He's not a progressive, he's simply a mainstream lib. He has himself said that he doesn't believe in the progressive agenda. He is relatively progressive compared to Bird who voted against working class tax incentives, assault weapons ban and for ICE cooperation bills.
He's one of those up-and-coming Democrats that looks past progressive ideology and just tries to get the left's attention with "I'm attractive, vote for me!"
To the right of Bird - he had endorsements from VoteVets and New Politics, two center-left PACs dedicated to electing veterans, as well as centrist Rep. Seth Moulton, also a veteran.
Apparently, he's still laundering AIPAC funding through other JFCs. He's never going to learn and will never be the next Senator from New York lmao (Reports in 2025 said that he was looking towards primarying Schumer since Tish James is not retiring).
He'd have been a huge headache for the left in 2028 with his resist lib small donor base and infinite wealth if he wasn't going to be taken out this cycle. Only AOC would have been able to defeat him statewide.
Good lord do I hate Esther Panitch. For those unaware, she was the “Dem” state legislator who threatened to back Kemp over Ossoff due to Israel and called for the DSA to be expelled from the Dems. Now she’s calling the left “extremists”. Her not losing was one of the few big disappointments that night in primaries for me.
It’s also so annoying how the AJC frames her rival as “far left”. Want to tax the rich, respond to climate change and give people health care? Far-left. Meanwhile MSM is framing Cronyn as some kind of moderate.
That result was noteworthy; it's a district that barely voted for Trump in 2024 and is based in and around downtown McAllen (large Hispanic population). The losing candidate in the Democratic primary got more votes than the winning candidate in the Republican primary.
This is the type of districts where running as a progressive on economic issues is likely to net the Democrat votes, not lose them, due to how poor it is. As long as Salinas has the sense to generally avoid social issues in the general election, he should win easily.
I don't know, the polling elsewhere for FL-SEN and FL-GOV is still within the margin of error -- and the Democratic challenger to the incumbent AG is 3-4 points ahead.
I don't think FL is going to be immune from the Trump backlash and the two state seats flipping in R+5-10 territory indicates a shift. Whether that means the governor's seat and/or Senate seat can flip back to Democratic control is up to voters in November.
It’s going to get tight in the FL-GOV race even with the Hispanic vote.
Democrats need to turn out in the polls and get enough independent and moderate votes as well. Perhaps some disaffected Republicans may help in support as well although I don’t think David Jolly should go out of his way to do this.
But they don't have the choice, and the entire world is suffering because of their stupidity. I hope they don't just vote for the next Republican idiot in 2032.
He’s gonna get attacked either way. If Wahls is labeling him as a conservative, maybe it helps Turek’s positioning as the moderate in the general election.
Oof, that NY-15 poll does not look good for Michael Blake. It's an internal too. Damn, I really don't like Torres. Ah well.
Anyway, Plummer's win was a pretty big upset in the Harris County Judge race. Parker led by quite a bit in the one poll I saw. It's also yet another left victory, as Parker was more of a centrist, while Plummer was a progressive backed by outgoing Judge Lina Hidalgo. The question now is: can she win in November, given how close Hidalgo's races were? (In this environment, I'd say probably.)
Unrelated, but on Bluesky there's been a lot of sudden energy and interest in Darializa Avila Chevalier's primary bid against Espaillat. The DSA is backing her, I've heard her canvassers are out in force, and the one poll done showed Espaillat ahead by a lot, but not cracking 50 in the poll (and he previously underperformed even lesser-known challengers). Could an upset be brewing? Or is Espaillat safe? Curious to know people's thoughts.
Finally, I'm curious to know what people here think of Menefee beating Green. Good news, or bad news? They are both progressives from what I've heard (albeit with crypto backing Menefee), so it seems to be more of a generational challenge. Thoughts?
I’m very happy that Democratic voters are choosing the younger candidates. Al Green was a good Rep, nothing against him at all. But the idea that you should stay in office until you die needs to be cast aside, especially at a time when voters don’t trust the Party. How can you make the case for something new if you are running candidates who have been in office for decades?
I don't like tech money either but I think it's probably a net-positive for the party to have more people in office who tech isn't scared of. I don't think we lost 2024 because of the huge surge of donations to Trump, but it certainly didn't help.
That’s why I think Democrats need to 1) ban stock trading within the Senate and House caucuses without waiting for the GOP to move on it, 2) remove Schumer as Minority Leader (fair or unfair, 3 decades in office links him to everything that voter’s hate about Congress), and 3) like Peltola, attack corruption in a non-partisan way that links it to not addressing local concerns
Because getting Independents or anti-MAGA Republicans to believe Democrats are serious about corruption matters most.
The huge majority of self-described independents are (at least fairly) reliable voters for one party or the other. If they turn out, that's who they'll vote for. The goal is to turn out Dem voters, and corruption is a good lever for that.
James Talarico calling his race “The People vs Ken Paxton” is absolutely brilliant! It’s a terrific way to remind Texas voters of Ken Paxton’s impeachment and utter corruption! And it’s a great way to underscore that Talarico is the people’s choice – the real choice of Texans.
In Indiana, Diego Morales is hitting back at the Republican establishment's efforts to take him out of the race for The Republican nomination for Secretary of State:
It's a curious line of argument: that Republican supporters of redistricting are opposing him because he supported Republican redistricting. Of course, it is also curious that Republican leadership is going after him for supposedly having an illegal immigrant who voted in elections working in his office (which, the article tells us is untrue) rather than focusing on Morales' hiring of relatives and spending a lot of money on official cars and travel.
I cannot understand Texan Republicans. Texans have always taken great pride in their independence and the state’s inner “grandeur” (everything is bigger in Texas). But now, they act as total puppets and ring kissers (very tempted to have them kiss something else) to a multiple felon, sexual predator, and general crook. What happened to Texas Republicans?
They got entrenched in power and, like NC Republicans, started catering to billionaire PAC donors rather than do their effing jobs.
But TX Republicans are a different breed altogether. Paxton makes the slimy dealings by Berger, Moore and Hall look like child's play.
Paxton could very well be TX's Kari Lake/Herschel Walker this cycle. But TX voters HAVE to turn out to vote for Talarico. The thought of Paxton schlepping it up with Cruz in the U.S. Senate makes me sick.
Everything is nationalized now; regional independence is dead. Southern Louisiana voters also stayed independent until they suddenly didn't; now they're West Virginia 2.0
Paxton is not an anomaly, he’s par for the course in a state party that’s produced Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott. He’s also a proven vote getter. He won’t be easy to defeat. The logical next step for Texas Republicans will be to nominate a school shooter.
The entire GOP ecosystem has their talking points down already — Talarico is a Vegan, God is nonbinary, there are 6 genders. Heard this exact same schtick in that order seven times last night. Will it stick? How much energy and money will JT spend to defend/explain?
It'd be good for Talarico to have a little bit of Southern charm and be someone ladies swoon over rather than pinch the cheek of. I'm not sure that's totally compatible with the wholesome preacher thing, but a little bit of masculine energy could go a long way in Texas. Our successful politicians in the South (Clinton foremost among them, but also Beshear, Cooper, Ossoff, Warnock, Beebee, JBE) have pretty wives and deep voices.
It'd be pretty amazing if it somehow didn't stick. Talarico might be able to talk his way out of one Berkeley-coded position but all those early 2020s comments stacked on top of each other are gonna be hard to come back from....in Texas.
I dunno...any D running statewide in a red state is already going to be associated with those positions. I'm not sure it'll really have a huge impact. I'm not saying he's favored or anything, but I think he has a very real shot at winning this thing in the current political environment.
"He’s also a proven vote getter." Is this true? As far as I can discern he has underperformed every other statewide R candidate in every election since 2014, sometimes significantly.
Basically everything that could have went right for us in Texas went right. Jon Rosenthal is a very credible candidate who, in theory, should be able to take advantage of Bo French’s extreme racism if he is sufficiently funded. Might be worth the national party investing in a few of these downballot statewide races in Texas.
One of the underrated possibilities in Texas is circumventing a gerrymander by controlling a majority of the redistricting board. It's probably our most plausible path to getting fair, or even dem-biased, maps there. You can make things really safe Dem really quickly in Texas b/c of the GOP's bad political distribution.
Yeah I don't think it'll happen this year. My point was that snagging three statewide offices + the governorship (to veto the leg passed maps) is a more feasible path than flipping a gerrymandered legislature. This is more of a 2030 or 2038 thing.
Love the outside the box thinking here, but is there any scenario in which we win this offices and the R's don't change the board's make up in the lame duck session? I doubt it...
The redistricting board only even meets unless the legislature fails to pass a map. So we either need to flip the House or Senate under maps that makes that almost impossible (especially the Senate) or the Governor. Either of those are very big challenges
Yeah that's what I said above. Winning the governorship + 3 row offices would allow us to draw maps. Tall order but probably 10 points of a lesser lift than .flipping the legislature.
Im sad about Marcos Velez's loss, I dont have very much trust in Goodwin turning the tide on Dan Patrick but Velez had a really compelling background and set of endorsements.
Obviously he really fumbled the runoff despite that so maybe he wouldnt have ran the best campaign, but I hope he is able to continue to organize and either him or another "blue collar union organizer" can get through in Texas.
This is a huge year for Texas because we have essentially every role of higher office up for election. It seemed like there was hesitance from lots of larger state figures to run for these positions still, because no one has proven turning Texas blue actually possible, so this couldve been a great year for alt/non establishment figures to secure nominations in the primaries. I worry that if we win in 2028 the landscape in Texas wont be as friendly when these positions come back up in 2030.
Nonetheless, really pulling for Hinojosa and Talarico to pull it off, maybe swing AG and some state senate/rep seats. As much as Beto has made so many mistakes he's made a huge effort to change the party here and what it looks like to campaign here. The party is still in many ways a huge flophouse, two of our largest cities elected democratic mayors who have either switched parties (Eric Johnson) or are obstructionist and conservative (Whitmire). 40 some years of one party rule will create an inexperienced opposition, and national democrats have been no example of effective leadership, but things are finally starting to look up.
For some reason, I'm not able to like posts right now, but thank you for the link! The question of how lagging rating changes by Cook affected donor decisions in a previous cycle and may have cost Democrats a House seat is covered near the end of the article.
Could be a phone reset or a cache dump will solve that, but I'll like MPCs comment for you (not that I wouldn't have anyway). Timely in that we were just discussing this among the 500 comments over the weekend.
Yep, and it’s not just the House. They still have Ohio and Alaska’s Senate races as Leans Republican and Texas and Iowa as Likely Republican. The current Sabato ratings say that Wisconsin’s governor race is a tossup, that Republicans are more likely to win the Senate race in Minnesota than Democrats are to win the Senate race in Kansas, and that Iowa’s gubernatorial race leans Republican. None of that reflects the current D+7 environment or the expected midterm wave environment in November. If the forecasters aren’t trying to accurately predict what the result in November will be, then what on earth is the point of them?
He's not a progressive, he's simply a mainstream lib. He has himself said that he doesn't believe in the progressive agenda. He is relatively progressive compared to Bird who voted against working class tax incentives, assault weapons ban and for ICE cooperation bills.
He's one of those up-and-coming Democrats that looks past progressive ideology and just tries to get the left's attention with "I'm attractive, vote for me!"
Good because the district is purple and he's still infinitely better compared to Bird. Bird actually made an ad attacking his looks lol.
What was Munsing's ideological position compared to them?
To the right of Bird - he had endorsements from VoteVets and New Politics, two center-left PACs dedicated to electing veterans, as well as centrist Rep. Seth Moulton, also a veteran.
Not necessarily. VoteVets and NewPol endorses normies (Moulton endorses whoever VoteVets endorses) and Rutinel is also a normie Dem.
Rutinel is 31 and looks even younger.
Apparently, he's still laundering AIPAC funding through other JFCs. He's never going to learn and will never be the next Senator from New York lmao (Reports in 2025 said that he was looking towards primarying Schumer since Tish James is not retiring).
He'd have been a huge headache for the left in 2028 with his resist lib small donor base and infinite wealth if he wasn't going to be taken out this cycle. Only AOC would have been able to defeat him statewide.
https://x.com/lukewgoldstein/status/2059733115350737047
I got it! 🙂
Too little, too late.
This is good news for Goldman! /s
Good lord do I hate Esther Panitch. For those unaware, she was the “Dem” state legislator who threatened to back Kemp over Ossoff due to Israel and called for the DSA to be expelled from the Dems. Now she’s calling the left “extremists”. Her not losing was one of the few big disappointments that night in primaries for me.
She's basically Georgia's Fetterman. Problem is I don't think Dem primary voters are aware of that in GA as much as they are in PA.
She accused Ossoff of so many things because of his identity and votes on Israel, he really should have taken her out with a recruit.
That she threatened to at all is an automatic mark against her in my opinion. Ossoff isn’t invulnerable, GA is still a swing state.
It’s also so annoying how the AJC frames her rival as “far left”. Want to tax the rich, respond to climate change and give people health care? Far-left. Meanwhile MSM is framing Cronyn as some kind of moderate.
This is just ridiculously slow, how is Texas not a tossup if the political environment is similar to 2018?
That result was noteworthy; it's a district that barely voted for Trump in 2024 and is based in and around downtown McAllen (large Hispanic population). The losing candidate in the Democratic primary got more votes than the winning candidate in the Republican primary.
They could also win this year and lose in 2028 or, rather definitely, 2030.
I wonder how much of this is based on their respective last names in that particular district, though....
This is the type of districts where running as a progressive on economic issues is likely to net the Democrat votes, not lose them, due to how poor it is. As long as Salinas has the sense to generally avoid social issues in the general election, he should win easily.
I don't know, the polling elsewhere for FL-SEN and FL-GOV is still within the margin of error -- and the Democratic challenger to the incumbent AG is 3-4 points ahead.
I don't think FL is going to be immune from the Trump backlash and the two state seats flipping in R+5-10 territory indicates a shift. Whether that means the governor's seat and/or Senate seat can flip back to Democratic control is up to voters in November.
Cubans will always distort the overall Latino vote. Anyway, Florida was +13R in the 2024 exit poll. So there’s some improvement.
It’s going to get tight in the FL-GOV race even with the Hispanic vote.
Democrats need to turn out in the polls and get enough independent and moderate votes as well. Perhaps some disaffected Republicans may help in support as well although I don’t think David Jolly should go out of his way to do this.
But they don't have the choice, and the entire world is suffering because of their stupidity. I hope they don't just vote for the next Republican idiot in 2032.
He’s gonna get attacked either way. If Wahls is labeling him as a conservative, maybe it helps Turek’s positioning as the moderate in the general election.
You shouldn't let it bother you. Leftists have been told that we're voting for Joseph Stalin for anyone to the left of Bill Clinton for decades.
Take recent criticism of Brad Lander on this site for example, with some labeling him as "Soviet socialist".
It's been a while since I've heard about Dan Crane. I thought Kouzounas was never elected, though?
Dentists and car dealers are usually the quintessential Republican candidate background.
Oof, that NY-15 poll does not look good for Michael Blake. It's an internal too. Damn, I really don't like Torres. Ah well.
Anyway, Plummer's win was a pretty big upset in the Harris County Judge race. Parker led by quite a bit in the one poll I saw. It's also yet another left victory, as Parker was more of a centrist, while Plummer was a progressive backed by outgoing Judge Lina Hidalgo. The question now is: can she win in November, given how close Hidalgo's races were? (In this environment, I'd say probably.)
Unrelated, but on Bluesky there's been a lot of sudden energy and interest in Darializa Avila Chevalier's primary bid against Espaillat. The DSA is backing her, I've heard her canvassers are out in force, and the one poll done showed Espaillat ahead by a lot, but not cracking 50 in the poll (and he previously underperformed even lesser-known challengers). Could an upset be brewing? Or is Espaillat safe? Curious to know people's thoughts.
Finally, I'm curious to know what people here think of Menefee beating Green. Good news, or bad news? They are both progressives from what I've heard (albeit with crypto backing Menefee), so it seems to be more of a generational challenge. Thoughts?
I’m not in Texas.
I’m very happy that Democratic voters are choosing the younger candidates. Al Green was a good Rep, nothing against him at all. But the idea that you should stay in office until you die needs to be cast aside, especially at a time when voters don’t trust the Party. How can you make the case for something new if you are running candidates who have been in office for decades?
Makes sense to me.
I don't like tech money either but I think it's probably a net-positive for the party to have more people in office who tech isn't scared of. I don't think we lost 2024 because of the huge surge of donations to Trump, but it certainly didn't help.
If Dem candidates' #1 message this year isn't corruption, it should def be #2.
This is a big, fat softball coming in, low, slow, and over the plate.
It’s still a major problem that needs to be addressed, whether or not it’s a campaign issue.
That’s why I think Democrats need to 1) ban stock trading within the Senate and House caucuses without waiting for the GOP to move on it, 2) remove Schumer as Minority Leader (fair or unfair, 3 decades in office links him to everything that voter’s hate about Congress), and 3) like Peltola, attack corruption in a non-partisan way that links it to not addressing local concerns
Because getting Independents or anti-MAGA Republicans to believe Democrats are serious about corruption matters most.
I regularly write my senators and house member asking them to do it. I think I need to call more since I’ve read it’s much more impactful.
To clarify, I email in my own words. I think it has some value, but probably not as much as a call.
The huge majority of self-described independents are (at least fairly) reliable voters for one party or the other. If they turn out, that's who they'll vote for. The goal is to turn out Dem voters, and corruption is a good lever for that.
Bingo. Trump's whole message was "sure I'm corrupt but the system is corrupt" and indie and low-info voters ate it up.
Yes, and the way to make that less salient is to take action against corruption.
Too bad it’s not you, but the other Mike Johnson, who is Speaker of the House!
James Talarico calling his race “The People vs Ken Paxton” is absolutely brilliant! It’s a terrific way to remind Texas voters of Ken Paxton’s impeachment and utter corruption! And it’s a great way to underscore that Talarico is the people’s choice – the real choice of Texans.
In Indiana, Diego Morales is hitting back at the Republican establishment's efforts to take him out of the race for The Republican nomination for Secretary of State:
https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/2026/05/26/morales-lashes-back-over-loss-of-indiana-secretary-of-state-race-support/?emci=2d04a2f6-3459-f111-8fcb-000d3a18905c&emdi=bbc13267-bf59-f111-8fcb-000d3a18905c&ceid=630426
It's a curious line of argument: that Republican supporters of redistricting are opposing him because he supported Republican redistricting. Of course, it is also curious that Republican leadership is going after him for supposedly having an illegal immigrant who voted in elections working in his office (which, the article tells us is untrue) rather than focusing on Morales' hiring of relatives and spending a lot of money on official cars and travel.
I cannot understand Texan Republicans. Texans have always taken great pride in their independence and the state’s inner “grandeur” (everything is bigger in Texas). But now, they act as total puppets and ring kissers (very tempted to have them kiss something else) to a multiple felon, sexual predator, and general crook. What happened to Texas Republicans?
They got entrenched in power and, like NC Republicans, started catering to billionaire PAC donors rather than do their effing jobs.
But TX Republicans are a different breed altogether. Paxton makes the slimy dealings by Berger, Moore and Hall look like child's play.
Paxton could very well be TX's Kari Lake/Herschel Walker this cycle. But TX voters HAVE to turn out to vote for Talarico. The thought of Paxton schlepping it up with Cruz in the U.S. Senate makes me sick.
Schlepping? I don't think that word can be used this way.
Everything is nationalized now; regional independence is dead. Southern Louisiana voters also stayed independent until they suddenly didn't; now they're West Virginia 2.0
political independence is like judicial independence, it's dead for Republicans but a cherished civic value for Democrats.
Paxton is not an anomaly, he’s par for the course in a state party that’s produced Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott. He’s also a proven vote getter. He won’t be easy to defeat. The logical next step for Texas Republicans will be to nominate a school shooter.
The entire GOP ecosystem has their talking points down already — Talarico is a Vegan, God is nonbinary, there are 6 genders. Heard this exact same schtick in that order seven times last night. Will it stick? How much energy and money will JT spend to defend/explain?
it's not authentic to him so it probably wouldn't work but he'd benefit from a little bit of Bill Clinton's big dawg energy.
What is big dawg energy? I’m curious and would love an explanation, perhaps with examples.
(And I presume you’re not referring to Blue Dawg...)
It'd be good for Talarico to have a little bit of Southern charm and be someone ladies swoon over rather than pinch the cheek of. I'm not sure that's totally compatible with the wholesome preacher thing, but a little bit of masculine energy could go a long way in Texas. Our successful politicians in the South (Clinton foremost among them, but also Beshear, Cooper, Ossoff, Warnock, Beebee, JBE) have pretty wives and deep voices.
It'd be pretty amazing if it somehow didn't stick. Talarico might be able to talk his way out of one Berkeley-coded position but all those early 2020s comments stacked on top of each other are gonna be hard to come back from....in Texas.
I dunno...any D running statewide in a red state is already going to be associated with those positions. I'm not sure it'll really have a huge impact. I'm not saying he's favored or anything, but I think he has a very real shot at winning this thing in the current political environment.
"He’s also a proven vote getter." Is this true? As far as I can discern he has underperformed every other statewide R candidate in every election since 2014, sometimes significantly.
Basically everything that could have went right for us in Texas went right. Jon Rosenthal is a very credible candidate who, in theory, should be able to take advantage of Bo French’s extreme racism if he is sufficiently funded. Might be worth the national party investing in a few of these downballot statewide races in Texas.
One of the underrated possibilities in Texas is circumventing a gerrymander by controlling a majority of the redistricting board. It's probably our most plausible path to getting fair, or even dem-biased, maps there. You can make things really safe Dem really quickly in Texas b/c of the GOP's bad political distribution.
Yeah I don't think it'll happen this year. My point was that snagging three statewide offices + the governorship (to veto the leg passed maps) is a more feasible path than flipping a gerrymandered legislature. This is more of a 2030 or 2038 thing.
Love the outside the box thinking here, but is there any scenario in which we win this offices and the R's don't change the board's make up in the lame duck session? I doubt it...
The redistricting board only even meets unless the legislature fails to pass a map. So we either need to flip the House or Senate under maps that makes that almost impossible (especially the Senate) or the Governor. Either of those are very big challenges
Yeah that's what I said above. Winning the governorship + 3 row offices would allow us to draw maps. Tall order but probably 10 points of a lesser lift than .flipping the legislature.
Im sad about Marcos Velez's loss, I dont have very much trust in Goodwin turning the tide on Dan Patrick but Velez had a really compelling background and set of endorsements.
Obviously he really fumbled the runoff despite that so maybe he wouldnt have ran the best campaign, but I hope he is able to continue to organize and either him or another "blue collar union organizer" can get through in Texas.
This is a huge year for Texas because we have essentially every role of higher office up for election. It seemed like there was hesitance from lots of larger state figures to run for these positions still, because no one has proven turning Texas blue actually possible, so this couldve been a great year for alt/non establishment figures to secure nominations in the primaries. I worry that if we win in 2028 the landscape in Texas wont be as friendly when these positions come back up in 2030.
Nonetheless, really pulling for Hinojosa and Talarico to pull it off, maybe swing AG and some state senate/rep seats. As much as Beto has made so many mistakes he's made a huge effort to change the party here and what it looks like to campaign here. The party is still in many ways a huge flophouse, two of our largest cities elected democratic mayors who have either switched parties (Eric Johnson) or are obstructionist and conservative (Whitmire). 40 some years of one party rule will create an inexperienced opposition, and national democrats have been no example of effective leadership, but things are finally starting to look up.
Thanks for this, do you know what comparable is for the reps?
I don't think the runoff was ideological, Goodwin was a staunch progressive in the Texas House.
You mentioned Florida’s new 22nd is now open. Is Lois Frankel running in a new district?
FL-23. It’s believed Jared Moskowitz will jump into FL-25.
I’ll be curious to see who we run in FL-22 now. I’ve heard Lauren Book be floated as a contender.
Thanks for the info. I don’t know if he has a real chance but I liked Oliver Larkin in FL-25 if only for his DSA background
Pia Dandiya is also running in FL-22.
This Substack article is a good dive into how Cook Report and Sabato can cost Dems winnable House seats due to their outdated polling model.
https://decalibrate.substack.com/p/by-august-cook-will-move-a-third?r=8glhm&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
For some reason, I'm not able to like posts right now, but thank you for the link! The question of how lagging rating changes by Cook affected donor decisions in a previous cycle and may have cost Democrats a House seat is covered near the end of the article.
Could be a phone reset or a cache dump will solve that, but I'll like MPCs comment for you (not that I wouldn't have anyway). Timely in that we were just discussing this among the 500 comments over the weekend.
It's weird: I was able to like some comments but not others. But anyway...
Yep, and it’s not just the House. They still have Ohio and Alaska’s Senate races as Leans Republican and Texas and Iowa as Likely Republican. The current Sabato ratings say that Wisconsin’s governor race is a tossup, that Republicans are more likely to win the Senate race in Minnesota than Democrats are to win the Senate race in Kansas, and that Iowa’s gubernatorial race leans Republican. None of that reflects the current D+7 environment or the expected midterm wave environment in November. If the forecasters aren’t trying to accurately predict what the result in November will be, then what on earth is the point of them?
That's one reason I subscribe to G. Elliott Morris' Strength in Numbers. He was spot on for the governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey.