Some big feeling in the group chat tonight among the Costa Rican contingent, aka my adult children...

Recent turnaround in PA voter reg trends, after 6 long years of GOP gains & Dem losses (slowed only by brief post-Dobbs Dem surge in summer 2022) is quite striking

Sure seems like lots of people want to vote for Democrats in PA's upcoming primary 👀

I attempted a unified theory of the Wine Mom, though I'm still not entirely sure I know who she is www.newyorker.com/culture/prog...

The Political Power of the Wine Mom

The “wine mom” label has become a useful shorthand for a politically activated and well-organized liberal cohort, and the results of the upcoming midterm elections may hinge on this otherwise undefine...

newyorker.com

Can't wait for this panel between @laraputnam.bsky.social @anetv.bsky.social and Zachary Horton next Wednesday, March 25 at noon! If you are a historian, writer, or just interested in what our evolving relationship with AI looks like down the road, you don't want to miss this!

You don't think a book review can be must-read for people just trying to make political change? This one is. @daschloz.bsky.social spells out the vexed underlying dilemma of democratic (& Democratic) politics in a world where increasingly "the choirs & brass bands reach only into the educated base."

Daniel Schlozman@daschloz.bsky.social · 7mo ago

I reviewed Anton Jäger’s new book, Hyperpolitics, which I enjoyed. Lots to chew on in a small yellow volume. newrepublic.com/article/2058...

New numbers: In the month of October, net voter registration trends turned positive for Dems in Pennsylvania. Unprecedently [in recent memory], Dem gains have outpaced Republicans every single month since then

Lara Putnam@laraputnam.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Take this fwiw, but the last month of partisan voter registration shifts in Pennsylvania have looked better for Dems than any month in recent memory🤷‍♀️

Take this fwiw, but the last month of partisan voter registration shifts in Pennsylvania have looked better for Dems than any month in recent memory🤷‍♀️

More reporting on more tragedies created by smartphones with cameras in children's hands www.cbc.ca/news/marketp...

Sextorters are targeting young boys online — and flaunting how rich the scam is making them | CBC News

There's a network of overseas scammers targeting and blackmailing teens, and in some cases driving them to suicide within hours of falling into a trap known as sextortion. CBC's Marketplace created fake social media profiles to investigate the business behind the blackmail.

cbc.ca

Ok, big reveal: Allegheny, Montco, Chester, Delco, Cumberland, Dauphin, Northampton, Lancaster, Erie, Centre, & Montour counties are the only counties in PA where Kamala Harris improved on Hilary Clinton's net vote totals

Lara Putnam@laraputnam.bsky.social · last yr.

I am deep in the weeds, working on a thing, so please join me in being obsessed with this #PAelection fun fact. What do Allegheny, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, Cumberland, Dauphin, Northampton, Lancaster, Erie, Centre, & Montour counties have in common, & in that order?

I am deep in the weeds, working on a thing, so please join me in being obsessed with this #PAelection fun fact. What do Allegheny, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, Cumberland, Dauphin, Northampton, Lancaster, Erie, Centre, & Montour counties have in common, & in that order?

The is a technical social science term for what @adambonica.bsky.social has laid bare here, and that is "absolutely fcking insane" Seriously. Read and weep.

Adam Bonica@adambonica.bsky.social · last yr.

The annoying spam texts destroying the Democratic brand: $678M raised through those spam tactics $282M to one consulting firm: Mothership Strategies. $11M to actual campaigns (1.6%) The party isn’t just treating donors like marks—it’s being fleeced itself yet continues to back Mothership.

I participated in an event about the upcoming judicial races, & two nice people came up afterward & specifically asked me to post more on Bluesky 😅. I live to serve, so here is one quick PA judicial fun fact: In Nov 2021, 70,000 of the people who cast ballots in Philly DECLINED to vote on retentions

Working on a new article about online harms to children & intl human rights w/@jenatmartin.bsky.social so I jumped over to Fb to see if there'd been improvement & immediately found these in a 17k public group I reported on months ago with @justinhendrix.bsky.social how's your dystopian morning going

Always worth reading @antoniascatton.bsky.social for clear eyed guidance about how to map communication to strategic goals

Antonia Scatton@antoniascatton.bsky.social · last yr.

The American public will judge who is right and wrong based almost exclusively on the images they see. We have to be super strategic about stage-managing the optics, both on the ground and in our messaging. #NOKINGS reframingamerica.substack.com/p/protest-op...

It's understandably not the SWPA election result getting headlines this week, but: the continued Democratic rise (and stark GOP decline) in Pittsburgh's once rock-ribbed Republican northern suburbs is remarkable

In honor of tomorrow's election a few charts fr Pittsburgh & surrounds. First, the big picture: there are 31,000 fewer registered Dems in Allegheny County today than 4 ys ago. There are 2,000 more Republicans & 10,000 more Indep/3rd party (who cannot vote in tomorrow's primaries)

I interrupt your regularly scheduled doom about all things Democratic Party to report that Something is Happening in Pennsylvania

Meanwhile... worrying about real-world harms to kids from online interactions got me into a long series of conversations with the brilliant @jenatmartin.bsky.social that ended us up here yjolt.org/everything-n...

Coming up tonight: Not-very-🔥 takes from me about electoral trends & shifts that shaped 2024 in PA, and what that might mean looking forward www.mobilize.us/promotethevo...

WTF HAPPENED?!? The '24 Election and handling misinformation with Dr. Lara Putnam · Promote the Vote PA

Join us on Monday, April 21 from 7:00 to 8:00 pm ET for WTF HAPPENED?!? with Dr. Lara Putnam, who will discuss the '24 election and how to combat misinformation in 2025. Dr. Lara Putnam is a Professo...

mobilize.us

To Pennsylvanians here: Do you have local school board races next month that you care about and/think are important? There are literally hundreds of races in May, and hard to keep up. I got some very helpful answers when I asked about Texas yesterday, so I'm switching gears to Pennsylvania!

Union County Dems are running 29 candidates for municipal office this year, a 190% increase from 2023.

Another day, another invaluably unvarnished post about public opinion & electoral math from @charlotteeffect.bsky.social .

I hear there are folks on here muttering about protests being cringe... or "resistance Libs" likewise (or middle aged women in general maybe?)... so reupping this descriptive piece about how the 2017 protests shaped local social networks & from there, elections washingtonmonthly.com/2019/07/12/h...

How Today’s Anti-Trump Protests Will Shape the 2020 Election | Washington Monthly

Opposition to the president has fueled local movements that are strongest exactly where their electoral impact matters most.

washingtonmonthly.com

Hands Off protest this afternoon in Pittsburgh was the largest I have personally attended in Pittsburgh, ever. I posted a bunch of clips over on the Other Site but will share at least a few highlights here?

A few weeks/lifetime ago I did an obsessively long thread re the new Bonica et al paper that examines the vote penalty paid by individual candidates for extremism & makes assertions [to my eye, ungrounded ones] about a potential broader turnout boost extremism might bring to the party as a whole.

Lara Putnam@laraputnam.bsky.social · last yr.

As @charlotteeffect.bsky.social points out, even before we get to the "correlation is not causation" elephant in the room, there's the problem that the claimed causation is between the 2 variables *not* graphed together. Here's her best guess about what that graph would look like. Any correlation?🤷‍♀️

I'm going to stake out the apparently-edgy-onhere position that the voter shifts described by David Shor here are real, & should be cause for genuinely difficult rethinking of strategies based on no-longer-accurate assumptions about the 'rising American electorate' www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/o...

Opinion | Democrats Need to Face Why Trump Won

The Democratic pollster David Shor walks through what voter data reveals about the 2024 election — and how the American electorate is shifting.

nytimes.com

I am grateful that anyone at all is following me on here, & assume maybe most are interested in Dem grassroots activism—in which case I am going to reiterate that @charlotteeffect.bsky.social is must-read: including her recent commentary on this 👀 paper cauldronllc.substack.com/p/the-specte...

The Specter of “What About Turnout” Haunts The Literature

About that new Bonica et al paper on electoral penalties and moderation

cauldronllc.substack.com

Really informative article from Lara Putnam in Tech Policy Press detailing how celebrity and TV show fan groups on Facebook are used to solicit and spread sexualized child content across Latin America. www.techpolicy.press/latin-americ...

Latin America’s Children at Risk on Facebook: Predators Stalk Children in Celebrity Fan Groups | TechPolicy.Press

Groups that center around popular celebrities present predators a chance to target children in Spanish language Facebook groups, writes Lara Putnam.

techpolicy.press

Another must-read post from @charlotteeffect.bsky.social , working really hard to clear away comforting Dem-side narratives (like, "we just needed better GOTV" or "the base stayed home bc Harris ran too far to the right") so that urgent rethinking can begin cauldronllc.substack.com/p/the-19-mil...

The 19 million missing voter myth

Why there aren’t a population of untapped ex-Biden voters out there to be reached

cauldronllc.substack.com