The GOP Choice: Now With Added Science!

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Last night I suggested that whenever Republicans do something that excites their tea party base, it scares off independent voters and actually helps Democrats. But all I did was eyeball a couple of Gallup charts to come up with this theory. Political scientist Phil Klinkner decided to run some numbers, which he emailed to me:

I correlated partisan levels of enthusiasm with independents’ support for Democrats in the generic ballot. Here are the results:

Dem Enthusiasm -0.05
Ind Enthusiasm -0.1
Rep Enthusiasm .17

So, Democratic and Independent enthusiasm has no relationship with Indendents’ generic ballot preferences. On the other hand, as Republicans become more enthusiastic, Independent support for the Democrats goes up.

This may be the key to a Democratic victory. Get Republicans so ramped up that they drive Independents into the D column. A quick estimate says that if 100 percent of the GOP is very enthusiastic about voting, then Independents will favor the Democrats by 3 points, in which case the Democrats should win by about 11 points.

Phil goes on to joke that Democrats should “buy blocks of TV time and give them free of charge to Joe Wilson, Michele Bachmann, and Mark Williams.” In any case, I just wanted to let everyone know that my gut feel is now Backed Up By Science™.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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