We can see dying of pancreatic cancer at 66 as being sad and not an occasion for sarcasm about their death, regardless of politics. Or we could be like you.
My father died at age 60 from pancreatic cancer. I was primarily his "morphine man" during the last stages of his hospice, doing what I could so he could die (naturally, but no heroic measures) as he wished.
The district voted for Trump in 2020 by a 50.4-47.6 margin. But then it regressed to Trump 54.7-43.4 in 2024.
I'd say that it's within the realm of possibility, but it will be tough to flip. Northwest Iowa is not an ancestrally Dem area like the eastern parts of the state.
As noted here and on the podcast, the biggest swings we've seen in special elections so far this year (and last year?) have been in Iowa. Obviously we shouldn't take it as a given, but seems promising.
One thing I remember hearing about with regards to polling is that many pollsters chose not to release results that showed the election going one way or the other. Many of their polls showed Trump winning, but they were super cautious after being wrong for two cycles and didn't want to be wrong again, so they instead hid those polls and only released polls that showed the race to be tight. This ensured that they remianed technically correct. Selzer got an outlier poll in Iowa that showed Harris leading, but because all the other pollsters were selective in which polls they released, the Selzer poll looked like the election was shifting towards Harris after being a tossup when in reality it was just an outlier.
This may not be accurate, but this is what I heard from a political science/american government professor of mine. I'd be happy to hear from others who have more info/insight regarding polling in 2024
I mean, you are both right. No Democrat could have won the 2024 U.S. Senate election in WV, but it does take a while for traditional voting habits to catch up to changes in local sentiment.
I'd argue that writing off ancestral Democrats is a huge part of the polarization. These people are still alive and voting and used to vote for Democrats in the past.
They used to vote for conservative democrats through split ticket voting but split ticket voting has massively declined since 2016 again due to polarization.
The Senate Parliamentarian just struck a massive blow to Republicans' Medicaid cuts, per announcement from Senate Budget Dems. Elements that are not compliant with the Byrd Rule and need to be stripped from the bill:
– Provider tax crackdown (!!!)
– Limiting federal money for states that allow undocumented immigrants to receive Medicaid
– Additional limits on Medicaid, Medicare & ACA premium tax credits for immigrants who aren't citizens
And yesterday, the Parliamentarian rejected numerous other provisions. For instance, she struck Republican language that would have prohibited Affordable Care Act subsidies from going to qualified health plans that include coverage of abortion services.
There's probably a few republican senators that privately do not want this bill to be quite so horrible as it is. They still want something horrible, but not so extreme. Anyone in that group will be happy about this as it allows them to get what they want without having to publicly take a stance against Trump.
the senate gop--though I hesitate to say this with as much certainty as a I would back in 2014--is simply not as batshit as the house. That doesn't make them any less evil, in fact id argue it makes them tougher foils given their strategic accumen. Make no mistake even if we are able to knock out some of the worst provisions, this is the worst domestic policy bill to be on its way to passage since the reagan tax and spending cuts of 81.
Republicans like Tillis understand this, Collins, Murkwoski, and while they're more than happy ruining hard working americans lives they themselves would liek to keep their jobs. Add in rand paul being an automatic no, and I don't see how they go nuclear here, they don't have the votes to go nuclear.
They have the votes to go nuclear if they want (only Murkowski and Collins would be votes against the nuclear option-while I'm not sure the bill can get 50 votes in the Senate to pass-I think there are fifty votes to end the fillibuster if Republicans choose to do so).
yea rereading my previous comment i'm conflating my whip count for the bill with individual senators position on overruling the parliamentarian. good point
I have Curtis, Tillis and Young as yea's for ending the fillibuster-Cassidy's probably also a yea, and McConnell likely would be a yea in principle-not necessarily for this legislation-the third GOP no vote (if there is one) would almost certainly be Rand Paul
Regardless I don’t see this as the thing Republicans will go nuclear on if they wanted to, given I don’t think the provisions themselves have enough support.
Yeah, there's still an institutional knowledge within the GOP caucus that they benefit from the filibuster overall.
Maybe in the future the institutionalists will be replaced with more of the extremists that are content to burn it all down even if the long term cost to them is larger than the short term benefit. I don't think they're there yet.
I agree that it's unlikely, but it is at least a possibility if this environment continues till next year. Against Cornyn - no chance. So now the question is - do we want a 10% chance of taking that seat but likely ending up with a Senator who would be amongst the worst in the chamber or a <1% chance with a Senator who at least respects the institution?
If Ronny Jackson, Trump's dishonest former physician and continuing sycophant, runs for the Senate against Ken Paxton, Trump's favorite AG, Trump would likely adopt his familiar policy of equivocation and endorse both of them.
A larger share of voters who supported Mr. Trump in the 2020 election — 85 percent — showed up to vote for him again in 2024. Ms. Harris earned the support of just 79 percent of former President Joseph R. Biden’s 2020 voters.
The analysis showed that 5 percent of Mr. Biden’s voters flipped to Mr. Trump, while only 3 percent of Mr. Trump’s 2020 voters flipped to Ms. Harris.
The result is that roughly 20 percent of the Republican coalition is now nonwhite — nearly twice as much as in 2016. The share of Mr. Trump’s voters who are white dropped to 78 percent in 2024, from 88 percent in 2016.
Republican gains among Black voters, while small, were notable given the group’s historical association with the Democratic Party. Mr. Trump expanded his share with Black voters to 15 percent, up from 8 percent in 2020.
The Pew report reveals that Mr. Trump made gains with the youngest cohort of voters — those born in the 1990s and 2000s, roughly what researchers define as Gen Z — primarily through turnout. Republican young voters showed up for Mr. Trump, while more Democratic young voters stayed home.
Mr. Trump also made gains with voters born in the 1980s — millennials, approximately — although that support came more from vote-switching, according to Pew.
this is the data we have to start looking at and reconciling ourselves with. This tracks with my priors that Biden would have still lost the election (by more than harris because america was against a democratic president that had delivered more domestic policy wins for them since lbj because vibes); but I may go to my grave proclaiming there's no way Biden underperformed the numbers Harris got in NEPA. Maybe it's not enough to Save Senator Casey but Susan Wild and Matt Cartwright would likely still be there.
That Trump nearly doubled his percentage among black voters, even if that's largely attributable to a drop in turnout, is what I find most mind boggling.
No, the main distinguishing feature is that Biden was in office and they could vote against that record, and a distinguishing feature from 2020 is that some Black men, like most white men, are male chauvinists and voted against a woman for president.
Black voters liked Obama's record. Also, the Clintons seemed to have some kind of special relationship with the Black community that somehow one of their own didn't? I don't really understand that part. But I think the main point is Biden's record (derp, inflation).
Kamala Harris might not have been Black enough, being half-Indian, too much a Californian, and in a Jewish family.
You comment above pointed out the biggest factor: a lot of US Americans of all backgrounds are unwilling to accept a woman as the leader of our country.
This is unfortunate, but seems to be the reality we are living through.
As Garry Trudeau pointed out in a famous Doonesbury strip, showing a White and a Black soldier conversing on a hill, and both wanting to take credit for Obama. The White soldier says:
Eh, I put it much more on the fact that Kamala was a weak candidate running against a former president. She didn't do well in the 2020 primaries, her role as VP was pretty low key, and she got shoved into a general election at the last minute without the benefit of a primary to build her own following. And even then, she only lost by 1.5%.
this hypothetical is so absurdly racist that I really think it's not worth discussing. Trump got higher black support because he went out of his way to appeal to black voters and because they viewed him as better on the economy. Not because he was a convicted felon.
It’s mostly the drop in turnout (that is a big issue to address) but it’s also a certain cohort of older-middle age and older black men that couldn’t accept a black woman as President. Don’t underestimate the pull of misogyny over race for some folks.
Anecdotally, my dear friend a 55+ black woman would regularly talk about how her husband (a similar age) was leery of Harris and going to vote for trump. And this was because he didn’t think she was “up to it.” She thought he was getting this from buddies and his social media. We definitely need to work on our messaging and outreach to “ethnic” media and social media.
A giant grain of salt on this. If you look at the precinct results, I have doubt DJT broke 10% in areas with 90%+ Black voters.
The studies based on surveys always underestimate Democrats’ support in minority voters, while overstate that in White voters. Just by looking at the rustbelt three, ig the claim that Harris 24 running ahead of Biden 20 on WWC is pure BS.
he had the benefit of the whole state to play with. The bottom falling out in NEPA made Cartwright's district absolutely unwinnable. Hell, Harris barely carried Lackawanna County.
Organized labor hated Biden by the end of his term because he was synonymous with gaffes, inflation and illegal immigration to them. There's no way he overperforms Harris in any demographic.
they voted to endorse biden, then voted to not endorse when biden dropped out. Organized labor trusted biden, they didn't trust the folks around harris screaming fire Lina Khan. The notion that Joe Biden would not outpoll Harris amongst heavily catholic, heavily workingclass NEPA, his original home, versus a more socially liberal senator from California is really hard to argue against.
Small sample size but door knocking in Pike County and Lackawanna County became almost impossible once they dumped Biden.
I think it's more complicated than either of you are making it out to be. If Biden was able to recover and have a decent second debate, he probably runs stronger than Harris in the midwest. But there was way more downside risk that he just ran a completely listless campaign, rarely appeared in public, and got destroyed by Trump who would've had large majorities in congress that would've taken three cycles to dig out of.
I fully concede harris did better in almost area of the country than biden would have done. NEPA is just an exception, a relic of an era where democratic candidates focused on the economy above all else. I cannot say with a straight face that Biden would have outperformed Harris in any other region.
Man, that's a depressing report. I maintain when you become the party more associated with scolding and gatekeeping re: culture issues (which was the opposite of a quarter-century ago), you're going to be running into problems, particularly with younger voters.
I think this is an unintentional post hoc assessment. Republicans are engaging in just as much, if not more, "scolding and gatekeeping re: cultural issues" as democrats.
The difference is that voters are, unfortunately, largely OK with them doing that. Or at least more OK with them doing it than they are with dems doing it.
My position, at this point, is that this is out of date. So many of the groups where Trump made inroads with are now the most likely to view him negatively. I understand the risk of being too bullish about this, but... we have to at least consider that 2024 was a low point and that future years will not be so bad.
Interesting that the shift due to voters flipping candidates is a lot smaller than the shift due to voters flipping from voter to non-voter. The voter -> non-voter shift looks to be about triple the impact of the voter persuasion.
What was the impact of people that had not voted in 2020?
The Civil Rights era DOMINATED black politics for a good 50 years post 1965. GenX and even older Millennial blacks grew up with popular black culture dominated by vestiges of the Civil Rights struggle . . this was seen in TV shows, rap music, movies etc. That is all ANCIENT history to GenZ, and popular black culture in 2025 is almost unrecognizable from 30 years ago. Just like with certain white Appalachians being die hard Dems for decades after the New Deal . . .the loyalty doesn't last forever.
The crazy thing is that the civil rights battles have to be refought, so how does it make any sense to any Black people to vote for the racists who are undoing everything?
The civil rights battles of today are more about explaining discrepancies in outcomes based on statistical analysis, blah, blah, blah. Legal segregation was a much more visceral issue. And anyone born after the 1960s never lived in that world.
People are losing their jobs because of their race, ethnicity and disability. I personally know someone who was fired because they are a blind Puerto Rican woman. Of course, the employer put some presumably forged suddenly poor student evaluations in their file. I also heard from a friend that his wife is the last Palestinian not yet laid off from her department. You watch. It will get worse and worse.
And it's all claimed to be "DEI", as diversity, equity and inclusion are now the enemy and anyone who isn't white and vanilla is treated as unqualified, as used to be the case back when America used to be "great" before the civil rights laws and Brown v. Board of Education.
Rex Teixeira is melting down over NYC and I love it. Obama legalized same sex marriage, created DACA which made him go insane, become a Democrat hater and claim that this broke his "upcoming Democratic majority" because "progressive centrism" and the working class was abandoned. The entire book was based on the age old thesis that "the trends I like continue and those I don't like stop".
Bill Moyers, the one-time press secretary for President Lyndon Johnson who went on to have a long and distinguished journalism career, has died at age 91. Much of Moyers' work focused on strengthening U.S. democracy and limiting the corrupting influence of money in politics. He was also a champion of public broadcasting, spending decades at PBS in various on-air roles.
I followed him on social media but haven’t seen him the last 2-3 years. Maybe he wasn’t aware of the depths to which democracy had sunk during that time. If he was, I’m sure he was heartbroken. Seeing the state of the news media drop from when he was on CBS and PBS was bad enough.
The fascists and bigots are coming out of the woodwork.
Zohran "little muhammad" Mamdani is an antisemitic, socialist, communist who will destroy the great City of New York. He needs to be DEPORTED. Which is why I am calling for him to be subject to denaturalization proceedings.
The sad thing is that a lot of Jews who normally vote Democratic are very upset about some of the things that Mamdani has said about topics other than New York, and I already saw today that it will be unpleasant on Facebook for me for a while and I will go back to minimizing my time there and certainly don't plan on replying to any of the rhetoric. For the record, I have big problems with some of the expressions that have been used, but I care a hell of a lot more about the harm Cuomo has done and would be happy for a socialist to succeed even if he has some very problematic things to say about stuff that hopefully won't relate much to day-to-day governance in this city and some which I agree with.
I hope he turns out to be a good mayor, but playing the odds a bit - a 33 year old with limited experience and unrealistic policies is probably going to hit a massive wall when he becomes mayor. I wouldn't expect amazing things for NYC over the next 4 years.
Wasn’t Ogles the one who lied about his background? Assuming I’m remembering this right, he claimed to have an economic degree that didn’t exist, and also said he headed a nonprofit he only worked for, among other things.
But not to El Salvador's (which you specifically mentioned) prison camp or some nation the parents aren't from. Speaking of which, way to make Gitmo look like Club Med. At least Gitmo has nourishing food, medical services, and recreational and exercise facilities for prisoners.
A naturalized citizen can be deported if the government establishes that citizenship was procured through concealment or misrepresentation of a material fact. Think Nazis who concealed their identity when applying for citizenship.
If due process doesn't exist for non-citizens, it doesn't exist for anyone. A citizen can simply be labelled a non-citizen, denied due process, and deported. It's what republicans are after.
It's also not like these people care about the law anyway. They voted for a convicted felon and insurrectionist after all.
You know, I was going to say that this seat will be competitive by the end of the decade, but then I realized that there are only three more House elections this decade and it's hard to imagine that it'll happen in any of them. If '26 turns into a massive wave and we recruit a solid candidate it's feasible, but unless we show real strength here this cycle, '28 will probably be a bust and hopefully, '30 will be a Democratic midterm year. Sucks to think this psycho could skate by until we hopefully get a Democratic vote sink in Nashville, and even then, TN might gain a district for that purpose.
I actually think it could be competitive in the right circumstances. NY-04 swung 18 points right from Biden's 2020 numbers in the 2022 house results. And this seat is about as red as the likes of NY-22, OK-05, and SC-01 were in 2016.
Also, its possible Ogles loses a primary. It has a large base of college educated Republicans and he had a pretty pathetic showing in last year's primary. And since then he's been indicted by the FBI and accused of campaign finance fraud.
You're right that it definitely could be competitive and I was thinking about OK-05 when I wrote my comment. Like OK-05, it's definitely a reach seat that's within range, but would be an upset and if we don't flip it now, we probably won't have the chance again for a while. So, if we plan on flipping this district, we need to do it now.
Assemb. Jessica González-Rojas is considering a primary bid against failed mayoral candidate and Cuomo endorser Jessica Ramos, and given how much the district went for Zohran over Cuomo (51-35), it's believed González-Rojas would be a favorite in that race, at least according to the article.
Andrew Cuomo will not drop out of the New York City mayoral race by the Friday deadline to remove himself from the general election ballot, sources tell CNN. That leaves in place contingency plans he had established before the Democratic primary to challenge Zohran Mamdani and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams in November.
Iowa state Senator Rocky DeWitt (R-Lawton) died of pancreatic cancer last night.
Any chance of another shock election flip in several months?
Here's the link:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/iowa-sen-rocky-de-witt-dies-of-pancreatic-cancer-at-age-66/ar-AA1Hr81e?ocid=BingNewsSerp
66. That's sad.
Thoughts and prayers
We can see dying of pancreatic cancer at 66 as being sad and not an occasion for sarcasm about their death, regardless of politics. Or we could be like you.
I’m fine with being me. I extend to maga the same respect they extend to me and others. My maga sympathy tank is at 0.
My father died at age 60 from pancreatic cancer. I was primarily his "morphine man" during the last stages of his hospice, doing what I could so he could die (naturally, but no heroic measures) as he wished.
I wouldn't wish that on anybody.
Went through the same with my father (age 57, lung cancer). I'm so sorry.
My sympathies to both of you.
The district voted for Trump in 2020 by a 50.4-47.6 margin. But then it regressed to Trump 54.7-43.4 in 2024.
I'd say that it's within the realm of possibility, but it will be tough to flip. Northwest Iowa is not an ancestrally Dem area like the eastern parts of the state.
As noted here and on the podcast, the biggest swings we've seen in special elections so far this year (and last year?) have been in Iowa. Obviously we shouldn't take it as a given, but seems promising.
Iowa is also the only red state other than Texas which has consistently given Trump negative job approvals and favorability.
Texas mentioned baby!
Meh I recall Iowa polling seemingly looking like a D rebound all through Trump's first presidency, and that clearly didn't happen.
I would hope that polling underestimating is fixed now after 2 catastrophic failures in 2016 and 2020. It was much better in 2024.
Not in Iowa
One thing I remember hearing about with regards to polling is that many pollsters chose not to release results that showed the election going one way or the other. Many of their polls showed Trump winning, but they were super cautious after being wrong for two cycles and didn't want to be wrong again, so they instead hid those polls and only released polls that showed the race to be tight. This ensured that they remianed technically correct. Selzer got an outlier poll in Iowa that showed Harris leading, but because all the other pollsters were selective in which polls they released, the Selzer poll looked like the election was shifting towards Harris after being a tossup when in reality it was just an outlier.
This may not be accurate, but this is what I heard from a political science/american government professor of mine. I'd be happy to hear from others who have more info/insight regarding polling in 2024
Yeah - that’s nonsense - pollsters don’t sit on results - especially media commissioned polls.
(for iowa) we had a good 2018 and a botched race away from batting 500 in 2020 house races
Ancestrally democratic doesn't matter, West Virginia was the most ancestrally democratic state.
West Virginia had a Democratic US Senator until this year. Ancestrally does matter.
We are more polarized than in 2018.
I mean, you are both right. No Democrat could have won the 2024 U.S. Senate election in WV, but it does take a while for traditional voting habits to catch up to changes in local sentiment.
I'd argue that writing off ancestral Democrats is a huge part of the polarization. These people are still alive and voting and used to vote for Democrats in the past.
They used to vote for conservative democrats through split ticket voting but split ticket voting has massively declined since 2016 again due to polarization.
How much has ticket splitting declined since 2016? I'm not sold.
https://split-ticket.org/2025/06/07/the-real-reason-democrats-cant-compete-for-60-senate-seats/
The district was held by a Dem from 2018-2022.
MORE GREAT BUDGET NEWS
The Senate Parliamentarian just struck a massive blow to Republicans' Medicaid cuts, per announcement from Senate Budget Dems. Elements that are not compliant with the Byrd Rule and need to be stripped from the bill:
– Provider tax crackdown (!!!)
– Limiting federal money for states that allow undocumented immigrants to receive Medicaid
– Additional limits on Medicaid, Medicare & ACA premium tax credits for immigrants who aren't citizens
https://nitter.poast.org/pic/orig/media%2FGuXo_5uWwAAhNJZ.png
And yesterday, the Parliamentarian rejected numerous other provisions. For instance, she struck Republican language that would have prohibited Affordable Care Act subsidies from going to qualified health plans that include coverage of abortion services.
I'd be shocked if that Parliamentarian still has a job this time tomorrow.
There's probably a few republican senators that privately do not want this bill to be quite so horrible as it is. They still want something horrible, but not so extreme. Anyone in that group will be happy about this as it allows them to get what they want without having to publicly take a stance against Trump.
If there's enough of them then she'll be fine.
the senate gop--though I hesitate to say this with as much certainty as a I would back in 2014--is simply not as batshit as the house. That doesn't make them any less evil, in fact id argue it makes them tougher foils given their strategic accumen. Make no mistake even if we are able to knock out some of the worst provisions, this is the worst domestic policy bill to be on its way to passage since the reagan tax and spending cuts of 81.
Republicans like Tillis understand this, Collins, Murkwoski, and while they're more than happy ruining hard working americans lives they themselves would liek to keep their jobs. Add in rand paul being an automatic no, and I don't see how they go nuclear here, they don't have the votes to go nuclear.
They have the votes to go nuclear if they want (only Murkowski and Collins would be votes against the nuclear option-while I'm not sure the bill can get 50 votes in the Senate to pass-I think there are fifty votes to end the fillibuster if Republicans choose to do so).
yea rereading my previous comment i'm conflating my whip count for the bill with individual senators position on overruling the parliamentarian. good point
it sucks that dems are always the second movers on fucking everything but on balance nuking the Byrd rule is probably good for us.
They don’t have the votes to go nuclear. I don’t see McConnell, Cassidy, Curtis, Tillis, or Young willing to break the filibuster.
I have Curtis, Tillis and Young as yea's for ending the fillibuster-Cassidy's probably also a yea, and McConnell likely would be a yea in principle-not necessarily for this legislation-the third GOP no vote (if there is one) would almost certainly be Rand Paul
Regardless I don’t see this as the thing Republicans will go nuclear on if they wanted to, given I don’t think the provisions themselves have enough support.
I think Republicans see enough of a benefit to axing the fillibuster for future legislation to do so now.
Republicans didn’t axe the filibuster last time they had the trifecta. Why would they do so now?
Yeah, there's still an institutional knowledge within the GOP caucus that they benefit from the filibuster overall.
Maybe in the future the institutionalists will be replaced with more of the extremists that are content to burn it all down even if the long term cost to them is larger than the short term benefit. I don't think they're there yet.
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000197-a98d-d800-a597-bf9f8bcb0000
TX-SEN (Paxton Internal)
Paxton 57
Cornyn (inc) 38
Paxton 49
Cornyn (inc) 32
Hunt 13
Not good for Dems given that Republican billionaires will dump huge amounts of money for Cornyn.
You are delusional if you think Ken Paxton would lose a general election in Texas.
Some people said the same about Arizona's McSally and Georgia's hard right antisemite Perdue too.
I agree that it's unlikely, but it is at least a possibility if this environment continues till next year. Against Cornyn - no chance. So now the question is - do we want a 10% chance of taking that seat but likely ending up with a Senator who would be amongst the worst in the chamber or a <1% chance with a Senator who at least respects the institution?
Not good for Dems how? Seems like Republican billionaires setting money on fire in a Texas primary is a good thing.
Winning the Senate is more important than buncha oligarchs wasting their money.
And a contested Republican primary for a reach seat is exactly what Democrats want! It doesn't really matter who wins, we just want the fight.
If Ronny Jackson, Trump's dishonest former physician and continuing sycophant, runs for the Senate against Ken Paxton, Trump's favorite AG, Trump would likely adopt his familiar policy of equivocation and endorse both of them.
Study of 2024 election release by Pew Research:
A larger share of voters who supported Mr. Trump in the 2020 election — 85 percent — showed up to vote for him again in 2024. Ms. Harris earned the support of just 79 percent of former President Joseph R. Biden’s 2020 voters.
The analysis showed that 5 percent of Mr. Biden’s voters flipped to Mr. Trump, while only 3 percent of Mr. Trump’s 2020 voters flipped to Ms. Harris.
The result is that roughly 20 percent of the Republican coalition is now nonwhite — nearly twice as much as in 2016. The share of Mr. Trump’s voters who are white dropped to 78 percent in 2024, from 88 percent in 2016.
Republican gains among Black voters, while small, were notable given the group’s historical association with the Democratic Party. Mr. Trump expanded his share with Black voters to 15 percent, up from 8 percent in 2020.
The Pew report reveals that Mr. Trump made gains with the youngest cohort of voters — those born in the 1990s and 2000s, roughly what researchers define as Gen Z — primarily through turnout. Republican young voters showed up for Mr. Trump, while more Democratic young voters stayed home.
Mr. Trump also made gains with voters born in the 1980s — millennials, approximately — although that support came more from vote-switching, according to Pew.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/us/politics/trump-harris-2024-pew-study.html
this is the data we have to start looking at and reconciling ourselves with. This tracks with my priors that Biden would have still lost the election (by more than harris because america was against a democratic president that had delivered more domestic policy wins for them since lbj because vibes); but I may go to my grave proclaiming there's no way Biden underperformed the numbers Harris got in NEPA. Maybe it's not enough to Save Senator Casey but Susan Wild and Matt Cartwright would likely still be there.
That Trump nearly doubled his percentage among black voters, even if that's largely attributable to a drop in turnout, is what I find most mind boggling.
I agree with that point 100%, given that black folks are the base, end of story, this is something that needs to be addressed by the party at once.
Maybe his legal battles did have something to do with it. That's the only distinguishing feature with 2016 an 2020.
No, the main distinguishing feature is that Biden was in office and they could vote against that record, and a distinguishing feature from 2020 is that some Black men, like most white men, are male chauvinists and voted against a woman for president.
Then how do you explain 2016?
Black voters liked Obama's record. Also, the Clintons seemed to have some kind of special relationship with the Black community that somehow one of their own didn't? I don't really understand that part. But I think the main point is Biden's record (derp, inflation).
Kamala Harris might not have been Black enough, being half-Indian, too much a Californian, and in a Jewish family.
You comment above pointed out the biggest factor: a lot of US Americans of all backgrounds are unwilling to accept a woman as the leader of our country.
This is unfortunate, but seems to be the reality we are living through.
Obama was also "half-Black" if people wanted to go by stuff like that.
Yes, but he was a dude.
As Garry Trudeau pointed out in a famous Doonesbury strip, showing a White and a Black soldier conversing on a hill, and both wanting to take credit for Obama. The White soldier says:
"He’s half white, you know."
Eh, I put it much more on the fact that Kamala was a weak candidate running against a former president. She didn't do well in the 2020 primaries, her role as VP was pretty low key, and she got shoved into a general election at the last minute without the benefit of a primary to build her own following. And even then, she only lost by 1.5%.
this hypothetical is so absurdly racist that I really think it's not worth discussing. Trump got higher black support because he went out of his way to appeal to black voters and because they viewed him as better on the economy. Not because he was a convicted felon.
It’s mostly the drop in turnout (that is a big issue to address) but it’s also a certain cohort of older-middle age and older black men that couldn’t accept a black woman as President. Don’t underestimate the pull of misogyny over race for some folks.
Anecdotally, my dear friend a 55+ black woman would regularly talk about how her husband (a similar age) was leery of Harris and going to vote for trump. And this was because he didn’t think she was “up to it.” She thought he was getting this from buddies and his social media. We definitely need to work on our messaging and outreach to “ethnic” media and social media.
A giant grain of salt on this. If you look at the precinct results, I have doubt DJT broke 10% in areas with 90%+ Black voters.
The studies based on surveys always underestimate Democrats’ support in minority voters, while overstate that in White voters. Just by looking at the rustbelt three, ig the claim that Harris 24 running ahead of Biden 20 on WWC is pure BS.
Casey came the closest to winning of those three.
he had the benefit of the whole state to play with. The bottom falling out in NEPA made Cartwright's district absolutely unwinnable. Hell, Harris barely carried Lackawanna County.
Organized labor hated Biden by the end of his term because he was synonymous with gaffes, inflation and illegal immigration to them. There's no way he overperforms Harris in any demographic.
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/18/g-s1-23251/teamsters-no-endorsement-2024-trump-harris
they voted to endorse biden, then voted to not endorse when biden dropped out. Organized labor trusted biden, they didn't trust the folks around harris screaming fire Lina Khan. The notion that Joe Biden would not outpoll Harris amongst heavily catholic, heavily workingclass NEPA, his original home, versus a more socially liberal senator from California is really hard to argue against.
Small sample size but door knocking in Pike County and Lackawanna County became almost impossible once they dumped Biden.
I think it's more complicated than either of you are making it out to be. If Biden was able to recover and have a decent second debate, he probably runs stronger than Harris in the midwest. But there was way more downside risk that he just ran a completely listless campaign, rarely appeared in public, and got destroyed by Trump who would've had large majorities in congress that would've taken three cycles to dig out of.
I fully concede harris did better in almost area of the country than biden would have done. NEPA is just an exception, a relic of an era where democratic candidates focused on the economy above all else. I cannot say with a straight face that Biden would have outperformed Harris in any other region.
Man, that's a depressing report. I maintain when you become the party more associated with scolding and gatekeeping re: culture issues (which was the opposite of a quarter-century ago), you're going to be running into problems, particularly with younger voters.
I think this is an unintentional post hoc assessment. Republicans are engaging in just as much, if not more, "scolding and gatekeeping re: cultural issues" as democrats.
The difference is that voters are, unfortunately, largely OK with them doing that. Or at least more OK with them doing it than they are with dems doing it.
My position, at this point, is that this is out of date. So many of the groups where Trump made inroads with are now the most likely to view him negatively. I understand the risk of being too bullish about this, but... we have to at least consider that 2024 was a low point and that future years will not be so bad.
I agree with this analysis, but I think he may have saved Casey
Interesting that the shift due to voters flipping candidates is a lot smaller than the shift due to voters flipping from voter to non-voter. The voter -> non-voter shift looks to be about triple the impact of the voter persuasion.
What was the impact of people that had not voted in 2020?
The Civil Rights era DOMINATED black politics for a good 50 years post 1965. GenX and even older Millennial blacks grew up with popular black culture dominated by vestiges of the Civil Rights struggle . . this was seen in TV shows, rap music, movies etc. That is all ANCIENT history to GenZ, and popular black culture in 2025 is almost unrecognizable from 30 years ago. Just like with certain white Appalachians being die hard Dems for decades after the New Deal . . .the loyalty doesn't last forever.
The crazy thing is that the civil rights battles have to be refought, so how does it make any sense to any Black people to vote for the racists who are undoing everything?
The civil rights battles of today are more about explaining discrepancies in outcomes based on statistical analysis, blah, blah, blah. Legal segregation was a much more visceral issue. And anyone born after the 1960s never lived in that world.
People are losing their jobs because of their race, ethnicity and disability. I personally know someone who was fired because they are a blind Puerto Rican woman. Of course, the employer put some presumably forged suddenly poor student evaluations in their file. I also heard from a friend that his wife is the last Palestinian not yet laid off from her department. You watch. It will get worse and worse.
And it's all claimed to be "DEI", as diversity, equity and inclusion are now the enemy and anyone who isn't white and vanilla is treated as unqualified, as used to be the case back when America used to be "great" before the civil rights laws and Brown v. Board of Education.
A new George Wallace is now president. He may not be a de jure segregationist, but he’s ever much the bigot and race baiter.
Black voters in their 20s don't know who George Wallace is and don't care about 1960s politics.
Fools!
https://longisland.news12.com/carolyn-mccarthy-former-congresswoman-and-gun-violence-advocate-dies-at-81
Former Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) has died at the age of 81.
RIP. Good person.
Rex Teixeira is melting down over NYC and I love it. Obama legalized same sex marriage, created DACA which made him go insane, become a Democrat hater and claim that this broke his "upcoming Democratic majority" because "progressive centrism" and the working class was abandoned. The entire book was based on the age old thesis that "the trends I like continue and those I don't like stop".
Mamdani’s policies are addressed to help the working class. So I assume he’s melting down over other “issues.”
Bill Moyers, the one-time press secretary for President Lyndon Johnson who went on to have a long and distinguished journalism career, has died at age 91. Much of Moyers' work focused on strengthening U.S. democracy and limiting the corrupting influence of money in politics. He was also a champion of public broadcasting, spending decades at PBS in various on-air roles.
I followed him on social media but haven’t seen him the last 2-3 years. Maybe he wasn’t aware of the depths to which democracy had sunk during that time. If he was, I’m sure he was heartbroken. Seeing the state of the news media drop from when he was on CBS and PBS was bad enough.
Bill Moyers was a pretty amazing guy. Think of the conversations he was a part of...
The fascists and bigots are coming out of the woodwork.
Zohran "little muhammad" Mamdani is an antisemitic, socialist, communist who will destroy the great City of New York. He needs to be DEPORTED. Which is why I am calling for him to be subject to denaturalization proceedings.
https://x.com/RepOgles/status/1938301392416084150
The sad thing is that a lot of Jews who normally vote Democratic are very upset about some of the things that Mamdani has said about topics other than New York, and I already saw today that it will be unpleasant on Facebook for me for a while and I will go back to minimizing my time there and certainly don't plan on replying to any of the rhetoric. For the record, I have big problems with some of the expressions that have been used, but I care a hell of a lot more about the harm Cuomo has done and would be happy for a socialist to succeed even if he has some very problematic things to say about stuff that hopefully won't relate much to day-to-day governance in this city and some which I agree with.
I hope he turns out to be a good mayor, but playing the odds a bit - a 33 year old with limited experience and unrealistic policies is probably going to hit a massive wall when he becomes mayor. I wouldn't expect amazing things for NYC over the next 4 years.
I first of all hope he wins. It's not a foregone conclusion.
True. He's running against a clown and ... An unpopular clown, but clowns do regularly win elections. Still, I expect him to win.
Wasn’t Ogles the one who lied about his background? Assuming I’m remembering this right, he claimed to have an economic degree that didn’t exist, and also said he headed a nonprofit he only worked for, among other things.
You can't deport a citizen. That's called exile and there is no mechanism for it in US law.
Yet. They're already sent citizens to El Salvador, haven't they?
No citizens yet, afaict. If they had, the backlash would have been much bigger.
2-year-old citizens have been deported, right?
But not to El Salvador's (which you specifically mentioned) prison camp or some nation the parents aren't from. Speaking of which, way to make Gitmo look like Club Med. At least Gitmo has nourishing food, medical services, and recreational and exercise facilities for prisoners.
ICE has deported US citizens even before Trump came back: https://ktla.com/news/local-news/ice-has-deported-dozens-of-u-s-citizens-report-says/
ICE is a lawless and corrupt organization, and has been for a while
A naturalized citizen can be deported if the government establishes that citizenship was procured through concealment or misrepresentation of a material fact. Think Nazis who concealed their identity when applying for citizenship.
Do you think Zohran lied or concealed a material fact as a seven year old?
No.
If due process doesn't exist for non-citizens, it doesn't exist for anyone. A citizen can simply be labelled a non-citizen, denied due process, and deported. It's what republicans are after.
It's also not like these people care about the law anyway. They voted for a convicted felon and insurrectionist after all.
Right, I can't believe at this late hour there are still people saying things like "Don't worry, he can't do that, that's illegal."
You know, I was going to say that this seat will be competitive by the end of the decade, but then I realized that there are only three more House elections this decade and it's hard to imagine that it'll happen in any of them. If '26 turns into a massive wave and we recruit a solid candidate it's feasible, but unless we show real strength here this cycle, '28 will probably be a bust and hopefully, '30 will be a Democratic midterm year. Sucks to think this psycho could skate by until we hopefully get a Democratic vote sink in Nashville, and even then, TN might gain a district for that purpose.
I actually think it could be competitive in the right circumstances. NY-04 swung 18 points right from Biden's 2020 numbers in the 2022 house results. And this seat is about as red as the likes of NY-22, OK-05, and SC-01 were in 2016.
Also, its possible Ogles loses a primary. It has a large base of college educated Republicans and he had a pretty pathetic showing in last year's primary. And since then he's been indicted by the FBI and accused of campaign finance fraud.
You're right that it definitely could be competitive and I was thinking about OK-05 when I wrote my comment. Like OK-05, it's definitely a reach seat that's within range, but would be an upset and if we don't flip it now, we probably won't have the chance again for a while. So, if we plan on flipping this district, we need to do it now.
Some state legislative news -- NY SD-13:
https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2025/06/gonzalez-rojas-considering-run-ramos-seat/406355/
Assemb. Jessica González-Rojas is considering a primary bid against failed mayoral candidate and Cuomo endorser Jessica Ramos, and given how much the district went for Zohran over Cuomo (51-35), it's believed González-Rojas would be a favorite in that race, at least according to the article.
Andrew Cuomo will not drop out of the New York City mayoral race by the Friday deadline to remove himself from the general election ballot, sources tell CNN. That leaves in place contingency plans he had established before the Democratic primary to challenge Zohran Mamdani and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams in November.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/26/politics/cuomo-mamdani-mayor-november-ballot
I suspect Mamdani will benefit from the lack of RCV in the general. A lot of folks in the center to right lane and he's the only Leftie.
Agree. The bigger the field, the better for him.
There is no RCV in the general election? Why did that happen?
Don't know. NYC used to have runoff elections if no candidate in the primary got more than 40%. But not for the general election.