GA-Sen: Mike, not Doug Collins, is running against Jon Ossoff. They are not related, though Doug ran for the other seat in 2020 and Mike's father Mac ran for it in 2004.
Another Indiana Republican primary race has now been decided, with the anti-redistricting candidate winning. An additional race between an anti-redistricting candidate remains open. Note that Jim Banks and Todd Rokita both supported the challengers. Banks and Rokita are gunning to be the power brokers of the Indiana Republican party.
For some reason, mainstream media was talking about five out of six anti-redistricting Senators losing their seats. Where I could, I corrected the numbers. It now looks like just three out the six lost their seats.
8 Republicans running for re-election voted against redistricting, and 6 lost their seats, all by large margins, with one seat still up in the air. Trump didn't even endorse a challenger to one of the incumbents who lost, which is why I previously thought the numbers with 7 and 5. Most of the recounts are for non-redistricting-related primaries.
Oh, it will. It'll be a combination of high gas prices, energized and enraged Democrats, and plenty of self-inflicted injuries like DOGE, ICE murdering Americans on the street, and his dementia fixation on tariffs.
Seriously. Some of the inflation stuff is baked into the system at this point, but he's actually directly responsible for gas prices being higher, so he gets no grace and (should) get all the blame. Like, all of it.
It's amazing the level of doublethink that the Trump base is willing to accept. He literally said that the war would cause gas higher prices, but would be "worth it". Still they don't think it's his fault? But Biden was 100% to blame for the post-covid gas price spike.
For some reason it didn’t occur to me that the Maine nomination could be wrapped up this past weekend. Was offline most the weekend and missed it. I saw it because CNN is out with a ridiculous hit piece against Jackson about throwing a water bottle at the ground.
The media is very good at sanewashing every temper tantrum from the toddler in chief while simultaneously insisting the Dems play by Marquess of Queensberry Rules lest they be perceived as "angry".
Oh for shits sake. Unfortunately we may need to get ready for more of this if the WB Paramount merger goes through. I do not look forward to Bari Weiss’s CNN.
Anyway if anyone here is feeling particularly sadomasochistic, Politico is also attempting yet another hit piece on Troy Jackson. “Some people weren’t satisfied with the process or nominee!” Give me a break. He would have won a proper primary too. Who would Politico have picked? Shah? Mills again?
the hill ( a worse rag) is doing the same stuff, quotes from "progressives" that say they won't vote for jackson because he was pro-life before I could legally operate an automobile
It is gruesome to watch the rightwing subversion and destruction of the media (from CBS to CNN to NPR to local news) but the only saving grace is that media influence is low and continuing to dwindle. Compared to a baseline of trusted, accountable and fair news organizations, that's a bad thing, but compared to our current baseline of wall-to-wall RW propaganda, it's a good thing, even if the alternative (weird social media bubbles or what have you) isn't fantastic.
Yes, those can be applied to the big banks particularly. It's more immediately applicable to CapitalOne as its acquisition of Discover is pretty obvious.
However, it's more complex than big tech, big bank, etc. being bigger. For instance, Amazon owns and does the following:
-MGM
-One Medical Group (now a business unit within Amazon)
-Whole Foods
I would in an anti-trust matter with Amazon force it to break up so that MGM, One Medical and Whole Foods become separate companies again.
Because she's one of the last Republicans that even pretends to be a moderate, and there's nothing the media loves more than a moderate fascist, because it allows them to pretend the GOP is still a legitimate, normal political party and not a terrorist org
are the voters of Maine so shallow that something like this would actually make a difference. pure acts of desperation in trying to save a Senator who is long past her prime and likely can not be saved.
There's a difference between idiocy and ignorance. Most people don't care to look into candidates and just go by name recognition or party label (latter doesn't apply for primaries ofc). But I wouldn't belittle voters for being stupid. I would belittle them for not caring enough.
IL-4 resident here - Would be shocked if Getty was particularly competitive against Patty Garcia, considering the district's demographics and that she has consolidated much of the Chicago/IL political class, plus both the state and city AFL-CIO behind her. I'll also note that, as someone who spends time in both the suburban and city parts of the district, I came in contact with petition signers from Garcia, Macias, and Sigcho-Lopez across the district but never Getty; I think Garcia's campaign is fine with Getty being on the ballot.
Chicago's progressive left is in rough shape heading into next year's mayoral and city council election. While they have a few strong electeds, none would strike me as compelling enough to oust Garcia, who is fairly equal to Rep. Delia Ramirez in terms of politics and reputation. The Chicago DSA is nowhere near as robust as NYC's.
Yes, Chicago still has strong ethnic voting, and this amount of chopping and cutting of the electorate seems unsuitable for keeping him out of the general. He can stitch together enough voters across regions, plus likely run up the score in the city's black neighborhoods to advance. General will be the question.
The powers that be clearly want Alexi--you don't raise $19m from small donors. We'll see if they can make the case. I don't think Mendoza or Quigley make it to February.
What's Alexi like? I'd heard he was a centrist in the past, but I remember Our Revolution, Chuy Garcia, and some other progressives backing his SoS bid. Maybe he could be a less controversial centrist alternative to Brandon Johnson? I'd certainly take him over Mendoza.
Obama-era neolib. Former banker. Fine for SoS (not really an ideological position in IL so long as there's a D there to protect the vote). Cost us a Senate seat in 2010.
One of the problems is how early our primaries are. Garcia will likely be sworn in on January 3rd, and petitions for 2028 go out in August. With recesses and all, she won't have that many votes that are controversial, so the challenge comes down to relitigating 2026 and any scandal/misstatements that come up in the meantime.
If it means anything, Patty Garcia does seem pretty progressive (she has Our Revolution and the National Nurses United, among others, as endorsements, and Chuy himself was quite left wing) so a primary may not even occur (unless it's from the right, in which case good fucking luck in this environment).
For what it's worth, I recall someone here a while back saying Chuy's little stunt may have been a way to stop Ray Lopez from running, which, while I still don't like how it was done, is at least a noble goal given how awful Lopez is (from what I've heard).
Ray Lopez would've lost to Garcia, Macias, or Sigcho-Lopez with room to spare, I'd assume. Way too conservative for a lot of the city voters, and little popularity beyond the ward to make inroads in the burbs.
Yeah, the lack of any petition challenge is telling. Not difficult to find irregularities and outright fraud, although the rules have loosened a bit in recent years.
Unless the sex pest rumors about Barnes are true, it seems more and more like the Wisconsin establishment shot themselves in the foot by forcing Crowley back in.
Crowley getting back into the race and immediately getting endorsed by Evers seems strange when Barnes is so far ahead of Crowley and it makes me wonder if they know something is coming. I am for anyone but Hong at this point.
The Wisconsin Democrats really need to nuke Hong and get behind one candidate so that we aren't stuck with her as the candidate. Her views on crime and race are so extreme that her nomination could sink the entire ticket in Wisconsin. She advocated for abolishing the police and called for abolishing prisons. She said that police departments are established to maintain white supremacy. In a swing state like Wisconsin those views are electoral poison.. I can't imagine how terrible her margins would be outside of Madison and Milwaukee. Progressives really need to do a better job of weeding out some of their worst candidates if they want to ever get political power beyond having a few backbench members of the minority party. Candidates like Platner, Kairos, Chevalier and Hong just ensure perpetual GOP rule.
She said she had a long term goal of abolishing police and prisons, IIRC. Though that could be the backtrack from initial statements made longer ago.
Am not in WI, but I think she can win. The base is where it is. Trusting the moderate candidate to win does not always work either (HRC, Harris, etc). And even if they do, then you can get stuck with Haley Stevens or some such.
The base does not trust many of the establishment leaders. And, after the last 50 years, it is hard to blame them.
I was okay with her until she spoke about her long term goals. It's good to see that she's disavowing that now but I am not taking any position in this primary. I agree that moderate candidates like Haley Stevens and Janet Mills aren't always electable and don't always poll well but I am not sure whether a socialist who didn't fully disavow defund can win a swing state.
“620 WTMJ: Francesca Hong says she doesn’t support defunding or abolishing the police in new interview
“I do not believe that police funding should go away, and I do not think that police can be abolished.””
The base doesn’t win you elections in non-safe states. You’d have thought we’d learn that lesson from all the “base” candidates Republicans run all the time and usually they flop.
The radical left is not the Democratic base. The Dem base consists mainly of conventional liberals. Hong would easily be the worst Dem candidate for governor in a swing state in my memory, and I remember Geoffrey Fieger. If she's the nominee she'll lose big even to Tiffany who is a terrible candidate in a terrible year for his party.
I agree she would be a weak general election candidate. But it’s not progressives’ fault. The race is open to all. There were plenty of candidates and possibilities. It’s not her fault if they failed to coalesce behind one of them, or if they’re otherwise flawed.
Progressive leaders need to make it known which candidates they are getting behind and more importantly, which candidates they do not want to represent the progressive movement Bad candidates will hurt not only the progressive movement, but also hurt the Democratic party and would lead to more GOP rule.
She doesn't have any endorsements from high profile progressives like Bernie, Warren, Mamdani, AOC, Casar or Pocan. I'm not sure what progressive leadership can do beyond that.
Maybe Establishment leaders need to find better candidates who are vetted instead of turning to milquetoast moderates like Stevens, Mills, Etc. The base clearly is yelling at the establishment that decades of "moderate" candidates are not what they're looking for.
Yeah but you gotta pander to voters and can't keep blaming them. A Talarico kind of populist liberal could have defeated Platner and El-Sayed but the establishment chose to bet it all on Bill Clinton-style hardline centrists.
If she won the primary with 38 percent of the vote, as this poll suggests, that would only be 3 points less than Tony Evers won the primary with in 2018.
Hell Crowley is decently progressive, there was no need for both Barnes and Rodriguez to suck up all his oxygen (or for big names to hold out so long on trying to consolidate)
To be fair, Kairos and Chevalier at least can win the general elections of their districts. Hong... I like her, I know her heart is in the right place, but as you say these are serious electability concerns.
Lumping Kiros in with them just isn't accurate. She's not even far-left—on most issues, she holds fairly mainstream progressive positions. Unlike some on the left, she's an admirer of President Obama and has no history of advocating to defund or abolish the police. Her most controversial positions are her support for a binational state in Israel/Palestine—a view that many people, myself included, disagree with—and her support for shutting down Palantir.
I agree, but I also think people can change. Granted, not everyone can (Platner, for instance, couldn't), but Reps can become less extreme and better at working with people over time. AOC was a lot more radical when she started. I've heard Omar is getting more normal. Maybe Kiros will, maybe she won't. We'll see.
My argument was more, people can change in office. It took multiple primary near-misses to get Omar to work with people better.
Of course that doesn't always happen, Tlaib hasn't changed much for example (probably due to her district). Still, I guess it's as good as we can hope for.
She condemned the attack in strongest terms and she said she believed it the motive was anti-Zionism not anti-semitism. You can strongly disagree but that's not comparable to Platner or even Darializa.
Agreed, when you're a candidate for political office. Historians can make intelligent observations about how U.S. policies and decisions were the impetus behind the decisions Al Qaeda leaders made, but they're not running for office.
I wouldn't group DAC and Kiros in with those. While their views are controversial, the seats they hold are deep, deep blue, and are in zero danger of flipping red, versus Hong, Platner, or Matt Dunlap, where I can see the risk.
Something to consider as well is not just ideology, but specific issues (incidentally another reason I'm worried about Hong.) I don't think most voters are going in saying "I'm voting for a progressive", or "I'm voting for a moderate", or whatever. Voters often have specific issues they are into or turn them off. Some voters are concerned about democracy (my personal #1 issue). Some are livid about the construction/possible construction of AI data centers in their area. Some voters only care about the economy. Some voters are focused on anti-abortion views, or the flipside. Some vote for whoever Donald Trump tells them to. School board races often attract people angry about perceived high taxes in school budgets. Some voters feel their Rep is incompetent and has shit constituent services, or doesn't effectively speak for their community. I've spoken to two people from NY-16 who felt Jamaal Bowman inadequately repped his district and communities. On the flipside, one reason I recall DAC was noted as having won in the first place was due to Espaillat's failure to reach out to the non-Dominican population of the district. And so on, and so on, and so on.
We as election junkies tend to see the ideological aspects, but a lot of voters, probably most voters, don't. A shocking number of Americans know very little about their own politics. For example, someone in my town (in NY-17) was saying they didn't even know Mike Lawler repped our district. It's something to keep in mind for this race. Hong could lose votes due to supporting police and prison abolition. (I consider those positions to be quite extreme myself, and I'm a borderline socialist. For those curious, I personally prefer the humane prison approach Norway and Germany have implemented personally, for the latter, and some other proposals I'll elaborate on if anyone's interested for the former.) Hong could gain votes due to the AI data center issue. The race could be a blowout loss, it could be close, hell maybe it could be a large win if the Iran War gets as bad as I think it could get and the economy totally bottoms out. All kinds of things could happen. A scandal could finally hit the GOP so hard it has a real impact. There could be an AI crash that nukes what remains of the economy. A massive terrorist attack could happen that increases support for the regime. Trump could die. All sorts of things could happen theoretically, history is hard to predict. Who could have predicted Trump's first win, or COVID-19, or George Floyd, or Platner's allegations, etc.? This is not a defense of Hong, mind you, I'm concerned about her too. I'm just saying that politics is often a lot more complicated than "left vs. center vs. right", and are often functions of the world around us.
Hong is running on healthcare for all, universal childcare, no datacenters, higher wages in general- all very popular positions. No wonder she is winning.
The candidate list for the Maine convention is now official, with Jackson obviously making it, Kleban qualifying despite having withdrawn, and failed Senate candidate Costello and absolute nobody Pelletier also qualifying. A bunch of minor candidates did not make the ballot.
imo too close for comfort, was planning on spending my free weekends in the fall canvassing for rebecca bennett in nj-07, but now I am going to visit my family in maine as much as possible and try getting the vote out in York County. I think Jackson is the right candidate, however I think that the fact we had six years to gameplan for this and it's this close is infuriating
also much less effective than running ads. You don't need to have these canvassing events to win elections and the idea that it overcomes the candidate self-identifying as a socialist in a swing state is silly.
Trump let Turning Point USA run his canvassing operation while Harris had an ad on the Sphere in Las Vegas. Effectiveness is a matter of scale, targeting, and impact - notably, Harris did better in the swing states than in others because they had more robust canvassing operations.
What was most effective in the New York mayors' race? Mamdani did all of the above, so I don't know, but I do know that he had a tremendous canvassing operation. What about AOC's first victory?
the NYC mayor's race isn't a great analogy for a statewide election in Wisconsin. You can win a citywide election in NYC with downwardly mobile, overeducated, underemployed trust fund kids. In Wisconsin you need to win upwardly mobile suburbanites in the WOW counties and lots of people without college degrees.
sorry for the double comment, but this is malpractice, how can they not be canvassing and be upset that hong is winning? i'm not a hong fan, I back barnes personally, but what the hell
100% agree, the “establishment” Dems who keep losing are taking a lot for granted and simply getting out-organized…Kiros for instance appears to have had a great ground game while DeGette tried to coast to victory.
Electability is determined by far more than canvass events, even if that is an important part. Hong can campaign as much as she wants, but she has the political sensibilities of a strawman.
It's likely going back to when Obama first ran for POTUS back in 2008. He was labeled as a socialist by plenty in the GOP, including the infamous Rep. Todd Akin.
Warren by contrast never got that image of being a socialist when she first ran for the Senate back in 2012.
I suspect everyone beyond the top three boils down to name recognition.
Everyone has heard of Obama. I'd take a guess that more than half of conservatives think every democrat is a socialist. From there, what we're seeing here is the list of who those conservatives recognize as a democrat.
Of course they don’t ask, which of the following people are fascists. But since Washington Democrats refuse to call out Trump and Co. as such, I can’t blame them for not asking.
Still an early poll as it's not August, which is when things should really start kicking in with Troy Jackson's ability to fire up the base with what Graham Platner started along with the rest of Democrats and key voters needed.
That's a convincing win for Stanton, given that there was quite a bit of progressive support for Newkirk in at least some quarters of the movement, even after groups like the Arizona Young Dems pulled their endorsement from Newkirk.
If memory serves correctly, the same-day and last mail-ins tend to break a bit more progressive, so the margin will narrow somewhat, but still not a bad showing.
In 2024, Shah only lost to Rep. David Schweikert by 3.8% points. With AZ-01 being an open race now, that certainly gives Shah more freedom than to deal with an incumbent last time around. He has more room for improvement, especially considering this is a R+1 district.
Schweikert was also not endorsed by Trump for Governor whereas Andy Biggs is. I wonder if perhaps the GOP base was tired of Schweikert.
Republicans are outvoting Democrats in the primary by a fairly significant margin for a swing district. If this were a California-style top-two primary, Shah would be barely ahead of the second-place candidate in the Republican primary right now (Joseph Chaplik).
By only 7000 at this point. And there are four candidates on the Democratic side compared to 3 on the Republican. So it’s not surprising that Shah’s vote is more diluted.
table napkin math says we straight up got less votes, but i remember tracking every 2018 primary and thinking we were set because we got more votes than republicans in a couple oklahoma primaries. Seems like lack of a gov primary combined with this being one of the gop candidates home districts running for governor seems like a rational explanation, especially considering the mayoral flip a few districts over
GA-Sen: Mike, not Doug Collins, is running against Jon Ossoff. They are not related, though Doug ran for the other seat in 2020 and Mike's father Mac ran for it in 2004.
Another Indiana Republican primary race has now been decided, with the anti-redistricting candidate winning. An additional race between an anti-redistricting candidate remains open. Note that Jim Banks and Todd Rokita both supported the challengers. Banks and Rokita are gunning to be the power brokers of the Indiana Republican party.
https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/briefs/challenger-drops-recount-of-14-vote-gop-primary-margin-for-state-sen-liz-brown/?utm_source=newsletters.indianacapitalchronicle.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=deportation-rally-set-for-fishers-recount-dropped&_bhlid=054f876094820b331b64a6b24aae71e3a4674002
Thank you. Not enough coffee this morning. I have corrected the original post.
Wasn't this primary erroneously called for Vogt on primary night?
For some reason, mainstream media was talking about five out of six anti-redistricting Senators losing their seats. Where I could, I corrected the numbers. It now looks like just three out the six lost their seats.
8 Republicans running for re-election voted against redistricting, and 6 lost their seats, all by large margins, with one seat still up in the air. Trump didn't even endorse a challenger to one of the incumbents who lost, which is why I previously thought the numbers with 7 and 5. Most of the recounts are for non-redistricting-related primaries.
51% of Americans blame Trump for high gas prices.
https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-07-21-july-strength-in-numbers-verasight-poll
I still think that number should be higher.
Oh, it will. It'll be a combination of high gas prices, energized and enraged Democrats, and plenty of self-inflicted injuries like DOGE, ICE murdering Americans on the street, and his dementia fixation on tariffs.
Seriously. Some of the inflation stuff is baked into the system at this point, but he's actually directly responsible for gas prices being higher, so he gets no grace and (should) get all the blame. Like, all of it.
It's amazing the level of doublethink that the Trump base is willing to accept. He literally said that the war would cause gas higher prices, but would be "worth it". Still they don't think it's his fault? But Biden was 100% to blame for the post-covid gas price spike.
He channels their hatred of liberals and minorities, and that’s all they really want. It’s totemic, not rational
Once/if the strategic reserve runs so low it stops being able to offset the lack of supply they will go up. Right around Labor Day if trends hold.
For some reason it didn’t occur to me that the Maine nomination could be wrapped up this past weekend. Was offline most the weekend and missed it. I saw it because CNN is out with a ridiculous hit piece against Jackson about throwing a water bottle at the ground.
Lol yeah they said he had a "temper" or something.
I'm a very anxious person that can be quick to anger and I don't think that is behavior that should be shunned.
Bad temper is not commendable, but throwing a water bottle on the ground is literally nothing.
Better than "stapler at head" story Klobuchar dealt with (and is still fit for office, clearly - though I wish she'd, like, not do that)
Not to mention the plane silverware story.
Ok, that one is so iconic I feel like I can't even be mad at her.
Oh no. Not the water bottle incident! He needs to drop out,
The media is very good at sanewashing every temper tantrum from the toddler in chief while simultaneously insisting the Dems play by Marquess of Queensberry Rules lest they be perceived as "angry".
Oh for shits sake. Unfortunately we may need to get ready for more of this if the WB Paramount merger goes through. I do not look forward to Bari Weiss’s CNN.
Anyway if anyone here is feeling particularly sadomasochistic, Politico is also attempting yet another hit piece on Troy Jackson. “Some people weren’t satisfied with the process or nominee!” Give me a break. He would have won a proper primary too. Who would Politico have picked? Shah? Mills again?
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/20/troy-jackson-cruised-to-victory-in-maine-but-graham-platner-still-looms-large-with-voters-01004705
the hill ( a worse rag) is doing the same stuff, quotes from "progressives" that say they won't vote for jackson because he was pro-life before I could legally operate an automobile
Reporters noted that the quoted "progressives" eerily resembled Susan Collins with big eyebrows, a funny nose, and a mustache
It is gruesome to watch the rightwing subversion and destruction of the media (from CBS to CNN to NPR to local news) but the only saving grace is that media influence is low and continuing to dwindle. Compared to a baseline of trusted, accountable and fair news organizations, that's a bad thing, but compared to our current baseline of wall-to-wall RW propaganda, it's a good thing, even if the alternative (weird social media bubbles or what have you) isn't fantastic.
I wonder if the media going so right wing is going to backfire and cost them even more viewers as time goes on. Especially in this environment.
I hope it does.
Once Democrats are back in charge, they are going to have to start pushing for new anti-trust laws so the big media companies can be broken up.
Amen to that! And more antitrust enforcement in general. Maybe put Lina Khan in a prominent Cabinet position.
True. Anti-trust efforts should include media, entertainment, big banks and big tech companies (namely the FANG companies like Facebook and Google).
The laws are there. The enforcement isn’t
Yes, those can be applied to the big banks particularly. It's more immediately applicable to CapitalOne as its acquisition of Discover is pretty obvious.
However, it's more complex than big tech, big bank, etc. being bigger. For instance, Amazon owns and does the following:
-MGM
-One Medical Group (now a business unit within Amazon)
-Whole Foods
I would in an anti-trust matter with Amazon force it to break up so that MGM, One Medical and Whole Foods become separate companies again.
Susan Collins is probably the mainstream media's favorite U.S. Senator (much to my irritation), and it's not even close.
Because she's one of the last Republicans that even pretends to be a moderate, and there's nothing the media loves more than a moderate fascist, because it allows them to pretend the GOP is still a legitimate, normal political party and not a terrorist org
are the voters of Maine so shallow that something like this would actually make a difference. pure acts of desperation in trying to save a Senator who is long past her prime and likely can not be saved.
It won't matter at all, but Maine voters are also clearly idiots. As are most voters.
There's a difference between idiocy and ignorance. Most people don't care to look into candidates and just go by name recognition or party label (latter doesn't apply for primaries ofc). But I wouldn't belittle voters for being stupid. I would belittle them for not caring enough.
whoa, nah man.
If this is the best they've got he's in good shape
Only Marco Rubio is allowed to have a water bottle scandal!
IL-4 resident here - Would be shocked if Getty was particularly competitive against Patty Garcia, considering the district's demographics and that she has consolidated much of the Chicago/IL political class, plus both the state and city AFL-CIO behind her. I'll also note that, as someone who spends time in both the suburban and city parts of the district, I came in contact with petition signers from Garcia, Macias, and Sigcho-Lopez across the district but never Getty; I think Garcia's campaign is fine with Getty being on the ballot.
I’m curious to see if Garcia will get primary challenges in 2028 over this move. I could see someone like Byron trying then as a Dem.
Chicago's progressive left is in rough shape heading into next year's mayoral and city council election. While they have a few strong electeds, none would strike me as compelling enough to oust Garcia, who is fairly equal to Rep. Delia Ramirez in terms of politics and reputation. The Chicago DSA is nowhere near as robust as NYC's.
I don't see Johnson losing at this point since there's already so many challengers. But who knows.
Yes, Chicago still has strong ethnic voting, and this amount of chopping and cutting of the electorate seems unsuitable for keeping him out of the general. He can stitch together enough voters across regions, plus likely run up the score in the city's black neighborhoods to advance. General will be the question.
Not really relevant when there's a runoff. And I don't see Johnson getting 50% in the first round.
The powers that be clearly want Alexi--you don't raise $19m from small donors. We'll see if they can make the case. I don't think Mendoza or Quigley make it to February.
What's Alexi like? I'd heard he was a centrist in the past, but I remember Our Revolution, Chuy Garcia, and some other progressives backing his SoS bid. Maybe he could be a less controversial centrist alternative to Brandon Johnson? I'd certainly take him over Mendoza.
Obama-era neolib. Former banker. Fine for SoS (not really an ideological position in IL so long as there's a D there to protect the vote). Cost us a Senate seat in 2010.
If Giannoulias gets elected as Chicago Mayor (or even resigns to run), then a candidate will be appointed to fill the SoS spot until a 2028 Special.
One of the problems is how early our primaries are. Garcia will likely be sworn in on January 3rd, and petitions for 2028 go out in August. With recesses and all, she won't have that many votes that are controversial, so the challenge comes down to relitigating 2026 and any scandal/misstatements that come up in the meantime.
If it means anything, Patty Garcia does seem pretty progressive (she has Our Revolution and the National Nurses United, among others, as endorsements, and Chuy himself was quite left wing) so a primary may not even occur (unless it's from the right, in which case good fucking luck in this environment).
For what it's worth, I recall someone here a while back saying Chuy's little stunt may have been a way to stop Ray Lopez from running, which, while I still don't like how it was done, is at least a noble goal given how awful Lopez is (from what I've heard).
Ray Lopez would've lost to Garcia, Macias, or Sigcho-Lopez with room to spare, I'd assume. Way too conservative for a lot of the city voters, and little popularity beyond the ward to make inroads in the burbs.
I'm glad to hear that.
Patty Garcia is as left wing as Delia Ramirez. I don't see an ideological challenge succeeding.
How do we know that?
Yeah, the lack of any petition challenge is telling. Not difficult to find irregularities and outright fraud, although the rules have loosened a bit in recent years.
Fresh from the Chicago Sun Times - Sigcho-Lopez, Macías won't appear on November ballot for Rep. Garcia's seat, state board rules - https://chicago.suntimes.com/elections/2026/07/21/byron-sigcho-lopez-mayra-macias-chuy-garcia-congressional-seat-independent-candidates-ballot-removal?_gl=1*ctuoe4*_up*MQ..*_gs*MQ..&gclid=CjwKCAjwsfzSBhB5EiwAOGyqSSvzcBNOdnCYABjhYmgek85ypjko8-cG_8n99oZrdryNRrgVBklqpBoCQlkQAvD_BwE&gbraid=0AAAAA9e-Tg536SRyIz05K-aqyeJu-MiLh
Wedgewood poll | 7/18-7/20 LV
Wisconsin Governor Democratic primary 2026
🟦Francesca Hong 38%
🟦Mandela Barnes 30%
🟦David Crowley 9%
Undecided/supporting another candidate
https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/2079633911181725999
Unless the sex pest rumors about Barnes are true, it seems more and more like the Wisconsin establishment shot themselves in the foot by forcing Crowley back in.
Someone needs to put up or shut up about these rumors.
Crowley getting back into the race and immediately getting endorsed by Evers seems strange when Barnes is so far ahead of Crowley and it makes me wonder if they know something is coming. I am for anyone but Hong at this point.
The Wisconsin Democrats really need to nuke Hong and get behind one candidate so that we aren't stuck with her as the candidate. Her views on crime and race are so extreme that her nomination could sink the entire ticket in Wisconsin. She advocated for abolishing the police and called for abolishing prisons. She said that police departments are established to maintain white supremacy. In a swing state like Wisconsin those views are electoral poison.. I can't imagine how terrible her margins would be outside of Madison and Milwaukee. Progressives really need to do a better job of weeding out some of their worst candidates if they want to ever get political power beyond having a few backbench members of the minority party. Candidates like Platner, Kairos, Chevalier and Hong just ensure perpetual GOP rule.
She said she had a long term goal of abolishing police and prisons, IIRC. Though that could be the backtrack from initial statements made longer ago.
Am not in WI, but I think she can win. The base is where it is. Trusting the moderate candidate to win does not always work either (HRC, Harris, etc). And even if they do, then you can get stuck with Haley Stevens or some such.
The base does not trust many of the establishment leaders. And, after the last 50 years, it is hard to blame them.
I was okay with her until she spoke about her long term goals. It's good to see that she's disavowing that now but I am not taking any position in this primary. I agree that moderate candidates like Haley Stevens and Janet Mills aren't always electable and don't always poll well but I am not sure whether a socialist who didn't fully disavow defund can win a swing state.
“620 WTMJ: Francesca Hong says she doesn’t support defunding or abolishing the police in new interview
“I do not believe that police funding should go away, and I do not think that police can be abolished.””
https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/2078197890837606618
The base doesn’t win you elections in non-safe states. You’d have thought we’d learn that lesson from all the “base” candidates Republicans run all the time and usually they flop.
You still need them to turn out to win. And she is the only one, like, actually campaigning. That will translate to the general.
I think in this environment, almost any D can win. Just walk it back.
I guess I’ll believe it when I see it. I think we’re fucked if she’s the nominee. Hope Rs dont win a trifecta.
The radical left is not the Democratic base. The Dem base consists mainly of conventional liberals. Hong would easily be the worst Dem candidate for governor in a swing state in my memory, and I remember Geoffrey Fieger. If she's the nominee she'll lose big even to Tiffany who is a terrible candidate in a terrible year for his party.
I agree with everything but your first sentence. If she wins the primary going away, she's the choice of the base.
The base of the Democratic Party is social democrats.
https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/why-centrists-cant-win-the-democratic
I agree she would be a weak general election candidate. But it’s not progressives’ fault. The race is open to all. There were plenty of candidates and possibilities. It’s not her fault if they failed to coalesce behind one of them, or if they’re otherwise flawed.
Progressive leaders need to make it known which candidates they are getting behind and more importantly, which candidates they do not want to represent the progressive movement Bad candidates will hurt not only the progressive movement, but also hurt the Democratic party and would lead to more GOP rule.
She doesn't have any endorsements from high profile progressives like Bernie, Warren, Mamdani, AOC, Casar or Pocan. I'm not sure what progressive leadership can do beyond that.
Maybe they can endorse Barnes.
And what if he loses again? Barnes losing is always used against progressives.
Maybe Establishment leaders need to find better candidates who are vetted instead of turning to milquetoast moderates like Stevens, Mills, Etc. The base clearly is yelling at the establishment that decades of "moderate" candidates are not what they're looking for.
The "base" doesnt always make the best decisions.
Yeah but you gotta pander to voters and can't keep blaming them. A Talarico kind of populist liberal could have defeated Platner and El-Sayed but the establishment chose to bet it all on Bill Clinton-style hardline centrists.
Of course progressives have every right to vote for whomever they want, I also hope the enjoy governor Tiffany.
i mean if Hong wins the primary it’s clearly not just progressives that would’ve voted for her
I'm not sure that's the case
If she won the primary with 38 percent of the vote, as this poll suggests, that would only be 3 points less than Tony Evers won the primary with in 2018.
Hell Crowley is decently progressive, there was no need for both Barnes and Rodriguez to suck up all his oxygen (or for big names to hold out so long on trying to consolidate)
The thing is that nobody has even been trying to win this primary other than Hong. The candidates are just so bad.
To be fair, Kairos and Chevalier at least can win the general elections of their districts. Hong... I like her, I know her heart is in the right place, but as you say these are serious electability concerns.
Love that you pointed out Kiros as one of the "worst candidates" as if she didn't win by a 30-point landslide
There's a lot of your comment that's just baffling but that really stood out to me
Kiros won by 13, not 30
Lumping Kiros in with them just isn't accurate. She's not even far-left—on most issues, she holds fairly mainstream progressive positions. Unlike some on the left, she's an admirer of President Obama and has no history of advocating to defund or abolish the police. Her most controversial positions are her support for a binational state in Israel/Palestine—a view that many people, myself included, disagree with—and her support for shutting down Palantir.
All I have to say is that her comments about the Synagogue firebombing were beyond the pale.
I agree, but I also think people can change. Granted, not everyone can (Platner, for instance, couldn't), but Reps can become less extreme and better at working with people over time. AOC was a lot more radical when she started. I've heard Omar is getting more normal. Maybe Kiros will, maybe she won't. We'll see.
I agree that people can change, but she just made those comments last month. This isn't a stray Facebook post from 12 years ago.
My argument was more, people can change in office. It took multiple primary near-misses to get Omar to work with people better.
Of course that doesn't always happen, Tlaib hasn't changed much for example (probably due to her district). Still, I guess it's as good as we can hope for.
She condemned the attack in strongest terms and she said she believed it the motive was anti-Zionism not anti-semitism. You can strongly disagree but that's not comparable to Platner or even Darializa.
It wasn’t at a synagogue, please don’t spread lies about serious events.
That's an inconsequential misstatement, not even a lie.
Didn't she also say we deserved 9/11?
No, that was Hasan Piker. She said it was blowback.
So kinda
If you have to explain/clarify a controversial statement about something as cut and dry as 9/11 you’re already losing
Agreed, when you're a candidate for political office. Historians can make intelligent observations about how U.S. policies and decisions were the impetus behind the decisions Al Qaeda leaders made, but they're not running for office.
I wouldn't group DAC and Kiros in with those. While their views are controversial, the seats they hold are deep, deep blue, and are in zero danger of flipping red, versus Hong, Platner, or Matt Dunlap, where I can see the risk.
Something to consider as well is not just ideology, but specific issues (incidentally another reason I'm worried about Hong.) I don't think most voters are going in saying "I'm voting for a progressive", or "I'm voting for a moderate", or whatever. Voters often have specific issues they are into or turn them off. Some voters are concerned about democracy (my personal #1 issue). Some are livid about the construction/possible construction of AI data centers in their area. Some voters only care about the economy. Some voters are focused on anti-abortion views, or the flipside. Some vote for whoever Donald Trump tells them to. School board races often attract people angry about perceived high taxes in school budgets. Some voters feel their Rep is incompetent and has shit constituent services, or doesn't effectively speak for their community. I've spoken to two people from NY-16 who felt Jamaal Bowman inadequately repped his district and communities. On the flipside, one reason I recall DAC was noted as having won in the first place was due to Espaillat's failure to reach out to the non-Dominican population of the district. And so on, and so on, and so on.
We as election junkies tend to see the ideological aspects, but a lot of voters, probably most voters, don't. A shocking number of Americans know very little about their own politics. For example, someone in my town (in NY-17) was saying they didn't even know Mike Lawler repped our district. It's something to keep in mind for this race. Hong could lose votes due to supporting police and prison abolition. (I consider those positions to be quite extreme myself, and I'm a borderline socialist. For those curious, I personally prefer the humane prison approach Norway and Germany have implemented personally, for the latter, and some other proposals I'll elaborate on if anyone's interested for the former.) Hong could gain votes due to the AI data center issue. The race could be a blowout loss, it could be close, hell maybe it could be a large win if the Iran War gets as bad as I think it could get and the economy totally bottoms out. All kinds of things could happen. A scandal could finally hit the GOP so hard it has a real impact. There could be an AI crash that nukes what remains of the economy. A massive terrorist attack could happen that increases support for the regime. Trump could die. All sorts of things could happen theoretically, history is hard to predict. Who could have predicted Trump's first win, or COVID-19, or George Floyd, or Platner's allegations, etc.? This is not a defense of Hong, mind you, I'm concerned about her too. I'm just saying that politics is often a lot more complicated than "left vs. center vs. right", and are often functions of the world around us.
Hong is running on healthcare for all, universal childcare, no datacenters, higher wages in general- all very popular positions. No wonder she is winning.
Makes you wonder what Barnes did to Evers to make him endorse Crowley at this point
He is by all accounts running a lazy primary campaign dependent on name rec and there’s swirling rumors of serious sex pest problems
They need to vet that stat. If there's anything there, Barnes should drop out and endorse Crowley.
This is so infuriating, Dems in one state after another acting exactly like MAGA twerps and backing unelectable anger candidates.
And when you push back on it “well they’re not establishment.” Forest for the trees, guys!
https://mainedems.org/mdp-announces-candidates-certified-to-participate-in-u-s-senate-nominating-convention/
The candidate list for the Maine convention is now official, with Jackson obviously making it, Kleban qualifying despite having withdrawn, and failed Senate candidate Costello and absolute nobody Pelletier also qualifying. A bunch of minor candidates did not make the ballot.
After all that drama we wound up with a better candidate than either of the two candidates who ran in the primary.
Agreed.
https://www.wmtw.com/article/maine-senate-race-democratic-convention-candidates/73220664
Just seeing this now, but Kleban has formally withdrawn from the convention
ME Sen Poll: Jackson 49%-Collins 46% (UNH Poll). https://scholars.unh.edu/survey_center_polls/981/
Net Favorable: Jackson +5 (pretty unknown); Collins -18.
ME Gov: (same link as above): Pingree 49%; Charles 35%.
Both Dems are at 49%, so looks like Collins' moderate veneer really is only good enough for 46%
Don't see how Collins wins in a Kamala +7 state when her favorables are -18 underwater.
imo too close for comfort, was planning on spending my free weekends in the fall canvassing for rebecca bennett in nj-07, but now I am going to visit my family in maine as much as possible and try getting the vote out in York County. I think Jackson is the right candidate, however I think that the fact we had six years to gameplan for this and it's this close is infuriating
"I took a look at the number of canvass events on Mobilize for Dem Wisconsin Governor campaigns.
Here's the distribution.
🟧Francesca Hong: 50
🟦Joel Brennan: 1
🟥Mandela Barnes: 0
🟥Kelda Roys: 0
🟥David Crowley: 0
One of these is an electable campaign. The rest aren't.
Looks like Crowley added canvass shifts to his website after his campaign relaunched.
Here is a comparison between the total number of canvass shifts between him and Hong.
🟧Francesca Hong Shifts: 784
🟦David Crowley Shifts: 18"
https://x.com/Julesnader386/status/2079596871798923468
One way to stop Hong, the establishment should start campaigning and stop relying on dark money ads.
What is a canvas shift?
Cavassing is talking to people in person to try to get them to turn out and vote for you or the candidate you work for.
also much less effective than running ads. You don't need to have these canvassing events to win elections and the idea that it overcomes the candidate self-identifying as a socialist in a swing state is silly.
Trump let Turning Point USA run his canvassing operation while Harris had an ad on the Sphere in Las Vegas. Effectiveness is a matter of scale, targeting, and impact - notably, Harris did better in the swing states than in others because they had more robust canvassing operations.
She also only advertised in swing states. I don't think overperformance in swing states is going to break down neatly into canvassing vs. advertising.
What was most effective in the New York mayors' race? Mamdani did all of the above, so I don't know, but I do know that he had a tremendous canvassing operation. What about AOC's first victory?
the NYC mayor's race isn't a great analogy for a statewide election in Wisconsin. You can win a citywide election in NYC with downwardly mobile, overeducated, underemployed trust fund kids. In Wisconsin you need to win upwardly mobile suburbanites in the WOW counties and lots of people without college degrees.
I understand. What I'm wondering about is whether canvassing is really so ineffective in general.
that's actually insane. in nj-7's primary there was a canvas by almost every campaign every weekend from feb till primary, with way way less money
sorry for the double comment, but this is malpractice, how can they not be canvassing and be upset that hong is winning? i'm not a hong fan, I back barnes personally, but what the hell
100% agree, the “establishment” Dems who keep losing are taking a lot for granted and simply getting out-organized…Kiros for instance appears to have had a great ground game while DeGette tried to coast to victory.
Electability is determined by far more than canvass events, even if that is an important part. Hong can campaign as much as she wants, but she has the political sensibilities of a strawman.
Then why does she have such a commanding lead in primary polling?
Popularity with the base is not the same as strength in a general election
I'm well aware of that, but if she really had no political sensibilities at all, wouldn't she be losing the primary, too?
"WI Governor Democratic Primary Crosstabs by
@WedgewoodPolls
Age 18-29
• Hong: 55%
• Barnes: 13%
• Crowley: 4%
---
Age 65+
• Barnes: 39%
• Hong: 33%
• Crowley: 13%
——
White
• Hong: 42%
• Barnes: 28%
• Crowley: 7%
---
Non-White
• Barnes: 38%
• Crowley: 24%
• Hong: 15%
——
Male
• Hong: 36%
• Barnes: 32%
• Crowley: 9%
---
Female
• Hong: 40%
• Barnes: 29%
• Crowley: 9%
——
No degree
• Hong: 37%
• Barnes: 27%
• Crowley: 13%
---
Bachelor's +
• Hong: 39%
• Barnes: 33%
• Crowley: 7%
@WedgewoodPolls
| 7/18-20 | 505 LV
https://t.co/5PIRHTQjOY"
https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/2079637739012493571
LA-6:
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/07/21/congress/rep-cleo-fields-heads-out-01006782
Rep. Cleo Fields is out. He's running for State Senate instead.
Coward (we already knew that though. And knew he is a crook)
I have a lot of problems with Fields, but I can't blame him for not wanting to run in an absolutely unwinnable (Trump +32) district.
Fair. He also could have primaried Troy Carter, though I would definitely prefer Carter to him.
"Which of the following people are socialists?"
Sanders: 55%
Mamdani: 51%
AOC: 45%
Obama: 27%
Harris: 27%
Warren: 25%
Biden: 23%
Newsom: 20%
None of the Above: 28%
YouGov / July 20, 2026
https://x.com/usa_polling/status/2079663743806378273
More people think Obama is a socialist than Warren? Warren isn't exactly a socialist but she's a hell of a lot closer than Obama. WTF?
It's likely going back to when Obama first ran for POTUS back in 2008. He was labeled as a socialist by plenty in the GOP, including the infamous Rep. Todd Akin.
Warren by contrast never got that image of being a socialist when she first ran for the Senate back in 2012.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna27397938
I suspect everyone beyond the top three boils down to name recognition.
Everyone has heard of Obama. I'd take a guess that more than half of conservatives think every democrat is a socialist. From there, what we're seeing here is the list of who those conservatives recognize as a democrat.
There is easily 30% that are hopelessly clueless. Probably closer to 40%.
The appropriate question as a follow up would be which of the respondents are stupid or just ignorant of the facts?
Of course they don’t ask, which of the following people are fascists. But since Washington Democrats refuse to call out Trump and Co. as such, I can’t blame them for not asking.
Just saw a poll for ME-SEN on MS NOW. University of New Hampshire. Troy Jackson 49-Susan Collins 46. They didn’t say how many undecided. MOE is 2.8%
Still an early poll as it's not August, which is when things should really start kicking in with Troy Jackson's ability to fire up the base with what Graham Platner started along with the rest of Democrats and key voters needed.
Earth to Arizona?
Not until 11 EST-ish.
https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/072126_election_results_az/heres-when-expect-results-arizonas-primary-election/
in the AZ-GOV primary, Biggs at 170k to Schweikert's 43k with 39% of votes counted as of 10:04pm CT
AZ-04:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/07/21/us/elections/results-arizona-us-house-4-primary.html
With 76% in, Stanton leads challenger Kai Newkirk 68.1-31.9.
Question -- what kind of margin is this for Stanton? Do note that Newkirk lost several endorsements due to unnamed allegations against him.
That's a convincing win for Stanton, given that there was quite a bit of progressive support for Newkirk in at least some quarters of the movement, even after groups like the Arizona Young Dems pulled their endorsement from Newkirk.
Considering Newkirk did have some grassroots buzz/strength I’d say it’s perfectly fine for Stanton
If memory serves correctly, the same-day and last mail-ins tend to break a bit more progressive, so the margin will narrow somewhat, but still not a bad showing.
AZ-01:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/07/21/us/elections/results-arizona-us-house-1-primary.html
In the Dem primary, with 76% in, Amish Shah leads Marlene Galan-Woods 42.0-32.3.
Not sure how I feel about this given Shah's loss last time. This is a bluer environment though so he may have a better shot if he does win.
I wouldn’t hold such a narrow loss last time out against Shah
That is a good point. I guess we'll see.
In 2024, Shah only lost to Rep. David Schweikert by 3.8% points. With AZ-01 being an open race now, that certainly gives Shah more freedom than to deal with an incumbent last time around. He has more room for improvement, especially considering this is a R+1 district.
Schweikert was also not endorsed by Trump for Governor whereas Andy Biggs is. I wonder if perhaps the GOP base was tired of Schweikert.
Republicans are outvoting Democrats in the primary by a fairly significant margin for a swing district. If this were a California-style top-two primary, Shah would be barely ahead of the second-place candidate in the Republican primary right now (Joseph Chaplik).
That is very concerning. Hopefully that will not mean anything significant for the general.
Well the GOP have a primary for Governor while the Dems do not. That is surely driving turnout
By only 7000 at this point. And there are four candidates on the Democratic side compared to 3 on the Republican. So it’s not surprising that Shah’s vote is more diluted.
table napkin math says we straight up got less votes, but i remember tracking every 2018 primary and thinking we were set because we got more votes than republicans in a couple oklahoma primaries. Seems like lack of a gov primary combined with this being one of the gop candidates home districts running for governor seems like a rational explanation, especially considering the mayoral flip a few districts over
He has the best WAR of all of Schweikert's challengers on Lakshya Jain's Split Ticket.
What is WAR?
Wins Above Replacement