Vice President Joe Biden called the upcoming NJ governor's race “the single most important” election of the next three years.

Biden-backed Phil Murphy won the Democratic primary on Tuesday, delivering a Hillary Clinton populist message grounded in his career as a Goldman Sachs banker. Bernie Sanders did not endorse Murphy, although his son did campaign for the candidate.

As Sanders progressives rip into NJ Sen. Corey Booker's ethical credentials in any future presidential race -- having accepted money from big pharma companies in his state -- the Murphy win shows that at a state level, the Sanders wing of the Democratic party is not running the show in New Jersey.

The Murphy primary win -- and expected future win as NJ governor -- also demonstrates that Democrats can run on a platform that shares 95% of Sanders' priorities -- as the 2016 Presidential campaign platform did -- without throwing every person with ties to wealth and big business out of the party as the Sanders camp is demanding.

The Democratic party supports campaign finance reform, and the purge of big money from American politics. In a discussion yesterday, I arbitrarily estimated that for Dems to run nationwide in local, state and federal elections with campaigns that spend HALF the money of Republicans would cost every Dem voter $1000 in campaign contributions to a wide range of candidates. For all we know the amount is $5000. I wish one of the Dem think tanks would actually run the numbers, so that when progressives argue to throw every $ from wealthy donors out of the election process, that they are in a position to also advise all of us about what we will now need to contribute as civic-minded citizens. Granted, Democratic control would then allow us to pass new laws on campaign finance. But the Sanders camp needs to explain what it will cost each of us to get to this point. It's NOT $27 a person.

As Mother Jones writes: "In many ways Murphy’s platform, in a state with close ties to America’s capital of high finance, represents another sign of the Sanders wing’s policy momentum. (Quick: name a prospective 2020 candidate who doesn’t support a $15 minimum wage or single-payer health care.) But for a movement rooted in animosity toward the donor class, Murphy’s checkbook ascendancy highlights the gap between where the party is and where the Left still wants it to be. A populist ex-banker, after all, is still an ex-banker." ~ Anne

We've been talking about the new PRRI/The Atlantic research on white working class voters who preferred Trump to Hillary 2 to 1. Much has been made of Hillary's failure to carry white women without a college degree. This research provides tons of answers, but one really sticks out to me:

Overall, white working-class Americans make up one-third (33%) of the adult public, a substantially larger share than white Americans with at least a four-year college education (22%).

In no region do white working-class Americans comprise a larger proportion of the population than in the Midwest, where they account for more than four in ten (43%) Americans.

This link covers all the research questions and answers, but the one on 'Yearning for a Leader Willing to Break the Rules" sticks out.

"Authoritarian-style leadership is much more attractive to white working-class Americans than to white college-educated Americans. Six in ten (60%) white working-class Americans, compared to only 32% of white college-educated Americans say we need such a strong leader; two-thirds (67%) of white college-educated Americans disagree."

58% of working class white men now express an authoritarian orientation, which is disconcerting to Democrats and progressives, Independents and true conservatives. But on the subject of Hillary Clinton not winning the white working class women's vote, 71% of those women prefer an authoritarian leader.

No one ever accused Hillary Clinton of being an authoritarian like Trump. I believe this stat about women in particular, because the most amazing research out of Baylor University in 2010 was done on America's Four Gods. Well over 150,000 people -- including many of us back then -- took the online survey, which had dramatic results around different visions of God.

The fourth vision of God -- one that I scored in believing -- is a non-gender spiritual energy force in the universe. Fully 25% of Americans embraced God #4, but get this -- it was 98% male who believe that God has no gender. American women believe that God is male -- except for Lisa and me, and a few other brave women with enlightened brains.

When I read the book and then took the online test, I said feminism is sunk in America if 98% of women believe that God is always watching them (more questions) and God is a he.

So to read this stat about white working class women having a stronger authoritarian impulse than men tells me that Hillary stood very little chance of getting their vote.

There are many interesting answers about the Trump voters, including large numbers believe we already have too many women in political office, even though we rank like 90th in the world. America is just not the progressive country we flatter ourselves to be and 'yes', our belief silos are worse than ever. ~ Anne