My feeling is that he probably deserves to lose the primary because he froze in mid-sentence twice, regardless of anything else. It's completely reasonable that he believes he should be able to get better and continue doing the work he obviously values doing, but it's not like the Democratic Caucus has a big majority and can afford to lose more Representatives to sudden death or incapacitation. Anyone who's had scary health incidents recently is a risk. So he should retire, and otherwise, should be replaced by a demonstrably healthy qualified alternative with equally good politics. All that said, he's right that in a primary, whoever wins has to earn the most votes. I think we should be sympathetic to how older officials with health issues feel, at the same time that we support their retirement or defeat in primaries for the good of the country.
I think it's always good to have empathy and sympathy, including for officials in those situations. At the same time, we need them to recognize that their positions are more important than them; they are in an office of public service first and foremost. We need more of them to see it like that. The needs of the nation need to outweigh their own personal needs. They'd be better able to adjust to their changing health and personal situations if they retired at a more typical age for working people. In as much privacy as they desired.
RBG or Feinstein relied on their own personal wants in their advanced age. RBG gave us a multi-generational disaster while Feinstein only made things difficult for a while. We need to curb that kind of thinking entirely, and most older officials should be open to considering retirement before they have health concerns. I only made a cursory search but from what I saw the average age of congress has been steadily increasing since 1980. That's 45 years now. At some point they, and we as a society, need to realize that public office isn't there to give them something fulfilling to do in their elderly years.
Every time I hear one of our older representatives speak, I become more convinced that I’m right to support primary challengers to them all in 2026. They’ve served their party and country dutifully, I’m grateful for their service in stepping up long ago, but now is not the time to keep doing things as we always have done just because that’s the way it’s always been done.
Now’s the time to inject new people and new voices into our party to make it more appealing to the left voters who sit out politics thinking both parties are the same and to win crossover voters from the right voters complaining about the rigged system and the elites. We can’t do that with the same people leading us because they’ve led us into this mess where our party is now.
Politics have changed since they were first elected and they still don’t realize that. It’s time for them to pass the torch or to have that torch taken from them. I don’t know who exactly I’m supporting in each primary race and that will come as the campaigns and messages are created by each challenger, but I know for sure it won’t be the incumbent.
I'm sure Trump will find a high-profile job for such a devoted sycophant after the 2026 elections. He seems to have no problem appointing election losers to his administration. And with his rate of turnover, she'll probably have multiple options.
But if Democrats win her House seat, and she loses the governor's race, will Trump still think she should be rewarded? She will no longer be useful to him.
At this rate, I'm wondering if Stefanik might just resign from Congress and go to the private sector. She knows there isn't a path forward to higher office anytime soon.
Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican who broke with President Donald Trump before campaigning extensively for former Vice President Kamala Harris last year, announced on Tuesday he is running for the state’s governorship as a Democrat.
I expect the polling between Cooper and Whatley to tighten a year from now, unless things have REALLY deteriorated (and Congress hasn't revoked TACO's tariff nonsense).
I really am a little surprised that Cooper is never at 50 in these polls. I still think he wins but it’ll be by a handful of points. NC is too federally polarized even with everything going on right now.
Reform UK gets their second sitting Tory MP (Lee Anderson was the first) to defect to them and it's a big one. Shadow Work and Pensions minister Danny Kruger defected to Reform yesterday claiming the Tory party was dead and Reform is the future of conservatism in Britain.
In perhaps a wink and a nod to Reform's critics who say the party is just a rebranded Tory party, Nigel Farage said Kruger's defection is necessary since Reform will need people who have experience with government if the polls hold up and they win government in 2029.
Living in the Upper Midwest, it fascinated me how differently culturally conservative whites responded to Obama. Appalachia realigned immediately when Democrats nominated a black man. The rest of white America stuck with Obama, but then realigned to the GOP in the Trump era as aggressively as Appalachia realigned to the GOP in the Obama era.
Not a tragedy but the Sundance Film Festival is legendary and became the one of the most high profile film festival to showcase art house, foreign and independent films besides the Cannes Film Festival.
Of course. As is All the President’s Men, even while most of it is focused on the journalism side of the Watergate investigation by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.
Just happened to rewatch this last week. Such a great movie. Really makes you miss the type of response by the public that good investigative journalism would generate.
Well, Congressman John Larson "freezing mid-sentence" means something very different than contempt-of-Congress-convicted Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro "freezing mid-sentence".
Are the rules posted anywhere? I've only encountered the rules when other people point them out in the comments section. So far I'm aware of two rules.
Being that the Downballot is in essence Daily Kos Elections on Substack, I am going by how the rules originally were from DKE and what has been announced here on TDB since then.
One of such rules is that discussion of the Israel-Palestine conflict is forbidden.
That said, I’m not sure what better ways rules can be enforced or better known to new commenters. Random users pop up here and there without any prior awareness of what they are not allowed to discuss. The Israel-Palestine conflict topic is one but even while this may not be a specific rule, advocating for third parties could be another.
Maybe it’s different with Substack but on Daily Kos, everything was more cut and dry.
I was aware of the no Israel-Palestine discussion and no presidential primary talk rules. Was not aware of the no third party talk rule, and I've been on here for about half a year
I believe the rule about not advocating for non-Democratic candidates extends to all of Daily Kos, not just DKE.
The exception would be for Dan Osborn-type candidates who aren't actually running as Democrats, but are the only viable alternatives to Republicans, and often do better as independents than they would under the Democratic banner, as well as Bernie Sanders and Angus King who are Dems in effect if not in actual name.
The exception you are making has to do with Independents. But because they are not apart of any third party, that's where there's a certain degree of flexibility providing they're likely to caucus with Democrats (as Angus King and Bernie Sanders have been consistently doing since they've been in the Senate).
You're right. I misspoke regarding rules on third party advocacy on the Downballot. Changed my original comment language accordingly.
That said, per what Mike in MD is saying, as long as I've been on TDB, it's pretty self explanatory that we are here to elect more and better Democrats, even if ideally we would like liberal/progressive Democrats in office.
I know in managing a Facebook Group community for a long time we were able to create our own group rules as what FB allowed us to do. The main thing is that anyone should see rules in an easy-to-read form on Substack if they are in fact going to be officially written.
I think this will be looked back upon as the biggest blunder since Wendell Anderson appointed himself to the Senate just before the 1978 Minnesota Massacre.
Between Trump backlash and Minnesota GOP incompetence, his chances are probably not much less than 50-50 but damn is his challenger gonna have a lot to work with as those state deficit numbers keep getting bigger with every update.
I guess then, if Walz were VP and Peggy Flanagan were governor, she'd probably be the underdog, what with budget problems and no national GOP administration to motivate Dems to vote and spark backlash from independents?
Of course that would require the Minnesota GOP to actually get things together, though anti-Dem midterm backlash might have made up for that.
Yeah I think Dems would be poised to get demolished in Minnesota in 2026 if Harris was President, Walz was Vice-President, and Peggy Flanagan was Governor. With that said, I was surprised how well Democrats did in Minnesota in 2022 so it's possible I'm not giving them enough credit here. But I think voter response to the aftermath of the 2022 election is what's poised to give the GOP fuel to win back some of those second-ring suburban voters who are now at the epicenter of the Minnesota battleground.
I think you're overstating the case. In a D-midterm, I think we'd be at some risk for the Governorship being lost. I think we'd still be favored to keep the Senate seat. As it stands now in an R-midterm, I'm not worried about any of our statewide races.
I'm not as worried about it for 2026 because of the likely political environment. But I suspect it's a huge blunder in the waiting for 2030. If we win in 2028 then 2030 will very likely be a backlash against us where we do poorly. For that kind of environment in particular I'd much rather be defending MN with a first term incumbent governor than with either a non-incumbent or an incumbent running for his 4th term.
New Orleans used to be protected from hurricanes by a series of swamps and barrier islands but after the 1927 floods of the Mississippi river a series of levies were built near New Orleans which resulted in the erosion of the islands and swamps which has made the area much more vulnerable to hurricanes.
Yes. And with climate change, it's becoming more complicated. LA certainly has plenty in common with FL as far as the real risks of land disruption and flooding are concerned.
We should try to concentrate the remaining population of New Orleans in the above-sea-level areas, so that the next time the levees break, thousands of people don't die.
I've heard that Galveston was set to be a major us city until the 1900 hurricane but after that it was decided to develop Houston as the major metro area.
State Rep. Tiffany Roberts is considering a primary bid against Rep. Chellie Pingree. Thoughts? Pingree is pretty progressive so I’m curious to what lane or from what point of view Roberts is running on.
According to Roberts: "I’m exploring this race because we have become a country that is stuck in gridlock, while Mainers are left waiting. We deserve a representative who delivers, not just talks about change. We deserve leadership rooted in accessibility, accountability, and results.”
My first guess was that she was exploring this from a generational persepctive (Pingree is 70). But, based on the article, she seems to be coming from a centrist perspective? She described herself as centrist and willing to work across the aisle. Notably, she did not mention Pingree.
I expect that the numbers will really start to get ugly when we start to see more economic results of the tariffs and immigration crackdowns. The ensuing recession and stock market slump will see his numbers hit rock bottom.
"Generational change is fine, but you've got to earn it."
Remarkably arrogant.
He deserves to lose his primary on that alone.
My feeling is that he probably deserves to lose the primary because he froze in mid-sentence twice, regardless of anything else. It's completely reasonable that he believes he should be able to get better and continue doing the work he obviously values doing, but it's not like the Democratic Caucus has a big majority and can afford to lose more Representatives to sudden death or incapacitation. Anyone who's had scary health incidents recently is a risk. So he should retire, and otherwise, should be replaced by a demonstrably healthy qualified alternative with equally good politics. All that said, he's right that in a primary, whoever wins has to earn the most votes. I think we should be sympathetic to how older officials with health issues feel, at the same time that we support their retirement or defeat in primaries for the good of the country.
I think it's always good to have empathy and sympathy, including for officials in those situations. At the same time, we need them to recognize that their positions are more important than them; they are in an office of public service first and foremost. We need more of them to see it like that. The needs of the nation need to outweigh their own personal needs. They'd be better able to adjust to their changing health and personal situations if they retired at a more typical age for working people. In as much privacy as they desired.
RBG or Feinstein relied on their own personal wants in their advanced age. RBG gave us a multi-generational disaster while Feinstein only made things difficult for a while. We need to curb that kind of thinking entirely, and most older officials should be open to considering retirement before they have health concerns. I only made a cursory search but from what I saw the average age of congress has been steadily increasing since 1980. That's 45 years now. At some point they, and we as a society, need to realize that public office isn't there to give them something fulfilling to do in their elderly years.
Yeah, I agree. Eminences grises can be retired.
John Larson represents a D+12 district so any of the Democratic challengers already in the race have nothing to lose by primarying him.
Every time I hear one of our older representatives speak, I become more convinced that I’m right to support primary challengers to them all in 2026. They’ve served their party and country dutifully, I’m grateful for their service in stepping up long ago, but now is not the time to keep doing things as we always have done just because that’s the way it’s always been done.
Now’s the time to inject new people and new voices into our party to make it more appealing to the left voters who sit out politics thinking both parties are the same and to win crossover voters from the right voters complaining about the rigged system and the elites. We can’t do that with the same people leading us because they’ve led us into this mess where our party is now.
Politics have changed since they were first elected and they still don’t realize that. It’s time for them to pass the torch or to have that torch taken from them. I don’t know who exactly I’m supporting in each primary race and that will come as the campaigns and messages are created by each challenger, but I know for sure it won’t be the incumbent.
I generally agree with you but don't agree that no older politician understands that the country's politics have changed.
Virginia GOP Delegate whines about the 45 days of early voting, decides to vote on first day offered
https://www.wvtf.org/news/2025-09-16/a-look-at-virginias-lengthy-early-voting-period
NY Gov Siena:
Hochul 52
Stefanik 27
https://sri.siena.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/SNY0925-Crosstabs-2.pdf
Stefanik is going to be so humiliated if she goes through with the gubernatorial primary and flames out against Hochul next year.
I'm all for it.
I'm sure Trump will find a high-profile job for such a devoted sycophant after the 2026 elections. He seems to have no problem appointing election losers to his administration. And with his rate of turnover, she'll probably have multiple options.
Trump’s already appointed Rudy Giuliani to the Homeland Security Advisory Council along with awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
He could do the same with Stefanik but in a different part of his cabinet.
But if Democrats win her House seat, and she loses the governor's race, will Trump still think she should be rewarded? She will no longer be useful to him.
At this rate, I'm wondering if Stefanik might just resign from Congress and go to the private sector. She knows there isn't a path forward to higher office anytime soon.
Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican who broke with President Donald Trump before campaigning extensively for former Vice President Kamala Harris last year, announced on Tuesday he is running for the state’s governorship as a Democrat.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/an-ex-gop-official-is-now-running-in-one-of-2026-s-biggest-races-as-a-democrat/ar-AA1MElWn?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=68c95bf9138244a690a4ad9a6233c1ff&ei=11
Hopefully that primary stays relatively positive.
Would definitely support him. Hope he makes it out of the primary
I expect the polling between Cooper and Whatley to tighten a year from now, unless things have REALLY deteriorated (and Congress hasn't revoked TACO's tariff nonsense).
I really am a little surprised that Cooper is never at 50 in these polls. I still think he wins but it’ll be by a handful of points. NC is too federally polarized even with everything going on right now.
Democrats should take no votes for granted.
Reform UK gets their second sitting Tory MP (Lee Anderson was the first) to defect to them and it's a big one. Shadow Work and Pensions minister Danny Kruger defected to Reform yesterday claiming the Tory party was dead and Reform is the future of conservatism in Britain.
In perhaps a wink and a nod to Reform's critics who say the party is just a rebranded Tory party, Nigel Farage said Kruger's defection is necessary since Reform will need people who have experience with government if the polls hold up and they win government in 2029.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce802dmgnyro
A lot can happen in 4 years - for instance Labor might wake up and get a new PM.
"Democrats lost people like Joe Manchin by nominating a Black Man for President
>2008 county shift map" Replying to Joe Manchin
https://x.com/nick_field90/status/1967715975836684760
No shock that the counties that have moved the most to the right are almost identical to the map of the Appalachian mountains.
Living in the Upper Midwest, it fascinated me how differently culturally conservative whites responded to Obama. Appalachia realigned immediately when Democrats nominated a black man. The rest of white America stuck with Obama, but then realigned to the GOP in the Trump era as aggressively as Appalachia realigned to the GOP in the Obama era.
Hillary Clinton was unable to make a connection with the Midwest.
Not political, but Robert Redford died :(
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/16/entertainment/robert-redford-death
Huge shame, huge loss to the acting and cinema profession. A titan of his craft and era, and one of the few true American icons. RIP
He was great, and he wasn't quite as old as I thought, but he was 89, so he had a pretty good run and his death is not a tragedy.
Not a tragedy but the Sundance Film Festival is legendary and became the one of the most high profile film festival to showcase art house, foreign and independent films besides the Cannes Film Festival.
Seemed like he'd always be around. Good liberal/progressive.
And one of the most staunchly pro environment advocates we had.
"The Candidate" is a great political film.
Of course. As is All the President’s Men, even while most of it is focused on the journalism side of the Watergate investigation by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.
Just happened to rewatch this last week. Such a great movie. Really makes you miss the type of response by the public that good investigative journalism would generate.
Well, Congressman John Larson "freezing mid-sentence" means something very different than contempt-of-Congress-convicted Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro "freezing mid-sentence".
The Downballot is "left leaning"? I guess, as Colbert observed, the truth has a leftist bias.
Yes it is. It's Democratic, not non-partisan.
If “left leaning” is what attracts more like minded people to comment and participate in this discussion, fine with me.
As long as we don’t have purity battle discussions and new commenters take the time to be mindful of the rules of the Downballot, I’m good.
Are the rules posted anywhere? I've only encountered the rules when other people point them out in the comments section. So far I'm aware of two rules.
Being that the Downballot is in essence Daily Kos Elections on Substack, I am going by how the rules originally were from DKE and what has been announced here on TDB since then.
One of such rules is that discussion of the Israel-Palestine conflict is forbidden.
That said, I’m not sure what better ways rules can be enforced or better known to new commenters. Random users pop up here and there without any prior awareness of what they are not allowed to discuss. The Israel-Palestine conflict topic is one but even while this may not be a specific rule, advocating for third parties could be another.
Maybe it’s different with Substack but on Daily Kos, everything was more cut and dry.
I was aware of the no Israel-Palestine discussion and no presidential primary talk rules. Was not aware of the no third party talk rule, and I've been on here for about half a year
I believe the rule about not advocating for non-Democratic candidates extends to all of Daily Kos, not just DKE.
The exception would be for Dan Osborn-type candidates who aren't actually running as Democrats, but are the only viable alternatives to Republicans, and often do better as independents than they would under the Democratic banner, as well as Bernie Sanders and Angus King who are Dems in effect if not in actual name.
The exception you are making has to do with Independents. But because they are not apart of any third party, that's where there's a certain degree of flexibility providing they're likely to caucus with Democrats (as Angus King and Bernie Sanders have been consistently doing since they've been in the Senate).
You're right. I misspoke regarding rules on third party advocacy on the Downballot. Changed my original comment language accordingly.
That said, per what Mike in MD is saying, as long as I've been on TDB, it's pretty self explanatory that we are here to elect more and better Democrats, even if ideally we would like liberal/progressive Democrats in office.
I know in managing a Facebook Group community for a long time we were able to create our own group rules as what FB allowed us to do. The main thing is that anyone should see rules in an easy-to-read form on Substack if they are in fact going to be officially written.
I mean, they do blatantly and objectively support Democratic candidates lol
Yes, they support democratic candidates (which, sadly, seem to be almost exclusively Democrats).
I mean, no, they clearly support capital-D Democratic Party candidates lmao.
They call the Freedom caucus "nihilistic" which it is, but a centrist corporate outlet would avoid such a label.
I would consider this the lesser of two evils but I'd take a centrist corporate outlet over the Freedom Caucus any day.
And I'm not saying this as a ringing endorsement!
It's official: Gov. Tim Walz is seeking a third term.
https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/its-official-gov-tim-walz-is-seeking-a-third-term
I wanted the switch with Klobuchar to be true so badly lol
That she was running for Gov and he'd run for Senate?
Yep. There was a good three weeks of chatter about that in Minnesota media.
I think this will be looked back upon as the biggest blunder since Wendell Anderson appointed himself to the Senate just before the 1978 Minnesota Massacre.
Between Trump backlash and Minnesota GOP incompetence, his chances are probably not much less than 50-50 but damn is his challenger gonna have a lot to work with as those state deficit numbers keep getting bigger with every update.
I guess then, if Walz were VP and Peggy Flanagan were governor, she'd probably be the underdog, what with budget problems and no national GOP administration to motivate Dems to vote and spark backlash from independents?
Of course that would require the Minnesota GOP to actually get things together, though anti-Dem midterm backlash might have made up for that.
Yeah I think Dems would be poised to get demolished in Minnesota in 2026 if Harris was President, Walz was Vice-President, and Peggy Flanagan was Governor. With that said, I was surprised how well Democrats did in Minnesota in 2022 so it's possible I'm not giving them enough credit here. But I think voter response to the aftermath of the 2022 election is what's poised to give the GOP fuel to win back some of those second-ring suburban voters who are now at the epicenter of the Minnesota battleground.
I think you're overstating the case. In a D-midterm, I think we'd be at some risk for the Governorship being lost. I think we'd still be favored to keep the Senate seat. As it stands now in an R-midterm, I'm not worried about any of our statewide races.
And all the polling I could find puts Walz at +50% approval (ranged 52-58) how many incumbents lose reelection when their approval is above 50%?
I'm not as worried about it for 2026 because of the likely political environment. But I suspect it's a huge blunder in the waiting for 2030. If we win in 2028 then 2030 will very likely be a backlash against us where we do poorly. For that kind of environment in particular I'd much rather be defending MN with a first term incumbent governor than with either a non-incumbent or an incumbent running for his 4th term.
https://veritenews.org/2025/07/29/new-orleans-mayor-election-climate-change-insurance/ People are leaving New Orleans. Can a new mayor help bring them back?
New Orleans is dying.
More Louisiana Dems need to vote in the state legislature races. Get rid of Landry and reduce that R majority in the state legislature.
If you think the climate change is for real, it is probably a good thing people moving out of NOLA, isn’t it?
I mean, when has LA never had hurricanes?
It’s as if the state since Hurricane Katrina has become inundated with hurricanes from time to time.
New Orleans used to be protected from hurricanes by a series of swamps and barrier islands but after the 1927 floods of the Mississippi river a series of levies were built near New Orleans which resulted in the erosion of the islands and swamps which has made the area much more vulnerable to hurricanes.
Always, but permanent advancement of the Gulf further and further onto land is another story.
Yes. And with climate change, it's becoming more complicated. LA certainly has plenty in common with FL as far as the real risks of land disruption and flooding are concerned.
It's not a risk: it's a guarantee.
Yes, it is.
We should try to concentrate the remaining population of New Orleans in the above-sea-level areas, so that the next time the levees break, thousands of people don't die.
If Katrina had been a direct hit and at Category 5 as predicted the night before, the body count would have been in the tens of thousands.
It’s wild to think that for as apocalyptic as Katrina bad it was just below a best case scenario considering conditions just days before
Milton last year was kind of similar, Cape Coral almost got the Galveston treatment
"The Galveston treatment"
Ouch!
I've heard that Galveston was set to be a major us city until the 1900 hurricane but after that it was decided to develop Houston as the major metro area.
ME-01:
https://www.pressherald.com/2025/09/15/south-berwick-lawmaker-may-primary-chellie-pingree-in-maines-1st-district/
State Rep. Tiffany Roberts is considering a primary bid against Rep. Chellie Pingree. Thoughts? Pingree is pretty progressive so I’m curious to what lane or from what point of view Roberts is running on.
According to Roberts: "I’m exploring this race because we have become a country that is stuck in gridlock, while Mainers are left waiting. We deserve a representative who delivers, not just talks about change. We deserve leadership rooted in accessibility, accountability, and results.”
https://www.mainepublic.org/politics/2025-09-15/democratic-state-lawmaker-says-she-might-challenge-rep-pingree
My first guess was that she was exploring this from a generational persepctive (Pingree is 70). But, based on the article, she seems to be coming from a centrist perspective? She described herself as centrist and willing to work across the aisle. Notably, she did not mention Pingree.
Oh joy. Rooting for Pingree then.
Hard Pass.
Minnesota special election - How is Xp Lee's given name pronounced?
I've heard him introduce himself as like the letters X P. His full name is Xiongpao Lee, so I think it's an abbreviation/initials.
Thank you!
"Something I knew deep down but is still kind of wild to see: in 2024, Wisconsin had more white Democratic voters than New Jersey."
https://x.com/ZacharyDonnini/status/1967972648031490337
Yeah that intuitively makes sense considering their relative sizes and diversity of their populations.
"trump approval hits a new low in today's yougov/economist poll. now worse than he was in yougov's data at this point in 2017 https://economist.com/interactive/trump-approval-tracker"
https://x.com/gelliottmorris/status/1967982322709565717
And right track/wrong track is -30.
Republicans better hold onto their butts in 2026. That's all I have to say.
And he’s already passed his flagship legislative “achievement,” so he doesn’t have that ahead to course correct
I expect that the numbers will really start to get ugly when we start to see more economic results of the tariffs and immigration crackdowns. The ensuing recession and stock market slump will see his numbers hit rock bottom.