In IL-7 and IL-9, the vote was split so much. It would work so much better in Illinois to run our primaries like Alaska and take the top four vote getters regardless of party.
Illinois really has gone through a major changing of the guard these past 8 years, which makes sense with the passage of time of course - but after January of next year the dean of the delegation will be Bill Foster (who was first elected in 2008). It’s definitely a big shift from when people like Schakowsky, Davis, Rush, Gutierrez, Durbin, and Shimkus, who had been in office since the 90s, represented the state.
"Dean of the delegation" isn't really a defined role to my knowledge, does it for sure go to the person with the longest continuous service or longest overall?
Dean of a state's delegation is more of a stat/title than any kind of political role. It simply refers to the member of Congress with the longest continuous service
A simple question: would it have been wiser for Cindy Burbank to have kept her mouth shut, and announce her support for Dan Osborn, Nebraska’s Independent candidate for Senate, only ahead of the general election? I fail to see what she has achieved by voicing her intentions already now – which merely gave Nebraska’s Republican Secretary of State the ammunition he needed to throw her off the ballot.
To put it another way, I fail to see any upside to her voicing her intentions now.
With reference to people who are mildly informed and think before they vote, yes. Unfortunately, that’s probably not as overwhelming a majority as we would like to believe.
Anyone have a clue in reference to that VA underperformance? Would have thought with the redistricting vote nearing that the Democrats would have been energized there???
1) State Dems are working overtime on the redistricting vote, ergo they didn't focus as much attention on this race especially since they have a comfortable majority already.
2) The redistricting vote is not nearly as popular as expected (which unfortunately is backed by early vote data - Republicans are turning out in droves).
⬆️"The redistricting vote is not nearly as popular as expected".
The GOP has been sending out mailers that mislead traditionally Democratic voters about the redistricting vote - especially to African American voters. Center for Common Ground is running twice weekly phonebanks to BIPOC voters. I restacked some information from a recent Chop Wood, Carry Water post about it here:
In addition, if you want to encourage the YES vote, Activate America (www.activateamerica.vote) still has plenty of addresses for their VA "Vote Yes" campaign. There are mail ASAP but no later than April 8.
Illinois results last night were mixed but overall either the person I wanted to win, won, and/or the person I wanted to lose, lost.
• Sen: Stratton had been my preferred Senate candidate from the beginning
• IL-2: I preferred Peters, but if the choice is between someone supported by AIPAC or someone literally prosecuted for public corruption, I will take AIPAC
• IL-7: Nothing really strongly recommended Ford in particular personally, but he was targeted by crypto, AI and AIPAC dollars, so I'm glad he won.
• IL-8: Basically a clusterfuck of a half-dozen relatively equally qualified candidates until a former Rep. jumped in and cruised to the nomination, nothing to be done really.
• IL-9: Carpetbagging bugs me, influencers bug me, I'm glad Kat didn't win. Biss annoyed me in 2018 when he kicked Carlos Ramirez-Rosa to the curb with no support, but he's a strong progressive.
Good summary. I'm happy that Climate Hawks Vote had its 1st primary win (Biss). Didn't have a dog in the Senate fight but personally happy that Stratton won. The other House races are meh (I liked Peters in IL-02 and Ahmed and Morrison in IL-08).
Axios is calling this a “complete wipeout” for “the Squad”. Not mentioned in their article is the vote-splitting. I heard IL-07’s progressives collectively took 50% of the vote. They also tried to somehow spin Biss winning as a left loss because Kat didn’t win.
It seems like it was a mixed bag yesterday in the IL primaries with respect to candidates taking $$$ from PACs like AIPAC and crypto currency.
Donna Miller (IL-02) and Melissa Bean (IL-08) were both supported by special interest groups and won their races, while Daniel Biss (IL-09) won his race despite $$$ of outside money from AIPAC and others being spent to promote one of his opponents Laura Fine. IIRC Daniel Biss eschewed corporate money altogether.
In IL-7 and IL-9, the vote was split so much. It would work so much better in Illinois to run our primaries like Alaska and take the top four vote getters regardless of party.
Illinois really has gone through a major changing of the guard these past 8 years, which makes sense with the passage of time of course - but after January of next year the dean of the delegation will be Bill Foster (who was first elected in 2008). It’s definitely a big shift from when people like Schakowsky, Davis, Rush, Gutierrez, Durbin, and Shimkus, who had been in office since the 90s, represented the state.
That’s quite the stat!
Also, Foster hasn't even been serving continuously since 2008 - he lost in 2010 and got elected in a different seat in 2012.
Oh true, in that case it would be Quigley then - it will become Foster if Quigley wins his mayoral election next year.
"Dean of the delegation" isn't really a defined role to my knowledge, does it for sure go to the person with the longest continuous service or longest overall?
Dean of a state's delegation is more of a stat/title than any kind of political role. It simply refers to the member of Congress with the longest continuous service
Yeah I guess what I'm musing is, since it's informal role and since non-consecutive terms aren't super common, would they make that distinction?
A simple question: would it have been wiser for Cindy Burbank to have kept her mouth shut, and announce her support for Dan Osborn, Nebraska’s Independent candidate for Senate, only ahead of the general election? I fail to see what she has achieved by voicing her intentions already now – which merely gave Nebraska’s Republican Secretary of State the ammunition he needed to throw her off the ballot.
To put it another way, I fail to see any upside to her voicing her intentions now.
Probably. But she may have a decent chance to get back on the ballot. And wouldn't Forbes being anti-abortion benefit Osborne anyway?
With reference to people who are mildly informed and think before they vote, yes. Unfortunately, that’s probably not as overwhelming a majority as we would like to believe.
Yeah, a majority, but hardly overwhelming there. Also, incredibly low on people's priorities these days.
Anyone have a clue in reference to that VA underperformance? Would have thought with the redistricting vote nearing that the Democrats would have been energized there???
I've seen two theories so far:
1) State Dems are working overtime on the redistricting vote, ergo they didn't focus as much attention on this race especially since they have a comfortable majority already.
2) The redistricting vote is not nearly as popular as expected (which unfortunately is backed by early vote data - Republicans are turning out in droves).
⬆️"The redistricting vote is not nearly as popular as expected".
The GOP has been sending out mailers that mislead traditionally Democratic voters about the redistricting vote - especially to African American voters. Center for Common Ground is running twice weekly phonebanks to BIPOC voters. I restacked some information from a recent Chop Wood, Carry Water post about it here:
https://substack.com/@cj277/note/c-229345330
In addition, if you want to encourage the YES vote, Activate America (www.activateamerica.vote) still has plenty of addresses for their VA "Vote Yes" campaign. There are mail ASAP but no later than April 8.
Or, the early vote tends to be GOP-leaning in Virginia, as we saw in 2025, and the GOP state house candidate benefited from that.
What’s the prediction on the referendum ? I believe polymarket dropped below 80%…
Betting odds are not relevant to this site.
I still think it passes.
I'd like to see a new poll.
I’m going to say it passes by six percentage points (aligned with Harris vote from 2024) but clearly not at Spanberger double digit levels…
Interesting excerpt from an early Nov 2025 WAPO article on the Virginia elections (almost seems comparable to the current situation) -
“…Some of the highest early voting turnout has been concentrated in Republican-leaning areas, according to VPAP data.”
And we all know how THOSE elections ended up 👍🏻
Illinois results last night were mixed but overall either the person I wanted to win, won, and/or the person I wanted to lose, lost.
• Sen: Stratton had been my preferred Senate candidate from the beginning
• IL-2: I preferred Peters, but if the choice is between someone supported by AIPAC or someone literally prosecuted for public corruption, I will take AIPAC
• IL-7: Nothing really strongly recommended Ford in particular personally, but he was targeted by crypto, AI and AIPAC dollars, so I'm glad he won.
• IL-8: Basically a clusterfuck of a half-dozen relatively equally qualified candidates until a former Rep. jumped in and cruised to the nomination, nothing to be done really.
• IL-9: Carpetbagging bugs me, influencers bug me, I'm glad Kat didn't win. Biss annoyed me in 2018 when he kicked Carlos Ramirez-Rosa to the curb with no support, but he's a strong progressive.
Mixed bag. Glad to see Fine, Conyears-Ervin, and Crypto Raja lose. Offset by the Melissa Bean win.
Good summary. I'm happy that Climate Hawks Vote had its 1st primary win (Biss). Didn't have a dog in the Senate fight but personally happy that Stratton won. The other House races are meh (I liked Peters in IL-02 and Ahmed and Morrison in IL-08).
I preferred Morrison as well for more LGBTQ representation, but yeah the race really changed when Bean got in.
Axios is calling this a “complete wipeout” for “the Squad”. Not mentioned in their article is the vote-splitting. I heard IL-07’s progressives collectively took 50% of the vote. They also tried to somehow spin Biss winning as a left loss because Kat didn’t win.
that sound you might hear is my eyes rolling at terminal velocity.
Axios is the Melissa Bean of on-line news sites.
It seems like it was a mixed bag yesterday in the IL primaries with respect to candidates taking $$$ from PACs like AIPAC and crypto currency.
Donna Miller (IL-02) and Melissa Bean (IL-08) were both supported by special interest groups and won their races, while Daniel Biss (IL-09) won his race despite $$$ of outside money from AIPAC and others being spent to promote one of his opponents Laura Fine. IIRC Daniel Biss eschewed corporate money altogether.
Berger wants the NCSBE to examine 220 ballots, no word on whether the GOP-controlled board will act on it
https://www.wral.com/news/nccapitol/nc-elections-board-berger-recount-request-senate-page-march-2026/
Looks like he's going to try the same shenanigans that got Jefferson Griffin slapped down in May 2025.