John Davis Consulting

Today is a Great Day to be an American, a Nation of Laws; a North Carolinian, a State of Laws

February 24, 2022       Vol. XV, No. 3       4:13 pm

It all started 219 years ago on February 24, 1803

The partisan fact that a 4-3 “Democratic” North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that the “Republican” maps were unconstitutional is irrelevant. The only thing relevant is the North Carolina Supreme Court had the authority of judicial review of the legislative maps.

This morning’s News & Observer carried a story quoting Republican North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, saying, “The trial court’s decision to impose a map drawn by anyone other than the legislature is simply unconstitutional and an affront to every North Carolina voter.”

No, Mr. Speaker, what is an affront to every North Carolina voter is a legislature that does not respect the constitutionality of the doctrine of judicial review.

The same N&O story quoted Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, D-Nash, saying, “Today’s decision allows a blatantly unfair and unconstitutional state Senate map that may have been the worst of the bunch,” concluding, “Our elections should not go forward until we have fair, constitutional maps.”

No, Governor, under the doctrine of judicial review it is the state Supreme Court that determines the constitutionality of the maps. The court has ruled that the maps, including the state Senate map, are constitutional. It’s time to go forward with our constitutional maps.

Yes, Republicans have a greater advantage with the state Senate map than Democrats, with 24-of-50 districts favoring the election of the GOP candidate (only 26 needed for the majority). Democrats have 19 structurally favorable districts. There are 7 competitive districts.

And, Republicans also have a greater advantage with the state House map than Democrats, with 56-of-120 districts favoring the election of the GOP candidate (only 61 needed for the majority). Democrats have 47 structurally favorable districts. There are 17 competitive districts.

But, if you do not like the decisions of the North Carolina Supreme Court, then take advantage of the two opportunities you have this year to elect justices more likely to support your interpretation of the state constitution. Both seats on the ballot this fall are currently held by Democrats: Justice Robin Hudson is retiring, and Justice Sam Irvin, IV, is seeking another term.

If Republicans win one of the two races, the court will have a 4-3 Republican majority. A Republican-majority court will have the same authority of judicial review enjoyed by the current Democratic-majority court. Perhaps a Republican court will see the maps differently.

Look for record-breaking spending in 2022 Supreme Court races

According to a Brennan Center study of spending in state judicial races, a record $97 million was spent in 21 states, including in North Carolina, on state Supreme Court races during the 2020 elections. Candidates for the North Carolina Supreme Court raised $7,056,001 in the last campaign. One group, A Better North Carolina, spent $3.4 million on behalf of 3 Democratic candidates for the state Supreme Court.

Candidates who have filed for Justice Hudson’s seat include Democrat Lucy Inman, a judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals. Inman, who graduated from the UNC School of Law in 1990, reported raising $405,000 year-end 2021. Republican Court of Appeals Judge Richard Dietz has also filed. Dietz graduated from Wake Forest School of Law in 2002 and reported raising $239,000 year-end 2021.

Democratic Justice Sam Ervin, IV, running for another term, graduated from Harvard Law in 1981 and reported raising $382,000 year-end 2021. Two Republicans have filed to challenge Ervin: Trey Allen, a graduate of the UNC School of Law in 2000, who reported raising $292,000 year-end 2021. Also filing as a Republican is Court of Appeals Judge April Wood, a graduate of Regent University School of Law. Wood reported raising $132,000 year-end 2021.

A perfectly balanced battleground state

On November 4, 2021, the North Carolina General Assembly drew a congressional map that gave Republicans an advantage in 10 districts, Democrats an advantage in 3 districts, with 1 tossup district. The congressional map approved last night by the North Carolina Supreme Court for the 2022 races gives Republicans an advantage in 6 districts, Democrats an advantage in 6 districts, with 2 tossup districts. Although balanced fairness is not required in our state constitution, clearly the 2022 map is a better reflection of who we are in North Carolina, a perfectly balanced battleground state.

How balanced? The average Republican and Democratic winning percentages in all 35 of our most recent statewide races (15 Court of Appeals, 7 Supreme Court, 10 Governor and Council of State, 2 U.S. Senate and 1 US President) is 50.1% Republican and 49.3% Democratic. Perfectly balanced.

Today, February 24, 2022, candidates are beginning to file to run in North Carolina districts originally drawn by the legislature and now cured as constitutional by way of judicial review, a doctrine established by the US Supreme Court ruling February 24, 1803 in Marbury v. Madison.

It’s a wonderful day to be an American, a nation of laws; a North Carolinian, a state of laws.

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Thank You for reading the John Davis Political Report

John N. Davis

Need a political speaker? Check availability at www.johndavisconsulting.com

Justice As Rendered in 2022 by US Supreme Court and NC Supreme Court Was Determined at the Ballot Box

January 4, 2022       Vol. XV, No. 1       2:13 pm

US Supreme Court likely to make Democrats’ lives miserable

The US Supreme Court is likely to make Democrats’ lives miserable this year. And next year. And many years after that. All because Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016, giving him the authority to nominate three Supreme Court Justices (Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Barrett), at a time Republicans were the majority party in the US Senate (2015-2021), guaranteeing the confirmation of Trump’s picks that resulted in today’s 6-3 conservative court.

Roe v. Wade? Gone. By June. It’s a 6-3 conservative court. Seven of the nine justices are Catholic, including the six conservatives. There are two Jews on the court (Justices Kagan and Breyer); no protestants, although Justice Gorsuch’s religious affiliation is listed as Anglican/Catholic.

Liberal Justice Sonya Sotomayor, the court’s first Hispanic justice, is also Catholic, but a staunch supporter of a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. She knows what’s coming. Sotomayor told an audience of law students at an American Bar Association event in 2021, “There is going to be a lot of disappointment in the law, a huge amount.”

The US Supreme Court will distinguish itself in two major areas this term. One, it will leave no doubt that it is a 6-3 conservative court. Two, it will show it’s bent toward federalism by pushing more authority back to state courts, as it did in the 2019 North Carolina case, Rucho v. Common Cause, a decision that gave the state Supreme Court the final say so on matters of partisan gerrymandering.

NC Supreme Court likely to make Republicans’ lives miserable

The North Carolina Supreme Court is likely to make Republicans’ lives miserable this year. That’s because it has a 4-3 Democratic majority with the authority to decide whether the Republican-drawn congressional and legislative maps violate the state constitution.

I assure you the three current maps, passed on November 4, 2021 by the Republican majority in the North Carolina General Assembly on a party-line vote, will not pass state constitutional scrutiny by a 4-3 Democratic state Supreme Court. The state constitutional test? It will likely be whether the maps are considered “extreme partisan gerrymanders,” a new legal test created by a Superior Court three-judge panel in 2019; a test that forced the redrawing of congressional and legislative districts for 2020 races.

You be the justice: Do you think North Carolina’s 14-district congressional map, with 10 friendly Republican districts, 3 friendly Democratic districts and one competitive district, is “extreme partisan gerrymandering” in a battleground state where neither party has a predictable political advantage and almost all of its 35 statewide races go down to the wire?  I agree with you.

A 4-3 Democratic majority on the state Supreme Court will not allow 10-3-1 Republican-drawn congressional map to stand. Nor will a 4-3 Democratic majority allow state legislative maps like the current Senate map, that gives Republicans 24 safe seats (26 needed for a majority) to only 17 for the Democrats, with 9 competitive seats, per an analysis by the News & Observer. The N&O analysis also showed a GOP advantage in the NC House map, with 55 safe Republicans seats of the 61 needed for a majority to only 41 for the Democrats and 24 competitive seats.

If you doubt the state Supreme Court’s power over elections, remember, they unilaterally stopped candidate filing last year and changed the primary from March 8, 2022 to May 17, 2022.

Future justice will be determined at the ballot box in 2022

It’s a bit discouraging to think that our judges and justices, our referees, have a partisan bias. It’s a bit naïve to think that they don’t. When it comes to partisan issues like redistricting, my observation is that lady justice peeks out from underneath her blindfold to check the political party of the litigants, and tilts the scales of justice accordingly. That’s especially true in North Carolina, where justices run as Democrats and Republicans.

So, if you want to help protect your political ideology at the state level, get involved in the two North Carolina Supreme Court races this year. The only two seats up for election are currently held by Democrats. Democrats will have to win both to keep their 4-3 edge. Republicans will need to win only one to seize a 4-3 GOP majority.

And, if you want to protect your ideological interests at the federal level, help elect North Carolina’s next US Senator (Sen. Richard Burr is retiring), because that senator will be voting on the nominations of future justices on the US Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, look for liberal US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, appointed by President Bill Clinton, to retire by June to ensure that another Democratic President will pick his successor while Democrats have a 50-50 US Senate with VP Kamala Harris breaking tie votes.

Of interest, Breyer’s replacement this year will not only be a liberal Democrat, but she will also be the Court’s first African American female, a promise made by Joe Biden on the campaign trail.

Bottom line: Democrats lost the balance of power on the US Supreme Court because they lost the 2016 presidential race. Republicans lost the balance of power on the NC Supreme Court because they lost state Supreme Court races in 2016 and 2018.

Like it or not, justice in the United States of America is determined at the ballot box.

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Thank You for reading the John Davis Political Report

John N. Davis

Need a political speaker? Check availability at www.johndavisconsulting.com

North Carolina’s Democratic Islands are Surrounded by a Sea of Republican Precincts in Exurban Counties

October 1, 2021       Vol. XIV, No. 11       12:13 pm

Democratic islands in a sea of Republican precincts

So, how is it that Republicans won 13 of the 17 statewide races in North Carolina in 2020? The 2020 US Census results show the biggest population gains were in Democratic-friendly urban counties and most of the population losses were in Republican-friendly rural counties. The reason is that exurbia, the regions just beyond the big city suburbs, are Republican-friendly areas that grew exponentially too!

As to the population losses in Republican-friendly rural counties, they have so few voters that their political impact is minimal. Those losses are offset by Republican gains in exurbia.

The only four statewide races won by Democrats in 2020 were Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State and Auditor. Republicans won 6 of 10 Council of State races, including Lt. Governor, Treasurer, Public Instruction, Agriculture, Insurance and Labor.

Republicans won all five of North Carolina’s statewide appellate judiciary races in 2020, including two Supreme Court races and the race for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Republicans also won the U.S. Senate race (Tillis) and the presidential contest.

Republicans held both chambers in the North Carolina General Assembly in 2020 and won 8 of 13 races for the United States Congress.

North Carolina is a swing state … period. Neither party has a structural political advantage.

The fact is, urban growth is regionwide growth, including the surrounding Republican precincts, not just the Democratic-friendly precincts in anchor counties like Wake, Mecklenburg, Guilford, Forsyth, Buncombe, Cumberland and New Hanover.

North Carolina’s big cities are like Democratic islands in a sea of Republican-friendly precincts.

Population losses in rural counties have minimal political impact

Population losses in the state and nation in conservative, rural areas have a minimal political impact because the total number of voters in rural counties is so small.

The best illustration of that conclusion can be found in the following series of facts: The US Census shows that 1,636 (53%) of US counties lost population in the last decade, almost all of them rural. President Trump won 90% of all counties that lost population. However, that 90% represents only 19% of Trump’s total 74 million votes.

So, where did the rest of Trump’s 74 million votes come from? From that sea of Republican-friendly precincts in those exurban counties surrounding many of the Democratic-friendly urban anchor counties throughout the nation.

You can see the same results here in North Carolina. The US Census shows that 51% of North Carolina’s 100 counties lost population in the past decade, most of them conservative, rural counties. Trump carried 39 of the 51 counties, or 76% of North Carolina counties that lost population.

However, the 39 counties Trump carried that lost population were only 20% of his total vote in North Carolina (558,101 of 2,758,775). The other 80% of Trump’s votes in North Carolina came from counties that grew, especially those exurban areas that grew exponentially since 2010.

For example, Democratic-friendly Mecklenburg County added 195,853 people to its population during the past 10 years. Surrounding Republican-friendly counties, like Gaston, Union, Stanly, Rowan, Cabarrus, Lincoln, Iredell and Catawba, grew by a combined 159,044. They all went for Trump, giving him a total of 451,346 votes. Mecklenburg County gave Biden 378,107.

Urban growth in North Carolina is positive politically for both Democrats and Republicans.

Implications for redistricting in October and candidate filing in December

Public hearings on redistricting ended on Thursday, September 30. Congressional and state legislative maps will be drawn and litigated in October and November, all in time for candidate filing from December 6 through December 17. Primary Election Day is March 8, 2022.

Criteria adopted by a joint meeting of the Senate and House Redistricting Committees in August stipulates that “data identifying the race of individuals” and “partisan considerations and election results” shall not be used in the drawing of districts. Those are rare concessions by both sides.

My sense, based on population growth patterns, is that neither party is in a position to make some sort of lopsided power grab through remapping. At best, the parties will end up with an advantage in a little less than half of the districts. Meaning they will have to battle it out for the majority every two years for the rest of the decade.

Such is life in swing states like North Carolina, where either party can win or lose it all in 2022.

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Thank You for reading the John Davis Political Report

John N. Davis

Need a speaker or continuing education presentation? Visit www.johndavisconsulting.com

Why Americans Can Expect and Republicans Should Prepare for President Kamala Harris Before 2024

July 9, 2021       Vol. XIV, No. 10       7:13 am

Democrats cannot risk another Hillary Clinton disaster

Vice President Kamala Harris has made many rookie mistakes this year, most recently her mismanagement of President Biden’s already-mismanaged immigration crisis at the border with Mexico, all of which is immaterial to the Twenty-fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, which states that the vice president shall become president if the incumbent resigns, which is becoming increasingly likely.

There are numerous reasons that may prompt President Biden to resign during his first term, like a major health issue, a smoking gun scandal tied to Hunter Biden’s record of exploiting his influential father for foreign quid pro quo business deals, or perhaps a GOP wave election year in 2022 giving Republicans control of Congress and effectively crippling the Biden Administration’s agenda.

However, the #1 reason President Biden is likely to resign during his first term is this: Democrats cannot risk a 2024 repeat of Hillary Clinton’s disastrous 2016 presidential campaign when the aspirational opportunity of a liberal woman of color in the Oval Office is at stake.

What if Kamala Harris turns out to be a flawed nominee like Clinton, a privileged insider whose arrogance of invulnerability affects strategic mistakes and the loss of an eminently winnable contest?

Democrats can’t take that risk.

What if Joe Biden, who will be 82 years old in 2024, is not physically or mentally strong enough to compete in the brutal cage fight that presidential politics has become?

Democrats can’t take that risk. The stakes are too high; the opportunity too great.

Kamala Harris checks all the right boxes

Kamala Harris checks all the right boxes for 21^st Century culturally diverse America: female, the daughter of an Afro-Jamaican immigrant father who taught economics at Stanford; the daughter of an Asian Indian immigrant mother, a career oncologist who raised her two daughters to be “confident, proud Black women,” says Harris in her 2019 book, The Truths We Hold.

Harris writes that her mother, who died of cancer in 2009, was “the most important person in my life.” So, what was her mother’s influence? According to the LA Times, it was that of the Brahmins, India’s “privileged elite” in the ancient Hindu caste system. The crème de la crème. The landowners. The credentialed professionals in law, medicine and engineering. Those who for centuries have set the highest standards of discipline and educational attainment for their children.

It would surprise no one in India’s Brahmin community that Kamala Harris is the highest-ranking female elected official in US history. Nor would they be surprised that while earning her undergraduate degree in political science and economics at Howard University, Harris chaired the economics society and led the debate team. That she went on to earn a law degree from the University of California’s Hastings College of Law.

It would surprise no one at the 23^rd Avenue Church of God in Oakland, California, where Harris she says she learned to “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,” that she won five political campaigns in California, including DA of San Francisco, Attorney General of California in both 2010 and 2014, US Senator from California in 2016, and Vice President of the United States in 2020.

So, if I’m right and President Biden does hand over the keys to the Oval Office before the end of his first term, what can we expect from a President Harris administration?

What would be the priorities of a President Kamala Harris?

First and foremost, a Harris Presidency would be focused on what she sees as social and economic injustices that have reached the boiling point, especially the disparities between rich and poor Americans in the areas of income, healthcare, education, housing and criminal justice. “The goal of economic growth has to be to grow the pie. But if all that’s left for workers are the crumbs, what kind of economy are we really building?” Harris says in her book.

Equal rights and opportunities for women and minorities, including new immigrants, will be paramount in a Harris Administration. Equality and diversity will be more than political talking points, they will be the prisms through which a Harris administration views all public and private entities.

Look for an estrangement between the White House and much of corporate America similar to what we saw during the Obama Administration. “We must speak truth about greedy, predatory corporations that have turned deregulation, financial speculation, and climate denialism into creed,” writes Harris.

Harris believes that President Ronald Reagan ushered in “a new era of selfishness and greed. Corporate profits have soared, but American workers haven’t gotten a meaningful raise in 40 years.” A champion of unions, Harris argues, “We need a rebirth of organized labor in America.”

The goal of identity politics in today’s Democratic Party is to end centuries of white male domination of power in Washington. Towards that end, a Biden presidency is politically expendable; a Kamala Harris presidency is not.

Americans can expect and Republicans should prepare for President Kamala Harris before 2024.

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Thank You for reading the John Davis Political Report

John N. Davis

Need a speaker or continuing education presentation? Visit www.johndavisconsulting.com

Political Maps and Moral Authority are the Most Influential Unknowns in the 2022 Showdown for Power

June 14, 2021       Vol. XIV, No. 9       7:13 am

What if remapping turned Farmington, WV into Farmington, MD?

Imagine how politically disruptive it would be if every 10 years, following the US Census, we redrew all of the state borders. One decade your hometown, say Farmington, West Virginia, is within the boundaries of a conservative Republican-friendly red state, and the next decade Farmington is within the boundaries of a neighboring liberal Democratic-friendly blue state like Maryland.

Sen. Joe Manchin, the conservative West Virginia Democrat who has thwarted the liberal Biden/Schumer/Pelosi legislative agenda on everything from the filibuster and election law reform to infrastructure spending and packing the US Supreme Court, is from Farmington, West Virginia, a small coal mining town of 445 people about 40 miles West of the Maryland state line. Manchin could not win a US Senate seat if Farmington were in Maryland, nor can he keep a US Senate seat in West Virginia if he supports the most liberal line items in the Biden/Schumer/Pelosi agenda.

Bottom line: Political boundaries, whether they be state lines or congressional and legislative maps, determine the moral authority of each lawmaker; a moral obligation in a representative Democracy to vote the way your voters would on legislation before the state legislature or in Washington, DC.

So, what is Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin’s moral obligation to West Virginia?

In 2020, Republican President Donald Trump won every single county in West Virginia. Every single county. He carried the state by 69% to only 30% for Biden. Cook Political Report shows West Virginia as second only to Wyoming as the most Republican state in the nation.

For Emphasis: Voters in the second most Republican state in the nation, where President Trump carried every county, are the foundation of Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s political moral authority. It’s why he consistently rejects legislation proposed by left-of-left liberals in Congress.

It’s not how I was raised.

On November 9, 2020, Sen. Joe Manchin told Bret Baier on FOX News’ Special Report with Bret Baier, “When you’re talking about basically Green New Deal and all this ‘socialism,’ that’s not who we are as a Democratic Party. It’s not how I was raised in West Virginia.”

Hmmmm. So, the state where you are raised influences your political ideology?

In 2019 and 2020, Manchin was ranked #3 most conservative Democrat in the US Senate by GovTrack.us. On the other end of the spectrum, the least conservative Democrat, ergo the #1 most liberal US Senate Democrat, was then-Sen. Kamala Harris, raised in Berkeley, California, located in the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland area, with a population of 8.7 million.

In her book, The Truths We Hold, Harris writes that her parents, while doctoral students at UC-Berkeley, “often brought me in a stroller with them to civil rights marches.” Do you think being raised on the campus at Berkeley informed Harris’s political biases in the same way being raised in Farmington, West Virginia informed Manchin’s biases?

Like Joe Manchin, Kamala Harris’s moral authority as a US Senator came from the voters in the state she represented, the 6^th most reliably Democratic state in the nation; from the voters in the San Francisco Bay Area, the #1 most liberal area in the nation.

That was then. Now, Vice President Kamala Harris, like President Joe Biden, must look to the entire nation for moral authority to lead. If they do not, Democrats risk losing moral authority over extreme liberal ideas like the federal takeover of redistricting and election laws.

Democrats’ national moral authority threatened by liberal power grab

On Sunday, June 6, 2021, Sen. Joe Manchin wrote an Op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, Why I’m voting against the For the People Act. The bill is the federal takeover of elections, from state legislative remapping and voter registration laws to early voting and mail-in ballots.

Sen. Manchin’s argument was that the For the People Act was a partisan power grab. “Partisan policymaking won’t instill confidence in our democracy — it will destroy it,” he said.

So, why do Congressional Democrats want to nationalize the power to draw congressional and legislative districts and enact election laws? Because thanks to former President Barack Obama’s political naïveté, Republicans have controlled most state capitols since 2010, a disastrous election year for Democrats that Obama admitted was “a shellacking.”

Democrats, with a narrow 222 to 213 US House majority, know that the party controlling the White House usually loses a net of 23 seats in a new president’s first midterm elections. They also know that the GOP has an advantage in the number of states where mapmaking is controlled by the parties.

Per the Cook Political Report, states where Republicans have final authority over congressional maps have a combined total of 187 districts (including North Carolina’s 14 districts), with Democratic controlled states having the final say over a total of 75 district maps. States where independent commissions draw the maps have a combined total of 121 congressional districts, and states where partisan power is split have a total of 46 districts. Six states have only one congressional district.

Unfortunately for Democrats, Sen. Joe Manchin gets his moral authority on the matter of the federalization of redistricting and election laws from the voters of West Virginia, folks who do not want liberals in Washington DC telling them how to run their elections. If Democrats in Congress continue their effort to take remapping and election law reform away from the states, they will lose the national moral authority to lead. If that happens, they will lose the Congress.

Political maps and moral authority are the most influential unknowns in the 2022 showdown for power in Washington DC and the state capitals.

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Thank You for reading the John Davis Political Report

John N. Davis

Need a speaker or continuing education presentation? Visit www.johndavisconsulting.com

Ousting Liz Cheney Carries Little Political Risk but Pinning Your Hopes on Trump is the Biggest Risk of All

May 14, 2021       Vol. XIV, No. 8       7:13 am

Trump’s irresponsible statement this week has political consequences

Is anyone surprised that US Senate Republicans have not elected Sen. Mitt Romney as a leader of their caucus, the only Republican Senator to vote “yes” to convict President Donald Trump during his first impeachment trial last year? Surely not.

So why is anyone surprised that US House Republicans voted against Rep. Liz Cheney as a leader of their caucus this week, one of only 10 Republicans to vote “yes” to impeach Trump for “incitement of insurrection” earlier this year? The 197 GOP House members who voted “No” on Trump’s second impeachment have a right to leaders who mirror their judgement on politics and public policy.

Of course, Democrats are delighted with both Romney and Cheney. The John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award was given to Sen. Romney on March 21, 2021, for going against all other Senate Republicans with his vote to convict President Trump for abuse of power. And it’s just a matter of time before the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award will be given to Rep. Cheney.

Meanwhile, Republican House members believe their best hope for winning back the majority is to remain loyal to former President Trump and the 74,222,960 Americans who voted for him last November, conservative voters who are hell bent to avenge Trump’s loss of the White House by turning out in big numbers against Democrats in the 2022 congressional races.

Ousting Rep. Cheney carries little political risk. But what about pinning your hopes on Trump?

On Wednesday, after US House Republicans stood with former President Trump and voted to oust Rep. Liz Cheney as the No. 3 caucus leader, Trump stated, “Liz Cheney is a bitter, horrible human being.” That’s a terribly irresponsible thing to say, one with political consequences.

If Trump continues to demean Republicans, he will divide the party and dissuade voters who were once reliable Republicans, like suburban voters. Trump could cost the GOP the House majority in 2022 like he did the US Senate majority earlier this year.

Doubt that? The proof is in the Georgia US Senate runoff election results.

Trump discouraged GOP turnout in Georgia US Senate runoffs

From Election Day November 3, 2020, to the Georgia US Senate runoff elections January 5, 2021, President Trump tweeted almost daily that his “landslide victory” was “stolen.” He actually suggested that Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp, Republican Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan and Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger were complicit in election fraud.

Trump tweeted that Georgia Governor Kemp was “the hapless Governor of Georgia” who refused to overrule his “obstinate Secretary of State.” Trump tweeted, “What a fool Gov Kemp of Georgia is,” and, “Demand this clown call a Special Session.”

President Trump actually tweeted that Republican Governor Kemp and Republican Lt. Governor Duncan were “a disgrace to the great people of Georgia.”

There is no doubt that President Trump discouraged GOP turnout in the January 5, 2021 US Senate runoff elections in Georgia by dividing the party and undermining the integrity of Georgia elections.

Here are the facts comparing January 5, 2021 county voting results to November 3, 2020:

• In the January 5, 2021 runoff election, Democrat Jon Ossoff improved on his November vote share in 157 of 159 counties.
• On the same day, Republican Sen. David Purdue improved on his November vote share in only 75 of 159 counties.
• For emphasis: In January 2021, Democrats failed to improve on their November vote share in only 2 of 159 counties. Republicans failed to improve their share in 84 of 159 counties.

Both Democrats and Republicans had an equal opportunity to improve their turnout in January, especially in the state’s largest counties around Atlanta where even a small percentage improvement could yield the winning difference in what everyone knew would be a close race. Democrat Ossoff improved his vote share in the top five most populous counties by 2.24% while Republican Purdue improved his vote share in those same five counties by only 0.22%.

Republican US Sen. David Perdue lost by 49% (2,214,979) to Democrat Jon Ossoff’s 51% (2,269,923). At the same time Democrats were doing everything they could to turn out their vote, including outperforming Republicans with absentee voters by 57% (1,783,877) to 43% (1,374,090), President Trump was discouraging GOP turnout by dividing Georgia Republicans against each other and undermining the integrity of Georgia elections by demeaning the Republican Governor, Lt. Governor and Secretary of State, suggesting that they were complicit in election fraud.

Ousting Rep. Liz Cheney this week carries little political risk, but pinning your 2022 hopes on Trump is the biggest risk of all.

 END –

Thank You for reading the John Davis Political ReportJohn N. Davis

Need a speaker or continuing education presentation? Visit www.johndavisconsulting.com

Redemption Begins When We Stop Calling People “Racist” and Start Dealing With “Systemic Racism”

April 30, 2021       Vol. XIV, No. 7       2:13 pm

“Systemic racism,” yes. “Racist,” no.

On Wednesday, Sen. Tim Scott, an African American Republican from South Carolina, said during his response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address, “Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country.” On Thursday, President Biden, in an interview with TODAY’s Craig Melvin, was asked to comment on Scott’s statement. “I don’t think America’s racist,” Biden said, “but I think the overhang from all of the Jim Crow (laws), and before that slavery, have had a cost, and we have to deal with it.”

Those two statements this week by Republican Sen. Scott and Democratic President Biden are potentially transformative in bridging America’s racial divide. They allow us to begin to accept the fact that although there are still racial advantages and disadvantages in America that need to be dealt with, the nation is not a nation of evil racists. “Systemic racism,” yes. “Racist,” no.

The distinction between the terms “systemic racism” and “racist” is well illustrated by former President Jimmy Carter, born October 1, 1924, in his book, An Hour Before Daylight, about his racial indoctrination as a young boy growing up on a farm in South Georgia.

President Carter’s personal story helps us see that a society racially segregated by the law of the land and social custom is a systemically racist society. But it also helps us see that not all members of a systemically racist society are racists. Was Jimmy Carter a racist? No.

Kept apart by social custom and the law of the land

Jimmy Carter did not hate the Black people of his day, but he participated in a systemically racist society that gave him privileges and opportunities denied to Blacks. Here are excerpts from his book:

“Our two races, although inseparable in our daily lives, were kept apart by social custom, misinterpretation of the Holy Scriptures, and the unchallenged law of the land as mandated by the United States Supreme Court.”

Carter says that throughout his boyhood and youth, “…the political and social dominance of whites was an accepted fact, never challenged or even debated, so far as I knew, by white liberals or black protestors.”

Most 20^th Century Americans were not filled with racial hatred, an implied characteristic of the term racist. Rather, like Carter, most were simply members of a systemically racist society founded on social custom, misinterpretation of the Holy Scriptures, and the unchallenged law of the land.

Most 21^st Century Americans are not filled with racial hatred either, yet the racial divide continues. So, how do we bridge the racial divide in America?

So, how do we bridge the racial divide in America?

In the interest of bipartisan progress on issues of race, we must first decouple the terms “racist” and “systemic racism.” Why? Because most of our relationships with each other are more influenced by social custom than racial hostility.

In order to bridge the racial divide in America, Democrats must join President Biden in accepting the fact that most Americans, including the conservatives, are not hate-filled racists and therefore should not be called racists, a word that implies racial hatred.

It is equally important for Republicans to accept the fact that social customs and business practices that favor one race over another is a form of systemic racism that needs to be dealt with. As Sen. Tim Scott said Wednesday night, “Believe me, I know our healing is not finished.”

In order to bridge the racial divide in America, we must limit our racially sensitive arguments to public policy ideas. It is not OK to belittle each other with name calling simply because we disagree on the best policy for ending systemic racism. For example, once you call someone a racist, the opportunity for constructive dialogue ends. Why? Because you do not negotiate with a racist any more than you negotiate with a terrorist! Right? “You’re a racist!” Boom! Conversation over.

In order to bridge the racial divide in America, we must talk openly and honestly about systemic racism and it’s terrible aftermath in the United States in terms of what “we” did as a nation, “our” mistakes of the past. Once we think we have greater moral authority to judge other Americans on the subject of race, we lose the trust of those we seek to persuade.

Many Americans sincerely believe that we must work just as diligently to identify and eliminate well-intentioned government programs that they think have created more harm than good as we work to identify and eliminate cultural systemic racism in America. The future of Black children will not be improved without addressing all sources of destruction of their potential, whether it be racism, systemic racism, or well-intentioned government programs.

Finally, we would do well to weigh the closing thoughts of Sen. Tim Scott, who said on Wednesday night, “Original sin is never the end of the story. Not in our souls, and not for our nation.”

“The real story is always redemption,” he concluded. Redemption. That’s the bridge.

Redemption begins when we stop calling people “racist” and start dealing with “systemic racism.”

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Thank You for reading the John Davis Political Report

John N. Davis

For more information visit website: www.johndavisconsulting.com

Today’s US Census Release Shows Most Maps in States Gaining Seats in Congress to be Redrawn by GOP

April 26, 2021       Vol. XIV, No. 6       3:13 pm

North Carolina will have 14 congressional seats

It’s official! The US Census Bureau announced at 3 o’clock this afternoon that North Carolina is one of six states gaining a combined total of seven seats in the United States Congress, with five of the seven seats in states where Republicans control remapping.

Thanks to a decade of population growth, states gaining seats in Congress include Texas (+2 seats), Florida (+1 seat), North Carolina (+1 seat), Montana (+1 seat), Colorado (+1 seat), and Oregon (+1 seat). Republicans have exclusive control over remapping in Texas, Florida and Montana thanks to GOP Governors and GOP majorities in the state legislatures.

Republicans also have exclusive control of remapping in North Carolina, as Gov. Roy Cooper, D-Nash, has no authority to veto reapportionment bills. (Clarification: Republicans have exclusive control of remapping in North Carolina subject to ten years of litigation.)

Colorado, dominated by Democrats, has an independent redistricting commission.

Bottom Line: Republicans were dealt a better hand today with remapping congressional districts for the remainder of the decade. Most states gaining seats in Congress are GOP-friendly states. Most states losing seats in Congress are controlled by Democrats: New York (-1 seats), Illinois (-1 seat), Pennsylvania (-1 seat), Michigan (-1 seat), and California (-1 seat), along with two Republican-friendly states, Ohio (-1 seat), and West Virginia (-1 seat).

Democrats have a razor-thin majority in the US Congress, having won 222 seats last November to 213 for the Republicans. If you add today’s Republican advantage in drawing new congressional seats to the historic fact that most new US presidents see an average loss of 23 seats for their party during the first midterm elections, you can readily see that the GOP has better odds than Democrats of winning the majority of congressional races next year.

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Thank You for reading the John Davis Political Report

John N. Davis

How a Secret Group Anticipated and Blocked President Trump’s Attempt to Reverse a Losing Campaign

March 4, 2021         Vol. XIV, No. 5       6:13 am

What Democrats did was worse than corrupt, it was legal

Last Sunday, at one hour and ten minutes (01:10:24) into his CPAC speech, former President Donald Trump described as “corrupt” what a Time Magazine article disclosed as how the Democrats won the White House. He said, “It’s a disaster for our country that we can allow something so corrupt to happen. Read that article. I really encourage you. You read that article.”

So, I read the article.

The Time Magazine story held in such contempt by Trump, The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election, by Molly Ball, Time’s National Political Correspondent, is about “a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.” It’s about how they:

• Changed voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding;
• Fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time;
• Successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation.

The story confirms what I concluded in my February 2, 2021 report on how Democrats defeated President Trump, The US Constitution Giveth and the US Constitution Taketh Away; Blessed Be the US Constitution: “They exploited a coronavirus pandemic to send tens of millions of absentee ballots to their voters and then used unprecedented emergency state authority to reduce validation requirements and extend the time allowed for counting ballots to gain a political advantage.”

Yes, a secret group of Democrats did all of that. But it was not corrupt.

Trump has survived impeachment, divorces, bankruptcies, accusations of sexual misconduct, and an estimated four thousand lawsuits, but he could not win one of the 62 suits claiming corruption in the 2020 presidential race brought before 90 judges and a 6-to-3 Republican-appointed US Supreme Court.

The Time Magazine story reveals that what Democrats did to defeat Trump was worse than corruption, it was legal. It’s the story of why even Republican judges could not rule in his favor.

 Democrats anticipated and blocked Trump’s attempt to reverse the election

The Time article tells of how Democrats anticipated that President Trump would attempt to overturn the election results with claims of fraud filed in either Republican-friendly states or in federal courts where President Trump had 234 nominees confirmed by the US Senate, so they created a comprehensive counter-offensive that crossed all the legal t’s and dotted all the i’s.

Democrats knew like everyone else that Trump was incapable of accepting defeat.

On November 1, 2020, two days before election day, Michael Cohen, Trump’s former “fixer,” told The New Yorker that if he loses, “He will not concede. Never, ever, ever.” The article, Why Trump Can’t Afford to Lose by Jane Mayer, includes the following telling quotes:

Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer:

• “I believe he’s going to challenge the validity of the vote in each and every state he loses—claiming ballot fraud, seeking to undermine the process and invalidate it.”
• “Every day, he’ll rant and rave and yell and scream about how they stole the Presidency from him. He’ll say he won by millions and millions of ballots, and they cheated with votes from dead people and people who weren’t born yet. He’ll tell all sorts of lies and activate his militias. But, by stacking the Supreme Court, he’ll think he can get an injunction. 

Tony Schwartz, ghostwriter of Donald Trump’s best-seller, “The Art of the Deal:”

• Trump “will do anything to make the case he didn’t lose.”
• “If Biden is inaugurated President, we’ll know that there’s a new boss, a new sheriff in town. But, until then, the biggest danger is that Trump will implicitly or explicitly tell his supporters to be violent.”

Last Sunday, former President Trump continued to claim that what Democrats did was corrupt. He said that the US Supreme Court “didn’t have the courage to act,” adding, “they should be ashamed of themselves.” He blamed everyone but himself for losing the White House and the US Senate majority.

It is the predictability of Trump’s “sore loser” behavior that gave that secret group of Democrats the ability to anticipate and legally block his attempt to reverse a losing campaign.

Maybe it’s the predictability of Trump’s behavior that explains why only 55% of the CPAC crowd on Sunday chose Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential nominee straw poll.

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Thank You for reading the John Davis Political ReportJohn N. Davis

For more information: www.johndavisconsulting.com