Writing on Salon, the premier feminist blogger offers a great in depth analysis of why The Silver State was a bright spot for Democrats in 2016.
“While Clinton was being handed losses in states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which typically swing left in presidential election years, she won Nevada by 2.4 percentage points. In the Nevada Senate race, Republican Joe Heck was leading in the polls over Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto for much of September and October, but Cortez Masto swiftly gained momentum over the second half of October and won on November 8...”
Marcotte goes on and waxes poetic about the strong labor movement in Nevada:
“The party also benefitted from the support of a thriving labor movement, which persists in Nevada even as unions in other states are taking a beating.
“The Culinary Union is a rank and file union. We’re really militant and disciplined,” explained Bethany Khan, the spokeswoman for the Culinary Union, which has been organizing people in the restaurant and service industries for 80 years.
“We had 300 workers who, in two months, took a leave of absence from their hotel or casino jobs and knocked on 350,000 doors and talked to over 75,000 voters and delivered 54,000 early votes,” Khan rattled off. “We had 60 percent of our membership registered and ready to vote.”
Finally, I could not let this part go unquoted:
“The Democratic shunning of the community group ACORN in 2009, after the group was subject to false accusations of sex trafficking, was the exact opposite of what Democratic politicians should be doing. These organizations are how Democrats win, and politicians should offer support and not abandonment when Republicans attack these groups.”
sounds kind of like Kos’s maxim, “Never bring a spork to a gunfight,” ne ce pas?
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Amanda Marcotte is a politics writer for Salon. She's on Twitter @AmandaMarcotte
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