trump’s time in office Graham has remade his public face as a rabid right-winger, most notably through his shouty support for Brett Kavanagh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. 

Graham appears to have gone right in part to protect himself against a Trumpian primary challenge. But when you act just like the people you used to say you abhorred, that sort of makes you one of them. It would be just for Graham to lose his seat because his choice was to cynically positioned himself to survive rather than stick to any political principles. 

(As if that’s not enough, the Graham campaign admitted at the end of July that in a campaign ad they had darkened the skin of his African American opponent for “artistic effect”. That’s a old and standard trick from the Republican playbook—make your opponents look dark and scary, as a racist dog whistle to voters.) 

Graham is probably hoping that he’ll win re-election, Trump might lose, and he can go back to pretending to be a “centrist” in the Senate. Don’t give him that chance. He should not be allowed to go back to “I’m one of the reasonable ones…” after the election since he has so often abetted and ignored true evil in the past four years. He’s basically been a craven collaborator and enabler for Trump. 

Jaime Harrison’s campaign website is: Jaimeharrison.com 

ALABAMA 

Incumbent and Democrat Doug Jones is running for re-election. It seems a political age ago when Doug Jones surprisingly won the special election for the Senate seat previously held by Republican Jeff Sessions. Once he won, Jones could have aimed at a second term by becoming “Republican lite”, voting on consequential issues in ways he could claim supported Trump. Instead, he seems to have been a principled Senator, including voting to convict Trump in the impeachment trial. 

His Republican opponent is former college football coach Tommy Tuberville who has been regarded, even by some Republicans, as a carpetbagger. He also sounds like he’s running for office mainly so he can add “Senator” to his resume, like winning a football bowl championship. Although he’s a well known Alabama native, Tuberville may be vulnerable locally in that he actually lived and voted in Florida as recently as two years ago. 

The website for Jones is: dougjones.com 

KENTUCKY 

While Donald Trump is an authoritarian wannabe, buffoon, and grifter without parallel in recent American politics, Senate incumbent Mitch McConnell is the one who has done the most legislative damage to the United States in the past four years. He blocked President Obama’s nominee for a Supreme Court vacancy, has concentrated on confirming radical right-wing (not traditionally “conservative”) judges and appointees to Federal offices, and made the Senate sit on its hands rather than act on national emergencies. 

He’s been contemptuous of legislative norms, applying or ignoring Senate rules when they don’t benefit himself and Trump, and treating the narrowly divided chamber like it’s a one party legislative body in a banana republic. He’s also a political grifter himself, proclaiming fiscal conservatism but making sure that all sorts of Federal funds pour into Kentucky, including, quite possibly, through the hands of his wife, Trump’s Secretary of Transportation. 

He should go. His challenger is Democrat Amy McGrath, a military veteran who flew combat missions for the Marine Corps. Although she has been running as a centrist—something many in Berkeley will dislike—getting rid of McConnell should be paramount. And Republicans have moved so far to the authoritarian right that Democratic centrists should be regarded with a bit more kindness. 

Supporting the McGrath campaign even if she loses also helps Democrats in other states, since McConnell is nothing if not self-centered, like Trump, and is reportedly directing a lot of Senate Republican campaign funds he controls or influences to support his campaign, reducing the money that goes to other races. 

McGrath’s website is amymcgrath.com 

Donating:
 

You can donate directly to Senate campaigns. The campaign websites of the Democrats and Independents are listed above.
 

Many Democrats also use ActBlue for fundraising. You can set up a simple account there to make your donations. ActBlue does charge candidates a 3.95% processing fee taken out of your donation. secure.actblue.com 

One further note. I have read complaints by people who have donated to campaigns, provided their telephone number, then been deluged with enormous numbers of unwanted text messages from those and other campaigns asking them to donate again. So you might consider not listing a phone number when you donate, if that’s possible. 

As a final note, remember this is an immensely consequential national election on so many fronts. Perhaps no less so than 1860 or 1932. Imagine what the country would have been like if a Southern appeaser had been President instead of Lincoln, or if Hoover and a Republican Senate had been re-elected three years into the Great Depression. 

To meet the challenges of our times not only does the United States need a new—and legitimate—President, but Congress needs to change as well. Franklin Roosevelt rode a “wave” election into office in the midst of the deepest economic crisis in 20th century American history but the New Deal was only able to happen because in his first term had a comfortable Congressional majority to swiftly enact his programs and reforms. Democrats need that, too, when 2021 begins. If we have a divided Congress fin 2021 and 2022, it may well be too late to salvage things.i