What is the likelihood of success, or even a fair hearing, in the Democratic Party’s challenge to Tuberville’s Alabama’s residency? I see that he claims a homestead in Auburn. I didn’t realize there were any homesteads in Auburn!
In real estate law, a "homestead exemption" gives you some amount of protection against the seizure of a house, but you have to declare that it's your primary residence. If you own multiple houses you can only claim the homestead exemption on one of them.
Thanks for clarifying. Must admit I think of a homestead very differently, and definitely very rural. My wife and I have a homestead on which we produce much of our own food. A thousand-foot frontage along a beautiful brook, and a ten-minute walk to our nearest neighbor.
It depends-there are probably a lot of in-state Republicans who would prefer to be running for Governor (Ainsworth for instance)-partnering with one them for such a case (and letting them take the lead) might work-going it alone will lead to the case getting dismissed in best case scenario-in the worst case scenario, any candidate we run gets thrown off the ballot on dubious grounds instead.
Sherrod Brown running for Ohio Governor would be a godsend for Ohio Dems. Vivek Ramaswamy is perhaps even more extreme than Ron DeSantis. The Democrats in the field right now are nothingburger and more importantly, unwinnable candidates – the football coach, crypto and gas lobbyist Tim Ryan who blames "liberalism" for decline of Ohio Democrats and Amy Acton, the former COVID czar of Ohio.
I'll probably regret posting about this and I've grown extremely skeptical about Ohio over the past decade, but I'll go ahead and say if Ramaswamy is the candidate I'd make Brown a very slight favorite in a race for Governor.
I would rank Ohio the last in terms of pickup opportunities in 2026 senate but the Gubernatorial election may be a tossup if Brown runs. I don't think Ramaswamy will be able to juice MAGA turnout like the others given his identity and his elitist rhetoric.
When your biggest credential is "I worked with Elon Musk on DOGE" and ran a quixotic campaign for President, then you're probably toast in any state bluer than Ohio, and there it's probably competitive even if you're not up against Democratic Jesus (or Sherrod Brown who is probably as close as we get to that in Ohio today.)
I’m willing to bet, in the form of donations and volunteer work for Sherrod Brown or another good Democratic candidate. Similarly for other longshots elsewhere.
That's great, but it's different because you aren't trying to win or avoid losing money. The fact that you're calling it a long shot means that you wouldn't bet on it with 50-50 odds or anything close to that, which is my point.
The 2023 redistricting made it a bit better, but even on a fair map Dems probably wouldn’t even be able to break the Republican supermajority given how far to the right the state has gone outside of the three big cities and the Cincinatti and Columbus suburbs.
It will come down to how well Brown (or the Dem nominee) can do in Northeast Ohio, where many former Democratic strongholds (e.g., Mahoning and Trumbull counties) have gone full MAGA.
You're too dismissive of Ryan. 2022 was a terrible year for Democrats, and he came within 6 points of beating Vance (who despite being JD Vance, isn't nearly as irritating or offputting as Ramaswamy) for an open Senate seat.
I'd disagree that 2022 was a terrible year for us. It was slightly red as a year but not awful. We lost the national popular vote for the house by 2.5 points then, only falling five seats short of a majority. We picked up three governor's seats, while losing one. We didn't lose a single senate seat and picked up PA's seat. The year was far from terrible. Yeah, we fell short of our hopes and especially came up short in the senate in WI and NC, and also in the NC supreme court (which bit us in the ass for gerrymandering).
Overall it was not the disaster for the incumbent party that we've come to expect out of midterms.
His entire campaign aggressively criticized Democratic policies and he distanced himself from "liberalism" or whatever that means. That still didn't yield him a win against Vance who was trailing in the primary before Trump's endorsement.
Right leaning voters don't vote for Democrats even if the Democrat candidate matches their beliefs and Ohio has more right leaners than left leaners. Vance even called him Vance lite and diet Republican. So you're technically correct.
Tommy Tuberville isn't going to buy another office. He's a criminal, election denier, insider trading and not living in the district he represents. We have plans for him and the other Republicans. It involves bars and stripes
Tommy Tuberville is taking a page out of Mike Braun's book in Indiana. Braun also didn't enjoy the Senate, probably because there were 99 other people with whom he had to make decisions. Sadly, he ran for and won the governorship of Indiana, and the tyranny has begun. I wish that Indiana had had the good sense to elect Jennifer McCormick, the Democrat who ran for governor.
With Tommy Tuberville's transfer from Washington to Montgomery, the title of "Stupidest Member of the Senate" will be wide open. One candidate is another sports figure, former NBA player Royce White, who is running for the Senate from Minnesota. White described himself on his Twitter profile as: "Antisemitic, Blackface, Extremist, Cis-Male, Sexist, Misogynist, Homophobic, Transphobic." He has also stated that "Women have become too mouthy" and that "The bad guys won World War II."
I think Markwayne Mullin is probably next in line after Tuberville. However, if we consider highly educated people who pretend to be stupid to appeal to their base (what a compliment), I have to go with the Oxford-educated John Kennedy of Louisiana, who sounds like Foghorn Leghorn with his "shucks, I'm a simple man asking simple questions" schtick.
On the Democratic side, I think Fetterman has very little competition for dumbest, when you look at the alliances and relationships he is squandering to pander to MAGA, who will give him nothing in return.
Somewhere, Ron Johnson is amazed that's he's no longer even in contention for dumbest senator, though I'd argue he should be. I'm no Fetterman fan, but I'm not sure his recent actions speak to his intelligence. By all accounts, he's going through something big and may not be in his right mind.
I just want to emphasize the "when you look at the relationships he is squandering" part. What he is doing to his career and the progressive movement appears to be quite dumb, even if he actually has intelligence. I wouldn't consider any of the Democratic Senators to be dumb, but there are also no others doing dumb things like Fetterman (now that Menendez, Sinema, and Manchin are gone).
Love that his issues page currently has 3 issues listed: federal separation of powers, healthcare, and transportation. Curious to see if he has the juice to wage a campaign.
I think this argument Jarin and other primary challengers are pushing who have announced so far is effective and persuasive for Democratic primary voters. They don’t disagree much in policy from the incumbents, left or right, but their pitch is representing the party and their districts with different style and strategy that better fits today’s America.
In a previous politico piece Democratic insiders expect many more primary challenger announcements in Massachusetts and New York in addition to Maryland, so hopefully we’ll continue to see these new voices step up when the party and country badly needs them.
I’ve got to say, I’m extremely shocked Kimberley Yee isn’t running for Arizona Governor. She is by far the Republicans strongest candidate in the state and I thought she was a shoo-in to run, maybe even to win. Governor Hobbs must’ve been born with a horseshoe because facing Kari Lake as her opponent for her first campaign and not having to face a GOP statewide incumbent elected by 11 points at the same time Hobbs won by 1 point by those sane voters is a minor miracle. Hopefully Democrats can finally give her a trifecta for her last term to get some major things done.
Yeah that could very well be the case, but if she’s waiting that means she doesn’t think 2026 is winnable, so add that to the large and growing pile of elected Republicans seeing a blue wave coming in the midterms.
She may or may not be insane enough, but I think being elected statewide vs being a candidate statewide is a big difference in these MAGA vs less MAGA GOP primaries.
Republicans want to flip the Governor’s race obviously, so having a R+10 winning elected incumbent who performed 11 points better than Kari Lake is a very powerful primary message in trying to beat a Democratic incumbent. Taylor Robinson never actually showed she could win, so primary voters went for MAGA.
For all we know, Yee could clear the field, lots of possibilities in a hypothetical situation.
So much of politics is about timing. Ossoff and Warnock are awesome senators and they were great candidates, don't get me wrong. But they won in 2020 because things had shifted enough, because the political environment was just right, to enable them to win. If either of them had run in 2014 or 2016 they would have last.
Kimberley Yee is presumably making her decisions carefully. She's 51 right now, so she has time to play carefully. If she runs in 2026, there's a good chance that her strengths will be irrelevant in the face of a presumed blue wave. Then she loses her chance to run in 2030 because she will have already lost. On the flipside, if she bides her time and runs in 2030, there's a real chance that it will be an open seat in a midterm of a democratic presidency. Which is the best opportunity a republican candidate could hope for.
While consumer sentiment rebounded after Trump chickened out on his tariffs bluff as his administration insists everything’s amazing, the CEO’s that run America’s biggest businesses, see things very differently about the US economy.
The potential policy blowup comes at an especially vulnerable time for the economy. The Conference Board reported Thursday that confidence among top CEOs cratered during the second quarter at its fastest pace in almost 50 years. The government said the economy contracted during the first quarter as businesses rushed to get ahead of higher import costs and consumer spending slowed. And corporate profits fell.
Colvin is not the only executive who’s alarmed. National Association of Home Builders Chair Buddy Hughes said the “fluidity” of the administration’s tariff policy has harmed housing affordability and that the administration needs to seek deals that will roll back tariff rates. Jonathan Gold of the National Retail Federation said his members need a “rapid resolution” of the tariff process to meet the needs of their customers.
The fear is that Trump will bristle at both adverse court rulings and growing perceptions on Wall Street that he’ll “chicken out” on his protectionist agenda. If he reapplies the tariffs using alternative legal authority, which is one option, it would likely cause businesses and investors to pull back — raising the specter of a recession.
“What this does is just add another layer of uncertainty on top of what was already an uncertain situation,” said Andrew Hollenhorst, the U.S. chief economist at Citi.
There will be a recall election for San Francisco Supervisor Joel Engardio on September 16.
I'm not sure whether this recall should be supported or opposed-on the one hand, Engardio has done very little wrong to deserve it-on the other, he did support Chesa Boudin's recall, so I think using this recall as retaliation is justified in my opinion.
This recall of course has to do with Prop K, which Joel Edgardio supported, that blocks off car access to the upper part of the Great Highway, which typically gets most of the traffic.
Even while there are parts of San Francisco that do need to limit car traffic, I am not convinced the Great Highway is the best opportunity to do this. For starters, driving through the Great Highway and to Skyline Blvd is one of the best ways to get towards Daly City without having to take the highway.
Shutting down this access also limits potential tourism if say anyone from Daly City and Pacifica want to take a day trip to the beach at the Great Highway. Are they going to be forced to travel by bus to get there?
This open seat should be a target for Democrats in 2026. Also great news for Michigan Senate that Rogers will have a competitive, hopefully bloody and resource draining primary. On the other hand very bad news for and emblematic of how the GOP currently feels their chances are of holding the House in 2026 with the current economic chaos, given Rogers strong likelihood of winning the Republican nomination again.
Is he tired of being called the stupidest Senator? Or Florida’s 3rd Senator?
A coach potato.
Tommy Tatertown!
Tuberville sounds suspiciously French, lol...
I saw what you did there!
The country’s gain will be Alabama’s loss. Exactly as it should be.
What is the likelihood of success, or even a fair hearing, in the Democratic Party’s challenge to Tuberville’s Alabama’s residency? I see that he claims a homestead in Auburn. I didn’t realize there were any homesteads in Auburn!
In real estate law, a "homestead exemption" gives you some amount of protection against the seizure of a house, but you have to declare that it's your primary residence. If you own multiple houses you can only claim the homestead exemption on one of them.
Thanks for clarifying. Must admit I think of a homestead very differently, and definitely very rural. My wife and I have a homestead on which we produce much of our own food. A thousand-foot frontage along a beautiful brook, and a ten-minute walk to our nearest neighbor.
That's the way the word is most commonly used. Lawyers have their own dialect that's not always mutually intelligible.
It depends-there are probably a lot of in-state Republicans who would prefer to be running for Governor (Ainsworth for instance)-partnering with one them for such a case (and letting them take the lead) might work-going it alone will lead to the case getting dismissed in best case scenario-in the worst case scenario, any candidate we run gets thrown off the ballot on dubious grounds instead.
Practically nil.
Sherrod Brown running for Ohio Governor would be a godsend for Ohio Dems. Vivek Ramaswamy is perhaps even more extreme than Ron DeSantis. The Democrats in the field right now are nothingburger and more importantly, unwinnable candidates – the football coach, crypto and gas lobbyist Tim Ryan who blames "liberalism" for decline of Ohio Democrats and Amy Acton, the former COVID czar of Ohio.
Ryan hasn't decided.
I'll probably regret posting about this and I've grown extremely skeptical about Ohio over the past decade, but I'll go ahead and say if Ramaswamy is the candidate I'd make Brown a very slight favorite in a race for Governor.
I would rank Ohio the last in terms of pickup opportunities in 2026 senate but the Gubernatorial election may be a tossup if Brown runs. I don't think Ramaswamy will be able to juice MAGA turnout like the others given his identity and his elitist rhetoric.
When your biggest credential is "I worked with Elon Musk on DOGE" and ran a quixotic campaign for President, then you're probably toast in any state bluer than Ohio, and there it's probably competitive even if you're not up against Democratic Jesus (or Sherrod Brown who is probably as close as we get to that in Ohio today.)
I'm pessimistic. Brown -was- Democratic Jesus until he lost. I'll never bet for Democrats to win statewide races in Ohio.
I’m willing to bet, in the form of donations and volunteer work for Sherrod Brown or another good Democratic candidate. Similarly for other longshots elsewhere.
That's great, but it's different because you aren't trying to win or avoid losing money. The fact that you're calling it a long shot means that you wouldn't bet on it with 50-50 odds or anything close to that, which is my point.
Fair enough. As usual, we’re on the same page. :)
Could we win any down ballot races there should Brown win the Governorship?
the legislature is gerrymandered to hell.
I'm referring to statewide offices, but I get your point.
The 2023 redistricting made it a bit better, but even on a fair map Dems probably wouldn’t even be able to break the Republican supermajority given how far to the right the state has gone outside of the three big cities and the Cincinatti and Columbus suburbs.
Yeah, Ohio's political geography favors Republicans even without flagrant gerrymandering.
It will come down to how well Brown (or the Dem nominee) can do in Northeast Ohio, where many former Democratic strongholds (e.g., Mahoning and Trumbull counties) have gone full MAGA.
It's a tough nut to crack.
You're too dismissive of Ryan. 2022 was a terrible year for Democrats, and he came within 6 points of beating Vance (who despite being JD Vance, isn't nearly as irritating or offputting as Ramaswamy) for an open Senate seat.
I'd disagree that 2022 was a terrible year for us. It was slightly red as a year but not awful. We lost the national popular vote for the house by 2.5 points then, only falling five seats short of a majority. We picked up three governor's seats, while losing one. We didn't lose a single senate seat and picked up PA's seat. The year was far from terrible. Yeah, we fell short of our hopes and especially came up short in the senate in WI and NC, and also in the NC supreme court (which bit us in the ass for gerrymandering).
Overall it was not the disaster for the incumbent party that we've come to expect out of midterms.
Fair, but I agree with sacman on Ryan. His not winning was due to being a Democrat in Ohio, not due to his strategy not being the best shot he had.
His entire campaign aggressively criticized Democratic policies and he distanced himself from "liberalism" or whatever that means. That still didn't yield him a win against Vance who was trailing in the primary before Trump's endorsement.
And that doesn't prove anything he did other than being a Democrat caused him to lose.
Right leaning voters don't vote for Democrats even if the Democrat candidate matches their beliefs and Ohio has more right leaners than left leaners. Vance even called him Vance lite and diet Republican. So you're technically correct.
Are you saying that Tim Ryan isn't a strong statewide candidate in Ohio?
Tommy Tuberville isn't going to buy another office. He's a criminal, election denier, insider trading and not living in the district he represents. We have plans for him and the other Republicans. It involves bars and stripes
We'll see.
Tommy Tuberville is taking a page out of Mike Braun's book in Indiana. Braun also didn't enjoy the Senate, probably because there were 99 other people with whom he had to make decisions. Sadly, he ran for and won the governorship of Indiana, and the tyranny has begun. I wish that Indiana had had the good sense to elect Jennifer McCormick, the Democrat who ran for governor.
"Why cantcha be more like Mike Braun?!"
With Tommy Tuberville's transfer from Washington to Montgomery, the title of "Stupidest Member of the Senate" will be wide open. One candidate is another sports figure, former NBA player Royce White, who is running for the Senate from Minnesota. White described himself on his Twitter profile as: "Antisemitic, Blackface, Extremist, Cis-Male, Sexist, Misogynist, Homophobic, Transphobic." He has also stated that "Women have become too mouthy" and that "The bad guys won World War II."
Except that he's unlikely to get there even with the seat open.
I think Markwayne Mullin is probably next in line after Tuberville. However, if we consider highly educated people who pretend to be stupid to appeal to their base (what a compliment), I have to go with the Oxford-educated John Kennedy of Louisiana, who sounds like Foghorn Leghorn with his "shucks, I'm a simple man asking simple questions" schtick.
On the Democratic side, I think Fetterman has very little competition for dumbest, when you look at the alliances and relationships he is squandering to pander to MAGA, who will give him nothing in return.
I would agree Mullin is the next in line for dumbest.
Somewhere, Ron Johnson is amazed that's he's no longer even in contention for dumbest senator, though I'd argue he should be. I'm no Fetterman fan, but I'm not sure his recent actions speak to his intelligence. By all accounts, he's going through something big and may not be in his right mind.
Fetterman isn't at all stupid.
Prior to his health issues in 2022, he was as sharp as a tack (and quite funny, in a deadpan sort of way).
I see no reason to question Fetterman’s intelligence. Agree with you and Brad!
I just want to emphasize the "when you look at the relationships he is squandering" part. What he is doing to his career and the progressive movement appears to be quite dumb, even if he actually has intelligence. I wouldn't consider any of the Democratic Senators to be dumb, but there are also no others doing dumb things like Fetterman (now that Menendez, Sinema, and Manchin are gone).
Any replacement level Dem would beat White by double digits.
That's very stupid, but he isn't going to win in Minnesota.
I notice Royce has a very White name.
Steny Hoyer has a primary challenger. Hopefully he opts out of running again but time will tell.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/29/hoyer-challenger-age-harry-jarin-00373866
Love that his issues page currently has 3 issues listed: federal separation of powers, healthcare, and transportation. Curious to see if he has the juice to wage a campaign.
I mean he hasn't come close to losing a primary so it's probably enough.
Fair point. We can't expect him to lose.
I think this argument Jarin and other primary challengers are pushing who have announced so far is effective and persuasive for Democratic primary voters. They don’t disagree much in policy from the incumbents, left or right, but their pitch is representing the party and their districts with different style and strategy that better fits today’s America.
In a previous politico piece Democratic insiders expect many more primary challenger announcements in Massachusetts and New York in addition to Maryland, so hopefully we’ll continue to see these new voices step up when the party and country badly needs them.
I’ve got to say, I’m extremely shocked Kimberley Yee isn’t running for Arizona Governor. She is by far the Republicans strongest candidate in the state and I thought she was a shoo-in to run, maybe even to win. Governor Hobbs must’ve been born with a horseshoe because facing Kari Lake as her opponent for her first campaign and not having to face a GOP statewide incumbent elected by 11 points at the same time Hobbs won by 1 point by those sane voters is a minor miracle. Hopefully Democrats can finally give her a trifecta for her last term to get some major things done.
Yee might be waiting until the seat is open.
In any event, she probably isn't insane enough to win a high-profile GOP primary
Yeah that could very well be the case, but if she’s waiting that means she doesn’t think 2026 is winnable, so add that to the large and growing pile of elected Republicans seeing a blue wave coming in the midterms.
She may or may not be insane enough, but I think being elected statewide vs being a candidate statewide is a big difference in these MAGA vs less MAGA GOP primaries.
Republicans want to flip the Governor’s race obviously, so having a R+10 winning elected incumbent who performed 11 points better than Kari Lake is a very powerful primary message in trying to beat a Democratic incumbent. Taylor Robinson never actually showed she could win, so primary voters went for MAGA.
For all we know, Yee could clear the field, lots of possibilities in a hypothetical situation.
I'm not too surprised.
So much of politics is about timing. Ossoff and Warnock are awesome senators and they were great candidates, don't get me wrong. But they won in 2020 because things had shifted enough, because the political environment was just right, to enable them to win. If either of them had run in 2014 or 2016 they would have last.
Kimberley Yee is presumably making her decisions carefully. She's 51 right now, so she has time to play carefully. If she runs in 2026, there's a good chance that her strengths will be irrelevant in the face of a presumed blue wave. Then she loses her chance to run in 2030 because she will have already lost. On the flipside, if she bides her time and runs in 2030, there's a real chance that it will be an open seat in a midterm of a democratic presidency. Which is the best opportunity a republican candidate could hope for.
While consumer sentiment rebounded after Trump chickened out on his tariffs bluff as his administration insists everything’s amazing, the CEO’s that run America’s biggest businesses, see things very differently about the US economy.
https://archive.ph/K2EXM
The potential policy blowup comes at an especially vulnerable time for the economy. The Conference Board reported Thursday that confidence among top CEOs cratered during the second quarter at its fastest pace in almost 50 years. The government said the economy contracted during the first quarter as businesses rushed to get ahead of higher import costs and consumer spending slowed. And corporate profits fell.
Colvin is not the only executive who’s alarmed. National Association of Home Builders Chair Buddy Hughes said the “fluidity” of the administration’s tariff policy has harmed housing affordability and that the administration needs to seek deals that will roll back tariff rates. Jonathan Gold of the National Retail Federation said his members need a “rapid resolution” of the tariff process to meet the needs of their customers.
The fear is that Trump will bristle at both adverse court rulings and growing perceptions on Wall Street that he’ll “chicken out” on his protectionist agenda. If he reapplies the tariffs using alternative legal authority, which is one option, it would likely cause businesses and investors to pull back — raising the specter of a recession.
“What this does is just add another layer of uncertainty on top of what was already an uncertain situation,” said Andrew Hollenhorst, the U.S. chief economist at Citi.
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/san-francisco-supervisor-joel-engardio-recall-petition-certified-sep16-election
There will be a recall election for San Francisco Supervisor Joel Engardio on September 16.
I'm not sure whether this recall should be supported or opposed-on the one hand, Engardio has done very little wrong to deserve it-on the other, he did support Chesa Boudin's recall, so I think using this recall as retaliation is justified in my opinion.
This recall of course has to do with Prop K, which Joel Edgardio supported, that blocks off car access to the upper part of the Great Highway, which typically gets most of the traffic.
Even while there are parts of San Francisco that do need to limit car traffic, I am not convinced the Great Highway is the best opportunity to do this. For starters, driving through the Great Highway and to Skyline Blvd is one of the best ways to get towards Daly City without having to take the highway.
Shutting down this access also limits potential tourism if say anyone from Daly City and Pacifica want to take a day trip to the beach at the Great Highway. Are they going to be forced to travel by bus to get there?
This open seat should be a target for Democrats in 2026. Also great news for Michigan Senate that Rogers will have a competitive, hopefully bloody and resource draining primary. On the other hand very bad news for and emblematic of how the GOP currently feels their chances are of holding the House in 2026 with the current economic chaos, given Rogers strong likelihood of winning the Republican nomination again.
https://archive.ph/9R5Jh
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/29/politics/bernard-kerik-dies-nypd-commissioner
Bernard Kerik, one-time Secretary of Homeland Security nominee died at 69.
Alabama please! Take this guy back!
Good.