This same Sawant who wanted Harris to lose to "help Palestine". She directly stated that the main purpose the Green (Russian) Party campaign is to deny Harris a win. She doesn't deserve even "1 percent" of the vote in the primary which she wanted to deny Harris a win. These types think that Sanders and AOC are traitors.
And who in 2016 was campaigning for Jill Stein in swing states like Pennsylvania (is that what Seattle voters elected her to do?) When asked about the possibility that Stein or other third party candidates might help Trump win, her response was basically "So what?"
As Lakshya Jain put it, "I have a higher chance of winning a write-in campaign for president than she does of getting to Congress." (And Jain's too young for the WH).
I can't imagine the nerve of someone who kneecapped Harris in 2024 and helped give us Trump now wanting left leaning voters to support them for office. The answer I would give such a person is to kiss my ass.
This year is a bit different, in that we have widespread and intense frustration with members of the Democratic Party who are perceived as not doing enough. That will provide more motivation than in an average year to throw incumbents out.
I think we're at the point of it being hating congress / also hating your own representative, but not as much. It's so rare for people to have a positive opinion of much of anyone in congress these days.
In aggregate, I doubt it. In specific instances? It definitely could.
One of the bigger obstacles right now, I think, is having credible challengers with good funding appear in the right districts/states.
E.g. someone like Stephen Lynch could realistically lose a primary. His district has shifted a lot demographically since he was first elected and his moderate stances aren't the strong fit that they once were for his electorate.
He will probably cruise to reelection if he is only challenged by underfunded candidates with little/no name recognition and minimal political experience. Which looks like the scenario now.
We did see a few seemingly safe incumbents lose not that long ago. Crowley and Capuano both lost in 2018. Lipinski, Clay, and Engel all lost in 2020. Schrader lost in 2022, although we lost the seat that year. Bowman and Bush lost in 2024, which technically fits the letter of the point but goes against the spirit because they had previously defeated Engel and Clay, respectively. For simplicity I'm not counting any of the 2022 races that were between incumbents due to redistricting.
Something in the range of 2-4 incumbents losing renomination per cycle is our norm now. It'd be strange if no incumbents lost a primary.
If we found four democrats in safe blue seats that were disappointments and replaced them with people that weren't via primary, I'd be happy with the results and consider it a good step forward for improving the party.
Independent Nicolette Boele has been declared the winner of the Sydney electorate of Bradfield, after a nail-biting recount. The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) declared the final margin after the recount to be 26 votes in Boele’s favour.
The teal independent defeated Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian for the seat in Sydney’s north which had been held by the Liberal party since its creation in 1949.
So, Democrats and good Independents won 14 of the 17 contested mayoral races in Mississippi? That is absolutely stellar! The article to which MPC linked, shows how amazingly close some of those races were.
Senator John Cornyn simply does not score high enough on the MAGA / Fascist / Corrupt / Trump brown-noser index. The GOP has moved on and is now wholly owned by Hair Furore.
Only if Trump's 2024 Latino coalition holds which seems more and more unlikely by each passing day, Paxton would be in deep trouble if it's a 2018 repeat.
It wouldn't just be deep trouble for Paxton, but a major repudiation of the Texas GOP. Cruz only won re-election against Beto in 2018 by less than 3 points.
Not sure this is true. Cruz is pretty roundly despised on a personal level by people in both parties. Paxton is a dangerous loon but it's not clear to me that he is hated by your average Texas Republican and certainly not by the MAGA crew.
I've been sorely disappointed or furious during the past several election cycles -- 2016 Presidential, 2020 NC/ME US Senate, 2022 NC US Senate/state Supreme Court, 2024 TX/MO/MT/OH US Senate/Presidential.
I hope voters do step up next year, 2028 and beyond. Eligible people not voting (voter suppression or indifference) is hurting our country.
Yes. However, the one of the big issues in the TX-SEN race is turnout with key voter demographics. Democrats are going to need to get the edge with Hispanic and Latino voters if they want to win.
Ted Cruz won re-election last year in part because of this.
Ok. In case it matters, I made my argument in light of the context you made with Likely R.
The truth is, any rating races have can be impacted by turnout depending on which side we’re referring to. I was mainly bringing up the situation with Democrats needing to turnout the key voters in spite of the rating the TX-SEN race has.
Allred needs to make Paxton/Cornyn the face of DOGE and hit them on high cost of goods, supporting firing veterans and outsourcing American jobs due to Trump's disastrous tariffs.
Because Texas GOP WILL bring up trans people as another punching bag/scare tactic to paint him with again. Best thing to do is pivot and attack like in the Omaha mayor's race (like "Ken is obsessed with potties, Colin wants to fix the roads").
Allred was one of the strongest candidates Democrats had last year.
That said, I don’t know if a repeat Senate run by him will make enough of a dent, unless Ken Paxton primaries John Cornyn out of office and becomes such a toxic general election nominee for the GOP that he pisses off all key demographics Ted Cruz won in 2024.
I'm not particularly optimistic about our chances there, but Safe R feels like too extreme a rating. I'd say Likely R with Cornyn and Likely R with Paxton, with the possibility to move to Lean R if the environment continues to deteriorate for the GOP.
Something I was wondering about is what legislative body has the longest run of one party control? I think the answer might be the Kansas Senate, which has been in GOP hands since the 1916 elections, but I didn't do a comprehensive search.
flagging that you all left out that the VA-11 Democratic Primary has been set for June 28th. Also you all didn't mention the other candidates. https://www.cd11votes.com/
When Glenn Youngkin set September 9 for a special election to fill the seat of the late Gerry Connolly, who died on May 21, it created a reasonable interval of a little more than three months for campaigning. By contrast, Greg Abbott called a special election to fill the seat of the late Sylvester Turner for November 4. Since he died on March 5, that means that residents of that district will lack Congressional representation for seven months. Trump's big abominable bill passed the House by a single vote.
Amanda Litman of Run for Something had a very valid point about Trump and pro-Trump politicians a few days ago:
"Ernst is another proof point of one of the core problems the GOP is going to have moving forward: only Trump has the brand and charisma to get away with his bullshit. Anyone else who tries just comes off as straight up batshit."
This is me elaborating further on my part, but, if and when Trump/MAGA-style politics becomes broadly unpopular enough that Republicans have virtually no path to a national victory as the far-right party they currently are, the GOP is going to have an internal identity crisis. The GOP is full of people who are basically political and ideological clones of Trump without a cult of personality of their own. There's already evidence of the GOP being on long-term shaky ground in the 2024 results despite winning a federal trifecta (Trump/AOC voters in NY-14, GOP Senate candidates in WI, MI, and NV losing due to some Trump voters undervoting for U.S. Senate, GOP winning a House majority by only several thousand or so votes across a few districts, and many other similar examples).
Heavily agree. There also could be an element of sexism that will work against Ernst. We lost a lot of the male vote in recent years and while I’m convinced much of those voters are gone due to the over-all realignment of rural/suburban voters, there are still some who could go back to Dems if we run candidates who look like them.
Ernst has now come off as squishy and weird and that’s very anti-Trump and anti-macho. Be weird but be strong and rich as fucking shit so no one question it. Jason Kander damn near won MO-Sen 2016 by putting a gun together in a tv ad. Sanders and AOC are more popular than expected bc they have convictions and don’t back down. Some machismo is warranted in politics.
Which, is why I believe policy is secondary to image and candidacy. The number of times I’ve heard people say, “I just vote for the person.” It’s a worthless, stupid way to vote unless it’s like an AL-Sen Roy Moore situation. Policy is everything, it’s about making it looking good with strong candidates.
It’s going to be difficult for sure to unseat Joni Ernst although 51% Trump approval isn’t particularly high. It’s only marginally better than if Trump had say a 48% approval rating.
Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has left the Democratic Party for not defending Biden aggressively during the 2024 campaign before Biden was forced out of seeking re-election; Jean Pierre is now an independent:
KJP, if I recall correctly, cannot legally run for president, as she was born in France to Haitian parents, so there isn't a threat of KJP spoiling the 2028 election for Democrats as a presidential candidate. Also, KJP's reasoning for leaving the Democratic Party rings quite hollow, as she was a very ineffective press secretary for Biden (although the right-wing bias that is rampant in the White House press corps did her no favors whatsoever), and Biden never considering firing KJP (or virtually anyone else he appointed to a prominent position and could have fired) proved one of Biden's biggest failings as POTUS was that he was loyal to people he liked and/or appointed to office to a fault.
Furthermore, any strategy of boycotting traditional book publishers over putting out anti-Biden and/or anti-Democratic books would backfire immediately, as, aside from the fact that anything seen as book banning is extremely unpopular among Democrats, people like KJP and Jake Trumper...er, I mean...Tapper would simply go the self-publishing route if they had to and make more money off of royalties that way. The big downside of self-publishing is that it takes a lot of time, money, and effort to produce a self-published book of similar/comparable quality to traditionally published books.
If the GOP is losing people like Walsh, that's not a good sign for them long-term, and, if the Trump cult collapses all at once like I suspect might happen before the end of the current presidential term, Walsh might be ahead of the curve when it comes to ex-far-right people leaving the GOP.
That's a ridiculous tantrum from her. The party cannot do anything if we do not win elections and no amount of circling the wagons was going to propel Biden to victory by the time the debate had happened.
She, and other die-hard Biden loyalists, need to look in the mirror and take accountability for their part in getting us to that place.
But considering that the linked article says this all came about from her book, I think she's grifting and nothing more. Pissing people off to get attention will lead to more people hearing about the book, which might lead to more sales.
Tipped, but considering how bad Trump's press secretaries have been, "among the worst" seems like a very low bar. I definitely agree on Psaki, and I did feel like Jean-Pierre was a clear step down.
I don't pay much attention to press secretaries. Can you tell me why you think she was among the worst? I will say, I remember when Psaki scoffed at the idea that inflation was occuring. That was an absurd, tone deaf moment.
FWIW, Walsh has always been a bit of a political chameleon.
He ran for office twice in the late '90s as a moderate, pro-choice Republican (and lost in a blowout both times). Then, he reinvented himself as a Tea Party wacko, then suddenly found his conscience when Trump arrived on the scene (even though Walsh was basically a dime-store Trump before Trump). So who knows what he's trying to do now?
In the most predictable news ever, the fight between two narcissistic far right billionaires has escalated as Musk, recently cast aside by Trump in Washington, is rallying Republican opposition to the “Big Beautiful Bill” as revenge for losing his power. I wonder how long Trump stays silent as his agenda becomes imperiled by a former ally. I give it a day or two. It’s very sad we live in this reality right now, but we do.
Good reporting on something Democrats badly lag Republicans in doing: year-round online engagement.
Picking out 1 instance of something voters are against and re-running that story with whoever fits that profile (for example any time a transgender person competes in a women’s sport event) and spreading it through the massive right wing media echo chamber. It’s an endless stream of red meat for their base to keep them constantly engaged every day and can trickle out to swing voters on occasion influencing them.
I imagine something on the left that could be successful is using book bans by Republican school boards, racist/sexist/intolerant comments by Republican elected officials, climate change denial juxtaposed with a 1 in 500 year flood/fire/drought etc. Keeping our supporters constantly reminded about why they hate Republicans, like the Republicans do so well reminding their voters why they hate Democrats.
Spending more money than we already do on persuasion or fundraising is a waste, build a brand, constantly reinforce it with “look how awful Republicans are”, push that message every day in all media forms from Facebook to Podcasts, it’s far easier to get someone to vote for you not because see they support you or your party, but by default because they don’t like their other choice.
It’s how Trump was elected twice. It’s why the GOP have a trifecta. It works. Democrats need to start doing this yesterday. Bottom line: Democrats aren’t online enough like Republicans are.
I don’t know whether that’s true. Online is not the main problem. Propaganda cable TV stations are. And local networks like Sinclair. And there are still a lot of people, especially in the heartland, who listen to “talk radio,” which is wall to wall right wing.
How do we breakthrough though? All of these mediums are owned by right wing billionaires who are willing to lose money so long as they can offset it with a decrease in taxes. What does this look like on the Left? Even "Liberal Hollywood" is a misnomer nowadays.
I absolutely agree with that. I have a friend from Middle School who's an uber conservative former Marine and we talk politics all the time. He's never going to vote for a Dem and I'm never going to vote for a Rep but I always took the approach to challenge his posts on FB because if a person who's on the fence can see the other side that's a big help but I just don't know how we can bring people to our side.
I think the answer is very simply not to make people support our party policy, but to make a majority of Americans hate Republicans so much that we earn their votes by default. This isn’t actually a very hard thing to do, because their party truly is awful (especially when they have full control) and made up of the most awful people in existence. But only if we try to every single day wherever voters are.
Policy doesn’t work, logic doesn’t work, facts don’t work, so let’s follow exactly what Republicans did to win a trifecta with no political guardrails left to protect the people from these horrid policies. I sure would love a Democratic trifecta come 2028 with there being nothing stopping anything Democrats want to do regardless of special interest groups (except maybe the Supreme Court, but then we can use that to grow support for expanding the court).
I don’t want to keep explaining what is true without any indication it actually helps. We did actually do that quite well in Trump’s first term. Our focus was on the GOP’s awfulness NOT on our views about what we wanted to do. What was the reward? Special election victories, off year election victories, general midterm election victories.
I strongly disagree with you that online isn’t the main problem. That’s where most Americans are every single day! There’s no other area in the country that reaches into 60-80% of Americans lives each and every day. Door knocking? Nope. Phone calls? Nope. Tv ads? Nope. Debate? Maybe, but just one time. Democrats would be the stupidest party ever if they ignore this huge amount of voters like they have been.
2024 was literally the online election, Republicans dominated their message everywhere online, it reached swing voters and even convinced loyal long term Democrats to vote for their party on an economy vibes decision. Harris had a massive fundraising and door knocking and call/text operation as well as a ton of tv and online ads, how well did that do again?
If we don’t stop doing exactly what she did in her campaign and think “this time will be different”, we should be locked away in a mental institution. The old way of running campaigns in today’s America is over, it’s time to embrace uncertainty and embrace the new. Social media and online is the new political battlefield for winning a majority of Americans votes. We should accept that reality and work to fix that problem.
Anderson Clayton has been working hard to rectify that mistake since 2023. Not only is the NC Democratic Party being more active online, but they’re hitting all counties and holding listening meetings for areas particularly hit hard by DOGE and federal cuts. And because of this year long activation, they were on the ground with ballot curing efforts that put Allison Riggs over the top last year.
Helps if party officials give us stuff to work with.
I saw Booker's filibuster get a lot of attention online and generate organic, pro-dem discussion. Doing the same thing again won't have the same impact but we need dems doing more stuff like that to help generate/guide discussion.
Every state party better start doing this, the longer we wait to fight back where the majority of minds and votes are won and lost in today’s elections, the harder it’s going to be to turn things around. Clayton, like Wikler understands exactly what Democrats need in order to be motivated to vote.
Every day they post a ton to social media, they go to podcasts and YouTube channels, they bring on celebrities to get more people excited about the party: DEMOCRATS. They send the party message over and over again where most voters are: online.
What happened? Well, Wisconsin re-elected Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin, when swing state Pennsylvania didn’t. North Carolina saw Democrats win 5 row offices at the same time Trump won the state. I think it’s pretty obvious their online focus made a big difference and is what we need to do across the board all the time.
I hope Adam Smith, and by extension, Rick Larson, gets a better challenger if we want the generational change we want
Agreed. Even on left-wing parts of Bluesky no one is taking Sawant seriously that I’ve seen.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/at-seattle-rally-sawant-says-harris-deserves-to-lose-1000-times/
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/do-not-vote-for-those-who-support?
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/jill-stein-harris-michigan-gaza-palestinian-rcna174668
This same Sawant who wanted Harris to lose to "help Palestine". She directly stated that the main purpose the Green (Russian) Party campaign is to deny Harris a win. She doesn't deserve even "1 percent" of the vote in the primary which she wanted to deny Harris a win. These types think that Sanders and AOC are traitors.
And who in 2016 was campaigning for Jill Stein in swing states like Pennsylvania (is that what Seattle voters elected her to do?) When asked about the possibility that Stein or other third party candidates might help Trump win, her response was basically "So what?"
As Lakshya Jain put it, "I have a higher chance of winning a write-in campaign for president than she does of getting to Congress." (And Jain's too young for the WH).
I can't imagine the nerve of someone who kneecapped Harris in 2024 and helped give us Trump now wanting left leaning voters to support them for office. The answer I would give such a person is to kiss my ass.
The Green Party can have Sawant back again.
Nuff said.
Take it from a local - Sawant does not deserve to be taken seriously
Not surprising. She's not a socialist: she comes out of the Socialist Workers Party, which is Trotskyite.
Does that mean she wants a "world revolution" and not Democratic Socialism or even Nordic Social Democracy?
I'd presume so. Trotsky promoted a world revolution and supported a 1-party dictatorship led by the Communist Party.
My opinion is that folks expecting big successes by primary challengers in 2026 are going to be disappointed. It's very rare for them to prevail.
Time will tell but it does feel like there is a strong anti-incumbent sentiment across party lines. It's rare until it's not.
This year is a bit different, in that we have widespread and intense frustration with members of the Democratic Party who are perceived as not doing enough. That will provide more motivation than in an average year to throw incumbents out.
It may, but I have to wonder whether hating Congress but liking your own Representative will again be the rule come election time.
I think we're at the point of it being hating congress / also hating your own representative, but not as much. It's so rare for people to have a positive opinion of much of anyone in congress these days.
OK, but is their opinion negative enough to favor challengers? Time will tell.
In aggregate, I doubt it. In specific instances? It definitely could.
One of the bigger obstacles right now, I think, is having credible challengers with good funding appear in the right districts/states.
E.g. someone like Stephen Lynch could realistically lose a primary. His district has shifted a lot demographically since he was first elected and his moderate stances aren't the strong fit that they once were for his electorate.
He will probably cruise to reelection if he is only challenged by underfunded candidates with little/no name recognition and minimal political experience. Which looks like the scenario now.
Probably. Not certain though.
We did see a few seemingly safe incumbents lose not that long ago. Crowley and Capuano both lost in 2018. Lipinski, Clay, and Engel all lost in 2020. Schrader lost in 2022, although we lost the seat that year. Bowman and Bush lost in 2024, which technically fits the letter of the point but goes against the spirit because they had previously defeated Engel and Clay, respectively. For simplicity I'm not counting any of the 2022 races that were between incumbents due to redistricting.
Something in the range of 2-4 incumbents losing renomination per cycle is our norm now. It'd be strange if no incumbents lost a primary.
Right, 2-4 isn't exactly a lot.
Depends on the 2-4, and where in that range.
If we found four democrats in safe blue seats that were disappointments and replaced them with people that weren't via primary, I'd be happy with the results and consider it a good step forward for improving the party.
Adam Smith is my congressman and he's doing a a great job. Happy to back him over most challengers and for damn sure over Sawant...
Unseated after 76 years!
Independent Nicolette Boele has been declared the winner of the Sydney electorate of Bradfield, after a nail-biting recount. The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) declared the final margin after the recount to be 26 votes in Boele’s favour.
The teal independent defeated Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian for the seat in Sydney’s north which had been held by the Liberal party since its creation in 1949.
Mississippi Democrats had a great Tuesday night too, winning majority of the mayoral races.
https://magnoliatribune.com/2025/06/03/democrats-have-good-night-in-mississippi-mayor-elections/
So, Democrats and good Independents won 14 of the 17 contested mayoral races in Mississippi? That is absolutely stellar! The article to which MPC linked, shows how amazingly close some of those races were.
Every vote matters!
Some of them were WAY closer than the Riggs/Griffin fight, like 40 votes ahead.
VERY good news. If we want to genuinely compete in the Magnolia State, we need to start somewhere.
Did they get a new Democratic state party chair in MS like we did with Anderson Clayton here in NC?
No. Cheikh Taylor has been Chairman since 2023. He serves in the Mississippi House as well.
Anderson also became chair of the NC Dem party in 2023. Big thing MS Dems have going against them is no early voting.
My spidey sense tells me that Cornyn is toast.
Senator John Cornyn simply does not score high enough on the MAGA / Fascist / Corrupt / Trump brown-noser index. The GOP has moved on and is now wholly owned by Hair Furore.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_Senate_election_in_Texas#Background
The reason why they hate Cornyn is soo stupid!
Quelle surprise!
I still think that TX Sen seat is safe R even if Paxton does beat Cornyn in the 2026 primary.
Only if Trump's 2024 Latino coalition holds which seems more and more unlikely by each passing day, Paxton would be in deep trouble if it's a 2018 repeat.
It wouldn't just be deep trouble for Paxton, but a major repudiation of the Texas GOP. Cruz only won re-election against Beto in 2018 by less than 3 points.
And Paxton is WAY more toxic than Cancun Cruz.
Don't these points argue against your point that TX-Sen is Safe R either way?
I'm being pessimistic. Trying to be hopeful but realistic about how elections can go. Texas has let me down before.
Not sure this is true. Cruz is pretty roundly despised on a personal level by people in both parties. Paxton is a dangerous loon but it's not clear to me that he is hated by your average Texas Republican and certainly not by the MAGA crew.
Paxton has a pretty bad approval.
I’d say Likely R. My hope is that Allred polls competitively enough against Pax that the GOP has to spend a ton of money propping up the latter.
How is it safe r? Even last year the Texas Senate race was in single digits, that’s a likely r race at most.
I've been sorely disappointed or furious during the past several election cycles -- 2016 Presidential, 2020 NC/ME US Senate, 2022 NC US Senate/state Supreme Court, 2024 TX/MO/MT/OH US Senate/Presidential.
I hope voters do step up next year, 2028 and beyond. Eligible people not voting (voter suppression or indifference) is hurting our country.
Right, but that doesn't make the race safe. Likely-R races are rarely won by Democrats.
Yes. However, the one of the big issues in the TX-SEN race is turnout with key voter demographics. Democrats are going to need to get the edge with Hispanic and Latino voters if they want to win.
Ted Cruz won re-election last year in part because of this.
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/14/ted-cruz-texas-senate-win-transgender-rights-political-future/
Why is that an "although"?
I am not sure what the disconnect is here but I changed the wording anyway.
The disconnect is that I didn't suggest it was anything but Likely R, so it's neither an "although" nor a "however."
Ok. In case it matters, I made my argument in light of the context you made with Likely R.
The truth is, any rating races have can be impacted by turnout depending on which side we’re referring to. I was mainly bringing up the situation with Democrats needing to turnout the key voters in spite of the rating the TX-SEN race has.
They need that turnout, etc., to have a chance to win, not to be Likely-R.
Allred needs to make Paxton/Cornyn the face of DOGE and hit them on high cost of goods, supporting firing veterans and outsourcing American jobs due to Trump's disastrous tariffs.
Because Texas GOP WILL bring up trans people as another punching bag/scare tactic to paint him with again. Best thing to do is pivot and attack like in the Omaha mayor's race (like "Ken is obsessed with potties, Colin wants to fix the roads").
Allred or whoever else is running. We don't know whether Allred will enter the race.
Allred was one of the strongest candidates Democrats had last year.
That said, I don’t know if a repeat Senate run by him will make enough of a dent, unless Ken Paxton primaries John Cornyn out of office and becomes such a toxic general election nominee for the GOP that he pisses off all key demographics Ted Cruz won in 2024.
He presumably doesn't have to piss off _all_ of the key demographics to lose.
That is true.
I'm not particularly optimistic about our chances there, but Safe R feels like too extreme a rating. I'd say Likely R with Cornyn and Likely R with Paxton, with the possibility to move to Lean R if the environment continues to deteriorate for the GOP.
Cornyn isn't a bomb thrower which is his biggest sin to MagaT voters. They demand constant stimulation from their politicians.
Something I was wondering about is what legislative body has the longest run of one party control? I think the answer might be the Kansas Senate, which has been in GOP hands since the 1916 elections, but I didn't do a comprehensive search.
The Maryland Senate has been Democratic continuously since 1900. And the MD House has for almost all the same time, except for 1918-19.
flagging that you all left out that the VA-11 Democratic Primary has been set for June 28th. Also you all didn't mention the other candidates. https://www.cd11votes.com/
When Glenn Youngkin set September 9 for a special election to fill the seat of the late Gerry Connolly, who died on May 21, it created a reasonable interval of a little more than three months for campaigning. By contrast, Greg Abbott called a special election to fill the seat of the late Sylvester Turner for November 4. Since he died on March 5, that means that residents of that district will lack Congressional representation for seven months. Trump's big abominable bill passed the House by a single vote.
Abbott would have left that seat open until January 2027 if he could.
It would have passed by three if Schweikert wasn't seconds late to vote and Garbarino woke up.
Cornyn trying to claim that he has low name recognition is hilariously sad.
CO-08: State Treasurer Dave Young (D) in.
https://nitter.poast.org/rpyers/status/1930292714530120052#m
Was going to post that. Thanks for doing it yourself Mike.
Very good get
Good candidate, and a solid alternative to Yadira Caraveo!! 💙🇺🇲
IA PPP Senate poll. https://x.com/JuliaManch/status/1930322832119959764
Enough for Cook to move IA-Sen to Likely R (they previously had it as Solid R): https://www.instagram.com/p/DKfZ6aAvfQp/
45% is not a good place for an incumbent. What’s truly telling is that Trump’s at 51% approval in this poll and she’s only at 39%. She’s in trouble.
Amanda Litman of Run for Something had a very valid point about Trump and pro-Trump politicians a few days ago:
"Ernst is another proof point of one of the core problems the GOP is going to have moving forward: only Trump has the brand and charisma to get away with his bullshit. Anyone else who tries just comes off as straight up batshit."
https://bsky.app/profile/amandalitman.bsky.social/post/3lqjxuomvkc2t
This is me elaborating further on my part, but, if and when Trump/MAGA-style politics becomes broadly unpopular enough that Republicans have virtually no path to a national victory as the far-right party they currently are, the GOP is going to have an internal identity crisis. The GOP is full of people who are basically political and ideological clones of Trump without a cult of personality of their own. There's already evidence of the GOP being on long-term shaky ground in the 2024 results despite winning a federal trifecta (Trump/AOC voters in NY-14, GOP Senate candidates in WI, MI, and NV losing due to some Trump voters undervoting for U.S. Senate, GOP winning a House majority by only several thousand or so votes across a few districts, and many other similar examples).
Heavily agree. There also could be an element of sexism that will work against Ernst. We lost a lot of the male vote in recent years and while I’m convinced much of those voters are gone due to the over-all realignment of rural/suburban voters, there are still some who could go back to Dems if we run candidates who look like them.
Ernst has now come off as squishy and weird and that’s very anti-Trump and anti-macho. Be weird but be strong and rich as fucking shit so no one question it. Jason Kander damn near won MO-Sen 2016 by putting a gun together in a tv ad. Sanders and AOC are more popular than expected bc they have convictions and don’t back down. Some machismo is warranted in politics.
Which, is why I believe policy is secondary to image and candidacy. The number of times I’ve heard people say, “I just vote for the person.” It’s a worthless, stupid way to vote unless it’s like an AL-Sen Roy Moore situation. Policy is everything, it’s about making it looking good with strong candidates.
Trump still at 51% approval tells you how difficult Iowa will be, Ernst is still the clear favorite.
It’s going to be difficult for sure to unseat Joni Ernst although 51% Trump approval isn’t particularly high. It’s only marginally better than if Trump had say a 48% approval rating.
I’d say she was the favorite. I don’t know how clear. All depends on how things stand about 15 months from now.
Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has left the Democratic Party for not defending Biden aggressively during the 2024 campaign before Biden was forced out of seeking re-election; Jean Pierre is now an independent:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/04/politics/karine-jean-pierre-biden-book
KJP, if I recall correctly, cannot legally run for president, as she was born in France to Haitian parents, so there isn't a threat of KJP spoiling the 2028 election for Democrats as a presidential candidate. Also, KJP's reasoning for leaving the Democratic Party rings quite hollow, as she was a very ineffective press secretary for Biden (although the right-wing bias that is rampant in the White House press corps did her no favors whatsoever), and Biden never considering firing KJP (or virtually anyone else he appointed to a prominent position and could have fired) proved one of Biden's biggest failings as POTUS was that he was loyal to people he liked and/or appointed to office to a fault.
Furthermore, any strategy of boycotting traditional book publishers over putting out anti-Biden and/or anti-Democratic books would backfire immediately, as, aside from the fact that anything seen as book banning is extremely unpopular among Democrats, people like KJP and Jake Trumper...er, I mean...Tapper would simply go the self-publishing route if they had to and make more money off of royalties that way. The big downside of self-publishing is that it takes a lot of time, money, and effort to produce a self-published book of similar/comparable quality to traditionally published books.
Also, former U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh, a now-former Republican who, among other things, once threatened an armed revolt against Hillary Clinton had she won the 2016 presidential election (https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/26/politics/joe-walsh-donald-trump-protest-tweet/index.html), has joined the Democratic Party:
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5330476-joe-walsh-says-hes-becoming-a-democrat/
If the GOP is losing people like Walsh, that's not a good sign for them long-term, and, if the Trump cult collapses all at once like I suspect might happen before the end of the current presidential term, Walsh might be ahead of the curve when it comes to ex-far-right people leaving the GOP.
That's a ridiculous tantrum from her. The party cannot do anything if we do not win elections and no amount of circling the wagons was going to propel Biden to victory by the time the debate had happened.
She, and other die-hard Biden loyalists, need to look in the mirror and take accountability for their part in getting us to that place.
But considering that the linked article says this all came about from her book, I think she's grifting and nothing more. Pissing people off to get attention will lead to more people hearing about the book, which might lead to more sales.
Jen Psaki was the best press Secretary I’ve seen. Jean-Pierre among the worst.
Tipped, but considering how bad Trump's press secretaries have been, "among the worst" seems like a very low bar. I definitely agree on Psaki, and I did feel like Jean-Pierre was a clear step down.
I don't pay much attention to press secretaries. Can you tell me why you think she was among the worst? I will say, I remember when Psaki scoffed at the idea that inflation was occuring. That was an absurd, tone deaf moment.
FWIW, Walsh has always been a bit of a political chameleon.
He ran for office twice in the late '90s as a moderate, pro-choice Republican (and lost in a blowout both times). Then, he reinvented himself as a Tea Party wacko, then suddenly found his conscience when Trump arrived on the scene (even though Walsh was basically a dime-store Trump before Trump). So who knows what he's trying to do now?
I'm trying to list all the candidates who have announced so far in VA-11. So far I have:
Joshua Aisen, ex-military, not serious
Candice Bennett, Fairfax County planning cmsr, longshot
Leo Martinez, ex Biden Dept of Commerce/ ex Venezuelan legislator
Stella Pekarsky, legislator
Amy Roma, energy policy expert/ atty who just raised $600K in 5 days
Irene Shin, legislator
James Walkinshaw, Connolly protege and frontrunner
Per CATargetbot, a Dan or Daniel Lee may also be filing.
Any others?
In the most predictable news ever, the fight between two narcissistic far right billionaires has escalated as Musk, recently cast aside by Trump in Washington, is rallying Republican opposition to the “Big Beautiful Bill” as revenge for losing his power. I wonder how long Trump stays silent as his agenda becomes imperiled by a former ally. I give it a day or two. It’s very sad we live in this reality right now, but we do.
https://archive.ph/jyy8R
Zero percent chance Trump stays quiet on this. This public divorce was pre-ordained and it's gonna be ugly...
Good reporting on something Democrats badly lag Republicans in doing: year-round online engagement.
Picking out 1 instance of something voters are against and re-running that story with whoever fits that profile (for example any time a transgender person competes in a women’s sport event) and spreading it through the massive right wing media echo chamber. It’s an endless stream of red meat for their base to keep them constantly engaged every day and can trickle out to swing voters on occasion influencing them.
I imagine something on the left that could be successful is using book bans by Republican school boards, racist/sexist/intolerant comments by Republican elected officials, climate change denial juxtaposed with a 1 in 500 year flood/fire/drought etc. Keeping our supporters constantly reminded about why they hate Republicans, like the Republicans do so well reminding their voters why they hate Democrats.
Spending more money than we already do on persuasion or fundraising is a waste, build a brand, constantly reinforce it with “look how awful Republicans are”, push that message every day in all media forms from Facebook to Podcasts, it’s far easier to get someone to vote for you not because see they support you or your party, but by default because they don’t like their other choice.
It’s how Trump was elected twice. It’s why the GOP have a trifecta. It works. Democrats need to start doing this yesterday. Bottom line: Democrats aren’t online enough like Republicans are.
https://archive.ph/2wH68
I don’t know whether that’s true. Online is not the main problem. Propaganda cable TV stations are. And local networks like Sinclair. And there are still a lot of people, especially in the heartland, who listen to “talk radio,” which is wall to wall right wing.
How do we breakthrough though? All of these mediums are owned by right wing billionaires who are willing to lose money so long as they can offset it with a decrease in taxes. What does this look like on the Left? Even "Liberal Hollywood" is a misnomer nowadays.
How do we break through? In part by talking to people, one-on-one. Cultivating conversation, cultivating acquaintances and relationships.
I absolutely agree with that. I have a friend from Middle School who's an uber conservative former Marine and we talk politics all the time. He's never going to vote for a Dem and I'm never going to vote for a Rep but I always took the approach to challenge his posts on FB because if a person who's on the fence can see the other side that's a big help but I just don't know how we can bring people to our side.
I think the answer is very simply not to make people support our party policy, but to make a majority of Americans hate Republicans so much that we earn their votes by default. This isn’t actually a very hard thing to do, because their party truly is awful (especially when they have full control) and made up of the most awful people in existence. But only if we try to every single day wherever voters are.
Policy doesn’t work, logic doesn’t work, facts don’t work, so let’s follow exactly what Republicans did to win a trifecta with no political guardrails left to protect the people from these horrid policies. I sure would love a Democratic trifecta come 2028 with there being nothing stopping anything Democrats want to do regardless of special interest groups (except maybe the Supreme Court, but then we can use that to grow support for expanding the court).
I don’t want to keep explaining what is true without any indication it actually helps. We did actually do that quite well in Trump’s first term. Our focus was on the GOP’s awfulness NOT on our views about what we wanted to do. What was the reward? Special election victories, off year election victories, general midterm election victories.
I strongly disagree with you that online isn’t the main problem. That’s where most Americans are every single day! There’s no other area in the country that reaches into 60-80% of Americans lives each and every day. Door knocking? Nope. Phone calls? Nope. Tv ads? Nope. Debate? Maybe, but just one time. Democrats would be the stupidest party ever if they ignore this huge amount of voters like they have been.
2024 was literally the online election, Republicans dominated their message everywhere online, it reached swing voters and even convinced loyal long term Democrats to vote for their party on an economy vibes decision. Harris had a massive fundraising and door knocking and call/text operation as well as a ton of tv and online ads, how well did that do again?
If we don’t stop doing exactly what she did in her campaign and think “this time will be different”, we should be locked away in a mental institution. The old way of running campaigns in today’s America is over, it’s time to embrace uncertainty and embrace the new. Social media and online is the new political battlefield for winning a majority of Americans votes. We should accept that reality and work to fix that problem.
Anderson Clayton has been working hard to rectify that mistake since 2023. Not only is the NC Democratic Party being more active online, but they’re hitting all counties and holding listening meetings for areas particularly hit hard by DOGE and federal cuts. And because of this year long activation, they were on the ground with ballot curing efforts that put Allison Riggs over the top last year.
Iowa is starting to do the same thing.
Damn right! And so is Ken Martin and many others.
And WE need to be messaging year-round. That’s right: You and me.
Helps if party officials give us stuff to work with.
I saw Booker's filibuster get a lot of attention online and generate organic, pro-dem discussion. Doing the same thing again won't have the same impact but we need dems doing more stuff like that to help generate/guide discussion.
Every state party better start doing this, the longer we wait to fight back where the majority of minds and votes are won and lost in today’s elections, the harder it’s going to be to turn things around. Clayton, like Wikler understands exactly what Democrats need in order to be motivated to vote.
Every day they post a ton to social media, they go to podcasts and YouTube channels, they bring on celebrities to get more people excited about the party: DEMOCRATS. They send the party message over and over again where most voters are: online.
What happened? Well, Wisconsin re-elected Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin, when swing state Pennsylvania didn’t. North Carolina saw Democrats win 5 row offices at the same time Trump won the state. I think it’s pretty obvious their online focus made a big difference and is what we need to do across the board all the time.