I believe her nickname was Looney Lovegood so the comparison is that Hong was a kook, despite the fact that it's Crowley who decided a red bird was God talking to him telling him to jump back into the race.
Let's get this straight. I don't love Hong and I think that a lot of her takes were dumb and just a product of being a millennial on the internet where most of our formative/adult years have been spent online and subject to the type of scrutiny that has never been seen before. I understand Hong's position on Thanksgiving too, but for the average voter... Yeah. It's dumb.
It's probably worth saying explicitly that government-ran grocery stores and abolishing Thanksgiving are both stupid ideas. She was also well into her 30s when talking about this stuff. She wasn't a teenager. Maybe she's not crazy, but if she's not crazy, she's gullible and too easily influenced by online fads in echo chambers.
I think she doesn't like holidays because she works in the restaurant industry. If you've ever been in a restaurant on Valentine's Day or Mother's Day, I could perhaps see where she's coming from.
That’s probably because Hong and her background going into being a cook + being a bartender is more relatable than if she were to have pursued a more white collar career. She also had been vocal about supporting the working class, which is what blue collar workers are.
Agree with 1, but I am either confused by or disagree with the rest.
2: El-Sayed actually outperformed expectations with Black voters in Michigan, and progressives do actually represent majority minority communities across the country.
3: Not sure what El-Sayed and football have to do with Wisconsin, and your usage of "woke" is a little vague.
4: Disagree. Those were national stories and I don't think Hong made the headlines people think she did with that comment. It doesn't have staying power.
5: Yes, the far right and far left can be neighbors, but so can moderate wings of parties. We see this with both of our major parties taking money from the same industries and corporate donors. The difference comes in authoritarian versus libertarian ideology, because it's a compass, not a line or a circle.
6: Massachusetts is not Connecticut and Markey is not Larson. There are plenty of different dynamics at play in those races. Just because the states border does not mean they have the same issues.
I dunno, I expect Markey to prevail, but I doubt he was happy to see a result where a candidate was defeated for no reason except age. Larson is younger than him and running for a shorter term.
-Larson didn't lose just because of age, he's in poor health and couldn't make the argument his seniority would allow him to get more work done.
-Markey is to the left of Larson and Moulton is to the right of Bronin. Massachusetts is so much more progressive than Connecticut this might as well be a general election.
If Wisconsin had ranked-choice voting, Crowley would have likely won by a much larger margin. Most of the voters who voted for Brennan and the candidates who dropped out would have had Crowley as a preference but not Hong (or at least Crowley as a higher-ranked preference than Hong), whereas enough of Kelda's voters would have had Crowley as a higher-ranked preference than Hong to put Crowley over the top.
Looking at the total vote %'s is also interesting. The "Insurgent Lane" (Hong + Roys) was around 47% in aggregate and the "Establishment Lane" (Crowley + Barnes + Brennan + Rodriguez) around 53%. Feels about right to me.
They really ought to reformat livestream a bit so all the pressure isn’t on him to carry the show, and so he can take breaks. They need a panel they go to from time to time so he can regroup.
There was a few minutes of air where, due to reporting/data delays, he was kind of forced to stand there silently for a bit, only to grow increasingly exasperated as the data was not forthcoming, leaving him unable to make a final call after working up to it all night. the happy, arms-flailing Kornacki was gone.
Surprised by the WI results. Agreed with MPC, WI Dems dodged a bullet, as did the larger progressive movement, sparing us another several months of "see, the left is not ready for prime-time" out of Wisconsin.
As a Long Islander I agree that the Nassau seats and even Suffolk used to be bluer, however both Gillen/Suozzi still won (remember there’s more Dems registered in that county) and Blakeman only got reelected due to an absolute joke of an opponent who barely campaigned…
Elon University poll says that Cooper has an 11-point lead over Michael Whatley among likely voters but say that Whatley is gaining more recognition thanks to the mudslinging PAC money advertisements.
⬆️ "Elon University poll says that Cooper has an 11-point lead over Michael Whatley among likely voters but say that Whatley is gaining more recognition thanks to the mudslinging PAC money advertisements."
I am starting to see rebuttal ads from Democrats about those misleading ads that Roy Cooper is responsible for releasing dangerous criminals. In what world does the Governor or State AG make those kind of decisions?
For anyone interested in supporting Roy Cooper (and the rest of the Democrats running in NC) with postcard or letter-writing campaigns, here are the active campaigns of which I am aware:
Activate America (www.activateamerica.vote) *Elect Roy Cooper to the US Senate!* - mail as you go but mail by Aug. 31st
Postcards to Swing States (https://turnoutpac.org/postcards/) GOTV postcards to lower propensity voters who usually skip midterms. Write and hold with a mail date in either mid- or late-October.
Reclaim Our Vote (https://www.centerforcommonground.org/postcards) - focuses on empowering BIPOC voters - the NC focus was for Mecklenburg County (I think completed) and the "Black Belt" in US House districts NC-01 and NC-03. These are write and hold with a mail date range of Oct 5 - 13.
Seniors Taking Action has a postcard campaign on the Field Team 6 partners platform (https://postcard-partners.fieldteam6.org/) for their "Senior to Senior" campaign in NC.
Vote Forward (https://go.votefwd.org/) - Vote Forward has a campaign for NC Down Ballot Election Integrity Letters. These are write and hold with a mailing date range of Thu, Oct 1 to Sat, Oct 24
VoteRiders (https://voteriders.org/volunteer/) has a NC letter-writing campaign to help voters get the IDs they need to vote. These are Mail as you go ASAP to give voters time to get their IDs before the election.
The attack ads on Cooper's COVID actions and relitigating the deadly train stabbing is weak sauce. They don't have anything to brag about regarding Whatley; it's basically discouraging swing voters or squishy Rs from voting for Cooper.
Is there any *good* reason the DCCC isn't including Lawrence in their Red to Blue program?
Dunlap I can almost understand. I still think it's best to compete in every district we can (Howard Dean please come back), but in his case, the district has a pretty decent Republican lean, his opponent is very well known and well equipped to win the district, and Dunlap himself might not be the best candidate for the job. But regardless of how you feel about Lawrence and his politics, the 7th district is wide open. It's a complete 50-50 district. If Lawrence being a progressive drags him down by 3 points, I say the national environment and inevitable blue wave undoes that disadvantage, and maybe even gives him a boost.
It feels like a strange move to not include him... is there something I'm missing? A practical reason he isn't included yet?
Candidates who lead with bi-partisanship are not going to do well…neither are the focus group Democrats championed by Axelrod and Carville…convictions matter and even the occasional voter will know who means what they say, and who waffles.
Is this referring to the Hobbs item? If so I don't really agree.
I think if bipartisanship means working with Trump and his allies, then yeah, fuck that business. But if bipartisanship means standing with anyone who will join you to oppose Trump & fascism, we need that. A center-right person who has rejected Trumpism is someone we need in our coalition, at least until we get out of the current crisis our democracy is in.
I think there's a vast difference between standing with anyone who will join you to oppose Trump & fascism vs. giving them a seat at the table of power.
These are fair points. But she needs to win the election first!
Hobbs and Giles will both likely protect democracy in AZ. Biggs will try to end it.
Now, I don't actually know if this move helps her electorally, but she presumably thinks it does. She is probably favored there regardless. But I think IF this is a move that comes with electoral benefit, I'm fine with it to ensure Biggs doesn't sniff the governorship there. The LG being someone with bad policy but still pro-democracy is something I can live with to keep election deniers like Biggs out of office.
Hobbs won in a far worse environment than this one. She doesn’t NEED a former Republican running mate to win elections is my point. You would NEVER see a Republican do this is my other point. Bring them into the tent. Absolutely. But don’t put them in power, especially in a position to succeed a Democratic Governor.
I'm inclined to agree with you here. Hobbs really isn't at much risk in this environment, so didn't need to do this in a state like AZ. Our KS nominee, on the other hand, should consider something like this.
While I'm not a big fan of this move by Hobbs, I do think it will help her margins and that that will help our odds of the first Dem trifecta in AZ in 60 years. If that ends up being close then she'll have been justified.
She won by 0.67% against one of the worst candidates out there, and governor's races don't always follow the partisan swings of the rest of the nation. I do think she'll win but the idea that she wouldn't want to shore up her advantage doesn't make sense to me.
Maybe, but in the event that Hobbs *were* to become incapacitated, God forbid, I'd really prefer if a Democrat took over, not "one of the good Republicans." I'd be fine with appointing someone like Kinzinger to a cabinet position perhaps but never as a vice president, for example.
I was expecting Crowley to overperform the polls to some degree due to the late relaunch of his campaign and momentum he had from that, but I was completely shocked that he won, and even more shocked that he won statewide despite barely winning Milwaukee County, which usually favors establishment candidates more strongly.
I attribute Hong's narrow loss to these major factors:
- Hong's handling of past controversial statements (Thanksgiving criticism and past support for abolishing law enforcement) was unconvincing and came across as absolutely insincere and caving to an hostile mainstream media campaign against her. Regarding the former, Hong would have been better served if she had doubled down and referred to Thanksgiving as a disgusting celebration of capitalism, genocide, and colonialism (or something to that affect) and claimed that the corporate media was trying to rig the election against her.
- Hong never made much of an argument against Crowley and acted like she was the nominee-in-waiting, especially after the Sara Rodriguez campaign finance scandal that ended her campaign. Hong spent plenty of time criticizing a man named David, but it was David Axelrod rather than David Crowley.
- For someone who was absolutely beloved by many on the left, Hong was rather uncharismatic, as much as she tried to be charismatic. Usually, most successful leftist/progressive candidates are firebrands like Bernie, AOC, Tlaib, etc..
- Hong never ran a regular TV ad, even though some of the digital ads she ran would have made very good TV ads.
- Progressive candidates tend to do better in legislative elections than executive or judicial elections.
Hong has called Crowley to concede, so, presumably, she will not be requesting a recount. I don't think a recount would significantly change the results if one was requested.
Regarding Crowley's general election prospects, he's going to get a ton of momentum from his shock primary win, but, like AES in Michigan, he'll have to try to unify a deeply divided Democratic Party. One thing in Crowley's favor is that there isn't going to be a ton of Hong/Tiffany voters short of Tiffany reinventing himself politically as Thomas Massie 2.0, which I can't envision Tiffany doing.
Ditto. I think people need to realize these were unusual circumstances and that Hong does not represent the progressive wing of the party just as Crowley doesn't represent all of the establishment.
I’m not surprised Crowley won. With all the volatility in the race and the large number of undecided, I figured that in the end a large number would make the pragmatic and safe decision. Unfortunately, Rodriguez, Barnes, etc. was not that choice.
Yeah. I'm not going to dispute that Hong was a weaker candidate but I'm pretty upset the alternative had to be Crowley of all candidates. "Calling me establishment is a slur" isn't quite as dumb as some of the things Hong said in the past (and present), but it's up there, not to mention his views on AI and Data Centers.
Before her campaign imploded I had the opportunity to attend a Zoom featuring Sara Rodriguez and I liked her.
The fact that Mandela Barnes lost to Ron Johnson in 2022 caused me to question if he was the right candidate.
I am much happier about Flanagan's win in MN. I had previously supported Angie Craig back a few cycles ago when she was a candidate endorsed by Emily's List but I have since soured on Corporate Democrats beholden to special interests. Also the Laken Riley vote was a line in the sand even though she has since stated that she regrets that vote.
Agreed with your takeaways as someone who is a staunch progressive. I love Mamdani and like AES and Flanagan, but am somewhat relieved Hong didn’t win. She isn’t charismatic and has some of unlikeable “Super-Woke” stuff that drags progressive. I don’t mean super woke in terms of supporting trans/LGBT people or anything like that, but the anti-Thanksgiving and trashing her son for being half-white. We need to shed people like her from tanking the progressive movement and giving the right wing media red meat to turn moderates/independents against us
Took the words right out of my mouth. We're already having a hard time convincing Democrats to not throw transgender people under the bus, Hong holding some ridiculous views and going after Thanksgiving of all things would've just made it harder because she'd paint us in a bad light. And the trashing her son thing is super weird too.
I think an alternative progressive candidate besides Hong would have been ideal. Unfortunately, she suffered from I think trying to be too woke and not having a real core to her in her campaign that made her stand out.
Most of what you said is right but Hong would in no way have been rewarded if she'd doubled-down on bad-mouthing Thanksgiving. She'd have lost by a wider margin.
Doubling down on Thanksgiving as a disgusting celebration of capitalism, genocide, and colonialism is literally the worst political advice I have ever seen on this website.
CT-1: Larson did so poorly for an incumbent that he only won his hometown of East Hartford by less than 6 points.
VT-State Senate: Progressive Nikhil Goyal defeated moderate state Sen. Martine Gulick to represent the heavily progressive Burlington, home to Bernie Sanders.
I thought the same at first. But the more I think about it I believe it’s good Lindell doesn’t get any more spotlight. These outright election deniers are dangerous even if they lose elections. Depriving them of oxygen and a platform is for the best IMO. Dems in Minnesota should win comfortably regardless in this environment
True; I am still keeping in mind that Demuth would be very bad for the state. She has already (in her role as house republican caucus leader) been one of the operatives involved in bringing Nick Shirley into Minnesota to do his stunts. And, after Renee Good and Alex Pretti were murdered, her reaction was a very out of touch message that this was just "the cost" of ICE being here.
Thankfully her chances are slim to none this year, because she is bad news.
Agreed that with Lindell we could have cleaned up downballot but, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we pretty likely to win both houses of the MN legislature this fall, regardless? Maybe OGGoldy can weigh in here.
Ds outvoted Republicans statewide roughly 3:2. Historically thats about as low as that spread goes, DFL primaries always have more votes than GOP primaries, and isn't usually indicative of statewide results. In 2010 The DFL outvoted the GOP almost 3:1 for the primary en route to the giant red wave in November. I. In 2006 it was nearly 2:1 for the blue wave (except Republican Tim Pawlenty won reelection as governor). Heck even in 2014 when Democrats had incumbents in gimme primaries for both Senate and Governor outvoted Republicans in the primary when Reoublicans had a brutal 4 way. primary going on.
Biggest takeaway last night: polling is disastrously and irredeemably bad. In the last eight days, election outcomes in Wisconsin, Michigan, and two races in Minnesota have been off by double digits, and in different ideological directions. I'm not convinced this will be limited to primary polling either. I don't think anybody should go into any election night with any degree of confidence or certainty about anything anymore. The halcyon days of 2012-quality polling appear to buried in a shallow grave somewhere next to Obama's Midwestern coalition.
Primaries are also harder to judge than general elections. You can expect partisanship based on the year and popularity of the president but not ideological divides within parties.
Cooper probably is not leading double digit, or even high single digit. But he seems to be building enough support in the suburbanites while retaining enough rural folks who voted for him before, that even a 3-4pt lead may be very hard for Rs to flip, and enough to pull some (not necessarily all) judicial races over the line.
It might be drifting toward likely D, but not necessarily a blowout margin.
Remember that polls are a snapshot in time and have margins of error. Further, in WI: (1) Hong never had 40% in any poll except 42% in a late PPP poll; (2) Crowley did not re-enter the race until July 18 so the late July polls did not reflect reality; and (3) only one poll (again the late PPP) was taken after Barnes dropped out. I think the reality is that primaries are very hard to poll and that Wisconsin was impossible due to the late changes in candidates.
This is just a very rough theory I have, to be clear: the type of voter being undercounted in polling this cycle is a non-online but medium-to-high info voter who is pragmatic more than ideological, and their place on the partisan spectrum is very reflective of their home state. The Wisconsin ones are the clearest example; people who had gotten the message to vote for Crowley, and did so while not being vocal online about it.
Beyond that, I tried other generalizations but they aren't always applicable. In MI and WI the polls probably undercounted black voters but that didn't seem to be the case in MN. In MN and MI this group of voters was more likely to be city-based but not so much in WI (the city breakdown in WI was unpredictable; both Crowley and Hong underperformed in their respective bases, but the mid-sized cities were usually won by Hong; Eau Claire was one of her strong areas that I didn't expect).
When progressive AES won the MI Senate primary, moderate Haley Stevens stood on stage with him the next day in support. When moderate David Crowley wins the WI Gov primary, progressive Francesca Hong says she will campaign with him the next day.
Love the democratic unity. We know who the enemy is. It’s vote blue no matter who and it works both ways.
100% - I've been very heartened by the response to losses by both the "Establishment" and the "Outsider" Dems. That's good news for us in November. On the flipside, I don't think Lindell has conceded as of yet...
Polling has been all over the place in results and quality, especially when compared to the actual votes. But I'd be inclined to give pollsters a pass on the Dem WI-Gov primary, as with the late departures and reentries it was especially hard to get an accurate read on voters' preferences of who was actually running when. And they evidently missed Crowley's last minute surge, but may not have had the resources to do much statewide polling by then. As others have said, Hong didn't so much collapse as she maxed herself out; she got about what most surveys indicated but nothing more, which would have been enough in a field with five or so active candidates but not when only one other was viable by the end.
I wonder exactly how Team Crowley was able to pull off that last minute consolidation; there was apparently a sense of "Do we really want to do this?" regarding Hong, but she seemed to be moving away from some of her more controversial pronouncements. Maybe Evers had more impact than most thought, coupled with Ben WIkler's legacy of a well functioning, central state party.
Peggy Flanagan's surname is spelled Flanagan; you keep spelling it with an extra "n" between the first two "a"s.
Don’t know who Luna Lovegood is, but Hong actually did well in the northwestern part of the state which is more blue collar pro-union.
Harry Potter character. Not sure what the comparison is.
I believe her nickname was Looney Lovegood so the comparison is that Hong was a kook, despite the fact that it's Crowley who decided a red bird was God talking to him telling him to jump back into the race.
Yeah, Hong isn't crazy. She's just a terrible communicator sometimes. Which is not good for a politician.
Let's get this straight. I don't love Hong and I think that a lot of her takes were dumb and just a product of being a millennial on the internet where most of our formative/adult years have been spent online and subject to the type of scrutiny that has never been seen before. I understand Hong's position on Thanksgiving too, but for the average voter... Yeah. It's dumb.
It's probably worth saying explicitly that government-ran grocery stores and abolishing Thanksgiving are both stupid ideas. She was also well into her 30s when talking about this stuff. She wasn't a teenager. Maybe she's not crazy, but if she's not crazy, she's gullible and too easily influenced by online fads in echo chambers.
I think she doesn't like holidays because she works in the restaurant industry. If you've ever been in a restaurant on Valentine's Day or Mother's Day, I could perhaps see where she's coming from.
I'm confused, why do people want to cancel Thanksgiving, wasn't that a time of peace between natives and the pilgrims?
That’s probably because Hong and her background going into being a cook + being a bartender is more relatable than if she were to have pursued a more white collar career. She also had been vocal about supporting the working class, which is what blue collar workers are.
Agree with 1, but I am either confused by or disagree with the rest.
2: El-Sayed actually outperformed expectations with Black voters in Michigan, and progressives do actually represent majority minority communities across the country.
3: Not sure what El-Sayed and football have to do with Wisconsin, and your usage of "woke" is a little vague.
4: Disagree. Those were national stories and I don't think Hong made the headlines people think she did with that comment. It doesn't have staying power.
5: Yes, the far right and far left can be neighbors, but so can moderate wings of parties. We see this with both of our major parties taking money from the same industries and corporate donors. The difference comes in authoritarian versus libertarian ideology, because it's a compass, not a line or a circle.
6: Massachusetts is not Connecticut and Markey is not Larson. There are plenty of different dynamics at play in those races. Just because the states border does not mean they have the same issues.
I dunno, I expect Markey to prevail, but I doubt he was happy to see a result where a candidate was defeated for no reason except age. Larson is younger than him and running for a shorter term.
-Larson didn't lose just because of age, he's in poor health and couldn't make the argument his seniority would allow him to get more work done.
-Markey is to the left of Larson and Moulton is to the right of Bronin. Massachusetts is so much more progressive than Connecticut this might as well be a general election.
Yes, I'm an MA voter; for statewide races only the D primary matters.
If Wisconsin had ranked-choice voting, Crowley would have likely won by a much larger margin. Most of the voters who voted for Brennan and the candidates who dropped out would have had Crowley as a preference but not Hong (or at least Crowley as a higher-ranked preference than Hong), whereas enough of Kelda's voters would have had Crowley as a higher-ranked preference than Hong to put Crowley over the top.
Looking at the total vote %'s is also interesting. The "Insurgent Lane" (Hong + Roys) was around 47% in aggregate and the "Establishment Lane" (Crowley + Barnes + Brennan + Rodriguez) around 53%. Feels about right to me.
Flanagan is a good example of how progressive =\= anti-establishment, since she had a massive amount of Minnesota DFL institutional support.
Put otherwise, candidate quality does matter, whether your progressivism is couched in insurgency or working through the system
Great write up about the WI governor primary race. Voters dodged a bullet by going for Crowley for the Democratic nomination instead of Hong.
The WI GOP was denied their preferred candidate, although I'm sure they will dog whistle about crime in Milwaukee till the cows come home.
I think Wisconsin finally broke Kornacki last night
In what way? I didn't see his coverage.
He lit a Packers jersey on fire and dismissed the entire diary food group as a “woke Marxist psyop”
Nah he was just really overwhelmed and couldn’t keep up
Ha ha. I wish.
They really ought to reformat livestream a bit so all the pressure isn’t on him to carry the show, and so he can take breaks. They need a panel they go to from time to time so he can regroup.
There was a few minutes of air where, due to reporting/data delays, he was kind of forced to stand there silently for a bit, only to grow increasingly exasperated as the data was not forthcoming, leaving him unable to make a final call after working up to it all night. the happy, arms-flailing Kornacki was gone.
Surprised by the WI results. Agreed with MPC, WI Dems dodged a bullet, as did the larger progressive movement, sparing us another several months of "see, the left is not ready for prime-time" out of Wisconsin.
Its not like our nominee is some squishy faux-R anyway. Crowley is a great guy
Hochul lead down to 10 as per Sienna, can’t get complacent.
Can you include a link to this poll?
https://sri.siena.edu/2026/08/12/siena-poll-of-likely-new-york-state-voters-hochul-49-blakeman-39/
Mamdani with a 69% favorability in NYC.
After winning with a narrow majority I'd say that's pretty good.
She has always seemed pretty weak to me. As a Californian, I completely sympathize with NY. We both have a shockingly bad bench.
Its not her, the democratic party has lost ground in new York, the suburbs are rebelling.
Not as of 2024 when the Long Island democrats (Suozzi and Gillen) won BOTH Nassau county seats
Then Bruce Blakeman proceeded to win county wide a year later. Suffolk is already gone. Nassau is next.
Those seats used to be much bluer, Suozzi and Kathleen Rice easily won prior to 2022. Lawler's seat also used to be much bluer.
As a Long Islander I agree that the Nassau seats and even Suffolk used to be bluer, however both Gillen/Suozzi still won (remember there’s more Dems registered in that county) and Blakeman only got reelected due to an absolute joke of an opponent who barely campaigned…
And let’s see how Lawler does in a few months and if your theory is supported…
To be fair, not all of Lawler's district is suburban. There's some rural and exurban pockets.
Just want her to win by 12 (double the margin from 2022 which was an off year for Dems)
God bless the Wisconsin Democrats for getting their act together at the last second.
We should really be thanking that Red Bird for showing up. A sign from God indeed.
Elon University poll says that Cooper has an 11-point lead over Michael Whatley among likely voters but say that Whatley is gaining more recognition thanks to the mudslinging PAC money advertisements.
https://www.wral.com/news/nccapitol/elon-poll-cooper-leads-whatley-by-11-points-august-2026/
The survey was conducted with 800 NC adults from July 23 - 31, with a margin of error of 5.6 points for likely voters.
⬆️ "Elon University poll says that Cooper has an 11-point lead over Michael Whatley among likely voters but say that Whatley is gaining more recognition thanks to the mudslinging PAC money advertisements."
I am starting to see rebuttal ads from Democrats about those misleading ads that Roy Cooper is responsible for releasing dangerous criminals. In what world does the Governor or State AG make those kind of decisions?
For anyone interested in supporting Roy Cooper (and the rest of the Democrats running in NC) with postcard or letter-writing campaigns, here are the active campaigns of which I am aware:
Activate America (www.activateamerica.vote) *Elect Roy Cooper to the US Senate!* - mail as you go but mail by Aug. 31st
Field Team 6 (https://postcards.fieldteam6.org/) NC Registration outreach - mail as you go ASAP
Postcards for Democracy (https://postcards.markersfordemocracy.org/) still has some names and addresses for a down ballot race in NC for Dante Pittman in HD-24.
Postcards to Swing States (https://turnoutpac.org/postcards/) GOTV postcards to lower propensity voters who usually skip midterms. Write and hold with a mail date in either mid- or late-October.
Reclaim Our Vote (https://www.centerforcommonground.org/postcards) - focuses on empowering BIPOC voters - the NC focus was for Mecklenburg County (I think completed) and the "Black Belt" in US House districts NC-01 and NC-03. These are write and hold with a mail date range of Oct 5 - 13.
Seniors Taking Action has a postcard campaign on the Field Team 6 partners platform (https://postcard-partners.fieldteam6.org/) for their "Senior to Senior" campaign in NC.
Vote Forward (https://go.votefwd.org/) - Vote Forward has a campaign for NC Down Ballot Election Integrity Letters. These are write and hold with a mailing date range of Thu, Oct 1 to Sat, Oct 24
VoteRiders (https://voteriders.org/volunteer/) has a NC letter-writing campaign to help voters get the IDs they need to vote. These are Mail as you go ASAP to give voters time to get their IDs before the election.
The attack ads on Cooper's COVID actions and relitigating the deadly train stabbing is weak sauce. They don't have anything to brag about regarding Whatley; it's basically discouraging swing voters or squishy Rs from voting for Cooper.
Is there any *good* reason the DCCC isn't including Lawrence in their Red to Blue program?
Dunlap I can almost understand. I still think it's best to compete in every district we can (Howard Dean please come back), but in his case, the district has a pretty decent Republican lean, his opponent is very well known and well equipped to win the district, and Dunlap himself might not be the best candidate for the job. But regardless of how you feel about Lawrence and his politics, the 7th district is wide open. It's a complete 50-50 district. If Lawrence being a progressive drags him down by 3 points, I say the national environment and inevitable blue wave undoes that disadvantage, and maybe even gives him a boost.
It feels like a strange move to not include him... is there something I'm missing? A practical reason he isn't included yet?
My guess is lack of money and a compulsive urge to play it safe.
My guess is sour grapes.
Candidates who lead with bi-partisanship are not going to do well…neither are the focus group Democrats championed by Axelrod and Carville…convictions matter and even the occasional voter will know who means what they say, and who waffles.
I would refrain from personal attacks on fellow posters + discussing policy.
easy there, bubba!!
Is this referring to the Hobbs item? If so I don't really agree.
I think if bipartisanship means working with Trump and his allies, then yeah, fuck that business. But if bipartisanship means standing with anyone who will join you to oppose Trump & fascism, we need that. A center-right person who has rejected Trumpism is someone we need in our coalition, at least until we get out of the current crisis our democracy is in.
I think there's a vast difference between standing with anyone who will join you to oppose Trump & fascism vs. giving them a seat at the table of power.
Especially when they would automatically succeed you if something happened to you.
These are fair points. But she needs to win the election first!
Hobbs and Giles will both likely protect democracy in AZ. Biggs will try to end it.
Now, I don't actually know if this move helps her electorally, but she presumably thinks it does. She is probably favored there regardless. But I think IF this is a move that comes with electoral benefit, I'm fine with it to ensure Biggs doesn't sniff the governorship there. The LG being someone with bad policy but still pro-democracy is something I can live with to keep election deniers like Biggs out of office.
Hobbs won in a far worse environment than this one. She doesn’t NEED a former Republican running mate to win elections is my point. You would NEVER see a Republican do this is my other point. Bring them into the tent. Absolutely. But don’t put them in power, especially in a position to succeed a Democratic Governor.
I'm inclined to agree with you here. Hobbs really isn't at much risk in this environment, so didn't need to do this in a state like AZ. Our KS nominee, on the other hand, should consider something like this.
While I'm not a big fan of this move by Hobbs, I do think it will help her margins and that that will help our odds of the first Dem trifecta in AZ in 60 years. If that ends up being close then she'll have been justified.
She won by 0.67% against one of the worst candidates out there, and governor's races don't always follow the partisan swings of the rest of the nation. I do think she'll win but the idea that she wouldn't want to shore up her advantage doesn't make sense to me.
Maybe, but in the event that Hobbs *were* to become incapacitated, God forbid, I'd really prefer if a Democrat took over, not "one of the good Republicans." I'd be fine with appointing someone like Kinzinger to a cabinet position perhaps but never as a vice president, for example.
I don't think that's true, but we'll find out in November, won't we.
Wisconsin gubernatorial election notes
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I was expecting Crowley to overperform the polls to some degree due to the late relaunch of his campaign and momentum he had from that, but I was completely shocked that he won, and even more shocked that he won statewide despite barely winning Milwaukee County, which usually favors establishment candidates more strongly.
I attribute Hong's narrow loss to these major factors:
- Hong's handling of past controversial statements (Thanksgiving criticism and past support for abolishing law enforcement) was unconvincing and came across as absolutely insincere and caving to an hostile mainstream media campaign against her. Regarding the former, Hong would have been better served if she had doubled down and referred to Thanksgiving as a disgusting celebration of capitalism, genocide, and colonialism (or something to that affect) and claimed that the corporate media was trying to rig the election against her.
- Hong never made much of an argument against Crowley and acted like she was the nominee-in-waiting, especially after the Sara Rodriguez campaign finance scandal that ended her campaign. Hong spent plenty of time criticizing a man named David, but it was David Axelrod rather than David Crowley.
- For someone who was absolutely beloved by many on the left, Hong was rather uncharismatic, as much as she tried to be charismatic. Usually, most successful leftist/progressive candidates are firebrands like Bernie, AOC, Tlaib, etc..
- Hong never ran a regular TV ad, even though some of the digital ads she ran would have made very good TV ads.
- Progressive candidates tend to do better in legislative elections than executive or judicial elections.
Hong has called Crowley to concede, so, presumably, she will not be requesting a recount. I don't think a recount would significantly change the results if one was requested.
Regarding Crowley's general election prospects, he's going to get a ton of momentum from his shock primary win, but, like AES in Michigan, he'll have to try to unify a deeply divided Democratic Party. One thing in Crowley's favor is that there isn't going to be a ton of Hong/Tiffany voters short of Tiffany reinventing himself politically as Thomas Massie 2.0, which I can't envision Tiffany doing.
Ditto. I think people need to realize these were unusual circumstances and that Hong does not represent the progressive wing of the party just as Crowley doesn't represent all of the establishment.
I’m not surprised Crowley won. With all the volatility in the race and the large number of undecided, I figured that in the end a large number would make the pragmatic and safe decision. Unfortunately, Rodriguez, Barnes, etc. was not that choice.
Yeah. I'm not going to dispute that Hong was a weaker candidate but I'm pretty upset the alternative had to be Crowley of all candidates. "Calling me establishment is a slur" isn't quite as dumb as some of the things Hong said in the past (and present), but it's up there, not to mention his views on AI and Data Centers.
And higher taxes on the wealthy.
One thing is that given the state of the WI legislature, it is doubtful a lot of progressive legislation is gonna come thru there anytime soon.
Not impossible, but unlikely. 2028 at the soonest. Or 2030. With a dem majority Crowley may start to sing a more progressive tune.
Before her campaign imploded I had the opportunity to attend a Zoom featuring Sara Rodriguez and I liked her.
The fact that Mandela Barnes lost to Ron Johnson in 2022 caused me to question if he was the right candidate.
I am much happier about Flanagan's win in MN. I had previously supported Angie Craig back a few cycles ago when she was a candidate endorsed by Emily's List but I have since soured on Corporate Democrats beholden to special interests. Also the Laken Riley vote was a line in the sand even though she has since stated that she regrets that vote.
Agreed with your takeaways as someone who is a staunch progressive. I love Mamdani and like AES and Flanagan, but am somewhat relieved Hong didn’t win. She isn’t charismatic and has some of unlikeable “Super-Woke” stuff that drags progressive. I don’t mean super woke in terms of supporting trans/LGBT people or anything like that, but the anti-Thanksgiving and trashing her son for being half-white. We need to shed people like her from tanking the progressive movement and giving the right wing media red meat to turn moderates/independents against us
Took the words right out of my mouth. We're already having a hard time convincing Democrats to not throw transgender people under the bus, Hong holding some ridiculous views and going after Thanksgiving of all things would've just made it harder because she'd paint us in a bad light. And the trashing her son thing is super weird too.
I think an alternative progressive candidate besides Hong would have been ideal. Unfortunately, she suffered from I think trying to be too woke and not having a real core to her in her campaign that made her stand out.
Most of what you said is right but Hong would in no way have been rewarded if she'd doubled-down on bad-mouthing Thanksgiving. She'd have lost by a wider margin.
Calling it "painful" was kinda sorta dipping her toes in doubling down.
Doubling down on Thanksgiving as a disgusting celebration of capitalism, genocide, and colonialism is literally the worst political advice I have ever seen on this website.
New England:
CT-1: Larson did so poorly for an incumbent that he only won his hometown of East Hartford by less than 6 points.
VT-State Senate: Progressive Nikhil Goyal defeated moderate state Sen. Martine Gulick to represent the heavily progressive Burlington, home to Bernie Sanders.
Have to say I’m perplexed on this one. Other than age, there was no reason to replace Larson. Unless there’s something I don’t know.
Health may have been a factor. Larson's had a few incidents in recent years where he has frozen up while speaking.
I think the lesson is that right now age can be enough all by itself
Senileness is, not necessarily the mere number.
The anti-incumbency age-penalty bias seems pretty ideology agnostic since Bronin seems to be ideologically more or less similar to Larson.
Anti-gerontocracy is VERY strong right now IOW
Looks like Ds outvoted Rs in the MN-01 and MN-08 primaries last night. Could be potential upsets especially with Klob at top of ticket.
Too bad Lindell lost. Klobuchar would've pummeled the MN Rs even more downballot.
Lisa Demuth is still going to lose the general, but the chance of divided state government is higher since she's not cray cray like Lindell.
I thought the same at first. But the more I think about it I believe it’s good Lindell doesn’t get any more spotlight. These outright election deniers are dangerous even if they lose elections. Depriving them of oxygen and a platform is for the best IMO. Dems in Minnesota should win comfortably regardless in this environment
One of the only disappointments from last night (for me, at least).
True; I am still keeping in mind that Demuth would be very bad for the state. She has already (in her role as house republican caucus leader) been one of the operatives involved in bringing Nick Shirley into Minnesota to do his stunts. And, after Renee Good and Alex Pretti were murdered, her reaction was a very out of touch message that this was just "the cost" of ICE being here.
Thankfully her chances are slim to none this year, because she is bad news.
Agreed that with Lindell we could have cleaned up downballot but, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we pretty likely to win both houses of the MN legislature this fall, regardless? Maybe OGGoldy can weigh in here.
Johnson and Swanson seem decent as candidates.
Ds outvoted Republicans statewide roughly 3:2. Historically thats about as low as that spread goes, DFL primaries always have more votes than GOP primaries, and isn't usually indicative of statewide results. In 2010 The DFL outvoted the GOP almost 3:1 for the primary en route to the giant red wave in November. I. In 2006 it was nearly 2:1 for the blue wave (except Republican Tim Pawlenty won reelection as governor). Heck even in 2014 when Democrats had incumbents in gimme primaries for both Senate and Governor outvoted Republicans in the primary when Reoublicans had a brutal 4 way. primary going on.
Thanks for this take. I think it is important to remind folks of the empirical facts.
That said, regardless of primary votes, I like our chances of trifecta in MN
Biggest takeaway last night: polling is disastrously and irredeemably bad. In the last eight days, election outcomes in Wisconsin, Michigan, and two races in Minnesota have been off by double digits, and in different ideological directions. I'm not convinced this will be limited to primary polling either. I don't think anybody should go into any election night with any degree of confidence or certainty about anything anymore. The halcyon days of 2012-quality polling appear to buried in a shallow grave somewhere next to Obama's Midwestern coalition.
The polling snafus have me worried for the statewide NC elections this fall.
Primaries are also harder to judge than general elections. You can expect partisanship based on the year and popularity of the president but not ideological divides within parties.
I am not worried yet.
Cooper probably is not leading double digit, or even high single digit. But he seems to be building enough support in the suburbanites while retaining enough rural folks who voted for him before, that even a 3-4pt lead may be very hard for Rs to flip, and enough to pull some (not necessarily all) judicial races over the line.
It might be drifting toward likely D, but not necessarily a blowout margin.
WI had a lot of late momentum, especially as Hong struck the fear of disaster into Dems. Also, PPP nailed Minnesota: https://demlgs.org/new-poll-flanagans-lead-over-craig-doubles-to-14-points-as-20-million-in-outside-pro-craig-spending-backfires/
I never saw that PPP poll.
Remember that polls are a snapshot in time and have margins of error. Further, in WI: (1) Hong never had 40% in any poll except 42% in a late PPP poll; (2) Crowley did not re-enter the race until July 18 so the late July polls did not reflect reality; and (3) only one poll (again the late PPP) was taken after Barnes dropped out. I think the reality is that primaries are very hard to poll and that Wisconsin was impossible due to the late changes in candidates.
Yes.
This is just a very rough theory I have, to be clear: the type of voter being undercounted in polling this cycle is a non-online but medium-to-high info voter who is pragmatic more than ideological, and their place on the partisan spectrum is very reflective of their home state. The Wisconsin ones are the clearest example; people who had gotten the message to vote for Crowley, and did so while not being vocal online about it.
Beyond that, I tried other generalizations but they aren't always applicable. In MI and WI the polls probably undercounted black voters but that didn't seem to be the case in MN. In MN and MI this group of voters was more likely to be city-based but not so much in WI (the city breakdown in WI was unpredictable; both Crowley and Hong underperformed in their respective bases, but the mid-sized cities were usually won by Hong; Eau Claire was one of her strong areas that I didn't expect).
David Crowley says he and Francesca Hong will campaign together as part of a "unity tour": https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3msvcxktxlt2e
When progressive AES won the MI Senate primary, moderate Haley Stevens stood on stage with him the next day in support. When moderate David Crowley wins the WI Gov primary, progressive Francesca Hong says she will campaign with him the next day.
Love the democratic unity. We know who the enemy is. It’s vote blue no matter who and it works both ways.
Hell yeah. Let's drive this big tent energy all the way to November and demolish fascists.
https://bsky.app/profile/peggyflanagan.bsky.social/post/3msvd7g3s2c2q
Similar deal here with Flanagan stating she has received support from Angie Craig
Very glad to hear all of this.
This one I'm not that surprised by - I don't think there's a ton of daylight between those two, either politically or stylistically.
100% - I've been very heartened by the response to losses by both the "Establishment" and the "Outsider" Dems. That's good news for us in November. On the flipside, I don't think Lindell has conceded as of yet...
And then Talarico and Cro—
KS-Sen: Can't find the link but PPP has incumbent Republican Roger Marshall up +1 over Democrat Adam Hamilton.
Yes, done for a Dem SuperPac
https://x.com/ppollingnumbers/status/2087490276294357341?s=46&t=sbdQQeYBqp0h_Zql717iTw
Polling has been all over the place in results and quality, especially when compared to the actual votes. But I'd be inclined to give pollsters a pass on the Dem WI-Gov primary, as with the late departures and reentries it was especially hard to get an accurate read on voters' preferences of who was actually running when. And they evidently missed Crowley's last minute surge, but may not have had the resources to do much statewide polling by then. As others have said, Hong didn't so much collapse as she maxed herself out; she got about what most surveys indicated but nothing more, which would have been enough in a field with five or so active candidates but not when only one other was viable by the end.
I wonder exactly how Team Crowley was able to pull off that last minute consolidation; there was apparently a sense of "Do we really want to do this?" regarding Hong, but she seemed to be moving away from some of her more controversial pronouncements. Maybe Evers had more impact than most thought, coupled with Ben WIkler's legacy of a well functioning, central state party.
Yeah, I think Evers made a difference.
Yeah, important to distinguish polling on total vote share and margin, I guess
WI-Gov - Hong statement endorsing Crowley:
https://www.threads.com/share/_rhwjThD4/