"The incumbent, though, ultimately decided to defend the office he first won in 2010, saying, "I want to make Minnesota a place where everyone has a chance to succeed—in every corner of the state."
Uh, 2018? Though between him and Mark Dayton the Minnesota governorship has been Democratic since 2010, when it flipped in the unlikeliest of years.
We'll be on the knife's edge of it happening again in 2026. Any scenario where Walz is vulnerable will mean both houses of the legislature will be pretty comfortably in GOP hands.
Yes, and it's interesting to note that all six of our underperformances in special elections so far (out of 40 or so; this figure counts federal and state legislative special elections) have been in states Harris won (2 in DE, and one each in MN, NH, MA, and CT).
Kirk may have played a role, but I suspect another reason for the underperformance in the MN special may have, unfortunately, been racism. Either that, or a certain level of confusion about Xp Lee's name.
I don't know exactly how Lee's name was written on the ballot. But I suspect that, all else being equal, "X. P. Lee" would get more votes than "Xp Lee". Voters might not know how to pronounce "Xp" - if each letter was meant to be pronounced separately, or if it was pronounced like "Zip".
2) Disproportionately low turnout from more Democrat-leaning black voters who showed up in the Presidential election but not for a legislative special election.
Miyares is going to learn the hard way that a financial advantage over your opponent isn't going to stop angry and frustrated voters from NoVa voting your ass out.
Chaz Nuttycombe says that Miyares has a "91% chance of losing" on the Federal Fallout podcast a week ago.
She was the only Dem in the recent Billionaire crypto conference, speaking just before Trump Jr. She prolly went there to beg their financial support. She is the oligarch's choice while Flanagan is a Warren Democrat. I hope Flanagan appears in the Fighting Oligarchy tour when Bernie comes to Minnesota.
The recall of Joel Engardio passed, 64-35. Engardio is out. I don't know how to feel about this since a big part of the rationale for why he got recalled was stupid (again, imagine being against building a fucking park) but given that this guy was involved in the Chesa Boudin and school board recalls, and ousted a progressive on a crime-centered campaign, I can't say I'm ultimately too sorry?
(Though the school board recall was a complicated situation admittedly and the members did some really stupid things like trying to remove a mural painted by a literal communist which portrayed George Washington as a colonialist and racist…for racism. I’m more referring to the people who recalled them based on merit-based schooling bullshit.)
That's not the first time that highway demolition or repurposing has resulted in someone being voted out of office in San Francisco. Opposition to demolishing the earthquake-damaged Embarcadero Freeway led to Frank Jordan defeating Art Agnos in the 1991 mayoral election, although that was a regularly-scheduled election and not a recall election.
Me knowing SF politics well, more to do with being against Engardio than with SF leadership in general.
Engardio had a bigger vision for the Ocean Beach community that was out of step with what many residents believed. Plenty who lived in apartments and homes in the area were concerned their lower cost of living would be compromised if Engardio had his way with the broader vision he had with the area.
I know that the default position here is usually "yimby" but 1) there can be perfectly valid reasons to say "nimby" and, perhaps more importantly, 2) almost everyone is a yimby about other people's neighborhoods.
If you’re referring to this highway, I’d like to know what is wrong with turning it into a park.
When I think of valid NIMBY moves, I think of things like the movement to stop Grand Central from being torn down and replaced with an office building. There’s also the related movement to prevent parts of SoHo and Tribeca in NYC from being leveled for a gigantic hideous highway — said movement thankfully succeeded. Invalid moves to me are things like opposing affordable housing because it “ruins the character of the neighborhood” (translation, a lot of the time: we don’t like poor people/minorities in our area).
Me personally, I welcome affordable housing in my neighborhood — they actually built it in my town (I’m in Chappaqua, NY) and it’s been a huge benefit to the town. A lot of the uber-white country club mentality I grew up surrounded by has dissipated (though not totally gone), and there’s more community involvement in general, including a noticeable increase in participation in town events. We’re also more diverse, though we have a long way to go (notably, there’s very little affordable housing other than what they built, hence why I support continued development). I can’t say 1-1 if this is the housing or just people leaving the city, but I can imagine the affordable housing helped. I continue to believe a big motivator for not building affordable housing is racism and classism.
If we’re going to solve the housing crisis, we need more housing — simply sticking homeless people in institutions like I’ve seen be proposed by some will not cut it, these people don’t just disappear and go out of sight, out of mind if they’re in an institution (to say nothing of the abuses that almost certainly will continue, no matter how much people insist they won’t and it will all be nice and friendly and kumbaya, there’s simply too much bigotry against the disabled for that kind of guarantee.) (Also look up the small housing/community involvement treatment for the homeless, I remember seeing a thing about it and how successful it’s been.) We need more housing.
What is wrong with turning the Great Highway into a park as Joel Engardio spearheaded is the following:
1) This shuts down car access to get to Ocean Beach and makes it more difficult for SF residents, tourists and Bay Area residents to plan a trip to get to the beach. Imagine if you are coming from Pleasanton with your kids and want to spend time at Ocean Beach. You have a whole picnic planned out with food, a cooler and beach bowls with you only to find when you get there you cannot actually park. You have learned from others who live there that you had to take a Muni bus in order to get to Ocean Beach. Who on Earth would even want to bring a cooler, beach towels and food on a bus just to get to a beach?
2) Daly City and Pacifica residents cannot drive to get to Ocean Beach.
3) Want to avoid Hwy 101 in order to get to Daly City and Pacifica? Can’t do that anymore. You have to go on Hwy 101 and risk yourself in tight traffic, particularly during rush hour.
NYC does not have a Hwy 101 and the same system as the Bay Area. Big difference.
Are we going to force anyone going to Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk to take the bus all the time because some diluted Councilmember decided to put parks in place of the roads?
NYC has the Belt Parkway, the FDR Drive, the BQE. Do some research if you want to claim there's no analogy. And to be clear, the difference is that we just don't cater to cars and drivers the way you guys apparently insist on doing.
From the map I've seen, it looks like visitors would probably have to park two or three blocks away from the beach and walk. If that's the case, it doesn't seem like oppression, just exercise.
Is the real reason for the recall that apartment dwellers feared the park made the area too nice and would encourage an upward drift in rents (i.e. gentrification)? If so, Engardio could/should have proposed building more affordable housing as part of the park plan.
Who drives from Pleasanton to Ocean Beach? If you're coming from the East Bay, especially if you're coming in a car, that's not where you're going. It's really a beach for SFers.
I find it hard to talk about this because prob housing (not that I am anti-housing) folks often like to imply that those who hold a different view are coming at it from a racist angle. It just feels to me like the progressive got co opted by the homebuilders association of America out something. We've seen again and again where the promise of "affordable housing" has turned into a bait and switch where developers get tax breaks, build their ugly, crappy buildings and then jack up the prices on them, also raising the values on things around, clearing different affordability issues. Affordable units went up in my town last year, than got an 8% increase at the renewal date. It's not as simple as some people like to imply.
This is why cities and states need more regulations on how expensive affordable housing units can be. They should have to be below a certain percentage of the median rent in a city/town/county/whatever. And landlords should be banned from colluding to raise that median rent.
I could go on a lot more about this, but this isn't a policy thread, so I won't.
San Francisco does not permit 8% rent increases. A Rent Stabilization Ordinance limits increases to 3-5% depending who pays utility bills. California also has a state rent cap, but rent caps in individual cities are usually more rigorous. This is one reason wealthy property owners make a big deal about leaving the state, confusing their own well being with that of the ordinary person struggling to pay bills.
It's really much better to build 100% affordable buildings (using the Low Income Housing Tax Credit as the funding source) than rely on developer to build "affordable" units, which are often not really affordable anyway. LIHTC has much stricter definitions of affordability than most "inclusionary zoning" does.
This many many times. The almost religious convictions of some urbanist cohorts (who I 'mostly' agree with!) about any housing development within a populated metro area being worth all the trade-offs is extremely off-putting and frankly dumb.
Some proposed developments are great; others are dog-shit. And the affordability angle is honestly not backed up with strong evidence . . .nearly all of these are at or near market-rate (what developers classify as "affordable" equating to something only a single person making six figures could afford, is often laughable), and in high demand areas the effect on housing prices from new builds ranges from meager to non-existent.
I agree with you 100% on all counts, and it's really interesting to read your report from Chappaqua, which when I was growing up in New York and going to college at SUNY at Purchase was considered the quintessential old money WASP town, with maybe some rich Jews and so on sprinkled in.
Define "to them". Do you mean a few blocks away, next door with loud construction noise for a year, or when you actually are forced to move out of your place?
Substituting parkland for a highway is -exactly- the kind of thing that's good for cities. We need more clean air and drainage help, not more air pollution and global warming, and highways cut pedestrian access whereas parks are used by everyone. So none of this sounds reasonable to me.
Yeah, I don't know about this case, Zero Cool, who sounds local, has some explanations. I'll always in favor of green space. Housing advocates generally aren't.
Aren't a lot of supporters of urbanist city planning in favor of both? I certainly am, with the caveat that I wish current-day buildings were prettier and definitely don't support tearing down pretty landmarks and pretty buildings that are correctly placed in historic zones.
Actually, the problem you didn’t mention in San Francisco is another reason why plenty of buildings need to be redone or replaced with modern sustainable design.
SF is vulnerable at the fault line for earthquakes given the San Andreas Fault was where it started with the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. The Hayward Fault is an even closer one that would make an even bigger direct impact on San Francisco. A lot of current residential buildings and infrastructure are not retrofitted to withstand earthquakes and the cost is really high.
So more housing as long as it’s done with sustainable design is ideal.
A lot of the urbanists decry any person wanting stronger tree protections as a "NIMBY" and just say "well they'd cut down more trees out in the suburbs." It's asinine.
I’m a native born San Franciscan but live in Berkeley. I still go to SF a lot and spend plenty of time there.
However, I also did live near Ocean Beach at one point and dated a nutritionist at UCSF who lived less than a block from the Great Hwy.
The reality is, Ocean Beach isn’t just trafficked by SF residents. Other people from Daly City and Pacifica, connected from the Great Hwy at Skyline Blvd. I love the idea of transforming it to another Santa Cruz Boardwalk with more parks and housing but it has to come with effective planning. You can’t shut down the process of people getting to a place like the Ocean Beach when it was already fine the way it was.
OK. It's true that I don't know the specifics, but in general, I like more and more making people who drive have to park and walk or take public transportation, just as is true in many European cities. In that context, we need much better public transportation in American cities and can't easily get it as long as idiots elect Republicans and even a large number of Democratic voters prefer the inefficient transportation of their personal car, which usually carries at most 5 people, instead of heavy rail that carries hundreds and buses that carry up to like 150 or so or something like that.
Yes, less driving is fine and it results in less pollution. Emeryville I know has been trying to work on this for some time although car driving is still very much the norm in the city.
Biking is good as long as the bike lanes are made with the right urban planning. Right now, not all the planning is working out well in the Bay Area but it depends on the city.
Oakland-based businesses in neighborhoods like Lakeshore have been on the receiving end as far as a decrease in foot traffic because of how the bike lanes have blocked parking from getting their normal foot traffic. It complicates things that many bikers don't really stop to go to the businesses as much but it also depends on who you talk to. This doesn't mean the businesses are against bike lanes but it is possible though to still build them and accommodate the normal customers who do in fact drive.
Besides bike lanes, the problem is that in the Bay Area, bus systems like AC Transit (the main bus system in Berkeley, Oakland, etc.) and Muni (in San Francisco) are not always funded well enough and rides aren't as frequent as they should be. Muni rides are by contrast more frequent than AC Transit rides but Muni also serves primarily San Francisco (with the exception of a bus line going to the Daly City BART Station). Doesn't mean we should stick with the status quo but in the reality of building a more modern and efficient system, it's a long slog.
By contrast, Copenhagen has an extremely more sophisticated system from what I've heard.
I remember when my parents' neighbors (in Berkeley CA) fought tooth and and nail to stop a single block of a lightly trafficked road from turning into a park. It was the stupidest thing. People get in their head that losing even one block of road is somehow going to create terrible traffic jams, when that just isn't true.
I think it's a bit more complicated in San Francisco than Berkeley, which is easier to navigate and get around.
Also, the tone in Berkeley has been changing since the mid 2010’s, after Tom Bates left office as Mayor for over a decade. It’s still a pro tenant City but the discourse is less combatative. Growing up in the 80's, 90's and through the 2000's, oh yes, NIMBYism was at its finest.
For starters, baby boomer and older gen x residents (most of the NIMBYs from a traditionally sense) are not populating Berkeley like they used to at around 53%.
Now newer and younger residents are starting to populate the city but are influencing more the debate over the cost of living, which seems to be affecting how Berkeley city government is responding.
-More bike lanes are being built and roads are slowly but surely being redesigned to allow less cars traveling through (not everywhere but in some places).
-Current Mayor Adena Ishii and former Mayor Jesse Arreguin in his eight years (he’s now State Senator) have focused primarily on a pro-housing agenda and addressing affordability. Homeless housing has also increased.
The one problem Berkeley has these days is a lack of focus in preservation of the arts & entertainment market, which is going through tough times right now (The Berkeley Rep is fine). I am hoping this will change over time but after the Aurora Theater announced it is closing, it only complicated things.
I hope YIMBYs realize that preserving arts & entertainment is just as important as building housing.
MN-Gov - It will be interesting to see who Walz picks for his running-mate, as Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan is running in a contested primary for U.S. Senate and appears to be committed to that campaign.
WI-Gov - State Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison), a member of the Wisconsin Legislature's socialist caucus and one of the most progressive state legislators in the entire country, is running for governor:
Hong worked in the food service industry prior to becoming an elected official, having worked her way up from dishwasher to executive chef and later restaurant owner.
On a related note, Hong's predecessor in the state assembly was Chris Taylor, who is running for state supreme court.
I think he stands a chance. The district obviously swung very Trumpy in 2024, but polling suggests a lot of Hispanic voters might have regrets and be open to voting for a Democrat.
Yeah, with Trump apparently cratering among Latinos I think a lot of districts that were out of play in 2024 will be in play, and some that were competitive in 2024 will be out of play.
Redistricting didn’t change the partisanship of that district at all, it was R+18 before and it’s R+18 now. I’m glad dems got a strong recruit, rebuilding trust with Latino voters should be the top priority of dems right now imo, and south Texas is a good place to start.
It kind of reminds me when former meteorologist Rob Kupec ran for a state Senate seat trending right in MN -- and won partly due to his local profile and the backlash on the Dobbs decision.
Pulido is a good candidate for the right district. Whether he wins the seat is up to voters.
Most of Kupec's district is the city of Moorhead, which hasn't been trending Republican at all. In fact, Moorhead is trending solidly Democratic - it went from Bush +1.5 in 2004 (the last time a Republican won the popular vote) to Harris +14 last year.
One correction: Bob Matsui was never ranking member of the full Ways and Means Committee (was Charlie Rangel when he died), but he had been ranking on the Social Security Subcommittee.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced Wednesday that he is running for governor, a high-profile Republican entry into the race for the battleground state’s gubernatorial seat.
I don't know whether I would say zero. He has a good chance of making it into the runoff since the other candidates are black and will split the black vote among them.
Arizona has a statewide elected mine inspector, and the Republican who was unopposed in 2022 (Paul Marsh) resigned mid-last month. Katie Hobbs has appointed Les Presmyk, who says he'll run for a full term next year. I assume he's a Democrat because of Hobbs but the state Republican Party has a press release congratulating him, so it's not totally clear.
Here's a couple state laws that refer to it for U.S. Senator and the Legislature, couldn't find the specific language that requires it for statewide officials but can imagine it translates.
Q: Political observers sounded alarm bells over the number of South Texas voters, especially Latinos, swinging from the Democratic Party to Trump. What’s the DNC doing to reverse that?
MARTIN: Well, you’ve already seen a reversal, right?
You saw a significant swing in ’24 with Latinos — more pronounced, of course, with Latino men. But in the last six to seven months now since Trump was inaugurated, that margin has all but evaporated. It certainly has with Latino women, who are overwhelmingly supportive of the Democratic Party now, and it’s swung back quite significantly with Latino men.
The danger, of course, for Trump is the coalition they built is really built on sand. And these shifting tides show that the coalition that delivered for him in ’24 no longer really supports him. Young people, Latino voters, women, even the huge leads he had with men overall, have shrunk as well.
But … we’re not taking anything for granted. While Trump has lost support, it’s incumbent upon the Democratic Party to go out and gain that support. It doesn’t necessarily accrue to our benefit unless we’re willing to go out and have conversations with those voters and give them a sense of what we would do to improve their lives and what would be different with Democrats in control.
And that’s why, again, I’m traveling to rural counties. I’m traveling throughout this country to make sure we’re getting the word out to as many people as possible, to meet with folks, to bring a lot of those folks back into the conversation, and give them a sense of what we’re going to do to improve their lives.
When I read comments from doomsayers on social media channels badmouthing Martin (and whine about how Ben Wikler should've been crowned), I want to scream. Martin is THE guy that made Minnesota into a light blue state and the DFL organization is second to none since he whipped it into shape.
And Martin was the guy that mentored Wikler when he took on the WI Democratic Party operations from 2019 to 2025. Anderson Clayton, our NC state party chair, met with both of them several times (as did several other state Dem party chairs).
I'm sorry, did you say that Martin made MN a light blue state? The state that went for Mondale over Reagan? That elected Wellstone 2x? That hasn't voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1972? I get that Carlson and Pawlenty each got elected 2x, and Norm Coleman slipped in for a term, and I know that parts of the state got redder. But anomalies happen. Is MA a light blue state because they had Weld and Baker as governors?
But maybe what you meant is that Martin made MN a light blue state from a darker blue state.
I say light blue because of the small legislative majorities that flip between Dems and the GOP in MN, not necessarily gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, or presidential EC votes.
Minnesota was a light blue state when Martin took over and remains so now. He looks like a genius because the DFL has pulled on an inside straight on so many extremely close races.....and, for that matter, by successfully tricking the media and Republican campaigns cycle after cycle into believing that Minnesota is anything but a winnable light blue state.
Wikler was my preference, but Martin is doing fine. The criticism of him is largely immaterial, as much of what he's doing is behind the scenes and the (limited) electoral evidence so far suggests that it's working.
Recall Michael Steele's 2009-10 tenure as RNC head, which was a veritable comedy of errors that did precisely no harm electorally.
I remember the GOP decided to chose him as RNC Chair in response to Barack Obama winning the 2008 presidential election. Then after the 2010 red wave, the RNC decided to replace him with Reince Priebus.
Partly issues related to fundraising and misspending (memorably, some members ran up a $2000 bill on the RNC's tab at a strip/bondage club in Los Angeles, though Steele didn't approve or attend that event). Some donors bypassed the RNC to give directly to candidates, and it was criticised for not investing enough in turnout in some races where the GOP narrowly fell short, though Steele and the RNC probably aren't entirely to blame for such losses where poor choices of candidates were often determinative.
And Steele kept sticking his foot in his mouth in TV and other public appearances, which had little effect on voters but didn't help his standing with donors, candidates, and other party officials.
While we're out of power, there's nothing short of a time machine used to change the prior election's results that will prevent a DNC chair from being critiqued.
It's funny, for someone who spends so much time thinking about and following politics, I find most politicians deeply annoying. Mataui's challenger branding herself, "the people's choice"... So silly.
I'm not surprised that Governor Braun is scheming to get Indiana to redistrict. He and Jim Banks are diehard MAGA, with a focus on national rather than state issues. That may come back to haunt the Republicans in the midterms, but only if the Indiana Democrats get their act together. I'm still waiting for someone to run in the second congressional district and to declare early and fight hard.
Do you think the 2nd district is winnable? If so, is there anyone who you think should run or would be a good candidate for the district? I would love for it to be in play, and I know Yakim is a recent rep, but PVI puts it at R+13 which is pretty steep. IN-5 is a bit better at R+8, do you think that would be a better target for Dems?
The 2nd district includes South Bend, so it ought to be winnable. However, it also covers a lot of rural areas and towns, and a candidate would need to start early and to listen to the people in the district and not just show up to ask for their votes in the weeks before the election. As for who should run, we do not seem to have people stepping up as leaders, who could then establish themselves as possible candidates before they declare an interest in running for office. People who jump in at the last minute, or who are caucused into being the candidate after the primary have a low chance of success if they are not known. While the 2024 candidate jumped in because no one else would, she did manage to scare Yakym enough that agreed to a single debate, although at a time when most people would not see it.
South Bend is one city of ~100k people in a 700k-person district, and everywhere else has gotten redder (Harris barely won St. Joseph County last year)
As a Hoosier it's very interesting to me that Indiana Republicans are seemingly more resistant than any other state has been.
I have this theory that there are certain areas that Republican just don't want to represent, even if it would be politically advantageous, and Gary falls neatly into that theory.
The tie in the Minnesota House might only last until November 4th, when Rep Amanda Hemmingsen-Jaeger is favored to win the open senate seat caused by the resignation of Nicole Mitchell.
My guess is that Walz already has the special election notice written in case she wins the senate seat.
"The incumbent, though, ultimately decided to defend the office he first won in 2010, saying, "I want to make Minnesota a place where everyone has a chance to succeed—in every corner of the state."
Uh, 2018? Though between him and Mark Dayton the Minnesota governorship has been Democratic since 2010, when it flipped in the unlikeliest of years.
Good catch
Thank you for catching, we've fixed.
I shudder at the memory that Minnesota came within 9,000 votes of becoming West Walkerstan that year.
And under Tom Emmer!
Exactly. He would have made Scott Walker look like a Man of the People.
We'll be on the knife's edge of it happening again in 2026. Any scenario where Walz is vulnerable will mean both houses of the legislature will be pretty comfortably in GOP hands.
Honestly, I find it hard to believe that we won't pick up MN state house and senate seats next year, barring something very unforseen.
Unfortunately appears to be bit of an underperformance in that MN special ?
Yes, and it's interesting to note that all six of our underperformances in special elections so far (out of 40 or so; this figure counts federal and state legislative special elections) have been in states Harris won (2 in DE, and one each in MN, NH, MA, and CT).
So what’s your reading the tea leaves opinion on that?
Small Charlie Kirk bump but won’t have a material impact in NJ/VA and 2026 will still be about Trump
Seriously doubt it had anything to do with Charlie Kirk.
Kirk may have played a role, but I suspect another reason for the underperformance in the MN special may have, unfortunately, been racism. Either that, or a certain level of confusion about Xp Lee's name.
I don't know exactly how Lee's name was written on the ballot. But I suspect that, all else being equal, "X. P. Lee" would get more votes than "Xp Lee". Voters might not know how to pronounce "Xp" - if each letter was meant to be pronounced separately, or if it was pronounced like "Zip".
One of two scenarios.
1) Anti-Walz/DFL majority backlash.
2) Disproportionately low turnout from more Democrat-leaning black voters who showed up in the Presidential election but not for a legislative special election.
Interesting feedback much appreciated
Miyares is going to learn the hard way that a financial advantage over your opponent isn't going to stop angry and frustrated voters from NoVa voting your ass out.
Chaz Nuttycombe says that Miyares has a "91% chance of losing" on the Federal Fallout podcast a week ago.
Chaz Nuttycombe! One of the few people I actually miss from Election Twitter. (I don't go near that hellsite anymore.)
How much time does Walz have to select a running mate? I assume Flanagan is going to commit to her Senate run.
I hope she does. I really don’t like Angie Craig, she’d be a massive downgrade from Tina Smith.
She was the only Dem in the recent Billionaire crypto conference, speaking just before Trump Jr. She prolly went there to beg their financial support. She is the oligarch's choice while Flanagan is a Warren Democrat. I hope Flanagan appears in the Fighting Oligarchy tour when Bernie comes to Minnesota.
Reposting from yesterday (mostly):
The recall of Joel Engardio passed, 64-35. Engardio is out. I don't know how to feel about this since a big part of the rationale for why he got recalled was stupid (again, imagine being against building a fucking park) but given that this guy was involved in the Chesa Boudin and school board recalls, and ousted a progressive on a crime-centered campaign, I can't say I'm ultimately too sorry?
(Though the school board recall was a complicated situation admittedly and the members did some really stupid things like trying to remove a mural painted by a literal communist which portrayed George Washington as a colonialist and racist…for racism. I’m more referring to the people who recalled them based on merit-based schooling bullshit.)
https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2025/engardio-sf-recall-election-results/
Was Engardio pro- or anti-park? Was this a NIMBY recall or a YIMBY one? I'll admit I'm confused.
He was pro-. The recall was based on anti-.
That's not the first time that highway demolition or repurposing has resulted in someone being voted out of office in San Francisco. Opposition to demolishing the earthquake-damaged Embarcadero Freeway led to Frank Jordan defeating Art Agnos in the 1991 mayoral election, although that was a regularly-scheduled election and not a recall election.
How much of the result would you say was against him personally as opposed to general dissatisfaction with the SF leadership?
I wouldn’t know as I don’t live there.
Me knowing SF politics well, more to do with being against Engardio than with SF leadership in general.
Engardio had a bigger vision for the Ocean Beach community that was out of step with what many residents believed. Plenty who lived in apartments and homes in the area were concerned their lower cost of living would be compromised if Engardio had his way with the broader vision he had with the area.
Engardio also was becoming more aloof.
Wouldn't more housing lower costs, or was it all going to be super-luxury highrises with no affordable units?
Yes as long as it’s not strictly luxury housing.
I know that the default position here is usually "yimby" but 1) there can be perfectly valid reasons to say "nimby" and, perhaps more importantly, 2) almost everyone is a yimby about other people's neighborhoods.
If you’re referring to this highway, I’d like to know what is wrong with turning it into a park.
When I think of valid NIMBY moves, I think of things like the movement to stop Grand Central from being torn down and replaced with an office building. There’s also the related movement to prevent parts of SoHo and Tribeca in NYC from being leveled for a gigantic hideous highway — said movement thankfully succeeded. Invalid moves to me are things like opposing affordable housing because it “ruins the character of the neighborhood” (translation, a lot of the time: we don’t like poor people/minorities in our area).
Me personally, I welcome affordable housing in my neighborhood — they actually built it in my town (I’m in Chappaqua, NY) and it’s been a huge benefit to the town. A lot of the uber-white country club mentality I grew up surrounded by has dissipated (though not totally gone), and there’s more community involvement in general, including a noticeable increase in participation in town events. We’re also more diverse, though we have a long way to go (notably, there’s very little affordable housing other than what they built, hence why I support continued development). I can’t say 1-1 if this is the housing or just people leaving the city, but I can imagine the affordable housing helped. I continue to believe a big motivator for not building affordable housing is racism and classism.
If we’re going to solve the housing crisis, we need more housing — simply sticking homeless people in institutions like I’ve seen be proposed by some will not cut it, these people don’t just disappear and go out of sight, out of mind if they’re in an institution (to say nothing of the abuses that almost certainly will continue, no matter how much people insist they won’t and it will all be nice and friendly and kumbaya, there’s simply too much bigotry against the disabled for that kind of guarantee.) (Also look up the small housing/community involvement treatment for the homeless, I remember seeing a thing about it and how successful it’s been.) We need more housing.
What is wrong with turning the Great Highway into a park as Joel Engardio spearheaded is the following:
1) This shuts down car access to get to Ocean Beach and makes it more difficult for SF residents, tourists and Bay Area residents to plan a trip to get to the beach. Imagine if you are coming from Pleasanton with your kids and want to spend time at Ocean Beach. You have a whole picnic planned out with food, a cooler and beach bowls with you only to find when you get there you cannot actually park. You have learned from others who live there that you had to take a Muni bus in order to get to Ocean Beach. Who on Earth would even want to bring a cooler, beach towels and food on a bus just to get to a beach?
2) Daly City and Pacifica residents cannot drive to get to Ocean Beach.
3) Want to avoid Hwy 101 in order to get to Daly City and Pacifica? Can’t do that anymore. You have to go on Hwy 101 and risk yourself in tight traffic, particularly during rush hour.
How do you think Manhattanites get to Coney Island and the Rockaways? Oh, the fucking horror of taking a bus! Gimme a fucking break!
NYC does not have a Hwy 101 and the same system as the Bay Area. Big difference.
Are we going to force anyone going to Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk to take the bus all the time because some diluted Councilmember decided to put parks in place of the roads?
Give me a break.
NYC has the Belt Parkway, the FDR Drive, the BQE. Do some research if you want to claim there's no analogy. And to be clear, the difference is that we just don't cater to cars and drivers the way you guys apparently insist on doing.
From the map I've seen, it looks like visitors would probably have to park two or three blocks away from the beach and walk. If that's the case, it doesn't seem like oppression, just exercise.
Is the real reason for the recall that apartment dwellers feared the park made the area too nice and would encourage an upward drift in rents (i.e. gentrification)? If so, Engardio could/should have proposed building more affordable housing as part of the park plan.
Who drives from Pleasanton to Ocean Beach? If you're coming from the East Bay, especially if you're coming in a car, that's not where you're going. It's really a beach for SFers.
I find it hard to talk about this because prob housing (not that I am anti-housing) folks often like to imply that those who hold a different view are coming at it from a racist angle. It just feels to me like the progressive got co opted by the homebuilders association of America out something. We've seen again and again where the promise of "affordable housing" has turned into a bait and switch where developers get tax breaks, build their ugly, crappy buildings and then jack up the prices on them, also raising the values on things around, clearing different affordability issues. Affordable units went up in my town last year, than got an 8% increase at the renewal date. It's not as simple as some people like to imply.
That is a very good point actually.
This is why cities and states need more regulations on how expensive affordable housing units can be. They should have to be below a certain percentage of the median rent in a city/town/county/whatever. And landlords should be banned from colluding to raise that median rent.
I could go on a lot more about this, but this isn't a policy thread, so I won't.
San Francisco does not permit 8% rent increases. A Rent Stabilization Ordinance limits increases to 3-5% depending who pays utility bills. California also has a state rent cap, but rent caps in individual cities are usually more rigorous. This is one reason wealthy property owners make a big deal about leaving the state, confusing their own well being with that of the ordinary person struggling to pay bills.
It's really much better to build 100% affordable buildings (using the Low Income Housing Tax Credit as the funding source) than rely on developer to build "affordable" units, which are often not really affordable anyway. LIHTC has much stricter definitions of affordability than most "inclusionary zoning" does.
This many many times. The almost religious convictions of some urbanist cohorts (who I 'mostly' agree with!) about any housing development within a populated metro area being worth all the trade-offs is extremely off-putting and frankly dumb.
Some proposed developments are great; others are dog-shit. And the affordability angle is honestly not backed up with strong evidence . . .nearly all of these are at or near market-rate (what developers classify as "affordable" equating to something only a single person making six figures could afford, is often laughable), and in high demand areas the effect on housing prices from new builds ranges from meager to non-existent.
I agree with you 100% on all counts, and it's really interesting to read your report from Chappaqua, which when I was growing up in New York and going to college at SUNY at Purchase was considered the quintessential old money WASP town, with maybe some rich Jews and so on sprinkled in.
"almost everyone is a yimby about other people's neighborhoods"
That's called being a NIMBY
Like quite literally by definition lmao.
Right, my point is that, politically, people are all for development until it actually happens to them.
Define "to them". Do you mean a few blocks away, next door with loud construction noise for a year, or when you actually are forced to move out of your place?
Substituting parkland for a highway is -exactly- the kind of thing that's good for cities. We need more clean air and drainage help, not more air pollution and global warming, and highways cut pedestrian access whereas parks are used by everyone. So none of this sounds reasonable to me.
Yeah, I don't know about this case, Zero Cool, who sounds local, has some explanations. I'll always in favor of green space. Housing advocates generally aren't.
Aren't a lot of supporters of urbanist city planning in favor of both? I certainly am, with the caveat that I wish current-day buildings were prettier and definitely don't support tearing down pretty landmarks and pretty buildings that are correctly placed in historic zones.
Actually, the problem you didn’t mention in San Francisco is another reason why plenty of buildings need to be redone or replaced with modern sustainable design.
SF is vulnerable at the fault line for earthquakes given the San Andreas Fault was where it started with the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. The Hayward Fault is an even closer one that would make an even bigger direct impact on San Francisco. A lot of current residential buildings and infrastructure are not retrofitted to withstand earthquakes and the cost is really high.
So more housing as long as it’s done with sustainable design is ideal.
A lot of the urbanists decry any person wanting stronger tree protections as a "NIMBY" and just say "well they'd cut down more trees out in the suburbs." It's asinine.
That is really stupid.
I’m a native born San Franciscan but live in Berkeley. I still go to SF a lot and spend plenty of time there.
However, I also did live near Ocean Beach at one point and dated a nutritionist at UCSF who lived less than a block from the Great Hwy.
The reality is, Ocean Beach isn’t just trafficked by SF residents. Other people from Daly City and Pacifica, connected from the Great Hwy at Skyline Blvd. I love the idea of transforming it to another Santa Cruz Boardwalk with more parks and housing but it has to come with effective planning. You can’t shut down the process of people getting to a place like the Ocean Beach when it was already fine the way it was.
Yes but the thing is, the Great Highway is a road, not an actual highway.
Otherwise, I agree with your principle.
OK. It's true that I don't know the specifics, but in general, I like more and more making people who drive have to park and walk or take public transportation, just as is true in many European cities. In that context, we need much better public transportation in American cities and can't easily get it as long as idiots elect Republicans and even a large number of Democratic voters prefer the inefficient transportation of their personal car, which usually carries at most 5 people, instead of heavy rail that carries hundreds and buses that carry up to like 150 or so or something like that.
Yes, less driving is fine and it results in less pollution. Emeryville I know has been trying to work on this for some time although car driving is still very much the norm in the city.
Biking is good as long as the bike lanes are made with the right urban planning. Right now, not all the planning is working out well in the Bay Area but it depends on the city.
Oakland-based businesses in neighborhoods like Lakeshore have been on the receiving end as far as a decrease in foot traffic because of how the bike lanes have blocked parking from getting their normal foot traffic. It complicates things that many bikers don't really stop to go to the businesses as much but it also depends on who you talk to. This doesn't mean the businesses are against bike lanes but it is possible though to still build them and accommodate the normal customers who do in fact drive.
Besides bike lanes, the problem is that in the Bay Area, bus systems like AC Transit (the main bus system in Berkeley, Oakland, etc.) and Muni (in San Francisco) are not always funded well enough and rides aren't as frequent as they should be. Muni rides are by contrast more frequent than AC Transit rides but Muni also serves primarily San Francisco (with the exception of a bus line going to the Daly City BART Station). Doesn't mean we should stick with the status quo but in the reality of building a more modern and efficient system, it's a long slog.
By contrast, Copenhagen has an extremely more sophisticated system from what I've heard.
I remember when my parents' neighbors (in Berkeley CA) fought tooth and and nail to stop a single block of a lightly trafficked road from turning into a park. It was the stupidest thing. People get in their head that losing even one block of road is somehow going to create terrible traffic jams, when that just isn't true.
I think it's a bit more complicated in San Francisco than Berkeley, which is easier to navigate and get around.
Also, the tone in Berkeley has been changing since the mid 2010’s, after Tom Bates left office as Mayor for over a decade. It’s still a pro tenant City but the discourse is less combatative. Growing up in the 80's, 90's and through the 2000's, oh yes, NIMBYism was at its finest.
For starters, baby boomer and older gen x residents (most of the NIMBYs from a traditionally sense) are not populating Berkeley like they used to at around 53%.
Now newer and younger residents are starting to populate the city but are influencing more the debate over the cost of living, which seems to be affecting how Berkeley city government is responding.
-More bike lanes are being built and roads are slowly but surely being redesigned to allow less cars traveling through (not everywhere but in some places).
-Current Mayor Adena Ishii and former Mayor Jesse Arreguin in his eight years (he’s now State Senator) have focused primarily on a pro-housing agenda and addressing affordability. Homeless housing has also increased.
The one problem Berkeley has these days is a lack of focus in preservation of the arts & entertainment market, which is going through tough times right now (The Berkeley Rep is fine). I am hoping this will change over time but after the Aurora Theater announced it is closing, it only complicated things.
I hope YIMBYs realize that preserving arts & entertainment is just as important as building housing.
MN-Gov - It will be interesting to see who Walz picks for his running-mate, as Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan is running in a contested primary for U.S. Senate and appears to be committed to that campaign.
Fun fact: Minnesota hasn't had a male LG since Lou Wangberg (R) left office in 1983.
Melisa Lopez Franzen? Seems like a frontrunner.
WI-Gov - State Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison), a member of the Wisconsin Legislature's socialist caucus and one of the most progressive state legislators in the entire country, is running for governor:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOs8Wj2jAYu/
Hong worked in the food service industry prior to becoming an elected official, having worked her way up from dishwasher to executive chef and later restaurant owner.
On a related note, Hong's predecessor in the state assembly was Chris Taylor, who is running for state supreme court.
TX-15:
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/bobby-pulido-texas-congress-announcement-rcna231759
Tejano musician Bobby Pulido is in as a Dem, challenging GOP Rep. Monica de la Cruz.
Question - with the redistricting, does he stand a chance, or is he screwed?
I think he stands a chance. The district obviously swung very Trumpy in 2024, but polling suggests a lot of Hispanic voters might have regrets and be open to voting for a Democrat.
Yeah, with Trump apparently cratering among Latinos I think a lot of districts that were out of play in 2024 will be in play, and some that were competitive in 2024 will be out of play.
Which districts do you think will be out of play in 2026 despite being competitive in 2024?
Nellie Pou's district in NJ and Jim Costa's in CA (on current lines) to name two.
A Tejano star in a Tejano district should have a chance, regardless. Very happy to hear he's running!
Redistricting didn’t change the partisanship of that district at all, it was R+18 before and it’s R+18 now. I’m glad dems got a strong recruit, rebuilding trust with Latino voters should be the top priority of dems right now imo, and south Texas is a good place to start.
It kind of reminds me when former meteorologist Rob Kupec ran for a state Senate seat trending right in MN -- and won partly due to his local profile and the backlash on the Dobbs decision.
Pulido is a good candidate for the right district. Whether he wins the seat is up to voters.
Most of Kupec's district is the city of Moorhead, which hasn't been trending Republican at all. In fact, Moorhead is trending solidly Democratic - it went from Bush +1.5 in 2004 (the last time a Republican won the popular vote) to Harris +14 last year.
Less than half of the district is in the city of Moorhead. Kupec's Senate district voted for Trump three times.
One correction: Bob Matsui was never ranking member of the full Ways and Means Committee (was Charlie Rangel when he died), but he had been ranking on the Social Security Subcommittee.
Good catch! We've fixed.
I really appreciate catches like this, and especially when people are so kind about them!
Of course!
Andrew White, son of former governor Mark White, has filed initial paper work to run - again - for governor of Texas against Greg Abbott.
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/2025/09/16/531073/andrew-white-son-of-former-texas-governor-indicates-potential-bid-to-challenge-abbott/
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced Wednesday that he is running for governor, a high-profile Republican entry into the race for the battleground state’s gubernatorial seat.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/brad-raffensperger-campaign-georgia-governor-trump-2020-rcna231834
Probably the sanest Republican candidate running in the primary but if he doesn’t win it, don’t be surprised.
My guess his chance is slim, tbh.
Yeah, I wouldn’t think so either.
However, I definitely would MOT want to be Raffensburger in FL.
Zero chance he survives the primary, but good to see some rational, democracy-supporting Republicans running...
I don't know whether I would say zero. He has a good chance of making it into the runoff since the other candidates are black and will split the black vote among them.
I don't think that's true - Burt Jones and Chris Carr are both white as far as I know
That's on the Republican side.
Isn't Raffesnperger a Republican? What am I missing here?
Oh, my mistake. I thought you were referring to Duncan.
Arizona has a statewide elected mine inspector, and the Republican who was unopposed in 2022 (Paul Marsh) resigned mid-last month. Katie Hobbs has appointed Les Presmyk, who says he'll run for a full term next year. I assume he's a Democrat because of Hobbs but the state Republican Party has a press release congratulating him, so it's not totally clear.
https://www.axios.com/local/phoenix/2025/09/16/arizona-state-mine-inspector-resigns
https://azgop.com/azgop-applauds-appointment-of-les-presmyk-as-state-mine-inspector/
I think all interim appointments for Arizona have to be from the same party, or even recommended by the same party’s nomination committee.
This is correct.
Thanks! Do you have a sense of where that's written? I tried to find a state law or constitutional provision and couldn't find one.
Here's a couple state laws that refer to it for U.S. Senator and the Legislature, couldn't find the specific language that requires it for statewide officials but can imagine it translates.
https://www.azleg.gov/ars/16/00222.htm
https://www.azleg.gov/ars/41/01202.htm
DNC Chair Ken Martin is interviewed on getting Democrats to win more races in TX.
Below is part of the article where Martin discusses the problem Democrats have in TX with the Hispanic vote. He's already on it.
https://www.sacurrent.com/news/texas-news/miracle-worker-talking-to-democratic-national-committee-chair-ken-martin-about-his-partys-fight-to-win-in-deep-red-texas/
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Q: Political observers sounded alarm bells over the number of South Texas voters, especially Latinos, swinging from the Democratic Party to Trump. What’s the DNC doing to reverse that?
MARTIN: Well, you’ve already seen a reversal, right?
You saw a significant swing in ’24 with Latinos — more pronounced, of course, with Latino men. But in the last six to seven months now since Trump was inaugurated, that margin has all but evaporated. It certainly has with Latino women, who are overwhelmingly supportive of the Democratic Party now, and it’s swung back quite significantly with Latino men.
The danger, of course, for Trump is the coalition they built is really built on sand. And these shifting tides show that the coalition that delivered for him in ’24 no longer really supports him. Young people, Latino voters, women, even the huge leads he had with men overall, have shrunk as well.
But … we’re not taking anything for granted. While Trump has lost support, it’s incumbent upon the Democratic Party to go out and gain that support. It doesn’t necessarily accrue to our benefit unless we’re willing to go out and have conversations with those voters and give them a sense of what we would do to improve their lives and what would be different with Democrats in control.
And that’s why, again, I’m traveling to rural counties. I’m traveling throughout this country to make sure we’re getting the word out to as many people as possible, to meet with folks, to bring a lot of those folks back into the conversation, and give them a sense of what we’re going to do to improve their lives.
When I read comments from doomsayers on social media channels badmouthing Martin (and whine about how Ben Wikler should've been crowned), I want to scream. Martin is THE guy that made Minnesota into a light blue state and the DFL organization is second to none since he whipped it into shape.
And Martin was the guy that mentored Wikler when he took on the WI Democratic Party operations from 2019 to 2025. Anderson Clayton, our NC state party chair, met with both of them several times (as did several other state Dem party chairs).
I'm sorry, did you say that Martin made MN a light blue state? The state that went for Mondale over Reagan? That elected Wellstone 2x? That hasn't voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1972? I get that Carlson and Pawlenty each got elected 2x, and Norm Coleman slipped in for a term, and I know that parts of the state got redder. But anomalies happen. Is MA a light blue state because they had Weld and Baker as governors?
But maybe what you meant is that Martin made MN a light blue state from a darker blue state.
I say light blue because of the small legislative majorities that flip between Dems and the GOP in MN, not necessarily gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, or presidential EC votes.
Minnesota was a light blue state when Martin took over and remains so now. He looks like a genius because the DFL has pulled on an inside straight on so many extremely close races.....and, for that matter, by successfully tricking the media and Republican campaigns cycle after cycle into believing that Minnesota is anything but a winnable light blue state.
Wikler was my preference, but Martin is doing fine. The criticism of him is largely immaterial, as much of what he's doing is behind the scenes and the (limited) electoral evidence so far suggests that it's working.
Recall Michael Steele's 2009-10 tenure as RNC head, which was a veritable comedy of errors that did precisely no harm electorally.
What errors did Michael Steele make as RNC Chair?
I remember the GOP decided to chose him as RNC Chair in response to Barack Obama winning the 2008 presidential election. Then after the 2010 red wave, the RNC decided to replace him with Reince Priebus.
Partly issues related to fundraising and misspending (memorably, some members ran up a $2000 bill on the RNC's tab at a strip/bondage club in Los Angeles, though Steele didn't approve or attend that event). Some donors bypassed the RNC to give directly to candidates, and it was criticised for not investing enough in turnout in some races where the GOP narrowly fell short, though Steele and the RNC probably aren't entirely to blame for such losses where poor choices of candidates were often determinative.
And Steele kept sticking his foot in his mouth in TV and other public appearances, which had little effect on voters but didn't help his standing with donors, candidates, and other party officials.
While we're out of power, there's nothing short of a time machine used to change the prior election's results that will prevent a DNC chair from being critiqued.
It's funny, for someone who spends so much time thinking about and following politics, I find most politicians deeply annoying. Mataui's challenger branding herself, "the people's choice"... So silly.
It's presumptuous. She'll be the people's choice if and only if she wins.
I'm not surprised that Governor Braun is scheming to get Indiana to redistrict. He and Jim Banks are diehard MAGA, with a focus on national rather than state issues. That may come back to haunt the Republicans in the midterms, but only if the Indiana Democrats get their act together. I'm still waiting for someone to run in the second congressional district and to declare early and fight hard.
Yeah, I'm not holding my breath. For most Republicans now, politics is national, not local.
Do you think the 2nd district is winnable? If so, is there anyone who you think should run or would be a good candidate for the district? I would love for it to be in play, and I know Yakim is a recent rep, but PVI puts it at R+13 which is pretty steep. IN-5 is a bit better at R+8, do you think that would be a better target for Dems?
The 2nd district includes South Bend, so it ought to be winnable. However, it also covers a lot of rural areas and towns, and a candidate would need to start early and to listen to the people in the district and not just show up to ask for their votes in the weeks before the election. As for who should run, we do not seem to have people stepping up as leaders, who could then establish themselves as possible candidates before they declare an interest in running for office. People who jump in at the last minute, or who are caucused into being the candidate after the primary have a low chance of success if they are not known. While the 2024 candidate jumped in because no one else would, she did manage to scare Yakym enough that agreed to a single debate, although at a time when most people would not see it.
There once was a time when Pete Buttigieg might have fit the bill well, but he decided to move on to other states and bigger things....
South Bend is one city of ~100k people in a 700k-person district, and everywhere else has gotten redder (Harris barely won St. Joseph County last year)
Hence the need for a candidate to start early and to go out to the rural areas and talk to people. If we do not even try, we will never win.
A Republican is a decent Rep in what respect?
I think you misread what I wrote. I said Yakym (spelled his name wrong initially) is a recent rep, as in he is only in his second term
Oh, recent, rather than decent. Sorry.
It happens. I misread things all the time, no worries
As a Hoosier it's very interesting to me that Indiana Republicans are seemingly more resistant than any other state has been.
I have this theory that there are certain areas that Republican just don't want to represent, even if it would be politically advantageous, and Gary falls neatly into that theory.
The tie in the Minnesota House might only last until November 4th, when Rep Amanda Hemmingsen-Jaeger is favored to win the open senate seat caused by the resignation of Nicole Mitchell.
My guess is that Walz already has the special election notice written in case she wins the senate seat.