Trying to imagine what a 2-point Talarico victory would look like. Talarico will probably win South Texas but not do as well as Beto did there, so he'll have to make up his margins elsewhere. I'm thinking 80% in Travis, 55% in Williamson, and 62-63% in both Hays and Bexar. He'll need to win both Denton and Collin, and get at least 53-54 percent in Tarrant. He'll certainly need to break 60% in Harris and get close to that in Fort Bend.
Is any of that possible? Until Taylor Rehmet's impressive special election victory, I probably would've said no. Now? Maybe.
Even with that, south Texas isn’t enough to generate a huge swing. It’s not very populated compared to the rest of the state. A 30-point swing in the RGV nets you like 2-3 points statewide. That helps, but getting to a double digit win in places like Tarrant and Williamson County while getting over 60% in Harris County and Bexar County are probably prerequisites. That’s where all the people are. Probably flipping Collin and Denton counties too.
I'll believe it when I see it. It's pretty rare to see huge PVI snapbacks after a pattern of going the other direction. I could see the majority of the RGV counties going blue but with margins much closer to 2020 than 2012 or 2016.
There’s reason to believe it in Hispanic areas after what we saw in November across the country. Probably because they don’t like masked men terrorizing them in the streets. Just a thought.
I got to a narrow D win by making Dallas D+39, Tarrant D+12, Travis D+60, Williamson D+15, Collin D+4, Denton D+1, Bexar D+27, Harris D+22, Ellis R+9, Kaufman R+10, Rockwall R+15, and Hays D+25. Otherwise, keep all turnout and Biden-Trump margins the same. RGV movement and swings in other urban/suburban counties like Bell, McLennan, Montgomery, Brazoria, and Guadalupe would provide more buffer.
I'm so glad voters showed Phil Berger the door -- and he seems like he's uninterested in seeking a recount.
He's probably going to go scorched earth as a lame duck, as well as those three conservadems who voted to override Stein's vetoes on Berger's red-meat legislation.
It's always a bit surprising to me that the JDL assassination plot to kill Issa in his first year in Congress, just a couple months after 9/11, is seldom mentioned.
Kind of a pain for Nabilah Parkes to switch from the frontrunner to challenge the insurance commissioner to the LG primary. Does that make Keisha Waites the likely nominee?
not familiar with this pollster... reliable poll? because it's drastically different from the Collins 55/Platner 41 type polls I was seeing (NRSC or Mills-related) last month.
Ogles really taking the mask off here. Unbelievable that a sitting US rep would say/write something like this publicly, but here we are.... too bad this asshat is in a +17 district. Any chance of this being a reach seat?
While both statements in that tweet are insane and ridiculous, the second is actually far more dangerous, since it targets not just Muslims but literally anyone who isn't a white Christian.
And if people like him get their way, thinking they will stop after just Muslims is delusional. Jews, African-Americans, and Hispanics (documented and otherwise) will be next.
And the craziest ones have issues even with plenty of the white Christians, people like Eric Schmitt don’t consider anyone who came to the US after the 1840s - the Italians, the Irish, the Poles, the Greeks, etc. to be real Americans.
The Nazis never got more than 44%. I'm not entirely sure that less than 44% of Americans either supports this or at least don't care enough to fight it!
When you're already at "Somalis are garbage" out of the mouth of the leader of the party, it's a pretty short trip for a guy like Ogles to go where he did.
Imagine if Omar made a similar tweet about fundamentalist Pentacostals. She wouldn't last another day in Congress. The playing field is just not stacked fairly at all.
“In the whole written history of the strait, it has never been closed, ever,” said JPMorgan Chase analyst Natasha Kaneva. “To me, it was not just the worst-case scenario. It was an unthinkable scenario.”
Diesel prices have spiked way more than gasoline. I'm out in the California desert this morning and have seen diesel as high as $6.79 gallon, although other places are almost $2 cheaper on Indian reservation.
Crude oil has gone up ~50% already, while Iraq is being forced to cap wells as it has basically no storage available. As I understand it, uncapping an oil well is not a quick or trivial process -- even if hostilities ended today it would still be some time before production returned to normal. Realistically it's too late for TACO to save them from the consequences of this come November. These types of problems are too time consuming to fix.
Oil prices are going to keep going up. Brent crude is about $100 right now, it was $65 before. When Russia launched it's invasion of Ukraine, it peaked around $120. I suspect it's going to exceed that.
I'd start to get a bit more hopeful about our chances of winning some of those four senate reach seats in particular; this is going to get ugly.
The US is impacted by global prices even if we're 100% self-sufficient on oil. Our "spare supply" only helps the oil companies make a bigger profit right now. It doesn't save us from the economic impacts of oil prices going up globally.
Being a "net exporter" of oil doesn't mean we can be totally self-sufficient. Different kinds of oil are refined into different products. And existing pipelines and distribution networks are hard to reroute.
As I understand it, our oil wells produce a petroleum of one grade and our refineries primarily process petroleum of a different grade. A large amount of the oil we use is imported even though we produce more than we use in more basic terms.
The US economy is very exposed to oil price shocks. If only we had continued to invest in renewables and electrification of transportation, we'd be accelerating the de-risking process.
Problem with that is that East Asian economies are highly reliant on oil but especially LNG from the Gulf. If that spice ain’t flowing to the big Tiger economies and Japan, or to China, then we have big big problems even if gas prices stateside stay a bit lower
That's why it's possible those countries use their leverage to reopen the strait. Would Iran resist pressure when it's China and India yelling at them rather than the U.S.?
Would Shitler back off if China started making noise and moving military assets to the region? Unlikely they would since, unlike the U.S, China historically doesn't go around the world attacking countries left and right.
Iran’s survival is dependent on their leverage. It’s less about China/India intimidating Iran and more about large economies intimidating the USA into finding an off-ramp
Incoming Congress member Steve Toth endorsed Paxton in the GOP Senate runoff today and Republican anxiety is growing that Trump still hasn’t made his endorsement yet.
Semafor: Delay in Trump’s Texas endorsement raises GOP anxiety
“Republicans are still waiting on President Trump’s endorsement in the Texas Senate race. And every week without him settling it means more costly spending in the GOP runoff battle between Sen. John Cornyn and state Attorney General Ken Paxton.”
Do we have any Wisconsinites here who can fill us in on how the campaign is going for the Supreme Court election this year? It's taking place in less than a month, and there's still been virtually no polling or news about it.
It's sleepy because conservatives are worried about the fall and the potential for Dems to flip both chambers and retain the Governorship in what is shaping up to be a wave year; the liberal candidate has a 10-to-1 fundraising advantage over the conservative candidate.
You know things are bad for Rs when Robin Vos cites a "health condition" as the reason for retirement. No, he's retiring because he doesn't want to be demoted to House Minority Speaker come 2027.
Is there any chance of Dems being able to take advantage of some sort of existing judicial election infrastructure? Can they build on anything Susan Crawford left behind during her successful campaign?
Judicial elections in Wisconsin are technically fully non-partisan, and there are some strict rules in place about fundraising. Most of the infrastructure is in the state Democratic Party.
What Mike Johnson said; plus, this is not a swing/ majority-maker seat. If the Repub wins, SCOWI still has a 4-3 Dem lean. My son at ACLU of WI is doing some nominal work on it but they're not treating it as The Most Important Spring Swing Election Ever the way they were the last 2 SCOWI races.
lmao Brian Hagedorn as the only republican left on the court would be so funny, since a good chunk of crazies call him a RINO. I wonder if he'd become more conservative in that scenario.
So can those following closer fill us in -- is this liberal court (either with the current case or future one) going to allow a redraw of the Congressional map?
I think they almost certainly will based on the state leg redistricting ruling, but they wanted some space to not immediately appear as partisans (and not animate that oppositional energy against their “ideological”/party allies in future court elections).
A group of House Republicans approached Youngkin in November, shortly before he left office, and implored him to help campaign against the voter referendum, they say. They want to see Youngkin, a former co-chief executive officer of the Carlyle Group, help with fundraising, ad messaging and other efforts to drive their voters to turn out.
But so far, Youngkin hasn’t engaged in raising money or appeared in ads to drive opposition to the Democratic plan.
Some who attended the meeting last year with Youngkin said they came away frustrated, while others characterized it as more an opening salvo in a conversation about getting the former governor on board.
GOP Rep. Rob Wittman, who represents a district near Richmond, said Youngkin was “adamant to say he was not going to get involved” after they asked him for his help. “Glenn is just missing in action,” he said in an interview.
Wittman, who is at risk of losing his seat if the map is redrawn, argued that the lack of support from Youngkin should be considered in whatever job he seeks next. “If you’re not going to fight for your own state, for your own party, that’s pretty poor testament to what you would do if the president were to select you for a position.”
Youngkin, I assume, wants to be president and knows what attaching his name to a failed opposition effort would hurt his standing. Not surprising that he isn't lifting a finger to hurt his image.
In the primaries for the Texas House of Representatives last week, more Democrats won the primary vote in 77 districts to the Republicans' 73 districts. #TexasPrimary
There’s plenty of time though for things to get worse in the world and for our chances to get better between now and November. This could go from a wave to a tsunami if we get a recession or the war escalates further.
Minor correction in the CA-06 item: Bera had been representing the 6th, is now running in the neighboring Third (not Sixth) District, which has a similar lean.
We have some long term work to do to solve the fact that it’s Trump’s dismal popularity rather than our own popularity on its merits buffeting us right now
Meanwhile Stephen Colbert is the second most popular person or thing they asked about, after Pope Leo. (They were the only two things that registered net positives.)
An out of office party registering poorly isn't unusual, nor does it preclude electoral success soon after. The GOP's all time lowest point in that survey was in fall 2013, a year before a red wave midterm. I do agree that we need to make a more positive case for Democratic leadership and what we can do once the presidential cycle begins, though just "We didn't do that" may well be enough for the midterms.
I don’t have a small enough violin to post for Darrell Issa.
PPP/DSCC internal has Talarico up 1 over Cornyn (44-43), up 2 on Paxton (47-45).
https://punchbowl.news/wp-content/uploads/Texas-poll.pdf
Trying to imagine what a 2-point Talarico victory would look like. Talarico will probably win South Texas but not do as well as Beto did there, so he'll have to make up his margins elsewhere. I'm thinking 80% in Travis, 55% in Williamson, and 62-63% in both Hays and Bexar. He'll need to win both Denton and Collin, and get at least 53-54 percent in Tarrant. He'll certainly need to break 60% in Harris and get close to that in Fort Bend.
Is any of that possible? Until Taylor Rehmet's impressive special election victory, I probably would've said no. Now? Maybe.
Do you think that having Hinojosa at the top and a candidate in every seat will give Talarico a benefit that Beto didn’t have against Cruz?
Hopefully also vice versa!
If Hinojosa is a stronger campaigner than Lupe Valdez was.
It would be VERY hard to be worse than Valdez was!
See, I am of the belief that South Texas will bounce back towards us in a pretty dramatic way.
Even with that, south Texas isn’t enough to generate a huge swing. It’s not very populated compared to the rest of the state. A 30-point swing in the RGV nets you like 2-3 points statewide. That helps, but getting to a double digit win in places like Tarrant and Williamson County while getting over 60% in Harris County and Bexar County are probably prerequisites. That’s where all the people are. Probably flipping Collin and Denton counties too.
I'll believe it when I see it. It's pretty rare to see huge PVI snapbacks after a pattern of going the other direction. I could see the majority of the RGV counties going blue but with margins much closer to 2020 than 2012 or 2016.
There’s reason to believe it in Hispanic areas after what we saw in November across the country. Probably because they don’t like masked men terrorizing them in the streets. Just a thought.
Yet also those who live in an area where the largest employer would be the Border Patrol. Pretty big qualifying factor.
I would think he'd probably need better than 55% in Williamson to meet the benchmarks. He'd definitely need Collin and probably Denton.
I got to a narrow D win by making Dallas D+39, Tarrant D+12, Travis D+60, Williamson D+15, Collin D+4, Denton D+1, Bexar D+27, Harris D+22, Ellis R+9, Kaufman R+10, Rockwall R+15, and Hays D+25. Otherwise, keep all turnout and Biden-Trump margins the same. RGV movement and swings in other urban/suburban counties like Bell, McLennan, Montgomery, Brazoria, and Guadalupe would provide more buffer.
https://elections-daily.com/election-shuffler-2-0-archive/
Remember when we thought that a Dem winning Tarrant at all would get a win statewide?
I'm so glad voters showed Phil Berger the door -- and he seems like he's uninterested in seeking a recount.
He's probably going to go scorched earth as a lame duck, as well as those three conservadems who voted to override Stein's vetoes on Berger's red-meat legislation.
It's always a bit surprising to me that the JDL assassination plot to kill Issa in his first year in Congress, just a couple months after 9/11, is seldom mentioned.
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/13/us/2-held-in-plot-to-attack-mosque-and-congressman.html
Kind of a pain for Nabilah Parkes to switch from the frontrunner to challenge the insurance commissioner to the LG primary. Does that make Keisha Waites the likely nominee?
Yeah, that’s really annoying when both her and McLaurin could’ve had pretty clear paths to the general.
Maine Senate Quantus:
Platner up 5 on Mills, 7 on Collins.
Collins up 2 on Mills.
https://quantusinsights.org/f/maine-senate-2026-collins-faces-uncertain-path-to-re-election#ddfaccf9-bede-412a-8ce9-6f9ddda07554
Kind of important to have the actual numbers, not just the margins. That makes a huge difference.
Dem Primary:
Platner 43
Mills 38
General:
Collins 45
Mills 43
Platner 49
Collins 42
not familiar with this pollster... reliable poll? because it's drastically different from the Collins 55/Platner 41 type polls I was seeing (NRSC or Mills-related) last month.
Relatively new. Had some success in national polling in 2024. But only recently started delving into state polling.
Really wish we had a better candidate than either of them but if I’m gonna roll the dice on someone… I’d go with Platner.
https://x.com/RepOgles/status/2031002097135599717
Ogles really taking the mask off here. Unbelievable that a sitting US rep would say/write something like this publicly, but here we are.... too bad this asshat is in a +17 district. Any chance of this being a reach seat?
One of the most odious Congressmen, which is saying a lot
Trying to keep up with Randy Fine.
Fine is a special kind of vile. Be nice if the blue tsunami washed that beluga whale out as well.
While both statements in that tweet are insane and ridiculous, the second is actually far more dangerous, since it targets not just Muslims but literally anyone who isn't a white Christian.
And if people like him get their way, thinking they will stop after just Muslims is delusional. Jews, African-Americans, and Hispanics (documented and otherwise) will be next.
And the craziest ones have issues even with plenty of the white Christians, people like Eric Schmitt don’t consider anyone who came to the US after the 1840s - the Italians, the Irish, the Poles, the Greeks, etc. to be real Americans.
Luckily he won't be getting his way. There's way more of us then there are of them.
The Nazis never got more than 44%. I'm not entirely sure that less than 44% of Americans either supports this or at least don't care enough to fight it!
Open season for bigots and racists.
It has been ever since an orange asshole came down the escalator in 2015.
Probably not, though I think it increases the chances that Republicans concede a Nashville-based seat in 3031, especially if TN gains a district.
I appreciate your optimism that America will still exist in 3031!
That's a long time to wait for a Nashville-based district though.
Do you not have that optimism?
The U.S. is unlikely to exist as a democracy even in 2131, even if the human race does.
Didn’t notice it said “3031”..
Reapportionment will be in 2033. Or 3033.
Trump+17 so a reach but definitely not entirely out of the question.
When you're already at "Somalis are garbage" out of the mouth of the leader of the party, it's a pretty short trip for a guy like Ogles to go where he did.
Imagine if Omar made a similar tweet about fundamentalist Pentacostals. She wouldn't last another day in Congress. The playing field is just not stacked fairly at all.
I don’t think we’re yet understanding just how bad the political ramifications are for Republicans barring a TACO moment.
https://x.com/carlquintanilla/status/2030779281861759061
The
@WSJ
calls it “the most severe energy crisis since the 1970s.” ⛽️
https://wsj.com/world/middle-east/persian-gulf-oil-squeeze-d9a39190
“In the whole written history of the strait, it has never been closed, ever,” said JPMorgan Chase analyst Natasha Kaneva. “To me, it was not just the worst-case scenario. It was an unthinkable scenario.”
Diesel prices have spiked way more than gasoline. I'm out in the California desert this morning and have seen diesel as high as $6.79 gallon, although other places are almost $2 cheaper on Indian reservation.
Crude oil has gone up ~50% already, while Iraq is being forced to cap wells as it has basically no storage available. As I understand it, uncapping an oil well is not a quick or trivial process -- even if hostilities ended today it would still be some time before production returned to normal. Realistically it's too late for TACO to save them from the consequences of this come November. These types of problems are too time consuming to fix.
Oil prices are going to keep going up. Brent crude is about $100 right now, it was $65 before. When Russia launched it's invasion of Ukraine, it peaked around $120. I suspect it's going to exceed that.
I'd start to get a bit more hopeful about our chances of winning some of those four senate reach seats in particular; this is going to get ugly.
We actually have more spare supply to offset than we had in 2022, so that could keep prices below the levels seen then.
The US is impacted by global prices even if we're 100% self-sufficient on oil. Our "spare supply" only helps the oil companies make a bigger profit right now. It doesn't save us from the economic impacts of oil prices going up globally.
Being a "net exporter" of oil doesn't mean we can be totally self-sufficient. Different kinds of oil are refined into different products. And existing pipelines and distribution networks are hard to reroute.
That's another factor too!
As I understand it, our oil wells produce a petroleum of one grade and our refineries primarily process petroleum of a different grade. A large amount of the oil we use is imported even though we produce more than we use in more basic terms.
The US economy is very exposed to oil price shocks. If only we had continued to invest in renewables and electrification of transportation, we'd be accelerating the de-risking process.
Problem with that is that East Asian economies are highly reliant on oil but especially LNG from the Gulf. If that spice ain’t flowing to the big Tiger economies and Japan, or to China, then we have big big problems even if gas prices stateside stay a bit lower
That's why it's possible those countries use their leverage to reopen the strait. Would Iran resist pressure when it's China and India yelling at them rather than the U.S.?
Yes, if that's what's needed for the theocratic regime to survive.
Would Shitler back off if China started making noise and moving military assets to the region? Unlikely they would since, unlike the U.S, China historically doesn't go around the world attacking countries left and right.
Iran’s survival is dependent on their leverage. It’s less about China/India intimidating Iran and more about large economies intimidating the USA into finding an off-ramp
What exactly will Iran's conditions be to reopen the strait?
Incoming Congress member Steve Toth endorsed Paxton in the GOP Senate runoff today and Republican anxiety is growing that Trump still hasn’t made his endorsement yet.
Semafor: Delay in Trump’s Texas endorsement raises GOP anxiety
“Republicans are still waiting on President Trump’s endorsement in the Texas Senate race. And every week without him settling it means more costly spending in the GOP runoff battle between Sen. John Cornyn and state Attorney General Ken Paxton.”
https://www.semafor.com/article/03/09/2026/delay-in-trumps-texas-endorsement-raises-gop-anxiety
Another conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justice to retire.
https://x.com/kkondik/status/2031026486275162118?s=46&t=sbdQQeYBqp0h_Zql717iTw
Do we have any Wisconsinites here who can fill us in on how the campaign is going for the Supreme Court election this year? It's taking place in less than a month, and there's still been virtually no polling or news about it.
It's sleepy because conservatives are worried about the fall and the potential for Dems to flip both chambers and retain the Governorship in what is shaping up to be a wave year; the liberal candidate has a 10-to-1 fundraising advantage over the conservative candidate.
A Wisconsin trifecta would be real fun for us as turnabout for the Walker years
You know things are bad for Rs when Robin Vos cites a "health condition" as the reason for retirement. No, he's retiring because he doesn't want to be demoted to House Minority Speaker come 2027.
Losing all the power you've had for a dozen years is bad for Republicans' health
(Minority Leader)
Is there any chance of Dems being able to take advantage of some sort of existing judicial election infrastructure? Can they build on anything Susan Crawford left behind during her successful campaign?
Judicial elections in Wisconsin are technically fully non-partisan, and there are some strict rules in place about fundraising. Most of the infrastructure is in the state Democratic Party.
What Mike Johnson said; plus, this is not a swing/ majority-maker seat. If the Repub wins, SCOWI still has a 4-3 Dem lean. My son at ACLU of WI is doing some nominal work on it but they're not treating it as The Most Important Spring Swing Election Ever the way they were the last 2 SCOWI races.
lmao Brian Hagedorn as the only republican left on the court would be so funny, since a good chunk of crazies call him a RINO. I wonder if he'd become more conservative in that scenario.
So can those following closer fill us in -- is this liberal court (either with the current case or future one) going to allow a redraw of the Congressional map?
I think they almost certainly will based on the state leg redistricting ruling, but they wanted some space to not immediately appear as partisans (and not animate that oppositional energy against their “ideological”/party allies in future court elections).
VA Republicans are upset former Governor Youngkin hasn’t gotten involved in trying to defeat the redistricting amendment.
https://archive.ph/BjtE4
https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/virginia-republicans-air-frustrations-with-gop-star-glenn-youngkin-1cb938ba
A group of House Republicans approached Youngkin in November, shortly before he left office, and implored him to help campaign against the voter referendum, they say. They want to see Youngkin, a former co-chief executive officer of the Carlyle Group, help with fundraising, ad messaging and other efforts to drive their voters to turn out.
But so far, Youngkin hasn’t engaged in raising money or appeared in ads to drive opposition to the Democratic plan.
Some who attended the meeting last year with Youngkin said they came away frustrated, while others characterized it as more an opening salvo in a conversation about getting the former governor on board.
GOP Rep. Rob Wittman, who represents a district near Richmond, said Youngkin was “adamant to say he was not going to get involved” after they asked him for his help. “Glenn is just missing in action,” he said in an interview.
Wittman, who is at risk of losing his seat if the map is redrawn, argued that the lack of support from Youngkin should be considered in whatever job he seeks next. “If you’re not going to fight for your own state, for your own party, that’s pretty poor testament to what you would do if the president were to select you for a position.”
Youngkin, I assume, wants to be president and knows what attaching his name to a failed opposition effort would hurt his standing. Not surprising that he isn't lifting a finger to hurt his image.
Another open seat for Democrats to contest on the top court in WI for 2027.
https://x.com/jrrosswrites/status/2031024064517624261
NEWS: Justice Annette Ziegler announces she will not seek reelection in 2027.
Hah! She knows her pouty faced colleague won't be succeeded by a fellow conservative next month.
So, she's taking her ball and going home.
TX State House in play? 🤔
https://x.com/jnewt_maps/status/2031027316097265961
Chaz Nuttycombe reposted
JamesN | jnewt-maps.bsky.social
@jnewt_maps
In the primaries for the Texas House of Representatives last week, more Democrats won the primary vote in 77 districts to the Republicans' 73 districts. #TexasPrimary
I doubt it, we’ve got to remember Democratic primary voters tend to be more informed, and Republicans vote downballot better than Democrats.
There’s plenty of time though for things to get worse in the world and for our chances to get better between now and November. This could go from a wave to a tsunami if we get a recession or the war escalates further.
Good Politico article on Dan Crenshaw’s primary defeat
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/03/08/dan-crenshaw-defeat-social-media-trump-00817176
Minor correction in the CA-06 item: Bera had been representing the 6th, is now running in the neighboring Third (not Sixth) District, which has a similar lean.
"The only things polled in the latest
@NBCNews
survey that are less popular than AI are the Democratic Party and Iran
https://documentcloud.org/documents/27777984-nbc-news-march-2026-poll-03-08-2024-release-final/ "
https://x.com/akarl_smith/status/2030741731117810131?s=20
We have some long term work to do to solve the fact that it’s Trump’s dismal popularity rather than our own popularity on its merits buffeting us right now
Meanwhile Stephen Colbert is the second most popular person or thing they asked about, after Pope Leo. (They were the only two things that registered net positives.)
An out of office party registering poorly isn't unusual, nor does it preclude electoral success soon after. The GOP's all time lowest point in that survey was in fall 2013, a year before a red wave midterm. I do agree that we need to make a more positive case for Democratic leadership and what we can do once the presidential cycle begins, though just "We didn't do that" may well be enough for the midterms.