Talked with my mother last night, and she said that Democrats swept everything in her suburban town in Connecticut on Tuesday. According to her, the worst-performing Democrat got more votes than the best-performing Republican.
This is important, because this town is very much a swing town at the state and local levels, and currently is represented by Republicans in the state legislature. And if Democrats win most of the legislative seats like this, then that would result in an epic wipeout for Connecticut Republicans.
Current republican and democrat policies are not going to help the common man at this point in our country. We talk about wanting change that makes a difference, but we're not willing to elect people who will make that change, instead, falling back to the same old tired people and policies that keep us where we are, stagnant.
Was that the point of the use of "Democrat" as an adjective? I always thought it was a dumb insult, suggesting that the party is not small-d democratic.
I don't know that it's suggesting that they're not small-d democratic. I always interpreted it as because using the word "democratic" as a negative term isn't a very good look and difficult to convince people about
I agree, but "Democrat" can more easily be spun as negative. Firstly due to its similarity to the word "bureaucrat," as previously mentioned. But I think moreso because "democratic" already has another meaning related to democracy.
Using rhetoric against "democratic politicians" or "democratic policy" can easily come off as being anti-democracy (which, don't get me wrong, is what the GOP is. But they don't necessarily want that in their messaging). Using rhetoric against "Democrat politicians" or "Democrat policy" works better for their aims because it's more disconnected from the ideal of democracy, and people can more closely connect it to other negative -crats like bureaucrats, technocrats, autocrats, etc.
Since my grammar, faux pas seems to have offended you let me restate: neither republican nor democratic policies are going to help every day Americans with affordability. Mamdani is spot on with his ideas, and I would love to see AOC run for governor of New York.
That's how most 2016 Stein voters sounded. By now everyone should understand that if you don't like either candidate, you have to hold your nose and vote for who you see as the lesser evil.
Anyone who has voted for any length of time runs into a candidate they hold their nose and vote for because the alternative is worse. I was that way with David Min in 2024 after he got picked up for DUI. The primary was already set, and I voted for Min because he was more likely to win against Scott Baugh in the general.
I had voted for Min in 2018 in his primary against Mimi Walters and Katie Porter.
I think State Sen./Former Boston councilwoman Lydia Edwards and current council president Ruthzee Louijeune could run. They’re both Pressley allies so I don’t necessarily see them running against each other.
Hey guys, love this newsletter. But a correction: Maine's Second Congressional District isn't entirely "northern Maine." Even before this decade's redistricting, it included western Maine and a whole lot of communities that weren't Portland, but were decidedly not what you'd call the northern part of the state. Though many Portland residents think anything north of Brunswick is CANADA.
It seems like Portland residents think a little like Chicago area residents. Except we think of every other part of IL as “downstate” even the parts north of us.
She’s been great over the years. Her and Reid were the best congressional leaders we’ve had in a long time.
But calling it quits now is the right move. It’s time for a fresh face in the seat and she can still be an ear to congressional democrats without holding office.
Also, Pelosi is factoring in the attack on her husband Paul Pelosi by the loony conspiracy theorist David DePape and has a lot of weight from that incident along with serving in the House, especially since she’s in her mid 80’s.
29 flips of control from 🔴 to 🔵 according to them. Amazing!
Connecticut’s governor and Democratic state chair framed the blue wave that flipped control of 29 cities and towns to Democrats as evidence of a revived party ready to compete in the 2026 midterm elections after the disastrous and demoralizing 2024 presidential cycle.
“That is remarkable. That is historic, and we did it with a broad spectrum of folks in the electorate,” said Roberto Alves, the Danbury mayor and state party chair. “We had moderate candidates, we have progressive candidates. We are the big-tent party.”
Officials of the two parties agreed, however, that the extent of the Democratic victories in the first general election since Trump’s return to the White House was stunning.
While results still were being analyzed by both parties, it appeared that the only Republican gain Tuesday night was a narrow win giving the GOP control over local government in Easton, a community of about 8,000 residents in Fairfield County.
I’ve seen a lot of takes on social media going “what happened with Texas” because of the 17 constitutional amendments that passed. First, let’s remember, Texas doesn’t have a citizen-led process for amending the state constitution like other states such as California. Here, the Legislature has sole authority to propose constitutional amendments; so there’s no history of voters paying attention to the constitutional propositions. In addition, without a citizen-led initiative there’s no organized opposition or support mechanism to push for or against a proposition. Everything must be organized after it passes the legislature.
What’s interesting, is that prior to the 2000s, it used to be common for some propositions to fail. Prior to 2000, there have been 556 constitutional proposition amendments placed on the ballot (1879-1999), and of those 170 were rejected by voters. Since 2000, 165 propositions have been placed on the ballot and only 7 have been defeated. And that is a historically low number. In the 1800s, 14 were defeated; 1900-1919, 33 were defeated; 1920-1939, 19 lost; 1940-1959, 19 lost; 1960-1979, 53 lost; and 1980-1999, 32 lost.
Second, a lot of people seem to have missed the election for Senate District 9 where the Dem candidate got 47.56% of the vote and is now in a runoff. In 2024, this district voted 58% for Trump versus 40.6% for Harris. In 2020, it was Biden 42.6% vs. Trump 55.7%. The Dem only spent $68,000. He’s also a union president (International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Texas State Council). I’ll be honest, I didn’t even know there was election for this district (I live in San Antonio and the district covers parts of Fort Worth, so that’s probably why). From looking at it, it seems like the more MAGA Republican advanced to the runoff. The two Republicans combined spent $4.1 million.
The runoff date hasn’t been set yet, the governor must set it, with some thinking early next year. I just donated to his campaign so hopefully we can start the new year off with a win and in Texas of all places.
But Malinowski will also have to overcome some major obstacles: most importantly, the fact that he’s not from the 11th district, and until today chaired a party organization in a county that has no overlap with the district. Malinowski noted, however, that two towns he used to represent in the 7th district, Dover and Millburn, are now in the 11th district, and that he currently teaches at Seton Hall University in South Orange; he said he’s planning on moving into the 11th district very soon, though he’s still determining where, and will be an 11th district voter by the time the Democratic primary arrives.
According to VoteRiders, Virginia voters who need to cure their provisional ballots need to do so by tomorrow before 12 p.m. So tomorrow afternoon is when the counties start adding the cured provisional ballots to the total.
The Virginia elections website just reported 58 provisional votes in Hopewell. They're currently all listed under Ward 1, but it's not clear if those provisionals are actually just from Ward 1 or if they're all the provisionals in the entire city of Hopewell.
(Those 58 provisionals went 48-10 for Spanberger.)
Assuming with so much shifting around that it's better to wait until dust settles and primaries are actually going, but would would to see how presidential margins (and, if possible, how R-D House candidates fared since it seems hard and maybe not the most fruitful to narrow to the candidates themselves as they move to diff parts of their state) in the places with new maps. https://www.the-downballot.com/p/the-downballots-calculations-of-presidential
I think Platner is still very risky in terms of the election. Secondarily, I definitely fear he would be a loose cannon if elected, but of course that would be far preferable to Collins winning again.
I personally don't think he'd be another Fetterman, but of elected, he could end up becoming another headache of a different sort--just a wildcard, rather than somebody trying to pander to conservatives.
How can you be so sure as to say an absolutely "no"? This guy probably barely knows what he actually believes. He seems to more or less be a creation of some campaign consultants.
We also didn’t know Kyrsten Sinema was going to be a headache for Democrats in the Senate when she was elected to her first term back in 2018. Fetterman also had chronic depression and was not taking care of his health but also moved weird on issues.
Platner I see as more principled than Fetterman was. With Fetterman, I do not recall him in his Lt Governor race and original Senate race talking about fighting fascism.
But this isn’t to distract from the fact that Platner may still be a liability.
I'm sorry, but Fetterman was always obviously a piece of garbage. While he became worse after the stroke, it was pretty clear certainly when he was running for Senate that he was an unprofessional asshole. Sinema was a green. There are virtually no greens who aren't plants, crooks or nutbags. Again, I don't see any basis to believe Platner has any principles whatsoever. He's an odd guy. A son of wealth, like Fetterman, who has bounced around without direction. Again, he said he joined the military to kill (and enjoyed that) not to serve. What kind of principles are those? He didn't become interested in politics until a bunch of campaign people found him and seemingly more or less created him. He might not believe anything he is saying right now and could easily jump back to the rape victims blaming, black person insulting, Nazi tattoo having guy that he was very, very recently.
This is my first, second and third fear. Every decision we (well the voters of Maine) make here should be around beating Collins. We can sort out who a "better" senator would be later.
Possible although knowing how the election results were two nights ago along with the sentiment Platner is seeing on the campaign trail, I don’t know if the full picture is so obvious.
But Collins still will be a tough incumbent to unseat even if it’s not Platner who is the Democratic Senate Nominee.
Platner would be a solid Democratic vote because of his antifa socialist Bernie bro posting background unlike Mills who is a conservative Democrat and vetoed bills protecting work pay discussions, union protections and opposes red flag laws. I think Collins loses either way.
How could one possibly be sure he would be a solid Democratic vote? He hasn't held these positions for long and he could easily switch from them to something else. This is a guy who outright said he joined the military because he wanted to kill people. He was a mercenary. He has said plenty of anti-progressive (to put it lightly) crap and that'a not even getting into the tattoo. He basically has the same profile as Fetterman, with less personal stability. How can we possibly think he likely to support progressive policy?
Who said he hasn’t held these positions for long? He wrote about Bernie and the late Michael Brooks shifting his politics hard to the left after 2015 and was involved with Young Dems in his high school. These are all centrist myths which you are repeating.
I was going to post about this today myself, but a while back I said that we were starting to see a trickling of IOKIYADAR (It’s ok if you’re a Democrat against a Republican) shift in mindset from IOKIYAR (It’s ok if you’re a Republican) of Democratic and swing voters thanks to Trump getting elected again and voters going “is what x person said/did as bad as Trump” or “is it bad enough to let the king’s party win”?
Unfortunately I can’t find the exact comment because substack is terrible for that, but this was the general gist for us to not be surprised if Graham Platner won the primary and/or the general. I’m even firmer on that belief now with Jones winning by 6 points. I’m still not on board with Platner, the tattoo was disqualifying for me in the primary, but if he wins it (and it wouldn’t shock me) I’m absolutely supporting him against Collins.
The days of the political/personal scandal are probably over for Democrats and it’s something I don’t think many realize or are talking about yet in the punditry or MSM. The good news about this change is that the last second “October surprise” scandals that the GOP keep in their pocket until the last second to damage our candidates as much as possible (like they did in VA and I’m so glad that woman Coyner who tried to take out Jones is no longer in office!) is no longer a silver bullet, it’s more like a rubber one. It hurts a lot, but doesn’t kill our campaign/s.
You’re absolutely right, sexual assault and of course the age old cp stuff from any Democrat = still unacceptable. Anything else is kind of a shrug for myself (nazi stuff also is a red line for me, which is why I no longer support Platner). And Republicans definitely still allow sexual assault as acceptable behaviour, so we’ve got that as a plus in our morality.
In hindsight thinking about this more, Democrats have been headed this way for a while. It’s just happening more often recently. Dave Min DUI. John Fetterman as mayor attacking a black man. We started to see hints of it in previous cycles that would’ve sunk our candidates before Trump, but now it’s just an explosion of “I don’t care, I’m still voting for them”.
Honestly my biggest beef with Platner is not even the comments or tattoo themselves. Rather it's his poor judgment making them and getting the tattoo and now choosing the enter the campaign without addressing them, especially the damn tattoo. Ironically if Platner was just an average voter or citizen with the same background, it would make for a nice story of potential change to see someone learn from bad mistakes in life and trying to become better. As it is now, I seriously question his judgment and his sincerity and character.
I think Jones' victory matches what we've been hearing on the ground is that the tattoo and Reddit posts aren't hurting Platner as much as some of us who wish there were standards in politics still wanted.
It really sucks the best the Dem establishment could dig up is a soon to be termed out geriatric governor in a state where you probably could scrounge up a better candidate if you bothered looking.
Jones' victory doesn't change my evaluation on Platner more. His scandals made me doubtful that he could win before. I'm still doubtful. Maybe a smidge less? But not that much.
Fact is there are two important details to take into account.
(1) Platner's problems are a lot bigger than Jones' problems were. Jones sent a really fucking stupid text message to a republican about wishing something bad on republican officials.
Platner has a bunch of dumb comments he made online, many of which apply to the people he needs to vote for him. If it was only that, I'd be a lot less skeptical of him. Even then, there's a big difference. However, it's not just that. Platner also has a nazi tattoo and has had it for years and years and years, into his 40s. If he got it at 25 and removed or covered it up at 30, that'd be one thing: it'd be an example a mistake in his younger years that was corrected as he got older and learned more. That didn't happen. He's had it for so long and it's not easy to believe he never had any idea what it meant.
(2) Jones still did worse than the two other statewide democrats in Virginia. Spanberger won by 15 points. Hashmi by 11 points. Jones won by 6 points. He did 5 and 9 points worse than the other members of the ticket. That's a serious underperformance.
Platner's problems are bigger and we can ill afford a significant democratic underperformance in Maine next year. If our nominee is doing 5 points worse than what a "generic dem" would do in that seat, we will almost certainly lose. If they do 9 points worse they will absolutely lose.
Yes Jones had a serious underperformance, but I think the key point here is that he didn’t lose. In 2023 a Democrat lost her race in Virginia because she basically had an onlyfans and had sex that was recorded to give others pleasure. In 2025 a Democrat said he wanted to murder a Republican and his kids and still won. It’s night and day.
What you’re assuming though is that right now is the max level of tolerance for Democrats and that more of our voters and swing voters won’t shift towards an “I don’t care” posture for any Democrat who has a damaging scandal. I think that’s fairly unlikely, once the ball starts rolling it’s extremely unlikely to suddenly stop. Did it with Republicans? No, it did not. Don’t assume our voters can’t be just as partisan even if we’re not quite there yet either.
Platner could very well underperform, no doubt, but if it’s a good enough year even a controversial candidate can win in a blue state (after all, Virginia is less blue than Maine and far more prone to electing Republicans into power). I wouldn’t want to take that risk obviously, which is why I’m tepidly with Mills, but I don’t think he’s certain to lose either if he wins the primary.
Reducing things to win/lose removes our ability to gleam useful information. We cannot rationally assess things if we handwave away the fact that he did 5 and 9 points worse than those he shared the ballot with.
Jones did underperform, and substantially so. Can we afford that in Maine? Platner's problems are bigger than Jones', and Collins is strongest republican we will face next year, when measured as value-over-replacement for election performance. Far stronger than Miyares.
I’m not dismissing it at all, I’m saying that even with a massive underperformance (unclear how much that could theoretically be as a hypothetical), it’s not entirely clear Platner will definitely lose and it’s certainly not guaranteed that voters will give Graham Platner as our nominee a 9 point electoral penalty.
Nor is it guaranteed that it will be less either, but I think it’s at least possible and worth considering all the outcomes instead of matter of factly saying Graham Platner’s scandal will be a worse one for voters than Jones. That’s an assumption I don’t agree with for the reasons I outline in my reply above.
Let's not overlook, though, that loads of Democratic and independent voters have made an exception for Collins again and again, so that by itself could handicap the Democratic candidate by a few points before taking anything else into account.
Lance Bottoms was mayor during Covid and the subsequent problems that afflicted every city afterward (the murder rate in Atlanta spiked coming out of Covid for instance) and then worked for the Biden Administration after she decided not to run again. Not exactly two things you want on your political resume in the year 2025.
She also legitimately was a terrible administrator who fired the best folks from the Reed team and installed people who didn't know what the hell they were doing. She carries a ton of baggage and would be a disaster.
I’m not yet going to say a black Democrat can’t win a Georgia Governor’s race during a Trump midterm (after all Abrams first run came very close). DOA seems a bit too strong, but she or any other of our candidates who are black would have an uphill climb over someone like Duncan. But so did Abrams in 2018 and she almost got there. With 8 more years of suburban/Blacklanta growth, it’s certainly still possible in my mind regardless of who we nominate.
If I'm not mistaken the only white candidate is Duncan who won't likely be popular with Democratic primary voters (he only recently changed parties and when he did he had to immediately drastically change his positions on several key issues including abortion).
As of now I am learning Esteves (who is both Latino and African American) as he seems to be the most inspiring. Thurmond is (by far) the most qualified but is also pretty old and his Senate campaign was pretty bad.
Is anyone saying no Black Democrat could win a gubernatorial election in Georgia? That would be really stupid, because why would Georgians vote for one for U.S. Senate but not even be willing to consider one for Governor? The candidate matters, but I think it's clearly proven that Georgians are willing to vote for Black Democrats in state-wide races.
Perhaps I misunderstood the intention of the comment. I thought they were stating so because she’s black and from Atlanta. I also think we both know Governor is different in voters minds to Senator. It’s quite possible a majority wouldn’t consider a black Democrat for Governor, leading the entire state, but would for 1 Senator out of 100. I’m not actually saying that’s the case though and I personally doubt that possibility, but voters are weird, who knows?
My overall point though is that I don’t think anyone in a Trump midterm could be written off (except maybe Abrams, too much damage and baggage now), even Bottoms who the poster said would be DOA as our nominee. I don’t agree with that at all.
Lance Bottoms could definitely win a general especially against someone like Jones. It’s not at all comparable to Crockett because Texas is way redder than Georgia.
Bottoms leads substantially among every single demographic group. Sorts by race, age group, gender, education, income level, and political views--she is way ahead in every one. I suspect that much of what this reflects is that she is better known.
The AJC senate poll shows Ossoff's approval in handling his job as U.S. Senator among Democrats at 79%-11% and among Republicans it is 20%-77%. I think this is pretty good a year out, especially with 20% of R's approving of his performance. Further, in the R primary, no one is over 30%. Let them fight each other through a runoff.
Name rec specifically from an area where a good chunk of the Democrats are.
She worries me, given that decided not to run for re-election as mayor of Atlanta due to the chaos and stress, which are basically what defines this era of America.
Yeah, it's a shame that the poll does not ask about name recognition question (or at least the result is not posted). He has not been a statewide official for 15 years though. Still, one would think his being DeKalb County CEO would raise his profile in the Atlanta area a lot.
He was a statewide official 15 years ago in a state with a fair amount of migration, don't really think that matters. However he was very recently the CEO of the 4th largest county, which I think is a bit weirder that he's so low.
I don’t think we should write anyone off as DOA in a Trump midterm in a state moving left consistently in each election cycle. It’ll be harder for her or any other black Democrat for sure, but not impossible.
I think this is a good comp. The Dem nominee only needs to outrun Harris by 2.2 to win. But is there anything specific about Bottoms that would make her an unusually weak candidate apart from Atlanta being well to the left of the state?
Was regarded as a mediocre mayor and Atlanta gets a pretty bad rep outstate. She left after just one term as mayor for reasons we don't really know for sure but generally not running for re-election raises alot of questions.
Oh, super interesting. At this point, I have a hard time seeing it be successful with so many voters autopiloting to vote for the Dem nominee and oppo around his connections to Johnson/failed appointment as zoning chair during the first vacancy and dumb pearl clutching around him being at a protest where a flag was burned. But he has a lot of time before next November to build the case and Garcia's never run for office or been a campaign staffer afaik, so he could out-hustle her.
Would be great if Troy Jackson moves from the Governor's race to ME 2.
Agreed!
Talked with my mother last night, and she said that Democrats swept everything in her suburban town in Connecticut on Tuesday. According to her, the worst-performing Democrat got more votes than the best-performing Republican.
This is important, because this town is very much a swing town at the state and local levels, and currently is represented by Republicans in the state legislature. And if Democrats win most of the legislative seats like this, then that would result in an epic wipeout for Connecticut Republicans.
Yeah, Dems did amazing across Connecticut local elections.
Which town is she in?
She's in the northeastern part of the state. I'd rather not say the exact town.
Current republican and democrat policies are not going to help the common man at this point in our country. We talk about wanting change that makes a difference, but we're not willing to elect people who will make that change, instead, falling back to the same old tired people and policies that keep us where we are, stagnant.
Seems like the people just elected newer, younger people who might change that in Mamdani, Spanberger, and Sherrill, no?
And prop 50 helps keep the Corporate Christian Nationalist state at bay by fighting GOP gerrymandering.
The adjective is "Democratic." People who use "Democrat" as an adjective are usually either Republican shit-talkers or Brits.
this^. we've normalized what gingrich spent decades trying to ingrain into everyones minds, i.e. associate the Democratic party with bureaucrats
Was that the point of the use of "Democrat" as an adjective? I always thought it was a dumb insult, suggesting that the party is not small-d democratic.
There have been a few theories, there's even a Wikipedia page about it!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet)
I don't know that it's suggesting that they're not small-d democratic. I always interpreted it as because using the word "democratic" as a negative term isn't a very good look and difficult to convince people about
But "Democrat" is also inherently positive.
I agree, but "Democrat" can more easily be spun as negative. Firstly due to its similarity to the word "bureaucrat," as previously mentioned. But I think moreso because "democratic" already has another meaning related to democracy.
Using rhetoric against "democratic politicians" or "democratic policy" can easily come off as being anti-democracy (which, don't get me wrong, is what the GOP is. But they don't necessarily want that in their messaging). Using rhetoric against "Democrat politicians" or "Democrat policy" works better for their aims because it's more disconnected from the ideal of democracy, and people can more closely connect it to other negative -crats like bureaucrats, technocrats, autocrats, etc.
Her comment feels kind of trollish and doesn't really advance any kind of election-based discussion anyway.
Since my grammar, faux pas seems to have offended you let me restate: neither republican nor democratic policies are going to help every day Americans with affordability. Mamdani is spot on with his ideas, and I would love to see AOC run for governor of New York.
Sure. Right on.
That's how most 2016 Stein voters sounded. By now everyone should understand that if you don't like either candidate, you have to hold your nose and vote for who you see as the lesser evil.
Anyone who has voted for any length of time runs into a candidate they hold their nose and vote for because the alternative is worse. I was that way with David Min in 2024 after he got picked up for DUI. The primary was already set, and I voted for Min because he was more likely to win against Scott Baugh in the general.
I had voted for Min in 2018 in his primary against Mimi Walters and Katie Porter.
Cal Cunningham tested my resolve, but I choked back the bile and voted for him.
Also Nader in his 57 bids for President, which got change alright but horrible change in the form of the Bush Administration!
I think someone posited this before, but I’d be very curious to see who’d run for MA-7 should (God willing) Ayanna Pressley takes the Senate plunge.
I think State Sen./Former Boston councilwoman Lydia Edwards and current council president Ruthzee Louijeune could run. They’re both Pressley allies so I don’t necessarily see them running against each other.
Hey guys, love this newsletter. But a correction: Maine's Second Congressional District isn't entirely "northern Maine." Even before this decade's redistricting, it included western Maine and a whole lot of communities that weren't Portland, but were decidedly not what you'd call the northern part of the state. Though many Portland residents think anything north of Brunswick is CANADA.
It seems like Portland residents think a little like Chicago area residents. Except we think of every other part of IL as “downstate” even the parts north of us.
So they call Rockford "downstate"?
Pretty much, yeah
I think the question one would ask is “do I drive past cornfields to get there?” and if the answer is yes, then it’s “downstate”.
To pile on the good news from Tuesday, a more thorough recap of the wins in North Carolina (particularly the suburbs in Wake):
https://www.wral.com/news/nccapitol/wake-county-democrats-republicans-elections-november-2025/
https://archive.ph/M40oJ
That bodes well for further breaking that majority in the NC state legislature next year.
Great article; thank you. I love the Wake County Republican chair's excellent Baghdad Bob impression.
Pelosi is retiring
A titanic figure of the House. She’s more than earned her retirement and what a career
Bet Mike Johnson made a stupid snide comment similar to "oh she's retiring because Democrats shut down the government and won't reopen it."
He'd have to have seen the news and it's my understanding that he doesn't read the news.
She’s been great over the years. Her and Reid were the best congressional leaders we’ve had in a long time.
But calling it quits now is the right move. It’s time for a fresh face in the seat and she can still be an ear to congressional democrats without holding office.
Also, Pelosi is factoring in the attack on her husband Paul Pelosi by the loony conspiracy theorist David DePape and has a lot of weight from that incident along with serving in the House, especially since she’s in her mid 80’s.
Democrats even romped in Connecticut's municipal races, amazing.
https://ctmirror.org/2025/11/04/democrats-score-big-in-ct-municipal-races/
29 flips of control from 🔴 to 🔵 according to them. Amazing!
Connecticut’s governor and Democratic state chair framed the blue wave that flipped control of 29 cities and towns to Democrats as evidence of a revived party ready to compete in the 2026 midterm elections after the disastrous and demoralizing 2024 presidential cycle.
“That is remarkable. That is historic, and we did it with a broad spectrum of folks in the electorate,” said Roberto Alves, the Danbury mayor and state party chair. “We had moderate candidates, we have progressive candidates. We are the big-tent party.”
Officials of the two parties agreed, however, that the extent of the Democratic victories in the first general election since Trump’s return to the White House was stunning.
While results still were being analyzed by both parties, it appeared that the only Republican gain Tuesday night was a narrow win giving the GOP control over local government in Easton, a community of about 8,000 residents in Fairfield County.
Thanks for the link.
I’ve seen a lot of takes on social media going “what happened with Texas” because of the 17 constitutional amendments that passed. First, let’s remember, Texas doesn’t have a citizen-led process for amending the state constitution like other states such as California. Here, the Legislature has sole authority to propose constitutional amendments; so there’s no history of voters paying attention to the constitutional propositions. In addition, without a citizen-led initiative there’s no organized opposition or support mechanism to push for or against a proposition. Everything must be organized after it passes the legislature.
What’s interesting, is that prior to the 2000s, it used to be common for some propositions to fail. Prior to 2000, there have been 556 constitutional proposition amendments placed on the ballot (1879-1999), and of those 170 were rejected by voters. Since 2000, 165 propositions have been placed on the ballot and only 7 have been defeated. And that is a historically low number. In the 1800s, 14 were defeated; 1900-1919, 33 were defeated; 1920-1939, 19 lost; 1940-1959, 19 lost; 1960-1979, 53 lost; and 1980-1999, 32 lost.
Second, a lot of people seem to have missed the election for Senate District 9 where the Dem candidate got 47.56% of the vote and is now in a runoff. In 2024, this district voted 58% for Trump versus 40.6% for Harris. In 2020, it was Biden 42.6% vs. Trump 55.7%. The Dem only spent $68,000. He’s also a union president (International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Texas State Council). I’ll be honest, I didn’t even know there was election for this district (I live in San Antonio and the district covers parts of Fort Worth, so that’s probably why). From looking at it, it seems like the more MAGA Republican advanced to the runoff. The two Republicans combined spent $4.1 million.
The runoff date hasn’t been set yet, the governor must set it, with some thinking early next year. I just donated to his campaign so hopefully we can start the new year off with a win and in Texas of all places.
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/11/05/texas-senate-special-election-democrats-tarrant-county/
Link below to his website and then his ActBlue.
https://www.taylorfortx.com/
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/taylor-rehmet-1
NJ 11: Malinowski officially in.
But Malinowski will also have to overcome some major obstacles: most importantly, the fact that he’s not from the 11th district, and until today chaired a party organization in a county that has no overlap with the district. Malinowski noted, however, that two towns he used to represent in the 7th district, Dover and Millburn, are now in the 11th district, and that he currently teaches at Seton Hall University in South Orange; he said he’s planning on moving into the 11th district very soon, though he’s still determining where, and will be an 11th district voter by the time the Democratic primary arrives.
https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/tom-malinowski-makes-it-official-hes-running-to-succeed-mikie-sherrill/
So there are two things that still need to happen in Virginia:
1) The provisional ballots need to be counted and added to the totals, and
2) The early votes and absentee votes in each county need to be assigned to the individual precincts
Do we know when these things are going to get done?
According to VoteRiders, Virginia voters who need to cure their provisional ballots need to do so by tomorrow before 12 p.m. So tomorrow afternoon is when the counties start adding the cured provisional ballots to the total.
The Virginia elections website just reported 58 provisional votes in Hopewell. They're currently all listed under Ward 1, but it's not clear if those provisionals are actually just from Ward 1 or if they're all the provisionals in the entire city of Hopewell.
(Those 58 provisionals went 48-10 for Spanberger.)
Looking forward to seeing more posted soon!
This thread on the Utah case says the judge will rule on the new maps by 11/10. https://x.com/LindsayOnAir/status/1985769371625541831
Assuming with so much shifting around that it's better to wait until dust settles and primaries are actually going, but would would to see how presidential margins (and, if possible, how R-D House candidates fared since it seems hard and maybe not the most fruitful to narrow to the candidates themselves as they move to diff parts of their state) in the places with new maps. https://www.the-downballot.com/p/the-downballots-calculations-of-presidential
Paleo made a subcomment on this yesterday but it's worth further discussing because I too was thinking about it:
After Jay Jones win in Virginia, do we feel more or less better about Platner in Maine?
Jones comments were referring to the other side and Platners were directed at multiple Democratic constituencies.
If primary voters advance him, are we at a point in politics now with Trump where comments mean nothing?? Would it matter VS. Collins?
Jones defeated a generic-R incumbent while Collins has more of a brand. So a little different.
I think Platner is still very risky in terms of the election. Secondarily, I definitely fear he would be a loose cannon if elected, but of course that would be far preferable to Collins winning again.
Would Platner be another Fetterman?
I personally don't think he'd be another Fetterman, but of elected, he could end up becoming another headache of a different sort--just a wildcard, rather than somebody trying to pander to conservatives.
I think he'd be more likely to be another Alan Grayson.
That's a good thought. Of course, we all hope not.
OK, now I really REALLY don't want Platner to win the primary
No. Cenk Uygur interviewed him before and Platner is staunchly anti-fascist, which at this point Fetterman is not.
How can you be so sure as to say an absolutely "no"? This guy probably barely knows what he actually believes. He seems to more or less be a creation of some campaign consultants.
We also didn’t know Kyrsten Sinema was going to be a headache for Democrats in the Senate when she was elected to her first term back in 2018. Fetterman also had chronic depression and was not taking care of his health but also moved weird on issues.
Platner I see as more principled than Fetterman was. With Fetterman, I do not recall him in his Lt Governor race and original Senate race talking about fighting fascism.
But this isn’t to distract from the fact that Platner may still be a liability.
I'm sorry, but Fetterman was always obviously a piece of garbage. While he became worse after the stroke, it was pretty clear certainly when he was running for Senate that he was an unprofessional asshole. Sinema was a green. There are virtually no greens who aren't plants, crooks or nutbags. Again, I don't see any basis to believe Platner has any principles whatsoever. He's an odd guy. A son of wealth, like Fetterman, who has bounced around without direction. Again, he said he joined the military to kill (and enjoyed that) not to serve. What kind of principles are those? He didn't become interested in politics until a bunch of campaign people found him and seemingly more or less created him. He might not believe anything he is saying right now and could easily jump back to the rape victims blaming, black person insulting, Nazi tattoo having guy that he was very, very recently.
It takes more than them being opposed to fascism in order for a democratic official to not be a headache.
True. I agree with that.
My worry is that he would lose to Collins. She could just keep running ads using his 'ACAB' and other social media statements.
This is my first, second and third fear. Every decision we (well the voters of Maine) make here should be around beating Collins. We can sort out who a "better" senator would be later.
Possible although knowing how the election results were two nights ago along with the sentiment Platner is seeing on the campaign trail, I don’t know if the full picture is so obvious.
But Collins still will be a tough incumbent to unseat even if it’s not Platner who is the Democratic Senate Nominee.
This is exactly what I fear.
Platner would be a solid Democratic vote because of his antifa socialist Bernie bro posting background unlike Mills who is a conservative Democrat and vetoed bills protecting work pay discussions, union protections and opposes red flag laws. I think Collins loses either way.
How could one possibly be sure he would be a solid Democratic vote? He hasn't held these positions for long and he could easily switch from them to something else. This is a guy who outright said he joined the military because he wanted to kill people. He was a mercenary. He has said plenty of anti-progressive (to put it lightly) crap and that'a not even getting into the tattoo. He basically has the same profile as Fetterman, with less personal stability. How can we possibly think he likely to support progressive policy?
Who said he hasn’t held these positions for long? He wrote about Bernie and the late Michael Brooks shifting his politics hard to the left after 2015 and was involved with Young Dems in his high school. These are all centrist myths which you are repeating.
Why would he suffer a stroke?
He has also been a local organizer and No Kings speaker. He did not land out of the coconut tree.
Mills is NOT a conservative Democrat. She's an institutionalist for sure, but not a conservative.
I was going to post about this today myself, but a while back I said that we were starting to see a trickling of IOKIYADAR (It’s ok if you’re a Democrat against a Republican) shift in mindset from IOKIYAR (It’s ok if you’re a Republican) of Democratic and swing voters thanks to Trump getting elected again and voters going “is what x person said/did as bad as Trump” or “is it bad enough to let the king’s party win”?
Unfortunately I can’t find the exact comment because substack is terrible for that, but this was the general gist for us to not be surprised if Graham Platner won the primary and/or the general. I’m even firmer on that belief now with Jones winning by 6 points. I’m still not on board with Platner, the tattoo was disqualifying for me in the primary, but if he wins it (and it wouldn’t shock me) I’m absolutely supporting him against Collins.
The days of the political/personal scandal are probably over for Democrats and it’s something I don’t think many realize or are talking about yet in the punditry or MSM. The good news about this change is that the last second “October surprise” scandals that the GOP keep in their pocket until the last second to damage our candidates as much as possible (like they did in VA and I’m so glad that woman Coyner who tried to take out Jones is no longer in office!) is no longer a silver bullet, it’s more like a rubber one. It hurts a lot, but doesn’t kill our campaign/s.
I think Platner would have an easier race in the general than in the primary.
You could very well be right, but I’m not yet at that point myself.
I think scandals involving totally unacceptable personal behavior such as rape would still kill a campaign.
You’re absolutely right, sexual assault and of course the age old cp stuff from any Democrat = still unacceptable. Anything else is kind of a shrug for myself (nazi stuff also is a red line for me, which is why I no longer support Platner). And Republicans definitely still allow sexual assault as acceptable behaviour, so we’ve got that as a plus in our morality.
In hindsight thinking about this more, Democrats have been headed this way for a while. It’s just happening more often recently. Dave Min DUI. John Fetterman as mayor attacking a black man. We started to see hints of it in previous cycles that would’ve sunk our candidates before Trump, but now it’s just an explosion of “I don’t care, I’m still voting for them”.
Honestly my biggest beef with Platner is not even the comments or tattoo themselves. Rather it's his poor judgment making them and getting the tattoo and now choosing the enter the campaign without addressing them, especially the damn tattoo. Ironically if Platner was just an average voter or citizen with the same background, it would make for a nice story of potential change to see someone learn from bad mistakes in life and trying to become better. As it is now, I seriously question his judgment and his sincerity and character.
I am still trying to process how Platner had a Reddit account the whole time and didn’t make a truly anonymous profile.
He would have avoided a lot of liabilities if he had been more conscious of his online presence.
I think Jones' victory matches what we've been hearing on the ground is that the tattoo and Reddit posts aren't hurting Platner as much as some of us who wish there were standards in politics still wanted.
It really sucks the best the Dem establishment could dig up is a soon to be termed out geriatric governor in a state where you probably could scrounge up a better candidate if you bothered looking.
I thought the problem was that all of the better candidates were running for Governor instead of Senator.
Jones' victory doesn't change my evaluation on Platner more. His scandals made me doubtful that he could win before. I'm still doubtful. Maybe a smidge less? But not that much.
Fact is there are two important details to take into account.
(1) Platner's problems are a lot bigger than Jones' problems were. Jones sent a really fucking stupid text message to a republican about wishing something bad on republican officials.
Platner has a bunch of dumb comments he made online, many of which apply to the people he needs to vote for him. If it was only that, I'd be a lot less skeptical of him. Even then, there's a big difference. However, it's not just that. Platner also has a nazi tattoo and has had it for years and years and years, into his 40s. If he got it at 25 and removed or covered it up at 30, that'd be one thing: it'd be an example a mistake in his younger years that was corrected as he got older and learned more. That didn't happen. He's had it for so long and it's not easy to believe he never had any idea what it meant.
(2) Jones still did worse than the two other statewide democrats in Virginia. Spanberger won by 15 points. Hashmi by 11 points. Jones won by 6 points. He did 5 and 9 points worse than the other members of the ticket. That's a serious underperformance.
Platner's problems are bigger and we can ill afford a significant democratic underperformance in Maine next year. If our nominee is doing 5 points worse than what a "generic dem" would do in that seat, we will almost certainly lose. If they do 9 points worse they will absolutely lose.
Yes Jones had a serious underperformance, but I think the key point here is that he didn’t lose. In 2023 a Democrat lost her race in Virginia because she basically had an onlyfans and had sex that was recorded to give others pleasure. In 2025 a Democrat said he wanted to murder a Republican and his kids and still won. It’s night and day.
What you’re assuming though is that right now is the max level of tolerance for Democrats and that more of our voters and swing voters won’t shift towards an “I don’t care” posture for any Democrat who has a damaging scandal. I think that’s fairly unlikely, once the ball starts rolling it’s extremely unlikely to suddenly stop. Did it with Republicans? No, it did not. Don’t assume our voters can’t be just as partisan even if we’re not quite there yet either.
Platner could very well underperform, no doubt, but if it’s a good enough year even a controversial candidate can win in a blue state (after all, Virginia is less blue than Maine and far more prone to electing Republicans into power). I wouldn’t want to take that risk obviously, which is why I’m tepidly with Mills, but I don’t think he’s certain to lose either if he wins the primary.
Reducing things to win/lose removes our ability to gleam useful information. We cannot rationally assess things if we handwave away the fact that he did 5 and 9 points worse than those he shared the ballot with.
Jones did underperform, and substantially so. Can we afford that in Maine? Platner's problems are bigger than Jones', and Collins is strongest republican we will face next year, when measured as value-over-replacement for election performance. Far stronger than Miyares.
I wholly disagree.
I’m not dismissing it at all, I’m saying that even with a massive underperformance (unclear how much that could theoretically be as a hypothetical), it’s not entirely clear Platner will definitely lose and it’s certainly not guaranteed that voters will give Graham Platner as our nominee a 9 point electoral penalty.
Nor is it guaranteed that it will be less either, but I think it’s at least possible and worth considering all the outcomes instead of matter of factly saying Graham Platner’s scandal will be a worse one for voters than Jones. That’s an assumption I don’t agree with for the reasons I outline in my reply above.
Let's not overlook, though, that loads of Democratic and independent voters have made an exception for Collins again and again, so that by itself could handicap the Democratic candidate by a few points before taking anything else into account.
Yup, I’m not at all arguing Platner will win if he’s our nominee, just that he could even with all the issues he has.
Right, it's possible.
AJC poll | 10/15-10/23 LV
Georgia Governor Democratic primary
Keisha Lance Bottoms 40%
Mike Thurmond 11%
Geoff Duncan 5%
Jason Esteves 3%
Ruwa Romman 1%
Derrick Jackson 1%
Lance Bottoms winning the primary in Georgia would be like Crockett winning the primary in TX Sen. DOA in the general.
Don't know much about her. Why is she volatile?
Lance Bottoms was mayor during Covid and the subsequent problems that afflicted every city afterward (the murder rate in Atlanta spiked coming out of Covid for instance) and then worked for the Biden Administration after she decided not to run again. Not exactly two things you want on your political resume in the year 2025.
She also legitimately was a terrible administrator who fired the best folks from the Reed team and installed people who didn't know what the hell they were doing. She carries a ton of baggage and would be a disaster.
Correct me if I’m wrong but all things being equal, wasn’t Reed a pretty good Mayor? (Especially for 2010s Atlanta, in a non-swing state GA)
Yes. There were of course the bribery issues clouding his inner circle, but overall he ran a tight ship & hired competent people.
I’m not yet going to say a black Democrat can’t win a Georgia Governor’s race during a Trump midterm (after all Abrams first run came very close). DOA seems a bit too strong, but she or any other of our candidates who are black would have an uphill climb over someone like Duncan. But so did Abrams in 2018 and she almost got there. With 8 more years of suburban/Blacklanta growth, it’s certainly still possible in my mind regardless of who we nominate.
If I'm not mistaken the only white candidate is Duncan who won't likely be popular with Democratic primary voters (he only recently changed parties and when he did he had to immediately drastically change his positions on several key issues including abortion).
Duncan has no shot in a general either. Jason Estevens is the our best candidate followed by Thurmond.
How come?
As of now I am learning Esteves (who is both Latino and African American) as he seems to be the most inspiring. Thurmond is (by far) the most qualified but is also pretty old and his Senate campaign was pretty bad.
Thurmond sucks too. Estevens or Duncan are the only people on the list above who can win a GE.
Why would Duncan have no shot if he were to win the primary?
Democrats do not like him
Meaning what for the general election, if he gets there?
Is anyone saying no Black Democrat could win a gubernatorial election in Georgia? That would be really stupid, because why would Georgians vote for one for U.S. Senate but not even be willing to consider one for Governor? The candidate matters, but I think it's clearly proven that Georgians are willing to vote for Black Democrats in state-wide races.
Perhaps I misunderstood the intention of the comment. I thought they were stating so because she’s black and from Atlanta. I also think we both know Governor is different in voters minds to Senator. It’s quite possible a majority wouldn’t consider a black Democrat for Governor, leading the entire state, but would for 1 Senator out of 100. I’m not actually saying that’s the case though and I personally doubt that possibility, but voters are weird, who knows?
My overall point though is that I don’t think anyone in a Trump midterm could be written off (except maybe Abrams, too much damage and baggage now), even Bottoms who the poster said would be DOA as our nominee. I don’t agree with that at all.
Let's pursue this a little further: if people are pissed off enough, even Abrams could win.
Lance Bottoms could definitely win a general especially against someone like Jones. It’s not at all comparable to Crockett because Texas is way redder than Georgia.
Bottoms is also much less polarizing/confrontational than Crockett, though that’s offset a bit by her having been a mediocre /not super popular mayor
Bottoms leads substantially among every single demographic group. Sorts by race, age group, gender, education, income level, and political views--she is way ahead in every one. I suspect that much of what this reflects is that she is better known.
Name rec primarily.
BTW, sorry if already discussed:
The AJC senate poll shows Ossoff's approval in handling his job as U.S. Senator among Democrats at 79%-11% and among Republicans it is 20%-77%. I think this is pretty good a year out, especially with 20% of R's approving of his performance. Further, in the R primary, no one is over 30%. Let them fight each other through a runoff.
20% R approval is pretty staggering. Definitely bodes well for his re-election chances.
Why is Keisha Bottoms so far ahead in the primary for the gubernatorial race?
name rec?
Name rec specifically from an area where a good chunk of the Democrats are.
She worries me, given that decided not to run for re-election as mayor of Atlanta due to the chaos and stress, which are basically what defines this era of America.
Right, but Thurmond was actually a state-wide official, so that's why this seems surprising.
Yeah, it's a shame that the poll does not ask about name recognition question (or at least the result is not posted). He has not been a statewide official for 15 years though. Still, one would think his being DeKalb County CEO would raise his profile in the Atlanta area a lot.
He was a statewide official 15 years ago in a state with a fair amount of migration, don't really think that matters. However he was very recently the CEO of the 4th largest county, which I think is a bit weirder that he's so low.
didn't read hilltopper's comment before I posted basically the exact same thing *facepalm*
The 4th largest county has less than 7% of the population, and still dropping.
Definitely more than 7% of the Democratic primary
Last on the statewide ballot 20 years ago? More than half of the voters probably don’t even know who he is.
The primary hasn't even started. And she'll be DOA in a general election.
I don’t think we should write anyone off as DOA in a Trump midterm in a state moving left consistently in each election cycle. It’ll be harder for her or any other black Democrat for sure, but not impossible.
It is harder for her. Not sure about the statement on other Black candidates.
She is not DOA. After Jay Jones outran Harris against a solid incumbent in Miyares, even she can beat someone like Burt Jones.
Virginia is 5-10% bluer than Georgia
yeah and he won by 6 with a terrible scandal against a strong Republican
I think this is a good comp. The Dem nominee only needs to outrun Harris by 2.2 to win. But is there anything specific about Bottoms that would make her an unusually weak candidate apart from Atlanta being well to the left of the state?
Was regarded as a mediocre mayor and Atlanta gets a pretty bad rep outstate. She left after just one term as mayor for reasons we don't really know for sure but generally not running for re-election raises alot of questions.
1) Terrible mayor
2) Not good on the stump/on her feet
3) Left post with city still recovering from Covid
4) History of dumb statements and waffling when confronted with a tough issue.
Why? Do you think GA voters will flock to election denier Burt Jones over her inn what should be a Democratic year?
Progressive Chicago Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez has formed an exploratory committee to run as an independent for Il-4 following Chuy García’s attempt to install his CoS Patty Garcia as his successor: https://chicago.suntimes.com/elections/2025/11/05/byron-sigcho-lopez-possible-independent-bid-jesus-chuy-garcia-congressional-seat
Well you were right, he did run (so far). Good, what Garcia did was dirty.
Oh, super interesting. At this point, I have a hard time seeing it be successful with so many voters autopiloting to vote for the Dem nominee and oppo around his connections to Johnson/failed appointment as zoning chair during the first vacancy and dumb pearl clutching around him being at a protest where a flag was burned. But he has a lot of time before next November to build the case and Garcia's never run for office or been a campaign staffer afaik, so he could out-hustle her.