In the future, please always report suspected spammers! That "report" option actually does work - we get notified whenever someone uses it. (And that account was definitely garbage spam.)
Mills gives me the Manchinema vibes. Whoever wants to jump in must jump in and start attacking her immediately.
NEWS: Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills is in the process of interviewing campaign managers for a potential Senate run, a sign that she’s moving closer to challenging Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). More from
Slotkin does effectively the opposite of what Mills is doing: Slotkin regularly attacks half of her own party, whereas Mills praises what few not-fully-MAGA Republicans are left, most notably someone who she's considering running against!
There are three candidates already in the Democratic primary, most notably oyster farmer Graham Platner, who has Bernie Sanders's endorsement. I don't know if Maine uses ranked-choice voting for U.S. Senate primaries.
Doesn't look like he has a bad track record at all really. The numbers don't tell the whole story because there's a lot of endorsements that aren't truly competitive; AOC in 2022 wasn't in any danger, for instance. But I can pick out a decent number of competitive ones where his endorsee was in a competitive race and won.
Summer Lee in 2022; she won the primary 42-41. Warnock and Ossoff in 2020. Biden in 2020. Cori Bush in 2020. Mamdani in the mayoral primary this year. Crawford for WI SC this year. Johnson for Chicago mayor in 2023. Omar in what looks like seemingly all of her primaries.
Obviously he doesn't get much/any credit for a lot of those wins, but I'd say his track record itself is decent.
I wouldn't call Manchin "sketchy", necessarily. Representing West Virginia, which had otherwise become solid red during his Senate service, it's a wonder he supported the Democratic Party as much as he did and never really switched. Sinema had less of an excuse for her apostasies, as Arizona is much more competitive, but it's far from solid blue.
Maine is substantially bluer than Arizona, let alone WV, so Mills would probably be a reliable Dem vote if not a particularly vocal progressive. She may well be a one term and done Senator, though; she would be 91 by the end of a second term.
My impression of Maine politics in general is that government is run independently, resident-centric and bipartisan for the most part with certain exceptions. I think Governor Mills comes in with that perspective, which may be why she is making a more nuanced statement about Senator Collins.
Mills thought would have to get through the primary process. I have an instinctive feeling she won’t coast to win the primary as there currently are multiple other candidates running. General election would be easier for her but Mills will have to unite the base in order to turn out.
Manchin profited a lot from specific coal related rules that he created for his factory and other businesses which not that related to West Virginia's economy like declaring a specific type of coal clean energy etc. There were a few media investigations on that. He ran from the supermarket back to the Senate on the last day to vote down Biden's labor board nominees.
I’m sorry, but if you’re praising one of the only reasons Trump can literally appoint any freak show to his government or worse a lifetime judgeship position you don’t have a fucking clue about what’s happening in America and you’re exactly what’s wrong with our party today.
This is the key reason we need to completely replace our entire older generation Democrats elected into office right now. I’m sure not all older Democrats feel this way and think like this, instead seeing Trump and the GOP the way they actually are, but I’m certain it’s a majority of them.
They don’t get what’s at stake and keep clinging to an era that will never ever come back. How stupid do you have to be to fall for their lies? And yet they do over “bipartisanship” or “working together” or finding “solutions”, that’s why the GOP has beaten us over and over again and we have to beg our voters to show up for us in elections, instead of having them show up everytime because they believe in our party and the people leading it.
Screw her and her old school ideas of a Republican Party that died 15 years ago and never showed 1 tiny piece of evidence it would return. I hope primary voters toss every single one of the Mills type candidates in 2026 because they are why our party is in this mess in the first place.
Yes, very easy to win election against someone who you literally just made millions of dollars for and earned thousands of votes for with ad spots using her opponent in support of her. Voters will actually be able to buy the argument that “I’m better than her, but she’s still good” against an avid campaigner and smart politician. I disagree strongly that’ll be the thing to convince Mainers to toss Collins who has been a feature of the state for decades.
She’s the best possible candidate to beat Collins and probably the only candidate that could. If this was an open seat, it would be an entirely different story.
Which is exactly why I believe someone who is running against the establishment of both parties is the only one to finally slay Collins career. She could play this ad all she wants, but if our candidate is running against Mills and Collins types of politics they won’t have any effect. They’d be near fatal though if Democratic primary voters nominate Mills.
Rule #0 in politics is don’t praise your opponent/s (I’m not using the number 1, because this is how obvious it should be).
Based on her refusal to attack Collins, I don't think she'd be like Manchin or Sinema. More like Schumer: not interested in fighting republicans but would be a reliable vote when we hold power.
I was already skeptical of her as our candidate due to her age, and I'm more confident of that now. Her age has made her too ossified in her ways and she isn't ready to make the mental shift from local politics to federal. We cannot defeat Collins if Maine voters still think of her as a "reasonable republican." Fucking difficult to change that perception if her opponent is making statements to reinforce it. Mills does not have the right mindset for this task.
The obsession some dems have with performative and public comity is insane sometimes. Most politicians of opposing ideology that need to work together know how to make the standard political attacks in public and still work together in private as needed.
Mills didn't need to say this, especially when as best I can tell Collins isn't doing anything to be appreciated in the first place. It's simple political malpractice unless she actually wants Collins to win.
It makes greater fodder for ads, as you say. Now if Mills endorses someone she'll be peppered with this quote, fair or not. And it's entirely an avoidable mistake.
Ultimately it would be better off if she didn't run. But if Schumer and Gillilbrand keep pushing her into it then I hope the voters send their prized pick home.
Keeping in mind that beating Collins is the foremost consideration, I'm feeling doubtful that she'd be best positioned to do that, anyway. I'm not necessarily sold on Platner, either, but I think it's essential that whoever wins the Democratic primary is someone who does not praise Collins but has a powerful, persuasive argument for why it's an imperative to replace her.
I think Platner is better positioned than most. He's got a decent narrative and an independent streak. I understand the hesitation after getting burned by Fetterman but I think we need less traditionally "polished" candidates.
I'm not worrying about what he'd do if he becomes a senator, only whether he may be perceived as too left-wing to win the state or do or say something that's a gaffe and damages his electability.
She could've cleared the field back when she made her "see you in court" comment directly to Trump. That was one of the earliest moments of pushback, and much of the Democratic Party loved her for it. She has now dithered so long that complete unknowns have started to position themselves as better alternatives. Platner is going to be tough for her to beat, and I think he has the contrast that is needed to finally snap Maine out of its delusions about Collins. We are not going to beat Collins with a Democratic version of her.
I have concerns about Mills age, if only because it limits how long she'd be able to be a senator. And the recent comments are also worrisome. But it took guts to stand up to Trump in favor of trans rights as she did earlier this year.
At the same time, I have a small concern that Platner could end up being a Fetterman. He won't be a reliable vote on guns and his support of US stock in Intel is concerning (now I sound like Collins, hah!). Likely not, but I do wonder. He also is untested and unvetted as a candidate. At the same time, he could appeal to a sort of antiestablishment voter for whom Collins is unappealing.
I think my personal preference might be Speaker Fecteau, who has some political experience and also is young enough to hopefully be able to hold the seat for decades. (Only will run if Mills does not.) But I'm open to any of the above if they can demonstrate they are a strong candidate.
Why should we give away money for free to corporations? The American people deserve a fair return for their investments. Norway, Alaska, Saudis, UAE all have sovereign wealth funds.
He should absolutely not support strong gun control, Maine is a pro gun state. Remember that Bernie supported assault rifles before 2016 because Vermont is also a pro gun state and they like to hunt. We do not need to purity test candidates. It has cost the left a great deal. Maine and Vermont are both rural white states with abundant forests and we need big tent candidates suited to the terrain.
Agree strongly here. I have come around to the belief that Mills has dithered too much to be an effective candidate, but Platner worries me because of exactly what you say: he might be too much of a loose cannon.
Regardless of where you are on the Lamb/Fetterman axis, it seems pretty obvious that Lamb would be a "fall in line and do what leadership needs" Democrat, not a "follows the beat of his own drum" Democrat. In these perilous times, where literally every vote counts, we can't afford a single Senator to waver on message or be parochial. Mills is the former; Platner is the latter.
Thanks for the link, but it's too early for me to want to read an article about how fucking Trump won the election, so if you would like to do a service to people like me who do not want to read at length on this subject, could you summarize what the bombshell is? (By the way, do any of you notice that Meidas Touch and Brian Tyler Cohen have YouTube headlines saying something is a "bombshell" every day?)
I don't know if it really constitutes a "bombshell", but Harris criticizes others in Biden's orbit (not necessarily him personally) for allowing negative narratives about her to fester and seemingly being unwilling to let her step out and take more initiative. According to her, they thought that if her star shone more his would dim.
She says that Biden by 2024 was still highly capable but tired, and that in retrospect they shouldn't have maintained the "It's Joe and Jill's decision" stance regarding seeking reelection for as long as they did. But as sitting VP she was in the worst position to challenge that, as it would be seen as disloyalty if not an attempted coup.
Similar to Meidas Touch and Brian Tyler Cohen. They frequently turn up in my YouTube feed, even though I don't subscribe to either of them. I like their aggressiveness in blasting negative things about Trump and the GOP, but many of their "bombshells" that get the "BREAKING!!" treatment are trivial at best.
If one thing could describe what we went through in 2024 it would be simply “we made every wrong choice every time”.
We never should’ve had Biden run for re-election. We never should’ve scheduled a debate right after a huge, lengthy foreign state trip. We never should’ve nominated Harris. We never should’ve had Biden anywhere after she was nominated. We never should’ve focused on winning the middle by moving to the center. We never should’ve had 3 entirely different messages during the shortened campaign. We never should’ve focused our time raising money instead of actually doing campaign stops. We never should’ve had 2 separate organizations pushing different messages. We never should’ve taken for granted our base. We never should’ve left Trump’s attacks unanswered.
The list is endless for what we did wrong and I certainly didn’t name them all.
That's a valid point. But what I still would like to know is why they sought a June debate and why they scheduled a foreign trip shortly before it. If the argument was, well he's behind so the sooner the debate the better, why not have him very well rested before the date of the debate.
Based on everything that happened I suspect that Biden himself was in denial about the electoral risks of his age and public performances. There's a point where if the big boss insists on a dumb but permitted idea, people just go along with it.
If you assume that Biden could perform well in the debate, the early timing made perfect sense. We needed something to refocus the election on the contrast of Biden vs Trump instead of leaving it as Biden vs Inflation.
The problem is that the assumption of Biden's ability to perform in the debate was wrong. If Biden was stubborn enough about this, his staff had no real power to change his mind. The most loyalist part of Biden world also seemed to have been in agreement with him up until the very end.
It's about her feeling sidelined by Biden and Biden's team while she was VP.
Story as old as time, really. When's the last time a president didn't have issues like this with their VP? I distinctly remember Biden world being pissy about Obama's treatment of him. You'd think that would motivate him to treat his own VP differently, but I guess not.
Trump tried to get his VP killed. Bush and Cheney had their issues. I don't know what Clinton/Gore was like internally, but Gore sure was quick to try and separate himself from Clinton when he ran for president. Pretty sure Bush Sr. didn't exactly treat Quayle with all that much preference, and if I remember right Reagan never liked Bush Sr. much either...
Maybe the most interesting part here is Harris feels aggrieved enough about it to state so directly in her own words, rather than relying on her allies to do it. Even if it is in service of selling a book.
I've honestly surprised that political figures still go the traditional publishing route, given their propensity for leaking the most embarrassing excerpts possible before the publication date every time they get a high-profile political nonfiction book. The same thing happened with Hillary Clinton with her post-2016 campaign book.
There are advantages to traditional publishing (being paid an advance, not having to pay for editors or book cover designers, etc.), but this is the kind of book that, if it were me writing it, I would have gone the independent publishing route, so that only the people who actually read the book would know about the kind of admissions that Harris made in the excerpt.
Traditional publishing is almost tailor built to favor politicians' books, ghost written or actually written by them.
With a traditional publisher the author will get an advance on royalties. If the book never sells enough copies to meet that royalty threshold, the author still keeps the entirety of the advance. Authors also frequently get a set number of hardcover copies of their book for free as part of the publishing deal, and if I remember right they sometimes have the option to buy more hardcover copies at a steep discount. Those hardcovers are provided to authors with the intent of encouraging them to do their own promotion by going on a book signing tour. Go on tour, do events and sell ten copies of hardcover for $30 to sign = $300 for showing up, plus some media coverage everywhere they go. It's also a lot easier to get hardcovers with traditional publishing than it is with self-publishing.
That's the setup. These are advantageous because:
- Political books are unlikely to sell lots of copies. The royalty advance is, I suspect, unlikely to be met. Publishers are accepting the upfront loss of money for the hope of gaining some prestige. This means the politician gets more money through this route.
- Free/discount hardcover copies are easy to shove off on the official's campaign, even if the election is already over. The campaign can create a legal justification to buy the entire stock of free/discount hardcovers at full price to use as gifts to donors or similar people. Again, the politician gets more money this way.
- Having easier access to hardcovers is also good for them because the types of people that are most likely to buy a politician's book are the types of people that are unlikely to balk at the higher price. The ~$30 charge for a hardcover is acceptable to them, compared to the ~$12 for an ebook or ~$8 for a paperback. This makes the average sales price higher, which is better both for the publisher and the politician.
The reality is these books are largely a means to enrich the politician first and foremost.
The 18 contenders in the Democratic primary for IL-09 makes me wonder: Which Congressional district holds the record for most candidates on a primary ballot?
That would be a 22-point shift left from Crank's 14-point victory in 2024. Meanwhile, in CO-08, those numbers would mean a 6-point shift to the right. Hard to believe either are remotely correct. Look at that MoE...technically anything is correct if your MoE is large enough.
Right, but I think the points being made, especially by Brendan in regard to the sample per district, and the margin of error the pollster itself states mean that the numbers in this poll are probably meaningless.
The statewide numbers seem plausible, but the individual district samples are too small to fit the Downballot's quality standards, if I understand right.
It may seem odd to see Polis with the same approval as Trump, but that may be easily explained, as seen above, by liberals disliking Polis' praise of some RFK Jr. policies (as well as maybe other ideological heresies or blunders that I don't know about.) They may feel little need to support Polis since he can't run again, and might well face a primary challenge if he could.
It might be a bit extreme, but Colorado Springs (which anchors the 5th) is definitely moving left rapidly. Just as an example, Douglas County got a point bluer in 2024 vs. 2020 as the country got 6 points redder. Not crazy to think that Crank could be in danger next year.
I wouldn’t pay much attention to district breakdowns of statewide polls. Way too few respondents for each, way too prone to error. The top lines though would suggest Republicans are underwater or treading water in all 3 potentially competitive districts, that’s the takeaway here. CO-04 is fool’s gold and whoever is running will always get the tsunami of cash from our emotional base to make it not a complete blowout, but it can’t be won.
Republicans and their propaganda outlets are frothing at the mouth over the fatal stabbing in Charlotte, NC of a Ukrainian refugee (a white woman) by a Black man (a U.S. citizen) with multiple criminal records.
Guys, you can deflect and scream about "Demorat controlled cities are crime infested hellholes" all you want, but people are voting with their wallets next year.
This is not about next year’s election – it’s about drumming up support for Trump’s military mobilization against Democratic-led American cities. Not to be pessimistic, but I would not want to take bets on how many cities have National Guards stationed on Election Day, 2026.
Have you observed what's happened in other countries when someone ordered the military to stop or annul elections? If you wanted to do so, what could -you- imagine the troops might do?
She was a refugee? Why not go back on the attack and say trumps ugly hatred of refugees has created an environment where terrible tragedies like this can happen.
Dems need to figure out a rapid response team that combs the Conservative Media Machine and prepares to outflank them whenever they try to gin up a new made up controversy. This attack in particular can be turned around on them. The man was clearly mentally disturbed and 50 years of privatization and defunding mental institutions have consequences. I take back what I said yesterday, instead of ignoring it we should flip it back on THEM before they get a chance to make it an issue that's favorable to their narrative.
Problem is who do we get to pay for them? Conservative outlets get away with losing money because it's in the Conservative Billionaires' best interests to keep them afloat. We need left-leaning people with money to throw their support behind these sorts of media outlets.
There are democratically-minded billionaires. Bloomberg is one, Reid Hoffman, Mark Cuban and Bill Gates are three others. As are Warren Buffet and George Soros.
Here is Forbes on 30 October 2024: "Our breakdown records 83 billionaires supporting Harris and 52 backing Trump so far."
I am absolutely convinced some of these could be convinced to invest in media – perhaps even purchasing stuff like Sinclair Broadcast and turning it into a real news outlet!
Building more mental institutions en masse would be extremely controversial, especially among autistic/neurodivergent people and people with mental health problems that aren't severe enough to require institutionalization. Institutionalizing the mentally ill should be a last resort.
That being said, the man who committed the murder in Charlotte is someone who should never see the light of day again one way or another.
What guarantee is there that people with less severe mental health issues won’t get thrown away into institutions anyway? What criteria will be used for this mass reinstitutionalization? How do we ensure that people who “look weird” don’t just get thrown away? Particularly in red states?
I am autistic and these questions inform my opposition to the move. I notice many proponents of institutions are also the same kind that don’t want mentally disabled kids in the school system, claiming they are “burdens” who take away resources from “normal children” (no exaggeration, I remember these exact words being used in a NYT comment section on children with mental disabilities). Had such moves been in place when I went to school, I would not have received an education. Be careful what “solutions” you propose for such problems.
Unfortunately, there is never any guarantee against abuses. We know that having so many people on the streets who can't care well for themselves and are in some cases a menace to others isn't right, but people with a modicum of humanity and enough detachment to be rational about the situation also don't want to just forcibly institutionalize everybody.
More context and polls including informed ballot, he is massively threatened. 41 percent against a generic Dem being a sitting congressman isn't ideal. Less than 50% favoribility.
I discount informed ballots. We'll see; I would prefer someone further left and didn't vote for him in the primary last time, but I think that between his very vocal opposition to Trump and funding, he has a lot going for him, and this district is not as uniformly leftist as I would prefer.
This is the wrong take. 41% for any elected incumbent for either party is an extremely weak showing and makes you very vulnerable to any challenger. You lead the district, you have tools and the position available that no one else has to push your message and yourself and you barely crack 40% with the highest name recognition of any other politician not named President or Senator? That’s a pathetic show of voter/constituent support honestly. If anyone challenges him he’s probably toast.
Even if someone named Another Democrat were to run, they'd get only 32%, according to this poll. I don't see any reason to assume that a generic Democrat would beat him.
You’re not understanding the difference between a ceiling and a floor. Right now Goldman is near his ceiling, he has had the opportunity to lead his district and voters aren’t liking what they’ve seen for whatever reason, that’s why there’s tepid support.
The “Another Democrat” is almost certainly at their floor because they’ve never had a chance to push their message with the bully pulpit that allows you to be in almost all voters homes. They don’t have that advantage the incumbent always has.
We generally regard incumbents as in trouble if they have below 45% support in polls elected in opposing states (red incumbent in blue state or blue incumbent in red state) because they haven’t faced any attacks yet and their support is already low. It’s the same thing in a primary.
It’s possible Goldman beats his challenger, but it’s certainly not the most likeliest outcome, in fact, it’s the least likeliest unless he gets lucky and faces a lunatic.
I think there’s a pervasive “throw the bums out” feeling amongst our party base after 2024, regardless of whether they’ve actually done something on policy to piss them off or not. This is just another piece of evidence to the pile. We’ll see if that’s true come primary day, but for myself I’m expecting a lot of unexpected upsets, especially in safe blue seats.
EDIT: I've read everyone's comments. I had originally intended this to be more of an open discussion about how FL Democrats should evolve on the issue of Cuba but know right now, Democrats really don't have any control over the issue until they gain control of the White House. I'm toning down the language accordingly in this original comment.
For the record, I do not believe it's the time to put litmus tests to FL Democrats until the party can win more elections.
FL-SEN:
If Rep. Jared Moskowitz is going to consider challenging Senator Ashley Moody, my hope is that he evolves on the issue of Cuba but I'm not going to hold it against him just yet (if he gets elected to the Senate, that would be the time, not prior to being elected).
Don’t get me wrong - I would support Moskowitz over Moody in the general election if he’s the Democratic Senate nominee. I just think if there's a better choice, fine. Otherwise, as everyone has said, this is FL and I'd rather we not at this point put a litmus test towards anyone.
See that’s fine, we definitely want our representatives open to changing their opinions or shifting in our direction, but coming out in a campaign to do that is a guaranteed loser still, especially with Cubans shifting more and more GOP down there. They hate the Cuban government and the terrible history of the country towards its citizens.
Saying so publicly would probably take a 5% chance of winning in Florida to 0%. It’s not what I want fwiw, I support normalization as the best option of terrible choices, but there’s still a lot of Cubans who vote for us, so that’s a good way to get that vote share to 0 is for us to open up with Cuba and say so in a campaign.
If there is 1 state in the country where Democrats shouldn’t have any political litmus tests for a Democrat running for statewide office, it’s definitely Florida. We have no political bench to run, we lose by double digits in every race in every election, take whoever we can get and be thankful we have a candidate.
You're really missing the point of what I am arguing. FL is right near Cuba and as a state it is closest to relations with the country than any other part of the U.S.
This is not a litmus test but a standard we should hold to politicians like Moskowitz regardless of their views. Preference is my view but not a requirement, which is what a litmus test is. If we elect Moskowitz, Fried, or whoever else in the Senate, that's the first priority. However, we have to still ensure they aren't going to make it harder for Democrats nationally in building relations with Cuba.
Current President Miguel Diaz-Canel has expressed continued interest in working with U.S. This is a pivotal moment for us as a country to get leverage in Cuba and more so in Central America.
Right now, the more immediate need is to get Democrats controlling the Senate and the House. I am less concerned about the Cuba issue at the moment and more concerned about the more direct issues that are impacting the country. I am just arguing Democrats should be more united on Cuba than they did before so they can coalese around the best way to deal with it.
“He’d better start getting his head out of his ass on Cuba” sure sounds to me like you consider it a litmus test. If that’s not the case, then I’ll take that back. What you’re doing here though imo is arguing about what tires the new car should have instead of spending the time arguing the difference between a diesel truck and a hybrid car.
I know you differentiate between standard and litmus, but if you expect a position to always hold our politicians to regardless of who runs, then it’s no longer a standard, it becomes a litmus test. We can debate over language, but in essence, they are exactly the same.
In other states, I get that, not so much in Florida. The object of the game is to win, Democrats haven’t figured that out yet, so maybe we should worry about beating Republicans first. “We have to ensure that Democrats have an easier time normalizing relations” is probably near the bottom of the list of our priorities in that state.
Do I agree with you on this topic? Yes. Do I think we should spend 1 second talking about it? No. Do I think it’s electoral poison? Yes. If you disagree that’s fine! I just really don’t understand it being an issue for you considering how badly our party has performed with a wide variety of nominees over the last decade there.
I avoid watching people getting injured in real life as much as I can, so I haven't watched the footage. But the commentary from people that have watched it sounds skeptical of his chances of surviving.
The increasing levels of political violence we're experiencing are terrifying. Especially with the current admin.
Indeed. Just to remind everyone: the pretext for Kristallnacht was the assassination of a Nazi diplomat in Paris , https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_vom_Rath, by a Jewish man. Not at all an identical situation, though.
The current moment in our history is scary enough on its own, even if it has no correlations with historically worse times.
Taken from a high level view, it is a bad sign for a political system when an increasing number of people from all ideologies see the results as sufficiently unacceptable so as to resort to violence.
The time and resources required, limited as they are in an absolute sense, are enough to prevent these from being spur of the moment actions. There is sufficient time involved that most people going down that path would be able to recognize that not only are they aiming to end another's life, they are - at best - completely ruining their own life. Some of them still do it. The implications of this, the MN assassinations, and all the other examples going on is a scary reflection on our society and especially for the next four years due to the rhetoric of those in power.
That's true even without any political ramifications. Which, to be honest, I think is the more likely outcome: there were no political consequences for the attempt on Trump's life last year, and due to the role he's in that was a far bigger deal. I don't see this one moving the needle on policy beyond what was going to happen anyway.
I fundamentally disagree with Kirk's ideology, and, as I write this post, the exact motive of the shooting is unknown, but political violence against anyone is absolutely unacceptable and unforgiveable. It wasn't that long ago that the Minnesota state legislators Melissa Hortman and John Hoffman were shot, and my mind immediately went to that as soon as I head that Kirk had been shot.
CNN is freezing the video right before the bullet hits Kirk every time they play video of the shooting, which they did not do when Trump was shot last year. That should give you a general idea of how graphic the scene of the shooting of Kirk is.
Another thing I should note is that Kirk's event for Turning Point USA was held outdoors and at one of those "prove me wrong" events where he encourages people who disagree with him try to prove him wrong, so the crowd at this event was larger than a typical TPUSA event crowd, and, although mostly younger MAGA people, was not exclusively of that cohort.
We as a country should be able to challenge the viewpoints of others without having to take it out on them with violence, let alone shooting of any sort.
I don't wish that on anybody, even someone I passionately disagree with. Let's see if the GOP actually supports more gun control or double down on finger pointing at Democrats.
How bad could things get post-this? Is there anything the current administration could do rapidly that directly threatens our freedom with regard to this?
Apologies if I sound hysterical, I just figured I’d ask here.
I’m not sure what actions they could take that they haven’t already done. Investigating political opponents and deploying troops to cities have all been crossed as red lines.
We have to wait and see who the shooter ends up being. If it's a lefty, I'm sure it'll be some sort of crack down on college campuses just to make a statement. The other silver lining is that this took place in UTAH. One of the whitest states around.
Kirk was a victim of his own words and rhetoric. Of course, the RW media is lionizing him as a “martyr” while MSM outlets are glossing over his comments made about Melissa Hortman, her husband and their dog being assassinated (among his other racist and anti LGBTQ comments).
We don't know who s/he is yet, which speaks to the incompetence of Patel, Blondi and Bongino. TACO's FBI and Department of Justice is run by his sycophants and yes-men.
I guarantee that had the people from FDJT's first term were brought back on, the suspect would've already been identified.
A school shooting in Denver today. Three kids shot and injured (including the shooter). I think it's disappointing that this will likely be overshadowed by the Charlie Kirk shooting.
Ohio Republicans launched a joint legislative committee to redraw the state’s congressional map Wednesday. The redistricting process is required by state law, but Democrats warn it could open the door to another round of partisan gerrymandering amid a broader national effort by the GOP.
NYC mayor Emerson:
Mamdani 43
Cuomo 28
Sliwa 10
Adams 8
Mamdani up 47-40 over Cuomo in the H2H.
https://emersoncollegepolling.com/nyc-2025-mayor/
What is it?
spam?
I believe so. Maybe worse - phishing or malware.
In the future, please always report suspected spammers! That "report" option actually does work - we get notified whenever someone uses it. (And that account was definitely garbage spam.)
Mills gives me the Manchinema vibes. Whoever wants to jump in must jump in and start attacking her immediately.
NEWS: Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills is in the process of interviewing campaign managers for a potential Senate run, a sign that she’s moving closer to challenging Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). More from
@allymutnick
&
@AndrewDesiderio
—
https://punchbowl.news/article/campaigns/mills-senate-bid/
Schumer and Gillibrand finally got their wish. Same old, same old bipartisan nonsense.
Mills is a center-left Democrat. She doesn't have the sketchiness of Manchin or the willful ignorance of Sinema.
Does Slotkin or Buttigieg or any other centre-left politician talk in this delusional way?
Slotkin does effectively the opposite of what Mills is doing: Slotkin regularly attacks half of her own party, whereas Mills praises what few not-fully-MAGA Republicans are left, most notably someone who she's considering running against!
There are three candidates already in the Democratic primary, most notably oyster farmer Graham Platner, who has Bernie Sanders's endorsement. I don't know if Maine uses ranked-choice voting for U.S. Senate primaries.
Slotkin doesn't harshly attack her party, she harshly attacks Trump, Republicans and has supported playing hardball in redistricting and funding.
What is Mills going to run on? Restoring "the soul of the nation"?
Bernie Sanders-endorsed candidates don’t have a great track record in elections. Hopefully Platner will be a notable exception.
I was curious what the actual record was, so I looked around. Found this page: https://ballotpedia.org/Endorsements_by_Bernie_Sanders
Doesn't look like he has a bad track record at all really. The numbers don't tell the whole story because there's a lot of endorsements that aren't truly competitive; AOC in 2022 wasn't in any danger, for instance. But I can pick out a decent number of competitive ones where his endorsee was in a competitive race and won.
Summer Lee in 2022; she won the primary 42-41. Warnock and Ossoff in 2020. Biden in 2020. Cori Bush in 2020. Mamdani in the mayoral primary this year. Crawford for WI SC this year. Johnson for Chicago mayor in 2023. Omar in what looks like seemingly all of her primaries.
Obviously he doesn't get much/any credit for a lot of those wins, but I'd say his track record itself is decent.
Ok. Thanks!
Yes, RCV in primaries in Maine (all races), but for general elections, only federal.
I wouldn't call Manchin "sketchy", necessarily. Representing West Virginia, which had otherwise become solid red during his Senate service, it's a wonder he supported the Democratic Party as much as he did and never really switched. Sinema had less of an excuse for her apostasies, as Arizona is much more competitive, but it's far from solid blue.
Maine is substantially bluer than Arizona, let alone WV, so Mills would probably be a reliable Dem vote if not a particularly vocal progressive. She may well be a one term and done Senator, though; she would be 91 by the end of a second term.
That's all assuming that she would advance enough of an argument for people to elect her to the Senate, though.
My impression of Maine politics in general is that government is run independently, resident-centric and bipartisan for the most part with certain exceptions. I think Governor Mills comes in with that perspective, which may be why she is making a more nuanced statement about Senator Collins.
Mills thought would have to get through the primary process. I have an instinctive feeling she won’t coast to win the primary as there currently are multiple other candidates running. General election would be easier for her but Mills will have to unite the base in order to turn out.
I wouldn't assume the general election, if she gets there, would be easier for her.
Manchin profited a lot from specific coal related rules that he created for his factory and other businesses which not that related to West Virginia's economy like declaring a specific type of coal clean energy etc. There were a few media investigations on that. He ran from the supermarket back to the Senate on the last day to vote down Biden's labor board nominees.
I’m sorry, but if you’re praising one of the only reasons Trump can literally appoint any freak show to his government or worse a lifetime judgeship position you don’t have a fucking clue about what’s happening in America and you’re exactly what’s wrong with our party today.
This is the key reason we need to completely replace our entire older generation Democrats elected into office right now. I’m sure not all older Democrats feel this way and think like this, instead seeing Trump and the GOP the way they actually are, but I’m certain it’s a majority of them.
They don’t get what’s at stake and keep clinging to an era that will never ever come back. How stupid do you have to be to fall for their lies? And yet they do over “bipartisanship” or “working together” or finding “solutions”, that’s why the GOP has beaten us over and over again and we have to beg our voters to show up for us in elections, instead of having them show up everytime because they believe in our party and the people leading it.
Screw her and her old school ideas of a Republican Party that died 15 years ago and never showed 1 tiny piece of evidence it would return. I hope primary voters toss every single one of the Mills type candidates in 2026 because they are why our party is in this mess in the first place.
Or she's playing smart politics and positioning herself as a moderate to take on Collins in the general election....
Yes, very easy to win election against someone who you literally just made millions of dollars for and earned thousands of votes for with ad spots using her opponent in support of her. Voters will actually be able to buy the argument that “I’m better than her, but she’s still good” against an avid campaigner and smart politician. I disagree strongly that’ll be the thing to convince Mainers to toss Collins who has been a feature of the state for decades.
She is 77! Even Collins is younger. The fact that "senior Democrats" are urging her to run boggles the mind. This insanity has to stop!
She’s the best possible candidate to beat Collins and probably the only candidate that could. If this was an open seat, it would be an entirely different story.
She is almost 78, needed to be coaxed for this long and still can't criticize Collins. I beg to differ. Collins will appreciate her entry.
Citation needed? There's no polling suggesting Mills is automatically better than Wood or Platner.
After these remarks, I'm quite unconvinced. If she likes Collins so much, why should people vote for her instead of reelecting Collins?
Yeah the Collins ads have written themselves with that quote from Mills. They'll be used for Collins whether Mills is her opponent or not.
Most assuredly.
Which is exactly why I believe someone who is running against the establishment of both parties is the only one to finally slay Collins career. She could play this ad all she wants, but if our candidate is running against Mills and Collins types of politics they won’t have any effect. They’d be near fatal though if Democratic primary voters nominate Mills.
Rule #0 in politics is don’t praise your opponent/s (I’m not using the number 1, because this is how obvious it should be).
At the very least I'm not impressed with her actions towards this race so far.
Based on her refusal to attack Collins, I don't think she'd be like Manchin or Sinema. More like Schumer: not interested in fighting republicans but would be a reliable vote when we hold power.
I was already skeptical of her as our candidate due to her age, and I'm more confident of that now. Her age has made her too ossified in her ways and she isn't ready to make the mental shift from local politics to federal. We cannot defeat Collins if Maine voters still think of her as a "reasonable republican." Fucking difficult to change that perception if her opponent is making statements to reinforce it. Mills does not have the right mindset for this task.
Great post!
Mills already showed she is willing to fight when she stood up to Trump to support trans rights.
The problem is, she would be running against Collins, whom she just praised, not Trump.
Yep. "I appreciate everything she is doing", will be the most quoted line in pro-Collins ads in the next year.
The obsession some dems have with performative and public comity is insane sometimes. Most politicians of opposing ideology that need to work together know how to make the standard political attacks in public and still work together in private as needed.
Mills didn't need to say this, especially when as best I can tell Collins isn't doing anything to be appreciated in the first place. It's simple political malpractice unless she actually wants Collins to win.
It makes greater fodder for ads, as you say. Now if Mills endorses someone she'll be peppered with this quote, fair or not. And it's entirely an avoidable mistake.
Not sure I fully agree with you but recc'd for the thoughtful and articulate presentation.
At this point I hope she runs and Platner beats her and Gillibrand and Schumer get egg on their faces.
I hope she doesn't run.
Ultimately it would be better off if she didn't run. But if Schumer and Gillilbrand keep pushing her into it then I hope the voters send their prized pick home.
Keeping in mind that beating Collins is the foremost consideration, I'm feeling doubtful that she'd be best positioned to do that, anyway. I'm not necessarily sold on Platner, either, but I think it's essential that whoever wins the Democratic primary is someone who does not praise Collins but has a powerful, persuasive argument for why it's an imperative to replace her.
I think Platner is better positioned than most. He's got a decent narrative and an independent streak. I understand the hesitation after getting burned by Fetterman but I think we need less traditionally "polished" candidates.
I'm not worrying about what he'd do if he becomes a senator, only whether he may be perceived as too left-wing to win the state or do or say something that's a gaffe and damages his electability.
She could've cleared the field back when she made her "see you in court" comment directly to Trump. That was one of the earliest moments of pushback, and much of the Democratic Party loved her for it. She has now dithered so long that complete unknowns have started to position themselves as better alternatives. Platner is going to be tough for her to beat, and I think he has the contrast that is needed to finally snap Maine out of its delusions about Collins. We are not going to beat Collins with a Democratic version of her.
In fairness, Janet Mills would do far more than express her "concern".
I have concerns about Mills age, if only because it limits how long she'd be able to be a senator. And the recent comments are also worrisome. But it took guts to stand up to Trump in favor of trans rights as she did earlier this year.
At the same time, I have a small concern that Platner could end up being a Fetterman. He won't be a reliable vote on guns and his support of US stock in Intel is concerning (now I sound like Collins, hah!). Likely not, but I do wonder. He also is untested and unvetted as a candidate. At the same time, he could appeal to a sort of antiestablishment voter for whom Collins is unappealing.
I think my personal preference might be Speaker Fecteau, who has some political experience and also is young enough to hopefully be able to hold the seat for decades. (Only will run if Mills does not.) But I'm open to any of the above if they can demonstrate they are a strong candidate.
*Mills', gah!
Why should we give away money for free to corporations? The American people deserve a fair return for their investments. Norway, Alaska, Saudis, UAE all have sovereign wealth funds.
He should absolutely not support strong gun control, Maine is a pro gun state. Remember that Bernie supported assault rifles before 2016 because Vermont is also a pro gun state and they like to hunt. We do not need to purity test candidates. It has cost the left a great deal. Maine and Vermont are both rural white states with abundant forests and we need big tent candidates suited to the terrain.
SWFs are great for countries with surpluses and when managed by professional money managers, not politicized by a president and his cabinet
Agree strongly here. I have come around to the belief that Mills has dithered too much to be an effective candidate, but Platner worries me because of exactly what you say: he might be too much of a loose cannon.
Regardless of where you are on the Lamb/Fetterman axis, it seems pretty obvious that Lamb would be a "fall in line and do what leadership needs" Democrat, not a "follows the beat of his own drum" Democrat. In these perilous times, where literally every vote counts, we can't afford a single Senator to waver on message or be parochial. Mills is the former; Platner is the latter.
Bombshell by Harris:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/09/kamala-harris-107-days-excerpt/684150/
Thanks for the link, but it's too early for me to want to read an article about how fucking Trump won the election, so if you would like to do a service to people like me who do not want to read at length on this subject, could you summarize what the bombshell is? (By the way, do any of you notice that Meidas Touch and Brian Tyler Cohen have YouTube headlines saying something is a "bombshell" every day?)
I don't know if it really constitutes a "bombshell", but Harris criticizes others in Biden's orbit (not necessarily him personally) for allowing negative narratives about her to fester and seemingly being unwilling to let her step out and take more initiative. According to her, they thought that if her star shone more his would dim.
She says that Biden by 2024 was still highly capable but tired, and that in retrospect they shouldn't have maintained the "It's Joe and Jill's decision" stance regarding seeking reelection for as long as they did. But as sitting VP she was in the worst position to challenge that, as it would be seen as disloyalty if not an attempted coup.
Thanks. I wouldn't call any of that a bombshell.
Similar to Meidas Touch and Brian Tyler Cohen. They frequently turn up in my YouTube feed, even though I don't subscribe to either of them. I like their aggressiveness in blasting negative things about Trump and the GOP, but many of their "bombshells" that get the "BREAKING!!" treatment are trivial at best.
Yeah it pretty much matches what a lot of people on the institutional left think happened, but imo it matters that it's coming from Kamala herself.
If one thing could describe what we went through in 2024 it would be simply “we made every wrong choice every time”.
We never should’ve had Biden run for re-election. We never should’ve scheduled a debate right after a huge, lengthy foreign state trip. We never should’ve nominated Harris. We never should’ve had Biden anywhere after she was nominated. We never should’ve focused on winning the middle by moving to the center. We never should’ve had 3 entirely different messages during the shortened campaign. We never should’ve focused our time raising money instead of actually doing campaign stops. We never should’ve had 2 separate organizations pushing different messages. We never should’ve taken for granted our base. We never should’ve left Trump’s attacks unanswered.
The list is endless for what we did wrong and I certainly didn’t name them all.
Harris wasn't the wrong choice but everything else I agree with.
That's a valid point. But what I still would like to know is why they sought a June debate and why they scheduled a foreign trip shortly before it. If the argument was, well he's behind so the sooner the debate the better, why not have him very well rested before the date of the debate.
Based on everything that happened I suspect that Biden himself was in denial about the electoral risks of his age and public performances. There's a point where if the big boss insists on a dumb but permitted idea, people just go along with it.
If you assume that Biden could perform well in the debate, the early timing made perfect sense. We needed something to refocus the election on the contrast of Biden vs Trump instead of leaving it as Biden vs Inflation.
The problem is that the assumption of Biden's ability to perform in the debate was wrong. If Biden was stubborn enough about this, his staff had no real power to change his mind. The most loyalist part of Biden world also seemed to have been in agreement with him up until the very end.
It's a rhetorical tactic that the Right Wing grifters use all the time. Everything is IMPORTANT in all caps and floods the zone.
Yep.
It's about her feeling sidelined by Biden and Biden's team while she was VP.
Story as old as time, really. When's the last time a president didn't have issues like this with their VP? I distinctly remember Biden world being pissy about Obama's treatment of him. You'd think that would motivate him to treat his own VP differently, but I guess not.
Trump tried to get his VP killed. Bush and Cheney had their issues. I don't know what Clinton/Gore was like internally, but Gore sure was quick to try and separate himself from Clinton when he ran for president. Pretty sure Bush Sr. didn't exactly treat Quayle with all that much preference, and if I remember right Reagan never liked Bush Sr. much either...
Maybe the most interesting part here is Harris feels aggrieved enough about it to state so directly in her own words, rather than relying on her allies to do it. Even if it is in service of selling a book.
I've honestly surprised that political figures still go the traditional publishing route, given their propensity for leaking the most embarrassing excerpts possible before the publication date every time they get a high-profile political nonfiction book. The same thing happened with Hillary Clinton with her post-2016 campaign book.
There are advantages to traditional publishing (being paid an advance, not having to pay for editors or book cover designers, etc.), but this is the kind of book that, if it were me writing it, I would have gone the independent publishing route, so that only the people who actually read the book would know about the kind of admissions that Harris made in the excerpt.
Traditional publishing is almost tailor built to favor politicians' books, ghost written or actually written by them.
With a traditional publisher the author will get an advance on royalties. If the book never sells enough copies to meet that royalty threshold, the author still keeps the entirety of the advance. Authors also frequently get a set number of hardcover copies of their book for free as part of the publishing deal, and if I remember right they sometimes have the option to buy more hardcover copies at a steep discount. Those hardcovers are provided to authors with the intent of encouraging them to do their own promotion by going on a book signing tour. Go on tour, do events and sell ten copies of hardcover for $30 to sign = $300 for showing up, plus some media coverage everywhere they go. It's also a lot easier to get hardcovers with traditional publishing than it is with self-publishing.
That's the setup. These are advantageous because:
- Political books are unlikely to sell lots of copies. The royalty advance is, I suspect, unlikely to be met. Publishers are accepting the upfront loss of money for the hope of gaining some prestige. This means the politician gets more money through this route.
- Free/discount hardcover copies are easy to shove off on the official's campaign, even if the election is already over. The campaign can create a legal justification to buy the entire stock of free/discount hardcovers at full price to use as gifts to donors or similar people. Again, the politician gets more money this way.
- Having easier access to hardcovers is also good for them because the types of people that are most likely to buy a politician's book are the types of people that are unlikely to balk at the higher price. The ~$30 charge for a hardcover is acceptable to them, compared to the ~$12 for an ebook or ~$8 for a paperback. This makes the average sales price higher, which is better both for the publisher and the politician.
The reality is these books are largely a means to enrich the politician first and foremost.
The 18 contenders in the Democratic primary for IL-09 makes me wonder: Which Congressional district holds the record for most candidates on a primary ballot?
2022 AK-AL special election had 48 candidates in the primary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Alaska%27s_at-large_congressional_district_special_election
Of course, that's an all-party primary! So gotta grade that one on a bit of curve. (Still a ridiculous number of candidates tho.)
Colorado poll - Generic Governor ballot
🟦 Democrat: 50%
🟥 Republican: 38%
——
CO generic Congressional ballot By District (MoE: ±8%)
CO-03 (Jeff Hurd-R): GOP +5
CO-04 (Lauren Boebert-R): GOP +20
CO-05 (Jeff Crank-R): Dem +8
CO-08 (Gabe Evans-R): GOP +5
——
Job Approval
Gov. Polis: 41-52 (-11)
Pres. Trump: 41-59 (-18)
——
"Magellan, a conservative-leaning firm that often conducts polling for clients, paid for the poll itself"(7/30-8/12, RV
https://dailycamera.com/2025/09/08/colorado-poll-jared-polis-michael-bennet-democrats/
https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/1965076962780536990
Looks like Polis has bled liberal support.
That CO-05 result is kinda crazy to me.
Not surprised about Polis, he sapped a lot of goodwill after his continuous praise of RFK Jr.
That would be a 22-point shift left from Crank's 14-point victory in 2024. Meanwhile, in CO-08, those numbers would mean a 6-point shift to the right. Hard to believe either are remotely correct. Look at that MoE...technically anything is correct if your MoE is large enough.
the statewide poll was 1,136 respondents, so the average per district is 142, well below a reliable number.
Boebert going from an 11 point margin to 20 points, given her past and the fact that she's a carpetbagger, seems highly suspect.
It's a generic poll so not polling her specifically, I wouldn't doubt she underperforms that.
Right, but I think the points being made, especially by Brendan in regard to the sample per district, and the margin of error the pollster itself states mean that the numbers in this poll are probably meaningless.
The statewide numbers seem plausible, but the individual district samples are too small to fit the Downballot's quality standards, if I understand right.
It may seem odd to see Polis with the same approval as Trump, but that may be easily explained, as seen above, by liberals disliking Polis' praise of some RFK Jr. policies (as well as maybe other ideological heresies or blunders that I don't know about.) They may feel little need to support Polis since he can't run again, and might well face a primary challenge if he could.
Polis also supported ICE and gave it his employees data.
Yeah, exactly - the district is hard R, but Boebert is personally unpopular.
It might be a bit extreme, but Colorado Springs (which anchors the 5th) is definitely moving left rapidly. Just as an example, Douglas County got a point bluer in 2024 vs. 2020 as the country got 6 points redder. Not crazy to think that Crank could be in danger next year.
I wouldn’t pay much attention to district breakdowns of statewide polls. Way too few respondents for each, way too prone to error. The top lines though would suggest Republicans are underwater or treading water in all 3 potentially competitive districts, that’s the takeaway here. CO-04 is fool’s gold and whoever is running will always get the tsunami of cash from our emotional base to make it not a complete blowout, but it can’t be won.
You're probably right.
With the caveat that I fully support Haaland, it would be kind of awesome if the governor's race featured Miyagishima vs. Nakamura in *New Mexico*
Republicans and their propaganda outlets are frothing at the mouth over the fatal stabbing in Charlotte, NC of a Ukrainian refugee (a white woman) by a Black man (a U.S. citizen) with multiple criminal records.
Guys, you can deflect and scream about "Demorat controlled cities are crime infested hellholes" all you want, but people are voting with their wallets next year.
This is not about next year’s election – it’s about drumming up support for Trump’s military mobilization against Democratic-led American cities. Not to be pessimistic, but I would not want to take bets on how many cities have National Guards stationed on Election Day, 2026.
And specifically at, around or even inside polling places and places where votes are counted...
This one is definitely more about elections. His national guard deployments have been mostly focused on blue states and NC is a red state.
Also the National Guard isn’t going to stop Democrats from winning. People will still show up to vote.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. It depends what the National Guard does.
What could they actually do?
Have you observed what's happened in other countries when someone ordered the military to stop or annul elections? If you wanted to do so, what could -you- imagine the troops might do?
Stand there and do nothing like in LA and DC?
She was a refugee? Why not go back on the attack and say trumps ugly hatred of refugees has created an environment where terrible tragedies like this can happen.
Dems need to figure out a rapid response team that combs the Conservative Media Machine and prepares to outflank them whenever they try to gin up a new made up controversy. This attack in particular can be turned around on them. The man was clearly mentally disturbed and 50 years of privatization and defunding mental institutions have consequences. I take back what I said yesterday, instead of ignoring it we should flip it back on THEM before they get a chance to make it an issue that's favorable to their narrative.
We clearly need democratic "New Media" outlets and we need to support and grow them, especially the next President.
CBS is also getting sold and becoming conservative under Bari Weiss in a few weeks.
Corporate liberal media will always take a safe centrist both sides tone to appeal to more people and the elites.
Problem is who do we get to pay for them? Conservative outlets get away with losing money because it's in the Conservative Billionaires' best interests to keep them afloat. We need left-leaning people with money to throw their support behind these sorts of media outlets.
There are democratically-minded billionaires. Bloomberg is one, Reid Hoffman, Mark Cuban and Bill Gates are three others. As are Warren Buffet and George Soros.
Here is Forbes on 30 October 2024: "Our breakdown records 83 billionaires supporting Harris and 52 backing Trump so far."
I am absolutely convinced some of these could be convinced to invest in media – perhaps even purchasing stuff like Sinclair Broadcast and turning it into a real news outlet!
Just how Democratic are Cuban, Gates and Buffet?
Building more mental institutions en masse would be extremely controversial, especially among autistic/neurodivergent people and people with mental health problems that aren't severe enough to require institutionalization. Institutionalizing the mentally ill should be a last resort.
That being said, the man who committed the murder in Charlotte is someone who should never see the light of day again one way or another.
I think we can toe the line in a way that gets people, like this man, the help they clearly need and institutionalize en masse.
What guarantee is there that people with less severe mental health issues won’t get thrown away into institutions anyway? What criteria will be used for this mass reinstitutionalization? How do we ensure that people who “look weird” don’t just get thrown away? Particularly in red states?
I am autistic and these questions inform my opposition to the move. I notice many proponents of institutions are also the same kind that don’t want mentally disabled kids in the school system, claiming they are “burdens” who take away resources from “normal children” (no exaggeration, I remember these exact words being used in a NYT comment section on children with mental disabilities). Had such moves been in place when I went to school, I would not have received an education. Be careful what “solutions” you propose for such problems.
Unfortunately, there is never any guarantee against abuses. We know that having so many people on the streets who can't care well for themselves and are in some cases a menace to others isn't right, but people with a modicum of humanity and enough detachment to be rational about the situation also don't want to just forcibly institutionalize everybody.
🚨 NEW NY-10 POLL 🚨
Goldman 41%
Another Dem 32%
Don't know 28%
Goldman 33%
Lander 52%
Informed ballot excluded
Favorability:
Brad Lander +59
The Democratic Party +33
Dan Goldman +19
2 polls excluded
@DataProgress
, 553 likely Dem primary voters in NY-10, 9/2-4
https://x.com/aaronnarraph/status/1965750250372817290
Note:I have excluded part of the poll to avoid violating The Downballot's rules.
I also don't know who this X user is and the original post I saw quoted him.
Really interesting. So Goldman is in no way threatened, seemingly - unless Lander runs.
https://x.com/daveweigel/status/1965757007979590077
https://x.com/demsocsean/status/1965758437901701190
https://x.com/admcrlsn/status/1965759068871819437
More context and polls including informed ballot, he is massively threatened. 41 percent against a generic Dem being a sitting congressman isn't ideal. Less than 50% favoribility.
I discount informed ballots. We'll see; I would prefer someone further left and didn't vote for him in the primary last time, but I think that between his very vocal opposition to Trump and funding, he has a lot going for him, and this district is not as uniformly leftist as I would prefer.
This is the wrong take. 41% for any elected incumbent for either party is an extremely weak showing and makes you very vulnerable to any challenger. You lead the district, you have tools and the position available that no one else has to push your message and yourself and you barely crack 40% with the highest name recognition of any other politician not named President or Senator? That’s a pathetic show of voter/constituent support honestly. If anyone challenges him he’s probably toast.
Even if someone named Another Democrat were to run, they'd get only 32%, according to this poll. I don't see any reason to assume that a generic Democrat would beat him.
You’re not understanding the difference between a ceiling and a floor. Right now Goldman is near his ceiling, he has had the opportunity to lead his district and voters aren’t liking what they’ve seen for whatever reason, that’s why there’s tepid support.
The “Another Democrat” is almost certainly at their floor because they’ve never had a chance to push their message with the bully pulpit that allows you to be in almost all voters homes. They don’t have that advantage the incumbent always has.
We generally regard incumbents as in trouble if they have below 45% support in polls elected in opposing states (red incumbent in blue state or blue incumbent in red state) because they haven’t faced any attacks yet and their support is already low. It’s the same thing in a primary.
It’s possible Goldman beats his challenger, but it’s certainly not the most likeliest outcome, in fact, it’s the least likeliest unless he gets lucky and faces a lunatic.
I take your points.
Has Goldman really done anything of note to get this backlash? Guess I’m uninformed on this one
I think there’s a pervasive “throw the bums out” feeling amongst our party base after 2024, regardless of whether they’ve actually done something on policy to piss them off or not. This is just another piece of evidence to the pile. We’ll see if that’s true come primary day, but for myself I’m expecting a lot of unexpected upsets, especially in safe blue seats.
It looks like the information questions were about the Middle East and him voting for the anti-ICC bill
Ok, that could possibly cause trouble for him.
He barely won his first primary because 3-4 progressives split the vote (notably Nioh and Mondaire Jones) and AOC declined to endorse anyone.
It's a very progressive district which Mamdani won by 40 points and doesn't support, let's say, his approach on foreign policy.
It’s also hilarious to see Goldman vs Generic poll when his official portrait gives “generic member of Congress” vibes
Q NYC poll out. Mamdani by a bunch and be double digits even in 2 person. https://poll.qu.edu/
sorry 3 person
EDIT: I've read everyone's comments. I had originally intended this to be more of an open discussion about how FL Democrats should evolve on the issue of Cuba but know right now, Democrats really don't have any control over the issue until they gain control of the White House. I'm toning down the language accordingly in this original comment.
For the record, I do not believe it's the time to put litmus tests to FL Democrats until the party can win more elections.
FL-SEN:
If Rep. Jared Moskowitz is going to consider challenging Senator Ashley Moody, my hope is that he evolves on the issue of Cuba but I'm not going to hold it against him just yet (if he gets elected to the Senate, that would be the time, not prior to being elected).
Don’t get me wrong - I would support Moskowitz over Moody in the general election if he’s the Democratic Senate nominee. I just think if there's a better choice, fine. Otherwise, as everyone has said, this is FL and I'd rather we not at this point put a litmus test towards anyone.
We still get 30-40 percent of the Cuban vote. Do you want it to be single digits like in the case of Gore again?
Is asking for a more moderate position on Cuba too high of a bar to set such as building trade relations and diplomacy?
This isn't difficult.
If say we elect Moskowitz, then he should at least be open to changing or perhaps evolving on Cuba. Doesn't have to happen right away.
See that’s fine, we definitely want our representatives open to changing their opinions or shifting in our direction, but coming out in a campaign to do that is a guaranteed loser still, especially with Cubans shifting more and more GOP down there. They hate the Cuban government and the terrible history of the country towards its citizens.
Saying so publicly would probably take a 5% chance of winning in Florida to 0%. It’s not what I want fwiw, I support normalization as the best option of terrible choices, but there’s still a lot of Cubans who vote for us, so that’s a good way to get that vote share to 0 is for us to open up with Cuba and say so in a campaign.
That's logical politics.
We get 40% of the Cuban vote? In 2024? Dade County saw a huge swing away from us, right after the huge 2016>2020 swing
If there is 1 state in the country where Democrats shouldn’t have any political litmus tests for a Democrat running for statewide office, it’s definitely Florida. We have no political bench to run, we lose by double digits in every race in every election, take whoever we can get and be thankful we have a candidate.
You're really missing the point of what I am arguing. FL is right near Cuba and as a state it is closest to relations with the country than any other part of the U.S.
This is not a litmus test but a standard we should hold to politicians like Moskowitz regardless of their views. Preference is my view but not a requirement, which is what a litmus test is. If we elect Moskowitz, Fried, or whoever else in the Senate, that's the first priority. However, we have to still ensure they aren't going to make it harder for Democrats nationally in building relations with Cuba.
Current President Miguel Diaz-Canel has expressed continued interest in working with U.S. This is a pivotal moment for us as a country to get leverage in Cuba and more so in Central America.
Right now, the more immediate need is to get Democrats controlling the Senate and the House. I am less concerned about the Cuba issue at the moment and more concerned about the more direct issues that are impacting the country. I am just arguing Democrats should be more united on Cuba than they did before so they can coalese around the best way to deal with it.
“He’d better start getting his head out of his ass on Cuba” sure sounds to me like you consider it a litmus test. If that’s not the case, then I’ll take that back. What you’re doing here though imo is arguing about what tires the new car should have instead of spending the time arguing the difference between a diesel truck and a hybrid car.
I know you differentiate between standard and litmus, but if you expect a position to always hold our politicians to regardless of who runs, then it’s no longer a standard, it becomes a litmus test. We can debate over language, but in essence, they are exactly the same.
In other states, I get that, not so much in Florida. The object of the game is to win, Democrats haven’t figured that out yet, so maybe we should worry about beating Republicans first. “We have to ensure that Democrats have an easier time normalizing relations” is probably near the bottom of the list of our priorities in that state.
Do I agree with you on this topic? Yes. Do I think we should spend 1 second talking about it? No. Do I think it’s electoral poison? Yes. If you disagree that’s fine! I just really don’t understand it being an issue for you considering how badly our party has performed with a wide variety of nominees over the last decade there.
Sorry Janet Mills, Senator Collins has plenty of choices, she's just making the worst ones. No apologies for any GOP senator.
Apparently, Charlie Kirk was shot at an event in Utah.
https://www.deseret.com/utah/2025/09/10/charlie-kirk-shot/
I avoid watching people getting injured in real life as much as I can, so I haven't watched the footage. But the commentary from people that have watched it sounds skeptical of his chances of surviving.
The increasing levels of political violence we're experiencing are terrifying. Especially with the current admin.
It doesn't look good. I'm curious as to who the assailant is, as people are already jumping to conclusions that it was a "lefty"
Indeed. Just to remind everyone: the pretext for Kristallnacht was the assassination of a Nazi diplomat in Paris , https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_vom_Rath, by a Jewish man. Not at all an identical situation, though.
No, but it f-ing rhymes enough to scare me you-know-whatless.
America is still far more free than Nazi Germany was at the time of Kristallnacht. So it’s not a perfect comparison.
The current moment in our history is scary enough on its own, even if it has no correlations with historically worse times.
Taken from a high level view, it is a bad sign for a political system when an increasing number of people from all ideologies see the results as sufficiently unacceptable so as to resort to violence.
The time and resources required, limited as they are in an absolute sense, are enough to prevent these from being spur of the moment actions. There is sufficient time involved that most people going down that path would be able to recognize that not only are they aiming to end another's life, they are - at best - completely ruining their own life. Some of them still do it. The implications of this, the MN assassinations, and all the other examples going on is a scary reflection on our society and especially for the next four years due to the rhetoric of those in power.
That's true even without any political ramifications. Which, to be honest, I think is the more likely outcome: there were no political consequences for the attempt on Trump's life last year, and due to the role he's in that was a far bigger deal. I don't see this one moving the needle on policy beyond what was going to happen anyway.
Well said
I was taught to not say anything if I have nothing nice to say, so I’m keeping my mouth firmly shut.
same here! although, trump needs to send in the national guard/marines to get rid of the criminal element running rampant in Utah.
I fundamentally disagree with Kirk's ideology, and, as I write this post, the exact motive of the shooting is unknown, but political violence against anyone is absolutely unacceptable and unforgiveable. It wasn't that long ago that the Minnesota state legislators Melissa Hortman and John Hoffman were shot, and my mind immediately went to that as soon as I head that Kirk had been shot.
CNN is freezing the video right before the bullet hits Kirk every time they play video of the shooting, which they did not do when Trump was shot last year. That should give you a general idea of how graphic the scene of the shooting of Kirk is.
Another thing I should note is that Kirk's event for Turning Point USA was held outdoors and at one of those "prove me wrong" events where he encourages people who disagree with him try to prove him wrong, so the crowd at this event was larger than a typical TPUSA event crowd, and, although mostly younger MAGA people, was not exclusively of that cohort.
100%
We as a country should be able to challenge the viewpoints of others without having to take it out on them with violence, let alone shooting of any sort.
I'm glad I didn't see the video.
I don't wish that on anybody, even someone I passionately disagree with. Let's see if the GOP actually supports more gun control or double down on finger pointing at Democrats.
It was bad. Really bad. Be glad you didn’t watch it.
I would be shocked if Kirk survives
what, are you kidding me? GOP will never support more gun control!
More like supporting reprisals from militias.
It makes me sick to my stomach. Charlie Kirk was also married and had two kids.
Anyone who even bothers to try shooting a political figure like Kirk should show empathy to his family before they even pull the trigger.
How bad could things get post-this? Is there anything the current administration could do rapidly that directly threatens our freedom with regard to this?
Apologies if I sound hysterical, I just figured I’d ask here.
Definitely not sounding hysterical, I think it's a valid and reasonable worry
I’m not sure what actions they could take that they haven’t already done. Investigating political opponents and deploying troops to cities have all been crossed as red lines.
Like I said below...
absolutely! I can hear trump now: " nothing is off the table...and I mean nothing"
I'm steeling myself. But terrible consequences were, frankly, inevitable as soon as the 2024 election was called.
We have to wait and see who the shooter ends up being. If it's a lefty, I'm sure it'll be some sort of crack down on college campuses just to make a statement. The other silver lining is that this took place in UTAH. One of the whitest states around.
Maybe it’ll be like the Nazis after Reinhardt Heydrich was assasinated and they’ll shoot everyone in the town in reprisal
Nothing differently than what they’ve already been doing for the past several months.
Trump stated that he is indeed dead
Undoubtedly the national guard will be heading to Utah
Tots and pears. I’m sure the GOP won’t rush to politicize this in any way…
kirk has died...https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/charlie-kirk-shot-utah-09-10-25#cmfefwck100003b6nd2qwvvis
Kirk was a victim of his own words and rhetoric. Of course, the RW media is lionizing him as a “martyr” while MSM outlets are glossing over his comments made about Melissa Hortman, her husband and their dog being assassinated (among his other racist and anti LGBTQ comments).
Do we know what the motive of the assassin was?
We don't know who s/he is yet, which speaks to the incompetence of Patel, Blondi and Bongino. TACO's FBI and Department of Justice is run by his sycophants and yes-men.
I guarantee that had the people from FDJT's first term were brought back on, the suspect would've already been identified.
If we don't even know who the assassin was, we certainly can't say what their motive was.
NY-10 Lander 52-33 Goldman. Data for Progress
https://kdvr.com/news/local/active-assailant-reported-near-evergreen-high-school-jefferson-county-911/
A school shooting in Denver today. Three kids shot and injured (including the shooter). I think it's disappointing that this will likely be overshadowed by the Charlie Kirk shooting.
Ohio Republicans launched a joint legislative committee to redraw the state’s congressional map Wednesday. The redistricting process is required by state law, but Democrats warn it could open the door to another round of partisan gerrymandering amid a broader national effort by the GOP.
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/ohio-gop-launches-redistricting-committee-as-democrats-unveil-fair-map/