Major typo in essay about CO-1. Tenth patagraph, which starts with the words "Justice Democrats" has this quote “Diana DeGette, bankrupted by ICE contractors in Big Pharma, has been voting right along with him.” It should be "Bankrolled" and not "Bankrupted." Also "and" not "in"
You know things are downhill for the GOP when POLITICO does a piece on this polling. If this is accurate come November, Rs are going to lose big everywhere in states they thought were safe.
We now have a string of polls where we’re leading in the four reach Senate seats in Ohio, Alaska, Texas, and Iowa. I hope it’s just not a summer mirage like we’ve had in the past. There is reason to be optimistic that this isn’t necessarily our high point, though, with Trump doing stupid things every day.
It's good to have a wider playing, but I struggle to imagine the scenario where we win the senate seats in Texas, Ohio, Iowa, and Alaska while failing to pick up Maine. The blue wave necessary for that would almost certainly carry Platner over the finish line.
I hope FL Rep. Kat Cammack loses re-election this year. She had the nerve to beg RDS for special privileges (and didn't get them) when she needed an abortion.
Toast feels like too strong a word, but she could definitely be vulnerable if the environment continues as it is. Hard to see it moving past Tilt Republican in any scenario, though.
Generic Congressional Ballot and PVI are very different numbers. The numbers from a generic ballot are half of a PVI, as PVI measures the single party performance relative to neutral, aka it's typically the extra performance for a single party above the 50% baseline. If you expect democrats to win a seat with 56% of the vote, that's a D+6 PVI (56=50+PVI).
A generic ballot measures the margin of one party over the other. It's the way we typically use numbers.
We'd need a D+20 generic ballot to expect to win a seat with a PVI of R+10.
Apologies for bringing up Bluesky discourse again, but a recent discussion there has had me thinking of a hypothetical what-if scenario I'd like to pose to posters here.
There's been speculation/jokes that Rep. Josh Gottheimer may attempt a party switch to the GOP, given his recent string of tirades against the Democratic Party's left wing, along with other topics I ask we refrain from, given the rules.
In a hypothetical situation in which Gottheimer does switch to the GOP, who might the Dems recruit to run against him when he is next up? Which candidates might give it a go?
I forgot he ran for governor. Shows you how well that went.
I've seen people float 2020 primary challenger Arati Kreibach before, for the record, but it seems she's not interested (last I heard she was trying for Bergen County Clerk.) Not sure who else might run.
his district's priorities diverge from the rest of the state's democratic delegation, at least imo. Very very rich district, anchored in a very blue but ancestrally red county Bergen. I am not attempting to slander every Bergen resident, but their congressman seems to match their district. Now if NJ redrew and split Bergen up well then that's a very different conversation
The machines in New Jersey have a lot of problems, but they generally fairly accommodating of left-wingers who play their game, and the average machine Democrat is well to Gottheimer's left.
Agreed. He gains nothing from switching parties. At best, he's forced to change a number of major positions, relegated to the back bench of the party, and then loses his seat in the immediate future. He has much more influence where he currently is. If anything, this might be a play to get attention.
I very, very much doubt Gottheimer would switch. Other than not liking left wing primary voters (which I’m sure he shares with a number of Democratic politicians) he’s pretty bog standard of a vote in the House (in contrast to what a disaster he’d have been in a more executive position like Gov)
He was the leader. The list was him, Carolyn Bordeaux, Ed Case, Jared Golden, Henry Cuellar, Vicente Gonzalez, Jim Costa, Kurt Schrader and Stephanie Murphy.
Case, Golden, Cuellar, Gonzalez and Costa are of course still in office, with Golden retiring and everyone else but Costa facing competitive elections (we can't afford to see Cuellar and Gonzalez lose to Republicans, but it would be much appreciated if Jarrett Keohokalole beat Case).
I actually don’t mind any information cited from Bluesky. It’s when random users start whining without any thought and depth into discussion that there’s pause.
Anyway, as far as Gottheimer is concerned, I don’t see him joining the GOP. The incentive isn’t there for him and he’s had a long history of being a speechwriter for President Clinton and serving as an adviser for both John Kerry and Wesley Clark’s presidential campaigns.
Assuming though Gottheimer gets primaried out of office thought, his district is one of the wealthiest in the country. Gottheimer’s loyalty is to his constituents and it so happens plenty of them are wealthy. It would be hard to get a replacement for him unless he declines to run for re-election.
Repost from the weekend thread - British PM Keir Starmer announced his resignation earlier today. A potential challenger, Wes Streeting, instead endorsed Andy Burnham, who launched a run for the premiership.
I feel like it would be similar to the LPC leadership race where Carney could claim to be a government outsider to be the candidate of change and crush any minister or MP that has been in for the last two years.
That’s a fair comparison, though even Carney got a somewhat credible opponent in Freeland, even if the writing was on the wall. Burnham might just get totally coronated (it helps that he has elected experience and deep cachet in Labour going back years)
It would be more like if the members of the executive branch also served in Congress, so Trump would give up his power to James Gallagher or Clay Fuller. The equivalent of Pelosi's position is held by Lindsay Hoyle, who is not PM.
It is rare in Parliamentary systems but it does happen. Burnham is an MP now, of course. Carney was able to because of his CV and connection to the party.
Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t it the case for Carney too that the only stipulation upon his election by the LPC was that he could not do PMQs without a seat rather than not serve as PM at all, and he called snap elections more or less instantly anyways so it was effectively a moot point? Whereas Burnham has to, I believe, be an MP to challenge for leadership.
Yes, the British and Australian parties empower their MPs with more control over parliamentary leaders (at least the traditional ones, not sure about Reform, One Nation, Green, etc) whist in Canada more power is given to general membership. The CPC MPs can dump their leader as they did with Etin O'toole but the new leader was picked by members.
Starmer loyalists are planning to nominate Darren Jones, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (the highest office in the Cabinet other than PM itself), as a protest candidate to Burnham, as well as a protest to Ed Milliband, a potential Jones successor in a Burnham administration.
Two high-profile members of Starmer's cabinet, David Lammy and Angela Rayner, have also been floated as candidates, but it's unlikely they'd run against Burnham, IMO.
He may be a longshot, but on a personal level I think a Carns win would be cool as he and I have nearly the same surname. (Mine is spelled with a K, descended from my father’s English and Welsh heritage.)
Even Politico is seeing that Valdez, Chevalier and Constantino, all hardline populist outsiders, all have real shots in New York tomorrow. Make of this what you will.
They make the seniority argument not because they necessarily believe it, but because they think voters will believe it. Older voters in particular might -- seniority actually used to matter and I do still encounter people that think seniority matters today.
More than that, they're reaching for anything they can. They win on the metric of seniority by default, so they throw it out there and hope it works.
The party's energy isn't there currently, but incumbents are going to go for whatever arguments they can to win, even if they have no real idea if the argument will work. It's still hard to defeat an incumbent so many of them will feel validated even if it is unearned, so to speak.
AZ-6: Democrat Jo Mendoza is using her rough past with substance abuse, sexual assault and poverty as a contrast to what the NYT describes as a "movie-worthy biography" for Republican incumbent Juan Ciscomani, who lived the American Dream by immigrating from Mexico and becoming independently wealthy.
I try not to be too rose colored in my view of races, but I agree - I suspect Ciscomani loses handily unless the environment changes dramatically between now and November. I also feel like I write some reference to the political environment in all my comments. Maybe I need an acronym like UTECD ("unless the environment changes dramatically") that I can use as short hand.
I’m skeptical DeGette loses, as of now, since the scalps that primary insurgents have taken in the last two years have primarily been open seats or unique scenarios like an all-Dem general such as in Seattle.
Foushee’s primary was talked about quite a while. It wasn’t some snoozer. I doubt she’d lose handily. She has a solid support amongst black Democrats. Black southern Democrats seem to be the most impervious to the progressive populist wave sweeping the party.
You implied Foushee would be toast if the primary went on a few more weeks. I strongly disagree with that assessment. A few more weeks and her people very well could have nuked Allam more.
Definitely, but Lander is not an insurgent in the same way most of the primary challengers are. He's an established politician who is rather progressive but not radical.
If you had asked me a few months ago I'd have said DeGette was easily going to break 2/3 of the vote, now I dunno. Vibe among Dem primary voters seems to be "I'm tired of being good". I still think DeGette wins but it might be more along the lines of 50-40-10.
Is Kiros a "former attorney" in that she lost her law license? Sounds from the description that she just lost her job, but could go back to practicing if she loses.
Obituaries: Former Rep. Frank Guarini (D-NJ), the oldest living former member of Congress, is dead at 101.
Once a state senator, Guarini served the Menendez clan district based in Hudson County from 1979-1993. West New York mayor Albio Sires, who held the seat from 2006-2023, ran against Guarini as a Republican in 1986.
Guarini also primaried Sen. Pete Williams in 1970, who resigned in disgrace later in 1982, as well as contemplating other runs for Senate throughout the 1970s.
He worked as an attorney and real estate entrepreneur for most of the rest of his life, retiring in his 90s.
Now the oldest living ex-member of Congress is G. William Whitehurst (R-VA), who is 101 years and 3 months old. He served from 1969-86; later he taught at Old Dominion University where he was one of my professors. I have an autographed copy of his book "Diary of a Congressman" from the journals he kept in the 1970s.
Roscoe Bartlett, who I believe once represented your seat (unless you're deep into Montgomery County), is in 2nd place at 100, but now lives in West Virginia, where I'm from.
Funny how as he left MD for WV Alex Mooney also did.
Bartlett joined the Congressional Centenarians Club on June 3. Though he was never actually my congressman; the one time he was on my ballot was in 2012 when the district was deliberately redrawn to flip blue.
After his defeat he moved to a remote location in West Virginia where he embraced living “off the grid”. Politico profiled him as such.
Obituaries: Alan Greenspan, the iconic and influential chairman of the Federal Reserve, is dead at 100.
Serving as chair from 1987-2006, Greenspan's easy-money approach was criticized as both bringing partisan politics into economics through tax cuts and Social Security privatization as well as doing little to circumvent the aftermath of the dot-com bubble and the housing crisis that followed his tenure.
Not sure that I'd characterize Greenspan as having an "easy money approach" at the Fed. Many think that he was the reverse--too quick to jack up interest rates whenever the economy showed signs of booming and keeping them high for too long.
I think he can be criticized for occasionally seeming partisan, for example in giving his blessing to the Bush tax cuts. And he may have been overrated in general, given too much credit for economic booms that developed bubble qualities (dot-com, housing).
The header of his Wikipedia page and several obituaries I found would beg to differ. I'm not big on economics, but it seems like the term has been used to describe him in the past by credible sources.
That includes the NYT obituary I linked above: "...the low-inflation, easy-money environment he had helped create...."
True although it should be noted that Greenspan was nominated to be Fed Chair by President Reagan back in 1987. When Paul Volcker was at the helm, most of his years in office were when Reagan was POTUS from 1981-1987.
Most of Greenspan’s influence came in the 90’s and 2000’s. The Fed did do significantly more to mitigate the Great Recession than the Great Depression but Greenspan was aloof to the underlying problems and these efforts were when Ben Bernanke was Fed Chair.
Quite honestly, if Bernanke was Fed Chair during most of Greenspan’s tenure he’d have been more consciously aware about the banking & financial services sectors years before Bush Jr was POTUS. He’s got a deep understanding of the Great Depression even while there’s areas of disagreement I have with Bernanke (i.e. bailing out the big banks).
I attended a Zoom Call this morning with the Downtown Nasty Women's Social Group and Markers for Democracy. The guest was Sara Rodriguez who is the Current Lt. Governor in WI, who is running for Governor in a busy field of Democrats. The primary isn't until Aug 11th.
She has a fascinating bio - she's a native Wisconsinite who joined the Peace Corp and then became a nurse and went into Public Health. (Her husband was born in Mexico but in now a naturalized US citizen). She ran for an assembly seat in a very red district in 2020 and beat a 4-term GOP incumbent. Then she got tapped to be Lt. Governor in 2022.
I think she is someone to watch and if I lived in WI, I would be supporting her!
WI-Gov: Missy Hughes, a Democrat who served in the cabinet of incumbent Tony Evers, is out, endorsing Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez.
Rodriguez is competing against state Rep. Fran Hong, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, Milwaukee County executive David Crowley, former Evers official Joel Brennan and state Sen. Kelda Roys in the Democratic primary.
Rep. Tom Tiffany is the Republican favorite, and faces nominal opposition in the primary.
Even if she does lose, it will be by a hair, and a potential Governor Tiffany would have the same problems Evers had with a deadlocked and potentially Democratic-controlled legislature. Then he can be recalled in two years, which is what we would have had to do if two Republicans made the California race.
That's implying that she doesn't win, which would be unlikely after two double-digit statewide wins in Wisconsin less than a year before the election.
It's a swing state, not somewhere more conservative where a scandalous left candidate is DOA in a general like Ohio or Iowa.
But I get not wanting to test that theory. I still disagree, though.
Barnes has 2 mil in the bank (according to the last finance reports, will get new ones in about two weeks) for the last few weeks, and Rodriguez seems to be struggling money-wise. I think Crowley and Roys have decent money, too.
Hong's support has always felt like it's a light-year deep and a nanometer wide, and that she's only been leading the primary polling up to this point because the non-Hong vote is split several ways.
Janet Mills and Paul LePage were a sitting and former governor when they ran against each other in 2022. For some reason, that's not the first time I've thought of this race in the past week.
Major typo in essay about CO-1. Tenth patagraph, which starts with the words "Justice Democrats" has this quote “Diana DeGette, bankrupted by ICE contractors in Big Pharma, has been voting right along with him.” It should be "Bankrolled" and not "Bankrupted." Also "and" not "in"
Thank you, I’ve fixed.
I did not intend any criticism of the Downballot staff with my message. I just wanted the mistake corrected, which happened quickly.
IA Sen poll Turek by 2 https://x.com/PpollingNumbers/status/2069042748364063214?s=20
Turek is running for the Senate, not for Governor
oops
They fixed it, just change the link.
You can edit your comment by clicking on the three dots, then on edit. No point in "GOV" being there forever.
I don't think that is always possible it you wrote your comment in the app. But it works like a charm for the web version.
Correct. I can't edit in the android app.
Here is a more informative link: https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000019e-eec5-d1ed-a59f-ffddb07d0000
You know things are downhill for the GOP when POLITICO does a piece on this polling. If this is accurate come November, Rs are going to lose big everywhere in states they thought were safe.
Turek wins or I treat 6 neighbors to lunch at Habit Grille...he will win by at least 3%
We now have a string of polls where we’re leading in the four reach Senate seats in Ohio, Alaska, Texas, and Iowa. I hope it’s just not a summer mirage like we’ve had in the past. There is reason to be optimistic that this isn’t necessarily our high point, though, with Trump doing stupid things every day.
Nice to know that we might have a path to 51 seats even if Platner faceplants.
Yes, that is true. Except Platner will win by at least 4%!!
It's good to have a wider playing, but I struggle to imagine the scenario where we win the senate seats in Texas, Ohio, Iowa, and Alaska while failing to pick up Maine. The blue wave necessary for that would almost certainly carry Platner over the finish line.
I hope FL Rep. Kat Cammack loses re-election this year. She had the nerve to beg RDS for special privileges (and didn't get them) when she needed an abortion.
https://nitter.net/tarapalmeri/status/2068714512048369986#m
She championed the 6-week abortion ban in her state until she needed one herself.
Seat is R+10. Unlikely, but who knows in this environment.
If the generic Congressional ballot is D+10 or more in FL, she's toast.
Toast feels like too strong a word, but she could definitely be vulnerable if the environment continues as it is. Hard to see it moving past Tilt Republican in any scenario, though.
Generic Congressional Ballot and PVI are very different numbers. The numbers from a generic ballot are half of a PVI, as PVI measures the single party performance relative to neutral, aka it's typically the extra performance for a single party above the 50% baseline. If you expect democrats to win a seat with 56% of the vote, that's a D+6 PVI (56=50+PVI).
A generic ballot measures the margin of one party over the other. It's the way we typically use numbers.
We'd need a D+20 generic ballot to expect to win a seat with a PVI of R+10.
Apologies for bringing up Bluesky discourse again, but a recent discussion there has had me thinking of a hypothetical what-if scenario I'd like to pose to posters here.
There's been speculation/jokes that Rep. Josh Gottheimer may attempt a party switch to the GOP, given his recent string of tirades against the Democratic Party's left wing, along with other topics I ask we refrain from, given the rules.
In a hypothetical situation in which Gottheimer does switch to the GOP, who might the Dems recruit to run against him when he is next up? Which candidates might give it a go?
I'm not too familiar with NJ politics, but in this hypothetical wouldn't Gottheimer be pretty DOA in the general?
Given his pretty disastrous gov campaign, I'm truly shocked he didn't get a primary challenge
I forgot he ran for governor. Shows you how well that went.
I've seen people float 2020 primary challenger Arati Kreibach before, for the record, but it seems she's not interested (last I heard she was trying for Bergen County Clerk.) Not sure who else might run.
his district's priorities diverge from the rest of the state's democratic delegation, at least imo. Very very rich district, anchored in a very blue but ancestrally red county Bergen. I am not attempting to slander every Bergen resident, but their congressman seems to match their district. Now if NJ redrew and split Bergen up well then that's a very different conversation
Probably State Senator Joseph Lagana. But Gottheimer’s not switching.
I feel like him and Chris Tully in the Assembly are too close to the establishment/machine politics of NJ to really be different than Gottheimer.
The machines in New Jersey have a lot of problems, but they generally fairly accommodating of left-wingers who play their game, and the average machine Democrat is well to Gottheimer's left.
Agreed. He gains nothing from switching parties. At best, he's forced to change a number of major positions, relegated to the back bench of the party, and then loses his seat in the immediate future. He has much more influence where he currently is. If anything, this might be a play to get attention.
100% - there is no scenario in which he switches. He suits his district well and is a reliable Democratic vote.
State Assemblywoman Ellen Park, maybe.
I very, very much doubt Gottheimer would switch. Other than not liking left wing primary voters (which I’m sure he shares with a number of Democratic politicians) he’s pretty bog standard of a vote in the House (in contrast to what a disaster he’d have been in a more executive position like Gov)
Wasn't he part of the Unbreakable Nine though?
He was the leader. The list was him, Carolyn Bordeaux, Ed Case, Jared Golden, Henry Cuellar, Vicente Gonzalez, Jim Costa, Kurt Schrader and Stephanie Murphy.
Case, Golden, Cuellar, Gonzalez and Costa are of course still in office, with Golden retiring and everyone else but Costa facing competitive elections (we can't afford to see Cuellar and Gonzalez lose to Republicans, but it would be much appreciated if Jarrett Keohokalole beat Case).
he's not switching, and I can't stand him
Yeah just because he sucks doesn’t mean he’s likely to switch
I actually don’t mind any information cited from Bluesky. It’s when random users start whining without any thought and depth into discussion that there’s pause.
Anyway, as far as Gottheimer is concerned, I don’t see him joining the GOP. The incentive isn’t there for him and he’s had a long history of being a speechwriter for President Clinton and serving as an adviser for both John Kerry and Wesley Clark’s presidential campaigns.
Assuming though Gottheimer gets primaried out of office thought, his district is one of the wealthiest in the country. Gottheimer’s loyalty is to his constituents and it so happens plenty of them are wealthy. It would be hard to get a replacement for him unless he declines to run for re-election.
https://jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com/and-then-the-phone-rang/
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/26/nyregion/protege-of-hillary-and-bill-clintons-targets-us-congressional-seat.html?_r=0
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/06/22/world/uk-keir-starmer-resign
Repost from the weekend thread - British PM Keir Starmer announced his resignation earlier today. A potential challenger, Wes Streeting, instead endorsed Andy Burnham, who launched a run for the premiership.
Burnham may just cruise into this uncontested
I feel like it would be similar to the LPC leadership race where Carney could claim to be a government outsider to be the candidate of change and crush any minister or MP that has been in for the last two years.
That’s a fair comparison, though even Carney got a somewhat credible opponent in Freeland, even if the writing was on the wall. Burnham might just get totally coronated (it helps that he has elected experience and deep cachet in Labour going back years)
How does a non-MP just cruise into leadership that quickly? Admit I have not been following this that closely
Well he’s an MP as of last Thursday, so
Well yes, but it would be like Pelosi giving up the gavel in 2024 and handing it over to a freshman member just elected
Or like a reality show host becoming a president, but I digress....
It would be more like if the members of the executive branch also served in Congress, so Trump would give up his power to James Gallagher or Clay Fuller. The equivalent of Pelosi's position is held by Lindsay Hoyle, who is not PM.
Burnham served 16 years in parliament before leaving to be Manchester mayor. So it's not like that at all.
It is rare in Parliamentary systems but it does happen. Burnham is an MP now, of course. Carney was able to because of his CV and connection to the party.
Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t it the case for Carney too that the only stipulation upon his election by the LPC was that he could not do PMQs without a seat rather than not serve as PM at all, and he called snap elections more or less instantly anyways so it was effectively a moot point? Whereas Burnham has to, I believe, be an MP to challenge for leadership.
Yes, the British and Australian parties empower their MPs with more control over parliamentary leaders (at least the traditional ones, not sure about Reform, One Nation, Green, etc) whist in Canada more power is given to general membership. The CPC MPs can dump their leader as they did with Etin O'toole but the new leader was picked by members.
Starmer loyalists are planning to nominate Darren Jones, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (the highest office in the Cabinet other than PM itself), as a protest candidate to Burnham, as well as a protest to Ed Milliband, a potential Jones successor in a Burnham administration.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/starmer-loyalists-prepare-move-block-burnham-coronation
MP and Marine veteran Al Carns is also considering a wildcard bid.
(https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/politics/7017494/aberdeen-al-carns-keir-starmer/)
Two high-profile members of Starmer's cabinet, David Lammy and Angela Rayner, have also been floated as candidates, but it's unlikely they'd run against Burnham, IMO.
Would Jones or Carns even have the 81 names needed for a challenge?
Jones might, but I highly doubt Carns would.
He may be a longshot, but on a personal level I think a Carns win would be cool as he and I have nearly the same surname. (Mine is spelled with a K, descended from my father’s English and Welsh heritage.)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/22/a-rising-populist-tide-is-threatening-new-yorks-powerful-incumbents-00961088
Even Politico is seeing that Valdez, Chevalier and Constantino, all hardline populist outsiders, all have real shots in New York tomorrow. Make of this what you will.
^ this x100. the purpose of a political party first and foremost is to WIN elections, so that policy can be changed for the better
How can Goldman argue his seniority as a sophomore is so much better than that as a freshman?
They make the seniority argument not because they necessarily believe it, but because they think voters will believe it. Older voters in particular might -- seniority actually used to matter and I do still encounter people that think seniority matters today.
More than that, they're reaching for anything they can. They win on the metric of seniority by default, so they throw it out there and hope it works.
The party's energy isn't there currently, but incumbents are going to go for whatever arguments they can to win, even if they have no real idea if the argument will work. It's still hard to defeat an incumbent so many of them will feel validated even if it is unearned, so to speak.
Indivisible has endorsed Darializa Chevalier (and Brad Lander in his district) in the NY primaries.
Claire Valdez has endorsements from Zohran Mamdani and Bernie Sanders
hoping for valdez and lander, agnostic on chevalier
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/20/us/politics/arizona-democrats-tough-past-fuels-pitch-for-a-key-house-seat.html
AZ-6: Democrat Jo Mendoza is using her rough past with substance abuse, sexual assault and poverty as a contrast to what the NYT describes as a "movie-worthy biography" for Republican incumbent Juan Ciscomani, who lived the American Dream by immigrating from Mexico and becoming independently wealthy.
And coincidentally House Majority PAC has released a poll showing Mendoza leading Ciscomani 47% to 45%. https://www.thehousemajoritypac.com/news/new-hmp-poll-joanna-mendoza-leads-juan-ciscomani-in-az-06
Yeah, I don’t think this one will even be all that close in the end.
I try not to be too rose colored in my view of races, but I agree - I suspect Ciscomani loses handily unless the environment changes dramatically between now and November. I also feel like I write some reference to the political environment in all my comments. Maybe I need an acronym like UTECD ("unless the environment changes dramatically") that I can use as short hand.
What is defined as a movie-worthy biography? Is this more like a picturesque track a politician would have in going to politics?
I’m skeptical DeGette loses, as of now, since the scalps that primary insurgents have taken in the last two years have primarily been open seats or unique scenarios like an all-Dem general such as in Seattle.
Foushee’s primary was talked about quite a while. It wasn’t some snoozer. I doubt she’d lose handily. She has a solid support amongst black Democrats. Black southern Democrats seem to be the most impervious to the progressive populist wave sweeping the party.
I agree, but also think it's a bit much to insinuate the moods of all Black voters based on a few primaries.
You implied Foushee would be toast if the primary went on a few more weeks. I strongly disagree with that assessment. A few more weeks and her people very well could have nuked Allam more.
I think Dan Goldman goes down pretty comfortably tomorrow.
Agreed. Maybe Espaillat too, but less certain there.
Definitely, but Lander is not an insurgent in the same way most of the primary challengers are. He's an established politician who is rather progressive but not radical.
Right, he’s a very different profile
If outside spending is any indication, she's not skeptical of the possibility it looks like.
If you had asked me a few months ago I'd have said DeGette was easily going to break 2/3 of the vote, now I dunno. Vibe among Dem primary voters seems to be "I'm tired of being good". I still think DeGette wins but it might be more along the lines of 50-40-10.
NM LG: Maggie Toulouse Oliver is dropping out after winning the primary, citing health struggles. A party committee will select her replacement on the ballot. Hopefully she recovers from whatever she's dealing with, but I respect her for dropping out now. https://sourcenm.com/briefs/new-mexico-secretary-of-state-maggie-toulouse-oliver-suspends-dem-lt-gov-campaign-citing-health/
Really really unfortunate, she would've been a great LG
Agreed, I like what I've heard of her.
Guys, thanks for covering issues in the DeGette-Kiros campaign that we can't discuss in the comments. It's good to know about them.
Is Kiros a "former attorney" in that she lost her law license? Sounds from the description that she just lost her job, but could go back to practicing if she loses.
I believe (don’t quote me as I’m not sure) she was just fired. She can still practice law I think.
I believe that is correct
So, "former attorney at Sidley and Austin" instead? Or "an attorney formerly at Sidley and Austin"?
https://newjerseyglobe.com/in-memoriam/frank-guarini-americas-oldest-former-congressman-dies-at-101/
Obituaries: Former Rep. Frank Guarini (D-NJ), the oldest living former member of Congress, is dead at 101.
Once a state senator, Guarini served the Menendez clan district based in Hudson County from 1979-1993. West New York mayor Albio Sires, who held the seat from 2006-2023, ran against Guarini as a Republican in 1986.
Guarini also primaried Sen. Pete Williams in 1970, who resigned in disgrace later in 1982, as well as contemplating other runs for Senate throughout the 1970s.
He worked as an attorney and real estate entrepreneur for most of the rest of his life, retiring in his 90s.
Now the oldest living ex-member of Congress is G. William Whitehurst (R-VA), who is 101 years and 3 months old. He served from 1969-86; later he taught at Old Dominion University where he was one of my professors. I have an autographed copy of his book "Diary of a Congressman" from the journals he kept in the 1970s.
Roscoe Bartlett, who I believe once represented your seat (unless you're deep into Montgomery County), is in 2nd place at 100, but now lives in West Virginia, where I'm from.
Funny how as he left MD for WV Alex Mooney also did.
Bartlett joined the Congressional Centenarians Club on June 3. Though he was never actually my congressman; the one time he was on my ballot was in 2012 when the district was deliberately redrawn to flip blue.
After his defeat he moved to a remote location in West Virginia where he embraced living “off the grid”. Politico profiled him as such.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/22/us/alan-greenspan-dead.html
Obituaries: Alan Greenspan, the iconic and influential chairman of the Federal Reserve, is dead at 100.
Serving as chair from 1987-2006, Greenspan's easy-money approach was criticized as both bringing partisan politics into economics through tax cuts and Social Security privatization as well as doing little to circumvent the aftermath of the dot-com bubble and the housing crisis that followed his tenure.
Not sure that I'd characterize Greenspan as having an "easy money approach" at the Fed. Many think that he was the reverse--too quick to jack up interest rates whenever the economy showed signs of booming and keeping them high for too long.
I think he can be criticized for occasionally seeming partisan, for example in giving his blessing to the Bush tax cuts. And he may have been overrated in general, given too much credit for economic booms that developed bubble qualities (dot-com, housing).
Yeah, I’d disagree with characterizations of Greenspan as an easy money guy. Certainly compared to Bernanke
The header of his Wikipedia page and several obituaries I found would beg to differ. I'm not big on economics, but it seems like the term has been used to describe him in the past by credible sources.
That includes the NYT obituary I linked above: "...the low-inflation, easy-money environment he had helped create...."
True although it should be noted that Greenspan was nominated to be Fed Chair by President Reagan back in 1987. When Paul Volcker was at the helm, most of his years in office were when Reagan was POTUS from 1981-1987.
Most of Greenspan’s influence came in the 90’s and 2000’s. The Fed did do significantly more to mitigate the Great Recession than the Great Depression but Greenspan was aloof to the underlying problems and these efforts were when Ben Bernanke was Fed Chair.
Quite honestly, if Bernanke was Fed Chair during most of Greenspan’s tenure he’d have been more consciously aware about the banking & financial services sectors years before Bush Jr was POTUS. He’s got a deep understanding of the Great Depression even while there’s areas of disagreement I have with Bernanke (i.e. bailing out the big banks).
I knew he was married to the NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell, I didn't realize she was 20 years younger than him.
Andrea Mitchell works at NBC, not CNN. She has worked there in various capacities since 1978.
Good catch, fixed.
Very slight correction — in the opening, it’s Diana, not Dianna.
I attended a Zoom Call this morning with the Downtown Nasty Women's Social Group and Markers for Democracy. The guest was Sara Rodriguez who is the Current Lt. Governor in WI, who is running for Governor in a busy field of Democrats. The primary isn't until Aug 11th.
She has a fascinating bio - she's a native Wisconsinite who joined the Peace Corp and then became a nurse and went into Public Health. (Her husband was born in Mexico but in now a naturalized US citizen). She ran for an assembly seat in a very red district in 2020 and beat a 4-term GOP incumbent. Then she got tapped to be Lt. Governor in 2022.
I think she is someone to watch and if I lived in WI, I would be supporting her!
guess she got a boost today. Missy Hughes dropped out and endorsed her. https://x.com/PatrickSvitek/status/2069105196861399371?s=20
https://www.cbs58.com/news/missy-hughes-drops-out-of-governors-race-endorses-lt-gov-sara-rodriguez
WI-Gov: Missy Hughes, a Democrat who served in the cabinet of incumbent Tony Evers, is out, endorsing Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez.
Rodriguez is competing against state Rep. Fran Hong, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, Milwaukee County executive David Crowley, former Evers official Joel Brennan and state Sen. Kelda Roys in the Democratic primary.
Rep. Tom Tiffany is the Republican favorite, and faces nominal opposition in the primary.
Rodriguez seems the strongest candidate compared to Hong or Barnes, no?
Barnes (and MKE County Executive Crowley) perform nearly identically to Rodriguez, so as long as we don't nominate Hong I think we're ok.
Even if Hong is the nominee, she'll probably win this year but lose in 2030. Rodriguez is probably the safe option to win again in 4 years.
I have zero confidence in Hong to win a general election in Wisconsin regardless of how blue we think the year may be.
Even if she does lose, it will be by a hair, and a potential Governor Tiffany would have the same problems Evers had with a deadlocked and potentially Democratic-controlled legislature. Then he can be recalled in two years, which is what we would have had to do if two Republicans made the California race.
That's implying that she doesn't win, which would be unlikely after two double-digit statewide wins in Wisconsin less than a year before the election.
It's a swing state, not somewhere more conservative where a scandalous left candidate is DOA in a general like Ohio or Iowa.
But I get not wanting to test that theory. I still disagree, though.
Barnes has 2 mil in the bank (according to the last finance reports, will get new ones in about two weeks) for the last few weeks, and Rodriguez seems to be struggling money-wise. I think Crowley and Roys have decent money, too.
Hong's support has always felt like it's a light-year deep and a nanometer wide, and that she's only been leading the primary polling up to this point because the non-Hong vote is split several ways.
I'm saying that as a huge fan of Francesca Hong.
I find it unusual we have a former Lt. Governor and current Lt. Governor running in the gubernatorial race.
When was the last time this happened in a statewide race?
Janet Mills and Paul LePage were a sitting and former governor when they ran against each other in 2022. For some reason, that's not the first time I've thought of this race in the past week.