A lot of the Crockett influencers/stans are mad. Paxton interfering with the Dallas County judge's order to keep the polls open until 9 p.m. makes them think Talarico had something to do with it.
Crockett has a responsibility to come out and vigorously dispell this notion. From the money Republicans were dumping into ads, it's pretty obvious she was their preferred candidate.
I'm no fan of Crockett's and am glad she lost, but I think everyone needs to back off of her. She conceded gracefully and urged everyone to support Talarico. What else do people want from her?
As in people who have nothing better to do online than spread conspiracy theories about our nominee when their candidate has herself graciously conceded?
Crockett has to make sure those influencers/fans/etc aim their anger at Paxton, not at Talarico! Crockett must do her utmost to make sure all her supporters vote in November.
Yeah. I think Crockett ate a lot of her ED turnout when her supporters mostly voted early. (Probably because they knew Paxton was going to mess with things on Election Day.)
Because the Dallas County Democratic Party filed for a court order because they said so many people had gone to the wrong place to vote they needed more time to find the right polling place. For the past decade voters have been able to vote at any of 15ish voting centers around the county. But for this primary the Republicans insisted to have voting only in assigned tiny precincts so they could hand count their ballots (although in the end they decided not to) and under Texas law in the primaries both parties have to agree to have voting centers so Democrats had no choice but to go along. It's been so long since precincts were used most people have no idea which precinct they live in let alone where it votes.
It is a very open question if the Democratic district judge over stepped her authority in that the Texas Election Code only calls for extentions for things like technical issues and weather events.
Seriously? It is probably one simple google search away. In NC, if you search for your voter registration record, it includes this info.
www.vote411.org, www.vote.org, and iwillvote.com will all take you to the correct website to look up your registration, once you select your state from a drop down.
The iwillvote.com webpage also will show you the number for your state voter hotline. (I have the NC hotline number saved in my phone contacts so that I can share it with others).
Evidently the Texas elections site was sending people to the wrong polling locations. Was that just bad tech/programming or intentional? Sounds like the local/county elections staff were doing their best to get info out about the location changes.
It was more that people didn't realize they needed to even check. They just assumed it would be like it had been for the last several elections. I'm sure they could have found out if they looked but they didn't know to.
The difference was huge in the Senate race, which probably garnered the most votes of any race and likely without any ballot drop off. I can't see anyone voting in another race and skipping the senate one!
Berger is so MAD and I am here for it. Burned all that $10M for nothing.
I do think Talarico and Crockett's campaigns should sue the TX AG for voter suppression for those shenanigans in Dallas County. Because if Paxton wins the runoff, he will pull the same shit in November.
He blew $10M earmarked for vulnerable state legislative races this year. I can't imagine other NC Rs being happy about that, losing winnable races because the state Senate leader didn't want to move on. But Destin Hall is probably grinning from ear to ear today.
Dunno if wealthy corporations will continue funding the NC Republican Party if the recounts change nothing and the courts turn Berger down.
G. Elliott Morris has a great read on the statistics behind why we might win the Texas Senate seat. He is cautiously optimistic, which is pretty much where I'm at
Depending on what happens in the runoff, if Cornyn ends up somehow advancing to the general election, I wonder if the Paxton supporters will want to stomach voting for Cornyn in the end.
Granted Republicans typically stay loyal to incumbent Republican Senators in the general election, I'm not sure Cornyn's going to have necessarily an easier time. He may be harder for Talarico to defeat but that doesn't mean he's not going to present any vulnerabilities.
Love that Texas will have two candidates with major scandals fighting in the run offs. Terrible that it shows the lack of standards that GOP voters have, but excellent that it probably repels independents, Nikki Haley Republicans. Probably compounds with each piece of corruption news coming from DC and makes Talarico’s message against old politics resonate even more.
Votehub has a precinct-level map of the Texas Democratic primary, for as many countries as they can get their hands on (currently the five largest plus several smaller ones as well). And the precinct results are... quite stark. In many places, they are effectively a map of the proportion of Democrats who are African-American.
Which, honestly, is quite illuminating from an intellectual standpoint. I'm fascinated by it.
Race-based primary campaigns arent anything new. And they only seem more likely moving forward, especially within Democratic circles. Hispanic/AA/Asian/Native/etc. "Vote for me because I am X demographic" is unfortunately not going away any time soon in liberal circles. Republicans are functionally a whites-only party outside of Oklahoma at this point, so it seems less likely to be an issue for them.
Pretty sure 2024 dispelled the notion of Republicans being a "whites-only party". Even if nonwhites come racing back to the Democrats in 2026, the 2024 cycle was the wake-up call that voters of color are gonna be a dynamic voting group moving forward as their share of the electorate becomes larger. Even today, Florida's GOP could hardly be called a whites-only party.
Soooo, we're surprised that people whose history has been one of being systematically excluded from full citizenship in their own country (to the present day) are eager to vote for a qualified candidate who understands and shares their life experience?
Considering that turnout in heavily African-American precincts all across the country dropped substantially from the 2020 election, where we nominated white man Joe Biden, to the 2024 election where we nominated African-American woman Kamala Harris... actually, yes.
I have to believe Mariannette Miller-Meeks is concerned by what happened to Crenshaw. She does have Trump’s endorsement, but will that be enough? Her MAGA challenger got about 44% in the 2024 primary for IA-01.
Sorry, but there is no way that the NC state Senate race where long-time incumbent Phil Berger is in a virtual tie with a county Sherriff can be viewed as a success for a Trump endorsement.
I don’t know if last night could have gone any better.
1. We got the ideal scenario in Texas, and now Republicans might be more incentivized to nuke Paxton under the hope that Cornyn might have more of a chance in a runoff than previously thought.
2. All the traitor Dems in the NC legislature who overrode Gov. Stein’s vetoes lost.
3. Dems outvoted Republicans in both NC and TX.
4. Easy flip in Arkansas.
About the only thing that could’ve been better is if we had avoided runoffs of our own in the Texas Lieutenant Governor and AG primaries.
I'd have liked Allam to win, but Foushee isn't trerible.
And the fact that one of Green/Menefee has to lose is sad. But we knew that going in.
Ds massively outvoting Rs in NC, significantly in TX (after around a million less last cycle, I think), and the size of the flip in the Arkansas special are super encouraging.
There’s still hope on the latter, good sir/ma’am. As for Allam vs. Foushee, I could not be bothered to care about that one at all. Both would’ve voted the same on everything.
Paxton coming out with more votes than Cornyn would have made for a more ideal night. With Cornyn having gotten more votes, it gives him a more persuasive case for Trump to endorse him, and a Trump endorsement would boost Cornyn in the runoff.
Isn’t there still a lot of votes left to count? Cornyn was up by 3-5 when the ballots started being tabulated. Now it’s down to 1 point. Seems pretty clear what direction the race is headed, so I wouldn’t rule out Cornyn falling behind Paxton yet.
As an NC voter with the much less stringent threshold for avoiding runoffs, today's morning digest post really brings home how much of a gamechanger that rule can be. TX is going to have a boatload of runoffs.
I think this definitely benefits Talarico, especially if Crockett can rally her supporters behind him. I believe he ran a very positive primary campaign, especially vs. the infighting in the GOP. And from what I can see, Cornyn and Paxton, are never going to reconcile - I think they genuinely despise each other.
In a lot of ways, it makes me think of the Alaska House special election and subsequent general election in 2022, even though Alaska has ranked choice voting. But many GOP voters who backed Nick Begich as their 1st choice decided that they would rather either not cast a second choice (i.e., the equivalent of staying home if your preferred GOP candidate lost in a primary) or voted for Democrat Mary Peltola instead of voting for GOP lightning rod, Sarah Palin.
I can see the possibility of something similar happening if Cornyn loses the runoff and his supporters can't stomach Ken Paxton. Especially considering how much money Cornyn and others spent on negative ads against Paxton. IMO, Talarico, as a mild-mannered, white Christian male, should be able to be an acceptable alternative much better than firebrand, Jasmine Crockett. No wonder Cornyn wanted Crockett to win the Democratic primary.
I think if the recount doesn't go Page's way, I think Berger is very vulnerable to having his seat flipped in November.
First sign? He only won re-election by 4 points in 2024 (when he should've won by 10). Second, this bruising primary shows that voters are fed up with the incumbent. Some of the Page voters won't vote for Berger in Nov and vice versa.
Correct. The term refers to a creepy obsessed fan of someone. It’s named after the song “Stan”, which was about a disturbed fan of Eminem’s who was obsessed with him.
Though I'd argue "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" is a good song for voters who regret their 2024 vote and/or want to break away from the MAGA/GOP/Trump cult.
For the longest time, I thought it was a reference to the "-stan" countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.) and assumed it was a reference to zealotry or fanaticism by evoking theocratic countries (similar to referring to America as "Trumpistan"), although not all "-stan" countries are as theocratic as others.
I also thought this, but only inasmuch as they were a "nation" of hard-core fans. Stan as a word for country is Indo-European in origin and related to the English word stand.
It actually originates as a shortening of stalker-fan. The stalker-fan in the Eminem song is named Stan because of this meaning. But the song very much popularised it.
I'm not sure if that was Eminem's intention when he named the song, or if it was just an easy backmanteau (a portmanteau of backronym and portmanteau, I'm proud of it lol)
This morning I called James and congratulated him on becoming the Senate nominee. Texas is primed to turn blue and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person. This is about the future of all 30 million Texans and getting America back on track. With the primary behind us, Democrats must rally around our nominees and win. I’m committed to doing my part and will continue working to elect democrats up and down the ballot.
Thankfully per the focus group The Bulwark did of Texas Democrats nobody either heard or gave a fuck about what Crockett's influencers on social media were going off about.
Two barely recognized Democratic socialists who barely managed to raise funds got 40 percent of the vote against the conservative, anti-abortion, anti-labor, anti-LGBTQ Democrats, Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar from the RGV. If the RGV turns blue again and Talarico wins it, they could easily be replaced by more established, mainstream, well-funded progressives in 2028.
Obama, Hillary, Beto in 2018 and 2022 and Biden won them until Kamala and Allred lost it. It's almost sure to swing back by huge margins and mainstream Democrats can win it.
It might in 2028 but who knows about 2030 or later years?
For example Jessica Cisneros who almost won the primary against Cuellar in 2022 may have eked out a win in the general that year, but likely would have lost in 2024 when Trump was winning the district, while Cuellar won.
That to me seems like a volatile pair of seats prone for unpredictable swings. Even if Talarico and Hinojosa easily win the districts in their statewide races, I would not draw any conclusions about that for 2028 and beyond.
Why don't we just hand these seats over to the GOP on a silver platter while we are at it. We need to run candidates that fit the district and know how to win elections rather than waste money and blow elections on constant purity tests.
Which is why I made the quip about "Social Democrats". (Rather than Democratic Socialists.) Based on everything I’ve heard, James Talarico is essentially a Social Democrat.
Why haven't you heard anything about this at TDB or elsewhere, you ask? Because SC has the worst SC justice selection system in America. The state legislature selects judges through a panel. The Governor has no input. The voters have no input. So state legislators can elect their friends, like former house speaker, or boot someone that doesn't toe the line, like Few.
So the Emerson poll was almost exactly right for the Texas dem primary. They also were one of the few pollsters to predict a Mamdani win in the NYC mayor primary, iirc. Maybe they’re just good at modeling dem primary electorates?
I agree that it will be challenging, but I am glad that she plans to run as hard as she can. She should be able to speak to farmers. I am also hoping that Cotton's full-throated defense of the illegal war in Iran may damage him.
It appears that Arkansas Dems weren't even able to find candidates in many of the statewide offices, or am I wrong? This can't be good for turnout. It makes me sad.
I think given the (officially nonpartisan, I know) supreme court race last night was within 10pts and a 20% swing from Harris that it would have been good to run an Osborn-like independent in AR for senate and/or governor. Doubtful such a candidate would win, but could have made them more competitive and waste Republican money while building voter enthusiasm back up.
A state will never be in play if Democratic candidates do not run there, and I mean strong candidates not sacrificial lambs. (Too many sacrificial lambs in my state of Indiana.) Beta O'Rourke began the process of laying the groundwork in Texas with his run for the senate and for governor. He continues working on the ground to register college students. We need to start laying the foundations in all states, even if for practical purposes most of the financing goes to races that we have a reasonable chance of winning in other states.
⬆️A state will never be in play if Democratic candidates do not run there, and I mean strong candidates not sacrificial lambs.
I do agree if you are talking about Federal races, but IMO "sacrificial lambs" can pay off in state legislative races, because it increases Democratic turnout in ruby red districts. By this I mean they are good candidates who fit their districts - they are just facing a Herculean battle because of the demographics of that district. In general, local and state legislative races are cheaper than marquee races, although this isn't always the case.
We saw this in 2024 in NC where Democrats did well in statewide races despite a red wave. And it the 2025 blowout in VA. Every single district in VA got bluer relative to the 2023 results. Plus many of the established GOP candidates in ruby red districts had never had a challenger and they actually had to spend some money on their own campaigns rather then send it to other candidates in swing states.
so that means we didn't outvote them in one of the newly created red seats, do you know which one we didn't. positively surprised we didn't just outvote them in two out of the five, as I personally thought would be the case
Maybe I'm mixing states up. I thought Texas had semi-closed primaries where Dems/Reps voted in their own primaries but Independents could vote in either.
And as Stephen Wolf conveyed:
North Carolina Democrats cast more votes by a 57%-43% margin.
https://ncpoliticscenter.substack.com/p/the-morning-after-ncs-primary-election
We saw the same thing in Texas last night. Major enthusiasm gap.
A lot of the Crockett influencers/stans are mad. Paxton interfering with the Dallas County judge's order to keep the polls open until 9 p.m. makes them think Talarico had something to do with it.
Crockett has a responsibility to come out and vigorously dispell this notion. From the money Republicans were dumping into ads, it's pretty obvious she was their preferred candidate.
I'm no fan of Crockett's and am glad she lost, but I think everyone needs to back off of her. She conceded gracefully and urged everyone to support Talarico. What else do people want from her?
These people can’t be helped
"These people" is...wow
As in people who have nothing better to do online than spread conspiracy theories about our nominee when their candidate has herself graciously conceded?
Stop inventing things to be outraged about. There's enough out there already.
Crockett has to be the one to "help them".
Not even sure that would do it
Crockett has to make sure those influencers/fans/etc aim their anger at Paxton, not at Talarico! Crockett must do her utmost to make sure all her supporters vote in November.
The number of voters at stake is such if she took 100% of them it still wouldn't have been close.
Yeah. I think Crockett ate a lot of her ED turnout when her supporters mostly voted early. (Probably because they knew Paxton was going to mess with things on Election Day.)
Why were the polls ordered to stay open in the first place?
Because the Dallas County Democratic Party filed for a court order because they said so many people had gone to the wrong place to vote they needed more time to find the right polling place. For the past decade voters have been able to vote at any of 15ish voting centers around the county. But for this primary the Republicans insisted to have voting only in assigned tiny precincts so they could hand count their ballots (although in the end they decided not to) and under Texas law in the primaries both parties have to agree to have voting centers so Democrats had no choice but to go along. It's been so long since precincts were used most people have no idea which precinct they live in let alone where it votes.
It is a very open question if the Democratic district judge over stepped her authority in that the Texas Election Code only calls for extentions for things like technical issues and weather events.
Seriously? It is probably one simple google search away. In NC, if you search for your voter registration record, it includes this info.
www.vote411.org, www.vote.org, and iwillvote.com will all take you to the correct website to look up your registration, once you select your state from a drop down.
The iwillvote.com webpage also will show you the number for your state voter hotline. (I have the NC hotline number saved in my phone contacts so that I can share it with others).
Evidently the Texas elections site was sending people to the wrong polling locations. Was that just bad tech/programming or intentional? Sounds like the local/county elections staff were doing their best to get info out about the location changes.
It was more that people didn't realize they needed to even check. They just assumed it would be like it had been for the last several elections. I'm sure they could have found out if they looked but they didn't know to.
Wow, ~199K more votes in the NC senate primaries and ~167K more votes in the TX sen primaries (51.9% D to 48.1% R).
Yeah, I think Dems wanted to make sure Roy Cooper was the candidate.
The difference was huge in the Senate race, which probably garnered the most votes of any race and likely without any ballot drop off. I can't see anyone voting in another race and skipping the senate one!
Berger is so MAD and I am here for it. Burned all that $10M for nothing.
I do think Talarico and Crockett's campaigns should sue the TX AG for voter suppression for those shenanigans in Dallas County. Because if Paxton wins the runoff, he will pull the same shit in November.
Not for nothing, right? It implies he would've been blown out without it lol
He blew $10M earmarked for vulnerable state legislative races this year. I can't imagine other NC Rs being happy about that, losing winnable races because the state Senate leader didn't want to move on. But Destin Hall is probably grinning from ear to ear today.
Dunno if wealthy corporations will continue funding the NC Republican Party if the recounts change nothing and the courts turn Berger down.
G. Elliott Morris has a great read on the statistics behind why we might win the Texas Senate seat. He is cautiously optimistic, which is pretty much where I'm at
https://gelliottmorris.substack.com/p/six-data-driven-reasons-texas-could-go-blue-2026-03-04?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=ls9i5
I'd be cautiously optimistic with Paxton.
Against Paxton - 10-15% chance of winning
Against Cornyn - 1-2%
Not much optimism, cautious or otherwise, there.
For me (especially talking about TX), it's pretty sunshine-y!
/yeah, I'm about as much fun at parties as one might suspect
I'd give Talarico 50% against Paxton and 30% against Cornyn. This is shaping up as a BAD cycle for Rs, especially in heavily Latino states.
Depending on what happens in the runoff, if Cornyn ends up somehow advancing to the general election, I wonder if the Paxton supporters will want to stomach voting for Cornyn in the end.
Granted Republicans typically stay loyal to incumbent Republican Senators in the general election, I'm not sure Cornyn's going to have necessarily an easier time. He may be harder for Talarico to defeat but that doesn't mean he's not going to present any vulnerabilities.
Love that Texas will have two candidates with major scandals fighting in the run offs. Terrible that it shows the lack of standards that GOP voters have, but excellent that it probably repels independents, Nikki Haley Republicans. Probably compounds with each piece of corruption news coming from DC and makes Talarico’s message against old politics resonate even more.
Votehub has a precinct-level map of the Texas Democratic primary, for as many countries as they can get their hands on (currently the five largest plus several smaller ones as well). And the precinct results are... quite stark. In many places, they are effectively a map of the proportion of Democrats who are African-American.
Which, honestly, is quite illuminating from an intellectual standpoint. I'm fascinated by it.
https://votehub.com/2026_tx_sen_dem
Race-based primary campaigns arent anything new. And they only seem more likely moving forward, especially within Democratic circles. Hispanic/AA/Asian/Native/etc. "Vote for me because I am X demographic" is unfortunately not going away any time soon in liberal circles. Republicans are functionally a whites-only party outside of Oklahoma at this point, so it seems less likely to be an issue for them.
Byron Donalds in Florida?
Pretty sure 2024 dispelled the notion of Republicans being a "whites-only party". Even if nonwhites come racing back to the Democrats in 2026, the 2024 cycle was the wake-up call that voters of color are gonna be a dynamic voting group moving forward as their share of the electorate becomes larger. Even today, Florida's GOP could hardly be called a whites-only party.
Soooo, we're surprised that people whose history has been one of being systematically excluded from full citizenship in their own country (to the present day) are eager to vote for a qualified candidate who understands and shares their life experience?
Considering that turnout in heavily African-American precincts all across the country dropped substantially from the 2020 election, where we nominated white man Joe Biden, to the 2024 election where we nominated African-American woman Kamala Harris... actually, yes.
OK. Thought we were talking about the Texas primary and the map, but okay.
Qualified from a paper credentialist standpoint not from a qualities and skills based standpoint.
The vote totals in TX were about 2.3 million for dems and 1.8 million for repubs. Is this likely to be meaningful?
The totals right now give Republicans over 2 million. Democrats are up about 110,000 and have more of their vote out.
Okay but can we read anything I to the higher demand nuber?
Yes. Dems are more enthusiastic or more people are deciding to vote Democratic than in the past. At least in Texas.
Don’t forget North Carolina! We outvoted Republicans by 200,000 here.
How long has it been since a properly contested statewide primary has had more Dem than R primary voters in Texas?
I have to believe Mariannette Miller-Meeks is concerned by what happened to Crenshaw. She does have Trump’s endorsement, but will that be enough? Her MAGA challenger got about 44% in the 2024 primary for IA-01.
She was in trouble whether she wins her primary or not. She's probably going to lose it in June or in November against the Democrat.
I think that’s right. It will be a tough hold for Democrats in 2028, though.
One election at a time :).
Trump's endorsees did quite well last night. 3 in runoffs, 2 yet to be called but we'll ahead, no losses yet.
Sorry, but there is no way that the NC state Senate race where long-time incumbent Phil Berger is in a virtual tie with a county Sherriff can be viewed as a success for a Trump endorsement.
True. I wasn't looking that far downballot. Despite the site we are on. 🙂
I live in NC, so this race was getting a lot of attention - he's the leader of the state senate so it is a big deal.
I don’t know if last night could have gone any better.
1. We got the ideal scenario in Texas, and now Republicans might be more incentivized to nuke Paxton under the hope that Cornyn might have more of a chance in a runoff than previously thought.
2. All the traitor Dems in the NC legislature who overrode Gov. Stein’s vetoes lost.
3. Dems outvoted Republicans in both NC and TX.
4. Easy flip in Arkansas.
About the only thing that could’ve been better is if we had avoided runoffs of our own in the Texas Lieutenant Governor and AG primaries.
Agreed.
I'd have liked Allam to win, but Foushee isn't trerible.
And the fact that one of Green/Menefee has to lose is sad. But we knew that going in.
Ds massively outvoting Rs in NC, significantly in TX (after around a million less last cycle, I think), and the size of the flip in the Arkansas special are super encouraging.
Would’ve liked Allam to win in NC-4 and Allred to lose in TX-33 but other than that I agree
There’s still hope on the latter, good sir/ma’am. As for Allam vs. Foushee, I could not be bothered to care about that one at all. Both would’ve voted the same on everything.
Paxton coming out with more votes than Cornyn would have made for a more ideal night. With Cornyn having gotten more votes, it gives him a more persuasive case for Trump to endorse him, and a Trump endorsement would boost Cornyn in the runoff.
Isn’t there still a lot of votes left to count? Cornyn was up by 3-5 when the ballots started being tabulated. Now it’s down to 1 point. Seems pretty clear what direction the race is headed, so I wouldn’t rule out Cornyn falling behind Paxton yet.
looking at CNN, they have 98% of votes in. So 1.2% may end up being the margin.
As an NC voter with the much less stringent threshold for avoiding runoffs, today's morning digest post really brings home how much of a gamechanger that rule can be. TX is going to have a boatload of runoffs.
I think this definitely benefits Talarico, especially if Crockett can rally her supporters behind him. I believe he ran a very positive primary campaign, especially vs. the infighting in the GOP. And from what I can see, Cornyn and Paxton, are never going to reconcile - I think they genuinely despise each other.
In a lot of ways, it makes me think of the Alaska House special election and subsequent general election in 2022, even though Alaska has ranked choice voting. But many GOP voters who backed Nick Begich as their 1st choice decided that they would rather either not cast a second choice (i.e., the equivalent of staying home if your preferred GOP candidate lost in a primary) or voted for Democrat Mary Peltola instead of voting for GOP lightning rod, Sarah Palin.
I can see the possibility of something similar happening if Cornyn loses the runoff and his supporters can't stomach Ken Paxton. Especially considering how much money Cornyn and others spent on negative ads against Paxton. IMO, Talarico, as a mild-mannered, white Christian male, should be able to be an acceptable alternative much better than firebrand, Jasmine Crockett. No wonder Cornyn wanted Crockett to win the Democratic primary.
I think if the recount doesn't go Page's way, I think Berger is very vulnerable to having his seat flipped in November.
First sign? He only won re-election by 4 points in 2024 (when he should've won by 10). Second, this bruising primary shows that voters are fed up with the incumbent. Some of the Page voters won't vote for Berger in Nov and vice versa.
I think that’s the only reason that I do want him to win his primary, because I’d position it as a potential DEM flip.
Crockett wrote a beautiful concession to Talarico this morning. Nice to see her take the high route compared to her stans and aligned influencers.
"Stan"? I had to look that up.
I believe the term was brought to popularity by Eminem with his 2000 track of the same name
Correct. The term refers to a creepy obsessed fan of someone. It’s named after the song “Stan”, which was about a disturbed fan of Eminem’s who was obsessed with him.
Ok, so definitely not referring to Paul Simon’s song, with these lyrics:
Ooo, slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Nope.
Though I'd argue "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" is a good song for voters who regret their 2024 vote and/or want to break away from the MAGA/GOP/Trump cult.
There must be 50 ways to leave your Trumper.
I had three theories about the origin of the term stan, all turned out incorrect:
1. Stan Marsh from South Park
2. Stan Beeman from The Americans
3. Stan Rizzo from Mad Men
For the longest time, I thought it was a reference to the "-stan" countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.) and assumed it was a reference to zealotry or fanaticism by evoking theocratic countries (similar to referring to America as "Trumpistan"), although not all "-stan" countries are as theocratic as others.
I also thought this, but only inasmuch as they were a "nation" of hard-core fans. Stan as a word for country is Indo-European in origin and related to the English word stand.
It actually originates as a shortening of stalker-fan. The stalker-fan in the Eminem song is named Stan because of this meaning. But the song very much popularised it.
I'm not sure if that was Eminem's intention when he named the song, or if it was just an easy backmanteau (a portmanteau of backronym and portmanteau, I'm proud of it lol)
This morning I called James and congratulated him on becoming the Senate nominee. Texas is primed to turn blue and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person. This is about the future of all 30 million Texans and getting America back on track. With the primary behind us, Democrats must rally around our nominees and win. I’m committed to doing my part and will continue working to elect democrats up and down the ballot.
You know Talarico personally?
Thankfully per the focus group The Bulwark did of Texas Democrats nobody either heard or gave a fuck about what Crockett's influencers on social media were going off about.
I have no idea who Crockett's influencers are and have no desire to subject myself to more of the cesspol that exists with influencing these days.
The Nebraska Senate race is crazy.
Two barely recognized Democratic socialists who barely managed to raise funds got 40 percent of the vote against the conservative, anti-abortion, anti-labor, anti-LGBTQ Democrats, Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar from the RGV. If the RGV turns blue again and Talarico wins it, they could easily be replaced by more established, mainstream, well-funded progressives in 2028.
In 2028, we should run Social Democrats against Cuellar and Gonzalez.
+1
Let’s see how these seats vote this year before potentially tossing these seats to Republicans.
Yep that seems like a recipe for throwing away these seats.
Obama, Hillary, Beto in 2018 and 2022 and Biden won them until Kamala and Allred lost it. It's almost sure to swing back by huge margins and mainstream Democrats can win it.
It might in 2028 but who knows about 2030 or later years?
For example Jessica Cisneros who almost won the primary against Cuellar in 2022 may have eked out a win in the general that year, but likely would have lost in 2024 when Trump was winning the district, while Cuellar won.
That to me seems like a volatile pair of seats prone for unpredictable swings. Even if Talarico and Hinojosa easily win the districts in their statewide races, I would not draw any conclusions about that for 2028 and beyond.
I think it was quite predictable, with the border policies Joe Biden implemented or failed to implement.
you have absolutely no evidence that would be a guaranteed throwaway for those seats.
Why don't we just hand these seats over to the GOP on a silver platter while we are at it. We need to run candidates that fit the district and know how to win elections rather than waste money and blow elections on constant purity tests.
Which is why I made the quip about "Social Democrats". (Rather than Democratic Socialists.) Based on everything I’ve heard, James Talarico is essentially a Social Democrat.
He doesn't call himself one, right? Not using the words can unfortunately make a difference.
I’m sure he doesn’t. Not aware that any prominent American politician refers to themselves as a Social Democrat.
SC will have a new State Supreme Court justice as sitting justice John Few has dropped his bid.
https://www.southcarolinapublicradio.org/sc-news/2026-03-03/justice-john-few-drops-out-of-sc-supreme-court-race
Why haven't you heard anything about this at TDB or elsewhere, you ask? Because SC has the worst SC justice selection system in America. The state legislature selects judges through a panel. The Governor has no input. The voters have no input. So state legislators can elect their friends, like former house speaker, or boot someone that doesn't toe the line, like Few.
Virginia also elects its Supreme Court justices from the legislature but I imagine there are more guardrails than that.
south carolina's post civil war history is just a constant reminder we should have never pulled federal troops out post 1876
Thanks, Rutherford B Hayes
And the Electoral College, iirc
True but Hayes was at least a Republican. Tilden probably would have been worse.
I sure hope so.
So the Emerson poll was almost exactly right for the Texas dem primary. They also were one of the few pollsters to predict a Mamdani win in the NYC mayor primary, iirc. Maybe they’re just good at modeling dem primary electorates?
Credit where due for Memerson
One additional report: Holly Shoffner has won the Democratic primary in Arkansas for U.S. Senate. She will face off against incumbent Tom Cotton.
https://katv.com/news/local/hallie-shoffner-wins-senate-primary-set-to-face-off-vs-tom-cotton-in-november
I wish her luck. She's going to need it.
It’s going to be challenging as Cotton increased his win margin by 10% in his re-election back in 2020 vs his first Senate election in 2014.
I agree that it will be challenging, but I am glad that she plans to run as hard as she can. She should be able to speak to farmers. I am also hoping that Cotton's full-throated defense of the illegal war in Iran may damage him.
It appears that Arkansas Dems weren't even able to find candidates in many of the statewide offices, or am I wrong? This can't be good for turnout. It makes me sad.
It's too bad we don't have someone like her running in Kansas. Love to be wrong, but I think Arkansas isn't in play anytime soon.
What's crazy in retrospect is that Democrats were either competitive or downright dominant there for as long as they were.
I think given the (officially nonpartisan, I know) supreme court race last night was within 10pts and a 20% swing from Harris that it would have been good to run an Osborn-like independent in AR for senate and/or governor. Doubtful such a candidate would win, but could have made them more competitive and waste Republican money while building voter enthusiasm back up.
A state will never be in play if Democratic candidates do not run there, and I mean strong candidates not sacrificial lambs. (Too many sacrificial lambs in my state of Indiana.) Beta O'Rourke began the process of laying the groundwork in Texas with his run for the senate and for governor. He continues working on the ground to register college students. We need to start laying the foundations in all states, even if for practical purposes most of the financing goes to races that we have a reasonable chance of winning in other states.
I like Shoffner as a candidate, but AR Dems need a stronger party leader like former WI chair Ben Wikler or NC's Anderson Clayton.
There's definitely room for AR Dems to eliminate the R supermajority in the AR legislature.
Yes - someone who invests in year-round organizing.
⬆️A state will never be in play if Democratic candidates do not run there, and I mean strong candidates not sacrificial lambs.
I do agree if you are talking about Federal races, but IMO "sacrificial lambs" can pay off in state legislative races, because it increases Democratic turnout in ruby red districts. By this I mean they are good candidates who fit their districts - they are just facing a Herculean battle because of the demographics of that district. In general, local and state legislative races are cheaper than marquee races, although this isn't always the case.
We saw this in 2024 in NC where Democrats did well in statewide races despite a red wave. And it the 2025 blowout in VA. Every single district in VA got bluer relative to the 2023 results. Plus many of the established GOP candidates in ruby red districts had never had a challenger and they actually had to spend some money on their own campaigns rather then send it to other candidates in swing states.
Also of note, Dems outvoted the GOP in total primary vote in the 4 newly gerrymandered TX U.S. house seats, including ones in the Rio Grande Valley
so that means we didn't outvote them in one of the newly created red seats, do you know which one we didn't. positively surprised we didn't just outvote them in two out of the five, as I personally thought would be the case
Probably 32 was the one we didn’t
Correct
Is that Crockett's old/new district?
No, it was partly Julie Johnson's, who ran in Crockett's old seat
This *could* just be a result of party registration, which is a lagging indicator of partisanship. But still not sad to see it.
Is there official party registration in TX? The primaries are open at least.
Maybe I'm mixing states up. I thought Texas had semi-closed primaries where Dems/Reps voted in their own primaries but Independents could vote in either.
Afaik, TX is just open:
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/state-primary-election-types
https://ballotpedia.org/Primary_elections_in_Texas
Then I must have just been mixing something up in my head, thanks for the correction!
Although, I do think it's the case that voting in one party's primary does prevent you from voting in the runoff for the other.
yes that is correct
That is certainly true in NC.
NC has semi-closed primaries and the NC and TX primary elections were on the same day.