Honestly I don't think, especially prior to this cycle, AIPAC endorsements say much, they are suckers who will endorse any incumbent who tells them what they want to hear. Votes speak louder than endorsements.
It appears that a cohort of black mostly males has gone full MAGA over the past 5 years and little can shake it. Fortunately I don't see them as likely midterm voters anyway.
It's definitely social media-amplified. As the Civil Rights generation dies off, I think many are underestimating the ramifications of that cultural center and memory being lost.
bit of a tangent, but in the nj governor's race last year urban af am turnout was incredible, and Trump's performance in Jersey City, Newark, Camden etc. appeared to be a one off
I'd be worried about statistical noise among black voters, depending on how many were polled in this. I know they lay out their methodology, but without crosstab numbers, it's worth being a little cautious.
Absolutely. The narrative going back to 2000 is always that we're an evenly divided country. While that's largely true, the flow of voters from one side of the divide to the other is extremely dynamic and has been for quite some time, and now more than ever that's crossing racial lines.
At the time, Hillary had just won the district by about 20 points, and when Ileana Ros-Lehtinen retired, a lot of people counted it as an automatic pickup.
I get that (and clearly IRL was scared into retirement), but it's still pretty amazing that Salazar lost to an opponent who was nearly 80 and didn't speak Spanish. Maybe that's hindsight talking, though.
It would stop him from easily setting up his own kid to replace him, and it also would send a shot across the bow of anyone else trying to stick around past their time.
Pulido is going to be a busy guy working those quinceañeras. I don’t know if he could work all 4,000 requests but it wouldn’t hurt his election chances either.
Say he drops in for 15 minutes to play one song and briefly meet and greet people. He could play more than one a day but I don't think the math works for 4,000 before election day. He'd have to prioritize the ones in his district in the order they requested.
Quick and dirty math: Suppose his district has 800,000 people. Maybe 1/160 of those are girls who turn 15 in 2026. That's 5,000. Maybe 2/3 of those, or 3,300, have birthdays between March 12 and November 3. (Obviously only a fraction of these have contacted his office.) It isn't possible that all 4,000 requests are in his district and before the election. Restricting it to that subset might allow him to hit most of them.
I re-read the article and saw he got over a thousand requests in one day. I got that mixed up with the number of the 4,000 Latina girls turning 15 between now and Election Day.
Maybe he can do a few in Padilla Stout's district to help her out, if things are looking good in his. (Especially if she can sing even a little and join him on stage.)
It looks that way. Thune doesn't believe there will be a dictatorship in 2028 and understands that the Republicans benefit much more than the Democrats from being able to simply block progress when they are in the minority.
A crushing Republican loss – In Oakland, New Jersey
In this western Bergen County town of almost 13,000, council candidates Kevin Slasinski (incumbent Republican) and Matthew Dumpert (Independent) both got exactly 2,516 votes last fall.
On Tuesday the town had a special “do-over” election and the results were shocking – especially for local Republicans. Dumpert crushed Slasinski by a margin of more than a thousand votes.
The tally was 1,888 to 770. In other words, not even one-third of the voters that had voted for Slasinski bothered showing up to vote for him in the deciding round.
You missed Florida SD-14 (Trump +7, Biden +4). As for the house seats HD-51 is Trump +11.5 (Trump +6.5 in 2020) and HD-87 is Trump +10.5 ( Trump +0.5 in 2020), so all the contested special elections in Florida are flippable.
There's a third election in Louisiana with 3 Republicans and a Democrat in a Trump +20 seat that actually moved 4 points to the left in 2024 vs 2020. Not impossible the Democrat can win there, although racial polarization makes that hard.
Knowing book collectors as I do, this could easily be true:
[quote]
Gale described himself as a “passionate historian with a broad collection of historical art and artifacts.”
He said his collection includes an 1859 letter from anti-slavery advocate John Brown, a letter from George Washington, a letter from Winston Churchill and Vatican archives and a signed copy of the first book in 1685 about Niagara Falls by Father Hennepin.[unquote]
However, if you work in the public eye, you have to be smarter about what is in your collection.
I’m with you. We’re looking at a potential blue wave unlike what we’ve seen for a long time. Now’s our chance to flip this seat, especially given the ICE misery and how it’s changed the Latino vote.
You could be right. I remember it being a big mistake when the Democrats thought they could win the votes of Hispanic people just by making statements to them about immigration, which is usually IIRC the #5 issue for them or something, but having reasonable fear that they themselves could be attacked by ICE could take things to a different level.
That’s the biggest shock here. Maybe Abbott fatigue after so many terms? Can’t imagine she’d win considering the money disparity but she’ll keep it close and Talarico is strongly in the hunt against either
Could see it. Three terms is a lot (I was not a fan of Inslee using WA Gov as his escape hatch from a failed Prez run in 2020); four terms is egregious
Re VA-7: oh thank goodness. Helmer is quite flawed - mailers that claimed he was the incumbent in areas that he wasn't representing, sexual harassment allegations, massive crypto pac funds in 2024 when he dueled Subramanyam... his reputation around here isn't great, so I'm very glad McAuliffe is entering the race
i def don't think she's perfect, but seeing a strong candidate running instead of the practical coronation of Helmer a lot of us here were expecting to happen is really exciting
I can't think of anyone less exciting running anywhere in the country. The spouse (we wouldn't be talking about her otherwise) of a super bland, boring, insider, lifelong career politician. I'd fall asleep talking about her if I weren't so annoyed.
Hopefully Elizabeth Guzmán runs again with Bernie's endorsement.
That could definitely be a possibility! And now I believe she lives within district lines (she's in Nokesville, which is currently in 10th district but if redistricting happens will move to 7th)
It is odd that the senior Senator from Texas, John Cornyn, would announce his changed position on the filibuster through an op-ed he wrote for a New York newspaper - and not the august New York Times but the Murdoch tabloid New York Post. Donald Trump is an avid reader of the Post not simply because of its ideology but for its celebrity gawking. So, pandering for an endorsement, Cornyn is addressing Trump, not his constituents in Texas.
I was wondering about this, too. Trump doesn't read anything, so I presume that includes the NYPost, too. But I guess Cornyn knows the Fox News producers gobble it up, so...
Unfortunate, but intelligent leftists always have to find the least bad candidate who can win.
Honestly I don't think, especially prior to this cycle, AIPAC endorsements say much, they are suckers who will endorse any incumbent who tells them what they want to hear. Votes speak louder than endorsements.
Exactly, like how they supported Rep. Adelita Grijalva over a decade ago, who is now staunchly against them.
Tower had already retired from the Senate at that point.
Yeah, the referendum enjoins the map this year once it's approved.
It appears that a cohort of black mostly males has gone full MAGA over the past 5 years and little can shake it. Fortunately I don't see them as likely midterm voters anyway.
The cost of living crisis and general political inertia in Democratic-run cities has probably not helped on this front
I wonder how much of this might be due to manosphere influencers?
A lot
Probably 80%
It's definitely social media-amplified. As the Civil Rights generation dies off, I think many are underestimating the ramifications of that cultural center and memory being lost.
Analogous to foolish younger women who say "I'm for equality, but I'm not a feminist or anything like that"? So extremely frustrating!
You're right in terms of blocs, but of course there are unmovable individual voters.
Agreed, but I am unmovable. That's what I mean by unmovable individuals.
Good article! I enjoy sound statistical analysis.
I do wonder if we’ll see some urban swing later in the cycle; would certainly jumble certain assumptions about political coalitions if we do not
bit of a tangent, but in the nj governor's race last year urban af am turnout was incredible, and Trump's performance in Jersey City, Newark, Camden etc. appeared to be a one off
I'd be worried about statistical noise among black voters, depending on how many were polled in this. I know they lay out their methodology, but without crosstab numbers, it's worth being a little cautious.
Absolutely. The narrative going back to 2000 is always that we're an evenly divided country. While that's largely true, the flow of voters from one side of the divide to the other is extremely dynamic and has been for quite some time, and now more than ever that's crossing racial lines.
Ironically, that's how Salazar got the job too (on the second try...I'm still amazed that she actually lost to Donna Shalalalalala in 2018).
At the time, Hillary had just won the district by about 20 points, and when Ileana Ros-Lehtinen retired, a lot of people counted it as an automatic pickup.
I get that (and clearly IRL was scared into retirement), but it's still pretty amazing that Salazar lost to an opponent who was nearly 80 and didn't speak Spanish. Maybe that's hindsight talking, though.
An actual dog could have beaten Salazar in 2018, and had Hispanics not shifted to the right in 2020, she wouldn't have won then, either.
Fascinating—thanks for sharing!
I'm assuming the incumbent didn't run to focus on his congressional campaign
The incumbent mayor, Scott Singer, was termed out. He’s now running in the GOP primary to take on Rep. Jared Moskowitz
He needs to retire.
rug pulled his own daughter lol
Maybe she will challenge him in the primary 😂
Damn, that's funny!
as a biden defender to the end, even I think it's time for the Rep Clyburn to pass the torch
He really believes we can't live without him.
Nah, he just wants to pick the next President. Extremely power-hungry politician.
Like many, many others, he's addicted to being important.
He better be primaried out. Pelosi and Hoyer know their time is up, and Clyburn’s is too
Realistically he retires in 2028, so primarying him really won't make much of a difference.
It would stop him from easily setting up his own kid to replace him, and it also would send a shot across the bow of anyone else trying to stick around past their time.
I didn't think he'd pass up the opportunity to be puppetmaster of the 2028 nomination process.
Bobby Pulido’s reaction to his opponent’s attempt at belittlement and denigration is one of the classiest reactions I’ve seen in many years!
I predict that, after her defeat, ex-Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz will be regretting her words long into retirement.
Pulido is going to be a busy guy working those quinceañeras. I don’t know if he could work all 4,000 requests but it wouldn’t hurt his election chances either.
Hell if he works 100 of them I’ll be impressed! What a great idea in his part
Say he drops in for 15 minutes to play one song and briefly meet and greet people. He could play more than one a day but I don't think the math works for 4,000 before election day. He'd have to prioritize the ones in his district in the order they requested.
Quick and dirty math: Suppose his district has 800,000 people. Maybe 1/160 of those are girls who turn 15 in 2026. That's 5,000. Maybe 2/3 of those, or 3,300, have birthdays between March 12 and November 3. (Obviously only a fraction of these have contacted his office.) It isn't possible that all 4,000 requests are in his district and before the election. Restricting it to that subset might allow him to hit most of them.
I re-read the article and saw he got over a thousand requests in one day. I got that mixed up with the number of the 4,000 Latina girls turning 15 between now and Election Day.
Yeah, it's a really brilliant opportunity for him and for all the quinceañeras, and he phrased his reaction perfectly!
He's a fantastic singer, so the quinceañeras he attends will be in for a treat!
You know he'll do a few, or at least one big one. The press coverage will be something else.
Maybe he can do a few in Padilla Stout's district to help her out, if things are looking good in his. (Especially if she can sing even a little and join him on stage.)
Watching Cornyn squirm and avoid eye contact gives me life. I think he’s doomed whether he wins or loses the runoffs in May.
I think his sudden alleged change of heart won't convince any significant number of people, but it does make him look like a weak hypocrite.
The SAVE Act will not pass even with Cornyn's change of heart.
Thune will not scrap the filibuster, period.
It looks that way. Thune doesn't believe there will be a dictatorship in 2028 and understands that the Republicans benefit much more than the Democrats from being able to simply block progress when they are in the minority.
There's also the longstanding asymmetry where the GOP base wants a lot of things that would be toxic in a general election but the Dem base doesn't.
Eh, I have no doubt Thune would scrap the filibuster for the right piece of legislation.
But this one ain't it.
Not sure if he's doomed but it sure is nice seeing what "Big Bad John" is really made of.
A crushing Republican loss – In Oakland, New Jersey
In this western Bergen County town of almost 13,000, council candidates Kevin Slasinski (incumbent Republican) and Matthew Dumpert (Independent) both got exactly 2,516 votes last fall.
On Tuesday the town had a special “do-over” election and the results were shocking – especially for local Republicans. Dumpert crushed Slasinski by a margin of more than a thousand votes.
The tally was 1,888 to 770. In other words, not even one-third of the voters that had voted for Slasinski bothered showing up to vote for him in the deciding round.
https://www.insidernj.com/oakland-do-over-election-a-shocker/
One in Louisiana on the 14th, two in Pennsylvania on the 17th, three in Florida on the 24th.
There's also one in Virginia on the 17th . And most of the ones I have listed are Republican held.
How do you rate the chances of a Democratic upset in any of these? Anything hopeful?
• LA: SD-3 and HD-100. Both two-Democrat affairs
• PA: HD-79 and -193. Both Trump +30 (in 2020) districts
• FL: HD-51 and -87 (both R-held)
• VA: HD-98 is Trump +14.6 (in 2024)
Removed 2020 election numbers from the Florida HDs because I bet those were scrambled by redistricting.
You missed Florida SD-14 (Trump +7, Biden +4). As for the house seats HD-51 is Trump +11.5 (Trump +6.5 in 2020) and HD-87 is Trump +10.5 ( Trump +0.5 in 2020), so all the contested special elections in Florida are flippable.
There's a third election in Louisiana with 3 Republicans and a Democrat in a Trump +20 seat that actually moved 4 points to the left in 2024 vs 2020. Not impossible the Democrat can win there, although racial polarization makes that hard.
Is there a nation-wide calendar of special elections somewhere?
Ballotpedia is usually where I go.
https://ballotpedia.org/State_legislative_special_elections,_2026
Similar list on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_state_legislative_elections#Special_elections), although editors have confused Louisiana "primaries" for actual primaries, although the current dates should be accurate.
I can fix that, I'm an active wiki editor
News from the North: unfortunately it isn't always sunshine and lollipops up here. The chairman of Niagara Regoinal Council, which is a position appointed by the anti-democratic provincial government, resigned because he was found to own a signed copy of a rather infamous book. https://www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/local/niagara/article/bob-gale-resigns-as-chair-of-niagara-region-amid-allegations-over-copy-of-hitlers-book/
Knowing book collectors as I do, this could easily be true:
[quote]
Gale described himself as a “passionate historian with a broad collection of historical art and artifacts.”
He said his collection includes an 1859 letter from anti-slavery advocate John Brown, a letter from George Washington, a letter from Winston Churchill and Vatican archives and a signed copy of the first book in 1685 about Niagara Falls by Father Hennepin.[unquote]
However, if you work in the public eye, you have to be smarter about what is in your collection.
"Texas's 23rd Congressional District
🟥 Brandon Herrera: 42%
🟦 Katy Padilla Stout: 40%
⬜ Not sure: 18%
——
Senate (TX-23)
🟦 James Talarico: 48%
🟥 John Cornyn: 42%
🟦 James Talarico: 49%
🟥 Ken Paxton: 44%
——
Governor (TX-23)
🟥 Greg Abbott (inc): 48%
🟦 Gina Hinojosa: 48%
——
• For House Majority PAC (Dem)
• PPP | 3/10-11 | recalled: Trump 51-39"
https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/2032064034829115454
"Trump Fav: 45%
Trump Unfav: 52%
Herrera Fav: 29%
Herrera Unfav: 35%
2024 Vote: Trump +12"
https://x.com/cjwarnke/status/2032046024735539550
I’m with you. We’re looking at a potential blue wave unlike what we’ve seen for a long time. Now’s our chance to flip this seat, especially given the ICE misery and how it’s changed the Latino vote.
Is that really the main issue for Hispanic voters, not the economy? I'm assuming it's still "the economy, stupid."
You could be right. I remember it being a big mistake when the Democrats thought they could win the votes of Hispanic people just by making statements to them about immigration, which is usually IIRC the #5 issue for them or something, but having reasonable fear that they themselves could be attacked by ICE could take things to a different level.
They have a shot.
The district is a few points to the right of the state, if we're tied here in the gubernatorial race, Hinojosa has a shot at winning.
That’s the biggest shock here. Maybe Abbott fatigue after so many terms? Can’t imagine she’d win considering the money disparity but she’ll keep it close and Talarico is strongly in the hunt against either
Could see it. Three terms is a lot (I was not a fan of Inslee using WA Gov as his escape hatch from a failed Prez run in 2020); four terms is egregious
I’ve heard on Bluesky that Hinojosa is actually campaigning too, unlike prior Gov candidates.
Prior gubernatorial candidates didn't campaign? Seriously?
That’s just what I heard. Didn’t say I agreed with it necessarily.
If you’re curious who said it, it was Kevin (formerly Nick Tagliaferro), ex-author of Primary School.
https://bsky.app/profile/reginageorgebush.bsky.social/post/3mgt5isohvc2i
Pulido got a bit of hype, but what's the story with Padilla Stout?
Re VA-7: oh thank goodness. Helmer is quite flawed - mailers that claimed he was the incumbent in areas that he wasn't representing, sexual harassment allegations, massive crypto pac funds in 2024 when he dueled Subramanyam... his reputation around here isn't great, so I'm very glad McAuliffe is entering the race
no sexual harrassment allegations is a plus!
I'm currently living in Fairfax County and a lot of people really like her here, especially in comp to Helmer!
i def don't think she's perfect, but seeing a strong candidate running instead of the practical coronation of Helmer a lot of us here were expecting to happen is really exciting
I can't think of anyone less exciting running anywhere in the country. The spouse (we wouldn't be talking about her otherwise) of a super bland, boring, insider, lifelong career politician. I'd fall asleep talking about her if I weren't so annoyed.
Hopefully Elizabeth Guzmán runs again with Bernie's endorsement.
That could definitely be a possibility! And now I believe she lives within district lines (she's in Nokesville, which is currently in 10th district but if redistricting happens will move to 7th)
Ah, makes sense, I'm not a huge Filler-Corn fan either, but I am a huge LLL fan haha
Sound like Helmer isn't super well-liked in Democratic circles if McAuliffe got all these endorsements immediately.
Indeed
Filler-Corn wasn't a good speaker, I take it?
I was thinking that filler-corn is what was in my dog's food before I changed brands.
Thanks very much for the first link. I don't think it got a lot of attention.
Totally. A major reason why I love this community!
You love to see it. This is the district Hererra is running in, that Gonzalez is in.
https://x.com/PpollingNumbers/status/2032065899750998264
Senate poll - TX 23
🔵 Talarico 48%
🔴 Cornyn 42%
🔵 Talarico 49%
🔴 Paxton 42%
2024 results - Trump +15
PPP 🔵 #B - TX 23 LV - 3/11
I know you put it in there but just highlighting that this is *TX-23 only*
It is odd that the senior Senator from Texas, John Cornyn, would announce his changed position on the filibuster through an op-ed he wrote for a New York newspaper - and not the august New York Times but the Murdoch tabloid New York Post. Donald Trump is an avid reader of the Post not simply because of its ideology but for its celebrity gawking. So, pandering for an endorsement, Cornyn is addressing Trump, not his constituents in Texas.
I was wondering about this, too. Trump doesn't read anything, so I presume that includes the NYPost, too. But I guess Cornyn knows the Fox News producers gobble it up, so...
He is reportedly obsessed with page six, where he always tried to position himself among the celebrity photos.
NYPost has more pictures.