PA-1: Wallace is BDS donor

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

99% (ok maybe I exaggerate slightly, perhaps 90%) of voters do not know anything about it and do not care.

[KingSweden]

It won't matter. If November's electorate is anything like last night's, Fitzpatrick is in deep trouble. He will need to win independent voters by a decent margin in order to defeat Wallace.

Long term, though, having pals of George Galloway in the House from swingy suburban seats is probably not great.

What I really want to know is how Reddick’s people missed all this.

This...is a rather poor characterization. While his foundation did make a donation to New Press for Galloway's speaking tour, that's pretty far removed from 'palling around' with Galloway.

Touching that guy with a ten foot pole is still very poor judgment. To be fair, though, Wallace may not have had political ambitions at the time, but still.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

It won't matter. If November's electorate is anything like last night's, Fitzpatrick is in deep trouble. He will need to win independent voters by a decent margin in order to defeat Wallace.

Long term, though, having pals of George Galloway in the House from swingy suburban seats is probably not great.

What I really want to know is how Reddick’s people missed all this.

This...is a rather poor characterization. While his foundation did make a donation to New Press for Galloway's speaking tour, that's pretty far removed from 'palling around' with Galloway.

Touching that guy with a ten foot pole is still very poor judgment. To be fair, though, Wallace may not have had political ambitions at the time, but still.

What percentage of voters have any idea who George Galloway is? Most voters in PA-1 have no idea who Theresa May is, much less George Galloway.

[Ohioguy29]

Well that sucks. BDS is dumb, counterproductive, and often anti-semitic. And no, I don't classify all criticism of Israel as anti-semitism (I hate the Israeli government myself.) Oh well.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Deeply disappointing, to say the least. 

[KingSweden]

It won't matter. If November's electorate is anything like last night's, Fitzpatrick is in deep trouble. He will need to win independent voters by a decent margin in order to defeat Wallace.

Long term, though, having pals of George Galloway in the House from swingy suburban seats is probably not great.

What I really want to know is how Reddick’s people missed all this.

This...is a rather poor characterization. While his foundation did make a donation to New Press for Galloway's speaking tour, that's pretty far removed from 'palling around' with Galloway.

Touching that guy with a ten foot pole is still very poor judgment. To be fair, though, Wallace may not have had political ambitions at the time, but still.

What percentage of voters have any idea who George Galloway is? Most voters in PA-1 have no idea who Theresa May is, much less George Galloway.

That’s a fair point, but it still indicates a lack of judgment

[Tintrlvr]

Other than Jewish Voice for Peace, even connecting these donations to BDS seems like a stretch; they're all institutions that do a lot of other things and then sometimes intersect with the BDS movement, which hardly makes them controversial institutions to donate to. And it's really hard (and rich) to claim that Jewish Voice for Peace is anti-Semitic or anti-Israel.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Other than Jewish Voice for Peace, even connecting these donations to BDS seems like a stretch; they're all institutions that do a lot of other things and then sometimes intersect with the BDS movement, which is hardly a controversial type of institution to donate to. And it's really hard (and rich) to claim that Jewish Voice for Peace is anti-Semitic or anti-Israel.

He donated to Linda Sarsour's group

[DrScholl]

Probably won't hurt him given the corbynization of the Democratic party, they didn't do anything when Danny Davis was discussing "the jewish question" so why would they care now?

You party nominated a neo-Nazi.

He won by being the only candidate on the ballot in a safe seat while dozens of congressmen in your party are buddies with Louis Farrakhan

It really isn't that hard to get a central committee member to run for a seat as a placeholder.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

So here is another way to think about this.

Every 2 years, voters are used to seeing all sorts of ridiculous attack ads hurling allegations that x politician is associated with y undesirable group/cause. Even entirely normal candidates who have no real substantive connection are routinely subjected to these sorts of attacks. For example Obama and Bill Ayers.

After a certain point, it no longer really matters that much whether a candidate actually has an association to x undesirable person/organization/cause. From the voters' perspective, all they see is an attack ad. An attack ad that looks pretty much the same each election cycle, regardless of who the candidates are. And they see the same attack ad regardless of whether there is any real truth behind it. Voters may give it some credence, but they've seen it all before.

So no doubt Wallace will get hit with attacks over this. But at the end of the day, does it really matter? It is not like if he didn't have this, the GOP wouldn't attack him anyway. And at the end of the day, the ad will have the same dramatic music, flashing pictures, and the same narrator.

[Young Conservative]

Atlas is so partisan. This will obviously hurt Wallace, but it doesn't mean he's DOA. This will be close, but this doesn't help. Why is this site just extreme partisanship...

[Bidenworth2020]

Probably won't hurt him given the corbynization of the Democratic party, they didn't do anything when Danny Davis was discussing "the jewish question" so why would they care now?

yet republicans are still moderates like ford and eisenhower

[IceSpear]

The usual suspects are overreacting as always, but it is true that Wallace is quite a mediocre candidate. He basically bought the nomination. Dems could've done much better here. It's still a toss up since political climate matters far more than candidate quality (especially for lower profile House races), but I'm not very confident in this one.

[Gass3268]

The headline is worse than the details.

[Progressive Pessimist]

I'm not particularly fond of BDS and I never understood the hysteria over Code Pink. I could still probably tolerate this guy though. I don't know how prominent Jewish voters are in this district but in my experience as a Jew; most, unless they are Orthodox maybe, don't really prioritize Israel as an issue and probably won't jettison their usual Democratic support just for that. I could be wrong but I don't see it being a huge deal.

[IceSpear]

It won't matter. If November's electorate is anything like last night's, Fitzpatrick is in deep trouble. He will need to win independent voters by a decent margin in order to defeat Wallace.

Long term, though, having pals of George Galloway in the House from swingy suburban seats is probably not great.

What I really want to know is how Reddick’s people missed all this.

This...is a rather poor characterization. While his foundation did make a donation to New Press for Galloway's speaking tour, that's pretty far removed from 'palling around' with Galloway.

Touching that guy with a ten foot pole is still very poor judgment. To be fair, though, Wallace may not have had political ambitions at the time, but still.

What percentage of voters have any idea who George Galloway is? Most voters in PA-1 have no idea who Theresa May is, much less George Galloway.

A common and endlessly repeated Atlas mistake: Assuming most voters are as politically informed as themselves.

Half the country doesn't even vote. The vast majority of the other half will vote for their party no matter what, regardless if they research the candidates or not (protip: most do not.)

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Apparently, he is also a descendant of the former vice president, Henry A. Wallace.

[Horus]

Thanks for letting me know, I just sent him 10 bucks.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Hopefully, people like Scott Wallace are the future of the Democratic Party.

[Former Kentuckian]

I didn't think Rachel Reddick was all that great so I'm not sure she would have done any better, BDS or no

[District101]

While I don’t think being a BDS supporter is helpful, you also think JVD might lose his primary in NJ because of “muh Eastman,” so forgive us if we ignore your “analysis,” Andrew.

Jeff Van Drew:

• Moderate-conservative democrat
• Supported by the DCCC, much to the chagrin of activists and the Intercept
• Banking on high name recognition as of now (checked out his facebook page - I couldn't find one campaign event)

Tanzie Youngblood:

• Young, progressive woman
• Specifically making Van Drew's conservative/moderate votes and the DCCC's support of him a campaign
• Appears to have pretty solid enthusiasm on social media

NJ-02: District Trump won narrowly

Now replace Jeff Van Drew, Tanzie Youngblood, and NJ-02 with Brad Ashford, Kara Eastman, and NE-02. Do you get where I'm coming from?

Van Drew is a very strong candidate though, and has the party endorsement, which counts for a lot in NJ. He seems to be running a good campaign, unlike Ashford.

[District101]

Regarding Wallace, this news certainly doesn't help him, and probably hurts him a bit. He still has a good chance though, and I don't think it moves that many voters. Maybe 1%.

[VPH]

I wish this had come out before the primary... Oppo research was slacking!!

[Tintrlvr]

Other than Jewish Voice for Peace, even connecting these donations to BDS seems like a stretch; they're all institutions that do a lot of other things and then sometimes intersect with the BDS movement, which is hardly a controversial type of institution to donate to. And it's really hard (and rich) to claim that Jewish Voice for Peace is anti-Semitic or anti-Israel.

He donated to Linda Sarsour's group

Her group mostly does work unrelated to BDS (or Israel/Palestine generally). Falls into the "only tangentially related" category. Most of her work is about the rights of Arab-Americans (police surveillance issues, e.g.) and then a variety of intersectional projects on women's rights, BLM, etc. Not stuff right-wingers (or some centrists) are fans of, obviously, but not primarily BDS. The fact that the anti-BDS crowd wants to lump her in as being entirely about BDS is mostly their problem.

[Ye We Can]

I thought Fitzpatrick was favored anyway tbh