Obituaries: Former Rep. Ben Jones (D-GA), more known as a prolific actor than a politician, has died at 84.
Jones's most famous, breakout role was as Cooter Davenport on The Dukes of Hazzard. After a career in the entertainment industry, Jones pivoted to public service and unseated Rep. Pat Swindall in the eastern Atlanta suburbs in 1988.
During Georgia's 1992 redistricting, however, the district added a substantial Black population, and Jones's reputation as a conservative Democrat forced him to run in the open 10th, but lost the primary to one term Rep. Don Johnson (not to be confused with the actor). The iconoclastic Cynthia McKinney succeeded Jones in his old seat, and it is today represented by Hank Johnson.
But Jones's career was not over in 1992. He ran for the suburban Atlanta seat represented by future Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1994. Although he lost, predictably as it was the Republican Revolution, an ethics complaint Jones filed resulted in Gingrich's 1999 resignation and the end of a powerful career. He also ran against future Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2002, when he moved to Virginia.
His wife says before his death Jones planned to watch the Atlanta Braves beat the New York Yankees. They did, 2-1.
Jones' district in suburban Atlanta was unusually Republican for Georgia in 1988. I'm assuming today it would be a double-digit Harris district or am I incorrect on that?
Double digit? It might be a 75% Harris district. Lol
The 4th he carried, had most of DeKalb county, the early suburban sprawl and where GOP first gained significant traction. Carter didn’t break 50% in 1980, Dukakis probably carried by 1pt, With East Atlanta and some Black suburbs carved into the neighboring 5th, probably lost the portion in this 4th.
also north Fulton, the affluent suburbs (extreme outer suburbs at that time) only turn competitive since Trump. In 88 it was probably over 2:1 on presidential line;
also the White flight exurban Newton and Rockdale counties, ruby red then. They are Black majority exurbs now.
The current incarnation is still labelled the 4th today, based in DeKalb county, but much smaller geographically ofc.
Please: Rep. Case is not a moderate- any Democrat who voted for the Save Act is someone who put Trump ahead of voting rights. We need to get rid of (politically) any Democrat in Congress who votes for Trump and voter suppression.
To be clear, only 4 Democrats actually voted in favor of this, and MGP is quite the opposite of a long time politico, Cuellar and Golden have always been deeply questionable. Case is the only one whose vote is completely baffling.
Minnesota U.S. Senate Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Primary Prediction
I'll probably do this more often for the general election in November and throughout the 2028 cycle and beyond, but, for this cycle, I'm only going to do one primary projection where take into account every possible factor I can (scientific pre-election opinion polling, late campaign momentum, fundraising, outside spending, online campaign presence, social media, ad buys, coalitions, endorsements, public comments by endorsers, past election results, party/faction strength, news media coverage, candidate/campaign competence, spoiler/non-major candidates, and other factors, although I don't factor in prediction market odds due to how easily those can be manipulated). For the 2026 primaries, I'm going to do this for the Minnesota DFL primary for U.S. Senate this cycle. In the past, I would make election predictions and post them on one social media platform, comment section, or blog when I felt like it and typically without being as versed as possible in the election campaign in question, but I'm going in a different route going forward. As I'm just starting out with doing this, I won't provide an extremely detailed analysis on how I come to a final prediction, but I will give the prediction and mention the stronger criteria for who I predict will win.
Before I make the prediction, I will mention that the DFL is the Minnesota state-level chapter of the Democratic Party.
My prediction for the Minnesota DFL U.S. Senate primary in 2026 is that Peggy Flanagan will win the DFL nomination by four percentage points. The stronger criteria in Flanagan's case include social media (I've not noticed a ton of Angie Craig supporters on social media as I have for some other moderate candidates, but I've noticed a lot of Flanagan supporters), the strength of the progressive Democratic faction in Minnesota and, in the 2026 primary cycle, nationally, and candidate and campaign competence. Pre-election opinion polls, even though there were only two I could take into account, one of which was an internal poll for an organization that Flanagan is a member of until early next year, provide a very slight edge to Flanagan.
I'll be voting for Flanagan, but honestly either will be fine in November and in the Senate. Some of the online vitriol at Craig is wildly off base. By reading online forums one would think she was the second coming of John Feetterman or Ed Case. That is simply wildly off base, she is definitively a dyed in the wool liberal, if ever-so-slightly to the right of Flanagan.
Social media is dominated hy younger people, which are disproportionately the smallest part of the electorate every election, especially in primaries. Craig has had advertisement advantage (direct and outside combined) by a ~10:1 ratio on TV, streaming and internet ads. I see it as a close race, but right now Id give the advantage to Craig, if ever so slight.
At least in the Rochester and Mankato media markets where I was for the last several days, Craig has the airwaves to herself. It seems quite likely that Craig's margins among older, broadcast TV-viewing voters will be quite massive. The wild card is whether Flanagan can turn out younger voters in the metro area and college towns where she has a higher profile in new media circles. I think I'd rather be Craig than Flanagan but I'm also not underestimating the hidden progressive vote lurking out there in so many races this year.
Ah yes, those dreaded "hidden progressives", hiding in plain sight. I predict Flanagan will win the Twin Cities and possibly even the Iron Ranges big and subsequently the election, by around the same if not greater a margin than Aaron predicts.
A week ago, I'd have agreed with you that Flanagan seemed poised to pull it off based on stronger-than-expected progressive showings nationally. After last week's Michigan reality check, where El-Sayed badly underperformed the polling, I've tempered my expectations and figure Flanagan supporters might want to do the same.
Flanagan will win the Twin Cities. But the Iron Range? Outside of Deluth, I doubt she cracks 40%. Now, she will probably do better than predicted in St. Cloud and Rochester. But she is going to have to run up some margins, as the demosaurs in Northern and Southern MN are not going for her
If there's any part of Greater Minnesota (the part of Minnesota outside of the Minneapolis metro area) where Flanagan does very well, it would be the Boundary Waters area in the far northeastern corner of the state, as well as Native American reservations and college towns (especially precincts in and around college campuses). The Iron Range itself will probably be a very pro-Craig area, as, without an obvious pro-mining candidate (neither candidate is strongly pro-mining), the Iron Range usually goes for the least progressive major candidate who can reasonably be considered a DFLer in the primary, which, in this case, is Craig.
The population of the boundary waters is precisely zero since 1986. There are couple tiny towns on the outside perimeter that sre economically linked to the BWCA as permit/outfitter locations. Aurora, Tofte, Ely, Grand Marais and Cook have a combined population well under 10,000 people total. Thats smaller than any one of the 100+ suburbs in the twin cities. The boundary waters region and its entry points are a cultural hub, but basically no people live there. The political weight of northern Minnesota are the Iron Range cities, and Duluth.
If anyone wants to help register new voters or get out the vote in OH to help defeat Max Miller in OH-07:
* Activate America (www.activateamerica.vote) has a postcard campaign to help elect Sherrod Brown to the Senate. This campaign focuses on OH voters who often skip midterms with a special focus on younger and newly registered voters.
* Postcards to Swing States (https://turnoutpac.org/postcards/) has GOTV (get out the vote) campaigns in most swing states (including OH) as well as some swing districts. They focus on low-propensity voters who are highly likely to vote for Democrats if they vote.
* VoteRiders (https://voteriders.org/volunteer/) has a letter-writing campaign to voters in OH who may need help getting the ID they need in order to vote in Nov.
Pretty sure the third candidate he is referencing is Lynn Chapman of the IAP (Independent American Party). The RWNJ's running the IAP are notable chiefly for believing that the NV GOP is insufficiently crazy and running spoilers who have repeatedly swung elections to Democrats (Aaron Ford's 2018 election as AG, for instance).
Teresa Benitez-Thompson seems like a good candidate in a safe blue seat. She unfortunately does not seem likely to attract a lot of crossover voters not pushed into her arms. This seat might have been a great one to try running an Indy instead of a Dem. Amodei's lowest ever (55%) percentage of the general election vote (since first winning the seat in the 2011 special) came in 2024, with no Dem on the ballot (Dems recommended Indy Greg Kidd, and there were two right-wing 3rd party candidates).
The primary runoff between Democratic Candidates Jim Priest and N’Kiyla Thomas will be held on August 25th.
I’d like to see how the rift between MAGA, Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin plays out in the general election. Mullin was supposed to be this tough, hard liner who was the solution to Kristi Noem.
Apparently this has not been the case as Mullin is more pro-immigration after all compared to what MAGA wants him to be.
Minnesota primaries - It's a new early voting turnout record for the nonpresidential election year partisan primaries in Minnesota, yet there's a lot of unreturned mail ballots:
"Minnesota election officials have accepted over 206,000 absentee and mail ballots for Tuesday's primary, the most cast before a primary in a nonpresidential election year in the state, according to the secretary of state's office.
As of 9 a.m. Monday, 99,053 voters have returned ballots by mail and 107,143 have been cast in person. About 213,000 ballots have not yet been returned, state officials said.
Absentee and mail ballots must be returned by 5 p.m. Tuesday for them to be counted. According to officials, residents can also choose to vote at their local polling place instead of returning their absentee ballot."
I don't know how many of those ballots are DFL or GOP (I don't know if Minnesota prints both primaries on each ballot and asks voters to vote in one party's primary or the other like Michigan, or if voters have to request a DFL or GOP ballot like Illinois), although the large number of unreturned early ballots is, at least at first glance, not a good sign for Angie Craig, who needs a big early vote turnout and margin in the DFL U.S. Senate primary.
So 3 hours before y'all start obsessively hitting refresh to see the latest morning digest, I'll be slamming some coffee so I can function enough to get our local precinct up and running for the SC special senate primary. AC at the site broke over the weekend. Ugh. So far, 6% of the precinct has voted early (only R voters or non-voters in June primary can vote so if that is 6% of registered then it's ~10% of eligible). Countywide turnout is 3%. Could be a hot, slow day.
For you prognosticators, very low turnout to factor in...
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/10/obituaries/ben-jones-dead.html
Obituaries: Former Rep. Ben Jones (D-GA), more known as a prolific actor than a politician, has died at 84.
Jones's most famous, breakout role was as Cooter Davenport on The Dukes of Hazzard. After a career in the entertainment industry, Jones pivoted to public service and unseated Rep. Pat Swindall in the eastern Atlanta suburbs in 1988.
During Georgia's 1992 redistricting, however, the district added a substantial Black population, and Jones's reputation as a conservative Democrat forced him to run in the open 10th, but lost the primary to one term Rep. Don Johnson (not to be confused with the actor). The iconoclastic Cynthia McKinney succeeded Jones in his old seat, and it is today represented by Hank Johnson.
But Jones's career was not over in 1992. He ran for the suburban Atlanta seat represented by future Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1994. Although he lost, predictably as it was the Republican Revolution, an ethics complaint Jones filed resulted in Gingrich's 1999 resignation and the end of a powerful career. He also ran against future Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2002, when he moved to Virginia.
His wife says before his death Jones planned to watch the Atlanta Braves beat the New York Yankees. They did, 2-1.
Jones' district in suburban Atlanta was unusually Republican for Georgia in 1988. I'm assuming today it would be a double-digit Harris district or am I incorrect on that?
Yes, very much Harris. I think it was somewhat similar to the previous version of the 4th, including Jones's home county of Newton.
It has always been a DeKalb County based seat, though, with Swindall and all of Jones's successors living there.
Double digit? It might be a 75% Harris district. Lol
The 4th he carried, had most of DeKalb county, the early suburban sprawl and where GOP first gained significant traction. Carter didn’t break 50% in 1980, Dukakis probably carried by 1pt, With East Atlanta and some Black suburbs carved into the neighboring 5th, probably lost the portion in this 4th.
also north Fulton, the affluent suburbs (extreme outer suburbs at that time) only turn competitive since Trump. In 88 it was probably over 2:1 on presidential line;
also the White flight exurban Newton and Rockdale counties, ruby red then. They are Black majority exurbs now.
The current incarnation is still labelled the 4th today, based in DeKalb county, but much smaller geographically ofc.
Please: Rep. Case is not a moderate- any Democrat who voted for the Save Act is someone who put Trump ahead of voting rights. We need to get rid of (politically) any Democrat in Congress who votes for Trump and voter suppression.
FWIW, he has since said he no longer supports it. But yes: he should be primaried again in 2028.
The way that these long time, supposedly savvy politicos just completely misread the moment is wild.
Or maybe they were never savvy to begin with and just got lucky with their opportunities.
If they can win once in a safe district and avoid big scandals, it is hard to knock incumbents out.
To be clear, only 4 Democrats actually voted in favor of this, and MGP is quite the opposite of a long time politico, Cuellar and Golden have always been deeply questionable. Case is the only one whose vote is completely baffling.
Minnesota U.S. Senate Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Primary Prediction
I'll probably do this more often for the general election in November and throughout the 2028 cycle and beyond, but, for this cycle, I'm only going to do one primary projection where take into account every possible factor I can (scientific pre-election opinion polling, late campaign momentum, fundraising, outside spending, online campaign presence, social media, ad buys, coalitions, endorsements, public comments by endorsers, past election results, party/faction strength, news media coverage, candidate/campaign competence, spoiler/non-major candidates, and other factors, although I don't factor in prediction market odds due to how easily those can be manipulated). For the 2026 primaries, I'm going to do this for the Minnesota DFL primary for U.S. Senate this cycle. In the past, I would make election predictions and post them on one social media platform, comment section, or blog when I felt like it and typically without being as versed as possible in the election campaign in question, but I'm going in a different route going forward. As I'm just starting out with doing this, I won't provide an extremely detailed analysis on how I come to a final prediction, but I will give the prediction and mention the stronger criteria for who I predict will win.
Before I make the prediction, I will mention that the DFL is the Minnesota state-level chapter of the Democratic Party.
My prediction for the Minnesota DFL U.S. Senate primary in 2026 is that Peggy Flanagan will win the DFL nomination by four percentage points. The stronger criteria in Flanagan's case include social media (I've not noticed a ton of Angie Craig supporters on social media as I have for some other moderate candidates, but I've noticed a lot of Flanagan supporters), the strength of the progressive Democratic faction in Minnesota and, in the 2026 primary cycle, nationally, and candidate and campaign competence. Pre-election opinion polls, even though there were only two I could take into account, one of which was an internal poll for an organization that Flanagan is a member of until early next year, provide a very slight edge to Flanagan.
I'll be voting for Flanagan, but honestly either will be fine in November and in the Senate. Some of the online vitriol at Craig is wildly off base. By reading online forums one would think she was the second coming of John Feetterman or Ed Case. That is simply wildly off base, she is definitively a dyed in the wool liberal, if ever-so-slightly to the right of Flanagan.
Social media is dominated hy younger people, which are disproportionately the smallest part of the electorate every election, especially in primaries. Craig has had advertisement advantage (direct and outside combined) by a ~10:1 ratio on TV, streaming and internet ads. I see it as a close race, but right now Id give the advantage to Craig, if ever so slight.
Exactly. Craig's voting record in the Senate would almost be certain to be 98% in lockstep with what we'd expect from Flanagan.
At least in the Rochester and Mankato media markets where I was for the last several days, Craig has the airwaves to herself. It seems quite likely that Craig's margins among older, broadcast TV-viewing voters will be quite massive. The wild card is whether Flanagan can turn out younger voters in the metro area and college towns where she has a higher profile in new media circles. I think I'd rather be Craig than Flanagan but I'm also not underestimating the hidden progressive vote lurking out there in so many races this year.
Ah yes, those dreaded "hidden progressives", hiding in plain sight. I predict Flanagan will win the Twin Cities and possibly even the Iron Ranges big and subsequently the election, by around the same if not greater a margin than Aaron predicts.
A week ago, I'd have agreed with you that Flanagan seemed poised to pull it off based on stronger-than-expected progressive showings nationally. After last week's Michigan reality check, where El-Sayed badly underperformed the polling, I've tempered my expectations and figure Flanagan supporters might want to do the same.
Flanagan will win the Twin Cities. But the Iron Range? Outside of Deluth, I doubt she cracks 40%. Now, she will probably do better than predicted in St. Cloud and Rochester. But she is going to have to run up some margins, as the demosaurs in Northern and Southern MN are not going for her
If there's any part of Greater Minnesota (the part of Minnesota outside of the Minneapolis metro area) where Flanagan does very well, it would be the Boundary Waters area in the far northeastern corner of the state, as well as Native American reservations and college towns (especially precincts in and around college campuses). The Iron Range itself will probably be a very pro-Craig area, as, without an obvious pro-mining candidate (neither candidate is strongly pro-mining), the Iron Range usually goes for the least progressive major candidate who can reasonably be considered a DFLer in the primary, which, in this case, is Craig.
The population of the boundary waters is precisely zero since 1986. There are couple tiny towns on the outside perimeter that sre economically linked to the BWCA as permit/outfitter locations. Aurora, Tofte, Ely, Grand Marais and Cook have a combined population well under 10,000 people total. Thats smaller than any one of the 100+ suburbs in the twin cities. The boundary waters region and its entry points are a cultural hub, but basically no people live there. The political weight of northern Minnesota are the Iron Range cities, and Duluth.
Change Research poll (conducted between 8/3 -8/6) for Carolina Forward.
NC-SEN
Cooper - 50%
Whatley - 43%
NC-LEG
Democrats - 48%
Republicans - 41%
https://carolinaforward.org/news/the-august-2026-carolina-forward-poll/
Why two Change polls on this within 10 days?
I believe that is the time period over which the poll was conducted.
This one doesn't have polling for the state Supreme Court race between Anita Earls and Sarah Stevens though.
In reference to the NV election -
https://media.tenor.com/XyiXcdTThBcAAAAM/let-them-fight-dr-ishiro-serizawa.gif
https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/2086833358256890017
OH-7: Tavern poll
Brian Poindexter (D) 54%
Max Miller (R-inc) 46%
seems more realistic than the ones thrown around last week, and great news for sherrod and dr. acton
If anyone wants to help register new voters or get out the vote in OH to help defeat Max Miller in OH-07:
* Activate America (www.activateamerica.vote) has a postcard campaign to help elect Sherrod Brown to the Senate. This campaign focuses on OH voters who often skip midterms with a special focus on younger and newly registered voters.
* Field Team 6 (https://www.fieldteam6.org/) has a campaign for voter registration outreach across OH.
* Postcards to Swing States (https://turnoutpac.org/postcards/) has GOTV (get out the vote) campaigns in most swing states (including OH) as well as some swing districts. They focus on low-propensity voters who are highly likely to vote for Democrats if they vote.
* VoteRiders (https://voteriders.org/volunteer/) has a letter-writing campaign to voters in OH who may need help getting the ID they need in order to vote in Nov.
NV-02:
Here's a direct link to the Sam Shad interview with Amodei: https://nevadanewsmakers.com/video/default.asp?showID=4782
Pretty sure the third candidate he is referencing is Lynn Chapman of the IAP (Independent American Party). The RWNJ's running the IAP are notable chiefly for believing that the NV GOP is insufficiently crazy and running spoilers who have repeatedly swung elections to Democrats (Aaron Ford's 2018 election as AG, for instance).
Teresa Benitez-Thompson seems like a good candidate in a safe blue seat. She unfortunately does not seem likely to attract a lot of crossover voters not pushed into her arms. This seat might have been a great one to try running an Indy instead of a Dem. Amodei's lowest ever (55%) percentage of the general election vote (since first winning the seat in the 2011 special) came in 2024, with no Dem on the ballot (Dems recommended Indy Greg Kidd, and there were two right-wing 3rd party candidates).
On a side note, I would have hoped Ford would be doing better than he is. I really like him
OK-SEN:
The primary runoff between Democratic Candidates Jim Priest and N’Kiyla Thomas will be held on August 25th.
I’d like to see how the rift between MAGA, Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin plays out in the general election. Mullin was supposed to be this tough, hard liner who was the solution to Kristi Noem.
Apparently this has not been the case as Mullin is more pro-immigration after all compared to what MAGA wants him to be.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-markwayne-mullin-dhs-immigration-b3030519.html
Mullin showing signs of occasional sanity threatens his credibility with nuttier kooks.
MT-Sen - Democratic nominee Alani Bankhead will be on the November ballot:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Db4J6qqFARy/?igsh=MnQxb3lvNGJwMXhq
I had somehow misread this statement as Bankhead suspending her campaign.
Washington Examiner says Bodnar is dropping instead
I’m only seeing reports saying he plans to stay in.
However, if he does drop out, I think very few people are likely to vote for him as a random “Independent” even if he’s still on the ballot.
But I’m actually not sure if he’ll still appear on the ballot? Is the ballot line deadline the same for party nominees and independents?
Regardless, Bankhead’s chances seem slim no matter what.
It looks like neither dropped out by the deadline.
May she never win another primary
Minnesota primaries - It's a new early voting turnout record for the nonpresidential election year partisan primaries in Minnesota, yet there's a lot of unreturned mail ballots:
"Minnesota election officials have accepted over 206,000 absentee and mail ballots for Tuesday's primary, the most cast before a primary in a nonpresidential election year in the state, according to the secretary of state's office.
As of 9 a.m. Monday, 99,053 voters have returned ballots by mail and 107,143 have been cast in person. About 213,000 ballots have not yet been returned, state officials said.
Absentee and mail ballots must be returned by 5 p.m. Tuesday for them to be counted. According to officials, residents can also choose to vote at their local polling place instead of returning their absentee ballot."
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/absentee-mail-ballot-voting-record-minnesota/
I don't know how many of those ballots are DFL or GOP (I don't know if Minnesota prints both primaries on each ballot and asks voters to vote in one party's primary or the other like Michigan, or if voters have to request a DFL or GOP ballot like Illinois), although the large number of unreturned early ballots is, at least at first glance, not a good sign for Angie Craig, who needs a big early vote turnout and margin in the DFL U.S. Senate primary.
So 3 hours before y'all start obsessively hitting refresh to see the latest morning digest, I'll be slamming some coffee so I can function enough to get our local precinct up and running for the SC special senate primary. AC at the site broke over the weekend. Ugh. So far, 6% of the precinct has voted early (only R voters or non-voters in June primary can vote so if that is 6% of registered then it's ~10% of eligible). Countywide turnout is 3%. Could be a hot, slow day.
For you prognosticators, very low turnout to factor in...
Enjoy waking up at 4 something! Sounds really great
Did the fact that HI is an open primary state where the GOP is moribund cause Republicans to vote for Case in the Democratic primary?