If Republicans still trust Republicans, this country will never get ahead.
And if this didn't wake them up to their corruption over the decades, there's no hope for them, and the rest of us MUST just move on and leave them be.
I don't believe that there is as many as we are to believe, if people just stop and step back and crush the numbers,more people didn't vote for this and will make sure it never happens again.
We need to understand and talk to the people who decided to stay home and not vote. 36% didn't vote, if just 1 % of them had voted, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
The poll, which was conducted from Feb. 20 to Feb. 27, found that 53% of voters disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job as president compared to only 44% of voters who approve of his job so far.
If we see more polling like that, it might turn out that the pro-republican snapback in Texas last year was an aberration and the slow but steady trend towards competitive is still real. Would be great if that's the case — putting Texas on the board in the 2030s would be a huge benefit for us.
It can be real competitive in 2026 with a blue wave. Even more if Democrats can get James Talarico, a Christian Democrat firebrand to run against Ken Paxton in the Senate race. I bet that Ken wins against Thune easily with a Trump endorsement. He would easy to brand as an extremist with swing voters.
Do you buy it? Remember the polls before the election were showing Texas to be a five-point race. Trump won by 14. My skepticism about polls ticked up another notch after this cycle...especially Sun Belt State polls.
Yeah I'd take this poll with a humongous grain of salt. At best national polling is showing him underwater by a few points . . no way is Texas currently to the left of the country.
I'm always skeptical of the polls! Turned out there was a huge gap last year between the big online polls heavily weighted to partisanship and recalled vote, who unsurprisingly found a pretty similar 2020 result in most states, versus pollsters like NYT/Siena who allowed their samples to diverge and correctly saw the looming double digit shifts in states like TX, FL, and NY.
UT Tyler unfortunately looked more like the former than the latter in 2024, finding Harris only down 5 points in TX a couple weeks before the election. Totality of polling today (what little is still being conducted at a rigorous level) shows results more or less unchanged from last November. No surprise, most new presidents don't see their numbers sink until the end of summer. Although Trump is doing his best to speed up that process.
What a strange poll. Trump is underwater, but voters approve of him on the economy and the border.
Also, more Dems were born in the state than Republicans. 62% vs 50%. Looks like all the recent migration to Texas has helped Republicans maintain their hold on the state.
Someone noted awhile ago that Texas polls struggle with accurately describing the born in TX vs transplant thing. A better estimate of what's going on is that people who moved to TX in the 80's through 2000's tend to lean pretty red, but recent transplants to TX (who are of course really outnumbered by the former group in poll samples) are much bluer. It is not a good assumption to make that if TX had barred all new transplants over the past 15 years that it would somehow be a bluer state.
Interesting. The poll seems to suggest the opposite, with a higher percentage of Republicans having moved to the state for the first time in the past 10 years than Dems (15% vs 8%). Not really sure what to make of it.
If polarization in movers caused TX and FL to surge to the right, then I'm trying to figure out why IL, NY, NJ, MA, CA, etc., also moved pretty far right, some in the same ballpark as the first two. I don't deny that partisanship drives some domestic migration but it seems like it must play a pretty small role given that we're generally not seeing red states get redder and blue states bluer, at least in recent years (there is a longer running trend back to the 1960s/1970s of the number of swing states reducing and safe states increasing but there's other reasons for that than migration).
We were seeing it till 2020 but since then Democrat turnout decreased due to inflation and the border crisis along with swing voters shifting to the GOP.
Migration would only explain states where substantial chunk of electorate being new arrivals.
Also you can see the trend in areas gaining or losing population or higher turnover rate. The fast growing exurbs of central FL and two coasts, as well as the shrinking SEFL with a lot of moving in and out, are turning red in lightning speeds. I do buy the newcomers are R+40.
Skaje, what about generational renewal? Any thoughts on the proportion of R to D that die, and R to D amongst the youth turning 18 and added to the voter rolls? Do you see any net partisan movement in this?
https://archive.ph/nDa4p : Millions of Movers Reveal American Polarization in Action, NYT Upshot Voter analysis 2020-2024
Texas movers leaned +20R and Florida +40R. Blue states movers leaned democrat and vice versa.
Also, where do we think folks move from Arkansas, Louisiana, Missisippi, Oklahoma etc? It's Texas and Florida. These states have declining or stagnant populations despite having a high fertility rate 20-30 years ago whose effects would have been seen today. In addition, the article says that California has mass exported republicans to Texas, Arizona and Nevada.
I really can't buy that Trump is that low in Texas, at least not yet. That's actually worse than his average national numbers.
I can see Dems making gains in the state in 2026, particularly at the state and local levels (not sure if any GOP congressional districts are flippable yet).
Averages have a lag, especially during a time of rapid change in opinion – which I believe we are seeing. It would be interesting to plot the time interval during which each poll was undertaken, and in addition take into account the historical bias / quality of each pollster.
I recall listening to NPR interviews with Paul "Flintstone" LePage. Never – not on a single occasion – have I heard LePage utter more than three consecutive sentences without saying something truly deranged or bizarre.
There is a reason Janet Mills trounced LePage by 13 points when he attempted a comeback in 2022. Legions of sane Mainers celebrated and hoped LePage would extend his retirement in Florida, never to be heard from again.
. "Trump's secret power protection plan: a $500 million war chest"
Excerpts: Anyone who thinks President Trump's mesmerizing hold over the GOP will slip if his poll numbers slide is missing one of his biggest innovations in American politics:
The creation of a cash-flush political operation that has raked in around a half-billion dollars… It's unheard of for a president not running for reelection to raise that kind of money. The day after Election Day, Trump started calling major donors to start building an enforcement machine for his agenda.
"Right now, there's a huge price to pay by crossing Donald Trump," said Republican strategist Corry Bliss, who formerly led the Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC. "When you combine a 92% approval rating among Republican voters with unlimited money, that equals: 'Yes, sir.'"
And to that half-billion war chest we can add Elon Musk, who is currently investing heavily in the upcoming election for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat.
Who else suspects that most of that money will end up in Trump's bank account and a much smaller amount will go to candidates that he supports. Everything is a grift with him.
In the Los Angeles TV market, homeland security secretary Noem is running a commercial thanking Trump on immigration that you can't turn on TV without seeing.
For once, I don’t think Senator Collins would be "concerned".
Edit: In election after election, Susan Collins has proven herself to be a survivor. In 2020, I was really hoping Sara Gideon would unseat her – but no such luck. I’m not a betting man, but I think there is Zero chance of LePage defeating Collins.
As far as I know, LePage has never won a majority of the vote, at least not during a gubernatorial election. I’m unsure about his past primary results, whether they were impressive or not.
LePage was also elected and re-elected as Governor when the GOP rode high with the rise of the Tea Party back in 2010 and 2014. Both of those midterm years featured lower-than-expected turnout for Democrats.
If he isn’t a strong primary challenger for Collins, then it may be that he’s just not good enough for the GOP to nominate anymore.
I definitely think Collins would be an underdog in a primary challenge...but not against LePage. MAGA types are basically looking for him, but maybe twenty years younger.
IMO her 2020 win was unimpressive once we take the full scenario into consideration.
Due to the RCV Maine uses, voters are going to be more willing to vote for third party candidates as their first preference. In the 2020 senate election about 6.5% of the vote went for left or vaguely left-ish independents. Gideon absolutely would not have won all of their votes on second preference, but she would have gained in net.
I suspect that if the RCV list was fully tabulated and all the votes were brought to the two candidate outcome that Collins would have won something like 52-48 or 53-47 in the final round. A clear win, but not an impressive one. Especially in light of her prior wins.
I don't know if we will get the requisite good candidate in Maine next year, but I'd argue 2020 showed that Collins is definitely beatable.
Honestly, I think Collins is far more likely to lose in a primary than she is in a general election-at least in 2026. Part of the reason is our strongest candidates (Jared Golden, Troy Dale Jackson, Chellie/Hannah Pingree) are more likely to run for Governor than challenge Collins, and another is that, at least in a general election, Ranked Choice voting arguably benefits her more than it would our nominee in a multi-way race (Collins is more likely to be the second choice for anyone listing a third party as the first choice because of incumbency).
That said, if she does draw a serious primary challenge, I think she'd start out as an underdog. She's arguably in the same position Olympia Snowe was in in 2012, where she'd be favored in a general election if she got there, but she'd be a heavy underdog against almost any serious primary challenger.
Perhaps but I’m also going to be making a hypothetical prediction that if Collins wins re-election, it could be by as high as roughly 5-6% points.
With Trump losing ME last year by a wider margin than back in in 2016 but a by a bit smaller margin than back in 2020, it’s clear his brand is losing steam in the state.
On top of that, Collins won re-election by 8.6% points, the smallest re-election margin for her to date even in spite of Sara Gideon’s Senate candidacy being doomed due to the DSCC’s involvement in the race early on. Certainly, Collins is more popular than Trump in ME but she may also not be as strong to hold her position like she used to be.
To be fair, I'm not sure we would have won that race with a different nominee. The DSCC picking sides did no one any favors, but Collins has, at least since the Tea Party been a thing, always been far more vulnerable in a primary than in a general election.
He probably could still win a primary against Collins in a one-vs-one race (Trump would probably endorse him, and the base doesn't like Collins at all), but if for some reason she retired, I think it would be hard for him to win a primary in an open seat race.
Not all of our strongest possible candidates will run for governor. They all will prefer to, but at some point I suspect someone will filter over to the senate race. It is unfortunate that Mills would be 79 on election day. She'd be a great candidate otherwise. Maybe she still would be, but I'm wary of candidates that are in or just shy of their 80s. Of course, Collins isn't her junior by all that much (five years).
I think Collins would win a primary easily. Republican primary voters by and large know she's the best they can hope for, and if you think we'll struggle to get a strong opponent to her, it's even harder to imagine the strong primary opponent for her. It's not an accident that she's won her primaries uncontested.
I don't think RCV is so simple as being pro-incumbent without taking into account the other candidates in the ballot. Maine has a stronger tendency to have independents that appeal to democratic voters making a run for office. Cutler, King, Golden's various independent opponents. Unless I missed someone I only found one independent candidate in recent years there that would appeal to conservatives more, and that was a random nobody running in King's 2024 reelection.
The article references how Dan Kelly, the GOP candidate in the 2023 race, didn’t openly campaign as a partisan MAGA candidate and Schimel was busted on camera talking to canvassers about how he’ll be a support network for Trump and was pushing 2020 BIG Lie conspiracies. I get that both candidates aren’t well known and Trump’s approval in WI, according to Marquette is 48/51, but it’s funny to me that Schimel thinks it’s better to be associated with Trump than with Musk and DOGE.
True. Trump’s still underwater but not as much as Musk. However, Trump not being on the ballot doesn’t guarantee that the MAGA base will show up in large numbers. Sure the traditional GOP base will but the folks who heavily came out in the rural and any of the gains he made with younger male voters are not a sure thing. Also, and this is the big one, Marquette showed Trump’s approval with Independent voters is at 39/60. That’s really terrible because they compared his approval with them to their March 2017 poll and he was at 42/32 approval back then. https://law.marquette.edu/poll/
i get your point but Trump is extremely popular with the MAGAs; and yes i know that doesnt translate to voter participation without his name on the ballot
We’re already seeing repeat signs from last time that they aren’t as enthused when he’s not on the ballot. Dems in the two VA State Senate special elections in blue districts earlier this year outperformed Harris’ numbers wile Rep in red district held on but underperformed Trump’s numbers. Plus the Iowa State Senate special election race in a Trump 20+ district flipping to the Dems. I still expect Reps to hold onto Stefanik and Waltz’s districts but to underperform and for Dems to tighten it up.
That and the fact that Marquette showed Trump’s numbers with Independent voters at a dismal 39/60 approval. They even compared it to his numbers with Independents in March of 2017. Back then he was at 42/32 with Indies. If he’s doing terribly with Independents, that’s an opportunity for Crawford and Dems to win them over if Schimel hooks himself onto the hope that MAGA alone will save him.
Thanks for the story and link. Everyone should do whatever they can to help Susan Crawford win this race. It's the most important election at least until November and its results will carry a lot of weight.
BTW, there is also a story on WPR about Susan Crawford, but the link to it will not work. Go here and you can read both stories. https://www.wpr.org/news
It is not uncommon for a governor to run for the U.S. Senate. However, the possibility that Paul LePage might run for the House demonstrates how rare it is for a former governor to attempt to be a mere Congressperson. An exception is Charlie Crist, who served as governor of Florida from 2007-2011 (as a Republican) and then as Congressman from Florida's 13th Congressional District (as a Democrat) from 2017-2022.
Thank you. That was quite enlightening. It is notable that many governors-turned-Congressman hailed from small states such as North Dakota, Vermont, Delaware, and Maine with so few members of Congress that running for the House is almost as prestigious as running for the Senate.
He is getting up there in years. If he served one term in the house and then ran for something else in 2028, he'd be running for that office at 80 years old.
There is no end in sight for the turbulence at the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post. The once-trusted newspaper continues to bleed subscribers, while longtime journalists and editors are passing through the Exit door.
Today, Ruth Marcus, a longtime Opinion Editor and Columnist resigned from the Post. The reason? CEO Will Lewis killed her column wherein Marcus expressed concerns about Bezos' changes to the Post’s opinion section.
"With immense sadness I am writing to let you know that I have resigned from The Washington Post, in an email sent this morning to Jeff Bezos and Will Lewis and pasted below. I am taking this step, after more than 40 years at The Post, following Will's decision to spike a column that I wrote expressing a concern about the newly announced direction for the section and declined to discuss the decision with me.
"As I leave, I'd like to emphasize two things. First, how much affection and respect I have for you all, and the terrific, innovative, probing coverage you produce. Second, that my decision reflects what is the right step for me and me alone and does not suggest what anyone else should do in the circumstances in which we find ourselves."
Uh, Ruth Marcus is a she, but that’s a minor point.
The previous owners of the Washington Post went wrong when they sold it. Bezos went wrong not when he bought it, but 1) when he installed tainted editors who came from Murdoch’s UK newspapers, and 2) when he interfered with WaPo’s editorial operations.
Typo, not intended. I meant “she” instead of “he.” Ruth is mainly a woman’s name as far as I know (except as the obvious last name for the one and only Babe Ruth).
1) and 2) of what you’re saying only confirms why Bezos should have never bought the WaPo.
Marc Benioff or another billionaire of his kind would have been a more suitable buyer. Benioff has wisely let TIME be TIME after buying the magazine but Bezos is being a dick by trying to exert more control. Bezos also has no socially conscious views of the world other than to have Amazon serve customers in an unlimited capacity with the goal of ultimate power.
I mean, just look at MGM, One Medical Group and Whole Foods. Ever since Amazon acquired them, they as business units have substantially changed. Whole Foods has become way oversaturated now with its culture and image.
Well, I had to get a new credit card recently because of some minor fraudulent charges. A benefit of that was I had to redo all my auto-renewal sunscriptions. WAPO didn't make the cut.
My wife and I let our subscription lapse last spring. After a few months I renewed, but only because they gave me a ridiculously cheap offer. Upon next expiry, WaPo is definitely out.
Here are the good analyses and journalism that I do choose to support:
– Jen Rubin’s "The Contrarian",
– Josh Marshall’s "Talking Points Memo",
– Heather Cox Richardson’s "Letters From an American",
Moskovitz just voted to censure a democrat for BS reasons, in a way that won't win him any "bipartisan bonafides" or make him more electable.
Florida statewide is going to be a buzzsaw anyway, so I guess I'd want him to run so we can replace him with someone better. But I'd rather that if we do hope for a long shot victory that we do so with someone that will be a team player instead of jumping on the latest craven opportunity to stand up for "decorum."
Do you have to reply with the rude but otherwise empty comment?
If I truly did not know Florida very well, you did nothing to correct that. A drive by insult is not conductive to any kind of discussion and is far beneath the level of discourse I experience with everyone else here.
You can disagree without being a jerk. Even if there is some inherent need to be a jerk you can do so in a way that contributes.
time for some pols with guts ( if there are any) to really stir the pot and start making calls for trump and vance to resign...like I say, to stir things up
i am at a local DEC and someone here is reporting that Josh Weil has raised $7 million in FL-special election; has anyone here seen that??..any feedback is appreciated
Judging by Paul Lepage’s last comeback, and his performance in every statewide race, Jared Golden should not be worried. Unlike the Governor’s races, where he won with a plurality twice, and was cswamped the last time, Maine’s 2nd District uses ranked choice voting. He can’t run spoilers and otherwise game the voters. His brand of divisive politics is not what Maine needs.
If Republicans still trust Republicans, this country will never get ahead.
And if this didn't wake them up to their corruption over the decades, there's no hope for them, and the rest of us MUST just move on and leave them be.
I don't believe that there is as many as we are to believe, if people just stop and step back and crush the numbers,more people didn't vote for this and will make sure it never happens again.
they won the election; we need to understand why, and counter them strategically
More Americans voted against Trump.
We need to understand and talk to the people who decided to stay home and not vote. 36% didn't vote, if just 1 % of them had voted, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
that is exactly what i posted
UTyler Texas poll:
The poll, which was conducted from Feb. 20 to Feb. 27, found that 53% of voters disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job as president compared to only 44% of voters who approve of his job so far.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ut-tyler-poll-measures-voters-020718617.html
A mere 44-percent approval of Trump in Texas is very good for Democrats and pro-democracy Texans – and the country.
Given that Trump is trying to speedrun us into a recession I imagine that those numbers would be even worse for him today. Nice to see.
Whoa, in Texas? During an ostensible political honeymoon?
If we see more polling like that, it might turn out that the pro-republican snapback in Texas last year was an aberration and the slow but steady trend towards competitive is still real. Would be great if that's the case — putting Texas on the board in the 2030s would be a huge benefit for us.
We’re gonna need it if certain census projections from 2020-24 wind up being correct about reapportionment
It can be real competitive in 2026 with a blue wave. Even more if Democrats can get James Talarico, a Christian Democrat firebrand to run against Ken Paxton in the Senate race. I bet that Ken wins against Thune easily with a Trump endorsement. He would easy to brand as an extremist with swing voters.
Do you buy it? Remember the polls before the election were showing Texas to be a five-point race. Trump won by 14. My skepticism about polls ticked up another notch after this cycle...especially Sun Belt State polls.
Yeah I'd take this poll with a humongous grain of salt. At best national polling is showing him underwater by a few points . . no way is Texas currently to the left of the country.
I'm always skeptical of the polls! Turned out there was a huge gap last year between the big online polls heavily weighted to partisanship and recalled vote, who unsurprisingly found a pretty similar 2020 result in most states, versus pollsters like NYT/Siena who allowed their samples to diverge and correctly saw the looming double digit shifts in states like TX, FL, and NY.
UT Tyler unfortunately looked more like the former than the latter in 2024, finding Harris only down 5 points in TX a couple weeks before the election. Totality of polling today (what little is still being conducted at a rigorous level) shows results more or less unchanged from last November. No surprise, most new presidents don't see their numbers sink until the end of summer. Although Trump is doing his best to speed up that process.
i believe Trump. is def dropping in overall approvals(not commenting on this specific poll)
It's mostly sentiment at this point but sentiment can in fact change any way it can with voters, especially with TX voters.
What a strange poll. Trump is underwater, but voters approve of him on the economy and the border.
Also, more Dems were born in the state than Republicans. 62% vs 50%. Looks like all the recent migration to Texas has helped Republicans maintain their hold on the state.
Someone noted awhile ago that Texas polls struggle with accurately describing the born in TX vs transplant thing. A better estimate of what's going on is that people who moved to TX in the 80's through 2000's tend to lean pretty red, but recent transplants to TX (who are of course really outnumbered by the former group in poll samples) are much bluer. It is not a good assumption to make that if TX had barred all new transplants over the past 15 years that it would somehow be a bluer state.
Interesting. The poll seems to suggest the opposite, with a higher percentage of Republicans having moved to the state for the first time in the past 10 years than Dems (15% vs 8%). Not really sure what to make of it.
https://archive.ph/nDa4p : Millions of Movers Reveal American Polarization in Action, NYT Upshot Voter analysis 2020-24.
Texas movers leaned +20R and Florida +40R. Blue states movers leaned democrat and vice versa.
If polarization in movers caused TX and FL to surge to the right, then I'm trying to figure out why IL, NY, NJ, MA, CA, etc., also moved pretty far right, some in the same ballpark as the first two. I don't deny that partisanship drives some domestic migration but it seems like it must play a pretty small role given that we're generally not seeing red states get redder and blue states bluer, at least in recent years (there is a longer running trend back to the 1960s/1970s of the number of swing states reducing and safe states increasing but there's other reasons for that than migration).
We were seeing it till 2020 but since then Democrat turnout decreased due to inflation and the border crisis along with swing voters shifting to the GOP.
https://www.270towin.com/states/california
California has gone bluer and bluer from 1990s till 2020.
Migration would only explain states where substantial chunk of electorate being new arrivals.
Also you can see the trend in areas gaining or losing population or higher turnover rate. The fast growing exurbs of central FL and two coasts, as well as the shrinking SEFL with a lot of moving in and out, are turning red in lightning speeds. I do buy the newcomers are R+40.
Texas, not so sure.
Skaje, what about generational renewal? Any thoughts on the proportion of R to D that die, and R to D amongst the youth turning 18 and added to the voter rolls? Do you see any net partisan movement in this?
Bright spot: movement to GA, MI, WI, and PA were all +12 to +17 D. Those four states are going to be the next blue wall.
https://archive.ph/nDa4p : Millions of Movers Reveal American Polarization in Action, NYT Upshot Voter analysis 2020-2024
Texas movers leaned +20R and Florida +40R. Blue states movers leaned democrat and vice versa.
Also, where do we think folks move from Arkansas, Louisiana, Missisippi, Oklahoma etc? It's Texas and Florida. These states have declining or stagnant populations despite having a high fertility rate 20-30 years ago whose effects would have been seen today. In addition, the article says that California has mass exported republicans to Texas, Arizona and Nevada.
I really can't buy that Trump is that low in Texas, at least not yet. That's actually worse than his average national numbers.
I can see Dems making gains in the state in 2026, particularly at the state and local levels (not sure if any GOP congressional districts are flippable yet).
this is kinda my take also; i def think that Trump is dropping in overall approvals
Averages have a lag, especially during a time of rapid change in opinion – which I believe we are seeing. It would be interesting to plot the time interval during which each poll was undertaken, and in addition take into account the historical bias / quality of each pollster.
I recall listening to NPR interviews with Paul "Flintstone" LePage. Never – not on a single occasion – have I heard LePage utter more than three consecutive sentences without saying something truly deranged or bizarre.
There is a reason Janet Mills trounced LePage by 13 points when he attempted a comeback in 2022. Legions of sane Mainers celebrated and hoped LePage would extend his retirement in Florida, never to be heard from again.
Hopefully he runs again so he can be used to help Democrats win in ME more easily.
Also, how is LePage exactly Fred Flintstone? John Goodman could wipe the mat with him as Mr. Flintstone any day.
Interesting article on Axios this morning.
. "Trump's secret power protection plan: a $500 million war chest"
Excerpts: Anyone who thinks President Trump's mesmerizing hold over the GOP will slip if his poll numbers slide is missing one of his biggest innovations in American politics:
The creation of a cash-flush political operation that has raked in around a half-billion dollars… It's unheard of for a president not running for reelection to raise that kind of money. The day after Election Day, Trump started calling major donors to start building an enforcement machine for his agenda.
"Right now, there's a huge price to pay by crossing Donald Trump," said Republican strategist Corry Bliss, who formerly led the Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC. "When you combine a 92% approval rating among Republican voters with unlimited money, that equals: 'Yes, sir.'"
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/10/trump-maga-inc-power-fundraising
And to that half-billion war chest we can add Elon Musk, who is currently investing heavily in the upcoming election for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat.
Who else suspects that most of that money will end up in Trump's bank account and a much smaller amount will go to candidates that he supports. Everything is a grift with him.
Bingo!
In the Los Angeles TV market, homeland security secretary Noem is running a commercial thanking Trump on immigration that you can't turn on TV without seeing.
https://youtu.be/vHV73nsnQBU?feature=shared
I suspect they will flood media on every issue.
Let me guess - Noem isn't actually serving as Secretary of Homeland Security?
i, for one, welcome a LePage run
Would be interesting if he gave a primary challenge to Susan Collins.
For once, I don’t think Senator Collins would be "concerned".
Edit: In election after election, Susan Collins has proven herself to be a survivor. In 2020, I was really hoping Sara Gideon would unseat her – but no such luck. I’m not a betting man, but I think there is Zero chance of LePage defeating Collins.
She will be concerned when she loses her job in 2026.
It would be great if somehow there was a sophisticated GOTV and fundraising machine on MAGA's side to get LePage to unseat Collins in the primary.
Oh please, MAGA, do it. We need your help in this primary race! /s
As far as I know, LePage has never won a majority of the vote, at least not during a gubernatorial election. I’m unsure about his past primary results, whether they were impressive or not.
LePage was also elected and re-elected as Governor when the GOP rode high with the rise of the Tea Party back in 2010 and 2014. Both of those midterm years featured lower-than-expected turnout for Democrats.
If he isn’t a strong primary challenger for Collins, then it may be that he’s just not good enough for the GOP to nominate anymore.
I definitely think Collins would be an underdog in a primary challenge...but not against LePage. MAGA types are basically looking for him, but maybe twenty years younger.
IMO her 2020 win was unimpressive once we take the full scenario into consideration.
Due to the RCV Maine uses, voters are going to be more willing to vote for third party candidates as their first preference. In the 2020 senate election about 6.5% of the vote went for left or vaguely left-ish independents. Gideon absolutely would not have won all of their votes on second preference, but she would have gained in net.
I suspect that if the RCV list was fully tabulated and all the votes were brought to the two candidate outcome that Collins would have won something like 52-48 or 53-47 in the final round. A clear win, but not an impressive one. Especially in light of her prior wins.
I don't know if we will get the requisite good candidate in Maine next year, but I'd argue 2020 showed that Collins is definitely beatable.
Honestly, I think Collins is far more likely to lose in a primary than she is in a general election-at least in 2026. Part of the reason is our strongest candidates (Jared Golden, Troy Dale Jackson, Chellie/Hannah Pingree) are more likely to run for Governor than challenge Collins, and another is that, at least in a general election, Ranked Choice voting arguably benefits her more than it would our nominee in a multi-way race (Collins is more likely to be the second choice for anyone listing a third party as the first choice because of incumbency).
That said, if she does draw a serious primary challenge, I think she'd start out as an underdog. She's arguably in the same position Olympia Snowe was in in 2012, where she'd be favored in a general election if she got there, but she'd be a heavy underdog against almost any serious primary challenger.
Perhaps but I’m also going to be making a hypothetical prediction that if Collins wins re-election, it could be by as high as roughly 5-6% points.
With Trump losing ME last year by a wider margin than back in in 2016 but a by a bit smaller margin than back in 2020, it’s clear his brand is losing steam in the state.
On top of that, Collins won re-election by 8.6% points, the smallest re-election margin for her to date even in spite of Sara Gideon’s Senate candidacy being doomed due to the DSCC’s involvement in the race early on. Certainly, Collins is more popular than Trump in ME but she may also not be as strong to hold her position like she used to be.
To be fair, I'm not sure we would have won that race with a different nominee. The DSCC picking sides did no one any favors, but Collins has, at least since the Tea Party been a thing, always been far more vulnerable in a primary than in a general election.
Yeah, although knowing Maine, it may be harder for the GOP to get a challenger for Collins.
Besides LePage, I don’t know who the GOP has who can effectively challenge Collins.
Bruce Poliquin and Austin Theriault are both capable of defeating Collins if either chooses to challenge her in my opinion.
How influential is Poliquin at this point if he's not running to challenge Jared Golden in ME-02?
As far as I know, he only served two years as State Treasurer prior to running for the House.
He probably could still win a primary against Collins in a one-vs-one race (Trump would probably endorse him, and the base doesn't like Collins at all), but if for some reason she retired, I think it would be hard for him to win a primary in an open seat race.
Not all of our strongest possible candidates will run for governor. They all will prefer to, but at some point I suspect someone will filter over to the senate race. It is unfortunate that Mills would be 79 on election day. She'd be a great candidate otherwise. Maybe she still would be, but I'm wary of candidates that are in or just shy of their 80s. Of course, Collins isn't her junior by all that much (five years).
I think Collins would win a primary easily. Republican primary voters by and large know she's the best they can hope for, and if you think we'll struggle to get a strong opponent to her, it's even harder to imagine the strong primary opponent for her. It's not an accident that she's won her primaries uncontested.
I don't think RCV is so simple as being pro-incumbent without taking into account the other candidates in the ballot. Maine has a stronger tendency to have independents that appeal to democratic voters making a run for office. Cutler, King, Golden's various independent opponents. Unless I missed someone I only found one independent candidate in recent years there that would appeal to conservatives more, and that was a random nobody running in King's 2024 reelection.
Mills would be about as good a candidate as Barbara Lee was last year, honestly (A good stopgap candidate for one term)
I would agree if it were for any race but this one.
i just think his Trump schtick will fail along with Trump approvals(if that makes sense)
WI-Supreme Court: Schimel is giving up on trying to come off as an impartial jurist and is now blatantly trying to excite the MAGA base: https://www.wpr.org/news/brad-schimel-republicans-trump-voters-wisconsin-supreme-court-race
The article references how Dan Kelly, the GOP candidate in the 2023 race, didn’t openly campaign as a partisan MAGA candidate and Schimel was busted on camera talking to canvassers about how he’ll be a support network for Trump and was pushing 2020 BIG Lie conspiracies. I get that both candidates aren’t well known and Trump’s approval in WI, according to Marquette is 48/51, but it’s funny to me that Schimel thinks it’s better to be associated with Trump than with Musk and DOGE.
Trump is more popular than Musk with the MAGAs; dude is going all in with Trump here
True. Trump’s still underwater but not as much as Musk. However, Trump not being on the ballot doesn’t guarantee that the MAGA base will show up in large numbers. Sure the traditional GOP base will but the folks who heavily came out in the rural and any of the gains he made with younger male voters are not a sure thing. Also, and this is the big one, Marquette showed Trump’s approval with Independent voters is at 39/60. That’s really terrible because they compared his approval with them to their March 2017 poll and he was at 42/32 approval back then. https://law.marquette.edu/poll/
i get your point but Trump is extremely popular with the MAGAs; and yes i know that doesnt translate to voter participation without his name on the ballot
We’re already seeing repeat signs from last time that they aren’t as enthused when he’s not on the ballot. Dems in the two VA State Senate special elections in blue districts earlier this year outperformed Harris’ numbers wile Rep in red district held on but underperformed Trump’s numbers. Plus the Iowa State Senate special election race in a Trump 20+ district flipping to the Dems. I still expect Reps to hold onto Stefanik and Waltz’s districts but to underperform and for Dems to tighten it up.
Josh Weil in Florida is running a real race; the margin will be cut(still might be a bridge to far)
Good flag. If Schimel thinks he can win by juicing base turnout, that's a lot of ground for him to make up.
That and the fact that Marquette showed Trump’s numbers with Independent voters at a dismal 39/60 approval. They even compared it to his numbers with Independents in March of 2017. Back then he was at 42/32 with Indies. If he’s doing terribly with Independents, that’s an opportunity for Crawford and Dems to win them over if Schimel hooks himself onto the hope that MAGA alone will save him.
That's at least one thing I will give Independents credit for - They do not have any loyalty to Trump.
Thanks for the story and link. Everyone should do whatever they can to help Susan Crawford win this race. It's the most important election at least until November and its results will carry a lot of weight.
BTW, there is also a story on WPR about Susan Crawford, but the link to it will not work. Go here and you can read both stories. https://www.wpr.org/news
It is not uncommon for a governor to run for the U.S. Senate. However, the possibility that Paul LePage might run for the House demonstrates how rare it is for a former governor to attempt to be a mere Congressperson. An exception is Charlie Crist, who served as governor of Florida from 2007-2011 (as a Republican) and then as Congressman from Florida's 13th Congressional District (as a Democrat) from 2017-2022.
Mark Sanford of "Hiking the Appalachian Trail" fame also made a similar transition.
According to this article it was more common in the first half of the 20th century for governors to run for House seats:
https://smartpolitics.lib.umn.edu/2015/10/19/demoted-charlie-crist-and-governors-elected-to-the-us-house/
Thank you. That was quite enlightening. It is notable that many governors-turned-Congressman hailed from small states such as North Dakota, Vermont, Delaware, and Maine with so few members of Congress that running for the House is almost as prestigious as running for the Senate.
Yeah but even if LePage were to be miraculously elected in the House to represent ME-02, he'll still take a crack at running for Governor again.
I don't think he wants to be in the House to serve.
LePage is eager to get his nose browner – and to publicly cheer doing so.
He is getting up there in years. If he served one term in the house and then ran for something else in 2028, he'd be running for that office at 80 years old.
Yeah, which makes me wonder why LePage wants to go back to politics at this point.
Boredom? Seriously, that's the only reason I can think of.
ANOTHER WaPo DEPARTURE
There is no end in sight for the turbulence at the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post. The once-trusted newspaper continues to bleed subscribers, while longtime journalists and editors are passing through the Exit door.
Today, Ruth Marcus, a longtime Opinion Editor and Columnist resigned from the Post. The reason? CEO Will Lewis killed her column wherein Marcus expressed concerns about Bezos' changes to the Post’s opinion section.
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/10/washington-post-to-overhaul-newsroom-structure
Last week, former Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron penned a scathing piece about the radical changes being made by Jeff Bezos:
. "Where Jeff Bezos Went Wrong With The Washington Post"
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/bezos-appease-trump-administration/681899/
(Sorry, I don’t have a gift link.)
RUTH MARCUS’ statement:
"With immense sadness I am writing to let you know that I have resigned from The Washington Post, in an email sent this morning to Jeff Bezos and Will Lewis and pasted below. I am taking this step, after more than 40 years at The Post, following Will's decision to spike a column that I wrote expressing a concern about the newly announced direction for the section and declined to discuss the decision with me.
"As I leave, I'd like to emphasize two things. First, how much affection and respect I have for you all, and the terrific, innovative, probing coverage you produce. Second, that my decision reflects what is the right step for me and me alone and does not suggest what anyone else should do in the circumstances in which we find ourselves."
– Ruth Marcus
The fact that she's had to send a letter to Jeff Bezos illustrates why this is a problem.
Where did Jeff Bezos went wrong with the Washington Post? He bought it, that's why.
Uh, Ruth Marcus is a she, but that’s a minor point.
The previous owners of the Washington Post went wrong when they sold it. Bezos went wrong not when he bought it, but 1) when he installed tainted editors who came from Murdoch’s UK newspapers, and 2) when he interfered with WaPo’s editorial operations.
Typo, not intended. I meant “she” instead of “he.” Ruth is mainly a woman’s name as far as I know (except as the obvious last name for the one and only Babe Ruth).
1) and 2) of what you’re saying only confirms why Bezos should have never bought the WaPo.
Marc Benioff or another billionaire of his kind would have been a more suitable buyer. Benioff has wisely let TIME be TIME after buying the magazine but Bezos is being a dick by trying to exert more control. Bezos also has no socially conscious views of the world other than to have Amazon serve customers in an unlimited capacity with the goal of ultimate power.
I mean, just look at MGM, One Medical Group and Whole Foods. Ever since Amazon acquired them, they as business units have substantially changed. Whole Foods has become way oversaturated now with its culture and image.
Well, I had to get a new credit card recently because of some minor fraudulent charges. A benefit of that was I had to redo all my auto-renewal sunscriptions. WAPO didn't make the cut.
My wife and I let our subscription lapse last spring. After a few months I renewed, but only because they gave me a ridiculously cheap offer. Upon next expiry, WaPo is definitely out.
Here are the good analyses and journalism that I do choose to support:
– Jen Rubin’s "The Contrarian",
– Josh Marshall’s "Talking Points Memo",
– Heather Cox Richardson’s "Letters From an American",
– Timothy Snyder’s "Thinking About…",
– Daniel Nichanian’s "Bolts Magazine",
– Simon Rosenberg’s "Hopium Chronicles",
– Sam Wang’s "Fixing Bugs in Democracy",
– Shelah Horvitz’s "Masses and Edges",
– Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s "Lucid",
– Haviv Rettig Gur,
– The Guardian,
– Marc Elias‘ "Democracy Docket",
– The Borowitz Report, …and of course...
– David & Jeff’s "The Downballot"
Florida Gov
Donalds 34%
Casey DeSantis 30%
Fabrizio #B - 600 LV - 2/27
Pls pls fight to the political death
A bloody GOP primary would be brilliant to watch. Who do Democrats actually have to run for anything in Florida though, to compete?
Moskovitz is my favorite; Mayor Deegan if she has statewide ambitions(#2)
Moskovitz just voted to censure a democrat for BS reasons, in a way that won't win him any "bipartisan bonafides" or make him more electable.
Florida statewide is going to be a buzzsaw anyway, so I guess I'd want him to run so we can replace him with someone better. But I'd rather that if we do hope for a long shot victory that we do so with someone that will be a team player instead of jumping on the latest craven opportunity to stand up for "decorum."
imo you dont know Florida very well; but, thats ok
Do you have to reply with the rude but otherwise empty comment?
If I truly did not know Florida very well, you did nothing to correct that. A drive by insult is not conductive to any kind of discussion and is far beneath the level of discourse I experience with everyone else here.
You can disagree without being a jerk. Even if there is some inherent need to be a jerk you can do so in a way that contributes.
my post speaks for itself; i dont consider it rude; but, thats ok
Casey DeSantis can win(she is much more popular than Ron; and smarter)
Come on Donalds, be nice to DeSantis' wife!
time for some pols with guts ( if there are any) to really stir the pot and start making calls for trump and vance to resign...like I say, to stir things up
serves little purpose imo..bad idea
i am at a local DEC and someone here is reporting that Josh Weil has raised $7 million in FL-special election; has anyone here seen that??..any feedback is appreciated
Of course, if Oberweis runs, they should talk about how he bankrupted the family ice cream/dairy business too. He is a nightmare and a loon.
Judging by Paul Lepage’s last comeback, and his performance in every statewide race, Jared Golden should not be worried. Unlike the Governor’s races, where he won with a plurality twice, and was cswamped the last time, Maine’s 2nd District uses ranked choice voting. He can’t run spoilers and otherwise game the voters. His brand of divisive politics is not what Maine needs.