This is the 2nd or 3rd "Aloha on the coconut wireless..." inanity but now we have this mindless soup slop coming with it, could there be a posting restriction or something before the bug becomes a feature?
Good morning all, haven’t commented much on here but commented a lot on the old DKE.
I’m a Gen Z democrat running for County Council in Anne Arundel County Maryland to flip a competitive seat from red to blue in the ’26 midterms. I would love to have your support in this campaign, anything you can contribute would be greatly appreciated. While I’m going to need to raise a lot of money, a dollar here goes 10x further or more than a congressional race.
And if you happen to be in the area please buy a ticket to my campaign launch party 11/17!
I just drew out Anne Arundel's districts in DRA. Your district, District 7, is indeed very competitive - it voted for Harris by less than 1% last year. Best of luck flipping it!
Do Democrats have a strong candidate running in District 5 as well? That district was Harris +11 and it still has a Republican council member. District 3 is really the only Republican district in Anne Arundel nowadays.
"George Soros Declares Bankruptcy After Paying No Kings Protesters"
KATONAH, NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—George Soros has been forced to declare bankruptcy after paying over seven million people to attend the No Kings protests, the billionaire confirmed on Monday.
“When I agreed to pay everyone who showed up at these things, I had no idea so many people were going to accept my offer,” Soros admitted. “But a deal’s a deal.”
The legendary investor said that paying No Kings participants had required him to liquidate his most prized holdings, including his share in the orbital lasers operated by the Rothschild banking family.
Soros revealed that paying the five million Antifa members at the rallies cost him “a pretty penny,” adding, “They may be anarchists, but they don’t work for free.”
I met Bores twice in NYC, as my church is in his district. First time was when he first ran for State Assembly (he was near my church), and the second was at a street fair. Nice guy.
Honestly, a lot of potential candidates for this race are well respected in their own right - Lasher, Mamdani ally, Jack Schlossberg (my personal favorite), and now Bores are all noted progressives
We need them to defeat people like Carolyn Maloney, Liam Elkind and Michael Cohen
Huh? I have no idea who you're talking about when you mention the "most popular politician in the country". And Ruben Gallego is a great guy. A blunt-spoken progressive who outperformed Harris by 8% in a crucial swing state - not sure why anyone here would dislike him.
As the one and only Zohran Mamdani said during last week's debate once said:
"And I also think that part of the reason why Democrats are in the situation that we are in of being a permanent minority in this country, is we are looking only to speak to journalists and streamers and Americans with whom we agree of every single thing that they say," he added. "We need to take the case to every person, and I'm happy to do that."
I don’t think this is relevant to being frustrated with The Times. I support politicians appearing on platforms like Hasan Piker, Joe Rogan, or Bill Maher to reach a broader audience.
Bernie Sanders is the most popular elected official which the Times will never mention in its scold-like "analysis", and Gallego only won against the extremist Kari Lake, not someone more mainstream like Mike Rogers or John McCormick, benefiting from the same Latino ticket-splitting we saw in Nevada and Texas. Yet the New York Times has been shilling him as the next Bill Clinton–style savior who will save the nation. I don’t think many people agree with that. I appreciate him for winning the seat and helping keep the Senate secure with his triangulations, but I don’t see him as a savior, and I don’t like that narrative being pushed so aggressively by the New York Times, which continues fearmongering that no one other than him or his type of politician can save the Democrats or America just a day after the No Kings protests.
I certainly don’t support Gallego’s pro– “big ass truck abundance,” pro-crypto, pro-Laken Riley and anti-amnesty vision for the country. I think my earlier words may have come across incorrectly—I don’t dislike Gallego personally; I dislike the way the Times frames these narratives.
Gallego is not a progressive in any meaningful sense anymore. He used to be, before 2020. I can't name a single progressive policy he currently supports? He doesn’t even back comprehensive immigration reform or a dovish foreign policy—both of which were once his signature issues in the House.
Considering that Bernie will never be President and is most likely in his final Senate term, there's really no reason why the NYT should talk about him. There are many excellent reasons to criticize the NYT, but that's not one of them. It amazes me that there are still dead-enders out there who haven't gotten over Bernie yet.
Gallego certainly has a much better chance of being the "savior" of America (whatever that means) than Bernie does.
I don’t think I’m a Bernie dead-ender—I didn’t even vote for him in 2020. My point was that The Times keeps implying that only the most centrist New Dems and Blue Dogs are popular and acceptable to a majority whereas Bernie or any other national progressive (not the extreme ones tho) is not, which I disagree with. I never called Bernie a savior. Please engage with what I actually said instead of assuming things.
By “savior,” I’m referring to The Times’ narrative that, as we saw with the No Kings protests and Trump's actions, America is on a dangerous lurch toward authoritarianism and radical conservatism—so Democrats supposedly don’t have the time to “lose enough to moderate” or wait long-enough for a centrist Bill Clinton figure who only won the nomination after multiple defeats in the 1980s. According to this framing, Democrats must stop gushing over "unpopular" liberal politicians or politics if we want to save the country from its current trajectory.
RCP so take it with a grain (or more) of salt, but they have Bernie's overall favorability as -4.4, though I'm sure he's wildly popular with Democrats. Not sure by what metric you're saying he's "the most popular elected official"
Derek Thompson in August: "Bernie Sanders is obviously the most popular Democratic elected official, by a clear margin. Here he's +15 among moderates and +9 among low-income Americans. People who don't share his political views still have an obligation to try understand what's behind those numbers."
You can criticize Clinton all you want, but if progressives who bash him now had their way in the 1990s we might have had over 20 years (1980 to 2000-something) of nothing but Republican presidents.
And I don't know what your idea of "progressive" is, but maybe you might have to accept something less than your dream candidate if you really want to make change--and reversing the current abomination's policies and getting rid of its appointees would definitely be making change. Losing with someone who might fit your ideological desires but can't win a general election is not.
Worth also noting that the “identify as a Republican/lean Republican” number is also the lowest it’s been since at least 2019 and most of the other percentages during different polling times show a comparable drop in support outside the margin of error, meaning it’s real movement away from the GOP.
Once again with Trump in office, voters are embarrassed to be Republicans. Whoever could possibly see this coming? Oh yeah, anyone with a functioning, educated brain, that’s who. *sigh* This entire cluster**** of a presidency all could’ve been avoided, but no, Americans believed the conman again instead.
They may not be Democrats, but they may just stay home, which is just as good for us in the 2026 midterms. We’re starting to see a trickling of signs a blue wave is starting to form and I’m going to be extremely interested to see the margins in NJ/VA elections with this as a backdrop.
Does Jones win comfortably as AG? Does Sherrill come at or near a double digits victory? Does Spanberger stretch to a 15 point landslide and Democrats get a supermajority in the House of Delegates? If any of the above questions are yes, you’re going to see the deplorable rats who never deserved to have power in the first place abandon ship quickly. Retirement season is coming up fast.
Does anyone else think the Republican redistricting shenanigans in TX, MO, UT and here in NC (where state Senate Rs are allowing 'debate' on these sham maps today) will backfire on them?
If Dems flip 20 House seats or more next year, they'll look even more foolish.
If the wave is large enough to overcome the new gerrymanders, then they would have lost control with the old maps too. And most voters are not going to care enough to be energized to vote against them as a result. People care far more about everything else.
Disappointing as it is, the new maps will give them an advantage in net. Hopefully CA and other blue states can successfully mitigate that.
The only state where it might truly backfire is North Carolina. The way NC-11 and NC-01 are drawn in the currently proposed map, I think Democrats can win both in a blue wave election. Don Davis is a formdiable incumbent, and there is a strong challenger (Jamie Agar) in NC-11. And with other districts diluted significantly, it's conceivable that a strong candidate could win some of them should public opinion turn hard against Republicans.
In Texas, a few of the gerrymandered districts are winnable, but it'll still be a net gain of at least 1 or 2 seats for Republicans in a blue wave. The bottom would have to fall out extremely badly for Republicans for some more seats to flip.
Missouri's new map is a long shot. Hopefully it just isn't implemented in 2026 due to the referendum.
As for Utah...given they're already trying to undermine the map they passed, I strongly suspect the judge will impose one of the maps from plaintiffs, which will very likely give Democrats one reliably blue district.
"Off-ramp? We’ve written about how Nov. 1, the start of open enrollment for health insurance, could be a moment for Senate Democrats to declare “victory” and allow the government to reopen. Last week, top Democrats pushed back on this theory, saying Nov. 1 will only increase the pressure on Republicans to accede to their health care demands.
But now, there’s a sense within the Senate Democratic Caucus that this deadline is in fact their off-ramp to end the shutdown. Democrats can argue it’s no longer feasible for Congress to address the expiring Obamacare subsidies legislatively. The goal here would be to make Republicans own the soaring premium hikes and health-care coverage losses that millions of Americans would experience.
If Democrats are willing to accept a political victory without a policy win, this is a critical moment for Schumer to figure out what this looks like — and how he shields himself from inevitable criticism from the left. What does Schumer demand in exchange for Democratic votes to reopen the government? Is it a vote on extending the subsidies? Will Schumer cut loose some moderates and retiring Democrats? How does he message this publicly?
House Democrats have been led to believe that this shutdown could end with a legislative victory. So the cross-chamber invective will be especially sharp.
No decision has been made by Democratic leaders at this point. But with the shutdown dragging on and the real-world consequences compounding, many Democrats see this as a reasonable exit strategy."
Unpopular opinion, but I support this. I just don’t see any scenario where Republicans actually concede. It’ll be interesting to see how Schumer manages to engineer the defections, especially since Bennet and Warner have primaries to worry about, while Gallego, Kelly, Ossoff, Warnock, and Slotkin all have ambitions beyond the Senate.
Maybe Shaheen and Hassan from New Hampshire, along with Fetterman, Hickenlooper/Rosen, Cortez Masto, Durbin, and Peters, will be the 7 senators to defect?
Hickenlooper may get a primary too. There's discontent from the left towards him for several votes he made for Trump nominees, and there has been discussion of possibly launching a challenge to him -- which I'd argue is especially possible now that Colorado has gotten significantly bluer.
Who would primary Hickenlooper? Neguse and Crow, the two influential young congressmen, are establishment darlings already jockeying for Bennet's seat if he becomes governor. I doubt Pettersen would primary him, as she seems more the type to run for an open seat and not be ambitious enough to primary him.
All this would do is make us look weak. Political victories when policy victories are possible is simply another way to say Pyrrhic victory. We keep piling those up and we'll be worse off than if we had done nothing. Better to have done nothing than to go for a full month of government shutdown in exchange for, quite literally, nothing at all. Doing so makes it look like we're playing games.
The point of the shutdown wasn't to extract policy concessions from Donald Trump of all people. it was to remind the public of how much the GOP is willing to destroy for power.
If so, that's dumb. People don't want politicians that engage in publicity stunts that ultimately accomplish nothing other than harming the function of government. If a win is possible, then aiming for less than a win is pure foolishness.
Pertinently, if that was the goal I do not believe it worked in even the slightest. And to the extent it might have been a success outside of my observations, it will be completely forgotten by the midterms anyway.
It worked; people now trust Dems on healthcare more and a recent survey I saw rated Democrats to be more focused on/care about healthcare than Republicans who were seen as too focused on immigration. I would share it, but I forgot the surveyor.
Healthcare has long been an issue that is positively associated with democrats. Similar to taxes with republicans. It takes a major fuckup or deeply unpopular action to reverse those kinds of views. I think the only time I've seen where it wasn't in our favor was between the passage of Obamacare through the earliest implementation.
That polling shows voters agree with us on healthcare illumines nothing about the success or failure of recent actions.
Yeah, Democrats definitely shouldn't do anything that makes us look weak. Especially just before the elections. Nobody wants to vote for a party that looks weak.
I think worse than the timing relative to elections is how it relates to our perception with voters. That is not to say that the timing isn't bad too; I agree that it is.
Our party brand is in the toilet. Especially with younger generations. I suspect if you pooled the negative perceptions from people that are amenable to voting for us, a clear majority of the words used would be weak, a synonym for weak, or describing consequences of being weak.
We should be working to reverse negative perceptions of our party. Not reinforce them!
The Dem GCB lead is pretty underwhelming right now despite everything Trump/GOP has done. Premiums doubling for alot of people may the wake up call some voters need to get Dems leading in the polls like they were in 2018. It also seems like an incredible simple message for the midterms: 'the GOP doubled your premiums, we will lower them if you vote for us..'
No. For once in their lives I want Democrats to make a threat and stand by it until the other side caves. ACA subsidies are popular, healthcare is one of the biggest third rails for the GOP and all this shutdown does is push the multiple intra party bruising and bloody fights coming that Republican leaders have kicked the can on from not wanting to blow up their majority, with the Epstein files, to banning stock trading into the heart of the summer when the average voter starts to pay attention again during campaign season. We have all the leverage and it’s about damn time we used it for a change. Just say no unless we get the subsidies funded. It’s really that simple.
That would be an unmitigated disaster for us politically. If Senate Dems did that, we'd be on the hook for both the shutdown and the expiration of the ACA subsidies.
"Ciattarelli's executive director for Muslim relations, Dr. Ibrar Nadeem, introduces Ciattarelli, says he wants a ban on same-sex marriage and insists he isn't "taking money from Jews""
I had the misfortune of hearing him speak this afternoon. This will sound hyperbolic, but he makes my skin crawl more than Trump. Trump is a moron. Jack seems like a smart man that is intent on pulling the ladder up behind him, and I've never seen a Republican in my lifetime (caveat of Northeastern republican) be as nakedly racist in his presentation and description of society's ills.
he also decries transplants to New Jersey--consistently. As a transplant, it's kind of wild, given that this state is not Montana or Iowa, its 25% transplants. Truly the most disgusting politician I've ever met in person. A despicable man.
So with now former Vermont State Senator Sam Douglass resigning over his participation in the racist group chat online, it appears Jack Ciattarelli hasn’t gotten the message.
Or maybe he doesn’t care. After all, Ciattarelli hasn’t been in elected office since 2018. What’s he REALLY doing in the gubernatorial race anyway besides just aiming to win after the mail biter of a re-election win by Governor Phil Murphy?
Unfortunate to still see a lot of muslim americans continue to gravitate towards the GOP despite the blatant Islamophobia within the party. I know social conservatism is mostly driving this but how soon people forget how the GOP treated that community after 9/11.
The Trump people are doing a fabulous/evil job of saying wildly inconsistent and maximalist things, but a decent chunk of Muslim and Jewish voters only hear/believe the part that they want to.
I'm not trying to blame Muslims OR Jews, just noting that the extreme cynicism Trump strategy seems to be working.
Demographics wise, I get the impression when it comes to Jews, the more religious they are, the more likely they vote Republican. Unless we’re talking about the pro-business, pro-Wall Street types like Bill Ackman, in which it’s all about profits, lower taxes, etc.
With Muslims, it’s hard for me to say how they vote as I don’t know much. One of my good friends is Pakistani and Muslim but indifferent about anything in the Middle East unless it has to do with being profiled as being Muslim or being Pakistani. Perhaps it has to do with something else for pro-Republican Muslim voters?
Paul Ingrassia, President Donald Trump’s embattled nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, told a group of fellow Republicans in a text chain the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell” and said he has “a Nazi streak,” according to a text chat viewed by POLITICO.
They could have done so at any point in time after 2016 and would’ve found exactly these same private conversations, but no, the “free press” is too busy raking the clicks and dollars Trump being president brings them to do their actual jobs as journalists. Pathetic and inexcusable, they get no credit from me. This is their job that they suddenly decided to start doing after Trump’s chaos is too late to be stopped, just like last time. Fuck Politico and fuck every damn media company. This was right there in the open to be found if any self respecting journalist wanted to.
Democrats aren’t accusing Republicans as being fascist nazis because we don’t like them or their policies, we do it because they’re literal fascist nazis who keep all of their true natures confined to other people within the in group privately instead of being open about their racist, sexist, homophobic bigotry against anyone not white, straight and conservative.
No one is willing to stand up and admit the truth because it “sounds partisan” and/or “insane”. Sometimes the truth is actually insane! This is exactly why America is in so much trouble right now because no one is willing to call the party that quacks like a duck and looks like a duck an actual duck because that seems biased against those who see it as a beautiful swan. It’s a duck people, it always has been.
Soon to be ex-congressman the MAGA voting Juan Ciscomani had one of the Republicans in the leaked chat working on his campaign, surprising exactly no one here. The only question now is how many elected Republicans are connected to these people:
This is the 2nd or 3rd "Aloha on the coconut wireless..." inanity but now we have this mindless soup slop coming with it, could there be a posting restriction or something before the bug becomes a feature?
Please relate this to an election (other than a Democratic presidential primary.)
And if you really want us to read what you post, try to present it as something other than a massive monolith of text with no paragraph breaks.
Did my boomer dad just get an account here and learn to use ChatGPT? What pointless slop taking up space on this thread….
Good morning all, haven’t commented much on here but commented a lot on the old DKE.
I’m a Gen Z democrat running for County Council in Anne Arundel County Maryland to flip a competitive seat from red to blue in the ’26 midterms. I would love to have your support in this campaign, anything you can contribute would be greatly appreciated. While I’m going to need to raise a lot of money, a dollar here goes 10x further or more than a congressional race.
And if you happen to be in the area please buy a ticket to my campaign launch party 11/17!
Website: votespencerjones.com
Actblue/launch ticket: actblue.com/donate/launchspencer
I just drew out Anne Arundel's districts in DRA. Your district, District 7, is indeed very competitive - it voted for Harris by less than 1% last year. Best of luck flipping it!
Do Democrats have a strong candidate running in District 5 as well? That district was Harris +11 and it still has a Republican council member. District 3 is really the only Republican district in Anne Arundel nowadays.
Could you post a link?
Good luck!
donated! we need more people like you!
Priceless satire from Andy Borowitz!
"George Soros Declares Bankruptcy After Paying No Kings Protesters"
KATONAH, NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—George Soros has been forced to declare bankruptcy after paying over seven million people to attend the No Kings protests, the billionaire confirmed on Monday.
“When I agreed to pay everyone who showed up at these things, I had no idea so many people were going to accept my offer,” Soros admitted. “But a deal’s a deal.”
The legendary investor said that paying No Kings participants had required him to liquidate his most prized holdings, including his share in the orbital lasers operated by the Rothschild banking family.
Soros revealed that paying the five million Antifa members at the rallies cost him “a pretty penny,” adding, “They may be anarchists, but they don’t work for free.”
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/george-soros-declares-bankruptcy
Watch MAGA idiots read this and think it's real.
WTH Soros!!! I'm still waiting for my check from march for our lives and that was ages ago! At least I hope my No Kings check doesn't bounce...
Alex Bores from the state assembly is joining the primary for Nadler's seat.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/nyregion/alex-bores-ny-congress-primary.html
I met Bores twice in NYC, as my church is in his district. First time was when he first ran for State Assembly (he was near my church), and the second was at a street fair. Nice guy.
Honestly, a lot of potential candidates for this race are well respected in their own right - Lasher, Mamdani ally, Jack Schlossberg (my personal favorite), and now Bores are all noted progressives
We need them to defeat people like Carolyn Maloney, Liam Elkind and Michael Cohen
I know. He emailed me (I unsubscribed immediately).
"Vibe shift? New/Q3 2025 party ID data from Gallup just moved to D+7, Democrats best reading since the first quarter of the Biden administration.
(Noisy, but one of the only public, regular, methodologically consistent measurements of the partisan makeup of the US)"
https://x.com/williamjordann/status/1980270804223893792
Thermostatic reactions remain underrated
Huh? I have no idea who you're talking about when you mention the "most popular politician in the country". And Ruben Gallego is a great guy. A blunt-spoken progressive who outperformed Harris by 8% in a crucial swing state - not sure why anyone here would dislike him.
As the one and only Zohran Mamdani said during last week's debate once said:
"And I also think that part of the reason why Democrats are in the situation that we are in of being a permanent minority in this country, is we are looking only to speak to journalists and streamers and Americans with whom we agree of every single thing that they say," he added. "We need to take the case to every person, and I'm happy to do that."
I don’t think this is relevant to being frustrated with The Times. I support politicians appearing on platforms like Hasan Piker, Joe Rogan, or Bill Maher to reach a broader audience.
And yet the don and the republican party speak only to their side and they win elections. It's nice words but it doesn't amount to much.
??, Trump is very accessible to liberal media, so-called "manosphere" podcasts and right-wing media.
Bernie Sanders is the most popular elected official which the Times will never mention in its scold-like "analysis", and Gallego only won against the extremist Kari Lake, not someone more mainstream like Mike Rogers or John McCormick, benefiting from the same Latino ticket-splitting we saw in Nevada and Texas. Yet the New York Times has been shilling him as the next Bill Clinton–style savior who will save the nation. I don’t think many people agree with that. I appreciate him for winning the seat and helping keep the Senate secure with his triangulations, but I don’t see him as a savior, and I don’t like that narrative being pushed so aggressively by the New York Times, which continues fearmongering that no one other than him or his type of politician can save the Democrats or America just a day after the No Kings protests.
I certainly don’t support Gallego’s pro– “big ass truck abundance,” pro-crypto, pro-Laken Riley and anti-amnesty vision for the country. I think my earlier words may have come across incorrectly—I don’t dislike Gallego personally; I dislike the way the Times frames these narratives.
Gallego is not a progressive in any meaningful sense anymore. He used to be, before 2020. I can't name a single progressive policy he currently supports? He doesn’t even back comprehensive immigration reform or a dovish foreign policy—both of which were once his signature issues in the House.
Considering that Bernie will never be President and is most likely in his final Senate term, there's really no reason why the NYT should talk about him. There are many excellent reasons to criticize the NYT, but that's not one of them. It amazes me that there are still dead-enders out there who haven't gotten over Bernie yet.
Gallego certainly has a much better chance of being the "savior" of America (whatever that means) than Bernie does.
I don’t think I’m a Bernie dead-ender—I didn’t even vote for him in 2020. My point was that The Times keeps implying that only the most centrist New Dems and Blue Dogs are popular and acceptable to a majority whereas Bernie or any other national progressive (not the extreme ones tho) is not, which I disagree with. I never called Bernie a savior. Please engage with what I actually said instead of assuming things.
By “savior,” I’m referring to The Times’ narrative that, as we saw with the No Kings protests and Trump's actions, America is on a dangerous lurch toward authoritarianism and radical conservatism—so Democrats supposedly don’t have the time to “lose enough to moderate” or wait long-enough for a centrist Bill Clinton figure who only won the nomination after multiple defeats in the 1980s. According to this framing, Democrats must stop gushing over "unpopular" liberal politicians or politics if we want to save the country from its current trajectory.
Bernie represents a substantial portion of Democrats and independent leftists and should be treated as such.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/bernie_sanders_favorableunfavorable-6676.html
RCP so take it with a grain (or more) of salt, but they have Bernie's overall favorability as -4.4, though I'm sure he's wildly popular with Democrats. Not sure by what metric you're saying he's "the most popular elected official"
Question: who is the current most popular?
YouGov February: https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1887219684077900079
Data for Progress June:
https://x.com/ettingermentum/status/1935833757988089902
Derek Thompson in August: "Bernie Sanders is obviously the most popular Democratic elected official, by a clear margin. Here he's +15 among moderates and +9 among low-income Americans. People who don't share his political views still have an obligation to try understand what's behind those numbers."
https://x.com/DKThomp/status/1955751915725205726
YouGov/Economist in September: https://x.com/BMarchetich/status/1970219909381570930
You can criticize Clinton all you want, but if progressives who bash him now had their way in the 1990s we might have had over 20 years (1980 to 2000-something) of nothing but Republican presidents.
And I don't know what your idea of "progressive" is, but maybe you might have to accept something less than your dream candidate if you really want to make change--and reversing the current abomination's policies and getting rid of its appointees would definitely be making change. Losing with someone who might fit your ideological desires but can't win a general election is not.
Cool, but do we believe Gallup?
Worth also noting that the “identify as a Republican/lean Republican” number is also the lowest it’s been since at least 2019 and most of the other percentages during different polling times show a comparable drop in support outside the margin of error, meaning it’s real movement away from the GOP.
Once again with Trump in office, voters are embarrassed to be Republicans. Whoever could possibly see this coming? Oh yeah, anyone with a functioning, educated brain, that’s who. *sigh* This entire cluster**** of a presidency all could’ve been avoided, but no, Americans believed the conman again instead.
They may not be Democrats, but they may just stay home, which is just as good for us in the 2026 midterms. We’re starting to see a trickling of signs a blue wave is starting to form and I’m going to be extremely interested to see the margins in NJ/VA elections with this as a backdrop.
Does Jones win comfortably as AG? Does Sherrill come at or near a double digits victory? Does Spanberger stretch to a 15 point landslide and Democrats get a supermajority in the House of Delegates? If any of the above questions are yes, you’re going to see the deplorable rats who never deserved to have power in the first place abandon ship quickly. Retirement season is coming up fast.
Does anyone else think the Republican redistricting shenanigans in TX, MO, UT and here in NC (where state Senate Rs are allowing 'debate' on these sham maps today) will backfire on them?
If Dems flip 20 House seats or more next year, they'll look even more foolish.
I don't think it will, at least not meaningfully.
If the wave is large enough to overcome the new gerrymanders, then they would have lost control with the old maps too. And most voters are not going to care enough to be energized to vote against them as a result. People care far more about everything else.
Disappointing as it is, the new maps will give them an advantage in net. Hopefully CA and other blue states can successfully mitigate that.
The only state where it might truly backfire is North Carolina. The way NC-11 and NC-01 are drawn in the currently proposed map, I think Democrats can win both in a blue wave election. Don Davis is a formdiable incumbent, and there is a strong challenger (Jamie Agar) in NC-11. And with other districts diluted significantly, it's conceivable that a strong candidate could win some of them should public opinion turn hard against Republicans.
In Texas, a few of the gerrymandered districts are winnable, but it'll still be a net gain of at least 1 or 2 seats for Republicans in a blue wave. The bottom would have to fall out extremely badly for Republicans for some more seats to flip.
Missouri's new map is a long shot. Hopefully it just isn't implemented in 2026 due to the referendum.
As for Utah...given they're already trying to undermine the map they passed, I strongly suspect the judge will impose one of the maps from plaintiffs, which will very likely give Democrats one reliably blue district.
On the new MO map Dems do have an outside shot at Wagner's district, although it's a few points redder there too.
More in terms of encouraging blue states to get rid of commissions or other barriers.
"Off-ramp? We’ve written about how Nov. 1, the start of open enrollment for health insurance, could be a moment for Senate Democrats to declare “victory” and allow the government to reopen. Last week, top Democrats pushed back on this theory, saying Nov. 1 will only increase the pressure on Republicans to accede to their health care demands.
But now, there’s a sense within the Senate Democratic Caucus that this deadline is in fact their off-ramp to end the shutdown. Democrats can argue it’s no longer feasible for Congress to address the expiring Obamacare subsidies legislatively. The goal here would be to make Republicans own the soaring premium hikes and health-care coverage losses that millions of Americans would experience.
If Democrats are willing to accept a political victory without a policy win, this is a critical moment for Schumer to figure out what this looks like — and how he shields himself from inevitable criticism from the left. What does Schumer demand in exchange for Democratic votes to reopen the government? Is it a vote on extending the subsidies? Will Schumer cut loose some moderates and retiring Democrats? How does he message this publicly?
House Democrats have been led to believe that this shutdown could end with a legislative victory. So the cross-chamber invective will be especially sharp.
No decision has been made by Democratic leaders at this point. But with the shutdown dragging on and the real-world consequences compounding, many Democrats see this as a reasonable exit strategy."
https://punchbowl.news/archive/102025-am/
Unpopular opinion, but I support this. I just don’t see any scenario where Republicans actually concede. It’ll be interesting to see how Schumer manages to engineer the defections, especially since Bennet and Warner have primaries to worry about, while Gallego, Kelly, Ossoff, Warnock, and Slotkin all have ambitions beyond the Senate.
Maybe Shaheen and Hassan from New Hampshire, along with Fetterman, Hickenlooper/Rosen, Cortez Masto, Durbin, and Peters, will be the 7 senators to defect?
Hickenlooper may get a primary too. There's discontent from the left towards him for several votes he made for Trump nominees, and there has been discussion of possibly launching a challenge to him -- which I'd argue is especially possible now that Colorado has gotten significantly bluer.
Honestly, I don't think I remembered that John Hickenlooper was in the Senate for the last four years.
Who would primary Hickenlooper? Neguse and Crow, the two influential young congressmen, are establishment darlings already jockeying for Bennet's seat if he becomes governor. I doubt Pettersen would primary him, as she seems more the type to run for an open seat and not be ambitious enough to primary him.
That’s just the problem. They haven’t found anyone. Probably why there hasn’t been one yet.
Adam Frisch? He overperformed twice in a Trump+10 seat without much institutional party support.
Any deal should require at least 4 Republican Senators to pledge not to vote for recissions.
The problem is that rescissions don't require a vote from Congress. That's why they're unconstitutional, but so is this fucking Supreme Court.
You're mixing up recissions with impoundment I think. A recission bill basically blesses an impoundment
In that case, I think the media have been confusing the terms.
The media confuse something? I'm shocked, lol
All this would do is make us look weak. Political victories when policy victories are possible is simply another way to say Pyrrhic victory. We keep piling those up and we'll be worse off than if we had done nothing. Better to have done nothing than to go for a full month of government shutdown in exchange for, quite literally, nothing at all. Doing so makes it look like we're playing games.
The point of the shutdown wasn't to extract policy concessions from Donald Trump of all people. it was to remind the public of how much the GOP is willing to destroy for power.
If so, that's dumb. People don't want politicians that engage in publicity stunts that ultimately accomplish nothing other than harming the function of government. If a win is possible, then aiming for less than a win is pure foolishness.
Pertinently, if that was the goal I do not believe it worked in even the slightest. And to the extent it might have been a success outside of my observations, it will be completely forgotten by the midterms anyway.
That is a bad strategy all around.
It worked; people now trust Dems on healthcare more and a recent survey I saw rated Democrats to be more focused on/care about healthcare than Republicans who were seen as too focused on immigration. I would share it, but I forgot the surveyor.
Healthcare has long been an issue that is positively associated with democrats. Similar to taxes with republicans. It takes a major fuckup or deeply unpopular action to reverse those kinds of views. I think the only time I've seen where it wasn't in our favor was between the passage of Obamacare through the earliest implementation.
That polling shows voters agree with us on healthcare illumines nothing about the success or failure of recent actions.
Yeah, Democrats definitely shouldn't do anything that makes us look weak. Especially just before the elections. Nobody wants to vote for a party that looks weak.
I think worse than the timing relative to elections is how it relates to our perception with voters. That is not to say that the timing isn't bad too; I agree that it is.
Our party brand is in the toilet. Especially with younger generations. I suspect if you pooled the negative perceptions from people that are amenable to voting for us, a clear majority of the words used would be weak, a synonym for weak, or describing consequences of being weak.
We should be working to reverse negative perceptions of our party. Not reinforce them!
The crucial thing is to end executive recessions.
The Dem GCB lead is pretty underwhelming right now despite everything Trump/GOP has done. Premiums doubling for alot of people may the wake up call some voters need to get Dems leading in the polls like they were in 2018. It also seems like an incredible simple message for the midterms: 'the GOP doubled your premiums, we will lower them if you vote for us..'
No. For once in their lives I want Democrats to make a threat and stand by it until the other side caves. ACA subsidies are popular, healthcare is one of the biggest third rails for the GOP and all this shutdown does is push the multiple intra party bruising and bloody fights coming that Republican leaders have kicked the can on from not wanting to blow up their majority, with the Epstein files, to banning stock trading into the heart of the summer when the average voter starts to pay attention again during campaign season. We have all the leverage and it’s about damn time we used it for a change. Just say no unless we get the subsidies funded. It’s really that simple.
That would be an unmitigated disaster for us politically. If Senate Dems did that, we'd be on the hook for both the shutdown and the expiration of the ACA subsidies.
"Ciattarelli's executive director for Muslim relations, Dr. Ibrar Nadeem, introduces Ciattarelli, says he wants a ban on same-sex marriage and insists he isn't "taking money from Jews""
Ciattarrelli claps. Mask off moment.
https://x.com/MattFriedmanNJ/status/1980304343904473160
I had the misfortune of hearing him speak this afternoon. This will sound hyperbolic, but he makes my skin crawl more than Trump. Trump is a moron. Jack seems like a smart man that is intent on pulling the ladder up behind him, and I've never seen a Republican in my lifetime (caveat of Northeastern republican) be as nakedly racist in his presentation and description of society's ills.
he also decries transplants to New Jersey--consistently. As a transplant, it's kind of wild, given that this state is not Montana or Iowa, its 25% transplants. Truly the most disgusting politician I've ever met in person. A despicable man.
Montana might be north of 25% transplants at this point!
I despise the republicans in congress who are enablers and co-conspirators more than I despise trump who is simply a narcissistic moron.
Out of curiosity, has the Lakewood Jewish community endorsed in this race?
So with now former Vermont State Senator Sam Douglass resigning over his participation in the racist group chat online, it appears Jack Ciattarelli hasn’t gotten the message.
Or maybe he doesn’t care. After all, Ciattarelli hasn’t been in elected office since 2018. What’s he REALLY doing in the gubernatorial race anyway besides just aiming to win after the mail biter of a re-election win by Governor Phil Murphy?
Unfortunate to still see a lot of muslim americans continue to gravitate towards the GOP despite the blatant Islamophobia within the party. I know social conservatism is mostly driving this but how soon people forget how the GOP treated that community after 9/11.
The Trump people are doing a fabulous/evil job of saying wildly inconsistent and maximalist things, but a decent chunk of Muslim and Jewish voters only hear/believe the part that they want to.
I'm not trying to blame Muslims OR Jews, just noting that the extreme cynicism Trump strategy seems to be working.
You -should- blame the Muslims and Jews who vote Republican.
Demographics wise, I get the impression when it comes to Jews, the more religious they are, the more likely they vote Republican. Unless we’re talking about the pro-business, pro-Wall Street types like Bill Ackman, in which it’s all about profits, lower taxes, etc.
With Muslims, it’s hard for me to say how they vote as I don’t know much. One of my good friends is Pakistani and Muslim but indifferent about anything in the Middle East unless it has to do with being profiled as being Muslim or being Pakistani. Perhaps it has to do with something else for pro-Republican Muslim voters?
Agreed on Jews who vote Republican. Some of it is also about thinking Republicans are good for Israel, and we -don't- want to argue about -that- here.
Paul Ingrassia, President Donald Trump’s embattled nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, told a group of fellow Republicans in a text chain the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell” and said he has “a Nazi streak,” according to a text chat viewed by POLITICO.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/20/paul-ingrassia-racist-text-messages-nazi-00613608
Glad to see Politico targeting the GOP for once.
They could have done so at any point in time after 2016 and would’ve found exactly these same private conversations, but no, the “free press” is too busy raking the clicks and dollars Trump being president brings them to do their actual jobs as journalists. Pathetic and inexcusable, they get no credit from me. This is their job that they suddenly decided to start doing after Trump’s chaos is too late to be stopped, just like last time. Fuck Politico and fuck every damn media company. This was right there in the open to be found if any self respecting journalist wanted to.
Democrats aren’t accusing Republicans as being fascist nazis because we don’t like them or their policies, we do it because they’re literal fascist nazis who keep all of their true natures confined to other people within the in group privately instead of being open about their racist, sexist, homophobic bigotry against anyone not white, straight and conservative.
No one is willing to stand up and admit the truth because it “sounds partisan” and/or “insane”. Sometimes the truth is actually insane! This is exactly why America is in so much trouble right now because no one is willing to call the party that quacks like a duck and looks like a duck an actual duck because that seems biased against those who see it as a beautiful swan. It’s a duck people, it always has been.
Oh no I agree, Politico are awful. I’m more surprised than anything else to see them attack the GOP.
Politico doing this is not new. Just keep in mind they go for hits and clicks just like any publication does.
Soon to be ex-congressman the MAGA voting Juan Ciscomani had one of the Republicans in the leaked chat working on his campaign, surprising exactly no one here. The only question now is how many elected Republicans are connected to these people:
https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/101725_ciscomani_chat/ciscomani-campaign-worker-part-nazi-joke-chat-group/