Look at the recent Daily Bits on the website. Mourning Elizabeth; At the Synagogue Board Meeting

Political Note #276   Jill Schupp MO CD 02

2020                            General Election

(Before you begin reading:  Except for the Board Meeting Tidbit mentioned above, this Note is business as usual, but written while conscious that we are facing a serious health crisis and an accompanying societal crisis. Consider the advice you get from professionals and stay healthy.)

As the Republican Congresswomen dwindle down to a precious few. Brooks of Indiana. Robey of Alabama. Foxx of North Carolina. Retiring. Down from thirteen to ten. If Jill Schupp  https:/jillschupp.com/ can defeat Ann Wagner and nothing else changes, the Republican women will have dwindled to nine.

Two would be left from the state of Washington. One each from Wyoming, Arizona, and Texas. One each from Indiana, Missouri and West Virginia . One from New York.

How has Ann Wagner distinguished herself? She is the incumbent Jill Schupp is campaigning against. Wagner has been a Republican partisan. Chair of the Missouri Republican Party. Co-Chair of the Republican National Committee. She lost a campaign to become Chair on her own by 17 votes. She has had one distinguished non-partisan job – ambassador to Luxemburg.

Jill Schupp has already defeated one of Missouri’s most promising Republican politicians. She defeated Jay Ashcroft, son of the former US Attorney General, for a seat in Missouri’s state senate. She achieved that victory by being a suburban politician. A school board member. A city councilor. A State Rep where she did grunt work. She was a Budget Committee member, a Health Insurance committee member. And so on. In the state senate, her largest community was Chesterfield, population less than 50,000 people. Her smallest town has fewer than 100.

Running for Congress, Jill Schupp is again a candidate of the suburbs. South and west of St. Louis, the Second District is 89% white and prosperous. The median income is just under $80,000. The Cook index describes the district as +8 Republican. Mitt Romney defeated Barack Obama 57-41. Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by almost the same amount 53-42.

The politics of suburbs changed in 2018. Ann Wagner held on to her seat in a close race: 51 – 47. Donald Trump has done the Republicans little good in communities like those in MO 02. It won’t take much more to flip this seat to a Democrat.

Jill Schupp’s legislative efforts and successes reflect her family orientation.   Skeptical of mandatory shared parenting, she filibustered a bill to death that would have presumed that divorced parents would share time and responsibility for children equally. She passed legislation to ensure that unlicensed in-home child care sites have no more than six children, no more than three children under two years old. She has been pressing for legislation that would require marital and family counselors to complete training on dealing with suicidal patients in order to obtain a license. Her foreign policy was about health, She opposed Chinese organ harvesting.

Jill Schupp is a reasonable bet to flip MO 02 blue. The National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) attacks her as a socialist – something they apparently do to any Democratic candidate, whether Bernie is at the top of the ticket or not. Proof that she is a socialist? She is pro-choice and has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood. She would like to reverse climate change. She would tax online purchases. She supports Nancy Pelosi.

The most offensive thing she has done, as far as Missouri Republicans are concerned, is to be the point person opposing Missourians voting again on electoral reforms. Republicans were very disappointed when Missouri voted to minimize gerrymandering by hiring a non-partisan demographer to draw district lines. The demographer’s goal was to ensure the most competitive possible districts.

Republicans want Missouri to vote on this again. They have added a few elements to make gerrymandering worse than it was – if the Republican proposal passes. For instance, they would instruct those setting district lines not to count immigrants when they count district population. Inexplicably, the Republicans have not tied Jill Schupp to socialism or communism in the discussion of dstricts. Not yet.

Help Jill Schupp https://jillschupp.com/ flip MO 02. Success here has implications for Missouri. Success here has implications for the country. Republicans resist women’s goals locally in Missouri and nationally. Every defeated Republican woman makes Republican distance from women’s issues more visible, more explicit. Help Jill Schupp have enough resources to win this race. For Missouri, for American women, and for all of us.

Below are Congressional seats Democrats are trying to flip from incumbent Republicans. The ones with asterisks ran in 2018*

Congress

Arizona 06                       Hiral Tipirneni* to beat incumbent David Schweikert

California 50                     Ammar Campa-Hajjar* to win this now open Rep seat

Florida 16                         Margaret Good to beat incumbent Vern Buchanan

Illinois 13                         Betsy D Londrigen* to beat incumbent Rodney Davis

Indiana 05                       Christina Hale to win this open Republican seat

Iowa 04                            JD Scholten* to beat incumbent Steve King

Kansas 02                       Michelle De La Isla to beat incumbent Steve Watkins

Michigan 06                     Jon Hoadley to beat incumbent Fred Upton

Minnesota 01                   Dan Feehan* to beat incumbent Jim Hagedorn

Missouri 02                     Jill Schupp to beat incumbent Ann Wagner

New York 02                   Jackie Gordon to win this open Republican seat

New York 21                   Tedra Cobb* to beat incumbent Elise Stefanic

Ohio 04                           Mike Larsen to beat incumbent Jim Jordan

Pennsylvania 10             Eugene DePasquale to beat incumbent Scott Perry

Texas 21                         Wendy Davis to beat incumbent Chip Roy

Texas 23                        Gina Ortiz Jones* to win this open Republican seat

Washington 03                 Carolyn Long* to beat incumbent Jaime Herrera Beutler