What's old is new again. Illinois elects its convention delegates separately from the nominee in presidential primaries. In 2016, Raja Sadiq and Nabi Fakroddin both ran as delegates for Trump in Illinois. Despite Trump winning the districts, Sadiq underperformed and Fakroddin lost outright.
Denny Hoskins fails to see the lesson MO voters showed him and other MO Republicans — 80% no to 20% yes. They don’t want their citizens initiative rights tampered with or eliminated.
I hope the courts force him to place the initiatives on the Nov ballot.
If you were a Dem voting in the open SC special Senate primary, and your goal was to pick the least bad R and and the easiest R for Annie Andrews to beat who could actually get enough votes to be in the runoff (so not Danny Ford II), what would the choices be? I think Nordone is probably the least bad R. Norman? Fry? Lynch? Sanford?
From a Dem perspective, Sanford would be the least bad I think. His main focus is the debt and at this point in his career he wouldn't be a Trump sycophant. Nordone is still making herself known and has accepted the uber-MAGA tiara from Trump.
As for easiest to beat, it's certainly Lynch. He's a crazy person who only got just under 30% because there are even crazier people who thought Graham was a RINO. He has basically no chance though so I'd say it's definitely Norman. He's not popular anywhere outside his base, I think Andrews would absoltuely clean up in the Charleston area vs him and his nomination would probably depress turnout Upstate (Norman is from the Charlotte exurbs, not considered Upstate) and in the Myrtle Beach area (where Fry hails from).
CA-11 - Scott Weiner (no relation to Anthony Weiner) launched an AI chatbot parody of Connie Chan. According to someone who commented on the Instagram post below, the chatbot pushed Birther-style allegations against Chan.
It appears this is a lie pushed by the SF NIMBY blog 48 Hills. It would not be the first time 48 Hills lied in regards to an election—they hate Scott Wiener and have been obsessively hating him for over a decade.
Per the SF Chronicle, the AI Chatbot has been developed by Weiner’s team.
It’s a sign of desperation by Weiner and his campaign to do anything and everything they can to beat Chan, who is making this race very competitive. He's resorting to smear tactics instead of actually offering anything.
It’s well within the margin of error. If Turek is smart he would hammer Hinson for high gas and costs of living and helping support the Iran Invasion and BBB. Remember, the party in power during a midterm almost always tends to already be unpopular and deemed liable for the nation’s woes. Trump being unpopular and presiding over an unpopular war and recession that will likely worsen by November does no favors to Republicans, especially those that are incumbents.
Hartman, Colorado, a small community in Prowers County (in the southeastern part of the eastern plains region of the state), was declared "abandoned" by the state government and disincorporated after the mayor pro tempore was arrested on disorderly conduct charges and every one of the town's elected officials resigned, leaving the town unable to hold municipal elections or address ongoing water utility issues.
The "abandoned" designation does not legally require the couple dozen or so residents of the formerly incorporated town to permanently leave, but it puts the Prowers County government in charge of municipal-level services in Hartman.
In the Portland area, there is a place that voted to incorporate as a city but then found its local politics so contentious and toxic that it was ungovernable, at which point residents voted to disincorporate. This is in the Clackamas County exurbs -- very much self-defined in opposition to "Portland-style" government and planning:
Two Republican mayors from the reddest parts of Georgia are breaking ranks to back Sen. Jon Ossoff’s reelection bid, telling the @ajc that the Democrat’s work for their communities outweighs partisan differences.
Yeah, Valdosta is majority African American. Tifton is White plurality. Not simply because they are in red South Georgia, will mean they are automatically deep red cities.
Their mayors are elected in low turnout municipal elections, usually with even lower Black voter turnout. That doesn’t make them necessarily super MAGA, or they don’t have to worry about their own election. What works for their constituents aside, I’d say it is also good for themselves politically to take some non partisan stances.
Hello all. Although I had originally said I’d be gone a week, and it’s been a week, I’ve decided to stay out of discussion here for the remainder of the month, until September. This is something I’m doing for my own mental health — the primaries this month are contentious, and to me personally highly emotional, to a degree that engaging in discussion about them is not good for my own well-being.
Protect AR Rights, the sponsor for the Arkansas Ballot Measure Rights Amendment of 2026, submitted the signatures on the July 3 deadline. Under state law, the group needed 90,704 valid signatures to place the issue on the ballot in November. Jester argued that the signatures could not be counted because the group used "The Ballot Measure Rights Amendment of 2026" as the title of the measure on the signature pages rather than the approved title "The Arkansas Ballot Measure Rights Amendment."
I don't see a federal jurisdictional hook in this case. Its going to stay in state court. (Even if there was a jurisdictional hook, federal courts would abstain because state law questions are novel and predominant)
I wonder if 2026 FL results will be enough to finally decisively tell whether the state has slipped from us, and is no longer competitive at all, coming much more in line with nearby LA, MS, AL and SC.
I think so. 2026 will be the worst environment for the GOP since it began shifting to the right following COVID.
If we can't put up numbers close to 2018, which already wasn't a great year for Dems in Florida, I think the state might be lost to us for the foreseeable future. It also depends on whether or not polls wildly miss the mark in Florida like they did in 2022 and especially 2024
Hillary Scholten is playing with fire. She still hasn't endorsed Abdul. This seems increasingly out of step with her district, centered on Grand Rapids, which has become Michigan's "Commie Corridor 2.0"—much like Adriano Espaillat's district in New York City. Abdul carried it by 20 points, outperforming even the state's traditional left-wing district centered on Ann Arbor and represented by Debbie Dingell (Abdul +13). The transformation has been driven by an influx of college-educated renters and younger voters, alongside the steady decline of the district's older evangelical population over the past decade. Between her vote for the Laken Riley Act and her continued branding as a "commonsense Democrat," she's on track to become the next Dan Goldman.
Edit: The anti-American charge was in past tense (had not has) when Michelle Goldberg was discussing her current non-endorsement which I noticed while re-reading it so I've edited it out.
“Get money out of politics, put money back in your pocket, and pass Medicare for All." That’s his mantra. He needs to keep hitting it from now till November.
El-Sayed got post-primary endorsements from his two challengers alongside Kamala, Schumer, Peters, and Whitmer. What does Scholten have to gain by not endorsing, especially after El-Sayed carried her district by such a sizeable margin? Because she has a *lot* to lose.
Michigan's establishment politicians, aside from Scholten, have been remarkably gracious in coming together. It's genuinely refreshing to see that kind of unity when the opposition is fascist.
Stevens being so quick to pledge her support for Abdul was a pleasant surprise. Given the bitter nature of the primary I expected her to pull a Jasmine but it's nice to see she's a team player... even if I can't personally stand her
Yup, it was quite bitter. She redboxed and instructed AIPAC to portray him as a "dangerous" sexist, terrorist sympathizer while he attacked her personally as an especially untalented campaigner with poor speaking skills and said that anyone else with all that AIPAC money could've won.
I guess if you don't love her, you don't love your country. Or are "anti-American." Since she seems to believe she's the arbiter of what's American. Have a feeling she'll have a primary challenge in two years.
If so, hopefully the primary challenger is closer to a Lander than a DAC, because the district wouldn't be 100% safe in a red wave with a weak candidate.
She would like you to think she represents a swing district and needs to be moderate. But she doesn't. Harris and Biden as well as her in 2022 and 24 won it comfortably. Before 2022 it was gerrymandered to be a Republican swing seat but now it's pretty blue.
NC-11: Though the Republican field is coalescing behind state Sen. Tim Moffitt, many others are still interested, including state Sen. Ralph Hise and state Reps. Karl Gillespie and Jake Johnson.
State Sen. Kevin Corbin and state Rep. Jennifer Balkom initially expressed interest in running but declined and endorsed Moffitt. State Sen. Warren Daniel and state Rep. Mark Pless also declined to run.
The new nominee to succeed Rep. Chuck Edwards will face Democratic farmer Jamie Ager in November.
Be nice to get rid of Ralph Hise from the state legislature. On the other hand, he’d be yukking it up with former state House leader Tim Moore in Congress.
G. Elliott Morris says that due to data and party fundamentals, there’s no indication that el Sayed is the “weaker” MI U.S. Senate candidate this year (half is paywalled).
Districtr, a competitor to Dave's Redistricting App that became defunct due to low maintenance, has had a huge overhaul and now gives you the ability to split precincts and look at past results, both things DRA also has.
Change Research poll for NC (conducted between July 29th and August 1). No polls conducted for the three Circuit Court of Appeals seats up this year though.
went to an anita fundraiser, in all places nyc, and she indicated that they feel confident re their internal numbers, even assuming a drop off in down ballot votes from the huge win at top of ticket
Judges of the (North Carolina) Court of Appeals, I think you mean, right? Circuit Courts are federal intermediate appeals courts. (And some states use the circuit term, usually to refer to trial courts.) Also, Walczyk is I believe a Wake County (Raleigh) trial court judge at the moment. She doesn’t hold that seat. The incumbent isn’t running.
What's old is new again. Illinois elects its convention delegates separately from the nominee in presidential primaries. In 2016, Raja Sadiq and Nabi Fakroddin both ran as delegates for Trump in Illinois. Despite Trump winning the districts, Sadiq underperformed and Fakroddin lost outright.
Illinois had a pair of Lyndon LaRouche followers win a pair of statewide Democratic primaries in 1986 under similar circumstances.
Denny Hoskins fails to see the lesson MO voters showed him and other MO Republicans — 80% no to 20% yes. They don’t want their citizens initiative rights tampered with or eliminated.
I hope the courts force him to place the initiatives on the Nov ballot.
If you were a Dem voting in the open SC special Senate primary, and your goal was to pick the least bad R and and the easiest R for Annie Andrews to beat who could actually get enough votes to be in the runoff (so not Danny Ford II), what would the choices be? I think Nordone is probably the least bad R. Norman? Fry? Lynch? Sanford?
Sanford?
From a Dem perspective, Sanford would be the least bad I think. His main focus is the debt and at this point in his career he wouldn't be a Trump sycophant. Nordone is still making herself known and has accepted the uber-MAGA tiara from Trump.
As for easiest to beat, it's certainly Lynch. He's a crazy person who only got just under 30% because there are even crazier people who thought Graham was a RINO. He has basically no chance though so I'd say it's definitely Norman. He's not popular anywhere outside his base, I think Andrews would absoltuely clean up in the Charleston area vs him and his nomination would probably depress turnout Upstate (Norman is from the Charlotte exurbs, not considered Upstate) and in the Myrtle Beach area (where Fry hails from).
CA-11 - Scott Weiner (no relation to Anthony Weiner) launched an AI chatbot parody of Connie Chan. According to someone who commented on the Instagram post below, the chatbot pushed Birther-style allegations against Chan.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Dbq1viXIEMh/?igsh=MTA2NDVlc3FrcTFrYg
This is a general election between two Democrats.
1) Yuck
2) This is so SF (which isn't a compliment)
It appears this is a lie pushed by the SF NIMBY blog 48 Hills. It would not be the first time 48 Hills lied in regards to an election—they hate Scott Wiener and have been obsessively hating him for over a decade.
Per the SF Chronicle, the AI Chatbot has been developed by Weiner’s team.
It’s a sign of desperation by Weiner and his campaign to do anything and everything they can to beat Chan, who is making this race very competitive. He's resorting to smear tactics instead of actually offering anything.
https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/scott-wiener-anthropic-billboard-22372638.php
Iowa Emerson:
Hinson 48-45
Sand 48-43
https://emersoncollegepolling.com/iowa-2026-poll/
Disappointing that Hinson is inching closer to 50%.
Hinson is much more well-known here. 44-40 favorables vs. Turek’s 42-27.
Trump +10 recall. I think we can credibly make a case that IA-Gov is lean D.
i fail to understand iowa politics perpetually, despite there being so many folks that seem to articulate the particulars well
It’s well within the margin of error. If Turek is smart he would hammer Hinson for high gas and costs of living and helping support the Iran Invasion and BBB. Remember, the party in power during a midterm almost always tends to already be unpopular and deemed liable for the nation’s woes. Trump being unpopular and presiding over an unpopular war and recession that will likely worsen by November does no favors to Republicans, especially those that are incumbents.
Plenty of room and time for Turek to grow.
Hartman, Colorado, a small community in Prowers County (in the southeastern part of the eastern plains region of the state), was declared "abandoned" by the state government and disincorporated after the mayor pro tempore was arrested on disorderly conduct charges and every one of the town's elected officials resigned, leaving the town unable to hold municipal elections or address ongoing water utility issues.
The "abandoned" designation does not legally require the couple dozen or so residents of the formerly incorporated town to permanently leave, but it puts the Prowers County government in charge of municipal-level services in Hartman.
https://www.denverpost.com/2026/07/29/hartman-colorado-town-declared-abandoned/
Some small towns in northern Maine did this too, though voluntarily. Mainly they just got too small to provide their own services.
https://www.bangordailynews.com/2025/12/11/penobscot/penobscot-government/maine-towns-considering-deorganizing-joam40zk0w/
In the Portland area, there is a place that voted to incorporate as a city but then found its local politics so contentious and toxic that it was ungovernable, at which point residents voted to disincorporate. This is in the Clackamas County exurbs -- very much self-defined in opposition to "Portland-style" government and planning:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus,_Oregon
For some reason, the word Clackamas evokes images of a Santa Claus armed to the teeth
I town which is ungovernable based of internal strife named Damascus seems too on the nose! Lol
IA: Emerson has Dems up 48-43 for gov and down 45-48 for senate: https://emersoncollegepolling.com/iowa-2026-poll/
Two Republican mayors from the reddest parts of Georgia are breaking ranks to back Sen. Jon Ossoff’s reelection bid, telling the @ajc that the Democrat’s work for their communities outweighs partisan differences.
https://x.com/bluestein/status/2085317093935727034?s=46&t=sbdQQeYBqp0h_Zql717iTw
They definitely realize Osoff is going to romp and want to be on his good side when it comes time to ask for Federal $$$
FYI the mayors were Valdosta's Scott James Matheson and Tifton's Julie Smith.
Ok, to be fair, Valdosta is generally Democratic leaning (Harris +3, Biden +16), and Tifton is red but not deep red. Still good news, though.
Yeah, Valdosta is majority African American. Tifton is White plurality. Not simply because they are in red South Georgia, will mean they are automatically deep red cities.
Their mayors are elected in low turnout municipal elections, usually with even lower Black voter turnout. That doesn’t make them necessarily super MAGA, or they don’t have to worry about their own election. What works for their constituents aside, I’d say it is also good for themselves politically to take some non partisan stances.
Hello all. Although I had originally said I’d be gone a week, and it’s been a week, I’ve decided to stay out of discussion here for the remainder of the month, until September. This is something I’m doing for my own mental health — the primaries this month are contentious, and to me personally highly emotional, to a degree that engaging in discussion about them is not good for my own well-being.
See you all in September.
Good luck, and we'll be here when you're back!
Take care of yourself. We'll see you whenever!
Looking forward to your return
As a big fan of your content and takes, I'm very sorry to hear this but will look forward eagerly to your return. Be well!
Protect AR Rights, the sponsor for the Arkansas Ballot Measure Rights Amendment of 2026, submitted the signatures on the July 3 deadline. Under state law, the group needed 90,704 valid signatures to place the issue on the ballot in November. Jester argued that the signatures could not be counted because the group used "The Ballot Measure Rights Amendment of 2026" as the title of the measure on the signature pages rather than the approved title "The Arkansas Ballot Measure Rights Amendment."
https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/politics/seven-arkansans-sue-secretary-of-state-cole-jester-over-petition-signature-rejection/527-8e7fa310-e14a-4127-b5ba-27ac9867453d#
Jester's comments was absolutely gleeful. Makes me so sick and angry.
I hate it here!!!
I wish the AR Supreme Court wasn't packed with Republican appointees. If the case makes it to federal court, maybe there's a chance.
I don't see a federal jurisdictional hook in this case. Its going to stay in state court. (Even if there was a jurisdictional hook, federal courts would abstain because state law questions are novel and predominant)
Florida Governor 2026
https://jmipoll.com/
🟥Byron Donalds: 45%
🟦David Jolly: 38%
Undecided: 17%
—
🟥Jay Collins: 44%
🟦David Jolly: 39%
Undecided: 17%
Florida Governor Republican primary 2026
🟥Byron Donalds: 49%
🟥Jay Collins: 18%
🟥Paul Renner: 8%
🟥James Fishback: 4%
lol at Fuentes wannabe Fishback getting crushed by a Black guy.
JMI is a conservative outfit.
I wonder if 2026 FL results will be enough to finally decisively tell whether the state has slipped from us, and is no longer competitive at all, coming much more in line with nearby LA, MS, AL and SC.
I think so. 2026 will be the worst environment for the GOP since it began shifting to the right following COVID.
If we can't put up numbers close to 2018, which already wasn't a great year for Dems in Florida, I think the state might be lost to us for the foreseeable future. It also depends on whether or not polls wildly miss the mark in Florida like they did in 2022 and especially 2024
Hillary Scholten is playing with fire. She still hasn't endorsed Abdul. This seems increasingly out of step with her district, centered on Grand Rapids, which has become Michigan's "Commie Corridor 2.0"—much like Adriano Espaillat's district in New York City. Abdul carried it by 20 points, outperforming even the state's traditional left-wing district centered on Ann Arbor and represented by Debbie Dingell (Abdul +13). The transformation has been driven by an influx of college-educated renters and younger voters, alongside the steady decline of the district's older evangelical population over the past decade. Between her vote for the Laken Riley Act and her continued branding as a "commonsense Democrat," she's on track to become the next Dan Goldman.
https://x.com/HillaryScholten/status/2085051157840351358
Edit: The anti-American charge was in past tense (had not has) when Michelle Goldberg was discussing her current non-endorsement which I noticed while re-reading it so I've edited it out.
In a recent interview, Abdul El-Sayed said he's running into plenty of Trump voters at his events.
Perhaps Scholten should wake up and smell the coffee or in 2028 she'll get primaried out of office.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSvnGRAp4o0
Scholten should get it together and be a team player but nothing about Abdul's win on Tuesday indicates that there's many trump voters supporting him.
I have no idea how many Trump voters AES is winning over other than he has stated he’s meeting them plenty of times at his events.
But point being, if there are certain Trump voters that are warming up to AES, that defeats Scholten’s argument period.
“Get money out of politics, put money back in your pocket, and pass Medicare for All." That’s his mantra. He needs to keep hitting it from now till November.
El-Sayed got post-primary endorsements from his two challengers alongside Kamala, Schumer, Peters, and Whitmer. What does Scholten have to gain by not endorsing, especially after El-Sayed carried her district by such a sizeable margin? Because she has a *lot* to lose.
Michigan's establishment politicians, aside from Scholten, have been remarkably gracious in coming together. It's genuinely refreshing to see that kind of unity when the opposition is fascist.
Stevens being so quick to pledge her support for Abdul was a pleasant surprise. Given the bitter nature of the primary I expected her to pull a Jasmine but it's nice to see she's a team player... even if I can't personally stand her
It was bitter between supporters. Was it ever bitter between the two of them? That’s playing a real part, I think.
Yup, it was quite bitter. She redboxed and instructed AIPAC to portray him as a "dangerous" sexist, terrorist sympathizer while he attacked her personally as an especially untalented campaigner with poor speaking skills and said that anyone else with all that AIPAC money could've won.
I guess if you don't love her, you don't love your country. Or are "anti-American." Since she seems to believe she's the arbiter of what's American. Have a feeling she'll have a primary challenge in two years.
IIRC, MI-3 voted overwhelmingly for AES in the primary (I know Kent was AES's strongest county in the entire state).
Scholten could become another Dan Goldman in two years.
If so, hopefully the primary challenger is closer to a Lander than a DAC, because the district wouldn't be 100% safe in a red wave with a weak candidate.
She would like you to think she represents a swing district and needs to be moderate. But she doesn't. Harris and Biden as well as her in 2022 and 24 won it comfortably. Before 2022 it was gerrymandered to be a Republican swing seat but now it's pretty blue.
She has no reason to act this way.
Also, the Grand Rapids area has zoomed left over the past decade and a half or so.
My guess is her head is still wrapped around that area being a swing district, which it no longer is
I think it's just ideology. She did not rep it when it was a swing district.
Probably both. She first ran for it in 2020, before redistricting. She's also deeply religious, in a Dutch Calvinist way.
What do you mean by “again raising concerns”? As far as I can tell, she has not said anything about AES since the primary.
Check my edit.
https://www.kten.com/news/election-2026-moffitt-among-leading-choices-in-11th-congressional-district/article_5e088945-a004-5a5a-b3bf-562acc6ffce0.html
NC-11: Though the Republican field is coalescing behind state Sen. Tim Moffitt, many others are still interested, including state Sen. Ralph Hise and state Reps. Karl Gillespie and Jake Johnson.
State Sen. Kevin Corbin and state Rep. Jennifer Balkom initially expressed interest in running but declined and endorsed Moffitt. State Sen. Warren Daniel and state Rep. Mark Pless also declined to run.
The new nominee to succeed Rep. Chuck Edwards will face Democratic farmer Jamie Ager in November.
Be nice to get rid of Ralph Hise from the state legislature. On the other hand, he’d be yukking it up with former state House leader Tim Moore in Congress.
G. Elliott Morris says that due to data and party fundamentals, there’s no indication that el Sayed is the “weaker” MI U.S. Senate candidate this year (half is paywalled).
https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-08-06-el-sayed-early-polls
https://districtr.org/
Districtr, a competitor to Dave's Redistricting App that became defunct due to low maintenance, has had a huge overhaul and now gives you the ability to split precincts and look at past results, both things DRA also has.
we will never betray Dave!
Change Research poll for NC (conducted between July 29th and August 1). No polls conducted for the three Circuit Court of Appeals seats up this year though.
US-SEN
Cooper - 51%
Whatley - 40%
NC-SC
Justice Anita Earls (incumbent) - 45%
Sarah Stevens - 39%
General legislative ballot
Democratic - 48%
Republican - 40%
https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/2085440108228973035
went to an anita fundraiser, in all places nyc, and she indicated that they feel confident re their internal numbers, even assuming a drop off in down ballot votes from the huge win at top of ticket
Did they mention anything about the Circuit Court seats held by Arrowood, Walczyk and Hampson?
they did not, and i regrettably did not ask
Judges of the (North Carolina) Court of Appeals, I think you mean, right? Circuit Courts are federal intermediate appeals courts. (And some states use the circuit term, usually to refer to trial courts.) Also, Walczyk is I believe a Wake County (Raleigh) trial court judge at the moment. She doesn’t hold that seat. The incumbent isn’t running.