“Any” might be doing a lot of work here. Depends on where in the country I think. If there’s enough of a Democratic concentration, like a university or a strong hispanic/black presence where voters are being engaged by strong campaigns, then maybe. Otherwise it’s hard for me to see a seat that went more than 55% Trump go blue.
Trump got more than 55% in Iowa, Florida, Texas, and Kansas, if we think we have a chance at statewide wins in any of those states then presumably we’d have a chance in at least some districts where Trump performed similarly well.
It's worth noting that special elections do tend to be more favorable for the out party than the midterm itself. I assume it's a result of turnout dynamics. I don't think we're that close to winning Trump+20 seats in November. Would love to be wrong, though...
Yeah remember in 2017-2018 we won some Trump + 20 seats in special elections and then ended up losing them in the 2018 general election. The only House district that was close to Trump + 20 that we actually picked up in the 2018 general elections was NY-22.
We’re probably going to need the average GCB margin to hit double digits before we can say these seats could be in play for November. That would allow some polls to show D+15, which coupled with candidate quality/persuasion or lack there of on Republicans part, with people not used to running hard campaigns in Trump double digit districts, could put those seats into reach.
That said, we won’t win every seat of a certain PVI/lean. Waves often reach a peak, but sometimes we can snag a few extra above that where incumbents weren’t expected to need to defend. And sometimes really good politicians can survive any level of a wave. So tbh saying all districts of Trump +20 or less being in play would require a GCB above 25-30ish, which obviously isn’t going to happen barring a 2008 economic collapse.
If you adjusted your question to asking when some of them would be within reach, I’d say we’re currently on a trajectory for that in the GCB/Trump approval. Being around D+7-8 on average and with the incumbent party typically losing ground in a midterm election, could easily see us at D+10 or more if trends continue as they currently are. However, in 2022, the last midterm, it didn’t follow any sort of historical pattern, so no guarantees either regardless of what polls show now or on Election Day.
Special elections typically advantage the out of power party and are much lower turnout affairs, so I wouldn’t at all expect any national race this fall to see as big of a swing as most special elections right now are showing. Thinking that would set yourself up for disappointment with unrealistic expectations going into the election.
Missouri is a true battleground for democracy right now, with everything going on. The people (via the citizen petition) and the state legislature are essentially at political war with each other.
Thanks for helping warn about the GOP meddling in Democratic primaries. Democratic primary voters will have to pay close attention to know who are the true Democrats. I hope the real Dems will back combining the local elections with the even year midterm elections as done in California. A study there said it resulted in boosting voter turnout, saved multi-millions of tax money and had the added benefit of resulting in more women and more minorities being elected to local offices.
So Republicans are just running on “LOL Talarico is gay and a vegan”? Seems like such a stupid strategy when they’re already in a polling hole, but I guess they don’t really have much else going for them.
Talarico's campaign is hitting back at them. But I wish they had the woman running the Democrats' X feed running the Talarico account.
You know, the one that checked Stephen Miller's transphobic Talarico post by calling him "fucking ugly." His wife tried clapping back at her but got ratioed like no one's business.
Stephen Miller is a bald, creepy, ugly, hateful cuck. Really glad the Dems are pushing back like that, sad our politics are just a shittier version of high school but bullies need to be knocked down a peg whenever possible.
As correct as almost any insult levied at that cretin is, Talarico’s entire political brand is on being the devout choir boy so his Twitter account saying something like that would be unwise
It is almost hard for me to put into words how much I hate that we have to pay attention to Twitter battles, and "clap backs" and "ratios" in this political age. I cannot believe this is where we are as a society...
I've been getting more and more Elazar-pilled over the past year - this is in reference to Daniel Elazar's theories on political culture in the US, where state cultures are divided into moralistic, individualistic, and traditionalistic cultures (IMO, that's in order from good to bad; I'm a pretty staunch Minnesota moralist). Texas in general, but especially Texas Republicans, are very set in their ways about being traditionalistic, and this is a perfect example of this. They don't value the average person being involved in civic matters and politics; voter suppression laws are of course their main way of reducing public vote. But, I also think that the way they mock and trivialize the notion of actually caring about substantive policy (which Talarico definitely cares about and is trying to run on) is part of that.
It's the traditionalist way of showing contempt for voters who aren't part of their elite.
I've read a little bit about Elazar's theories since you mentioned them, and I've noticed that most of the GOP is strongly traditionalistic, especially in the Deep South, whereas Democratic voters are split between moralistic and individualistic cultures.
Indeed. If I remember, it wasn't necessarily the case when Elazar was doing the research. The South was of course not monolithically Republican, and the moralistic states still had Republican parties that were on the board with governing for the common good, just in their conservative Republican way that involved low taxes.
Individualist cultures I assumed meant libertarian ideology at first, but it's not necessarily the case, since some of these states have substantial government functions. What strikes me about them is that government is very transactional here. They were historically very correlated with machine politics, and some still are. Either that, or they're just low government involvement but heavy business involvement.
They're also running on Talarico believing there's more than two genders. They're also running on Talarico believing there should be a welcome sign at the southern border. So no, your shorthand for the Republican strategy is incomplete. They're running on the very things that sunk Democrats in the 2024 election beyond just about everybody's expectations. Will it work again in 2026? To be determined, but there's absolutely nothing resembling "stupid" about the strategy.
It's really all Republicans have at this point. I'm hoping it doesn't work. One of the checkboxes for Talarico is base GOP turnout is depressed enough to not show up in November and ramping up the culture wars is a logical way to make sure that box is unchecked.
The welcome sign thing is completely disingenuous and a clip of his full quote. The full quote is not bad at all. The other stuff probably hurts, but he said already that he made cringey comments in the past.
AZ-5: Former Pinal County sheriff Mark Lamb, the leading candidate to succeed Rep. Andy Biggs, no longer just faces sexual assault allegations, but also allegations of using racist, homophobic and outright threatening language.
It depends on how Democrats perform in Gilbert and Mesa, the largest cities in the district. They have shifted left dramatically the past few cycles, so much so that Mesa's Republican mayor pivoted pretty hard to the left in 2024 before he left office.
Shows how out of touch with current AZ politics I am that I just remembered they elected nutjob ultra-right wing Mormon Mark Freeman mayor of Mesa in 2024 to replace sane Mormon John Giles. I don't really think Giles moves leftward (he endorsed Kamala) were about the electorate, I think they reflect many of his type's (good government, sane, professional class Mormon moderate) reaction to the trend to greater amounts of crazy in the GOP.
Full disclosure: Giles graduated from my high school and I attended school with some of his younger relatives, he was first elected to city council at-large while I was still a Mesa resident but I was a few months too young to vote against him.
We've never competed in this seat, and all of our candidates this year are Some Dudes. Highest fundraising through Q1 was under $125k. But with a big enough wave and with an assist from the cR-AZy GOP primary electorate, Democratic driftwood might come up tops.
I was so excited when we went 3-3 in 1992. Sadly English and Coppersmith both got washed out in the huge GOP wave in 1994 leaving us with Ed Pastor’s VRA seat as the only AZ-Dem in Congress until the 2002 maps. Coppersmith’s district was more like Harry Mitchell or Sinema’s or Stanton’s. The area Biggs now covers was mostly hay farms back then.
What about English, then? Was she in Schweikert's current territory and the old Shadegg seat?
Edit: I see she was from the Flagstaff seat that stretched to Phoenix, but got its own seat in 2002 with Renzi, Kirkpatrick, Gosar, O'Halleran and Crane.
Yeah, she was a Coconino County supervisor first. The district included most of the area now in Biggs district but that wasn’t where the population was back then. The GOP tried to run a guy who had only been in AZ 2 years to represent probably the most parochial district in the state (heavily Indian, heavily Pinto Democrat).
Trump did not lower prices on day one. And prices are not coming down anytime soon.
The Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation (PCE) increased in April to a three-year high, rising 3.8% year over year. This is the highest annual rate of inflation measured since May 2023. Similarly, core PCE (without volatile food and energy) increased at an annual rate of 3.3 percent, the highest measured since November 2023.
Peter Simel, known as "Palm Beach Pete", will run for mayor of the Florida city. He has gained media attention for looking like the late rapist and human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who was also from Palm Beach.
Mamdani may endorse Darializa Avila Chevalier over incumbent Adriano Espaillat, despite privately promising to support Espaillat after he was offered support shortly after beating Cuomo in the primary last year.
Didn’t Mamdani win Espaillat’s district? I don’t think Espaillat has as good a chance of winning if Mamdani gets involved. I believe Espaillat did not crack 50% in the one poll they did and he also didn’t perform well in the past against less well-known candidates. DAC’s canvassers are apparently also out in force. We’ll see I guess.
Well for starters he'd gain another close ally in Congress that didn't accept money and marching orders from AIPAC. Also similar to Crowley's defeat, Espaillat is an aging politician who is starting to no longer be a good fit for the district he represents and has a long history of waging unnecessary battles against other Democrats for the sole purpose of expanding his machine. On top of that, he has never shown interest in expanding his base past the Dominican community. He has continuously ignored traditional black Harlem, Puerto Rican East Harlem and above all, younger voters throughout the district. Also, he only endorsed Mamdani after he won the primary and in a landslide in the district (he was a strong Cuomo supporter in the primary) and after a round of negotiations so he's not exactly a "Vote Blue No Matter Who" type.
Endorsed her tonight on Jen Psaki, and NYC election expert Michael Lange has a new article out about how Espaillat could be the next Joe Crowley, 'a paper tiger.'
A: 2 weeks ago, IMO
Here's Downballot's special tracker fwiw
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JGk1r1VXnxBrAIVHz1C5HTB5jxCO6Zw4QNPivdhyWHw/edit?gid=1173601967#gid=1173601967
“Any” might be doing a lot of work here. Depends on where in the country I think. If there’s enough of a Democratic concentration, like a university or a strong hispanic/black presence where voters are being engaged by strong campaigns, then maybe. Otherwise it’s hard for me to see a seat that went more than 55% Trump go blue.
Trump got more than 55% in Iowa, Florida, Texas, and Kansas, if we think we have a chance at statewide wins in any of those states then presumably we’d have a chance in at least some districts where Trump performed similarly well.
Some, yes. “Any,” no.
Makes sense
It's worth noting that special elections do tend to be more favorable for the out party than the midterm itself. I assume it's a result of turnout dynamics. I don't think we're that close to winning Trump+20 seats in November. Would love to be wrong, though...
Yeah remember in 2017-2018 we won some Trump + 20 seats in special elections and then ended up losing them in the 2018 general election. The only House district that was close to Trump + 20 that we actually picked up in the 2018 general elections was NY-22.
We’re probably going to need the average GCB margin to hit double digits before we can say these seats could be in play for November. That would allow some polls to show D+15, which coupled with candidate quality/persuasion or lack there of on Republicans part, with people not used to running hard campaigns in Trump double digit districts, could put those seats into reach.
That said, we won’t win every seat of a certain PVI/lean. Waves often reach a peak, but sometimes we can snag a few extra above that where incumbents weren’t expected to need to defend. And sometimes really good politicians can survive any level of a wave. So tbh saying all districts of Trump +20 or less being in play would require a GCB above 25-30ish, which obviously isn’t going to happen barring a 2008 economic collapse.
If you adjusted your question to asking when some of them would be within reach, I’d say we’re currently on a trajectory for that in the GCB/Trump approval. Being around D+7-8 on average and with the incumbent party typically losing ground in a midterm election, could easily see us at D+10 or more if trends continue as they currently are. However, in 2022, the last midterm, it didn’t follow any sort of historical pattern, so no guarantees either regardless of what polls show now or on Election Day.
Special elections typically advantage the out of power party and are much lower turnout affairs, so I wouldn’t at all expect any national race this fall to see as big of a swing as most special elections right now are showing. Thinking that would set yourself up for disappointment with unrealistic expectations going into the election.
A little late, Gavin.
What value would Newsom’s endorsement of Bass be even if he gave his support months ago? A year ago?
Newsom, along with Bass, has been too associated with the disaster of a response to the fires in the Palisades.
Not much has been cast actually.. historically slow return rate for Dems this year, mostly likely due to disarray in the Gov race
In yesterday's digest.
https://www.the-downballot.com/p/morning-digest-paxton-topples-cornyn
Missouri is a true battleground for democracy right now, with everything going on. The people (via the citizen petition) and the state legislature are essentially at political war with each other.
MO should be worth investing more grassroots activism to benefit Democrats in the state as far as wins.
Can’t expect this will lead to winning the state at the presidential level or Senate race in 2028 but we have to start somewhere.
My spitball guess on the CA-40 spending on a random Kim is that the plan is simply to confuse Kim Varet with Young Kim?
It’s pretty stupid.
But just trying to put myself in the mind of the person who has a few hundred thousand budgeted to bet on the stupidity of voters.
Yeah and McCarthy is spending for Calvert simply because they've known each other for 25yrs.
Wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that Calvert knows where a host of bodies are buried.
Thanks for helping warn about the GOP meddling in Democratic primaries. Democratic primary voters will have to pay close attention to know who are the true Democrats. I hope the real Dems will back combining the local elections with the even year midterm elections as done in California. A study there said it resulted in boosting voter turnout, saved multi-millions of tax money and had the added benefit of resulting in more women and more minorities being elected to local offices.
https://www.kten.com/news/politics/james-talarico-campaign-says-it-raised-more-than-3-million-in-24-hours-since-texas/article_f0dfac9d-b0ef-5077-b3b1-da3e72ad0a8e.html
TX-Sen: Democratic nominee James Talarico raised at least $3 million in one day against Republican nominee Ken Paxton.
I remember when Democrat Claire McCaskill did this to Republicans back in the day.
So Republicans are just running on “LOL Talarico is gay and a vegan”? Seems like such a stupid strategy when they’re already in a polling hole, but I guess they don’t really have much else going for them.
Talarico's campaign is hitting back at them. But I wish they had the woman running the Democrats' X feed running the Talarico account.
You know, the one that checked Stephen Miller's transphobic Talarico post by calling him "fucking ugly." His wife tried clapping back at her but got ratioed like no one's business.
They can dish it out but they can't take it.
Stephen Miller is a bald, creepy, ugly, hateful cuck. Really glad the Dems are pushing back like that, sad our politics are just a shittier version of high school but bullies need to be knocked down a peg whenever possible.
As correct as almost any insult levied at that cretin is, Talarico’s entire political brand is on being the devout choir boy so his Twitter account saying something like that would be unwise
It is almost hard for me to put into words how much I hate that we have to pay attention to Twitter battles, and "clap backs" and "ratios" in this political age. I cannot believe this is where we are as a society...
I've been getting more and more Elazar-pilled over the past year - this is in reference to Daniel Elazar's theories on political culture in the US, where state cultures are divided into moralistic, individualistic, and traditionalistic cultures (IMO, that's in order from good to bad; I'm a pretty staunch Minnesota moralist). Texas in general, but especially Texas Republicans, are very set in their ways about being traditionalistic, and this is a perfect example of this. They don't value the average person being involved in civic matters and politics; voter suppression laws are of course their main way of reducing public vote. But, I also think that the way they mock and trivialize the notion of actually caring about substantive policy (which Talarico definitely cares about and is trying to run on) is part of that.
It's the traditionalist way of showing contempt for voters who aren't part of their elite.
I've read a little bit about Elazar's theories since you mentioned them, and I've noticed that most of the GOP is strongly traditionalistic, especially in the Deep South, whereas Democratic voters are split between moralistic and individualistic cultures.
Indeed. If I remember, it wasn't necessarily the case when Elazar was doing the research. The South was of course not monolithically Republican, and the moralistic states still had Republican parties that were on the board with governing for the common good, just in their conservative Republican way that involved low taxes.
Individualist cultures I assumed meant libertarian ideology at first, but it's not necessarily the case, since some of these states have substantial government functions. What strikes me about them is that government is very transactional here. They were historically very correlated with machine politics, and some still are. Either that, or they're just low government involvement but heavy business involvement.
They're also running on Talarico believing there's more than two genders. They're also running on Talarico believing there should be a welcome sign at the southern border. So no, your shorthand for the Republican strategy is incomplete. They're running on the very things that sunk Democrats in the 2024 election beyond just about everybody's expectations. Will it work again in 2026? To be determined, but there's absolutely nothing resembling "stupid" about the strategy.
With Inflation and a crumbling economy I say if they want to continue to relitigate the culture wars, "Proceed Governor"
It's really all Republicans have at this point. I'm hoping it doesn't work. One of the checkboxes for Talarico is base GOP turnout is depressed enough to not show up in November and ramping up the culture wars is a logical way to make sure that box is unchecked.
The welcome sign thing is completely disingenuous and a clip of his full quote. The full quote is not bad at all. The other stuff probably hurts, but he said already that he made cringey comments in the past.
Emerson poll has generic ballot at D+9 (50%-41%)(1,000 LVs; May 24-25). https://emersoncollegepolling.com/may-2026-national-poll/
Here is where every pollster that has polled in the last 2 months has had us in their most recent poll:
AtlasIntel: D+15
NYT/Siena: D+11
Quinnipiac: D+11
Verasight: D+11
Marist: D+10
Marquette: D+10
Survey160: D+10
Emerson: D+9
KFF: D+9
RMG Research: D+9
Data for Progress: D+8
Echelon: D+8
GBAO: D+8
Impact Research: D+8
Cygnal: D+7
Focaldata: D+7
Zogby: D+7
HarrisX: D+6
Morning Consult: D+6
Beacon Research: D+5
Change Research: D+5
Clarity Campaign Labs: D+5
Quantus Insights: D+5
YouGov: D+5
McLaughlin: D+4
CNN/SSRS: D+3
Public Opinion Strategies: D+3
Ipsos Reuters: D+1
Tavern Research: D+1
Amazing range!
Well done. RCP has the current average as D+7.8.
www.fox10phoenix.com/news/mark-lamb-allegations-arizona-congressional-candidate-faces-misconduct-claims.amp
AZ-5: Former Pinal County sheriff Mark Lamb, the leading candidate to succeed Rep. Andy Biggs, no longer just faces sexual assault allegations, but also allegations of using racist, homophobic and outright threatening language.
This seat is R+10. Still too hard for us to win, even as a reach seat?
It depends on how Democrats perform in Gilbert and Mesa, the largest cities in the district. They have shifted left dramatically the past few cycles, so much so that Mesa's Republican mayor pivoted pretty hard to the left in 2024 before he left office.
Shows how out of touch with current AZ politics I am that I just remembered they elected nutjob ultra-right wing Mormon Mark Freeman mayor of Mesa in 2024 to replace sane Mormon John Giles. I don't really think Giles moves leftward (he endorsed Kamala) were about the electorate, I think they reflect many of his type's (good government, sane, professional class Mormon moderate) reaction to the trend to greater amounts of crazy in the GOP.
Full disclosure: Giles graduated from my high school and I attended school with some of his younger relatives, he was first elected to city council at-large while I was still a Mesa resident but I was a few months too young to vote against him.
P.S. Freeman is unfortunately also on the SRP Council, his family has two of the 3 seats in District 9.
Third and 4th largest cities by population in the state. I remember when almost all of those houses were citrus and hay.
We've never competed in this seat, and all of our candidates this year are Some Dudes. Highest fundraising through Q1 was under $125k. But with a big enough wave and with an assist from the cR-AZy GOP primary electorate, Democratic driftwood might come up tops.
A lot of this was the old Sam Coppersmith seat, though, right?
I was so excited when we went 3-3 in 1992. Sadly English and Coppersmith both got washed out in the huge GOP wave in 1994 leaving us with Ed Pastor’s VRA seat as the only AZ-Dem in Congress until the 2002 maps. Coppersmith’s district was more like Harry Mitchell or Sinema’s or Stanton’s. The area Biggs now covers was mostly hay farms back then.
What about English, then? Was she in Schweikert's current territory and the old Shadegg seat?
Edit: I see she was from the Flagstaff seat that stretched to Phoenix, but got its own seat in 2002 with Renzi, Kirkpatrick, Gosar, O'Halleran and Crane.
Yeah, she was a Coconino County supervisor first. The district included most of the area now in Biggs district but that wasn’t where the population was back then. The GOP tried to run a guy who had only been in AZ 2 years to represent probably the most parochial district in the state (heavily Indian, heavily Pinto Democrat).
Trump did not lower prices on day one. And prices are not coming down anytime soon.
The Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation (PCE) increased in April to a three-year high, rising 3.8% year over year. This is the highest annual rate of inflation measured since May 2023. Similarly, core PCE (without volatile food and energy) increased at an annual rate of 3.3 percent, the highest measured since November 2023.
https://cbs12.com/news/local/jeffrey-epstein-doppelganger-palm-beach-pete-announces-run-for-palm-beach-mayor-2028-palm-beach-county-supervisor-of-elections-florida-news
Peter Simel, known as "Palm Beach Pete", will run for mayor of the Florida city. He has gained media attention for looking like the late rapist and human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who was also from Palm Beach.
That's a really bad thing to be known for. Which party? The linked article doesn't specify.
FL-13: PPP has R incumbent up 41-39 here: https://floridapolitics.com/archives/798768-internal-poll-shows-leela-gray-in-statistical-tie-with-anna-paulina-luna/
I believe this poll was in the Digest.
So every time I see Amish Shah's name, I imagine an SNL character, either played by Bowen Yang, Mike Meyers (sp?), or Eddie Murphy.
Mamdani may endorse Darializa Avila Chevalier over incumbent Adriano Espaillat, despite privately promising to support Espaillat after he was offered support shortly after beating Cuomo in the primary last year.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/28/nyregion/adriano-espaillat-darializa-avila-chevalier-mamdani.html
Didn’t Mamdani win Espaillat’s district? I don’t think Espaillat has as good a chance of winning if Mamdani gets involved. I believe Espaillat did not crack 50% in the one poll they did and he also didn’t perform well in the past against less well-known candidates. DAC’s canvassers are apparently also out in force. We’ll see I guess.
What's the explanation for why Mamdani would go back on his word?
Well for starters he'd gain another close ally in Congress that didn't accept money and marching orders from AIPAC. Also similar to Crowley's defeat, Espaillat is an aging politician who is starting to no longer be a good fit for the district he represents and has a long history of waging unnecessary battles against other Democrats for the sole purpose of expanding his machine. On top of that, he has never shown interest in expanding his base past the Dominican community. He has continuously ignored traditional black Harlem, Puerto Rican East Harlem and above all, younger voters throughout the district. Also, he only endorsed Mamdani after he won the primary and in a landslide in the district (he was a strong Cuomo supporter in the primary) and after a round of negotiations so he's not exactly a "Vote Blue No Matter Who" type.
Crowley's thumping defeat remains an amazing shocker, but Espaillat's hypothetical loss would not be a shocker at all.
I hope Mamdani does endorse Darializa Avila Chevalier.
Not to be flip, he's a politican.
In fairness, Espaillat endorsed Cuomo in the primary.
They’re both longtime DSA and she actually has a chance to win (compared to Chi Ossé being a fairly new member and unlikely to beat Jeffries).
Endorsed her tonight on Jen Psaki, and NYC election expert Michael Lange has a new article out about how Espaillat could be the next Joe Crowley, 'a paper tiger.'
https://www.michaellange.nyc/p/the-death-of-political-machines?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=4ixte8&triedRedirect=true
amp.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article315908826.html
FL-24: Miami-Dade County commissioner Marleine Bastien is considering a run here, if Rep. Frederica Wilson retires.
State Sen. Shev Jones and fellow commissioner Oliver Gilbert are also considering runs, while physician Rudy Moise is in.
I really like Shev Jones. I think he’d be a good Rep.