| | | | | | | Presented By AT&T | | | | Axios Sneak Peek | | By the Axios Politics team ·Sep 08, 2021 | | Welcome back to Sneak. Smart Brevity™ count: 1,228 words ... 4.5 minutes. Edited by Margaret Talev. | | | | | | 1 big thing: Democrats sounding the alarm in states |  | | | Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios | | | | Democrats are leaning into efforts to raise their numbers in state legislatures — with an emphasis on candidates of color — as red states like Texas and Georgia pass restrictive voting and abortion laws, Axios' Alexi McCammond reports. Why it matters: States are responsible for many of the laws with the greatest direct impact on people's daily lives. But Republicans control 30 state legislatures and the GOP has the trifecta — the governorship, state House and state Senate control — in 23 states, while Democrats do in 15. - 37% of Democratic state lawmakers are people of color, compared with less than 3% of Republican lawmakers, the report said.
- Some Democratic donors and organizers say their party is still too focused on backing white candidates to win.
Driving the news: Activists point to new data showing Democratic candidates of color have won at higher rates than white candidates in state contests and that racial diversity can change policy outcomes. - The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), which focuses on electing Democratic state legislators, released an August report in partnership with Donors of Color Network that found at least 1,050 Democratic candidates of color won their state legislative races in 2020.
- Most Democratic candidates of color weren't running in highly competitive state races, Ashindi Maxton, executive director of Donors of Color Network, told Axios.
- Still, Maxton said, the win rate last year for people of color — 75% — should change conventional wisdom about electability. The report found white Democratic candidates had a 46% win rate.
Between the lines: Over one-third of all eligible Black voters live in nine of the country's most competitive states, per Pew Research: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. - Republicans control the state legislatures in all of those states.
What they're saying: "We absolutely have to change who is in positions of power and who controls the allocation of resources," Democratic donor Steve Phillips told Axios. - Since President Obama's election, he said, "There's this mindset that the way Democrats win is you get a moderate white candidate and they can appeal to white swing voters."
- But candidates of color can inspire greater enthusiasm among Democratic voters of color. Look at Sen. Raphael Warnock's election in Georgia.
- "If the decision-makers of the Democratic Party — the consultants, the strategists, the elected officials themselves — are so predominantly white and so predominantly male, then they have the most imagination about people who look like themselves," Maxton said.
What's next: Democrats are focused on protecting state legislative seats in Iowa, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Virginia and hope to make gains in the Arizona and Georgia chambers. Flashback: After Democrats flipped the Virginia General Assembly in 2017, the state had its first Black person and first woman to lead the lower chamber and the first Black person and first female president pro tempore to preside over Virginia's Senate. - With a new Democratic majority in Virginia, Democratic state legislators passed voting rights laws, abolished the death penalty, passed gun safety laws, increased the minimum wage, declared racism a public health emergency and made it illegal to discriminate against the LGBTQIA community.
Don't forget: Figures like Obama, Stacey Abrams and Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley got their start in state legislatures. What to watch: How redistricting could thwart Democrats' efforts to diversify the voting electorate and state legislatures. - Many Democrats expect Republican-led states to try to gerrymander districts to diminish the impact voters of color can have on election outcomes.
Share this story. |     | | | | | | 2. Go time on infrastructure |  | | | Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios | | | | The fight over President Biden's $3.5 trillion spending package begins for real on Capitol Hill at 10am tomorrow as the first of several committees starts hashing out details of the mammoth infrastructure proposal, Axios' Alayna Treene reports. Why it matters: The legislative marathon comes amid Democrats' internal squabbling that underscores just how tough it could be for Biden to get something across the finish line. Driving the news: We got a peek at a big part of the bill yesterday when the House Ways and Means Committee dropped its section on child care, universal paid family and medical leave, Medicare and retirement. - All eyes are now on Thursday's session as that panel begins its markup.
- House committees on small business; science, space, and technology; natural resources, and education and labor also will meet to mark up their sections of the bill.
The latest: Axios scooped last night that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) intends to support no more than $1.5 trillion. But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Budget Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) publicly hit back against Manchin's demands in a press call this morning, making clear they plan to forge ahead. Read the rest. | | | | | | | | 3. By the numbers: More Republicans say Islam encourages violence |  Reproduced from Pew Research Center; Chart: Axios Visuals In the 20 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Republicans — far more than Democrats — have increasingly viewed Islam as more likely than other religions to encourage violence among believers, according to surveys by Pew Research Center, Axios' Stef Kight reports. Why it matters: Muslims have continued to face bias and discrimination in the U.S. two decades after 9/11, and those negative biases have become increasingly partisan. By the numbers: As of last month, seven in 10 Republicans associated Islam with violence. While only about one-third of Democrats thought the same way, they are still more likely to think of Islam as encouraging violence than in early 2002. Read the rest. | | | | | | | | A message from AT&T | | The importance of closing the digital divide | | |  | | | | Millions of K-12 students still lack adequate access to the internet, limiting their ability to do schoolwork at home. What this means: Without the right tools and resources to succeed, young people are at risk of falling behind. Read about how AT&T is helping to close the digital divide. | | | | | | 4. Biden cans Trump military academy appointees |  | | | Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty images | | | | Critics say Biden's moves to clean house at America's military service academies creates a precedent that politicizes a traditionally nonpartisan — if patronage-heavy — system, Axios' Lachlan Markay writes. Driving the news: The White House's personnel office today sent letters to all six members of each of the three service academy visitors boards — overseeing West Point, Annapolis and the U.S. Air Force Academy — demanding they resign by 6pm or face termination. - Some refused and said they're considering legal action.
The big picture: Appointees to those academies' visitors boards are generally permitted to serve out their terms regardless of their political affiliations even after a new president takes office. Details: The officials targeted included H.R. McMaster, the former national security adviser and retired Army lieutenant general, who is to be honored as a distinguished graduate this weekend at West Point. - Other high-profile ex-Trump officials included Russ Vought, and Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway, whom Trump tapped for the Naval and Air Force academy boards during his final weeks in office.
What they're saying: "It gives every future president the precedent to just wholesale purge all of these holdovers from the previous administration ... and now you dictate, from a political perspective, the outcome of some of these institutions," said Meaghan Mobbs, a West Point graduate who was asked to resign on Wednesday. The other side: White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that Biden, like any president, wants to "have nominees and people serving on these boards who are qualified to serve on them and who are aligned with your values." Doug Lengenfelder, acting chair of the Air Force Academy visitors board, told Axios, "I hope that in the future, she is treated exactly the way that she has treated others." Keep reading. | | | | | | | | 5. Photo of the day |  | | | Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images | | | | Vice President Kamala Harris, in her home state to support Gov. Gavin Newsom, told voters to say "no" in the Tuesday recall election or Republicans will think "if they can win in California, they can do this anywhere." | | | | | | | | A message from AT&T | | How the digital divide impacts U.S. children | | | | | | | | Around 76% of parents and 81% of teachers remain concerned about the homework gap, according to a national survey by Morning Consult on behalf of AT&T. The reason: Children without internet access are struggling to keep up, especially as school increasingly goes online. AT&T's solution. | | | | 📬 Thanks for reading. Tell your family, friends and colleagues they can subscribe to this or any of Axios' free newsletters by using this link. |  | | It'll help you deliver employee communications more effectively. | | | | | | Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. If you're interested in advertising, learn more here.
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