Weekly Recap 3/30: Feeling Good

By TokyoSand on March 31, 2024 • ( 1 )

Sometimes when I put these recaps together, I feel like I’m trying to find those rare good news gems in a vast ocean of bad or otherwise upsetting news. This was not one of those weeks.

On the whole, I feel pretty good — Biden’s polls appear to be improving, I’m seeing more enthusiasm for his candidacy, and he and his administration keep accomplishing good things for Americans. It doesn’t hurt that Trump and others in his orbit had a bad week.

Good News

Biden’s fundraiser with Presidents Obama and Clinton raised $26M in one night — more than the RNC has raised in the first two months of the year ($23M.)

New poll – 81% think abortion is no govt

This time in the last election, Trump’s campaign had over 60 people working in Arizona. This year, they only have 6 people working.

Biden was endorsed by members of Cesar Chavez’s family — a mostly symbolic gesture, but one meant to send a signal to independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who’s trying to invoke his own family’s ties to the late union organizer and civil rights leader.

Long overdue, a Texas appeals court reversed itself and acquitted Crystal Mason who had been sentenced to five years in prison for illegally casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election, even though the state hadn’t made her aware she was ineligible.

A federal judge threw out a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk against the nonprofit organization Center for Countering Digital Hate, because he said it was an attempt by Musk to silence the center for its reports about rising hate speech and conspiracy theories on Twitter.

U.S. consumer sentiment rose markedly toward the end of March, supported by strong stock-market gains and expectations that inflation will continue to ease.

Thanks to pressure from the White House and Democrats, pharma giant GlaxoKlineSmith said it would cap out-of-pocket costs for all its inhaled asthma and chronic lung disease medicines at $35 per month for eligible patients in the United States, following similar moves by two of its rivals.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law several gun safety bills which impose new safety and reporting requirements for gun dealers and owners, as well as law enforcement agencies.

A California judge recommended to the CA Supreme Court that Trump’s legal advisor for the January 6th plot, John Eastman, be permanently disbarred.

The Biden administration restored rules to protect imperiled species and shield their habitat from destruction after the measures were rolled back under former President Donald Trump.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has decided against running as the No Labels candidate for president.

In a move that’s sure to turn off left-leaning independent voters, RFK Jr. chose a running mate who has a history of being critical about IVF procedures.

Call to Action

For this week’s call to action, I want to give you some information in case you find yourself in a conversation with someone who wants to vote for a 3rd party or independent candidate for president.

To be clear, I think more voices in a democracy is a good thing, and we get better overall solutions when more points of view are considered. And 3rd parties can win any other position–governor, Senator, etc.– but they cannot win the presidency due to two things: the Constitution and money.

The Constitution mandates that to win the presidency, a candidate must win a majority of Electoral College votes. That means in November, you must win at least 270 EC votes to win. The map below takes the swing states (striped) and the 15 next most competitive states (orange) to show how many states a 3rd party candidate must win to get 270+ votes.

*A sample electoral map showing the number of states a 3rd party candidate would have to win to gain the presidency. (This map equals 276 electoral votes.)*

The two major parties spent $11 billion in 2020 trying to win just the swing states. A 3rd party would have to spend equally to be competitive in the swing states AND spend billions more to win enough other states to get to 270 electoral votes.

Ask your friend if their 3rd party candidate has explained how they plan to win these states. Or any combination of states that gets them 270 electoral votes. If they can’t answer, maybe just ask them how they plan to win Texas’ 40 electoral votes.

In the end, they’ll have to come to their own conclusions, but you can encourage them to support 3rd party candidates for other positions and please, please, please make their vote for president count in November.