I should probably not speculate but there was an effort to recall Aisha Wahab in 2023 by Hindu nationalist organizations and I've heard that Rakhi Israni is their recruit.
I am not seeing the original comment deleted, but in response to PollJunkie I can add in that there is intense dislike on the part of Sen. Wahab and those who align with her on internal-Indian politics for Israni. Wahab carried a bill to add "caste" as a protected class, and Israni was part of the Hindu-based opposition to it. (Don't ask me why some Hindus opposed it. As a basic white Californian, this one made no sense to me. But it was very real.)
. "Markwayne Mullin Now Romantically Linked to Corey Lewandowski"
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) — Since being nominated to replace Kristi Noem as head of DHS on Thursday, Senator Markwayne Mullin has suddenly found himself romantically linked to her former chief of staff, Corey Lewandowski.
After receiving a barrage of late-night texts from Lewandowski, a flustered Mullin reportedly told associates, “This isn’t what I signed up for.”
At the White House, Donald J. Trump said that Mullin needs to give the relationship with Lewandowski “some time,” adding, “Corey can be a little rough around the edges, but Markwayne will learn to love him.”
Nonfarm payrolls fell by 92,000 for the month, compared to the estimate for 50,000 and below the downwardly revised January total of 126,000. February marked the third time in the past five months that payrolls declined, following a sharp revision showing a drop of 17,000 in December.
In the 13 months since Trump took office, the economy has created a net total of 198,000 jobs compared with 1.4 million created in the last 13 months of the Biden administration.
Yeah, it’s like a rollercoaster with shifts in the economy in the last several months. Not something any POTUS in this kind of situation can be able to counter unless there’s significant changes in the agenda.
BLS does the best they can with the resources available. The initial reports are all based on surveys subject to sampling error as opposed to administrative data, and they're necessarily going to miss employment in new businesses.
But understand that BLS reporting the way it’s done is outdated and should be improved, especially with how you pull out summaries of data in reports. My only hope is that the data collection and analysis gets to be more deep and focused. It’s not as if the Labor Department processes change like private companies, namely tech companies, change in terms of data collection.
Of course, firing a spokesperson for BLS because of reporting dats is really stupid. That does not change the fact that the BLS is showing the labor market is a volatile rollercoaster right now.
I'm going to cut and paste last night's comment on the excitement of the 2026 TX primary compared to 2018:
The combined turnout for the 2018 TX Democratic primary race was 1,042,914 combined for all three candidates (Beto nabbed 61% of that or 644,632). Whereas the 2018 TX Republican primary was a coronation for Cruz, who got 1.32M (85%) of the 1,549,573 ballots cast.
Compared to the 2026 TX Democratic primary? Combined, Crockett and Talarico's primary votes more than tripled Beto's 2018 primary numbers (as well as eclipsed Cruz's primary numbers) -- at least 2.28M voters. That reflects the state's growth as well as excitement and energy among TX Dem and left-leaning unaffiliated voters.
The Kavanaugh confirmation fight in the Senate fall 2018 galvanized more TX Rs to vote for Cruz, who only won re-election by 2 points. (And had there'd been no SCOTUS confirmation fight, Cruz probably would've lost!) I don't know if a similar fight (if Alito retires this year) will have the same effect for Cornyn or Paxton.
No disrespect to Beto but I wish he had faced another Democratic opponent in the 2018 Senate primary. He had the whole race to himself even while he covered ground in all TX counties.
What would that have accomplished other than waste money? It was a good thing he had the race to himself and didn't waste time with the discourse we saw this year
But after the 2014 midterms, I was longing for a really competitive primary where Democrats wouldn’t get another anointed candidate like David Alameel, who really didn’t generate much of any excitement in the general election. Maxey Scherr was the real progressive and got the most enthusiasm although she didn’t get the establishment support.
I am grateful for what Beto accomplished. But he also didn’t win the 2018 general election. Being that he lost to Cruz by less than 3% points, a competitive primary might have made a bit of a difference in the margins.
“A new Gallup poll shows that America's secular slide continues with no real sign of the religious uptick some have claimed to be happening. Young people are by far the most irreligious demographic--and there's no sign of a boom in Catholic identity.”
Eh, I wouldn’t necessarily say religion itself is inherently wrong. There are a lot of genuinely good religious people who are fighting against this regime — Texas may elect one as Senator, even (and Georgia already did.) There are a lot of insane Christians/religious people but I feel the work the good ones do is worth having to fight the bad ones. Maybe a controversial opinion but that’s where I stand.
That’d indeed be interesting. I know anedcotally a lot of people who are anti-religious grew up in religious abusive households.
I still think one reason I’m still Christian is that I did not grow up in that environment. My mother is very religious but also very tolerant — she’s a left Christian like me — and my late father wasn’t particularly religious himself. Had I grown up in a less tolerant environment I may have turned out different, I think.
I did not like the RW evangelical churches my parents made me and my brother go to when we were kids. I despised the long sermons, the "charismatic" preachers and didn't like standing up to sing hymns. I went to a liberal arts college in Virginia (affiliated with UMC), and their style and services were much better. I like the progressiveness of the UMC but didn't care for the mixture of modern worship songs and liturgical sections.
I ended up joining the Greek Orthodox Church in 2024. While it's not traditionally progressive like UMC or Episcopal, it doesn't push a RW agenda either. Whereas when I went to an evangelical church, you can tell which way most parishioners leaned politically.
I'm curious to see how the young religious people who do exist tend to lean. I can imagine many conservatives -- I wonder how many of the religious left are young.
Actually, I'm curious as to which demographic the religious left tend to be most prevalent among. I count myself among them, FWIW.
I have an anecdotal story about the decline of one evangelical Protestant church over the last 10-15 years. It was one that my mom and her sisters grew up in and I (reluctantly) went to their church homecoming last year.
In 2010, their homecoming service had full pews, a choir, two pianists and a music director. In 2025, the church was half-full (I didn't see many 18-29 adults present, mostly middle-aged and elderly parishioners), no choir (only soloists) and the music director was playing the piano. There's a LOT of attrition.
More 18-29 people showed up for the lunch afterward. I'm seeing kids of the parishioners go to more affirming Protestant churches, convert to another religion, or become a "none."
If he had shown up, I would've grilled him on caving on the Big Bad Bill. And I would've reminded him how un-Christlike his vote was when that mom with kids on Medicaid who pleaded with him to not vote for it and how he brushed her off.
Several family members think the world of this awful man, even after the cheating scandal in 2018.
My 82 year old grandfather, a lifelong Southern Baptist, only goes to our local (very conservative) church every few weeks. My great grandfather was a pastor, even. He and his friends became fed up with them spewing propaganda. They give you a pamphlet every election telling you how to vote. Seriously.
The ones that I went to growing up did not do that. Was there a RW political undercurrent? Definitely. Hell, one of my mom's cousins had Jerry Falwell officiate her first marriage.
That said, I would love nothing more than to see the evangelical movement collapse completely. They've done so much damage over the last 50 years.
The extremely online right Trad people exist but are in no way reflective of their generation overall. I think they see religion as signifier of their politics rather than the other way around.
I guess the religious revival among the young was another phony story that the media hyped up amid its 2024-25 wave of "conservative vibe shift" pieces, which always seemed strained and now already feel dated.
I’ve got to say looking at Emerson Colleges polling since November 2024 they’ve arguably been the most reliable, I will definitely be keeping an eye on that.
According to Olivia Julliana in a Substack discussion with Katie Phang this morning, today is the deadline for any Texas candidate to file to have his or her name removed from the ballot for primary election run-offs, or the name will remain on the run-off ballot. Rep. Gonzalez will now do so. Will Ken Paxton do so?
He made the "offer" because he knows it will not happen. He also knows that Trump has advocated this position, so it is more sycophancy. Maybe he is waiting for Trump to offer him a job in the current regime--probably one that does not require Senate confirmation because I think he would be unconfirmable.
I kinda hope he doesn’t. I mean it’d mean having to hear about shit he says for another 2 months, and possibly longer, but he’d be an easier out than Cornyn in the general.
Was it 2012 or 2008 that he had that epic meltdown that led Megyn Kelly to fact check him in real time? Ithink that’s a s close as I ever came to feeling sorry for the guy (not that I was close, just never closer).
As was a certain Orange American when the race was called for Obama while he was still behind in the popular vote. (This was only because there were no votes reported from the West Coast yet, of course.)
I don't think Cornyn would be safe either. It would be harder for Talarico but not impossible. Paxton would definitely push some GOP voters to stay home or vote against him.
This bit of news comes from an email sent out by NC Senate minority whip Jay Chaudhuri at around 6 PM yesterday (March 5). I haven’t seen any other reporting of it in local media — yet (I emailed a couple of the people who broke the story about the NC Board of elections asking one of its members — Bob Rucho, yes THAT Rucho as in Rucho v. Common Cause — to step down after sending a tweet in support of Berger).
The Republican (because of course it is) primary for NC Senate 26 (a.k.a. the most expensive legislative race you’ve ever heard of) has taken an interesting turn. For those unfamiliar, this features 13-term NC Senate president pro tem Phil Berger attempting to fend off a challenge by Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page, who figures 26 years is enough. And there’s a lot of agreement on that point, especially outside the district, but when the precinct reports were all in on Tuesday, Page was leading by two (2) votes. This did not include all mail/overseas/military ballots or *provisional* ballots cast on election day. The deadline for “curing” those provisional ballots is today (Friday March 6). *Yesterday* (Thursday March 5) the Rockingham County Board of Elections CLOSED for 4 hours with a sign that read “Board of Elections is closed today. Election is being reconcilled. [sic] Please do not disturb!”
This is significant for several reasons, most importantly because of the short timeline for voters to cure ballots, but *also* because (pardon the length of this list, but the background information is important for context):
* Rockingham County, which is the BoE that closed, went for the challenger Page by a 2:1 (67%) margin. Berger *also* lives in Rockingham County, but it was his support in adjacent (and more populous) Guilford County that made the race as tight as it was.
* One of Berger’s more glaring bad faith moves (in conjunction with former NC House Speaker and now Representative of the newly minted 14th CD Tim Moore) was to strip the newly minted Democratic Governor Josh Stein of control of the state Board of Elections, handing it to the only Council of State Republican he could credibly give it to, State Auditor Dave Boliek. (This happened as soon as Stein was elected but before he was sworn in, and was attached to a bill that purported itself to be a “hurricane relief bill” for the Western part of the state — but didn’t actually appropriate any relief money for those counties and is one of the major reasons this primary was even close — or even contested for that matter. Can you tell I’m bitter? It’s shows doesn’t it. And I don’t even live in WNC! I digress.)
* Chaudhuri *also* says in his email that just a week before the election, Boliek was “actively campaigning for Berger”. Which, if true, is about as out of bounds as you could possibly get. A very good friend of mine was a chief precinct judge in CHatham County for years and wasn’t allowed to even put a bumper sticker on her CAR endorsing a candidate for any race. And here we have the guy in charge of overseeing elections in the state allegedly campaigning for the guy who _gave him that job_.
* Berger spent TEN MILLION DOLLARS on this race, which is an INSANE amount for a legislative seat. It didn’t work. So now the board of elections in the county where he lost 2/3 of the vote has to “reconcile”… something.
Good find. I saw these results yesterday in the polls Paul Mitchell included for his Twins "game," then looked everywhere for an actual poll w/o luck. Surprised Steyer did not release it to the media.
It seems a bit implausible to me, but not completely out of line. Even with a big bump he's still clearly under 20%.
Looks to me like something his campaign is using to keep him signing their checks. But it's not impossible that it's accurate, especially with him being on the air extensively.
If we’re up 6 with men at the time of the election, forget just winning the Senate, we’d be in the upper 50s and in a position to get a filibuster proof majority in 2028. That would mean we’d be doing 10 points better than we did in 2018.
I like to think this is belated remorse from all those young men who were berated by their female friends after November 2024 (I know because I overheard my daughter having several such calls).
Spread this far and wide. Drumpf and his sheeple will absolutely love it. Here are lil Donnie's state-by-state net-approval ratings, starting with the 9 states where he is above water (yep, just 9).
I don't think Trump is actually -19 in Texas (worse than in Virginia!), but if he's even -9 that probably means Dems win many if not most state-level races. That poll has him -10 or worse in AK, SC, IA, IN, OH too. There could be some states in play that usually get no attention.
Yeah, I've been wondering how much Iran warmongering could affect Graham. People seem to like how Andrews is campaigning. If their primary wasn't at the end of this month, I'd almost wonder if Paul Dans--the main Project 2025 coordinator until he was fired the summer before the election--could win the nomination.
Kansas is my dark horse. Its hard to overrmphasize the importance of Johnston County. For decades it was up there with the WOW counties of Wisconsin in terms of netting Republicans huge sums of votes every cycle. Its also purely suburban, and has shown signs of swinging hard left on occasion. And Kansas juat doesnt have that many people living in it that. Sedgwick County (Wichita) would be the only other major source of votes in western 3/4 of the state.
If Dems wanna be competitive in Kansas, they absolutely have to start winning Sedgwick county, push the margins in Shawnee and Johnson counties up to around 20 points or more. Until then the state will be out of reach.
They will also need, and probably get, the rural ruby red counties to continue to shrink in population while Johnson county grows at least 10% every decade.
You really think -9 approval rating for Trump in TX puts the Dems in "probable" position to win "many if not most state-level races"? I'm not sure I see that. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely good for us but even if he really is -19 in TX, I'd still call both the Governor and Senate races Lean R.
the one ugly ass bill is destroying healthcare in all of the above states, if we get the majorities shut down the government until TACO signs a bill undoing medicaid and snap cuts
Also (4) Iraq and Afghanistan, and the policy failures they represent is now deeply embedded in our society. Iran neighbors both of them. People are going to make a very direct connection between those two wars and this one.
And re Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush had 9/11 as a justification for Afghanistan and memories of it which disposed the public favourably (for a while) towards action in Iraq, and while the case for military action in Iraq regarding Saddam's WMD's was faulty at best, he and others at least worked to make one before the UN and Congress and got a resolution authorising it. Plus Bush was then popular and reasonably well trusted with the public (the fact that he wasn't later of course owes much to Iraq.)
Saddam was also the public archenemy, including in pop culture, for most of the 1990s - the sentiment that we should have “finished the job” in the spring of ‘91 was strong, especially with Republicans and right-leaning indies.
Turned out Poppy’s hesitancy to do so was well placed!
Usually theres a casus belli that precedes US action. Justified, exaggerated, valid or not, the US has tended to not nakedly be the aggressor in large scale military strikes. So initially there is often a rally around the flag effect. 9/11, Pearl Harbor, etc.
Israni definitely seems to be too conservative for the district, but I'm not sure what Hindutva has to do with anything here.
It's a fascist doctrine.
I should probably not speculate but there was an effort to recall Aisha Wahab in 2023 by Hindu nationalist organizations and I've heard that Rakhi Israni is their recruit.
https://theintercept.com/2026/03/04/california-eric-swalwell-rakhi-israni-donations-maga-gop/
I am not seeing the original comment deleted, but in response to PollJunkie I can add in that there is intense dislike on the part of Sen. Wahab and those who align with her on internal-Indian politics for Israni. Wahab carried a bill to add "caste" as a protected class, and Israni was part of the Hindu-based opposition to it. (Don't ask me why some Hindus opposed it. As a basic white Californian, this one made no sense to me. But it was very real.)
Wow, this is certainly good information to know. Thanks for sharing.
The original comment was me saying that Israni is probably a Hindu nationalist but I don't want to libel anyone without solid proof so I deleted it.
Borowitz, on a lighter note:
. "Markwayne Mullin Now Romantically Linked to Corey Lewandowski"
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) — Since being nominated to replace Kristi Noem as head of DHS on Thursday, Senator Markwayne Mullin has suddenly found himself romantically linked to her former chief of staff, Corey Lewandowski.
After receiving a barrage of late-night texts from Lewandowski, a flustered Mullin reportedly told associates, “This isn’t what I signed up for.”
At the White House, Donald J. Trump said that Mullin needs to give the relationship with Lewandowski “some time,” adding, “Corey can be a little rough around the edges, but Markwayne will learn to love him.”
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/markwayne-mullin-now-romantically
A really fun new website for residents of NY-10! https://bradpanderforcongress.com/
I can’t wait for Brad to replace Dan Goldman in Congress. It’ll be such an upgrade.
I’m assuming this obnoxious website was done by someone affiliated with Goldman?
Whatever. Goldman knows he’s toast. Imagine running to Lander’s right in a seat this blue, Christ.
if it's anti lander wow, the website made me like him more
yes ive got to say i was so confused because its positive
That's how I interpreted it. "Brad Pander" certainly sounds like an insult to me.
Yeah, people who don't like him have been calling him "Brad Pander" for many years.
I agree that this is a very bad website if the point is to insult him, unless you think showing up in lots of different communities around NYC is bad.
It has the logos of Hamas and Hezbollah as endorsers, but I only know that because I looked them up.
I'm just very curious who made this because they really biffed it.
Especially showing him getting arrested! You're making him a hero!
Jobs report:
Nonfarm payrolls fell by 92,000 for the month, compared to the estimate for 50,000 and below the downwardly revised January total of 126,000. February marked the third time in the past five months that payrolls declined, following a sharp revision showing a drop of 17,000 in December.
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/06/february-2026-jobs-report.html
Not to mention oil up to 88 a barrel and gas up over 10% in a week. Trump's economy is going great!
In the 13 months since Trump took office, the economy has created a net total of 198,000 jobs compared with 1.4 million created in the last 13 months of the Biden administration.
Gas prices have really began to skyrocket in the last few days. Maybe Trump begins to TACO.
Insisting on 'unconditional surrender' can do that. Bombing alone has never forced a surrender without realistic prospects of invasion and occupation.
And yet the ADP report shows there was an increase of jobs in February vs January.
The next Democratic POTUS is going to have to get the BLS to get its data reporting better done.
That said, tariffs and gas prices are certainly the biggest factor. Trump can no longer spin.
ADP said there was a big drop from December to January, but the BLS reported a gain.
Yeah, it’s like a rollercoaster with shifts in the economy in the last several months. Not something any POTUS in this kind of situation can be able to counter unless there’s significant changes in the agenda.
BLS does the best they can with the resources available. The initial reports are all based on surveys subject to sampling error as opposed to administrative data, and they're necessarily going to miss employment in new businesses.
Sure. That is completely understandable.
But understand that BLS reporting the way it’s done is outdated and should be improved, especially with how you pull out summaries of data in reports. My only hope is that the data collection and analysis gets to be more deep and focused. It’s not as if the Labor Department processes change like private companies, namely tech companies, change in terms of data collection.
Of course, firing a spokesperson for BLS because of reporting dats is really stupid. That does not change the fact that the BLS is showing the labor market is a volatile rollercoaster right now.
There’s a reason why all BLS data is adjusted gradually (revised in their parlance), they do the best they can.
Agreed.
I'm so tired of Republican Presidents crashing the economy and going to war in the Middle East.
Let’s make sure that’s the Republican brand for the foreseeable future!
Until our collective amnesia causes us to forget and then after 2 years of a Dem Trifecta the voters put them back into power. Rinse. Repeat.
trump is doing his best to be this generation's hoover
I'm going to cut and paste last night's comment on the excitement of the 2026 TX primary compared to 2018:
The combined turnout for the 2018 TX Democratic primary race was 1,042,914 combined for all three candidates (Beto nabbed 61% of that or 644,632). Whereas the 2018 TX Republican primary was a coronation for Cruz, who got 1.32M (85%) of the 1,549,573 ballots cast.
Compared to the 2026 TX Democratic primary? Combined, Crockett and Talarico's primary votes more than tripled Beto's 2018 primary numbers (as well as eclipsed Cruz's primary numbers) -- at least 2.28M voters. That reflects the state's growth as well as excitement and energy among TX Dem and left-leaning unaffiliated voters.
The Kavanaugh confirmation fight in the Senate fall 2018 galvanized more TX Rs to vote for Cruz, who only won re-election by 2 points. (And had there'd been no SCOTUS confirmation fight, Cruz probably would've lost!) I don't know if a similar fight (if Alito retires this year) will have the same effect for Cornyn or Paxton.
644k quadrupled is over 2.5 million. So, not quite.
But good stats nonetheless.
Fixed it. I got my numbers mixed up last night.
It IS more than triple. The overall point stands.
No disrespect to Beto but I wish he had faced another Democratic opponent in the 2018 Senate primary. He had the whole race to himself even while he covered ground in all TX counties.
What would that have accomplished other than waste money? It was a good thing he had the race to himself and didn't waste time with the discourse we saw this year
I agree with what you are saying.
But after the 2014 midterms, I was longing for a really competitive primary where Democrats wouldn’t get another anointed candidate like David Alameel, who really didn’t generate much of any excitement in the general election. Maxey Scherr was the real progressive and got the most enthusiasm although she didn’t get the establishment support.
I am grateful for what Beto accomplished. But he also didn’t win the 2018 general election. Being that he lost to Cruz by less than 3% points, a competitive primary might have made a bit of a difference in the margins.
The losing Democratic candidate, Jasmine Crockett, received more votes (1,068,387) than either John Cornyn (907,239) or Ken Paxton (884,141).
This means there’s hope to maximize both the black and Hispanic vote.
"In Gallup's new poll released Tuesday, "nones" outnumber Protestants among the young for the first time."
https://x.com/StatisticUrban/status/2029682023594701063?s=20
“A new Gallup poll shows that America's secular slide continues with no real sign of the religious uptick some have claimed to be happening. Young people are by far the most irreligious demographic--and there's no sign of a boom in Catholic identity.”
https://x.com/crawlings13/status/2029556052752998526
Thank God.
;)
Eh, I wouldn’t necessarily say religion itself is inherently wrong. There are a lot of genuinely good religious people who are fighting against this regime — Texas may elect one as Senator, even (and Georgia already did.) There are a lot of insane Christians/religious people but I feel the work the good ones do is worth having to fight the bad ones. Maybe a controversial opinion but that’s where I stand.
I'd like to see crosstabs of whether a plurality of the 18-29 nones grew up in an evangelical or strict RC household.
That’d indeed be interesting. I know anedcotally a lot of people who are anti-religious grew up in religious abusive households.
I still think one reason I’m still Christian is that I did not grow up in that environment. My mother is very religious but also very tolerant — she’s a left Christian like me — and my late father wasn’t particularly religious himself. Had I grown up in a less tolerant environment I may have turned out different, I think.
I did not like the RW evangelical churches my parents made me and my brother go to when we were kids. I despised the long sermons, the "charismatic" preachers and didn't like standing up to sing hymns. I went to a liberal arts college in Virginia (affiliated with UMC), and their style and services were much better. I like the progressiveness of the UMC but didn't care for the mixture of modern worship songs and liturgical sections.
I ended up joining the Greek Orthodox Church in 2024. While it's not traditionally progressive like UMC or Episcopal, it doesn't push a RW agenda either. Whereas when I went to an evangelical church, you can tell which way most parishioners leaned politically.
I'm curious to see how the young religious people who do exist tend to lean. I can imagine many conservatives -- I wonder how many of the religious left are young.
Actually, I'm curious as to which demographic the religious left tend to be most prevalent among. I count myself among them, FWIW.
I have an anecdotal story about the decline of one evangelical Protestant church over the last 10-15 years. It was one that my mom and her sisters grew up in and I (reluctantly) went to their church homecoming last year.
In 2010, their homecoming service had full pews, a choir, two pianists and a music director. In 2025, the church was half-full (I didn't see many 18-29 adults present, mostly middle-aged and elderly parishioners), no choir (only soloists) and the music director was playing the piano. There's a LOT of attrition.
More 18-29 people showed up for the lunch afterward. I'm seeing kids of the parishioners go to more affirming Protestant churches, convert to another religion, or become a "none."
Huh, interesting.
I went there on the off-chance that Rep. Mark Harris (who did attend that same church in the 1980s-1990s) would show up.
There's no love lost between me and that place.
Mark “Ballot Harvester” Harris? Or was he the “harvested”, I can never keep that straight.
The exact same.
If he had shown up, I would've grilled him on caving on the Big Bad Bill. And I would've reminded him how un-Christlike his vote was when that mom with kids on Medicaid who pleaded with him to not vote for it and how he brushed her off.
Several family members think the world of this awful man, even after the cheating scandal in 2018.
My 82 year old grandfather, a lifelong Southern Baptist, only goes to our local (very conservative) church every few weeks. My great grandfather was a pastor, even. He and his friends became fed up with them spewing propaganda. They give you a pamphlet every election telling you how to vote. Seriously.
The ones that I went to growing up did not do that. Was there a RW political undercurrent? Definitely. Hell, one of my mom's cousins had Jerry Falwell officiate her first marriage.
That said, I would love nothing more than to see the evangelical movement collapse completely. They've done so much damage over the last 50 years.
I'm part of the 9% in that survey.
The extremely online right Trad people exist but are in no way reflective of their generation overall. I think they see religion as signifier of their politics rather than the other way around.
Yeah, like the Orthobro "movement." I'm a GO convert and I hadn't even heard of that until that NYT piece about Orthodoxy came out last year.
Yep. I firmly believe that JD Vance joined the Roman Catholic Church solely to signal his retrograde views on women's and LGBTQ+ rights.
I guess the religious revival among the young was another phony story that the media hyped up amid its 2024-25 wave of "conservative vibe shift" pieces, which always seemed strained and now already feel dated.
Catholicism is plateauing statistically, it’s Protestantism that is in collapse
I’ve got to say looking at Emerson Colleges polling since November 2024 they’ve arguably been the most reliable, I will definitely be keeping an eye on that.
Yep our side didn't like them in 2024, but they were on it.
According to Olivia Julliana in a Substack discussion with Katie Phang this morning, today is the deadline for any Texas candidate to file to have his or her name removed from the ballot for primary election run-offs, or the name will remain on the run-off ballot. Rep. Gonzalez will now do so. Will Ken Paxton do so?
Paxton is NOT going to remove his name from the primary election runoff. He WANTS that Senate seat.
And that will make for more Republican infighting. Get out the popcorn.
And even if the GOP-controlled Senate did ditch the filibuster and rammed the SAVE Act into law, who's to say he wouldn't go back on his word?
He made the "offer" because he knows it will not happen. He also knows that Trump has advocated this position, so it is more sycophancy. Maybe he is waiting for Trump to offer him a job in the current regime--probably one that does not require Senate confirmation because I think he would be unconfirmable.
I tipped, but did you think RFK, Jr. would be confirmable?
I think that Ken Paxton is in the Matt Gaetz category when it comes to Senate confirmation. Still, Trump may want to replace Pam Bondi....
I kinda hope he doesn’t. I mean it’d mean having to hear about shit he says for another 2 months, and possibly longer, but he’d be an easier out than Cornyn in the general.
TX-SEN:
Karl Rove now believes it’s possible James Talarico could win the Senate race if Ken Paxton is the nominee.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5769077-rove-talarico-texas-senate-upset/amp/
Rove is a turd blossom. Invoking the same BS George Soros boogeyman.
But if Talarico wins, I WANT to see Rove's reaction. Seeing his somber reaction for the 2022 midterms with that awful Ingraham woman gave me life.
Was it 2012 or 2008 that he had that epic meltdown that led Megyn Kelly to fact check him in real time? Ithink that’s a s close as I ever came to feeling sorry for the guy (not that I was close, just never closer).
2012. It was the Ohio call for Obama.
That’s what I was thinking, but as I was typing it I wasn’t sure. I remembered Ohio, but suddenly was less sure about 2012.
he was extremely close to apoplexy
As was a certain Orange American when the race was called for Obama while he was still behind in the popular vote. (This was only because there were no votes reported from the West Coast yet, of course.)
2012
No surprise to see Rove shilling for Cornyn.
I don't think Cornyn would be safe either. It would be harder for Talarico but not impossible. Paxton would definitely push some GOP voters to stay home or vote against him.
If Trump pushes Pacton to drop out, some MAGA's will rebel & stay home.
How many? IDK.
Agreed. Which is why Paxton unseating Cornyn would be glorious.
Well, Cornyn first got elected to the Senate back in 2002 with the machine fellow Texan Rove built while still being Attorney General.
I sure would like to see Cornyn lose the general election so Rove can get the message he’s no longer relevant. ;)
I didn't know Karl was still walking around
He's probably going to live to 101 just to continue shit talking on Faux.
This bit of news comes from an email sent out by NC Senate minority whip Jay Chaudhuri at around 6 PM yesterday (March 5). I haven’t seen any other reporting of it in local media — yet (I emailed a couple of the people who broke the story about the NC Board of elections asking one of its members — Bob Rucho, yes THAT Rucho as in Rucho v. Common Cause — to step down after sending a tweet in support of Berger).
The Republican (because of course it is) primary for NC Senate 26 (a.k.a. the most expensive legislative race you’ve ever heard of) has taken an interesting turn. For those unfamiliar, this features 13-term NC Senate president pro tem Phil Berger attempting to fend off a challenge by Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page, who figures 26 years is enough. And there’s a lot of agreement on that point, especially outside the district, but when the precinct reports were all in on Tuesday, Page was leading by two (2) votes. This did not include all mail/overseas/military ballots or *provisional* ballots cast on election day. The deadline for “curing” those provisional ballots is today (Friday March 6). *Yesterday* (Thursday March 5) the Rockingham County Board of Elections CLOSED for 4 hours with a sign that read “Board of Elections is closed today. Election is being reconcilled. [sic] Please do not disturb!”
This is significant for several reasons, most importantly because of the short timeline for voters to cure ballots, but *also* because (pardon the length of this list, but the background information is important for context):
* Rockingham County, which is the BoE that closed, went for the challenger Page by a 2:1 (67%) margin. Berger *also* lives in Rockingham County, but it was his support in adjacent (and more populous) Guilford County that made the race as tight as it was.
* One of Berger’s more glaring bad faith moves (in conjunction with former NC House Speaker and now Representative of the newly minted 14th CD Tim Moore) was to strip the newly minted Democratic Governor Josh Stein of control of the state Board of Elections, handing it to the only Council of State Republican he could credibly give it to, State Auditor Dave Boliek. (This happened as soon as Stein was elected but before he was sworn in, and was attached to a bill that purported itself to be a “hurricane relief bill” for the Western part of the state — but didn’t actually appropriate any relief money for those counties and is one of the major reasons this primary was even close — or even contested for that matter. Can you tell I’m bitter? It’s shows doesn’t it. And I don’t even live in WNC! I digress.)
* Chaudhuri *also* says in his email that just a week before the election, Boliek was “actively campaigning for Berger”. Which, if true, is about as out of bounds as you could possibly get. A very good friend of mine was a chief precinct judge in CHatham County for years and wasn’t allowed to even put a bumper sticker on her CAR endorsing a candidate for any race. And here we have the guy in charge of overseeing elections in the state allegedly campaigning for the guy who _gave him that job_.
* Berger spent TEN MILLION DOLLARS on this race, which is an INSANE amount for a legislative seat. It didn’t work. So now the board of elections in the county where he lost 2/3 of the vote has to “reconcile”… something.
I posted the Rucho news on yesterday's post. At least Rucho had the decency to resign his position rather than stay put.
Yeah, I saw some reporting locally in The Assembly and the N&O about that story, but not the BoE closure.
Thomas Mills has more on the Rucho business on his Substack today:
https://politicsnc.substack.com/p/more-resignations-please?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
CA-Gov followers: I got hold of a smokin' hot poll, probably internal to Tom Steyer. I posted it as screenshots on BlueSky. https://bsky.app/profile/rlmiller.bsky.social/post/3mgfr4z2g4k2u
Good find. I saw these results yesterday in the polls Paul Mitchell included for his Twins "game," then looked everywhere for an actual poll w/o luck. Surprised Steyer did not release it to the media.
It seems a bit implausible to me, but not completely out of line. Even with a big bump he's still clearly under 20%.
Looks to me like something his campaign is using to keep him signing their checks. But it's not impossible that it's accurate, especially with him being on the air extensively.
Harold Hamm the oil tycoon called Stitt about the Senate appointment.......
https://www.notus.org/senate/harold-hamm-markwayne-mullin-senate-appointment-ask
Are we sure he'd even make it to January?
Him causing another vacancy on tight margins could be acceptable lol
👀
https://x.com/PpollingNumbers/status/2029772604005814490
New - Generic Ballot poll (Man Voters)
🔵 Democrats 48% (+4)
🔴 Republicans 42%
= Trend
🔴 12/15/25 - Republicans +10
🔴 1/17/26 - Republicans +5
🔵 2/22/26 - Democrats +4
Emerson #A+ - 2/22
Pre-Iran strikes by a few days, too.
If Democrats are winning men we’re headed for 1890/1930 territory
If we’re up 6 with men at the time of the election, forget just winning the Senate, we’d be in the upper 50s and in a position to get a filibuster proof majority in 2028. That would mean we’d be doing 10 points better than we did in 2018.
1964.
Quoting only midterms but, yes
I like to think this is belated remorse from all those young men who were berated by their female friends after November 2024 (I know because I overheard my daughter having several such calls).
Hopefully! Gen Z doesn’t want to make themselves permanently undateable one would hope
There is a math error/typo there somewhere.
48-42 is +6.
Trump approval tracker, only 9 states are positive lmao.
https://x.com/CraigRozniecki/status/2029641865750888856
Spread this far and wide. Drumpf and his sheeple will absolutely love it. Here are lil Donnie's state-by-state net-approval ratings, starting with the 9 states where he is above water (yep, just 9).
Idaho: +26.0%
Wyoming: +20.9%
West Virginia: +14.2%
North Dakota: +7.3%
Tennessee: +3.0%
Montana: +2.1%
Oklahoma: +0.2%
Alabama: +0.1%
Utah: +0.1%
Arkansas: -1.6%
South Dakota: -4.6%
Mississippi: -4.9%
Kentucky: -5.3%
Louisiana: -6.1%
Nebraska: -6.1%
Missouri: -6.5%
Florida: -8.2%
Kansas: -9.6%
Alaska: -10.8%
South Carolina: -10.9%
Iowa: -11.7%
Indiana: -12.8%
North Carolina: -13.5%
Ohio: -14.8%
Arizona: -16.5%
Michigan: -17.9%
Virginia: -17.9%
Nevada: -18.5%
Texas: -18.7%
New Hampshire: -19.3%
Wisconsin: -20.6%
Pennsylvania: -21.0%
Georgia: -21.2%
New Jersey: -23.4%
Minnesota: -23.6%
Maine: -23.9%
Delaware: -26.2%
New York: -27.2%
Colorado: -28.2%
California: -29.1%
Oregon: -32.1%
New Mexico: -33.1%
Massachusetts: -33.3%
Rhode Island: -34.7%
Connecticut: -35.6%
Illinois: -36.4%
Washington: -38.3%
Hawaii: -40.0%
Maryland: -40.5%
Vermont: -43.2%
Washington, D.C.: -80.7%
https://economist.com/interactive/trump-approval-tracker
#MAGACultMorons #TrumpIsFailingAmerica
I wonder what the error bar is on individual states.
His approvals are lower in Texas than Nevada, Virginia, Michigan, or Arizona. Three swing states and one former swing now light blue state.
I don't think Trump is actually -19 in Texas (worse than in Virginia!), but if he's even -9 that probably means Dems win many if not most state-level races. That poll has him -10 or worse in AK, SC, IA, IN, OH too. There could be some states in play that usually get no attention.
Which states you think might be shock flips?
My sleeper Senate race this cycle is South Carolina. I think more people than usual are fed up with Lindsey Graham.
Yeah, I've been wondering how much Iran warmongering could affect Graham. People seem to like how Andrews is campaigning. If their primary wasn't at the end of this month, I'd almost wonder if Paul Dans--the main Project 2025 coordinator until he was fired the summer before the election--could win the nomination.
I could see that being surprising close (like closer than the 10 points, which he won by in 02 and 20, which has been his lowest margins so yet).
No chance whatsoever....
Kansas is my dark horse. Its hard to overrmphasize the importance of Johnston County. For decades it was up there with the WOW counties of Wisconsin in terms of netting Republicans huge sums of votes every cycle. Its also purely suburban, and has shown signs of swinging hard left on occasion. And Kansas juat doesnt have that many people living in it that. Sedgwick County (Wichita) would be the only other major source of votes in western 3/4 of the state.
If Dems wanna be competitive in Kansas, they absolutely have to start winning Sedgwick county, push the margins in Shawnee and Johnson counties up to around 20 points or more. Until then the state will be out of reach.
They will also need, and probably get, the rural ruby red counties to continue to shrink in population while Johnson county grows at least 10% every decade.
I think that would require a caliber of candidate we don't currently have in the race, like Davids.
Not sure if this would be a shock, but if Trump is underwater in Nebraska on the night of the election I have to imagine Osborn would win.
You really think -9 approval rating for Trump in TX puts the Dems in "probable" position to win "many if not most state-level races"? I'm not sure I see that. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely good for us but even if he really is -19 in TX, I'd still call both the Governor and Senate races Lean R.
Yes, given that the current Dem coalition is lab-engineered to show up for midterms and the GOP coalition to blow them off.
Bit surprised by those ID/UT numbers considering how Mormon they both are
Some similarities to Civiqs, other states not so much. He still easily in the plus in deep red states in the Civiqs polling which feels more accurate.
I mean. For the Senate:
Dem holds: GA -21.2%, MI -17.9%, NH -19.3%.
Possible pickups: NC -13.5%, ME -23.9%, OH -14.8%, AK -10.8%, IA -11.7%, TX -18.7%, NE -6.1%.
Just wait till gas goes up more, the job losses mount, and more epstein stuff comes out. It is gonna get way worse, politically, for him.
the one ugly ass bill is destroying healthcare in all of the above states, if we get the majorities shut down the government until TACO signs a bill undoing medicaid and snap cuts
Shame on WV for being the third highest.
I'm pleasantly surprised that Arkansas is -1.6%. That's a start for a solidly red start.
That's the one that jumped out at me too
...but if it was a presidential election year, would Trump win?
Trump approval poll:
https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/2029562789975462354
📊 National Poll by Angus Reid Institute
Pres. Trump
Approve: 35% (-2)
Disapprove: 58% (+2)
Lowest rating this term
——
Air Strikes on Iran
Approve: 32%
Disapprove: 47%
——
Boots on the ground in Iran
Approve: 24%
Disapprove: 58%
MAGA Reps: 67-16 (+51)
Non MAGA reps: 40-38 (+2)
Independents: 11-71 (-60)
3/2-4 | 1,075 A
https://angusreid.org/iran-us-polling-war-invasion-israel-trump/
I don’t think I’ve ever seen the American public this hostile to a war early on
I haven't either, but I'm not at all surprised the popularity is low.
1) The scale is such that it can't be waived away as a "surgical strike" or limited one-time "bombing" -- it's war.
2) The Administration has barely bothered to go through the motions of giving a semblance of a justification for it.
3) Civilians are being heavily targeted, not just political and military targets.
Also (4) Iraq and Afghanistan, and the policy failures they represent is now deeply embedded in our society. Iran neighbors both of them. People are going to make a very direct connection between those two wars and this one.
And re Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush had 9/11 as a justification for Afghanistan and memories of it which disposed the public favourably (for a while) towards action in Iraq, and while the case for military action in Iraq regarding Saddam's WMD's was faulty at best, he and others at least worked to make one before the UN and Congress and got a resolution authorising it. Plus Bush was then popular and reasonably well trusted with the public (the fact that he wasn't later of course owes much to Iraq.)
None of this is true of Trump.
Saddam was also the public archenemy, including in pop culture, for most of the 1990s - the sentiment that we should have “finished the job” in the spring of ‘91 was strong, especially with Republicans and right-leaning indies.
Turned out Poppy’s hesitancy to do so was well placed!
Usually theres a casus belli that precedes US action. Justified, exaggerated, valid or not, the US has tended to not nakedly be the aggressor in large scale military strikes. So initially there is often a rally around the flag effect. 9/11, Pearl Harbor, etc.
NC-01 poll, maybe an internal?
https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/2029956366710808717
GQR poll | 1/29-2/2 LV
US House | #NC01 2026
(Generic ballot)
🟥Laurie Buckhout 47%
🟦Don Davis 43% (incumbent)
Undecided 10%
—
(Initial)
🟦Don Davis 42% (incumbent)
🟥Laurie Buckhout 39%
🟨Tom Bailey 9%
Undecided 10%
—
(Initial allocated)
🟦Don Davis 48% (incumbent)
🟥Laurie Buckhout 47%
Undecided 5%
(Trump +11, 2024 | Likely Davis internal)
Ugh that’s pretty weak for a D Internal
Heavily gerrymandered. Many thiught Davis would not even run.
Note how old that poll is. It would be good to see one post-primary.
How does the generic ballot have very specific names?