The group I'm volunteering with, Respect MO Voters, has a whole policy team made up of volunteer lawyers who plan on fighting back when state republicans inevitably try to stop our initiative from getting on the ballot. The group working on the gerrymander veto referendum, People Not Politicians, is much better funded, so I expect they are even more prepared to deal with republican obstacles. Respect MO Voters is almost all volunteers and raises money from Missouri sources only while People Not Politicians pays its signature gatherers and is getting national help.
I’m not a leader in the organization or anything, but I’d guess that sharing the Respect MO Voters website with people you know in Missouri would be helpful.
As some people here have mentioned, Oregon is another state that Democrats could redistrict in order to counteract Republican gerrymandering in other states. Democrats already hold 5 of Oregon’s 6 seats, so the potential gain is only one seat, but that could make all the difference, and Oregon voted for Harris by 14 percent last year so a 6D-0R map with all districts being roughly the same partisanship would still result in six safely Democratic districts. So I decided to draw such a map. This is actually my second attempt at a map like this, but it’s better than my first attempt, since it’s somewhat neater, less baconmander-y, and more uniform in partisanship (all districts are between Harris +13 and Harris +17).
District 1 is for Val Hoyle – it drops the coastal portions of her district and instead moves north to grab Albany and part of Salem. Harris +13.4.
District 2 is for Suzanne Bonamici – it loses its rural counties, along with the heavily Democratic easternmost bit of Washington, and picks up Yamhill County, Dallas, Keizer, and a few heavily Republican precincts near Woodburn. It’s still the bluest district on the map at Harris +16.7.
District 3 is the lynchpin of the entire map. It includes the entire Oregon coastline, and then picks up a large slice of Portland at the north end and the Republican areas of Grants Pass and Medford at the south end. This is the most efficient way to crack the Republican areas of southwestern Oregon and connect them to Portland. It voted Harris +14.1, and it’s one of the two possible options for Maxine Dexter.
District 4 is for Andrea Salinas – it includes the heavily Republican rural areas of Linn County, then downtown Salem and Woodburn, some Republican rural areas in Clackamas County, and then heavily Democratic areas in eastern Washington County, a slice of Portland, and Democratic suburban areas in Clackamas such as Lake Oswego and West Linn. Harris +13.7.
District 5 contains most of Eastern Oregon, including Cliff Bentz’s home in Ontario, but much to his chagrin, also picks up a large, ultra-liberal slice of Portland as well. This slice of Portland is about a third of the district, and voted 87-9 for Harris, while the remainder of the district went 61-38 for Trump. The result is a district that went Harris +14.1 overall, so too Democratic for any Republican. This district is Maxine Dexter’s other option, depending on which portion of Portland she wants to represent.
District 6 is for Janelle Bynum – it maintains the Bend-to-Milwaukie configuration, but loses the portions of Linn and Marion in exchange for part of Gresham, a large suburb in Multnomah County that is nowhere near as blue as Portland but still leans Democratic. It also takes in most of East Portland as well. This shifts the district to the left at Harris +14.4.
Oregon Democrats should seriously consider passing a map like this in order to counteract other new Republican gerrymanders like Missouri and North Carolina.
Does the map conform to Oregon's requirement that district be connected by transportation links? i.e. no water contiguity or empty land connecting parts of districts together
Yes - I split a precinct to keep Route 26 between Sandy and Madras entirely in the 6th, and I split a few precincts in southern Douglas County to allow for forest roads to connect Coos Bay with Grants Pass.
The Hill has reported that former Sen. John E. Sununu will lauch in NH soon
I must say, I'm not a huge fan of people like Janet Mills and Elise Stefanik delaying announcements for months and expecting us to be surprised when they do announce
I just can’t imagine why someone who was a relatively reasonable Republican in the Senate back when it was a functioning body that had self respect would want to be in the Senate as it is now.
Appreciate the really timely UofH poll of the Texas special and day after I'd been wondering what's going on there lol. I wonder if Johnson will try to delay all (Democrats) elected in specials from taking office until the regular session AFTER full certification as the new awful standard, or just seat the winner one day after the runoff like the other three this term...
Johnson has literally no valid excuse to put off swearing in Rep. Adelita Grijalva now. He's protecting the sexual predator in the Oval Office and the rest of his enablers.
I expect AZ AG Kris Mayes to sue him if he doesn't answer by the end of today.
American’s views on the economy turned more negative in the third quarter with deepening concerns about jobs, inflation and the outlook, according to the CNBC All-America Economic Survey.
Together with blame for the shutdown aimed at the president and congressional Republicans, those views dragged down President Donald Trump’s net approval rating on the economy to 42% approving and 55% disapproving.
The -13 net approval on the economy is the lowest of any CNBC survey during either of Trump’s two terms.
53% blame Trump and Rs for shutdown, 37% Ds. 44 approve - 52 disapprove Trump overall. And all these results are with a 40 R / 38 D / 22 I sample of 1,000 adults.
That 44% still approve of Trump is astonishing. I suspect the hangers-on are mostly motivated by the border. I hope Dems are prepared for the land mines Trump has ready for them on the border, crime, and gender. I'm not confident they will be.
The hangers on are motivated by partisanship. Roughly 1/3 of the country today will approve of a republican president no matter what. Presumably similar for a democratic president, though I'd guess lower (20%?) because we're far more willing to critique our own officials.
That leaves us the other ~10% to account for. For them, he's getting approval from about 30-50% of the people that are conservative or conservative leaning but do not support a republican in any/all situations. That group approves of him because (1) the negative consequences of his actions have not appreciably impacted their lives yet, and (2) they like what he is doing because they are conservatives. They're not out there shaking their fists at 90% of his policies but coming back around because of immigration issues. They're conservatives, they support conservative policies.
"Conservative policies" exist on a continuum so wide at this point that it renders the concept of self-identified "conservatives" as moot. That's why I'm astonished the number is still 44%. The Nikki Haley wing of the party must all still be entirely onboard and if they haven't cracked yet, I struggle to see how they will.
Even if the pain finds its way to them and the number slips further, any hypothetical disapproval below this 44% would be a mirage. Anyone still in the tank for him now would be won back with the faintest cage-rattling about culture war issues. That's why, nearly a year removed from election 2024, I'd like to see "election do-over" polling. That would give us a clearer look at where things stand now.
I don't think it's really possible to poll that with any accuracy. But no doubt in my mind, Trump would win a "snap" election today, against Harris or any other flesh and blood Demmycrat (ie, anything short of Democratic Jesus).
I think he'd even beat Obama (if became eligible), but less certain about that.
Hart/POS surveys have been more Trump friendly than not this cycle, so this isn't a bad result.
But I'm surprised you're surprised; half the country is in its own right wing media bubble, and the full impacts of tariffs/shutdowns have yet to be felt, although inflation is remaining persistent. With increased polarization it takes more tangible impacts to shift the needle than it used to, especially when culture war issues are so prominent.
I am surprised that it's 44% on a straight up or down verdict, primarily because I don't think half the country is in its own right-wing media bubble. I think a third of the country is in a "no media" bubble, leading more people to defer to a "vibes" momentum when given the "approve vs. disapprove" binary.
That poll has been somewhat favorable for Trump this year. He's at -8 now but was at -5 in August, -7 in April, and -4 in March so this is his worst result yet.
The worst thing that could happen is for there to be a multi-candidate field. But I'm not convinced that Fetterman will run, or that if he does, he'll run as a Democrat.
I've personally wondered for some time if Fetterman will retire early. He certainly seems miserable in his job. On top of that, I don't think he particularly cares if it would set up an expensive special election in PA that Dems would have to defend -- lord knows he's antagonized Dems a lot as of late.
Bottom line - Fetterman is not fit for office as Senator and is becoming a liability to himself and Democrats by continuing to serve as Senator, especially with his lack of properly managing everyone's expectations about his health problems.
Yeah - his brain is cooked. I truly believe the stroke is really the root cause of him becoming this terrible senator. It’s well documented how strokes can cause changes in personality and temperament (in addition to diminished cognitive functioning). He probably should be in a long-term stroke care facility, not the US Senate.
I have a electoral history question: Why did Democrats choose to run the National Review endorsed neoconservative leaning "New Democrat" Joe Lieberman against Lowell Weickler, a liberal Republican who voted against conservative judicial nominees and supported universal healthcare??
Was Lowell Weickler like Lincoln Chafee was as Senator? Seems like both as politicians would have had plenty in common as liberal Republicans in the Senate if they working with each other.
Sanders and King aren't Republicans either, though - they caucus with Democrats and usually vote with Dems, so therefore Democrats have no real reason to want them gone.
Weicker may have frequently bucked his party, but he still voted for the Republican candidate for Majority Leader.
I guess I would question what you mean by "Democrats choos[ing] to run" someone, this was nearly 40 years ago and Senate elections didn't really look anything like what we have now. Lieberman was the incumbent Attorney General and sensed an opening, I imagine.
national republicans wanted weicker gone as well, he regularly voted with us on social programs, in an attempt to stymie reagan's gutting of safety net post 1980.
written as a fawning tribute to Buckley, read years ago but iirc Buckley worked behind scenes to help lieberman win primary, and then endorsed as you said and massively helped drag lieberman over the line. Weicker was a close ally of Ted Kennedy during their respective fights to stop Reagan gutting of the social safety net. I wouldn't be surprised if many democratic voters did in fact vote for Weicker based on the 1% margin for Lieberman.
Was Lowell Weickler like Lincoln Chafee was as Senator? Seems like both as politicians would have had plenty in common as liberal Republicans in the Senate if they working with each other.
Billboards are up in Newton, Iowa! why Newton instead of densely populated Des Moines? because we did the research, and the wind factory with the most jobs in IA-01 is in Newton. We've got two billboards running. (I don't think I can paste the picture here? so here's a Bluesky post with a link to ActBlue, hint hint.) https://bsky.app/profile/rlmiller.bsky.social/post/3m3fmcubjm22s
Excellent - IA-01 was the closest House race won by a Republican.
IA-03 should be close again, and without the R incumbent in IA-02 running for senate, maybe, as in 2018, Democrats could pick up 3 IA US House seats as well as flip that US Senate seat.
This will probably lead to some lively discussion, but I’m going to say it anyways:
Why are we at all caring who gets blamed for the government shutdown? Obviously of course as Democrats we want voters to blame Republicans and mostly all of the polls do that, but hypothetically speaking let’s say voters blame Democrats by the end of it. Why does that actually matter to some people?
The goal of our party right now is to block as much of Trump’s agenda as we possibly can. The government being shutdown means the only things passing right now (which is obviously unfortunate, but also inevitable, we have no power to stop them) are cabinet positions and judgeships being filled.
By shutting down the government, we’ve already removed a month of terrible legislation from being voted on and the gravy of this whole situation is that voters do actually blame Republicans! This is what hardball tactics gets us, we’re winning our policy goals and our party goals as well as making the party in power look cluelessly incompetent.
What’s not to love? Oh yes, of course, the people being hurt by the shutdown and yes, I do absolutely feel for them, but politically speaking only, this couldn’t be going any better for Democrats. Keep the government shutdown until we get concrete guarantees on our policy preferences.
The longer this drags on, the closer to the midterms we get and once the government reopens at some point, there’ll be many more months taken up by the Epstein files. That lengthy process only starts after the government reopens. We’re playing this shutdown to absolute perfection to my very surprised self.
Another month or two and Epstein gets dragged into the summer of 2026 right when voters start paying attention. I mean from where we were in the Spring to where we are now, the difference is incalculable how much of a better political situation we have.
Extra bonus that Trump’s economic rating, the 1 unbreakable stat about him that voters connect him to regardless of reality is shattered and worse for him than his overall approval, meaning his overall rating will likely go down further and there’s nothing he or his party can do about it.
Republicans know we have all the leverage here and know we have their balls in a vice squeezing as hard as we can. I expect them to swallow the ACA subsidies eventually and their base will be even more despondent than they already are after Epstein/Kimmel. But that’s only if our Democratic incumbents hold strong and just say no. Time will tell if they do.
I remember back in 2013 when the government shutdown happened, Obama and the Democrats strategically chose not to cave in to the demands of the GOP to prevent it.
However, I don't recall after the shutdown ended did it have much impact on the 2014 midterms. Maybe I'm mistaken.
Those posts are from 2013. A lot of people have made stupid comments online at some point in their life. Like I said yesterday, if Democrats disqualify all of those people, we'll literally have no one left to run for office. What I care more about is what Platner believes now, in 2025.
And one other thing - those comments were made using a pseudonymous account. Did someone dox Platner?
I guarantee that if I was able to look through your comment history on every website you've ever commented on, I could find many things whose meaning could be twisted by political opponents.
Which is my whole point here. Everyone has an online history now, and everyone's online history is going to contain *something* that could be used in an attack ad during a political campaign.
The internet is a cesspool…honestly, this is the only place where I ever post anything and I sure as hell wouldn’t be writing the gross stuff Platner did. I understand it’s bullshit that we are held to a higher standard but people should spend way less time spewing crap on online message boards in general. What a waste.
He was still in his 30s in 2013. It's dumb of him to say, even if he was only trolling. The rape comment is more damaging than the others, I think. It's a lot harder to imagine him making it through this. Good odds that there's at least one more headline to be made out of this.
Considering the timing of the release I expect it's opposition research from Mills or her allies. Jump in and damage her main primary opponent right off the bat. It's a smart strategy, whatever we might think of her candidacy.
I care...a lot. First of all, they are reprehensible and I've certainly never said or written anything like that. Second of all, they could very well render him unelectable. I care first and foremost about beating Collins and it's becoming clearer by the day that Mills is the best choice to do that....
Quite honestly, as someone who has a Reddit account, I prefer to be anonymous and not put my first and/or last name in my user name or mention it at all in the comments. It's not anyone's business.
It's hard enough to remain completely anonymous in the world of social media these days. Reddit is one of the better platforms but it's wide reach can still be a liability for anyone wanting to seek public office if they aren't too careful with what they say and share.
I would contest claims about Reddit being better. Some of the meanest, nastiest people I’ve ever seen online have been from there. It’s not as bad as, say, 4chan but it certainly isn’t very nice.
Fair although what I am talking about is not having to put your first and last name in your Reddit user profile. Other than that, I do not consider the platform to necessarily be “safe.”
Back in the days of AOL, all user names were anonymous for the most part as you didn’t have your full name present. More privacy was assured even while the process of getting to know other users had been rather creepy in retrospect. Otherwise, unless you were reported to AOL TOS, you as a user could say anything without crazy crap going on.
MySpace was the last real social media platform that had certain level of ethics with user privacy even while the founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson sold it to News Corp. Anderson, the default friend on MySpace, was adamant on not wanting user data sold to third party advertisers.
What was he thinking not scrubbing his social media before he ran? Honestly that concerns me more than the comments because that tells me as a candidate he's not ready for primetime.
He did, according to the original report. The problem is that there are places archiving reddit comments.
The part that was enabled this to come out isn't that he failed to scrub it to the best of his abilities, it's that someone was able to figure out what his username was and check one or more archival sites to see what was there.
There are some things you can't scrub. Stuff you wrote in college, for example, is always going to be in someone's possession, someone's e-mail, maybe the college newspaper or something like that. And as far as I know, comments on Daily Kos can't be deleted (and accounts can't be deleted either), so if someone figures out the username of a commenter on DK, then their entire comment history becomes public information.
Fundraising numbers now in for September for VA HD. cycle thru 9/30/25:
Democrats have outraised Republicans in 13 of the 14 R-held district Del. Helmer considers winnable. The 14th challenger, Andrew Payton, HD-34, is just a few thousand behind the incumbent. Half of HD-34's registered voters are in the city of Harrisonburg, who are usually less likely to turn out than folks in the more Republican areas of the district.
A similar district, HD-49: about half the registered voters are in the city of Danville, also usually less likely to turn out than folks in the more Republican areas. Open seat contest features 2 members of the Danville City Council - a doctor (cardiologist Gary Miller, D) vs a Republican landlord, who spent more than any other candidate to get elected to the city council and now has Koch support.
Charles Gaba's fundraising page for candidates in districts ranging from Harris +9 to -15
What's this repeat post about?
Missouri: "the U.S. Constitution “expressly vests the power to apportion federal congressional districts in the state legislatures.”
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a similar argument two years ago.
The group I'm volunteering with, Respect MO Voters, has a whole policy team made up of volunteer lawyers who plan on fighting back when state republicans inevitably try to stop our initiative from getting on the ballot. The group working on the gerrymander veto referendum, People Not Politicians, is much better funded, so I expect they are even more prepared to deal with republican obstacles. Respect MO Voters is almost all volunteers and raises money from Missouri sources only while People Not Politicians pays its signature gatherers and is getting national help.
thank you for what you're doing! My group doesn't have a big email list in MO but is there something that we can do to help?
I’m not a leader in the organization or anything, but I’d guess that sharing the Respect MO Voters website with people you know in Missouri would be helpful.
Your group is doing excellent work. Thanks!
do you have an actblue express link you could share so Missouri users herein (not me I'm from the lovely northeast) can help your group out?
I’d say go to respectmovoters.org if you’re interested in donating/volunteering
As some people here have mentioned, Oregon is another state that Democrats could redistrict in order to counteract Republican gerrymandering in other states. Democrats already hold 5 of Oregon’s 6 seats, so the potential gain is only one seat, but that could make all the difference, and Oregon voted for Harris by 14 percent last year so a 6D-0R map with all districts being roughly the same partisanship would still result in six safely Democratic districts. So I decided to draw such a map. This is actually my second attempt at a map like this, but it’s better than my first attempt, since it’s somewhat neater, less baconmander-y, and more uniform in partisanship (all districts are between Harris +13 and Harris +17).
https://davesredistricting.org/join/1505ee91-4aa0-4ab5-a55d-a598f5a63998
District 1 is for Val Hoyle – it drops the coastal portions of her district and instead moves north to grab Albany and part of Salem. Harris +13.4.
District 2 is for Suzanne Bonamici – it loses its rural counties, along with the heavily Democratic easternmost bit of Washington, and picks up Yamhill County, Dallas, Keizer, and a few heavily Republican precincts near Woodburn. It’s still the bluest district on the map at Harris +16.7.
District 3 is the lynchpin of the entire map. It includes the entire Oregon coastline, and then picks up a large slice of Portland at the north end and the Republican areas of Grants Pass and Medford at the south end. This is the most efficient way to crack the Republican areas of southwestern Oregon and connect them to Portland. It voted Harris +14.1, and it’s one of the two possible options for Maxine Dexter.
District 4 is for Andrea Salinas – it includes the heavily Republican rural areas of Linn County, then downtown Salem and Woodburn, some Republican rural areas in Clackamas County, and then heavily Democratic areas in eastern Washington County, a slice of Portland, and Democratic suburban areas in Clackamas such as Lake Oswego and West Linn. Harris +13.7.
District 5 contains most of Eastern Oregon, including Cliff Bentz’s home in Ontario, but much to his chagrin, also picks up a large, ultra-liberal slice of Portland as well. This slice of Portland is about a third of the district, and voted 87-9 for Harris, while the remainder of the district went 61-38 for Trump. The result is a district that went Harris +14.1 overall, so too Democratic for any Republican. This district is Maxine Dexter’s other option, depending on which portion of Portland she wants to represent.
District 6 is for Janelle Bynum – it maintains the Bend-to-Milwaukie configuration, but loses the portions of Linn and Marion in exchange for part of Gresham, a large suburb in Multnomah County that is nowhere near as blue as Portland but still leans Democratic. It also takes in most of East Portland as well. This shifts the district to the left at Harris +14.4.
Oregon Democrats should seriously consider passing a map like this in order to counteract other new Republican gerrymanders like Missouri and North Carolina.
Does the map conform to Oregon's requirement that district be connected by transportation links? i.e. no water contiguity or empty land connecting parts of districts together
Yes - I split a precinct to keep Route 26 between Sandy and Madras entirely in the 6th, and I split a few precincts in southern Douglas County to allow for forest roads to connect Coos Bay with Grants Pass.
Interesting, thanks.
Former Maryland Gov. Hogan is 69, not 70
The Hill has reported that former Sen. John E. Sununu will lauch in NH soon
I must say, I'm not a huge fan of people like Janet Mills and Elise Stefanik delaying announcements for months and expecting us to be surprised when they do announce
I just can’t imagine why someone who was a relatively reasonable Republican in the Senate back when it was a functioning body that had self respect would want to be in the Senate as it is now.
Appreciate the really timely UofH poll of the Texas special and day after I'd been wondering what's going on there lol. I wonder if Johnson will try to delay all (Democrats) elected in specials from taking office until the regular session AFTER full certification as the new awful standard, or just seat the winner one day after the runoff like the other three this term...
Johnson has literally no valid excuse to put off swearing in Rep. Adelita Grijalva now. He's protecting the sexual predator in the Oval Office and the rest of his enablers.
I expect AZ AG Kris Mayes to sue him if he doesn't answer by the end of today.
Yes, we do all know that...
It's just going to make congressional Rs look even worse each day Johnson puts it off.
American’s views on the economy turned more negative in the third quarter with deepening concerns about jobs, inflation and the outlook, according to the CNBC All-America Economic Survey.
Together with blame for the shutdown aimed at the president and congressional Republicans, those views dragged down President Donald Trump’s net approval rating on the economy to 42% approving and 55% disapproving.
The -13 net approval on the economy is the lowest of any CNBC survey during either of Trump’s two terms.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/17/trumps-economic-approval-rating-drops-says-cnbc-survey.html
53% blame Trump and Rs for shutdown, 37% Ds. 44 approve - 52 disapprove Trump overall. And all these results are with a 40 R / 38 D / 22 I sample of 1,000 adults.
That 44% still approve of Trump is astonishing. I suspect the hangers-on are mostly motivated by the border. I hope Dems are prepared for the land mines Trump has ready for them on the border, crime, and gender. I'm not confident they will be.
The hangers on are motivated by partisanship. Roughly 1/3 of the country today will approve of a republican president no matter what. Presumably similar for a democratic president, though I'd guess lower (20%?) because we're far more willing to critique our own officials.
That leaves us the other ~10% to account for. For them, he's getting approval from about 30-50% of the people that are conservative or conservative leaning but do not support a republican in any/all situations. That group approves of him because (1) the negative consequences of his actions have not appreciably impacted their lives yet, and (2) they like what he is doing because they are conservatives. They're not out there shaking their fists at 90% of his policies but coming back around because of immigration issues. They're conservatives, they support conservative policies.
"Conservative policies" exist on a continuum so wide at this point that it renders the concept of self-identified "conservatives" as moot. That's why I'm astonished the number is still 44%. The Nikki Haley wing of the party must all still be entirely onboard and if they haven't cracked yet, I struggle to see how they will.
Even if the pain finds its way to them and the number slips further, any hypothetical disapproval below this 44% would be a mirage. Anyone still in the tank for him now would be won back with the faintest cage-rattling about culture war issues. That's why, nearly a year removed from election 2024, I'd like to see "election do-over" polling. That would give us a clearer look at where things stand now.
I don't think it's really possible to poll that with any accuracy. But no doubt in my mind, Trump would win a "snap" election today, against Harris or any other flesh and blood Demmycrat (ie, anything short of Democratic Jesus).
I think he'd even beat Obama (if became eligible), but less certain about that.
This country is in deep, deep trouble.
Really? What do you base this on? I've not seen any evidence of this being the case.
Hart/POS surveys have been more Trump friendly than not this cycle, so this isn't a bad result.
But I'm surprised you're surprised; half the country is in its own right wing media bubble, and the full impacts of tariffs/shutdowns have yet to be felt, although inflation is remaining persistent. With increased polarization it takes more tangible impacts to shift the needle than it used to, especially when culture war issues are so prominent.
I am surprised that it's 44% on a straight up or down verdict, primarily because I don't think half the country is in its own right-wing media bubble. I think a third of the country is in a "no media" bubble, leading more people to defer to a "vibes" momentum when given the "approve vs. disapprove" binary.
If anti-trans shit is still effective in *this* environment, then the country is beyond saving. (And that, frankly, might very well be the case.)
That poll has been somewhat favorable for Trump this year. He's at -8 now but was at -5 in August, -7 in April, and -4 in March so this is his worst result yet.
Another NJ poll. Sherrill up 52-45.
https://newjerseyglobe.com/polling/sherrill-still-holds-52-45-lead-over-ciattarelli-in-fdu-poll/
Correct me if I’m wrong — Sherrill seems to be polling better, no?
Essentially the same. The Emerson poll was the one non-biased poll since August that showed the race other than 5-7.
Good to know. Thanks Paleo.
No problem. I should add that it's more likely that this will end up a 5 point race rather than 7, not that there's a great difference between them.
Why do you think it'll be relatively close?
The third term party "jinx" in New Jersey.
Isn't a 5 pt margin bigger than last Gov. election?
Paleo, did you vote yet? Lot of my friends are waiting to vote in person early/EDay. Meanwhile my mail ballot was accepted back on October 3rd.
Yes, I dropped mine into the drop box two days ago.
Her polling is reminding me of that of a lot of Democrats who end up tanking in the home stretch. I think she loses by a point or two.
Seth London, Lis Smith and Jake Auchincloss' neoliberal Majority Democrats PAC donated $100,000 to Angie Craig. How is this legal?
My guess is that was to her super PAC not her official campaign. Thanks to citizens United, those contributions are unlimited.
A longtime Fetterman loving reporter writes a puff piece about him on Axios, justifying his actions in the name of big tent.
Deluzio, Lamb and Boyle looking at the 2028 primary and take digs at each other, and Fetterman.
https://www.axios.com/2025/10/16/john-fetterman-senate-primary-pennsylvania
The worst thing that could happen is for there to be a multi-candidate field. But I'm not convinced that Fetterman will run, or that if he does, he'll run as a Democrat.
I've personally wondered for some time if Fetterman will retire early. He certainly seems miserable in his job. On top of that, I don't think he particularly cares if it would set up an expensive special election in PA that Dems would have to defend -- lord knows he's antagonized Dems a lot as of late.
Bottom line - Fetterman is not fit for office as Senator and is becoming a liability to himself and Democrats by continuing to serve as Senator, especially with his lack of properly managing everyone's expectations about his health problems.
I'd be surprised if he runs again. Tv talking head seems a better fit for him.
Except that he's not particularly good at talking anymore.
Yeah - his brain is cooked. I truly believe the stroke is really the root cause of him becoming this terrible senator. It’s well documented how strokes can cause changes in personality and temperament (in addition to diminished cognitive functioning). He probably should be in a long-term stroke care facility, not the US Senate.
The article says he may run for President lmfao
On a ticket with Manchin?
I have a electoral history question: Why did Democrats choose to run the National Review endorsed neoconservative leaning "New Democrat" Joe Lieberman against Lowell Weickler, a liberal Republican who voted against conservative judicial nominees and supported universal healthcare??
Idk but I voted for Sen. Weicker in that election and still regard it as one of my best votes.
They thought he would be the strongest candidate I guess.
Why try to vote out someone who is sympathetic to your party?
Because he wasn't actually a member of the Democratic Party.
If Weicker had switched parties and ran for re-election as a Democrat, he probably would've won easily.
Was Lowell Weickler like Lincoln Chafee was as Senator? Seems like both as politicians would have had plenty in common as liberal Republicans in the Senate if they working with each other.
Lincoln Chafee didn't even enter the U.S. Senate until 1999 - well after Weicker lost re-election in 1988.
They were probably thinking of his father John Chaffee, who was also a liberal GOP Senator.
Would we run a strong candidate but more conservative against Bernie/King since they are not Democrats?
Sanders and King aren't Republicans either, though - they caucus with Democrats and usually vote with Dems, so therefore Democrats have no real reason to want them gone.
Weicker may have frequently bucked his party, but he still voted for the Republican candidate for Majority Leader.
Numbers game. All about the color of the jersey.
I guess I would question what you mean by "Democrats choos[ing] to run" someone, this was nearly 40 years ago and Senate elections didn't really look anything like what we have now. Lieberman was the incumbent Attorney General and sensed an opening, I imagine.
national republicans wanted weicker gone as well, he regularly voted with us on social programs, in an attempt to stymie reagan's gutting of safety net post 1980.
They also never forgave him for the anti-Nixon role he played on the Watergate Committee.
there's an entire section on this in the book: a man and his president's https://www.amazon.com/Man-His-Presidents-Political-Odyssey/dp/0300163843
written as a fawning tribute to Buckley, read years ago but iirc Buckley worked behind scenes to help lieberman win primary, and then endorsed as you said and massively helped drag lieberman over the line. Weicker was a close ally of Ted Kennedy during their respective fights to stop Reagan gutting of the social safety net. I wouldn't be surprised if many democratic voters did in fact vote for Weicker based on the 1% margin for Lieberman.
Was Lowell Weickler like Lincoln Chafee was as Senator? Seems like both as politicians would have had plenty in common as liberal Republicans in the Senate if they working with each other.
I think Weicker was like Chafee but...more. Like a genuinely liberal Republican.
Billboards are up in Newton, Iowa! why Newton instead of densely populated Des Moines? because we did the research, and the wind factory with the most jobs in IA-01 is in Newton. We've got two billboards running. (I don't think I can paste the picture here? so here's a Bluesky post with a link to ActBlue, hint hint.) https://bsky.app/profile/rlmiller.bsky.social/post/3m3fmcubjm22s
Excellent - IA-01 was the closest House race won by a Republican.
IA-03 should be close again, and without the R incumbent in IA-02 running for senate, maybe, as in 2018, Democrats could pick up 3 IA US House seats as well as flip that US Senate seat.
This will probably lead to some lively discussion, but I’m going to say it anyways:
Why are we at all caring who gets blamed for the government shutdown? Obviously of course as Democrats we want voters to blame Republicans and mostly all of the polls do that, but hypothetically speaking let’s say voters blame Democrats by the end of it. Why does that actually matter to some people?
The goal of our party right now is to block as much of Trump’s agenda as we possibly can. The government being shutdown means the only things passing right now (which is obviously unfortunate, but also inevitable, we have no power to stop them) are cabinet positions and judgeships being filled.
By shutting down the government, we’ve already removed a month of terrible legislation from being voted on and the gravy of this whole situation is that voters do actually blame Republicans! This is what hardball tactics gets us, we’re winning our policy goals and our party goals as well as making the party in power look cluelessly incompetent.
What’s not to love? Oh yes, of course, the people being hurt by the shutdown and yes, I do absolutely feel for them, but politically speaking only, this couldn’t be going any better for Democrats. Keep the government shutdown until we get concrete guarantees on our policy preferences.
The longer this drags on, the closer to the midterms we get and once the government reopens at some point, there’ll be many more months taken up by the Epstein files. That lengthy process only starts after the government reopens. We’re playing this shutdown to absolute perfection to my very surprised self.
Another month or two and Epstein gets dragged into the summer of 2026 right when voters start paying attention. I mean from where we were in the Spring to where we are now, the difference is incalculable how much of a better political situation we have.
Extra bonus that Trump’s economic rating, the 1 unbreakable stat about him that voters connect him to regardless of reality is shattered and worse for him than his overall approval, meaning his overall rating will likely go down further and there’s nothing he or his party can do about it.
Republicans know we have all the leverage here and know we have their balls in a vice squeezing as hard as we can. I expect them to swallow the ACA subsidies eventually and their base will be even more despondent than they already are after Epstein/Kimmel. But that’s only if our Democratic incumbents hold strong and just say no. Time will tell if they do.
I think the big reason is that we, as Democrats, want the government to run properly.
But your point about the political impact is a good one.
I remember back in 2013 when the government shutdown happened, Obama and the Democrats strategically chose not to cave in to the demands of the GOP to prevent it.
However, I don't recall after the shutdown ended did it have much impact on the 2014 midterms. Maybe I'm mistaken.
Platner made comments on Reddit blaming rape victims.
https://www.bangordailynews.com/2025/10/17/politics/elections/graham-platner-black-people-tipping-rape-reference-reddit-posts/
Those posts are from 2013. A lot of people have made stupid comments online at some point in their life. Like I said yesterday, if Democrats disqualify all of those people, we'll literally have no one left to run for office. What I care more about is what Platner believes now, in 2025.
And one other thing - those comments were made using a pseudonymous account. Did someone dox Platner?
I must confess that I have never made comments downplaying rape online, nor calling for violence, nor wondering whether black people tip or not.
I guarantee that if I was able to look through your comment history on every website you've ever commented on, I could find many things whose meaning could be twisted by political opponents.
Which is my whole point here. Everyone has an online history now, and everyone's online history is going to contain *something* that could be used in an attack ad during a political campaign.
The internet is a cesspool…honestly, this is the only place where I ever post anything and I sure as hell wouldn’t be writing the gross stuff Platner did. I understand it’s bullshit that we are held to a higher standard but people should spend way less time spewing crap on online message boards in general. What a waste.
He was still in his 30s in 2013. It's dumb of him to say, even if he was only trolling. The rape comment is more damaging than the others, I think. It's a lot harder to imagine him making it through this. Good odds that there's at least one more headline to be made out of this.
Considering the timing of the release I expect it's opposition research from Mills or her allies. Jump in and damage her main primary opponent right off the bat. It's a smart strategy, whatever we might think of her candidacy.
Honestly I think these comments help Platner in a GE in Maine.
With male voters maybe, but women?
I care...a lot. First of all, they are reprehensible and I've certainly never said or written anything like that. Second of all, they could very well render him unelectable. I care first and foremost about beating Collins and it's becoming clearer by the day that Mills is the best choice to do that....
Quite honestly, as someone who has a Reddit account, I prefer to be anonymous and not put my first and/or last name in my user name or mention it at all in the comments. It's not anyone's business.
It's hard enough to remain completely anonymous in the world of social media these days. Reddit is one of the better platforms but it's wide reach can still be a liability for anyone wanting to seek public office if they aren't too careful with what they say and share.
I would contest claims about Reddit being better. Some of the meanest, nastiest people I’ve ever seen online have been from there. It’s not as bad as, say, 4chan but it certainly isn’t very nice.
Fair although what I am talking about is not having to put your first and last name in your Reddit user profile. Other than that, I do not consider the platform to necessarily be “safe.”
Back in the days of AOL, all user names were anonymous for the most part as you didn’t have your full name present. More privacy was assured even while the process of getting to know other users had been rather creepy in retrospect. Otherwise, unless you were reported to AOL TOS, you as a user could say anything without crazy crap going on.
MySpace was the last real social media platform that had certain level of ethics with user privacy even while the founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson sold it to News Corp. Anderson, the default friend on MySpace, was adamant on not wanting user data sold to third party advertisers.
What was he thinking not scrubbing his social media before he ran? Honestly that concerns me more than the comments because that tells me as a candidate he's not ready for primetime.
Not 100%, but i think they're was an attempted scrubbing, but these were uncovered.
He did, according to the original report. The problem is that there are places archiving reddit comments.
The part that was enabled this to come out isn't that he failed to scrub it to the best of his abilities, it's that someone was able to figure out what his username was and check one or more archival sites to see what was there.
There are some things you can't scrub. Stuff you wrote in college, for example, is always going to be in someone's possession, someone's e-mail, maybe the college newspaper or something like that. And as far as I know, comments on Daily Kos can't be deleted (and accounts can't be deleted either), so if someone figures out the username of a commenter on DK, then their entire comment history becomes public information.
Today's the last day for postcards for Virginia: have been encouraging others to write postcards and spent as much of today as i can doing so myself
Details: https://www.dailykos.com/story/2025/10/17/2349000/-Last-Call-Last-Day-for-Postcards-for-Virginia-Elections
Phone-banking and fundraising ongoing:
Really appreciated the podcast last week with Delegate Dan Helmer about the Virginia House of Delegates elections. Commented there: https://www.the-downballot.com/p/why-virginia-dems-think-they-can/comment/164904615
Fundraising numbers now in for September for VA HD. cycle thru 9/30/25:
Democrats have outraised Republicans in 13 of the 14 R-held district Del. Helmer considers winnable. The 14th challenger, Andrew Payton, HD-34, is just a few thousand behind the incumbent. Half of HD-34's registered voters are in the city of Harrisonburg, who are usually less likely to turn out than folks in the more Republican areas of the district.
A similar district, HD-49: about half the registered voters are in the city of Danville, also usually less likely to turn out than folks in the more Republican areas. Open seat contest features 2 members of the Danville City Council - a doctor (cardiologist Gary Miller, D) vs a Republican landlord, who spent more than any other candidate to get elected to the city council and now has Koch support.
Charles Gaba's fundraising page for candidates in districts ranging from Harris +9 to -15
https://blue24.org/state-races/virginia
He also has a fundraising page for the 27 districts redder than that, Harris -16 to -68
https://blue24.org/state-races/virginia-value-pack
Phone-banking options: https://www.dailykos.com/story/2025/10/3/2346647/-Phonebank-for-Virginia-Candidates-Lots-of-options-to-fit-for-your-schedule
No Kings! No Kleptocracy! No Kakistocracy!