Idaho Department of Labor’s Post

Our series looking at US-election battleground states moves to North Carolina this week, where demographic shifts offer Biden hope. A continuing influx of knowledge workers to North Carolina’s tech hubs should help Biden in a state he sees as winnable. Impacts: 👉 Dissent in current budget negotiations between the Republican-controlled houses of the state legislature indicate fissures within the party. 👉 Incumbent Governor Roy Cooper is term-limited and the Democratic and Republican candidates vying for governor, both well known, are tied in recent polls. 👉 Biden’s first stop after today’s debate will be Raleigh, the state capital, underscoring North Carolina’s importance for his campaign. 👉 Biden’s courting of the state’s college students as campaign volunteers should prove successful despite hesitant youth support nationally. Follow the latest geopolitical developments in the US and elsewhere by signing up to our weekly newsletter, The World Next Week: https://ow.ly/3vh850SqRPH #USelections #USbattlegroundstates #NorthCarolina #BidenTrump #geopolitics

Our Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation friends at the Wisconsin Department of Revenue have published the August Monthly Economic Update. It comes in an easy to share and use pdf slide format. Highlights for me include: Wisconsin added 9,400 jobs in June, to 3,048,000. May employment was revised up by 1,200. Monthly job gains were seen in both the private sector (+6,700) and the public sector (+2,700). Wisconsin's unemployment rate remained at 2.9% in June, compared to 4.1% nationally. The labor force participation rate was 65.5%, three percentage points higher than at the national level. https://lnkd.in/g5P9mQBC

This week, we'll be looking at the Questions hanging over #geopolitics this year, in the guide I wrote with Dr William Arthur. First up: the US elections. This one is a no-brainer. Biden or Trump is perhaps the single largest uncertainty shaping the next four years of global politics and economics. The real question for businesses is what to do to prepare. There's no way for a business to predict the winner any better than the many forecasters out there now. Anyone who tells you they have a crystal ball for what the electorate will think in November is deluded or pitching you something. I believe that Biden is positioned to win, but it's still only a 70% chance - the same that FiveThirtyEight gave to Hillary Clinton in their last forecast. For businesses, that means that you should prepare plans for each outcome and monitor the race to identify where you should devote more resources, but don't bank your long-term plans on an assumption that a few tens of thousands of voters in Wisconsin can overturn in a night. Full guide at: https://lnkd.in/e5gfZhwq

One of the major civic stakeholders we are making DemocraSEE for are young Americans. As an educator teaching high school and college/university students, I'm amazed we don't have a constructive conversation supporting social media platform, especially since young Americans are so savvy with social technology. So I'll continue to invite (hopefully folks will support us before our country becomes totally technoauth0ratar!an) individuals or organizations to angel invest or crowd fund DemocraSEE so that we can actuate a shared vision of a transparent democracy supporting social technology. #politicalentrepreneurship #civicengagement #socialinnovation

Excellent summary. A to do list for politically disgruntled Americans. Just add 1. register. 2. Vote. 3. #UnMuteYourself to the top of the list.

The question we must all ask ourselves, I believe, is what can we do between now and the election to help save American democracy? Let me try out a few answers:

"What the hell is water?” — is the punchline to a famous David Foster Wallace story that shows, like fish trying to perceive the medium they live in, the most crucial realities are often the hardest to see. Our current political system is no different. In “It’s Your America!”, from The Hart & The Cur, I argue that now more-than ever, electoral reform is possible and needed. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/gZ29MCDF My reform journey started from a conversation with Zac Blanchard last summer. "Do you know a guy named Eric Bronner?" he asked me. Within a few weeks, Eric and I were on the phone. Eric introduced me to Todd Connor, the co-founder of Veterans for All Voters. A few conversations with these guys plus reading Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter's book The Politics Industry, and I was asking, "Where do we start?" The good news is that things have already started. Organizations like Unite America, Veterans for All Voters, and Open Primaries are already doing the work to reform our direct partisan primary system into something that works much more effectively to enfranchise the broadest swathe of Americans. And people like Nick Troiano, and Eric and Todd have made it their life's work. You can keep swimming. Or you can look at the person next to you and ask, “What the hell is water?” #ElectoralReform #RCV #nonpartisanopenprimaries

Want to feel a bit more hopeful about US democracy, Gen Z political participation, and reaching across partisan divides? The results from America in One Room: The Youth Vote are out! Some highlights: ✨ When asked about those with whom they strongly disagreed, there was an increase in mutual respect. The percentage agreeing that those with whom they strongly disagreed “have good reasons; there just are better ones on the other side” went up overall from 64% to 71%. ✨ The experience of deliberation also increased their satisfaction with democracy. When asked “How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the way democracy is working in the U.S” overall satisfaction increased an impressive *29 points* from 29% to 58%. Republicans increased dramatically from 38% to 72%. Independents increased from 24% to 40% and Democrats increased from 26% to 52%. The deliberative experience seemed to be a positive demonstration for how democracy could work across our many differences. See the full report here to learn even more about what new voters care most about: https://lnkd.in/eWe_iCBB

Running for office is not a one step process. You need to be adept at preparing your run as well. If you're a first timer, you really need to study the local political terrain. If you're considering a run for higher office, there are a number of ways to test the waters. Those include having friendly media run articles/media pieces/videos, etc. and see how they are received. Building networks and finding out how much support you are receiving to run is also critical. Getting early mentions and notice can be helpful but is not always critical. Sometimes it's helpful to be the underdog and sometimes it's important to build that cape of invincibility. Barack Obama kept building momentum as underdog in 2008, while his Gov. Wes Moore surged fairly early in his race for governor of Maryland in 2022 and kept pressing forward. #runningforoffice #campaigns #politics #elections https://lnkd.in/eQpF9Wd7