A lot of us appreciate the humor in dealing with serious topics. It helps us cope with the craziness of the present times. The GOPs are experiencing "Panic ! at Tedisco" over the current polling. That is a good thing...
I'd love to believe that Healthier United poll, but it's an outlier. Bigly. Cooper is in a good spot, but the gap is closer to 8 than 18. I wouldn't worry much, though. Coop is the most popular politician in the state and secured more votes in his primary than ALL other candidates combined. That's on both sides. And it wasn't close. He also has near universal name recognition and a campaign machine that's been winning statewide elections since 2000. Whatley is a neophyte. He's never run for anything, and while that can work in a candidate's favor it seldom does at this level. Add in a depressed voter base, little name recognition and no seeming ambition to change that very much, and you have an unknown candidate who is basically a referendum on Trump. Because his proximity to Trump is pretty much the ONLY attribute he has working for him. so his fortunes are inextricably entwined with Pol Potbelly's. His voters haven't figured out who he is yet and he's running out of racetrack if he wants to change that.
Like I said, if Cooper secured a Stein/Spanberger sized blowout in a midterm year, that would greatly reduce the GOP supermajority in both houses -- if not flip the state House to Democratic control.
Well I figure the only way Cooper wins as big as Stein is if he’s running against Mark Robinson, which is pretty much how Stein won by a Stein-sized margin. Since he’s *not*, I think half a Stein is a reasonable expectation, which should carry enough coattails to swing a sizable number of NCGA seats. If we *do* see a majority in either house, it’ll probably have more to do with Anderson Clayton securing candidates in all 170 legislative districts than anything. I can see a couple of US House districts flipping as well (NC9 and NC11), not becuase of coattails but because the challengers are putting in the work while the incumbents are hiding in their bunkers.
Flipping the state House this year in NC would be a very big deal (especially with the gerrymandering). NC Republicans would no longer be able to pass red meat bills; they would have to meet in the middle with Democrats to pass budgets and common-sense legislation.
The state senate might be an easier lift, just in terms of sheer numbers and bigger (i.e. harder to gerrymander) districts. But either way, the best that flipping just one chamber can (reliably) do is to bring Raleigh to a grinding halt. THe NCGA — at its most fundamental level — has one job: Pass a budget. Which they haven’t done in either of the past 2 FY. But since the state operates on what’s effectively a permanent CR, there’s no incentive to do that since the CR leaves funding at current levels. The PROBLEM with that is that EXPENSES aren’t conforming to that budget plan, and the state constitution mandates a balanced budget, so as X gets more expensive courtesy of the idiots in DC, the budget in Raleigh effectively shrinks because funding levels for FY 2024 don’t buy as much X at 2026 prices.
But there’s enough anger bubbling among the electorate that if they have the opportunity to vote against the Republican incumbent, they just might do it. At that point, it becomes a matter of Doing The Thing You Promised. Because it’s not enough to win a majority if you can’t hold it.
I think the Duke Energy rate increases (which the GOP 'working supermajority' greenlit via their veto override) will play a factor in this midterm election too. Because the Democratic candidates challenging the GOP incumbents can point to that as 'they campaigned on lower prices, but they let Duke Energy raise your bills'.
It won’t help them. Especially if they tie it to the larger affordability issues being exacerbated every day by Republicans at every level of government. “How much more of this do we have to take?”
Another hit, in a particularly red part of the state will be the still-not-funded hurricane relief. The Republican supermajority forced a bill through in the lame duck session that was *called* a hurricane disaster relief bill, but in fact appropriated NO money for hurricanes relief, and was the vehicle they used take the State Board of Elections out of the control of the governor's office (where it had been since forever) and put it under… the state Auditor? Then appointed a former chair of the NCGOP to oversee elections? Republican voters will forgive a LOT if your name has an “R” behind it, but a betrayal like this — done solely as a partisan power grab — is going to go down badly with them. Assuming the opposition party has the sack to leverage it, which in years gone by I would say they did not. But there’s a new sheriff in town and she’s fierce.
Well now he’s up with Independents - come on Hochul!!!! There’s no way I’m dealing with another barely 6 point win like last time especially when Sherrill and Spanberger crushed it last Fall….
And her response has been to find this odd centrist lane that manages to piss off both progressives and center-right folks. Her political acumen is just horrendous.
lol never thought I’d say this but “thank you” to conservative leaning Echelon Insights which just released their poll having her up 15 points… I can breathe a little easier here in NY now…
i think it bears noting how much hocul is burning green groups in her push to scale back climate goals for 2030, not saying she's going to lose, but I think the green party nominee will crack at least 5% in the deep blue (not that many) upstate counties of Albany, Erie, Onondoga, and maybe Tompkins.
There is precedence for this, I know we will not have another 2014 this year, but in 2014 cuomo only got 43% in Albany County, 51 in erie, 51 in onondoga, and 52 in tompkins, with each of the aforementioned counties giving the green's 5 % of vote. In albany county the greens got 12% of the vote, and at the time albany was still running one of the last functioning machines in the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_New_York_gubernatorial_election
Cuomo got a higher percentage of the vote in Staten Island 56% than Tompkins (college towns). I fear we are looking at a similar outcome here. That said cuomo still won by 14% points statewide by doing better in conservative areas, but the liberal discontent with hocul should not be sidelined, and may give an opening to some downballot republicans in the aforementioned counties. The Time Union, one of the last solid newspapers upstate does great reporting on this regularly. Paper covers Albany Saratoga and Rensselaer Counties. timesunion.com
Nate Silver never stopped using his "secret sauce". Which meant no-one could really replicate his methodology or test his results. In this one respect, I always had far more respect for the open-source analysis of Prof. Sam Wang and his Princeton Election Consortium.
I thought the Michigan Poll was interesting. Perry Johnson has spent a ton of money on TV advertising, and yet he is still behind John James. I saw the first ad this weekend for James here in the Detroit Market. The James ad features Trump giving James ringing endorsements filmed at several earlier Trump Rallies. I have seen no Democratic candidates ads yet at all.
I would love to see more polling comparing Benson to Republicans showing the after affects of No Kings Day 3.Did all that signage sway more undecideds?
This is absolutely unbelievable that the courts will allow parents to torture children with conversion therapy, because they're right wing religious zealots, but ban legitimate trans medical treatment.
We have to win the Senate, throw away the filibuster, and expand the court.
Both of the Obama-appointed Justices sided with the conservatives, which is an absolute surprise and especially worrying if it's the beginning of a rightward shift by Sotomayor and Kagan. It's important to note that SCOTUS didn't directly strike down Colorado's conversion therapy ban, but sent the case to a lower court that would likely strike down the law.
Can we use child abuse statutes to go after parents who do this?
Same way that I've long felt that Democrats should use child abuse laws to force parents to vaccinate their children, since parents who refuse to do so are absolutely committing child abuse.
I believe this ruling against children's rights on free speech grounds opens up a bucket of worms on all types of "parental rights" based on free speech. A lot of these Christian zealots believe the parents have the right to beat children senseless short of killing them. This right wing free speech claim is a slippery slope. Would the same logic overturn child abuse laws?
In an 8-1 vote, the Supreme Court holds that Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy,” as applied to petitioner's talk therapy, violates the First Amendment because it constitutes viewpoint discrimination
Where do the rights and protection of the children come in. Prior to these types of laws, where children were forced to go through this conversation therapy, we had children committing suicide. That's why these laws were passed. I'm going to side with protecting children from zealot parents.
If this is true, meaning loyal R voters this year will either vote for Democrats as an F-you to their party or sit out the midterms, the 2026 midterms could be a tsunami.
Best ever result despite being the most unpopular version of the party ever. Like I said before, voters don’t give a fuck what each party does or says, they’ll vote for them to stop whatever party is in power when they’re mad, regardless of what that opposite party looks like or promises.
This is exactly why I advocate the Democratic party moving left overall like the GOP moved far right, we don’t actually lose any voters, but we gain back our progressive/left base who haven’t come out for us at large scale numbers since Obama.
This is the largest recorded party ID advantage DEMs have had in any quarter since Gallup started tracking it in Q1 2015. GOP has never fallen below 40!
If the general election today, there'd be a bigger blue wave than 2018's in national environment. Trump's approval + Gallup party ID is a couple points worse compared to this time in 2018 and by Eday 2018.
The title of this digest almost made me choke on my coffee. And it’s sure to enter the Downballot Classics Hall of Fame!
A lot of us appreciate the humor in dealing with serious topics. It helps us cope with the craziness of the present times. The GOPs are experiencing "Panic ! at Tedisco" over the current polling. That is a good thing...
While Republicans have Panic! at Tedisco, Democrats can increasingly have High Hopes...
I'd love to believe that Healthier United poll, but it's an outlier. Bigly. Cooper is in a good spot, but the gap is closer to 8 than 18. I wouldn't worry much, though. Coop is the most popular politician in the state and secured more votes in his primary than ALL other candidates combined. That's on both sides. And it wasn't close. He also has near universal name recognition and a campaign machine that's been winning statewide elections since 2000. Whatley is a neophyte. He's never run for anything, and while that can work in a candidate's favor it seldom does at this level. Add in a depressed voter base, little name recognition and no seeming ambition to change that very much, and you have an unknown candidate who is basically a referendum on Trump. Because his proximity to Trump is pretty much the ONLY attribute he has working for him. so his fortunes are inextricably entwined with Pol Potbelly's. His voters haven't figured out who he is yet and he's running out of racetrack if he wants to change that.
Like I said, if Cooper secured a Stein/Spanberger sized blowout in a midterm year, that would greatly reduce the GOP supermajority in both houses -- if not flip the state House to Democratic control.
Well I figure the only way Cooper wins as big as Stein is if he’s running against Mark Robinson, which is pretty much how Stein won by a Stein-sized margin. Since he’s *not*, I think half a Stein is a reasonable expectation, which should carry enough coattails to swing a sizable number of NCGA seats. If we *do* see a majority in either house, it’ll probably have more to do with Anderson Clayton securing candidates in all 170 legislative districts than anything. I can see a couple of US House districts flipping as well (NC9 and NC11), not becuase of coattails but because the challengers are putting in the work while the incumbents are hiding in their bunkers.
Flipping the state House this year in NC would be a very big deal (especially with the gerrymandering). NC Republicans would no longer be able to pass red meat bills; they would have to meet in the middle with Democrats to pass budgets and common-sense legislation.
The state senate might be an easier lift, just in terms of sheer numbers and bigger (i.e. harder to gerrymander) districts. But either way, the best that flipping just one chamber can (reliably) do is to bring Raleigh to a grinding halt. THe NCGA — at its most fundamental level — has one job: Pass a budget. Which they haven’t done in either of the past 2 FY. But since the state operates on what’s effectively a permanent CR, there’s no incentive to do that since the CR leaves funding at current levels. The PROBLEM with that is that EXPENSES aren’t conforming to that budget plan, and the state constitution mandates a balanced budget, so as X gets more expensive courtesy of the idiots in DC, the budget in Raleigh effectively shrinks because funding levels for FY 2024 don’t buy as much X at 2026 prices.
But there’s enough anger bubbling among the electorate that if they have the opportunity to vote against the Republican incumbent, they just might do it. At that point, it becomes a matter of Doing The Thing You Promised. Because it’s not enough to win a majority if you can’t hold it.
I think the Duke Energy rate increases (which the GOP 'working supermajority' greenlit via their veto override) will play a factor in this midterm election too. Because the Democratic candidates challenging the GOP incumbents can point to that as 'they campaigned on lower prices, but they let Duke Energy raise your bills'.
It won’t help them. Especially if they tie it to the larger affordability issues being exacerbated every day by Republicans at every level of government. “How much more of this do we have to take?”
Another hit, in a particularly red part of the state will be the still-not-funded hurricane relief. The Republican supermajority forced a bill through in the lame duck session that was *called* a hurricane disaster relief bill, but in fact appropriated NO money for hurricanes relief, and was the vehicle they used take the State Board of Elections out of the control of the governor's office (where it had been since forever) and put it under… the state Auditor? Then appointed a former chair of the NCGOP to oversee elections? Republican voters will forgive a LOT if your name has an “R” behind it, but a betrayal like this — done solely as a partisan power grab — is going to go down badly with them. Assuming the opposition party has the sack to leverage it, which in years gone by I would say they did not. But there’s a new sheriff in town and she’s fierce.
Id say NC11 might be closer to 50-50. Other than that NC11 is more flippable. 09 might be out of reach.
Don’t see a chance to hold NC01.
davis is a survivor, but it will be tough. if cooper wins by 8 I think davis wins, if cooper wins by 5 davis loses
"Pol Potbelly" is a new one for me. It is amazing how many derogatory nicknames that Mad King Donald has acquired !
I wish I could claim credit for it, but it was Wonkette regular @gallbladder that coined that one.
My favorite one is still Agent Orange.
Sienna poll has Hochul lead narrowing down to 13 from 20 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡
OMG, Blakementum!
Blakemanmentum? Blakemantum?
Well now he’s up with Independents - come on Hochul!!!! There’s no way I’m dealing with another barely 6 point win like last time especially when Sherrill and Spanberger crushed it last Fall….
Concerning, particularly if, like Zeldin, he has coattails that jeopardize House seats.
There is not much difference between Suozzi, Gillen and run-of-the-mill Republicans.
other than their voting records, but yes they're lack of personalities is remarkably similar
And her response has been to find this odd centrist lane that manages to piss off both progressives and center-right folks. Her political acumen is just horrendous.
All Cuomo era remnants in NY should go. And Hochul qualifies.
The only positive here is that we’re in an off year blue wave shaping up midterm which SHOULD carry over especially in NYC
lol never thought I’d say this but “thank you” to conservative leaning Echelon Insights which just released their poll having her up 15 points… I can breathe a little easier here in NY now…
i think it bears noting how much hocul is burning green groups in her push to scale back climate goals for 2030, not saying she's going to lose, but I think the green party nominee will crack at least 5% in the deep blue (not that many) upstate counties of Albany, Erie, Onondoga, and maybe Tompkins.
There is precedence for this, I know we will not have another 2014 this year, but in 2014 cuomo only got 43% in Albany County, 51 in erie, 51 in onondoga, and 52 in tompkins, with each of the aforementioned counties giving the green's 5 % of vote. In albany county the greens got 12% of the vote, and at the time albany was still running one of the last functioning machines in the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_New_York_gubernatorial_election
Cuomo got a higher percentage of the vote in Staten Island 56% than Tompkins (college towns). I fear we are looking at a similar outcome here. That said cuomo still won by 14% points statewide by doing better in conservative areas, but the liberal discontent with hocul should not be sidelined, and may give an opening to some downballot republicans in the aforementioned counties. The Time Union, one of the last solid newspapers upstate does great reporting on this regularly. Paper covers Albany Saratoga and Rensselaer Counties. timesunion.com
Nate Silver’s analysis isn’t as good as it once was imo but this Substack on Trump approvals I thought was pretty decent:
https://natesilver.substack.com/p/trump-approval-rating-30s-popularity-decline?r=2ikl7j&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay
He's good at pure numbers analysis, and dogshit at absolutely anything outside of that (except poker, I guess).
Nate Silver never stopped using his "secret sauce". Which meant no-one could really replicate his methodology or test his results. In this one respect, I always had far more respect for the open-source analysis of Prof. Sam Wang and his Princeton Election Consortium.
I thought the Michigan Poll was interesting. Perry Johnson has spent a ton of money on TV advertising, and yet he is still behind John James. I saw the first ad this weekend for James here in the Detroit Market. The James ad features Trump giving James ringing endorsements filmed at several earlier Trump Rallies. I have seen no Democratic candidates ads yet at all.
I would love to see more polling comparing Benson to Republicans showing the after affects of No Kings Day 3.Did all that signage sway more undecideds?
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2026-03-31/supreme-court-lifts-state-bans-on-conversion-therapy-on-free-speech-grounds
This is absolutely unbelievable that the courts will allow parents to torture children with conversion therapy, because they're right wing religious zealots, but ban legitimate trans medical treatment.
We have to win the Senate, throw away the filibuster, and expand the court.
Both of the Obama-appointed Justices sided with the conservatives, which is an absolute surprise and especially worrying if it's the beginning of a rightward shift by Sotomayor and Kagan. It's important to note that SCOTUS didn't directly strike down Colorado's conversion therapy ban, but sent the case to a lower court that would likely strike down the law.
They’re defending freedom of speech. I would have voted the same way.
But remember, defending the rights of people is "woke" according to some commenters here.
Well, failing to defend people’s rights is "catatonic".
Can we use child abuse statutes to go after parents who do this?
Same way that I've long felt that Democrats should use child abuse laws to force parents to vaccinate their children, since parents who refuse to do so are absolutely committing child abuse.
I believe this ruling against children's rights on free speech grounds opens up a bucket of worms on all types of "parental rights" based on free speech. A lot of these Christian zealots believe the parents have the right to beat children senseless short of killing them. This right wing free speech claim is a slippery slope. Would the same logic overturn child abuse laws?
Speech versus medical treatment.
In an 8-1 vote, the Supreme Court holds that Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy,” as applied to petitioner's talk therapy, violates the First Amendment because it constitutes viewpoint discrimination
Where do the rights and protection of the children come in. Prior to these types of laws, where children were forced to go through this conversation therapy, we had children committing suicide. That's why these laws were passed. I'm going to side with protecting children from zealot parents.
Well, then be prepared for bans on trans and abortion therapy among other things. I’ll side with the first amendment.
If this is true, meaning loyal R voters this year will either vote for Democrats as an F-you to their party or sit out the midterms, the 2026 midterms could be a tsunami.
https://newrepublic.com/post/208397/donald-trump-network-messages-voters-iran
The pro MAGA voters are PISSED at Trump's decision to invade Iran. And the cost of gas.
Another NC Poll:
https://x.com/ForwardCarolina/status/2038987821201916136
A second major poll just dropped this morning, and... well, maybe that one in the tweet below wasn't such an outlier after all.
Out today from
@CatawbaCollege
:
NORTH CAROLINA - U.S. SENATE:
🔵
@RoyCooperNC
: 47%
🔴
@WhatleyNC
: 31%
⚪️ Other/DK: 22%
NC - CONGRESSIONAL GENERIC BALLOT:
🔵Democratic: 43%
🔴Republican: 38%
⚪️ Other/DK: 16%
NC - STATE SUPREME COURT:
🔵Democratic: 43%
🔴Republican: 36%
⚪️ Other/DK: 19%
TRUMP APPROVAL: (-13)
STEIN NET APPROVAL: (+22)
Support for U.S. military intervention in Iran: (-10)
Conducted by
@YouGov
, March 9-18, 2026. N=1000 North Carolina residents. MoE 3.58%.
Best ever result despite being the most unpopular version of the party ever. Like I said before, voters don’t give a fuck what each party does or says, they’ll vote for them to stop whatever party is in power when they’re mad, regardless of what that opposite party looks like or promises.
This is exactly why I advocate the Democratic party moving left overall like the GOP moved far right, we don’t actually lose any voters, but we gain back our progressive/left base who haven’t come out for us at large scale numbers since Obama.
https://x.com/ChazNuttycombe/status/2038958954521186726
GALLUP LEANED PARTY ID FOR 2026 Q1 NOW OUT:
2025 Q3: 48-41 DEM (+7 D)
2025 Q4: 48-40 DEM (+8 D)
2026 Q1: 49-39 DEM (+10 D)
This is the largest recorded party ID advantage DEMs have had in any quarter since Gallup started tracking it in Q1 2015. GOP has never fallen below 40!
If the general election today, there'd be a bigger blue wave than 2018's in national environment. Trump's approval + Gallup party ID is a couple points worse compared to this time in 2018 and by Eday 2018.