Zendaya hasn't been involved in partisan politics to my knowledge, but she has spoken out about a number of causes, none of which offer any reason to believe she is any kind of Republican.
If she were MAGA you'd know: the media would probably have bullhorned it as representative of the great youth shift to the right (which already seems outdated based on polling of the last several months.)
And my Democratic Congresswoman also grew up in an Idaho farm family (they grew potatoes in Twin Falls County, in the southern part of the state.) So what?
If you could predict people's lifetime politics based on where they grew up, I'd be on RRH Elections, not here.
Worth noting: President Lula and Brazilian courts are doing what AG Merrick Garland failed to do: prosecuting in a timely and aggressive manner the people who attempted a coup!
going to take 2-3 presidential terms to undo the damage on the international stage, much the way Obama's last two years were the rebirth of American leadership after almost a decade of post-bush leadership.
At a minimum, what it would take is the transformation of the Republican Party into one that respects and enforces agreements. Everyone would be a fool to consider temporary Democratic administration a reason to expect agreements with the U.S. to last into the next Republican administration.
With people like Michelle Steel and Nancy Mess bowing out of Congressional bids, perhaps GOP confidence in keeping their majority—even with every possible cheat code in use—is waning?
I buy that Steel is either thinking of midterm trends and now also about possible CA revenge gerrymandering. I think Mace has narcissistic personality disorder and was doing this regardless lmao.
Or they've decided that they wouldn't vote for either of them--which most often means they won't vote for anyone at all.
I don't think turnout would crater by 23% if you re-ran the election now. Most of those undecideds would probably hold their collective nose and vote for someone--and Harris (and perhaps by extension Biden's term) may be looking better now than they did nine months ago.
Well, the 1974 midterms and (to a lesser degree) 1976 presidential results do at least indicate that this sort of changing of minds is a positive sign...
The only thing this tells us is that there are more loyal Harris voters than there are Trump voters. The rest of it is mostly low information voters for each party of which Trump relies on way more than Harris (up to 7% compared to up to 16%), which intuitively and from post election analysis would make sense.
Even if that’s the only takeaway though, it’s still really significant, because we’ve very rarely seen Trump’s loyal base go down below 40% since he first ran for president. It’ll be interesting to see if Trump approval begins to correlate closer to this “would vote Trump again” number. There are some signs Trump’s voters have splintered on the left, right and center. The question is whether it’s temporary or permanent.
I really doubt Trump voting partisans would ever vote for a Democrat, but if they stay home in 2026 instead, that would be good enough and have massive implications for the upcoming midterms.
Eh, Trump has over-performed his poll numbers every time he's been on the ballot. There's plenty of evidence, sadly, that much of his support eludes traditional polling methods.
It would be nice if that anti-Trump wave makes her lose the primary or makes her toxic in a general statewide race.
Oh hell, this is Nancy MACE we're talking about here. She's not radioactive like Mark Robinson, she's standard Republican fare voters will hold their nose and vote for.
She's also in a state that is MUCH more Trump Party friendly. Charleston and Columbia are not small towns, but neither are they Charlotte, Raleigh, nor Atlanta. Hence flipping the state will be MUCH harder than NC or GA.
SC is also over 10 points more Republican, and had a large rightward swing we didn’t see in 2020 and 2024. More interesting is to see what becomes of her house seat without her in it.
Not a lawyer, just trying to read the underlying text. Appreciate an actual lawyer cutting through to clarify.
Abbott's language seems to imply that he thinks he can appoint new state legislators if they can be declared vacant, while also conceding (in a pugilistic way that pretends it's not conceding) that determining seats vacant would require a [state] district court proceeding. I have to assume any ruling could be appealed up to the state circuit and supreme courts, and I wonder even if all seats can be challenged in one Austin district court or if they need to be challenged in various courts across the state where the seats are located.
To his language about "that empowers me to swiftly fill vacancies under Article III, Section 13" of the state constitution, I don't see any mechanism for appointment at all. It would have to go through the special election process. I assume Abbott will ignore any stay pending appeal after a trial court agrees and try to schedule primary dates asap, so trying to figure out the quickest this could happen. The writ of election has to be called within 20 days of the vacancy (assume he'll move fast). It seems like the governor can override the local district's authority and call them as "emergency elections" but it requires explicitly naming said "emergency" and idk if that can be also challenged in court. Regardless, an emergency date is supposed to be on a Tues or Sat between 36-64 days from the writ. But the federal MOVE Act says ballots have to be sent to military and overseas voters 45 days before the election, and election administrators need candidates finalized before they can even making, print and send ballots.
There's also something called an "expedited election" but it seems like that would require it to be over 60 days before convening a special legislative session. Even if they try that route, it still has 20 days to order a writ, then says a Tues or Sat between 21-45 days from that order. But candidate filing for an election between 21-36 days from the order has to be between 5 days from the order to 16 days before the election. And I just think all of those are extremely difficult to comply with the MOVE Act.
And then there have to be runoff options! The secretary of state has to post the canvass date 24hrs in advance, and it has to be within 10 days of the election (holidays don't slow down). Then the runoff candidates have to be certified for the runoff within five days of the final canvass. For expedited runoffs, again, I think it just doesn't comply with the MOVE Act--it says a Tues or Sat between 12-25 days. I don't see particular provisions for emergency runoffs on my quick read.
Hope I'm somewhere in the ballpark, and at least court challenges to a district court determination of a vacancy alone is enough to stall time for them to make it past the filing date. That being said, my other fear is that Kavanaugh has basically written in a way that the Purcell principle (can't change election rules too close to an election) only matters if it advantages Repubs and disadvantages Dems. I'd hope TX's very early 2026 primary dates (3/3 and 5/26 runoffs) make it so they can't try to play that game, but you never know.
Abbott has appointed 6/9 of the current justices on Texas' court, with two appointed by Perry and one who was elected without having been appointed by anyone.
Not particularly encouraging on that front, considering that even though Perry was atrocious, republicans' disinterest in rule of law has been increasing dramatically in the years since Abbott was elected.
His statement to me reads that the governor's office doesn't unilaterally declare them vacant, but asks the stage AG's office to request state district court(s) to do so, which is why I ask if just the appeals process for that alone carries them past any reasonable Purcell deadline. But TX judges run in party partisan elections, and it's undoubted that if such cases are carried all the way thru appeals to the state supreme court, that it gets a unanimous ruling in Abbot's favor.
Gene Wu, TX Democratic House minority leader, says that Abbott can't declare the seats vacant and fill them. Nor can Trump force them to go back to Texas.
And I'm sure they consulted with their attorneys to see if the TX courts would back Abbott or the state constitution before denying Abbott that quorum.
I mean, yeah, of course they're going to say that haha. I think this is all a stalling technique and the play is that it's worth the risk of losing their seats (or even heavy fines and/or jail time) to stop the gerrymanders. And if months down the line, the courts say they're vacant, they run in the special elections to succeed themselves where at least most will win like Justin Pearson and Justin Jones in TN. If the appeals go all the way until the general election next November, they run for new mandates and the vacancy case is moot. Of course, Abbott could launch this AGAIN next term, so the ideal scenario is him losing in 2026 too...
Another Dem TX rep, Jolanda Jones, appeared with Gov Kathy Hochul at a press conference in NY earlier today. She said that as an attorney, Abbott's statements were "full of shit" and that there was nothing in the TX penal code or statute that enables him to fill the seats left to deny quorum.
i'm a law student not a lawyer but I am involved with some of the legal work here (won't provide any more identifying information) but Abbott's threats are basically empty. You can't cite to an AG advisory opinion to exercise power, it's like citing to a law review article. The courts would have to specifically rule that the seats had been vacated, and it'd take individual elections for each of the House members. Zero chance, they basically have no recourse here. The only big question is whether Dems can hold out until December 8th.
Sounds like Derek Dooley is in for GA-Sen per Politico. A baffling choice for a guy who was a failed football coach over a decade ago for Georgia’s third-biggest rival after GT and Florida, and who is just banking on a famous last name from 45 years ago.
I don't know if I'd go that far. I think there are quite a few R's in GA who could beat Ossoff. That said, I agree with your general point - outside of Kemp getting in, he's certainly favored...
Right. But Walker actually *achieved* those achievements - he was easily the best college football player of his generation and Georgia had twenty years of doldrums once he graduated until Mark Richt restored the program. Derek Dooley… has a famous dad. That’s it.
Question in general for David and Jeff, but I assume there's a legal barrier: Is The Downballot allowed to link to Dem candidates donation pages directly? I assume if you get any grant funding that you can't, but just wondering.
My own personal opinion, but voters of all ideologies have been screaming “fix the system, we can’t get by (let alone achieve our dreams) anymore” since Obama as income inequality has exploded consistently except for during Biden’s presidency (ironic or tragic your pick).
Our party is at the lowest level of approval ever. Republicans have held the House for 12 years. Democrats have held it for just 4 years. Republicans have held the Senate for 8 years since the master politician and Democratic strategist Harry Reid left. We’ve held it for 4 years. At what point do we look at the overall results and say “this isn’t working, let’s try something else”?
Yes there’s a very big risk we could blow the 2026 midterms if we move left or nominate more progressive candidates in swing seats, but really, what exactly is the impetus for us to keep doing the same and making the same choices?
And you know what that could do? Inspire voters who sit out elections to go vote (like Trump did in 2016, 2020 and 2024). Inspire Trump voters to switch sides. I’m willing to risk potentially losing 2 years of stopping Trump’s insanity if it means we have the opportunity to build a movement so big, Republicans can’t outvote us.
Moderates won’t do that (these people already don’t vote), but maybe progressives will. A chance I’m willing to take. Are you?
I think we're seeing this have its first real big test with Mamdani. Mamdani was able to activate those progressive voters and after decades of telling the left "Blue No Matter Who" the moderates have to follow suit. They have rarely had to hold their nose to vote for someone and I think it's time that they are the ones who have to do it because of the threat Republicans pose to everyone and everything.
I'm talking about the willingness of moderates to support the party candidate that isn't in line with their beliefs for the greater good of the party. If they don't get in line in a very blue city, how are we to believe they'll line up behind them in Swing Districts?
I think the issue here is that there are Democratic voters whose views are closer to Adams or Cuomo than they are to Mamdani, and there's no risk of a vote for them being a spoiler. One of those three will be Mayor in 2026. The argument for voting for the Democratic nominee in Presidential elections is that they are closer to the left's politics than Trump is, that's distinct from what we're talking about here.
Neither of those two is running in the general election as a Democrat, so any anti-progressive or person otherwise breaking with the Democratic Party to vote for them is precisely being a spoiler.
Because if you go seat-by-seat, the perceived moderates (i.e. Mark Kelly, Elissa Slotkin) won very tough U.S. Senate races, and many more (Marie Glusenkamp Perez, Jared Golden, etc.) hold down tough seats in the House. We'd need evidence (and please point me to some.. generally curious) where an out & out progressive won a swing seat. So the impetus is that moderate-coded candidates tend to win more elections (there;s plenty of polical data to back this up). Maybe everyone is conflating "fighting back" with "liberal" and that really isn't the case?
Now a national presidential primary is a different story/different discussion. As is one in a huge liberal city line NYC.
I'd say she is. DW-Nominate, which isn't perfect but is good for eyeballing things, has her as the 6th most left dem in the senate for the current and prior congress; only a smidge behind Markey and Hirono. Before she ran for senate in 2012 she represented WI-02, the seat currently held by Mark Pocan and is centered on Madison with a PVI of D+21. She consistently supports a single payer healthcare system.
Some of the names would be Tammy Baldwin, Raphael Warnock, Dave Min, Chris Deluzio, 2022's John Fetterman and Katie Porter have won or held onto tough swing seats. It depends on the kind of politician. And some of these moderate coded progressives. Ossoff also is not a progressive but he is not a Third Wayer or moderate at all.
People are not conflating fighting back with liberal, the general makeup of the Democratic primary electorate has become more liberal and on policy by policy polls, you'll get more liberal responses.
Running MO-5 to Columbia while keeping most of KCMO in the district would probably still leave the district at least theoretically winnable for Democrats. Running MO-5 to Jefferson City or Joplin (the latter might have intra-party opposition from SW MO Republicans) would be a much more rock-solid gerrymander for the GOP.
I would love to see the presidential numbers on this, because there's quite a mix of things happening here. The new map adds the heavily rural areas between KC and Columbia, but it also sheds a lot of territory in Platte County and southern Jackson County that are mostly white and Republican. Meanwhile it retains the most liberal parts of KC while adding all of blue Columbia. From first appearance, it almost looks like they're trying to create a Dem vote sink by linking blue cities halfway across the state.
That would appear to go against a stated goal by Republicans of drawing a 7R-1D map. The three counties between Jackson and Boone in that proposed version of MO-5 (Lafayette, Saline, and Howard) are very Republican, but, as those counties are rural and don't have a ton of people, I doubt they could provide enough of a GOP margin to overcome a big Democratic margin in the Jackson part of the district and a modest Democratic margin in the Boone part of the district. Also, the proposal doesn't try to crack the Democratic-leaning parts of the St. Louis metro to effectively eliminate MO-1.
Gov. Kathy Hochul openly embraced the full-fledged gerrymandering of congressional districts in New York to favor Democrats on Monday, marking a significant shift in her push to combat similar pro-Republican changes in states like Texas.
The redistricting effort she’s pushing in New York could open the door to a new set of maps that give Democrats an edge in 22 of the state’s 26 congressional districts by 2028. They won 19 of the 26 seats in 2024.
I think I remember seeing maps with Democrats favoured in 23/26 districts. Don’t think we can get to 24 though.
Up to 9 seats in California, up to 4 seats in New York. Then there’s other blue states with potential redraws. Republicans should think hard about the fight they’ve started because Democrats aren’t going to lay down and die unlike every time previously.
Can the GOP draw 13+ new seats? Maybe, maybe not, but I think it’ll be hard without risking losing potential seats to Democrats with a dummymander. Regardless, 13 seats would be a tough challenge for them to overcome one and I don’t think they could get above 18, so it’d still be a net gain for us if we follow through on our threats.
Call me pessimistic but I see the 13+ seat question as the wrong one to ask.
I'm more worried about next decade's maps than I am about next year. If we have a 2018 style environment we can get to a majority even with Texas, Florida, Missouri, and Ohio re-gerrymandering. It's a lot more likely to get that environment in 2026 than it is to get it every cycle next decade.
By the time states are doing the census ordered redistricting for 2032, there will not be any outrage based impetus to get California to change — made far worse by Newsom designing the current measure to only last through 2030. Any republican state that doesn't follow through on maximizing their seats right now I fully expect to follow through after reapportionment.
So to me the question isn't how many seats can republicans draw for next year. It's how many seats can they pick up after reapportionment and redistricting versus what we can get? Next census could be brutal for us if we cannot get housing costs under control in blue states more or less immediately.
Seems like the consensus projection is that California will lose 4 (!!) seats. Almost all of the net population flow is projected at blue or northern swing states to southern red states. Granted, 2020 ended up a lot better for us than projected, and I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen again and we get something more "bad" than "cataclysmic." That would still be a difficult hurdle to get through, especially if California is again unilaterally disarming in advance.
I’d be skeptical of CA’s 4 seat loss projection since that still relies heavily on loopy Covid era trends that the Census Bureau hasn’t totally worked out of their data
I agree, but I doubt we're going to see a "good" reapportionment regardless. We might see "not bad" or "sorta bad" but "good" is all but completely off the table. The overall problem remains, even if the scale is unknown.
When was the last reapportionment that wasn't a net loss for us? Maybe 1990? Florida was still competitive, Texas we still were able to win, and California was on the cusp of becoming solid blue. Lots of contemporary blue states lost seats but they were flowing to places we could still win, too.
We can, probably correctly!, assume that 2030's census will not be as dramatically bad for us as projections state. But can we argue it will not be bad?
Net flow to NC, VA, and GA. Requires state supreme court wins in NC to ensure fairness. Requires VA to remain in D hands. Maybe a GA governor win for a D in 30 would help.
Maybe also a new seat in CO and AZ that could counteract FL, TX, etc.
That’s why Dems need to pass a national law if they have a trifecta in 2029. Anything California or New York does to counteract Texas and other red states is just a temporary bandaid on a mortal wound.
17 would be easy to flip, and they could shore up 18 and 19 by pushing things north. They could flip 1 by making 2 a Republican vote sink. Whether they can do those things and make 11 winnable would be an open question.
Can I just post something insane? Over on RRH there are a couple of posters saying that Republicans need to learn to fight like Dems. It seems that it's a universal belief that our sides need to fight more like the other.
Well that’s silly then since the only reason they are leaving is the GOP throwing maps out mid decade. When was the last time Dems redrew a state mid decade?
Sometimes people don't turn out like their family members. Unfortunately, Ms. Sweeney isn't one of those folks.
I'd be more shocked if her Euphoria co-star Zendaya was a MAGA Republican.
Zendaya hasn't been involved in partisan politics to my knowledge, but she has spoken out about a number of causes, none of which offer any reason to believe she is any kind of Republican.
If she were MAGA you'd know: the media would probably have bullhorned it as representative of the great youth shift to the right (which already seems outdated based on polling of the last several months.)
I’m pretty certain Zendaya is a Democrat.
Is it legal to think Euphoria was/is a terrible show and their performances were god awful (ducks for cover).
Zendaya is good. Everyone else is terrible.
And my Democratic Congresswoman also grew up in an Idaho farm family (they grew potatoes in Twin Falls County, in the southern part of the state.) So what?
If you could predict people's lifetime politics based on where they grew up, I'd be on RRH Elections, not here.
same
Yeah grew up in Randy Fines original neck of the woods.
I grew up in Prince William County, VA, in the 1980s and 90s when it was red. (It's usually blue now.)
I'm so glad you liked it! We workshopped that one much harder than usual, because I wanted to make sure it would land. Delighted that it did!
Taegan Goddard liked it too:
https://politicalwire.com/2025/08/04/nance-mace-launches-bid-for-south-carolina-governor/
Awesome!
The headline is great but OMG we have to look at that photo all day...her phony smile is nauseating!
You gotta take the good with the bad! 😆
The headline of your Morning Digest made me laugh out loud.
Meanwhile, Trump says: "I’m holding meetings with the three most important people in the world – me, myself and I."
Imagine how much more f***ed we'd be if Trump weren't one of the stupidest people alive.
I used to say: "Trump’s only redeeming trait is that his malevolence is tempered by massive incompetence."
Unfortunately, this time around, he is surrounded by some highly-competent Fascists, such as Russ Vought and Stephen Miller.
Weren’t both of these guys in his first term too?
Yes, but now with powers that have been expanded to a frightening degree.
I still think Trump’s incompetence will ultimately keep us from falling into total authoritarianism. Think Bolsonaro’s presidency in Brazil.
Worth noting: President Lula and Brazilian courts are doing what AG Merrick Garland failed to do: prosecuting in a timely and aggressive manner the people who attempted a coup!
It's only a matter of time before he turns on them, though. (I'm honestly surprised that Miller has lasted this long.)
Omg, 100%! My husband says this all the time - if Trump weren’t so incompetently dumb, we’d be f***ed as a nation.
We're nevertheless fucked, in my opinion. Why would anyone want to make any agreement with the U.S. now or in the future?
going to take 2-3 presidential terms to undo the damage on the international stage, much the way Obama's last two years were the rebirth of American leadership after almost a decade of post-bush leadership.
At a minimum, what it would take is the transformation of the Republican Party into one that respects and enforces agreements. Everyone would be a fool to consider temporary Democratic administration a reason to expect agreements with the U.S. to last into the next Republican administration.
That's not always an advantage. Stupid people fuck up a lot of things.
SC state rep and gubernatorial candidate Josh Kimbrell was just sued by his business partner. It’s going to be an interesting race. https://www.wrdw.com/2025/07/24/sc-senator-gives-up-aircraft-company-amid-fraud-lawsuit/
With people like Michelle Steel and Nancy Mess bowing out of Congressional bids, perhaps GOP confidence in keeping their majority—even with every possible cheat code in use—is waning?
I buy that Steel is either thinking of midterm trends and now also about possible CA revenge gerrymandering. I think Mace has narcissistic personality disorder and was doing this regardless lmao.
Sometimes I wish that OBNOXIOUS personality disorder were a real diagnosis—she definitely has that!
If you could go back and make your decision now about your 2024 vote, how would you vote
🔵 Harris 42%
🔴 Trump 35%
YouGov #B - RV - 7/30
What about the missing 23%? Could you clarify their preferences? I presume they’re not all Jill Stein or Chase Oliver voters!
Most probably “Not sure” voters
23% undecided? That seems unbelievably high in today’s hyperpartisan political environment! Certainly doesn’t match other preference polls.
Or they've decided that they wouldn't vote for either of them--which most often means they won't vote for anyone at all.
I don't think turnout would crater by 23% if you re-ran the election now. Most of those undecideds would probably hold their collective nose and vote for someone--and Harris (and perhaps by extension Biden's term) may be looking better now than they did nine months ago.
Maybe, but I'm skeptical they'd actually change their votes. They didn't vote intelligently when they had the chance.
A lot of registered voters didn't vote in 2024.
It's a hypothetical question, which I would think would increase the nonresponse.
Means very little
Less than that.
Yep. After Watergate, the majority of Americans claimed to have voted for McGovern in 1972. Enough said.
Well, the 1974 midterms and (to a lesser degree) 1976 presidential results do at least indicate that this sort of changing of minds is a positive sign...
Exactly. The ability to express regret is a good thing.
My points were and are that #1. most voters have short term memories when it comes to politics and #2. this is nothing new.
The only thing this tells us is that there are more loyal Harris voters than there are Trump voters. The rest of it is mostly low information voters for each party of which Trump relies on way more than Harris (up to 7% compared to up to 16%), which intuitively and from post election analysis would make sense.
Even if that’s the only takeaway though, it’s still really significant, because we’ve very rarely seen Trump’s loyal base go down below 40% since he first ran for president. It’ll be interesting to see if Trump approval begins to correlate closer to this “would vote Trump again” number. There are some signs Trump’s voters have splintered on the left, right and center. The question is whether it’s temporary or permanent.
I really doubt Trump voting partisans would ever vote for a Democrat, but if they stay home in 2026 instead, that would be good enough and have massive implications for the upcoming midterms.
Or it means that people who would vote for Trump again told this pollster to go fuck itself.
They’ve never had a problem espousing their Trump support loudly and proudly, so if that were the case, why change so suddenly?
Eh, Trump has over-performed his poll numbers every time he's been on the ballot. There's plenty of evidence, sadly, that much of his support eludes traditional polling methods.
I've never believed that. The spoke to pollsters in 2024 even though we didn't want to believe those polls
It would be nice if that anti-Trump wave makes her lose the primary or makes her toxic in a general statewide race.
Oh hell, this is Nancy MACE we're talking about here. She's not radioactive like Mark Robinson, she's standard Republican fare voters will hold their nose and vote for.
She's also in a state that is MUCH more Trump Party friendly. Charleston and Columbia are not small towns, but neither are they Charlotte, Raleigh, nor Atlanta. Hence flipping the state will be MUCH harder than NC or GA.
SC is also over 10 points more Republican, and had a large rightward swing we didn’t see in 2020 and 2024. More interesting is to see what becomes of her house seat without her in it.
Yeah, I'm definitely more interested in the House seat now. If a truly toxic MAGAdonian wins the primary there...
I think Templeton runs again
Not a lawyer, just trying to read the underlying text. Appreciate an actual lawyer cutting through to clarify.
Abbott's language seems to imply that he thinks he can appoint new state legislators if they can be declared vacant, while also conceding (in a pugilistic way that pretends it's not conceding) that determining seats vacant would require a [state] district court proceeding. I have to assume any ruling could be appealed up to the state circuit and supreme courts, and I wonder even if all seats can be challenged in one Austin district court or if they need to be challenged in various courts across the state where the seats are located.
To his language about "that empowers me to swiftly fill vacancies under Article III, Section 13" of the state constitution, I don't see any mechanism for appointment at all. It would have to go through the special election process. I assume Abbott will ignore any stay pending appeal after a trial court agrees and try to schedule primary dates asap, so trying to figure out the quickest this could happen. The writ of election has to be called within 20 days of the vacancy (assume he'll move fast). It seems like the governor can override the local district's authority and call them as "emergency elections" but it requires explicitly naming said "emergency" and idk if that can be also challenged in court. Regardless, an emergency date is supposed to be on a Tues or Sat between 36-64 days from the writ. But the federal MOVE Act says ballots have to be sent to military and overseas voters 45 days before the election, and election administrators need candidates finalized before they can even making, print and send ballots.
There's also something called an "expedited election" but it seems like that would require it to be over 60 days before convening a special legislative session. Even if they try that route, it still has 20 days to order a writ, then says a Tues or Sat between 21-45 days from that order. But candidate filing for an election between 21-36 days from the order has to be between 5 days from the order to 16 days before the election. And I just think all of those are extremely difficult to comply with the MOVE Act.
And then there have to be runoff options! The secretary of state has to post the canvass date 24hrs in advance, and it has to be within 10 days of the election (holidays don't slow down). Then the runoff candidates have to be certified for the runoff within five days of the final canvass. For expedited runoffs, again, I think it just doesn't comply with the MOVE Act--it says a Tues or Sat between 12-25 days. I don't see particular provisions for emergency runoffs on my quick read.
Hope I'm somewhere in the ballpark, and at least court challenges to a district court determination of a vacancy alone is enough to stall time for them to make it past the filing date. That being said, my other fear is that Kavanaugh has basically written in a way that the Purcell principle (can't change election rules too close to an election) only matters if it advantages Repubs and disadvantages Dems. I'd hope TX's very early 2026 primary dates (3/3 and 5/26 runoffs) make it so they can't try to play that game, but you never know.
Article III of the TX Const: https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CN/htm/CN.3.htm
Election Code Title 12, Chapter 203: https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/docs/el/htm/el.203.htm
Election Code Title 4, Chapter 41: https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/EL/htm/EL.41.htm
Full Election Code: https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/docs/sdocs/electioncode.pdf
Abbott's just talking out his behind. Like every MAGA Republican.
A propos, Texas Rep. Gene Wu says it's "Sound and fury signifying nothing."
https://politicalwire.com/2025/08/04/exchange-of-the-day-356/
I don’t see where he has the authority to expel members and declare vacancies on his own. But who knows how the Texas courts will rule.
The judges outside the big cities are nothing but republican politicians, the supreme court does whatever they want why not these tiny courts?
Abbott has appointed 6/9 of the current justices on Texas' court, with two appointed by Perry and one who was elected without having been appointed by anyone.
Not particularly encouraging on that front, considering that even though Perry was atrocious, republicans' disinterest in rule of law has been increasing dramatically in the years since Abbott was elected.
His statement to me reads that the governor's office doesn't unilaterally declare them vacant, but asks the stage AG's office to request state district court(s) to do so, which is why I ask if just the appeals process for that alone carries them past any reasonable Purcell deadline. But TX judges run in party partisan elections, and it's undoubted that if such cases are carried all the way thru appeals to the state supreme court, that it gets a unanimous ruling in Abbot's favor.
https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-statement-on-house-democratic-quorum-break
Dark times – made darker by Abbott pulling absurd ideas from that place where the sun never shines.
Gene Wu, TX Democratic House minority leader, says that Abbott can't declare the seats vacant and fill them. Nor can Trump force them to go back to Texas.
And I'm sure they consulted with their attorneys to see if the TX courts would back Abbott or the state constitution before denying Abbott that quorum.
I mean, yeah, of course they're going to say that haha. I think this is all a stalling technique and the play is that it's worth the risk of losing their seats (or even heavy fines and/or jail time) to stop the gerrymanders. And if months down the line, the courts say they're vacant, they run in the special elections to succeed themselves where at least most will win like Justin Pearson and Justin Jones in TN. If the appeals go all the way until the general election next November, they run for new mandates and the vacancy case is moot. Of course, Abbott could launch this AGAIN next term, so the ideal scenario is him losing in 2026 too...
Another Dem TX rep, Jolanda Jones, appeared with Gov Kathy Hochul at a press conference in NY earlier today. She said that as an attorney, Abbott's statements were "full of shit" and that there was nothing in the TX penal code or statute that enables him to fill the seats left to deny quorum.
Wouldn’t shock me if Trump tried to send ICE thugs after them.
I doubt that’s going to work.
Besides, ICE is too busy rounding up immigrants.
i'm a law student not a lawyer but I am involved with some of the legal work here (won't provide any more identifying information) but Abbott's threats are basically empty. You can't cite to an AG advisory opinion to exercise power, it's like citing to a law review article. The courts would have to specifically rule that the seats had been vacated, and it'd take individual elections for each of the House members. Zero chance, they basically have no recourse here. The only big question is whether Dems can hold out until December 8th.
Sounds like Derek Dooley is in for GA-Sen per Politico. A baffling choice for a guy who was a failed football coach over a decade ago for Georgia’s third-biggest rival after GT and Florida, and who is just banking on a famous last name from 45 years ago.
Nobody other than Kemp is beating a candidate as charismatic and popular among small dollar donors as Ossoff, it's that simple. They need a fall guy.
I don't know if I'd go that far. I think there are quite a few R's in GA who could beat Ossoff. That said, I agree with your general point - outside of Kemp getting in, he's certainly favored...
Senator Herschel Walker can tell everyone how well college football achievements from the 1980s can get someone elected to the US Senate in the 2020s.
Right. But Walker actually *achieved* those achievements - he was easily the best college football player of his generation and Georgia had twenty years of doldrums once he graduated until Mark Richt restored the program. Derek Dooley… has a famous dad. That’s it.
😨😳💰👀
No way,
Never going to happen, she is a Trump supporter!
Question in general for David and Jeff, but I assume there's a legal barrier: Is The Downballot allowed to link to Dem candidates donation pages directly? I assume if you get any grant funding that you can't, but just wondering.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/08/04/democratic-party-change-under-trump-polls/
https://archive.ph/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/08/04/democratic-party-change-under-trump-polls/
WaPo: This isn’t the same Democratic Party as Trump’s first term
Polls show a base of voters who are growing more liberal and less trusting of leaders in both parties.
https://x.com/lxeagle17/status/1952369238813098359
I have a feeling James Trout will like this one.
More liberal voters? If true, fine by me!
My own personal opinion, but voters of all ideologies have been screaming “fix the system, we can’t get by (let alone achieve our dreams) anymore” since Obama as income inequality has exploded consistently except for during Biden’s presidency (ironic or tragic your pick).
Our party is at the lowest level of approval ever. Republicans have held the House for 12 years. Democrats have held it for just 4 years. Republicans have held the Senate for 8 years since the master politician and Democratic strategist Harry Reid left. We’ve held it for 4 years. At what point do we look at the overall results and say “this isn’t working, let’s try something else”?
Yes there’s a very big risk we could blow the 2026 midterms if we move left or nominate more progressive candidates in swing seats, but really, what exactly is the impetus for us to keep doing the same and making the same choices?
And you know what that could do? Inspire voters who sit out elections to go vote (like Trump did in 2016, 2020 and 2024). Inspire Trump voters to switch sides. I’m willing to risk potentially losing 2 years of stopping Trump’s insanity if it means we have the opportunity to build a movement so big, Republicans can’t outvote us.
Moderates won’t do that (these people already don’t vote), but maybe progressives will. A chance I’m willing to take. Are you?
I think we're seeing this have its first real big test with Mamdani. Mamdani was able to activate those progressive voters and after decades of telling the left "Blue No Matter Who" the moderates have to follow suit. They have rarely had to hold their nose to vote for someone and I think it's time that they are the ones who have to do it because of the threat Republicans pose to everyone and everything.
How does Mamdani relate? We're talking about a very blue city here, not a swing area.
I'm talking about the willingness of moderates to support the party candidate that isn't in line with their beliefs for the greater good of the party. If they don't get in line in a very blue city, how are we to believe they'll line up behind them in Swing Districts?
I think the issue here is that there are Democratic voters whose views are closer to Adams or Cuomo than they are to Mamdani, and there's no risk of a vote for them being a spoiler. One of those three will be Mayor in 2026. The argument for voting for the Democratic nominee in Presidential elections is that they are closer to the left's politics than Trump is, that's distinct from what we're talking about here.
Neither of those two is running in the general election as a Democrat, so any anti-progressive or person otherwise breaking with the Democratic Party to vote for them is precisely being a spoiler.
Because if you go seat-by-seat, the perceived moderates (i.e. Mark Kelly, Elissa Slotkin) won very tough U.S. Senate races, and many more (Marie Glusenkamp Perez, Jared Golden, etc.) hold down tough seats in the House. We'd need evidence (and please point me to some.. generally curious) where an out & out progressive won a swing seat. So the impetus is that moderate-coded candidates tend to win more elections (there;s plenty of polical data to back this up). Maybe everyone is conflating "fighting back" with "liberal" and that really isn't the case?
Now a national presidential primary is a different story/different discussion. As is one in a huge liberal city line NYC.
Tammy Baldwin.
Is she really all that progressive? She always struck me as fairly moderate...
I'd say she is. DW-Nominate, which isn't perfect but is good for eyeballing things, has her as the 6th most left dem in the senate for the current and prior congress; only a smidge behind Markey and Hirono. Before she ran for senate in 2012 she represented WI-02, the seat currently held by Mark Pocan and is centered on Madison with a PVI of D+21. She consistently supports a single payer healthcare system.
Some of the names would be Tammy Baldwin, Raphael Warnock, Dave Min, Chris Deluzio, 2022's John Fetterman and Katie Porter have won or held onto tough swing seats. It depends on the kind of politician. And some of these moderate coded progressives. Ossoff also is not a progressive but he is not a Third Wayer or moderate at all.
People are not conflating fighting back with liberal, the general makeup of the Democratic primary electorate has become more liberal and on policy by policy polls, you'll get more liberal responses.
No, I never would have chosen the risk and damage of Trump for any reason or any compensation.
Missouri re-redistricting - Looks like a potential dummymander has been floated in Missouri:
https://www.threads.com/@hartzellforkc/post/DM5487-RtNC?xmt=AQF05-5AziyBDTmX1QHliYZA2qA8XWd7eea2VVL5xdlscw
Running MO-5 to Columbia while keeping most of KCMO in the district would probably still leave the district at least theoretically winnable for Democrats. Running MO-5 to Jefferson City or Joplin (the latter might have intra-party opposition from SW MO Republicans) would be a much more rock-solid gerrymander for the GOP.
I would love to see the presidential numbers on this, because there's quite a mix of things happening here. The new map adds the heavily rural areas between KC and Columbia, but it also sheds a lot of territory in Platte County and southern Jackson County that are mostly white and Republican. Meanwhile it retains the most liberal parts of KC while adding all of blue Columbia. From first appearance, it almost looks like they're trying to create a Dem vote sink by linking blue cities halfway across the state.
That would appear to go against a stated goal by Republicans of drawing a 7R-1D map. The three counties between Jackson and Boone in that proposed version of MO-5 (Lafayette, Saline, and Howard) are very Republican, but, as those counties are rural and don't have a ton of people, I doubt they could provide enough of a GOP margin to overcome a big Democratic margin in the Jackson part of the district and a modest Democratic margin in the Boone part of the district. Also, the proposal doesn't try to crack the Democratic-leaning parts of the St. Louis metro to effectively eliminate MO-1.
Gov. Kathy Hochul openly embraced the full-fledged gerrymandering of congressional districts in New York to favor Democrats on Monday, marking a significant shift in her push to combat similar pro-Republican changes in states like Texas.
The redistricting effort she’s pushing in New York could open the door to a new set of maps that give Democrats an edge in 22 of the state’s 26 congressional districts by 2028. They won 19 of the 26 seats in 2024.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/04/hochul-embraces-gerrymandering-in-new-york-00492008
Would be good to see, and could be particularly crucial for 2032.
Is 22/26 the best we can do without aggressively abusing water contiguity, over the top baconmanders, or similar?
I think I remember seeing maps with Democrats favoured in 23/26 districts. Don’t think we can get to 24 though.
Up to 9 seats in California, up to 4 seats in New York. Then there’s other blue states with potential redraws. Republicans should think hard about the fight they’ve started because Democrats aren’t going to lay down and die unlike every time previously.
Can the GOP draw 13+ new seats? Maybe, maybe not, but I think it’ll be hard without risking losing potential seats to Democrats with a dummymander. Regardless, 13 seats would be a tough challenge for them to overcome one and I don’t think they could get above 18, so it’d still be a net gain for us if we follow through on our threats.
Call me pessimistic but I see the 13+ seat question as the wrong one to ask.
I'm more worried about next decade's maps than I am about next year. If we have a 2018 style environment we can get to a majority even with Texas, Florida, Missouri, and Ohio re-gerrymandering. It's a lot more likely to get that environment in 2026 than it is to get it every cycle next decade.
By the time states are doing the census ordered redistricting for 2032, there will not be any outrage based impetus to get California to change — made far worse by Newsom designing the current measure to only last through 2030. Any republican state that doesn't follow through on maximizing their seats right now I fully expect to follow through after reapportionment.
So to me the question isn't how many seats can republicans draw for next year. It's how many seats can they pick up after reapportionment and redistricting versus what we can get? Next census could be brutal for us if we cannot get housing costs under control in blue states more or less immediately.
Seems like the consensus projection is that California will lose 4 (!!) seats. Almost all of the net population flow is projected at blue or northern swing states to southern red states. Granted, 2020 ended up a lot better for us than projected, and I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen again and we get something more "bad" than "cataclysmic." That would still be a difficult hurdle to get through, especially if California is again unilaterally disarming in advance.
I’d be skeptical of CA’s 4 seat loss projection since that still relies heavily on loopy Covid era trends that the Census Bureau hasn’t totally worked out of their data
I agree, but I doubt we're going to see a "good" reapportionment regardless. We might see "not bad" or "sorta bad" but "good" is all but completely off the table. The overall problem remains, even if the scale is unknown.
When was the last reapportionment that wasn't a net loss for us? Maybe 1990? Florida was still competitive, Texas we still were able to win, and California was on the cusp of becoming solid blue. Lots of contemporary blue states lost seats but they were flowing to places we could still win, too.
We can, probably correctly!, assume that 2030's census will not be as dramatically bad for us as projections state. But can we argue it will not be bad?
Net flow to NC, VA, and GA. Requires state supreme court wins in NC to ensure fairness. Requires VA to remain in D hands. Maybe a GA governor win for a D in 30 would help.
Maybe also a new seat in CO and AZ that could counteract FL, TX, etc.
That’s why Dems need to pass a national law if they have a trifecta in 2029. Anything California or New York does to counteract Texas and other red states is just a temporary bandaid on a mortal wound.
17 would be easy to flip, and they could shore up 18 and 19 by pushing things north. They could flip 1 by making 2 a Republican vote sink. Whether they can do those things and make 11 winnable would be an open question.
Can I just post something insane? Over on RRH there are a couple of posters saying that Republicans need to learn to fight like Dems. It seems that it's a universal belief that our sides need to fight more like the other.
What a counterproductive, reductionist characterization of the efforts of those Democrats.
Did they cite examples?
They are talking about the Texas situation. It might be only one or two posters.
Well that’s silly then since the only reason they are leaving is the GOP throwing maps out mid decade. When was the last time Dems redrew a state mid decade?
I don’t recall it ever being done without a court order until Texas did it in 2003.