There is another Special Election in GA at the same time for a different House seat - House District 23. Democrats are running to flip that as well and running hard. We intend to win!
And last Tuesday that same area had a Democrat get over 40% of the vote for a GA Senate seat and both PUC commissioners extremely over performed. This is a special election and turnout will be low and Democrats are highly motivated. Not saying it's 50/50, but based on last week it's 40/60 and this is a special where anything could happen.
I'm sorry, but no. Seats that are that conservative leaning will never flip, regardless of how favorable the turnout is. The special elections in Alabama this year have been a prime example of that.
Yesterday evening, Charlottesville reported its provisionals, and Spanberger won them 1,161 to 87, thereby continuing to push Jay Jones's margin of victory over 6.5%. It currently stands at 6.54%.
However, I have noticed that the election authorities in the city of Richmond have taken a pretty epic ganja break since Election Day. Not only have they not reported a single provisional or post-election ballot yet (the only jurisdiction in VA that hasn't), but they haven't assigned any of their early or mail-in votes to their precincts yet (again the only place that hasn't, and Hampton is the only other place that hasn't assigned just the early votes). I find this quite odd - does anyone here have a local perspective on this?
Albemarle just reported its provisionals, and they went 954-203 for Spanberger. About half of those came from just one precinct - the "University" precinct, whose provisionals went to Spanberger 491-55.
The only jurisdictions that haven't reported any provisionals yet are Hampton, Norfolk, Rappahannock, and Richmond.
Gerrymandering is certainly common, but it is an over-applied term. Arkansas’s congressional district map is not a gerrymander tbh. You have to be really intentional and combine far flung parts of the state to get a Democratic leaning district there. It wouldn’t be a district that makes geographic sense. That being said, the Little Rock district could be sensibly drawn and be a little bit less Republican leaning, but it would still be a rather tall order for a Democrat to win it.
I mean, the current map splits blue Pulaski county where Little Rock is 3 different ways. That seems like a pretty obvious example of cracking, a classic gerrymandering technique. If you kept the county united, it's pretty easy to draw a compact, competitive district, especially if you included Jefferson county. Yes, it would lean republican, but only by single digits. The district would be vulnerable in a blue wave environment.
Yes, cracking is a gerrymandering technique, but those remaining areas of Pulaski County could be kept in the 2nd CD and it would not very meaningfully change its political leaning. I think the county shouldn’t be split and I think the map could be improved upon to be more fair and sensible, but I still would not call the overall map a gerrymander. I also would not call it a gerrymander in favor of the Democrats if Jefferson county was added to give them more of a shot at winning it. But if you look at previous maps going back to the 70’s and 80’s, Pine Bluff/Jefferson County have not normally been joined with Little Rock/Pulaski County and the current map is quite similar to maps that produced 3-1 Democrat delegations as recently as 2008.
Wasn't it drawn like that specifically to protect French Hill from suburban swing creep against him? I remember his 2018 race being somewhat marginal and chatter around Joyce Elliott the cycle after.
The crack of Pulaski County pushed the seat from Trump +9 to Trump +13. Absolutely intended to protect French Hill from suburban drift. After 2018/2020 they saw that all sorts of formerly solid red but largely suburban districts like OK-05, SC-01, IN-05, OH-12, MO-02, and AR-02 were in trouble. So they cracked them.
I personally would still not classify the map as a gerrymander. But it depends on your definition of the term. Broadly speaking, I wouldn’t put a map as a whole in the gerrymandered category unless the makeup of the delegation would very likely change with the use of more compact districts that don’t split cities or counties or natural geographic regions.
I think that could be done as well and it wouldn’t be a gerrymander. It would create a pure toss-up district. While the others would remain solidly Republican.
So you agree that a different, more compact district would be less Republican than the current map. Seems like your definition of gerrymander is too strict.
Yes, a little bit more compact and a little bit more Democratic, but not by very much, and not likely to change the overall delegation that the map yields.
But if you’re referring to a toss-up district that includes Little Rock, Pine Bluff and the delta, that district would definitely not be more compact.
It's actually very easy to create a compact district in Arkansas that voted for Clinton and Biden. I made this a bit ago and don't have 2024 data but if I had to guess Harris would've narrowly carried it:
Ignoring his jabs at NYC mayor-elect Mamdani (whom he calls an "ideologue") and Virginia AG-elect Jay Jones ("a hate monger"), he says that the NC GOP legislative majority itself would've been at risk had the election been held this year (rather than 2026).
I’ve looked at the partisan numbers for the NC legislature. I think in a similar environment to now Dems can get to around 58 seats (two short of a tie)in the state house and maybe 22 in the state senate (three short of a tie). There is a pretty hard ceiling there since Dems would need to start winning seats that Trump won by double digits to win much more than that.
Even if state NC Dems don't flip the legislature due to the gerrymandering (but make significant gains), it means Rs lose their so-called "working supermajority."
Meaning that any more red meat bills Berger and Hall push through would be DOA because they won't have a supermajority to override a Gov Stein veto.
I also think Dems are making inroads in Republican counties with their mayoral wins in Burlington and Graham this year. North Carolina is still a fast growing state -- and the people that are priced out of a heavily metro county like Durham, Wake and Orange are moving to neighboring Alamance, Forsyth and Chatham instead.
There are a lot of seats that Trump won by mid-high single digits but voted for at least one Democrat other than Josh Stein. The obvious targets are Cotham, the Wake County seats, and the Nash County district. Those should be easy.
The next category, which contains seats in Cabarrus, Guilford, Forsyth, and Alamance counites will be tougher.
In the State senate the only real targets are the Wilmington and Nash County districts, and maybe the Cabarrus seat.
Auntie Maxine needs to go (CA 43). She says she wants to serve several more terms on the financial services committee at 87?
Part of the reason that during the subprime real estate meltdown that bankers got rich and regular people got screwed sat in the lap of Maxine Waters who was too in bed with the financial institutions.
When we get power back, we need people in these oversight committees who actually hold institutions accountable. We've got a lot of work to do cleaning up a mess, and we need overseers with spine.
Question: if she did retire ever, who might be interested in her seat? I can imagine a lot of people given how long she’s been there, but I wonder who specifically.
State senators and assemblymembers for South Central LA. Members of the county board of supervisors. Officials including mayors of Compton, Inglewood, Torrance. Activists. Advisers. Perhaps former Rep. Janice Hahn of a neighboring district, who is now a supervisor.
I know the state legislators in the area are Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas and Assemblywoman Tina McKinnor, to start.
I don't remember her actions on subprime loans. She's always been considered quite progressive in general, I thought, so it's shocking that she did that.
The loans to the banks were effectively hard money loans in risk that were priced favorably without many strings attached. In short order, the banks were back to profitable, and the executives who caused the problem got tremendous bonuses. Waters was part of the problem, along with almost everyone else in government.
At the time, I thought the government should have extracted a pound of flesh and priced the bailout as a hard money loan.
Waters also got rid of Katie Porter on the committee because she didn't like how she treated banking executives in front of the committee (the infamous Jamie Dimon takedown).
I've always said that Obama should have insisted on 51% of the common stock of all bailed out banks and then fired the guilty parties, with the idea of later selling the overly-large banks piecemeal at a profit so they would never be big enough to destroy the world economy again, but every time this has been brought up, people have explained how that was not possible...
They definitely clashed, but I never really bought Porter's claims she was kicked off. She didn't just ask for a waiver to stay on the committee, she asked for a waiver after slotting two other committees as her priority (Oversight and Natural Resources). It's pretty uncommon to rare for members to serve on three committees, especially if one of them is an exclusive committee. She should have known better with what she requested of steering.
My pure guess is that she mostly feels really burned that the housing provisions of BBBA got stripped out of IRA and wants to be around for a new Dem president to try getting them done. (I also get why the housing finance world is under FinServ's jurisdiction, but think it either needs to be renamed Financial Services and Housing or that there should be a new dedicated Housing Committee.)
I really am concerned that if she doesn't get succeeded by Nydia (who is already 72 and will have an even more tenuous generational claim if Waters keeps declining to leave...), everyone after them in seniority are significantly more moderate than them both--Sherman, Meeks, (Scott isn't going to win his primary this year), Lynch, (Green should also retire or lost his primary to the TX-18 special winner), etc. Have to go all the way down to Casten to get to someone a bit less moderate with Pressley behind him.
If Pelosi was able to intervene and get John Dingell off E&C, Jeffries needs to get Waters out of committee leadership if she won't retire.
Waters will be 90 at the soonest possible start of a Democratic presidency. We can reasonably assume her health and abilities are holding up so far, based on her confidence in becoming chair and serving for "a lot more time", but nobody's does forever.
She seems to be exhibiting the unwelcome trait of many longtime or long powerful officeholders of thinking she's the only person who can possibly ever accomplish what she wants to do, when there are others who may in fact do it better.
That would be pretty intriguing... I could both see her stay there for decades and build a strong base for her interests or have it be a holding place/keep her in the mix for Senate/governor/cabinet.
I appreciate Auntie Maxine's service, but Trump did not go to jail, he's President again and we need to seriously start discouraging people in safe seats from leaving feet first.
How can an 87 year old properly understand the modern financial system and have the energy to monitor it- its so complex. I know people who work in financial services that struggle to keep up
I find that an absurd remark. There are 87-year-olds who are completely sharp and great at math. Let's support her not running again based on actuarial tables and the greater likelihood of elderly people becoming mentally disabled, etc., without engaging in outright ageism.
Sure there are but those seem to be an exception to the rule. Does she honestly come off as that sharp compared to Katie Porter or Bernie. Pre- 2024 i wouldve agreed but Its just another example of someone who is clinging on to power for selfish reasons
I'm not arguing that she shouldn't retire, but the idea that old people can't understand complex things is extremely disrespectful. Elders used to be respected for their knowledge and experience. It's not right to infantilize them.
Even though California has 28 more days before the election needs to be certified, and we knew the results as the polls closed, given that most of the state had only one question on the ballot, I thought we might actually get done pronto, but I guess I knew better.
There are still 230,000 ballots left to count. A special shout out to the diligence and hard work of Kings County, who as of last night only had 1 ballot to count. Much better than Tulare County who had 2.
MTG says that there will be way more Rs who break and vote for it next week. They may not need Sherrill but it wouldn't surprise me if that was the final vote she cast before resigning from Congress.
I’m not. Charitably, I can see them actually sympathizing with the victims and caring a whole lot about the issue. Uncharitably, the three are shameless grifters, and they smell major blood in the water to take out a key rival to their ambitions.
All have been mentioned for statewide runs, coincidentally. Mace is running, Greene very publicly considered, and I read that Boebert was considering a run against Hickenlooper as early as July 2024.
Yeah, Mace is very public about how surviving sexual violence shaped her and clearly continues to grapple with it. Boebert and Greene are true believes in pedophile elite conspiracies and this one is REAL, so they're not going to ease up. It's really damning that more elected Repubs with similar zeals aren't with them, and letting it be characterized as three extreme/contrarian women (Burchett doesn't get nearly the same kind of scrutiny from any side on this) is frankly misogynistic. Fuck all four of them still, but glad they're staying forceful on this.
Don't believe it was mentioned but Rep. John Carter (R-TX) is running for another term despite openly considering retirement (he is 84 and has been in office for 23 years)
He doesn't want to move back to his home planet. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote about him in a series of books about "John Carter of Mars". It was not as successful as his other books; the neighborhood around Burroughs' former estate in the SFV is called Tarzana, not Carterville... /s
I think this story needs more attention, as it is now happening regularly in New York.
Republicans are gaming the Working Families Party primary. A handful of Rs switch their registrations to WFP, they nominate shill/sham candidates on the WFP line, and because people associate WFP with progressive candidates it pull votes away from Democrats, with the margin enough to allow Republicans to eke out an otherwise-Democratic win.
Lawler pulled this in #NY17 last year. It looks like it happened locally again in a Clarkstown race in Rockland County this month. And now this Supervisor race on Long Island.
That is not good. I admire the WFP and the work they do -- it's sad to see them hijacked in this way. (Especially as a NY-17 resident, where they did this last time.)
Maybe the WFP could move away from being a proper party per se and turn into a general endorsement-giving group, a la the DSA, Our Revolution, the Justice Democrats, some of the environmental groups, etc.? Although that might affect the two Philadelphia City Councilmembers that are WFP members and not Democrats per se -- two of whom cost the GOP any at-large seats on the Council in 2024 (an unambiguous good in my opinion.)
For the life of me, I do not understand the point of fusion voting. It creates ballot lines given to candidates who don't even need to win 100 votes, and can just bloat ballot sizes without changing the number of candidates on the ballot. When running against a very bad Democratic primary winner, I can't see the difference between running under the WFP line and running as an independent.
Interesting article in HuffPost today -- Run For Something just signed up 75,000 possible candidates in a year! For reference, during the first Trump term, they had 67,000 possible candidates sign up over Trump's first four years. In addition to targeting Dems in primaries, several of these candidates are targeting the GOP as well -- the article spotlighted one ex-Republican-turned-Democrat who just won a seat on the Clarion Borough Council in the highly Republican Clarion County in PA.
Yep - these are basically name ID polls. Bernie Porn (best name in the biz) is the best pollster in Michigan but as my father in-law says that’s a lot like being the tallest midget. At the end of the campaign, this will not be a very close race.
Depending on what the polls are going to be like in the coming months, I have a reason to believe that inside the beltway analysts like Cook Political Report are underestimating voter turnout.
Not arguing that Rogers would lose by double digits but if he say loses by single digits, it's possible his margin of loss may increase by more next year.
I truly believe, especially post 2025 elections, that the polls, including in Michigan are seriously underestimating Democrat enthusiasm or just undersampling Dem leaning voters.
Agreed. 2018 midterms were awful for the GOP and are likely going to be a real problem for the party given 2025 was is a much worse political environment against Trump and the party than it was back in 2017.
It shouldn't be that surprising considering Hobbs won the gubernatorial election by .07% points (17,117 votes) even while she faced Kari Lake of all people. Hard to say if she was assured to win the 2022 AZ Gubernatorial Election against another GOP opponent who didn't have the baggage and zaniness that Lake had.
Could be possible for Hobbs to improve on her margins if she wins re-election but I wouldn't count on anything more than say 2-3% points.
it's one poll, i would not worry just yet. it's likely to be a dem favoring year - Hobbs has reasonable approval and she's the incumbent. Most likely the favorite for reelection.
I imagine something similar to OR-Gov 2022 will happen; center-left voters will realize their support of the independent is making it more likely a Republican wins, and support for the Indy craters.
This is by far the most typical behavior for independent or third party candidates in polling. There are exceptions but most will poll substantially higher initially, slowly decline over the election cycle, and then perform worse than final polling in the end.
In the OR-Gov 2022 example, Johnson started off in the 20% range in polls, peaking at 25-30%. By mid October 2022 that was more 10-15%. By late October it was 10%.
No way Duggan ends up with anything approaching that number. Question is - where do his current "supporters" go? I suspect a non-trivial portion of them don't vote at all.
Rumor mill on social media per Puck news that Senate Dems don't expect Schumer to run for reelection in '28. Still a ways off though. Hopefully AOC goes this route and not jump right into Pres.
AOC has also had no hesitation in talking about how her economic agenda with the Green New Deal would apply to those living in red states who are needing more economically stable lives. She's never waivered from this, which I appreciate.
I think she goes for pres. If she doesn’t there won’t be a single candidate running who’s not a corporate shill. There’s hunger out there for what she represents. And there’s lots of people who can replace Schumer in the Senate
That's 3 years away. 3 years before 1992, did anyone think a governor of Arkansas named Bill Clinton would win the election? No, they didn't. Did anyone think someone named Jimmy Carter would win the primaries and become president in 1976? No. And you probably remember the 2008 elections and how surprising it was that 1st-term Senator Barack Obama managed to defeat Hillary Clinton and win the general election. You simply can't logically deduce who will run for president in 2028.
So, I've been thinking about the impending VRA decision from SCOTUS and I have a question for posters here: do you think SCOTUS will rule before the filing deadlines are up, or not? And do you think SCOTUS will kill the Act, kill part of the Act, issue a narrow ruling, etc.?
If they're going to kill it outright, it'll be before filing deadlines. If it's after, I'd say it's a 50% chance they will kill part of the Act or issue a narrow ruling.
There is another Special Election in GA at the same time for a different House seat - House District 23. Democrats are running to flip that as well and running hard. We intend to win!
That one favored Trump by nearly 47 points
Big difference from one he won by 13
And last Tuesday that same area had a Democrat get over 40% of the vote for a GA Senate seat and both PUC commissioners extremely over performed. This is a special election and turnout will be low and Democrats are highly motivated. Not saying it's 50/50, but based on last week it's 40/60 and this is a special where anything could happen.
I'm sorry, but no. Seats that are that conservative leaning will never flip, regardless of how favorable the turnout is. The special elections in Alabama this year have been a prime example of that.
never say never. People said this kind of thing about the GA senate races in 2020.
They were wrong.
Well, I tied the top republican last night and we are having a runoff on Jan 6th. :)
Yesterday evening, Charlottesville reported its provisionals, and Spanberger won them 1,161 to 87, thereby continuing to push Jay Jones's margin of victory over 6.5%. It currently stands at 6.54%.
However, I have noticed that the election authorities in the city of Richmond have taken a pretty epic ganja break since Election Day. Not only have they not reported a single provisional or post-election ballot yet (the only jurisdiction in VA that hasn't), but they haven't assigned any of their early or mail-in votes to their precincts yet (again the only place that hasn't, and Hampton is the only other place that hasn't assigned just the early votes). I find this quite odd - does anyone here have a local perspective on this?
Albemarle just reported its provisionals, and they went 954-203 for Spanberger. About half of those came from just one precinct - the "University" precinct, whose provisionals went to Spanberger 491-55.
The only jurisdictions that haven't reported any provisionals yet are Hampton, Norfolk, Rappahannock, and Richmond.
The four jurisdictions above have now reported their provisionals, and Jay Jones now leads by... 6.66%.
Just wait for Republicans to claim that that means something.
Gerrymandering is certainly common, but it is an over-applied term. Arkansas’s congressional district map is not a gerrymander tbh. You have to be really intentional and combine far flung parts of the state to get a Democratic leaning district there. It wouldn’t be a district that makes geographic sense. That being said, the Little Rock district could be sensibly drawn and be a little bit less Republican leaning, but it would still be a rather tall order for a Democrat to win it.
I mean, the current map splits blue Pulaski county where Little Rock is 3 different ways. That seems like a pretty obvious example of cracking, a classic gerrymandering technique. If you kept the county united, it's pretty easy to draw a compact, competitive district, especially if you included Jefferson county. Yes, it would lean republican, but only by single digits. The district would be vulnerable in a blue wave environment.
Yes, cracking is a gerrymandering technique, but those remaining areas of Pulaski County could be kept in the 2nd CD and it would not very meaningfully change its political leaning. I think the county shouldn’t be split and I think the map could be improved upon to be more fair and sensible, but I still would not call the overall map a gerrymander. I also would not call it a gerrymander in favor of the Democrats if Jefferson county was added to give them more of a shot at winning it. But if you look at previous maps going back to the 70’s and 80’s, Pine Bluff/Jefferson County have not normally been joined with Little Rock/Pulaski County and the current map is quite similar to maps that produced 3-1 Democrat delegations as recently as 2008.
Wasn't it drawn like that specifically to protect French Hill from suburban swing creep against him? I remember his 2018 race being somewhat marginal and chatter around Joyce Elliott the cycle after.
The crack of Pulaski County pushed the seat from Trump +9 to Trump +13. Absolutely intended to protect French Hill from suburban drift. After 2018/2020 they saw that all sorts of formerly solid red but largely suburban districts like OK-05, SC-01, IN-05, OH-12, MO-02, and AR-02 were in trouble. So they cracked them.
I personally would still not classify the map as a gerrymander. But it depends on your definition of the term. Broadly speaking, I wouldn’t put a map as a whole in the gerrymandered category unless the makeup of the delegation would very likely change with the use of more compact districts that don’t split cities or counties or natural geographic regions.
It was done with an explicit partisan intent, which is sort of exactly what tips it into being a gerrymander regardless.
Why not have a district that includes Pulaski and Jefferson as well as the Mississippi delta? It's a long district but puts key voting groups together
I think that could be done as well and it wouldn’t be a gerrymander. It would create a pure toss-up district. While the others would remain solidly Republican.
So you agree that a different, more compact district would be less Republican than the current map. Seems like your definition of gerrymander is too strict.
Yes, a little bit more compact and a little bit more Democratic, but not by very much, and not likely to change the overall delegation that the map yields.
But if you’re referring to a toss-up district that includes Little Rock, Pine Bluff and the delta, that district would definitely not be more compact.
It's actually very easy to create a compact district in Arkansas that voted for Clinton and Biden. I made this a bit ago and don't have 2024 data but if I had to guess Harris would've narrowly carried it:
https://davesredistricting.org/join/21b1317d-75b5-4325-bf87-e345c173250f
Yeah that’s similar to a map I’ve made too. I wouldn’t consider that a gerrymander either.
Admittedly, I sometimes conflate “compact” and “small”.
Carolina Journal published an eye-opening op-ed by a Republican regarding the drubbing Rs got on 11/4/25.
https://www.carolinajournal.com/opinion/democratic-wave-crushes-gop-candidates/
Ignoring his jabs at NYC mayor-elect Mamdani (whom he calls an "ideologue") and Virginia AG-elect Jay Jones ("a hate monger"), he says that the NC GOP legislative majority itself would've been at risk had the election been held this year (rather than 2026).
I’ve looked at the partisan numbers for the NC legislature. I think in a similar environment to now Dems can get to around 58 seats (two short of a tie)in the state house and maybe 22 in the state senate (three short of a tie). There is a pretty hard ceiling there since Dems would need to start winning seats that Trump won by double digits to win much more than that.
Even if state NC Dems don't flip the legislature due to the gerrymandering (but make significant gains), it means Rs lose their so-called "working supermajority."
Meaning that any more red meat bills Berger and Hall push through would be DOA because they won't have a supermajority to override a Gov Stein veto.
The parh in NC is:
Gov
SCT
New Maps
Got a ways to go.
I also think Dems are making inroads in Republican counties with their mayoral wins in Burlington and Graham this year. North Carolina is still a fast growing state -- and the people that are priced out of a heavily metro county like Durham, Wake and Orange are moving to neighboring Alamance, Forsyth and Chatham instead.
When you say "a similar environment to now," are you using the NC generic poll numbers from yesterday? Something else?
Did you find a partisan +/- for the legislative seats (PVI) or do it another way? I'd love to see the numbers.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1GiIiDrVwddCH4Pc0Jsc9u9hxbm3mVRZVgivUeeT2ssQ/htmlview#gid=270510667
You can get the info for all states here. I’m looking at the 2024 presidential numbers by district.
Many thanks.
There are a lot of seats that Trump won by mid-high single digits but voted for at least one Democrat other than Josh Stein. The obvious targets are Cotham, the Wake County seats, and the Nash County district. Those should be easy.
The next category, which contains seats in Cabarrus, Guilford, Forsyth, and Alamance counites will be tougher.
In the State senate the only real targets are the Wilmington and Nash County districts, and maybe the Cabarrus seat.
anything less than Trump +25 is not a guarantee for them, so this is welcome news
Auntie Maxine needs to go (CA 43). She says she wants to serve several more terms on the financial services committee at 87?
Part of the reason that during the subprime real estate meltdown that bankers got rich and regular people got screwed sat in the lap of Maxine Waters who was too in bed with the financial institutions.
When we get power back, we need people in these oversight committees who actually hold institutions accountable. We've got a lot of work to do cleaning up a mess, and we need overseers with spine.
Question: if she did retire ever, who might be interested in her seat? I can imagine a lot of people given how long she’s been there, but I wonder who specifically.
State senators and assemblymembers for South Central LA. Members of the county board of supervisors. Officials including mayors of Compton, Inglewood, Torrance. Activists. Advisers. Perhaps former Rep. Janice Hahn of a neighboring district, who is now a supervisor.
I know the state legislators in the area are Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas and Assemblywoman Tina McKinnor, to start.
Can't imagine Hahn wanting or winning the seat at 73 coming after Waters.
Fwiw my first guess would be McKinnor
McKinnor is the most obvious candidate but she's already 65. If Waters hangs on for another few terms I think McKinnor's opportunity will pass.
I don't remember her actions on subprime loans. She's always been considered quite progressive in general, I thought, so it's shocking that she did that.
The loans to the banks were effectively hard money loans in risk that were priced favorably without many strings attached. In short order, the banks were back to profitable, and the executives who caused the problem got tremendous bonuses. Waters was part of the problem, along with almost everyone else in government.
At the time, I thought the government should have extracted a pound of flesh and priced the bailout as a hard money loan.
Waters also got rid of Katie Porter on the committee because she didn't like how she treated banking executives in front of the committee (the infamous Jamie Dimon takedown).
I've always said that Obama should have insisted on 51% of the common stock of all bailed out banks and then fired the guilty parties, with the idea of later selling the overly-large banks piecemeal at a profit so they would never be big enough to destroy the world economy again, but every time this has been brought up, people have explained how that was not possible...
You damned socialist! /S
That's kind of the pound of flesh I was referring to.
Guilty as charged!
Didn’t Trump do this somewhat with intel? The bailouts for the banks should have been considered an equity investment.
They definitely clashed, but I never really bought Porter's claims she was kicked off. She didn't just ask for a waiver to stay on the committee, she asked for a waiver after slotting two other committees as her priority (Oversight and Natural Resources). It's pretty uncommon to rare for members to serve on three committees, especially if one of them is an exclusive committee. She should have known better with what she requested of steering.
https://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=f7067315-4f8c-4986-b38e-be78bcb256bf
My pure guess is that she mostly feels really burned that the housing provisions of BBBA got stripped out of IRA and wants to be around for a new Dem president to try getting them done. (I also get why the housing finance world is under FinServ's jurisdiction, but think it either needs to be renamed Financial Services and Housing or that there should be a new dedicated Housing Committee.)
I really am concerned that if she doesn't get succeeded by Nydia (who is already 72 and will have an even more tenuous generational claim if Waters keeps declining to leave...), everyone after them in seniority are significantly more moderate than them both--Sherman, Meeks, (Scott isn't going to win his primary this year), Lynch, (Green should also retire or lost his primary to the TX-18 special winner), etc. Have to go all the way down to Casten to get to someone a bit less moderate with Pressley behind him.
If Pelosi was able to intervene and get John Dingell off E&C, Jeffries needs to get Waters out of committee leadership if she won't retire.
Waters will be 90 at the soonest possible start of a Democratic presidency. We can reasonably assume her health and abilities are holding up so far, based on her confidence in becoming chair and serving for "a lot more time", but nobody's does forever.
She seems to be exhibiting the unwelcome trait of many longtime or long powerful officeholders of thinking she's the only person who can possibly ever accomplish what she wants to do, when there are others who may in fact do it better.
If Laphonza Butler wants to get back into elected office I could see her running here.
That would be pretty intriguing... I could both see her stay there for decades and build a strong base for her interests or have it be a holding place/keep her in the mix for Senate/governor/cabinet.
I appreciate Auntie Maxine's service, but Trump did not go to jail, he's President again and we need to seriously start discouraging people in safe seats from leaving feet first.
Three strikes, you're out.
How can an 87 year old properly understand the modern financial system and have the energy to monitor it- its so complex. I know people who work in financial services that struggle to keep up
Like why cant jeffries push her aside- hes supposed to be a leader
I find that an absurd remark. There are 87-year-olds who are completely sharp and great at math. Let's support her not running again based on actuarial tables and the greater likelihood of elderly people becoming mentally disabled, etc., without engaging in outright ageism.
Sure there are but those seem to be an exception to the rule. Does she honestly come off as that sharp compared to Katie Porter or Bernie. Pre- 2024 i wouldve agreed but Its just another example of someone who is clinging on to power for selfish reasons
I'm not arguing that she shouldn't retire, but the idea that old people can't understand complex things is extremely disrespectful. Elders used to be respected for their knowledge and experience. It's not right to infantilize them.
Baldacci would be a strong candidate. Not as strong as Jackson but stronger than Dunlap.
Sort of wish his brother would come out of retirement to knock LePage back.
Even though California has 28 more days before the election needs to be certified, and we knew the results as the polls closed, given that most of the state had only one question on the ballot, I thought we might actually get done pronto, but I guess I knew better.
There are still 230,000 ballots left to count. A special shout out to the diligence and hard work of Kings County, who as of last night only had 1 ballot to count. Much better than Tulare County who had 2.
Assuming Sherrill is planning to resign after the Epstein files vote is held next week.
MTG says that there will be way more Rs who break and vote for it next week. They may not need Sherrill but it wouldn't surprise me if that was the final vote she cast before resigning from Congress.
I just wouldn't want to risk it (or trust Greene on her whipping and counting skills lol)
Surprised that Boebert, Greene and Mace are staying so solid on this.
I’m not. Charitably, I can see them actually sympathizing with the victims and caring a whole lot about the issue. Uncharitably, the three are shameless grifters, and they smell major blood in the water to take out a key rival to their ambitions.
All have been mentioned for statewide runs, coincidentally. Mace is running, Greene very publicly considered, and I read that Boebert was considering a run against Hickenlooper as early as July 2024.
Boebert would be even less likely to win statewide in Colorado than Crockett would in Texas.
Hickenlooper would outrun Polis 2022 if Boebert were his opponent.
They're also women, which sometimes matters.
Yeah, Mace is very public about how surviving sexual violence shaped her and clearly continues to grapple with it. Boebert and Greene are true believes in pedophile elite conspiracies and this one is REAL, so they're not going to ease up. It's really damning that more elected Repubs with similar zeals aren't with them, and letting it be characterized as three extreme/contrarian women (Burchett doesn't get nearly the same kind of scrutiny from any side on this) is frankly misogynistic. Fuck all four of them still, but glad they're staying forceful on this.
I think Mace was close to folding until Dems dumped a bunch of Epstein emails which reminded her what time it was.
Boebert and Greene are such true believers in MAGA they're insane. They really do believe this stuff.
Me too. I won't feel confident until the vote actually proceeds.
Yeah, I don't trust her on anything.
Except the Epstein files vote.
Don't believe it was mentioned but Rep. John Carter (R-TX) is running for another term despite openly considering retirement (he is 84 and has been in office for 23 years)
I'm sure that's okay as long as his name isn't Joe Biden. /s
I'm fine with ancient Republicans continuing to run and risk vacating their seats early, I only care about Dems risking our margins lol
Incumbent members of Congress like John Carter sure have difficulty letting it go and moving on!
He doesn't want to move back to his home planet. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote about him in a series of books about "John Carter of Mars". It was not as successful as his other books; the neighborhood around Burroughs' former estate in the SFV is called Tarzana, not Carterville... /s
He's not chief of medicine at County General in Chicago?
https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/working-families-party-maria-delgado-huntington-town-supervisor-controversy/
I think this story needs more attention, as it is now happening regularly in New York.
Republicans are gaming the Working Families Party primary. A handful of Rs switch their registrations to WFP, they nominate shill/sham candidates on the WFP line, and because people associate WFP with progressive candidates it pull votes away from Democrats, with the margin enough to allow Republicans to eke out an otherwise-Democratic win.
Lawler pulled this in #NY17 last year. It looks like it happened locally again in a Clarkstown race in Rockland County this month. And now this Supervisor race on Long Island.
That is not good. I admire the WFP and the work they do -- it's sad to see them hijacked in this way. (Especially as a NY-17 resident, where they did this last time.)
Maybe the WFP could move away from being a proper party per se and turn into a general endorsement-giving group, a la the DSA, Our Revolution, the Justice Democrats, some of the environmental groups, etc.? Although that might affect the two Philadelphia City Councilmembers that are WFP members and not Democrats per se -- two of whom cost the GOP any at-large seats on the Council in 2024 (an unambiguous good in my opinion.)
Nothing stopping Dems from doing the same to the GOP with the Conservative Party line
That's one option.
Astute observation. I like that idea.
I just wrote up a whole thread on this issue on Bluesky if anyone is interested.
https://bsky.app/profile/trumpstaxes.com/post/3m5m5xobtxs2l
I guess someone didn't get their envelope. But it was incompetence on the part of the Dems mot to challenge those shill candidates earlier.
For the life of me, I do not understand the point of fusion voting. It creates ballot lines given to candidates who don't even need to win 100 votes, and can just bloat ballot sizes without changing the number of candidates on the ballot. When running against a very bad Democratic primary winner, I can't see the difference between running under the WFP line and running as an independent.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-backlash-progressives-run-for-something_n_691160c5e4b003bdc184ebf0?origin=home-whats-happening-unit
Interesting article in HuffPost today -- Run For Something just signed up 75,000 possible candidates in a year! For reference, during the first Trump term, they had 67,000 possible candidates sign up over Trump's first four years. In addition to targeting Dems in primaries, several of these candidates are targeting the GOP as well -- the article spotlighted one ex-Republican-turned-Democrat who just won a seat on the Clarion Borough Council in the highly Republican Clarion County in PA.
Worth a read I think.
Epic-MRA GE poll of Michigan has McMorrow leading Rogers 43%-42% and Stevens leading Rogers 44%-42%.
did they poll the primary?
I can believe Rogers getting 42% in the end.
Exactly what I was about to say.
These polls keep being weighed for Republicans, even after the 11/4/25 shellacking.
Yep - these are basically name ID polls. Bernie Porn (best name in the biz) is the best pollster in Michigan but as my father in-law says that’s a lot like being the tallest midget. At the end of the campaign, this will not be a very close race.
Depending on what the polls are going to be like in the coming months, I have a reason to believe that inside the beltway analysts like Cook Political Report are underestimating voter turnout.
Not arguing that Rogers would lose by double digits but if he say loses by single digits, it's possible his margin of loss may increase by more next year.
I truly believe, especially post 2025 elections, that the polls, including in Michigan are seriously underestimating Democrat enthusiasm or just undersampling Dem leaning voters.
Agreed. 2018 midterms were awful for the GOP and are likely going to be a real problem for the party given 2025 was is a much worse political environment against Trump and the party than it was back in 2017.
Isn't that good for us? Let the Rs in reachable districts think they OK and then the Ds win.
Sounds plausible given that Rogers has much more name rec than either Dem.
No poll for the progressive D?
They polled on McMorrow
Happy Friday! Welcome news out of the West for once. Still close though.
Emerson poll | 11/8-11/10 RV
Arizona Governor
🟦Katie Hobbs 44%
🟥Andy Biggs 43%
Undecided 13%
—
🟦Katie Hobbs 43%
🟥Karrin Taylor Robson 42%
Undecided 15%
—
🟦Katie Hobbs 44%
🟥David Schweikert 39%
Undecided 16%
🔴 Republican primary
🔴 Biggs 50%
🔴 Robson 17%
🔴 Schweikert 8%
Just yesterday people were talking about how safe Hobbs seemed. This doesn't look safe to me.
It shouldn't be that surprising considering Hobbs won the gubernatorial election by .07% points (17,117 votes) even while she faced Kari Lake of all people. Hard to say if she was assured to win the 2022 AZ Gubernatorial Election against another GOP opponent who didn't have the baggage and zaniness that Lake had.
Could be possible for Hobbs to improve on her margins if she wins re-election but I wouldn't count on anything more than say 2-3% points.
https://ballotpedia.org/Katie_Hobbs
it's one poll, i would not worry just yet. it's likely to be a dem favoring year - Hobbs has reasonable approval and she's the incumbent. Most likely the favorite for reelection.
Michigan - Governor Polling:
🔴 James: 34%
🔵 Benson: 33%
⚪️ Duggan: 20%
EPIC-MRA / Nov 11, 2025
Duggan needs to bow out.
I imagine something similar to OR-Gov 2022 will happen; center-left voters will realize their support of the independent is making it more likely a Republican wins, and support for the Indy craters.
This is by far the most typical behavior for independent or third party candidates in polling. There are exceptions but most will poll substantially higher initially, slowly decline over the election cycle, and then perform worse than final polling in the end.
In the OR-Gov 2022 example, Johnson started off in the 20% range in polls, peaking at 25-30%. By mid October 2022 that was more 10-15%. By late October it was 10%.
and final vote share was 8.6%
I would also like to see the sample modeling for this poll. But it appears all the info is behind a Freep paywall.
Maybe but less room for error vs. Oregon. Hopefully blue wave forms and is enough to pull it out.
No way Duggan ends up with anything approaching that number. Question is - where do his current "supporters" go? I suspect a non-trivial portion of them don't vote at all.
Rumor mill on social media per Puck news that Senate Dems don't expect Schumer to run for reelection in '28. Still a ways off though. Hopefully AOC goes this route and not jump right into Pres.
I love AOC. She's worked enough in the House and while she's progressive, she can meet people in the middle. Be nice to get her in the Senate.
AOC has also had no hesitation in talking about how her economic agenda with the Green New Deal would apply to those living in red states who are needing more economically stable lives. She's never waivered from this, which I appreciate.
I think she goes for pres. If she doesn’t there won’t be a single candidate running who’s not a corporate shill. There’s hunger out there for what she represents. And there’s lots of people who can replace Schumer in the Senate
Sigh. There are many, many Democrats who are not corporate shills
The question is whether there will be a viable non-AOC not a corporate shill on the 2028 primary ballot.
That's 3 years away. 3 years before 1992, did anyone think a governor of Arkansas named Bill Clinton would win the election? No, they didn't. Did anyone think someone named Jimmy Carter would win the primaries and become president in 1976? No. And you probably remember the 2008 elections and how surprising it was that 1st-term Senator Barack Obama managed to defeat Hillary Clinton and win the general election. You simply can't logically deduce who will run for president in 2028.
there will be. There are not as many corporate shills in the party as people believe.
Are Andy Bashear, Josh Shapiro, and Wes Moore corporate shills?
I am not going to discuss 2028 nominees since it’s against this site’s policy.
Good point. Wasn't trying to lure you into a violation.
And I said *viable* with a shot of winning the nom. I did not say most of them are corporate shills.
So, I've been thinking about the impending VRA decision from SCOTUS and I have a question for posters here: do you think SCOTUS will rule before the filing deadlines are up, or not? And do you think SCOTUS will kill the Act, kill part of the Act, issue a narrow ruling, etc.?
If they're going to kill it outright, it'll be before filing deadlines. If it's after, I'd say it's a 50% chance they will kill part of the Act or issue a narrow ruling.
I think it will be a narrow ruling. But with this court you never know.
I think they'll kill it. The question is if the libs can delay the ruling after deadlines so it takes effect in 2028.