Why? Maybe this is why.

x The best explanation of GOP behavior right now is they've become fatalistic about massive electoral losses and so are simply doing what they believe/trying to please the donors and lobbyists who can give them jobs after they're voted out https://t.co/YegX9ZQ6p6 — Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) December 15, 2017

Alex Seitz-Wald/NBC News:

After Alabama, Democrats have a big dream. The House and Senate. Wave elections happen when parties win where they aren't supposed to, and there's no place more forbidden to Democrats than Alabama. The race between Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones was quirky, to say the least, but Jones' victory nonetheless falls on a well-established trendline that points to a major rebuke of President Donald Trump in next year's midterm elections — and potentially the 2020 presidential race beyond that. "For all of Trump's popularity with the base, the countervailing repulsion by the rest of the population drives numbers that help the Democrats," said Republican strategist Rick Wilson, a Trump critic.

x A very interesting piece of data from Alabama exit polls: While White women overall voted for Moore 63 to 34, when you break out evangelical vs non you get evangelical white women 76 - 22 Moore; non-evangelical white women 74 - 21 Jones! — Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) December 13, 2017

Des Moines Register:

Iowa Poll: 60 percent of Iowans disapprove of Donald Trump's job performance “It just seems like it’s one big mess,” said poll respondent Nick Ford, a Navy veteran and businessman from Cedar Rapids. Ford, a 49-year-old political independent, lamented the “general craziness” of the country’s political arena and the “unprofessionalism” he sees in the White House. The president, he said, “seems overwhelmed by the task. I didn’t vote for him, but I was hoping some things would change. I don’t think anything’s really changed — for the better, anyway.” Trump’s 35-percent job approval rating marks a sharp decline from earlier this year in Iowa. In the July Iowa Poll, 43 percent of respondents approved of Trump’s effort, while 52 percent disapproved, a differential of 9 percentage points. Now, he’s 25 points under water.

x .@jonrog1 John Rogers takes down a nutty conspiracy theory about bussing blacks in to win for Doug Jones https://t.co/f5EK26btNt — Greg Dworkin (@DemFromCT) December 14, 2017

Lindy West/NY Times:

Yes, President Donald Trump has sexually harassed women. This concludes my ethics investigation. I hate to bore you with technical jargon, but I suppose it’s important, in the interest of nonpartisan professional transparency, to offer some insight into my methodology.

x For the first time, more Americans think Obama health care program has had a positive effect than a negative effect on the country, according to @pewresearch poll Ã¢ÂÂ 44% vs. 35% with 14% saying it has made no difference. https://t.co/QeHSLjEMD7 — Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) December 14, 2017

George Will/WaPo:

Trump’s Moore endorsement sunk the presidency to unplumbed depths In April, Alabama’s Republican governor, Robert Bentley, resigned one step ahead of impeachment proceedings arising from his consensual affair with an adult woman. Eight months later, Alabamians spurned presidential pleas that they send to the U.S. Senate a man credibly accused of child molestation. But the dispiriting truth is this: Behavior that reportedly got Moore banned from the Gadsden, Ala., mall was, for most Alabama Republicans, not a sufficient reason to deny him a desk in the U.S. Capitol. Although the president is not invariably a stickler for precision when bandying factoids, he said the Everest of evidence against Moore did not rise to his standards of persuasiveness. This fleeting swerve into fastidiousness about facts came hard on the heels of his retweeting of a video of a Muslim immigrant in the Netherlands beating a young man holding crutches. Except the villain was born and raised in the Netherlands. Undaunted, Trump’s remarkably pliant spokesperson, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, defended her employer from the nitpickers: What matters, she said, is not that the video is unreal but that “the threat” (of turbulent Dutchmen?) is real.

This was produced by Sandy Hook Promise:

NY Times:

Alabama Loss Exposes Republican Fissures Amid a Democratic Surge The side that has the energy and anger and enthusiasm usually prevails,” said Representative Charlie Dent, Republican of Pennsylvania. “And Democrats don’t have to be for anything, they just have to be against us.”

x I am a partisan Democrat. I realize I have not yet publicly thanked @SenShelby.



My error, Senator. Thank you. — Greg Dworkin (@DemFromCT) December 14, 2017

Politico:

Republican civil war erupts anew Roy Moore's loss has the Bannon and McConnell wings of the GOP heaping blame on one another, with no signs of a resolution. Prior to the election, McConnell told associates that he wanted to destroy Bannon politically, according to one person familiar with the Republican leader’s thinking. Their goal: to curtail his influence ahead of the 2018 midterms, in which Bannon has vowed to recruit candidates to knock off McConnell-backed incumbents. Bannon is supporting Danny Tarkanian, who has vowed to unseat Nevada’s Republican senator, Dean Heller, as well as former New York congressman and ex-convict Michael Grimm, who is trying to recapture his old House seat. McConnell hopes Tuesday’s outcome will put a dent in those efforts. His allies argue that Bannon is a charlatan — a man who has sold himself to the president as the guru of the Trump movement who possesses a preternatural understanding of the president’s political base only to drive the president into a ditch in Alabama. “Bannon hurt Trump by giving him poor advice,” said Scott Reed, a political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The results in Alabama, Reed said, “hurt the Trump movement.”

x "Doug JonesÃ¢ÂÂs victory on Tuesday was a measure of the big benefits Democrats enjoy when they put more resources into reaching black and other minority voters." https://t.co/o0WwHycnWc — Greg Dworkin (@DemFromCT) December 15, 2017

Rick Wilson/Daily Beast:

Steve Bannon’s Con Game Is Over Roy Moore embraced Esoteric Trumpism with the same vigor he pursued his victims through local malls. It was Bannon who turned this race into a contest between his squad of Team Bannon, Roy Moore, and NAMBLA versus Mitch McConnell, the Senate, and Republicans who have the temerity to not favor electing a child molester to the U.S. Senate. Like a 300-pound lump of gristle, Bannon decided to lodge himself in the throat of the most powerful serious Republican in D.C. It was a bad, bad bet. Mitch McConnell probably spent about an hour Tuesday night washing the blood stains off his hands from the beatdown Alabama delivered to Steve Bannon. Is he happy about losing a seat? Absolutely not. Is he happy about not having to ever defend the odious kid predator Roy Moore? At least the Capitol Police SWAT Team won’t have to be on standby to extract Roy Moore from local playgrounds and high-school gymnasia.

x who on earth actually cares whether Omarosa quit or was fired itÃ¢ÂÂs the dumbest story ever — John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) December 14, 2017

Michael Gerson/WaPo:

To save the GOP, Republicans have to lose And the Alabama election was like looking into the abyss. Roy Mooreism was distilled Trumpism, flavored with some self-righteous moralism. It was all there: the aggressive ignorance, the racial divisiveness, the disdain for governing, the contempt for truth, the accusations of sexual predation, the (just remarkable) trashing of America in favor of Vladimir Putin, the conspiracy theories, the sheer, destabilizing craziness of the average day… The only way that elected Republicans will abandon Trump is if they see it as in their self-interest. And the only way they will believe it is in their self-interest is to watch a considerable number of their fellow Republicans lose. If Republicans lose... Trump’s Republican opponents will not be to blame. It would be Trump and his supporters, who turned the Republican Party into a sleazy, derelict fun house, unsafe for children, women and minorities.

Don’t just complain. Vote D and then write it up like Gerson did. Best way for them to lose, and we promise to read. In other words, make them lose, like the good folks in Alabama did.

x NEW PPP POLL



1) ACA approval is +21pts (57/36)



2) Keep/Fix ACA ahead of repeal by +38pts (68/30)



3) Only 29% support tax bill including the health care repeal of individual mandate pic.twitter.com/ECZAxE1Utv — Jesse Ferguson (@JesseFFerguson) December 14, 2017

WaPo: