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.
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 REALLY hope Hinojosa and Talarico decide to do a joint campaign appearance with Katy Padilla Stout at some point. I’ve been beating the TX23 is winnable drum for months, long before the Gonzales scandal blew up, because Herrera is a literal Nazi and I figured even without the scandal the incumbent was toast in his primary.
I’m glad Democratic national orgs are finally starting to pay attention to this district and seeing the rare opportunity here for our party with the Hispanic/Latino alienation by the GOP over mass deportations. They need to start fundraising for Katy asap to get her campaign off the ground here.
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.
I might be very wrong, but I’d bet that Hispanic/Latino voters would still be voting GOP right now if not for the US citizens being killed and non violent illegal immigrants being deported. After all, they didn’t shift this much in 2017/2018 special elections. The seats we were winning and overperforming in then were mostly the suburbs. In fact we underperformed in a South Texas district special election with a large Hispanic/Latino population just before the midterms.
I think the economy was the first crack to be sure, but the actual break away from Republicans happened after they realized they were actually on their menu to be deported even if they supported Trump and thought his party would spare them because they voted for him and the GOP. “He’ll deport other people, not me because I pay taxes, I have a family, I’m not a criminal and I work hard” level of delusion.
They didn’t really abandon him in the first term up until the pandemic. Now they’re bolting again, but for entirely different reasons than economic ones. You don’t see TX23, FL27, the TX State Senate or TX Senate race and other +15-20 GOP/Trump seats with large Hispanic/Latino populations being competitive for Democrats unless even conservative voters are alienated.
Both are factors, but one is a level of gut punch anger/betrayal they feel so deeply they’re voting Democratic when they didn’t before. One’s the spark, one’s the gasoline. Both are needed to create the fire, but one does more damage than the other. All imo of course.
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.
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.
Leadership musical chairs from Hern's campaign launch. Per House Repub Conference rules, he had to step down as policy committee chair, effective yesterday. Claudia Tenney is the first to announce her run, I've not seen others so far.
The Boca Raton mayoral race going to a recount with six votes between the top two candidates. Would be a Dem flip if held. Most relevant bit from the below tweet:
"The mayoral race will proceed to a recount after the 5pm Thursday deadline for signature and provisional ballot cures. The Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections will begin the recount at 10am Friday. Check their website for updates through the link below."
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)
Also saw McAuliffe's endorsements include Louise Lucas (senate pro tem), Mary Sue Terry (former AG), Eileen Filler-Corn (former speaker) and the living former Dem first ladies: Anne Holton (also former state education sec, Tim Kaine's wife), Pamela Northam (Ralph Northam's wife), Lisa Collis (Mark Warner's wife) and Lynda Johnson Robb (Chuck Robb's wife).
I saw Filler-Corn project this when she said she wouldn't be a candidate herself but would endorse. Tbh, I sort of reflexively oppose anyone she supports.
Both that and that McAuliffe is obviously deeply connection to high-level establishment back to her husband running Bill's 1996 reelection campaign and then chairing the DNC even before he became gov (and then him running again in 2021 kept those contacts fresher).
She squandered movement a lot of legislative priorities (including abortion) during the 2020–2022 trifecta so that she was summarily thrown out as minority leader very shortly after, plus other reasons I dislike her from her 2024 primary campaign lol
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...
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.
Rather fascinating deep dive look at the GCB polling, which once again, in yet another election cycle, upends conventional wisdom about party support by various groups of voters.
I think at this point, we, as election followers, should all admit that no voting group is a lock for either party, that winning election coalitions can change rapidly, in unexpected ways and that all voters can be won over by either party in any election or suddenly become solid behind or break away from their formerly solid 1 party support.
There’s no such thing as the unmovable voter demographic being a lock for a party, it doesn’t exist. Voting and voters are fluid. Black voters and urban voters are still at 2024 levels of Republican support. But rural voters and Latino voters are far more Democratic than even 2018 or 2020.
Who had that on their midterm bingo card? Certainly not me:
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.
I don’t think we can even say that they are unmovable. How many of us here saw the possibility of long time Democratic voters unexpectedly voting for Trump in 2024 when they hadn’t voted GOP before, despite not voting for Trump in 2016 or 2020? Conversely, how many long time Republican voters are likely going to vote Democratic in 2026 when they haven’t voted Democratic in 2018, 2020 or 2022 before?
We as a party didn’t see the possibility for our urban base to swing to Trump for the first time in decades. The GOP likely doesn’t see the possibility for their rural base to swing to Democratic for the first time in decades. Expect the unexpected in American elections and politics and don’t ever assume any bloc or any voter can’t be moved, because they can, depending on the circumstances of the election (party in power, economy, candidates, local factors, policy changes etc).
The most we can ever say is what the current party coalitions look like, but that will probably change by the next election. We thought Republicans couldn’t win Virginia Governor anymore and that Senator Bob Casey was safe. The GOP thought Democrats couldn’t win Louisiana Governor and that 2022 would be a red wave. Both were wrong assumptions.
We as partisans are terrible at predicting changes in voting habits by the electorate from red states to blue ones and every shade in between, so we should be open to anything being possible, including losing our die hard voters to a certain person or certain election cycle.
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.
Not just racial lines either if we’re to believe current GCB polls with rurals shifting more left and urban areas staying more right. Geography, education level and white voters themselves are included too. Aka Republican are losing white voters right now, whereas Democrats lost minority voters in 2024. Anything can happen in any cycle depending on the circumstances. It’s not just one way with non-whites that moved GOP last cycle.
MO state trial court upholds the new congressional map (consolidated two challenges). Imagine onto the state supreme court (I don't think there's time for a state appeals court tbh) and of course there's the veto referendum.
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.
*Pulido
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/
The conclusion is simple - people hate Republicans right now.
Are there any special elections next Tuesday or the one after?
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
They have a shot.
Noting this is the House Dems' leadership PAC.
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
I REALLY hope Hinojosa and Talarico decide to do a joint campaign appearance with Katy Padilla Stout at some point. I’ve been beating the TX23 is winnable drum for months, long before the Gonzales scandal blew up, because Herrera is a literal Nazi and I figured even without the scandal the incumbent was toast in his primary.
I’m glad Democratic national orgs are finally starting to pay attention to this district and seeing the rare opportunity here for our party with the Hispanic/Latino alienation by the GOP over mass deportations. They need to start fundraising for Katy asap to get her campaign off the ground here.
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."
I might be very wrong, but I’d bet that Hispanic/Latino voters would still be voting GOP right now if not for the US citizens being killed and non violent illegal immigrants being deported. After all, they didn’t shift this much in 2017/2018 special elections. The seats we were winning and overperforming in then were mostly the suburbs. In fact we underperformed in a South Texas district special election with a large Hispanic/Latino population just before the midterms.
I think the economy was the first crack to be sure, but the actual break away from Republicans happened after they realized they were actually on their menu to be deported even if they supported Trump and thought his party would spare them because they voted for him and the GOP. “He’ll deport other people, not me because I pay taxes, I have a family, I’m not a criminal and I work hard” level of delusion.
They didn’t really abandon him in the first term up until the pandemic. Now they’re bolting again, but for entirely different reasons than economic ones. You don’t see TX23, FL27, the TX State Senate or TX Senate race and other +15-20 GOP/Trump seats with large Hispanic/Latino populations being competitive for Democrats unless even conservative voters are alienated.
Both are factors, but one is a level of gut punch anger/betrayal they feel so deeply they’re voting Democratic when they didn’t before. One’s the spark, one’s the gasoline. Both are needed to create the fire, but one does more damage than the other. All imo of course.
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.
Pulido got a bit of hype, but what's the story with Padilla Stout?
lol. lmao even.
"Rep. Jim Clyburn tells ABC News’ @jpballou1 that he is running for reelection, not announcing his retirement this morning.
Clyburn, who took office in the House in 1993, is set to appear at South Carolina Democratic Party HQ in Columbia at 1030am."
https://x.com/jparkABC/status/2032094099797319730
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.
Leadership musical chairs from Hern's campaign launch. Per House Repub Conference rules, he had to step down as policy committee chair, effective yesterday. Claudia Tenney is the first to announce her run, I've not seen others so far.
https://x.com/Olivia_Beavers/status/2031900573415391262
The Boca Raton mayoral race going to a recount with six votes between the top two candidates. Would be a Dem flip if held. Most relevant bit from the below tweet:
"The mayoral race will proceed to a recount after the 5pm Thursday deadline for signature and provisional ballot cures. The Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections will begin the recount at 10am Friday. Check their website for updates through the link below."
https://x.com/CityBocaRaton/status/2031745171629511042
I'm assuming the incumbent didn't run to focus on his congressional campaign
Yeah, I think the resign to run laws would have precluded him from running for both.
The incumbent mayor, Scott Singer, was termed out. He’s now running in the GOP primary to take on Rep. Jared Moskowitz
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
Is McAuliffe's that much better? I don't find Terry is very well loved either, so dk how much that transfer over to her lol
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!
In comparison, for sure, I'm just not sure she's great exactly lol
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 agree with the bpfish on praying for a Guzmán entry and win.
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)
Yeah, Guzmán has been signaling openness to running.
https://x.com/guzman4virginia/status/2031122192574882215
Also saw McAuliffe's endorsements include Louise Lucas (senate pro tem), Mary Sue Terry (former AG), Eileen Filler-Corn (former speaker) and the living former Dem first ladies: Anne Holton (also former state education sec, Tim Kaine's wife), Pamela Northam (Ralph Northam's wife), Lisa Collis (Mark Warner's wife) and Lynda Johnson Robb (Chuck Robb's wife).
I saw Filler-Corn project this when she said she wouldn't be a candidate herself but would endorse. Tbh, I sort of reflexively oppose anyone she supports.
https://x.com/jmart/status/2031735908559413319
Ah, makes sense, I'm not a huge Filler-Corn fan either, but I am a huge LLL fan haha
100% hahaha
Sound like Helmer isn't super well-liked in Democratic circles if McAuliffe got all these endorsements immediately.
Both that and that McAuliffe is obviously deeply connection to high-level establishment back to her husband running Bill's 1996 reelection campaign and then chairing the DNC even before he became gov (and then him running again in 2021 kept those contacts fresher).
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.
She squandered movement a lot of legislative priorities (including abortion) during the 2020–2022 trifecta so that she was summarily thrown out as minority leader very shortly after, plus other reasons I dislike her from her 2024 primary campaign lol
Thanks very much for the first link. I don't think it got a lot of attention.
It takes a village lol. These comment threads keep me even more informed on things that slip for me all the time.
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.
It ain’t just red states that Democrats are competing to run for seats in for the first time in many decades.
https://x.com/pwoodreporter/status/2031854482963726657
Md Democrats are fielding candidates in all 188 state Senate and House of Delegates seats for the 1st time in 50+ years.
“We think in this moment that there are a lot of people who are looking for a new political home,” said party chair Steuart Pittman.
https://www.thebanner.com/politics-power/state-government/maryland-democrats-candidate-recruitment-RUUBH2NAZJBOZMKZCQVDPJYMNA/
https://archive.ph/Pmgjo
Fascinating—thanks for sharing!
He may be older, but he’s the only one who can make this district a race due to his long term as a local tv news anchor career.
https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/2032081669272871128
Blueprint Polling poll | 3/6-3/8 LV
US House | #FL27 2026 (Trump +15 | 2024)
🟥María Elvira Salazar 46% (incumbent)
🟦Eliott Rodriguez 43%
—
🟥María Elvira Salazar 47% (incumbent)
🟦Robin Peguero 40%
(Democratic affiliated pollster)
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/784817-__trashed-35/
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.
TN09 Primary poll:
https://x.com/daveweigel/status/2032113245012607313
New poll of #TN09 shared w me by
@justicedems
:
Steve Cohen (inc): 45%
Justin Pearson: 44%
1/30-2/3, 354 likely primary voters. Numbers are before messaging (when pollsters read bad info about one candidate and good info about the other)
Rather fascinating deep dive look at the GCB polling, which once again, in yet another election cycle, upends conventional wisdom about party support by various groups of voters.
I think at this point, we, as election followers, should all admit that no voting group is a lock for either party, that winning election coalitions can change rapidly, in unexpected ways and that all voters can be won over by either party in any election or suddenly become solid behind or break away from their formerly solid 1 party support.
There’s no such thing as the unmovable voter demographic being a lock for a party, it doesn’t exist. Voting and voters are fluid. Black voters and urban voters are still at 2024 levels of Republican support. But rural voters and Latino voters are far more Democratic than even 2018 or 2020.
Who had that on their midterm bingo card? Certainly not me:
https://blog.fiftyplusone.news/p/how-different-demographic-groups-are-moving-on-the-generic-ballot
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.
I don’t think we can even say that they are unmovable. How many of us here saw the possibility of long time Democratic voters unexpectedly voting for Trump in 2024 when they hadn’t voted GOP before, despite not voting for Trump in 2016 or 2020? Conversely, how many long time Republican voters are likely going to vote Democratic in 2026 when they haven’t voted Democratic in 2018, 2020 or 2022 before?
We as a party didn’t see the possibility for our urban base to swing to Trump for the first time in decades. The GOP likely doesn’t see the possibility for their rural base to swing to Democratic for the first time in decades. Expect the unexpected in American elections and politics and don’t ever assume any bloc or any voter can’t be moved, because they can, depending on the circumstances of the election (party in power, economy, candidates, local factors, policy changes etc).
The most we can ever say is what the current party coalitions look like, but that will probably change by the next election. We thought Republicans couldn’t win Virginia Governor anymore and that Senator Bob Casey was safe. The GOP thought Democrats couldn’t win Louisiana Governor and that 2022 would be a red wave. Both were wrong assumptions.
We as partisans are terrible at predicting changes in voting habits by the electorate from red states to blue ones and every shade in between, so we should be open to anything being possible, including losing our die hard voters to a certain person or certain election cycle.
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.
Not just racial lines either if we’re to believe current GCB polls with rurals shifting more left and urban areas staying more right. Geography, education level and white voters themselves are included too. Aka Republican are losing white voters right now, whereas Democrats lost minority voters in 2024. Anything can happen in any cycle depending on the circumstances. It’s not just one way with non-whites that moved GOP last cycle.
MO state trial court upholds the new congressional map (consolidated two challenges). Imagine onto the state supreme court (I don't think there's time for a state appeals court tbh) and of course there's the veto referendum.
https://x.com/RedistrictNet/status/2032139287982948435
Yeah, the referendum enjoins the map this year once it's approved.