Ally to Keir Starmer, and many Starmer loyalists choice to challenge Burnham, Darren Jones has declined to run in the Labour leadership election and has also endorsed Burnham. This looks like he will go unopposed in the leadership election.
The power this gives Mamdani is tough to overstate. Every Dem in the city who has been considering opposing him on this or that now is reconsidering. Especially Councilmembers. But also state reps and senators. Chuck Schumer has new calculus as he considers whether to run again at all. It was a huge huge risk by Mamdani. Had he struck out or gone 1-2, he'd be weakened and opposition emboldened. But, he sweeps and now is going to find a lot of folks lining up to kiss the ring.
She would have to weigh whether she can get the support of the majority of the House caucus, or if she's better being only 1 of 100 from a major state. I cannot tell you which is better for her, only she can. She's also seriously considering POTUS but I'm not entirely sure there's a path there.
I've often doubted that. She's from New York City and very left-wing. When's the last time such a left-wing candidate has won a state-wide position in New York?
Exactly. You're treating that like it's not a measure of public sentiment. Look at Hochul's current popularity, such that she was unopposed in the primaries.
Emerson called the winners in NY-07, NY-10, and NY-12 back in May. The margins didn't end up being exactly right, but they had the eventual leaders ahead.
Pollsters need to be judged on margins and not winners, though. The impulse to get the winner right with whatever margin is part of how we got so much bad polling.
It is the ONLY metric a poll should be judged by... Being tough is their job, that's why it matters to see who's methodology was most sophisticated and worked best...
Omar hadn't said a quarter of the batshit insane things Chevalier has. Let's not pretend otherwise . .she's going to be a problem. National media will have no qualms highlighting her tweets and I don't think she'll be shy about accepting TV interviews either. Dem primary voters need to be smarter.
Feels like there’s an overcorrection going on right now in terms of certain candidate problems getting completely handwaved in a way we haven’t seen in the past. Unless and until it costs us swing seats I don’t think it’s going to get nudged at all, but it’s pretty clear the base assumes anything is fair game in the age of Trump and to say otherwise is pearl clutching. I don’t agree, but I’m not exactly the profile of a NYC dem primary voter either
This worries me in places like the upcoming Wisconsin and Michigan races. At least if it costs us the Wisconsin governorship, it won’t change much for redistricting, plus we’ll have the state Supreme Court. A US Senate seat would be devastating since we already have no margin for error.
I was neutral/skewed toward Darializa in the primary due to Espaillat's attempted use of racism in the primary (I'm probably going to piss people off by saying that) but I do agree. It is worth noting that the Tea Party did lose some winnable seats due to insane candidates (Mourdock, Akin, the witch from Delaware, etc.)
As someone who is a member of DSA and supported their candidates, I care much more about a candidate's positions on the issues that I care about and how they plan on making this country better and more affordable than some stupid tweets they sent when they were not in public office. Voters care about being able to afford to live, not the stupid stuff politicians tweet. I thought we would have already learned that lesson with Trump's wins.
That’s not what should have been disqualifying. Her antisemitism, calling for nationalizing all housing and abolishing all borders and all police, spreading COVID-19 conspiracies, being against US support for Ukraine, and being against interracial relationships is what should have been.
I think going into more detail would be against the rules (and if the moderators would like me to edit my comment to remove that part I can), but for me her record on that topic crossed the line into antisemitism (and I don’t think most left-wing candidates cross that line, but she did).
Yeah “fuck Kamala Harris” is like #30 in the list of shit she’s said that’s insane. Idk what Mamdani was thinking throwing his weight behind her compared to Lander or Valdez who are unproblematic
My suspicion is she was younger and more radical. Sometimes people get less radical with age, I used to be a lot more radical than I am now. As another commenter noted, Omar was the same -- perhaps Darializa will become like Omar.
She also said it only 5 years ago. People can change with age but the idea that people’s comments a few years ago don’t reflect who they are feels like a way to excuse and dismiss evidence about who they are.
I think her problems are still better than Espaillat calling her a "Muslim Haitian" the last week of the campaign. Not to mention his corporate PAC money.
If you're mad over some tweets, I'll just keep saying we should look at who's President and leave it at that. The voters just don't care anymore.
Espaillat had two main problems: He never made amends with Keith Wright and the Black Harlem establishment, and he treated his Dominican base as if they were a guarantee to lock the district. He made all this noise about gentrifiers coming in but the reality is if you're an elected, you can't pit your district against itself. You have to learn what people want, reach out to them, and adjust when needed. He didn't do that. It's Crowley 2.0.
Yeah, Espaillat's intentional use of a particularly ugly brand of racial politics is more disqualifying, IMO. Also, if Chevalier continues to be a problem, it's easier to unseat a progressive than an entrenched backbencher. There's no reason we can't come back in 2028 with a less polarizing progressive if she proves to be a thorn for us.
It’s an open question how much that really matters to voters in a district now that pork barrel projects and legislation are severely diminished from what they were.
I think this is really an underrated thought on why incumbents are having so much of an issue. There's a lot of "what have you done for me lately?" happening.
In Canada, most of us don't get to pick our party candidates. Partly that is because the main parties give broad powers to their leaders to handpick candidates, which is done quite frequently when you have a "star" that they want to run in a safe seat. That happened with the candidates in the two by-elections we had a couple of months ago in Toronto. But also because most Canadians aren't members of a political party, and we don't have party registration here in the same way Americans in many states have. There might be a surge for a leadership election, but it falls off quickly after that. Even if there is a competitive candidate selection, it might involve a few dozen or few hundred party members at best. So the idea of having thousands, if not millions, of voters involved in selecting candidates can seem like a wonderful exercise of democratic values.
Having said that, I wonder what effects it is having on American democracy. The Tea Party wave, Trump's heavy-handed endorsement record, and the current battle for the soul of the Democratic Party all seem to be leading to further division, both within parties and in society in general. The numbers I quoted in my post last night: 99 million dollars spent on the Paxton v Cornyn primary, compared with 68 million spent by all political parties in last year's Canadian election. The rampant gerrymandering, making a primary winner a virtual lock to win the race. They all lead me to conclude that primaries are good in theory, but in execution can perhaps lead to greater harm.
I thought local party groups were at least somewhat involved in preselection?
Either way, your first paragraph follows the same thought process Progressive Era reformers had and why we got primaries in the first place. I don’t think going back to ward bosses is going to solve polarization - that’s a media problem in the end - but every primary being open rather than closed, and a gerrymandering ban, could certainly help.
But in the end we need a political media ecosystem that isn’t incentivized to pit us against each other and treat politics like a grand sports game with teams we’re all on in the culture war
In the Maryland Senate, while Senate President Bill Ferguson survived his primary challenge, Majority Leader Nancy King was defeated by first-time incumbent Amar Mukunda. News media have not yet called the race, but Mukunda leads by 1100 votes (13%). Somewhere around 2/3 or 3/4 of mail ballots remain to be counted, but King led the first batch of mail ballots by only 100 votes. https://results.elections.maryland.gov/elections/2026/primary_results/gen_results_2026_by_county_16.html
King is an ex-Republican and one of the most conservative members of the Democratic Senate caucus. Key issues for Mukunda were King's support of highway expansions and her opposition to Congressional redistricting.
When I see candidates win their primary or special election despite being massively outspent (the special legislative races in TX and FL, as well as the NY primaries last night), that says something about the political wave that's building.
And yet another state Senate Republican leader lost his primary, albeit way more than what Phil Berger did in March. 2026 is going to be a bigger wave year than 2018.
🤡🤡🤡Irvine council🤡🤡🤡 was tonight, and given at last council meeting we had a 5:2 vote to have the city attorney write the RCV ordinance and all of the other legal work to put it before voters in November, we were pretty confident. Were we ever wrong.
The City clerk gave a long presentation on procedure, many residents spoke, mostly for. Councilperson Kathleen Treseder who was championing the cause put forward a motion. Mayor Larry Agran asked for a second. Dead silence. He asked again, silence. Motion died.
It is procedurally possible to revive at the July 14 council meeting to get it on the ballot in Nov, but I believe that to be unlikely. We really don't know what scared off 4 Council people, probably a budget deficit, but they had no problem spending $100 million on a gym, because every California kid needs indoor badminton.
I wonder what the Trump people believed would happen when they rammed his psycho agenda through. Of course, the answer is probably that they didn't consider the consequences because they were too busy kissing Trump's ass. That, or they'll just get a lobbyist job when they lose. Sigh.
With all the talk of Darializa and Lander and Valdez, I'm surprised no one is talking about the fact that there was also a progressive sweep in the state legislature. I believe the DSA's slate missed one (Conrad Blackburn) and last I checked, won all the others. (Sad Niou didn't win though myself, but hey, you can't win them all.) Eli Northrup, Eon Huntley, Illapa Sairitupac, David Orkin, these are people who are going to help Mamdani get his agenda through the state legislature, a massive roadblock prior. This is a big fucking deal.
Ally to Keir Starmer, and many Starmer loyalists choice to challenge Burnham, Darren Jones has declined to run in the Labour leadership election and has also endorsed Burnham. This looks like he will go unopposed in the leadership election.
https://news.sky.com/video/darren-jones-andy-burnham-is-going-to-be-next-pm-13557239%7Caccess-date=
The power this gives Mamdani is tough to overstate. Every Dem in the city who has been considering opposing him on this or that now is reconsidering. Especially Councilmembers. But also state reps and senators. Chuck Schumer has new calculus as he considers whether to run again at all. It was a huge huge risk by Mamdani. Had he struck out or gone 1-2, he'd be weakened and opposition emboldened. But, he sweeps and now is going to find a lot of folks lining up to kiss the ring.
It should also encourage AOC to run for Senate in 2028.
Yes, absolutely her thinking and Schumer's are affected
Tbf, I’ve never doubted that she’d win if she ran for the Senate. The question is if she wants the job.
She wants to change the country. The Senate may not be the best place for that.
She's young enough to serve there first, in any case.
AOC may have far more impact in a leadership position in the Democratically-controlled House. Thoughts?
That depends on what her ultimate political goals are. If she's content to pursue legislative influence, you could be right.
She would have to weigh whether she can get the support of the majority of the House caucus, or if she's better being only 1 of 100 from a major state. I cannot tell you which is better for her, only she can. She's also seriously considering POTUS but I'm not entirely sure there's a path there.
Keep in mind that we can't talk about potential Democratic presidential primary candidacies.
I think she’ll seek a promotion regardless, it’s just a question of whether she goes for the Senate or the presidency.
Methinks the presidency is premature. And for some reason American voters don’t like someone who has run for the highest office and lost.
I've often doubted that. She's from New York City and very left-wing. When's the last time such a left-wing candidate has won a state-wide position in New York?
When’s the last time one has been nominated?
Exactly. You're treating that like it's not a measure of public sentiment. Look at Hochul's current popularity, such that she was unopposed in the primaries.
bobby kennedy springs to mind
And that's before my memory of politics began. He was assassinated when I was 3.
He wasn’t left-wing, at least not in 1964. Paul O’Dwyer and Ramsey Clark in ‘68 and ‘74 are two that might fit the description.
Cool. And I was 9 in 1974.
It all depends on the broader environment. Trump's unpopularity makes things possible.
At this moment, I think she has her eye on something else.
Emerson called the winners in NY-07, NY-10, and NY-12 back in May. The margins didn't end up being exactly right, but they had the eventual leaders ahead.
https://emersoncollegepolling.com/new-york-city-2026-congressional-polling-ny-07-ny-10-ny-12/
Emerson's track record in dem primaries has been great this cycle. They also got the Texas dem senate primary exactly right.
Pollsters need to be judged on margins and not winners, though. The impulse to get the winner right with whatever margin is part of how we got so much bad polling.
Primary polling is REALLY tough; you can't be judging much on margins there.
It is the ONLY metric a poll should be judged by... Being tough is their job, that's why it matters to see who's methodology was most sophisticated and worked best...
Brad Lander is great candidate! But Darializa Avila Chevalier’s huge collection of problematic statements ought to have thoroughly disqualified her.
Hopefully someone sits down with her (AOC perhaps?) and helps her figure out how to channel her passions in a more constructive and dignified manner.
Hopefully, indeed. Ilhan Omar got better with time and experience, no reason others can’t either I guess
Omar hadn't said a quarter of the batshit insane things Chevalier has. Let's not pretend otherwise . .she's going to be a problem. National media will have no qualms highlighting her tweets and I don't think she'll be shy about accepting TV interviews either. Dem primary voters need to be smarter.
Agreed. Just saying that it is possible
Feels like there’s an overcorrection going on right now in terms of certain candidate problems getting completely handwaved in a way we haven’t seen in the past. Unless and until it costs us swing seats I don’t think it’s going to get nudged at all, but it’s pretty clear the base assumes anything is fair game in the age of Trump and to say otherwise is pearl clutching. I don’t agree, but I’m not exactly the profile of a NYC dem primary voter either
This worries me in places like the upcoming Wisconsin and Michigan races. At least if it costs us the Wisconsin governorship, it won’t change much for redistricting, plus we’ll have the state Supreme Court. A US Senate seat would be devastating since we already have no margin for error.
I was neutral/skewed toward Darializa in the primary due to Espaillat's attempted use of racism in the primary (I'm probably going to piss people off by saying that) but I do agree. It is worth noting that the Tea Party did lose some winnable seats due to insane candidates (Mourdock, Akin, the witch from Delaware, etc.)
As someone who is a member of DSA and supported their candidates, I care much more about a candidate's positions on the issues that I care about and how they plan on making this country better and more affordable than some stupid tweets they sent when they were not in public office. Voters care about being able to afford to live, not the stupid stuff politicians tweet. I thought we would have already learned that lesson with Trump's wins.
I'm sorry but thinking that Darializa saying "fuck Kamala Harris" should've been disqualifying is such a relic of pre-Trump politics
If only that’s all there was...
It's not the cursing that's at issue there.
That’s not what should have been disqualifying. Her antisemitism, calling for nationalizing all housing and abolishing all borders and all police, spreading COVID-19 conspiracies, being against US support for Ukraine, and being against interracial relationships is what should have been.
Question: by antisemitism, what comments specifically? Is this specifically about a topic we can't discuss, or is it legit antisemitism?
I think going into more detail would be against the rules (and if the moderators would like me to edit my comment to remove that part I can), but for me her record on that topic crossed the line into antisemitism (and I don’t think most left-wing candidates cross that line, but she did).
Got it. I'll avoid discussing further as per the rules.
Yeah “fuck Kamala Harris” is like #30 in the list of shit she’s said that’s insane. Idk what Mamdani was thinking throwing his weight behind her compared to Lander or Valdez who are unproblematic
Why did she say this?
My suspicion is she was younger and more radical. Sometimes people get less radical with age, I used to be a lot more radical than I am now. As another commenter noted, Omar was the same -- perhaps Darializa will become like Omar.
She also said it only 5 years ago. People can change with age but the idea that people’s comments a few years ago don’t reflect who they are feels like a way to excuse and dismiss evidence about who they are.
Ok but why did she say that?
I think her problems are still better than Espaillat calling her a "Muslim Haitian" the last week of the campaign. Not to mention his corporate PAC money.
If you're mad over some tweets, I'll just keep saying we should look at who's President and leave it at that. The voters just don't care anymore.
Both are very bad.
He didn’t call her that. But his campaign did play the nationality/religion card.
Espaillat had two main problems: He never made amends with Keith Wright and the Black Harlem establishment, and he treated his Dominican base as if they were a guarantee to lock the district. He made all this noise about gentrifiers coming in but the reality is if you're an elected, you can't pit your district against itself. You have to learn what people want, reach out to them, and adjust when needed. He didn't do that. It's Crowley 2.0.
Yeah, Espaillat's intentional use of a particularly ugly brand of racial politics is more disqualifying, IMO. Also, if Chevalier continues to be a problem, it's easier to unseat a progressive than an entrenched backbencher. There's no reason we can't come back in 2028 with a less polarizing progressive if she proves to be a thorn for us.
The district also threw out having a rep with seniority and committee headship come the next Congress.
It’s an open question how much that really matters to voters in a district now that pork barrel projects and legislation are severely diminished from what they were.
I think this is really an underrated thought on why incumbents are having so much of an issue. There's a lot of "what have you done for me lately?" happening.
It also doesn't help that congress mostly does show votes and continuing resolutions. Can't exactly bring anything home when nothing gets done.
Which is what it did when Espaillat kind of drove Charlie Rangel from the race.
In Canada, most of us don't get to pick our party candidates. Partly that is because the main parties give broad powers to their leaders to handpick candidates, which is done quite frequently when you have a "star" that they want to run in a safe seat. That happened with the candidates in the two by-elections we had a couple of months ago in Toronto. But also because most Canadians aren't members of a political party, and we don't have party registration here in the same way Americans in many states have. There might be a surge for a leadership election, but it falls off quickly after that. Even if there is a competitive candidate selection, it might involve a few dozen or few hundred party members at best. So the idea of having thousands, if not millions, of voters involved in selecting candidates can seem like a wonderful exercise of democratic values.
Having said that, I wonder what effects it is having on American democracy. The Tea Party wave, Trump's heavy-handed endorsement record, and the current battle for the soul of the Democratic Party all seem to be leading to further division, both within parties and in society in general. The numbers I quoted in my post last night: 99 million dollars spent on the Paxton v Cornyn primary, compared with 68 million spent by all political parties in last year's Canadian election. The rampant gerrymandering, making a primary winner a virtual lock to win the race. They all lead me to conclude that primaries are good in theory, but in execution can perhaps lead to greater harm.
I thought local party groups were at least somewhat involved in preselection?
Either way, your first paragraph follows the same thought process Progressive Era reformers had and why we got primaries in the first place. I don’t think going back to ward bosses is going to solve polarization - that’s a media problem in the end - but every primary being open rather than closed, and a gerrymandering ban, could certainly help.
But in the end we need a political media ecosystem that isn’t incentivized to pit us against each other and treat politics like a grand sports game with teams we’re all on in the culture war
The local riding association does normally make the selection, but can be over road by the leader (who most sign the formation paper)
Madison Cawthorn moved to Florida?
He did, unfortunately. Knowing how crazy FL is and how Rs love GOP transplants, he might get elected to the House AGAIN.
Yes, it’s like the end of a sewer system down here. We also got Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Ben Shapiro.
I thought Carlson lived in Maine and Shapiro lived in Tennessee?
I thought Tucker Carlson lived in Maine?
In the Maryland Senate, while Senate President Bill Ferguson survived his primary challenge, Majority Leader Nancy King was defeated by first-time incumbent Amar Mukunda. News media have not yet called the race, but Mukunda leads by 1100 votes (13%). Somewhere around 2/3 or 3/4 of mail ballots remain to be counted, but King led the first batch of mail ballots by only 100 votes. https://results.elections.maryland.gov/elections/2026/primary_results/gen_results_2026_by_county_16.html
King is an ex-Republican and one of the most conservative members of the Democratic Senate caucus. Key issues for Mukunda were King's support of highway expansions and her opposition to Congressional redistricting.
When I see candidates win their primary or special election despite being massively outspent (the special legislative races in TX and FL, as well as the NY primaries last night), that says something about the political wave that's building.
And yet another state Senate Republican leader lost his primary, albeit way more than what Phil Berger did in March. 2026 is going to be a bigger wave year than 2018.
🤡🤡🤡Irvine council🤡🤡🤡 was tonight, and given at last council meeting we had a 5:2 vote to have the city attorney write the RCV ordinance and all of the other legal work to put it before voters in November, we were pretty confident. Were we ever wrong.
The City clerk gave a long presentation on procedure, many residents spoke, mostly for. Councilperson Kathleen Treseder who was championing the cause put forward a motion. Mayor Larry Agran asked for a second. Dead silence. He asked again, silence. Motion died.
It is procedurally possible to revive at the July 14 council meeting to get it on the ballot in Nov, but I believe that to be unlikely. We really don't know what scared off 4 Council people, probably a budget deficit, but they had no problem spending $100 million on a gym, because every California kid needs indoor badminton.
Hasn't Agran been mayor for like 40 years?
On and off, yes. He did try to go from Irvine mayor to US president that one time. He's a major reason council meetings can run 8 to 10 hours.
ARG poll has trump approval at 30%... https://americanresearchgroup.com/economy/
ARRRRGGGGHHHHH!
(But in a good way!)
C'mon, hit the 20s, c'mon......
The day that 2-handle comes…
I wonder what the Trump people believed would happen when they rammed his psycho agenda through. Of course, the answer is probably that they didn't consider the consequences because they were too busy kissing Trump's ass. That, or they'll just get a lobbyist job when they lose. Sigh.
Cmon his approval is low but ARG is crap.
With all the talk of Darializa and Lander and Valdez, I'm surprised no one is talking about the fact that there was also a progressive sweep in the state legislature. I believe the DSA's slate missed one (Conrad Blackburn) and last I checked, won all the others. (Sad Niou didn't win though myself, but hey, you can't win them all.) Eli Northrup, Eon Huntley, Illapa Sairitupac, David Orkin, these are people who are going to help Mamdani get his agenda through the state legislature, a massive roadblock prior. This is a big fucking deal.
https://nysfocus.com/2026/06/24/ny-primary-election-results-dsa-state-legislature-2026
Meanwhile, outside of NY, it looks like Will Jawando (a progressive) might win the Montgomery County Executive race in MD. He had the WFP endorsement.
https://bethesdamagazine.com/2026/06/23/jawando-holds-lead-in-democratic-primary-for-moco-executive-unofficial-results-show/
Curious to see what any MD posters think about this.
I'm curious, what is his agenda in the state legislature?
Mainly it was getting his proposal to tax the rich to pay for his NYC programs through. Which went through anyway, but will now have less opposition.
Did these legislators who lost oppose it?
Broadly, yes.