Disappointed that Wiener is opposing Proposition D - it seems like common sense, and an important disincentive for corporations to pay their CEOs absurdly bloated salaries.
I appreciate Wiener's work on affordable housing, and was supporting him before this. Maybe enough pressure might get him to reconsider his position.
I wonder how much it'd actually do that. SF salaries are very high relative to the rest of the country. The companies being targeted are primarily going to be the largest ones, who are primarily going to be tech companies in the context of SF.
What's a typical median salary for a tech office in SF? If it's $200k/year, then the 100x would be $20m/year.
I doubt little would happen to those properties because of various, redundant environmental impact studies and neighbors shrieking about the fearful shadows that these buildings cast.
Yes but SF is also not that liberal either. It's more center left and moderate than Berkeley, where I live, which is a pro-tenant city. Has been this way ever since Willie Brown was elected Mayor back in the mid 90's.
Best to know about the Bay Area in ideological makeup:
East Bay from Rodeo all the way to San Leandro (including Alameda, Berkeley and Oakland) - The most liberal and social justice part of the Bay Area. San Francisco pales by comparison as it's big money interests prevent it being another Oakland.
East Bay from Alamo to San Ramon - More center left and moderate. Danville as an example is pretty conservative, as is Clayton.
Daniel Lurie? He's apolitical. Very much right in the middle but more closely aligned with Scott Weiner and former San Francisco Mayor London Breed on housing.
As someone who has followed Weiner since he was Supervisor back in the day and was living in San Francisco at the time, he's got a strange habit of being bold on one singular issue of housing but on every other issue, he's really not inspiring to me.
Back in the day, Weiner had a habit of being a square as a Supervisor on issues such as passing law that prevented nudity. I found Weiner as a gay Supervisor to be quite strange taking on such a trivial issue considering the gay community in the Castro has always been very free spirited and non-systematic. I mean, the Folson Street Fair and the Love Parade and other events have traditionally shown nude gay people here for a long time.
FL-6: Dan Bilzerian, whose numerous exploits have given him both legal trouble and a massive social media following, will primary Republican Rep. Randy Fine. Bilzerian is known to be antisemitic, and Fine is Jewish.
Bilzerian is too, he is just very antisemitic. He's working out of the office of Lake County commissioner Anthony Sabatini, known to be extreme on these issues.
I think scheduling a referendum/initiative on a Republican runoff is a slightly different tactical move than scheduling it in the random dead of summer. That said, I still consider it a sign that the Republican Party truly does not know its voters or its opposition. The Democratic Party is now a group of people with a My Strange Addiction level obsession with voting. Republicans can barely be bothered. Despite this "sneaky referenda" move failing in Louisiana last year and a loss of their Obama-era special election advantage post-2017, that this is still their M.O. is incompetence.
Probably desperation more than incompetence. I think they’re at wit’s end. In their shoes and with their value system, what strategic choice would you make to increase the GOP’s odds of success? That’s a sincere question.
I like what Michael said but also what you say. It is both in my opinion because Republicans are desperate that they can't sell their agenda to the majority of the electorate anymore showing their methods are incompetence in representing their constituents, overall.
I don't know Iowa well enough to dare make a bold prediction like that. However, I think anywhere north of Sand +5 probably drags Turek over the line. That's my ignorant guess from afar as to what might be good enough.
We badly need polling in Iowa's statewide races. To date there's only been 1 poll for the governor race and its by some new or obscure group "Z to A Research" I have never heard of before. I'm not asking for Anne Selzer to return, but Iowa shouldn't be THAT hard to poll, with it's small population.
for those who missed it last night... Turning Point USA tried to nationalize the Arizona Salt River Project elex, and lost bigly. Sad! Salt River Project is a public utility that provides power to Phoenix and surrounding areas. Clean energy/climate people have been working for years to replace fossil fueled board members with renewable advocates. Last night they won majorities on both the association (water side) and district (power side). This elex is unusual because property votes -- you have to be a landowner, renters can't vote, and your vote is weighted by how much land you own. And it's doubly sweet because even though large landowners skew conservative, we still won. And TPUSA spent a ton of money. They got a president and vice president elected but they are still in the minority. The alt-weekly has the best headline: "Turning Point gets its ass handed to it in the SRP elections." https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/arizona-srp-elections-big-loss-turning-point-candidates-40658264/
If you missed the hype around Turning Point's involvement, this was supposed to be a dry run for its efforts to retake AZ-Gov and various other AZ offices this November. Add this to Wisconsin and I'm feeling pretty good right now.
I posted this last night, but can you imagine what he would think about a Black astronaut being on Artemis II after his "boy, I hope he's qualified" comment?
We did kick TPUSA's ass (roughly 2 to 1 in the per capita seats), though their endorsed candidates for President and VP won (based on per acre votes). Flipping 3 by acreage district seats on the power board is HUGE. We did flip the power board (we now have 8 of 14 seats including 4 at-large per capita seats), we did not flip the water board (we increased from 2 to 4 of 10 seats) or the power council or the water council, though we increased our share of seats on all 3.
This means we make operational and management priorities for the power district but not the water association. We can do things like cancel power plant construction, buy or construct clean power or battery storage projects, change rates/incentives to favor energy efficiency, demand shifting, EV adoption, electrification, distributed renewable generation/storage, etc.
We can't change bylaws (for instance to change voting procedures) without council majorities.
This is huge and excellent progress, but also an incremental win in a decade long struggle that will continue
For those not familiar with the Phoenix area, SRP on the water side provides water to municipalities, but also directly to farmers, commercial , schools, and residences with grandfathered water rights. Older , large lot residences build berms around their 1/2, 1, 2 acre parcels and can flood their property 6-8 inches deep every week or two. This results in landscapes that look straight out of Hawaii rather than the Sonoran Desert. The residential cost for this water abuse is a little over $100 per year.
Some stray thoughts as I listen to the podcast this week:
-Thinking about MRP as a polling technique, and wondering what their accuracy rates have been. I've generally had a dim view of UK polling but think it's gotten better as they got more sophisticated for 2024, and of course the multiple viable parties and strategic voting is an added challenge for them. I have a better view of Australian polling, with a mostly solid two-party system making things a bit easier, with their polling challenge being instant runoff and a bit of a breakdown in the party system with the Greens and now "Teals" (and increasingly One Nation).
-Didn't realize the districts were all from the current Congress and not the post-2024 redistricting. It makes the TX numbers in particular a bit hard to gauge the electoral consequences. Would love to read an update from Morris with the new districts, maybe he'll wait until the FL special session window is over to see if/how those and the VA districts change. Still some possibility of the Callais decision causing a new rush of gerrymanders, so maybe he would wait until after June to run and publish those numbers.
-On WI and GA-14, I obviously think these are informative for the midterms this fall, but think people should remember Whitmer and Shapiro won in blowouts in 2022 and we still lost them in the presidential. So the predictions can only go so far from some takes I've seen floating online of a new, solidly blue WI.
I don't know about Callais causing gerrymanders. The filing deadlines (and even primaries in NC and MS) have already passed in states that would have redraws.
I think the Court, if it makes any changes to the law, will apply the "Purcell doctrine" and not require the state to redistrict for the November election.
We also don’t know if the justices will kill the VRA. Last I heard, Roberts and Gorsuch sounded skeptical in hearings, and Trump threatening Roberts recently + the birthright citizenship case going up in flames indicates that there’s still a possibility they won’t kill it.
The place is almost last in every category, healthcare, education, child mortality and the list goes on. The roads and parks are in major disrepair the state is a mess and they want to take Medicaid away from people. I guess they want to be dead last in everything.
TN-9: Rep. Steve Cohen is at the Tennessee House today instead of doing his job in Washington to mingle with Republicans and antagonize progressive challenger state Rep. Justin Pearson.
Another poll by Big Data Poll (?) from the same time period has Massie up 52-48, with no undecided. Much better than his previous showing against a "Trump-endorsed Republican" last June which had him trailing 52-23 .
Heavily Hispanic areas on Milwaukee's south side are shifting sharply toward Democrats, with a 56-point swing in one Lincoln Village precinct. Taylor is getting 91% compared to Harris's 64%.
Milwaukee County overall is running 11 points more Democratic vs. 2024.
Disappointed that Wiener is opposing Proposition D - it seems like common sense, and an important disincentive for corporations to pay their CEOs absurdly bloated salaries.
I appreciate Wiener's work on affordable housing, and was supporting him before this. Maybe enough pressure might get him to reconsider his position.
It sounds like a way to get big corps to move their offices in SF out of the city. But maybe that would ease a housing affordability crush.
I wonder how much it'd actually do that. SF salaries are very high relative to the rest of the country. The companies being targeted are primarily going to be the largest ones, who are primarily going to be tech companies in the context of SF.
What's a typical median salary for a tech office in SF? If it's $200k/year, then the 100x would be $20m/year.
I doubt little would happen to those properties because of various, redundant environmental impact studies and neighbors shrieking about the fearful shadows that these buildings cast.
More likely it would increase commuters to the Peninsula and South Bay, as many young, single workers do still want to live in SF.
I don't oppose Prop D, but I do think statewide or national tax-the-rich efforts are more effective than local ones.
It's disappointing but not surprising. I feel like Wiener is a mixed bag on a lot of issues. Chan and Chakrabarti are the only solid candidates.
Weiner would be an extremely solid progressive in the House, he only looks moderate by comparison to leftist Bay Area politics.
Yet, some of the most prominent Bay Area politicians (Dan Lurie, Matt Mahan, Eric Swalwell, Sam Liccardo) are further to the right of Wiener, too, no?
Well that falls into the Silicon Valley problem, especially as Big Tech has become more right-wing friendly.
Oh, definitely. Especially Mahan
You'd expect that. The areas they rep aren't as left as SF is.
Apart from Lurie, who is mayor of SF. And the entire Bay Area isn't just SF, either.
Yes but SF is also not that liberal either. It's more center left and moderate than Berkeley, where I live, which is a pro-tenant city. Has been this way ever since Willie Brown was elected Mayor back in the mid 90's.
Best to know about the Bay Area in ideological makeup:
East Bay from Rodeo all the way to San Leandro (including Alameda, Berkeley and Oakland) - The most liberal and social justice part of the Bay Area. San Francisco pales by comparison as it's big money interests prevent it being another Oakland.
East Bay from Alamo to San Ramon - More center left and moderate. Danville as an example is pretty conservative, as is Clayton.
Daniel Lurie? He's apolitical. Very much right in the middle but more closely aligned with Scott Weiner and former San Francisco Mayor London Breed on housing.
As someone who has followed Weiner since he was Supervisor back in the day and was living in San Francisco at the time, he's got a strange habit of being bold on one singular issue of housing but on every other issue, he's really not inspiring to me.
Back in the day, Weiner had a habit of being a square as a Supervisor on issues such as passing law that prevented nudity. I found Weiner as a gay Supervisor to be quite strange taking on such a trivial issue considering the gay community in the Castro has always been very free spirited and non-systematic. I mean, the Folson Street Fair and the Love Parade and other events have traditionally shown nude gay people here for a long time.
Let's just say Weiner is no Mark Leno.
Or he knows how real "vote with your feet" can be. Have we learned nothing? It sucks, but it's real.
Is there a final reckoning of D results in MO & OK on Tue?
I heard there were some flips.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5822149-dan-bilzerian-randy-fine-florida-congress/amp/
FL-6: Dan Bilzerian, whose numerous exploits have given him both legal trouble and a massive social media following, will primary Republican Rep. Randy Fine. Bilzerian is known to be antisemitic, and Fine is Jewish.
And Fine is an avowed anti-Muslim.
Bilzerian is too, he is just very antisemitic. He's working out of the office of Lake County commissioner Anthony Sabatini, known to be extreme on these issues.
Fine is a bigoted beluga whale.
Dan Bilzerian is a human herpes sore, in a variety of fashions
I think scheduling a referendum/initiative on a Republican runoff is a slightly different tactical move than scheduling it in the random dead of summer. That said, I still consider it a sign that the Republican Party truly does not know its voters or its opposition. The Democratic Party is now a group of people with a My Strange Addiction level obsession with voting. Republicans can barely be bothered. Despite this "sneaky referenda" move failing in Louisiana last year and a loss of their Obama-era special election advantage post-2017, that this is still their M.O. is incompetence.
Probably desperation more than incompetence. I think they’re at wit’s end. In their shoes and with their value system, what strategic choice would you make to increase the GOP’s odds of success? That’s a sincere question.
I like what Michael said but also what you say. It is both in my opinion because Republicans are desperate that they can't sell their agenda to the majority of the electorate anymore showing their methods are incompetence in representing their constituents, overall.
DC delegate drama on Brooke Pinto having the same individual donors as some Republicans.
https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/783264/republican-donors-line-up-for-brooke-pinto/
Shocker (/s). Hoping for a Robert White win.
wow Cook moves IOWA Gov to tossup. https://x.com/CookPolitical/status/2042226595549544652?s=20
Yeah, Kim Reynolds and Iowa GOP are even more toxic than I thought.
Sand is leading in both parties' internal polls against Feenstra as well. Need him to run up the score to drag Turek across the finish line.
(or Wahls)
Sure, but hopefully we go with the guy who has proven his ability to win over lots of Republican voters in the past.
I'm just saying, primary hasn't ended yet, we want to support whoever wins.
I will state the obvious next time.
That seems unnecessarily rude
Be nice if Sand wins +10 like you're projecting Cooper for. That would definitely get Turek over the line.
I don't know Iowa well enough to dare make a bold prediction like that. However, I think anywhere north of Sand +5 probably drags Turek over the line. That's my ignorant guess from afar as to what might be good enough.
And ideally we could flip a bunch of the row offices as well and rebuild our bench a bit there.
Yeah AG, SoS, Treasurer and Auditor are all on the ballot as well. Though unlike Gov and Sen, the Republican incumbents are running there.
We badly need polling in Iowa's statewide races. To date there's only been 1 poll for the governor race and its by some new or obscure group "Z to A Research" I have never heard of before. I'm not asking for Anne Selzer to return, but Iowa shouldn't be THAT hard to poll, with it's small population.
for those who missed it last night... Turning Point USA tried to nationalize the Arizona Salt River Project elex, and lost bigly. Sad! Salt River Project is a public utility that provides power to Phoenix and surrounding areas. Clean energy/climate people have been working for years to replace fossil fueled board members with renewable advocates. Last night they won majorities on both the association (water side) and district (power side). This elex is unusual because property votes -- you have to be a landowner, renters can't vote, and your vote is weighted by how much land you own. And it's doubly sweet because even though large landowners skew conservative, we still won. And TPUSA spent a ton of money. They got a president and vice president elected but they are still in the minority. The alt-weekly has the best headline: "Turning Point gets its ass handed to it in the SRP elections." https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/arizona-srp-elections-big-loss-turning-point-candidates-40658264/
If you missed the hype around Turning Point's involvement, this was supposed to be a dry run for its efforts to retake AZ-Gov and various other AZ offices this November. Add this to Wisconsin and I'm feeling pretty good right now.
Charlie Kirk must be turning in his grave out of deep frustration – and I am more than ok with that!
I posted this last night, but can you imagine what he would think about a Black astronaut being on Artemis II after his "boy, I hope he's qualified" comment?
Or a single woman?
The stuff that would come out of his horrible mouth would be awful.
Perhaps at a Turning Point in his grave, you might say....
We did kick TPUSA's ass (roughly 2 to 1 in the per capita seats), though their endorsed candidates for President and VP won (based on per acre votes). Flipping 3 by acreage district seats on the power board is HUGE. We did flip the power board (we now have 8 of 14 seats including 4 at-large per capita seats), we did not flip the water board (we increased from 2 to 4 of 10 seats) or the power council or the water council, though we increased our share of seats on all 3.
This means we make operational and management priorities for the power district but not the water association. We can do things like cancel power plant construction, buy or construct clean power or battery storage projects, change rates/incentives to favor energy efficiency, demand shifting, EV adoption, electrification, distributed renewable generation/storage, etc.
We can't change bylaws (for instance to change voting procedures) without council majorities.
This is huge and excellent progress, but also an incremental win in a decade long struggle that will continue
For those not familiar with the Phoenix area, SRP on the water side provides water to municipalities, but also directly to farmers, commercial , schools, and residences with grandfathered water rights. Older , large lot residences build berms around their 1/2, 1, 2 acre parcels and can flood their property 6-8 inches deep every week or two. This results in landscapes that look straight out of Hawaii rather than the Sonoran Desert. The residential cost for this water abuse is a little over $100 per year.
thank you for everything you did, and will continue to do, on this important issue!
Four Conservative members of the Canadian House of Commons have defected to the Liberal Party, as has a member of the New Democrats. Mark Carney's Liberals now have 171 seats in the 343-seat House of Commons, one short of a majority, and look set to gain at least two more in special elections due to be held on Monday to fill vacant seats. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canada-pm-carney-verge-majority-after-opposition-member-joins-ruling-liberals-2026-04-08/
With 171 out of 340 current members, he already has a majority.
3 vacant seats are up for by elections on Monday. He needs to win one to maintain the majority with the full House. Could sweep all 3.
What are the outgoing parties?
Some stray thoughts as I listen to the podcast this week:
-Thinking about MRP as a polling technique, and wondering what their accuracy rates have been. I've generally had a dim view of UK polling but think it's gotten better as they got more sophisticated for 2024, and of course the multiple viable parties and strategic voting is an added challenge for them. I have a better view of Australian polling, with a mostly solid two-party system making things a bit easier, with their polling challenge being instant runoff and a bit of a breakdown in the party system with the Greens and now "Teals" (and increasingly One Nation).
-Didn't realize the districts were all from the current Congress and not the post-2024 redistricting. It makes the TX numbers in particular a bit hard to gauge the electoral consequences. Would love to read an update from Morris with the new districts, maybe he'll wait until the FL special session window is over to see if/how those and the VA districts change. Still some possibility of the Callais decision causing a new rush of gerrymanders, so maybe he would wait until after June to run and publish those numbers.
-On WI and GA-14, I obviously think these are informative for the midterms this fall, but think people should remember Whitmer and Shapiro won in blowouts in 2022 and we still lost them in the presidential. So the predictions can only go so far from some takes I've seen floating online of a new, solidly blue WI.
I don't know about Callais causing gerrymanders. The filing deadlines (and even primaries in NC and MS) have already passed in states that would have redraws.
I'm aware lol
You think they'd consider reopening filing just so new maps could go through? Seems risky legally and politically
I think we should wait until the decision comes down lol
I think the Court, if it makes any changes to the law, will apply the "Purcell doctrine" and not require the state to redistrict for the November election.
I think that's unlikely, they're very "Purcell for thee, not for me" in the last few terms.
That's not totally true. And in this instance, it really is late in the game with filing deadlines having passed.
We also don’t know if the justices will kill the VRA. Last I heard, Roberts and Gorsuch sounded skeptical in hearings, and Trump threatening Roberts recently + the birthright citizenship case going up in flames indicates that there’s still a possibility they won’t kill it.
The place is almost last in every category, healthcare, education, child mortality and the list goes on. The roads and parks are in major disrepair the state is a mess and they want to take Medicaid away from people. I guess they want to be dead last in everything.
TN-9: Rep. Steve Cohen is at the Tennessee House today instead of doing his job in Washington to mingle with Republicans and antagonize progressive challenger state Rep. Justin Pearson.
I support Pearson but it's not Cohen's fault the House isn't in session.
He could be working in his district, or at least not be friendly with the Republicans
On that I agree.
KY-04 Republican primary poll. Massie is definitely in danger.
https://x.com/_AustinHorn/status/2042227128914022716
After an early draft/version was posted & taken down last night, the final
@QuantusInsights
survey comes out this morning at:
Massie - 46.8%
Gallrein - 37.7%
Undecided - 14%
https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article315347405.html
Another poll by Big Data Poll (?) from the same time period has Massie up 52-48, with no undecided. Much better than his previous showing against a "Trump-endorsed Republican" last June which had him trailing 52-23 .
https://www.bigdatapoll.com/blog/republican-primary-poll-for-kentucky-house-district-4/
More running to the exits in Wisconsin - https://x.com/jrrosswrites/status/2042286423974228401?s=46
"More retirement news:
@RepRobBrooks
announced today he won't seek reelection after 12 years in the Assembly.
He's the 9th member of the Assembly to retire or decide to seek higher office."
I’ve seen this before.
https://x.com/VoteHub/status/2041693669712138445
Heavily Hispanic areas on Milwaukee's south side are shifting sharply toward Democrats, with a 56-point swing in one Lincoln Village precinct. Taylor is getting 91% compared to Harris's 64%.
Milwaukee County overall is running 11 points more Democratic vs. 2024.
One of the more encouraging stats from Tuesday imo.
https://x.com/ZacharyDonnini/status/2042265077609361617
Dade County, GA
2022 Governor Election:
🔴 Brian Kemp – 4,969
🔵 Stacey Abrams – 807
2026 GA-14 Special Election:
🔴 Clayton Fuller – 2,007
🔵 Shawn Harris – 910
Democrats are gaining voters, not just benefiting from a low turnout election.
Obviously this won’t happen in November, but the trifecta is absolutely up for grabs.
https://x.com/VoteHub/status/2042237143729213709
Wisconsin State Assembly Districts Won
2024 Presidential:
🔴 Trump 50
🔵 Harris 49
2026 State Supreme Court:
🔵 Taylor 70
🔴 Lazar 29
Taylor carried a supermajority of State Assembly districts.
I think WI Ds can get a 63-64 state Assembly seat majority a la Virginia last year. But if it's just 51-55 seats, that's fine too.