California has another governor's debate tonight at 6pm on CNN. Although polling is inconsistent, it seems Chad has faded enough that a top two R general is unlikely, so we won't be having a recall election next spring.
Since there is no scandal around the Democrat, the only way he loses is some super strange turnout which is HIGHLY unlikely given every thing we now on turnout and over performances this year.
The GOP lost many winnable Senate seats during their waves to candidates who didn't have scandals per se, but were poor fits for their states/districts. Stabenow only won by 6% in her last re-election during a blue wave. A too-liberal nominee could certainly lose the MI Senate seat, especially against a non-controversial Republican.
This is an "orphan election" this year: no gubernatorial or Senate race on the ballot, SoS will be the top of the ticket. I think we get these once a decade. Turnout is going to be key.
well said, evidently i was still a little bitter about evan not running for reelection in 2010, dont think he could have beat coats but I remember being in high school that election night and being so pissed and just picking scapegoats, like evan who would be an upgrade over todd young.
I voted, but in my county, few Democrats are opposing Republicans, and only one race was contested (Congressional district). Yes, Secretary of State is contested, but there were only five of the eleven delegates (10 total to be elected) who I thought were likely to vote for Beau Bayh at the convention, and all but one of those five were an educated guess.
I think that Republican turnout is running about 2-1, but there are more contested primary races on their side, especially the sheriff and prosecutor races, for which Democrats did not field candidates.
from a place where party leaders' opinions matter more than some places, I thought party insiders would do all they could to get a bayh over the finish line? is that naivete? I have been trying to understand the rules of indiana conventions, and they seem to bear no resemblance to the nj variety
"A Bayh" hasn't been elected statewide since 2004, I'm not sure delegates hold as much reverence for them as you're suggesting. Obviously a name doesn't hurt, though.
I had gotten the impression that in one of the counties the dem did overperform - it just so happened that this was the only part of the district with any other concurrent local elections.
Yes, but that's been in true in many races across the country where we nonetheless overperformed. What made this one special? Only thing I can think of was that the GOP nominee was especially well-known and well-liked..?
On Georgia's gubernatorial candidates, I've been hearing a lot of criticism about Keisha Lance Bottoms since a year but is she really that bad and if she is, why does she have huge leads? Will Biden's endorsement help or hurt her?
Can't speak to why people don't like her, but I think it's just a name ID thing. It's been a quiet race and none of our candidates are particularly high profile. I bet the Biden endorsement helps her simply because it gets her name in the papers.
There's been a fair amount of criticism here at TDB, but perhaps only from a few folks, and we aren't a representative slice of the D electorate. From my POV, one state over, she was a good mayor, aside from Coptown, or whatever the training thing is called, and I don't remember all the particulars there.
The Cop City thing could depress left turnout. Whether or not that will affect the general, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t risk it in a swing state.
Not sure how black voters will handle it either. I’ll note that Cop City had bipartisan support from leadership — not so much voters, at least from what I’ve heard. I strongly oppose Cop City myself but we’ll see if it becomes an issue. (Warnock opposed it, right? I remember him expressing concern over voter suppression after a failed ballot initiative on the matter.)
The center does it too. The GOP won the Seattle City Attorney race in 2021 in part because multiple centrist Dems refused to support the left-wing winner.
i think a better example is what the new york democratic party did to keep byron brown mayor of buffalo in 2021 after he got absolutely smoked in the democratic primary. he ended up resigning in disgrace, and his opponent was fine and the actual nominee of our party
People were not especially fond of her tenure as mayor, she quit early under weird circumstances. I also think there's a little bit of anti-Atlanta reflexiveness is at play.. like how people in Downstate Illinois hate Chicago and people in the Central Valley hate San Francisco, exepct those states are much more Democratic overall than Georgia.
I've also seen mentions of her losing focus once she doesn't like what she's doing anymore, which is why she dropped out of her reelection to go to DC for Biden
"Trump's numbers on inflation aren't just the worst for him ever. They're the worst I've seen for any president. They're worse than Biden's worst & worse than Carter's pre-1980 election.
On the cost of living, just 9% of indies & 39% (!) of the GOP say we're on the right track."
Listening to them was pretty frustrating. They were pretty hung up on technicalities like what the definition of 'election' is to them, with one of the justices even going on about nouns and verbs. The other 'violations' is clerks weren't given the opportunity to post the amendment on the front of courthouse doors...
Having an entire election voided over technicalities like that would be outrageous and would make SCOVA more hackish than the SCOTUS. Fortunately for Dems is at least one of the justice is up for re-election in January so there is some opportunity to make big changes if they see the need.
They handwaved away the posting requirement tbh. And tbh, technicalities on grammar and what words mean is sort of what happens during judicial review. i think the case to approve it is strong regardless, but the complete lack of interaction by nearly all the other justices means there's a lot of mystery. (I think Fulton may have said something, but he's a lock for us, and possible Powell once too.)
I need to second this comment. Having argued many appellate cases, I need to say that words matter. Wording does not amount to "technicalities", rather, interpreting the language of laws properly is what prevents courts from being hackish. The VA Supreme Court's job is to dig into the language of the state constitution and the amendment to make sure the law is followed. Any state court in the country would be asking attorneys similar questions.
I noticed this at the tail end of Lakshya Jain's "Why Democrats can't win more Trump disapprovers", he included this poll about 43% of Trump-disapproving Republicans are less likely to show up to vote this fall, compared to 15% of Trump-approving Republicans. He polled about 1516 registered voters.
The local news ecosystem and its incentives are always going to create a crime “problem.” It’s obvious that the 2018-22 era proposals on how to address that were syphilis-popular in the end. I would propose that Democrats loudly and aggressively take credit for the fall in crime since then, which is statistically borne out but seems to be largely divorced from policy in either direction
I know this isn’t really the place to talk policy, but imo, Democrats should shift to “harder penalties for repeat offenders” and “softer penalties for nonviolent crime first time offenders” as their position on crime. No one likes being victims of someone else breaking the law.
We need to be lenient in special circumstances and one off occasions, but if people don’t learn their lesson then absolutely we need to be far tougher on charges/punishments for them. I think this is a position the vast majority of Americans can get on board supporting. Similar to how we’ve shifted to taking about a secure border and deporting criminals along with humane refugee/asylum policy.
Having the borders like it was under Biden and letting criminals go free in cities and areas we control has been a key factor in the Democratic Party image cratering imo. Honestly this isn’t even that much of a shift we’d need to make either since I think most Democrats would agree with the above.
They should take credit because it's there and started before Trump returned to office. A substacker wrote a piece about how the biggest driver was the open-ended use of COVID funds sent by Biden to cities - many used those funds on de-escalation training, violence interrupter programs, and community policing. It's been shocking how little national coverage there has been on it, but I was seeing it here in the Chicago Tribune as early as Spring 2025.
15% of Trump approvers being less likely to vote also is a pretty wild number in itself. You approve of the job he’s doing, but won’t show up to support his party. Almost 1 in 5 Republican voters saying that, which to me means the problem with the GOP base is way bigger than any conventional polling is showing us right now. That’s even before getting into those disapproval numbers from Republican voters, which are apocalyptically bad.
Though we should be cautious and realistic that half the GOP voter base won’t just stay home in November. They may say so now, but at least some and maybe even most of them will be activated by the next 6 months of red meat from the propaganda networks pumping into voters living rooms. This is the upper limit of what theoretically could happen, not what’s most likely imo.
If that 43% of Republican voters staying home is closer to the actual numbers in November, some Republican held-legislatures are in jeopardy. At least in NC and GA.
FL GOP will probably lose their legislative supermajority and their governor's seat if those numbers are correct.
Ig you misread the numbers. How many self identified Rs disapprove Trump? I guess about 10%? 43% of them won’t vote probably move the baseline by 1-2pt, assuming in a midterm each party core supporters count for 40% of the whole electorate. 40% * 10% * 43% ~ 1.6%
If 40% of one party’s core voters won’t vote, ofc some weird shit would happen.
I like Lakshya, but re: his larger case about Trump disapprovers not being more pro-Dem, he comes from a perspective where every potential vote is up for grabs, and that's just not the case. Democrats could be the most pro-life, pro-gun, pro-church party in the country, and there will still be 45%i of the electorate that will not vote for us. The national brand is too toxic for certain people/places.
I think broadly, moderates are more likely to win crossover votes than hard-liners, but there's a cap to it. Looking back now, the popular house vote in the waves of 1994 (52% R, 45% D), 2006 (52% D, 44% R), 2010 (52% R, 45% D), and 2018 (53% D, 45% R) were all in the same range for the winning party. There are only so many votes available. The Dems aren't gonna win the House vote 60-40 no matter how much Trump sucks.
"According to the Pod Save guys, the scuttlebutt in party circles is that Ken Martin recruited a friend to do the DNC autopsy. This guy then did such a poor job on the report that Martin realized they couldn't publicly release it, thus the cover-up"
Well that does it. I tried to like Martin but I can’t defend him now.
Unfortunately since Wikler is probably running for Senate, and that so many donors are involved here, I suspect we might get a donor-friendly DNC chair. Ugh.
Just to say the job of DNC chair is overwhelmingly to fundraise for presidential campaigns, so every occupant will be donor-friendly to some extent or another.
I meant like, corporate donor friendly. I'm thinking Rahm Emanuel-level (although not him specifically since he clearly wants to run for President, which we will not discuss further per the ban on presindeital primary talk).
I’d need actual confirmation, rather than some podcast guys, but if so, the explanation makes sense and my worries of Martin leading the DNC are turning out to be correct. We blew the opportunity of a lifetime for our party by putting him in instead of Wikler who helped turn the swing state of Wisconsin blue after the Scott Walker years. Just a massive own goal by shooting ourself in the face by our party.
I don’t understand why you don’t think organization of a state party can be used to organize in 50 states at a national level. Wikler actually put in place year round canvassing in Wisconsin and it was working! He outraised every other Democratic organization except for the national orgs for House/Senate races. He thumped every single state Democratic Party in terms of results, we won the Senate race there in 2024, which was/is a crucial victory that allows us to maybe block every Trump judge from January to November 2028 if we take the Majority this fall.
I could go on with listing all the good things he did, impact he had and how impressive his tenure as chair was, but suffice to say, I strongly disagree that Wikler as national chair wouldn’t have any impact compared to what’s happening right now under Martin in the DNC. Perhaps this is a hill I’m willing to die on that isn’t worth doing so for, but I can’t see anyone who looks at what happened when Wikler led the party in Wisconsin and not see how beneficial that would be if we implemented his strategies everywhere.
FWIW, it’s not just Wikler either, Anderson Clayton and Eugene DePasquale would also be great DNC leaders, but I chose to highlight Wikler since he actually ran for the job. If you believe any of these people as DNC leader would be generating this kind of concern from donors, to activists, to DNC members, well, I again reiterate that I strongly disagree with you on that.
I think Wikler would make a terrific chair and I preferred him to Martin. I just A) think the influence ascribed to the DNc/RNc versus the more nuts and bolts state orgs is overstated and thus B) the DNC would not magically be better run if somebody other than Martin was in charge, and it may not have to be
It was indeed although Rahm Emmanuel had plenty of battles with Dean over differences in how the DNC allocated resources. This given when Emmanuel was DCCC Chair at the time.
I am supporting Beth Davidson and donated to her since I think that her work electing pro-choice "far left" women like Senator Alsobrooks and not triangulating on transgender rights is cool which the Conley campaign attacked and she's moderate on other issues which suits her district. Conley also did not regularly vote in elections which makes me question her commitment to fighting the fascists.
But I think that the DCCC is going to endorse Conley since they recruited her.
Honestly I’m just happy Conley is behind. I’m worried she’ll turn out to be another Golden or Suozzi who will vote against Dem priorities and trash us in the news.
Debate tonight in the Democratic primary here in Iowa for the U.S. Senate. I will be at work so I will have to watch it later. I would like to see both candidates send some compliments to each other. It is getting too heated amongst diehard supporters.
She is Hispanic - from a Cuban immigrant family. Shah had his chance.
Amish Shah leads in the primary poll thanks to name recognition: he was the seat's nominee last year!
When describing sexual harassment, please be careful with your adjectives.
It is disgusting that a candidate such as that of Fishback is polling as high as 9 points.
5 percent of Floridians being antisemitic white supremacists is not too bad.
5 percent of Floridians is almost 1.2 million people.
California has another governor's debate tonight at 6pm on CNN. Although polling is inconsistent, it seems Chad has faded enough that a top two R general is unlikely, so we won't be having a recall election next spring.
I think ever since Eric Swalwell left the gubernatorial race, that’s where Bianco lost any momentum he ever had.
No question Steve Hilton has the best potential out of the two to advance in the general election.
I think that MI state Senate seat will remain safe.
Since there is no scandal around the Democrat, the only way he loses is some super strange turnout which is HIGHLY unlikely given every thing we now on turnout and over performances this year.
The GOP lost many winnable Senate seats during their waves to candidates who didn't have scandals per se, but were poor fits for their states/districts. Stabenow only won by 6% in her last re-election during a blue wave. A too-liberal nominee could certainly lose the MI Senate seat, especially against a non-controversial Republican.
State senate special election, not US Senate.
The Indiana primary:
https://www.wlfi.com/news/how-indiana-chooses-its-secretary-of-state-candidates-it-s-not-what-you-think/article_d246d52a-f4a1-4395-bd01-079ff3a97d49.html
This is an "orphan election" this year: no gubernatorial or Senate race on the ballot, SoS will be the top of the ticket. I think we get these once a decade. Turnout is going to be key.
I would love to see Diego Morales disappear forever, unlikely as it is.
didn't love evan, hoping beau is more like his grandpa than dad
Even if Beau is well to the right of his father he'd be three times as good as MAGA Morales.
Amen
well said, evidently i was still a little bitter about evan not running for reelection in 2010, dont think he could have beat coats but I remember being in high school that election night and being so pissed and just picking scapegoats, like evan who would be an upgrade over todd young.
I worked for Evan in 2016 and spent time with Susan and the boys. I really like Beau, and I think he is more like his grandfather than his father.
.... and just donated to young beau!
Every twelve years, no?
Sounds right, I believe the last one was 2014.
I voted, but in my county, few Democrats are opposing Republicans, and only one race was contested (Congressional district). Yes, Secretary of State is contested, but there were only five of the eleven delegates (10 total to be elected) who I thought were likely to vote for Beau Bayh at the convention, and all but one of those five were an educated guess.
I think that Republican turnout is running about 2-1, but there are more contested primary races on their side, especially the sheriff and prosecutor races, for which Democrats did not field candidates.
That really worries me about his chances at the convention. Yikes.
from a place where party leaders' opinions matter more than some places, I thought party insiders would do all they could to get a bayh over the finish line? is that naivete? I have been trying to understand the rules of indiana conventions, and they seem to bear no resemblance to the nj variety
"A Bayh" hasn't been elected statewide since 2004, I'm not sure delegates hold as much reverence for them as you're suggesting. Obviously a name doesn't hurt, though.
No mention of a recent underperformance for a TX seat over the weekend? Anyone know what happened there ????
The seat was already very red to begin with, turnout was rough, and there wasn't much publicity
I had gotten the impression that in one of the counties the dem did overperform - it just so happened that this was the only part of the district with any other concurrent local elections.
Yes, but that's been in true in many races across the country where we nonetheless overperformed. What made this one special? Only thing I can think of was that the GOP nominee was especially well-known and well-liked..?
The GOP nominee was the district attorney for Montgomery County, whereas the Democrat was a complete unknown.
I saw a comment somewhere online that the Republican spent ~$250k to run up the score/avoid any embarassment in what was already a Trump +30 seat.
NY Gov Siena: Hochul 49 Blakeman 33
https://x.com/ronbrownstein/status/2051673041214804111?s=46&t=sbdQQeYBqp0h_Zql717iTw
hard to imagine blakeman ends up getting paladino numbers
Texas runoff: Paxton 48 Cornyn 45
https://www.uh.edu/hobby/gop/
It's going to be annoying if Cornyn has a come from behind victory.
I kinda hope Dem groups meddle a bit in the last few weeks.
Cornyn might not be a stronger opponent. He is disliked by the base, while giving Ds no reason to like him
Come on Paxton. You can do it. /s
I still think Cornyn's gonna win.
On Georgia's gubernatorial candidates, I've been hearing a lot of criticism about Keisha Lance Bottoms since a year but is she really that bad and if she is, why does she have huge leads? Will Biden's endorsement help or hurt her?
Can't speak to why people don't like her, but I think it's just a name ID thing. It's been a quiet race and none of our candidates are particularly high profile. I bet the Biden endorsement helps her simply because it gets her name in the papers.
There's been a fair amount of criticism here at TDB, but perhaps only from a few folks, and we aren't a representative slice of the D electorate. From my POV, one state over, she was a good mayor, aside from Coptown, or whatever the training thing is called, and I don't remember all the particulars there.
Cop City, I'd almost forgotten
The Cop City thing could depress left turnout. Whether or not that will affect the general, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t risk it in a swing state.
Not sure how black voters will handle it either. I’ll note that Cop City had bipartisan support from leadership — not so much voters, at least from what I’ve heard. I strongly oppose Cop City myself but we’ll see if it becomes an issue. (Warnock opposed it, right? I remember him expressing concern over voter suppression after a failed ballot initiative on the matter.)
Am I the only one that is getting sick of constant purity tests and threats of sabotage from the left.
The center does it too. The GOP won the Seattle City Attorney race in 2021 in part because multiple centrist Dems refused to support the left-wing winner.
That candidate was well beyond left-wing - she was a downright anarchist. She supported the complete abolition of the police.
She was a totally unacceptable candidate, especially for a position like City Attorney.
i think a better example is what the new york democratic party did to keep byron brown mayor of buffalo in 2021 after he got absolutely smoked in the democratic primary. he ended up resigning in disgrace, and his opponent was fine and the actual nominee of our party
No. It’s getting worse.
Am I the only that is getting sick of constant purity tests and threats of sabotaging Platner from the centre.
What's wrong with it? I never understood other than it kinda sorta sounds nefarious out of context.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/atlanta-cop-city-george-floyd-protesters.html
Paywalled, but this article goes into detail about why this has been so contentious.
People were not especially fond of her tenure as mayor, she quit early under weird circumstances. I also think there's a little bit of anti-Atlanta reflexiveness is at play.. like how people in Downstate Illinois hate Chicago and people in the Central Valley hate San Francisco, exepct those states are much more Democratic overall than Georgia.
I've also seen mentions of her losing focus once she doesn't like what she's doing anymore, which is why she dropped out of her reelection to go to DC for Biden
Outstate Minnesota is quickly getting that way with Minneapolis.
"Trump's numbers on inflation aren't just the worst for him ever. They're the worst I've seen for any president. They're worse than Biden's worst & worse than Carter's pre-1980 election.
On the cost of living, just 9% of indies & 39% (!) of the GOP say we're on the right track."
https://x.com/ForecasterEnten/status/2049521882097995901?s=20
Anyone from Virginia who can comment on the vibes related to the VA SC ruling on the referendum ?
Not from Virginia but this article is one of the better sources I've found from the oral argument: https://www.virginiascope.com/supreme-court-hears-oral-arguments-in-redistricting-case/
Seems like pretty much all of the hostile questioning came from two out of seven justices, so take whatever tea leaves you can from that.
Listening to them was pretty frustrating. They were pretty hung up on technicalities like what the definition of 'election' is to them, with one of the justices even going on about nouns and verbs. The other 'violations' is clerks weren't given the opportunity to post the amendment on the front of courthouse doors...
Having an entire election voided over technicalities like that would be outrageous and would make SCOVA more hackish than the SCOTUS. Fortunately for Dems is at least one of the justice is up for re-election in January so there is some opportunity to make big changes if they see the need.
They handwaved away the posting requirement tbh. And tbh, technicalities on grammar and what words mean is sort of what happens during judicial review. i think the case to approve it is strong regardless, but the complete lack of interaction by nearly all the other justices means there's a lot of mystery. (I think Fulton may have said something, but he's a lock for us, and possible Powell once too.)
I need to second this comment. Having argued many appellate cases, I need to say that words matter. Wording does not amount to "technicalities", rather, interpreting the language of laws properly is what prevents courts from being hackish. The VA Supreme Court's job is to dig into the language of the state constitution and the amendment to make sure the law is followed. Any state court in the country would be asking attorneys similar questions.
Just need 4 of them to vote Yes on the new map 🤞🏻
I noticed this at the tail end of Lakshya Jain's "Why Democrats can't win more Trump disapprovers", he included this poll about 43% of Trump-disapproving Republicans are less likely to show up to vote this fall, compared to 15% of Trump-approving Republicans. He polled about 1516 registered voters.
https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/why-democrats-cant-win-more-trump
If that's true, then there are going to be some shock flips across the country in states Rs thought were safe.
Good article across the board.
The local news ecosystem and its incentives are always going to create a crime “problem.” It’s obvious that the 2018-22 era proposals on how to address that were syphilis-popular in the end. I would propose that Democrats loudly and aggressively take credit for the fall in crime since then, which is statistically borne out but seems to be largely divorced from policy in either direction
I know this isn’t really the place to talk policy, but imo, Democrats should shift to “harder penalties for repeat offenders” and “softer penalties for nonviolent crime first time offenders” as their position on crime. No one likes being victims of someone else breaking the law.
We need to be lenient in special circumstances and one off occasions, but if people don’t learn their lesson then absolutely we need to be far tougher on charges/punishments for them. I think this is a position the vast majority of Americans can get on board supporting. Similar to how we’ve shifted to taking about a secure border and deporting criminals along with humane refugee/asylum policy.
Having the borders like it was under Biden and letting criminals go free in cities and areas we control has been a key factor in the Democratic Party image cratering imo. Honestly this isn’t even that much of a shift we’d need to make either since I think most Democrats would agree with the above.
They should take credit because it's there and started before Trump returned to office. A substacker wrote a piece about how the biggest driver was the open-ended use of COVID funds sent by Biden to cities - many used those funds on de-escalation training, violence interrupter programs, and community policing. It's been shocking how little national coverage there has been on it, but I was seeing it here in the Chicago Tribune as early as Spring 2025.
15% of Trump approvers being less likely to vote also is a pretty wild number in itself. You approve of the job he’s doing, but won’t show up to support his party. Almost 1 in 5 Republican voters saying that, which to me means the problem with the GOP base is way bigger than any conventional polling is showing us right now. That’s even before getting into those disapproval numbers from Republican voters, which are apocalyptically bad.
Though we should be cautious and realistic that half the GOP voter base won’t just stay home in November. They may say so now, but at least some and maybe even most of them will be activated by the next 6 months of red meat from the propaganda networks pumping into voters living rooms. This is the upper limit of what theoretically could happen, not what’s most likely imo.
If that 43% of Republican voters staying home is closer to the actual numbers in November, some Republican held-legislatures are in jeopardy. At least in NC and GA.
FL GOP will probably lose their legislative supermajority and their governor's seat if those numbers are correct.
Ig you misread the numbers. How many self identified Rs disapprove Trump? I guess about 10%? 43% of them won’t vote probably move the baseline by 1-2pt, assuming in a midterm each party core supporters count for 40% of the whole electorate. 40% * 10% * 43% ~ 1.6%
If 40% of one party’s core voters won’t vote, ofc some weird shit would happen.
I like Lakshya, but re: his larger case about Trump disapprovers not being more pro-Dem, he comes from a perspective where every potential vote is up for grabs, and that's just not the case. Democrats could be the most pro-life, pro-gun, pro-church party in the country, and there will still be 45%i of the electorate that will not vote for us. The national brand is too toxic for certain people/places.
I think broadly, moderates are more likely to win crossover votes than hard-liners, but there's a cap to it. Looking back now, the popular house vote in the waves of 1994 (52% R, 45% D), 2006 (52% D, 44% R), 2010 (52% R, 45% D), and 2018 (53% D, 45% R) were all in the same range for the winning party. There are only so many votes available. The Dems aren't gonna win the House vote 60-40 no matter how much Trump sucks.
"According to the Pod Save guys, the scuttlebutt in party circles is that Ken Martin recruited a friend to do the DNC autopsy. This guy then did such a poor job on the report that Martin realized they couldn't publicly release it, thus the cover-up"
https://x.com/nick_field90/status/2051698402086244730
Well that does it. I tried to like Martin but I can’t defend him now.
Unfortunately since Wikler is probably running for Senate, and that so many donors are involved here, I suspect we might get a donor-friendly DNC chair. Ugh.
Just to say the job of DNC chair is overwhelmingly to fundraise for presidential campaigns, so every occupant will be donor-friendly to some extent or another.
I meant like, corporate donor friendly. I'm thinking Rahm Emanuel-level (although not him specifically since he clearly wants to run for President, which we will not discuss further per the ban on presindeital primary talk).
Hopefully we get someone more normal.
This is certainly an explanation that makes sense. I'm just skeptical of "scuttlebutt in party circles". I need proof to believe.
I’d need actual confirmation, rather than some podcast guys, but if so, the explanation makes sense and my worries of Martin leading the DNC are turning out to be correct. We blew the opportunity of a lifetime for our party by putting him in instead of Wikler who helped turn the swing state of Wisconsin blue after the Scott Walker years. Just a massive own goal by shooting ourself in the face by our party.
I think this really oversells the impact and influence of the DNC Chair
If you look at the results under Wikler, I don’t think you’d make that assertion in a state that voted for Trump twice.
I think state chairs and DNC chair have wildly different levels of impact
I don’t understand why you don’t think organization of a state party can be used to organize in 50 states at a national level. Wikler actually put in place year round canvassing in Wisconsin and it was working! He outraised every other Democratic organization except for the national orgs for House/Senate races. He thumped every single state Democratic Party in terms of results, we won the Senate race there in 2024, which was/is a crucial victory that allows us to maybe block every Trump judge from January to November 2028 if we take the Majority this fall.
I could go on with listing all the good things he did, impact he had and how impressive his tenure as chair was, but suffice to say, I strongly disagree that Wikler as national chair wouldn’t have any impact compared to what’s happening right now under Martin in the DNC. Perhaps this is a hill I’m willing to die on that isn’t worth doing so for, but I can’t see anyone who looks at what happened when Wikler led the party in Wisconsin and not see how beneficial that would be if we implemented his strategies everywhere.
FWIW, it’s not just Wikler either, Anderson Clayton and Eugene DePasquale would also be great DNC leaders, but I chose to highlight Wikler since he actually ran for the job. If you believe any of these people as DNC leader would be generating this kind of concern from donors, to activists, to DNC members, well, I again reiterate that I strongly disagree with you on that.
I had, at the time, only one real reason not to make Wikler the DNC chair; I didn't want him taken away from Wisconsin, they still need him a lot.
(But then again, so does the country at large!)
I think Wikler would make a terrific chair and I preferred him to Martin. I just A) think the influence ascribed to the DNc/RNc versus the more nuts and bolts state orgs is overstated and thus B) the DNC would not magically be better run if somebody other than Martin was in charge, and it may not have to be
Wasn’t Howard Dean’s DNC chair tenure highly effective though? Or am I not remembering correctly?
It was indeed although Rahm Emmanuel had plenty of battles with Dean over differences in how the DNC allocated resources. This given when Emmanuel was DCCC Chair at the time.
I don't believe a word from the Pod Save America guys. At all.
Why do you think they’re lying?
I don't really see why they would lie about this. It's so inside baseball that it's just a weird thing to lie about.
"Data For Progress poll | 4/17-4/26 LV
US House 2026 | New York 17th congressional district Democratic primary (Harris +1, Lawler +6 | 2024)
🟦Beth Davidson 26%
🟦Cait Conley 15%
🟦Effie Phillips-Staley 8%
(Effie Phillips-Staley internal)"
https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/2051716459865182344
I am supporting Beth Davidson and donated to her since I think that her work electing pro-choice "far left" women like Senator Alsobrooks and not triangulating on transgender rights is cool which the Conley campaign attacked and she's moderate on other issues which suits her district. Conley also did not regularly vote in elections which makes me question her commitment to fighting the fascists.
But I think that the DCCC is going to endorse Conley since they recruited her.
Honestly I’m just happy Conley is behind. I’m worried she’ll turn out to be another Golden or Suozzi who will vote against Dem priorities and trash us in the news.
Debate tonight in the Democratic primary here in Iowa for the U.S. Senate. I will be at work so I will have to watch it later. I would like to see both candidates send some compliments to each other. It is getting too heated amongst diehard supporters.