I met him at a black law firm in Chicago while the company I worked for was working on a real estate deal on the south side. He was seeking concessions and got them.
When I was a kid, he spoke to striking P-9ers in Austin, Minnesota. I went to see him with my family. Two years later, when he ran for President, Mower County didn't forget and caucused for him.
P-9ers were the Hormel meatpackers who went on strike in 1985-86. It was one of the largest strikes of my lifetime and was featured in the 1991 Academy-award winning documentary "An American Dream", which I highly recommend.
If Berger is spending money on attack ads as a powerful incumbent, he must be polling behind Sam Page. Let's keep in mind in 2024 he only won his race by 54%!
Looks like the GOP controlled NC State Board of Elections will no longer be doing their Registration Repair/Griffin List BS, after the state and federal GOP and Democratic parties agreed to a settlement where more than 70,000 voters will stay on the voter rolls.
A federal judge still has to sign off on it, but I noticed the NCSBE site immediately removed their red REGISTRATION REPAIR banner on the home page following the settlement.
On the surface the settlement looked quite reasonable. Anyone on that list can vote regularly in the next election by bringing in proper ID, and the state would update the registration according to the provided ID info. If no ID provided, the voter would have to vote provisional and need to cure the ballot.
What happens if someone on the list doesn’t vote in November? Would they be removed, and need to re-register if they want to participate in future elections?
I've been skimming the settlement. It's in effect until June 27, 2027 -- so while the NCSBE is allowed to continue their Registration Repair effort, it seems like anyone who is on the list who doesn't vote this November will stay on the rolls.
So essentially the “registration repair” gets an extension to June 2027.
Anyone voting in any election up to that time, with proper ID or voting provisional but with proper cure later, would have the repair done, no need to do the separate repair up front.
The settlement also allows NC voters on the list who are voting absentee by mail to get off it and receive a regular ballot if they've submitted their absentee ballot request correctly (which requires ID number or SS4).
Absolutely makes sense that they keep fumbling, it’s just amazing to see them unable to change course. Maybe because they can’t get anyone halfway sane to run.
Yes, and why our state judiciary is controlled by Republicans.
Anyone who thinks Anderson Clayton didn't do enough in 2024 for Dems in NC needs to sit down -- apart from state auditor and U.S. president, Democrats romped statewide.
She and angry voters fought back against Griffin's effort to steal a state Supreme Court (aided and abetted by the GOP majority courts). I hope this has energized and enraged NC voters to vote the bums out in 2028. And Paul Newby should be tarred and feathered after what he and the NC GOP have done to our state.
Oh definitely! I think if Wisconsin regains a Democratic trifecta they are going to do what VA and MN did as payback for Walker and yes-men like Robin Vos.
I suspect that this is a result of the political realignment that is a product of the Trump years when working class whites moved toward the GOP and suburban whites moved toward us. It is about even in presidential years but it gives us an advantage in off year elections where our new voters are way more likely to vote than their new voters.
In Indiana news, the state Senate has passed a measure, without public comment (they do this a lot), that would shorten the time for early voting in Indiana. It will now go to the state House. Indiana was 41st in the nation for voter turnout at the last election, having climbed up from 50th a few elections earlier. Apparently, the race to the bottom is back!
Given the games that Trump is trying to play with voting, I have been looking for my birth certificate and can't find it. I ordered a new one yesterday and found Marion County, IN a pain in the ass to deal with, but you can order it from the state. They indicated their process time is 2 days or less, and including mail both ways, I should have it in less than 2 weeks. Sometimes Indiana surprises me. Ironically, the state charges less than the county, and doesn't require the application to be notarized.
Early voting begins today in the Texas primaries, and the MAGA Master still has not weighed in on the Cornyn-Hunt-Paxton race for Senate. Perhaps he will endorse all three.
Not exactly. On Monday, he said: "I just haven’t made a decision on that race yet. It’s got a ways to go, and I haven’t. I like all three of them, actually. Those are the toughest races. They’ve all supported me. They’re all good. You’re supposed to pick one, so we’ll see what happens. But I support all three,” https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5741247-donald-trump-texas-senate-primary/
Tricia McLaughlin, who has spoken for the increasingly unpopular Department of Homeland Security during the recent immigration crackdown, is out of the administration.
“We're seeing the field consolidate around the most electable candidate because I fundamentally believe that Iowa is in play far more than what people on the coast realize,” Turek tells TIME. “I think we are going to be the center of the political universe here in 2026. There's no other state where you're looking at being able to flip three of the four congressional seats, flip the Senate seat, and flip this Governor's race.
Turek is not being subtle in his message that those credentials may matter less to voters who want to see the state elect a Democratic Senator for the first time in almost two decades. After all, as Turek points out in just about every campaign speech and interview, Iowa voted three times for Trump but twice went for Barack Obama.
“Because we are in such a bad place right now here in Iowa, there is significantly more energy and desire for change than even in Trump's first midterm,” Turek says.”
On a related note, despite my numerous disagreements with “popularists/Shorites/neo-centrists,” I believe their theory about why Ohio and Iowa moved into the Republican column after Obama is correct: Trump dropped the unpopular and rabid Republican obsession with cutting Social Security and Medicare and moved closer to the center on those issues.
Those and the salience cultural issues around that time up through and including “Defund the Police.” I think people underestimate how much things like that drove two-time Obama states like Iowa and Ohio away.
Defund the Police was not said in 2016, 2018, 2022 and 2024 when they voted solidly to the right of the Blue wall, Georgia and Arizona. They have to been a bit to the right of even Texas. I think this is structural rather than cultural positioning.
It was said in 2020, so the 2022 and 2024 elections would be salient. And Dems won a Senate race in OH in 2018 (and narrowly lost statewide in IA). It was one element of the collapse, not the whole story of course.
I am a believer in standard bearers in state parties. We haven't had anyone really leading the charge since Tom Harkin left. We may have found that with Rob or whoever wins the U.S. Senate Primary. I spoke to Chet Culver on numerous occasions, and he liked people, but he didn't like some of the other aspects of Politics.
That was certainly part of it. Paul Ryan-ism was a terrible product for the GOP to peddle in Iowa and Ohio. Couple that with the pivot to immigration and trade skepticism and the stated desire to avoid foreign policy entanglements and Trump was exactly the kind of right-populist that Iowa and Ohio had been waiting for.
Turek is getting the national coverage, but I will curious to see what happens in the primary. Wahls represents Johnson County (Iowa City) in the legislature and there are a lot more Dem primary voters from there (and neighboring Cedar Rapids) than there are from Turek's home turf.
They claim that they've been "contemplating it" since the COVID pandemic, but since the governor was GOP, they've let her do what she wanted by wrecking the public school system, let polluters dirty the water, and stripping women of their bodily autonomy via that 6 week abortion ban.
They anticipate Sand winning the governor's race and want to do what their compatriots in NC did with Roy Cooper in 2016 and Josh Stein in 2024.
So if the USA Today rumors are true -- Alito may step down before the midterms or during the lame duck if Dems somehow win back the Senate -- it will give us juice to force some SCOTUS court-packing.
Big hurdles: Fetterman, and if any of the newly-elected Dems (Peltola, Cooper, etc.) resist/fold in the face of pressure within their swingy states.
I’d guess if he wants out he’d step down in June as SCOTUS justices traditionally do (Breyer announced in Feb, Stevens/Souter in April - Kennedy in 2018 was unusually late in term) so Alito could announce soon, then.
But there were rumors about him retiring in 2020, too, so who knows. He’s much likelier than Thomas.
He's "celebrating" 20 years on the court this year, which is a nice round number. He has a new book coming out this year too. These are part of the tea leaves
Yeah, Thomas wants to become the longest serving SCOTUS justice. He’s anticipating the Senate will stay Republican and aiming to announce around January/spring 2028, and have a successor in place before a Democrat wins the presidency back.
6 point advantage of Harris/2026 D voters over Trump/2026 R voters.
Kalshi prediction market odds (I don’t entirely believe the average joe or Jane can predict elections/politics, but the movement at least seems to match GCB/Poll data, so salt to your own liking) on a Democratic Senate Majority:
It would have been nice if people considered all of this before the 2024 election and not after, but at least there’s signs of resistance now and not resignation.
Has there ever been a hypothetical presidential election do-over poll that resulted in a change of winners before? Even with unpopular presidents I cannot recall ever having seen the result flip before this poll. Even in a numerically small case like that April 2025 poll.
Benitez-Thompson is well-known after representing a Reno-area Assembly district for more than a decade. She named a few specific issues animating her campaign — including the ways she said last year’s Republican megabill shredded social safety nets, disrupted green energy programs and raised concerns for tribal communities, as well as the persistently high cost of living.
Nevada may not be moving away from us as much as we think. The NV Dem leadership are useless, yes, and the failure to recruit NV SC candidates was mortifying. But the city of Las Vegas is in steep economic decline due in part to the loss of tourism, a problem that is not getting better when Trump is threatening to take over Canada and Greenland and making us all look insane. We’re also in a very blue environment right now. I don’t think we should be written off yet in NV — wait until 2028 at least, I think.
Absolutely agree, with the benefit of hindsight, that the 2008-2024 coalition shifts were bad for us in NV. However, it's a different story comparing to 2004, and indeed 2004-2026 or 2028 may reveal an entirely different trend. One thing I've given up on is the idea of extrapolating any trend past the election in which it was demonstrated. Miami was among the most left-trending areas in the entire country from 2004 to 2016, until it suddenly wasn't, all that incredible 2016 data made obsolete as fast as "Blue Indiana" after 2008. There's almost no electoral case in which I use the word "trending" now instead of "trended" or "did trend". A lot of reasons to suspect (though we can't really know, yet) that many of these apparent 2024 trends have stopped or even reversed. As always, we'll know more after the election...
One of the most challenging but crucial questions for elections is figuring out what trends are durable but stationary, what trends are temporary, and what trends will continue.
It's incredibly difficult, but it's also incredibly useful. As a party we cannot focus on the right voters and locations if we do not know how votes are shifting. If we had properly assessed Florida's trend, for the past 20 years would we have spent so much money and time on that state? Probably not!
Unfortunately we don't get to know the truth until after the election. Those can be misleading too. If 2026+2028 sees a massive reversal of the 2024 trends away from us, did the results of 2024 actually elucidate us on the reality of long term trends?
Just wait until surveillance pricing starts kicking in. The failure of the GOP to stop it may very well become a winning issue for us if it ends up being as bad as I think it will be.
Sounds like he's telling her to "Get the fuck out my house!!!!"
Former candidate Sage endorses Turek, criticizes Wahls in Iowa Democrats’ U.S. Senate primary
Sage said he appreciates Turek’s authenticity and calls Wahls ‘artificial’
https://thegazette.com/campaigns-elections/former-candidate-sage-endorses-turek-criticizes-wahls-in-iowa-democrats-u-s-senate-primary/
Nathan Sage had some harsh words for Zach Wahls.
In the digest
Not the harsh criticism.
Thanks for posting the link. I'm not impressed with Sage's attack on Wahls.
how on earth would Sage know if Wahls is 'artificial'? he's not a Democratic elected, he's a radio guy.
Seems like an attempt to cling to relevancy post-dropout, if you ask me
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/17/963124454/jesse-jackson-civil-rights-leader-rainbow-coalition-dies
Rest in peace Jesse Jackson.
First ballot I ever cast was for Jesse Jackson in a Dem Pres. primary.
I met him at a black law firm in Chicago while the company I worked for was working on a real estate deal on the south side. He was seeking concessions and got them.
First political rally I ever attended was one of his.
Keep Hope Alive!
When I was a kid, he spoke to striking P-9ers in Austin, Minnesota. I went to see him with my family. Two years later, when he ran for President, Mower County didn't forget and caucused for him.
Sorry, who are P-9ers?
P-9ers were the Hormel meatpackers who went on strike in 1985-86. It was one of the largest strikes of my lifetime and was featured in the 1991 Academy-award winning documentary "An American Dream", which I highly recommend.
If Berger is spending money on attack ads as a powerful incumbent, he must be polling behind Sam Page. Let's keep in mind in 2024 he only won his race by 54%!
https://www.wral.com/news/state/politics-north-carolina-state-senate-primary-berger-page-february-2026/
I would LOVE to see this man thrown off his perch. I despise him with a passion.
Everything I know about Phil Berger comes from your utter disgust with him here. Lol.
ProPublica has some good pieces relating to him too (which MPC might be how I know about them lol):
https://www.propublica.org/article/judges-ethics-codes-recusal-conflict-of-interest-families
https://www.propublica.org/article/paul-newby-north-carolina-supreme-court
His nepo baby son is on my most hated list behind his daddy and Paul Newby.
After reading that ProPublica article about Newby, I was seeing red. Phil Berger and Paul Newby need to be booted off NC’s political scene.
I mean, he is the NC equivalent to Mitch McConnell. He would see that as a compliment.
He is up there with WI’s Robin Vos and OH’s Jason Huffman. Awful, despicable man.
(Matt Huffman)
Looks like the GOP controlled NC State Board of Elections will no longer be doing their Registration Repair/Griffin List BS, after the state and federal GOP and Democratic parties agreed to a settlement where more than 70,000 voters will stay on the voter rolls.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/north-carolina-voter-id-dnc-rnc-settlement-registration-rcna258986
A federal judge still has to sign off on it, but I noticed the NCSBE site immediately removed their red REGISTRATION REPAIR banner on the home page following the settlement.
On the surface the settlement looked quite reasonable. Anyone on that list can vote regularly in the next election by bringing in proper ID, and the state would update the registration according to the provided ID info. If no ID provided, the voter would have to vote provisional and need to cure the ballot.
What happens if someone on the list doesn’t vote in November? Would they be removed, and need to re-register if they want to participate in future elections?
I've been skimming the settlement. It's in effect until June 27, 2027 -- so while the NCSBE is allowed to continue their Registration Repair effort, it seems like anyone who is on the list who doesn't vote this November will stay on the rolls.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/27171071-rnc-ncsbe-settlement/
So essentially the “registration repair” gets an extension to June 2027.
Anyone voting in any election up to that time, with proper ID or voting provisional but with proper cure later, would have the repair done, no need to do the separate repair up front.
The settlement also allows NC voters on the list who are voting absentee by mail to get off it and receive a regular ballot if they've submitted their absentee ballot request correctly (which requires ID number or SS4).
Truly unbelievable that the Republicans keep fumbling Wisconsin SC races.
Wisconsin Rs finally overreached and voters had enough. That's why they voted for Protosaewicz in 2023 and Crawford in 2025.
Absolutely makes sense that they keep fumbling, it’s just amazing to see them unable to change course. Maybe because they can’t get anyone halfway sane to run.
I'm hoping we can do the same for NC Rs after this year and 2028.
Dems fumbling 20/22 in that state is why Trump has a trifecta today.
Yes, and why our state judiciary is controlled by Republicans.
Anyone who thinks Anderson Clayton didn't do enough in 2024 for Dems in NC needs to sit down -- apart from state auditor and U.S. president, Democrats romped statewide.
She and angry voters fought back against Griffin's effort to steal a state Supreme Court (aided and abetted by the GOP majority courts). I hope this has energized and enraged NC voters to vote the bums out in 2028. And Paul Newby should be tarred and feathered after what he and the NC GOP have done to our state.
I would argue some of this is an anger that has been building since Scott Walker was in office.
Oh definitely! I think if Wisconsin regains a Democratic trifecta they are going to do what VA and MN did as payback for Walker and yes-men like Robin Vos.
I suspect that this is a result of the political realignment that is a product of the Trump years when working class whites moved toward the GOP and suburban whites moved toward us. It is about even in presidential years but it gives us an advantage in off year elections where our new voters are way more likely to vote than their new voters.
In Indiana news, the state Senate has passed a measure, without public comment (they do this a lot), that would shorten the time for early voting in Indiana. It will now go to the state House. Indiana was 41st in the nation for voter turnout at the last election, having climbed up from 50th a few elections earlier. Apparently, the race to the bottom is back!
https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/2026/02/16/republicans-revive-push-to-shorten-indianas-early-voting-period/?emci=11b1d120-680b-f111-832e-0022482a9733&emdi=73e47063-fc0b-f111-832e-0022482a9733&ceid=630426
Seems like Indiana Dems need their version of Anderson Clayton, Ben Wikler or Lavora Barnes running the state Democratic Party.
Because if IN Rs do like IA Rs did with early voting, it's going to be trimmed down further from 16 days to 10 and then 3-5.
Best IN could do is try to take out Morales this year or make a long-shot play against Spartz.
Democrats have too few candidates running in elections for state senators and house representatives.
They could definitely break the state house supermajority. Only need four seats, I believe.
Yes, we need stronger party leadership. I would have liked to have seen Destiny Wells in charge.
Given the games that Trump is trying to play with voting, I have been looking for my birth certificate and can't find it. I ordered a new one yesterday and found Marion County, IN a pain in the ass to deal with, but you can order it from the state. They indicated their process time is 2 days or less, and including mail both ways, I should have it in less than 2 weeks. Sometimes Indiana surprises me. Ironically, the state charges less than the county, and doesn't require the application to be notarized.
Early voting begins today in the Texas primaries, and the MAGA Master still has not weighed in on the Cornyn-Hunt-Paxton race for Senate. Perhaps he will endorse all three.
Wouldn't be surprised if he did
He weighed in and endorsed all 3 yesterday.
Not exactly. On Monday, he said: "I just haven’t made a decision on that race yet. It’s got a ways to go, and I haven’t. I like all three of them, actually. Those are the toughest races. They’ve all supported me. They’re all good. You’re supposed to pick one, so we’ll see what happens. But I support all three,” https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5741247-donald-trump-texas-senate-primary/
Ironically that’s one of the few primary races in the country that *doesn’t* have a ways to go, it’s gonna be here very soon!
https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5741247-donald-trump-texas-senate-primary/amp/
Not yet as of 9:00 this morning
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/17/dhs-spokesperson-tricia-mclaughlin-to-leave-trump-administration-00783378
Tricia McLaughlin, who has spoken for the increasingly unpopular Department of Homeland Security during the recent immigration crackdown, is out of the administration.
Not the scalp we want or need, but a scalp nonetheless.
Keep it up.
A scalp I would love would be Blondi or Kegsbreath resigning.
Also Kristy Gnome... (and some others, too. Tulsi? Bobby Jr? etc).
Wouldn't be surprised to see her run against Landsman for congress in the future.
Actually, I was thinking it might be to replace Davidson.
"Is Iowa the Senate Race No One Saw Coming?"
https://time.com/7378634/democrats-senate-iowa-josh-turek-zach-wahls-nathan-sage/
https://archive.ph/https://time.com/7378634/democrats-senate-iowa-josh-turek-zach-wahls-nathan-sage/
“We're seeing the field consolidate around the most electable candidate because I fundamentally believe that Iowa is in play far more than what people on the coast realize,” Turek tells TIME. “I think we are going to be the center of the political universe here in 2026. There's no other state where you're looking at being able to flip three of the four congressional seats, flip the Senate seat, and flip this Governor's race.
Turek is not being subtle in his message that those credentials may matter less to voters who want to see the state elect a Democratic Senator for the first time in almost two decades. After all, as Turek points out in just about every campaign speech and interview, Iowa voted three times for Trump but twice went for Barack Obama.
“Because we are in such a bad place right now here in Iowa, there is significantly more energy and desire for change than even in Trump's first midterm,” Turek says.”
On a related note, despite my numerous disagreements with “popularists/Shorites/neo-centrists,” I believe their theory about why Ohio and Iowa moved into the Republican column after Obama is correct: Trump dropped the unpopular and rabid Republican obsession with cutting Social Security and Medicare and moved closer to the center on those issues.
I think that was part of it.
Those and the salience cultural issues around that time up through and including “Defund the Police.” I think people underestimate how much things like that drove two-time Obama states like Iowa and Ohio away.
Defund the Police was not said in 2016, 2018, 2022 and 2024 when they voted solidly to the right of the Blue wall, Georgia and Arizona. They have to been a bit to the right of even Texas. I think this is structural rather than cultural positioning.
It was said in 2020, so the 2022 and 2024 elections would be salient. And Dems won a Senate race in OH in 2018 (and narrowly lost statewide in IA). It was one element of the collapse, not the whole story of course.
I am a believer in standard bearers in state parties. We haven't had anyone really leading the charge since Tom Harkin left. We may have found that with Rob or whoever wins the U.S. Senate Primary. I spoke to Chet Culver on numerous occasions, and he liked people, but he didn't like some of the other aspects of Politics.
That was certainly part of it. Paul Ryan-ism was a terrible product for the GOP to peddle in Iowa and Ohio. Couple that with the pivot to immigration and trade skepticism and the stated desire to avoid foreign policy entanglements and Trump was exactly the kind of right-populist that Iowa and Ohio had been waiting for.
I just love how you get great information to share - it is so interesting and helpful - thank you!
Turek is getting the national coverage, but I will curious to see what happens in the primary. Wahls represents Johnson County (Iowa City) in the legislature and there are a lot more Dem primary voters from there (and neighboring Cedar Rapids) than there are from Turek's home turf.
If Turek does well in Des Moines though he could counter that.
Not surprisingly, Iowa GOP lawmakers are advancing legislation to curb the powers of the governor.
https://archive.ph/d3Ke7
They claim that they've been "contemplating it" since the COVID pandemic, but since the governor was GOP, they've let her do what she wanted by wrecking the public school system, let polluters dirty the water, and stripping women of their bodily autonomy via that 6 week abortion ban.
They anticipate Sand winning the governor's race and want to do what their compatriots in NC did with Roy Cooper in 2016 and Josh Stein in 2024.
Univ of Houston/Hobby poll of just Harris County U.S. Senate primaries. Crockett (D) is from Dallas and Hunt (R) is from Houston:
Democrats
🟦Jasmine Crockett 45%
🟦James Talarico 43%
🟦Ahmad Hassan 1%
Unsure 11%
—
Republicans
🟥John Cornyn 32%
🟥Ken Paxton 27%
🟥Wesley Hunt 25%
Others 2%
Unsure 14%
Zach Donnini from VoteView says this is a good result for Talarico, and that Crockett should aim for +10 in the county to win the primary.
I agree. Crockett needs to be ahead by more than 2% in the Houston area to feel good
Crockett is from Dallas not Houston?
My mistake; will edit.
So if the USA Today rumors are true -- Alito may step down before the midterms or during the lame duck if Dems somehow win back the Senate -- it will give us juice to force some SCOTUS court-packing.
Big hurdles: Fetterman, and if any of the newly-elected Dems (Peltola, Cooper, etc.) resist/fold in the face of pressure within their swingy states.
I’d guess if he wants out he’d step down in June as SCOTUS justices traditionally do (Breyer announced in Feb, Stevens/Souter in April - Kennedy in 2018 was unusually late in term) so Alito could announce soon, then.
But there were rumors about him retiring in 2020, too, so who knows. He’s much likelier than Thomas.
He's "celebrating" 20 years on the court this year, which is a nice round number. He has a new book coming out this year too. These are part of the tea leaves
Reasonable ones
Yeah, Thomas wants to become the longest serving SCOTUS justice. He’s anticipating the Senate will stay Republican and aiming to announce around January/spring 2028, and have a successor in place before a Democrat wins the presidency back.
Perhaps Democrats should prove Thomas wrong and win control over the Senate.
I hope he's arrogant enough to stay for 5 more years. I dread him being replaced with, say, Kaczmaryk or Mizelle.
Alito resigning then would block us from picking a successor, but at least it wouldn’t be as catastrophic as a liberal retirement or death.
We can block it until Jan. 2029 to make up for the one McConnell stole in 2016
I like that idea. Best part is, the GOP can’t say it’s unethical to voters because they started it with the Garland saga.
Our oldest liberal (Sotomayor) is four years younger than Alito.
And she's diabetic.
What does diabetes have to do with it?
Reduced life expectancy, especially someone with childhood diabetes that has had years to cause damage. Full disclosure, I'm diabetic.
Isn't her health well managed?
Hypothetical election redo:
Nov 2024 result: Trump +1
Apr 2025 result: Harris +1
Now: Harris +8
6 point advantage of Harris/2026 D voters over Trump/2026 R voters.
Kalshi prediction market odds (I don’t entirely believe the average joe or Jane can predict elections/politics, but the movement at least seems to match GCB/Poll data, so salt to your own liking) on a Democratic Senate Majority:
Feb 2025: 19%
Aug 2025: 30%
Now: 40%
Didn’t vote in last presidential election voters:
2024 Trump +7 (didn’t vote 2020)
2026 Congress D+16 (didn’t vote 2024)
https://x.com/ForecasterEnten/status/2023816818373390838/mediaViewer
Regrets: Harris now clearly leads Trump in a 2024 redo.
Big implications for 2026: Dems for Congress are holding onto Harris voters more than the GOP is holding onto Trump voters.
Further: non-2024 voters are heavily favoring Dems.
Puts not just the House, but Senate in-play.
It would have been nice if people considered all of this before the 2024 election and not after, but at least there’s signs of resistance now and not resignation.
Has there ever been a hypothetical presidential election do-over poll that resulted in a change of winners before? Even with unpopular presidents I cannot recall ever having seen the result flip before this poll. Even in a numerically small case like that April 2025 poll.
NV-02: Update, she’s going to run.
https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/former-dem-assembly-leader-teresa-benitez-thompson-to-run-for-congress
Benitez-Thompson is well-known after representing a Reno-area Assembly district for more than a decade. She named a few specific issues animating her campaign — including the ways she said last year’s Republican megabill shredded social safety nets, disrupted green energy programs and raised concerns for tribal communities, as well as the persistently high cost of living.
This is an outstanding get in a very tough seat in a state moving away from us. Hot damn.
Nevada may not be moving away from us as much as we think. The NV Dem leadership are useless, yes, and the failure to recruit NV SC candidates was mortifying. But the city of Las Vegas is in steep economic decline due in part to the loss of tourism, a problem that is not getting better when Trump is threatening to take over Canada and Greenland and making us all look insane. We’re also in a very blue environment right now. I don’t think we should be written off yet in NV — wait until 2028 at least, I think.
I’m not writing NV off, and indeed my base case is that Ford beats Lombardo this year.
But it has moved away from us every cycle post-2008 a little bit, and the educational mix there is not great for us
The trends may be reversing now though, given that Trump is losing his appeal with a lot of working class minorities and even some WWC.
Besides, the bad trends in the state were all in Vegas. Reno's been holding up quite well.
Absolutely agree, with the benefit of hindsight, that the 2008-2024 coalition shifts were bad for us in NV. However, it's a different story comparing to 2004, and indeed 2004-2026 or 2028 may reveal an entirely different trend. One thing I've given up on is the idea of extrapolating any trend past the election in which it was demonstrated. Miami was among the most left-trending areas in the entire country from 2004 to 2016, until it suddenly wasn't, all that incredible 2016 data made obsolete as fast as "Blue Indiana" after 2008. There's almost no electoral case in which I use the word "trending" now instead of "trended" or "did trend". A lot of reasons to suspect (though we can't really know, yet) that many of these apparent 2024 trends have stopped or even reversed. As always, we'll know more after the election...
One of the most challenging but crucial questions for elections is figuring out what trends are durable but stationary, what trends are temporary, and what trends will continue.
It's incredibly difficult, but it's also incredibly useful. As a party we cannot focus on the right voters and locations if we do not know how votes are shifting. If we had properly assessed Florida's trend, for the past 20 years would we have spent so much money and time on that state? Probably not!
Unfortunately we don't get to know the truth until after the election. Those can be misleading too. If 2026+2028 sees a massive reversal of the 2024 trends away from us, did the results of 2024 actually elucidate us on the reality of long term trends?
The trends causing the state to move right aren't really applicable to the 2nd, it's been fairly stagnate politically
Travis is popping on the 1st day of TX EV, but all counties are looking likely to surpass 2024 on the same day, at this rate, which is insane btw.
https://x.com/DjsokeSpeaking/status/2023850448504156221
First day of EV in 2024 -
Travis: 3900
MontCo: 3600
Bell: 1950
McLennan: 1500
Ellis: 1100
2pm today -
Travis: 5740
MontCo: 3210
Bell: 1680
McLennan: 1110
Ellis: 1500
Is it because of the competitive TX Senate primary?
Almost certainly. Competitive primaries for both parties = more voters showing up to vote.
And that’s an unambiguous good IMO. Democracy doesn’t work if people don’t show up.
I just pray that turnout is like this in Nov and that Democrats solidify behind Talarico or Crockett.
I notice that our early voting #s in NC are easily surpassing the 2022 primary too. Not 2024 numbers like in TX but encouraging nonetheless.
Hopefully it lasts, well for the dems, these first few days are the super voters who show up almost always.
It would be pretty rad if Trump’s approval now turns out to be his high water mark for the entire year.
https://x.com/cjwarnke/status/2023736292953956739
NEW from
@WSJ
🚨Companies big and small say they are raising prices early this year -- pointing a finger at tariffs
🚨After holding the line on prices for months, companies have begun a new round of increases, in some cases by high-single-digit percentage points
Just wait until surveillance pricing starts kicking in. The failure of the GOP to stop it may very well become a winning issue for us if it ends up being as bad as I think it will be.
With his approval much lower a lot of companies probably have more leeway to actually call a spade a spade now than last April, too