I don’t think it’s a veto referendum on the specific law that created new maps, so I don’t think the new maps would be put on hold. And it would be too late anyway to stop the new maps from going into effect even if the signatures put prop 4 on hold. A congressional map is supposed to be finalized in November, it will take longer than that to get 141,000 signatures.
Liam Kerr’s Murdoch and Hoffman-funded Welcome PAC dropped their report yesterday — and their "solution" couldn’t make the corporate agenda any clearer. Feels like we’re heading straight into a 1992-style fight for the soul of the party.
1. Seems reasonable, but that’s vague enough that it’s basically meaningless.
2. Where does the polling show that electric vehicle subsidies are broadly unpopular? I’ve heard it with the other two things mentioned, but not with subsidies.
3. Kind of difficult to focus less on democracy when we’re assuming that the Republicans are going to do everything they can to subvert free and fair elections. Outside of that though, I think both the moderates and the progressives agree that the primary focus of the party needs to be on the economy, cost of living, and healthcare, that’s exactly what Bernie has been saying since forever.
4. That’s where you’re going to run into issues with this. The mainstream of the party’s position on immigration is the moderate position and Trump’s position is the extremist one, polling backs that up. We don’t need to moderate by moving further to the right on it, what would that even look like? And what’s wrong with our stance on energy production?
5. Everyone agrees with this point for the most part, even most progressives. The issue is a disagreement on what the “popular policies on the issues that matter most to the American people” are.
And Biden won, but only as a protest vote against an incumbent with weak fundamentals. And it was a shockingly weak win against an incumbent with such weak fundamentals.
The five-point plan is more or less a blueprint for the Democratic Party to win against an unpopular incumbent. In any other scenario, it's too bland and technocratic to inspire an electorate that is now fully invested in a strongman running the country. That's the real problem the Democrats are gonna face moving forward and the price of trying to govern in a nation that's had a taste of what an autocrat is capable of. Either you run as a messiah or you fail to launch.
To be fair, for this century I would only characterize Obama 2008 and maybe 2012 as anything other than a weak win for anyone.
Bush barely got over the finish line in 2000 due to SCOTUS, and even without them it would have been Gore barely winning instead. Bush's 2004 win was OK on the margins, but considering how much of a boost he got earlier in his term the win was thoroughly unimpressive.
Obama won with a clear mandate in 2008, and hung on decently in 2012 despite a slow recovery and having his legislative agenda killed off a year into his first term.
Trump 2016 was the barest of wins in the tipping point states and a loss in the popular vote, a win he only got due to interference from the head of the FBI. Biden barely won in 2020 despite Trump's wide unpopularity and bungling of Covid. Trump barely won in 2024 despite a massive bias from the media, Biden absolutely collapsing as a candidate over the summer, and democrats being widely blamed for inflation that was a result of global events.
Going further back Clinton's 1996 win was solid, but 1992 is hard to parse.
Presidential elections have been consistently close since the end of the 80s, absent major political events that shift things dramatically, like the 90s tech boom or the 2008 recession.
I don't disagree with your macro points, but I don't think Biden's win in 2020 was "shockingly weak". A 4+ percentage point win against an incumbent is a pretty good showing. I mean, Trump only won by 1.5 points against a non-incumbent who only had 100 days to prepare and was facing economic headwinds (and, let's face it - misogynist and racist headwinds too).
The giant disconnect between Election 2020 polling and the actual outcome are part of why I always tend to look at Biden's win as shockingly weak, but for the modern era you're probably right that it wasn't that lackluster at least from a popular vote perspective.
Student loan forgiveness is basically a low-salience, 50-50 issue — it neither energizes a majority nor moves swing voters.
Likewise, negotiating the prices of just a handful of prescription drugs and using the savings to cap the prices of a few more is policy minimalism at its worst. As Chris Murphy explained brilliantly in one of his videos, this approach is politically and substantively shallow and doesn't break through in messaging.
If Democrats want to make real headway, they should run on bold, broadly popular ideas:
either comprehensive drug price caps like those in Canada or Europe (which even Trump’s executive order nominally embraced),
a public health insurance buy-in for all,
or full Medicare for All.
These are programs that may actually resonate with voters — not the half-measures no one cares about. M4A support varies from 40-45 to 60-70 when it's worded differently.
Billionaire funded neoliberalism at its best. Much like how 2012's GOP autopsy ruled out moderating on Medicare and Social Security and instead advocated moderating on immigration and dei.
Because the alternate is a Bernie 2016 or Obama 2012 tough on border but economic leftist style of campaign which is unpalatable for those who fund these stuff.
He ran on *comprehensive* immigration reform, climate investments and a public option which could obviously never have implemented due to the GOP majorities and conservadems. He hit Romney hard as a robber baron with many populist themes.
Sherrod Brown has long advocated lowering the age of Medicare to 55. This would be a good start, as he points out that it will not only lower the costs of private insurance companies that no longer have to cover people between 55-64, but it also adds a lot of lower cost people to Medicare. This also is a plan that should appeal to blue collar people because many people in a labor intensive job are unable to work past 55 due to their body breaking down and to wealthier white collar people who have the money to retire but have to work because they can't afford the health insurance. This is the type of plan that I can actually see getting implemented the next time the Democrats have the trifecta and which would be widely popular.
Out of curiosity, who represents the opposition to this? One would think the private insurers would be thrilled to drop their clients most likely to file claims. Is it just a fear that sick middle-aged people would quit their jobs and pile onto Medicare, costing more than they'd collect in additional premiums?
"Is it just a fear that sick middle-aged people would quit their jobs and pile onto Medicare, costing more than they'd collect in additional premiums?"
I think there's a general fear that the system would become extremely unsustainable and thus require higher and higher taxation to keep it afloat. And honestly given the aging population and declining immigration (if that sticks), there's not a good argument that it could be sustainable . . 55-65 is a very high healthcare-consumption decade.
The "eFf CoLlEgE, gO tO tRaDe ScHoOl" crowd never seems to have an answer for how to deal with the many, many people who won't be able to practice a trade much into their 50s. (My neighbor, who worked in HVAC, fell off a ladder at 52 and that was curtains for his working life.) Are those folks just supposed to die?
I come from a blue collar background and I got a graduate degrees and work in white collar work and I see it all the time. The trades will beat up your body and make you all but unemployable in your trade by your early to mid 50's but the primarily white collar decision makers fail to see this and the blue collar people have a kneejerk reaction against "government handouts."
Polls back up that Trump's position on immigration is unpopular? That certainly wasn't true before the election when a clear majority supported Trump's deportation policies.
I think we're fooling ourselves if we believe this issue is gonna be a liability for Republicans any time soon. Now that the public has a taste of border enforcement, it's hard to imagine they're gonna tolerate the return of anything remotely resembling Biden's bottomless asylum years.
Yep, polls are showing that Trump is in negative numbers on immigration at this time. He swung the pendulum too hard in the other direction. People are now more likely to see his actions as unnecessary brutality. (It seems unintuitive as this was a strength that Trump has had up until now. But there is such a thing as going too far.)
I'll believe it when I see it. I suspect outrage at other people being deported will be about as salient as outrage about other people getting shot at mass shootings. It won't move any votes.
And when Trump reminds voters of the invading hordes at the border the last time the Democrats were in charge, I'm pretty sure voters will decide they hate the idea of masked ICE agents a lot less.
1. No one would argue mass shooting are a political positive for Republicans, or a sign that Democrats need to moderate on gun control.
2. These deportations and abuses of ICE’s power are happening far more often in far more visible ways than mass shootings, and they are impacting way more people across the country in ways that affect everyone who knows those people.
Not sure why you got that I think Democrats need to moderate on gun control. But I am saying the issue has little to no salience because most voters aren't considering the risk of gun violence when they go to the polls. I think it'll be even harder to convince them of the threat of masked ICE agents deporting them or someone that they care about. That's why I submit Republicans will continue to have a substantial electoral advantage on immigration for the foreseeable future.
The key mistake you’re making here is that reminding voters of a different presidency where the border problem was prevalent doesn’t actually work if you’re the president and the border is not having these issues. Did the caravan work in 2018? How about 2020? It works when Democrats are in power, not when Republicans are.
And if you require “seeing it to believe it”, I’ll give you an assist. One thing that more erm centrist? Democrats keep doing over and over again since the 2024 election is argue about and continue to assume the public feels exactly the same right now as they did in the 2024 election in saying the party needs to move in a more moderate direction.
But that’s not true right now and is ignoring the capability for voters to change their opinions as new information comes to them (see US citizens being stopped or held in immigrant prisons, deporting people who didn’t commit crimes without the chance to challenge the order and mass immigration raids across the country by masked agents).
Yes, obviously it’s not AS underwater as his ratings on the economy, which is why I think we both will agree Democrats need to talk mostly about affordability issues and inflation in elections because it is Trump’s weakest point, but a 15 point shift and being underwater on an issue that helped him win in 2024 is significant movement outside the margin of error.
That means the majority of the public has *gasp* changed their mind! Who could have thunk of that possibility. Still want more because you think his statistics are too biased to Democrats? Ok, sure, here’s some more:
A poll in Texas, which is a state he won by 14% and was to the right of the nation by R+12 in 2024. You’d think such a solid state for him would be massively supportive of his immigration agenda if a majority of voters in the country approved of his policies no?
The numbers however say something different: 51-49 approval of immigration policies.
Nearly two-thirds oppose arresting and detaining unauthorized immigrants who have resided in the U.S. with no criminal record.
Nearly six in 10 agree that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers "should not be allowed to conceal their identity with masks or use unmarked vehicles when arresting people."
About two-thirds oppose the U.S. government deporting undocumented immigrants to prisons in El Salvador, Rwanda or Libya without allowing the people to challenge deportations in court.
I could spend hours finding you info like this that I’ve found doing a 5 second search, but feel free to do so yourself to educate yourself on this topic further. You can absolutely credibly argue that “this doesn’t mean they support Democratic policies on immigration”.
That’s something that can be fairly debated one way or the other, but what you can’t however do and what you’ve wrongly done is say essentially “I don’t believe Trump is negative on immigration”. That’s not backed by any data anywhere. You’re free to have that opinion of course, but it’s not backed up by factuality.
Trump moved too far on every issue like the poster you’re replying to said. That is the truth and reality of it.
Hypotheticals and reality are two different things, especially with the zeitgeist around ICE going way overboard.
“Border security” is a dead horse for us at this point, that’s clearly beyond a loser and the hardening of the southern border is here to stay, but “don’t let ICE harass your neighbors for no reason and even disappear people” (so far) seems like much firmer ground for us.
Unfortunately, this is pretty demonstrably true. People want border enforcement and will ignore the inhumane practices of the administration that employs it...
Notice they say "substantive and rhetorical critique." Which is letting big money and wall street know they won't actually do anything to challenge the influence of big money over politics and policy.
Murdoch's son and daughter in law are its biggest funders. Check OpenSecrets. The WelcomeFest, WelcomePAC, WelcomeReport, Cuomo, South Texas anti-abortion dems, Kurt Schrader etc are/were funded by them.
That is more or less what a vision for the Democratic Party written by an oil industry lobbyist who has never voted for a Democratic candidate in his/her entire life would look like.
My thoughts regarding each of the five points:
1. The economy is almost always a top three issue in national elections and probably will be for the foreseeable future, but an increased focus on economic issues is something that virtually every political candidate of any ideological persuasion is capable of.
2. It's clear that the people behind Welcome PAC (or, as I like to call it, Unwelcome PAC) are trying to drive a wedge between progressive economic policies that tend to poll well and more controversial progressive economic policies. However, the group's opposition to electric vehicles is clearly motivated by a pro-oil industry/anti-environment mindset, and Medicare for All is very popular in principle, but it's only when the details get discussed that enough of it becomes unpopular to tank any chance of it being implemented.
3. Entire segments of the Democratic base (our base is less of a monolith than the GOP base, and white leftists/progressives are a part of the base, not the entirety of it) care about issues like abortion, democracy, climate change, and identity/cultural issues (the latter-most being a phrase they use to demonize LGBTQIA+ rights), and each of these issues impact a lot of people.
4. For the Democrats to "moderate" on issues like immigration, public safety, energy production, and identity/cultural issues would involve denying asylum for those who are fleeing oppression abroad, permitting unjust brutality against the American people by law enforcement, wrecking the environment to expand fossil fuel production, and allowing many Americans to be discriminated against. We'd lose far more voters to apathy or third-party/independent candidates than we'd ever gain from the Republicans.
5. The part about critiquing undue influence of lobbyists, corporations, and the ultra-wealthy contradicts the part of their third point where they want Democrats to focus less on democracy. Also, any left-of-center major party in a strong two-party system is going to have at least some socialist voters or voters who view democratic socialism favorably. We can't jettison what has become a defined part of our base in the last decade because, once again, we'd lose more voters than we'd gain.
Yikes. Are you seriously saying we should stay the course on Biden-era asylum policies? I guess I thought if there was one lesson Democrats learned last year it was that the path to hell was paved with seven-figure asylum claims.
If life in the United States in 2025 isn't a strong enough lesson on the consequences of defending mass asylum, then there's no lesson severe enough that could possibly exist for one to get the message.
Do you think that there is no room in between what happened in Biden's term, and the current draconian Trump policy? You seem to be framing it that way.
There's plenty of room between them, but I submit that Biden-era policy is gonna make it harder for Dems to be trusted to find the room in the middle. Trump will definitely be framing it that way and I like his chances of succeeding with that framing among swing voters.
I'm hoping that Democrats have staked out messaging on immigration that keeps them off defense, but I'm skeptical that it won't still be a millstone around the necks of Jonathan Turek, Roy Cooper, and Colin Allred. ICE overreach in Chicago will be less likely to move votes than the threat of returning to lawless borders.
Yeah. Biden's asylum policy set back our efforts toward a sane immigration policy a generation. It's gonna be very hard to win back the public's trust that the Democrats' vision of immigration reform is more than just a de facto open border.
Immigration *always* gets portrayed as "seven-figure asylum claims" and "wide-open borders" whenever a Democrat is in office.
It has pretty much always been a losing issue for us (just like, maddeningly, abortion rights often were before Dobbs) and I don't think policy adjustments will ever address it.
That certainly wasn't the consensus back in 2019 when a stage full of Democratic Presidential candidates raised their hands in favor of decriminalizing border crossings as if there was a broad national consensus for it.
Maybe I'm not. Are you saying that Democrats should signal wide-open immigration policies when not in the governing party because it's not bad politics then but then not follow through on those wide-open immigration policies when governing because it's really bad politics at that point?
This is like the Republican parody of what Democrats "policies" are. Abundance also seems to be unpopular.
"“Abolish the police” is less supported among Dems than “stone gay people to death” is among Republicans but you’ll never see the later be called a Republican policy"
I believe universal healthcare polls better. It's when you make it clear that private healthcare will go away or cost starts getting discussed that it becomes unpopular.
Well, we know in most western democracies that the private healthcare system has not gone away even with a public healthcare system wider in scope than what the US currently has. Australia is a good example.
Going away with private healthcare all together is on par with what Cuba has long had with Fidel Castro in power. The country has been for some time going through rationing and while it has traditionally had a universal healthcare system, even that can potentially be under strain without enough dependable sources of tax revenue.
In short, voters in the US should be assured by Democrats that as long as there are choices, we can have a private system and a stronger public healthcare system.
Bringing up rationing is misleading, because it exists in _every_ system. I have to wait until late January to see a particular type of specialist because that's when anyone who takes my insurance in a particular clinic has an opening.
Medicare for all is explicit on that private health insurance will be eliminated. It's why I've always been convinced that it would be a political nightmare.
As a post script to our discussion yesterday: G. Elliott Morris's response to the claim that Democrats lost the last election, let alone will lose the next, because they are too progressive: https://open.substack.com/pub/gelliottmorris/p/the-strategists-fallacy?r=17bef&utm_medium=ios. It's partly paywalled, but the key point in what is not is that voters do not make political decisions the same way political strategists do, and secondarily, that the authors of the study distorted Democratic positions that were taken last year in their descriptions and have ignored current data on voter attitudes that is very different from the data they gathered in relation to last year's election.
Read whatever you can see at the link; I wanted to copy way too much of it, but here are three key points, especially the last paragraph:
[W]hile making prescriptions for the future of the party, the authors are surprisingly ignorant of current data that shows the Democrats rebounding with voters who care about the economy, and Republicans doing as poorly as or worse than Democrats on issue focus. The report also spends little time discussing the role of inflation in Kamala Harris’s loss in 2024[...]
The group also reads too much into unadjusted, uncertain differences in the electoral performance of “moderate” and “progressive” congressional candidates — the same mistakes plenty of other people are making recently. The issue is not just that these patterns are highly subject to the way a person defines “moderate” or “progressive,” but that past data is not a good predictor of future results.[...]
But my biggest problem with the report is with the conclusion itself. The report suffers from something I’m going to call the “Strategist’s Fallacy” in politics — the tendency for campaign consultants and political strategists, especially on the Democratic side (where quantitative analysts are overwhelmingly focused on policy positions and ideological point-positions), to map their mental model of how they make political decisions onto voters.
I'm more sympathetic to the Welcome crowd than probably most here are, but Morris (at least in the small part I could read, not being one of his paying subscribers) does point out some significant flaws in their analysis.
Just because some progressive activists called for something does not make it a "Democratic policy"--i.e. abolition of police or prisons, which no Democrat of national importance has supported. The authors tend to frame things like the economy as Democratic vs. Republican when it might better be framed as incumbent vs. outsider--voters in the US and around the world weren't generally happy with how the economy was performing, but that doesn't mean they were demanding ideologically right wing solutions, as the Republicans are discovering to their consternation. And speaking of public opinion, this group wrongly seems to think that it permanently froze in place a year ago (they've got plenty of company in that regard, including much of the mass media.)
Another point Morris makes is the fallacy of believing that voters make the same decisions in the same way as strategists do--something that might afflict many of us here, as we're obviously more politically "tuned in" than most voters.
With one week until the Prop 50 election, things are looking good for Yes and California Democrats in the mail ballot return data!
I did a quick thread on BlueSky with more details, but the bottom line is the electoral makeup of this special election looks better than the 2024 Presidential election...AND there are signs the partisan makeup of ballots might not change much over the next week.
Someone else potentially running against Dan Goldman. I feel like I'm missing a big part of the story here. He's the guy that helped prosecute one of Trump's impeachments, no? Who is often/eternally on MSNBC? The DB comment family is more NY-centric than I am so I don't know his particular positions in detail. He seems like a good Rep. Is he just a bad fit for NYC? Or is there more to it? I haven't heard of any scandals/tattoos/criminal record/college SM posts....
Voting record doesn’t match his district. I’m still pissed (as I said yesterday) about his vote to condemn the ICC, and he also didn’t endorse Mamdani (who won his district overwhelmingly).
PollJunkie said it best in another thread, he’s the centrist Bowman, too dogmatic and centrist-ideological, not focused on his district and clearly gunning for a statewide position. He needs to go.
At least with Bowman he was first elected in a much more progressive district that became more moderate in redistricting- Goldman was elected w 25% in his first primary and this district clearly had a progressive lean even before Mamdani demolished Cuomo in the primary.
That too, his new district was not exactly in his favor. Although I recall his constituent services weren’t the best — I remember someone on Bluesky noting that AOC, Rashida Tlaib, and Summer Lee all survived off their constituent services while Bowman and Cori Bush didn’t.
I think it was made slightly less democratic. I believe under the district lines, Biden would have received 3-5 points less. Bowman lost by 19 though. Even if it was changed much more significantly, it wouldn't have mattered.
What sections of Westchester did it gain? Looking at the map, it looks like NY 16 lost parts of northern Westchester and of the Bronx as well. I know at the last minute they threw more Bronx area to Bowman.
iirc it gained several towns in Westchester including Rye- the home of George Latimer- White Plains, Greenburgh, and Harrison. It lost all of its Bronx neighborhoods except Wakefield, which was swapped for Co-op City in 2024 redistricting.
If they’re stupid enough to let that happen, they have no business complaining. I think Goldman could be beaten in a three person race. Anything more and he’ll win. Last time there were at least a half a dozen candidates.
Does Lander have a large enough profile to possibly overcome that? I don't have any special connection or knowledge but I wouldn't be surprised if he had better name recognition in district than Golden does, between his current NYC office and being fairly high profile as a candidate in the mayoral primary.
Hold on. Boycotting a speech, given by a democratically elected foreign leader, of a country that has been an ally of America for many years, is now a litmus test for progressives? Seriously?
I'm no fan of Netanyahu myself, but that's ridiculous.
I wouldn’t boycott their speeches. I might even clap politely, since that’s something that politicians do, even if I disagreed with every word they said.
And I HATE Viktor Orban. He’s been my most hated European leader for a while now. (I don’t consider Russia to be part of Europe - otherwise it would obviously be Putin.)
I think as Americans we have a right to use our platforms, big or small, to demonstrate our values.
not attending speeches of genocidaires is a good example of this. I would boycott it and not look back, least of all because I hate the guy and don't want to hear him speak. (and i don't care for this meddling in american politics.)
I doubt Goldman was applauding enthusiastically after every single sentence that Netanyahu spoke. I'd want to know exactly what Netanyahu had just said when Goldman applauded enthusiastically. And people watching a room full of Congresspeople on TV can't always tell when one of them is applauding politely (which many Congresspeople do whether they agree with the speaker or not) or applauding enthusiastically.
Seems like a fair point. No further comment, as I think the rest of the remarks by me and others stand, and we need to avoid getting into a debate about this.
Netanyahu's opposition to our party has been clear and public since at least 2012. He did an end run around Obama to give a speech to congress repeating republican foreign policy positions while being known to prefer Romney. Netanyahu has long been trying to put his thumb on the scale to republicans' benefit.
This is a difficult subject due to topic bans here, but I think the above covers sufficient reason to see attendance, especially enthusiastic attendance, as a negative.
We don’t need to bring up the I-P topic here in order to talk about Israel. However, it is still fair to mention that Jews and Israelis of different generations don’t necessarily eye to eye with each other politically.
For starters, last I checked Israel has a significant income inequality problem and the cost of living isn’t easy on those who live there. I do know the country’s tech sector is quite prolific and I also have used the Israel-based Monday as a platform for CRM and workflow management for my consulting business. There are also domestic issues with Israel that aren’t normally bought up for discussion here such as what Israel politicians in government are doing to improve the healthcare system.
Anyway, these are thoughts I have on what could be considered acceptable points of discussion about Israel if it means there are elections coming up at some point. Otherwise, I do not intend to bring up Israel at all if it’s deemed we should just flat out avoid talking about the country as a means of not trying to divide people.
Obv I don't get to the daily update or comments every day. Thanks for the info and repeating yourselves! Enjoy some seasonally appropriate 🥧 in emoji form on me. (Gluten and dairy free if need be.)
I wish there was polling out or even early ballot returns on the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court elections. Have we seen anything about how Yes or No on retaining judges has been doing in polling?
As of yesterday, more than 1.1 million voters had requested a mail ballot. That’s up 17% from the 2021 municipal election and up 9% from 2023. 66% of the requests are from Democrats but that is a smaller percentage than in the past. The number of Republican requests are up 35% since 2021 while Dems are up 9%. "As of Monday, voters of both parties had returned roughly 52.5% of their ballots.” https://www.abc27.com/news/top-stories/republican-voters-drive-increase-in-mail-ballot-requests-in-pennsylvania/
With the very big caution that early votes are only a small portion of overall votes and may not be a good gauge for outcome, Republicans are doing statistically doing worse than they did this far out in 2024.
Both parties are seeing elevated turnout compared to 2021, by about the same margins - gross totals are up similar percentages. The difference is, with more registered Ds than Rs in NJ, it's resulting in a bigger (net) D vote advantage.
I love how Virginia Dems are being just as curt and overruling the Rs in the ongoing procedural votes for the redistricting move going on today and Wednesday. Makes my bleeding liberal heart sing with joy after what NC Rs did last week.
You started this, Rolldemort, Kehoe and Phil Berger. Now Scott Surovell and L. Louise Lucas will finish it.
The GOP has an additional upside to swinging for the fences with redistricting in Indiana. There won't be any gubernatorial or Senate races on the ballot. That means turnout will be anemic and further limit the possibilities of a Democratic House candidate overcoming a 53-45 GOP map.
I'm not sure lack of statewide races would benefit them for 2026, due to midterm dynamics. If a democrat was president it would help republicans.
If they do go through with it I doubt the midterm environment will be enough to cancel it out anyway. The whole point of a gerrymander is to win the seat regardless of details.
And from Chris Cilizza, of all people. Credit where it is due.
This is potentially much more damaging for Republicans than Trump's first term unpopularity, which was more due to his personal behaviour and blunders at a time when views of the economy were better. If people don't like the economy and think Trump and the GOP aren't improving it, or are making it worse, then his party is in big trouble--and after tariffs and the budget billl, among other things, the "blame it on Biden" excuse won't work.
Yes. I believe we’re going to have another 2006 or 2008 type of election where there could be a possible blue wave coming with the economy in mind. This proving Democrats maintain focus.
2018 gave Democrats control over the House but the economy was not a factor back then.
Regardless of how the GOP spins things, Trump is now in a similar position as Dubya was in his 2nd term:
If your theory of the 2024 election is that America abruptly swung right socially and culturally (as most conservatives choose to believe), then there's not much reason to think anything has changed. If however you see that election as fundamentally a referendum on the economy and inflation between the Biden/Harris admin and Trump's first term, then these polls showing Trump cratering on those issues are major indicators of trouble for their party. Like I've said before, Trump at -20 on the economy in 2018 would have been a historic thumping, Sen. Bredesen in TN type election, instead of "just" Dems going +40 in the house. In 2020 we would have actually gotten the double digit PV margin some polls were seeing.
Great comment. I'd put it at 75% and 25% cultural swing. Fundamentally, inflation and cost of living were probably the biggest drivers. There was almost certainly some impact from the reaction to the extremes of wokeism and cancel culture, particularly amongst young men, African Americans and Latinos, though. The real question is how permanent those swings are. The one big unknown is how much of it was just Trump's personal appeal (as inconceivable as that is to us here). That would explain how he won WI, NV, MI and AZ while we held all of those Senate seats.
If the economic ratings are like this in 2026, which I mean, it’s hard not to imagine since Trump policies have made everything worse economically speaking (from a nonpartisan perspective, tariffs increase consumer costs, conservative economists even agree with that).
But if they are, we should be talking about a Senate Majority on election night with the results ending with finally breaking down the red wall with a Texas Democratic Senator, an Alaska Democratic Senator, an Ohio Democratic Senator and perhaps as a stretch even a Florida Democratic Senator and/or an Iowa Democratic Senator.
That kind of result may finally shake the press and punditry from their Trump sane-washing insanity that they’ve done for 9 years straight. We’ll see, it’s a long ways to go, but 20 points underwater economically for the Trump MAGA “do as the king wishes” party? Yeah, we should have a majority in the Senate after election night and should be gaining quite a few seats in “red” America. Maybe even a reverse 2010 level of thumping at the ballot box.
An add-on for NJ-Gov. This person was quoted by umichvoter on twitter, so I consider them a reliable source as campaign director for Mikie Sherrill and NJ Democrats. Salt to taste of course!
First, just look at the raw numbers. Registered Democrats cast more ballots than registered Republicans by 1.6%. This is after Republicans have been heavily pushing their voters to vote early and were promising a big day.
A higher percent of ballots cast were by Democrats as compared to 2024 in all 21 counties. That’s especially true in some of the moderate and conservative counties — like Gloucester, Monmouth, and Morris counties, which swung towards Democrats by 6%, 4%, and 4% respectively.
Republicans were promising 25,000 votes in Ocean County, the reddest county in the state. Less than 8,000 people turned out. Total.
Republicans are not seeing a surge in less-engaged voters. Of voters who voted in 0 out of last 4 elections, they are Democrats by a margin of nearly 2:1.
Democrats now have a firewall of nearly 200k votes heading in to the final stretch. At this time in ’21, that margin was just 166k. 9 days to go!
When they say last 4 elections, is that referring to 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021? If so, that could include people who normally vote in Presidential elections but chose not to vote in 2024.
That’s a very good question and he doesn’t say anywhere which specific 4 elections. But it can only be 1 of 3 options. The last 4 NJ Gubernatorial elections 2009, 2013, 2017, 2021 (doubtful he’d go back that far with so much in politics having changed). The last 4 elections in NJ (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024). Or the last 4 New Jersey elections (2017, 2019, 2021, 2023).
If I had to guess it would be referring to Biden being in office years, so the last 4 NJ elections, because that would be the most impressive stat to compare to given how many of our voters only vote when Trump is president (he’s a partisan working as a party campaign director, that’s what you want, to excite the base and make it seem Sherrill and NJ Dems are blowing it out of the water).
The group of voters this most likely covers though is young voters who were ineligible to vote except for in the upcoming 2025 elections. Obviously there’s some on the left progressives who only show up when Trump’s in office for whatever reason, but the majority would be young people.
If young people are actually turning out already in early voting for someone distinctly not their flavour of Democrat and actually voting for them (not at all guaranteed, but party registration is the best indicator we have of partisanship before an election), we will probably be very happy with the upcoming election results.
That all said, if the margin is say 50k Democrats who haven’t voted in the last 4 elections (regardless of which of the above 4 elections they’re referring to) and 12.5k Republicans who haven’t voted in the last 4 elections, that’s still 4x the GOP, but not at all meaningful. So some caution is warranted for sure here.
An intellectually curious take on Platner's antifascist, antinazi and socialist reddit posting dating back to 2007, his Jewish relatives and his nazi tattoo.
I personally have stopped following and supporting anyone in this primary. Mills can't bring herself to criticize Collins while the other candidate has skeletons on his skin.
I’m not a Maine voter. The support or non- support of us non- Mainers in the primary isn’t really much of a factor. Both Platner and Mills will likely have sufficient funds to campaign in Maine. This recent post by a Maine newspaper reporter suggests Platner’s support on the ground hasn’t been much impacted. https://bsky.app/profile/aseitzwald.bsky.social/post/3m4bvzu4gu22d I expect there will be some post-revelations decent quality polls soon for us election interested non-Mainers.
Same sentiment with me as I am also not based in Maine.
There are still more than six months until the primary so a lot can happen irrespective of what happens with Janet Mills, Graham Platner and Jordan Wood, who still remains as a Senate candidate.
I will say as I have been viewing videos of Platner on YouTube, random YouTubers are offering commentary with their own videos on his candidacy and actions. Win or lose the primary, Platner’s candidacy has certainly gotten the attention beyond Maine.
I'm also not a Maine voter, but they have an important election next month which may do away with mail-in ballots. It is a voter ID measure, and it sticks the doing away with mail-in ballots as the fifth part of the measure. Heather Cox Richardson keeps pointing out that the Senate race is in the future; this voting measure is NOW and should be getting the major focus in Maine.
UT-Redistricting: if Republican get the signatures, would the statute be put on hold or would it still be in effect for 2026?
I don’t think it’s a veto referendum on the specific law that created new maps, so I don’t think the new maps would be put on hold. And it would be too late anyway to stop the new maps from going into effect even if the signatures put prop 4 on hold. A congressional map is supposed to be finalized in November, it will take longer than that to get 141,000 signatures.
Liam Kerr’s Murdoch and Hoffman-funded Welcome PAC dropped their report yesterday — and their "solution" couldn’t make the corporate agenda any clearer. Feels like we’re heading straight into a 1992-style fight for the soul of the party.
https://x.com/adamkovac/status/1982832322345943369
My thoughts on these 5 points:
1. Seems reasonable, but that’s vague enough that it’s basically meaningless.
2. Where does the polling show that electric vehicle subsidies are broadly unpopular? I’ve heard it with the other two things mentioned, but not with subsidies.
3. Kind of difficult to focus less on democracy when we’re assuming that the Republicans are going to do everything they can to subvert free and fair elections. Outside of that though, I think both the moderates and the progressives agree that the primary focus of the party needs to be on the economy, cost of living, and healthcare, that’s exactly what Bernie has been saying since forever.
4. That’s where you’re going to run into issues with this. The mainstream of the party’s position on immigration is the moderate position and Trump’s position is the extremist one, polling backs that up. We don’t need to moderate by moving further to the right on it, what would that even look like? And what’s wrong with our stance on energy production?
5. Everyone agrees with this point for the most part, even most progressives. The issue is a disagreement on what the “popular policies on the issues that matter most to the American people” are.
The funny thing is this was basically Biden's 2020 platform. He didn't run on student loan forgiveness or EV subsidies.
And Biden won, but only as a protest vote against an incumbent with weak fundamentals. And it was a shockingly weak win against an incumbent with such weak fundamentals.
The five-point plan is more or less a blueprint for the Democratic Party to win against an unpopular incumbent. In any other scenario, it's too bland and technocratic to inspire an electorate that is now fully invested in a strongman running the country. That's the real problem the Democrats are gonna face moving forward and the price of trying to govern in a nation that's had a taste of what an autocrat is capable of. Either you run as a messiah or you fail to launch.
And that’s why we need to run on big and bold plans to fix everything.
I dont view it as something to be rolled out as a public platform but suggestions for campaign shifts.
To be fair, for this century I would only characterize Obama 2008 and maybe 2012 as anything other than a weak win for anyone.
Bush barely got over the finish line in 2000 due to SCOTUS, and even without them it would have been Gore barely winning instead. Bush's 2004 win was OK on the margins, but considering how much of a boost he got earlier in his term the win was thoroughly unimpressive.
Obama won with a clear mandate in 2008, and hung on decently in 2012 despite a slow recovery and having his legislative agenda killed off a year into his first term.
Trump 2016 was the barest of wins in the tipping point states and a loss in the popular vote, a win he only got due to interference from the head of the FBI. Biden barely won in 2020 despite Trump's wide unpopularity and bungling of Covid. Trump barely won in 2024 despite a massive bias from the media, Biden absolutely collapsing as a candidate over the summer, and democrats being widely blamed for inflation that was a result of global events.
Going further back Clinton's 1996 win was solid, but 1992 is hard to parse.
Presidential elections have been consistently close since the end of the 80s, absent major political events that shift things dramatically, like the 90s tech boom or the 2008 recession.
Defeating an incumbent president by *any* margin is, as a certain politician once said, a BFD.
Let's not forget that Biden's popular-vote margin (4.5 points) was larger than Obama's in 2012 (3.9 points).
I don't disagree with your macro points, but I don't think Biden's win in 2020 was "shockingly weak". A 4+ percentage point win against an incumbent is a pretty good showing. I mean, Trump only won by 1.5 points against a non-incumbent who only had 100 days to prepare and was facing economic headwinds (and, let's face it - misogynist and racist headwinds too).
The giant disconnect between Election 2020 polling and the actual outcome are part of why I always tend to look at Biden's win as shockingly weak, but for the modern era you're probably right that it wasn't that lackluster at least from a popular vote perspective.
Warmed over Clintonism.
Student loan forgiveness is basically a low-salience, 50-50 issue — it neither energizes a majority nor moves swing voters.
Likewise, negotiating the prices of just a handful of prescription drugs and using the savings to cap the prices of a few more is policy minimalism at its worst. As Chris Murphy explained brilliantly in one of his videos, this approach is politically and substantively shallow and doesn't break through in messaging.
If Democrats want to make real headway, they should run on bold, broadly popular ideas:
either comprehensive drug price caps like those in Canada or Europe (which even Trump’s executive order nominally embraced),
a public health insurance buy-in for all,
or full Medicare for All.
These are programs that may actually resonate with voters — not the half-measures no one cares about. M4A support varies from 40-45 to 60-70 when it's worded differently.
Agreed. This whole proposal just seems vague enough that no one would actually use it to push for anything bold or inspiring.
Billionaire funded neoliberalism at its best. Much like how 2012's GOP autopsy ruled out moderating on Medicare and Social Security and instead advocated moderating on immigration and dei.
Because the alternate is a Bernie 2016 or Obama 2012 tough on border but economic leftist style of campaign which is unpalatable for those who fund these stuff.
I think Obama 2012 is actually what this is basically proposing. He didn't run on M4A.
He ran on *comprehensive* immigration reform, climate investments and a public option which could obviously never have implemented due to the GOP majorities and conservadems. He hit Romney hard as a robber baron with many populist themes.
Sherrod Brown has long advocated lowering the age of Medicare to 55. This would be a good start, as he points out that it will not only lower the costs of private insurance companies that no longer have to cover people between 55-64, but it also adds a lot of lower cost people to Medicare. This also is a plan that should appeal to blue collar people because many people in a labor intensive job are unable to work past 55 due to their body breaking down and to wealthier white collar people who have the money to retire but have to work because they can't afford the health insurance. This is the type of plan that I can actually see getting implemented the next time the Democrats have the trifecta and which would be widely popular.
And making Medicare Part B free would be another thing we could and should do.
Out of curiosity, who represents the opposition to this? One would think the private insurers would be thrilled to drop their clients most likely to file claims. Is it just a fear that sick middle-aged people would quit their jobs and pile onto Medicare, costing more than they'd collect in additional premiums?
"Is it just a fear that sick middle-aged people would quit their jobs and pile onto Medicare, costing more than they'd collect in additional premiums?"
I think there's a general fear that the system would become extremely unsustainable and thus require higher and higher taxation to keep it afloat. And honestly given the aging population and declining immigration (if that sticks), there's not a good argument that it could be sustainable . . 55-65 is a very high healthcare-consumption decade.
It’s still much lower-consumption than the current Medicare age bracket.
The "eFf CoLlEgE, gO tO tRaDe ScHoOl" crowd never seems to have an answer for how to deal with the many, many people who won't be able to practice a trade much into their 50s. (My neighbor, who worked in HVAC, fell off a ladder at 52 and that was curtains for his working life.) Are those folks just supposed to die?
I come from a blue collar background and I got a graduate degrees and work in white collar work and I see it all the time. The trades will beat up your body and make you all but unemployable in your trade by your early to mid 50's but the primarily white collar decision makers fail to see this and the blue collar people have a kneejerk reaction against "government handouts."
Polls back up that Trump's position on immigration is unpopular? That certainly wasn't true before the election when a clear majority supported Trump's deportation policies.
I think we're fooling ourselves if we believe this issue is gonna be a liability for Republicans any time soon. Now that the public has a taste of border enforcement, it's hard to imagine they're gonna tolerate the return of anything remotely resembling Biden's bottomless asylum years.
Yep, polls are showing that Trump is in negative numbers on immigration at this time. He swung the pendulum too hard in the other direction. People are now more likely to see his actions as unnecessary brutality. (It seems unintuitive as this was a strength that Trump has had up until now. But there is such a thing as going too far.)
I'll believe it when I see it. I suspect outrage at other people being deported will be about as salient as outrage about other people getting shot at mass shootings. It won't move any votes.
And when Trump reminds voters of the invading hordes at the border the last time the Democrats were in charge, I'm pretty sure voters will decide they hate the idea of masked ICE agents a lot less.
2 comments on that.
1. No one would argue mass shooting are a political positive for Republicans, or a sign that Democrats need to moderate on gun control.
2. These deportations and abuses of ICE’s power are happening far more often in far more visible ways than mass shootings, and they are impacting way more people across the country in ways that affect everyone who knows those people.
Not sure why you got that I think Democrats need to moderate on gun control. But I am saying the issue has little to no salience because most voters aren't considering the risk of gun violence when they go to the polls. I think it'll be even harder to convince them of the threat of masked ICE agents deporting them or someone that they care about. That's why I submit Republicans will continue to have a substantial electoral advantage on immigration for the foreseeable future.
The key mistake you’re making here is that reminding voters of a different presidency where the border problem was prevalent doesn’t actually work if you’re the president and the border is not having these issues. Did the caravan work in 2018? How about 2020? It works when Democrats are in power, not when Republicans are.
And if you require “seeing it to believe it”, I’ll give you an assist. One thing that more erm centrist? Democrats keep doing over and over again since the 2024 election is argue about and continue to assume the public feels exactly the same right now as they did in the 2024 election in saying the party needs to move in a more moderate direction.
But that’s not true right now and is ignoring the capability for voters to change their opinions as new information comes to them (see US citizens being stopped or held in immigrant prisons, deporting people who didn’t commit crimes without the chance to challenge the order and mass immigration raids across the country by masked agents).
https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/polls-show-voters-trust-democrats
Trump Immigration approval Feb 2025 +10
Trump Immigration approval Oct 2025 -5
Yes, obviously it’s not AS underwater as his ratings on the economy, which is why I think we both will agree Democrats need to talk mostly about affordability issues and inflation in elections because it is Trump’s weakest point, but a 15 point shift and being underwater on an issue that helped him win in 2024 is significant movement outside the margin of error.
That means the majority of the public has *gasp* changed their mind! Who could have thunk of that possibility. Still want more because you think his statistics are too biased to Democrats? Ok, sure, here’s some more:
A poll in Texas, which is a state he won by 14% and was to the right of the nation by R+12 in 2024. You’d think such a solid state for him would be massively supportive of his immigration agenda if a majority of voters in the country approved of his policies no?
The numbers however say something different: 51-49 approval of immigration policies.
https://www.statesman.com/news/article/texas-trump-immigration-poll-21121261.php
Not convinced? Ok, how about the PRRI survey?
https://www.axios.com/2025/10/22/poll-us-wrong-track-economy-immigration
Nearly two-thirds oppose arresting and detaining unauthorized immigrants who have resided in the U.S. with no criminal record.
Nearly six in 10 agree that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers "should not be allowed to conceal their identity with masks or use unmarked vehicles when arresting people."
About two-thirds oppose the U.S. government deporting undocumented immigrants to prisons in El Salvador, Rwanda or Libya without allowing the people to challenge deportations in court.
I could spend hours finding you info like this that I’ve found doing a 5 second search, but feel free to do so yourself to educate yourself on this topic further. You can absolutely credibly argue that “this doesn’t mean they support Democratic policies on immigration”.
That’s something that can be fairly debated one way or the other, but what you can’t however do and what you’ve wrongly done is say essentially “I don’t believe Trump is negative on immigration”. That’s not backed by any data anywhere. You’re free to have that opinion of course, but it’s not backed up by factuality.
Trump moved too far on every issue like the poster you’re replying to said. That is the truth and reality of it.
Hypotheticals and reality are two different things, especially with the zeitgeist around ICE going way overboard.
“Border security” is a dead horse for us at this point, that’s clearly beyond a loser and the hardening of the southern border is here to stay, but “don’t let ICE harass your neighbors for no reason and even disappear people” (so far) seems like much firmer ground for us.
Unfortunately, this is pretty demonstrably true. People want border enforcement and will ignore the inhumane practices of the administration that employs it...
How is it Murdoch funded?
Notice they say "substantive and rhetorical critique." Which is letting big money and wall street know they won't actually do anything to challenge the influence of big money over politics and policy.
Murdoch's son and daughter in law are its biggest funders. Check OpenSecrets. The WelcomeFest, WelcomePAC, WelcomeReport, Cuomo, South Texas anti-abortion dems, Kurt Schrader etc are/were funded by them.
That is more or less what a vision for the Democratic Party written by an oil industry lobbyist who has never voted for a Democratic candidate in his/her entire life would look like.
My thoughts regarding each of the five points:
1. The economy is almost always a top three issue in national elections and probably will be for the foreseeable future, but an increased focus on economic issues is something that virtually every political candidate of any ideological persuasion is capable of.
2. It's clear that the people behind Welcome PAC (or, as I like to call it, Unwelcome PAC) are trying to drive a wedge between progressive economic policies that tend to poll well and more controversial progressive economic policies. However, the group's opposition to electric vehicles is clearly motivated by a pro-oil industry/anti-environment mindset, and Medicare for All is very popular in principle, but it's only when the details get discussed that enough of it becomes unpopular to tank any chance of it being implemented.
3. Entire segments of the Democratic base (our base is less of a monolith than the GOP base, and white leftists/progressives are a part of the base, not the entirety of it) care about issues like abortion, democracy, climate change, and identity/cultural issues (the latter-most being a phrase they use to demonize LGBTQIA+ rights), and each of these issues impact a lot of people.
4. For the Democrats to "moderate" on issues like immigration, public safety, energy production, and identity/cultural issues would involve denying asylum for those who are fleeing oppression abroad, permitting unjust brutality against the American people by law enforcement, wrecking the environment to expand fossil fuel production, and allowing many Americans to be discriminated against. We'd lose far more voters to apathy or third-party/independent candidates than we'd ever gain from the Republicans.
5. The part about critiquing undue influence of lobbyists, corporations, and the ultra-wealthy contradicts the part of their third point where they want Democrats to focus less on democracy. Also, any left-of-center major party in a strong two-party system is going to have at least some socialist voters or voters who view democratic socialism favorably. We can't jettison what has become a defined part of our base in the last decade because, once again, we'd lose more voters than we'd gain.
Excellent analysis. Fully agreed.
Yikes. Are you seriously saying we should stay the course on Biden-era asylum policies? I guess I thought if there was one lesson Democrats learned last year it was that the path to hell was paved with seven-figure asylum claims.
If life in the United States in 2025 isn't a strong enough lesson on the consequences of defending mass asylum, then there's no lesson severe enough that could possibly exist for one to get the message.
Do you think that there is no room in between what happened in Biden's term, and the current draconian Trump policy? You seem to be framing it that way.
There's plenty of room between them, but I submit that Biden-era policy is gonna make it harder for Dems to be trusted to find the room in the middle. Trump will definitely be framing it that way and I like his chances of succeeding with that framing among swing voters.
I'm hoping that Democrats have staked out messaging on immigration that keeps them off defense, but I'm skeptical that it won't still be a millstone around the necks of Jonathan Turek, Roy Cooper, and Colin Allred. ICE overreach in Chicago will be less likely to move votes than the threat of returning to lawless borders.
I'm about as pro-immigration as you can get, but what we were doing on asylum just wasn't working and produced disorderly scenes.
Yeah. Biden's asylum policy set back our efforts toward a sane immigration policy a generation. It's gonna be very hard to win back the public's trust that the Democrats' vision of immigration reform is more than just a de facto open border.
1000% agreed.
Immigration *always* gets portrayed as "seven-figure asylum claims" and "wide-open borders" whenever a Democrat is in office.
It has pretty much always been a losing issue for us (just like, maddeningly, abortion rights often were before Dobbs) and I don't think policy adjustments will ever address it.
That certainly wasn't the consensus back in 2019 when a stage full of Democratic Presidential candidates raised their hands in favor of decriminalizing border crossings as if there was a broad national consensus for it.
A Democrat wasn't in office then—Trump was. I don't think you're following my point.
Maybe I'm not. Are you saying that Democrats should signal wide-open immigration policies when not in the governing party because it's not bad politics then but then not follow through on those wide-open immigration policies when governing because it's really bad politics at that point?
Is this the report we were discussing yesterday?
https://x.com/AshleySchapitl/status/1982967275679559963
This is like the Republican parody of what Democrats "policies" are. Abundance also seems to be unpopular.
"“Abolish the police” is less supported among Dems than “stone gay people to death” is among Republicans but you’ll never see the later be called a Republican policy"
https://x.com/TrueSlazac/status/1983157618794442904
"How is your polling on Medicare for All so radically at odds with basically every other poll over the last decade?"
https://x.com/mralaniverson/status/1982871680365256834
The polling for Medicare for all turns negative when details for it are given.
How does that stack up against polling for other forms of universal healthcare though? Including a public option?
I believe universal healthcare polls better. It's when you make it clear that private healthcare will go away or cost starts getting discussed that it becomes unpopular.
Well, we know in most western democracies that the private healthcare system has not gone away even with a public healthcare system wider in scope than what the US currently has. Australia is a good example.
Going away with private healthcare all together is on par with what Cuba has long had with Fidel Castro in power. The country has been for some time going through rationing and while it has traditionally had a universal healthcare system, even that can potentially be under strain without enough dependable sources of tax revenue.
In short, voters in the US should be assured by Democrats that as long as there are choices, we can have a private system and a stronger public healthcare system.
Bringing up rationing is misleading, because it exists in _every_ system. I have to wait until late January to see a particular type of specialist because that's when anyone who takes my insurance in a particular clinic has an opening.
Medicare for all is explicit on that private health insurance will be eliminated. It's why I've always been convinced that it would be a political nightmare.
Rick Jakious, Seth Moulton's chief of staff, is running for his seat, joining several other notable Dems
As a post script to our discussion yesterday: G. Elliott Morris's response to the claim that Democrats lost the last election, let alone will lose the next, because they are too progressive: https://open.substack.com/pub/gelliottmorris/p/the-strategists-fallacy?r=17bef&utm_medium=ios. It's partly paywalled, but the key point in what is not is that voters do not make political decisions the same way political strategists do, and secondarily, that the authors of the study distorted Democratic positions that were taken last year in their descriptions and have ignored current data on voter attitudes that is very different from the data they gathered in relation to last year's election.
Read whatever you can see at the link; I wanted to copy way too much of it, but here are three key points, especially the last paragraph:
[W]hile making prescriptions for the future of the party, the authors are surprisingly ignorant of current data that shows the Democrats rebounding with voters who care about the economy, and Republicans doing as poorly as or worse than Democrats on issue focus. The report also spends little time discussing the role of inflation in Kamala Harris’s loss in 2024[...]
The group also reads too much into unadjusted, uncertain differences in the electoral performance of “moderate” and “progressive” congressional candidates — the same mistakes plenty of other people are making recently. The issue is not just that these patterns are highly subject to the way a person defines “moderate” or “progressive,” but that past data is not a good predictor of future results.[...]
But my biggest problem with the report is with the conclusion itself. The report suffers from something I’m going to call the “Strategist’s Fallacy” in politics — the tendency for campaign consultants and political strategists, especially on the Democratic side (where quantitative analysts are overwhelmingly focused on policy positions and ideological point-positions), to map their mental model of how they make political decisions onto voters.
I'm more sympathetic to the Welcome crowd than probably most here are, but Morris (at least in the small part I could read, not being one of his paying subscribers) does point out some significant flaws in their analysis.
Just because some progressive activists called for something does not make it a "Democratic policy"--i.e. abolition of police or prisons, which no Democrat of national importance has supported. The authors tend to frame things like the economy as Democratic vs. Republican when it might better be framed as incumbent vs. outsider--voters in the US and around the world weren't generally happy with how the economy was performing, but that doesn't mean they were demanding ideologically right wing solutions, as the Republicans are discovering to their consternation. And speaking of public opinion, this group wrongly seems to think that it permanently froze in place a year ago (they've got plenty of company in that regard, including much of the mass media.)
Another point Morris makes is the fallacy of believing that voters make the same decisions in the same way as strategists do--something that might afflict many of us here, as we're obviously more politically "tuned in" than most voters.
I'm beyond tired of lazy both-sides "journalism" that attempts to portray progressive activists as the drivers of Democratic Party policy.
With one week until the Prop 50 election, things are looking good for Yes and California Democrats in the mail ballot return data!
I did a quick thread on BlueSky with more details, but the bottom line is the electoral makeup of this special election looks better than the 2024 Presidential election...AND there are signs the partisan makeup of ballots might not change much over the next week.
https://bsky.app/profile/awildlibappeared.bsky.social/post/3m4b5updyuc2c
good job, followed you and quoted
Julie Johnson, who replaced Colin Allred in the House of the Representatives, has endorsed James Talarico in the TX Democratic Senate primary.
Source: Talarico's official Threads account.
Someone else potentially running against Dan Goldman. I feel like I'm missing a big part of the story here. He's the guy that helped prosecute one of Trump's impeachments, no? Who is often/eternally on MSNBC? The DB comment family is more NY-centric than I am so I don't know his particular positions in detail. He seems like a good Rep. Is he just a bad fit for NYC? Or is there more to it? I haven't heard of any scandals/tattoos/criminal record/college SM posts....
Voting record doesn’t match his district. I’m still pissed (as I said yesterday) about his vote to condemn the ICC, and he also didn’t endorse Mamdani (who won his district overwhelmingly).
PollJunkie said it best in another thread, he’s the centrist Bowman, too dogmatic and centrist-ideological, not focused on his district and clearly gunning for a statewide position. He needs to go.
At least with Bowman he was first elected in a much more progressive district that became more moderate in redistricting- Goldman was elected w 25% in his first primary and this district clearly had a progressive lean even before Mamdani demolished Cuomo in the primary.
That too, his new district was not exactly in his favor. Although I recall his constituent services weren’t the best — I remember someone on Bluesky noting that AOC, Rashida Tlaib, and Summer Lee all survived off their constituent services while Bowman and Cori Bush didn’t.
Cori Bush also had the corruption and faith healing issues while Bowman had the fire alarm incident.
I did not hear about the faith healing thing. What happened there?
She claims that she healed a woman's tumors by touching them.
I don't think Bowman's district changed that much in redistricting. As I recall, slight changes were made to make it better for him.
I thought it was made more Democratic but less progressive, partly specifically in order to help Latimer.
I think it was made slightly less democratic. I believe under the district lines, Biden would have received 3-5 points less. Bowman lost by 19 though. Even if it was changed much more significantly, it wouldn't have mattered.
The district lost all of its portion of The Bronx except one neighborhood, and gained much whiter and wealthier suburban towns in Westchester.
What sections of Westchester did it gain? Looking at the map, it looks like NY 16 lost parts of northern Westchester and of the Bronx as well. I know at the last minute they threw more Bronx area to Bowman.
iirc it gained several towns in Westchester including Rye- the home of George Latimer- White Plains, Greenburgh, and Harrison. It lost all of its Bronx neighborhoods except Wakefield, which was swapped for Co-op City in 2024 redistricting.
Yet based on the digest, it looks likely that progressive candidates will split the vote in the district again, allowing him to be reelected.
If they’re stupid enough to let that happen, they have no business complaining. I think Goldman could be beaten in a three person race. Anything more and he’ll win. Last time there were at least a half a dozen candidates.
Does Lander have a large enough profile to possibly overcome that? I don't have any special connection or knowledge but I wouldn't be surprised if he had better name recognition in district than Golden does, between his current NYC office and being fairly high profile as a candidate in the mayoral primary.
Possibly.
What if Mamdani being the highest profile Democratic socialist cadre in NY throws his weight behind Lander and not Aviles?
I don't think any of us knows how much weight his endorsements would have.
Goldman attended Netanyahu’s speech and applauded him enthusiastically. The district can do better.
Well, that's a red flag.
Hold on. Boycotting a speech, given by a democratically elected foreign leader, of a country that has been an ally of America for many years, is now a litmus test for progressives? Seriously?
I'm no fan of Netanyahu myself, but that's ridiculous.
i would imagine you would feel differently if it was Erdogan or Orban, yes?
I wouldn’t boycott their speeches. I might even clap politely, since that’s something that politicians do, even if I disagreed with every word they said.
And I HATE Viktor Orban. He’s been my most hated European leader for a while now. (I don’t consider Russia to be part of Europe - otherwise it would obviously be Putin.)
I think as Americans we have a right to use our platforms, big or small, to demonstrate our values.
not attending speeches of genocidaires is a good example of this. I would boycott it and not look back, least of all because I hate the guy and don't want to hear him speak. (and i don't care for this meddling in american politics.)
I don't think it's ridiculous, but the "applauded enthusiastically" part is also relevant.
I doubt Goldman was applauding enthusiastically after every single sentence that Netanyahu spoke. I'd want to know exactly what Netanyahu had just said when Goldman applauded enthusiastically. And people watching a room full of Congresspeople on TV can't always tell when one of them is applauding politely (which many Congresspeople do whether they agree with the speaker or not) or applauding enthusiastically.
It's just very stupid politics to enthusiastically support Netanyahu or vote against the the ICC.
To be fair, it might not have been in New York, very recently, and still may be smart politics in some corners of the state.
Seems like a fair point. No further comment, as I think the rest of the remarks by me and others stand, and we need to avoid getting into a debate about this.
Netanyahu's opposition to our party has been clear and public since at least 2012. He did an end run around Obama to give a speech to congress repeating republican foreign policy positions while being known to prefer Romney. Netanyahu has long been trying to put his thumb on the scale to republicans' benefit.
This is a difficult subject due to topic bans here, but I think the above covers sufficient reason to see attendance, especially enthusiastic attendance, as a negative.
We don’t need to bring up the I-P topic here in order to talk about Israel. However, it is still fair to mention that Jews and Israelis of different generations don’t necessarily eye to eye with each other politically.
For starters, last I checked Israel has a significant income inequality problem and the cost of living isn’t easy on those who live there. I do know the country’s tech sector is quite prolific and I also have used the Israel-based Monday as a platform for CRM and workflow management for my consulting business. There are also domestic issues with Israel that aren’t normally bought up for discussion here such as what Israel politicians in government are doing to improve the healthcare system.
Anyway, these are thoughts I have on what could be considered acceptable points of discussion about Israel if it means there are elections coming up at some point. Otherwise, I do not intend to bring up Israel at all if it’s deemed we should just flat out avoid talking about the country as a means of not trying to divide people.
Israel has the second-highest income inequality in the developed world. I think you know which country is first in that department.
Yes, of course.
Please for the love of God, let's not go down this road here....
Obv I don't get to the daily update or comments every day. Thanks for the info and repeating yourselves! Enjoy some seasonally appropriate 🥧 in emoji form on me. (Gluten and dairy free if need be.)
He beat a DSA sweetheart so therefore he's the enemy to a certain segment.
Dan Goldman did not face any DSA-endorsed candidates or members in either 2022 or 2024.
I wish there was polling out or even early ballot returns on the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court elections. Have we seen anything about how Yes or No on retaining judges has been doing in polling?
@blockedfreq on twitter has the most recent update on mail ballots, but it's from 10/12
As of yesterday, more than 1.1 million voters had requested a mail ballot. That’s up 17% from the 2021 municipal election and up 9% from 2023. 66% of the requests are from Democrats but that is a smaller percentage than in the past. The number of Republican requests are up 35% since 2021 while Dems are up 9%. "As of Monday, voters of both parties had returned roughly 52.5% of their ballots.” https://www.abc27.com/news/top-stories/republican-voters-drive-increase-in-mail-ballot-requests-in-pennsylvania/
This story gives some numbers spent by pro-choice groups in support of retentions. https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2025/10/retention-election-abortion-advertising-supreme-court-pennsylvania-elections/
How does NJ governor race look after a few of early voting?
With the very big caution that early votes are only a small portion of overall votes and may not be a good gauge for outcome, Republicans are doing statistically doing worse than they did this far out in 2024.
Umichvoter on Twitter/X is a good resource for more info: https://x.com/umichvoter?lang=en
How about compared to 2021?
Both parties are seeing elevated turnout compared to 2021, by about the same margins - gross totals are up similar percentages. The difference is, with more registered Ds than Rs in NJ, it's resulting in a bigger (net) D vote advantage.
https://x.com/umichvoter/status/1983235660308775107
I love how Virginia Dems are being just as curt and overruling the Rs in the ongoing procedural votes for the redistricting move going on today and Wednesday. Makes my bleeding liberal heart sing with joy after what NC Rs did last week.
You started this, Rolldemort, Kehoe and Phil Berger. Now Scott Surovell and L. Louise Lucas will finish it.
The GOP has an additional upside to swinging for the fences with redistricting in Indiana. There won't be any gubernatorial or Senate races on the ballot. That means turnout will be anemic and further limit the possibilities of a Democratic House candidate overcoming a 53-45 GOP map.
I'm not sure lack of statewide races would benefit them for 2026, due to midterm dynamics. If a democrat was president it would help republicans.
If they do go through with it I doubt the midterm environment will be enough to cancel it out anyway. The whole point of a gerrymander is to win the seat regardless of details.
There will be at least one statewide election in Indiana next year. Evan Bayh’s son, Beau is running for Secretary of State.
The Virginia redistricting amendment is live on the website:
https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20242/HJ6007
Substack isn't letting me select any illustrative text to copy and paste, but just read this: https://substack.com/@chriscillizza/note/c-171033502?r=17bef&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Holy shit
And from Chris Cilizza, of all people. Credit where it is due.
This is potentially much more damaging for Republicans than Trump's first term unpopularity, which was more due to his personal behaviour and blunders at a time when views of the economy were better. If people don't like the economy and think Trump and the GOP aren't improving it, or are making it worse, then his party is in big trouble--and after tariffs and the budget billl, among other things, the "blame it on Biden" excuse won't work.
Cilizza even knocks the RCP average in the replies - he’s must be having quite a moment of clarity.
Yes. I believe we’re going to have another 2006 or 2008 type of election where there could be a possible blue wave coming with the economy in mind. This proving Democrats maintain focus.
2018 gave Democrats control over the House but the economy was not a factor back then.
Regardless of how the GOP spins things, Trump is now in a similar position as Dubya was in his 2nd term:
A complete and utter lame duck POTUS.
If your theory of the 2024 election is that America abruptly swung right socially and culturally (as most conservatives choose to believe), then there's not much reason to think anything has changed. If however you see that election as fundamentally a referendum on the economy and inflation between the Biden/Harris admin and Trump's first term, then these polls showing Trump cratering on those issues are major indicators of trouble for their party. Like I've said before, Trump at -20 on the economy in 2018 would have been a historic thumping, Sen. Bredesen in TN type election, instead of "just" Dems going +40 in the house. In 2020 we would have actually gotten the double digit PV margin some polls were seeing.
The GOP’s assumptions there explain a lot about their overreach, as always
I don't think you need to be a conservative to believe that the country has gotten somewhat more conservative over the past few years.
Great comment. I'd put it at 75% and 25% cultural swing. Fundamentally, inflation and cost of living were probably the biggest drivers. There was almost certainly some impact from the reaction to the extremes of wokeism and cancel culture, particularly amongst young men, African Americans and Latinos, though. The real question is how permanent those swings are. The one big unknown is how much of it was just Trump's personal appeal (as inconceivable as that is to us here). That would explain how he won WI, NV, MI and AZ while we held all of those Senate seats.
If the economic ratings are like this in 2026, which I mean, it’s hard not to imagine since Trump policies have made everything worse economically speaking (from a nonpartisan perspective, tariffs increase consumer costs, conservative economists even agree with that).
But if they are, we should be talking about a Senate Majority on election night with the results ending with finally breaking down the red wall with a Texas Democratic Senator, an Alaska Democratic Senator, an Ohio Democratic Senator and perhaps as a stretch even a Florida Democratic Senator and/or an Iowa Democratic Senator.
That kind of result may finally shake the press and punditry from their Trump sane-washing insanity that they’ve done for 9 years straight. We’ll see, it’s a long ways to go, but 20 points underwater economically for the Trump MAGA “do as the king wishes” party? Yeah, we should have a majority in the Senate after election night and should be gaining quite a few seats in “red” America. Maybe even a reverse 2010 level of thumping at the ballot box.
An add-on for NJ-Gov. This person was quoted by umichvoter on twitter, so I consider them a reliable source as campaign director for Mikie Sherrill and NJ Democrats. Salt to taste of course!
Twitter thread: https://x.com/om_savargaonkar/status/1982617890525433929
First, just look at the raw numbers. Registered Democrats cast more ballots than registered Republicans by 1.6%. This is after Republicans have been heavily pushing their voters to vote early and were promising a big day.
A higher percent of ballots cast were by Democrats as compared to 2024 in all 21 counties. That’s especially true in some of the moderate and conservative counties — like Gloucester, Monmouth, and Morris counties, which swung towards Democrats by 6%, 4%, and 4% respectively.
Republicans were promising 25,000 votes in Ocean County, the reddest county in the state. Less than 8,000 people turned out. Total.
Republicans are not seeing a surge in less-engaged voters. Of voters who voted in 0 out of last 4 elections, they are Democrats by a margin of nearly 2:1.
Democrats now have a firewall of nearly 200k votes heading in to the final stretch. At this time in ’21, that margin was just 166k. 9 days to go!
When they say last 4 elections, is that referring to 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021? If so, that could include people who normally vote in Presidential elections but chose not to vote in 2024.
That’s a very good question and he doesn’t say anywhere which specific 4 elections. But it can only be 1 of 3 options. The last 4 NJ Gubernatorial elections 2009, 2013, 2017, 2021 (doubtful he’d go back that far with so much in politics having changed). The last 4 elections in NJ (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024). Or the last 4 New Jersey elections (2017, 2019, 2021, 2023).
If I had to guess it would be referring to Biden being in office years, so the last 4 NJ elections, because that would be the most impressive stat to compare to given how many of our voters only vote when Trump is president (he’s a partisan working as a party campaign director, that’s what you want, to excite the base and make it seem Sherrill and NJ Dems are blowing it out of the water).
The group of voters this most likely covers though is young voters who were ineligible to vote except for in the upcoming 2025 elections. Obviously there’s some on the left progressives who only show up when Trump’s in office for whatever reason, but the majority would be young people.
If young people are actually turning out already in early voting for someone distinctly not their flavour of Democrat and actually voting for them (not at all guaranteed, but party registration is the best indicator we have of partisanship before an election), we will probably be very happy with the upcoming election results.
That all said, if the margin is say 50k Democrats who haven’t voted in the last 4 elections (regardless of which of the above 4 elections they’re referring to) and 12.5k Republicans who haven’t voted in the last 4 elections, that’s still 4x the GOP, but not at all meaningful. So some caution is warranted for sure here.
These stats certainly seem promising for Mikie Sherrill, who Trump has been criticizing for petty reasons.
But it isn’t over until it’s REALLY over.
"How ‘Big Tent’ Are Democrats Willing to Go?
Many in the party say it needs a wider range of candidates to run. Does that include people with Nazi tattoos?
By Tyler Austin Harper"
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025/10/graham-platner-reddit-nazi-tattoo/684663
https://archive.ph/QnC9J
An intellectually curious take on Platner's antifascist, antinazi and socialist reddit posting dating back to 2007, his Jewish relatives and his nazi tattoo.
I personally have stopped following and supporting anyone in this primary. Mills can't bring herself to criticize Collins while the other candidate has skeletons on his skin.
I’m not a Maine voter. The support or non- support of us non- Mainers in the primary isn’t really much of a factor. Both Platner and Mills will likely have sufficient funds to campaign in Maine. This recent post by a Maine newspaper reporter suggests Platner’s support on the ground hasn’t been much impacted. https://bsky.app/profile/aseitzwald.bsky.social/post/3m4bvzu4gu22d I expect there will be some post-revelations decent quality polls soon for us election interested non-Mainers.
Same sentiment with me as I am also not based in Maine.
There are still more than six months until the primary so a lot can happen irrespective of what happens with Janet Mills, Graham Platner and Jordan Wood, who still remains as a Senate candidate.
I will say as I have been viewing videos of Platner on YouTube, random YouTubers are offering commentary with their own videos on his candidacy and actions. Win or lose the primary, Platner’s candidacy has certainly gotten the attention beyond Maine.
I'm also not a Maine voter, but they have an important election next month which may do away with mail-in ballots. It is a voter ID measure, and it sticks the doing away with mail-in ballots as the fifth part of the measure. Heather Cox Richardson keeps pointing out that the Senate race is in the future; this voting measure is NOW and should be getting the major focus in Maine.
Maryland Senators need to remove this guy from leadership immediately.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/28/maryland-redistricting-senate-president-bill-ferguson-00626808
Moore better back a primary challenger or he's dead to me in 2028.
they need to...will they?