It's kind of ancient history now, but the piece about what seat Linda Sanchez would run in reminded me of just how much of a political earthquake it was when her sister, Loretta Sanchez, won a Republican seat in Orange County in the late 90s. It really presaged the rising Democratic strength in the suburbs, and did so in a country that was a byword for radical conservativism, going back to Goldwater.
The 2000 bipartisan Gerrymander made Loretta's seat safer. (Yes, Dems have been playing the redistrcting game with one hand tied behind their backs for a long time.) And she ultimately left Congress in 2016, with unsuccessful run for Senate, losing in an all Dem general to Kamala Harris.
That 2000 redistricting is perhaps partially why California voted for a commission. The California Dems couldn't use the argument that Gerrymandering was necessary to counter Republicans elsewhere that they're trying now because they didn't actually do that. They simply made all incumbents safer regardless of party, so it was easy to say "Gerrymandering is an impediment to competitive elections" because that's exactly how the legislature was using it.
In 2002, Republicans gerrymandered MI, PA(poorly), FL, and UT. Dems gerrymandered GA, NC, and MD. Dems also did a light gerrymander in IN to try and save Tim Roemer’s open seat and make Republicans absorb the loss of a seat due to the census. IN has a
rule where if the legislature and governor can’t agree on a map, the governor and each chamber of the legislature appoint someone to choose a map. Dems were able to get their map chosen because they controlled the state house and governorship. The rest were basically all incumbent protection maps or independent commission maps.
I wish NC Dems had passed an independent redistricting commission ballot amendment during their lame duck session in late 2010 after Rs won the legislature. It probably would've passed, and our state wouldn't have this lopsided gerrymandered R legislature and Congressional seats.
And ironically enough, Phil Berger was one of the sponsors for that independent redistricting commission. Now he's power-hungry and thinks might is right.
Yeah Dems really should have been able to win the House that year. Clinton won like 280 districts and there were dozens of Republican freshmen in districts Clinton won that survived 1996.
Yeah it was a definite incumbent-friendly election cycle. Given every POTUS election is now a penultimate battle between good and evil, I think many would be surprised how benign and boring the 96' election was. No-one ever really thought Dole had a chance and thus the coverage was more late night talk show comedy than existential struggle.
In hindsight it's surprising that Dole walked away from his Senate power and seniority in favor of a presidential campaign that never had a great chance of winning.
This isn't news to anyone who has played around with Dave's Redistrcting App, but the Upshot has a good piece explaining why a 9-0 Massachusetts map would be expected with or without Dems in charge of drawing the lines:
Note that Republicans are crying about Massachusetts—where the map was signed into law by one Charles Duane Baker, Jr. (R)—but also conveniently ignoring the countless red states where Democrats are under-represented.
Basically linking the red towns west of Worcester with the ones north of New Bedford through a thin strip along the RI border. The Upshot also shows an even district that's just those South Coast towns without being as much of an obvious Gerrymander. (This they said was created by 3 of 5000 simulations of a neutral redistricting.) Of course the South Coast is the part of the State than swung the most to Trump, so whether it would actually be an even district in most years it's debatable.
Several polls out with very disparate numbers. I would love to see The Downballott (or anyone) do a meta-analysis of those polls that closely examines the exact phrasing of each pollster’s question.
However, he also spearheaded the first city wide universal healthcare system in the U.S. back when he was Mayor of San Francisco. Michael Moore even came to the city and commended Newsom for this. The UHC system, Healthy San Francisco, still remains. If Newsom’s performance is a factor, fine, but he does have a history of accomplishments, even if he’s not great on other things.
Right now, given the 2026 midterms are next year, we can use all the help we can get. In this sense, in the words of Shia LeBeouf as it relates to Newsom:
Are California dems underplaying their hand in California? i think voters are pissed off enough to ditch the commission but instead they're going for 3, maybe 4 seats and the commission coming back in 2032, typical playing it safe dems.
I thought it was 4 for sure with Valadao getting a tougher seat that only he has any chance of winning for the GOP? Not sure where you’re getting 3 from.
And the Texas map is at serious dummymander risk if there’s a shift back towards the 2020 coalition
It's 50/50 with Valadao, they could have gone after him but Lofgren whining is more important. Cuellar is probably the only one in Texas who has a chance. Dummymander is more wishcasting than reality.
It would possibly require her district cutting into the Central Valley despite being a coastal district. That would make an uglier map that would make the Central Valley even more irate.
If you squint at it from a certain perspective (and not taking full account of all the states redrawing, which there’s a ton of things we don’t know yet), Democrats could actually come out ahead comparing between the Texas redraw and California redraw.
Texas Republican incumbents were already safely gerrymandered, but now we get the opportunity to eliminate swing seats by making them safe for Dems and Republican held seats making them winnable/safe for Dems. That’s what, 13 seats total moved towards Democrats? While Texas has 5 moved towards Republicans.
Even the worst case scenario atm which is IN, MO, OH going for eliminating the maximum number of Dem districts would see us lose only 5 seats on net. And if these states don’t redraw the max or if no other Dem state redraws, we’re still coming out ahead of where we would’ve been if we just shrugged our shoulders as we used to usually do as a party when Republicans created yet another power grab.
Theoretically speaking, Republicans could wind up actually helping us for 2026 elections from doing their Texas power grab redraw. So thanks Trump and Texas I guess for giving us the political impetus to shrink our defensive and offensive playing field towards us. Of course if Florida and other red states start redrawing we can find ourselves in a very bad position quickly, but that’s not at all guaranteed and I’m willing to roll the dice and take the chance that they won’t end up doing it.
It's not unlikely that next year is a good year for Democrats and the effects or Republican gerrymandering are blunted, but to suggest that Democrats could come out ahead, you have to consider the likely results of a neutral year.
My basis for saying the party could be coming out ahead is fairly straight forward: Democrats moved 13 (?) seats towards them. Republicans moved just 5 seats. So even with a current worst case scenario (which could change at any moment, nothing is guaranteed!), they moved 10 seats towards them. Therefore, if you judge the two parties gerrymanders by number of seats moved towards their party (aka look at it from a certain perspective), Democrats would come out on top.
I’m not entirely sure if I agree with that, but it’s certainly an argument that can be made.
Yesterday's digest had a bit about ad time in NJ and VA. There are only so many minutes of ad time available. If products (Shampoo, ED pills...) buy time in late October and November, do they get pre-empted by political ads, or do they just not buy that many ads that far in advance so political ads take up the space first? What would prevent a company from flooding the airwaves with their product to keep politicians off the air? It's not like some aren't already present at nearly every commercial break. (As time went on it was easy to see I'm lowering my A1C! 🎶)
This comment fucking cracked me up. Ciallis literally trying to cockblock Ciattarelli. I mean, if Eli Lilly wants to flood the airwaves, I'm sure they can drive prices up for other advertisers. If your advertising block lasts for more than four hours, though, you know what to do.
The obvious solution is combined ads. TV ads that sell shampoo as well as the Democratic candidate, and ads that proclaim "Free Cialis when you donate to Ciattarelli". Or how about an old white dude proclaiming: "Ciattarelli and Cialis both give me a hard-on".
Many months to go. I’m cautiously optimistic that Sherrod Brown can win.
And I have a really hard time seeing someone as artificial and detestable as Ramaswamy winning Ohio’s gubernatorial race. Whenever Vivek appears on stage or on TV and opens his mouth, he’ll lose voters!
Virginia and New Jersey might show some interesting tea leaves as to whether such a turnout mix is possible. (Maybe the special House elections too, starting with VA-11.)
Obviously 20 percent is a tall order, but with good state-level Democratic organization, voter registration efforts, and massive well-target GOTV, combined with our higher voter enthusiasm, we should be able to attain a significant, consequentially-higher Dem turnout.
Edit: Let’s hope that’s enough. Granted, it’s an uphill battle.
If Husted wasn't a Generic R and it was Ramaswarny in thr Senate, I'd say Brown has good odds. But hard to see any overcoming what's become a very R partisan state lean.
It’s pretty easy to figure out why (unless you’re being snarky or facetious). Trump endorsed him and his backing means no other Republicans run because they can’t win the GOP primary without his support.
I mean, yeah, but in a state teeming with MAGA Republicans, one would think that the field would have been a little more robust BEFORE Trump made his endorsement.
Hard to tell since this is Emerson which is notorious for underpolling Democrats. Still this is more than a year out and Brown just entered the race. Moreover, the best the incumbent can muster is 50% in a supposed solid Republican state? That's an ok number, but it's not great, considering 2026 will more than likely be a very strong Democratic year and you're facing a strong former incumbent.
There's not going to be a real consistent answer to this question. What does it mean to "underpoll Democrats"? If judged only by "does the margin between Dem and GOP candidate in the poll understate the actual election day margin?" then there's a huge range of outcomes Emerson has had over the years. Like most pollsters, they overstated Democratic margins in years where Dems did worse than expected, and vice versa. Emerson polls have a reputation of low quality, but not to my knowledge of being consistently GOP-leaning in composition or result compared to other pollsters, and definitely not by any predictable margin. Not like Trafalgar (which, while being the most obvious GOP-leaning pollster, does occasionally beat the pack when their bet pays off on a GOP-favorable environment requiring manual adjustment!)
Agreed. And if it seems like I'm being unnecessarily pedantic about polling (what me, never!) it's because the past few elections have finally convinced me that standard DKE / politics twitter discourse about polling was missing the forest for the trees. People really want to know whether a poll, and by extension a pollster if habitually, has "too many" or "not enough" Democrats and Republicans. When the question we should have been asking all along is, are they picking up on real movement among undecideds, independents, swing voters, uneven disinterest and dropoff, enthusiasm, all these subjective things that I believe made this country go from Obama +4 to Clinton +2 to Biden +4.5 to Trump +1.5. Not whether a poll has 31% or 37% or 40% of self-ID'd (not necessarily registered) Democrats. The ideal pollster is going to be one that can actually see the ground moving, without getting locked into overly restrictive weighting (YouGov), or presumptive electorate adjusting (Trafalgar). I don't think that's Emerson but I also don't think it's most pollsters. I'm basically ignoring all polling until NYT/Siena starts up again.
When he opposed Gov. Greg Abbott's pet project of private school vouchers, Dade Phelan, a conservative Republican from Beaumont, was forced out of the speakership of the Texas House. Last year, they tried to primary him, but he held on by a mere 366 votes. Yesterday, Phelan announced that would not run for reelection.
I'd be fine if Doggett decided to run for state AG in this moment. He has righteous anger to mobilize and is really high profile for a downballot race that we're going to want to win in advance of the 2028 presidential. Allred and Castro are the only other lawyers in the mix for statewide office, and Allred is committed to Senate while I doubt (but wish) Castro would go for AG. Yes, he's old, but unless there's a younger person likely to win, I'm happy for Doggett to win and we pray a Talarico takes the governorship and can appoint a successor if Doggett wants to retire after two years in his early 80s.
It's increasingly looking like we won't get a credible challenger to Abbott, which sucks. He won by 11 in 2022 which is likely to be ~8-10 points redder than 2026.
Precursor of what’s to come in VA after the 2025 elections? Probably not enough time for the 2026 midterms, but maybe for 2028.
If the context is at all unclear, she’s the Senate President Pro Tempore, the one who presides over the State Senate if the Lieutenant Governor isn’t available and she’s responding to President Barack Obama’s Twitter post coming out in support of California’s redrawn gerrymander.
I'm all for redrawing the lines in Virginia if we can. An 11D-0R map is risky and ugly, but a 10D-1R map is very doable, even though it does require multiple bacon strips from Northern Virginia to the rural parts of the state.
I'd expect less ambition than 10D-1R, but I'd love to be wrong. Still, even a reliable 8D-3R map would be a decent upgrade, and 9D-2R would be great.
Right now it's 6D-5R once Connolly's replacement is elected, but VA-07 is only D+2 and it's not hard to imagine a bad year resulting in us receiving more votes but fewer seats in VA. Following the cube rule you'd expect something like 6.5D-4.5R to be the "natural" result, but obviously seats are not allocated in fractions.
All the talk of the mid-decade re-gerrymanders has had me thinking. I've noticed that states are more willing to go all out with these attempts than before, and the 2010 and 2020 gerrymanders were already aggressive.
For the 2030s, how many swing seats will be left? The number has been decreasing over time. I worry that unless we get something through congress to stop gerrymanders that we're rapidly approaching the point where congressional control will be decided by a much smaller subset of seats getting all the attention. That's if we're lucky. If we're unlucky the gerrymanders could be durable enough and expansive enough to lock in a party for the entire decade, even through wave years.
Not really. The sane-ish Republicans like it because it allows them to avoid bringing up bills that are popular with the GOP base but highly unpopular with most people. Dems don't really have the equivalent of that.
Because they would have used it to block what that they haven't blocked? Schumer didn't even use the tools he has to block a horrible Republican bill! And Democrats didn't use it to block the confirmation of Justice Thomas. Historically, it's mostly been used to block progress, including on anti-lynching bills.
Yeah I really don't understand this comment. What specifically would Republicans be doing differently? Trump is unilaterally disassembling Cabinet agencies, reforming the American tax system, and snatching people off the streets with masked cops without IDs or license plates. The filibuster exists at this point only to constrain the actions of Democratic governments, much the way the Supreme Court is making it clear it will function.
Next trifecta Dems need to blow up the filibuster to ban gerrymandering, create a single set of district/voter requirements nationwide (including all student id, all Native American id), permanent early voting centers mandated by poll stations per number of people, permanent mail voting and banning any redistricting between the census years.
As for whether there will be swing districts, I think it’s impossible for there not to be because of one basic certainty: voters shift and change from election to election! Trump’s 2024 coalition doesn’t exist now. Obama’s coalition doesn’t exist now. What is a swing district now maybe permanently blue/red in the future, just like districts that are safe red/blue may become swing ones.
We don’t know what voters will move in which way politically with any sense of certainty. Even if map drawers go for the jugular in the next census, 10 years later it may look like a dummymander and in hindsight was stupid to draw the districts like they were drawn. We just don’t know what the future holds.
2008: No change in CA's congressional delegation despite the wave (Dems had gained just 1 seat in the 2006 wave).
2010: No change in CA's congressional delegation despite the flip to a GOP wave.
California Dems went from winning the aggregate vote by 23 points to just 10 points, didn't budge a single seat. A reflection not of an aggressive Dem gerrymander (the result was a 34-19 delegation), but rather a massive incumbent protection scheme from 2002. This is the GOP goal for half the country, no actual seats change hands year to year. House control comes down to who wins the swing seats in states with commission or compromise maps (MI, PA, etc). Whereas elections might as well be cancelled in TX, FL, GA, NC, really the entire south, OH, IN, KY, MO, etc. Dire stuff.
Some states like KY and IN aren’t that egregious of gerrymanders (right now at least), to be fair, our geographic distribution there is just really bad.
Those four first states you mentioned, though. Yikes.
Do you expect only cheerleading? OH-Sen, even with Brown, starts at Lean-R. He definitely has a fighting chance, and he's probably the only Democrat in Ohio who would.
Here's the full interview, with the question coming at 4:19 He says Peltola has continued interest in the race and that she was encouraging to him when he said he'd file a letter of intent she makes up her mind, and that he'd still drop out to support her if she gets in the race.
Actually, no, I'm sorry. He is lying, he did say this and is trying to scuttle it.
I assumed the first question (which is also the one clipped in the article) would be the one they're supporting. But at 22:06, he's asked more that has the actual quote.
"But do I believe she'll run for governor? I don't think she's gonna run for governor. I think she's gonna run for the United States Senate. And I hope she does. But if she does choose governor, I'm not going to break my commitment."
The other day when I saw that Begich filed to run for Governor, I had a gut feeling this was a tea leaf that Peltola was actually going to take on the harder challenge to run for Senate given what he previously said about supporting her if she ran for the gubernatorial race.
Otherwise why announce you’re running only to drop out a month later? That doesn’t make much sense. There’s obviously confusion over what he said/didn’t say, so I will patiently wait to see how it all plays out and what Peltola ends up deciding.
One thing that hasn’t really got much attention in support of her running for Senate is the tenure. If she ran and won she’d only have to campaign for re-election every 6 years instead of 4 for Governor and 2 for House. That’s a long time to get a lot done even if she only lasts 1 term.
Does anyone think NC voters are going to care about a new trial over former Gov Cooper's COVID lockdowns? The Republican majority SCONC seems to think so -- and the justice writing the majority opinion patronizingly called Justice Riggs's dissent "bizarre and angry."
They pulled the same thing to revisit and undo the racial gerrymandering case April 2023 decided weeks prior by the outgoing Democratic 4-3 SCONC majority (issued December 2022).
And if the court flips, there’s going to be payback for the GOP shenanigans.
She previously did a filibuster 4 years ago for over 15 hours and currently holds the record for longest filibuster by a female senator.
Rules for a Texas Senate filibuster:
Senate Rule 3.02: No eating or drinking in the chamber.
Senate Rule 4.01: The member must stand at their desk, without sitting, leaning, or using a desk chair, and must not take bathroom breaks.
Senate Rule 4.03: Senators may interrupt if remarks stray off topic or become inaudible.
Personally, if it were me, other than pointing out the obvious discrimination and gerrymandering stuff, I'd painfully go district by district and examine every single change precinct by precinct. Aside from drawing it out longer, the senator must stay on topic otherwise a point of order could be called to end the filibuster. I think it takes 3 points of order to end a filibuster.
Unlike in the U.S. Senate, this is a Mr. Smith-style of filibuster.
Longest Texas filibuster was in 1977 and clocked in at 43 hours.
Update, Republicans in the Texas Senate didn't allow Sen. Alvarado to filibuster. They said since she sent out a fundraising email before the filibuster, that her filibustering would constitute a campaign event which would be illegal and unethical when acting in her official capacity, as well as illegal and unethical because it would have involved the other senators in a campaign event as well as state staff.
Here you go!
https://www.woodcraft.com/products/woodriver-double-cut-file-set-3-piece
It's kind of ancient history now, but the piece about what seat Linda Sanchez would run in reminded me of just how much of a political earthquake it was when her sister, Loretta Sanchez, won a Republican seat in Orange County in the late 90s. It really presaged the rising Democratic strength in the suburbs, and did so in a country that was a byword for radical conservativism, going back to Goldwater.
The 2000 bipartisan Gerrymander made Loretta's seat safer. (Yes, Dems have been playing the redistrcting game with one hand tied behind their backs for a long time.) And she ultimately left Congress in 2016, with unsuccessful run for Senate, losing in an all Dem general to Kamala Harris.
That 2000 redistricting is perhaps partially why California voted for a commission. The California Dems couldn't use the argument that Gerrymandering was necessary to counter Republicans elsewhere that they're trying now because they didn't actually do that. They simply made all incumbents safer regardless of party, so it was easy to say "Gerrymandering is an impediment to competitive elections" because that's exactly how the legislature was using it.
In 2002, Republicans gerrymandered MI, PA(poorly), FL, and UT. Dems gerrymandered GA, NC, and MD. Dems also did a light gerrymander in IN to try and save Tim Roemer’s open seat and make Republicans absorb the loss of a seat due to the census. IN has a
rule where if the legislature and governor can’t agree on a map, the governor and each chamber of the legislature appoint someone to choose a map. Dems were able to get their map chosen because they controlled the state house and governorship. The rest were basically all incumbent protection maps or independent commission maps.
I wish NC Dems had passed an independent redistricting commission ballot amendment during their lame duck session in late 2010 after Rs won the legislature. It probably would've passed, and our state wouldn't have this lopsided gerrymandered R legislature and Congressional seats.
I think they needed a constitutional amendment for that (3/5ths majority), which they didn’t have.
NC Republicans were pushing for it as early as 2005. They would've needed all Republicans on board plus enough Dems to get it on the ballot.
https://www.ncleg.gov/Sessions/2005/Bills/Senate/HTML/S430v1.html
And ironically enough, Phil Berger was one of the sponsors for that independent redistricting commission. Now he's power-hungry and thinks might is right.
Dems were pretty dumb to think they’d be In control of the legislature forever in a state that hadn’t voted Dem for President since 1976.
Also wasn't it to lock in what they believed to be their high point at the time?
Ah yes! She ended the House career of of "B-1 Bob" Dornan.
Dornan was a nut.
He's still with us at age 92! (He seemed ancient when he left Congress, but was only 63 then.)
I wonder if he's mellowed out at all. Seems he'd have to, at least a little, to live that long.
Maybe?
It was a mini earthquake in a bittersweet election. Clinton won easy but republicans kept the house.
Yeah Dems really should have been able to win the House that year. Clinton won like 280 districts and there were dozens of Republican freshmen in districts Clinton won that survived 1996.
Americans were fat and happy in 1996, saw no reason to change a thing.
Yeah it was a definite incumbent-friendly election cycle. Given every POTUS election is now a penultimate battle between good and evil, I think many would be surprised how benign and boring the 96' election was. No-one ever really thought Dole had a chance and thus the coverage was more late night talk show comedy than existential struggle.
I think you mean ultimate (last), not penultimate (next to last).
In hindsight it's surprising that Dole walked away from his Senate power and seniority in favor of a presidential campaign that never had a great chance of winning.
It didn't seem the least bit surprising at the time. It was his turn to run, so he took on the responsibility.
Loretta Sánchez is never far from my mind...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV6pAm4_6ps
This isn't news to anyone who has played around with Dave's Redistrcting App, but the Upshot has a good piece explaining why a 9-0 Massachusetts map would be expected with or without Dems in charge of drawing the lines:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/08/21/upshot/up-massachusetts-redistricting.html
Note that Republicans are crying about Massachusetts—where the map was signed into law by one Charles Duane Baker, Jr. (R)—but also conveniently ignoring the countless red states where Democrats are under-represented.
I'd happily give them a reach district in Massachusetts in exchange for a fair Ohio map.
Basically linking the red towns west of Worcester with the ones north of New Bedford through a thin strip along the RI border. The Upshot also shows an even district that's just those South Coast towns without being as much of an obvious Gerrymander. (This they said was created by 3 of 5000 simulations of a neutral redistricting.) Of course the South Coast is the part of the State than swung the most to Trump, so whether it would actually be an even district in most years it's debatable.
As usual, Republicans are able to divert from the issue. The issue is mid-decade redistricting.
Exactly.
CA poll. Redistricting way up https://x.com/vanceulrich/status/1958888820038148554?s=61&t=5copDbz1aPl7ASsRCUclLg
55-34 among those who voted in at least 5 out of 7 of the last statewide elections. 48-32 among the full RV sample.
Several polls out with very disparate numbers. I would love to see The Downballott (or anyone) do a meta-analysis of those polls that closely examines the exact phrasing of each pollster’s question.
For once, Newsom's really winning my respect.
And his trolling of Trump and his tweets is priceless!
Performative, sure. What else is new from Newsom?
However, he also spearheaded the first city wide universal healthcare system in the U.S. back when he was Mayor of San Francisco. Michael Moore even came to the city and commended Newsom for this. The UHC system, Healthy San Francisco, still remains. If Newsom’s performance is a factor, fine, but he does have a history of accomplishments, even if he’s not great on other things.
Right now, given the 2026 midterms are next year, we can use all the help we can get. In this sense, in the words of Shia LeBeouf as it relates to Newsom:
“Do it! DO IT!”
I was big on the Wes Moore train in [redacted] but he could do something and has chosen not to while Newsom has.
Are California dems underplaying their hand in California? i think voters are pissed off enough to ditch the commission but instead they're going for 3, maybe 4 seats and the commission coming back in 2032, typical playing it safe dems.
I thought it was 4 for sure with Valadao getting a tougher seat that only he has any chance of winning for the GOP? Not sure where you’re getting 3 from.
And the Texas map is at serious dummymander risk if there’s a shift back towards the 2020 coalition
It's 50/50 with Valadao, they could have gone after him but Lofgren whining is more important. Cuellar is probably the only one in Texas who has a chance. Dummymander is more wishcasting than reality.
Pray tell, why was Lofgren’s whining more important? Or is that sarcasm?
I would ask California dems why they cared what Lofgren wanted. They obviously gave in to her.
It would possibly require her district cutting into the Central Valley despite being a coastal district. That would make an uglier map that would make the Central Valley even more irate.
So what? Has anyone ever lost an election because of anger over gerrymandering?
Yea sure, it had nothing to do with her not wanting republicans in her district.
They're also locking in the 8 or so competitive Dem seats that are continuously at risk of flipping each cycle.
But yeah, where's the 52-0 map Gavin was promising? :)
I'm not even asking for a 52-0, which would be awesome, but why throw a lifeline to some of these guys.
That’s an underrated point. You’re locking in incumbents and knocking out at least four, probably five opponents
If you squint at it from a certain perspective (and not taking full account of all the states redrawing, which there’s a ton of things we don’t know yet), Democrats could actually come out ahead comparing between the Texas redraw and California redraw.
Texas Republican incumbents were already safely gerrymandered, but now we get the opportunity to eliminate swing seats by making them safe for Dems and Republican held seats making them winnable/safe for Dems. That’s what, 13 seats total moved towards Democrats? While Texas has 5 moved towards Republicans.
Even the worst case scenario atm which is IN, MO, OH going for eliminating the maximum number of Dem districts would see us lose only 5 seats on net. And if these states don’t redraw the max or if no other Dem state redraws, we’re still coming out ahead of where we would’ve been if we just shrugged our shoulders as we used to usually do as a party when Republicans created yet another power grab.
Theoretically speaking, Republicans could wind up actually helping us for 2026 elections from doing their Texas power grab redraw. So thanks Trump and Texas I guess for giving us the political impetus to shrink our defensive and offensive playing field towards us. Of course if Florida and other red states start redrawing we can find ourselves in a very bad position quickly, but that’s not at all guaranteed and I’m willing to roll the dice and take the chance that they won’t end up doing it.
It's not unlikely that next year is a good year for Democrats and the effects or Republican gerrymandering are blunted, but to suggest that Democrats could come out ahead, you have to consider the likely results of a neutral year.
My basis for saying the party could be coming out ahead is fairly straight forward: Democrats moved 13 (?) seats towards them. Republicans moved just 5 seats. So even with a current worst case scenario (which could change at any moment, nothing is guaranteed!), they moved 10 seats towards them. Therefore, if you judge the two parties gerrymanders by number of seats moved towards their party (aka look at it from a certain perspective), Democrats would come out on top.
I’m not entirely sure if I agree with that, but it’s certainly an argument that can be made.
In other words, you're saying the Republicans' advantage, overall, would be lessened.
Yesterday's digest had a bit about ad time in NJ and VA. There are only so many minutes of ad time available. If products (Shampoo, ED pills...) buy time in late October and November, do they get pre-empted by political ads, or do they just not buy that many ads that far in advance so political ads take up the space first? What would prevent a company from flooding the airwaves with their product to keep politicians off the air? It's not like some aren't already present at nearly every commercial break. (As time went on it was easy to see I'm lowering my A1C! 🎶)
This comment fucking cracked me up. Ciallis literally trying to cockblock Ciattarelli. I mean, if Eli Lilly wants to flood the airwaves, I'm sure they can drive prices up for other advertisers. If your advertising block lasts for more than four hours, though, you know what to do.
Haha!
The obvious solution is combined ads. TV ads that sell shampoo as well as the Democratic candidate, and ads that proclaim "Free Cialis when you donate to Ciattarelli". Or how about an old white dude proclaiming: "Ciattarelli and Cialis both give me a hard-on".
Ohio Emerson:
Husted 50 Brown 44
Ramaswamy 49 Ryan 41
Ramaswamy 49 Acton 39
https://emersoncollegepolling.com/ohio-2026/
Many months to go. I’m cautiously optimistic that Sherrod Brown can win.
And I have a really hard time seeing someone as artificial and detestable as Ramaswamy winning Ohio’s gubernatorial race. Whenever Vivek appears on stage or on TV and opens his mouth, he’ll lose voters!
I don't. It's Ohio. And it wouldn't surprise me if Brown eventually does lose by 6.
Recipe for success. 20 percent higher turnout for Democrats and democracy-favoring Independents than for MAGA Republicans.
Virginia and New Jersey might show some interesting tea leaves as to whether such a turnout mix is possible. (Maybe the special House elections too, starting with VA-11.)
That's a tall order.
Obviously 20 percent is a tall order, but with good state-level Democratic organization, voter registration efforts, and massive well-target GOTV, combined with our higher voter enthusiasm, we should be able to attain a significant, consequentially-higher Dem turnout.
Edit: Let’s hope that’s enough. Granted, it’s an uphill battle.
If Husted wasn't a Generic R and it was Ramaswarny in thr Senate, I'd say Brown has good odds. But hard to see any overcoming what's become a very R partisan state lean.
If anyone can blow the race, it's Ramaswamy.
Why the field cleared for such an unproven, unlikable candidate is beyond me.
It’s pretty easy to figure out why (unless you’re being snarky or facetious). Trump endorsed him and his backing means no other Republicans run because they can’t win the GOP primary without his support.
I mean, yeah, but in a state teeming with MAGA Republicans, one would think that the field would have been a little more robust BEFORE Trump made his endorsement.
Hard to tell since this is Emerson which is notorious for underpolling Democrats. Still this is more than a year out and Brown just entered the race. Moreover, the best the incumbent can muster is 50% in a supposed solid Republican state? That's an ok number, but it's not great, considering 2026 will more than likely be a very strong Democratic year and you're facing a strong former incumbent.
By how much does Emerson tend to underpoll Democrats?
There's not going to be a real consistent answer to this question. What does it mean to "underpoll Democrats"? If judged only by "does the margin between Dem and GOP candidate in the poll understate the actual election day margin?" then there's a huge range of outcomes Emerson has had over the years. Like most pollsters, they overstated Democratic margins in years where Dems did worse than expected, and vice versa. Emerson polls have a reputation of low quality, but not to my knowledge of being consistently GOP-leaning in composition or result compared to other pollsters, and definitely not by any predictable margin. Not like Trafalgar (which, while being the most obvious GOP-leaning pollster, does occasionally beat the pack when their bet pays off on a GOP-favorable environment requiring manual adjustment!)
Emerson is bidirectionally mediocre in my experience
Agreed. And if it seems like I'm being unnecessarily pedantic about polling (what me, never!) it's because the past few elections have finally convinced me that standard DKE / politics twitter discourse about polling was missing the forest for the trees. People really want to know whether a poll, and by extension a pollster if habitually, has "too many" or "not enough" Democrats and Republicans. When the question we should have been asking all along is, are they picking up on real movement among undecideds, independents, swing voters, uneven disinterest and dropoff, enthusiasm, all these subjective things that I believe made this country go from Obama +4 to Clinton +2 to Biden +4.5 to Trump +1.5. Not whether a poll has 31% or 37% or 40% of self-ID'd (not necessarily registered) Democrats. The ideal pollster is going to be one that can actually see the ground moving, without getting locked into overly restrictive weighting (YouGov), or presumptive electorate adjusting (Trafalgar). I don't think that's Emerson but I also don't think it's most pollsters. I'm basically ignoring all polling until NYT/Siena starts up again.
Consistent with the sample finding Trump's approval at +7.4. It probably won't be that high among people who actually vote in Ohio next year.
I honestly don’t remember but is Emerson a decent pollster?
When he opposed Gov. Greg Abbott's pet project of private school vouchers, Dade Phelan, a conservative Republican from Beaumont, was forced out of the speakership of the Texas House. Last year, they tried to primary him, but he held on by a mere 366 votes. Yesterday, Phelan announced that would not run for reelection.
Dunn/Wilks strikes again
I'd be fine if Doggett decided to run for state AG in this moment. He has righteous anger to mobilize and is really high profile for a downballot race that we're going to want to win in advance of the 2028 presidential. Allred and Castro are the only other lawyers in the mix for statewide office, and Allred is committed to Senate while I doubt (but wish) Castro would go for AG. Yes, he's old, but unless there's a younger person likely to win, I'm happy for Doggett to win and we pray a Talarico takes the governorship and can appoint a successor if Doggett wants to retire after two years in his early 80s.
Interesting thoughts, hence my upvote.
I love all of this...get them all on the phone.
It's increasingly looking like we won't get a credible challenger to Abbott, which sucks. He won by 11 in 2022 which is likely to be ~8-10 points redder than 2026.
Precursor of what’s to come in VA after the 2025 elections? Probably not enough time for the 2026 midterms, but maybe for 2028.
If the context is at all unclear, she’s the Senate President Pro Tempore, the one who presides over the State Senate if the Lieutenant Governor isn’t available and she’s responding to President Barack Obama’s Twitter post coming out in support of California’s redrawn gerrymander.
https://x.com/SenLouiseLucas/status/1958674679083786484
L. Louise Lucas
@SenLouiseLucas
Every state in the nation should follow suit. Stay tuned for Virginia…
I'm all for redrawing the lines in Virginia if we can. An 11D-0R map is risky and ugly, but a 10D-1R map is very doable, even though it does require multiple bacon strips from Northern Virginia to the rural parts of the state.
I'd expect less ambition than 10D-1R, but I'd love to be wrong. Still, even a reliable 8D-3R map would be a decent upgrade, and 9D-2R would be great.
Right now it's 6D-5R once Connolly's replacement is elected, but VA-07 is only D+2 and it's not hard to imagine a bad year resulting in us receiving more votes but fewer seats in VA. Following the cube rule you'd expect something like 6.5D-4.5R to be the "natural" result, but obviously seats are not allocated in fractions.
9-2 (but could fall back to 7-4 in bad years) is very doable. I'm trying it out right now.
Here's a 10-1 map that I came up with:
https://davesredistricting.org/join/5c004485-8b28-4f2b-899f-18fdd814b9bf
Speaking of Minnesota, here's a Dem gerrymander I drew:
https://davesredistricting.org/join/075dcca8-a68b-434b-bc04-18dd02cf974c
I made every district D+8 based on the 2018-2024 composite.
Received first mailer attacking CA "unconstitutional gerrymandering" today. I am sure there will be many more.
Thanks, but I’ll wait for the Schwarzenegger mailer or TV ad attacking the "unconstitutional gerrymander" from Governor Abbot and Texas Republicans.
All the talk of the mid-decade re-gerrymanders has had me thinking. I've noticed that states are more willing to go all out with these attempts than before, and the 2010 and 2020 gerrymanders were already aggressive.
For the 2030s, how many swing seats will be left? The number has been decreasing over time. I worry that unless we get something through congress to stop gerrymanders that we're rapidly approaching the point where congressional control will be decided by a much smaller subset of seats getting all the attention. That's if we're lucky. If we're unlucky the gerrymanders could be durable enough and expansive enough to lock in a party for the entire decade, even through wave years.
That’s why we gotta pass a federal bill if we get a trifecta in 2029. If we have to have a filibuster carve out for this, so be it.
Really, fuck the filibuster. It makes an undemocratic body even less democratic.
If Democrats didn’t have that now, we’d be even more screwed.
Not really. The sane-ish Republicans like it because it allows them to avoid bringing up bills that are popular with the GOP base but highly unpopular with most people. Dems don't really have the equivalent of that.
Because they would have used it to block what that they haven't blocked? Schumer didn't even use the tools he has to block a horrible Republican bill! And Democrats didn't use it to block the confirmation of Justice Thomas. Historically, it's mostly been used to block progress, including on anti-lynching bills.
Yeah I really don't understand this comment. What specifically would Republicans be doing differently? Trump is unilaterally disassembling Cabinet agencies, reforming the American tax system, and snatching people off the streets with masked cops without IDs or license plates. The filibuster exists at this point only to constrain the actions of Democratic governments, much the way the Supreme Court is making it clear it will function.
Next trifecta Dems need to blow up the filibuster to ban gerrymandering, create a single set of district/voter requirements nationwide (including all student id, all Native American id), permanent early voting centers mandated by poll stations per number of people, permanent mail voting and banning any redistricting between the census years.
As for whether there will be swing districts, I think it’s impossible for there not to be because of one basic certainty: voters shift and change from election to election! Trump’s 2024 coalition doesn’t exist now. Obama’s coalition doesn’t exist now. What is a swing district now maybe permanently blue/red in the future, just like districts that are safe red/blue may become swing ones.
We don’t know what voters will move in which way politically with any sense of certainty. Even if map drawers go for the jugular in the next census, 10 years later it may look like a dummymander and in hindsight was stupid to draw the districts like they were drawn. We just don’t know what the future holds.
2008: No change in CA's congressional delegation despite the wave (Dems had gained just 1 seat in the 2006 wave).
2010: No change in CA's congressional delegation despite the flip to a GOP wave.
California Dems went from winning the aggregate vote by 23 points to just 10 points, didn't budge a single seat. A reflection not of an aggressive Dem gerrymander (the result was a 34-19 delegation), but rather a massive incumbent protection scheme from 2002. This is the GOP goal for half the country, no actual seats change hands year to year. House control comes down to who wins the swing seats in states with commission or compromise maps (MI, PA, etc). Whereas elections might as well be cancelled in TX, FL, GA, NC, really the entire south, OH, IN, KY, MO, etc. Dire stuff.
Some states like KY and IN aren’t that egregious of gerrymanders (right now at least), to be fair, our geographic distribution there is just really bad.
Those four first states you mentioned, though. Yikes.
https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2025/08/21/begich-democratic-gubernatorial-candidate-expects-peltola-run-us-senate/?outputType=amp
Huge if true: Tom Begich expects that Peltola will run for Senate
could make up for the not-so-encouraging news out of OH today!
Are you referring to the Emerson poll?
yes and some comments here and elsewhere about people doubting Brown can win
Do you expect only cheerleading? OH-Sen, even with Brown, starts at Lean-R. He definitely has a fighting chance, and he's probably the only Democrat in Ohio who would.
Not sure what's up here, but Begich is now denying he said this.
https://x.com/Alex_Roarty/status/1958978700906471723
Fun! lol
Here's the full interview, with the question coming at 4:19 He says Peltola has continued interest in the race and that she was encouraging to him when he said he'd file a letter of intent she makes up her mind, and that he'd still drop out to support her if she gets in the race.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB53RWtbkag
Actually, no, I'm sorry. He is lying, he did say this and is trying to scuttle it.
I assumed the first question (which is also the one clipped in the article) would be the one they're supporting. But at 22:06, he's asked more that has the actual quote.
"But do I believe she'll run for governor? I don't think she's gonna run for governor. I think she's gonna run for the United States Senate. And I hope she does. But if she does choose governor, I'm not going to break my commitment."
The other day when I saw that Begich filed to run for Governor, I had a gut feeling this was a tea leaf that Peltola was actually going to take on the harder challenge to run for Senate given what he previously said about supporting her if she ran for the gubernatorial race.
Otherwise why announce you’re running only to drop out a month later? That doesn’t make much sense. There’s obviously confusion over what he said/didn’t say, so I will patiently wait to see how it all plays out and what Peltola ends up deciding.
One thing that hasn’t really got much attention in support of her running for Senate is the tenure. If she ran and won she’d only have to campaign for re-election every 6 years instead of 4 for Governor and 2 for House. That’s a long time to get a lot done even if she only lasts 1 term.
Does anyone think NC voters are going to care about a new trial over former Gov Cooper's COVID lockdowns? The Republican majority SCONC seems to think so -- and the justice writing the majority opinion patronizingly called Justice Riggs's dissent "bizarre and angry."
https://www.wral.com/story/new-trial-over-cooper-s-covid-lockdowns-ordered-by-nc-supreme-court/22127718/
I can't wait to vote out Justice nepo baby Berger Jr. in 2028, he and his daddy are AWFUL people.
They pulled the same thing to revisit and undo the racial gerrymandering case April 2023 decided weeks prior by the outgoing Democratic 4-3 SCONC majority (issued December 2022).
And if the court flips, there’s going to be payback for the GOP shenanigans.
I don't know and would love to see reasonably reliable polling.
I don't think voters will care by this time next year. It's just going to make me more determined to vote for him and Justice Anita Earls.
And if they both prevail next year, we're gunning for Senator Ted Budd and three of the five justices who signed off on that opinion in 2028.
“Fruits of their own labor” clause of the NC Constitution? How much you want to make a bet the majority won’t apply that to employees?
Likely only a speed bump before Republicans pass the bill, but Sen. Carol Alvarado is planning to filibuster the proposed Texas map.
https://abc13.com/post/texas-senator-carol-alvarado-plans-file-filibuster-efforts-prevent-passing-redistricting-bill-fight/17616732/
She previously did a filibuster 4 years ago for over 15 hours and currently holds the record for longest filibuster by a female senator.
Rules for a Texas Senate filibuster:
Senate Rule 3.02: No eating or drinking in the chamber.
Senate Rule 4.01: The member must stand at their desk, without sitting, leaning, or using a desk chair, and must not take bathroom breaks.
Senate Rule 4.03: Senators may interrupt if remarks stray off topic or become inaudible.
Personally, if it were me, other than pointing out the obvious discrimination and gerrymandering stuff, I'd painfully go district by district and examine every single change precinct by precinct. Aside from drawing it out longer, the senator must stay on topic otherwise a point of order could be called to end the filibuster. I think it takes 3 points of order to end a filibuster.
Unlike in the U.S. Senate, this is a Mr. Smith-style of filibuster.
Longest Texas filibuster was in 1977 and clocked in at 43 hours.
https://www.texastribune.org/2013/03/14/43-hours-texas-senator-set-filibuster-record-77/
Update, Republicans in the Texas Senate didn't allow Sen. Alvarado to filibuster. They said since she sent out a fundraising email before the filibuster, that her filibustering would constitute a campaign event which would be illegal and unethical when acting in her official capacity, as well as illegal and unethical because it would have involved the other senators in a campaign event as well as state staff.