Small correction: Scott Colom would not be Mississippi's first Black Senator, he would be the third. Hiram Revels and Blanche Bruce both represented the state during Reconstruction. Colom would, however, be the first popularly elected Black senator from MS
Just wanted to note how much I appreciate you all as authors taking the time to make corrections and being good-natured about it. Defensiveness is so pervasive these days, especially online. Refreshing not to have it here.
This is extremely kind of you. Not gonna lie: It never feels *great* to have to make a correction. But we do take the responsibility very seriously. As you allude, trustworthy media is a rare and precious thing these days, so we try very hard to earn and *keep* our readers' trust.
And sometimes, people come at us hot, berating us for a mistake anyone might have made. That always sucks. But when people are kind about pointing out our flubs? I really appreciate that.
I've been reading since 2017 and it's the first time I've ever commented a correction! You all do amazing work, I just thought I'd show off my trivia of Mississippi senate history haha. Thank you all for doing the important work of documenting these races
I hope you somehow save the nice things people say about your efforts (print, bookmark, screenshot to your rotating pix on your screensaver...) so you can look at them and counterbalance those times when you do get an unnecessarily hot response that really just merits a "whoa dude, wtf" reply. Esp because we all know that quality people will internalize the criticism more than the compliment. Being in online political reporting has to be pretty draining sometimes, even if the group here at tDB is pretty nice.
I hope this elections permanently ends the radical right lunatics in Virginia and they get gerrymandered out of existence afterwards. Losesome is crossing Cuccinelli's threshold now.
"Lonesome Eagle" sounds like a Native American name. I don't see how it helps the discussion, but 11 people and counting disagree with me. I agree with the rest of your post.
Rivera Vasquez is an interesting fit for sc01. She's from the Beaufort Bluffton area which is on the far southern corner of the district which is mostly dominated by Charleston. She does have experience with party politics both there and statewide. The district is wildly gerrymandered running from the Beaufort area all the way up almost to Georgetown, the one in South Carolina not the one with the University. It also snakes inland here and there to pick up White areas, leaving Black areas to Clyburn's district.
He's deliberately not saying anything pro abortion rights or pro trans for Hyde-Smith to weaponize in her re-election campaign. Her campaign will say it but he won't give her an easy sound bite to blast over and over.
Rod Blum was a big Trumper, but I don't know if that's enough to get Donald Trump to weigh in for him in an IA-02 primary.
One reason leadership was wary of Blum: his first vote as a House member in January 2015 was for Dan Webster (not John Boehner) to be speaker. Fellow Iowa Republican Steve King had nominated Webster.
Jordan Wood needs to be exposed as totally corrupt. He came out of Mothership Strategies, which created many PACs that purport to help fund Democratic candidates for office.
That means that if you donated $10 to one of Mothership's PACs, less than $.20 (not a typo) would have gone to candidates. Wood should be dogged with questions about Mothership 24/7!
I always wanted Chris Sununu to run for president and see how badly his "talk like a cokehead and never stay on one topic to dodge answering anything" act failed on national primetime to see his his arrogant little bubble burst through the sheer amount of mass online bullying. Does John Sununu do the same schitck? The whole "smartest member of the Senate" thing from 20yrs ago makes me think he could.
As far as I’m concerned, John Sununu is likely going to be the next George Allen. Like Allen, who for the Senate again back in 2012 and lost again, Sununu is doing the same after he lost re-election to Senator Jeanne Shaheen back in 2008.
If his brother Chris Sununu is bowing out, that’s not supposed to be a cue for him to jump in.
Oh and here’s the best part! Both George Allen and John E. Sununu were freshman Senators when they lost re-election.
Well, if New Hampshire Republicans are stuck with former Senators, better that they go with the one who actually represented the state, rather than one from Massachusetts who won an aberrant special election, then lost, moved to NH apparently because it's more winnable, but couldn't win there even in a red wave year (2014).
I doubt that even Chris Sununu would be able to win a Senate race if 2026 turns out as it well might (but let's not get overconfident about that.) Voter discontent with Trump's GOP does not mean that they will settle for a Bush-era retread.
Yes, true. John E. Sununu was also a pretty non-controversial GOP Senator and didn’t exactly do anything that made him enemies with Democrats. He may have just fallen victim to his re-election chances because of the Iraq War (Sununu did have pro-Iraq War votes), discontent towards Bush and his administration and Obama’s rise in 2008.
That said, it’s hard for me to see how JE Sununu would be able to run a campaign that’s not far off from how he originally ran back in 2002. What Senate campaign would he realistically be able to have that could make him relevant?
To clarify, David, when you write "Across 38 special elections for state legislatures and the U.S. House this year, Democrats are outperforming the 2024 presidential results by an average of 15.7 points," you're saying that Ds on average did 8 points better than Harris and their R opponents did 8 points worse than trump?
Not exactly. We take the net margin in the special election, then we take the net margin in the presidential race, then we subtract the latter from the former.
Ultimately, it'll be close to the approach you say, but it's not necessarily going to be divided exactly in half. Dems are on average running 8.4 points ahead of Harris while Republicans are running 7.3 points behind Trump.
I appreciate this exchange bc when I first started reading political polling analysis in the old SSP days, references to margins made little sense to me.
For example, if X beat Y 54%-46% we'd say X won by 8, but if Y had gotten 4.001% more of the vote, then Y would have won. Used to drive me nuts that folks would say "district 2 is out of reach because you have to flip an 8% margin" when you really only have to flip 4%. But after awhile I absorbed the jargon and now I just divide in half in my head and I bemoan the massive polarization in the electorate that makes convincing 4% to switch their party vote impossible. (And yeah, I know the math is complicated by 3rd/minor parties, but not that much, usually.)
You're saying too many nice things about us today! 😊
This is a good reminder, though, that concepts we take for granted don't always make sense to others. It's funny—if you look back at our deep archives, you'll find a lot of obscure acronyms, much less context, etc. We've tried very hard over the years to make our writing more accessible! But we can always do better.
Despite a stellar career as district attorney and despite the support of Senator Roger Wicker, Scott Colom's nomination for a federal judgeship was blocked by Mississippi's other Republican Senator, Cyndi Hyde-Smith. The two reasons she gave mark her as transphobic and antisemitic: Colum supports gender-affirming surgery, and he received funding from a PAC supported by George Soros.
Angela Gonzales-Torres, former President of the Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, is challenging Rep. Jimmy Gomez from the left with the Justice Dem backing.
Based on the contents of the article, he doesn't seem like an obvious target for opposition from the left, although he has previously been opposed from the left.
The first round itself should be a bit pointless in practice. The election cannot be won on that day even with >50% of the vote, and we all know who will be the two candidates to advance to the Nov ballot. That said it should give us some insight into the state of the election. Polling and my expectations would suggest Wu with an overwhelming lead. But Boston primary day has terrible turnout and surprises happen, so we'll see. In 2021 the preliminary Sept primary had 25% turnout, and that was a far more competitive and interesting election. If we end up surprised on Tuesday, then that will need to be amended to that primary being perceived as more competitive and interesting.
Right. For all the Republicans talk about the horrors of population decline, they're the ones pushing us there. It's near impossible for the government to convince women to have more children, but with the right immigration policies, it's eminently doable to ensure your country has an ample young workforce.
Could be a major event, but there's been apparently very recent news of Epstein victims actively talking about compiling a list of clients and associates that they may threaten to release if the Justice Department doesn't release the entirety of the Epstein files. All Democrats in the House are expected to vote on a legislation to compel the Justice Department all of the Epstein files, but they still need 6 Republicans to vote for it. Oddly, outside of Mace, there's 3 other Republicans that have or plan to vote for this legislation all far right or in blood red districts - Massie, Greene and Boebert. It's strange since all the alleged moderates or Republicans in marginal districts, seem strangely absent from this discussion thus far.
It is strange but I can see how it happens. Republicans in marginal districts are in the toughest spot electorally. They cannot afford to piss off their base. They desperately need to expand out and appease marginal voters too, but if they piss off the republican base in the same effort they risk ending up at a wash at best.
Whereas those in ruby red districts only need to win their primary. Pissing off the base makes winning primaries hard, but it's hard for incumbents to lose primaries, and they might be relying on that fact.
KY-06 seems like exactly the kind of district that could be vulnerable to us in a D midterm. Relatively educated (for Kentucky), voted handily for Beshear etc. Need to make sure we have the right candidate, though.
Small correction: Scott Colom would not be Mississippi's first Black Senator, he would be the third. Hiram Revels and Blanche Bruce both represented the state during Reconstruction. Colom would, however, be the first popularly elected Black senator from MS
Thank you for the catch! We've corrected.
Just wanted to note how much I appreciate you all as authors taking the time to make corrections and being good-natured about it. Defensiveness is so pervasive these days, especially online. Refreshing not to have it here.
Thank you, that is very kind of you.
This is extremely kind of you. Not gonna lie: It never feels *great* to have to make a correction. But we do take the responsibility very seriously. As you allude, trustworthy media is a rare and precious thing these days, so we try very hard to earn and *keep* our readers' trust.
And sometimes, people come at us hot, berating us for a mistake anyone might have made. That always sucks. But when people are kind about pointing out our flubs? I really appreciate that.
I've been reading since 2017 and it's the first time I've ever commented a correction! You all do amazing work, I just thought I'd show off my trivia of Mississippi senate history haha. Thank you all for doing the important work of documenting these races
Well thank you very kindly, Shasta! This just made my day. Please show off your election trivia knowledge any time! 😊
I hope you somehow save the nice things people say about your efforts (print, bookmark, screenshot to your rotating pix on your screensaver...) so you can look at them and counterbalance those times when you do get an unnecessarily hot response that really just merits a "whoa dude, wtf" reply. Esp because we all know that quality people will internalize the criticism more than the compliment. Being in online political reporting has to be pretty draining sometimes, even if the group here at tDB is pretty nice.
Losesome Eagle Sears they/them ad highlights a Spanberger quote "Our LGBTQ neighbours have the same rights as everyone else"
Looks like Republicans have no shortage of "Black NAZI"s in their party.
https://x.com/winwithwinsome/status/1963014155981500624
I hope this elections permanently ends the radical right lunatics in Virginia and they get gerrymandered out of existence afterwards. Losesome is crossing Cuccinelli's threshold now.
Earle-Sears has no independence at all from the GOP and doesn’t even try to show she cares.
She does have independence, independence in being more extreme than Trump on social issues.
"Lonesome Eagle" sounds like a Native American name. I don't see how it helps the discussion, but 11 people and counting disagree with me. I agree with the rest of your post.
I assumed eagle was autocorrect after I figured out the play on Winsome
Maybe so. Or a typo.
It's "Losesome", a parody of "Winsome".
"Lonesome Eagle" does sound like something that many of any political persuasion would be happy or proud to be called.
I agree. It would be a great political name.
Rivera Vasquez is an interesting fit for sc01. She's from the Beaufort Bluffton area which is on the far southern corner of the district which is mostly dominated by Charleston. She does have experience with party politics both there and statewide. The district is wildly gerrymandered running from the Beaufort area all the way up almost to Georgetown, the one in South Carolina not the one with the University. It also snakes inland here and there to pick up White areas, leaving Black areas to Clyburn's district.
What are Scott Colum's views on abortion rights? Being pro-choice will end his run even before it starts.
He's deliberately not saying anything pro abortion rights or pro trans for Hyde-Smith to weaponize in her re-election campaign. Her campaign will say it but he won't give her an easy sound bite to blast over and over.
That's good to hear. It's Mississippi.
Rod Blum was a big Trumper, but I don't know if that's enough to get Donald Trump to weigh in for him in an IA-02 primary.
One reason leadership was wary of Blum: his first vote as a House member in January 2015 was for Dan Webster (not John Boehner) to be speaker. Fellow Iowa Republican Steve King had nominated Webster.
https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2015/01/06/john-boehner-re-elected-house-speaker-how-the-iowans-voted/
Jordan Wood needs to be exposed as totally corrupt. He came out of Mothership Strategies, which created many PACs that purport to help fund Democratic candidates for office.
"Mothership was recently the subject of yet another viral investigation that revealed that of the $678 million the company’s core political action committees raised since 2018, just $11 million went to candidates..." Quote is from https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/maine-democratic-senate-primary-graham-platner-jordan-wood-susan-collins
That means that if you donated $10 to one of Mothership's PACs, less than $.20 (not a typo) would have gone to candidates. Wood should be dogged with questions about Mothership 24/7!
Oh no.
FL-19:
https://www.axios.com/2025/09/04/madison-cawthorn-congress-florida
Former Rep. Madison Cawthorn is attempting a comeback in the GOP primary here. Good lord.
Cawthorn vs. Chris Collins vs. Jim Oberweis. The greatest battle of has-beens yet!
From three different states, none of them being Florida!
A veritable orgy of has beens, one might say.
Oh boy
D'oh!
I always wanted Chris Sununu to run for president and see how badly his "talk like a cokehead and never stay on one topic to dodge answering anything" act failed on national primetime to see his his arrogant little bubble burst through the sheer amount of mass online bullying. Does John Sununu do the same schitck? The whole "smartest member of the Senate" thing from 20yrs ago makes me think he could.
As far as I’m concerned, John Sununu is likely going to be the next George Allen. Like Allen, who for the Senate again back in 2012 and lost again, Sununu is doing the same after he lost re-election to Senator Jeanne Shaheen back in 2008.
If his brother Chris Sununu is bowing out, that’s not supposed to be a cue for him to jump in.
Oh and here’s the best part! Both George Allen and John E. Sununu were freshman Senators when they lost re-election.
Well, if New Hampshire Republicans are stuck with former Senators, better that they go with the one who actually represented the state, rather than one from Massachusetts who won an aberrant special election, then lost, moved to NH apparently because it's more winnable, but couldn't win there even in a red wave year (2014).
I doubt that even Chris Sununu would be able to win a Senate race if 2026 turns out as it well might (but let's not get overconfident about that.) Voter discontent with Trump's GOP does not mean that they will settle for a Bush-era retread.
Yes, true. John E. Sununu was also a pretty non-controversial GOP Senator and didn’t exactly do anything that made him enemies with Democrats. He may have just fallen victim to his re-election chances because of the Iraq War (Sununu did have pro-Iraq War votes), discontent towards Bush and his administration and Obama’s rise in 2008.
That said, it’s hard for me to see how JE Sununu would be able to run a campaign that’s not far off from how he originally ran back in 2002. What Senate campaign would he realistically be able to have that could make him relevant?
At least Allen was running the election in the term immediately after his last one, not three terms after lol
73-27 vs 61-38 is 12 points, not "22 points ahead of the top of the ticket," isn't it?
Net. Bracy Davis won by 45. Harris won by 23. Therefore it's a 22-point overperformance.
To clarify, David, when you write "Across 38 special elections for state legislatures and the U.S. House this year, Democrats are outperforming the 2024 presidential results by an average of 15.7 points," you're saying that Ds on average did 8 points better than Harris and their R opponents did 8 points worse than trump?
Not exactly. We take the net margin in the special election, then we take the net margin in the presidential race, then we subtract the latter from the former.
Ultimately, it'll be close to the approach you say, but it's not necessarily going to be divided exactly in half. Dems are on average running 8.4 points ahead of Harris while Republicans are running 7.3 points behind Trump.
Yes, thanks. (No way these Rs can get in front of trump's behind, metaphorically or physically.)
I appreciate this exchange bc when I first started reading political polling analysis in the old SSP days, references to margins made little sense to me.
For example, if X beat Y 54%-46% we'd say X won by 8, but if Y had gotten 4.001% more of the vote, then Y would have won. Used to drive me nuts that folks would say "district 2 is out of reach because you have to flip an 8% margin" when you really only have to flip 4%. But after awhile I absorbed the jargon and now I just divide in half in my head and I bemoan the massive polarization in the electorate that makes convincing 4% to switch their party vote impossible. (And yeah, I know the math is complicated by 3rd/minor parties, but not that much, usually.)
You're saying too many nice things about us today! 😊
This is a good reminder, though, that concepts we take for granted don't always make sense to others. It's funny—if you look back at our deep archives, you'll find a lot of obscure acronyms, much less context, etc. We've tried very hard over the years to make our writing more accessible! But we can always do better.
Despite a stellar career as district attorney and despite the support of Senator Roger Wicker, Scott Colom's nomination for a federal judgeship was blocked by Mississippi's other Republican Senator, Cyndi Hyde-Smith. The two reasons she gave mark her as transphobic and antisemitic: Colum supports gender-affirming surgery, and he received funding from a PAC supported by George Soros.
Cyndi Hyde-Smith also likes to daydream about attending lynchings, so feel free to form any other theories about her opposition to Colom.
I wish Jan Hooks were still with us so that she could impersonate (and ridicule) Cindy Hyde-Smith.
The Justice Democrats are back.
CA-34:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-09-04/justice-democrats-backs-primary-challenger-to-rep-jimmy-gomez
Angela Gonzales-Torres, former President of the Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, is challenging Rep. Jimmy Gomez from the left with the Justice Dem backing.
Make of this what you will.
Based on the contents of the article, he doesn't seem like an obvious target for opposition from the left, although he has previously been opposed from the left.
Gomez is also a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and has been firmly in support of Governor Newsom’s redistricting initiative.
Kind of strange for him to get primaried.
Less than a week to go until the first round of Boston's mayoral election. And Kraft just got rid of two of his top advisors. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/03/metro/kraft-campaign-shakeup-keyser-oconnor/
The first round itself should be a bit pointless in practice. The election cannot be won on that day even with >50% of the vote, and we all know who will be the two candidates to advance to the Nov ballot. That said it should give us some insight into the state of the election. Polling and my expectations would suggest Wu with an overwhelming lead. But Boston primary day has terrible turnout and surprises happen, so we'll see. In 2021 the preliminary Sept primary had 25% turnout, and that was a far more competitive and interesting election. If we end up surprised on Tuesday, then that will need to be amended to that primary being perceived as more competitive and interesting.
What useless P.O.S....the entire world remembers how little mitch could have prevented all this mess we are now facing...f'ing coward!! https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/04/trump-dangerous-period-mitch-mcconnell
I'm not even going to click the link. It's not worth my time.
https://www.derekthompson.org/p/the-us-population-could-shrink-in?
The US Population Could Shrink in 2025, For the First Time Ever
It's a story with massive economic and political significance. But it's receiving strangely little attention.
The media only focuses on news like this when the President is a Democrat. Could you imagine the headlines if this happened during Biden's term?
It wouldn't have because he wasn't trying to cut off all immigration.
Right. For all the Republicans talk about the horrors of population decline, they're the ones pushing us there. It's near impossible for the government to convince women to have more children, but with the right immigration policies, it's eminently doable to ensure your country has an ample young workforce.
Something tells me that's not the kind of population growth they're interested in.
No, with the result that they are presiding over the decline of the country.
Could be a major event, but there's been apparently very recent news of Epstein victims actively talking about compiling a list of clients and associates that they may threaten to release if the Justice Department doesn't release the entirety of the Epstein files. All Democrats in the House are expected to vote on a legislation to compel the Justice Department all of the Epstein files, but they still need 6 Republicans to vote for it. Oddly, outside of Mace, there's 3 other Republicans that have or plan to vote for this legislation all far right or in blood red districts - Massie, Greene and Boebert. It's strange since all the alleged moderates or Republicans in marginal districts, seem strangely absent from this discussion thus far.
I hope all the victims of Epstein have good security.
It is strange but I can see how it happens. Republicans in marginal districts are in the toughest spot electorally. They cannot afford to piss off their base. They desperately need to expand out and appease marginal voters too, but if they piss off the republican base in the same effort they risk ending up at a wash at best.
Whereas those in ruby red districts only need to win their primary. Pissing off the base makes winning primaries hard, but it's hard for incumbents to lose primaries, and they might be relying on that fact.
What does Don Bacon have to lose here?
His ability to grift/lobby in retirement, I'd guess.
Imagine if all the big lobbying firms and major corps were brought down by the Epstein files. 😯
Release them now! Release them now!
KY-06 seems like exactly the kind of district that could be vulnerable to us in a D midterm. Relatively educated (for Kentucky), voted handily for Beshear etc. Need to make sure we have the right candidate, though.