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ArcticStones's avatar

CANADA: Record-high Early Voting

A record 7.3 million people have cast their ballots over four days of advanced voting in Canada’s election, official figures showed on Tuesday. Elections Canada said its estimated tally for voting from Friday through Monday marked a 25 percent increase over the 5.8m advanced ballots cast in the 2021 vote.

With a population of 41 million, Canada has 28.9 million eligible voters, which means more than one-quarter have already cast a ballot. (I believe yesterday was the last day of Early Voting before the 28 April Election Day.)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/22/canada-election-advance-voting

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Darren Monaghan's avatar

Any Democrat would be heaven compared to Susan Collins. All Democrats have to argue is reelecting her will likely keep Republicans in the majority for years to come and Maine & America need change and new blood to flip the chamber!! 💙🇺🇲

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MPC's avatar
Apr 23Edited

The comments section in that news article are infested with MAGA commenters, slandering Wood. They're scared.

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Darren Monaghan's avatar

Who is Moore?

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MPC's avatar

Typo mistake, fixed it.

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Kevin H.'s avatar

Wes Moore?

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MPC's avatar

Sorry, I meant Wood.

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Zero Cool's avatar

The DSCC needs to make sure it stays OUT of the Senate race until much later.

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EJ Fagan's avatar

Durbin to retire.

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James Trout's avatar

GOOD! The Land of Lincoln needs new blood in the US Senate.

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Burt Kloner's avatar

now if only charlie will do the same

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James Trout's avatar

My old boss isn't up until 2028.

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PollJunkie's avatar

Charlie who?

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James Trout's avatar

Schumer.

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ArcticStones's avatar

As opposed to King Chuck of the UK.

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James Trout's avatar

This Anglophile and monarchist wants him on the throne until Prince George reaches 18. I maintain a major reason why His Majesty is the way he is is due to his Her Late Majesty ascending the throne before he turned four years old.

Speaking of things English, today is both St George's Day (England's patron saint) and Prince Louis' 7th birthday. Sorry, couldn't resist.

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ArcticStones's avatar

I’ll trade our Mad King for yours any day!

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Mike in MD's avatar

I too am an Anglophile, and maybe I didn't mention it here, but last month there was St. David's Day, the patron saint of Wales, on March 1. (Why should the Irish with St. Patrick's Day have all the March fun?)

I have English and Welsh ancestry on my father's side; I thought it was Irish until my parents discovered through Ancestry.com that what we thought was Irish was actually Welsh. Mother's side is Polish and Ukrainian.

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Harrison Konigstein's avatar

He really should resign (preferably after the state legislature strips Hochul of her ability to appoint a replacement).

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Darren Monaghan's avatar

In this open Illinois seat, in a hypothetical Democratic primary, I'd be torn over Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton & congresswoman Lauren Underwood, both would be huge upgrades over Dick Durbin!! 💙🇺🇲

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Miguel Parreno's avatar

Glad he could read the room. Time for a massive upgrade in the state I grew up in.

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Paleo's avatar

The Durbin who was elected to the House in the 80s is not the Durbin you see today. He was a fighter, especially for farmers and blue collar workers. He seemed to lose his edge after getting into the senate.

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Miguel Parreno's avatar

I don't doubt it at all. I don't think he's been all THAT bad until the last 10 years when we needed something different from business as usual.

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Kevin H.'s avatar

IDK i feel like some of these guys get lost in the minutiae of running the place and forget why they're there. I didn't help that he got old and that tends to slow people down.

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ArcticStones's avatar

Durbin is an institutionalist and a very decent human being. In less politically-polarized times he would have been excellent. But he’s simply not the fighter that we need right now.

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Zero Cool's avatar

The last great principled thing Durbin did was being consistently against the Iraq War. He has a history more in common with Nancy Pelosi in this sense (Pelosi voted against the Iraq War).

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Justin Gibson's avatar

He was a great Senator, but it was time for him to say no to re-election.

JB Pritzker, if he runs, could end up picking a new ticketmate.

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Mike in MD's avatar

The full Pew report. It appears that his tariff and economic policies are driving both the economy and his approval rating toward the 30s.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/04/23/trumps-job-rating-drops-key-policies-draw-majority-disapproval-as-he-nears-100-days/

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Henrik's avatar

Play stupid games win stupid prizes

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Tigercourse's avatar

Trump might be blinking on the tarriffs so we could see some turnaround there.

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Kevin H.'s avatar

He's losing the "i don't like what he's doing but i'll vote for him over any democrat" crowd, he lost those people in his first term too.

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ArcticStones's avatar

The question is whether Democrats can make Trump’s horrendous polling matter. We need to use it to peel off Republican votes in the House and Senate – and make members of his administration think twice about implementing the very worst of their planned unconstitutional Project 2025 policies.

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JanusIanitos's avatar

I doubt we can do much for it legislatively. At least against republicans. It might help Schumer get around to finding his spine, at least...

Most republican officials provide their vote when it's necessary. Bacon and Collins might represent places that dems won handily but they only moderate themselves superficially. I doubt that's going to change in the next 18 months.

We need to use the senate to obstruct and delay and slow down republicans as much as possible while seeking redress with the courts where possible. Trying to get elected republicans in our corner could work to some degree but it's not the path of least resistance.

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Paleo's avatar

And Fox has it 44-55. The Times finally has an approval graph up.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/donald-trump-approval-rating-polls.html

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Darren Monaghan's avatar

Michigan-Senate:

As of right now in the current Democratic field, if I were a Michigan voter I'd select Haley Stevens to succeed Gary Peters. If AG Dana Nessel jumped in, I'd truly be torn.

On the Republican side; if Mike Rogers couldn't win with Trump on the ballot winning the state then don't see how he'd win in a likely anti-Trump midterm wave similar to 2018; Democrats need to get organized and turn out leaving nothing to chance though after the disastrous 2024 cycle!! 💙🇺🇲

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Henrik's avatar

I prefer Mallory McMorrow; I have a suspicion, too, that as Stevens consolidates establishment support she’ll drop down to that House seat

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Miguel Parreno's avatar

I like McMorrow too.

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MPC's avatar

McMorrow would be a FANTASTIC U.S. Senator -- and I think she could get the seat. Heck, if she were in NC (and not MI), she would be a formidable challenger for Thom Tillis.

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Miguel Parreno's avatar

I feel like the electorate wants people who are going to fight back. It'll be interesting to see. Nothing against Stevens but I feel like she'd be more of the same and that's not what we need in this moment.

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PollJunkie's avatar

Idk, she is too beholden to special interests. I fear that the progressive and liberal vote will get split between McMorrow and ElSayed.

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Paleo's avatar

Stevens would be the last one in the field I’d vote for. But she’s likely to win.

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EJ Fagan's avatar

Jan Schakowsky to retire.

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MPC's avatar

First Durbin, now Schakowsky. Hopefully that influencer challenger won't win her seat, but someone who actually lives in the district.

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PollJunkie's avatar

Her posts and her rhetoric are really dumb.

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Miguel Parreno's avatar

What do you find dumb about her rhetoric?

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PollJunkie's avatar

I was referring to Kat not Jan. I respect Schakowsky.

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Miguel Parreno's avatar

I gathered as much. Still curious as to what's dumb about her rhetoric. I was skeptical about her jumping into the race initially, especially considering she didn't live in the district but found her rationale made sense given Millennials and GenZ have a hard time staying in one area and if the voters don't like it they won't vote for her.

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PollJunkie's avatar

Like she is like tax the rich and will troll Vance, Schumer etc on social media which are fine but not serious enough to win a primary.

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Miguel Parreno's avatar

Isn't Tax the Rich a pretty standard Democratic message at this point? As far as trolling goes... I don't really care about that. If the electorate doesn't care for it then they won't but it seemed to work out for Fetterman, as much as people loathe him now.

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PollJunkie's avatar

That's the point. Like I said I think it's fine but dwelling on it won't win the primary. All of us support it.

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Henrik's avatar

There’ll be some big guns getting in between Fine and Biss alone, so I doubt it

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FeingoldFan's avatar

I’ll be sad to see her go, she’s the person who first got me into politics. There’s a really deep bench in the district, but I’ve been betting for a while that it will turn into a primary between Laura Fine and Daniel Biss, since both represented the suburban core of the district in the State Senate but are from different parts of it (Biss is from Evanston, Fine from Glenview). Kelly Cassidy and Maria Hadden would both be really good candidates from the Chicago portion of the district if either ran.

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DiesIrae's avatar

Those are all great options. I'm sure I'll have a favorite, but I don't think we can go too wrong from that list. Excited to get to vote in a competitive primary here (and also for Senator).

I'm slightly curious to see whether someone from the more distant suburban part of the district gets in, but Evanston, Skokie, Niles, and Glenview are the big population centers.

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FeingoldFan's avatar

I asked my cousin who still lives in the district, and he said that he thinks Cook County Commissioner Josina Morita will join the race, she’s from Skokie.

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DiesIrae's avatar

I don't want to see too many candidates, though. Last thing we need is for a crank to slip through an eight-way primary.

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Bryce Moyer's avatar

Davis, Quigley and Foster… the ball is in your court

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FeingoldFan's avatar

I’m not against Quigley and Foster retiring if they want to, but they’re still in their 60s, they aren’t really too old for this yet.

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Bryce Moyer's avatar

Does it matter that Foster will be 71 in November next year

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Justin Gibson's avatar

Davis should have been gone a long time ago.

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Paleo's avatar

She’s been a really good rep. A shame to see her go.

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Paleo's avatar

Says she hasn’t decided:

I have not made a decision about my plans for re-election - I will make that decision in the coming weeks and announce on May 5.

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ArcticStones's avatar

Wasn’t there a downballot election yesterday? Maybe it’s been commented but I didn’t see it mentioned in the DownBallot digest. Anyone know the result? Or did I misunderstand...

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Martybooks's avatar

CT HD113 an R seat was R + 19 last time contested in 2020. This time R won by 5.

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ArcticStones's avatar

Thank you so much!

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Ben F.'s avatar

Correct, there was a CT house special election. It was red, and stayed red, but the Dem candidate did overperform.

https://nitter.poast.org/Uncrewed/status/1914850391772090879

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ArcticStones's avatar

That helps increase the average overperformance in 2025 special elections even further. Very encouraging!

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Burt Kloner's avatar

Rightly or wrongly here is one more thing that Newsom will need to deal with if he runs for POTUS...and it sure as hell won't help him... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14639691/Oscar-Ortega-Anguiano-California-DUI-killer-immigrant-parole.html

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Zero Cool's avatar

Once again, Newsom neither pays attention to detail nor is proactive as Governor in resolving problems in CA.

I don’t want to have to wait until more propositions are introduced for Newsom and others to take action.

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JanusIanitos's avatar

I'm all for dunking on Newsom, but presidential primary talk isn't allowed here. Cannot bring him up in that context.

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