Amash is staunchly Libertarian but not MAGA by any stretch of the imagination. He has more in common with Rep. Thomas Massie but probably not as far right as Massie is.
Ah, I forget he ran in the 2024 senate primary. Seems there was a video here. The last archive snapshot is from election day 2024. Are we sure this isn't just lingering from that campaign?
As alienalias notes below, Amash ran for the Senate last year. There's no mention of him running again in 2026, so this seems to just be his old profile from last time.
If memory serves correctly, Justin Amash became Libertarian after being disillusioned with the GOP from Trump’s rise.
However, he also rejoined the GOP last year and appears to not have left since then. Perhaps rejoining the Republican Party was just for the Senate race.
Yes, he’s got appeal to Muslims and Middle Eastern voters as he is Palestinian-American. But running as a Libertarian squandered his chances at going broader with his message. Even Rand Paul, who can be quite Libertarian, ran in the 2016 GOP Presidential Primary Race and did not run in the Libertarian Party.
Amash in 2019 went from GOP to independent, then became a Libertarian in 2020 for an unsuccessful run for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination.
In 2024, he returned to the GOP to run for the Senate and lost the primary 63-16.
With regard to the difference between Biden's 2020 margin in KY Senate District 37 and Harris' 2024 margin, I'll note that the district was redrawn by the 2022 General Ass-embly. As far as I can tell from Ballotpedia's before-and-after maps, its core area is more-or-less the same, but it doesn't extend as far east or west, and is generally rounder and more compact. I'll also note that when David Yates initially ran for the seat in 2020, he was unopposed in the general election. In short, I believe the difference is more the result of the district being redrawn to be less Democratic than the result of a trend. I suspect that the district as it is currently drawn still has enough of a Democratic lean that a Generic Democrat should have an edge over a Generic Republican, but it's not as strongly Democratic as it was before.
Caveat: I live in a nearby district (#35), so while I'm sort of familiar-ish with the area, I have no knowledge of what is or isn't happening on the ground.
"Candidate for US Senate in Texas James Talarico and candidate for US House #TX15 Bobby Pulido are planning a rally in South Texas on Thursday
Source: San Antonio Express-News"
Talarico going for Hispanics in the primary while Crockett is locking up AAs. I hope whoever loses doesn't have hard feelings and people stay home in the general...
Smart of him to go for a broad target demo with more undecideds, but hope he also makes sure to do concerted Black outreach. For many reasons, but the perception that he's ignoring Black people could also reinforce psychological resistance to hearing out his campaign.
Hispanic voters represent 39% statewide population in Texas. Not surprised Talarico is doing this.
Meanwhile, Crockett is targeting the black vote which represents 12% of statewide population in the state.
Just by adding both demographics you have 51% all together who could be voting in 2026 although certainly whoever is the Senate nominee won’t capture 100% of each. That said, if say Talarico is the nominee and Hispanic and Black voters are fired up for him, getting more white voters will make the difference in the end.
A very disproportionate percentage of the Hispanic population can't vote either because they are too young (it's by far the youngest group) or not citizens. So even before you get to actual turnout (which we know is a big problem) minorities are no where near 51%.
Understandable. The 51% population statistic is straight from the Census as of 2020 but voter registration statistics are another affair.
That said, for those Hispanic voters who are eligible to vote in the state, regardless of whether they are officially registered voters or not, these voters are a substantial portion of TX demographics. They also can be quite swingy as voters, as recent presidential election results have shown.
Considering how more toxic Trump is at the national level compared to what he was back in 2018, I wonder.
DeSantis has had his share of dipping in popularity but he by contrast to Trump is more calculated. It’s a sad state of affairs in Florida when I have to go so far as to say DeSantis is more sane than Trump. Hahahaha
Fishback is the first openly groyper candidate who has praised the movement, and called Donalds a slave of his donors, wants to abolish property taxes and "make the trains run on time" in a viral campaign launch video. It remains to be seen whether Fuentas endorses him and how many votes he gets then which will help us get an approximation of the extent of support for Groypers.
Now that California has finally certified its election results, I've taken a look at some of the city-level results to see how they compare with 2024.
The pattern that becomes immediately evident is that wealthy, mostly-white suburban towns voted pretty much the same way as 2024, and in some cases even slightly worse, while cities with large Asian and especially Hispanic populations saw massive swings to the left. In many heavily Hispanic cities in Los Angeles County, Yes received 90% of Harris's votes while No received only 30-40% of Trump's votes. That happened at the same time that all four cities in the Palos Verdes area saw Yes do worse than Harris.
So far, the city I've found where Yes outperformed Harris the most is Mendota, a small, virtually all-Hispanic town in Fresno County that went from 57% Harris to 80% Yes. Meanwhile, the town that swung most in the other direction is Woodside, a small, ultra-rich town in San Mateo County, which went from 75% Harris to 67% Yes.
One thing is clear - 2026 is going to have significantly higher turnout than 2022 in California. Yes received more votes than Newsom did in 2022 almost everywhere, and by particularly large margins in cities with large Hispanic populations. And if that could happen in an off-year election where there was literally nothing else on the ballot, then it's clear that Hispanics now understand how horrible Trump is and that they erred in supporting him in 2024.
I don't see how Valadao holds on with these numbers. His old and new district were in areas that had some of the sharpest whiplash this year from the 2024 swing.
I wouldn’t read anything into the town as far as the swing away from blue. It’s notoriously wealthy and a haven for Silican Valley titans and VCs.
Buck’s and Alice’s Restaurant are legendary for SV deal making. The notion that Woodside is liberal is an oxymoron considering how embedded the town is in SV.
The California results tell a very consistent story with VA and NJ last month. You can basically toss out the most shocking shifts of 2024 (that were in many cases hinted at in 2022) and reset to the 2018/2020 map for predicting current coalitions and election results.
You're probably right. I learned just yesterday that former NH Gov. Chris Sununu is now a lobbyist for the airline industry. I suspect he makes a hell of a lot more doing that than he did as Governor.
I started a comment on how northern new england governors really don't make much, but after checking my facts New Hampshire pays their governor 146k thereabouts. He is definitely making more than that now, probably by a multiple of ten or more.
Maine's governor makes a mere 70k a year. Prices a lot of regular folks out of the job, even considering the lowered cost of living.
She got screwed out of being UN ambassador because Mike Johnson wanted to avoid a potentially embarrassing special, then got screwed out of her house leadership positions. By all accounts she hates Johnson because of this and running for gov is a good excuse any to get out.
Hocul was vulnerable imo, but inserting herself into the redistricting battles while also not doing anything to redistrict evidently helped her numbers. As other commenters know I am no fan of Hochul for a variety of reasons, but will enjoy her trouncing whatever republican gets the nomination. Never forget Elise Stefanik represents a district she only had a vacation home in when she first ran in 2014.
I'd really enjoy a more effective, less right-leaning Democrat defeating her in the primary a lot more. Her trouncing a Republican will give me very limited joy.
The conflicts of course have not as of yet occurred with Hochul and Mamdani, at least if Mamdani has a say on his in talking with Hochul after he was elected as NYC Mayor.
There was some talk in one of the digest threads from last week re: TX-30 and the primary candidates we ended up with after Crockett ran for Senate. Most of the talk was about Frederick Haynes III, Crockett's pastor, but it seems former state rep Barbara Mallory Caraway is also running. She served from 2007-2013, and she's become somewhat of a perennial candidate for higher office since then. She primaried Eddie Bernice Johnson in 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020. I haven't been able to find any news on her running this year, but she has filed according to the TX candidate filing website.
I don't know anything about her or her politics, but was wondering if anyone has any knowledge of her or this race? Maybe given the lack of an incumbent, this could be her year?
She finished 4th against Crockett in the open 2022 primary as well, garnering only ~7.5 percent. I'd say she's a hopeless perennial candidate at this point, but who knows, as even Evan Mecham was governor of Arizona after running for 22 years.
Roscoe Bartlett eventually made it to Congress in 1992, and it was something like his 13th run for office. He ran as a sacrificial lamb against popular Democrat Beverly Byron, and then she lost the primary.
Oh man, Vanity Fair RAKED TACO's corrupt ass administration, replete with extremely unflattering pictures of Karoline Leavitt, Marco Rubio, Susie Wiles, Miller, Vance and whoever the other bald guy was.
one day, if we are lucky to survive as a liberal democracy, we will look back at this and think how in god's name did we so abdicate our electoral responsibilities that we let such a host of kleptocratic, mean-spirited, fundamentally broken people take the reins of this country
That's not true at all, but do we really want to fight about that? I suggest not expressing such sentiments, because they will not go unremarked on. Democrats didn't "just let" Trump take over. Nonsense.
Feel free to remark on it all you want. I could write a thesis on the tactical errors that went down in 2023-2024 and before then. It’s not intellectually honest to say that Democrats didn’t do anything wrong leading up to Trump’s wins.
Tactical errors are not the same as "letting it happen". Letting it happen means you didn't try to resist. Letting it happen is what the Center Party did in 1933, not what the Democrats did in 2024. There's a huge difference, and putting out bullshit is not only offensive but certainly doesn't help anyone.
I’m interested in a party that self-reflects on errors and what went wrong. Don’t much care if that offends anyone. Hard truths need to be reckoned with after we lost to a convicted felon who tried to overthrow the government. And put forth the worst performance in many areas of the country and demographics against said monster, just to rub salt in the wound.
Many of these mistakes were very foreseeable at the time, but anyone who voiced concern about where things were heading was told to shut up. Anyhow, I’m happy to chat more via DM if you want, at the risk of derailing this thread.
If Biden’s administration had prosecuted Trump in a more timely manner, he likely would have been convicted of conspiring to overturn the election before the Republican primaries, instead they waited 2 years to even start. And every single piece of polling data showed that Biden shouldn’t run again and then he did anyways, all while his team insisted he could beat Trump again, before flaming out in catastrophic fashion. That isn’t a remotely competent effort to try to stop Trump, it’s instead an abdication of responsibility.
You can accuse the Biden Administration and Kamala Harris (whom you don't mention) of doing things wrong, but you cannot accuse them of doing nothing. I will not tolerate analogizing the Democratic Party to the Center Party in the period before the 2024 elections.
BILL HUIZENGA: “My name is Congressman Bill Huizenga and I am running for Congress in Michigan’s 4th Congressional District, again.
I have been serving you since 2011 and I know how to fight. While President Trump and I agree on a lot, I will criticize him when I need to. That shows I am independent.”
I just made a humorous take on Huizenga as it relates to the GOP and their history of being hypocritical going back to 2006 when they try to show their "independence" when they had none.
Darrell Issa was one of the House Republicans who brought more accountability to the Iraq War back in 2007 by saying, "The American people have spoken" but never did such a thing prior to the 2006 midterms. This is how the GOP reacts, especially with their "conservative" ideology.
Minnesota: SurveyUSA has Trump with a negative 42/55 JA while Walz is split at 48/48, earlier this year they had Walz with a 58/39 JA so we will see if he stops the bleeding next year and regains his footing in his re-election campaign.
David Yates also outperformed Harris in 2024. Clemons outperformed Yates by 12 points, though turnout was so low (5,178 votes cast compared to 41,584 in 2024), that I'm hesitant to read too much into that. As a Kentucky Democrat, I'm mainly pleased that we held the seat. That Calvin Leach got thumped even harder than he did in 2024 is gravy.
Generally, people (on this site at least) use points to mean difference from opponent rather than difference from 50%, meaning Clemons still outperformed Yates by 24 points
Feels like we’re headed for an exact replica of 2018 in 2026, though maybe bigger in scale. The Democrats and Independents and a small chunk of moderate Republicans drawn by the snake oil biggest conman in America realize how much they hate everything about Trump, but only after they vote him into office.
Ex-Trump voters swung hard to Democrats over costs in NJ & VA, new research shows
Voters who backed Donald Trump in 2024 and swung to Democrats in this year's Virginia and New Jersey elections did so over economic concerns, according to focus groups conducted by a Democratic pollster and obtained by POLITICO.
The House looks good, but could the Senate be in play too? North Carolina and Maine seem the easiest, but we need Ohio and Texas as well as Alaska and Iowa if we're to win it.
The senate is in a weird spot. If it's "merely" a decent sized wave, our realistic top end is the same as a modestly good non-wave election: two seats. North Carolina and Maine.
If the election becomes a large wave, that's when the number of seats expands substantially from two to six. North Carolina, Maine, Texas, Alaska, Iowa, and Ohio.
I think a 2018 sized wave comes close but doesn't quite reach the point of adding the extra four seats into play. We need a smidge better.
These states could benefit from these sharp-to-the-left voters after their votes in 2024:
Alaska
Florida
Iowa
Maine
North Carolina
Ohio
Texas
Democrats need just to win five out of the above Senate races to win back control over the Senate.
The real wild card races from Montana, Nebraska and/or South Carolina could emerge (especially considering the recent close SC-SEN poll) but right now, the original seven races I referenced are the most high profile ones.
Yeah, at this point, based on what we are seeing in fundamentals in the elections this year, at least minimally there is no question Democrats are on a trajectory to win back the House. The question is by how much.
"Democrat Gary Clemons has won a special election to a fill a Kentucky state Senate seat, according to Decision Desk HQ. Clemons, president of United Steelworkers Local 1693 and an Army veteran, beat back challenges from Republican Calvin Leach, an Army veteran and former state Senate candidate, and Libertarian candidate Wendy Higdon, who founded the Louisville Tea Party in 2009."
MI-Sen: It appears former Rep. Justin Amash is running
https://www.justinamash.com/about
Sigh. Why is he running for Senate in a very blue-leaning midterm?
Gotta build up those post-trump bonafides on the right when it all comes crashing down
I think the big question is how he thinks an anti-Trump Republican can win the GOP primary and then go on to win an election in a blue leaning year?
Where do you see that?
Updated the source
Maybe. Don't see anything about it anywhere else including on his twitter feed.
He might just be waiting to announce - it's pretty odd to have a whole campaign website (albeit vague) if you're not running
Amash is a pretty odd dude - so it’s anyone’s guess what he’s actually doing
Amash is staunchly Libertarian but not MAGA by any stretch of the imagination. He has more in common with Rep. Thomas Massie but probably not as far right as Massie is.
I wonder if he's running as a Republican again or still as a Libertarian.
Republican, per Wikipedia
Ah, I forget he ran in the 2024 senate primary. Seems there was a video here. The last archive snapshot is from election day 2024. Are we sure this isn't just lingering from that campaign?
https://www.justinamash.com/surveillance-state-mike-rogers
As alienalias notes below, Amash ran for the Senate last year. There's no mention of him running again in 2026, so this seems to just be his old profile from last time.
If memory serves correctly, Justin Amash became Libertarian after being disillusioned with the GOP from Trump’s rise.
However, he also rejoined the GOP last year and appears to not have left since then. Perhaps rejoining the Republican Party was just for the Senate race.
He not only went Libertarian, he briefly tried to run for President as one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Libertarian_Party_presidential_primaries#Candidates
That’s the one mystifying thing about Amash.
Yes, he’s got appeal to Muslims and Middle Eastern voters as he is Palestinian-American. But running as a Libertarian squandered his chances at going broader with his message. Even Rand Paul, who can be quite Libertarian, ran in the 2016 GOP Presidential Primary Race and did not run in the Libertarian Party.
Amash in 2019 went from GOP to independent, then became a Libertarian in 2020 for an unsuccessful run for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination.
In 2024, he returned to the GOP to run for the Senate and lost the primary 63-16.
Ahhh yes, I remember that history. Certainly Amash's stock in the GOP has considerably dropped since Trump has taken over the GOP.
Perhaps Amash should remain as a Libertarian as his philosophy is very much that way to begin with.
With regard to the difference between Biden's 2020 margin in KY Senate District 37 and Harris' 2024 margin, I'll note that the district was redrawn by the 2022 General Ass-embly. As far as I can tell from Ballotpedia's before-and-after maps, its core area is more-or-less the same, but it doesn't extend as far east or west, and is generally rounder and more compact. I'll also note that when David Yates initially ran for the seat in 2020, he was unopposed in the general election. In short, I believe the difference is more the result of the district being redrawn to be less Democratic than the result of a trend. I suspect that the district as it is currently drawn still has enough of a Democratic lean that a Generic Democrat should have an edge over a Generic Republican, but it's not as strongly Democratic as it was before.
Caveat: I live in a nearby district (#35), so while I'm sort of familiar-ish with the area, I have no knowledge of what is or isn't happening on the ground.
Maps at: https://ballotpedia.org/Kentucky_State_Senate_District_37#Redistricting
"Candidate for US Senate in Texas James Talarico and candidate for US House #TX15 Bobby Pulido are planning a rally in South Texas on Thursday
Source: San Antonio Express-News"
Talarico going for Hispanics in the primary while Crockett is locking up AAs. I hope whoever loses doesn't have hard feelings and people stay home in the general...
Smart of him to go for a broad target demo with more undecideds, but hope he also makes sure to do concerted Black outreach. For many reasons, but the perception that he's ignoring Black people could also reinforce psychological resistance to hearing out his campaign.
Talarico needs to make a play for young Black people.
I’m sure he’s thinking about this strategy. His appearance on Jubilee has certainly helped raise his profile.
Hispanic voters represent 39% statewide population in Texas. Not surprised Talarico is doing this.
Meanwhile, Crockett is targeting the black vote which represents 12% of statewide population in the state.
Just by adding both demographics you have 51% all together who could be voting in 2026 although certainly whoever is the Senate nominee won’t capture 100% of each. That said, if say Talarico is the nominee and Hispanic and Black voters are fired up for him, getting more white voters will make the difference in the end.
https://data.census.gov/profile/Texas?g=040XX00US48
A very disproportionate percentage of the Hispanic population can't vote either because they are too young (it's by far the youngest group) or not citizens. So even before you get to actual turnout (which we know is a big problem) minorities are no where near 51%.
Understandable. The 51% population statistic is straight from the Census as of 2020 but voter registration statistics are another affair.
That said, for those Hispanic voters who are eligible to vote in the state, regardless of whether they are officially registered voters or not, these voters are a substantial portion of TX demographics. They also can be quite swingy as voters, as recent presidential election results have shown.
Latinos don't vote anywhere close to theor pop #s in TX, IIRC.
I figured as much.
It’s not as if Talarico or Crockett would need say 48%+ of Hispanic residents to turn out I order to win the general election.
Unfortunately, in TX white population still represents the majority of the population. Democrats though still have a window of opportunity.
Public Opinion Strategies poll | 12/7-12/11 RV
Florida Governor Republican primary
Bryon Donalds 40%
Jay Collins 13%
James Fishback 2%
Paul Renner 1%
Others 6%
Undecided 38%
—
Florida Governor Republican primary (If DeSantis endorses Collins)
Jay Collins 50%
Byron Donalds 24%
They are missing what will happen if DeSantis endorses Collins and Trump endorses Donalds.
I find it really hard to believe that Ron Desantis can move that many votes from a Trump endorsee.
Considering how more toxic Trump is at the national level compared to what he was back in 2018, I wonder.
DeSantis has had his share of dipping in popularity but he by contrast to Trump is more calculated. It’s a sad state of affairs in Florida when I have to go so far as to say DeSantis is more sane than Trump. Hahahaha
I read it as people don’t know either option and just wanted a signal as to who was the more credible candidate.
Fishback is the first openly groyper candidate who has praised the movement, and called Donalds a slave of his donors, wants to abolish property taxes and "make the trains run on time" in a viral campaign launch video. It remains to be seen whether Fuentas endorses him and how many votes he gets then which will help us get an approximation of the extent of support for Groypers.
New - Governor Poll - New York
🔵 Hochul 49%
🔴 Stefanik 30%
🔵 Hochul 50%
🔴 Blakeman 25%
Siena #B - RV - 12/12
Sounds about right. It won't ever be single digits in this environment
Now that California has finally certified its election results, I've taken a look at some of the city-level results to see how they compare with 2024.
The pattern that becomes immediately evident is that wealthy, mostly-white suburban towns voted pretty much the same way as 2024, and in some cases even slightly worse, while cities with large Asian and especially Hispanic populations saw massive swings to the left. In many heavily Hispanic cities in Los Angeles County, Yes received 90% of Harris's votes while No received only 30-40% of Trump's votes. That happened at the same time that all four cities in the Palos Verdes area saw Yes do worse than Harris.
So far, the city I've found where Yes outperformed Harris the most is Mendota, a small, virtually all-Hispanic town in Fresno County that went from 57% Harris to 80% Yes. Meanwhile, the town that swung most in the other direction is Woodside, a small, ultra-rich town in San Mateo County, which went from 75% Harris to 67% Yes.
One thing is clear - 2026 is going to have significantly higher turnout than 2022 in California. Yes received more votes than Newsom did in 2022 almost everywhere, and by particularly large margins in cities with large Hispanic populations. And if that could happen in an off-year election where there was literally nothing else on the ballot, then it's clear that Hispanics now understand how horrible Trump is and that they erred in supporting him in 2024.
I don't see how Valadao holds on with these numbers. His old and new district were in areas that had some of the sharpest whiplash this year from the 2024 swing.
Valadao is considered more moderate than most House Republicans in CA but in this political environment, it won’t mean anything.
Ahhh yes, Woodside.
I wouldn’t read anything into the town as far as the swing away from blue. It’s notoriously wealthy and a haven for Silican Valley titans and VCs.
Buck’s and Alice’s Restaurant are legendary for SV deal making. The notion that Woodside is liberal is an oxymoron considering how embedded the town is in SV.
https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-the-silicon-valley-cafe-where-paypal-tesla-and-netscape-did-deals-2012-2
The California results tell a very consistent story with VA and NJ last month. You can basically toss out the most shocking shifts of 2024 (that were in many cases hinted at in 2022) and reset to the 2018/2020 map for predicting current coalitions and election results.
More detailed version of the poll Yvette posted:
"InteractivePolls
@IAPolls2022
NEW YORK POLL - Governor
🟦 Hochul (inc): 49%
🟥 Stefanik: 30%
—
🟦 Hochul (inc): 50%
🟥 Blakeman: 25%
——
GOP GOV
Stefanik 48%
Blakeman 17%
—
DEM GOV
Hochul 56%
Delgado 13%
——
Net Favs
Mamdani: +15 (was -9 in Aug)
Letitia James: +14 (new high)
Stefanik: -9
Schumer: -13
Trump: -30
——
Net Approval
Gov. Hochul: +12 (was -4 in Feb)
Pres. Trump: -28 (new low)
——
@SienaResearch
(A) | RV | 12/8-12
https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Hochul-Holds-19-Point-Lead-Over-Stefanik---Leads-Blakeman-by-25-Points.html?soid=1121049327817&aid=WNGUuGT4geg"
https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/2000937111453614263
Stefanik is going to get blown out next year. Talk about a sacrificial MAGA lamb!
Why is she running? Any theories?
To go out with a bang after being withdrawn as UN ambassador
She will be in six figure consulting within a year and a half
You're probably right. I learned just yesterday that former NH Gov. Chris Sununu is now a lobbyist for the airline industry. I suspect he makes a hell of a lot more doing that than he did as Governor.
I started a comment on how northern new england governors really don't make much, but after checking my facts New Hampshire pays their governor 146k thereabouts. He is definitely making more than that now, probably by a multiple of ten or more.
Maine's governor makes a mere 70k a year. Prices a lot of regular folks out of the job, even considering the lowered cost of living.
She got screwed out of being UN ambassador because Mike Johnson wanted to avoid a potentially embarrassing special, then got screwed out of her house leadership positions. By all accounts she hates Johnson because of this and running for gov is a good excuse any to get out.
She thinks Hochul is vulnerable and is counting on major conflicts between Hochul and Mamdani.
Hocul was vulnerable imo, but inserting herself into the redistricting battles while also not doing anything to redistrict evidently helped her numbers. As other commenters know I am no fan of Hochul for a variety of reasons, but will enjoy her trouncing whatever republican gets the nomination. Never forget Elise Stefanik represents a district she only had a vacation home in when she first ran in 2014.
Hochul was never vulnerable in this environment.
I'd really enjoy a more effective, less right-leaning Democrat defeating her in the primary a lot more. Her trouncing a Republican will give me very limited joy.
The conflicts of course have not as of yet occurred with Hochul and Mamdani, at least if Mamdani has a say on his in talking with Hochul after he was elected as NYC Mayor.
Stefanik just wants attention.
There was some talk in one of the digest threads from last week re: TX-30 and the primary candidates we ended up with after Crockett ran for Senate. Most of the talk was about Frederick Haynes III, Crockett's pastor, but it seems former state rep Barbara Mallory Caraway is also running. She served from 2007-2013, and she's become somewhat of a perennial candidate for higher office since then. She primaried Eddie Bernice Johnson in 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020. I haven't been able to find any news on her running this year, but she has filed according to the TX candidate filing website.
https://goelect.txelections.civixapps.com/ivis-cbp-ui/candidate-information
I don't know anything about her or her politics, but was wondering if anyone has any knowledge of her or this race? Maybe given the lack of an incumbent, this could be her year?
She finished 4th against Crockett in the open 2022 primary as well, garnering only ~7.5 percent. I'd say she's a hopeless perennial candidate at this point, but who knows, as even Evan Mecham was governor of Arizona after running for 22 years.
Roscoe Bartlett eventually made it to Congress in 1992, and it was something like his 13th run for office. He ran as a sacrificial lamb against popular Democrat Beverly Byron, and then she lost the primary.
And then he lost and now lives in the middle of nowhere at 99.
Oh man, Vanity Fair RAKED TACO's corrupt ass administration, replete with extremely unflattering pictures of Karoline Leavitt, Marco Rubio, Susie Wiles, Miller, Vance and whoever the other bald guy was.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/moment-trump-goons-realized-vanity-fair-shoot-was-career-suicide/ar-AA1StjZb?ocid=BingNewsVerp
Seriously, Leavitt and Rubio's pictures are nightmare fuel.
one day, if we are lucky to survive as a liberal democracy, we will look back at this and think how in god's name did we so abdicate our electoral responsibilities that we let such a host of kleptocratic, mean-spirited, fundamentally broken people take the reins of this country
Lots of blame to go around. Including our own party for letting it happen.
That's not true at all, but do we really want to fight about that? I suggest not expressing such sentiments, because they will not go unremarked on. Democrats didn't "just let" Trump take over. Nonsense.
Feel free to remark on it all you want. I could write a thesis on the tactical errors that went down in 2023-2024 and before then. It’s not intellectually honest to say that Democrats didn’t do anything wrong leading up to Trump’s wins.
Tactical errors are not the same as "letting it happen". Letting it happen means you didn't try to resist. Letting it happen is what the Center Party did in 1933, not what the Democrats did in 2024. There's a huge difference, and putting out bullshit is not only offensive but certainly doesn't help anyone.
I’m interested in a party that self-reflects on errors and what went wrong. Don’t much care if that offends anyone. Hard truths need to be reckoned with after we lost to a convicted felon who tried to overthrow the government. And put forth the worst performance in many areas of the country and demographics against said monster, just to rub salt in the wound.
Many of these mistakes were very foreseeable at the time, but anyone who voiced concern about where things were heading was told to shut up. Anyhow, I’m happy to chat more via DM if you want, at the risk of derailing this thread.
If Biden’s administration had prosecuted Trump in a more timely manner, he likely would have been convicted of conspiring to overturn the election before the Republican primaries, instead they waited 2 years to even start. And every single piece of polling data showed that Biden shouldn’t run again and then he did anyways, all while his team insisted he could beat Trump again, before flaming out in catastrophic fashion. That isn’t a remotely competent effort to try to stop Trump, it’s instead an abdication of responsibility.
Once again, it was political malpractice for President Biden to have nominated Merrick Garland as Attorney General.
I think most if not all of us agree on that.
You can accuse the Biden Administration and Kamala Harris (whom you don't mention) of doing things wrong, but you cannot accuse them of doing nothing. I will not tolerate analogizing the Democratic Party to the Center Party in the period before the 2024 elections.
MI-04:
BILL HUIZENGA: “My name is Congressman Bill Huizenga and I am running for Congress in Michigan’s 4th Congressional District, again.
I have been serving you since 2011 and I know how to fight. While President Trump and I agree on a lot, I will criticize him when I need to. That shows I am independent.”
MI-04 Voters: FAIL
Huizenga is cooked if that’s what he’s saying. Congratulations, Rep.-elect Sean McCann!
A further plus side, the GOP is having to distance from Trump again, so there’s that.
Ask the D senators that were up in 2014 how that strategy fares.
He’s probably cooked regardless. This is the exact type of seat you would expect to flip in a blue wave.
I just made a humorous take on Huizenga as it relates to the GOP and their history of being hypocritical going back to 2006 when they try to show their "independence" when they had none.
Darrell Issa was one of the House Republicans who brought more accountability to the Iraq War back in 2007 by saying, "The American people have spoken" but never did such a thing prior to the 2006 midterms. This is how the GOP reacts, especially with their "conservative" ideology.
Minnesota: SurveyUSA has Trump with a negative 42/55 JA while Walz is split at 48/48, earlier this year they had Walz with a 58/39 JA so we will see if he stops the bleeding next year and regains his footing in his re-election campaign.
https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/2001084122438008850
I think Walz should move on.
Agree 100%. He has accomplished just about as much as he could hope for in his 8 years. I don't get a sense he has a big 'vision' for his 3rd term.
In Kentucky Senate 37, with all the vote counted, the Democrat is winning 72.6 to 25.1, a 42 point overperformance from Harris' margin. Woof.
David Yates also outperformed Harris in 2024. Clemons outperformed Yates by 12 points, though turnout was so low (5,178 votes cast compared to 41,584 in 2024), that I'm hesitant to read too much into that. As a Kentucky Democrat, I'm mainly pleased that we held the seat. That Calvin Leach got thumped even harder than he did in 2024 is gravy.
Generally, people (on this site at least) use points to mean difference from opponent rather than difference from 50%, meaning Clemons still outperformed Yates by 24 points
In 2024, Yates got 60.4% to 39.6% for Leach. In this special election, Clemons got 72.6% to 25.1% for Leach, with 2.3% going to the Libertarian.
Source for 2024: https://ballotpedia.org/David_Yates#Elections
Feels like we’re headed for an exact replica of 2018 in 2026, though maybe bigger in scale. The Democrats and Independents and a small chunk of moderate Republicans drawn by the snake oil biggest conman in America realize how much they hate everything about Trump, but only after they vote him into office.
Tale as old as time.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/16/economy-voters-new-jersey-virginia-midterms-trump-00693015
https://archive.ph/7RcHf
Ex-Trump voters swung hard to Democrats over costs in NJ & VA, new research shows
Voters who backed Donald Trump in 2024 and swung to Democrats in this year's Virginia and New Jersey elections did so over economic concerns, according to focus groups conducted by a Democratic pollster and obtained by POLITICO.
The House looks good, but could the Senate be in play too? North Carolina and Maine seem the easiest, but we need Ohio and Texas as well as Alaska and Iowa if we're to win it.
The senate is in a weird spot. If it's "merely" a decent sized wave, our realistic top end is the same as a modestly good non-wave election: two seats. North Carolina and Maine.
If the election becomes a large wave, that's when the number of seats expands substantially from two to six. North Carolina, Maine, Texas, Alaska, Iowa, and Ohio.
I think a 2018 sized wave comes close but doesn't quite reach the point of adding the extra four seats into play. We need a smidge better.
These states could benefit from these sharp-to-the-left voters after their votes in 2024:
Alaska
Florida
Iowa
Maine
North Carolina
Ohio
Texas
Democrats need just to win five out of the above Senate races to win back control over the Senate.
The real wild card races from Montana, Nebraska and/or South Carolina could emerge (especially considering the recent close SC-SEN poll) but right now, the original seven races I referenced are the most high profile ones.
I think next year could be a repeat of 2006 or even 2010, where Dems win seats in “safe R” seats in legislatures across the country.
And potentially key Senate flips in light red states.
Yeah, at this point, based on what we are seeing in fundamentals in the elections this year, at least minimally there is no question Democrats are on a trajectory to win back the House. The question is by how much.
Dems win the KY-SS-37 special.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5651795-democrat-gary-clemons-elected/
"Democrat Gary Clemons has won a special election to a fill a Kentucky state Senate seat, according to Decision Desk HQ. Clemons, president of United Steelworkers Local 1693 and an Army veteran, beat back challenges from Republican Calvin Leach, an Army veteran and former state Senate candidate, and Libertarian candidate Wendy Higdon, who founded the Louisville Tea Party in 2009."