Yes. He is. Somehow nobody saw this coming, inside or outside of Minnesota, despite the endless drumbeat of daily media coverage pounded into peoples' brains. Or they convinced themselves it wasn't gonna be a problem.
I'll be eagerly awaiting polls from the campaigns contradicting all these lackluster media polls...but I'm not at all sure that they're coming.
No offense, but what world do you live in to think Minnesota of all places will vote Republican after all of the progress made in other, much redder states?
I find it very hard to believe it will suddenly start voting Republican after decades of being stubbornly Democratic (with a few exceptions, of course), amidst a national blue wave that sees the likes of Trump +15 seats flipping.
I'll just leave it at that and we'll await further clarification on if and when my insider perspective of warning signs for Minnesota Democrats stops being backed up by data and when the outsider perspective of cocksure confidence about Minnesota Democrats starts getting backed up by data.
I just really have a hard time believing that Walz's scandal is going to matter more to voters than the ICE invasion of Minnesota or the tariffs' impact on farm country that is helping us be competitive in much redder states in the same part of the country like Iowa and Nebraska, especially when we're in a D+8 environment nationwide.
My own take of Minnesota, I don't think it will go red for Gov or Senate. But it's likely we won't see the same blue wave as in other parts of the country. What I see goes back to some of MN's character of high voter turnout. This has helped the DFL in the state many years when Dem turnout was depressed nationwide. Here's the flipside; the Rep voters in the state are less likely to skip this midterm. They will show up.
All that said, they don't have the numbers to actually win either Gov or Senate. Maybe AG (the reps here hate Ellison, gee I wonder why), or maybe another statewide race. I want more polling of the state to see good numbers for Flanagan, but it's very unlikely she loses. Not impossible, though.
Yeah, I'm not expecting double digit wins for Flanagan or Ellison or anything, but I just don't see a path to victory for Republicans in this national environment. And sure, AG is a statewide race, but Ellison is also a former national figure that has contributed to national matters during his tenure.
Yeah I think Ellison is in trouble and I'd be surprised if Scott Jensen doesn't take the Auditor's race given the way all the ducks are lining up for that (third party spoiler, name familiarity gap, voters believing they'd be electing a steward of state finances in this position).
I suspect Flanagan hangs on by her fingernails but only with my long-predicted DSCC intervention. At this point, if I was Tafoya, I would avoid all media interviews and debates. She has nowhere to go but down when she opens her mouth and reveals how little she knows about anything related to governance.
After working on several campaigns, yes, I do think internals mean something. It might paint a rosier picture, but if an internal has a candidate up 10 or 15 maybe they’re really up five or seven. It will at least give us a benchmark to work with against what these public polls are showing. I just can’t believe that it’s this tight in Minnesota. Especially after everything that’s happened up there this year.
What do you mean by the last sentence? Trump's war with Canada? Other posters have argued the scandal around Walz is the thing dragging down Democrats.
Traditionally polls in Texas are a bit too Democratic if conducted bilingually because non-English speakers have extraordinarily low turn-out rates even if they are fully eligible. Post-Trump I have no idea if that is still true.
I don't expect us to win Georgia's 11th, but if it's even a single digit race that would be crazy, I don't think we've come within 20 points in any race at any level there in a couple decades.
Nebraska's 1st is the kind of thing that definitely could be competitive in a wave. Trump only won it by 12 in 2024 and 11 in 2020.
It's strange to me that the CA wealth tax is a large one-time levy rather than smaller annual levy. Is anybody familiar with the reasoning behind this?
1. Could be an easier sell to voters. Most people have an aversion to taxes in general and work under the delusion that one day they may have to pay it.
2. Could be an effort to get the wealthy now before they flee the state
Well, when Jerry Brown was Governor just before Gavin Newsom took over, he was able to create a budget surplus by increasing taxes on the wealthy. This came while at the same time the tech boom happened, even while that was primarily in the Bay Area.
I still think it’s silly we have to resort to any kind of tax increase in a proposition form when it can otherwise be easily accomplished with the super majority Democrats have in the state legislature.
Couldn’t those behind Prop 40 have chosen to lobby Democrats in government instead?
The brains behind this wealth tax are well to put it charitably not the sharpest tools in the shed. The smarter approach would have to have carved their homes out of Prop 13 since you can't move a mansion out of Seacliff in San Francisco or Atherton to Florida or Texas.
But instead we got this measure which I decided a long time ago I'm voting against. Sigh.
Former Sen. Jon Kyl has died, his family announced today. He was diagnosed with dementia in December 2025. His last act in public life was shepherding Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to SCOTUS through the Senate.
Kyl, more conservative than his longtime colleague John McCain, was Senate Minority Whip in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
He was appointed to succeed McCain after his death in 2018, but almost immediately resigned, leaving Martha McSally to serve another partial term, ultimately losing to Democrat Mark Kelly in a 2020 special.
Weird phenomenon I’ve noticed this week — as the Dems’ lead in the generic ballot has exploded to ~9 points in a bunch of the trackers, Trump’s approval has too.. he’s at 39-40% in the averages, up a few points from last month. Still awful, and doesn’t seem to be having an effect on individual races.
It's at -20.4 today (38.3 approve, 58.7 disapprove). For comparison, Trump was at -13 in mid-September 2018, and Biden at -11.3 at the same time in 2022. It is worth noting that Biden, unlike Trump, knew when to get out of the way when he was a liability.
Trump's current approval averages are likely worse than any recent president at this time in their first or second term, with the possible exception of Bush 2006. Charlie Cook said (in early August, but it still essentially applies), "Two national polling averages put Trump’s approval rating at around 38 percent and 39 percent. The Pew Research Center recently put Trump’s current standing in a historical context, finding it lower than any of his six predecessors at the same point in their terms, as well as lower than Trump’s rating at this point in his first. For perspective, President Carter had a Gallup job-approval rating of 39 percent in August 1978."
The Pew report and poll (which has given Trump some of his lowest marks of any credible poll) is here: the poll here is from mid-July so not up to date, but given all other surveys since there's little reason to suspect substantial improvement. It has Trump two points lower than GWB was at the same point.
There are a couple of oddities in the ranked choice voting simulations (Are about 7% of the total electorate dumb enough to rank Hafner and not Hill? It's worth noting that a much greater percentage of Pat Chesbro voters in 2022 ranked Murkowski 2nd compared to those who let their ballot exaust), and the final numbers all come with the asterisk that they exclude undecided voters, and don't test to see if voters undecided in the first round will make their mind up between the last two options, but otherwise promising.
I don't want to get too overconfident, and there's still a month and a half left to go till the election, but it's worth pointing out that when looking at the most recent 10 polls from all of the competitive Senate races (at least out of any that are in Nate Silver's election model - https://www.natesilver.net/p/nate-silver-2026-midterm-election-polls-model), we've led in all 10 from North Carolina and Maine, 9 out of 10 from Alaska, Texas, and Ohio, and 8 out of 10 from Michigan.
Bob Casey also led almost all the polls? In the end his ads started to say he would work with Trump, you knew his internal said something starkly different.
I agree, we can't get too overconfident (especially in Maine, where Collins overperforming the polls and winning wouldn't surprise anyone). But I'd rather be leading all of the polls than not.
Send this ad back in time to March 2025, no one would believe it was real. An incumbent re-elected by 21 points, now breaking with Trump in a Trump +15 district, on his supposedly strongest issue. She sees which way the winds are blowing for sure (and has been vocal about this, for months now).
There was one done around the same time in 2024 where he lead Ehasz by 14 points. So glad to see him not reach double digits but I hate stuff like this.
So tired of left-leaning districts and states voting for alleged moderates whose first and most important vote will be to elect leadership that will enable the most radical, extreme, dangerous, and corrupt government the country has ever seen.
Kris Kobach being unseated as Attorney General would be great. Back when he was Secretary of State, he was awful but Trump had not as of yet emerged as a presidential candidate.
As Secretary of State, Kobach was even worse than OH Secretary of State Ken Blackwell was in disenfranchising voters.
Karl Rove, former adviser to President George W. Bush and longtime Texas GOP political consultant, said he will vote for Jon Rosenthal, a Houston Democrat running to serve the Texas Railroad Commission, after Republican Bo French posted racist comments on Sunday about South Asian students at the University of Texas at Austin.
Rove made the comments at a members-only lunch event at the Headliners Club in Austin, where he called French a “bigot,” according to three attendees to whom The Texas Tribune has granted anonymity to discuss the conversation.
-----
That is two big surprises in less than a week - the other one being Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon agreeing on the dangers of AI
TX-Railroad Commissioner: Further underscoring Republican tensions over their nominee Bo French in this race, outgoing Sen. John Cornyn declined to vote for him.
What's with the terrible round of Minnesota polls? Is Walz that much of a drag on other statewide Dems?
The SUSA poll? SUSA had Craig up on Flanagan by 2 right before Flanagan won by over 20.
https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/kstp-surveyusa-poll-demuth-in-striking-distance-of-lindell-craig-up-in-key-demographic/
Yes. He is. Somehow nobody saw this coming, inside or outside of Minnesota, despite the endless drumbeat of daily media coverage pounded into peoples' brains. Or they convinced themselves it wasn't gonna be a problem.
I'll be eagerly awaiting polls from the campaigns contradicting all these lackluster media polls...but I'm not at all sure that they're coming.
No offense, but what world do you live in to think Minnesota of all places will vote Republican after all of the progress made in other, much redder states?
I think Mark lives in Minnesota, as a matter of fact. And he knows more about it than most of us.
I find it very hard to believe it will suddenly start voting Republican after decades of being stubbornly Democratic (with a few exceptions, of course), amidst a national blue wave that sees the likes of Trump +15 seats flipping.
The world I live in is Minnesota.
I'll just leave it at that and we'll await further clarification on if and when my insider perspective of warning signs for Minnesota Democrats stops being backed up by data and when the outsider perspective of cocksure confidence about Minnesota Democrats starts getting backed up by data.
Okay. I guess I just need to hear more data than one bad set of polls by a firm that literally just fumbled a primary like Paleo said.
I just really have a hard time believing that Walz's scandal is going to matter more to voters than the ICE invasion of Minnesota or the tariffs' impact on farm country that is helping us be competitive in much redder states in the same part of the country like Iowa and Nebraska, especially when we're in a D+8 environment nationwide.
My own take of Minnesota, I don't think it will go red for Gov or Senate. But it's likely we won't see the same blue wave as in other parts of the country. What I see goes back to some of MN's character of high voter turnout. This has helped the DFL in the state many years when Dem turnout was depressed nationwide. Here's the flipside; the Rep voters in the state are less likely to skip this midterm. They will show up.
All that said, they don't have the numbers to actually win either Gov or Senate. Maybe AG (the reps here hate Ellison, gee I wonder why), or maybe another statewide race. I want more polling of the state to see good numbers for Flanagan, but it's very unlikely she loses. Not impossible, though.
Yeah, I'm not expecting double digit wins for Flanagan or Ellison or anything, but I just don't see a path to victory for Republicans in this national environment. And sure, AG is a statewide race, but Ellison is also a former national figure that has contributed to national matters during his tenure.
Yeah I think Ellison is in trouble and I'd be surprised if Scott Jensen doesn't take the Auditor's race given the way all the ducks are lining up for that (third party spoiler, name familiarity gap, voters believing they'd be electing a steward of state finances in this position).
I suspect Flanagan hangs on by her fingernails but only with my long-predicted DSCC intervention. At this point, if I was Tafoya, I would avoid all media interviews and debates. She has nowhere to go but down when she opens her mouth and reveals how little she knows about anything related to governance.
I really wish someone would release an internal from Minnesota just so we can see how reality is really gauging against some of these recent polls.
Are internals reality? There's a reason we take them with a grain (or lump) of salt. I'd like to see a respected non-partisan pollster get in there
After working on several campaigns, yes, I do think internals mean something. It might paint a rosier picture, but if an internal has a candidate up 10 or 15 maybe they’re really up five or seven. It will at least give us a benchmark to work with against what these public polls are showing. I just can’t believe that it’s this tight in Minnesota. Especially after everything that’s happened up there this year.
What do you mean by the last sentence? Trump's war with Canada? Other posters have argued the scandal around Walz is the thing dragging down Democrats.
Anyone here from MINN want to check in from the ground on this ?
Ask Mark
Bunch of polls out this morning on Michigan and Texas from Emerson, Siena and WPost.
El Sayed up 2 and 3.
Talarico up 1 and 6
Benson up 7 and 12
Abbott up 3 in one poll, Hinijosa up 4 in the other.
Hinijosa up? 👀
The Siena poll that put her up was also conducted in Spanish. Stay tuned.
Spanish and English or just Spanish?
Both.
Traditionally polls in Texas are a bit too Democratic if conducted bilingually because non-English speakers have extraordinarily low turn-out rates even if they are fully eligible. Post-Trump I have no idea if that is still true.
Its hard to believe MN is tighter than MI and TX
Minnesota this, Minnesota that. I don't think it's a problem. But I'm cool with GA-11 and NE-1 being competitive.
I don't expect us to win Georgia's 11th, but if it's even a single digit race that would be crazy, I don't think we've come within 20 points in any race at any level there in a couple decades.
Nebraska's 1st is the kind of thing that definitely could be competitive in a wave. Trump only won it by 12 in 2024 and 11 in 2020.
Then-Rep. Bob Barr was held to 54-46 in 2000, but the district looks a lot different now.
It is not the district looked different, it is the people. 😂
And if GA-11 is single digits, that bodes well for us in GA-Sen and GA-Gov.
Extremely. That would also mean GA-1, 12 and probably 10 would be competitive, too.
If GA-14, the reddest district in the state, can allow a Democrat to only lose by 10-11, then the others can surely fall to single digits.
It's strange to me that the CA wealth tax is a large one-time levy rather than smaller annual levy. Is anybody familiar with the reasoning behind this?
1. Could be an easier sell to voters. Most people have an aversion to taxes in general and work under the delusion that one day they may have to pay it.
2. Could be an effort to get the wealthy now before they flee the state
Well, when Jerry Brown was Governor just before Gavin Newsom took over, he was able to create a budget surplus by increasing taxes on the wealthy. This came while at the same time the tech boom happened, even while that was primarily in the Bay Area.
I still think it’s silly we have to resort to any kind of tax increase in a proposition form when it can otherwise be easily accomplished with the super majority Democrats have in the state legislature.
Couldn’t those behind Prop 40 have chosen to lobby Democrats in government instead?
I think it's trying to minimize relocating. Though apparently some billionaires already did so in anticipation of it being proposed.
Ideally you'd design it so it was levied against wealth held in California, not against wealthy Californians as such.
The brains behind this wealth tax are well to put it charitably not the sharpest tools in the shed. The smarter approach would have to have carved their homes out of Prop 13 since you can't move a mansion out of Seacliff in San Francisco or Atherton to Florida or Texas.
But instead we got this measure which I decided a long time ago I'm voting against. Sigh.
Former Sen. Jon Kyl has died, his family announced today. He was diagnosed with dementia in December 2025. His last act in public life was shepherding Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to SCOTUS through the Senate.
https://ktar.com/arizona-politics-news/jon-kyl-dies-84-congressman
Kyl, more conservative than his longtime colleague John McCain, was Senate Minority Whip in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
He was appointed to succeed McCain after his death in 2018, but almost immediately resigned, leaving Martha McSally to serve another partial term, ultimately losing to Democrat Mark Kelly in a 2020 special.
If we had done a little better in 2008 and beaten McConnell in Kentucky, I wonder if he would have become the Republican leader in the Senate.
If that were to happen, he might have ran again in 2012 and maybe even 2018, forgoing Flake and Sinema.
Weird phenomenon I’ve noticed this week — as the Dems’ lead in the generic ballot has exploded to ~9 points in a bunch of the trackers, Trump’s approval has too.. he’s at 39-40% in the averages, up a few points from last month. Still awful, and doesn’t seem to be having an effect on individual races.
That's not what I'm seeing in Nate Silver's tracker - Trump's approval rating is only 0.2 points higher than his average had it at its lowest point.
It has on NYT (was 60-37 a little while ago, now 59-38) and RCP
60-37 and 59-38 are statistically the exact same.
Yup. Stuff like that is entirely a function of which pollsters happen to have been in the field most recently.
It's at -20.4 today (38.3 approve, 58.7 disapprove). For comparison, Trump was at -13 in mid-September 2018, and Biden at -11.3 at the same time in 2022. It is worth noting that Biden, unlike Trump, knew when to get out of the way when he was a liability.
Trump's current approval averages are likely worse than any recent president at this time in their first or second term, with the possible exception of Bush 2006. Charlie Cook said (in early August, but it still essentially applies), "Two national polling averages put Trump’s approval rating at around 38 percent and 39 percent. The Pew Research Center recently put Trump’s current standing in a historical context, finding it lower than any of his six predecessors at the same point in their terms, as well as lower than Trump’s rating at this point in his first. For perspective, President Carter had a Gallup job-approval rating of 39 percent in August 1978."
The Pew report and poll (which has given Trump some of his lowest marks of any credible poll) is here: the poll here is from mid-July so not up to date, but given all other surveys since there's little reason to suspect substantial improvement. It has Trump two points lower than GWB was at the same point.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/08/06/trumps-job-approval-rating-is-low-by-historical-standards/
Biden knew when to get out of the way in the 2022 midterms. Not so much in the 2024 Presidential election.
Alaska:
Petola up 7
Kreiss-Tomkins up 10
https://www.aarp.org/pri/topics/voter-research/politics/2026-midterm-election-poll-alaska/
Fascinating
Alaska polling isn't always the most reliable thing in the world, but it's hard not to be excited about these numbers.
Usually true but this poll was conducted by top-notch pollsters, Fabrizio Ward (R) and Impact Research (D). I would give it a lot of weight.
Unfortunately the same poll has Begich up 14, but I'll definitely take 2/3.
And Governor is arguably more important than the House seat, if Democrats are getting a majority in that chamber.
Maybe, but Congressional redistricting is no issue in Alaska, so why?
A governor has more power than an individual House member, especially in a seat that is not going to be the median seat.
There are a couple of oddities in the ranked choice voting simulations (Are about 7% of the total electorate dumb enough to rank Hafner and not Hill? It's worth noting that a much greater percentage of Pat Chesbro voters in 2022 ranked Murkowski 2nd compared to those who let their ballot exaust), and the final numbers all come with the asterisk that they exclude undecided voters, and don't test to see if voters undecided in the first round will make their mind up between the last two options, but otherwise promising.
I don't want to get too overconfident, and there's still a month and a half left to go till the election, but it's worth pointing out that when looking at the most recent 10 polls from all of the competitive Senate races (at least out of any that are in Nate Silver's election model - https://www.natesilver.net/p/nate-silver-2026-midterm-election-polls-model), we've led in all 10 from North Carolina and Maine, 9 out of 10 from Alaska, Texas, and Ohio, and 8 out of 10 from Michigan.
Bob Casey also led almost all the polls? In the end his ads started to say he would work with Trump, you knew his internal said something starkly different.
Let’s see if there is desperation setting in.
I agree, we can't get too overconfident (especially in Maine, where Collins overperforming the polls and winning wouldn't surprise anyone). But I'd rather be leading all of the polls than not.
FL 27: Salazar criticizes Trump on immigration in TV ad.
https://bsky.app/profile/robertscotthorton.bsky.social/post/3mvpriz2fms2w
Desperation sets in earlier than I would’ve guessed. Lol
Desperation delivery too.. rushed and scattered
Send this ad back in time to March 2025, no one would believe it was real. An incumbent re-elected by 21 points, now breaking with Trump in a Trump +15 district, on his supposedly strongest issue. She sees which way the winds are blowing for sure (and has been vocal about this, for months now).
This ad was filmed 3 weeks ago btw, and conditions have only gotten worse.
New Poll released in PA-01
Public Opinion Strategies (Sponsored by Fitz)
Fitzpatrick: 51%
Harvie: 42%
https://x.com/lisakashinsky/status/2100574733318193390
There was one done around the same time in 2024 where he lead Ehasz by 14 points. So glad to see him not reach double digits but I hate stuff like this.
So tired of left-leaning districts and states voting for alleged moderates whose first and most important vote will be to elect leadership that will enable the most radical, extreme, dangerous, and corrupt government the country has ever seen.
KS-AG:
https://kansasreflector.com/2026/09/17/kansas-ag-kris-kobach-not-seeking-president-trumps-endorsement-in-2026/
Kris Kobach is not seeking the Trump endorsement in 2026, in what appears to be yet another sign that things are going poorly for the GOP.
Kris Kobach being unseated as Attorney General would be great. Back when he was Secretary of State, he was awful but Trump had not as of yet emerged as a presidential candidate.
As Secretary of State, Kobach was even worse than OH Secretary of State Ken Blackwell was in disenfranchising voters.
Another one to add to my list of "when pigs fly" surprises:
Karl Rove ditches GOP after 30 years to back a Democrat over Bo French's racist rant
https://www.rawstory.com/karl-rove-2677858622/
⬇️
Karl Rove, former adviser to President George W. Bush and longtime Texas GOP political consultant, said he will vote for Jon Rosenthal, a Houston Democrat running to serve the Texas Railroad Commission, after Republican Bo French posted racist comments on Sunday about South Asian students at the University of Texas at Austin.
Rove made the comments at a members-only lunch event at the Headliners Club in Austin, where he called French a “bigot,” according to three attendees to whom The Texas Tribune has granted anonymity to discuss the conversation.
-----
That is two big surprises in less than a week - the other one being Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon agreeing on the dangers of AI
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/09/17/john-cornyn-bo-french-texas-railroad-commission-racist-post/
TX-Railroad Commissioner: Further underscoring Republican tensions over their nominee Bo French in this race, outgoing Sen. John Cornyn declined to vote for him.
Florida: Governor and Senator races even according to St. Pete polling.
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/820643-poll-ashley-moody-45-angie-nixon-45-and-florida-now-has-two-toss-ups-at-the-top-of-the-ticket/