Not only is this bad news for Americans paying more for gas, it's giving Russia a massive break just as shit was really hitting the fan for their oil economy. Good luck getting Putin to agree to anything now that his economy just got a shot in the arm. It really is mind-blowing how staggeringly incompetent Trump is.
I wonder if this will do anything to help EVs at all, after the current admin did so much to slow down their growth. When the Russian invasion of Ukraine started and spiked oil prices, EV demand went through the roof and prices went even crazier than they already were from Covid doing a number on the auto market.
I know I'm happy that I don't have to directly worry about gas prices, even if I still have to care about the macroeconomic impact of them.
I wonder if Stratton is gaining too late and will fall just short, or if she's gaining momentum at just the right time for everything to come together for her. I hope she wins.
Hogan Gidley is full of shit. I've never seen Beto's 2018 primary garner THIS much excitement and energy that Talarico and Crockett did.
If Talarico can keep the coalition together (as well as a good portion of Crockett primary voters), there could be a BIG upset in November. I doubt Cornyn, should he win the primary runoff, be a shoo-in by any means.
The combined turnout for the 2018 TX Democratic primary race was 1,042,914 combined for all three candidates (Beto nabbed 61% of that or 644,632). Whereas the 2018 TX Republican primary was a coronation for Cruz, who got 1.32M (85%) of the 1,549,573 ballots cast.
Compared to the 2026 TX Democratic primary? Combined, Crockett and Talarico's primary votes quadrupled Beto's 2018 primary numbers (as well as eclipse Cruz's primary numbers) -- at least 2.79M voters. That reflects the state's growth as well as excitement and energy among TX Dem and left-leaning unaffiliated voters.
The Kavanaugh confirmation fight in the Senate that fall galvanized more TX Rs to vote for Rafael than O'Rourke -- who only won re-election by 2 points. (And had there'd been no SCOTUS confirmation fight, Cruz probably would've lost!) I don't know if a similar fight (should SCOTUS scumbag Alito retire this year) will have the same effect for Cornyn or Paxton.
I'm not exactly predicting that we're winning statewide in Texas this year, but I don't find Gidley's comparison to be on point.
Minnesota has had largely static party balance of power for a while now. It is close and it's absolutely a place where republicans can win. They're not losing because of some insurmountable barrier they cannot overcome. In part they've just been unlucky. In part their candidates haven't been good enough. In part we have popular incumbents who have managed to win during the worst cycles for us. Critically, that we prevented them from gerrymandering the state after 2010 and 2020 did a lot to maintain our bench and prevent republicans from having an atypically strong one. With a bit of proper luck and the right candidate they can win there, it's just they're not favored.
Texas has been slowly but surely moving towards us for about 20 years now. Our losses haven't been because the state is permanently 5 points to the right of us or something. Our losses have been because Texas started off so insanely over the top red back when it started to move towards us that it's taken 20 years for a win to seriously look plausible in a blue wave environment. If those trends towards us continue (not guaranteed, but not a bad bet either) then Texas should be very competitive in the 30s.
The only thing that's saved Democrats in Minnesota has been a constant internal realignment. A lot of states have experienced an internal realignment in the Trump era, but Minnesota is the only one where Democrats have been able to cancel out enough votes to keep it from being a red state.
I agree that it's happening, but I disagree on the use of "only" in both cases.
We've benefited a lot from republicans just not having top quality candidates. Their senate candidate in 2014 was a guy who isn't even notable enough to have a wikipedia page, plus Franken was very popular at the time. Their 2020 senate candidate was a former member of the house for a single term. We lucked out in barely winning the 2010 gubernatorial election. There's a lot that's gone right for us that we relied on more than counterbalanced internal realignment.
That counterbalance of internal realignment happens everywhere. Minnesota is not the only state that we've held onto because of it. NH, at least, would be a red state if we were only losing rural voters without gaining suburban voters (like we are in reality). Michigan too. I assume you're not counting Arizona or Georgia because those became competitive with recent realignment, but if they weren't seeing the blue side of that continue they'd have shifted back to red.
That's quite an overstatement. When given to one candidate in an election, they are of significant importance. What do you suppose is the percentage of Trump-endorsed candidates who win Republican primaries?
I'm a bit surprised and disappointed Neuces County, seat of Corpus Christi, isn't up there. It used to be a swing county but swung towards Republicans and hasn't been won by a Democrat president since Clinton in 1996.
I'm not usually a believer in Primary turnout being predictive of GE results, but that is pretty stark and definitely a good sign of a Latino bounceback to us...
Beto (8,273), Biden (9,123), and Harris (6,862) got more votes than this. In the 2018 primary, there were around 6,500 Democratic primary votes cast, and 12 Republican votes. In the 2022 primary, there were about 3,450 Democratic primary votes cast versus about 1,100 Republican votes. In the 2024 primary, there were about 1,900 Democratic primary votes cast, and about 440 Republican votes. Perhaps the percentage of Democratic primary votes being higher than in 2022 and 2024 is a good sign, but I don't really think this is a sign Talarico will get even close to pre-Biden numbers.
That was with Sean O'Brien of the Teamsters, who's now the biggest suck up to Trump in the entire labor movement. And I think the Gaetz thing was just because he was a foot solider defending his mob boss, Kevin McCarthy. The Babbitt thing is fair lol
McCarthy is a people pleaser and would have been fine with a larger majority, but it's also why he was incompetent with a small majority. He didn't really make deals or track his own deals, he just said yes to everyone and then tried to gaslight them. Was fundamentally a liar who couldn't keep his word and couldn't be trusted by Dems or his own caucus (see: agreed spending numbers that he then said were meant to be below and not the goal). I don't really think he would have handled Gonzales any differently because he had no leadership skill to make hard decisions, and only came down so hard on Gaetz bc he was THAT disgusting lol.
Oh yeah, McCarthy's efforts to diversify the conference by race and gender are his biggest strength. I think the anti-Freedom Caucus stuff is only an ex post effect of them ousting him tbh lol. And Mace should actually be deemed clinically mentally incompetent.
True although given Ras Baraka is running for a 4th term, I would hope he could get a chance to shoot for higher office or greater leadership abilities than just serving as Mayor. I was impressed with his fearlessness as a gubernatorial candidate last year, especially towards ICE.
What does everyone make of this broader trend of independents running in statewide races as a stand-in for Democratic candidates? On the one hand they do seem to run stronger in certain races, like Osborn in Nebraska or McMullin in Utah, but on the other hand it does run counter to the 50 state strategy that most people on here adhere to. Fewer Republicans is objectively good, but that doesn't mean it gets you any closer to some of your policy objectives that independents may not support.
Fair. I guess the problem is when an independent enters a race the Democrats have not abandoned and starts fighting for the same moderate voters, thinking of Duggan in the Michigan governor race. As far as the Senate, I just worry that things many of you want like Supreme Court expansion or federal oversight of redistricting or the end of filibuster are DOA because of a larger independent caucus.
The MI-GOV race is one where Democrats should be able to own their brand and win considering MI as a state is not a red state. I believe Duggan is formerly a Democrat but that’s also a complete 180 that certainly throws off MI Democrats.
The bluer the state, the less likely Independents will be needed to begin with. It’s the red states where they are more useful. If Independents fight for the same moderate voters in say Arkansas or Oklahoma but have bigger reach than your average Democratic Senate Candidate would, that is better providing the Independents are able to caucus with Democrats.
Yes although after Olympia Snowe retired, if Angus King did not run back in 2012, I doubt it would have been needed for an Independent to win the Senate race.
Something similar worked well in Kansas for quite a while, where moderate Republicans allied with Democrats in the state legislature against the extremists.
I think running indies and allying with moderate Republicans (if there are enough) is the key to success from a legislation and governance standpoint (not necessarily for Democratic Party itself).
Seems somewhat comparable to conservative Democrats finding success in places like Hawaii and Rhode Island. When one party has dominance, you have to find other ways to gain access to power.
From what I can tell for looking at results, even an Independent like King who caucuses with Democrats most often votes for them gets a 8-10% boost in margin just because the D is removed from the ballot line. There are many states in which that 8-10% is needed even under blue wave conditions. That’s the case in Nebraska and I think in Montana too.
So anytime a plausible leader, whether they are an anti-Trump conservative, a centrist, or a maverick, I’d be open to supporting them and not running a Democratic candidate for that office. Even if they just vote against MAGA half the time it would be a victory. It’s a tactical election by election, race by race decision.
I think the 50 state strategy is longterm. Investing in candidates with no chance of winning in state legislative, county, municipality, school board, and other downballot races. But more importantly funding local Democratic organizing and outreach between elections. Events and activities that show there are people in your own neighborhood and not just weak, out-of-touch coastal elites who look down on you. I don’t think we can break that point of view with a campaign ad. Takes being local.
Anyone in my mind, supporting Independent candidates grow the potential of the 50 state strategy.
I certainly don't mind running an Indy here or there. The main thing is that there is pushback everywhere. And no one feels abandoned. And we build infrastructure & connections.
Any 50 state strategy is doomed to fail in these states unless we figure out a way to counter the Conservative Media Machine mainlining propaganda about our party day in and day out. But I’m in favor of the strategy precisely because the Democratic Brand is so toxic in these states.
I feel like Independent candidates stand a better chance in certain states, like Arkansas, Nebraska, etc, because these states have a well established infrastructure designed just to attack Democrats and be hostile to them; talk radio, billboards, etc. There is no such infrastructure to target independents, at least not in the sense of creating long-term cultural opposition to Democrats who are painted as "pure evil" being the cultural doctrine in many of these places. Simply put, independents don't have to deal with the baggage that a Democrat would, and they are also more resistant to having their independent campaign be nationalized. This offers the Republican voters a chance to vote against a Republican, but without the associated culturally ingrained guilt of having voted for a "baby killing Democrat", for example.
Maybe the 50 state strategy should be broadened slightly to "challenge the GOP in all 50 states" instead of "Run Democrats in all 50 states". The Democratic brand is currently toxic in many ruby red places.
I have heard Dan Osborn on a Zoom with an opportunity for Q&A. He seemed genuine and committed to helping his constituents - which is more than I can say about any Republicans I can think of. Plus he seems well aligned on a lot of core principles that Dems support.
I don’t think the objective of independents should be that they are another Angus King or Bernie Sanders who vote in line with the majority of what Democrats aim to accomplish. I would certainly support Independents if they caucus with Democrats as opposed to if they only do so on occasion.
In the case of Independent SD-SEN candidate Brian Bengs, he’s a former Democrat who became an Independent last year in his Senate race against Senator Mike Rounds. Everything in his campaign website makes it obvious he would caucus with Democrats and the majority of his platform makes him aligned with the Democratic Party agenda. Even when I saw Bengs being interviewed, he acts and talks like a hard core Democrat.
For other Independents, I would like to see how the ID-SEN race could be put to the test.
Because Fetterman ran as a progressive outsider with working-class appeal who would demand real change, and Lamb ran as a centrist establishment type. Seemed a pretty clear choice at the time.
Well, that is the way the corporate media portrayed them, which was in love with the idea of Fetterman as working class because of how he dressed, even though he wasn't working class. Lamb's competency was interpreted as "boring."
this is simply not an accurate recollection of the 2022 Senate race.
Fetterman genuinely supported progressive causes while Lt. Governor, such as marijuana legalization, abortion rights, and trans rights. I remember watching his speech the night of the election and still think it was pretty good
Fetterman has changed since then, markedly for the worse. It's obvious to everyone, even the people around him, that the stroke and subsequent bouts of depression changed him. And those are valid struggle to have, just maybe not when you're a massively important US Senator.
He also appears to have become a completely different person after his stroke, so you can be forgiven for thinking he was a progressive. That or he was lying the whole time, in which case all of us were fooled. Either way, his career is 100% over after 2028. We only have to worry about him defecting between now and then.
I think we’re all taking the wrong lessons from Fetterman here when the man literally had a stroke that caused brain damage. I don’t think he was lying, I just think the stroke affected him more than we’d like to admit.
I think about how in the wake of 2024, if Fetterman wasn't so needlessly antagonistic that he was would probably be at the height of presidential leaderboards. But he'd torched himself so completely in his first two years as a senator by then that pretty much no serious person even mentioned his name then, let alone now.
I expect Phil Berger to do everything he can to throw out enough votes to be declared a winner. As people know, he has three nepo babies in office. The first one is Junior, who is an associate justice on the NC Supreme Court (refuses to recuse from any cases involving the GOP). Second one I think works at the Rockingham Co Board of Elections office. Third one is a sheriff.
So, expect shenanigans. I don't know if it will go to federal court like the Griffin v. Riggs case did in 2024.
Among other things, as we all know, Trump is an incompetent idiot.
Not only is this bad news for Americans paying more for gas, it's giving Russia a massive break just as shit was really hitting the fan for their oil economy. Good luck getting Putin to agree to anything now that his economy just got a shot in the arm. It really is mind-blowing how staggeringly incompetent Trump is.
Trump wasn't really trying to get Russia to agree to anything. The only objection he has to Putin is that he's a competitor in oil sales.
I wonder if this will do anything to help EVs at all, after the current admin did so much to slow down their growth. When the Russian invasion of Ukraine started and spiked oil prices, EV demand went through the roof and prices went even crazier than they already were from Covid doing a number on the auto market.
I know I'm happy that I don't have to directly worry about gas prices, even if I still have to care about the macroeconomic impact of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWwdh6FGL4M
That is downright funny....
crush them.
Quick, someone find me a violin!
This is an internal btw.
I wonder if Stratton is gaining too late and will fall just short, or if she's gaining momentum at just the right time for everything to come together for her. I hope she wins.
Hogan Gidley is full of shit. I've never seen Beto's 2018 primary garner THIS much excitement and energy that Talarico and Crockett did.
If Talarico can keep the coalition together (as well as a good portion of Crockett primary voters), there could be a BIG upset in November. I doubt Cornyn, should he win the primary runoff, be a shoo-in by any means.
Could you compare this year with Beto's 2018 campaign a bit more? I remember a lot of excitement for Beto.
I agree...I'm not sure there is "more" excitement this time around but we also don't get to run against Ted Cruz this time.
The combined turnout for the 2018 TX Democratic primary race was 1,042,914 combined for all three candidates (Beto nabbed 61% of that or 644,632). Whereas the 2018 TX Republican primary was a coronation for Cruz, who got 1.32M (85%) of the 1,549,573 ballots cast.
Compared to the 2026 TX Democratic primary? Combined, Crockett and Talarico's primary votes quadrupled Beto's 2018 primary numbers (as well as eclipse Cruz's primary numbers) -- at least 2.79M voters. That reflects the state's growth as well as excitement and energy among TX Dem and left-leaning unaffiliated voters.
The Kavanaugh confirmation fight in the Senate that fall galvanized more TX Rs to vote for Rafael than O'Rourke -- who only won re-election by 2 points. (And had there'd been no SCOTUS confirmation fight, Cruz probably would've lost!) I don't know if a similar fight (should SCOTUS scumbag Alito retire this year) will have the same effect for Cornyn or Paxton.
I'm not exactly predicting that we're winning statewide in Texas this year, but I don't find Gidley's comparison to be on point.
Minnesota has had largely static party balance of power for a while now. It is close and it's absolutely a place where republicans can win. They're not losing because of some insurmountable barrier they cannot overcome. In part they've just been unlucky. In part their candidates haven't been good enough. In part we have popular incumbents who have managed to win during the worst cycles for us. Critically, that we prevented them from gerrymandering the state after 2010 and 2020 did a lot to maintain our bench and prevent republicans from having an atypically strong one. With a bit of proper luck and the right candidate they can win there, it's just they're not favored.
Texas has been slowly but surely moving towards us for about 20 years now. Our losses haven't been because the state is permanently 5 points to the right of us or something. Our losses have been because Texas started off so insanely over the top red back when it started to move towards us that it's taken 20 years for a win to seriously look plausible in a blue wave environment. If those trends towards us continue (not guaranteed, but not a bad bet either) then Texas should be very competitive in the 30s.
The only thing that's saved Democrats in Minnesota has been a constant internal realignment. A lot of states have experienced an internal realignment in the Trump era, but Minnesota is the only one where Democrats have been able to cancel out enough votes to keep it from being a red state.
I agree that it's happening, but I disagree on the use of "only" in both cases.
We've benefited a lot from republicans just not having top quality candidates. Their senate candidate in 2014 was a guy who isn't even notable enough to have a wikipedia page, plus Franken was very popular at the time. Their 2020 senate candidate was a former member of the house for a single term. We lucked out in barely winning the 2010 gubernatorial election. There's a lot that's gone right for us that we relied on more than counterbalanced internal realignment.
That counterbalance of internal realignment happens everywhere. Minnesota is not the only state that we've held onto because of it. NH, at least, would be a red state if we were only losing rural voters without gaining suburban voters (like we are in reality). Michigan too. I assume you're not counting Arizona or Georgia because those became competitive with recent realignment, but if they weren't seeing the blue side of that continue they'd have shifted back to red.
More Rs are realizing Trump's endorsements don't mean shit.
That's quite an overstatement. When given to one candidate in an election, they are of significant importance. What do you suppose is the percentage of Trump-endorsed candidates who win Republican primaries?
I'm a bit surprised and disappointed Neuces County, seat of Corpus Christi, isn't up there. It used to be a swing county but swung towards Republicans and hasn't been won by a Democrat president since Clinton in 1996.
A blue tsunami in November?
Always like that. Not something special this year.
I'm not usually a believer in Primary turnout being predictive of GE results, but that is pretty stark and definitely a good sign of a Latino bounceback to us...
Rio Grande Valley counties have voted like this in primaries for a very long time
Beto (8,273), Biden (9,123), and Harris (6,862) got more votes than this. In the 2018 primary, there were around 6,500 Democratic primary votes cast, and 12 Republican votes. In the 2022 primary, there were about 3,450 Democratic primary votes cast versus about 1,100 Republican votes. In the 2024 primary, there were about 1,900 Democratic primary votes cast, and about 440 Republican votes. Perhaps the percentage of Democratic primary votes being higher than in 2022 and 2024 is a good sign, but I don't really think this is a sign Talarico will get even close to pre-Biden numbers.
Yeah, they know they're not padding their Senate majority after November.
Hell, they might even lose it.
they are not because they know it won't matter!
I have a friend who has convinced me that a Ballard entry actually is helpful for us.
Please elaborate.
I can imagine he would help us by taking a lot more vote from Morales than Bayh.
Because he used to be a Republican? I wouldn't assume so, in a time when that means "Trump lackey" and nothing else.
That was with Sean O'Brien of the Teamsters, who's now the biggest suck up to Trump in the entire labor movement. And I think the Gaetz thing was just because he was a foot solider defending his mob boss, Kevin McCarthy. The Babbitt thing is fair lol
McCarthy is a people pleaser and would have been fine with a larger majority, but it's also why he was incompetent with a small majority. He didn't really make deals or track his own deals, he just said yes to everyone and then tried to gaslight them. Was fundamentally a liar who couldn't keep his word and couldn't be trusted by Dems or his own caucus (see: agreed spending numbers that he then said were meant to be below and not the goal). I don't really think he would have handled Gonzales any differently because he had no leadership skill to make hard decisions, and only came down so hard on Gaetz bc he was THAT disgusting lol.
Oh yeah, McCarthy's efforts to diversify the conference by race and gender are his biggest strength. I think the anti-Freedom Caucus stuff is only an ex post effect of them ousting him tbh lol. And Mace should actually be deemed clinically mentally incompetent.
lol I'm kinda shocked at how there's been such incredibly little press
True although given Ras Baraka is running for a 4th term, I would hope he could get a chance to shoot for higher office or greater leadership abilities than just serving as Mayor. I was impressed with his fearlessness as a gubernatorial candidate last year, especially towards ICE.
Me too, and as a sometime visitor to Newark, it looks to me like he's done an excellent job helping to rehabilitate the city.
He could have ran for congress in 2024, but chose to continuing running for governor
I could see Baraka being excellent in the House.
NJ.com is a shell of it's former self, and nothing else has emerged as the state newspaper of record
Typo: Bodnar "should he unseat Sheehy"
Fixed, thank you!
Tester should have run again, then dropped out after he won the primary....
What does everyone make of this broader trend of independents running in statewide races as a stand-in for Democratic candidates? On the one hand they do seem to run stronger in certain races, like Osborn in Nebraska or McMullin in Utah, but on the other hand it does run counter to the 50 state strategy that most people on here adhere to. Fewer Republicans is objectively good, but that doesn't mean it gets you any closer to some of your policy objectives that independents may not support.
I’m not a big fan of Angus King, but I’d trade any single Republican in the Senate for a King clone in a heartbeat.
Fair. I guess the problem is when an independent enters a race the Democrats have not abandoned and starts fighting for the same moderate voters, thinking of Duggan in the Michigan governor race. As far as the Senate, I just worry that things many of you want like Supreme Court expansion or federal oversight of redistricting or the end of filibuster are DOA because of a larger independent caucus.
The MI-GOV race is one where Democrats should be able to own their brand and win considering MI as a state is not a red state. I believe Duggan is formerly a Democrat but that’s also a complete 180 that certainly throws off MI Democrats.
The bluer the state, the less likely Independents will be needed to begin with. It’s the red states where they are more useful. If Independents fight for the same moderate voters in say Arkansas or Oklahoma but have bigger reach than your average Democratic Senate Candidate would, that is better providing the Independents are able to caucus with Democrats.
Precisely. I'm only a fan of the strategy in a race that a D cannot win...
Yes although after Olympia Snowe retired, if Angus King did not run back in 2012, I doubt it would have been needed for an Independent to win the Senate race.
It has worked well in Alaska.
I think it is a temporary solution where the Dem brand is so tarnished by GOP propaganda that D candidates cannot win.
As a tactical move for short term electoral gain, fine. As a long term strategy, it is a loser.
There's never been an independent senator from Alaska, though. Unless you're talking about Gov. Bill Walker.
Alyse Galvin ran two competitive races for AK-AL as an Independent, and Al Gross got some traction as a Senate candidate as well.
There is a group of independents in the leg that form a coalition with Dems & moderate Rs. In the House. That is the majority coalition.
Something similar worked well in Kansas for quite a while, where moderate Republicans allied with Democrats in the state legislature against the extremists.
I think running indies and allying with moderate Republicans (if there are enough) is the key to success from a legislation and governance standpoint (not necessarily for Democratic Party itself).
Seems somewhat comparable to conservative Democrats finding success in places like Hawaii and Rhode Island. When one party has dominance, you have to find other ways to gain access to power.
From what I can tell for looking at results, even an Independent like King who caucuses with Democrats most often votes for them gets a 8-10% boost in margin just because the D is removed from the ballot line. There are many states in which that 8-10% is needed even under blue wave conditions. That’s the case in Nebraska and I think in Montana too.
So anytime a plausible leader, whether they are an anti-Trump conservative, a centrist, or a maverick, I’d be open to supporting them and not running a Democratic candidate for that office. Even if they just vote against MAGA half the time it would be a victory. It’s a tactical election by election, race by race decision.
I think the 50 state strategy is longterm. Investing in candidates with no chance of winning in state legislative, county, municipality, school board, and other downballot races. But more importantly funding local Democratic organizing and outreach between elections. Events and activities that show there are people in your own neighborhood and not just weak, out-of-touch coastal elites who look down on you. I don’t think we can break that point of view with a campaign ad. Takes being local.
Anyone in my mind, supporting Independent candidates grow the potential of the 50 state strategy.
Good post.
It should be both/and rather than either/or.
I certainly don't mind running an Indy here or there. The main thing is that there is pushback everywhere. And no one feels abandoned. And we build infrastructure & connections.
Any 50 state strategy is doomed to fail in these states unless we figure out a way to counter the Conservative Media Machine mainlining propaganda about our party day in and day out. But I’m in favor of the strategy precisely because the Democratic Brand is so toxic in these states.
I feel like Independent candidates stand a better chance in certain states, like Arkansas, Nebraska, etc, because these states have a well established infrastructure designed just to attack Democrats and be hostile to them; talk radio, billboards, etc. There is no such infrastructure to target independents, at least not in the sense of creating long-term cultural opposition to Democrats who are painted as "pure evil" being the cultural doctrine in many of these places. Simply put, independents don't have to deal with the baggage that a Democrat would, and they are also more resistant to having their independent campaign be nationalized. This offers the Republican voters a chance to vote against a Republican, but without the associated culturally ingrained guilt of having voted for a "baby killing Democrat", for example.
Maybe the 50 state strategy should be broadened slightly to "challenge the GOP in all 50 states" instead of "Run Democrats in all 50 states". The Democratic brand is currently toxic in many ruby red places.
I have heard Dan Osborn on a Zoom with an opportunity for Q&A. He seemed genuine and committed to helping his constituents - which is more than I can say about any Republicans I can think of. Plus he seems well aligned on a lot of core principles that Dems support.
I don't really care about the 50-state strategy if it runs counter to supporting the furthest left reasonable, qualified candidate who can win.
I don’t think the objective of independents should be that they are another Angus King or Bernie Sanders who vote in line with the majority of what Democrats aim to accomplish. I would certainly support Independents if they caucus with Democrats as opposed to if they only do so on occasion.
In the case of Independent SD-SEN candidate Brian Bengs, he’s a former Democrat who became an Independent last year in his Senate race against Senator Mike Rounds. Everything in his campaign website makes it obvious he would caucus with Democrats and the majority of his platform makes him aligned with the Democratic Party agenda. Even when I saw Bengs being interviewed, he acts and talks like a hard core Democrat.
For other Independents, I would like to see how the ID-SEN race could be put to the test.
No Kyrsten Sinema types please.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-blocks-restrictions-trump-using-military-iran-war-rcna261680
Senate decides to let Iran war continue as is mostly on party lines. Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and John Fetterman (D-PA) voted against their parties.
i'll admit i donated heavily to that man from pa, but in my defense his opponent was dr oz
I will never understand why Pennsylvania Democratic voters chose Fetterman rather than Connor Lamb in the primary.
Because Fetterman ran as a progressive outsider with working-class appeal who would demand real change, and Lamb ran as a centrist establishment type. Seemed a pretty clear choice at the time.
Well, that is the way the corporate media portrayed them, which was in love with the idea of Fetterman as working class because of how he dressed, even though he wasn't working class. Lamb's competency was interpreted as "boring."
Sounds like another primary on the horizon.
To be fair, progressives also embraced him for that exact same reason, and because he was blessed by Sanders.
this is simply not an accurate recollection of the 2022 Senate race.
Fetterman genuinely supported progressive causes while Lt. Governor, such as marijuana legalization, abortion rights, and trans rights. I remember watching his speech the night of the election and still think it was pretty good
Fetterman has changed since then, markedly for the worse. It's obvious to everyone, even the people around him, that the stroke and subsequent bouts of depression changed him. And those are valid struggle to have, just maybe not when you're a massively important US Senator.
Ha! Yeah, a clear choice to choose Lamb!
He also appears to have become a completely different person after his stroke, so you can be forgiven for thinking he was a progressive. That or he was lying the whole time, in which case all of us were fooled. Either way, his career is 100% over after 2028. We only have to worry about him defecting between now and then.
I think we’re all taking the wrong lessons from Fetterman here when the man literally had a stroke that caused brain damage. I don’t think he was lying, I just think the stroke affected him more than we’d like to admit.
He's obviously wayyyyy worse now, bit he was clearly a fake, unprofessional ass long before the stroke.
I think about how in the wake of 2024, if Fetterman wasn't so needlessly antagonistic that he was would probably be at the height of presidential leaderboards. But he'd torched himself so completely in his first two years as a senator by then that pretty much no serious person even mentioned his name then, let alone now.
Not surprising Rand Paul cast his vote the way he did. He’s consistently been Libertarian and non-interventionist since being in the Senate.
However, it’s a sad state of affairs when Paul is better on the issue of war than Fetterman is.
I expect Phil Berger to do everything he can to throw out enough votes to be declared a winner. As people know, he has three nepo babies in office. The first one is Junior, who is an associate justice on the NC Supreme Court (refuses to recuse from any cases involving the GOP). Second one I think works at the Rockingham Co Board of Elections office. Third one is a sheriff.
So, expect shenanigans. I don't know if it will go to federal court like the Griffin v. Riggs case did in 2024.
This is the kind of nepo-machine you’d have expected in 1946 North Carolina not 2026 North Carolina
you get outside the urban and suburban areas and its 1946 effectively, although in 46 more people hated nazis
But more white people liked the KKK, right?
Well, if Phil is out at the end of this mess, we have our eyes set on Junior. We're going to hang his daddy's nepotism around his neck in two years.