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PollJunkie's avatar

https://puck.news/jeff-roe-the-consultant-complicating-ken-paxtons-senate-campaign/

None of this is deterring Roe, who is more interested in saving his business than in saving a G.O.P. majority in the Senate. And according to the Republican operatives I spoke to, that’s the essence of what’s fueling anger toward him. Paxton and his red-meat brand of politics can beat Cornyn in a primary—a poll leaked in early April, in fact, showed Paxton ahead of Cornyn by 25 points in the primary. But Republican Senate leadership worries that he’ll have a hard time winning the general election. There’s a second part to that same poll, conducted by Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, that hasn’t been reported until now. It showed Paxton polling basically even (or within the margin of error) against a generic Democrat, according to three people who have seen the poll—not great for a Republican in Texas.

Well, well, well...

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MPC's avatar

I'm still deeply skeptical of Paxton losing in a reddish-purple state like Texas. TX voters keep sending that monster Greg Abbott back to the governor's mansion.

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PollJunkie's avatar

This was from February, Trump has lost all goodwill from the swing Latinos by now. Demographics is still destiny but you need to listen to people on issues like Immigration and not sort everyone into neat identities.

At the very least, it will be much closer than 2018 Beto even in the gubernatorial race if Talarico runs. There were far too many Beto-Abbott voters in 2018.

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MPC's avatar

Talarico has a shot of beating Abbott, because odds are good that voters are tired of Abbott's MAGA antics (as well as FDJT's highly unpopular DOGE program) and want someone else. Talarico comes off a moderate white guy like Beshear with progressive credentials against the evil, corrupt Abbott.

But Paxton? Seems like that guy gets away with a lot of shit and TX Rs are OK with it. I want to be proven wrong next year if both the governor and Senate seats in TX flip blue, I'm still wary.

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PollJunkie's avatar

Paxton is the most right wing politician in America other than Vance or Robinson maybe. He is a corrupt ultraconservative who's voiced support for recriminalizing and arresting homosexuals and is disapproved in state polls. Only the MAGA base loves him. The article says that the reason Cornyn’s not giving up is because he's disgusted by Paxton. He was acquitted only in the Republican Senate after huge outside pressure. Just imagine at the very least, the millions and millions the GOP will waste in the primary as well as the general election next year.

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MPC's avatar

I do like the idea of Rs spending hundreds of millions to keep a safe red Senate seat and less money going to vulnerable ones like Tillis and Collins. Hopefully it'd backfire on them like it did with Elon Musk and the SCOWI race earlier this month.

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sacman701's avatar

Generically I think Paxton is weaker than Cruz was when he narrowly won in 2018. He doesn't have incumbency and is seen as more radical. That said, Texas was 4.7 points more red in 2024 than in 2016, but it would be in play and a lot would depend on how much Trump's standing with Latinos erodes.

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Anonymous's avatar

I think the ticket to Dems winning races in Texas is a combination of how low-propensity the GOP's 2024 electorate was, the state's increasing urbanization, and the state GOP being absolutely batshit fucking insane. Ken Paxton, Dan Patrick, and the people who are very likely to come after them as candidates for Governor and Senate are going to be very weak. People like Crenshaw won't make it out of the primary so once Abbott and Cornyn leave office, I think we'll see more candidates who are at best Ted Cruz-level performers.

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PollJunkie's avatar

In whichever state, the local whites and fundamentalists start losing a bit of their political power, the state GOP goes batshit insane. I am not being racist but I read this in an analysis a long time back.

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MPC's avatar

It's happening here in NC. NC GOP has had a Republican legislative majority since 2011, they gained a supermajority and went batshit insane with it in 2016-2018 (and in 2023-2024 when that traitor Cotham backstabbed her party). That's why they're fighting so hard to steal that state Supreme Court seat because we now have a Democratic party chair who is fighting back tooth and nail.

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Zero Cool's avatar

Clown Ken Paxton vs. Iraq War Bankroller John Cornyn

Going to be quite a race!

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PollJunkie's avatar

2026 Generic Congressional Ballot polling trends by RMG Research (with leaners)

January

🔴 GOP: 51% (+7)

🔵 DEM: 44%

March

🔴 GOP: 48% (+2)

🔵 DEM: 46%

APRIL

🔵 DEM: 50% (+5)

🔴 GOP: 45%

12 point swing towards the Democrats

https://napolitannews.org/posts/democrats-make-huge-gains-on-generic-ballot

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Ben F.'s avatar

Helpful to know, thanks for posting.

Alas, I feel that a +5 margin, given everything going on, is not good enough.

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FeingoldFan's avatar

Unfortunately, things are gonna keep getting worse so that margin should grow bigger.

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dragonfire5004's avatar

It’s not enough because the country is hyper polarized and live in media echo chambers of their own choice and making. To expect massive changes with an extremely well known politician and his party just isn’t acknowledging today’s America as it is (believe me, I wish it was possible to have a 66-33 Democratic landslide or even 57-42, but it’s not). There just aren’t many movable voters left.

Now, this poll could be a high water mark due to more Democrats responding to surveys and less Republicans doing so. However, if it’s real actual movement, that’s 5% of the entire electorate moving from GOP to DEM. That is a massive swing and gain, especially since that would flip 16 GOP-held districts from 2024 results and by PVI also, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio + Texas Senate seats (and no I don’t think this will happen and no I don’t think it will be uniform, just speaking theoretically), which would hand them a majority in that chamber too. It doesn’t account for lower Trump voter turnout when he’s not on the ballot either.

5 points is on the cusp of a wave already. Nothing makes people want to vote for Democrats more than Republicans screwing up everything when in power, go figure they can’t figure that out until it’s too late. Anecdotally this makes sense, many GOP-held swing districts already have a large number of Democrats running with more joining primaries everyday. Politicians really like to run when they think they can win.

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ehstronghold's avatar

Yeah if a Dem gets elected in 2028 we're going to need massive majorities in Congress alone for all the cleanup in revoking 19th century laws that were sitting on the books for Trump to weaponize like the Alien Enemies Act so the next Republican President has less obvious tools in the toolbox to use.

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dragonfire5004's avatar

100% agreed, which is why I want the next Democratic president to be a new age politician who acknowledges today’s reality that Republicans are the actual enemy to our country, democracy is extremely shaky and instead of working with them, they need to do everything in their power to make it so Republicans have a harder time winning.

Also I want them to fire every single Republican previously nominated to any office (not all government workers in case anyone thinks I want DOGE version of the left, but departmental heads). The less connections the GOP has, the weaker the party and the weaker their ability to gain power becomes, we got to stop giving them ladders or keeping people in positions just because of some weird old age thinking about stability and fairness that no longer applies today which ties our hands as a party for any politician who actually still believes that.

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John Carr's avatar

Also need to pass a national law banning gerrymandering and requiring independent redistricting commissions in every state. If Dems have to abolish the filibuster to do that, so be it.

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MPC's avatar

If Kamala won and Dems regained a trifecta, they would’ve done just that.

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Avedee Eikew's avatar

DC & PR statehood too.

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JanusIanitos's avatar

We could presumably get through those legislative issues with a modest but not particularly large majority in the house.

The real obstacle is the senate. As is it would be fortunate for us to have a senate majority at all come 2029. We're going to need some cushion to deal with spineless institutionalists that think it's more important to preserve the traditions of the senate than to preserve democracy.

I think we will need 52 seats to guarantee any accomplishment beyond whatever can get through reconciliation.

Getting to 52 seats by then isn't impossible but it is a very tall order. Requires us to win all the inherently competitive seats up in 2026 and 2028: WI, NC 2026, NC 2028, ME. Then on top of those four we would need to win something somewhere else. Maybe Alaska, Iowa, Texas, or Ohio are our best chances for a miracle on that front.

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MPC's avatar
Apr 22Edited

Rachel Bitecofer, who accurately predicted the 2018 blue wave, thinks that Dems could win more House seats in 2026 than the 41 they picked up. Yes, even with the vicious red state gerrymandering post 2020 census.

And all because the Democratic Party has adopted negative partisanship (using the GOP attack method against them).

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Brad Warren's avatar

It's pretty remarkable this early in a president's term.

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dragonfire5004's avatar

Question to pose to y’all about a specific district:

Why do you think Democrats in WI-03 aren’t deferring to the 2024 nominee Rebecca Cooke in 2026? From what I can recall, she way over performed Harris and that was when very few Democrats were able to do so last year (which is what sunk our chances of a majority in the Senate and/or House).

I know Orden is a controversial opponent for her to easily hammer, but I don’t see any reason why not to coalesce around her? Whereas say, in CO-08, I’d much rather Rutinel be the nominee than Caraveo despite her running again after a close loss because she only matched Harris in 2024. Do other Democrats really believe they can beat her in the primary? Curious to hear your thoughts on this!

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Brad Warren's avatar

It might just be that a lot of people view Van Orden as a sitting duck (especially if the WI-SC tosses the congressional map while Rebecca Bradley sheds salty, bitter tears).

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MPC's avatar

That salty judge is going to get the boot next year. Wisconsin is on a purge of Walker loyalists and voters are going to show her the door.

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Avedee Eikew's avatar

Yeah there is a treasure trove of crazy things she has said and barring a massive turn around in the environment or the highly engaged demos of off year turnout I doubt April 2026 will be a good time for her to run for reelection.

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MPC's avatar

WI Dems just need to lie and exaggerate her record. Republicans do it all the time with our party.

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Ben F.'s avatar

With Bradley, being perfectly truthful about her record may be enough.

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Avedee Eikew's avatar

Glad you said it.

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Stargate77's avatar

How likely is it that we'll have a new federal House map in WI for the 2026 elections? Has a lawsuit been filed yet?

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JanusIanitos's avatar

Do we know if there's going to be a court case in WI over the federal maps? I know it wasn't done concurrently with the state maps for legal reasons. I haven't heard anything since then about a challenge.

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HumanFromJersey's avatar

I know someone who was involved in the Wisconsin coordinated campaign last cycle. They say that Cooke didn’t play well with other dems on the ticket. Her campaign was basically grounded in the assumption that Harris and other dems would lose in the district, and she had to develop her own independent brand and focus on swing voter in order to win. I think this was probably the right strategy - in a presidential year Harris was going to turn out every dem voter that could be turned out, so there was no point in Cooke rallying the base, and if she had been viewed as heavily linked to Harris and the other dem candidates on the ballot she never would have been able to overperform to the degree that she did. But this strategy didn’t win her friends among the active dems who make up the volunteer base and local party leadership in the district. (And some started out hostile to her after she won a divisive primary.) I imagine this makes it harder for Cooke to solidify the support she’d need to scare off challengers. But I’m also not sure if the dissatisfaction with Cooke runs any deeper than the 5% of dems who are most actively involved with the party. I wouldn’t be surprised if the average dem voter in the district is completely unaware of these criticisms.

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dragonfire5004's avatar

Thank you for that local perspective! I always love hearing about things like this. Honestly and sincerely imo, these party Democrats need to get over it. Barring scandal or a redraw, she’s almost certainly going to be the nominee again.

If there was only 1 alternative Democrat running, maybe they could coalesce all of the not-Cooke vote, but with name recognition, millions of dollars and an entire already built out campaign and messaging operation, even that would probably be very difficult. Against multiple opponents though? Almost impossible.

If the district is redrawn somehow to be much bluer, then it would also be pretty wide open as to who wins the nomination for the seat, but otherwise it seems to me like a forgone conclusion.

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Martybooks's avatar

Supreme Court just vacated the stay in the Yost Case. This is the one where OH AG Yost was gatekeeping all constitutional initiatives that he didn't like under the guise of the summary being misleading. The 6th Circuit stopped him, Kavanaugh stayed the decision and the Court just vacated the stay. Now the initiative in question-removing qualified immunity for state actions will go forward. https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/24a970.html.

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MPC's avatar

Is that a good thing? I don't know if that would prevent Ohio legislators from deliberately distorting or misleading ballot summaries for future voter initiatives, like they did with the anti-gerrymandering one last year (which failed) and the abortion one in 2023 (which passed).

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ehstronghold's avatar

Great news, Tesla's Q1 earnings is out and their net income plummeted 71% to $409 million. Get back to work at Tesla, Elon.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/22/tesla-tsla-earnings-report-q1-2025.html

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Burt Kloner's avatar

I read an article in an automotive magazine (yes, a real magazine, not online) and the author speculated that in 5-10 years leon musk will have sold off tesla or the brand will cease to exist: due to intense competition and leon's obsession with politics and space travel...speculation!

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Tigercourse's avatar

The stock is up after hours on the news of this massive failure. Investors of all stripes are completely irrational.

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Zero Cool's avatar

Ever since the Great Recession, stock market investors have become manic primadonnas.

Frankly, I think the stock market should be fined $50 million every time investors get reactive like this.

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Zero Cool's avatar

It’s not looking good for Tesla that China car manufacturers are producing EVs for significantly lower prices.

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YouHaveToVoteForOneOfUS's avatar

AZ-05: Former NFL kicker and broadcaster Jay Feely in on the GOP side for the seat Andy Biggs is vacating to run for Governor.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/44804971/jay-feely-run-house-representatives-arizona

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Henrik's avatar

There’s a blast from the past name! I vividly remember the infamous game Feely had for the Giants in 2005 where he missed three game winning FGs on the road against a Seahawks team that would play in the Super Bowl. SNL mocked him mercilessly the next weekend

Anyhow, considering Biggs, this may be the only GOP house primary that shifts it’s representation to the left!

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Paleo's avatar

4th Circuit BLOCKS North Carolina from beginning the state court ordered cure process while litigation continues in federal court.

https://bsky.app/profile/marcelias.bsky.social/post/3lngponb4rs25

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MPC's avatar

I pray Jefferson Griffin gets slapped down for good when SCOTUS gets this case.

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Harrison Konigstein's avatar

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/22/andy-barr-kentucky-senate-race-00304092

KY-SEN:

Andy Barr has officially announced.

This might be a question of do Kentucky voters want a future Senate leader (Cameron) or Presidential candidate (Barr) as their next Senator.

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AnthonySF's avatar

Neither of those will come to pass, but Barr will be the most sane Republican we can expect out of KY, so we should root for him, I guess.

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Zero Cool's avatar

SC-01: Nancy Mace Just Went Nuts

Rep. Nancy Mace is not running for re-election at this point to win if she’s going to get this testy.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/nancy-mace-video-makeup-aisle-b2736601.html

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Harrison Konigstein's avatar

It feels like she's aiming to run against Lindsey Graham (let's face it-having Trump's endorsement isn't going to paper over the GOP base absolutely hating him).

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Avedee Eikew's avatar

The right wing base will eat this up and if she does run against Lindsey it could be good for her in the primary. This seat will be a longshot with her or without her at Trump +13 but hope Dems run someone as it is the most marginal district in the state a little closer than SC-02 and with an incumbent that is constant drama.

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Zero Cool's avatar

SC-01 per Cook Political Report is a R+6 Lean Republican district. Doable for a Democratic Candidate to unseat Nancy Mace. In fact, CPR put SC-01 -1 points down against the GOP this year compared to 2023. Mace’s complete makeover over her image compared to the original moderate persona will turn off independent and moderate voters.

The SC-SEN race though is questionable for Democrats considering the party hasn’t had a history in making any such Senate races races close.

https://www.cookpolitical.com/cook-pvi/2025-partisan-voting-index/district-map-and-list

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Martybooks's avatar

Big over performance in CT113 https://ctemspublic.tgstg.net/#/races.

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Wolfpack Dem's avatar

What was the final breakdown? Link is wonky for me.

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Martybooks's avatar

52-47 was R by 19 in 2022. R was unopposed in 24

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Burt Kloner's avatar

someone must have told donald to stop being a complete ass hole and back off fed chair Powell..which he did tonite in typical weasel donald fashion...back tracking on calling Powell a loser and "his termination can come fast enough" bullshit from a few days ago...saying tonite he has no plans to get rid of him and market futures spike.

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Burt Kloner's avatar

I doubt anyone can be surprised by this kind of trash coming out of MTG's pie hole: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/22/marjorie-taylor-greene-pope-francis/83208686007/

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Pine and Peachtree's avatar

Georgia’s political fault lines are rumbling. With Brian Kemp term-limited and the state’s purple status cemented, the 2026 governor’s race is shaping up to be a brawl. The suburbs are restless, the countryside’s still red as clay, and everyone’s got an angle. But the early chatter—especially from the usual media suspects—is hyping the wrong names and missing the real players.

Here’s the unfiltered rundown on who’s running, who’s thinking about it, and who’s just chasing clout. https://pineandpeach.substack.com/p/the-2026-georgia-governors-race

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