Obituaries: Former Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) has died at 73.
After being a powerful state senator, Murphy represented a southwest Pennsylvania district that included suburbs of Pittsburgh from flipping it in 2002 until his resignation after a sex scandal in 2017. Democrat Conor Lamb flipped it in a special after his resignation, but Republican Guy Reschenthaler picked it up quickly after and holds it now.
I think he's very good at VA because he knows it best, and it's very TBD on how well he will continue to adapt and calibrate his models to other areas.
Also fwiw, Fox released one earlier this month, which had near identical gov topline, and equally dubious numbers from rural Georgia. Something like 30% rural Whites voting D.
TBH, once you get 30% rural White responders saying D, instead of in single digit, weight them up to be about 15% of the electorate, all other things looking like no change from 2024, you will get the topline being a D lead of mid single digit. This doesn’t mean we will see a revolutionary shift of rural South. It just means more likely they got a very screwed rural sample.
For the topline leading in 5-6pt very much like the primary turnout, the reasonable assumptions is, a shift in the core metro, suburbs, and secondary cities by some 10pt, maybe even more in the Black majority exurbs south of Atlanta, a bit less in the White majority exurbs, but holding steady (likely slightly worse than 2024) in the rural areas.
Polling in Georgia is usually very accurate. It is generally an easy state to poll since the vote is so polarized, and the swing voters in the suburbs are not hard to find.
That is exactly the problem of this poll. Ig it captured the swing voters ok, but completely unbelievable results on the most-polarized portion.
On the segment of outer small metros / rural areas, where 90% ish White voters vote red, and 24 results would be -34pt or so, they got something like KLB behind like 10pt. A simple extrapolation says it gets 30% of rural Whites voting D. Never happened since 2000, not likely to happen this year. No amount of weighting can solve it.
Post and Courier reports that too and that Mark Sanford has made moves. Mark Lynch is in too. And that’s US Senate from South Carolina, not South Carolina Senate. (pet peeve)
Wait Shri is ahead in an internal for his opponent? Why? His constituent services are awful, he just lost a huge amount of money on crypto, and he has done a piss poor job of repping his constituents overall. What does he even offer?
It seems like the pollster has heavily weighed it to Republican turnout being like 2022 or 2024, but IDK. I'm just prepared for FL to disappoint AGAIN.
The primary hasn’t been held yet and voters are having to chose between Alexander Vindman and Angie Nixon. There is also no analysis of any undecided voters in here in this poll whereas in the FL-GOV there are 6% undecided voters there.
Polls will likely change a bit closer to and after the primary.
This one doesn’t weight by recall votes, but by current registration. Presumably they did sample matched with voter files.
The current registration has 11pt R advantage. Weighted by roughly similar partisan turnout rate, and a much lower NPA turnout, the midterm with 13pt R registration edge is reasonable. There isn’t much of legacy D registration left there.
The problem is, as some FL voters (and Rachel Vindman) pointed out, the poll IMO doesn't reflect the population in the state. It oversamples white voters and under sampled Black and Latino voters.
imo, if we can't get it to single digits this year, it's time to start acknowledging the math in florida is becoming nigh impossible to overcome, we are polling better in south carolina of all places
FL polling you mean. FL polls have overestimated Dems since at least 2000 except for 2008 and 2012. They were pretty close to spot on in 2010 too (although Dems didn’t quite make it in the governors race, polling was no better than a tie at the end of that race).
im not suggesting we invest in sc, except for at the state and local level to break the supermajorities, I'm just saying given the amount of money involved re florida, why not use it for party building across the deep south writ large.
Acknowledging that as a northeasterner my strategies for a revival of our fortunes in the south are probably lacking
question on Senate candidates: who would you say is a Schumer follower/ fan/ mentee/ etc.? Or another way of putting it: who would definitely, likely, likely NOT, or definitely NOT vote for Schumer as majority leader?
Senate majority leader needs a majority of the senate though. Caucus leader can win with a bare majority of the caucus while we're out of power. It's when we're in power that a few senators could wield influence here. Not saying they would.
If she's elected to the Senate, I doubt Peltola would oppose a sitting Senate Democratic Leader unless it's someone who is seen as opposing her ability to represent Alaska's interests.
The Maine primary feels like a political *deus ex machina*. Platner took out Mills, who was already polling poorly and still has high unfavorables. Then his own scandals and immorality took him out. The end result is Troy Jackson: a Berniecrat who has led in the polls, has positive favorability ratings, is backed by the Maine Democratic establishment, is a genuine working-class candidate, and has repeatedly won tough races that speak to his electability.
Edit: This might be the only good timeline in which Collins is defeated.
Collins is definitely hit by Platner dropping out and her lack of action regarding the ICE killing in her state. Could be a perfect electoral storm in Maine and potentially across the country.
gut feeling is Susan Collins really has had enough of being a Senator but does not want to be a quitter. so, the people of Maine will do the job for her.
ME-Sen - CNN is no longer promoting a planned Democratic pre-convention debate that would be moderated by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash if it were to be held, but they've not formally announced the debate's cancellation and aired a story a few minutes ago acknowledging that Jackson is all but certain to win the replacement nomination.
I'd say the other major candidates dropping out and endorsing Jackson to avoid a debate moderated by Tapper and Bash is a good reason to do that, even if the real reason was because most of the delegates that got selected to go to the convention were pro-Jackson delegates.
I’ve always viewed Tapper as personally conservative but someone who is not a fascist propagandist and doesn't want to be seen as a partisan Republican hack. His public defenses of journalism and journalistic integrity (even if he doesn't have full integrity himself) are his way of distancing himself from Trumpism.
I’ve long regarded journalists as politicians in disguise, but Tapper in particular is the epitome of that.
I honestly don’t see where Tapper is either liberal or conservative. I haven’t seen any of his political views come out in the open amid him reporting the news.
Tapper did say he was disgusted that Trump was dismissing McCain’s experience as a Vietnam War vet but besides this, nothing that I can see.
''''CNN host Dana Bash admitted Thursday that President Donald Trump had turned around the situation on the U.S.-Mexico border in his first year since returning to the White House.''''
''"One of the things that you — many things that you've been covering in a very detailed way this year, Zolan, is what's going on with immigration," Bash told CNN political analyst Zolan Kanno-Youngs. "And our producer, Tess, put together a fantastic illustration of the difference in what's happening in the border now versus what happened just in the year beforehand, which was Joe Biden's presidency. Joe Biden's presidency is green and Donald Trump's is the yellow."''
''"I mean, that tells a story of an accomplishment for the president, one that he definitely ran on," Bash continued. "He definitely made a promise there, and yet there hasn't been a lot of focus on that because of what he has been doing in the interior of the country, which he also promised to do, which is apprehend people who are in the United States illegally and deport them."''
‘Free Money’: CNN’s Dana Bash Calls Trump Accounts ‘Phenomenal’
CNN's Dana Bash Praises Trump Accounts As 'Phenomenal'
The dems hold supermajorities on each chamber and hold all state wide boards and committees and all of the top spots in government, so I do not know how much more destruction the colorado gop can take.
They literally have no influence in the state as it is now.
Not the end of the world, especially considering Colorado as a state moved sharply to the left in 2024 as Kamala Harris won one of the largest margins of victory in the state in a long time.
Ok, it didn't move sharply to the left then. However, comparatively any move to the right in 2024 vs 2020 wasn't exactly remarkable when you take into consideration that Kamala Harris did much better than Hillary Clinton in CO.
Harris won CO by 11% whereas Clinton won it by 4.9%. Given Biden won the state by 13.5%, a 2.5% drop in 2024 with Harris' win isn't exactly moving the needle much.
TX Sen: The Texas Tribune has a nice look at the money raised and spent in the senate race including, to the extent possible, where the money came from, large vs. small donors, money to the candidate vs. outside groups, etc. https://www.texastribune.org/
No paywall (but the Tribune is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and appreciates donations).
Marx also had, at a rally, a former Denver Broncos player, Derek Wolfe, "joke" about staging a January 6th-style violent coup attempt at the Colorado State Capitol:
https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/tim-murphy-dies-former-pittsburgh-area-congressman-73/
Obituaries: Former Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) has died at 73.
After being a powerful state senator, Murphy represented a southwest Pennsylvania district that included suburbs of Pittsburgh from flipping it in 2002 until his resignation after a sex scandal in 2017. Democrat Conor Lamb flipped it in a special after his resignation, but Republican Guy Reschenthaler picked it up quickly after and holds it now.
Not sure how good of a pollster State Navigate is, but those numbers in Georgia for Keisha Lance Bottoms are promising.
They got Virginia right last year
It's run by Chaz Nuttycombe. He's got the numbers and polling right in Virginia, where he's based out of it, but Georgia is new territory.
I think he's very good at VA because he knows it best, and it's very TBD on how well he will continue to adapt and calibrate his models to other areas.
The group admitted the sample numbers were too Dem heavy but she would still be a up a few after reweighting.
Why release a poll you know is (to some degree) inaccurate and say "this is what it says if we did it right???"
Chaz. Need some new subscriptions.
Also fwiw, Fox released one earlier this month, which had near identical gov topline, and equally dubious numbers from rural Georgia. Something like 30% rural Whites voting D.
TBH, once you get 30% rural White responders saying D, instead of in single digit, weight them up to be about 15% of the electorate, all other things looking like no change from 2024, you will get the topline being a D lead of mid single digit. This doesn’t mean we will see a revolutionary shift of rural South. It just means more likely they got a very screwed rural sample.
For the topline leading in 5-6pt very much like the primary turnout, the reasonable assumptions is, a shift in the core metro, suburbs, and secondary cities by some 10pt, maybe even more in the Black majority exurbs south of Atlanta, a bit less in the White majority exurbs, but holding steady (likely slightly worse than 2024) in the rural areas.
"scewed." This looks like an AI-screwed typo.
Screwed myself! I meant "skewed" of course.
Polling in Georgia is usually very accurate. It is generally an easy state to poll since the vote is so polarized, and the swing voters in the suburbs are not hard to find.
That is exactly the problem of this poll. Ig it captured the swing voters ok, but completely unbelievable results on the most-polarized portion.
On the segment of outer small metros / rural areas, where 90% ish White voters vote red, and 24 results would be -34pt or so, they got something like KLB behind like 10pt. A simple extrapolation says it gets 30% of rural Whites voting D. Never happened since 2000, not likely to happen this year. No amount of weighting can solve it.
It's the first time that pollster has ever polled in a state other than Virginia, if I recall correctly.
Russell Fry launches for SC Senate.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/20/fry-jumps-into-south-carolina-senate-race-01004805
Post and Courier reports that too and that Mark Sanford has made moves. Mark Lynch is in too. And that’s US Senate from South Carolina, not South Carolina Senate. (pet peeve)
Wait Shri is ahead in an internal for his opponent? Why? His constituent services are awful, he just lost a huge amount of money on crypto, and he has done a piss poor job of repping his constituents overall. What does he even offer?
Money and incumbency. Helluva drug.
DFP focuses on accuracy not who sponsored them.
Honestly that’s worse because it means Donavan could very well lose.
You're right. He could lose.
FL UNF poll:
Donalds 46 Jolly 41
Moody 50 Vindman 40
https://www.unfporl.org/presser-page
848 likely FL voters.
Disappointed at the 10 pt gap between Moody and Vindman.
Disappointed, but not surprised. Florida Man is a thing for a reason, y'all.
It seems like the pollster has heavily weighed it to Republican turnout being like 2022 or 2024, but IDK. I'm just prepared for FL to disappoint AGAIN.
No. They are weighted to registration, not the turnout pattern.
If anything, assuming FL registered Ds have roughly same turnout rate as Rs, is kinda generous.
The primary hasn’t been held yet and voters are having to chose between Alexander Vindman and Angie Nixon. There is also no analysis of any undecided voters in here in this poll whereas in the FL-GOV there are 6% undecided voters there.
Polls will likely change a bit closer to and after the primary.
It's a relatively small sample size too. FL is a big state, so things can and will change.
Also worth noting Nixon is picking up left support. The WFP endorsed her recently.
Not surprising although it may not be enough for Nixon to win the primary.
However, Vindman could come out of the primary more strengthened as a general election candidate.
This one doesn’t weight by recall votes, but by current registration. Presumably they did sample matched with voter files.
The current registration has 11pt R advantage. Weighted by roughly similar partisan turnout rate, and a much lower NPA turnout, the midterm with 13pt R registration edge is reasonable. There isn’t much of legacy D registration left there.
The problem is, as some FL voters (and Rachel Vindman) pointed out, the poll IMO doesn't reflect the population in the state. It oversamples white voters and under sampled Black and Latino voters.
imo, if we can't get it to single digits this year, it's time to start acknowledging the math in florida is becoming nigh impossible to overcome, we are polling better in south carolina of all places
SC polling previously showed elections to be much closer than they were, though.
FL polling you mean. FL polls have overestimated Dems since at least 2000 except for 2008 and 2012. They were pretty close to spot on in 2010 too (although Dems didn’t quite make it in the governors race, polling was no better than a tie at the end of that race).
No, I meant SC polling, though what you say is true, too.
im not suggesting we invest in sc, except for at the state and local level to break the supermajorities, I'm just saying given the amount of money involved re florida, why not use it for party building across the deep south writ large.
Acknowledging that as a northeasterner my strategies for a revival of our fortunes in the south are probably lacking
I hear you.
Florida has been dead to me since 2018.
Andy Burnham took over as PM today officially in the UK and is in the process of forming his cabinet
question on Senate candidates: who would you say is a Schumer follower/ fan/ mentee/ etc.? Or another way of putting it: who would definitely, likely, likely NOT, or definitely NOT vote for Schumer as majority leader?
Likely Schumer: Stevens, Turek. I'm assuming Peltola.
Likely NOT Schumer: El Sayed. I'm assuming Flanagan because she's been endorsed by the Senate Fight Club.
Can a couple of progressives tank Schumer like the Freedom caucus tanked GOP speakers if the majority is razer thin?
I don't know -- right now I'm looking for "lean Schumer" vs "lean against" rather than procedural details.
Leader just needs a majority of the caucus, not a majority of the Senate.
Senate majority leader needs a majority of the senate though. Caucus leader can win with a bare majority of the caucus while we're out of power. It's when we're in power that a few senators could wield influence here. Not saying they would.
Operationally/functionally yes, but not to take the job itself (see: Thune, John lol)
Can? Yes. Will? Very unlikely.
I think Cooper and Vindman (should he win) would vote for Schumer as Senate Majority Leader.
If she's elected to the Senate, I doubt Peltola would oppose a sitting Senate Democratic Leader unless it's someone who is seen as opposing her ability to represent Alaska's interests.
I am wondering is if jefferies runs for speaker will the DSA members back him.
He hand waved their wins away which is not a good thing to do if you want to be speaker.
The Maine primary feels like a political *deus ex machina*. Platner took out Mills, who was already polling poorly and still has high unfavorables. Then his own scandals and immorality took him out. The end result is Troy Jackson: a Berniecrat who has led in the polls, has positive favorability ratings, is backed by the Maine Democratic establishment, is a genuine working-class candidate, and has repeatedly won tough races that speak to his electability.
Edit: This might be the only good timeline in which Collins is defeated.
https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelstudios/comments/vm7840/dr_strange_told_tony_the_616_universe_is_the_only/
You forgot to mention “right after another horrible ICE killing in the state where the race is taking place.” Collins could be toast
Collins is definitely hit by Platner dropping out and her lack of action regarding the ICE killing in her state. Could be a perfect electoral storm in Maine and potentially across the country.
gut feeling is Susan Collins really has had enough of being a Senator but does not want to be a quitter. so, the people of Maine will do the job for her.
Elizabeth Warren endorses AES in Dem MI Senate primary.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/live-updates_n_6a5ddaf5e4b063a1f5f200e1/liveblog_6a5e52fbe4b0fb869f7ad0a7?origin=home-latest-news-unit
MI-Sen - AES +16 in an internal poll done by Tulchin.
https://nitter.poast.org/PpollingNumbers/status/2079251473268199478#m
ME-Sen - CNN is no longer promoting a planned Democratic pre-convention debate that would be moderated by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash if it were to be held, but they've not formally announced the debate's cancellation and aired a story a few minutes ago acknowledging that Jackson is all but certain to win the replacement nomination.
I'd say the other major candidates dropping out and endorsing Jackson to avoid a debate moderated by Tapper and Bash is a good reason to do that, even if the real reason was because most of the delegates that got selected to go to the convention were pro-Jackson delegates.
Yes, I agree. Avoiding a debate moderated by those two is a good thing to avoid.
Especially Tapper. Fox may as well hire him because of how partisan he is.
I don't think he's partisan per se. I think he is personally liberal and feels he has to go overboard in the other direction to maintain credibility.
I’ve always viewed Tapper as personally conservative but someone who is not a fascist propagandist and doesn't want to be seen as a partisan Republican hack. His public defenses of journalism and journalistic integrity (even if he doesn't have full integrity himself) are his way of distancing himself from Trumpism.
I’ve long regarded journalists as politicians in disguise, but Tapper in particular is the epitome of that.
I honestly don’t see where Tapper is either liberal or conservative. I haven’t seen any of his political views come out in the open amid him reporting the news.
Tapper did say he was disgusted that Trump was dismissing McCain’s experience as a Vietnam War vet but besides this, nothing that I can see.
If you follow his twitter account, you’d known that he’s a centrist who doesn’t like the left and the DSA.
My take has been that Tapper went after Biden because of 46's foreign policy, and he gives Trump a pass for the same reason.
Same with bash.
'You let Jim Jordan lie': CNN's Dana Bash slammed for letting Trump ally 'steamroll' her
https://www.rawstory.com/dana-bash-called-out-jordan/
CNN’s Dana Bash Admits Border Is ‘Story Of Accomplishment’ For Donald Trump
https://www.aol.com/articles/cnn-dana-bash-admits-border-165750529.html
''''CNN host Dana Bash admitted Thursday that President Donald Trump had turned around the situation on the U.S.-Mexico border in his first year since returning to the White House.''''
''"One of the things that you — many things that you've been covering in a very detailed way this year, Zolan, is what's going on with immigration," Bash told CNN political analyst Zolan Kanno-Youngs. "And our producer, Tess, put together a fantastic illustration of the difference in what's happening in the border now versus what happened just in the year beforehand, which was Joe Biden's presidency. Joe Biden's presidency is green and Donald Trump's is the yellow."''
''"I mean, that tells a story of an accomplishment for the president, one that he definitely ran on," Bash continued. "He definitely made a promise there, and yet there hasn't been a lot of focus on that because of what he has been doing in the interior of the country, which he also promised to do, which is apprehend people who are in the United States illegally and deport them."''
‘Free Money’: CNN’s Dana Bash Calls Trump Accounts ‘Phenomenal’
CNN's Dana Bash Praises Trump Accounts As 'Phenomenal'
https://www.mediaite.com/media/tv/free-money-cnns-dana-bash-calls-trump-accounts-phenomenal/
'Action-movie' GOP nominee has own party bracing for 'absolute destruction': report
https://www.rawstory.com/victor-marx-colorado-gop-2677223599/
He Says He Killed a Man. Republicans Nominated Him Anyway.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/13/opinion/victor-marx-colorado-republican.html
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
The dems hold supermajorities on each chamber and hold all state wide boards and committees and all of the top spots in government, so I do not know how much more destruction the colorado gop can take.
They literally have no influence in the state as it is now.
Good job GOP! You just assured Phil Weiser will cruise to win the gubernatorial race.
As an added bonus, while the state SCOTUS killed our redistricting attempt for 2028, this will help us hopefully get one in place by 2030.
Not the end of the world, especially considering Colorado as a state moved sharply to the left in 2024 as Kamala Harris won one of the largest margins of victory in the state in a long time.
I'm pretty sure Colorado still moved slightly to the right in 2024, just by less than the country did.
Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election#Results, at the Presidential level, Colorado moved 2.51 to the right, compared to 5.94 for the country overall. It's possible the downballot story is more complicated.
Ok, it didn't move sharply to the left then. However, comparatively any move to the right in 2024 vs 2020 wasn't exactly remarkable when you take into consideration that Kamala Harris did much better than Hillary Clinton in CO.
Harris won CO by 11% whereas Clinton won it by 4.9%. Given Biden won the state by 13.5%, a 2.5% drop in 2024 with Harris' win isn't exactly moving the needle much.
https://www.bbc.com/news/election/2024/us/results
https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/president
Democrats are actually one seat short of a super majority in each chamber. This could put them over the that threshold.
CO-08 may be an auto flip at this point. The other house seats may become competitive if R turnout is depressed.
TX Sen: The Texas Tribune has a nice look at the money raised and spent in the senate race including, to the extent possible, where the money came from, large vs. small donors, money to the candidate vs. outside groups, etc. https://www.texastribune.org/
No paywall (but the Tribune is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and appreciates donations).
SC-Sen: Darline Graham will run for a full term. Nancy Mace will not.
It keeps getting better when it comes to victor marx.
Scandal-plagued MAGA candidate known for wild claims caught faking endorsement: report
https://www.rawstory.com/victor-marx-2677235280/
Marx also had, at a rally, a former Denver Broncos player, Derek Wolfe, "joke" about staging a January 6th-style violent coup attempt at the Colorado State Capitol:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbCAn6sOuJq/?igsh=MWRsb3QyZWEzZDJwOA
I hope Weiser wins in a massive landslide.
Maryland to hold special session next month on congressional redistricting.
https://x.com/RedistrictNet/status/2079356309145588001?s=20