74 Comments
User's avatar
ArcticStones's avatar

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

DM's avatar

We saw the same thing in Texas last night. Major enthusiasm gap.

MPC's avatar

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.

DM's avatar

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.

Henrik's avatar

These people can’t be helped

rayspace's avatar

"These people" is...wow

Henrik's avatar

As in people who have nothing better to do online than spread conspiracy theories about our nominee when their candidate has herself graciously conceded?

bpfish's avatar

Stop inventing things to be outraged about. There's enough out there already.

ArcticStones's avatar

Crockett has to be the one to "help them".

Henrik's avatar

Not even sure that would do it

ArcticStones's avatar

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.

Toiler On the Sea's avatar

The number of voters at stake is such if she took 100% of them it still wouldn't have been close.

MPC's avatar

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.)

MPC's avatar

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.

DM's avatar

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

Paleo's avatar

I'd be cautiously optimistic with Paxton.

Conor Gallogly's avatar

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.

Kildere53's avatar

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

Oggoldy's avatar

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.

ArcticStones's avatar

Byron Donalds in Florida?

rayspace's avatar

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?

Kildere53's avatar

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.

rayspace's avatar

OK. Thought we were talking about the Texas primary and the map, but okay.

Danielle's avatar

The vote totals in TX were about 2.3 million for dems and 1.8 million for repubs. Is this likely to be meaningful?

Paleo's avatar

The totals right now give Republicans over 2 million. Democrats are up about 110,000 and have more of their vote out.

Danielle's avatar

Okay but can we read anything I to the higher demand nuber?

Paleo's avatar

Yes. Dems are more enthusiastic or more people are deciding to vote Democratic than in the past. At least in Texas.

anonymouse's avatar

Don’t forget North Carolina! We outvoted Republicans by 200,000 here.

Laura Belin's avatar

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.

MPC's avatar

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.

Laura Belin's avatar

I think that’s right. It will be a tough hold for Democrats in 2028, though.

Jay Lechtman's avatar

One election at a time :).

the lurking ecologist's avatar

Trump's endorsees did quite well last night. 3 in runoffs, 2 yet to be called but we'll ahead, no losses yet.

anonymouse's avatar

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.

ClimateHawk's avatar

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.

Haggy's avatar

Would’ve liked Allam to win in NC-4 and Allred to lose in TX-33 but other than that I agree

anonymouse's avatar

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.

MPC's avatar

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.

MPC's avatar

Crockett wrote a beautiful concession to Talarico this morning. Nice to see her take the high route compared to her stans and aligned influencers.

ArcticStones's avatar

"Stan"? I had to look that up.

Julius Zinn's avatar

I believe the term was brought to popularity by Eminem with his 2000 track of the same name

Techno00's avatar

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.

ArcticStones's avatar

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

ClimateHawk's avatar

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.

Ben F.'s avatar

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

Paleo's avatar

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.

PollJunkie's avatar

The Nebraska Senate race is crazy.

PollJunkie's avatar

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.

ArcticStones's avatar

In 2028, we should run Social Democrats against Cuellar and Gonzalez.

anonymouse's avatar

Let’s see how these seats vote this year before potentially tossing these seats to Republicans.

John Carr's avatar

Yep that seems like a recipe for throwing away these seats.

PollJunkie's avatar

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.

John Carr's avatar

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.

anonymouse's avatar

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.

PollJunkie's avatar

I think it was quite predictable, with the border policies Joe Biden implemented or failed to implement.

the lurking ecologist's avatar

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.

Jay's avatar

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?

Henrik's avatar

Credit where due for Memerson

Marliss Desens's avatar

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

MPC's avatar

I wish her luck. She's going to need it.

AnthonySF's avatar

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

Hudson Democrat's avatar

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

Bryce Moyer's avatar

Probably 32 was the one we didn’t