I don’t see them in CLT market either, but my wife and I don’t have cable and listen to Spotify. Usually the only way the ads seep through is occasional ads on Hulu or Peacock.
Anytime someone mentions Spotify, I have to put in a plug for replacing it with Qobuz, which pays artists more, has higher-quality streaming, and does not run ICE ads on its platform.
The NC GOP comments in the Politico article are sheer copium. I do think that IF Cooper wins by 14 points, we could flip the state House. And NC Supreme Court judge Anita Earls definitely wins re-election by a comfortable margin.
Try and true GOP strategy since Helms, to win statewide races in the small towns. You don’t even see much their actions around triangle. Democrats have been laughing this off since 1972, but the other side won most of the federal elections.
They don't know who Whatley is. And with Trump 2.0 hitting people's pocketbooks, some GOP voters are going to pick Cooper because they know he's not an uber lefty.
Yeah, each election, we have the same story, that it is a change election.
Each election, the rural and small towns are getting redder. In the past primary which saw a huge lead of D ballots. Guess how the rural and small towns in the eastern plains and piedmont voted? Redder than 2024.
Yeah, Cooper has crossover appeals for some voters that wouldn’t normally even consider voting Democrats. That’s why he is more likely to prevail. Winning double digit needs massive abstentions outside of the metro areas, or Robinson as an opponent. Not convinced.
I don’t think the commenter is being too pessimistic at all here. The state is very tough for Dems in federal races and I don’t see even Cooper being able to win by double digits even in a year like this. I’m betting the margin will look a lot like his 2020 margin in the governors race (52-47) and not a whole lot more. He’ll probably do a bit better in the suburbs and may finally flip Caburrus and Alamance counties, but he’ll likely do worse in the rural counties.
You are right that small towns are redder than ever. But they are also smaller than ever. Demographic trends mean less and less people live in small towns and more and more people are moving to big cities which negates this effect somewhat
You might be thinking about a totally different state? NC is the MOST rural one in all competitive states. Over 1/3 of the electorate, and second in absolute numbers only to Texas, of all states.
Yeah one thing that gave me some hope in FL was Biden winning Duval and being the first PresiDem nominee to do so since Carter. If he could hold those gains in Central/North while fixing the collapse in Dade but both of those factors moved the other way.
This is Stevens's toughest campaign by far, even tougher than the 2018 general and 2022 primary for U.S. House. In both of those, she benefited from candidates completely imploding; in 2018, there was some kind of controversy involving a group called Jews for Jesus that derailed the GOP nominee in that race, whereas, in 2022, Andy Levin had a bizarre yoga-themed response to SCOUTS overturning Roe v. Wade that derailed his campaign.
The big non-endorsers now are Whitmer (AES used to work for her, but Whitmer isn't super popular with AES's base) and Slotkin (extremely unpopular with AES's base to the point that her endorsing Stevens would do more to motivate AES's base than anything to help Stevens).
Slotkin's approval among Democratic primary voters in Michigan is 90+%. Her endorsement is only a net positive for anyone who receives it. The 5% who disapprove of her will crawl over broken glass to vote for AES anyway.
I’ve resigned myself to Hong probably winning the primary and flopping hard in the general. If we do end up losing this race, at least the national impact will be somewhat limited. Maybe we will learn next time.
This is someone who won’t be able to just sharpen her rough edges to better fit her state. Are we just going to foolishly assume Republicans won’t play her own words?
The problem with this logic is it overlooks or underestimates voters’ ability to sift through real attacks versus fake. Republicans are always going to call a Democrat a socialist. It doesn’t work on people like Roy Cooper or Josh Stein. If they embraced the socialist label and called for defunding the police, we’d be looking at a well-deserved wipeout.
Similarly, Republicans always call Democrats soft on crime. Usually it doesn’t work, but it’s had a lot of success against Democrats who have actually called for defunding or abolishing the police. Why? Voters aren’t as stupid as people think. They know how to discern a real attack with merit versus a straw man.
I think you make a good point - the GOP is calling literally any Democratic nominee a socialist whether they are or aren’t. So actually nominating a socialist doesn’t hurt like it used to, Republicans would call Hillary Clinton a socialist if she ran again today. The attack is losing its meaning and its edge
“ New York City elected a socialist mayor, and the Knicks won their first championship in 53 years. Imagine what we could do with a socialist governor in Wisconsin?
That's just a sports joke about Mamdani leading NYC to a championship and how Hong could do the same for Wisconsin teams, what are you concerned about with that?
I saw arguments we don’t need another milk toast lib like Tony Evers if we want to raise the minimum wage or legalize marijuana. Ignorant of course of the fact that Evers wants those things and is constrained by a Republican legislature. Or revisionist arguments that Barnes lost in 2022 for being too much of a centrist corporate sellout…while “milk toast” Evers won by 4 points.
As a swing state Dem, this terrifies the shit out of me.
Part of me wants her to win so we have a point of comparison to go off of, but my worry is her inevitable loss will be blamed on the establishment sinking her and not giving her enough money or something.
Yeah, I don't think people don't realize how enraged and pissed off the Democratic base is (myself included) until the polls close in Nov. I guarantee we'll see some shock flips, but I'm not going to guess them.
The extent to which a lot of base progressives subscribe to Murc’s Law - that only Democrats have agency and everything is thus their fault, even if a Republican is responsible - baffles me and makes me very worried about their ability to assess candidates/political conditions.
Not the the establishment has crowned itself I. Glory either but all this reminds me of the Republican sentiments circa 2011-13.
I think Barnes did well in a difficult environment against a two term incumbent considering the headwinds and he’d probably narrowly be my first choice ahead of Rodriguez - if you think he lost because he’s “too corporate” then I really have to doubt your political acumen in a state like Wisconsin
Yeah the Shanon Angles and Christine O'Donnells of the left are willing primaries now. We'll know their names soon, but its clear that ideological purity trolls are throwing away difficult seats we otherwise would win. Its just a matter of how many.
If people really want to block Hong from getting the nomination, they need to be boosting Barnes. It honestly perplexes me how many moderate Dems insist that if they're going to stop the far-left candidate, it has to be with THEIR choice of candidates, when it's clear that's not realistic. Rodriguez could win the nomination, but it's waaay easier to peel voters off of Hong in favor of Barnes than hope that consolidating the moderate vote is enough. And yet, there's a sizable portion of the party that would never consider doing anything to help Barnes do that because they're so used to holding a monopoly on "electability" that they can't stomach supporting someone outside their camp.
This. Barnes has a record as a progressive, so I think he could appeal to potential Hong voters while not being as risky.
Incidentally Hong is a good example of how my support for progressives in primaries has limits. I do not believe she can win the general, and frankly I am not happy about the prospect of her on the ticket. I fear she may even drag down other Dems in swingy seats.
My ideal outcome is actually an interesting one — I want Hong to lose to either Barnes or Rodriguez, but by a margin close enough that progressives could gain some influence over a potential Dem governorship. Sometimes not winning isn’t always bad if the margins are close - ideological factions can spook party figures to move in a direction that would satiate some ideological concerns. See: the Tea Party’s trajectory in the GOP, the number of Dems who moved to the center when Eric Adams won and Nina Turner lost and all the 2021 left losses happened.
I genuinely fear a Hong candidacy in the general but I think a result where she loses by a small margin could help left wing groups build influence in a way that a win may not. We’ll see I guess.
That is my ideal outcome too. I would narrowly prefer Barnes, but I also think the differences between him and Rodriguez are overstated. This is not a Stevens v AES situation exactly
Any amount of loss I think would be pretty discrediting for nominating socialists in swing states. It’s not like Tom Tiffany is some electoral titan or that a Democrat should otherwise be struggling in Wisconsin in a year like this. A Democrat should have a pretty easy win there this year, so if she blew it, it would reflect terribly and people would rightly say “I told you so.”
I worry about the downballot casualties it could cost us too, like our chance at a trifecta, or WI-03, or the AG’s office. But as I noted before, a lot of that is on people like Kaul for not doing something to stop it.
By loss, I meant in the primary. A general loss would do tremendous damage to the left, I agree. I was arguing a close primary loss may give the left a bit of a bargaining chip if the Dems do win the Gov race.
I agree with you at this point, because clearly Rodriguez doesn’t have the chops or name recognition. It’s just bad that it’s gotten to this point, and you could almost see this scenario coming from as late as last fall.
I hope Josh Kaul is happy with the decision he made. He could have nearly singlehandedly avoided this mess and easily won a promotion this year. Now, there’s a very real chance that a Hong nomination could lead to him losing reelection as a casualty.
The issue with Barnes is just that it's hard to argue for his electability when he lost the Senate race in Wisconsin. I'm not saying that's necessarily fair or that he would do worse in the general than Hong, but he has run for an important statewide office and lost, while Hong and Rodriguez have not.
I mean, he got within ~1% of beating an R incumbent in an R-leaning year in an R-leaning state. Don't think that suggests he's at a disadvantage to win an open seat in the same state in a D-leaning year.
"1 in 4 Hispanic Business Owners" is such an extraordinarily small slice of the electorate that it should not be used to indicate electoral significance. I suspect that this polling was done to inform fundraising decisions
FYI, I am mainly looking at TX Hispanic voters in general, not specifically Hispanic business owners. The Hispanic vote is key for Talarico to win the seat. I’m only looking at sentiment and where it could possibly lead.
However, it varies who you talk to. During the 2024 presidential election, I remember seeing on on KGO or KTVU TV few Hispanic business owners in San Francisco being interviewed who supported Trump but also voted for Mayor Daniel Lurie when he was a mayoral candidate then. Main issue was crime and safety.
I don't doubt these results, but as a Political Science professor, I have to point out: "Hispanic business owners who voted for Cornyn" has to be so small and spread out that finding a statistically meaningful number in a random sample would be very difficult. If it is from the membership list of this (or other) organization, their members may or may not be reflective of the overall group.
“It just seems now more than ever, if you’re brown, they’re gonna stop you,” said Mario Guerrero, a three-time Trump voter who leads the South Texas Builders Association. “And I know that sounds really racist, but it’s what we’re facing, man.”
'Too little, too late': Experts say Kavanaugh won't undo his damage with major U-turn
''In a much-criticized opinion in September, the justice supported the Trump administration’s campaign of randomly stopping Hispanics on the street in an effort to root out undocumented immigrants.
At the time he wrote, “Immigration stops based on reasonable suspicion of illegal presence have been an important component of U.S. immigration enforcement for decades,” before allowing that “apparent ethnicity” could be a “relevant factor” for demand of proof of citizenship. He also suggested that any questioning is “typically brief” and U.S. citizens and legal residents would “promptly go free.”
That opinion gave rise to what is now called a “Kavanaugh stop” — coined by Drexel Kline School of Law Professor Anil Kalhan.
According to the two Slate analysts, Kavanaugh now opining in a recent footnote, “that race and ethnicity could not be ‘considerations’ when officers make ‘immigration stops or arrests,’” is a stab at cleaning his already troubled legacy.
“I think he is begging us to please cease and desist calling them ‘Kavanaugh stops.’ This footnote is buried in the opinion and doesn’t really have anything to do with it. He just says: By the way, this conflict is about immigration stops,” Stern offered.
“Wow! Immigration stops can’t be based on race? What a concept!” Lithwick sarcastically added. “A concept that you, Brett Kavanaugh, rejected just a few months ago, in September, in the Vasquez Perdomo case. Back then, you wrote that immigration stops could be at least partly based on race or ethnicity, and that a person’s appearance as Latino could be one reason for them to be stopped by immigration officers.”
“I think he is trying to rid 'Kavanaugh stops' from the discourse, which is never going to happen. And maybe he’s trying to send a message to the Trump administration to cool it down,” Stern suggested before pointing out that CBP Chief Greg Bovino pounced on the September opinion to ramp up grabbing anyone with brown skin off the streets with Kavanaugh’s legal blessing.
Stern then added, “Every intelligent observer understood what was going to happen when his opinion dropped in September. Now he seems to regret it—though he still hasn’t apologized directly or acknowledged that he was wrong, and is pretending that what he said earlier is consonant with what he’s saying now. Too little, too late.”
IMO not particularly. As a watcher of Oregon from across the river this is pretty typical. Oregon Dems are never really popular (it’s a pretty poorly run state) but the GOP is utterly radioactive there even by GOP standards
I get your analogy electorally though it’s for different reasons. Minnesota is a pretty well run state where we simply are seeing a demographic transition unfold a bit. Oregon is just a grumpy, disillusioned partisan electorate that begrudgingly continues to accept mediocrity because the alternate is the Greater Idaho lunatics
Well, that’s the crux of the problem. The solution to me would be jettisoning the non-profit industrial complex, but while it is not important to liberal progressivism - indeed antithetical to it - it is very important to the Democratic Party as a constituency.
I’m cautiously optimistic that a lot of the new wave of “get it done” mayors of both center (Lurie in SF) and left (Mamdani) grasp this and the importance of actual state capacity, but that’ll take a long time to seep upward
Piketty observed that non-profit sector in the 21st century has almost exactly the share of the wealth that the church did in the middle ages. And with almost exactly the same function: some rudimentary and uneven support for the poor plus a lot of easing the conscience of the ruling class.
Well, the nonprofit sector does support a variety of festivals, etc., and degree to which the church's various feast days, including the sabbath, were vacation in the modern sense is certainly debatable.
I absolutely agree, and would add, with regards to the problems of Oregon state government (all subjective, of course!)
- Public sector unions are also essential to the state Democratic Party apparatus. As a former public sector union member, I don't believe that unions and effective government are antithetical, but do think that they can sometimes contribute to a bias towards the status quo. (I would in fact add from experience that management antagonism towards union members and seeing front-line workers as "just" classified staff or as members of a lower social and intellectual stratum is in fact one of the main ways in which union workplaces suffer because there are no avenues for members' skills or ideas to be integrated into overall process improvements when management thinks that only their often-uninformed ideas should be entertained.)
- Salem is kind of a backwater that can't attract top talent for executive positions in state agencies. (Sorry to any Salemites here! Maybe I'm wrong about this.)
- There are cultural norms of "Northwest Nice" that frown on vocal disagreement in favor of a sort of "live and let live" attitude that I think allows some projects to be poorly planned or underwhelming in their execution.
I agree with all these points, which apply to WA as well, albeit to a lesser extent. There’s a certain ossification at play and small-c conservatism. That said, public unions are an extension of natural state capacity and while they often need an injection of new blood/fresh perspective that’s true if any large institution. The toxic incentives of the nonprofit universe is an entirely different can of worms
I’d add too that Oregon does suffer for lacking the kind of private sector base that Washington and California both have while still retaining a lot of their political instincts
I think I know what you're getting at, but I don't recall having seen it discussed before. Can you elaborate on the non-profit industrial complex as an obstacle/issue?
You did not mention Dan Kleban in Maine senate. He seems like someone who has done a lot of good in the community and has that outsider halo as a beer brewer
Also he's Jewish so unlikely to have a nazi tattoo and has been married to the same person since 1999.
I know this isn't what you meant, but there are younger Jews who have voluntarily gotten numbers tattooed on their arms in solidarity with their older holocaust survivor relatives.
We try to avoid recapitulating the entire field in a given race in every post we do. We described his candidacy first and even featured his photo at the top of the newsletter just before this one: https://www.the-downballot.com/p/morning-digest-democrats-begin-piling (This is the same story linked where you see "have already put their names forward.")
Agree you did that, here, however, you seemed to be highlighting those who were competitive and Kleban was not included -- it was actually your previous newsletter that made me aware of, and supportive of, his candidacy.
Realistically, I'd say it's a fair assessment to not include him in the competitive group for getting the nomination.
He's not at a 0% chance but it's not good odds, either. Jackson is the most likely person, with other political officials like Bellows being plausible underdogs.
That low info voters weren’t against voting for someone from the Middle East in a recent poll, as another poster noted, is actually a really good sign.
I wonder if it has something to do with Michigan having a big Arab/Muslim population. When Arabs/Muslims are your neighbors, friends, coworkers, just people who show up a lot in your neighborhood, I wonder if that helps a bit with racism and Islamophobia, since it’s hard to hate an entire group if members of that group are people you know and may be close to you. Thoughts? Am I being too naive?
I don't know. It's been observed repeatedly that white voters are most unlikely to vote for Black candidates, especially Black Democrats, in several Southern states with high percentages of Black residents, notably including Mississippi.
I wonder how much that has to do with segregation within the state, though. From what I understand, Mississippi is very racially segregated despite having the highest Black percentage of population of any state (36.44%).
I feel for AZ dems pissed at the DCCC for medling in their primary. People out west really loathe when the DC establishment tries to tell them who is best in their state to represent them. They've pulled that crap here in Colorado before too. And we still resent it
I actually have a question for posters here about that.
A concern the DCCC had was that Amish Shah prioritized door knocking over fundraising calls. What do posters here think of that? Is Shah right, or is the DCCC?
Oftentimes, the candidate is able to fundraise more than other random telemarketers and make much more contacts than they would door knocking.
Conversely, any canvasser can do door knocking almost as effectively as a candidate. While I think candidates should spend some time knocking on doors to directly engage with voters and spend time in the community, they probably shouldn't spend all their time doing so.
Those who are registered Rs, self-identify as conservative, and voted for Trump '24 still vote Republican 76% to 16. Those who are registered Rs, but not conservative, and voted for Trump '24 still vote Republican 63% to 26.
But those without the party label (who don't consider themselves Republican or conservative) who voted for Trump '24 now go to Democrats by 62% to 22, which is an outright flip.
That figure of Democrats leading by 40 points among independent Trump 2024 voters is a shocker (although not that much of a shocker given that it verifies a lot of massive Democratic overperformances in special elections); I would ordinarily expect around one-third of independents to be hyperpartisan Rs in disguise (and, conversely, one-third of independents to be hyperpartisan Ds in disguise), not less than a quarter.
SC-Sen: Gov. Henry McMaster is expected to appoint Darline Graham Nordone, the sister of deceased incumbent Lindsey Graham, to succeed him. Trump has also publicly endorsed this decision.
Graham Nordone probably won't run for a full term, where Reps. Ralph Norman and Nancy Mace, businessman Mark Lynch and Lt. Gov. Pam Evette are already likely to run.
⬆️ The 2026 Summer of States Event Series features three panels of in-state lawmakers with firsthand updates, real-time stories of The States Project’s impact, and a look at what's happening on the ground.
These events are open to Giving Circle leaders and members, plus friends, family, and anyone curious about getting involved. Share widely!
➡️ Thursday, July 16th (8pm ET / 5pm PT): Where we’re Breaking Rightwing Supermajorities: Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, & Ohio
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➡️ Thursday, August 20th (8pm ET / 5pm PT): Where We’re Building Power: Arizona, New Hampshire, & Wisconsin
Why tomorrow and not now?
I have seen ZERO pro Whatley ads here in the RDU media market. Lots of Roy Cooper ones with him talking directly to the camera.
I don’t see them in CLT market either, but my wife and I don’t have cable and listen to Spotify. Usually the only way the ads seep through is occasional ads on Hulu or Peacock.
Anytime someone mentions Spotify, I have to put in a plug for replacing it with Qobuz, which pays artists more, has higher-quality streaming, and does not run ICE ads on its platform.
I'm guessing RDU is Raleigh-Durham.
I shouldn't be using the airport code, but the media market where I'm at is Durham-Raleigh-Chapel Hill, and some bleed over to Fayetteville.
Thanks.
Rick and Andrew Wilson did say last month that Republicans were basically cutting bait on North Carolina due to Cooper's strong polling.
Hopefully they do and it helps House races, statge leg races, and SCT.
The NC GOP comments in the Politico article are sheer copium. I do think that IF Cooper wins by 14 points, we could flip the state House. And NC Supreme Court judge Anita Earls definitely wins re-election by a comfortable margin.
Not if this poll is right.
https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/polls/cooper-leads-but-whatley-has-a-path/
Too much hopium.
Try and true GOP strategy since Helms, to win statewide races in the small towns. You don’t even see much their actions around triangle. Democrats have been laughing this off since 1972, but the other side won most of the federal elections.
Things have changed here in NC.
They don't know who Whatley is. And with Trump 2.0 hitting people's pocketbooks, some GOP voters are going to pick Cooper because they know he's not an uber lefty.
Yeah, each election, we have the same story, that it is a change election.
Each election, the rural and small towns are getting redder. In the past primary which saw a huge lead of D ballots. Guess how the rural and small towns in the eastern plains and piedmont voted? Redder than 2024.
Yeah, Cooper has crossover appeals for some voters that wouldn’t normally even consider voting Democrats. That’s why he is more likely to prevail. Winning double digit needs massive abstentions outside of the metro areas, or Robinson as an opponent. Not convinced.
I'm going to need more than anecdotes because the 2025 municipal elections were a BIG warning for Rs right off the bat.
You're being WAY too pessimistic right now.
No. If I am pessimistic I would call it a tossup. :)
No evidence whatsoever that rural NC is suddenly turning to Democrats.
I don’t think the commenter is being too pessimistic at all here. The state is very tough for Dems in federal races and I don’t see even Cooper being able to win by double digits even in a year like this. I’m betting the margin will look a lot like his 2020 margin in the governors race (52-47) and not a whole lot more. He’ll probably do a bit better in the suburbs and may finally flip Caburrus and Alamance counties, but he’ll likely do worse in the rural counties.
You are right that small towns are redder than ever. But they are also smaller than ever. Demographic trends mean less and less people live in small towns and more and more people are moving to big cities which negates this effect somewhat
You might be thinking about a totally different state? NC is the MOST rural one in all competitive states. Over 1/3 of the electorate, and second in absolute numbers only to Texas, of all states.
Will FL Rs make up that deficit with in-person early voting?
Yeah one thing that gave me some hope in FL was Biden winning Duval and being the first PresiDem nominee to do so since Carter. If he could hold those gains in Central/North while fixing the collapse in Dade but both of those factors moved the other way.
This is Stevens's toughest campaign by far, even tougher than the 2018 general and 2022 primary for U.S. House. In both of those, she benefited from candidates completely imploding; in 2018, there was some kind of controversy involving a group called Jews for Jesus that derailed the GOP nominee in that race, whereas, in 2022, Andy Levin had a bizarre yoga-themed response to SCOUTS overturning Roe v. Wade that derailed his campaign.
The big non-endorsers now are Whitmer (AES used to work for her, but Whitmer isn't super popular with AES's base) and Slotkin (extremely unpopular with AES's base to the point that her endorsing Stevens would do more to motivate AES's base than anything to help Stevens).
Slotkin's approval among Democratic primary voters in Michigan is 90+%. Her endorsement is only a net positive for anyone who receives it. The 5% who disapprove of her will crawl over broken glass to vote for AES anyway.
I’ve resigned myself to Hong probably winning the primary and flopping hard in the general. If we do end up losing this race, at least the national impact will be somewhat limited. Maybe we will learn next time.
If we lose Minnesota Governor and a Michigan senate seat, it doesn't exactly bode well for our Midwest near future.
Not because of Hong. I just mean that both of our candidates in that race are not polling well. Losing there and here would not be great.
If Amy Klobuchar is losing, we got other problems.
Yeah, its FAR more likely Flanagan loses than Amy Klobuchar. If Amy Klobuchar loses, Republicans will sweep every office in the state.
I think they meant Wisconsin governor. Nobody thinks Amy Klobuchar is going to lose.
Yeah, sorry, Wisconsin.
Well, the dream of a Wisconsin trifecta was nice while it lasted if Hong’s the nominee
This is someone who won’t be able to just sharpen her rough edges to better fit her state. Are we just going to foolishly assume Republicans won’t play her own words?
https://x.com/FrancescaHongWI/status/2066236246423228854
The problem with this logic is it overlooks or underestimates voters’ ability to sift through real attacks versus fake. Republicans are always going to call a Democrat a socialist. It doesn’t work on people like Roy Cooper or Josh Stein. If they embraced the socialist label and called for defunding the police, we’d be looking at a well-deserved wipeout.
Similarly, Republicans always call Democrats soft on crime. Usually it doesn’t work, but it’s had a lot of success against Democrats who have actually called for defunding or abolishing the police. Why? Voters aren’t as stupid as people think. They know how to discern a real attack with merit versus a straw man.
I think you make a good point - the GOP is calling literally any Democratic nominee a socialist whether they are or aren’t. So actually nominating a socialist doesn’t hurt like it used to, Republicans would call Hillary Clinton a socialist if she ran again today. The attack is losing its meaning and its edge
What did this link to?
“ New York City elected a socialist mayor, and the Knicks won their first championship in 53 years. Imagine what we could do with a socialist governor in Wisconsin?
@packers
@Brewers
@Bucks”
I don't see how that's a comment that brings out her "rough edges". Maybe if you don't like socialism.
That's just a sports joke about Mamdani leading NYC to a championship and how Hong could do the same for Wisconsin teams, what are you concerned about with that?
This strikes me as whistling past the graveyard with a stare as crucial as Wisconsin at stake
I saw arguments we don’t need another milk toast lib like Tony Evers if we want to raise the minimum wage or legalize marijuana. Ignorant of course of the fact that Evers wants those things and is constrained by a Republican legislature. Or revisionist arguments that Barnes lost in 2022 for being too much of a centrist corporate sellout…while “milk toast” Evers won by 4 points.
As a swing state Dem, this terrifies the shit out of me.
Part of me wants her to win so we have a point of comparison to go off of, but my worry is her inevitable loss will be blamed on the establishment sinking her and not giving her enough money or something.
Yeah, I don't think people don't realize how enraged and pissed off the Democratic base is (myself included) until the polls close in Nov. I guarantee we'll see some shock flips, but I'm not going to guess them.
Amen. The GOP has shifted pretty far to the right and has a federal teifecta and controls most of the states.
There is some room to move left, even in swing states. Brown is no centrist in OH. Flanagan will be fine in Minny.
The center of the party already has. Bernie lost the election but won the argument on a lot of stuff.
But it can go too far. El-Sayed will be tricky in MI, if he wins. I think Stevens may be favored with McMorrow out.
But in the time we are in, I think fighters/unriggers will do well, even in a general and in a swing state.
The extent to which a lot of base progressives subscribe to Murc’s Law - that only Democrats have agency and everything is thus their fault, even if a Republican is responsible - baffles me and makes me very worried about their ability to assess candidates/political conditions.
Not the the establishment has crowned itself I. Glory either but all this reminds me of the Republican sentiments circa 2011-13.
I think Barnes did well in a difficult environment against a two term incumbent considering the headwinds and he’d probably narrowly be my first choice ahead of Rodriguez - if you think he lost because he’s “too corporate” then I really have to doubt your political acumen in a state like Wisconsin
Yeah the Shanon Angles and Christine O'Donnells of the left are willing primaries now. We'll know their names soon, but its clear that ideological purity trolls are throwing away difficult seats we otherwise would win. Its just a matter of how many.
If people really want to block Hong from getting the nomination, they need to be boosting Barnes. It honestly perplexes me how many moderate Dems insist that if they're going to stop the far-left candidate, it has to be with THEIR choice of candidates, when it's clear that's not realistic. Rodriguez could win the nomination, but it's waaay easier to peel voters off of Hong in favor of Barnes than hope that consolidating the moderate vote is enough. And yet, there's a sizable portion of the party that would never consider doing anything to help Barnes do that because they're so used to holding a monopoly on "electability" that they can't stomach supporting someone outside their camp.
This. Barnes has a record as a progressive, so I think he could appeal to potential Hong voters while not being as risky.
Incidentally Hong is a good example of how my support for progressives in primaries has limits. I do not believe she can win the general, and frankly I am not happy about the prospect of her on the ticket. I fear she may even drag down other Dems in swingy seats.
My ideal outcome is actually an interesting one — I want Hong to lose to either Barnes or Rodriguez, but by a margin close enough that progressives could gain some influence over a potential Dem governorship. Sometimes not winning isn’t always bad if the margins are close - ideological factions can spook party figures to move in a direction that would satiate some ideological concerns. See: the Tea Party’s trajectory in the GOP, the number of Dems who moved to the center when Eric Adams won and Nina Turner lost and all the 2021 left losses happened.
I genuinely fear a Hong candidacy in the general but I think a result where she loses by a small margin could help left wing groups build influence in a way that a win may not. We’ll see I guess.
That is my ideal outcome too. I would narrowly prefer Barnes, but I also think the differences between him and Rodriguez are overstated. This is not a Stevens v AES situation exactly
Any amount of loss I think would be pretty discrediting for nominating socialists in swing states. It’s not like Tom Tiffany is some electoral titan or that a Democrat should otherwise be struggling in Wisconsin in a year like this. A Democrat should have a pretty easy win there this year, so if she blew it, it would reflect terribly and people would rightly say “I told you so.”
I worry about the downballot casualties it could cost us too, like our chance at a trifecta, or WI-03, or the AG’s office. But as I noted before, a lot of that is on people like Kaul for not doing something to stop it.
By loss, I meant in the primary. A general loss would do tremendous damage to the left, I agree. I was arguing a close primary loss may give the left a bit of a bargaining chip if the Dems do win the Gov race.
Oh, fair point then.
This is why I’m glad Dave Crowley dropped out and endorsed him
He endorsed Rodriguez
I agree with you at this point, because clearly Rodriguez doesn’t have the chops or name recognition. It’s just bad that it’s gotten to this point, and you could almost see this scenario coming from as late as last fall.
I hope Josh Kaul is happy with the decision he made. He could have nearly singlehandedly avoided this mess and easily won a promotion this year. Now, there’s a very real chance that a Hong nomination could lead to him losing reelection as a casualty.
Isn’t he holding tight to run against Johnson in 2028?
Maybe, but good luck doing that if he loses this year if Hong brings him down.
The issue with Barnes is just that it's hard to argue for his electability when he lost the Senate race in Wisconsin. I'm not saying that's necessarily fair or that he would do worse in the general than Hong, but he has run for an important statewide office and lost, while Hong and Rodriguez have not.
I mean, he got within ~1% of beating an R incumbent in an R-leaning year in an R-leaning state. Don't think that suggests he's at a disadvantage to win an open seat in the same state in a D-leaning year.
If anything it speaks well for him
It could be no more than meets the eye.
Feels like it's time for Tony Evers to back Rodriguez. There is still time for self-correction from her campaign, but it's getting late.
I don't think it's clear why he would back Rodriguez over Barnes at this point. He seems much better positioned to win the primary
Sounds like more evidence Hispanic voters in TX may be key swing votes for Talarico.
"1 in 4 Hispanic Business Owners" is such an extraordinarily small slice of the electorate that it should not be used to indicate electoral significance. I suspect that this polling was done to inform fundraising decisions
FYI, I am mainly looking at TX Hispanic voters in general, not specifically Hispanic business owners. The Hispanic vote is key for Talarico to win the seat. I’m only looking at sentiment and where it could possibly lead.
However, it varies who you talk to. During the 2024 presidential election, I remember seeing on on KGO or KTVU TV few Hispanic business owners in San Francisco being interviewed who supported Trump but also voted for Mayor Daniel Lurie when he was a mayoral candidate then. Main issue was crime and safety.
I don't doubt these results, but as a Political Science professor, I have to point out: "Hispanic business owners who voted for Cornyn" has to be so small and spread out that finding a statistically meaningful number in a random sample would be very difficult. If it is from the membership list of this (or other) organization, their members may or may not be reflective of the overall group.
“It just seems now more than ever, if you’re brown, they’re gonna stop you,” said Mario Guerrero, a three-time Trump voter who leads the South Texas Builders Association. “And I know that sounds really racist, but it’s what we’re facing, man.”
'Too little, too late': Experts say Kavanaugh won't undo his damage with major U-turn
https://www.rawstory.com/kavanaugh-2674837701/
''In a much-criticized opinion in September, the justice supported the Trump administration’s campaign of randomly stopping Hispanics on the street in an effort to root out undocumented immigrants.
At the time he wrote, “Immigration stops based on reasonable suspicion of illegal presence have been an important component of U.S. immigration enforcement for decades,” before allowing that “apparent ethnicity” could be a “relevant factor” for demand of proof of citizenship. He also suggested that any questioning is “typically brief” and U.S. citizens and legal residents would “promptly go free.”
That opinion gave rise to what is now called a “Kavanaugh stop” — coined by Drexel Kline School of Law Professor Anil Kalhan.
According to the two Slate analysts, Kavanaugh now opining in a recent footnote, “that race and ethnicity could not be ‘considerations’ when officers make ‘immigration stops or arrests,’” is a stab at cleaning his already troubled legacy.
“I think he is begging us to please cease and desist calling them ‘Kavanaugh stops.’ This footnote is buried in the opinion and doesn’t really have anything to do with it. He just says: By the way, this conflict is about immigration stops,” Stern offered.
“Wow! Immigration stops can’t be based on race? What a concept!” Lithwick sarcastically added. “A concept that you, Brett Kavanaugh, rejected just a few months ago, in September, in the Vasquez Perdomo case. Back then, you wrote that immigration stops could be at least partly based on race or ethnicity, and that a person’s appearance as Latino could be one reason for them to be stopped by immigration officers.”
“I think he is trying to rid 'Kavanaugh stops' from the discourse, which is never going to happen. And maybe he’s trying to send a message to the Trump administration to cool it down,” Stern suggested before pointing out that CBP Chief Greg Bovino pounced on the September opinion to ramp up grabbing anyone with brown skin off the streets with Kavanaugh’s legal blessing.
Stern then added, “Every intelligent observer understood what was going to happen when his opinion dropped in September. Now he seems to regret it—though he still hasn’t apologized directly or acknowledged that he was wrong, and is pretending that what he said earlier is consonant with what he’s saying now. Too little, too late.”
Should we be worried about those Oregon governor polling numbers?
IMO not particularly. As a watcher of Oregon from across the river this is pretty typical. Oregon Dems are never really popular (it’s a pretty poorly run state) but the GOP is utterly radioactive there even by GOP standards
I get your analogy electorally though it’s for different reasons. Minnesota is a pretty well run state where we simply are seeing a demographic transition unfold a bit. Oregon is just a grumpy, disillusioned partisan electorate that begrudgingly continues to accept mediocrity because the alternate is the Greater Idaho lunatics
What could Democrats do to improve governance there that would be uncontroversial in their state legislative caucuses?
Well, that’s the crux of the problem. The solution to me would be jettisoning the non-profit industrial complex, but while it is not important to liberal progressivism - indeed antithetical to it - it is very important to the Democratic Party as a constituency.
I’m cautiously optimistic that a lot of the new wave of “get it done” mayors of both center (Lurie in SF) and left (Mamdani) grasp this and the importance of actual state capacity, but that’ll take a long time to seep upward
Piketty observed that non-profit sector in the 21st century has almost exactly the share of the wealth that the church did in the middle ages. And with almost exactly the same function: some rudimentary and uneven support for the poor plus a lot of easing the conscience of the ruling class.
I’m far from a Piketty enthusiast but that’s a pretty astute (and damning) observation on his part
apt, but not entirely fair to the church, as at least the church got more vacation day for the peasantry
Well, the nonprofit sector does support a variety of festivals, etc., and degree to which the church's various feast days, including the sabbath, were vacation in the modern sense is certainly debatable.
I absolutely agree, and would add, with regards to the problems of Oregon state government (all subjective, of course!)
- Public sector unions are also essential to the state Democratic Party apparatus. As a former public sector union member, I don't believe that unions and effective government are antithetical, but do think that they can sometimes contribute to a bias towards the status quo. (I would in fact add from experience that management antagonism towards union members and seeing front-line workers as "just" classified staff or as members of a lower social and intellectual stratum is in fact one of the main ways in which union workplaces suffer because there are no avenues for members' skills or ideas to be integrated into overall process improvements when management thinks that only their often-uninformed ideas should be entertained.)
- Salem is kind of a backwater that can't attract top talent for executive positions in state agencies. (Sorry to any Salemites here! Maybe I'm wrong about this.)
- There are cultural norms of "Northwest Nice" that frown on vocal disagreement in favor of a sort of "live and let live" attitude that I think allows some projects to be poorly planned or underwhelming in their execution.
I agree with all these points, which apply to WA as well, albeit to a lesser extent. There’s a certain ossification at play and small-c conservatism. That said, public unions are an extension of natural state capacity and while they often need an injection of new blood/fresh perspective that’s true if any large institution. The toxic incentives of the nonprofit universe is an entirely different can of worms
I’d add too that Oregon does suffer for lacking the kind of private sector base that Washington and California both have while still retaining a lot of their political instincts
I think I know what you're getting at, but I don't recall having seen it discussed before. Can you elaborate on the non-profit industrial complex as an obstacle/issue?
You did not mention Dan Kleban in Maine senate. He seems like someone who has done a lot of good in the community and has that outsider halo as a beer brewer
Also he's Jewish so unlikely to have a nazi tattoo and has been married to the same person since 1999.
I know this isn't what you meant, but there are younger Jews who have voluntarily gotten numbers tattooed on their arms in solidarity with their older holocaust survivor relatives.
It’s amazing how low the bar is now if those are considered wins, isn’t it? LMAO.
This debacle has severely biased me against running rando nobodies who have never ran for office for a Senate or gubernatorial race.
We try to avoid recapitulating the entire field in a given race in every post we do. We described his candidacy first and even featured his photo at the top of the newsletter just before this one: https://www.the-downballot.com/p/morning-digest-democrats-begin-piling (This is the same story linked where you see "have already put their names forward.")
Agree you did that, here, however, you seemed to be highlighting those who were competitive and Kleban was not included -- it was actually your previous newsletter that made me aware of, and supportive of, his candidacy.
Realistically, I'd say it's a fair assessment to not include him in the competitive group for getting the nomination.
He's not at a 0% chance but it's not good odds, either. Jackson is the most likely person, with other political officials like Bellows being plausible underdogs.
A nice, succinct summary of Graham's career and time spent as Trump's ass-kisser in the Senate.
What’s the saying, you can’t spell crazy without (R-AZ)
OF COURSE Lindsey Graham died of hard-heartedness. Of course.
One Lindsey meme used Leslie Jordan's viral dance he did in 2020.
MI Senate: Peters endorses Stevens. Not a surprise.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2026/07/13/gary-peters-backs-haley-stevens-in-democratic-primary-for-michigan-us-senate/90896216007/?taid=6a54ad03449c8a0001d14508&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
What is scary about Abdul el-Sayad? Apart from the obvious GOP one.
He's clearly a far left Muslim, and those two factors can never make their way into our politics /s
That low info voters weren’t against voting for someone from the Middle East in a recent poll, as another poster noted, is actually a really good sign.
I wonder if it has something to do with Michigan having a big Arab/Muslim population. When Arabs/Muslims are your neighbors, friends, coworkers, just people who show up a lot in your neighborhood, I wonder if that helps a bit with racism and Islamophobia, since it’s hard to hate an entire group if members of that group are people you know and may be close to you. Thoughts? Am I being too naive?
This is one of the only swing states where somebody like AES could possibly scrape it out.
Still, I just wish Peters had run again
Maybe Peters retiring has more to it than let on. He could have health problems.
I don't know. It's been observed repeatedly that white voters are most unlikely to vote for Black candidates, especially Black Democrats, in several Southern states with high percentages of Black residents, notably including Mississippi.
Think some additional historical factors in the South explain why that is.
Partly. I'm just saying we can't assume that familiarity breeds tolerance.
I wonder how much that has to do with segregation within the state, though. From what I understand, Mississippi is very racially segregated despite having the highest Black percentage of population of any state (36.44%).
New York City is also highly segregated, so I don't know how much of a correlation there is.
I feel for AZ dems pissed at the DCCC for medling in their primary. People out west really loathe when the DC establishment tries to tell them who is best in their state to represent them. They've pulled that crap here in Colorado before too. And we still resent it
I actually have a question for posters here about that.
A concern the DCCC had was that Amish Shah prioritized door knocking over fundraising calls. What do posters here think of that? Is Shah right, or is the DCCC?
Depends entirely on the district. Door knocking is very effective in dense urban environments and less so elsewhere.
Still, it’s kind of dumb to get into a giant fight over
Oftentimes, the candidate is able to fundraise more than other random telemarketers and make much more contacts than they would door knocking.
Conversely, any canvasser can do door knocking almost as effectively as a candidate. While I think candidates should spend some time knocking on doors to directly engage with voters and spend time in the community, they probably shouldn't spend all their time doing so.
Honestly, almost no one beyond highly online political obsessives (like us) care about this. The average person doesn't even know what the DCCC is....
An interesting article from G. Elliott Morris about people who disapprove of FDJT but still vote Republican.
https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-07-13-lab-gop-anchors-generic-ballot?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Those who are registered Rs, self-identify as conservative, and voted for Trump '24 still vote Republican 76% to 16. Those who are registered Rs, but not conservative, and voted for Trump '24 still vote Republican 63% to 26.
But those without the party label (who don't consider themselves Republican or conservative) who voted for Trump '24 now go to Democrats by 62% to 22, which is an outright flip.
The raw numbers are important there. I assume bucket #1 is by far the largest. But even there, getting 16% with 8% undecided is not nothing.
Bucket #2 at 26% with 11% undecided is a LOT.
And of course 62-22 is pushing 3 to 1 for indy Trump voters.
The 3 to 1 indy Trump voters could be what causes some shock flips this fall, provided they vote an entirely blue ballot (and not a split ticket).
That figure of Democrats leading by 40 points among independent Trump 2024 voters is a shocker (although not that much of a shocker given that it verifies a lot of massive Democratic overperformances in special elections); I would ordinarily expect around one-third of independents to be hyperpartisan Rs in disguise (and, conversely, one-third of independents to be hyperpartisan Ds in disguise), not less than a quarter.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/13/trump-lindsey-graham-replacement-mcmaster-00994800
SC-Sen: Gov. Henry McMaster is expected to appoint Darline Graham Nordone, the sister of deceased incumbent Lindsey Graham, to succeed him. Trump has also publicly endorsed this decision.
Graham Nordone probably won't run for a full term, where Reps. Ralph Norman and Nancy Mace, businessman Mark Lynch and Lt. Gov. Pam Evette are already likely to run.
Readers of the DownBallot may find this series of zooms from the States Project of Interest:
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