Given how wildly public sentiment has switch in California from pro independent commission to anti, after the election, it may be time to tee up a second proposition to permanently remove the commission until it's done nationally. I think we have a chance of getting that through which we haven't in the past.
I think if an independent commission was implemented in all 50 states for state and Congressional lines, there would be 80 swing Congressional seats and all those ruby red states like Ohio, Arkansas and Mississippi wouldn't have ridiculously gerrymandered 60-79% GOP majorities in their legislatures.
And while we're at it, let's do the same in Washington, Colorado, and (pending election results) New Jersey as well. Time for 9 safely Democratic districts in Washington and 7-1 in Colorado - if Prop 50 actually passes by 15% or more as the polls suggest, then repealing the commissions should easily pass in Washington and Colorado as well.
it's possible, but you run the risk of republicans picking up 3 seats in a wave, better to go with the ceiling of one republican seat, imo as I also believe is the conventional wisdom
I've drawn a 9D-1R map of Washington, where MGP's district is Harris +9 (it's currently Trump +3), and all other Democratic districts are at least Harris +11.
I can't post it right now since I'm on my phone, but I'll post it in the weekend thread.
Given we had to have the win, we really couldn't afford to take the risk. We can come back for a second bite at the apple, but if trying for too much would have caused us to lose, we would have been fucked.
The commission has always polled as being very popular, and the only reason we're likely to win is Republican overreach, particularly in Texas.
Agreed...no clue why that was the language of the bill in the first place. Voters will either vote to overturn the commission or they won't. Unclear that the hedging makes any difference in public attitudes at all.
To be fair, it is only the Congressional map, not the state HoD or Senate seats, and it needs to be approved twice. Additionally, the optics of a D voting against it right before the November election where the HoD is on the ballot might persuade some reluctant Ds to support it now, and vote against it later when there are more Ds in the HoD.
I must say that I am very impressed with Virginia Democrats for being bold enough to do this. Now they just need to make sure that the vote in the legislature in the upcoming days is relatively under the radar, and that the news is still dominated by Trump. The more that voters are thinking about Trump (and the less about this gerrymandering scheme), the better for Democrats.
To that end, I was gratified to see that the headline article in the NYT Morning Digest this morning was about Trump tearing down the East Wing of the White House, while the brief mention of VA Dems' redistricting plan was buried in the middle of the Digest.
What I hope Dems are finally seeing is that there has never been an election in American history where gerrymandering was the deciding factor in someone’s vote. There are literally no political repercussions other than hand-wringing and a few bad opeds.
On the subject of Virginia, yesterday was the first day where all of the early voting locations in Fairfax County were open. Do we have any information about how big the turnout was yesterday?
It looks like the Virginia Dems are going to be really great. I say that after being disappointed when several years ago they rejected the proposal by the Democratic governor to combine the local elections with the even year midterm elections. Hopefully this new bunch will do that once in power. It will boost voter turnout, save multi-millions of tax dollars which could be used for education or healthcare, and very importantly it would result in more women and more minorities being elected to local government. Up until now I have not donated to Virginia Dems but will now that they are proving to be real leaders.
I'm not sure if the timing will work, but the gerrymandering special election in Virginia should be scheduled to come after the supreme court issues a ruling on the VRA. The odds of it passing would increase if dems take advantage of the backlash gutting the VRA will create.
I've occasionally wondered when the Democratic trend in Henrico County would spill over into the neighboring counties to the north and west.
Well, I just discovered this morning that it already has. Goochland County, directly west of Henrico, created a new precinct for the 2024 election called West Creek. The precinct comprises several apartment complexes and a senior living facility just west of the border with Henrico. These complexes are quite new - one of the apartment complexes opened between 2018 and 2020, another was built between 2012 and 2017, and the senior living facility was only built a few years ago (I know all this from looking at historical imagery in Google Earth). And this precinct voted 57-41 for Harris last year, making it the first solidly Democratic precinct in Goochland in quite a while. DRA doesn't show this precinct yet because they still use 2020 precincts for Virginia, but if you split the precincts along the border with Henrico, you'll see the blue if you color by election results.
Hopefully these new apartment complexes, and resulting Democratic precincts, are just the first of many!
"Morrison echoed Walsh by tweeting, “He DEFEATED our Wall Street-backed opponent Melissa Bean in 2010, and knows she is not the fighter we need to meet this moment.”"
Very refreshing to see some Dem primary candidates leaning into this message.
Listen I welcome Joe Walsh into the party, he has probably undergone the most extreme (in a positive direction) political evolution of anybody in the Trump era, but I think it's a little yikes to celebrate a Tea Party Republican beating a Dem in 2010.
Walsh gave probably the most honest take on why the Tea Party was throwing Obama’s birth certificate against him while he was POTUS: It was a political strategy but not about racism. Of course, there were plenty in the base who are racist and have these views on birth certificates with people who have “funny” sounding names like Obama.
Right but that may have been what the Tea Party originally intended even if Walsh said otherwise. I believe he was referring to what he was being told to do, not necessarily based on his own convictions.
We could also argue racism goes back to when Reagan’s rise at the national level also at the same time made him profile a typical black woman with “liabilities.”
It’s despicable no matter how you spin it. And Sarah Palin has not taken any accountability or responsibility for her actions during the 2008 presidential campaign.
It would almost shock me if he turned out to be a good speaker. I'm not versed enough on the house to know who would be better but this guy is just not who we need.
Regardless of whether you like Mamdani or not, this is an extremely cringe-worthy response. I've never been sure why Jeffries was chosen as the new Democratic leader in the first place.
" Asked about Zohran Mamdani, Hakeem Jeffries says he's "privately communicated some of my concerns with respect to some of the views that he's expressed in terms of foreign policy." "
When Bernie Sanders was Mayor of Burlington, VT, I don’t recall there was any direct foreign policy he was involved in.
On the other hand, Mayors in major cities like NYC, San Francisco, etc. do have relations with leaders outside of the U.S. but as a means of bringing say business investment into the city or allowing meetings to happen in the city. Since UN’s headquarters is in NYC, the Mayor can’t influence foreign policy anyway even with the UN. The State Department, White House, and Congress can.
I expect party caucus leaders to be willing to endorse for prominent elections in their own backyard, especially when the democratic candidate has such odious opponents. I do not expect every member of the state legislatures to endorse presidential candidates; I doubt anyone would have cared if he had officially endorsed Biden in early/mid 2024.
Are politicians from Brooklyn known to be straight shooters? I wouldn't tend to think that as a general point about politicians in any part of New York - city or state.
I would say it’s best to contrast politicians vs the residents in cities like Brooklyn.
From what I know from others I have talked to who live in Brooklyn, they have a big BS detector and can call you out on this. This is the case with Oakland as I have lived next door to the city for decades.
Of course, I also know not everyone from Brooklyn can possess the same exact personality. May vary who you talk to but since you live in NYC, you would certainly know better than me about this.
Where is New York on setting up a redraw at least for 2028? That’s a state where you could easily create two new almost safe Dem seats (Lawler’s and Maliatonokis’). For the SI seat, all you need to do is pair it with Southern Manhattan and you have a district that Harris won by high single digits. Maliatonokis (idgaf how her name is spelled) would need over 70% of the vote on SI to have a chance in such a distict.
Riley and Gillen can get shored up too. Suozzi too though he doesn’t need it as much given he overperforms and shoring him up too much would come at Gillen’s expense. Ryan doesn’t really need it at all and trying to do so would hurt D chances in 17 and 19. And despite getting close at the presidential level Meng doesn’t need it at all.
Also possible to make Lean D seats in Suffolk and a Rochester to Buffalo connecter.
If this were CA, Platner would have already been out of the race at this point.
Apparently Maine may be different but I wouldn’t assume anything about Platner’s viability at this point, especially considering he should have known better before jumping in the Senate race.
1) Implausibly high name rec for Platner...71-21 favorable??? 2) Mills also very popular, at 69-31, but somehow only getting 25%? As the sitting governor?? 3) Come on, this is an *NRSC* poll, obviously designed to show a narrative they like, one we don't need to engage in as legitimate. There's nothing for us to learn from this other than the NRSC thinks it will make us look bad.
I broadly agree but I wonder if there is more latent vulnerability due to age than we're expecting. It's easy for us to assume it's not going to impact voter behavior as much as we'd think at first due to being in our own high-info bubble. But it could be that this is a detail that harms candidates a lot, especially for non-incumbent challengers.
The good news is Maine has ranked choice voting, which means that should Platner win the primary, some Democratic running as an independent (Washington D.C style) can run without being a spoiler.
Also let's be honest with Trump getting away with *handwaves everything*, JD Vance saying anyone on his side of politics can do no wrong, while Dems went too overboard with policing our side to the point they shrunk the tent to less than 40% of the country it's not surprising to see Platner's tattoo not an automatic campaign ender.
(Not a Platner supporter after the events of the past two weeks BTW.)
Under this map, the 9th District is the only one that Youngkin won in 2021, and he won it by 58 points. McAuliffe won the 2nd and 5th Districts by less than 1%, and he won the 3rd District by 12 points. The other seven districts were McAuliffe+4 in 2021.
Under this map, Don Beyer would likely run in the 1st or 6th District, Eugene Vindman would likely run in the 1st or 8th District, James Walkinshaw would likely run in the 8th or 11th District, and Suhas Subramanyam would likely run in the 10th District.
I believe congressional population deviations cannot be this big. However, it shouldn't be too hard to rebalance them in a way that keeps it at least 10D-1R-1 swing.
Yup, this is the way to do it. Five districts snaking out of NoVA, a Blacksburg-Roanoke-Charlottesville-Harrisonburg district that leans Democratic but isn't quite as blue as all the others, the VA Beach/Norfolk district that draws itself, etc.
The only issue is the deviations, since unlike with legislative districts, no deviations at all are allowed for congressional districts. 5% deviations like that are way too big.
How does Dave's determine partisan lean? There's seven districts that are ~51.5% dem. That's not a huge margin and we could lose a seat even in a decent year for us if there is candidate quality mismatch or some other events.
It's a great job getting 10 districts that favor us, but I'd prefer a more durable 9-2 map.
When you click the Statistics tab, it shows the results for the 2021 gubernatorial race. If you select another race or the Composite option under Data Selector, then it will show much more favorable results in the Statistics tab.
2021 was a low water mark for Democrats in Virginia. Any district that McAuliffe won that year should be relatively safe for us in most election cycles.
I think, as far as anyone ever writes about this historically, the murphy admin will be seen as well-meaning but ultimately mediocrely effective because the admin passed up on big potential achievements (like wind energy) but still suffered the blow back popularity wise. There was always going to be those opposed to windmills off the shore, but it hurts the party's brand when we are seen as both advocating for the windmills and advocating ineffectively--as it's been eight years and nothing re wind has happened. It feels born out of a very weird risk aversion borne out of the first two years of his first term spent fighting south jersey dems.
Plus, the nepotistic putative senate run hurt us, to an unknown level. All my aforementioned negativity aside I think we win by 6.3%
To be frank: I don’t think there’s 1 single voter in New Jersey who potentially could vote for either party that based their votes entirely on whether or not Democrats supported wind power. They swing their vote whether they like their personal/family economic situation or not. The rest are partisans who either would never support a Democrat or always supports a Democrat.
We’re educated and believe voters think like us about many different issues before they vote, but they’re uneducated, they don’t pay attention and anything beyond the economy is getting into the partisans who always vote for the same party every time they vote. If NJ is a nail biter it’ll be because of the economy from voters being tired of the current government in power. Plain and simple, this is the reality.
That’s basically been the ad campaign. Accusing one another of wanting to raise taxes. Occasionally Sherrill has thrown the association with Trump in, but not enough for my taste. A cautious campaign.
A 2018 midterm moderate national security campaign, which worked well then, not so much a fire and brimstone 2026 midterm campaign to fight Trump with everything we’ve got.
But we don’t know what the results will be obviously, that may well work in 2025 elections, maybe our opinions on Sherrill’s campaign get thwacked by her large voting coalition victory. Time will tell.
Emerson: California Prop 50
Approve 57-37
https://emersoncollegepolling.com/california-2025-poll-voters-poised-to-approve-proposition-50-with-57-support/
Given how wildly public sentiment has switch in California from pro independent commission to anti, after the election, it may be time to tee up a second proposition to permanently remove the commission until it's done nationally. I think we have a chance of getting that through which we haven't in the past.
I think if an independent commission was implemented in all 50 states for state and Congressional lines, there would be 80 swing Congressional seats and all those ruby red states like Ohio, Arkansas and Mississippi wouldn't have ridiculously gerrymandered 60-79% GOP majorities in their legislatures.
Yes!
And while we're at it, let's do the same in Washington, Colorado, and (pending election results) New Jersey as well. Time for 9 safely Democratic districts in Washington and 7-1 in Colorado - if Prop 50 actually passes by 15% or more as the polls suggest, then repealing the commissions should easily pass in Washington and Colorado as well.
We’ve talked about 8-0 CO tons of times but is 10-0 Washington not possible either?
it's possible, but you run the risk of republicans picking up 3 seats in a wave, better to go with the ceiling of one republican seat, imo as I also believe is the conventional wisdom
True. Is it possible the ninth seat is a Spokane to Yakima snake?
Not Spokane to Yakima - Spokane to Bellingham instead.
Yakima is added to the Vancouver district. That's MGP's Harris+9 district on my map.
I've drawn a 9D-1R map of Washington, where MGP's district is Harris +9 (it's currently Trump +3), and all other Democratic districts are at least Harris +11.
I can't post it right now since I'm on my phone, but I'll post it in the weekend thread.
They should’ve done it this time!
Given we had to have the win, we really couldn't afford to take the risk. We can come back for a second bite at the apple, but if trying for too much would have caused us to lose, we would have been fucked.
The commission has always polled as being very popular, and the only reason we're likely to win is Republican overreach, particularly in Texas.
Agreed...no clue why that was the language of the bill in the first place. Voters will either vote to overturn the commission or they won't. Unclear that the hedging makes any difference in public attitudes at all.
Sounds like similar polling sentiment as what had happened heading to the 2021 CA Gubernatorial Recall Election.
I love how Virginia Dems are taking a leaf from NC Rs and going full speed ahead, a mere two days after Rs forced through ANOTHER rigged map.
It’s much needed. Time to take the kid gloves off.
The only thing I'm worried about is Democratic defections, considering we need unanimity to get this done (assuming 100% attendance)
I would assume that they wouldn't have advanced the proposal without being assured that it would pass.
You'd think, but shit happens
To be fair, it is only the Congressional map, not the state HoD or Senate seats, and it needs to be approved twice. Additionally, the optics of a D voting against it right before the November election where the HoD is on the ballot might persuade some reluctant Ds to support it now, and vote against it later when there are more Ds in the HoD.
Definitely. If we get a nice majority in the next session, we can let some D's in purple seats take strategic votes against it.
I hope Virginia Dems, should they succeed in revamping the Congressional maps, draw Rob Witman and Jen Kiggans out of their seats.
I'm sure they will - that would be quite easy.
Rs deserve payback after drawing Rep Davis out of his seat.
You can make an 8-3 D map with minimal county splitting. It’s a 9-2 map that takes more creativity.
8-2-1 is also a possibility.
It doesn't take that much creativity--just a willingness to have two districts split Arlington and then go out to take in some conservative areas.
I must say that I am very impressed with Virginia Democrats for being bold enough to do this. Now they just need to make sure that the vote in the legislature in the upcoming days is relatively under the radar, and that the news is still dominated by Trump. The more that voters are thinking about Trump (and the less about this gerrymandering scheme), the better for Democrats.
To that end, I was gratified to see that the headline article in the NYT Morning Digest this morning was about Trump tearing down the East Wing of the White House, while the brief mention of VA Dems' redistricting plan was buried in the middle of the Digest.
What I hope Dems are finally seeing is that there has never been an election in American history where gerrymandering was the deciding factor in someone’s vote. There are literally no political repercussions other than hand-wringing and a few bad opeds.
On the subject of Virginia, yesterday was the first day where all of the early voting locations in Fairfax County were open. Do we have any information about how big the turnout was yesterday?
8012 according to this post https://bsky.app/profile/samshirazi.bsky.social/post/3m3x2mb6jqc25
It looks like the Virginia Dems are going to be really great. I say that after being disappointed when several years ago they rejected the proposal by the Democratic governor to combine the local elections with the even year midterm elections. Hopefully this new bunch will do that once in power. It will boost voter turnout, save multi-millions of tax dollars which could be used for education or healthcare, and very importantly it would result in more women and more minorities being elected to local government. Up until now I have not donated to Virginia Dems but will now that they are proving to be real leaders.
I'm not sure if the timing will work, but the gerrymandering special election in Virginia should be scheduled to come after the supreme court issues a ruling on the VRA. The odds of it passing would increase if dems take advantage of the backlash gutting the VRA will create.
According to the Alabama constitution, is football experience obligatory for all candidates for public office? Is CTE?
Not a lot going on in Alabama besides football and racism.
CTE is optional but the preferred choice of far too many alabamans
I've occasionally wondered when the Democratic trend in Henrico County would spill over into the neighboring counties to the north and west.
Well, I just discovered this morning that it already has. Goochland County, directly west of Henrico, created a new precinct for the 2024 election called West Creek. The precinct comprises several apartment complexes and a senior living facility just west of the border with Henrico. These complexes are quite new - one of the apartment complexes opened between 2018 and 2020, another was built between 2012 and 2017, and the senior living facility was only built a few years ago (I know all this from looking at historical imagery in Google Earth). And this precinct voted 57-41 for Harris last year, making it the first solidly Democratic precinct in Goochland in quite a while. DRA doesn't show this precinct yet because they still use 2020 precincts for Virginia, but if you split the precincts along the border with Henrico, you'll see the blue if you color by election results.
Hopefully these new apartment complexes, and resulting Democratic precincts, are just the first of many!
"Morrison echoed Walsh by tweeting, “He DEFEATED our Wall Street-backed opponent Melissa Bean in 2010, and knows she is not the fighter we need to meet this moment.”"
Very refreshing to see some Dem primary candidates leaning into this message.
Listen I welcome Joe Walsh into the party, he has probably undergone the most extreme (in a positive direction) political evolution of anybody in the Trump era, but I think it's a little yikes to celebrate a Tea Party Republican beating a Dem in 2010.
Indeed. I don't see how his defeating her as a Republican shows that he knows she's the wrong Democrat for the job.
This basically shows he thinks people in the district are too stupid to understand the nuance.
100% percent. I was already Team Bean here, but that statement just sealed it for me...
Tbh I do still support Morrison, because LGBT representation is my strong preference. But this one line is not my favorite
Walsh gave probably the most honest take on why the Tea Party was throwing Obama’s birth certificate against him while he was POTUS: It was a political strategy but not about racism. Of course, there were plenty in the base who are racist and have these views on birth certificates with people who have “funny” sounding names like Obama.
Narrator: It was 100% about racism. 100%.
Right but that may have been what the Tea Party originally intended even if Walsh said otherwise. I believe he was referring to what he was being told to do, not necessarily based on his own convictions.
We could also argue racism goes back to when Reagan’s rise at the national level also at the same time made him profile a typical black woman with “liabilities.”
It’s despicable no matter how you spin it. And Sarah Palin has not taken any accountability or responsibility for her actions during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Asked why he's refused to endorse Mamdani, Hakeem Jeffries replies: "I have not refused to endorse; I have refused to articulate my position"
https://bsky.app/profile/kenklippenstein.bsky.social/post/3m3xavfxigk2v
What a joke. I fear he wouldn't be a good Speaker.
especially given his struggles "speaking" or "articulating" on this particular issue
It would almost shock me if he turned out to be a good speaker. I'm not versed enough on the house to know who would be better but this guy is just not who we need.
He would be a better Speaker than Mike Johnson, but not as good a Speaker as Nancy Pelosi. That seems clear...
Pelosi as House Speaker was blunt and honest and got House Democrats to get shit done, even under high pressure.
Profile in courage
Regardless of whether you like Mamdani or not, this is an extremely cringe-worthy response. I've never been sure why Jeffries was chosen as the new Democratic leader in the first place.
Always seemed like he'd make a swell neighbor. Not so much as a party leader.
He was next in line in leadership, I think that’s the entire reason why.
Apparently, he may be articulating his position very soon.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/24/after-a-lengthy-wait-jeffries-to-endorse-mamdani-00621799
He's dragging this out like it's "The Decision" but it makes him look bad the longer it drags on.
Does Jeffries need to write a damn research paper or create a PowerPoint presentation?
Dude, just go to the corporate life and live comfortably! He could get paid much more than his current job as House Speaker.
That's not his current job, but we get your meaning.
Yeah, I was just pointing out that when it comes to leaders in the Democratic Party, we need them with:
1) Balls
2) The ability to do their job
3) No beating around the bush.
4) Get shit done
There simply is no room for compromise on all four these days.
We agree.
" Asked about Zohran Mamdani, Hakeem Jeffries says he's "privately communicated some of my concerns with respect to some of the views that he's expressed in terms of foreign policy." "
https://x.com/kenklippenstein/status/1981516047615234137
The Mayor of New York doesn't have a foreign policy. (Yes, I know about pensions, but that's another matter.)
Yeah, this is as annoying as when local candidates are asked, say, about abortion.
When Bernie Sanders was Mayor of Burlington, VT, I don’t recall there was any direct foreign policy he was involved in.
On the other hand, Mayors in major cities like NYC, San Francisco, etc. do have relations with leaders outside of the U.S. but as a means of bringing say business investment into the city or allowing meetings to happen in the city. Since UN’s headquarters is in NYC, the Mayor can’t influence foreign policy anyway even with the UN. The State Department, White House, and Congress can.
Brave words.
Don't care, Mamdani didn't support Biden.
I expect party caucus leaders to be willing to endorse for prominent elections in their own backyard, especially when the democratic candidate has such odious opponents. I do not expect every member of the state legislatures to endorse presidential candidates; I doubt anyone would have cared if he had officially endorsed Biden in early/mid 2024.
Doesn't matter, he wants to blame games when it comes to endorsing then don't bother me when it's reversed.
Never?
How hard would it be to say 'I have reservations about all of them, but I'll vote for Mamdani'?
For a politician who represents Brooklyn, Jeffries is definitely not a straight shooter.
Why did he ever enter politics in the first place?
Are politicians from Brooklyn known to be straight shooters? I wouldn't tend to think that as a general point about politicians in any part of New York - city or state.
I would say it’s best to contrast politicians vs the residents in cities like Brooklyn.
From what I know from others I have talked to who live in Brooklyn, they have a big BS detector and can call you out on this. This is the case with Oakland as I have lived next door to the city for decades.
Of course, I also know not everyone from Brooklyn can possess the same exact personality. May vary who you talk to but since you live in NYC, you would certainly know better than me about this.
New York is known for corruption and influence-peddling.
There certainly is a history. NYC seems to have it worse than SF.
Definitely. New Jersey, Illinois and Louisiana have historically been our competition...
Where is New York on setting up a redraw at least for 2028? That’s a state where you could easily create two new almost safe Dem seats (Lawler’s and Maliatonokis’). For the SI seat, all you need to do is pair it with Southern Manhattan and you have a district that Harris won by high single digits. Maliatonokis (idgaf how her name is spelled) would need over 70% of the vote on SI to have a chance in such a distict.
For the record, it's Nicole Malliotakis, and her last name is Greek.
despite her pathetic attempts to pose as an italian american when she unseated Max Rose
She did that?
Wait, what?
I thought it was "MallioStockTips"...
Riley and Gillen can get shored up too. Suozzi too though he doesn’t need it as much given he overperforms and shoring him up too much would come at Gillen’s expense. Ryan doesn’t really need it at all and trying to do so would hurt D chances in 17 and 19. And despite getting close at the presidential level Meng doesn’t need it at all.
Also possible to make Lean D seats in Suffolk and a Rochester to Buffalo connecter.
Kathy Hochul, Carl Heastie, and Andrea Stuart-Cousins are all on board
it's happening, keep an eye on it in the next session
I never saw the district results but did Jon Tester beat Tim Sheehy in MT-01?
Yes. He won it somewhere around 2000 votes, 50-49, less than 1pt.
2026 Maine Senate Democratic Primary poll by
@NRSC
(R) | 10/22-23
Graham Platner: 46%
Janet Mills: 25%
Jordan Wood: 3%
Not sure: 26%
——
Fav-Unfav (Dems)
Platner: 71-21 (+50)
Mills: 69-31 (+38)
——
"After hearing Platner’s statement defending past remarks, 45% said it made them MORE likely to support him"
——
October 22-23 | Dem n=647 LV | ±3.5
https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/1981746544891027651
We have our own tea party lol. The tea party actually cost the GOP winnable seats, one of which was lost in Delaware due to a self-described witch.
I think it's going to take a while for this primary to settle
I think Platner's numbers will only go down over time, as public knowledge of his liabilities increases.
And the biggest dilemma is what happens not in the primary process but if Platner would be a Democratic Senate nominee in the general election.
Collins would have plenty to work with.
Yeah, I'm having a hard time believing that his statements make Democratic voters more likely to vote for him. Especially from an NRSC poll.
If this were CA, Platner would have already been out of the race at this point.
Apparently Maine may be different but I wouldn’t assume anything about Platner’s viability at this point, especially considering he should have known better before jumping in the Senate race.
1) Implausibly high name rec for Platner...71-21 favorable??? 2) Mills also very popular, at 69-31, but somehow only getting 25%? As the sitting governor?? 3) Come on, this is an *NRSC* poll, obviously designed to show a narrative they like, one we don't need to engage in as legitimate. There's nothing for us to learn from this other than the NRSC thinks it will make us look bad.
UNH also had similar findings.
I broadly agree but I wonder if there is more latent vulnerability due to age than we're expecting. It's easy for us to assume it's not going to impact voter behavior as much as we'd think at first due to being in our own high-info bubble. But it could be that this is a detail that harms candidates a lot, especially for non-incumbent challengers.
The good news is Maine has ranked choice voting, which means that should Platner win the primary, some Democratic running as an independent (Washington D.C style) can run without being a spoiler.
Also let's be honest with Trump getting away with *handwaves everything*, JD Vance saying anyone on his side of politics can do no wrong, while Dems went too overboard with policing our side to the point they shrunk the tent to less than 40% of the country it's not surprising to see Platner's tattoo not an automatic campaign ender.
(Not a Platner supporter after the events of the past two weeks BTW.)
Here's a 10-1 map that I drew:
https://davesredistricting.org/join/95171876-858a-447a-a5f3-6fa0501ef824
Under this map, the 9th District is the only one that Youngkin won in 2021, and he won it by 58 points. McAuliffe won the 2nd and 5th Districts by less than 1%, and he won the 3rd District by 12 points. The other seven districts were McAuliffe+4 in 2021.
Oops, this was supposed to be a reply to MPC's comment.
Under this map, Don Beyer would likely run in the 1st or 6th District, Eugene Vindman would likely run in the 1st or 8th District, James Walkinshaw would likely run in the 8th or 11th District, and Suhas Subramanyam would likely run in the 10th District.
What are those population deviations?
I kept all of them below 5%.
I believe congressional population deviations cannot be this big. However, it shouldn't be too hard to rebalance them in a way that keeps it at least 10D-1R-1 swing.
Yup, this is the way to do it. Five districts snaking out of NoVA, a Blacksburg-Roanoke-Charlottesville-Harrisonburg district that leans Democratic but isn't quite as blue as all the others, the VA Beach/Norfolk district that draws itself, etc.
The only issue is the deviations, since unlike with legislative districts, no deviations at all are allowed for congressional districts. 5% deviations like that are way too big.
Dems don’t really need 5 districts in NOVA. 4 is enough, 2 each in Richmond and Hampton Roads, and the Charlottesville swing seat.
That's if you're going 9-2. The map above was attempting to go 10-1.
Not going to lie: when opened this map and saw the 6th district, I literally laughed out loud.
You know what, though? Why the hell not!
How does Dave's determine partisan lean? There's seven districts that are ~51.5% dem. That's not a huge margin and we could lose a seat even in a decent year for us if there is candidate quality mismatch or some other events.
It's a great job getting 10 districts that favor us, but I'd prefer a more durable 9-2 map.
When you click the Statistics tab, it shows the results for the 2021 gubernatorial race. If you select another race or the Composite option under Data Selector, then it will show much more favorable results in the Statistics tab.
2021 was a low water mark for Democrats in Virginia. Any district that McAuliffe won that year should be relatively safe for us in most election cycles.
NJ Gov: Sherrill 52%; Ciattarelli 40%. (GQR polling 1,00 LVs)
The 52 is believable.
Yeah, I am expecting 52-47, given how perpetually we get "meh" results out of NJ in this Timeline of ours.
I think, as far as anyone ever writes about this historically, the murphy admin will be seen as well-meaning but ultimately mediocrely effective because the admin passed up on big potential achievements (like wind energy) but still suffered the blow back popularity wise. There was always going to be those opposed to windmills off the shore, but it hurts the party's brand when we are seen as both advocating for the windmills and advocating ineffectively--as it's been eight years and nothing re wind has happened. It feels born out of a very weird risk aversion borne out of the first two years of his first term spent fighting south jersey dems.
Plus, the nepotistic putative senate run hurt us, to an unknown level. All my aforementioned negativity aside I think we win by 6.3%
To be frank: I don’t think there’s 1 single voter in New Jersey who potentially could vote for either party that based their votes entirely on whether or not Democrats supported wind power. They swing their vote whether they like their personal/family economic situation or not. The rest are partisans who either would never support a Democrat or always supports a Democrat.
We’re educated and believe voters think like us about many different issues before they vote, but they’re uneducated, they don’t pay attention and anything beyond the economy is getting into the partisans who always vote for the same party every time they vote. If NJ is a nail biter it’ll be because of the economy from voters being tired of the current government in power. Plain and simple, this is the reality.
The closing argument is trying to tie Ciattarelli to high costs. Noticed this ad today:
https://x.com/MediumBuying/status/1981700828194042339
That’s basically been the ad campaign. Accusing one another of wanting to raise taxes. Occasionally Sherrill has thrown the association with Trump in, but not enough for my taste. A cautious campaign.
A 2018 midterm moderate national security campaign, which worked well then, not so much a fire and brimstone 2026 midterm campaign to fight Trump with everything we’ve got.
But we don’t know what the results will be obviously, that may well work in 2025 elections, maybe our opinions on Sherrill’s campaign get thwacked by her large voting coalition victory. Time will tell.