Simple fact: I don’t know a single intelligent, sensitive person who is *not* suffering mental distress or depression knowing what voters chose and now witnessing what the Trump Regime is doing to this country!
Americans have so many misconceptions about mental health. I sincerely hope Yadira Caraveo does not suffer a fate similar to Senator Tom Eagleton. Older members of the DownBallot community will remember that he was George McGovern’s vice presidential nominee – until his struggles with depression emerged.
I wish the former, and hopefully future, Congresswoman the very best of luck with her campaign!
Unfortunately being open about it doesn't mean the electorate is going to understand. I'm very open about being on the Autism Spectrum. That being said, I'm under no illusion that the majority of the electorate - even in blue areas - is going to understand that anytime soon. And that's a major reason why I've never considered running for public office.
Dunno about hopefully future Congresswoman. Wasn't it you who mentioned her vote to condemn Harris on immigration yesterday? Another candidate might be better. But otherwise, of course I absolutely wish her well!
Sage is an interesting candidate. He's an Army veteran, mechanic, a local sports announcer and also the executive director of the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce.
Quite the contrast although it should be noted that Senator Joni Ernst is an Army veteran herself. If anything, Ernst being Chair of the Senate DOGE Caucus should be the biggest ammunition Sage has in his Senate campaign going against Ernst.
Of course it is! Ernst is now deciding she wants to not piss off Trump in any way she can and this includes being Senate Chairwoman of the DOGE (or DOGE Coin) Caucus.
Polls don't matter. If she had run for a third term, she probably would've won again. Incumbents are really hard to unseat, and Iowa has shifted solidly to the right since she first entered office in 2017.
Come November 2026, we’ll see how deeply Mad King Donald has pulled the Republican Party’s brand into the sewer. And that brown stain on the noses of his MAGA sycophants and boot-lickers is not going away.
We are leading the GOP on issues like the economy and inflation for the first time in years. His popularity has crashed among Gen Z, independants and Latinos. I honestly believe that if it was some competent Republican like Kemp, Youngkin or Haley instead of him, we would have lost the country for a decade and be forced to nominate another center-right Bill Clinton. Biden left him a strong economy poised to boom just like Obama did in 2016.
Something similar happened in Hungary, Orban took over when the nation's politics was in a mess and just when it was going to bounce back from the 2008 financial crisis. We all know how that went.
While we may have questions about Morning Consult's polling, their latest survey showed Dems leading Reps by 3 points on the economy--small, but the first Democratic lead of any size on that in four years (since the Biden "honeymoon" period.) And multiple polls--even before "Liberation Day"--showed Trump's economic ratings lower than they ever were during his first term.
There are a lot of ambitious Republicans in Iowa, and a weakened Reynolds would have been easy pickings for any of them-it's a similar dynamic to what Kathy Hochul is facing here in New York.
Is Hochul easy pickings? Folks on the Downballot seem to be assuming that she has virtually no chance of being primaried out. I hope they are wrong, by the way.
Looks like Barbara Lee came up short in her race for Oakland Mayor to city councilor Loren Taylor 51-48, there's still some mail ballots to count though. Voters in big cities may not be looking for a super progressive when it comes to a mayorship.
It's way too early to call this race. As I wrote yesterday, the early voters tend to be more white, more affluent and more conservative so the early votes would favor Taylor. Note that the second batch of votes posted last night gave Lee 57% to Taylor's 42%. The later votes will favor Lee, by how much and how many will there be?
I think some politicians who did fit that stereotype have forced a reassessment, including Chesa "Shoplifting? Meh, just don't take TOO much" Boudin, and the SF school board members for whom renaming schools to conform with activist standards of "wokeness" was evidently more important than reopening them or ensuring that students met standards.
San Francisco is not that liberal of a city and hasn't been well before London Breed took office. If it was, institutionally it would be a pro-tenant city, which is what Berkeley is. The SF Chamber of Commerce would also not be as big of an influencer and lobby as it is with its own PAC.
Liberals who have lived in SF long enough since Willie Brown was Mayor know very well that he and every other Mayor since then from Gavin Newsom to Ed Lee to London Breed and now Daniel Lurie have been elected by being business friendly. This includes being friendly to corporate developers.
Anything about Chesa Boudin and the SF School Board Members being recalled is so low bar compared to the real problems that have been going on with SF decades in the making.
It feels like most Democratic strongholds are not the most super progressive areas as once thought, but they are pro-DEMOCRATIC areas. Like Delaware for example as one state.
Though to be perfectly fair, the average voter/candidate in blue areas register and run as Democrats so they have some influence in their vote/voice (even ones who would normally be Republican leaning), similar to how the average voter/candidate register and run as Republicans in red areas. So there’s a much greater spread of ideology among each respective party in the rock red and deep blue areas.
That’s how you get MAGA and less right wing politicians (they aren’t moderate and they aren’t centrist certainly), elected to office in Republican strongholds like Governor Cox in Utah to Governor Noem in South Dakota and also more progressive, more moderate elected officials in the party in blue strongholds like Ilhan Omar/Rashida Tlaib (these 2 are just off the top of my head, if someone else fits better, lmk!) to Ed Case.
It’s not really something that’s ever acknowledged or talked about among election enthusiasts, but I think it has a much larger effect than people typically think. So San Francisco not being a super progressive city doesn’t surprise me.
If San Francisco's actions prove it's not "super progressive", then I'm not sure what sizable city in the US is. Even a deep blue and liberal one like Minneapolis, in which voters had the chance to vote directly on a "defund the police" initiative, and they rejected it by a wide margin (and probably did Democrats and progressives nationally some good by removing that idea from serious political discourse.)
Yes, the activist bases and the vast majority of voters are not the same thing. So if a particular electorate leans to one party or the other, that does not mean they are all uniformly on side with all of the items on the activists' agenda.
Oaklanders living in the hills are primarily upper middle class but lots of them also can be quite liberal, not just moderate or centrist. If they voted for Loren Taylor, it has more to do with common sense and sanity than it is about the city changing ideologically. Otherwise, the city is quite liberal, far more diverse demographically than SF.
Some background as to why it helps not to look at things in black and white when it comes to the ideological differences in the Oakland hills vs. the flatter part of the city:
When I was campaigning with Joe Tuman for his 2nd Mayoral Run in 2014, there was a heavy focus he made in East Oakland, the largest neighborhood in the city. In campaigning in Fruitvale and parts of the East Oakland hills right before the border of San Leandro. In Tuman's campaign, he targeted East Oakland residents including those who lived in Fruitvale, which has one of the largest Hispanic neighborhoods in the city but is close to the Coliseum.
Fruitvale is represented by District 5 Councilmember Noel Gallo, one of the more "moderate" types of councilmembers. Many such Hispanic residents in Fruitvale that Gallo (who himself is Hispanic) represents aren't far off from him and are quite middle of the road. If they didn't vote in high numbers, it's probably because the city itself has a historically distant relationship with the lower part of East Oakland.
Anyone who may be considered more "moderate" or "centrist" in Oakland isn't just in the hills. They're scattered elsewhere in the city, especially in the lower parts of East Oakland. The more social justice driven voters do live in the lower parts of Oakland but frankly, I believe they are disillusioned with Sheng Thao. That could be why they have not turned out the way they did in the 2022 mayoral election.
I love Barbara Lee. Fantastic Representative. It's possible she's not the best candidate for Mayor, but those who voted for her are surely not nuts or idiots!
Hey, as a long-time Berkeley resident I voted for Barbara Lee in the House for decades. Never once hesitated doing so and absolutely think she’s a legend, both with her stance anti-war history.
Wouldn’t ever for a second think Oaklanders who voted for Lee were nuts, just like the ones who voted for Thao back in 2022 (before everyone found out she was corrupt) were not nuts. They just happen to have different perspectives where social justice needs to be more focused on than the business side of things.
Social justice in this case means better protections for tenants, higher minimum wage, stopping the cuts to K-12 public education, greater attention to root problems plaguing the black community being marginalized out of Oakland, and more.
I suspect that she was hurt by the fact that she is 78 years old and just lost a senate race. A lot of people are getting sick of being represented by geriatric career politicians who refuse to retire.
It has nothing to do with what you’re describing. Those who voted for Barbara Lee are doing so for the following:
-She’s considered the more liberal voice by comparison to Loren Taylor.
-Her history and background having graduated from Mills College.
-She’s the real progressive and would bring back the image of Oakland before Sheng Thao tarnished it.
Lee btw promised that if she would be elected Mayor she’s hired more police officers. Used to be back in 2014 progressives would criticize a candidate for having this stance.
Don’t know if this has been posted but the NC Elections agency has filed its statement last night in federal court as to the number of voters subject to being culled as per the NC Courts rulings on the SCT race. Https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WbBE7dSsy_R1AzuMl3w_oykQnPgs6YDM/view.
Appears that the Griffin folks only timely challenged the overseas votes from Guilford County. If so the the numbers are likely not there for Griffin to win since over 72% of the 1200 votes would have to be Riggs votes and be tossed to overcome her 750 vote lead even if all the votes were found to be invalid and could not be cured by the voter. Highly unlikely.
Bryan Anderson has been all over the SCONC election challenge since late last year. He says that Griffin has a numbers problem and even if federal courts ruled in favor of him, and nobody used the 30 day cure period -- Riggs would still win.
There was the Republican congressman from North Carolina who got into the seat because of vote fraud for which there were convictions and then won the next election comfortably, and in the 1970s, the British-appointed Governor General of Australia annulled the victory of a socialist candidate for president (or whatever the leadership position was), installing his right-wing rival, who proceeded to win the next election decisively.
You referring to pastor Mark Harris? They annulled the 2018 primary that he won when they found out his campaign guy, McCrae Dowless, was collecting and stuffing absentee ballots. Harris pled innocence (he knew damn well what Dowless was doing!), cried fake tears when his son ratted him out in court & pulled out of the race. They ran a special primary afterward, which Dan Bishop won handily (and won in the general in 2018, 2020 and 2022).
Fast forward to last year, Mark Harris decided to run again with Trump on the ballot. To no one's surprise, he won handily because of the safely gerrymandered maps.
If every Democratic state party head isn’t blowing up Anderson Clayton’s phone to figure out how she managed to turn a dismal GOP drubbing of Democrats almost everywhere across the country into a 6/10 executive council victories with a Trump +3 electorate, they should resign for incompetence. In a Trump year, she helped Democrats win up and down the ballot in the state.
She helped Democrats hold NC-01, which should’ve been a gimme in a GOP year with a strong R candidate nominated (most other swing district reps fell). Democrats won Governor, Lieutenant Governor (flip), Attorney General, Secretary of State, Superintendent (flip), Supreme Court, with even the losses giving Republicans their closest margins for those stronghold offices (Agriculture, Treasurer, Labor, Auditor) in decades. Then there was down ballot where they only net lost 2 seats in the same year Republicans flipped MI House by a lot.
Instead of doing what normal state party chairs do during a campaign like fundraise (of course she still did that), campaign in winnable areas, do tv ads, message about issues etc, she shook things up and wrote a new playbook for Democrats to emulate. She spent her entire time as chair admitting to and rebuilding the damaged party image as one that fights for all people in the state. We need to admit as Democrats we spend too much time on issues and talking about what we’re against and not enough time about strengthening and fixing the brand of the party image.
She recruited Democrats to run in red areas to nearly fill out every office having a Democrat running, giving all voters an actual choice. She went everywhere, red areas, swing areas, blue areas. She talked to everyone, she out worked the competition, she spoke to voters online and on tv on a wide range of media from podcasts to cable news, meeting them wherever they are. She got a massive amount of earned media attention for doing this, which gave her message even more reach.
It’s a positive message that shows Democrats are for something (we all know that, voters don’t) that gets Democrats AND swing voters excited about. If we start following what she did to a T (with variations to fit whatever state the Democrats are in of course), we can start to earn more all Democratic Party voter loyalty turnout and more swing voters giving more of their vote choices to our candidates. Have our cake and eat it too. Of course some of the victories Dems had are down to bad GOP nominees, but she played an integral role imo.
I am so proud of Anderson and what she has done in two years. She has turned some things around -- now imagine her work on the 2026 midterms with FDJT NOT on the ballot. I think a handful more state legislature seats will flip.
Also crucial that Anita Earls be re-elected next year as well.
I never in a million years thought it was possible for Democrats to flip the North Carolina Supreme Court again before redistricting in 2030, it would require holding Riggs seat, Earls seat and flipping 2/3 GOP incumbent seats in 2028. That it’s actually a possibility after 2024 election results across the country, is a miracle with a large amount of credit going to her. Now we have a much bigger bench of younger elected Democrats for higher office races.
And if I’m being optimistic, Democrats could even have a trifecta in North Carolina in 2026. They need to flip only 5 State Senate seats (flipping Lt. Gov means tie votes there now get broken by a Democrat) and 12 State House seats to do so. They flipped 6 State Senate seats and 9 State House seats in the last Trump midterm in 2018.
We are one of the most gerrymandered states outside of Ohio and Florida. Wisconsin had that honor until progressives flipped control of the state SC and redrew the maps.
Last year, a small majority of NC voters voted for Democrats in the state legislature. But because of the gerrymandered maps, Rs have firm majorities in both houses (and a supermajority in the state Senate).
If we flip control of NC next year even with gerrymandered districts, Rs are in BIG trouble nationwide.
Good point on the gerrymandered NC legislature with partisan maps redrawn. It absolutely is an uphill climb to try to flip both chambers, but I’d also argue they have far less of a hill to climb in 2026 than they did in 2024.
I kind of disagree with saying Ohio is gerrymandered (and with the GOP base demanding they eliminate 1 or 2 of the Democratic seats before the 2026 midterms to help their party hold power in the House, kind of confirms it), but that’s a minor nitpick. Florida though? Absolutely, probably even the most gerrymandered state in the country.
I definitely characterize the chances as optimistic, it’s not the most likely scenario by any means (even in a good Dem year) in 2026.
Ohio is gerrymandered to the point where Rs easily win 65% of the seats for one state house and almost 79% for the other. If they had fair maps they would still have a majority, albeit not a supermajority.
Let's not assume the NC Supreme Court Republicans would let the court be flipped. This time, they're trying to annul a few thousand duly cast votes. Next time, it could be much worse with their majority on the line, unless SCOTUS overturns their current decision.
That's good news, but it's still crucial for that precedent to be overruled, because if they can annul duly cast votes for no legal reason, Republicans will do it again much more drastically elsewhere.
To make this clear, this is a potential New York statewide campaign from a MAGA rep from a red upstate district whom Trump thought so highly of that he decided to pull her out of Congress for a UN appointment, until someone found that her open district might plausibly flip blue?
I'll take that. Even Hochul would probably easily defeat her in the general, plus there's still a potential (slightly delayed) flip of her seat, with her ending up not at the UN but out of office altogether.
I can envision a 2010 redux here. A relatively obscure Upstate conservative beats a more well known Downstate moderate because the primary electorate skews Upstate and conservative, then gets creamed in the general election.
A plausible parallel as far as that goes, with some important differences: 2026 is obviously not going to be the red wave of 2010, but Elise Stefanik is not "Crazy Carl" Paladino.
While she may not make the sort of offensive statements Paladino did, she'd make the election easier for Dems than some say it should be, as Hochul or any other Democrat could shift much of the heat away from their state governance and make Trump and the national GOP much more of an issue. (That would be a problem for Lawler, too, but likely to a lesser degree.)
I'm not saying she'd lose 2:1, but I don't see any strength in a general election. She sold her soul to Trump, just to get stabbed in the back, any competent campaign shouldn't have to work too hard to get that point across, and she's from arguably the most remote congressional district in the state. I just don't see her winning Downstate voters.
Being on Long Island...Stefanik's biggest barrier to a general election victory is that like Hochul she's from upstate-otherwise she'd easily win on Long Island and get massive margins in Staten Island-someone from upstate won't get either in a statewide race.
She's definitely from upstate. I know we can always debate about where "upstate" starts (I used to say, at the first Stewart's" but that's definitely upstate.
I think you missed his point, which is that the area she represents is so far Upstate, they think everyone to their south is Downstate. I say that without offering an opinion, just to emphasize what his point was.
Stefanik is definitely a stronger candidate than Paladino-she might even be stronger for the Republicans, not in terms of actually beating Hochul, but in terms of doing well downballot, as Lawler's seat probably flips if he's not defending it-Stefanik's probably does not.
I can think of at least one plausible candidate who would be weaker than Paladino-Curtis Silwa.
I think the Republican with the best chance of running close to/defeating Hochul is Nicole Malliotakis-but I don't think she's interested in running statewide.
Malliotakis has the advantage of actually being from NYC, so she'll run best there, and it doesn't take much as Republican to clean house upstate. I think she'd also hold up best on Long Island-other than any Republican actually from Long Island.
Agreed on Long Island, but in New York City, I doubt she'd be popular outside of her constituency that's mostly in Staten Island and some other uber-Republican areas.
Yup. The old Stefanik could be a contender. Not this pathetic version who’s running for a way out. Says a lot about how shitty it is to be a sane Republican amongst a party of fools. Rubio chose his way out as SoS and Stefanik to UN made some sense.
It's entirely plausible Don told her he'd endorse her in a race for governor in exchange for rescinding her UN nomination. The main thing his political team was worried about was the potential special election with a razor thin majority. In the general election in 2026 her district, even if open, will be much further down the priority list for Republicans.
Stefanik going from being nominated as UN Ambassador by Trump to then going back to serving in the House to now looking at running for NY Governor is quite the change. Perhaps she's trying to see how she can be relevant and control her own destiny
I hope she does so she can find out the hard way why associating with Trump is not helping her political career.
I know there are more votes yet to be counted. However, my gut feeling is that Loren Taylor may end up winning the election.
The problem is, while Taylor's margin of lead over Barbara Lee has dropped from 2.5% in the First RCV Round to 2.4% in the 9th RCV Round, his overall voting percentage during the time has increased 3% from 48.2% to 51.2%.
Back in the 2022 Mayoral Election, Taylor did lead Sheng Thao by 1.28 in the first RCV round. However, in the 7th RCV round Thao ended up overtaking Taylor by 0.6% points with a narrow lead of 50.3% points vs. Taylor who had 49.7% of the votes at the time. Such movement has not happened this time around and turnout is substantially lower than it was in 2022.
Taylor currently leads with 24,347 votes compared to back in 2022 when he was barely trailing Sheng Thao with 56,529 votes cast for him at the time of the 9th RCV Round. Unless the additional votes yet to be counted are going to make a substantial difference for both Taylor and Lee, I don't see how there's going to be much movement in this election.
Maybe there's something I'm missing but right now, I don't see how the math is leaning in Lee's direction.
The Registrar of Voters estimates that there are about 42K votes still to be counted, making turnout about 36%. That would mean that only about 55% of the votes are currently counted. There's a long way to go. Waiting for Friday.
Ok thanks for the information. I’m mainly pointing out that compared to 2022, it’s different all of a sudden that in the 9th round of RCV that Lee hasn’t gotten the momentum that Sheng Thao did in the election.
But we shall see. The race should go either way in the end and I may end up being surprised.
I consider it too close to call with (1) so many votes outstanding; and (2) a real likelihood that Lee's supporters voted later in the process, making the remaining votes more likely to lean toward her.
I think 2022 was different than 2025 because there were so many credible candidates. Note that in 2022, even after five rounds of RCV, Thao and Taylor only had 67% combined. This year, Taylor and Lee have 94% in the first round.
Perhaps I'm still trying to understand the RCV system better but I find it unusual that all of these 40,000+ outstanding ballots have yet to be counted in this special election race. Unless I'm mistaken, the 2022 Mayoral Election didn't have this situation after Round 9 of RCV.
Is this because of this being a special election? Or did those casting these 40,000+ ballots decide to mail-in their ballots this time so as to influence the race more than it had been done in the past?
Every election has the count drawn out because valid ballots are accepted up to a week after election day so long as they were mailed by election day (and Alameda is very slow).
I looked back for news stories from 2022 and saw that the election was on 11/8, Thao declared victory on 11/21 and Taylor conceded on 11/22 so the final RC tabulation apparently came out on 11/21, 13 days after election day.
In the United Kingdom this morning, the UK Supreme Court ruled in For Women Scotland v. The Scottish Ministers that trans women aren't legally defined as "women" under the Equality Act 2010. This ruling is a victory for transphobia and "gender-critical" TERFiness. https://bsky.app/profile/lgbtqnation.com/post/3lmwrp76qh522
Yadira Caraveo should easily take the seat back from Gabe Evans in 2026, she was unexpectedly unlucky and fell short in an upset, should be fine next time. 1-term rental if ever I saw one and his voting record is anything but moderate but very extreme, too conservative. His main argument for votes is defending fossil fuel, given the Weld County portion of the district; Caraveo would need to address that!! 💙🇺🇲
Caraveo voted for that stupid resolution blaming Kamala for all the problems at the border, presumably to make her seem moderate on the border. She allowed herself to get played by the GOP on a political messaging bill and in the meantime undermined her party's presidential nominee. No thanks...next candidate please.
Yea I've never been impressed, she doesn't seem to be a particular strong candidate. I'm surprised dems just gave her the nomination uncontested in 2022.
Rutinel has an amazing bio and background, especially for this upcoming election, and he seems to be doing well. Pretty happy with him as a candidate, although it's worth noting he's never really been tested electorally. He was originally appointed to his CO House seat in 2023, and he was unopposed in his first actual election in 2024, so despite being an elected official we don't have any useful election results to measure his performance against his predecessor, the district lean, etc.
While improving in both counties is the goal Weld was pretty flat between 22 -> 24. (58-38 R -> 58-39 R) The movement to the right in Adams is what won it for Evans. (55-41 D -> 54-43 D).
Relevant to the New York Attorney General's race in 2026-apparently the Trump administration is going after Letita James in a criminal case on what may not be legitimate charges (or they might be-it apparently depends if a property she claimed in 2023 in Norfolk, Virginia was her primary residence).
Have to wait and see, but man if the VA property thing is true . . .I just can't with this anymore after Fani Willis. ANYONE prosecuting Trump should've known they had to be on the up and up with EVERYTHING in their own life.
The thing is-I'm pretty sure that's a violation of New York State law, not federal (residency requirements do vary from state to state), so any federal prosecution would run into massive jurisdiction challenges.
The best course of action for Trump would be to find a cooperative District Attorney in New York who is willing to prosecute this-surely there'd be one in an upstate county somewhere?
Either the sitting NY AG had her primary residence in VA, she lied to get better tax treatment or she was sloppy in filling out her forms.
All of these options are bad. Some more then others. Similar to Gabbard claiming a primary residence both in Hawaii and Texas.
Yes, this is an opportunistic attack by Trump. Doesn't change the fact that this is wrong. If this document is real, James should apologize and accept the consequences of her wrongdoing.
OR-Sen: "Speculation about whether Merkley will run again has heated up in recent days, and some hopefuls have begun eyeing congressional seats should one of Oregon’s five Democratic members of the U.S. House seek to succeed him."
An open-seat primary would be interesting! Since there's very little risk of losing in the general, I would hope to see a fair and spirited race, although it does seem like the Oregon Democratic establishment and allied groups often end up anointing nominees. The only recent, competitive statewide primary I can recall was the 2020 Secretary of State election -- I wish Fagan hadn't flamed out, as she was promising and progressive.
I think Dan Rayfield or Tobias Read would be the frontrunner if either ran for the Senate.
In terms of the Congressional delegation, the only one who I think is a plausible candidate is Janelle Bynum, and barring a Rayfield/Read candidacy, she'd likely clear the field.
My sense is that Read and Rayfield have their eyes on the 2030 governor race -- Read tried in 2022 against Kotek, and Rayfield was Speaker of the State House and seems to be more engaged on the state level (and he also has a high-profile post as AG during the Trump II era, and was only elected statewide last year.) But I could see them maybe coming to some kind of arrangement about splitting the two races between them.
I don't have a great feel for which of the US House members would be interested or would be strong candidates. Bonamici is experienced but isn't young, and the rest of them are all still pretty new. Dexter seems ambitious but would be leaving a lifetime seat to run. Bynum might be to the right of the state Democratic electorate, but if Oregon loses the 6th House seat in 2030, she and Salinas would likely be thrown together in a seat covering the southern and eastern Portland suburbs, so maybe that is impetus to run for one or the other. I think it would be hard for a non-Portland candidate like Hoyle to compete statewide.
I don't see any candidates coming from the Portland area city or county offices given recent challenges in local governance, but I don't think it would be impossible for a strong candidate to come out of the state legislature if they can lock down support from major unions. There could also be strong candidates from outside the current political sphere, like Rukaiyah Adams (who is something of a Portland-area business and non-profit sector power player.)
For some reason I feel like Wyden will go for one more term. He seems like the lifer type (and has been a very much above replacement level senator, so I guess I don't fault him.) But time will tell!
Merkley’s a great Senator but considering the exodus of older, tenured Senators this cycle this could be a good opportunity for him to ride off into the sunset
I do agree that Rayfield or Read would be strong favorites in a primary, none of the Congresscritters there strike me as particularly talented politicians (though Rayfield and Read are pretty generic D themselves)
I don’t know why people are so eager to created more open seats. You lose the advantage of incumbency and the party will have to expend more resources defending the seat.
Oregon's not really a seat we should have to worry about defending barring a massive GOP election rigging operation or Democrats nominating a candidate who is serving/recently served in Portland's municipal government.
The only seats we're defending that I'd be worried about flipping to the GOP at this point are Michigan and New Hampshire (under normal circumstances an Open Minnesota seat could be problematic, but Republicans have literally no bench-Minnesota is not flipping).
Those incumbents will retire from office eventually. Or worse, lose, die in office, or resign due to scandal.
If they're going to retire eventually and they're old enough that it will be soon, it's best to do it during a republican midterm. We lost a lot of winnable elections in 2010 and 2014, even in blue states like Illinois, and came too close for comfort in other blue states. Based on the 2021 elections in NJ and VA, we were likely on track for a similar result in 2022 if not for the Dobbs decision.
An open seat now is very much not an open seat in 2032 or 2038. That's the point, that's the benefit. That's the biggest advantage of eg Shaheen retiring now. It will happen eventually; we should hope it happens during a midterm that we expect will be in our favor.
Interesting to note that if there is an open senate seat in Oregon, only three of our five representatives there assumed office before this January. And of those three, two of them are only on their second term.
Dexter and Bynum were elected in 2024. Salinas and Hoyle were elected in 2022. Bonamici was elected in a 2012 special election. Despite being the only one with any real tenture, Bonamici hopefully wouldn't run: at 70 she's older than Merkley. Bynum is the youngest at 50.
There's no obvious representative to make a strong run if the seat does open up.
Is there a reason we think Merkley might retire? I know he'd be 70 on election day, but he's one of the better Senators in Congress, so it would be a shame for him to depart.
I worry Bynum, Salinas, and Hoyle would all be more moderate than him--unnecessarily so in Oregon--and Dexter would be less politically astute.
Simple fact: I don’t know a single intelligent, sensitive person who is *not* suffering mental distress or depression knowing what voters chose and now witnessing what the Trump Regime is doing to this country!
Americans have so many misconceptions about mental health. I sincerely hope Yadira Caraveo does not suffer a fate similar to Senator Tom Eagleton. Older members of the DownBallot community will remember that he was George McGovern’s vice presidential nominee – until his struggles with depression emerged.
I wish the former, and hopefully future, Congresswoman the very best of luck with her campaign!
Eagleton failed to be forthcoming about it. She is being open.
True, and hopefully that will make a decisive difference.
We still have a long way to go, but our society is also more understanding about mental health issues now than it was in 1972.
It could if voters are convinced that she's OK and very likely to remain OK.
Unfortunately being open about it doesn't mean the electorate is going to understand. I'm very open about being on the Autism Spectrum. That being said, I'm under no illusion that the majority of the electorate - even in blue areas - is going to understand that anytime soon. And that's a major reason why I've never considered running for public office.
Dunno about hopefully future Congresswoman. Wasn't it you who mentioned her vote to condemn Harris on immigration yesterday? Another candidate might be better. But otherwise, of course I absolutely wish her well!
Not me. I didn’t even know about that vote.
Nathan Sage is the first Democratic challenger to throw his hat into the ring to challenge Iowa U.S. Senator Joni Ernst in 2026.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/iowa-sen-joni-ernst-gets-her-first-democratic-challenger-for-2026/ar-AA1D1guh?ocid=BingNewsVerp
Sage is an interesting candidate. He's an Army veteran, mechanic, a local sports announcer and also the executive director of the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce.
Quite the contrast although it should be noted that Senator Joni Ernst is an Army veteran herself. If anything, Ernst being Chair of the Senate DOGE Caucus should be the biggest ammunition Sage has in his Senate campaign going against Ernst.
Joni Ernst voted to confirm both Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard. That is damning!
Of course it is! Ernst is now deciding she wants to not piss off Trump in any way she can and this includes being Senate Chairwoman of the DOGE (or DOGE Coin) Caucus.
What else is new?
Maybe this is why Kim Reynolds didn't run. She's the most unpopular governor in the country according to Morning Consult.
https://newjerseyglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Governor-Approval-Outlook-April-2025.pdf
Polls don't matter. If she had run for a third term, she probably would've won again. Incumbents are really hard to unseat, and Iowa has shifted solidly to the right since she first entered office in 2017.
That doesn't mean she wouldn't get taken out in a Republican primary though.
Come November 2026, we’ll see how deeply Mad King Donald has pulled the Republican Party’s brand into the sewer. And that brown stain on the noses of his MAGA sycophants and boot-lickers is not going away.
We are leading the GOP on issues like the economy and inflation for the first time in years. His popularity has crashed among Gen Z, independants and Latinos. I honestly believe that if it was some competent Republican like Kemp, Youngkin or Haley instead of him, we would have lost the country for a decade and be forced to nominate another center-right Bill Clinton. Biden left him a strong economy poised to boom just like Obama did in 2016.
Something similar happened in Hungary, Orban took over when the nation's politics was in a mess and just when it was going to bounce back from the 2008 financial crisis. We all know how that went.
While we may have questions about Morning Consult's polling, their latest survey showed Dems leading Reps by 3 points on the economy--small, but the first Democratic lead of any size on that in four years (since the Biden "honeymoon" period.) And multiple polls--even before "Liberation Day"--showed Trump's economic ratings lower than they ever were during his first term.
Whom do you trust more on inflation?
🔵 Democrats 42%
🔴 Republicans 38%
🔴 Republicans previously had a +10 on inflation
RMG #B - RV - 4/10
It's the same picture in other polls which Enten discussed.
We definitely need to get this message out to the voters that dems are good for the economy. Repugs break it and dems fix it which history bears out.
I think some of us are too certain about these things.
I think Reynolds would have won a general election if she'd run-but getting out of a primary would be difficult.
I'd keep an eye on Pat Grassley-he'd almost certainly clear the field if he runs.
Why would her winning a primary be difficult? She says the right things and hates the right people.
There are a lot of ambitious Republicans in Iowa, and a weakened Reynolds would have been easy pickings for any of them-it's a similar dynamic to what Kathy Hochul is facing here in New York.
Is Hochul easy pickings? Folks on the Downballot seem to be assuming that she has virtually no chance of being primaried out. I hope they are wrong, by the way.
Looks like Barbara Lee came up short in her race for Oakland Mayor to city councilor Loren Taylor 51-48, there's still some mail ballots to count though. Voters in big cities may not be looking for a super progressive when it comes to a mayorship.
It's way too early to call this race. As I wrote yesterday, the early voters tend to be more white, more affluent and more conservative so the early votes would favor Taylor. Note that the second batch of votes posted last night gave Lee 57% to Taylor's 42%. The later votes will favor Lee, by how much and how many will there be?
Wasn't aware that there were this many affluent, conservative white voters in the city of Oakland.
"More" affluent and "more" conservative. Here is a map showing who won each precinct with the current tally: https://electionmaps.acgov.org
In other words moderate to centrist Democrats as oppose to your stereotypical San Francisco liberal.
In light of this and several local elections in the Bay Area, I'm thinking about re-assessing the whole idea of the SF liberal stereotype.
I think some politicians who did fit that stereotype have forced a reassessment, including Chesa "Shoplifting? Meh, just don't take TOO much" Boudin, and the SF school board members for whom renaming schools to conform with activist standards of "wokeness" was evidently more important than reopening them or ensuring that students met standards.
San Francisco is not that liberal of a city and hasn't been well before London Breed took office. If it was, institutionally it would be a pro-tenant city, which is what Berkeley is. The SF Chamber of Commerce would also not be as big of an influencer and lobby as it is with its own PAC.
Liberals who have lived in SF long enough since Willie Brown was Mayor know very well that he and every other Mayor since then from Gavin Newsom to Ed Lee to London Breed and now Daniel Lurie have been elected by being business friendly. This includes being friendly to corporate developers.
Anything about Chesa Boudin and the SF School Board Members being recalled is so low bar compared to the real problems that have been going on with SF decades in the making.
It feels like most Democratic strongholds are not the most super progressive areas as once thought, but they are pro-DEMOCRATIC areas. Like Delaware for example as one state.
Though to be perfectly fair, the average voter/candidate in blue areas register and run as Democrats so they have some influence in their vote/voice (even ones who would normally be Republican leaning), similar to how the average voter/candidate register and run as Republicans in red areas. So there’s a much greater spread of ideology among each respective party in the rock red and deep blue areas.
That’s how you get MAGA and less right wing politicians (they aren’t moderate and they aren’t centrist certainly), elected to office in Republican strongholds like Governor Cox in Utah to Governor Noem in South Dakota and also more progressive, more moderate elected officials in the party in blue strongholds like Ilhan Omar/Rashida Tlaib (these 2 are just off the top of my head, if someone else fits better, lmk!) to Ed Case.
It’s not really something that’s ever acknowledged or talked about among election enthusiasts, but I think it has a much larger effect than people typically think. So San Francisco not being a super progressive city doesn’t surprise me.
If San Francisco's actions prove it's not "super progressive", then I'm not sure what sizable city in the US is. Even a deep blue and liberal one like Minneapolis, in which voters had the chance to vote directly on a "defund the police" initiative, and they rejected it by a wide margin (and probably did Democrats and progressives nationally some good by removing that idea from serious political discourse.)
Yes, the activist bases and the vast majority of voters are not the same thing. So if a particular electorate leans to one party or the other, that does not mean they are all uniformly on side with all of the items on the activists' agenda.
The mainly problem with SF is the business interests. Aside from that, many liberal and moderate residents who are quite liberal on social issues.
Oaklanders living in the hills are primarily upper middle class but lots of them also can be quite liberal, not just moderate or centrist. If they voted for Loren Taylor, it has more to do with common sense and sanity than it is about the city changing ideologically. Otherwise, the city is quite liberal, far more diverse demographically than SF.
Some background as to why it helps not to look at things in black and white when it comes to the ideological differences in the Oakland hills vs. the flatter part of the city:
When I was campaigning with Joe Tuman for his 2nd Mayoral Run in 2014, there was a heavy focus he made in East Oakland, the largest neighborhood in the city. In campaigning in Fruitvale and parts of the East Oakland hills right before the border of San Leandro. In Tuman's campaign, he targeted East Oakland residents including those who lived in Fruitvale, which has one of the largest Hispanic neighborhoods in the city but is close to the Coliseum.
Fruitvale is represented by District 5 Councilmember Noel Gallo, one of the more "moderate" types of councilmembers. Many such Hispanic residents in Fruitvale that Gallo (who himself is Hispanic) represents aren't far off from him and are quite middle of the road. If they didn't vote in high numbers, it's probably because the city itself has a historically distant relationship with the lower part of East Oakland.
Anyone who may be considered more "moderate" or "centrist" in Oakland isn't just in the hills. They're scattered elsewhere in the city, especially in the lower parts of East Oakland. The more social justice driven voters do live in the lower parts of Oakland but frankly, I believe they are disillusioned with Sheng Thao. That could be why they have not turned out the way they did in the 2022 mayoral election.
That's really cool detailed analysis, but are you suggesting that people who voted for Barbara Lee were voting for insanity and senselessness?
Yeah, must be her opposition to the Afghan and Iraq, War and the Patriot Act. 🙄
I love Barbara Lee. Fantastic Representative. It's possible she's not the best candidate for Mayor, but those who voted for her are surely not nuts or idiots!
Hey, as a long-time Berkeley resident I voted for Barbara Lee in the House for decades. Never once hesitated doing so and absolutely think she’s a legend, both with her stance anti-war history.
Wouldn’t ever for a second think Oaklanders who voted for Lee were nuts, just like the ones who voted for Thao back in 2022 (before everyone found out she was corrupt) were not nuts. They just happen to have different perspectives where social justice needs to be more focused on than the business side of things.
Social justice in this case means better protections for tenants, higher minimum wage, stopping the cuts to K-12 public education, greater attention to root problems plaguing the black community being marginalized out of Oakland, and more.
Thanks for clarifying. The reason for my post above was this remark by you:
"If they voted for Loren Taylor, it has more to do with common sense and sanity than it is about the city changing ideologically."
I suspect that she was hurt by the fact that she is 78 years old and just lost a senate race. A lot of people are getting sick of being represented by geriatric career politicians who refuse to retire.
That makes sense.
It has nothing to do with what you’re describing. Those who voted for Barbara Lee are doing so for the following:
-She’s considered the more liberal voice by comparison to Loren Taylor.
-Her history and background having graduated from Mills College.
-She’s the real progressive and would bring back the image of Oakland before Sheng Thao tarnished it.
Lee btw promised that if she would be elected Mayor she’s hired more police officers. Used to be back in 2014 progressives would criticize a candidate for having this stance.
Don’t know if this has been posted but the NC Elections agency has filed its statement last night in federal court as to the number of voters subject to being culled as per the NC Courts rulings on the SCT race. Https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WbBE7dSsy_R1AzuMl3w_oykQnPgs6YDM/view.
Appears that the Griffin folks only timely challenged the overseas votes from Guilford County. If so the the numbers are likely not there for Griffin to win since over 72% of the 1200 votes would have to be Riggs votes and be tossed to overcome her 750 vote lead even if all the votes were found to be invalid and could not be cured by the voter. Highly unlikely.
Bryan Anderson has been all over the SCONC election challenge since late last year. He says that Griffin has a numbers problem and even if federal courts ruled in favor of him, and nobody used the 30 day cure period -- Riggs would still win.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-161438732
Best news of the day.
I'm just smiling from ear to ear today. The court rulings have to be finalized, and it will take several more months -- but I'm mostly relieved.
Griffin is going to be a BIG target when he runs for re-election on the NC Court of Appeals. Voters won't forget what he tried to do.
You hope so, but there are loads of counterexamples.
Can you provide some? I'm curious to know where this kind of thing has happened before.
There was the Republican congressman from North Carolina who got into the seat because of vote fraud for which there were convictions and then won the next election comfortably, and in the 1970s, the British-appointed Governor General of Australia annulled the victory of a socialist candidate for president (or whatever the leadership position was), installing his right-wing rival, who proceeded to win the next election decisively.
You referring to pastor Mark Harris? They annulled the 2018 primary that he won when they found out his campaign guy, McCrae Dowless, was collecting and stuffing absentee ballots. Harris pled innocence (he knew damn well what Dowless was doing!), cried fake tears when his son ratted him out in court & pulled out of the race. They ran a special primary afterward, which Dan Bishop won handily (and won in the general in 2018, 2020 and 2022).
Fast forward to last year, Mark Harris decided to run again with Trump on the ballot. To no one's surprise, he won handily because of the safely gerrymandered maps.
That's the North Carolinian I was referring to. But there are lots of examples that might be clearer.
I'm still peeved that Tricia Cotham was re-elected (but I definitely think she's toast next year).
I know you're referring to FDJT, but Anderson Clayton won't forget what JG did. She is REALLY fired up.
I wasn't thinking of him only at all.
If every Democratic state party head isn’t blowing up Anderson Clayton’s phone to figure out how she managed to turn a dismal GOP drubbing of Democrats almost everywhere across the country into a 6/10 executive council victories with a Trump +3 electorate, they should resign for incompetence. In a Trump year, she helped Democrats win up and down the ballot in the state.
She helped Democrats hold NC-01, which should’ve been a gimme in a GOP year with a strong R candidate nominated (most other swing district reps fell). Democrats won Governor, Lieutenant Governor (flip), Attorney General, Secretary of State, Superintendent (flip), Supreme Court, with even the losses giving Republicans their closest margins for those stronghold offices (Agriculture, Treasurer, Labor, Auditor) in decades. Then there was down ballot where they only net lost 2 seats in the same year Republicans flipped MI House by a lot.
Instead of doing what normal state party chairs do during a campaign like fundraise (of course she still did that), campaign in winnable areas, do tv ads, message about issues etc, she shook things up and wrote a new playbook for Democrats to emulate. She spent her entire time as chair admitting to and rebuilding the damaged party image as one that fights for all people in the state. We need to admit as Democrats we spend too much time on issues and talking about what we’re against and not enough time about strengthening and fixing the brand of the party image.
She recruited Democrats to run in red areas to nearly fill out every office having a Democrat running, giving all voters an actual choice. She went everywhere, red areas, swing areas, blue areas. She talked to everyone, she out worked the competition, she spoke to voters online and on tv on a wide range of media from podcasts to cable news, meeting them wherever they are. She got a massive amount of earned media attention for doing this, which gave her message even more reach.
It’s a positive message that shows Democrats are for something (we all know that, voters don’t) that gets Democrats AND swing voters excited about. If we start following what she did to a T (with variations to fit whatever state the Democrats are in of course), we can start to earn more all Democratic Party voter loyalty turnout and more swing voters giving more of their vote choices to our candidates. Have our cake and eat it too. Of course some of the victories Dems had are down to bad GOP nominees, but she played an integral role imo.
I am so proud of Anderson and what she has done in two years. She has turned some things around -- now imagine her work on the 2026 midterms with FDJT NOT on the ballot. I think a handful more state legislature seats will flip.
Also crucial that Anita Earls be re-elected next year as well.
I never in a million years thought it was possible for Democrats to flip the North Carolina Supreme Court again before redistricting in 2030, it would require holding Riggs seat, Earls seat and flipping 2/3 GOP incumbent seats in 2028. That it’s actually a possibility after 2024 election results across the country, is a miracle with a large amount of credit going to her. Now we have a much bigger bench of younger elected Democrats for higher office races.
And if I’m being optimistic, Democrats could even have a trifecta in North Carolina in 2026. They need to flip only 5 State Senate seats (flipping Lt. Gov means tie votes there now get broken by a Democrat) and 12 State House seats to do so. They flipped 6 State Senate seats and 9 State House seats in the last Trump midterm in 2018.
We are one of the most gerrymandered states outside of Ohio and Florida. Wisconsin had that honor until progressives flipped control of the state SC and redrew the maps.
Last year, a small majority of NC voters voted for Democrats in the state legislature. But because of the gerrymandered maps, Rs have firm majorities in both houses (and a supermajority in the state Senate).
If we flip control of NC next year even with gerrymandered districts, Rs are in BIG trouble nationwide.
Good point on the gerrymandered NC legislature with partisan maps redrawn. It absolutely is an uphill climb to try to flip both chambers, but I’d also argue they have far less of a hill to climb in 2026 than they did in 2024.
I kind of disagree with saying Ohio is gerrymandered (and with the GOP base demanding they eliminate 1 or 2 of the Democratic seats before the 2026 midterms to help their party hold power in the House, kind of confirms it), but that’s a minor nitpick. Florida though? Absolutely, probably even the most gerrymandered state in the country.
I definitely characterize the chances as optimistic, it’s not the most likely scenario by any means (even in a good Dem year) in 2026.
Ohio is gerrymandered to the point where Rs easily win 65% of the seats for one state house and almost 79% for the other. If they had fair maps they would still have a majority, albeit not a supermajority.
Let's not assume the NC Supreme Court Republicans would let the court be flipped. This time, they're trying to annul a few thousand duly cast votes. Next time, it could be much worse with their majority on the line, unless SCOTUS overturns their current decision.
If they fail to steal a seat they lost by 700 votes, no way will they get away with it in a bigger loss.
That's good news, but it's still crucial for that precedent to be overruled, because if they can annul duly cast votes for no legal reason, Republicans will do it again much more drastically elsewhere.
NY-Gov: Elise Stefanik considering.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/rep-elise-stefanik-considers-run-new-york-governor-rcna201562
To make this clear, this is a potential New York statewide campaign from a MAGA rep from a red upstate district whom Trump thought so highly of that he decided to pull her out of Congress for a UN appointment, until someone found that her open district might plausibly flip blue?
I'll take that. Even Hochul would probably easily defeat her in the general, plus there's still a potential (slightly delayed) flip of her seat, with her ending up not at the UN but out of office altogether.
She'd be easier to beat than Lawler.
Easily.
I can envision a 2010 redux here. A relatively obscure Upstate conservative beats a more well known Downstate moderate because the primary electorate skews Upstate and conservative, then gets creamed in the general election.
All hypothetical of course at this point.
A plausible parallel as far as that goes, with some important differences: 2026 is obviously not going to be the red wave of 2010, but Elise Stefanik is not "Crazy Carl" Paladino.
While she may not make the sort of offensive statements Paladino did, she'd make the election easier for Dems than some say it should be, as Hochul or any other Democrat could shift much of the heat away from their state governance and make Trump and the national GOP much more of an issue. (That would be a problem for Lawler, too, but likely to a lesser degree.)
I'm not saying she'd lose 2:1, but I don't see any strength in a general election. She sold her soul to Trump, just to get stabbed in the back, any competent campaign shouldn't have to work too hard to get that point across, and she's from arguably the most remote congressional district in the state. I just don't see her winning Downstate voters.
Being on Long Island...Stefanik's biggest barrier to a general election victory is that like Hochul she's from upstate-otherwise she'd easily win on Long Island and get massive margins in Staten Island-someone from upstate won't get either in a statewide race.
She isn't just from Upstate, I live in Syracuse and people in the North Country think I live Downstate.
She's definitely from upstate. I know we can always debate about where "upstate" starts (I used to say, at the first Stewart's" but that's definitely upstate.
I think you missed his point, which is that the area she represents is so far Upstate, they think everyone to their south is Downstate. I say that without offering an opinion, just to emphasize what his point was.
Best case scenario is they both run for governor and Stefanik defeats Lawler in the primary.
Stefanik is definitely a stronger candidate than Paladino-she might even be stronger for the Republicans, not in terms of actually beating Hochul, but in terms of doing well downballot, as Lawler's seat probably flips if he's not defending it-Stefanik's probably does not.
I mean, it's hard to be weaker than Paladino...
I think Lawler's seat flips regardless and he'd run closer to Hochul than Stefanik and help downballot Rs in the legislature.
I can think of at least one plausible candidate who would be weaker than Paladino-Curtis Silwa.
I think the Republican with the best chance of running close to/defeating Hochul is Nicole Malliotakis-but I don't think she's interested in running statewide.
Why Malliotakis over Lawler? She seems more partisan to me, but I defer to your Downstate perspective.
Malliotakis has the advantage of actually being from NYC, so she'll run best there, and it doesn't take much as Republican to clean house upstate. I think she'd also hold up best on Long Island-other than any Republican actually from Long Island.
Agreed on Long Island, but in New York City, I doubt she'd be popular outside of her constituency that's mostly in Staten Island and some other uber-Republican areas.
Why would Sliwa be weaker than Paladino?
Silwa's not exactly all there-at that's the vibe I get from him.
Much easier.
Yup. The old Stefanik could be a contender. Not this pathetic version who’s running for a way out. Says a lot about how shitty it is to be a sane Republican amongst a party of fools. Rubio chose his way out as SoS and Stefanik to UN made some sense.
Is she trying to take the Lee Zeldin route into the administration? She probably knows Don will forget about her if she stays in the house.
It's entirely plausible Don told her he'd endorse her in a race for governor in exchange for rescinding her UN nomination. The main thing his political team was worried about was the potential special election with a razor thin majority. In the general election in 2026 her district, even if open, will be much further down the priority list for Republicans.
Stefanik going from being nominated as UN Ambassador by Trump to then going back to serving in the House to now looking at running for NY Governor is quite the change. Perhaps she's trying to see how she can be relevant and control her own destiny
I hope she does so she can find out the hard way why associating with Trump is not helping her political career.
It has in the House, which is the reason she's done it.
Yes, it’s certainly provided Stefanik cover. However, at this point she’ll be more likely to keep her House seat than win the gubernatorial election.
No question!
Oakland Mayoral Special Election
I know there are more votes yet to be counted. However, my gut feeling is that Loren Taylor may end up winning the election.
The problem is, while Taylor's margin of lead over Barbara Lee has dropped from 2.5% in the First RCV Round to 2.4% in the 9th RCV Round, his overall voting percentage during the time has increased 3% from 48.2% to 51.2%.
Back in the 2022 Mayoral Election, Taylor did lead Sheng Thao by 1.28 in the first RCV round. However, in the 7th RCV round Thao ended up overtaking Taylor by 0.6% points with a narrow lead of 50.3% points vs. Taylor who had 49.7% of the votes at the time. Such movement has not happened this time around and turnout is substantially lower than it was in 2022.
Taylor currently leads with 24,347 votes compared to back in 2022 when he was barely trailing Sheng Thao with 56,529 votes cast for him at the time of the 9th RCV Round. Unless the additional votes yet to be counted are going to make a substantial difference for both Taylor and Lee, I don't see how there's going to be much movement in this election.
Maybe there's something I'm missing but right now, I don't see how the math is leaning in Lee's direction.
2022 Mayoral Election
https://www.alamedacountyca.gov/rovresults/rcv/248/rcvresults.htm?race=Oakland%2F001-Mayor
2025 Mayoral Special Election
https://alamedacountyca.gov/rovresults/rcv/257/rcvresults.htm?race=Oakland%2F001-Mayor
Thanks for this update.
The Registrar of Voters estimates that there are about 42K votes still to be counted, making turnout about 36%. That would mean that only about 55% of the votes are currently counted. There's a long way to go. Waiting for Friday.
Ok thanks for the information. I’m mainly pointing out that compared to 2022, it’s different all of a sudden that in the 9th round of RCV that Lee hasn’t gotten the momentum that Sheng Thao did in the election.
But we shall see. The race should go either way in the end and I may end up being surprised.
I consider it too close to call with (1) so many votes outstanding; and (2) a real likelihood that Lee's supporters voted later in the process, making the remaining votes more likely to lean toward her.
I think 2022 was different than 2025 because there were so many credible candidates. Note that in 2022, even after five rounds of RCV, Thao and Taylor only had 67% combined. This year, Taylor and Lee have 94% in the first round.
Ok, that's helpful to know.
Perhaps I'm still trying to understand the RCV system better but I find it unusual that all of these 40,000+ outstanding ballots have yet to be counted in this special election race. Unless I'm mistaken, the 2022 Mayoral Election didn't have this situation after Round 9 of RCV.
Is this because of this being a special election? Or did those casting these 40,000+ ballots decide to mail-in their ballots this time so as to influence the race more than it had been done in the past?
Every election has the count drawn out because valid ballots are accepted up to a week after election day so long as they were mailed by election day (and Alameda is very slow).
I looked back for news stories from 2022 and saw that the election was on 11/8, Thao declared victory on 11/21 and Taylor conceded on 11/22 so the final RC tabulation apparently came out on 11/21, 13 days after election day.
Well then, we shall have to wait and see how things play out in the additional votes that are being counted.
In the United Kingdom this morning, the UK Supreme Court ruled in For Women Scotland v. The Scottish Ministers that trans women aren't legally defined as "women" under the Equality Act 2010. This ruling is a victory for transphobia and "gender-critical" TERFiness. https://bsky.app/profile/lgbtqnation.com/post/3lmwrp76qh522
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/04/uk-supreme-court-rules-that-trans-women-are-not-women-under-the-law/
Couldn't a Labour led government avoid that with a carveout or addition to the Equality Act?
Is this appealable?
CO-08:
Yadira Caraveo should easily take the seat back from Gabe Evans in 2026, she was unexpectedly unlucky and fell short in an upset, should be fine next time. 1-term rental if ever I saw one and his voting record is anything but moderate but very extreme, too conservative. His main argument for votes is defending fossil fuel, given the Weld County portion of the district; Caraveo would need to address that!! 💙🇺🇲
Caraveo voted for that stupid resolution blaming Kamala for all the problems at the border, presumably to make her seem moderate on the border. She allowed herself to get played by the GOP on a political messaging bill and in the meantime undermined her party's presidential nominee. No thanks...next candidate please.
Yea I've never been impressed, she doesn't seem to be a particular strong candidate. I'm surprised dems just gave her the nomination uncontested in 2022.
Plus we already have Rutinel in the race who's raising a good amount of money and seems to offer a compelling counterargument to Evans, so...
Rutinel has an amazing bio and background, especially for this upcoming election, and he seems to be doing well. Pretty happy with him as a candidate, although it's worth noting he's never really been tested electorally. He was originally appointed to his CO House seat in 2023, and he was unopposed in his first actual election in 2024, so despite being an elected official we don't have any useful election results to measure his performance against his predecessor, the district lean, etc.
While improving in both counties is the goal Weld was pretty flat between 22 -> 24. (58-38 R -> 58-39 R) The movement to the right in Adams is what won it for Evans. (55-41 D -> 54-43 D).
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7vn1rymz38o
Relevant to the New York Attorney General's race in 2026-apparently the Trump administration is going after Letita James in a criminal case on what may not be legitimate charges (or they might be-it apparently depends if a property she claimed in 2023 in Norfolk, Virginia was her primary residence).
Have to wait and see, but man if the VA property thing is true . . .I just can't with this anymore after Fani Willis. ANYONE prosecuting Trump should've known they had to be on the up and up with EVERYTHING in their own life.
The thing is-I'm pretty sure that's a violation of New York State law, not federal (residency requirements do vary from state to state), so any federal prosecution would run into massive jurisdiction challenges.
The best course of action for Trump would be to find a cooperative District Attorney in New York who is willing to prosecute this-surely there'd be one in an upstate county somewhere?
She didn’t prosecute him. That was Bragg. She brought a civil action against his company of which he was the named party.
And this only arose after she threatened to investigate the tariff market manipulation and insider trading.
Either the sitting NY AG had her primary residence in VA, she lied to get better tax treatment or she was sloppy in filling out her forms.
All of these options are bad. Some more then others. Similar to Gabbard claiming a primary residence both in Hawaii and Texas.
Yes, this is an opportunistic attack by Trump. Doesn't change the fact that this is wrong. If this document is real, James should apologize and accept the consequences of her wrongdoing.
Great live interview with Heather Cox Richardson right now.
https://open.substack.com/live-stream/22957
OR-Sen: "Speculation about whether Merkley will run again has heated up in recent days, and some hopefuls have begun eyeing congressional seats should one of Oregon’s five Democratic members of the U.S. House seek to succeed him."
https://www.wweek.com/news/2025/04/16/murmurs-merkley-addresses-2026-plans/
An open-seat primary would be interesting! Since there's very little risk of losing in the general, I would hope to see a fair and spirited race, although it does seem like the Oregon Democratic establishment and allied groups often end up anointing nominees. The only recent, competitive statewide primary I can recall was the 2020 Secretary of State election -- I wish Fagan hadn't flamed out, as she was promising and progressive.
I think Dan Rayfield or Tobias Read would be the frontrunner if either ran for the Senate.
In terms of the Congressional delegation, the only one who I think is a plausible candidate is Janelle Bynum, and barring a Rayfield/Read candidacy, she'd likely clear the field.
My sense is that Read and Rayfield have their eyes on the 2030 governor race -- Read tried in 2022 against Kotek, and Rayfield was Speaker of the State House and seems to be more engaged on the state level (and he also has a high-profile post as AG during the Trump II era, and was only elected statewide last year.) But I could see them maybe coming to some kind of arrangement about splitting the two races between them.
I don't have a great feel for which of the US House members would be interested or would be strong candidates. Bonamici is experienced but isn't young, and the rest of them are all still pretty new. Dexter seems ambitious but would be leaving a lifetime seat to run. Bynum might be to the right of the state Democratic electorate, but if Oregon loses the 6th House seat in 2030, she and Salinas would likely be thrown together in a seat covering the southern and eastern Portland suburbs, so maybe that is impetus to run for one or the other. I think it would be hard for a non-Portland candidate like Hoyle to compete statewide.
I don't see any candidates coming from the Portland area city or county offices given recent challenges in local governance, but I don't think it would be impossible for a strong candidate to come out of the state legislature if they can lock down support from major unions. There could also be strong candidates from outside the current political sphere, like Rukaiyah Adams (who is something of a Portland-area business and non-profit sector power player.)
If Wyden steps down in 2028 that would dovetail with the expiration of Read’s first term as SOS
For some reason I feel like Wyden will go for one more term. He seems like the lifer type (and has been a very much above replacement level senator, so I guess I don't fault him.) But time will tell!
Oregon has definitely been spoiled since 2009 with a pair of terrific Senators
Merkley’s a great Senator but considering the exodus of older, tenured Senators this cycle this could be a good opportunity for him to ride off into the sunset
I do agree that Rayfield or Read would be strong favorites in a primary, none of the Congresscritters there strike me as particularly talented politicians (though Rayfield and Read are pretty generic D themselves)
I don’t know why people are so eager to created more open seats. You lose the advantage of incumbency and the party will have to expend more resources defending the seat.
Oregon's not really a seat we should have to worry about defending barring a massive GOP election rigging operation or Democrats nominating a candidate who is serving/recently served in Portland's municipal government.
The only seats we're defending that I'd be worried about flipping to the GOP at this point are Michigan and New Hampshire (under normal circumstances an Open Minnesota seat could be problematic, but Republicans have literally no bench-Minnesota is not flipping).
Those incumbents will retire from office eventually. Or worse, lose, die in office, or resign due to scandal.
If they're going to retire eventually and they're old enough that it will be soon, it's best to do it during a republican midterm. We lost a lot of winnable elections in 2010 and 2014, even in blue states like Illinois, and came too close for comfort in other blue states. Based on the 2021 elections in NJ and VA, we were likely on track for a similar result in 2022 if not for the Dobbs decision.
An open seat now is very much not an open seat in 2032 or 2038. That's the point, that's the benefit. That's the biggest advantage of eg Shaheen retiring now. It will happen eventually; we should hope it happens during a midterm that we expect will be in our favor.
What resources will we have to expend defending an open seat in Oregon during a blue midterm?
Interesting to note that if there is an open senate seat in Oregon, only three of our five representatives there assumed office before this January. And of those three, two of them are only on their second term.
Dexter and Bynum were elected in 2024. Salinas and Hoyle were elected in 2022. Bonamici was elected in a 2012 special election. Despite being the only one with any real tenture, Bonamici hopefully wouldn't run: at 70 she's older than Merkley. Bynum is the youngest at 50.
There's no obvious representative to make a strong run if the seat does open up.
Is there a reason we think Merkley might retire? I know he'd be 70 on election day, but he's one of the better Senators in Congress, so it would be a shame for him to depart.
I worry Bynum, Salinas, and Hoyle would all be more moderate than him--unnecessarily so in Oregon--and Dexter would be less politically astute.