One thing I will note, though, is I like the way that RCV changes the tone of a primary. Look at the mayoral primary in NYC: the end of it all boils down to candidates trying to find coalitions and strategic partners. It doesn't remove intra-party attacks but it does change how they're done, in my opinion for the better.
I think precisely because IL races have the tenor they have now, there couldn't be RCV there. It would lead to even more jail time and to bags with dollar signs being passed around.
IL-2 - Being a voter in this district, I would have had Miller as a second preference after Peters, and, after that, Brown, then Preston, if RCV were used. Miller would have almost certainly won with RCV, as she had a large plurality with divided opposition.
IL-7 - This is one of the biggest what-ifs in regard to a hypothetical RCV primary, although I think Ford may have still won under RCV.
IL-8 - This one feels like it would have been similar to the Minneapolis mayoral election last year, where a moderate (relative to the constituency; Jacob Frey is clearly more progressive than Melissa Bean) would have been able to get enough second preferences from voters who voted for one of the progressive candidates to get a ranked-choice majority.
IL-9 - Abughazaleh and Fine would have fared much worse under RCV than in real-life, to put it very mildly. Biss would have been a near-prohibitive favorite under RCV instead of the slight favorite he was going into tonight's real-life primary.
This is more a case of telling on yourself: they're admitting that they only see the "economy" as the stock market, corporate profits, and the ultra wealthy. Unemployment, median income, inflation for core goods and services... none of that counts as "the economy" because that impacts the working class.
The secondary factors (people with less money can't spend that money on corporate products) are simply ignored by them.
I saw you mention it yesterday, there really truly is a massive split within the right about Iran right now. And if Trump has officials publicly resigning like this... it cannot be ignored. Everyone from Laura Loomer, Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, MTG and dozens of the most prominent right wingers have been engaging in bitter, expletive laden recriminations and infighting on there in the last week or so. X really is a cesspool of this, but I have never seen this level of free anti-semitism, and anti-Islam sentiment, openly, without masking or codewords, by relatively prominent public figures like with Ogles last week. One of the most insane things I've seen there in the last few days is Fuentes and others continuously saying now they will be voting Dem to punish the Republicans over Iran, and its getting traction from their supporters.
my jaw dropped when I watched Fuentes, one of the most right wing loons on the internet, defending and pining for Joe Biden. Biden!!! while drawing a comparison of just how badly Trump is doing.
Twitter sentiment is of course not the real world, but if the comms and messaging are looked at, the civil war is in plain sight. Iran is going to go down as probably the worst mistake trump has made, maybe after the 700k covid dead on his hands, and it is going to cost the R's dearly this midterm. Trump won't be on the ballot to juice low-propensity/infrequents, and everything he is doing is destroying enthusiasm among his base.
Well, Richard Spencer of all people voted for Biden back in 2020. Bizarre things certainly can happen with MAGA and the white nationalist supremacist base.
I agree with you. This is his worst, most deadly mistake, and is a war the U.S. is losing and will lose, while causing terrible repercussions for the Iranian people. [Edit: I mean since the unnecessary deaths during the COVID pandemic, which were partly intentional.]
To a point. No way do I believe Trump would do anything because of pressure from Netanyahu, though I could easily imagine him hearing a suggestion from Netanyahu, thinking it was cool because he is a psychopath who likes to kill people and distract from the Epstein files, and do it.
I'm guessing their lead comes from (i) low-information voters who are unaware that Republicans are the ones who keep blowing up the debt/deficit and (ii) people who think the deficit is more because of too much spending rather than not enough revenue.
I'd say all but the most contentious policy subjects are heavily coded towards one party.
Republicans talk about the debt the most. Most voters are not well versed on budgetary matters, so they're going to lean towards the party that talks about the problem in the right way or even just talks about that it is a problem.
It's difficult to lose a long term edge on an issue for a party. Even constant mistakes on it can still require consistent and aggressive attention from the other party to wrench back voter support on that topic.
I appreciate the work you put into compiling evidence for this insight though I think it’s worth waiting a bit to draw any conclusions, as others have said.
Bigger importance I think is getting white dudes out there more as our messaging arm, more for vibes than anything else. White normie dudes with beards and tats who drive trucks and hate Trump are a valuable commodity for us!
I did watch Joe Trippi talk on a podcast with Laura Belin about the Iowa races and how Congressional districts 1 and 3 could flip. Belin seemed less bullish about the open Senate seat flipping though.
Turek is probably the only one who really could. He is the only guy who actually ran against a Republican, let alone winning in difficult turf while on the same ticket as Donald.
I like to presume that Turek is positioned decently to win against a mannequin like Hinson, but it's really just based on vibes at this point. I'm holding out for some kind of data or campaign movement that backs up my hypothesis.
That’s basically what happened in 2018. Dems won 3/4 congressional districts (IA-02 was a bit more D than currently) and actually won the House popular vote due to Steve King way underperforming in IA-04, but only picked up one office statewide (state auditor) because other incumbent Republicans (governor, Secretary of State) were able to get normal Republican margins in IA-04.
Belin has really bad takes about electoral politics in general. She relies on voter registration numbers to make her case, which is a really bad way of going about analyzing this.
I mean, primaries in both states still determine who the nominee is. In DeGette's case, she could have easily collected the 1,500 signatures needed for ballot access. She chose to go the caucus route knowing the types of dems who show up to them. That's on her, not the delegates.
Our longtime MA Secretary of State (technically Secretary of the Commonwealth) Bill Galvin always gets creamed at the convention, but handily wins his primaries. He only needs 15% at the convention, so it's really just a an embarrassment rather than an actually setback.
This is in part because the convention is somewhat more progressive than the electorate, but also because the issues that people are unhappy with Galvin for are rather insider baseball, and not widely known by the voters at large.
DeGette is my congressperson. In 2022 the progressives went after DeGette with a much more qualified candidate, Neal Walia, who had been a Hicklooper staffer. She won 81-18. Kiros is a PhD student. She went to law school and never practiced law or was even admitted into a state bar, as far as I could tell looking her up in three states. She grew up in a neighboring district and went to college and law school out of state. DeGette is wildly popular in the district. DeGette will easily get the signatures and easily win the primary and election. The caucuses are part of Colorado politics. They are not going away. If DeGette had not participated it would have been held against her.
Well, I did some research. Bizarrely the date to file the petition is today and the date to file the signatures is tomorrow. But even more ridiculous is holding the caucus days before the deadline to file signatures. It doesn't affect DeGette, who had 35% and is above the 30% threshold, but it does hurt Wanda James, who would likely do better than Kiros in the primary, since she is on the Board of Regents. They are pledged delegates so presumably they can't switch.
yeah, California would like a word about its Dem party delegates' close relationship with Betty Yee that is way disproportionate to her standing with actual voters.
Unfortunately, in my area in Northern Virginia the outreach through media, mailing, and yard signs overwhelmingly favors the No side. Not sure if the Yes side takes Northern Virginia for granted.
Amendment 3, which would ban abortion, leads 47-40. This is likely because of the "ballot candy" language to ban "transgender minors from receiving puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or gender transition surgeries," which is already illegal in Missouri.
Voters oppose the new gerrymander 41-44.
Voters support sales tax over income tax 52-29. Missouri republicans want to ask voters in the fall to eliminate income tax and replace it with a sales tax hike on whatever Missouri politicians decide to tax. When asked about specific types of sales taxes, however, voters disapproved. They oppose a tax on home sales 34-53, a tax on car repair services 29-60, streaming services 43-44, and gas and diesel 34-55.
Seems like, as per usual, a lot of penniless rural Missourians will be the architects of their own demise by voting to pivot from an income to a sales tax and vastly increasing their own tax burden and lighten it on the state's upscale.
The worst part about all these GOP attempts to introduce an income tax is that they make a VAT (which would, by second-order effects, be slightly progressive) radioactive to the American populace. Which sucks as from what i understand a well implemented VAT with necessities exemption would bring in a more than sufficient amount of revenue.
You're right, I meant to say introduce a single sales tax.
VATs are regressive when taking their direct effects and if not implemented correctly but over the entire cycle of consumption can be progressive. VATs by taxing at each level of production unlike sales taxes, which only tax at the purchase level, serve as de-facto luxury taxes on the conspicuous consumption that the wealthy engage in - expensive products generally take more steps to make.
When people mention the regressiveness of VATs they connect it to taxing the consumption of necessities and how that affects lower-income people, where the tax is a higher proportion of their income earned and spent on said products vs higher income people. This could be solved by not taxing foodstuffs, medical, utilities, etc - exempting essentials from the tax.
And then the other major way that VAT can be progressive is from the large tax base that it creates - allowing for funding the programs sustainably.
Talarico is the source of a lot of energy and excitement on the Democratic side, and he's really the ticket-leader rather than the gubernatorial candidate, so it makes sense for the entire GOP to go after him.
I'd add that Hinojosa is largely unknown, so attacking her would raise her profile. As you said, attacking Talarico effectively hurts the whole ticket, so it has the same upsides but fewer of the downsides as campaigning against Hinojosa.
No, if Talarico wins he's almost certainly not bringing her with him, sadly. Abbott has way more money and nothing there's nothing about him that's objectionable enough in what is still a red state.
That all sounds reasonable.
One thing I will note, though, is I like the way that RCV changes the tone of a primary. Look at the mayoral primary in NYC: the end of it all boils down to candidates trying to find coalitions and strategic partners. It doesn't remove intra-party attacks but it does change how they're done, in my opinion for the better.
I think precisely because IL races have the tenor they have now, there couldn't be RCV there. It would lead to even more jail time and to bags with dollar signs being passed around.
IL-2 - Being a voter in this district, I would have had Miller as a second preference after Peters, and, after that, Brown, then Preston, if RCV were used. Miller would have almost certainly won with RCV, as she had a large plurality with divided opposition.
IL-7 - This is one of the biggest what-ifs in regard to a hypothetical RCV primary, although I think Ford may have still won under RCV.
IL-8 - This one feels like it would have been similar to the Minneapolis mayoral election last year, where a moderate (relative to the constituency; Jacob Frey is clearly more progressive than Melissa Bean) would have been able to get enough second preferences from voters who voted for one of the progressive candidates to get a ranked-choice majority.
IL-9 - Abughazaleh and Fine would have fared much worse under RCV than in real-life, to put it very mildly. Biss would have been a near-prohibitive favorite under RCV instead of the slight favorite he was going into tonight's real-life primary.
"It won't disrupt the economy, but it would hurt consumers"
Talk about contradicting yourself.
They don't see it as a contradiction.
This is more a case of telling on yourself: they're admitting that they only see the "economy" as the stock market, corporate profits, and the ultra wealthy. Unemployment, median income, inflation for core goods and services... none of that counts as "the economy" because that impacts the working class.
The secondary factors (people with less money can't spend that money on corporate products) are simply ignored by them.
No contradiction. The affordability crisis of us peons is not a factor to be considered in their "economy".
When even the conservative version of The Onion has bolted on MAGA, the GOP are capital F fucked.
So wait, does that mean squishier Rs are willing to vote Democratic? Or are they staying home?
I know they need to make $$$ but $150 is ridiculous.
Wangaard, right? I know the state Senate majority leader announced his retirement as well.
Retiring for "health reasons", my ass. They just don't want to be demoted to the minority after November.
*Nelson Muntz HA-HA gif*
Well, he has until May to file.
I saw you mention it yesterday, there really truly is a massive split within the right about Iran right now. And if Trump has officials publicly resigning like this... it cannot be ignored. Everyone from Laura Loomer, Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, MTG and dozens of the most prominent right wingers have been engaging in bitter, expletive laden recriminations and infighting on there in the last week or so. X really is a cesspool of this, but I have never seen this level of free anti-semitism, and anti-Islam sentiment, openly, without masking or codewords, by relatively prominent public figures like with Ogles last week. One of the most insane things I've seen there in the last few days is Fuentes and others continuously saying now they will be voting Dem to punish the Republicans over Iran, and its getting traction from their supporters.
my jaw dropped when I watched Fuentes, one of the most right wing loons on the internet, defending and pining for Joe Biden. Biden!!! while drawing a comparison of just how badly Trump is doing.
https://x.com/MikeNellis/status/2033559400091127835
Twitter sentiment is of course not the real world, but if the comms and messaging are looked at, the civil war is in plain sight. Iran is going to go down as probably the worst mistake trump has made, maybe after the 700k covid dead on his hands, and it is going to cost the R's dearly this midterm. Trump won't be on the ballot to juice low-propensity/infrequents, and everything he is doing is destroying enthusiasm among his base.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/17/they-hold-the-cards-now-trump-allies-fear-iran-is-slipping-beyond-the-presidents-control-00830449
Well, Richard Spencer of all people voted for Biden back in 2020. Bizarre things certainly can happen with MAGA and the white nationalist supremacist base.
I agree with you. This is his worst, most deadly mistake, and is a war the U.S. is losing and will lose, while causing terrible repercussions for the Iranian people. [Edit: I mean since the unnecessary deaths during the COVID pandemic, which were partly intentional.]
I never thought I would utter this sentence but: good for Joe Kent.
I didn’t realize his wife was killed by terrorists in Syria in 2019, either
To a point. No way do I believe Trump would do anything because of pressure from Netanyahu, though I could easily imagine him hearing a suggestion from Netanyahu, thinking it was cool because he is a psychopath who likes to kill people and distract from the Epstein files, and do it.
Whoa I saw this story but never focused on the name!
Ah yes. "The Young Guns" of Kevin McCarthy, Eric Cantor, and Paul Ryan. How did things work out for those guys anyway?
For Paul Ryan? Pretty ok, he got a VP nomination and 3.5 years as Speaker out of it. Better than most ambitious House members ever do
The other two. lol
Trump's presidency might be the thing that finally ends the GOP's completely unwarranted lead on National Security they've been milking since 9/11.
They still have a lead on national debt? Even though they are always the ones to blow up it?
I'm guessing their lead comes from (i) low-information voters who are unaware that Republicans are the ones who keep blowing up the debt/deficit and (ii) people who think the deficit is more because of too much spending rather than not enough revenue.
I'd say all but the most contentious policy subjects are heavily coded towards one party.
Republicans talk about the debt the most. Most voters are not well versed on budgetary matters, so they're going to lean towards the party that talks about the problem in the right way or even just talks about that it is a problem.
It's difficult to lose a long term edge on an issue for a party. Even constant mistakes on it can still require consistent and aggressive attention from the other party to wrench back voter support on that topic.
Interesting observation and insight.
But I doubt Duncan (GA) will even make the top-two. He will not get the nomination.
I appreciate the work you put into compiling evidence for this insight though I think it’s worth waiting a bit to draw any conclusions, as others have said.
Bigger importance I think is getting white dudes out there more as our messaging arm, more for vibes than anything else. White normie dudes with beards and tats who drive trucks and hate Trump are a valuable commodity for us!
It's a little odd to describe Jon Ossoff as a "white male" considering he's been pretty open about being openly Jewish.
I did watch Joe Trippi talk on a podcast with Laura Belin about the Iowa races and how Congressional districts 1 and 3 could flip. Belin seemed less bullish about the open Senate seat flipping though.
Turek is probably the only one who really could. He is the only guy who actually ran against a Republican, let alone winning in difficult turf while on the same ticket as Donald.
I like to presume that Turek is positioned decently to win against a mannequin like Hinson, but it's really just based on vibes at this point. I'm holding out for some kind of data or campaign movement that backs up my hypothesis.
That’s basically what happened in 2018. Dems won 3/4 congressional districts (IA-02 was a bit more D than currently) and actually won the House popular vote due to Steve King way underperforming in IA-04, but only picked up one office statewide (state auditor) because other incumbent Republicans (governor, Secretary of State) were able to get normal Republican margins in IA-04.
Belin has really bad takes about electoral politics in general. She relies on voter registration numbers to make her case, which is a really bad way of going about analyzing this.
This is an achievement given how many more incumbents Republicans have then Democrats.
I mean, primaries in both states still determine who the nominee is. In DeGette's case, she could have easily collected the 1,500 signatures needed for ballot access. She chose to go the caucus route knowing the types of dems who show up to them. That's on her, not the delegates.
Our longtime MA Secretary of State (technically Secretary of the Commonwealth) Bill Galvin always gets creamed at the convention, but handily wins his primaries. He only needs 15% at the convention, so it's really just a an embarrassment rather than an actually setback.
This is in part because the convention is somewhat more progressive than the electorate, but also because the issues that people are unhappy with Galvin for are rather insider baseball, and not widely known by the voters at large.
DeGette is my congressperson. In 2022 the progressives went after DeGette with a much more qualified candidate, Neal Walia, who had been a Hicklooper staffer. She won 81-18. Kiros is a PhD student. She went to law school and never practiced law or was even admitted into a state bar, as far as I could tell looking her up in three states. She grew up in a neighboring district and went to college and law school out of state. DeGette is wildly popular in the district. DeGette will easily get the signatures and easily win the primary and election. The caucuses are part of Colorado politics. They are not going away. If DeGette had not participated it would have been held against her.
It’s too late to get signatures, today is the last day you can file them.
Well, I did some research. Bizarrely the date to file the petition is today and the date to file the signatures is tomorrow. But even more ridiculous is holding the caucus days before the deadline to file signatures. It doesn't affect DeGette, who had 35% and is above the 30% threshold, but it does hurt Wanda James, who would likely do better than Kiros in the primary, since she is on the Board of Regents. They are pledged delegates so presumably they can't switch.
yeah, California would like a word about its Dem party delegates' close relationship with Betty Yee that is way disproportionate to her standing with actual voters.
What are our chances to win that Virginia special election, to clarify I am on about the HD98 special election.
I haven’t seen any polling on it, but based on fundraising and the mood of the electorate I would say it’s favored to pass.
Ahh, I see. It’s not clear.
yes dragonfire is correct i apologize
Unfortunately, in my area in Northern Virginia the outreach through media, mailing, and yard signs overwhelmingly favors the No side. Not sure if the Yes side takes Northern Virginia for granted.
i apologize, i meant the HD98 special election.
No IL preview?
I wonder if a separate post is coming later today
I believe they said the preview was coming in a few hours. Should be interesting.
Have faith in our babka overlords!
IL preview! https://www.the-downballot.com/p/illinois-insanely-expensive-primaries
New Missouri poll:
Amendment 3, which would ban abortion, leads 47-40. This is likely because of the "ballot candy" language to ban "transgender minors from receiving puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or gender transition surgeries," which is already illegal in Missouri.
Voters oppose the new gerrymander 41-44.
Voters support sales tax over income tax 52-29. Missouri republicans want to ask voters in the fall to eliminate income tax and replace it with a sales tax hike on whatever Missouri politicians decide to tax. When asked about specific types of sales taxes, however, voters disapproved. They oppose a tax on home sales 34-53, a tax on car repair services 29-60, streaming services 43-44, and gas and diesel 34-55.
https://www.slu.edu/research/research-institute/big-ideas/slu-poll/previous-poll-results/february-2026-results.php
Seems like, as per usual, a lot of penniless rural Missourians will be the architects of their own demise by voting to pivot from an income to a sales tax and vastly increasing their own tax burden and lighten it on the state's upscale.
The worst part about all these GOP attempts to introduce an income tax is that they make a VAT (which would, by second-order effects, be slightly progressive) radioactive to the American populace. Which sucks as from what i understand a well implemented VAT with necessities exemption would bring in a more than sufficient amount of revenue.
Don't you mean attempts to eliminate an income tax? I thought all forms of sales tax were regressive. Why would a VAT be a good idea?
You're right, I meant to say introduce a single sales tax.
VATs are regressive when taking their direct effects and if not implemented correctly but over the entire cycle of consumption can be progressive. VATs by taxing at each level of production unlike sales taxes, which only tax at the purchase level, serve as de-facto luxury taxes on the conspicuous consumption that the wealthy engage in - expensive products generally take more steps to make.
When people mention the regressiveness of VATs they connect it to taxing the consumption of necessities and how that affects lower-income people, where the tax is a higher proportion of their income earned and spent on said products vs higher income people. This could be solved by not taxing foodstuffs, medical, utilities, etc - exempting essentials from the tax.
And then the other major way that VAT can be progressive is from the large tax base that it creates - allowing for funding the programs sustainably.
Can anyone explain why Abbott is campaigning against Talarico instead of attacking the actual candidate he's facing in the governor's race?
Because if Talarico wins, he's likely bringing Hinojosa over the line with him too.
Abbott thinks he's in a stronger position than Cornyn or Paxton, I guess
It's idiotic, that's what it is.
Talarico is the source of a lot of energy and excitement on the Democratic side, and he's really the ticket-leader rather than the gubernatorial candidate, so it makes sense for the entire GOP to go after him.
I'd add that Hinojosa is largely unknown, so attacking her would raise her profile. As you said, attacking Talarico effectively hurts the whole ticket, so it has the same upsides but fewer of the downsides as campaigning against Hinojosa.
Their attacks on him are rather pathetic IMO. It's the "no true Scotsman" RW Christian fallacy.
No, if Talarico wins he's almost certainly not bringing her with him, sadly. Abbott has way more money and nothing there's nothing about him that's objectionable enough in what is still a red state.
We've had candidates win races where the incumbent or shoo-in was very well funded and enough ticked off voters.
Do not count out Hinojosa.
I don't think it's necessarily the case at all that Talarico couldn't beat Paxton without Honojosa beating Abbott, who is not as controversial.