Why did Ritchie Torres think a victory by Cuomo was a "necessary condition" for him to run against Hochul? Because he'd be opposing her from the right, perhaps?
The connection is the Israel-Palestine conflict which can't be discussed here. Torres is the most outspoken pro-Israel Democrat and it's a central part of his persona since before he was elected to the House. Mamdani is the opposite. And Democratic primary electorate polls show that this stance is very unpopular. Kathy Hochul is already popular among Democrats atleast and this would another disadvantage faced by Torres.
I think Torres has said more than once that pro-Palestine politics and progressivism cost Democrats 2024 so Cuomo winning would signal a comeback of unapologetic centrism and Israelism?
I threw away all literature he sent very quickly, but I'm pretty sure I remember him concentrating on appealing to pro-Israeli and anti-Palestinian sentiment and trying to use that as a wedge against Mamdani.
He's not wrong, although I would add that we were hurt on that issue by both those that felt we were too pro-Palestinian and by those that we didn't go far enough.
I don't think we lost considerable voters on any side of the issue, there is not much polling showing it to be of much salience in the general election in the face of Trump except for a YouGov poll according to which we lost a lot of the latter ones. Both groups exaggerate their importance for increased attention.
Let's just say that the type of people who are on the internet too much make this issue a political litmus test which means that this issue gets way more attention than it deserves. No other issue tears our coalition apart like this issue but some of our voters on both sides of this issue won't leave it alone because they want to use it as a weapon to attack other parts of our coalition when we should be using our energy to attack Trump rather than tearing ourselves apart over this issue.
Trump winning Dearborn Michigan shows that at least among Muslim voters we did see substantial losses due to this issue. I haven't seen any data to suggest widespread Jewish defections. The Haredim were already solidly pro Trump before the Gaza War. Whether there were larger effects among the broader electorate is of course harder to quantify and that's where I agree that activists exaggerate the importance of the issue.
Trump played both sides very well during the campaign, though I imagine the reality of his Middle East policies might be less appealing to the pro Palestine camp than his pro peace rhetoric.
Which is the great trick Bibi and the Trump campaign pulled off "brilliantly" - if it was just accidental/serendipitous, then it was the equivalent of golfing a hole-in-one while blindfolded.
In terms of putting events/circumstances in motion that would tear at the Dem coalition no matter how we responded.
I also think (but can't prove, obviously) that there was heavy influence by foreign bot farms on social media (pushing each side of the "too pro-Israel" and "too pro-Palestine" angles).
Hochul is making inroads here - defending Lander and Mamdani are good examples - to protect herself from Delgado. She may not be able to peel off more DSA-aligned types, but if the WFP shifts her way, she will cruise in the primary.
I've been wondering this same thing. Is it because he thinks Cuomo will run for Governor after losing a mayoral race, further splitting the anti-incumbent vote? Seems highly unlikely, since Delgado is already running. I don't get it at all, but then again, I don't get Richie Torres at all.
I think this is possible. What's more likely is Torres was going to rely on the Cuomo coalition, and Cuomo as a validator for him. With the collapse of this coaltion as being a majority--black homeowners, Orthodox communities, affluent NYers, etc--there's not a pathway for Torres to run up the score in the City in a primary.
Torres may be immature in this decision. No one knows what the City is going to look like next year given the massive impending budget cuts from OBBB, from Mamdani's style of presumed governance, and what the mood of the electorate would be. That said, his chances in the primary never seemed great.
I think the latter is right. Torres fits that old school Democratic coalition that Cuomo relied on when Governor, giving just enough of a majority to get him a primary win and thus the governorship in a still blue state. If that coalition can’t even win a primary in New York City anymore, it certainly is also likely DOA statewide.
Cuomo winning = Democrats still open to a more centrist/centre right Democrat leading them. He had the name recognition, he had the establishment, he had the Democratic organizations, he had the money and still lost. So if Torres ran against an incumbent without most of those lined up behind him (like Cuomo had) it would probably end up worse for him and end his political career.
He’d rather hope to hold his seat (which I don’t think is guaranteed either if he gets a primary challenger), which is a much easier lift as the incumbent, then the challenger to an incumbent.
This makes perfect sense to me, but it calls into question the logic of Torres' would-have-been campaign. That's already Hochul's lane for winning a contested primary. He'd have to try to primary her from the right while she already has a lot of that lane. It's hard to see that coming together for a win, even if Cuomo had succeeded.
Hochul isn't particularly beloved--she muddles through and has the benefit of running in a blue state in an off-year election. It's not inconceivable that a more charismatic democrat could topple her in a primary. It's probably not Ritchie Torres who could do it though.
I'm not saying Hochul cannot lose a primary. I'm saying the theory of Torres' planned method to defeat her in a primary is not one that would have left him good odds of doing so.
For someone like Hochul the primary attack would presumably be about competence and style. Trying to make the primary coalition ideology based would allow her to focus on safer territory for her and avoid where she's most unpopular.
Agreed. I don't think Torres is really one to make an argument on competence and style. They are generally similar in that regard. I think what he was really leaning on was to see if the Orthodox/Hasidic vote could put him over the top; there's some variation among particular sects, but they generally vote as a block and are quite electorally powerful. Mamdani just proved you can win a primary without these voters in your corner with the right kind of campaign.
You can in NYC, which is to the left of the state of New York and the national electorate. Whether that is enough for a general election electorate - even in a blue state like New York - remains to be seen.
It should be worth noting that all of the Democratic Socialists like AOC and Mamdani ran campaigns that included emphasis in the Bronx, Queens, etc. Their actual campaigns are not far apart from each other in terms of appeal.
Right now, I don't see someone like AOC or Mamdani being able to run in an election in Upstate NY where they would be able to win.
Orlando, FL Mayor - This election isn't until 2027, but term-limited State Rep. Anna Eskamani raised over $100,000 from 3,000 individual donations in just a two-week period (as Eskamani is a sitting state representative, she couldn't fundraise for her mayoral campaign until the Florida Legislature was not in session).
I'm curious who he'll endorse for the open Senate race in North Carolina. His botoxed daughter in law Lara or one of the good ol' MAGA boys from the state legislature?
Moore is really toxic because he and Cooper butted heads multiple times over multiple red meat bills he and his cohort Phil Berger either got vetoed or successfully override his vetoes.
Cooper would take the gloves off if Moore was the candidate. He'd say "I helped get Medicaid expansion in NC, and the guy that helped me get over the line just voted to steal it."
Moore is "evil" but not sure that makes him "toxic" to the portion of the NC electorate willing to vote R. The bar mainly relates to "crazy" and that bar is quite high.
Moore might risk his hand-crafted House sinecure against "Generic D" (but I am skeptical, given the likely environment) - but not Roy Cooper.
At one point during the night, when there were five Republican holdouts, with 5 No votes on the Rules vote, I became guardedly optimistic. Obviously that was premature. I was genuinely shocked when four of those five folded, one after the other, changing their No to Yes. Would love to have full insight into Why.
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is now holding a great speech, highlighting how millions of Americans will suffer and bleed (in many cases literally!), and future generations will be burdened by trillions of dollars in extra debt, just so billionaires and corporations can have even more tax cuts.
Senator Cory Booker spoke for over 25 hours. I would love to se Hakeem Jeffries use his "Magic Minute" and try to match that! Forcing these spineless MAGA assholes in the House of Representatives to work through the 4th of July!
Almost always. But there was the big exception of republicans' attempt at "repeal and replace" when they thought they had McCain's vote in the bank and he voted no.
Usually we don't see exceptions for the simple reason that they know how to do the vote counting in advance and won't put something on the floor if it has no chance of passing.
They are all spineless chickenshits without a shred of decency. Even then the so-called moderates not limited to Murkowski have been the biggest disappointment. Mark my words, this bill will haunt these fools like a millstone chained to them. I won’t forget this fiasco and people will make sure they don’t. The last Republican I had any respect for was John McCain who had the decency to vote against the idiocy and insanity’s of Trump and his psychotic allies.
McCain got disproportionate credit for his one surprise vote to kill ACA repeal. Murkowski was a much less reliable vote for the Republicans in general.
After Jeffries ended his filibuster speech and yielded the floor, the GOP promptly passed the Big Bad Bill on a two-vote margin.
2026 midterms are going to be a BLOOD BATH for Republicans. With the vicious GOP gerrymandering post 2020 census, I don't expect Dems to win 41 seats like they did in 2018 -- but 10-20 are good enough. Crossing my fingers we eat away at the GOP Senate majority too.
I would love it if ticked off constituents in Speaker Johnson's district gave him the boot next year. According to Rep. Clark, over 40% of his constituents are on Medicaid -- how many are going to buy his BS and how many are going to be FURIOUS that he did it to them?
Keeping in mind that Republicans are idiots who vote to keep "those people" down at their own expense, I'm not optimistic that he would lose to a Democrat.
Almost certainly worse. But actually certainly less powerful.
It would be worth it, if only to throw more chaos into their ranks again. If nothing else we could get some brief joy out of seeing Johnson out of office even if it has no material positive impact.
Yeah, if it failed this week, the August recess becomes the next deadline and if they do any more amending to it, it would be to make it more stingy (so Rand Paul votes for it when it kicks back to the Senate even if Murk votes against it).
Massie and Roy have folded. The only House Republican to vote against the big bad bill is Brian Fitzpatrick, representing Pennsylvania's 1st Congressional District. He is one of only three Republicans representing a district that Harris carried in 2024. Will Trump try to primary him? Will Democrats be able to run a viable candidate against him?
I wonder if Massie got spooked by the recent poll from his district. Just a few days ago he was talking a really big game about how he's always polled well against people trying to primary him
Massie will likely survive the primary. He's never gotten a serious GOP challenger and he's defeated all Democratic challengers in past elections by close to or more than 30% points.
What I believe saves him is his Libertarian views and the fact that Rand Paul is a colleague of his. If Massie will get a primary challenger, then Paul will as well.
Of course, Paul also voted against Trump's bill in the Senate and is up for re-election in 2028, not 2026.
One of the highest ranking Dem officials in the district is already running against him, Bucks County Commissioner Bob Harvie. I'm guessing that's part of why Fitzpatrick felt as though he had to vote against the bill.
Although Lisa Murkowski is not up for re-election until 2028, Senator Dan Sullivan is in 2026.
Both Murkowski and Sullivan voted for Trump's bill and while Murkowski is getting a lot of heat for her vote, attention should also be given to Sullivan.
We've had discussions before about Democratic Candidates although currently there is only one Democratic Senate Candidate in the race against Sullivan, Ann Diener. Little is known about her but it appears per her website that she seems to be little known. Certainly seems to be staunchly pro-environment.
That said, where do we stand with this race? The only notable names I can think of are Former Senator Mark Begich and Mary Peltola.
I recall Peltola being more interested in governor - I believe a domain name to that effect was actually registered if I’m remembering right. Begich may be our best shot barring a better candidate.
Peltola wasn't on anyone's lists before her 2022 win. For Alaska we might have to hope that a seeming nobody comes out of the woodwork and impresses us again. Not a great hope, but it's the hand we're dealt.
I'd like to see her run for governor. She wouldn't have to fly all the way to D.C. to cast votes for bills -- and she'd have more leeway with the Dem+Rep coalition in the state legislature to get stuff done.
I know I’ve been beating this drum a lot, but State Senator Scott Kawasaki would be an excellent candidate for us. I doubt he runs now though (even with a Trump midterm) rather than waiting for an open seat once Murkowski leaves office.
Maybe Kawasaki and Peltola should coordinate who's gonna run for what, similar to what the Texas candidates did (hopefully it'll go smoother than Texas though)
To be fair, the Texas conversation was between people who'd never won statewide. Any conversation with Peltola would/should probably result in the other person deferring to her, since she has way more leverage in that situtation than someone like Allred or Castro.
I noticed that The Down Ballot's Bluesky acct featured a screengrab from a WaPo article saying that Maine Senator Susan Collins may not run for another term next year. If this pans out, wow!
That would be a bigger tell than Thom Tillis and Don Bacon announcing their retirement that the GOP is in deep shit next year.
If she resigns, the hope is that both the Maine seat and the NC seat gets taken off the table as competitive races by the time October 2026 comes around. That would allow Democrats to focus on winning at least two other seats (AK, TX, IA, OH, FL, or KS) and regaining control of the Senate.
If Jared Golden and Roy Cooper were both to run for those seats, I suspect they could become favored enough as candidates to make that happen. However, most Democrats probably would prefer somebody a bit less conservative than Golden.
He votes for a Democratic house speaker and always votes with the party WHEN HIS VOTE IS NEEDED. How are so many educated people here not able to understand the political game he plays brilliantly in a Trump district? It’s so freaking obvious and he’s one of the most loyal Dem party guys we have.
But by all means, let’s make our tent even smaller than 2024 was. I’m sure that will work out for us splendidly. I do agree with you that he shouldn’t run for Senate or Governor, but that’s about it, in regards to your post.
Why are you guys suggesting Jared Golden? If Janet Mills decides to jump in, she's the clear favorite (as is Roy Cooper here in NC). If both candidates run, that's a better than 50% chance of flipping TWO Senate seats.
I'd hate to see Golden run for senate, but I think people are mentioning him because (a) they'd expect him to because he'd be ambitious enough to go for it, and/or (b) they want him to run because they think he'd be the most electable candidate.
If Collins retires some of our candidates for governor will move over. I expect some to move over eventually even if she doesn't. It's better to be a strong candidate for a primary and even an underdog for the general than it is to be all but certain to lose the primary and a strong candidate for the general; eventually the back of the pack for the primary should make that calculus and move over.
Regardless, if Collins retires more of them will move over and I'd easily prefer any and all of the major candidates as a potential senator over Golden. He'd be better than Manchin or Sinema were, but that's not a high bar to clear. He would quickly become the biggest pain of our senate caucus. All of the other serious candidates could absolutely win that seat, so it's not a case of us needing him. If we did need him (like we do for his house seat) the calculus changes and dealing with him being a pain is worth it for the win.
In no small part because being better than them is not hard to do. Someone can still be a pain while also being better than either of them.
As far as I recall he's been there for us every time his vote was legitimately needed. Even if not for passage than at least for messaging purposes. Contrariwise, Manchin and Sinema were OK with voting no and killing things.
I don’t remember recall him ever being a pain in the ass but rather a no vote sometimes. Not he’s ambitious and wants to be a Senator from ME long term, he’ll need to make the Dem majority happy. He’ll move left and I bet he’d be just fine. Manchin represented WV and Sinema was a narcissist representing a new swing state. I’m guessing Golden would do what’s needed to be elected and re-elected just like Sinema and Manchin felt they needed, but it’s look very different.
I’d rather he run for ME-2 to give us a better shot at holding the seat so I hope all of this ends up moot anyway. I’d rather Janet Mills just take it off the list and have a term if she’s popular enough to get this into Lean/Likely Dem flip territory.
Janet Mills is a worse option than Golden because she'll be 79 if inaugurated in January 2026, but I agree that in a perfect world, we'd have an entirely different candidate than either them. And I do think such a candidate could run and could win.
The reason I mention Golden is that if Collins retires, I think he's likely to run, win, and also dominate the field, taking the race "off the board" by October. If someone else emerges as a frontrunner, though, I think that could be a good thing.
Yeah. And if we can flip the seat in a midterm 2026, that gives us 6 years to manicure a successor who will run in a Pres year with POTUS coattails in an open seat. Mills would be a great way to give Maine Dems time to come up with a plan.
I like how WI seemed to start setting up Sarah Godlewski to run for Senate in 2028. She lost the 2022 primary to Lt Gov Barnes, who then barely lost the general. She became WI SoS, a mostly worthless role but is still elected statewide, after being appointed shortly after the 2022 elections as the loooooong time incumbent stepped aside even though he had just won re-election. It’s got to be all a set-up so that if she wins re-election in 2026, then she’s primed for Senate 2028.
Exactly. The point is to get rid of Collins, either by scaring her into retiring or knocking her out. Once she's gone, the race should have a clear Democratic lean whenever it comes open, but the candidate with the best chance to win now is the one who should run.
Hard disagree. Call it ageism if you want, but I simply cannot support anyone over the age of 75 running for a job with more than a 4 year commitment. Never again.
We've seen too many unexpected declines in health for me to feel comfortable with it, and we've seen too many negative consequences for democracy as a result.
If that's the difference between Collins losing or retiring and her winning reelection, your concerns pale and your point of view is foolish. And we've seen Collins win over and over and over, so it's very foolish to assume it's not the difference.
I think it’s very simple with Golden: Yes to him as our candidate if he’s facing Susan Collins, but no to him if he would face anyone else (for Governor or Senate). We can do better than him in open races in a blue state, but we really can’t do better than him against Collins.
Now people can of course argue that any nominee would be favoured against Collins with her approval numbers and a Trump midterm, but the safest bet objectively (speaking political strength wise only here) is him. I also certainly wouldn’t say any nominee would be favoured after what happened in her last re-election campaign.
I don’t think he runs against her in any case, but this is the ideal scenario hypothetically.
Even Jordan Wood would best Golden in a primary lol. Democrats don't like him at all and he seems to return the favor as seen by his support of last month's authoritarian incidents and Trump tariffs. Don't forget that he is a former Collins staffer who jumped on the Bernie train. Some will argue that he needs to do this shtick for winning his district but polling shows that Trump tariffs are very unpopular as are his authoritarian assaults on our Senators and states.
I think you misread my post. Let me clarify for you. The only way Golden wins the Democratic nomination is if it’s him running against Susan Collins. I thought that was fairly clear. And your being upset over stupid votes that don’t mean anything is much preferable to being upset over stupid votes that actually do have consequences. Use your brain, not your heart.
So Newsom is making some noise about Cali Dems responding with new maps if Texas does a mid-decade gerrymander. Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any way for this to be possible given how the independent commission proposition is worded.
The only way I see this happening is Dems in the legislature send a proposition on the ballot this November that modifies the commission somehow. This would need to be done ASAP like within the next 30 days and be worded in the right way to get most voters to approve. Verrry long odds but honestly would love to see Dems grow a backbone and be as ruthless as the GOP.
“Staffers to California governor Gavin Newsom have signaled their boss’s willingness to counter any redistricting in Texas with a similar move to redraw the maps in his own state, in an attempt to offset potential GOP gains, according to the lawmakers who were granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.”
Wasn’t Texas doomed to be a dummymander anyway? I believe Texas Republicans were warning Trump against it as it would actually make multiple GOP seats swingier.
The key question that decides the redistricting push in TX then is whether Republicans believe Trump + 10 districts are safe in 2026. This could easily backfire horribly and dummymander themselves out of a majority.
But absolutely Democrats in blue states need to pass new laws or override their independent commissions, whether voter enacted or not. Just narrate it like the GOP does “the legislature should draw because they are voted on by the people” or something along those lines. Anyone mad about it would already be voting against Democrats anyways, so no harm done.
Since 2016 Republicans have been ruthless in their attempt to consolidate political power, doing whatever it took to get the party more seats and more control over America. If our party isn’t willing to play this new game by the new rules set by the GOP, we will lose, badly, period.
There’s a lot of Democratic seats in red states Republicans would be more than willing to draw out of existence in order to hold power. We have to fight back and do the same. This should have been done starting in 2016, but now is the next best time.
Too many blue states have instituted independent redistricting to the point that the GOP would never support it. We’re the dummies who created our own problem so now we’ll need to fix it.
CA should figure out how to get rid of their independent redistricting. I don’t know what that looks like bc there has got to be a messaging campaign that could convince voters to get rid of it. We’d have a Dem House right now if it weren’t for CA and NY being dumb.
I'm not sure. What do Texas Republicans care if a few California Republicans lose their seats, especially if everything evens out? All they see is that there are more opportunities for them to run for Congress, they can do favors for the people they know, and there are fewer Democrats to run statewide someday. There's no concept of the "greater good" in politics, especially cultish Republicans politics.
Jeremy Corbyn has confirmed he is in discussions about creating a new leftwing political party, hours after the MP Zarah Sultana announced she was quitting Labour to co-lead the project.
Sultana, the MP for Coventry South who had the Labour whip suspended last year for voting against the government over the two-child limit on benefits, said on Thursday night she was quitting Labour and would “co-lead the founding of a new party” with Corbyn.
Sultana’s departure makes her the sixth MP in the Independent Alliance, alongside Corbyn, giving the group a bigger presence in the Commons than the Greens and Plaid Cymru.
First of all, what a great name, Zarah Sultana! But what 2-child limit? Labour is trying to -discourage- childbirth by not giving benefits to children beyond 2 per parent? What the hell? If that's what they've done, that's not only a totally anti-socialist, mean policy but also stupefyingly idiotic!
"Third Way" in action. Any policy that would lead to citizens having less kids is a bad long term economic policy. Even Tony Blair was much more progressive than Starmer and Bill Clinton. Blair was a neocon in foreign policy and policing but Social Democratic in the rest.
Since I’m assuming there won’t be a thread for July 4th (happy Independence Day to all celebrating and those still fighting against the real rise of fascism!), the embrace of progressive populism by Democrats who are not ideologically similar has begun. I’ve also noticed a reversal of what happened in 2016 starting to happen.
Originally posted to Politico, but for those without accounts, here’s the article on archive:
That year, Democrats were happy Republicans nominated one of the most far right and worst human beings on the planet as their nominee. Democratic attacks on him while truthful only made non-Trumpy Republicans feel closer to him and willing to stand by him to defend him from these attacks (that were actually just pointing out the truth, but I digress).
Democrats were overjoyed they could tie this politician around the necks of every Republican. We used the word fascist, racist, extremist, demagogue, all sorts of terms to show voters how unacceptable he is to a majority of American voters (all true, I know, but it backfired). It didn’t work out so well.
Now we have a good human being on the far left (I don’t use this derivatively, just as to emphasize where he is in the Democratic Party) being attacked with zealotry by the right. Republicans are the ones giddy that Democrats would nominate someone so unacceptable to Americans, that they could tie the whole party to him and win elections easily.
Where have I seen this story before? But this time instead of being the beneficiary, Trump is the cause of the party embracing Mamdani and the party future with young people leading, as overzealous and untrue attacks consolidate the older establishment party behind him. Threatening to deport him, calling him a lunatic, unstable, a communist and jihadist. Even the words used are identical, just on the opposite side of the political spectrum.
This obviously doesn’t happen immediately as emotions are raw for those after they had a primary loss, especially when ideologies are so vastly different (as we saw in 2016 on the GOP side). But the first step is publicly coming out to defend him from what actually are unfair attacks rather than what they perceived to be unfair, as in the previous case of Trump.
The last and final step which is coming in the next month or two I’d reckon, is an endorsement of Mamdani in a “it’s us against them” unifying party moment, of the man who is very politically different than what they personally are. If they don’t, then young people will be so enraged after progressives finally won a primary nomination and turn out in droves to replace them with people who will or people who already are as GOP primary voters did after Trump was elected.
Winning is a lot more fun than losing in politics as the GOP has found out by sticking with Trump, so once Democrats see that this wing of the party can actually win, the full post election embrace of the party to him will begin.
I’d also want to point out, I’m seeing the exact same news media articles as I did back in 2016. It’s bizarre to witness and also quite remarkable deja vu. Former Clinton, former Obama, former Hillary people trashing Mamdani in the media. Like former Bush, former McCain and former other Bush party stalwarts did with Trump. Fearmongering by the opposite party media. Political punditry, journalists and MSM orgs attacking his policy ideas as radical, unserious and shocked that someone like him could actually win.
It all gives him and the populist left in general an air of “the establishment doesn’t want this vs this is what the voters want” battle within the party. Where one side of the old politics tries and fails to stop a spark of hope that spreads and overtakes everything. The media, the punditry, the establishment are against him, but the voters are with him. Again, if you haven’t heard this before, you were too young to care about politics in 2016 or didn’t follow the GOP primary.
I would bet a lot that AZ-07 will likely be the next domino to fall to progressives and after that the firestorm within the left of America’s hearts ignited by Mamdani’s victory spreads to all corners of the country, like Trump did with MAGA. Time will tell whether this happens or not, but I’ve seen this movie before and know exactly how it ended up last time.
They won't be convinced until "progressives" actually start winning in swing districts and states. AZ-7 is a D+13 district and Raul Grijalva was always to the left of most Democrats nationwide. You operate as if Democrats are mirror Republicans. We are not and never have been.
Wouldn’t Gallego count for that? There was endless ink spilled before the election that he was “too progressive” to win. He’s moved to moderate himself as senator but that is after the election.
A lot of people in the party’s informal power structure oppose progressives by default, regardless of district or state lean. I don’t think there’s anything that will ever convince them otherwise. There was no need for a bunch of the establishment to back someone as moderate as Cuomo (before even getting into his abundant ethical flaws) for mayor of NYC.
Nah. Most of that ink dried up quickly. He’s a veteran and Latino, which helped him tremendously in Arizona. Not to mention he was already moving away from his more left wing stances before his run. He hardly ran as a “bold progressive.”
I get the feeling that there will be a justification for why no one ever actually counts.
He cannot count as a progressive winning a swing state because he’s a Latino veteran? That’s ridiculous. We going to discount Baldwin next because she’s a woman? Every candidate winning a tough election is going to have positive electoral traits. Refusing to count someone because of those traits is inane.
It was another example of elected Democrats totally misreading what our voters actually want, which is why Democratic voters are as unhappy right now with our elected leaders as Republicans were with their own party and establishment after they felt they didn’t fight Obama hard enough.
I don’t really care that much about the policy differences as a big tent supporter (even though I’m definitely progressive on policy), but enabling Republicans and sexual harassment allegations are more than enough reason each on their own to never support that person out of moral principles. That he had done both and still got backing by some in the party was a punch to the gut and epitomized Dem primary voters frustrations with those who lead us.
Yes, which is why the 2026 midterms will be their biggest opportunity. I’m not saying that Democrats are mirror Republicans. What I am saying is that we literally just saw how a party can get taken over by the side with more energy and enthusiasm. We also just saw the start of exactly what happened to the GOP in defense of Trump as we did Democrats in defense of Mamdani.
You’re quite correct that this may not actually happen. For a million reasons: him losing the general election, the only progressive victory ends up being Mamdani as Democratic primary voters choose more moderate candidates, a massive scandal that impacts the entire party etc etc.
However, we can absolutely say that Democrats have mirrored what happened to the Republicans so far. How likely the rest is can be fairly argued for or against. I think you’re also missing the generational change mindset of Democratic primary voters and of never before primary young voters to register and turnout.
Finally, I feel the need to point out the difference between established Democrats who are progressive and newer younger faced Democrats utilizing social media and grassroots energy to run their campaigns. Grijalva is a longtime well known name in the district. This isn’t a left vs right battle, but a new vs old. Democrats are choosing new so far in primaries, we’ll have to wait and see if that continues or not.
So I invite you to open your mind to a new political movement that’s possible and is growing where the people demand the government does more to help everyone be able to live a basic life, from rent to food to housing to public transit. We’ll see what happens in the end, but if Deja Foxx unexpectedly upsets in the primary for AZ-7, watch out.
AZ-7 is hardly NYC. There hasn’t been much ink for the Hernandez family. If anything people will be stunned if Grijalva loses. Now if the “progressive” options had received the Democratic nominations in say Virginia and New Jersey, that would be a different story. In both states, “progressive” candidates got clobbered running for statewide offices. Neither Abigail Spanberger nor Mikie Sherrill are “bold “progressives.””
In short, don’t expect a “progressive” takeover of the Democratic Party. At least outside deep blue areas.
Hogg didn’t even back the progressive there. Irene Shin was apparently a centrist (pro-crypto too, according to Primary School) who had previously entered the VA State House by primarying a progressive from the right (Ibraheem Samirah). This is on top of allegations from multiple losing candidates that the primary was run in a way that blatantly favored the winner. Worth looking up.
Walkinshaw was not going to lose the primary. He is a well established incumbent Supervisor who served as Gerry Connolly's Chief of Staff for a decade prior and was Connolly's personal favorite to succeed him before his death. Connolly was very much beloved here in Fairfax County having been a Democratic Party stalwart back when it was a Republican Party stronghold. Yes, there were concerns about his health in recent years and about him not being as left wing as some wanted, but he had earned a lot of goodwill due to his service and longevity.
TLDR: to claim the primary - especially since Virginia's Republican Governor set it up - was "rigged" is both false and counterproductive. Let's leave those childish claims to Trumpers, thank you.
Yes, because I absolutely claimed the primary was rigged lol *eyeroll*
If you can’t tell the difference between a low turnout state party run election and an actual wide open primary where any Democrat can vote over a period of days and various hours of the day instead of being there at a set time for the one opportunity to vote then you are so far emotionally invested in your narrative you can’t objectively see reality.
Or do you really think it’s fair for GOP states to eliminate or limit early voting, after all you only need 1 chance to vote for it to be fair right? At least that would be a consistent position instead of being hypocritical. The only childishness exhibited here is by a user so set in his position that has been refuted by multiple people that he’s flailing wildly by making stuff up to rail against. Kind of like Trump supporters don’t you think? ;)
The point remains that #1. Walkinshaw was going to win the primary no matter what and #2. detractors in the district would have cried "rigged" or "unfair" no matter what. BTW, the turnout at the primary was the highest its ever been for an identical event. We should be celebrating this event, not crying about it because you didn't like the result.
If she had been endorsed by Sanders or Warren in the primary, yes I could buy your argument. That’s not what happened though. She hasn’t come out in favor of repealing the so called “right to work” law for example. Virginia remains a pro business state and with few exceptions “progressives” here politically go to die.
Is Virginia more left wing than previously? Yes. Are Virginia Democrats more left wing than their national counterparts? Absolutely not.
He was backed by most "establishment" Democrats here in Virginia - including Governors Northam and McAuliffe - during the primary. Jones is hardly a Sanders or even Warren style "progressive."
The point remains that the was the "Establishment" favorite in the primary. If anything, his primary opponent Shannon Taylor was the "progressive" in the race. BTW, I voted for Jones, not Taylor in that primary.
This article is paywalled, and no non-paywall exists. However, according to Wikipedia's article on the Virginia U.S. House races, which cites its information off this article, two Democratic candidates have expressed interest in flipping VA-1 (currently held by Rep. Rob Wittman): Northumberland County Democratic Committee chairman Jim Hendrickson, and Henrico County Commonwealth's Attorney and failed AG candidate Shannon Taylor. I can't verify that the article said this, so take it with a grain of salt for now, but it does seem legit. (I personally wish Schuyler VanValkenburg would run, but whatever.)
Democrat John Larson has a primary challenger. Ruth Fortune, Hartford Board of Education member, is running against him. Fortune did not criticize Larson, according to the article -- she seems like a generational challenge to me.
A GOP candidate this time, for Democrat Chris Pappas' open seat. Melissa Bailey, vice chair of the Bedford Republican committee. She is the second GOP candidate here, after management executive Chris Bright.
Politico is speculating that Scott Jennings, a conservative political pundit, or Kelly Craft, a former U.S. Ambassador who herself ran for Governor, could self-fund GOP primary challenges to Rep. Thomas Massie. State Sen. Aaron Reed and State Rep. Kim Moser were again also floated as candidates. We'll see.
State Rep. Steve Toth accidentally leaked a primary challenge announcement against GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw. It appears he'll challenge Crenshaw from the right -- Toth is apparently a hardliner.
Democratic Rep. Dave Min has a primary challenger. Hunter Garcia Miranda, a recent law school graduate/attorney, is mounting a generational challenge to Min. He's running as an anti-status quo generational challenger. Not so sure about this one -- Min is quite vulnerable already, owing to his swing district status and previous DUI -- this could potentially backfire. That being said, I generally support generational primary challenges anyway.
Now here's a primary challenge I very much do not want. Remember Ruben Diaz Sr.? The homophobic Trump-supporting DINO who incumbent Dem Rep. Ritchie Torres defeated in 2020? He is apparently threatening to run again on Twitter/X. I despise Torres but he's still better than Diaz Sr. -- and given Torres' apparently lousy constituent services (from what I've heard), this is a real threat. We'll see.
Another paywalled article/Wikipedia citation, so again take it with a grain of salt, but apparently AIPAC is staying out of this race. DMFI endorsed Daniel Hernandez Jr. already, but given how polling has been going, I guess AIPAC decided this race was not winnable.
Does a generational primary challenge to Dave Min make sense? He’s only 49 and has been in office for less than a year, it’s not like he’s an old guard politician.
The first tier of criteria for me would be 1) are they missing a lot of votes. 2) Are they in a state where if they die Republicans have some or most control over how they are replaced. 3) are they problematic (bad votes, terrible messenger, sex pest, chronic underperformer/problem. 4) Are they endorsing sex pests "on character".
Does anyone know how Taylor did in the primary in VA-01? Did she perform relatively well there or something?
I also agree with other posters that primarying Min in that district is a bad idea, but he should survive any primary fairly easily. It’s good to keep Democrats held accountable in elections, but I’m also nervous it could backfire in swing seats.
Democratic Majority for Israel. They're similar to AIPAC, in that they're pro-Israel and known to be anti-progressive, but they're less powerful and don't have the same juice AIPAC is known to have.
I actually forgot to mention this in the dump but Lander is apparently considering NY-10 to primary Dan Goldman. Don’t have the article at the moment though.
Why did Ritchie Torres think a victory by Cuomo was a "necessary condition" for him to run against Hochul? Because he'd be opposing her from the right, perhaps?
No idea. Makes little sense. Don’t see the connection.
The connection is the Israel-Palestine conflict which can't be discussed here. Torres is the most outspoken pro-Israel Democrat and it's a central part of his persona since before he was elected to the House. Mamdani is the opposite. And Democratic primary electorate polls show that this stance is very unpopular. Kathy Hochul is already popular among Democrats atleast and this would another disadvantage faced by Torres.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/zohran-mamdani-israel-stance-democratic-party-lesson.html
Harry Enten: https://youtu.be/bpyjpqbLc08?si=tMUTKD-FMCdOntVk
But what does that have to do with Cuomo winning the nomination?
I think Torres has said more than once that pro-Palestine politics and progressivism cost Democrats 2024 so Cuomo winning would signal a comeback of unapologetic centrism and Israelism?
I threw away all literature he sent very quickly, but I'm pretty sure I remember him concentrating on appealing to pro-Israeli and anti-Palestinian sentiment and trying to use that as a wedge against Mamdani.
And yet was Torres even trying to bridge the gap between diverging views?
He and others in his zone I'd argue were not from the get go.
I don't think anyone can ever be accused of saying that Torres has tried to bridge the gap on this issue.
He's not wrong, although I would add that we were hurt on that issue by both those that felt we were too pro-Palestinian and by those that we didn't go far enough.
Right. Torres’ analysis is only half complete
I don't think we lost considerable voters on any side of the issue, there is not much polling showing it to be of much salience in the general election in the face of Trump except for a YouGov poll according to which we lost a lot of the latter ones. Both groups exaggerate their importance for increased attention.
Let's just say that the type of people who are on the internet too much make this issue a political litmus test which means that this issue gets way more attention than it deserves. No other issue tears our coalition apart like this issue but some of our voters on both sides of this issue won't leave it alone because they want to use it as a weapon to attack other parts of our coalition when we should be using our energy to attack Trump rather than tearing ourselves apart over this issue.
Trump winning Dearborn Michigan shows that at least among Muslim voters we did see substantial losses due to this issue. I haven't seen any data to suggest widespread Jewish defections. The Haredim were already solidly pro Trump before the Gaza War. Whether there were larger effects among the broader electorate is of course harder to quantify and that's where I agree that activists exaggerate the importance of the issue.
Trump played both sides very well during the campaign, though I imagine the reality of his Middle East policies might be less appealing to the pro Palestine camp than his pro peace rhetoric.
Which is the great trick Bibi and the Trump campaign pulled off "brilliantly" - if it was just accidental/serendipitous, then it was the equivalent of golfing a hole-in-one while blindfolded.
Are you talking about those 2 winning the last elections in each country, or something else?
In terms of putting events/circumstances in motion that would tear at the Dem coalition no matter how we responded.
I also think (but can't prove, obviously) that there was heavy influence by foreign bot farms on social media (pushing each side of the "too pro-Israel" and "too pro-Palestine" angles).
I'm sure of that. The bots will attack anything that might be divisive.
Especially since I don’t really see Hochul’s coalition overlapping with the anti-Cuomo coalition in NYC. Makes zero sense
Hochul is making inroads here - defending Lander and Mamdani are good examples - to protect herself from Delgado. She may not be able to peel off more DSA-aligned types, but if the WFP shifts her way, she will cruise in the primary.
WFP is more than enough
I doubt they endorse until after the primary.
I've been wondering this same thing. Is it because he thinks Cuomo will run for Governor after losing a mayoral race, further splitting the anti-incumbent vote? Seems highly unlikely, since Delgado is already running. I don't get it at all, but then again, I don't get Richie Torres at all.
I think this is possible. What's more likely is Torres was going to rely on the Cuomo coalition, and Cuomo as a validator for him. With the collapse of this coaltion as being a majority--black homeowners, Orthodox communities, affluent NYers, etc--there's not a pathway for Torres to run up the score in the City in a primary.
Torres may be immature in this decision. No one knows what the City is going to look like next year given the massive impending budget cuts from OBBB, from Mamdani's style of presumed governance, and what the mood of the electorate would be. That said, his chances in the primary never seemed great.
I think the latter is right. Torres fits that old school Democratic coalition that Cuomo relied on when Governor, giving just enough of a majority to get him a primary win and thus the governorship in a still blue state. If that coalition can’t even win a primary in New York City anymore, it certainly is also likely DOA statewide.
Cuomo winning = Democrats still open to a more centrist/centre right Democrat leading them. He had the name recognition, he had the establishment, he had the Democratic organizations, he had the money and still lost. So if Torres ran against an incumbent without most of those lined up behind him (like Cuomo had) it would probably end up worse for him and end his political career.
He’d rather hope to hold his seat (which I don’t think is guaranteed either if he gets a primary challenger), which is a much easier lift as the incumbent, then the challenger to an incumbent.
This makes perfect sense to me, but it calls into question the logic of Torres' would-have-been campaign. That's already Hochul's lane for winning a contested primary. He'd have to try to primary her from the right while she already has a lot of that lane. It's hard to see that coming together for a win, even if Cuomo had succeeded.
Hochul isn't particularly beloved--she muddles through and has the benefit of running in a blue state in an off-year election. It's not inconceivable that a more charismatic democrat could topple her in a primary. It's probably not Ritchie Torres who could do it though.
I'm not saying Hochul cannot lose a primary. I'm saying the theory of Torres' planned method to defeat her in a primary is not one that would have left him good odds of doing so.
For someone like Hochul the primary attack would presumably be about competence and style. Trying to make the primary coalition ideology based would allow her to focus on safer territory for her and avoid where she's most unpopular.
Agreed. I don't think Torres is really one to make an argument on competence and style. They are generally similar in that regard. I think what he was really leaning on was to see if the Orthodox/Hasidic vote could put him over the top; there's some variation among particular sects, but they generally vote as a block and are quite electorally powerful. Mamdani just proved you can win a primary without these voters in your corner with the right kind of campaign.
All in all, it's a really fascinating development
You can in NYC, which is to the left of the state of New York and the national electorate. Whether that is enough for a general election electorate - even in a blue state like New York - remains to be seen.
It should be worth noting that all of the Democratic Socialists like AOC and Mamdani ran campaigns that included emphasis in the Bronx, Queens, etc. Their actual campaigns are not far apart from each other in terms of appeal.
Right now, I don't see someone like AOC or Mamdani being able to run in an election in Upstate NY where they would be able to win.
Orlando, FL Mayor - This election isn't until 2027, but term-limited State Rep. Anna Eskamani raised over $100,000 from 3,000 individual donations in just a two-week period (as Eskamani is a sitting state representative, she couldn't fundraise for her mayoral campaign until the Florida Legislature was not in session).
https://bsky.app/profile/annaforflorida.bsky.social/post/3lsytanpvok2a
Eskamani is the only candidate in the Orlando mayoral race right now, but that will almost certainly change at some point.
On IA-Gov, I think it's more likely Donald Trump said no to endorsing Brenna Bird. If she had his support, she would surely be running for governor.
I'm curious who he'll endorse for the open Senate race in North Carolina. His botoxed daughter in law Lara or one of the good ol' MAGA boys from the state legislature?
His daughter-in-law, obviously (if she wants to be in the Senate).
I think she's going to get trounced by Roy Cooper if she enters and wins the GOP primary.
As if that's a bad thing.
It would definitely sting FDJT more than if, say, Tim Moore or another MAGA state legislator ran against the popular former governor and lost.
Moore absolutely won't run if Cooper does. Though I think national environment will Trump "GOP candidate quality" in the NC contest.
Anybody who wasn't a self-proclaimed "Black Nazi" did pretty damned well in 2024, in light of how batshit crazy some statewide candidates were.
Moore is really toxic because he and Cooper butted heads multiple times over multiple red meat bills he and his cohort Phil Berger either got vetoed or successfully override his vetoes.
Cooper would take the gloves off if Moore was the candidate. He'd say "I helped get Medicaid expansion in NC, and the guy that helped me get over the line just voted to steal it."
Moore is "evil" but not sure that makes him "toxic" to the portion of the NC electorate willing to vote R. The bar mainly relates to "crazy" and that bar is quite high.
Moore might risk his hand-crafted House sinecure against "Generic D" (but I am skeptical, given the likely environment) - but not Roy Cooper.
Moore is far from a toxic candidate. He outran Trump in his district by about a point.
At one point during the night, when there were five Republican holdouts, with 5 No votes on the Rules vote, I became guardedly optimistic. Obviously that was premature. I was genuinely shocked when four of those five folded, one after the other, changing their No to Yes. Would love to have full insight into Why.
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is now holding a great speech, highlighting how millions of Americans will suffer and bleed (in many cases literally!), and future generations will be burdened by trillions of dollars in extra debt, just so billionaires and corporations can have even more tax cuts.
Senator Cory Booker spoke for over 25 hours. I would love to se Hakeem Jeffries use his "Magic Minute" and try to match that! Forcing these spineless MAGA assholes in the House of Representatives to work through the 4th of July!
It’s all a dog and pony show. Whichever party is in power always gets the votes at the end.
Almost always. But there was the big exception of republicans' attempt at "repeal and replace" when they thought they had McCain's vote in the bank and he voted no.
Usually we don't see exceptions for the simple reason that they know how to do the vote counting in advance and won't put something on the floor if it has no chance of passing.
I guess I was referring more to budgetary voters.
They are all spineless chickenshits without a shred of decency. Even then the so-called moderates not limited to Murkowski have been the biggest disappointment. Mark my words, this bill will haunt these fools like a millstone chained to them. I won’t forget this fiasco and people will make sure they don’t. The last Republican I had any respect for was John McCain who had the decency to vote against the idiocy and insanity’s of Trump and his psychotic allies.
McCain got disproportionate credit for his one surprise vote to kill ACA repeal. Murkowski was a much less reliable vote for the Republicans in general.
It was always going to pass; the only drama was what tweaks would be made by the holdouts in the Senate before it passed in that body.
After Jeffries ended his filibuster speech and yielded the floor, the GOP promptly passed the Big Bad Bill on a two-vote margin.
2026 midterms are going to be a BLOOD BATH for Republicans. With the vicious GOP gerrymandering post 2020 census, I don't expect Dems to win 41 seats like they did in 2018 -- but 10-20 are good enough. Crossing my fingers we eat away at the GOP Senate majority too.
Beyond a certain point, gerrymandering would fail. There are precedents.
And in the back half of a decade they start to falter as coalitions shift
I would love it if ticked off constituents in Speaker Johnson's district gave him the boot next year. According to Rep. Clark, over 40% of his constituents are on Medicaid -- how many are going to buy his BS and how many are going to be FURIOUS that he did it to them?
Seeing his "victory" speech was nauseating.
Keeping in mind that Republicans are idiots who vote to keep "those people" down at their own expense, I'm not optimistic that he would lose to a Democrat.
If he somehow lost, it'd be more likely that he gets the Cantor treatment than anything else. Losing a primary to another republican.
Right. Who might end up being even worse, though less powerful, as in that case.
Almost certainly worse. But actually certainly less powerful.
It would be worth it, if only to throw more chaos into their ranks again. If nothing else we could get some brief joy out of seeing Johnson out of office even if it has no material positive impact.
Yeah, if it failed this week, the August recess becomes the next deadline and if they do any more amending to it, it would be to make it more stingy (so Rand Paul votes for it when it kicks back to the Senate even if Murk votes against it).
Massie and Roy have folded. The only House Republican to vote against the big bad bill is Brian Fitzpatrick, representing Pennsylvania's 1st Congressional District. He is one of only three Republicans representing a district that Harris carried in 2024. Will Trump try to primary him? Will Democrats be able to run a viable candidate against him?
I wonder if Massie got spooked by the recent poll from his district. Just a few days ago he was talking a really big game about how he's always polled well against people trying to primary him
Massie will likely survive the primary. He's never gotten a serious GOP challenger and he's defeated all Democratic challengers in past elections by close to or more than 30% points.
What I believe saves him is his Libertarian views and the fact that Rand Paul is a colleague of his. If Massie will get a primary challenger, then Paul will as well.
Of course, Paul also voted against Trump's bill in the Senate and is up for re-election in 2028, not 2026.
Massie is back to No on the actual bill
One of the highest ranking Dem officials in the district is already running against him, Bucks County Commissioner Bob Harvie. I'm guessing that's part of why Fitzpatrick felt as though he had to vote against the bill.
Fitzpatrick will be tough to beat. He won in 2018 after bucking Trump on the budget and ACA repeal.
AK-SEN Race:
Although Lisa Murkowski is not up for re-election until 2028, Senator Dan Sullivan is in 2026.
Both Murkowski and Sullivan voted for Trump's bill and while Murkowski is getting a lot of heat for her vote, attention should also be given to Sullivan.
We've had discussions before about Democratic Candidates although currently there is only one Democratic Senate Candidate in the race against Sullivan, Ann Diener. Little is known about her but it appears per her website that she seems to be little known. Certainly seems to be staunchly pro-environment.
That said, where do we stand with this race? The only notable names I can think of are Former Senator Mark Begich and Mary Peltola.
I recall Peltola being more interested in governor - I believe a domain name to that effect was actually registered if I’m remembering right. Begich may be our best shot barring a better candidate.
Begich failed already in his comeback try back in 2018 when he ran for governor i doubt he will try again
You may be right.
Not sure who else we’ve got.
More state legislators would be the obvious place to look.
Peltola wasn't on anyone's lists before her 2022 win. For Alaska we might have to hope that a seeming nobody comes out of the woodwork and impresses us again. Not a great hope, but it's the hand we're dealt.
Peltola is back on Twitter and is shitposting again. She says that she is interested in all 3 races after multiple requests from fans lol.
Tell you the truth, I’d rather she run for the house seat. Sullivan will be tough to beat. But Begich is vulnerable
I'd like to see her run for governor. She wouldn't have to fly all the way to D.C. to cast votes for bills -- and she'd have more leeway with the Dem+Rep coalition in the state legislature to get stuff done.
Washington is on fire. That takes precedence.
What makes Sullivan more popular than Begich?
Public Policy Polling's newest Alaska survey finds that Dan Sullivan is not very popular, with just 38% of voters approving of him to 47% who don't.
It's a democratic firm but these are its numbers.
Gotta get Kawasaki to run for something on a ticket with her
I know I’ve been beating this drum a lot, but State Senator Scott Kawasaki would be an excellent candidate for us. I doubt he runs now though (even with a Trump midterm) rather than waiting for an open seat once Murkowski leaves office.
My guess is he’d rather be Governor which after two terms of Dunleavy could
Happen
Maybe Kawasaki and Peltola should coordinate who's gonna run for what, similar to what the Texas candidates did (hopefully it'll go smoother than Texas though)
To be fair, the Texas conversation was between people who'd never won statewide. Any conversation with Peltola would/should probably result in the other person deferring to her, since she has way more leverage in that situtation than someone like Allred or Castro.
I noticed that The Down Ballot's Bluesky acct featured a screengrab from a WaPo article saying that Maine Senator Susan Collins may not run for another term next year. If this pans out, wow!
That would be a bigger tell than Thom Tillis and Don Bacon announcing their retirement that the GOP is in deep shit next year.
That would immediately suck some of the people jumping in for Gov over to that race. Maybe even Jared Golden
No to Jared Golden. Let Maine vote for an actual Democrat (or indie-caucus-with-Dems) instead of Diet Susan Collins.
Golden used to work for Susan Collins!
Here is the link to that post: https://bsky.app/profile/the-downballot.com/post/3lsyn6smqzk2k
Speculation. Not a lot to hang your hat on. But it could be a sign.
If she resigns, the hope is that both the Maine seat and the NC seat gets taken off the table as competitive races by the time October 2026 comes around. That would allow Democrats to focus on winning at least two other seats (AK, TX, IA, OH, FL, or KS) and regaining control of the Senate.
If Jared Golden and Roy Cooper were both to run for those seats, I suspect they could become favored enough as candidates to make that happen. However, most Democrats probably would prefer somebody a bit less conservative than Golden.
He votes for a Democratic house speaker and always votes with the party WHEN HIS VOTE IS NEEDED. How are so many educated people here not able to understand the political game he plays brilliantly in a Trump district? It’s so freaking obvious and he’s one of the most loyal Dem party guys we have.
But by all means, let’s make our tent even smaller than 2024 was. I’m sure that will work out for us splendidly. I do agree with you that he shouldn’t run for Senate or Governor, but that’s about it, in regards to your post.
Why are you guys suggesting Jared Golden? If Janet Mills decides to jump in, she's the clear favorite (as is Roy Cooper here in NC). If both candidates run, that's a better than 50% chance of flipping TWO Senate seats.
I'd hate to see Golden run for senate, but I think people are mentioning him because (a) they'd expect him to because he'd be ambitious enough to go for it, and/or (b) they want him to run because they think he'd be the most electable candidate.
If Collins retires some of our candidates for governor will move over. I expect some to move over eventually even if she doesn't. It's better to be a strong candidate for a primary and even an underdog for the general than it is to be all but certain to lose the primary and a strong candidate for the general; eventually the back of the pack for the primary should make that calculus and move over.
Regardless, if Collins retires more of them will move over and I'd easily prefer any and all of the major candidates as a potential senator over Golden. He'd be better than Manchin or Sinema were, but that's not a high bar to clear. He would quickly become the biggest pain of our senate caucus. All of the other serious candidates could absolutely win that seat, so it's not a case of us needing him. If we did need him (like we do for his house seat) the calculus changes and dealing with him being a pain is worth it for the win.
What makes you sure he'd be better than Manchin and Sinema?
In no small part because being better than them is not hard to do. Someone can still be a pain while also being better than either of them.
As far as I recall he's been there for us every time his vote was legitimately needed. Even if not for passage than at least for messaging purposes. Contrariwise, Manchin and Sinema were OK with voting no and killing things.
I take note of your points, but I'm not convinced. Sinema also wasn't known for tanking Democratic legislation when she was in the House.
Sinema was in the minority her entire house career.
OK, salient point.
I don’t remember recall him ever being a pain in the ass but rather a no vote sometimes. Not he’s ambitious and wants to be a Senator from ME long term, he’ll need to make the Dem majority happy. He’ll move left and I bet he’d be just fine. Manchin represented WV and Sinema was a narcissist representing a new swing state. I’m guessing Golden would do what’s needed to be elected and re-elected just like Sinema and Manchin felt they needed, but it’s look very different.
I’d rather he run for ME-2 to give us a better shot at holding the seat so I hope all of this ends up moot anyway. I’d rather Janet Mills just take it off the list and have a term if she’s popular enough to get this into Lean/Likely Dem flip territory.
Janet Mills is a worse option than Golden because she'll be 79 if inaugurated in January 2026, but I agree that in a perfect world, we'd have an entirely different candidate than either them. And I do think such a candidate could run and could win.
The reason I mention Golden is that if Collins retires, I think he's likely to run, win, and also dominate the field, taking the race "off the board" by October. If someone else emerges as a frontrunner, though, I think that could be a good thing.
A better candidate doesn't become a worse one just because of her age.
Yeah. And if we can flip the seat in a midterm 2026, that gives us 6 years to manicure a successor who will run in a Pres year with POTUS coattails in an open seat. Mills would be a great way to give Maine Dems time to come up with a plan.
I like how WI seemed to start setting up Sarah Godlewski to run for Senate in 2028. She lost the 2022 primary to Lt Gov Barnes, who then barely lost the general. She became WI SoS, a mostly worthless role but is still elected statewide, after being appointed shortly after the 2022 elections as the loooooong time incumbent stepped aside even though he had just won re-election. It’s got to be all a set-up so that if she wins re-election in 2026, then she’s primed for Senate 2028.
Exactly. The point is to get rid of Collins, either by scaring her into retiring or knocking her out. Once she's gone, the race should have a clear Democratic lean whenever it comes open, but the candidate with the best chance to win now is the one who should run.
Hard disagree. Call it ageism if you want, but I simply cannot support anyone over the age of 75 running for a job with more than a 4 year commitment. Never again.
We've seen too many unexpected declines in health for me to feel comfortable with it, and we've seen too many negative consequences for democracy as a result.
If that's the difference between Collins losing or retiring and her winning reelection, your concerns pale and your point of view is foolish. And we've seen Collins win over and over and over, so it's very foolish to assume it's not the difference.
I think it’s very simple with Golden: Yes to him as our candidate if he’s facing Susan Collins, but no to him if he would face anyone else (for Governor or Senate). We can do better than him in open races in a blue state, but we really can’t do better than him against Collins.
Now people can of course argue that any nominee would be favoured against Collins with her approval numbers and a Trump midterm, but the safest bet objectively (speaking political strength wise only here) is him. I also certainly wouldn’t say any nominee would be favoured after what happened in her last re-election campaign.
I don’t think he runs against her in any case, but this is the ideal scenario hypothetically.
Even Jordan Wood would best Golden in a primary lol. Democrats don't like him at all and he seems to return the favor as seen by his support of last month's authoritarian incidents and Trump tariffs. Don't forget that he is a former Collins staffer who jumped on the Bernie train. Some will argue that he needs to do this shtick for winning his district but polling shows that Trump tariffs are very unpopular as are his authoritarian assaults on our Senators and states.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Golden#Political_positions
I think you misread my post. Let me clarify for you. The only way Golden wins the Democratic nomination is if it’s him running against Susan Collins. I thought that was fairly clear. And your being upset over stupid votes that don’t mean anything is much preferable to being upset over stupid votes that actually do have consequences. Use your brain, not your heart.
Whatever, he is diet Susie and I am not advocating to primary him.
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/03/redistricting-texas-california-democrats-retaliation-trump-newsom/
So Newsom is making some noise about Cali Dems responding with new maps if Texas does a mid-decade gerrymander. Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any way for this to be possible given how the independent commission proposition is worded.
The only way I see this happening is Dems in the legislature send a proposition on the ballot this November that modifies the commission somehow. This would need to be done ASAP like within the next 30 days and be worded in the right way to get most voters to approve. Verrry long odds but honestly would love to see Dems grow a backbone and be as ruthless as the GOP.
“Staffers to California governor Gavin Newsom have signaled their boss’s willingness to counter any redistricting in Texas with a similar move to redraw the maps in his own state, in an attempt to offset potential GOP gains, according to the lawmakers who were granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.”
https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/1940904559620018228
Wasn’t Texas doomed to be a dummymander anyway? I believe Texas Republicans were warning Trump against it as it would actually make multiple GOP seats swingier.
I’ve seen maps that destroy 4-5 dem seats and make every republican seat a trump double digit win in 2024. It’s possible.
Not good. We’d need Cali potentially then.
The key question that decides the redistricting push in TX then is whether Republicans believe Trump + 10 districts are safe in 2026. This could easily backfire horribly and dummymander themselves out of a majority.
But absolutely Democrats in blue states need to pass new laws or override their independent commissions, whether voter enacted or not. Just narrate it like the GOP does “the legislature should draw because they are voted on by the people” or something along those lines. Anyone mad about it would already be voting against Democrats anyways, so no harm done.
Since 2016 Republicans have been ruthless in their attempt to consolidate political power, doing whatever it took to get the party more seats and more control over America. If our party isn’t willing to play this new game by the new rules set by the GOP, we will lose, badly, period.
There’s a lot of Democratic seats in red states Republicans would be more than willing to draw out of existence in order to hold power. We have to fight back and do the same. This should have been done starting in 2016, but now is the next best time.
And the more both sides do this, the sooner we will get national reform. When one side is cheating successfully, they have no incentive to change.
I'll believe that when I see it.
Too many blue states have instituted independent redistricting to the point that the GOP would never support it. We’re the dummies who created our own problem so now we’ll need to fix it.
CA should figure out how to get rid of their independent redistricting. I don’t know what that looks like bc there has got to be a messaging campaign that could convince voters to get rid of it. We’d have a Dem House right now if it weren’t for CA and NY being dumb.
I'm not sure. What do Texas Republicans care if a few California Republicans lose their seats, especially if everything evens out? All they see is that there are more opportunities for them to run for Congress, they can do favors for the people they know, and there are fewer Democrats to run statewide someday. There's no concept of the "greater good" in politics, especially cultish Republicans politics.
Can the CA legislature override a past voter initiative — what’s the feasibility of this?
From the article, it sounds like Newsom wants to reconvene the independent commission somehow and get them to draw new maps.
Frankly, I don't think that will be allowed by the state Supreme Court, but I'm not adequately familiar with the law.
This also might be bluster to get Trump to stop pushing Texas legislators to do redistricting.
That reads to me like it’s not actually feasible… All bluster, then.
Jeremy Corbyn has confirmed he is in discussions about creating a new leftwing political party, hours after the MP Zarah Sultana announced she was quitting Labour to co-lead the project.
Sultana, the MP for Coventry South who had the Labour whip suspended last year for voting against the government over the two-child limit on benefits, said on Thursday night she was quitting Labour and would “co-lead the founding of a new party” with Corbyn.
Sultana’s departure makes her the sixth MP in the Independent Alliance, alongside Corbyn, giving the group a bigger presence in the Commons than the Greens and Plaid Cymru.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/04/jeremy-corbyn-confirms-talks-about-forming-new-party-with-zarah-sultana
First of all, what a great name, Zarah Sultana! But what 2-child limit? Labour is trying to -discourage- childbirth by not giving benefits to children beyond 2 per parent? What the hell? If that's what they've done, that's not only a totally anti-socialist, mean policy but also stupefyingly idiotic!
"Third Way" in action. Any policy that would lead to citizens having less kids is a bad long term economic policy. Even Tony Blair was much more progressive than Starmer and Bill Clinton. Blair was a neocon in foreign policy and policing but Social Democratic in the rest.
"Third Way" meaning to cut social benefits without considering the longer-term fiscal and socioeconomic consequences?
Since I’m assuming there won’t be a thread for July 4th (happy Independence Day to all celebrating and those still fighting against the real rise of fascism!), the embrace of progressive populism by Democrats who are not ideologically similar has begun. I’ve also noticed a reversal of what happened in 2016 starting to happen.
Originally posted to Politico, but for those without accounts, here’s the article on archive:
https://archive.ph/IH6gN
That year, Democrats were happy Republicans nominated one of the most far right and worst human beings on the planet as their nominee. Democratic attacks on him while truthful only made non-Trumpy Republicans feel closer to him and willing to stand by him to defend him from these attacks (that were actually just pointing out the truth, but I digress).
Democrats were overjoyed they could tie this politician around the necks of every Republican. We used the word fascist, racist, extremist, demagogue, all sorts of terms to show voters how unacceptable he is to a majority of American voters (all true, I know, but it backfired). It didn’t work out so well.
Now we have a good human being on the far left (I don’t use this derivatively, just as to emphasize where he is in the Democratic Party) being attacked with zealotry by the right. Republicans are the ones giddy that Democrats would nominate someone so unacceptable to Americans, that they could tie the whole party to him and win elections easily.
Where have I seen this story before? But this time instead of being the beneficiary, Trump is the cause of the party embracing Mamdani and the party future with young people leading, as overzealous and untrue attacks consolidate the older establishment party behind him. Threatening to deport him, calling him a lunatic, unstable, a communist and jihadist. Even the words used are identical, just on the opposite side of the political spectrum.
This obviously doesn’t happen immediately as emotions are raw for those after they had a primary loss, especially when ideologies are so vastly different (as we saw in 2016 on the GOP side). But the first step is publicly coming out to defend him from what actually are unfair attacks rather than what they perceived to be unfair, as in the previous case of Trump.
The last and final step which is coming in the next month or two I’d reckon, is an endorsement of Mamdani in a “it’s us against them” unifying party moment, of the man who is very politically different than what they personally are. If they don’t, then young people will be so enraged after progressives finally won a primary nomination and turn out in droves to replace them with people who will or people who already are as GOP primary voters did after Trump was elected.
Winning is a lot more fun than losing in politics as the GOP has found out by sticking with Trump, so once Democrats see that this wing of the party can actually win, the full post election embrace of the party to him will begin.
I’d also want to point out, I’m seeing the exact same news media articles as I did back in 2016. It’s bizarre to witness and also quite remarkable deja vu. Former Clinton, former Obama, former Hillary people trashing Mamdani in the media. Like former Bush, former McCain and former other Bush party stalwarts did with Trump. Fearmongering by the opposite party media. Political punditry, journalists and MSM orgs attacking his policy ideas as radical, unserious and shocked that someone like him could actually win.
It all gives him and the populist left in general an air of “the establishment doesn’t want this vs this is what the voters want” battle within the party. Where one side of the old politics tries and fails to stop a spark of hope that spreads and overtakes everything. The media, the punditry, the establishment are against him, but the voters are with him. Again, if you haven’t heard this before, you were too young to care about politics in 2016 or didn’t follow the GOP primary.
I would bet a lot that AZ-07 will likely be the next domino to fall to progressives and after that the firestorm within the left of America’s hearts ignited by Mamdani’s victory spreads to all corners of the country, like Trump did with MAGA. Time will tell whether this happens or not, but I’ve seen this movie before and know exactly how it ended up last time.
They won't be convinced until "progressives" actually start winning in swing districts and states. AZ-7 is a D+13 district and Raul Grijalva was always to the left of most Democrats nationwide. You operate as if Democrats are mirror Republicans. We are not and never have been.
Wouldn’t Gallego count for that? There was endless ink spilled before the election that he was “too progressive” to win. He’s moved to moderate himself as senator but that is after the election.
A lot of people in the party’s informal power structure oppose progressives by default, regardless of district or state lean. I don’t think there’s anything that will ever convince them otherwise. There was no need for a bunch of the establishment to back someone as moderate as Cuomo (before even getting into his abundant ethical flaws) for mayor of NYC.
Moderate and collaborationist.
Nah. Most of that ink dried up quickly. He’s a veteran and Latino, which helped him tremendously in Arizona. Not to mention he was already moving away from his more left wing stances before his run. He hardly ran as a “bold progressive.”
I get the feeling that there will be a justification for why no one ever actually counts.
He cannot count as a progressive winning a swing state because he’s a Latino veteran? That’s ridiculous. We going to discount Baldwin next because she’s a woman? Every candidate winning a tough election is going to have positive electoral traits. Refusing to count someone because of those traits is inane.
It was another example of elected Democrats totally misreading what our voters actually want, which is why Democratic voters are as unhappy right now with our elected leaders as Republicans were with their own party and establishment after they felt they didn’t fight Obama hard enough.
I don’t really care that much about the policy differences as a big tent supporter (even though I’m definitely progressive on policy), but enabling Republicans and sexual harassment allegations are more than enough reason each on their own to never support that person out of moral principles. That he had done both and still got backing by some in the party was a punch to the gut and epitomized Dem primary voters frustrations with those who lead us.
Yes, which is why the 2026 midterms will be their biggest opportunity. I’m not saying that Democrats are mirror Republicans. What I am saying is that we literally just saw how a party can get taken over by the side with more energy and enthusiasm. We also just saw the start of exactly what happened to the GOP in defense of Trump as we did Democrats in defense of Mamdani.
You’re quite correct that this may not actually happen. For a million reasons: him losing the general election, the only progressive victory ends up being Mamdani as Democratic primary voters choose more moderate candidates, a massive scandal that impacts the entire party etc etc.
However, we can absolutely say that Democrats have mirrored what happened to the Republicans so far. How likely the rest is can be fairly argued for or against. I think you’re also missing the generational change mindset of Democratic primary voters and of never before primary young voters to register and turnout.
Finally, I feel the need to point out the difference between established Democrats who are progressive and newer younger faced Democrats utilizing social media and grassroots energy to run their campaigns. Grijalva is a longtime well known name in the district. This isn’t a left vs right battle, but a new vs old. Democrats are choosing new so far in primaries, we’ll have to wait and see if that continues or not.
So I invite you to open your mind to a new political movement that’s possible and is growing where the people demand the government does more to help everyone be able to live a basic life, from rent to food to housing to public transit. We’ll see what happens in the end, but if Deja Foxx unexpectedly upsets in the primary for AZ-7, watch out.
AZ-7 is hardly NYC. There hasn’t been much ink for the Hernandez family. If anything people will be stunned if Grijalva loses. Now if the “progressive” options had received the Democratic nominations in say Virginia and New Jersey, that would be a different story. In both states, “progressive” candidates got clobbered running for statewide offices. Neither Abigail Spanberger nor Mikie Sherrill are “bold “progressives.””
In short, don’t expect a “progressive” takeover of the Democratic Party. At least outside deep blue areas.
We shall see I guess :)
You do realize that David Hogg’s candidate was destroyed in the VA-11 Election, don’t you? His types can only take one so far.
Hogg didn’t even back the progressive there. Irene Shin was apparently a centrist (pro-crypto too, according to Primary School) who had previously entered the VA State House by primarying a progressive from the right (Ibraheem Samirah). This is on top of allegations from multiple losing candidates that the primary was run in a way that blatantly favored the winner. Worth looking up.
A party run firehouse primary is not the same as giving all Democrats the chance to vote. You should know this.
Walkinshaw was not going to lose the primary. He is a well established incumbent Supervisor who served as Gerry Connolly's Chief of Staff for a decade prior and was Connolly's personal favorite to succeed him before his death. Connolly was very much beloved here in Fairfax County having been a Democratic Party stalwart back when it was a Republican Party stronghold. Yes, there were concerns about his health in recent years and about him not being as left wing as some wanted, but he had earned a lot of goodwill due to his service and longevity.
TLDR: to claim the primary - especially since Virginia's Republican Governor set it up - was "rigged" is both false and counterproductive. Let's leave those childish claims to Trumpers, thank you.
Yes, because I absolutely claimed the primary was rigged lol *eyeroll*
If you can’t tell the difference between a low turnout state party run election and an actual wide open primary where any Democrat can vote over a period of days and various hours of the day instead of being there at a set time for the one opportunity to vote then you are so far emotionally invested in your narrative you can’t objectively see reality.
Or do you really think it’s fair for GOP states to eliminate or limit early voting, after all you only need 1 chance to vote for it to be fair right? At least that would be a consistent position instead of being hypocritical. The only childishness exhibited here is by a user so set in his position that has been refuted by multiple people that he’s flailing wildly by making stuff up to rail against. Kind of like Trump supporters don’t you think? ;)
The point remains that #1. Walkinshaw was going to win the primary no matter what and #2. detractors in the district would have cried "rigged" or "unfair" no matter what. BTW, the turnout at the primary was the highest its ever been for an identical event. We should be celebrating this event, not crying about it because you didn't like the result.
Isn’t Ghazala Hashmi considered a progressive? She won the lg gov primary, which is a statewide election.
Compared to some previous statewide Democrats, yes. Compared to Bernie Sanders and even Elizabeth Warren, no.
This definitely feels like a No True Scotsman argument by now. You refuse to acknowledge anyone as counting.
If she had been endorsed by Sanders or Warren in the primary, yes I could buy your argument. That’s not what happened though. She hasn’t come out in favor of repealing the so called “right to work” law for example. Virginia remains a pro business state and with few exceptions “progressives” here politically go to die.
Is Virginia more left wing than previously? Yes. Are Virginia Democrats more left wing than their national counterparts? Absolutely not.
Jay Jones too, who won the AG primary.
He was backed by most "establishment" Democrats here in Virginia - including Governors Northam and McAuliffe - during the primary. Jones is hardly a Sanders or even Warren style "progressive."
Being backed by non-progressives =/= not progressive. By that logic, Nancy Pelosi backing AOC’s re-election in 2020 makes AOC not a progressive.
The point remains that the was the "Establishment" favorite in the primary. If anything, his primary opponent Shannon Taylor was the "progressive" in the race. BTW, I voted for Jones, not Taylor in that primary.
Huge political news dump for today -- all U.S. House races.
VA-1:
https://www.dailypress.com/2025/07/04/democrats-process-to-challenge-wittman/
This article is paywalled, and no non-paywall exists. However, according to Wikipedia's article on the Virginia U.S. House races, which cites its information off this article, two Democratic candidates have expressed interest in flipping VA-1 (currently held by Rep. Rob Wittman): Northumberland County Democratic Committee chairman Jim Hendrickson, and Henrico County Commonwealth's Attorney and failed AG candidate Shannon Taylor. I can't verify that the article said this, so take it with a grain of salt for now, but it does seem legit. (I personally wish Schuyler VanValkenburg would run, but whatever.)
CT-1:
https://www.courant.com/2025/07/03/ct-us-congressman-in-seat-for-decades-might-have-a-democratic-challenger/
Democrat John Larson has a primary challenger. Ruth Fortune, Hartford Board of Education member, is running against him. Fortune did not criticize Larson, according to the article -- she seems like a generational challenge to me.
NH-1:
https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2025-07-03/bedford-gop-official-enters-race-for-1st-congressional-district
A GOP candidate this time, for Democrat Chris Pappas' open seat. Melissa Bailey, vice chair of the Bedford Republican committee. She is the second GOP candidate here, after management executive Chris Bright.
KY-4:
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/25/kentucky-thomas-massie-primary-trump-00422377
Politico is speculating that Scott Jennings, a conservative political pundit, or Kelly Craft, a former U.S. Ambassador who herself ran for Governor, could self-fund GOP primary challenges to Rep. Thomas Massie. State Sen. Aaron Reed and State Rep. Kim Moser were again also floated as candidates. We'll see.
TX-2:
https://www.chron.com/politics/article/dan-crenshaw-primary-election-20415739.php
State Rep. Steve Toth accidentally leaked a primary challenge announcement against GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw. It appears he'll challenge Crenshaw from the right -- Toth is apparently a hardliner.
CA-47:
https://www.ocregister.com/2025/07/03/oc-congressional-candidate-hunter-garcia-miranda-wants-to-challenge-establishment/
Democratic Rep. Dave Min has a primary challenger. Hunter Garcia Miranda, a recent law school graduate/attorney, is mounting a generational challenge to Min. He's running as an anti-status quo generational challenger. Not so sure about this one -- Min is quite vulnerable already, owing to his swing district status and previous DUI -- this could potentially backfire. That being said, I generally support generational primary challenges anyway.
NY-15:
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/new-york-playbook-pm/2025/07/02/ritche-torres-not-running-for-ny-governor-bronx-congress-00437650
Now here's a primary challenge I very much do not want. Remember Ruben Diaz Sr.? The homophobic Trump-supporting DINO who incumbent Dem Rep. Ritchie Torres defeated in 2020? He is apparently threatening to run again on Twitter/X. I despise Torres but he's still better than Diaz Sr. -- and given Torres' apparently lousy constituent services (from what I've heard), this is a real threat. We'll see.
Finally:
AZ-7 special:
https://jewishinsider.com/2025/07/adelita-grijalva-daniel-hernandez-tucson-ariz-special-house-election/
Another paywalled article/Wikipedia citation, so again take it with a grain of salt, but apparently AIPAC is staying out of this race. DMFI endorsed Daniel Hernandez Jr. already, but given how polling has been going, I guess AIPAC decided this race was not winnable.
Make all of this what you will.
Does a generational primary challenge to Dave Min make sense? He’s only 49 and has been in office for less than a year, it’s not like he’s an old guard politician.
Good question. That’s how I interpreted the article anyway — again, I personally don’t think this challenge is wise.
The first tier of criteria for me would be 1) are they missing a lot of votes. 2) Are they in a state where if they die Republicans have some or most control over how they are replaced. 3) are they problematic (bad votes, terrible messenger, sex pest, chronic underperformer/problem. 4) Are they endorsing sex pests "on character".
Does anyone know how Taylor did in the primary in VA-01? Did she perform relatively well there or something?
I also agree with other posters that primarying Min in that district is a bad idea, but he should survive any primary fairly easily. It’s good to keep Democrats held accountable in elections, but I’m also nervous it could backfire in swing seats.
Thanks very much for the reports! What does DMFI stand for?
Democratic Majority for Israel. They're similar to AIPAC, in that they're pro-Israel and known to be anti-progressive, but they're less powerful and don't have the same juice AIPAC is known to have.
Yeah, I guess they don't, since I am unfamiliar with them.
Mark Mellman’s group. They only They don’t endorse Republicans, unlike AIPAC.
They are AIPAC but for donors who don't want their money going to Republican candidates.
Min's DUI has been politically adjudicated after he won last year.
VA 1 will be a tough haul.
Can Brad Lander run for Torres' seat? Dan Goldman is effective while Torres is more interested in friendly fire like Fetterman.
I actually forgot to mention this in the dump but Lander is apparently considering NY-10 to primary Dan Goldman. Don’t have the article at the moment though.
That would be a total waste of time.
Bryan Tyler Cohen interviews Kyle Kondik about House and Senate races:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oS52V-eC8w