September 10, 2024

Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.

As Democrats fight to keep Kennedy on the ballot, Michigan appears to be in play, exposing college degree and no degree economic divide

By Robert Romano

Former presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, Jr. will remain on the ballot in Michigan, says the state’s supreme court, despite the candidate withdrawing from the race and petitioning to be removed.

It’s an irony in many ways. When President Joe Biden was still the Democratic Party’s candidate earlier in the year, state Democratic Parties were fighting to keep him off the ballot in light of numerous polls showing he pulled just as many or more votes from Biden as former President Donald Trump.

But after Biden withdrew from the race and Vice President Kamala Harris became the nominee, Democrats re-consolidated their base of support, and it looked like Kennedy might pull more support from Trump. Rather than help Democrats win, Kennedy withdrew from the race and threw his support and endorsement behind Trump, fully joining the campaign.

One of the major reasons, particularly for the emphasis of Democrats to keep Kennedy on the ballot in Michigan is because he had a very significant stream of support there. In the Aug. 23 to Aug. 29 CNN-SSRS poll of swing states, in Michigan, Kennedy garnered 4 percent of the vote, compared to Harris’ 48 percent and Trump’s 43 percent.

In short, with Kennedy out of the race and backing Trump, if the former president and Kennedy were successful at persuading Kennedy’s supporters to go with Trump, the race in Michigan suddenly becomes very close. So, in Democrats’ rationale, keeping Kennedy on the ballot — even though he’s not running — could still have an impact on the race when Michiganders get in the voting booth, maybe enough to help Harris win.

Looking at the crosstabs in the CNN swing state polls, one cross swath Kennedy polled significantly among were white voters with no college degree, garnering 5 percent. For Trump, white, no college degree voters are his bread and butter in terms of garnering votes. And the cultural and economic divide between college graduates and the rest of the country is a widening chasm of opportunity, with college graduates historically tending to have lower unemployment rates and higher incomes.

In 2020, Trump won white, no college degree 67 percent to 32 percent nationally in 2020. In Georgia it was 79 to 29. In Arizona it was 57 to 41. In Nevada it was 60 to 39. In Pennsylvania it was 66 to 34. In Michigan it was 60 to 39. And in Wisconsin it was 57 to 41.

And in CNN’s most recent poll, again, there are big third-party swaths including Kennedy in Michigan, Trump leads 53 percent to 36 percent among white, no college degree voters, with Kennedy garnering 5 percent.

Now Trump leads that group in Arizona by 65 percent to 31 percent, in Georgia 71 percent to 27 percent, in Nevada 64 percent to 31 percent, in Pennsylvania 63 percent to 31 percent and in Wisconsin 54 percent to 41 percent.

So, in the swing states, Trump is well above his 2020 levels among white, no college degree in Arizona and Nevada, but the other states are relatively the same except Georgia, where Trump is down slightly. If just you assume the undecided and Kennedy swaths breaks evenly in Michigan, then Trump is well above where he was in 2020. That puts Michigan in play.  

Looking at college graduates, in 2020, in Arizona, it was 53 percent to 46 percent for Biden among white college graduates. Now it's 47 to 47. In Nevada, in 2020, it was 49 percent to 48 percent, but here Harris improves, to 56 percent to 41 percent. In Pennsylvania, it was 54 percent to 45 percent, now it's 59 percent to 37 percent. In Michigan it was 53 percent to 46 percent, now it's 52 percent to 41 percent. In Georgia, Trump actually won white college degree in 2020 55 percent to 44 percent, and now he leads 65 percent to 32 percent. And in Wisconsin, Biden led white college degree 56 percent to 43 percent, and now it's 62 percent to 31 percent.

Those numbers might put Georgia and Arizona out of reach for Harris, and they also appear to have Nevada, Michigan and Pennsylvania in play. Wisconsin looks tougher for Trump and Republicans this year. We'll see. It seems very close, and with Kennedy off the ballot and his supporters by and large coalescing under Trump’s growing tent, the race for 2024 could come down to the wire. Stay tuned.

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/09/as-democrats-fight-to-keep-kennedy-on-the-ballot-michigan-appears-to-be-in-play-exposing-college-degree-and-no-degree-economic-divide/

Cartoon: Toe To Toe

By A.F. Branco

Click here for a higher level resolution version.

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/09/cartoon-toe-to-toe/

Team Harris’ Crazy ‘Kill the Messenger’ Rental Housing Price Control Lawsuit

By Rick Manning

Vice President Kamala Harris and the recently tossed aside President Biden continue to amaze with their lack of basic economic awareness.

Their latest ostrich move is their call to set rental housing price controls at 5 percent and throw the full weight of the federal government against a software company that monitors rental prices and suggests price ranges for comparable units to property managers. The property managers then have full autonomy to choose whether or not to follow those price recommendations.

The irony is that the pricing software merely mirrors the market.  A neighborhood with declining desirability and low demand would likely see rents remain the same or go down, while a high-desirability and high-demand area might see rental costs increase.

Democrats may not like it, but that’s how our market system works—prices rise and decline based on the invisible hand of supply and demand.

For those policymakers who have caused a housing shortage through policies that created scarcity of both new home and rental unit building, the software program is merely a messenger that shows the real-world impact of bad policies. Progressive cities, often run by the environmentalist, not in my backyard crowd, that have put barrier after barrier up to stop new development and are responsible for making housing unaffordable, must find somewhere to shift the blame.

An additional strain on the housing supply is the steady flow of thousands of immigrants flooding our borders—a challenge straining the housing market and social services of places like New York, Boston, and the Bay Area of California.

The basic laws of supply and demand are taught in the first week of any economics class. When demand (in this case, desire for housing) exceeds supply, prices go up. This price increase incentivizes those who would build housing to get busy and create more units, risking that the demand will still exist when their new or converted units hit the market.

Leftist policies that hamper if not make the building of even low-cost new units nearly impossible, also often create substantial add-on costs to housing, which increases their costs to the consumer.

So, what do the lawyers in the Biden-Harris administration propose to make housing more available and affordable?

Get their Justice Department to file a misguided lawsuit against using software that applies data-driven housing price models in rental housing. In other words, find someone to blame by deciding to allege that a politically neutral rental pricing software is illegal.

After all, data-driven software that signals that prices are too high or too low must be the reason why prices in places like Harris’s San Francisco have skyrocketed.

Pay no attention to San Francisco’s nuttiness when it comes to housing policy. Years ago, housing developments along parts of the Bay were actually stopped due to concerns about something known as the ‘salt marsh harvest mouse.’ The grounds for the initial federal lawsuit to prevent these developments were they were intended to be built on land adjacent to the mouse’s natural habitat, and in the event of global warming-induced sea rise, that land would be needed by the mouse for its survival.

Now, there are millions of dollars of government studies about the mouse, but nary a one about the impact the subsequent reduced number of housing units available have on the humans who live in the area.

Millions of voters face housing cost inflation. Suing a price monitoring software company is not going to solve this problem, but in a world where blaming something is more valued than doing the right thing, it is to be expected.

Instead, the single best way to deal with the high price of rents and housing as a whole is to encourage builders to do what they do best—build—breaking down federal government barriers to rapidly increase new construction to meet demand.

But unfortunately, Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party are the party of lawyers and bureaucrats. It would never occur to them to create conditions to build out of the housing inflation they are wholly responsible for creating. It is not in their DNA.

Maybe, instead, the solution to the affordable housing crisis is to hire a builder to be president. Someone who has actually built buildings and created housing units. Someone who has dealt with federal, state, and local governments and bureaucrats to get something built.

What a radical approach, putting someone in the White House who actually knows what he is doing.

Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.

To view online: https://amgreatness.com/2024/09/10/team-harris-crazy-kill-the-messenger-rental-housing-price-control-lawsuit/