Unsurprising. I'm guessing El-Sayed will get only a minority of Jewish votes in the general election. However, am I not right that there are more Arabs than Jews in MI?
I don’t understand the hang up some MI Jewish voters have with AES, apart from the obvious topic. Rogers is not a moderate Republican and poses a threat long term to MI voters of all stripes if elected to the Senate.
AES has made good outreach efforts to MI Jewish communities (he did visit a synagogue for either Passover or Seder back in April). That said, some folks are too close-minded. It’s shameful because AES embodies values that he shares with the Jewish community 95% of the time.
You don't understand that some people are single-issue voters? It's not a mystery. and everyone needs to understand that there are indeed such voters. I think we've gotten too far into issues with your first sentence, and if something is obvious, you should acknowledge it without commenting on it, obliquely or otherwise. I'll just note one thing further: that Mamdani got quite a significant minority of Jewish votes, but it was still a minority, and that's my frame of reference.
I do get that there are single issue voters. But it’s very problematic when a portion of these voters value loyalty to a country they don’t live in over the one they do, purely because they see AES as a threat because his criticism of said country’s actions.
I'm sorry, we can't discuss this, and you are over the line. I'll just say that it's not that simple, but don't make those kinds of statements again in contexts like this site where they can't be discussed.
A major difference between NYC and Michigan is there being far fewer Orthodox enclaves and Rodgers being less (ideologically) palatable than Cuomo to most moderates.
The fox poll is much better than that poll from a few weeks ago that had him down 10 to Rogers. El-Sayed also leads in the poll among “definite voters.” Hopefully he keeps improving as the memory of the primary fades.
When that Glengariff poll released, they had a similar amount of black voters breaking for Rogers as well.
I don't know if we have a proper breakdown of voter demographics of the primary, but El-Sayed didn't lose Wayne county by *that* much. Maybe a handful of black Stevens voters stay home or leave their ballot blank, sure. But I can't see that many opting for Mike Rogers who isn't anywhere near a "moderate" no matter how hard people try to pretend he is
2024 exit polling showed Rogers winning 12 percent of Black voters; factoring in the noted increase in activity among Black voters nationally in response to the end of the VRA this summer, it seems unlikely there would be such a dramatic swing to the right in under 2 years.
MI-Sen - It's concerning that AES hasn't led Rogers in a poll in a while, but FiftyPlusOne's forecast still has AES favored, and Lakshya Jain, over at his Substack newsletter, called the MI-Sen race AES's to lose despite Rogers leading in most polling.
AES's path to victory would include tying Rogers to Trump, opposing another Trump SCOTUS appointment should a vacancy arise, and, if there are any debates, strong debate performances.
He needs to go scorched earth against Rogers from now until November. The cute ad with his grandparents is nice and all but he’s not in the place to be running feel good ads right now.
Indeed. He has to establish likability before he can go for the jugular given how large of a faction of the population will be predisposed to view him unfavorably.
With the Republicans trying to paint El Sayed as an ogre, it is important first to present him as a relatable human. Hence, the picture with his wife and the grandfather ad.
Yea, AES is a stronger general candidate than people are letting on. Jain also said on his X feed that the MI governor's race will have a much higher margin of victory (11 points), while AES will trail significantly (but still enough to win by less than 4 points).
I mean, you could say the same about Crowley, or could've said the same about Stevens if she narrowly won the primary. El-Sayed underperformed primary polling but you still have to keep in mind the uphill battle he had in winning, being heavily outspent by Stevens and opposed by two of the state's prominent statewide Democrats and still coming out on top, which I think shows that he has a certain strength that'll come in handy against the infinite money machine Rogers will benefit from.
I'll be more worried if polls have Rogers leading by this much around late September/October. We're only 10 days out from the primary (God that feels like it was months ago), El-Sayed has about 2.5 months left to properly introduce himself to voters, get his message out there, and mend fences with the establishment and Stevens voters - and so far, at the very least, he's been demonstrating a willingness to work on uniting the base, and so has Stevens for her part, and in any case the establishment is certainly going to back him because retaking the senate (and reaching 52 to account for Fetterman) becomes *much harder* without Michigan. With regards to the other two things, he does have a hill to climb on account of his spoOoOOoOoky name and progressive policies, but he's not Francesca Hong. He's very well spoken and knows his shit, and I think once time has passed, as he's gotten his message out, maybe even gotten some debates against Rogers under his belt, we'll see polling start to change. Optimistic? Maybe, but I truly think any votes he might've lost because of his progressive policy or other factors will be offset by the national environment as well as likely cruising to an easy victory. It was always going to be a close election - both El-Sayed and Stevens have their own weaknesses and strengths, but I feel confident in El-Sayed.
I also suspect that AES will benefit from the GOP going way too far with the racist and Islamophobic attacks on him which will turn off swing voters and supercharge turnout among Michigan's Arab-American voters for AES. The GOP won't be able to help themselves with this race.
Don't underestimate the difficulty his name adds against his chances. Michigan just had an endorsed candidate with an Arab-sounding name lose to a random dude who wasn't in the race anymore due strictly to anti-Muslim sentiment among large swaths of the electorate. It isn't fair, it isn't right, but it is very real.
Nope, he was Arab and Orthodox but a Dem from SD who grew up on the rez and was an active ally/proponent of Indian rights. He died on the same day as my aunt (those cousins are enrolled tribal members). When he and my aunt were born (Silent Gen) Indians couldn’t vote.
I have to imagine some of these forecasters will have Rogers favored soon. If he’s over 50% in another poll, it’s not just the results of a rough primary, it’s that swing voters in a swing state just aren’t buying what he’s selling.
Who is this Jain person? Sorry but 5-point lead for Benson sounds about right atm. James barely lost two statewide races, he'll get his fair share of votes and actually i'd be pretty happy for Benson to put him away by 5
The Harper Polling for the Cooper v. Whatley race is amazing, considering it was conducted for a Republican-leaning outlet (one of the founders is the husband of NC Supreme Court justice Tamara Barringer). Even with a GOP-leaning sample, Cooper's lead is HIGHER.
Even the state Supreme Court, legislative, and Congressional races show the Democrats leading, albeit by smaller percentages.
Acton has little appeal from Republicans given the misinformation around COVID, and Brown has been in elected office for over 40 years compared to Acton's none. While Ramaswamy is an ideologue that will be hurt by racism, he is outspending Acton by big margins. And Brown's presence in the Senate race is a rare occasion where the challenger is more experienced than the incumbent.
FWIW, I expect Acton to lose by 3 and Brown to lose by 1.
Acton's opposition to transgender rights could result in some left-wing voters voting for Brown for U.S Senate but leaving the gubernatorial race blank.
One could argue that voters should just suck it up and vote for her anyway, and maybe that argument has merit, but I would argue that Acton shouldn't have made that stance to begin with. I really don't think anybody actually cares about that issue enough to make their voting decision based on it, and those who do were never going to vote Democratic anyway. Taking the stance she did just alienates Democratic voters, who either disagree with the issue or are just sick of Dems aligning themselves with Republican talking points. Now a decent chunk of the campaign is going to be about transgender people in sports, just like how a decent chunk of Hong's campaign would've been about Thanksgiving because she gave in and took a position on a pointless issue instead of redirecting back towards economic policy and pushing back on the issue as a needless distraction from Trump's shittiness
Of course they should still vote for Acton. I really can't abide people who won't do lesser of two evils voting, as if ignoring the choice makes it go away or something.
If you had to choose between breaking your neck or getting punched in the stomach, would you really say, "Well both those things are bad, so I'm not going to choose, someone else choose for me"?
When Republicans are relitigating Covid after six damn years, they have nothing to show for it. That's what they're trying to do with Roy Cooper in NC and trying to paint Michael Whatley as an "everyman candidate who isn't a career politician".
It's hard for savvy voters to accept that BS when Whatley hired a pedophile to fundraise for judicial races, esp one with Sarah Stevens in attendance.
They relitigate Covid because the grievances born out of 2020 are the foundation stone for the new GOP coalition. I maintain without it Trump loses 2020 decisively and his cult of personality would be irretrievably damaged, though he’d still have a lot of post-Presidency influence
That's an interesting counter to the retrospective conventional wisdom which holds that without COVID Trump would have sailed to reelection in 2020 due to the allegedly glorious economy overcoming voter distaste for his personality.
Of course those takes were often repeated during the Biden presidency when this Trump 1 economic nostalgia peaked. At least we aren't hearing much of the "great dealmaking businessman will fix everything" tripe anymore, as much polling shows Democrats pulling ahead or at least even with Republicans on the economy, a sea change from two years ago.
The economy of 2019 was fine, if clearly no longer the 2015-18 boom, but that nostalgia was probably more about “no Covid” than any sober assessment of macroeconomic conditions
Because "everyman" is a former RNC chair and Big Oil lobbyist? The latter is almost never a great resume bullet point electorally, and especially not when gas prices are a big issue and the public blames your party.
While COVID itself may be stale as an issue, one thing that has concerned me about Acton's strength as a candidate is that (like Whatley) she's never held or sought electoral office to my knowledge, and much of her reputation is built on her service in appointed health-related office when COVID happened (though she was appointed before that.) Vivek of course has never been elected to anything either, and before seemed to think only the presidency was befitting of him. If she isn't doing so already, Acton needs to hit him hard on the stuff he said during and after his presidential campaign, Elon/DOGE association, etc.
That may change. Oligarch Watch just broke a huge story on Ramaswamy's pump and dump scheme with an Alzheimer's drug that made him a lot of money and left the California teachers union and other investors with a huge loss. Popular Information re-published the story today. The Acton campaign is running with it.
I think/hope there's a real opportunity for the bottom to fall out on Trump's (and by proxy Republican candidates everywhere) polling numbers as voters realize things aren't magically going to get better.
Average price of gas is over $4 which hasn’t happened this late in the summer and we haven’t run out of oil reserves yet. It’s going to get much worse before it gets better.
We aren't going to come close to running out of reserves by November and all it will take is Trump's 50th capitulation for gas prices to drop a bit by election day.
Not gonna lie, I’d take the Michigan Senate seat over the Wisconsin governor’s race if I had to pick one of the two. Wish the primary results of the last 2 weeks were flipped. Too much of our democracy is riding on needing 51 (or 52 post-Fetterman) senate seats.
That one's unique to me in that A. Alaska is an unorthodox state politically and is comfortable with both parties B. Peltola is an overperformer C. Sullivan is a do-nothing backbencher that goes down in waves like these, and D. ranked-choice voting will help Peltola in the long run.
Why don’t you see a path? If we’re saying that even in an environment this favorable to us we can’t win anything to the left of North Carolina we might as well just give up hope of ever having enough power to make things better. 2028 will likely be a worse environment for us than this year is.
There's too much polarization, and Texas and Iowa, though competitive, are really just that red. I'm ambivalent on Ohio. I think if Brown wins then we have a real chance because of the unique situation in Alaska.
Why do you think Texas is just that red? We only lost it by 5.5 points in 2020, and we only lost the Senate race by 2.5 points in 2018. 2022 and 2024 didn’t turn out well but we came close in recent history.
Portions of the state, specifically the Rio Grande Valley, have trended redder since 2018. Talarico would have to do incredibly well in areas like Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston to have a chance to offset the growing conservative areas in the south and west of the state. I'm not saying it *can't* happen, I'm just saying under current circumstances I don't think it will.
For this analysis of the RGV to hold, all the polling and voting shifts among Latinos nationally, including swings in the 70s in some cases, would have to be discounted.
As it stands now, the competitive Senate races are Maine, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Iowa, and Alaska. Democrats need to win at least six of those eight for a majority, and that assumes someone like John Fetterman doesn't switch parties to make or break a tie (which would be GOP control via Vance having tie-breaking power).
I'm not factoring in races on the edge of being competitive (Florida comes to mind), and I'm also not factoring in Nebraska, as, although that race is competitive, it's competitive between a Republican and an independent who hasn't stated an intention on which party to caucus with.
And I say Democrats win Maine, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina and Alaska, just one seat short of a majority. I think Ohio will be the decider, and I think Husted will win by a very narrow margin.
If three reputable polls came out tomorrow and put Annie Edwards up 52-46 in SC. I'd still assume the R runoff winner would win 54-45. That's how SC works. And too many of the new people in this fastest growing state in the US are Rs fleeing blue states.
The big difference is that Hong was a much weaker candidate than el-Sayed and Stevens was a much more divisive candidate for El-Sayed’s supporters than Crowley was for Hong’s. I’m pretty sure Crowley will do far better than Hong would’ve. I’m not sure that would have been true about Stevens vs El-Sayed.
I think the RW organizations here in NC are panicking big time over the 2026 midterms. You have the WaPo report with the AFP polling saying that 20% of the reliable GOP voters will either sit out the midterms or vote for Democrats. Then you add in the Carolina Journal poll giving Cooper an 13-point margin, plus the various polling showing Cooper having a steady lead over Whatley.
And there was this anecdotal post I saw on Threads where a Raleigh-based realtor shared an elevator with four employees from the John Locke Foundation (a RW 'think tank' group), saying that the employees were 'flabbergasted and distraught' that the new polling they did showed a MUCH stronger Democratic lean than expected.
Do I expect Cooper to win by double digits? No. But if he does, Democrats not only break the GOP supermajority in both state House and Senate but possibly end control of the former.
NY-17: Republican Rep. Mike Lawler has accepted a $10,000 donation from his colleague, the embattled Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), and says the allegations against Miller are a "media game".
Why on earth would a swing-district Republican who's political instincts are generally pretty sound, insert himself into that mess? It boggles the mind, but I'll take the own goal from Lawler.
Luigi Mangione plead guilty to killing former UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and faces a maximum penalty of life in prison. The killing sparked public discourse on whether to treat Mangione as a vicious murderer or a vigilante acting against a deeply flawed healthcare system.
Mangione is also the cousin of Baltimore County, Maryland councilor and former Del. Nino Mangione (R).
Hopefully the Free Mangione supporters can go on with their lives knowing Luigi Mangione himself admitted to killing Brian Thompson. I’m really tired of their batshit crazy antics, especially considering multiple suspects who committed arson in California proclaimed their admiration of Mangione.
I skimmed the Wisconsin redistricting subthread yesterday. What’s stopping a hypothetical Dem trifecta from gerrymandering the shit out of the state in 2027 and then putting an independent commission that would go into effect in the 2030s on the ballot? That would allow us to punch back for the VRA seat grabs while protecting us in case of a Republican wave in 2030.
The WI Supreme Court, while having a Democratic-aligned 5-2 majority, will probably not allow a Democratic gerrymander even after SCOTUS' Callais decision.
And if voters here in NC managed to throw out the GOP legislative majority this year, the GOP-aligned state Supreme Court would put the brakes on map redrawing for partisan reasons.
The WI Supreme Court struck down a previous Republican gerrymander of the legislature. Like I said above, unlike Republican judges, most Dem judges are not complete party hacks that only make decisions that favor their party.
I don't think we can infer what they'd do from the previous ruling, which focused on noncontiguous districts. They paid some lip service to compactness and partisanship in that decision, but didn't make any firm rules. They might strike down an extreme liberal gerrymander even with contiguous districts, but I don't follow the argument that we shouldn't even try it.
Remember NC state laws don’t allow a redraw of legislative map. After 2022 election, SCONC overturned the previous ruling mandating the 2022 maps, and let legislature redraw them.
Simply a trifecta in 26, cannot redraw them. Need a favorable result from litigation to throw them out. Not likely to happen till 28.
That's what I meant. If NC Dems achieve a trifecta (which is going to be difficult this year), they're going to change the laws and move up mandatory retirement age to force partisans like Paul Newby to retire early and allow Gov Stein to appoint progressive judges to fill them with no preconditions.
Maybe a blue tsunami will get NC Rs to the table to put an independent redistricting amendment on the general ballot. Because they sure as hell won't vote on one allowing the governor to veto redrawn maps.
Meanwhile, on the economics front: (1) The preliminary release of the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index, which was expected to rise, dropped to 51 from July’s reading of 54.3. Only 8% of consumers now expect their incomes to grow faster than inflation. (2) Retail sales declined in July as consumers reduced their spending. (3) Average gas prices hit $4.03 this week, the highest ever recorded in mid-August.
This is not the economy any party in control wants during a campaign. It’s all about affordability.
Last few days of polling, other than Michigan and maine seem lovely to me. I loathe making predictions, especially this far out, but given that the strait remains closed, national gas price average of $4.08, the highest they've ever been at this point in a calendar year, and wall street seems to be finally becoming a little more discerning re ai, I think the following is not nearly as outlandish as it may sound:
Senate: 52-48, assuming close losses in iowa and nebraska.
House: 235-240 Democratic Seats
All this to say, we seem a bit gloomier than normal on here today, and while national events are horrible, the fact that they're horrible means the likelihood of a check via Congress comes. Until then we will keep writing our postcards, knocking doors, and donating what we can.
Unsurprising. I'm guessing El-Sayed will get only a minority of Jewish votes in the general election. However, am I not right that there are more Arabs than Jews in MI?
I don’t understand the hang up some MI Jewish voters have with AES, apart from the obvious topic. Rogers is not a moderate Republican and poses a threat long term to MI voters of all stripes if elected to the Senate.
AES has made good outreach efforts to MI Jewish communities (he did visit a synagogue for either Passover or Seder back in April). That said, some folks are too close-minded. It’s shameful because AES embodies values that he shares with the Jewish community 95% of the time.
You don't understand that some people are single-issue voters? It's not a mystery. and everyone needs to understand that there are indeed such voters. I think we've gotten too far into issues with your first sentence, and if something is obvious, you should acknowledge it without commenting on it, obliquely or otherwise. I'll just note one thing further: that Mamdani got quite a significant minority of Jewish votes, but it was still a minority, and that's my frame of reference.
I do get that there are single issue voters. But it’s very problematic when a portion of these voters value loyalty to a country they don’t live in over the one they do, purely because they see AES as a threat because his criticism of said country’s actions.
I'm sorry, we can't discuss this, and you are over the line. I'll just say that it's not that simple, but don't make those kinds of statements again in contexts like this site where they can't be discussed.
A major difference between NYC and Michigan is there being far fewer Orthodox enclaves and Rodgers being less (ideologically) palatable than Cuomo to most moderates.
Somewhat outdated but per Wikipedia via a survey in 2010:
“In the same 2010 survey, Jewish adherents in the state of Michigan were estimated at 44,382, and Muslims at 120,351”
Wiki also says 1% of Michigan practices Islam while 1% practices Judaism
Fair statement. But how do you rate the chances of Vivek winning by the margins DeWine enjoyed? Slim to none, imo.
In the poll in this digest he's up 8 while Acton is down 2. What explains that if not Brown breaking off some Vivek voters?
Have a speedy, complete recovery if you haven't yet!
Let’s go El—Sayed !!!!!! Time to close the gap…
The fox poll is much better than that poll from a few weeks ago that had him down 10 to Rogers. El-Sayed also leads in the poll among “definite voters.” Hopefully he keeps improving as the memory of the primary fades.
The Fox poll shows Rogers winning almost a quarter of Black registered voters, which seems unlikely.
When that Glengariff poll released, they had a similar amount of black voters breaking for Rogers as well.
I don't know if we have a proper breakdown of voter demographics of the primary, but El-Sayed didn't lose Wayne county by *that* much. Maybe a handful of black Stevens voters stay home or leave their ballot blank, sure. But I can't see that many opting for Mike Rogers who isn't anywhere near a "moderate" no matter how hard people try to pretend he is
2024 exit polling showed Rogers winning 12 percent of Black voters; factoring in the noted increase in activity among Black voters nationally in response to the end of the VRA this summer, it seems unlikely there would be such a dramatic swing to the right in under 2 years.
That's sounding an awful a lot like Atlas Intel bs shenanigans.
Ignore crosstabs. They're almost always gonna suck because of low sample size.
Yeah, I suspect there's still some hard feelings from the primary showing up in this poll that will likely reduce over time.
Time to bring in the big guns then - Obama come on down.
MI-Sen - It's concerning that AES hasn't led Rogers in a poll in a while, but FiftyPlusOne's forecast still has AES favored, and Lakshya Jain, over at his Substack newsletter, called the MI-Sen race AES's to lose despite Rogers leading in most polling.
AES's path to victory would include tying Rogers to Trump, opposing another Trump SCOTUS appointment should a vacancy arise, and, if there are any debates, strong debate performances.
Link to article by Jain that I referenced in the above comment:
https://theargument.substack.com/p/the-michigan-senate-race-is-abdul?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=7bnixi
He needs to go scorched earth against Rogers from now until November. The cute ad with his grandparents is nice and all but he’s not in the place to be running feel good ads right now.
I see the grandparent ad as essential preemptive defense to the coming GOP campaign to define him as other.
Attack ads are needed too, of course.
Indeed. He has to establish likability before he can go for the jugular given how large of a faction of the population will be predisposed to view him unfavorably.
With the Republicans trying to paint El Sayed as an ogre, it is important first to present him as a relatable human. Hence, the picture with his wife and the grandfather ad.
Yea, AES is a stronger general candidate than people are letting on. Jain also said on his X feed that the MI governor's race will have a much higher margin of victory (11 points), while AES will trail significantly (but still enough to win by less than 4 points).
I think the primary shows a notable resistance to him as well. How strong he stands in the general election is to be seen.
Don’t trust the early polls that much. OTOH Jain is not very good at prognosticating tbh.
I mean, you could say the same about Crowley, or could've said the same about Stevens if she narrowly won the primary. El-Sayed underperformed primary polling but you still have to keep in mind the uphill battle he had in winning, being heavily outspent by Stevens and opposed by two of the state's prominent statewide Democrats and still coming out on top, which I think shows that he has a certain strength that'll come in handy against the infinite money machine Rogers will benefit from.
I'll be more worried if polls have Rogers leading by this much around late September/October. We're only 10 days out from the primary (God that feels like it was months ago), El-Sayed has about 2.5 months left to properly introduce himself to voters, get his message out there, and mend fences with the establishment and Stevens voters - and so far, at the very least, he's been demonstrating a willingness to work on uniting the base, and so has Stevens for her part, and in any case the establishment is certainly going to back him because retaking the senate (and reaching 52 to account for Fetterman) becomes *much harder* without Michigan. With regards to the other two things, he does have a hill to climb on account of his spoOoOOoOoky name and progressive policies, but he's not Francesca Hong. He's very well spoken and knows his shit, and I think once time has passed, as he's gotten his message out, maybe even gotten some debates against Rogers under his belt, we'll see polling start to change. Optimistic? Maybe, but I truly think any votes he might've lost because of his progressive policy or other factors will be offset by the national environment as well as likely cruising to an easy victory. It was always going to be a close election - both El-Sayed and Stevens have their own weaknesses and strengths, but I feel confident in El-Sayed.
I also suspect that AES will benefit from the GOP going way too far with the racist and Islamophobic attacks on him which will turn off swing voters and supercharge turnout among Michigan's Arab-American voters for AES. The GOP won't be able to help themselves with this race.
What are you talking about? It worked great against Barack HUSSEIN Obama, who lost to President John McCain in a landslide!
It' been a while since we have seen good news for John McCain. /s
I wouldn't count on that. Going over-the-top racist didn't hurt Trump any.
Other Republicans don't get the weird, horrific pass Trump somehow gets.
Don't underestimate the difficulty his name adds against his chances. Michigan just had an endorsed candidate with an Arab-sounding name lose to a random dude who wasn't in the race anymore due strictly to anti-Muslim sentiment among large swaths of the electorate. It isn't fair, it isn't right, but it is very real.
Large swaths of the Republican electorate, to be fair.
That was in a GOP primary.
They had one GOP Senator being an Arab American, but an orthodox Christian. Ig you meant the prejudices against Muslim sounding names.
Spencer Abraham, Antiochian Orthodox.
James Abourezk?
Nope, he was Arab and Orthodox but a Dem from SD who grew up on the rez and was an active ally/proponent of Indian rights. He died on the same day as my aunt (those cousins are enrolled tribal members). When he and my aunt were born (Silent Gen) Indians couldn’t vote.
I have to imagine some of these forecasters will have Rogers favored soon. If he’s over 50% in another poll, it’s not just the results of a rough primary, it’s that swing voters in a swing state just aren’t buying what he’s selling.
Who is this Jain person? Sorry but 5-point lead for Benson sounds about right atm. James barely lost two statewide races, he'll get his fair share of votes and actually i'd be pretty happy for Benson to put him away by 5
Obama could do a lot of good for AES. Whitmer too.
The Harper Polling for the Cooper v. Whatley race is amazing, considering it was conducted for a Republican-leaning outlet (one of the founders is the husband of NC Supreme Court justice Tamara Barringer). Even with a GOP-leaning sample, Cooper's lead is HIGHER.
Even the state Supreme Court, legislative, and Congressional races show the Democrats leading, albeit by smaller percentages.
Brown with a big lead but Acton slightly behind in OH. Both Fox polls.
I'm confused why Acton is behind while Brown is leading big time.
Vivek is an awful candidate by every means possible.
Acton has little appeal from Republicans given the misinformation around COVID, and Brown has been in elected office for over 40 years compared to Acton's none. While Ramaswamy is an ideologue that will be hurt by racism, he is outspending Acton by big margins. And Brown's presence in the Senate race is a rare occasion where the challenger is more experienced than the incumbent.
FWIW, I expect Acton to lose by 3 and Brown to lose by 1.
Acton's opposition to transgender rights could result in some left-wing voters voting for Brown for U.S Senate but leaving the gubernatorial race blank.
One could argue that voters should just suck it up and vote for her anyway, and maybe that argument has merit, but I would argue that Acton shouldn't have made that stance to begin with. I really don't think anybody actually cares about that issue enough to make their voting decision based on it, and those who do were never going to vote Democratic anyway. Taking the stance she did just alienates Democratic voters, who either disagree with the issue or are just sick of Dems aligning themselves with Republican talking points. Now a decent chunk of the campaign is going to be about transgender people in sports, just like how a decent chunk of Hong's campaign would've been about Thanksgiving because she gave in and took a position on a pointless issue instead of redirecting back towards economic policy and pushing back on the issue as a needless distraction from Trump's shittiness
Of course they should still vote for Acton. I really can't abide people who won't do lesser of two evils voting, as if ignoring the choice makes it go away or something.
If you had to choose between breaking your neck or getting punched in the stomach, would you really say, "Well both those things are bad, so I'm not going to choose, someone else choose for me"?
She also recently came out in favor of a state constitutional amendment on the November ballot requiring voter ID. https://signalohio.org/ohio-november-election-2026-state-and-midterm-news/
When Republicans are relitigating Covid after six damn years, they have nothing to show for it. That's what they're trying to do with Roy Cooper in NC and trying to paint Michael Whatley as an "everyman candidate who isn't a career politician".
It's hard for savvy voters to accept that BS when Whatley hired a pedophile to fundraise for judicial races, esp one with Sarah Stevens in attendance.
They relitigate Covid because the grievances born out of 2020 are the foundation stone for the new GOP coalition. I maintain without it Trump loses 2020 decisively and his cult of personality would be irretrievably damaged, though he’d still have a lot of post-Presidency influence
That's an interesting counter to the retrospective conventional wisdom which holds that without COVID Trump would have sailed to reelection in 2020 due to the allegedly glorious economy overcoming voter distaste for his personality.
Of course those takes were often repeated during the Biden presidency when this Trump 1 economic nostalgia peaked. At least we aren't hearing much of the "great dealmaking businessman will fix everything" tripe anymore, as much polling shows Democrats pulling ahead or at least even with Republicans on the economy, a sea change from two years ago.
The economy of 2019 was fine, if clearly no longer the 2015-18 boom, but that nostalgia was probably more about “no Covid” than any sober assessment of macroeconomic conditions
Because "everyman" is a former RNC chair and Big Oil lobbyist? The latter is almost never a great resume bullet point electorally, and especially not when gas prices are a big issue and the public blames your party.
While COVID itself may be stale as an issue, one thing that has concerned me about Acton's strength as a candidate is that (like Whatley) she's never held or sought electoral office to my knowledge, and much of her reputation is built on her service in appointed health-related office when COVID happened (though she was appointed before that.) Vivek of course has never been elected to anything either, and before seemed to think only the presidency was befitting of him. If she isn't doing so already, Acton needs to hit him hard on the stuff he said during and after his presidential campaign, Elon/DOGE association, etc.
That may change. Oligarch Watch just broke a huge story on Ramaswamy's pump and dump scheme with an Alzheimer's drug that made him a lot of money and left the California teachers union and other investors with a huge loss. Popular Information re-published the story today. The Acton campaign is running with it.
Still pre-Labor Day, and the PAC $$ has not had time to donit's thing completely, but very encouraged by the Brown thing.
I think/hope there's a real opportunity for the bottom to fall out on Trump's (and by proxy Republican candidates everywhere) polling numbers as voters realize things aren't magically going to get better.
Average price of gas is over $4 which hasn’t happened this late in the summer and we haven’t run out of oil reserves yet. It’s going to get much worse before it gets better.
We aren't going to come close to running out of reserves by November and all it will take is Trump's 50th capitulation for gas prices to drop a bit by election day.
Not gonna lie, I’d take the Michigan Senate seat over the Wisconsin governor’s race if I had to pick one of the two. Wish the primary results of the last 2 weeks were flipped. Too much of our democracy is riding on needing 51 (or 52 post-Fetterman) senate seats.
Absolutely same, though my heart would ache for Wisconsinites. But the Senate makes decisions that affect everybody.
I highly doubt Michigan will be the deciding Senate race. I don't yet see a path to a majority for Democrats as it is, with or without Michigan.
Possible paths are obvious. I think you mean that you don't believe in them, not that no paths exist.
Yeah, i.e. Texas, Ohio, Iowa.
Alaska, too.
That one's unique to me in that A. Alaska is an unorthodox state politically and is comfortable with both parties B. Peltola is an overperformer C. Sullivan is a do-nothing backbencher that goes down in waves like these, and D. ranked-choice voting will help Peltola in the long run.
Why don’t you see a path? If we’re saying that even in an environment this favorable to us we can’t win anything to the left of North Carolina we might as well just give up hope of ever having enough power to make things better. 2028 will likely be a worse environment for us than this year is.
There's too much polarization, and Texas and Iowa, though competitive, are really just that red. I'm ambivalent on Ohio. I think if Brown wins then we have a real chance because of the unique situation in Alaska.
Why do you think Texas is just that red? We only lost it by 5.5 points in 2020, and we only lost the Senate race by 2.5 points in 2018. 2022 and 2024 didn’t turn out well but we came close in recent history.
Portions of the state, specifically the Rio Grande Valley, have trended redder since 2018. Talarico would have to do incredibly well in areas like Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston to have a chance to offset the growing conservative areas in the south and west of the state. I'm not saying it *can't* happen, I'm just saying under current circumstances I don't think it will.
For this analysis of the RGV to hold, all the polling and voting shifts among Latinos nationally, including swings in the 70s in some cases, would have to be discounted.
Latinos shifting back Dem is real.
We don't know that 2028 will be a worse environment for Democrats. With the Disaster-Maker In Chief running things, they could get a lot worse...
As it stands now, the competitive Senate races are Maine, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Iowa, and Alaska. Democrats need to win at least six of those eight for a majority, and that assumes someone like John Fetterman doesn't switch parties to make or break a tie (which would be GOP control via Vance having tie-breaking power).
I'm not factoring in races on the edge of being competitive (Florida comes to mind), and I'm also not factoring in Nebraska, as, although that race is competitive, it's competitive between a Republican and an independent who hasn't stated an intention on which party to caucus with.
And I say Democrats win Maine, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina and Alaska, just one seat short of a majority. I think Ohio will be the decider, and I think Husted will win by a very narrow margin.
I’m cautiously optimistic about Texas. Especially if this cycle follows the most typical outline: the wave grows as we get closer to Election Day.
Little about 2026's political world seems typical to me. I think anything goes.
Visit an eye doctor.
The path is pretty clear and obvious and many sites have Dems favored tontake the Senate. G Elliot Morris. Race to WH.
Hold: NH, GA, MI
Georgia is almost a done deal at this point and NH is barely even mentioned as vulnerable anymore.
MI we have dork to do. But still toss up in this environment.
FLIP: NC, ME + 2 of OH, AK, IA, TX.
NC is almost in the bag. And the rest are tossups at worst.
Counting MI as tossup, we need 4/6 of them: ME, MI, OH seem the best bets. But AK, TX, & IA very gettable.
Would not ruke out NE, KS, or SC either.
Did you not see my comment where I said NC, ME and AK would flip and that OH was a tossup that I favored Husted in?
And I don't need an ophthalmologist to tell me Ohio and Alaska are red states. It's a heavy lift, is all I'm saying.
If three reputable polls came out tomorrow and put Annie Edwards up 52-46 in SC. I'd still assume the R runoff winner would win 54-45. That's how SC works. And too many of the new people in this fastest growing state in the US are Rs fleeing blue states.
The big difference is that Hong was a much weaker candidate than el-Sayed and Stevens was a much more divisive candidate for El-Sayed’s supporters than Crowley was for Hong’s. I’m pretty sure Crowley will do far better than Hong would’ve. I’m not sure that would have been true about Stevens vs El-Sayed.
All we can do now is look at past hypothetical polling, and Stevens was generally ahead of Rogers and AES was generally behind.
Not true.
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/senate/general/2026/michigan/rogers-vs-stevens
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/senate/general/2026/michigan/rogers-vs-stevens
What’s not true? AES is down a point in those averages and Stevens is up about 2 points
I don’t want to cite RCP as true or not.
But it is true that RCP averages had Stevens ahead, and AES behind. Your second link is wrong, going Rogers-Stevens again.
Oops.
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/senate/general/2026/michigan/rogers-vs-el-sayed
El-Sayed was ahead in 2 of the 3 polls before the primary
I think the RW organizations here in NC are panicking big time over the 2026 midterms. You have the WaPo report with the AFP polling saying that 20% of the reliable GOP voters will either sit out the midterms or vote for Democrats. Then you add in the Carolina Journal poll giving Cooper an 13-point margin, plus the various polling showing Cooper having a steady lead over Whatley.
And there was this anecdotal post I saw on Threads where a Raleigh-based realtor shared an elevator with four employees from the John Locke Foundation (a RW 'think tank' group), saying that the employees were 'flabbergasted and distraught' that the new polling they did showed a MUCH stronger Democratic lean than expected.
Do I expect Cooper to win by double digits? No. But if he does, Democrats not only break the GOP supermajority in both state House and Senate but possibly end control of the former.
13pt margin. Not 11pt. lol
Wow, I looked at it wrong. The crosstabs data only used 600 registered NC voters though.
https://www.nydailynews.com/2026/08/13/rep-mike-lawler-facing-tough-ny-reelection-battle-refuses-to-return-max-miller-donation/
NY-17: Republican Rep. Mike Lawler has accepted a $10,000 donation from his colleague, the embattled Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), and says the allegations against Miller are a "media game".
Not the *best* political instincts if you ask me.
Why on earth would a swing-district Republican who's political instincts are generally pretty sound, insert himself into that mess? It boggles the mind, but I'll take the own goal from Lawler.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/08/14/us/live-news/luigi-mangione-hearing-plea-deal-talks
Luigi Mangione plead guilty to killing former UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and faces a maximum penalty of life in prison. The killing sparked public discourse on whether to treat Mangione as a vicious murderer or a vigilante acting against a deeply flawed healthcare system.
Mangione is also the cousin of Baltimore County, Maryland councilor and former Del. Nino Mangione (R).
Hopefully the Free Mangione supporters can go on with their lives knowing Luigi Mangione himself admitted to killing Brian Thompson. I’m really tired of their batshit crazy antics, especially considering multiple suspects who committed arson in California proclaimed their admiration of Mangione.
I've heard a strange amount of "he didn't do it and he was justified in doing it" from those types, like... pick one?
Neither one of those beliefs make sense.
“He didn’t do it” - You’re saying this because you believe this or you know the facts?
“He’s justified doing it” - Not really considering Mangione was not a United Healthcare member.
I skimmed the Wisconsin redistricting subthread yesterday. What’s stopping a hypothetical Dem trifecta from gerrymandering the shit out of the state in 2027 and then putting an independent commission that would go into effect in the 2030s on the ballot? That would allow us to punch back for the VRA seat grabs while protecting us in case of a Republican wave in 2030.
The WI Supreme Court, while having a Democratic-aligned 5-2 majority, will probably not allow a Democratic gerrymander even after SCOTUS' Callais decision.
And if voters here in NC managed to throw out the GOP legislative majority this year, the GOP-aligned state Supreme Court would put the brakes on map redrawing for partisan reasons.
Yeah we have to remember that Dem judges are not complete party hacks the way Republican judges are.
What's the basis for thinking they wouldn't allow it?
The WI Supreme Court struck down a previous Republican gerrymander of the legislature. Like I said above, unlike Republican judges, most Dem judges are not complete party hacks that only make decisions that favor their party.
They would strike an extreme gerrymander. But a plausible map that leans left a bit couid get through, I think.
I don't think we can infer what they'd do from the previous ruling, which focused on noncontiguous districts. They paid some lip service to compactness and partisanship in that decision, but didn't make any firm rules. They might strike down an extreme liberal gerrymander even with contiguous districts, but I don't follow the argument that we shouldn't even try it.
Remember NC state laws don’t allow a redraw of legislative map. After 2022 election, SCONC overturned the previous ruling mandating the 2022 maps, and let legislature redraw them.
Simply a trifecta in 26, cannot redraw them. Need a favorable result from litigation to throw them out. Not likely to happen till 28.
The Congressional map might be another matter.
That's what I meant. If NC Dems achieve a trifecta (which is going to be difficult this year), they're going to change the laws and move up mandatory retirement age to force partisans like Paul Newby to retire early and allow Gov Stein to appoint progressive judges to fill them with no preconditions.
Maybe a blue tsunami will get NC Rs to the table to put an independent redistricting amendment on the general ballot. Because they sure as hell won't vote on one allowing the governor to veto redrawn maps.
I've been arguing for this exact approach for a long time.
Meanwhile, on the economics front: (1) The preliminary release of the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index, which was expected to rise, dropped to 51 from July’s reading of 54.3. Only 8% of consumers now expect their incomes to grow faster than inflation. (2) Retail sales declined in July as consumers reduced their spending. (3) Average gas prices hit $4.03 this week, the highest ever recorded in mid-August.
This is not the economy any party in control wants during a campaign. It’s all about affordability.
Last few days of polling, other than Michigan and maine seem lovely to me. I loathe making predictions, especially this far out, but given that the strait remains closed, national gas price average of $4.08, the highest they've ever been at this point in a calendar year, and wall street seems to be finally becoming a little more discerning re ai, I think the following is not nearly as outlandish as it may sound:
Senate: 52-48, assuming close losses in iowa and nebraska.
House: 235-240 Democratic Seats
All this to say, we seem a bit gloomier than normal on here today, and while national events are horrible, the fact that they're horrible means the likelihood of a check via Congress comes. Until then we will keep writing our postcards, knocking doors, and donating what we can.
being gloomy on here has become the new normal!
It always has been, in my opinion.