I think the reason for his support for crypto stems from his ideology more than his donations. He genuinely seems to be believe in a synthesis of Hartite-Clintonite techno-utopianism and social democracy.
He's been consistent on crypto compared to someone like Ruben Gallego who turned from a fierce critic to a shill after getting 10m in donations from the industry.
Crypto/data centers have become basically a red line for myself. Dems who support those, and several who I previously really liked fit that bill, will not receive a single penny or vote from me in a primary.
Oh I was just making a throwaway statement out of random. :)
But I am referring to Agarwal’s platform (per his website) really not being at all meaning anything that the average voter could find resonates with them. What really does he have to offer besides what Silicon Valley tech circles finds appealing?
It’s as if Agarwal just cobbled together a website for the first time and decided to create something of a platform that popped up in his mind. Plus there are random TikTok videos referencing commentary by TikTokers on trending tech issues as opposed to just Agarwal speaking his mind.
I have been critical of Ro Khanna but challenger Ethan Agarwal isn’t the answer to a better choice.
I have been clear before that because of CA-17 being heavily in Silicon Valley, I am looking for SV to be held accountable and regulated. I have been open to a real Democratic challenger to Khanna but Agarwal is not that choice. I’d rather Khanna be re-elected than Agarwal.
I know you were a strong supporter of Mike Honda and disliked that Khanna primaried him from the right out of ambition. But since then, has Khanna done anything else you consider bad, apart from supporting crypto? He supports regulating tech though not as much as some other people in Congress.
Your last sentence is the answer to why I believe Khanna isn’t the best choice to represent CA-17 but I believe he does succeed in keeping the right balance considering he’s liberal on most issues. He even admitted to Glen The Plummer on Daily Kos that he supported Howard Dean in the 2004 Democratic Presidential Primaries. Many liberal Democrats were on board with Dean because of the Iraq War issue.
But since we’re talking about more Silicon Valley friendly challengers to Khanna, it’s better he stays representing CA-17 if another Democratic Candidate not Silicon Valley friendly does not emerge.
Khanna if anything has always been ten seconds ahead of basically every Democrat in sniffing out the next popular political trend. Putting his name on the cause of releasing the Epstein Files even when most Democrats from the onset would rather have been solely focused on affordability to the point of parody is one of those times.
Also supporting a wealth tax especially when even the rank and file in Silicon Valley's backyard have a lot of axes to grind against MAGA supporting jackasses like Chamath, Jason Calantis and David Sacks who've been vocally posting against said wealth tax is another case of Khanna sniffing out the next popular political thing out there before a lot of Democrats did.
Sarah Stevens, the MAGA legislator aiming to unseat Earls this year, also got treated for breast cancer in 2023 or 2024. Either way, with Roy Cooper's coattails and a furious Dem electorate this year, she'll get steamrolled by Justice Earls.
It's going to be hard recapturing the judicial majority in 2028, but we'll see if the Democratic presidential and U.S. Senate candidates (maybe Jeff Jackson?) will fire up voters to vote all the way downballot.
PresiDem carrying North Carolina would go a long way towards helping flip the court in 2028. Hopefully Stein racks up another huge win and Jackson wins the Senate race.
The Berger nepotism is an obvious point of attack for 2028. Newby can be attacked over his partisan gerrymandering decision. Focusing on all three of the Republicans up that year would be nice, but those two seem the most vulnerable.
From the ProPublica article, it seems that Newby is retiring at the end of his term (good riddance). And if Phil Berger loses his primary in two months, his nepo baby judge son will be a prime target in 2028.
I'm hoping whoever loses the 2026 primary for the NC Court of Appeals this year runs for a seat on the NC Supreme Court in 2028. James Whalen, the attorney that successfully defended all the votes for Justice Riggs, is running for the vacant COA seat. Be nice if he won a seat this year or joined his client on the court in January 2029.
Yeah if Newby ran for reelection and won, he'd face mandatory retirement about two years into his term, and if a Dem was Governor, they could appoint a replacement. I imagine that factored into his decision.
The GOP controlled Court of Appeals panel ruled yesterday that the power grab law passed by the NC GOP mandating that the governor choose an outgoing judge of the same party as the outgoing one (from a list of 3 names provided) was lawful. It's going to take flipping back the courts and refiling challenges to give the governor his constitutional rights back to fill vacancies however he wants.
All I'm going to say is that, should Democrats flip back control of the state Supreme Court by 2028 or 2030, they need to do what the GOP majority did on reversing the anti-gerrymandering and photo ID ruling. And expedite the Leandro ruling and overturn the sore loser power grabs Rs pushed through in late 2024.
I want the NC GOP's heads spinning. And I want them demoralized.
How would people in North Carolina feel about Jackson running for AG in 2024 and then jumping to Senate only 4 years later? I know he would have served a full 4-year term by then, so switching to another office wouldn't be abnormal, but would people view it as fine, or would they see it more as opportunism?
I'm not sure voters care about that so long as they finish the term. Katie Hobbs only served one term as Secretary of State before running for Governor. There are many other examples too. Barring Stein abandoning a reelection bid for a Senate run, I think Jackson is the obvious best candidate for that race. His six-point overperformance of Harris in 2024 in a downballot race was pretty stunning.
Yup, this is exactly right. As long as a politician actually finishes the term of the job voters elected them to do, there’s no “political
opportunist, not in it for us, in for themself” bad taste voting penalty like there would be if 2 years in to his term he decided to run. Finish the job the people elected you to, then you can move on to your next opportunity.
He's too power hungry to do that and wants 2028 candidates to prostrate in front of him. Also, he will lobby against replacing SC with Georgia or any other Southern state.
Clyburn refused to leave leadership when Pelosi and Hoyer coordinated passing the torch, so I think it's very unlikely to have any effect at all. I think Clyburn likes being a person of great importance (like so many others holding on into their old age) and will almost certainly remain in office until he dies or Black representation in SC is gerrymandered out.
There are many things I like about Clyburn, but there is an excellent bench in his district. If he cares about his legacy as a mentor, this would be a good time to retire. But perhaps that isn't important to him, or maybe he's a bad mentor anyway.
Clyburn will be "retired" by voters in November when the SCOTUS overturns the Voting Rights Act and South Carolina draws new lines with seven districts that went double digits for Trump.
Random question: When I use my laptop computer to access The Downballot, I can send messages to other commenters through Substack using the Chat feature. But when I access The Downballot on my smartphone (as I am right now), when I try to go to the Chat page it prompts me to download the Substack app, and I haven't found any obvious bypass to allow me to use the Chat feature in the Chrome browser on my phone.
I'm not going to download the Substack app - I DEEPLY resent companies trying to force their apps on me when everything can easily be done on an Internet browser (just like on a laptop). So my question is, is it possible to send chat messages through Substack like on a laptop, using only an Internet browser and without downloading any apps?
Wow, thanks! This is definitely more my style, right down to the tiny text (I'm notorious at work for shrinking the font size in any Excel spreadsheets that we're working with).
I have also found if I access the desktop I can edit comments which I can't do on my phone in the substack app. I otoh find the text in the app more readable, but I'm old.
what's the bench look like in Hoyer's seat? what's the Great Mentioner saying? any time someone has been at the top of the local pyramid of power that long, there's lots and lots of frustrated talented folk lurking just below the top.
People ask why Platner's townhalls overflow with old people who tend to be reliable voters. Why his fundraising is so strong, why he leads in his rival's internals and why the scandals didn't kill his campaign?
Maybe because he meets the political moment and says it like it is without going through a million consultants and is a person who did not lead his life wanting to be a clean-cut politician.
"Dismantling ICE is the moderate position.
Unmask these thugs, arrest them, and make them answer for these horrors."
And a reminder that if he wins, he is as much a creation of the feckless establishment as he is of progressive groups. He stood no chance and wouldn't even have been recruited by ex-Bernie staffers and labor unions if Schumer hadn't tried so hard to recruit Mills and stopped AG Aaron Frey and Speaker Ryan Fecteau from launching their bids.
Yep. A lot of people are sick and tired of feckless leaders like Chuck Schumer and are willing to take a chance on a non-conventional candidate. And I can't blame them.
Hard to say whether he can make it out of the primary, unfortunately. Maybe Mainers have learned from their previous mistakes. As you may know, I'm not a big fan but he's so much better than the alternatives.
Apropos of nothing but I always find your comments refreshing to read. You have such a passion and even if I don't agree all the time (though I often do), it's a welcome feeling reading the heart behind your insights
"why he leads in his rival's internals." --> We don't need to state falsehoods.
I think Schumer is as weak as the next. Doesn't mean that I'm going to support someone who knowingly had a Nazi tattoo for well over a decade and conveniently got it removed only after displaying it on a podcast. Next.
You can read Axios’s latest reporting on him. It notes that even after the scandals, he was leading by nine points in Jordan Woods internal polling before he dropped out.
He’s very much a Rorschach candidate. I don’t believe he actually subscribes to even the slightest trace of Nazism, and that's precisely why I support him. You're free to believe otherwise.
The way it was worded implied it was from Mills' internals. Anyhow, I'm not going to get conned into falling for another blue-collar cosplayer who says the right words, ignoring all the glaring red flags. Did that with Fetterman, and my tolerance for that kind of candidate is on thin ice.
That's not the only issue. And no, I don't trust someone who had a Nazi tattoo for so long. Dozens of my relatives were murdered in Nazi-occupied Poland and one of my uncles was a war casualty for the U.S. Army Air Corps.
I understand your perspective but most of his extended family is Jewish too and his stepbrother lives in Jerusalem. His stepbrother is Seth Franzmann who's interviewed him a couple of times.
If we accept the explanation that he didn't know about the Nazi association at the time he got the tattoo (dubious), then I could /potentially/ excuse not getting it removed for a while, because isn't tattoo removal expensive?
And Axios reported that Jordan’s internal polling that showed Platner’s 9 point lead over all of the competition was only for the first round, and that Platner’s lead grew by the final round, though Axios didn’t report the exact amount of final lead but saying Platner’s lead grew means greater than 9 points.
Sorry, but US citizens are being actively murdered by the US govt.
Unfortunately, we cannot survive another cycle with Schumers and Garlands expected to be the resistance to this.
So, the people are turning to candidates at least willing to say the right thing.
Now if some molecules comprising ink underneath the dermal layer bother you, wait until you find out what the US govt is actually physically doing to people.
"We don't want people with Nazi tattoos, its a strong indicator that they might favor that ideology once in office. And we don't want Nazis in office, they tend to kill or jail the opposition and commit horrendous crimes against humanity"
*gestures broadly at the current US government doing all those things daily*
I am well aware of the monstrosities the federal government is committing, thank you. That doesn't mean I'm going to back a highly flawed and morally dubious unknown insurgent in the Democratic primary just because he cosplays as a blue-collar worker and says the right words.
And it seems like a decent amount of people don't want to back a septuagenarian who can't meet the moment and won't even commit to killing the filibuster.
I think it's a bigger red flag to not commit to killing the filibuster in a moment like this. Business as usual, focus group tested, consultant brained candidates are not going to bring the necessary reforms that the system needs. Also I think the likelihood of Platner losing half of his brain activity due to a stroke is fairly low, so I'm willing to take that risk.
I could push back on a lot of this very vociferously but I've got a packed day. Platner's success feels like a reminder that we're definitely not the good guys that we think we are, just the less bad guys.
You’re going to say that he worked with Blackwater, but that stint lasted about six months and was as a bodyguard for a minister. You are also going to point out that he wrote he enjoyed killing in combat. Even now, he continues to describe himself as a killer, says he got the tattoo to mark that identity, and has not walked back another one of his comments that killing and camaraderie in combat were both the best and worst parts of his deployment.
He never discussed Nazism or racial ideology on his Reddit account of 15 years, which had thousands of comments. He called an anti-fascist "supersoldier" and firearms instructor, advocated self-defense against "fascists". In the early 2010s, he made a comment under a post encouraging people to ask questions to “the other race,” which was why “Blacks don’t tip.” His comments about sexual assault from the 2010s were egregious, and he has acknowledged and taken responsibility for them. He also never wrote anything about Jews, nor did he express antisemitic views. In fact, when asked about his politics on Reddit, he cited Michael Brooks and Bernie Sanders as the primary influences on his thinking.
Generally if you have to explain away half a dozen red flags...he might not be a good candidate? I just find it bizarre how emotionally invested in this guy people are.
I agree, he’s not a great candidate. But since the alternative is someone who would do nothing to pass the key parts of the Democratic agenda if she was the deciding vote on the filibuster, and since if we can’t show that we can pass our agenda and make people’s lives better we’ll just hand power right back to the authoritarians, he’s the better of two bad options.
Damn, I didn't know Schumer tried to stop Frey and Fecteau from launching bids. If that's true, then this whole situation is almost entirely on him. I thought they were only recruiting Mills because nobody serious was running.
I'm just going to add, the idea that he isn't consultant driven - this is a guy who was literally found by consultants and told to run. Most of his platform has clearly just been handed to him from them.
I’m not a socialist, but abolishing ICE has long been a major socialist position. He’s also been identified as a former member of the DSA and a former trainer with the Socialist Rifle Association. On top of that, he explicitly argued in Reddit comments for arming against "fascists" who won't act kindly. And being pro-gun is a politically advantageous position in Maine, but he actually seems to believe in that.
I said long ago for people here to prepare for the possibility Platner survives the political scandals and becomes our nominee. You cannot deny the kind of organic political energy on the ground for him. We tried that with Trump, we made fun of his rally sizes and rambling nonsense, but it was real and it didn’t work out so well for us to pretend it wasn’t.
I’m still not supporting Platner because a red line actually means a red line for myself, but all I’ve seen and heard since the scandal is talk of “he’s just so refreshingly honest and authentic, saying it like it is”. He obviously has warts too, but voters seem to be ok with it otherwise he wouldn’t be drawing the crowds he does. Will Democrats still be ok with it come primary day? I think the more likely than not answer is yes as of today and we all should prepare for it despite what polling currently says.
You can’t just create this kind of campaign energy by being an elected official, to just turn on the organization with a key once you decide to run. Mamdani did this same thing too and polling at one point had him at 0 in his race. Polls can change, minds can change and we’ve got a long way to go until primary day.
You might or might not be right. I wish they had more choices than him or Mills. But crowds don't prove majority or plurality approval. I remember when Mondale's rallies were getting good, enthusiastic crowds in the leadup to his almost 50-state drubbing.
Yeah most Democrats when asked about political standards and norms will laugh in your face and say, "What standards? Look who's back in the White House."
Ok that's nice but I don't forgive f-slurs, or sexism, or racism, or ect. He genuinely makes me feel a level of visceral disgust no other figure on the left or even center comes close to.
SC-WI - Lazar is definitely taking one for the team. Would be shocked if in-state donors spend a ton on that race, with a fall Governor's race and a real chance for Dems to take both chambers, plus Taylor is a very strong candidate.
WI Dems made big inroads in the legislature in 2024. And each day Dems get fired up and primed to vote in the SCOWI race in April and the general in November.
Literally the second person for whom the term “reality TV villain” was coined, after Omarosa. The man for whom most mid-Millennials has a name synonymous with “douchebag.”
That said his platform of post wildfire frustration could become potent
Pratt's home was destroyed in the fires so he's obviously got an axe to grind with Mayor Karen Bass.
However, his candidacy could also complicate Rick Caruso's bid for mayor if he decides to give it another go. Caruso had apparently hired a private firefighting crew to protect his buildings.
KY-Gov: AFAIK, if Lt. Gov. Coleman ran for the top spot in 2027, she would be the first Lt. Gov. candidate, successful or unsuccessful, to do so since Lt. Gov stopped being a separately elected position. I'd be OK with either her or Rocky Adkins. As for Jamie Comer, it's not exactly a secret here that Governor is still his Dream Job. However, the filing period for 2027 would start the day after the November 2026 election, and run through Jan. 8, 2027 - five days after the start of the new Congress. Legally, he could do that, but it would be an open admission that he'd run for another term in Congress in order to have a fallback if running for Governor didn't pan out.
That's not super unusual historically, and voters react differently to people who do. Think Ernie Fletcher was the last KY nominee who did. I talked yesterday about similar occasions in Chicago with Quigley's stranger announcement while the House election is still going.
“Reynoso already has a head start, but Valdez can likely count on endorsements from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain as she runs a Mamdani-style campaign focused on affordability.”
Your daily reminder that moderate Republican politicians don't exist and all of them suck: "Republican Gov. Mike DeWine on Wednesday endorsed businessman Vivek Ramaswamy in the race to succeed him."
I never believed Mike DeWine even as far back as in the 2000's in the Senate was ever a moderate Republican. He's just your typical old school Bush era Republican who gets pushed to go more to the right with where the GOP is these days.
I think that's exactly right. He cares about governance as a governor but doesn't shrink from endorsing seditious incompetents who are now central to the party establishment.
DeWine has been nothing more than a rubber stamp for Rob Huffman's GOP agenda in OH, much like Pat McCrory was a rubber stamp for Phil Berger and Tim Moore' anti democracy laboratory here in NC.
That, and Sand has made concerted efforts to win over Republicans over the years. There's a reason he won in 2022 while the top of the ticket was getting destroyed.
Sand got an assist from a GOP challenger who had virtually no semblance of a campaign. That was the difference between Sand, Fitzgerald, and Miller....Fitzgerald and Miller had challengers who put up a fight. Sand didn't.
Julia Brownley is 73, which is not ancient for a member of Congress, but is a reasonable age to retire. She has been a Representative since 2013. CA-26 should remain safely Democratic especially with Asswm. Irwin running. Irwin has served the area in the Legislature since 2014. She is age 64 so don't expect her to serve in the house for much more than a decade. Ventura County is one of the parts of California that used to lean GOP (and elect folks like Tom McClintock and Tony Strickland) but has moved towards Democratic voting in the past two decades.
I’ve been complaining a lot in these comments over the last year about how our safe seat older Dem reps just don’t know how to run in today’s America and aren’t up to the monumental task of defeating Trump/MAGA. That they need to be primaried out of office because what we’re doing isn’t working anymore with who we have representing us.
It feels almost like these reps have heard me and the many others advocating for a tea party style primary wave to cull the driftwood from our party. I’m happily surprised and impressed with how many reps have heeded the party call for generational change and are stepping aside to make our party tougher, stronger and younger to face our opponents with our fists up ready to land the first punch instead of old school thinking that doesn’t work anymore and hasn’t existed on the right since at least 2010 and probably earlier then that.
Serious kudos to all these long term older reps selflessly standing aside for the good of the party instead of trying to hold on fighting tooth and nail to keep their seats in a bruising primary by removing the ladder for any of those ambitious Democrats looking to move up in our ranks. Sorry, but their time has passed, it’s time to try something new and exciting to reinvigorate and rebuild our party.
I still think it's not all about age, and I'd prefer to give less grudging credit to those who've decided to retire and to those who do fight hard and understand today's politics, but I feel impelled to quote from an email I got from Schumer today:
"after claiming the United States will be “running” Venezuela, the President is now openly threatening Colombia and Greenland. Yes, even Greenland.
Whenever the United States gets pulled into regime change or nation-building, American families pay the price. We’ve seen it before. Iraq is only the most painful example."
Which you voted for, asshole! How long did it take you to figure out that aggression was a bad idea, after some of the largest demonstrations in the history of the U.S. told you before your vote?
I don’t think it’s all about age, but it is about experience that is used to guide our politics. These reps are used to a political world that doesn’t exist anymore, where both sides compromise for the good of the country. This newer generation of Democrats have only ever experienced a political world dominated by Trump who only backs down after being forced to.
It’s almost impossible to argue the former type of Democrat is better than the latter right now in this moment in time. Age creates a vast wealth of knowledge to draw on, but that’s not actually a good thing when what your party is facing is something America has never actually seen before: a personality cult leader controlling an entire party and the entire media ecosystem with a largely unmovable base.
If you say to me with a straight face the wisdom of age is more important than knowing how to fight the GOP cult, I think you’re just lying to me and yourself. I understand you have problems with people attributing age to a reason for Dem reps to leave office because you’re older and feel personally hit by those comments, but it’s not personal, it’s politics.
And just in case you get the wrong impression here from my reply, you’re welcome to have this opinion and I mean no disrespect to your views, age or political experience. You have many more years than I’ve had and I’m sure you have a much better knowledge of countless subjects then I do. I respect and appreciate that!
Given how many younger Democrats are running to take the torch instead of being handed it and are unwilling to wait their turn, coupled with the actual polling data that shows voters think our party is old people who don’t understand the country, I think we should accept that age is a factor for many of our voters and many voters overall even if we don’t like that it’s true.
Whether it’s a majority, well, we’ll find out in the upcoming 2026 primaries across the country, but I expect some people are going to be shocked by the coming results. I have been one of the biggest establishment backers for years now, I’ve always deferred to the party that they know best. I’ve often argued against candidates closer to my ideology and political preferences.
If someone like me has shifted to believe in burning it all down, primarying every blue seat rep in order to do what I believe is necessary to rebuild and rebrand our party, how many others in our base feel that “good enough” isn’t “good enough” anymore and that we need generational change? My be is a lot. I look forward to finding out with you as the votes get tabulated this year.
Mamdani was the spark and I don’t think that raging fire going on in our base right now is going to get put out before primary day. I’ve been wrong before about my predictions and I’ll be wrong again, but I don’t think I will on this.
Yes, but one represents a blue state and one represented a purple state. You need different kinds of candidates to win swing districts and states than you do to win deep blue ones (which is the seats that we’re discussing here). I’m glad though that you agree age is a factor. The example you gave though isn’t a good one for that reason. A better one would be Moulton primarying Markey.
Age isn’t always the deciding factor, but when two reps vote the same and support the same policies, it’s really hard not to see it as such.
I mean, yeah, we largely agree. Sinema did not have to vote and be like that because she represented Arizona, so I don't think she's a bad example to use.
Can I take the mention of Schumer voting for the Iraq War as a reminder about a rant that's been stewing in my mind for a while now?
How is it that, nearly 25 years later, we are still stuck with prominent, powerful democrats that supported the Iraq War? Opposition to the Iraq War is possibly the policy that the party base has been most unified on for this entire century. More than any other topic, hating the Iraq War is something our voters agree on, both historically and in the present.
Yet in 2004 both our presidential nominee and his running mate both voted for it. In 2008 Obama did not vote for it, but he picked Biden as a running mate and he did vote for the war. Then he made HRC, another prominent early-supporter, his Secretary of State. His second Secretary of State was Kerry, who also voted for it. Then HRC was our nominee in 2016, with Biden our nominee (and winner) in 2020, and he was our nominee for most of 2024. Biden put Nelson in charge of NASA, another supporter. Schumer voted for the war and is the most powerful democrat in the senate and has been for a decade, and that perch has given him a lot of influence to try and keep future senators as much like him (politically) as he can get. Plus I see two more of our current senators who voted for it in the house: Markey and Schiff. That's not even touching on the people that are still around (some not much longer, at least) like Hoyer and Smith that also hold influence in the party.
Why were the initial supporters of the war able to hold any influence over our party for the past 25 years? Why do any of them still hold that influence?
"News: Top House Dem leaders & 3 dozen members endorsed Rep Julie Johnson in her primary with former Rep Colin Allred in #TX33 On the endorsers list: >> Jeffries, Clark, Aguilar, DelBene >> AOC + Texans Vicente Gonzalez + Sylvia Garcia"
I can clearly see a pattern in the list. It's House leadership + New Dems + CPC's Dem women and LGBTQ+ members - the CBC.
I’m hoping Allred wins and donating to him because he has crafted a very politically smart centrist persona and has a unique electoral strength. He was the best ever Dem performer in 2k precincts, which would make him a shoo-in for any statewide office if Texas trends bluer.
It's an impressive list of her colleague's support but minus maybe AOC or Garcia+Gonzalez, I doubt this moves many voters toward her. This list is more to encourage donors to support her imo. She needs CBC support, esp those from TX to help her more in the primary, and I just doubt that's coming to her. They both seem about the same level ideologically, so hard to really root for one over the other. I think Allred should have run for governor or AG this time when it's most advantageous for us and himself if he felt he couldn't win a Senate campaign splitting Black voters with Crockett. So I don't really care about him for statewide in some vague future cycle.
I'm curious if the ICE murdering that woman in MN will have a bigger downballot impact across the country this fall. It wasn't a woman of color, it was a white woman with 3 kids, her partner and dog.
I think the MN legislature will flip back to Democrats this year just on this alone (along with all of Trump's other disastrous policies).
Makes me wonder if the Democrat would've won that special election in South Carolina if ICE had murdered that Minnesota woman on Monday instead of Wednesday. Maybe that might have been enough to drag 22 more Democrats to the polls.
Minnesota voters will have moved on from the ICE killing in two weeks let alone by November. It will be a nonfactor in the midterms just as Melissa Hortmann's shooting will be a nonfactor. There's a very short shelf life for people to be moved by these sorts of things before they retreat to conventional selfish concerns.
A ray of sunshine as always. And this time, you seem to be blatantly out of touch to boot. This murder is provoking very high levels of outrage— as you are or should be aware.
I disagree with Mark all the time here but I think what he wrote above is, unfortunately, correct. People will be outraged for a while and then will revert to voting on their own parochial concerns.
Seriously, I’ve wondered this myself especially since back in GWB Iraq War times we had bands like Green Day and System of a Down at least leading the charge against that idiotic war…where are the equivalents today?
May want to check the WY-AL entry again. Rep. Harriet Hageman is who Chuck Gray and Reid Rasner are presumably running to replace.
They made a similar mistake on Monday's digest, too. Guess everyone is still used to Lummis being in the House.
Yep ... thank you for flagging, we fixed both.
Thank you for catching! We've fixed.
Ro Khanna with his newfound national fame and fundraising network will crush any centrist candidate funded by the tech industry.
I know that he once primaried and beat Mike Honda from the right but he is currently one of the best Democrats in Congress.
I strongly take issue with Ro Khanna on at least one issue. He supports the cryptocurrency industry; I most definitely do not.
that is my one quibble yes, especially how proud crypto industry was to defeat tester and brown
I think the reason for his support for crypto stems from his ideology more than his donations. He genuinely seems to be believe in a synthesis of Hartite-Clintonite techno-utopianism and social democracy.
He's been consistent on crypto compared to someone like Ruben Gallego who turned from a fierce critic to a shill after getting 10m in donations from the industry.
Does he ever address what it's doing to our environment?
ChatGPT says that he supports a climate tax on crypto mines.
That's not a source to me, but cool if that's true.
Considering the environmental issues with data centers, that is a hilarious source.
Crypto/data centers have become basically a red line for myself. Dems who support those, and several who I previously really liked fit that bill, will not receive a single penny or vote from me in a primary.
Unfortunately, I suspect his challenger would also be pro-crypto, if the tech industry is backing them.
His challenger is going to have numerous other problems, given that they are being identified specifically to be a shill for billionaires.
Agarwal is pro-crypto all the way as he is with AI.
But he’s got nothing.
https://www.ea4ca.com/
What do you mean by "got nothing"?
Oh I was just making a throwaway statement out of random. :)
But I am referring to Agarwal’s platform (per his website) really not being at all meaning anything that the average voter could find resonates with them. What really does he have to offer besides what Silicon Valley tech circles finds appealing?
It’s as if Agarwal just cobbled together a website for the first time and decided to create something of a platform that popped up in his mind. Plus there are random TikTok videos referencing commentary by TikTokers on trending tech issues as opposed to just Agarwal speaking his mind.
Got it.
Excited for Agarwal to burn millions of Chamaths money so that he can finish a distant 3rd in the primary
He’s such an awful candidate. His platform makes me think he’d rather be a VC than serve in Congress.
I have been critical of Ro Khanna but challenger Ethan Agarwal isn’t the answer to a better choice.
I have been clear before that because of CA-17 being heavily in Silicon Valley, I am looking for SV to be held accountable and regulated. I have been open to a real Democratic challenger to Khanna but Agarwal is not that choice. I’d rather Khanna be re-elected than Agarwal.
I know you were a strong supporter of Mike Honda and disliked that Khanna primaried him from the right out of ambition. But since then, has Khanna done anything else you consider bad, apart from supporting crypto? He supports regulating tech though not as much as some other people in Congress.
Your last sentence is the answer to why I believe Khanna isn’t the best choice to represent CA-17 but I believe he does succeed in keeping the right balance considering he’s liberal on most issues. He even admitted to Glen The Plummer on Daily Kos that he supported Howard Dean in the 2004 Democratic Presidential Primaries. Many liberal Democrats were on board with Dean because of the Iraq War issue.
But since we’re talking about more Silicon Valley friendly challengers to Khanna, it’s better he stays representing CA-17 if another Democratic Candidate not Silicon Valley friendly does not emerge.
Khanna if anything has always been ten seconds ahead of basically every Democrat in sniffing out the next popular political trend. Putting his name on the cause of releasing the Epstein Files even when most Democrats from the onset would rather have been solely focused on affordability to the point of parody is one of those times.
Also supporting a wealth tax especially when even the rank and file in Silicon Valley's backyard have a lot of axes to grind against MAGA supporting jackasses like Chamath, Jason Calantis and David Sacks who've been vocally posting against said wealth tax is another case of Khanna sniffing out the next popular political thing out there before a lot of Democrats did.
Sarah Stevens, the MAGA legislator aiming to unseat Earls this year, also got treated for breast cancer in 2023 or 2024. Either way, with Roy Cooper's coattails and a furious Dem electorate this year, she'll get steamrolled by Justice Earls.
It's going to be hard recapturing the judicial majority in 2028, but we'll see if the Democratic presidential and U.S. Senate candidates (maybe Jeff Jackson?) will fire up voters to vote all the way downballot.
PresiDem carrying North Carolina would go a long way towards helping flip the court in 2028. Hopefully Stein racks up another huge win and Jackson wins the Senate race.
The Berger nepotism is an obvious point of attack for 2028. Newby can be attacked over his partisan gerrymandering decision. Focusing on all three of the Republicans up that year would be nice, but those two seem the most vulnerable.
From the ProPublica article, it seems that Newby is retiring at the end of his term (good riddance). And if Phil Berger loses his primary in two months, his nepo baby judge son will be a prime target in 2028.
I'm hoping whoever loses the 2026 primary for the NC Court of Appeals this year runs for a seat on the NC Supreme Court in 2028. James Whalen, the attorney that successfully defended all the votes for Justice Riggs, is running for the vacant COA seat. Be nice if he won a seat this year or joined his client on the court in January 2029.
Yeah if Newby ran for reelection and won, he'd face mandatory retirement about two years into his term, and if a Dem was Governor, they could appoint a replacement. I imagine that factored into his decision.
The GOP controlled Court of Appeals panel ruled yesterday that the power grab law passed by the NC GOP mandating that the governor choose an outgoing judge of the same party as the outgoing one (from a list of 3 names provided) was lawful. It's going to take flipping back the courts and refiling challenges to give the governor his constitutional rights back to fill vacancies however he wants.
Oh right I forgot about that
All I'm going to say is that, should Democrats flip back control of the state Supreme Court by 2028 or 2030, they need to do what the GOP majority did on reversing the anti-gerrymandering and photo ID ruling. And expedite the Leandro ruling and overturn the sore loser power grabs Rs pushed through in late 2024.
I want the NC GOP's heads spinning. And I want them demoralized.
went to law school with James, incredible individual
How would people in North Carolina feel about Jackson running for AG in 2024 and then jumping to Senate only 4 years later? I know he would have served a full 4-year term by then, so switching to another office wouldn't be abnormal, but would people view it as fine, or would they see it more as opportunism?
If he gets heavily courted by Schumer or sees reliable polling with him ousting Budd, I think Jeff Jackson will jump to the Senate race.
I will vote for him for whichever office he decides to run for, be it AG again or challenging Budd.
I'm not sure voters care about that so long as they finish the term. Katie Hobbs only served one term as Secretary of State before running for Governor. There are many other examples too. Barring Stein abandoning a reelection bid for a Senate run, I think Jackson is the obvious best candidate for that race. His six-point overperformance of Harris in 2024 in a downballot race was pretty stunning.
Yup, this is exactly right. As long as a politician actually finishes the term of the job voters elected them to do, there’s no “political
opportunist, not in it for us, in for themself” bad taste voting penalty like there would be if 2 years in to his term he decided to run. Finish the job the people elected you to, then you can move on to your next opportunity.
Obama ran for President 2 years into his 6-year Senate term and only won 69m votes.
I mean, Josh Hawley started his Senate campaign about five minutes after being sworn in as Missouri AG, so...
I'm curious if/how Hoyer's retirement will affect Clyburn's decision to run again or not
He's too power hungry to do that and wants 2028 candidates to prostrate in front of him. Also, he will lobby against replacing SC with Georgia or any other Southern state.
Clyburn refused to leave leadership when Pelosi and Hoyer coordinated passing the torch, so I think it's very unlikely to have any effect at all. I think Clyburn likes being a person of great importance (like so many others holding on into their old age) and will almost certainly remain in office until he dies or Black representation in SC is gerrymandered out.
There are many things I like about Clyburn, but there is an excellent bench in his district. If he cares about his legacy as a mentor, this would be a good time to retire. But perhaps that isn't important to him, or maybe he's a bad mentor anyway.
Clyburn will be "retired" by voters in November when the SCOTUS overturns the Voting Rights Act and South Carolina draws new lines with seven districts that went double digits for Trump.
Random question: When I use my laptop computer to access The Downballot, I can send messages to other commenters through Substack using the Chat feature. But when I access The Downballot on my smartphone (as I am right now), when I try to go to the Chat page it prompts me to download the Substack app, and I haven't found any obvious bypass to allow me to use the Chat feature in the Chrome browser on my phone.
I'm not going to download the Substack app - I DEEPLY resent companies trying to force their apps on me when everything can easily be done on an Internet browser (just like on a laptop). So my question is, is it possible to send chat messages through Substack like on a laptop, using only an Internet browser and without downloading any apps?
Turn on desktop site from the three dots at the top right corner of Chrome or any other mobile browser.
Wow, thanks! This is definitely more my style, right down to the tiny text (I'm notorious at work for shrinking the font size in any Excel spreadsheets that we're working with).
I have also found if I access the desktop I can edit comments which I can't do on my phone in the substack app. I otoh find the text in the app more readable, but I'm old.
I was thinking that, based on my experience, Kikdere's love on tiny text in spreadsheets has a built in sunset clause. 😁
Could you explain?
what's the bench look like in Hoyer's seat? what's the Great Mentioner saying? any time someone has been at the top of the local pyramid of power that long, there's lots and lots of frustrated talented folk lurking just below the top.
People ask why Platner's townhalls overflow with old people who tend to be reliable voters. Why his fundraising is so strong, why he leads in his rival's internals and why the scandals didn't kill his campaign?
https://www.mainepublic.org/politics/2026-01-07/graham-platner-draws-overflow-crowd-at-tax-the-rich-to-fund-health-care-event
Maybe because he meets the political moment and says it like it is without going through a million consultants and is a person who did not lead his life wanting to be a clean-cut politician.
"Dismantling ICE is the moderate position.
Unmask these thugs, arrest them, and make them answer for these horrors."
https://x.com/grahamformaine/status/2009046321358098551?s=20
"When you send armed, under-trained amateurs into American communities with vague orders and no accountability, this is inevitable.
ICE must be dismantled. (Video of him speaking) "
https://x.com/grahamformaine/status/2008988184185852130?s=20
And a reminder that if he wins, he is as much a creation of the feckless establishment as he is of progressive groups. He stood no chance and wouldn't even have been recruited by ex-Bernie staffers and labor unions if Schumer hadn't tried so hard to recruit Mills and stopped AG Aaron Frey and Speaker Ryan Fecteau from launching their bids.
Yep. A lot of people are sick and tired of feckless leaders like Chuck Schumer and are willing to take a chance on a non-conventional candidate. And I can't blame them.
Hard to say whether he can make it out of the primary, unfortunately. Maybe Mainers have learned from their previous mistakes. As you may know, I'm not a big fan but he's so much better than the alternatives.
That is a big reason why Trump won, both times.
Apropos of nothing but I always find your comments refreshing to read. You have such a passion and even if I don't agree all the time (though I often do), it's a welcome feeling reading the heart behind your insights
Thank you.
"why he leads in his rival's internals." --> We don't need to state falsehoods.
I think Schumer is as weak as the next. Doesn't mean that I'm going to support someone who knowingly had a Nazi tattoo for well over a decade and conveniently got it removed only after displaying it on a podcast. Next.
You can read Axios’s latest reporting on him. It notes that even after the scandals, he was leading by nine points in Jordan Woods internal polling before he dropped out.
He’s very much a Rorschach candidate. I don’t believe he actually subscribes to even the slightest trace of Nazism, and that's precisely why I support him. You're free to believe otherwise.
The way it was worded implied it was from Mills' internals. Anyhow, I'm not going to get conned into falling for another blue-collar cosplayer who says the right words, ignoring all the glaring red flags. Did that with Fetterman, and my tolerance for that kind of candidate is on thin ice.
I don't think Platner is going to suffer a stroke. He seems to be quite healthy.
That's not the only issue. And no, I don't trust someone who had a Nazi tattoo for so long. Dozens of my relatives were murdered in Nazi-occupied Poland and one of my uncles was a war casualty for the U.S. Army Air Corps.
I understand your perspective but most of his extended family is Jewish too and his stepbrother lives in Jerusalem. His stepbrother is Seth Franzmann who's interviewed him a couple of times.
If we accept the explanation that he didn't know about the Nazi association at the time he got the tattoo (dubious), then I could /potentially/ excuse not getting it removed for a while, because isn't tattoo removal expensive?
And Axios reported that Jordan’s internal polling that showed Platner’s 9 point lead over all of the competition was only for the first round, and that Platner’s lead grew by the final round, though Axios didn’t report the exact amount of final lead but saying Platner’s lead grew means greater than 9 points.
Sorry, but US citizens are being actively murdered by the US govt.
Unfortunately, we cannot survive another cycle with Schumers and Garlands expected to be the resistance to this.
So, the people are turning to candidates at least willing to say the right thing.
Now if some molecules comprising ink underneath the dermal layer bother you, wait until you find out what the US govt is actually physically doing to people.
"We don't want people with Nazi tattoos, its a strong indicator that they might favor that ideology once in office. And we don't want Nazis in office, they tend to kill or jail the opposition and commit horrendous crimes against humanity"
*gestures broadly at the current US government doing all those things daily*
I am well aware of the monstrosities the federal government is committing, thank you. That doesn't mean I'm going to back a highly flawed and morally dubious unknown insurgent in the Democratic primary just because he cosplays as a blue-collar worker and says the right words.
And it seems like a decent amount of people don't want to back a septuagenarian who can't meet the moment and won't even commit to killing the filibuster.
I'll take that over the walking red flag. This is Fetterman mania all over again.
I think it's a bigger red flag to not commit to killing the filibuster in a moment like this. Business as usual, focus group tested, consultant brained candidates are not going to bring the necessary reforms that the system needs. Also I think the likelihood of Platner losing half of his brain activity due to a stroke is fairly low, so I'm willing to take that risk.
That's a huge, offensive red herring, in that NO-ONE is suggesting Platner should be opposed if he makes it to the -general election-!
I could push back on a lot of this very vociferously but I've got a packed day. Platner's success feels like a reminder that we're definitely not the good guys that we think we are, just the less bad guys.
Yeah. We can't take the high road on antisemitic labels if we nominate him.
You’re going to say that he worked with Blackwater, but that stint lasted about six months and was as a bodyguard for a minister. You are also going to point out that he wrote he enjoyed killing in combat. Even now, he continues to describe himself as a killer, says he got the tattoo to mark that identity, and has not walked back another one of his comments that killing and camaraderie in combat were both the best and worst parts of his deployment.
He never discussed Nazism or racial ideology on his Reddit account of 15 years, which had thousands of comments. He called an anti-fascist "supersoldier" and firearms instructor, advocated self-defense against "fascists". In the early 2010s, he made a comment under a post encouraging people to ask questions to “the other race,” which was why “Blacks don’t tip.” His comments about sexual assault from the 2010s were egregious, and he has acknowledged and taken responsibility for them. He also never wrote anything about Jews, nor did he express antisemitic views. In fact, when asked about his politics on Reddit, he cited Michael Brooks and Bernie Sanders as the primary influences on his thinking.
Generally if you have to explain away half a dozen red flags...he might not be a good candidate? I just find it bizarre how emotionally invested in this guy people are.
I agree, he’s not a great candidate. But since the alternative is someone who would do nothing to pass the key parts of the Democratic agenda if she was the deciding vote on the filibuster, and since if we can’t show that we can pass our agenda and make people’s lives better we’ll just hand power right back to the authoritarians, he’s the better of two bad options.
He may be, just because of that, yes.
Do we know that last part for sure? I agree that it was an error to discourage and put obstacles in the way of those guys.
There were many deeply researched profiles on him and the people who recruited him by Politico, NYMag etc and they all said that.
Damn, I didn't know Schumer tried to stop Frey and Fecteau from launching bids. If that's true, then this whole situation is almost entirely on him. I thought they were only recruiting Mills because nobody serious was running.
I'm just going to add, the idea that he isn't consultant driven - this is a guy who was literally found by consultants and told to run. Most of his platform has clearly just been handed to him from them.
I’m not a socialist, but abolishing ICE has long been a major socialist position. He’s also been identified as a former member of the DSA and a former trainer with the Socialist Rifle Association. On top of that, he explicitly argued in Reddit comments for arming against "fascists" who won't act kindly. And being pro-gun is a politically advantageous position in Maine, but he actually seems to believe in that.
I said long ago for people here to prepare for the possibility Platner survives the political scandals and becomes our nominee. You cannot deny the kind of organic political energy on the ground for him. We tried that with Trump, we made fun of his rally sizes and rambling nonsense, but it was real and it didn’t work out so well for us to pretend it wasn’t.
I’m still not supporting Platner because a red line actually means a red line for myself, but all I’ve seen and heard since the scandal is talk of “he’s just so refreshingly honest and authentic, saying it like it is”. He obviously has warts too, but voters seem to be ok with it otherwise he wouldn’t be drawing the crowds he does. Will Democrats still be ok with it come primary day? I think the more likely than not answer is yes as of today and we all should prepare for it despite what polling currently says.
You can’t just create this kind of campaign energy by being an elected official, to just turn on the organization with a key once you decide to run. Mamdani did this same thing too and polling at one point had him at 0 in his race. Polls can change, minds can change and we’ve got a long way to go until primary day.
You might or might not be right. I wish they had more choices than him or Mills. But crowds don't prove majority or plurality approval. I remember when Mondale's rallies were getting good, enthusiastic crowds in the leadup to his almost 50-state drubbing.
My spidey sense is that if this race ends up being about anything other than how terrible Susan Collins is, she wins again.
Yeah most Democrats when asked about political standards and norms will laugh in your face and say, "What standards? Look who's back in the White House."
Ok that's nice but I don't forgive f-slurs, or sexism, or racism, or ect. He genuinely makes me feel a level of visceral disgust no other figure on the left or even center comes close to.
SC-WI - Lazar is definitely taking one for the team. Would be shocked if in-state donors spend a ton on that race, with a fall Governor's race and a real chance for Dems to take both chambers, plus Taylor is a very strong candidate.
WI Dems made big inroads in the legislature in 2024. And each day Dems get fired up and primed to vote in the SCOWI race in April and the general in November.
She doesn't even have to give up her seat on the Court of Appeals to run.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/spencer-pratt-la-mayor-palisades-fire/3828363/%3famp=1
Los Angeles mayor: Reality TV star Spencer Pratt is running, presumably to the right of Bass
Literally the second person for whom the term “reality TV villain” was coined, after Omarosa. The man for whom most mid-Millennials has a name synonymous with “douchebag.”
That said his platform of post wildfire frustration could become potent
Pratt's home was destroyed in the fires so he's obviously got an axe to grind with Mayor Karen Bass.
However, his candidacy could also complicate Rick Caruso's bid for mayor if he decides to give it another go. Caruso had apparently hired a private firefighting crew to protect his buildings.
Yeah, this definitely would potentially make things complicated for Caruso
KY-Gov: AFAIK, if Lt. Gov. Coleman ran for the top spot in 2027, she would be the first Lt. Gov. candidate, successful or unsuccessful, to do so since Lt. Gov stopped being a separately elected position. I'd be OK with either her or Rocky Adkins. As for Jamie Comer, it's not exactly a secret here that Governor is still his Dream Job. However, the filing period for 2027 would start the day after the November 2026 election, and run through Jan. 8, 2027 - five days after the start of the new Congress. Legally, he could do that, but it would be an open admission that he'd run for another term in Congress in order to have a fallback if running for Governor didn't pan out.
That's not super unusual historically, and voters react differently to people who do. Think Ernie Fletcher was the last KY nominee who did. I talked yesterday about similar occasions in Chicago with Quigley's stranger announcement while the House election is still going.
True. I try not to think of Crooked Ernie, so I'd put his time in Congress out of my mind.
NY-7: Curious to see if Bernie will endorse here, and if so, who. City and State NY seems to think he’d endorse Claire Valdez:
https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2026/01/here-are-nyc-seats-dsa-eyeing-2026/410359/
“Reynoso already has a head start, but Valdez can likely count on endorsements from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain as she runs a Mamdani-style campaign focused on affordability.”
Reynoso is pretty good, I thought?
It seems to be a DSA vs non-DSA divide — this district is DSA central so that’s a big issue here.
Is the issue Israel, or something else?
It's more about ideological commitment to democratic socialism and knowing the language from what I've heard not Israel.
Wait, Reynoso doesn't know Spanish?
No, the language of democratic socialism I meant.
It's democratic socialist vs staunch progressive. I don't really care about who wins here. This district is a part of the "commie corridor".
Your daily reminder that moderate Republican politicians don't exist and all of them suck: "Republican Gov. Mike DeWine on Wednesday endorsed businessman Vivek Ramaswamy in the race to succeed him."
Exactly. It's clear that Vivek is going to be the nominee, but it's not like DeWine is obligated to endorse him just because that's true.
I never believed Mike DeWine even as far back as in the 2000's in the Senate was ever a moderate Republican. He's just your typical old school Bush era Republican who gets pushed to go more to the right with where the GOP is these days.
Yeah he’s not a maverick.
I think that's exactly right. He cares about governance as a governor but doesn't shrink from endorsing seditious incompetents who are now central to the party establishment.
That's a fair assessment.
DeWine has been nothing more than a rubber stamp for Rob Huffman's GOP agenda in OH, much like Pat McCrory was a rubber stamp for Phil Berger and Tim Moore' anti democracy laboratory here in NC.
IA-Gov: Rob Sand raised $9.5 million last year, has $13.2 million on hand. Got donations from registered REPUBLICANS in 98/99 counties.
Maybe there's enough Iowa Republicans that are sick and tired of one-party rule and how unpopular the outgoing governor is?
That, and Sand has made concerted efforts to win over Republicans over the years. There's a reason he won in 2022 while the top of the ticket was getting destroyed.
Sand got an assist from a GOP challenger who had virtually no semblance of a campaign. That was the difference between Sand, Fitzgerald, and Miller....Fitzgerald and Miller had challengers who put up a fight. Sand didn't.
I doubt they care about the former in a vacuum. It's probably more about Trump and their outgoing governor.
I'm a fan. I suspect he'll still lose the general, but he's at least got a chance at a win.
https://keyt.com/news/ventura-county/2026/01/08/congresswoman-julia-brownley-will-not-seek-reelection-in-2026/
CA-26: Julia Brownley (D) retiring
Assemblywoman Jacqui Irwin and influencer Trisha Paytas considering.
D or R?
D
Julia Brownley is 73, which is not ancient for a member of Congress, but is a reasonable age to retire. She has been a Representative since 2013. CA-26 should remain safely Democratic especially with Asswm. Irwin running. Irwin has served the area in the Legislature since 2014. She is age 64 so don't expect her to serve in the house for much more than a decade. Ventura County is one of the parts of California that used to lean GOP (and elect folks like Tom McClintock and Tony Strickland) but has moved towards Democratic voting in the past two decades.
I’ve been complaining a lot in these comments over the last year about how our safe seat older Dem reps just don’t know how to run in today’s America and aren’t up to the monumental task of defeating Trump/MAGA. That they need to be primaried out of office because what we’re doing isn’t working anymore with who we have representing us.
It feels almost like these reps have heard me and the many others advocating for a tea party style primary wave to cull the driftwood from our party. I’m happily surprised and impressed with how many reps have heeded the party call for generational change and are stepping aside to make our party tougher, stronger and younger to face our opponents with our fists up ready to land the first punch instead of old school thinking that doesn’t work anymore and hasn’t existed on the right since at least 2010 and probably earlier then that.
Serious kudos to all these long term older reps selflessly standing aside for the good of the party instead of trying to hold on fighting tooth and nail to keep their seats in a bruising primary by removing the ladder for any of those ambitious Democrats looking to move up in our ranks. Sorry, but their time has passed, it’s time to try something new and exciting to reinvigorate and rebuild our party.
I still think it's not all about age, and I'd prefer to give less grudging credit to those who've decided to retire and to those who do fight hard and understand today's politics, but I feel impelled to quote from an email I got from Schumer today:
"after claiming the United States will be “running” Venezuela, the President is now openly threatening Colombia and Greenland. Yes, even Greenland.
Whenever the United States gets pulled into regime change or nation-building, American families pay the price. We’ve seen it before. Iraq is only the most painful example."
Which you voted for, asshole! How long did it take you to figure out that aggression was a bad idea, after some of the largest demonstrations in the history of the U.S. told you before your vote?
I don’t think it’s all about age, but it is about experience that is used to guide our politics. These reps are used to a political world that doesn’t exist anymore, where both sides compromise for the good of the country. This newer generation of Democrats have only ever experienced a political world dominated by Trump who only backs down after being forced to.
It’s almost impossible to argue the former type of Democrat is better than the latter right now in this moment in time. Age creates a vast wealth of knowledge to draw on, but that’s not actually a good thing when what your party is facing is something America has never actually seen before: a personality cult leader controlling an entire party and the entire media ecosystem with a largely unmovable base.
If you say to me with a straight face the wisdom of age is more important than knowing how to fight the GOP cult, I think you’re just lying to me and yourself. I understand you have problems with people attributing age to a reason for Dem reps to leave office because you’re older and feel personally hit by those comments, but it’s not personal, it’s politics.
And just in case you get the wrong impression here from my reply, you’re welcome to have this opinion and I mean no disrespect to your views, age or political experience. You have many more years than I’ve had and I’m sure you have a much better knowledge of countless subjects then I do. I respect and appreciate that!
Given how many younger Democrats are running to take the torch instead of being handed it and are unwilling to wait their turn, coupled with the actual polling data that shows voters think our party is old people who don’t understand the country, I think we should accept that age is a factor for many of our voters and many voters overall even if we don’t like that it’s true.
Whether it’s a majority, well, we’ll find out in the upcoming 2026 primaries across the country, but I expect some people are going to be shocked by the coming results. I have been one of the biggest establishment backers for years now, I’ve always deferred to the party that they know best. I’ve often argued against candidates closer to my ideology and political preferences.
If someone like me has shifted to believe in burning it all down, primarying every blue seat rep in order to do what I believe is necessary to rebuild and rebrand our party, how many others in our base feel that “good enough” isn’t “good enough” anymore and that we need generational change? My be is a lot. I look forward to finding out with you as the votes get tabulated this year.
Mamdani was the spark and I don’t think that raging fire going on in our base right now is going to get put out before primary day. I’ve been wrong before about my predictions and I’ll be wrong again, but I don’t think I will on this.
Age is a factor, as you say, but remember that Bernie Sanders is old and Kyrsten Sinema is kind of young.
Yes, but one represents a blue state and one represented a purple state. You need different kinds of candidates to win swing districts and states than you do to win deep blue ones (which is the seats that we’re discussing here). I’m glad though that you agree age is a factor. The example you gave though isn’t a good one for that reason. A better one would be Moulton primarying Markey.
Age isn’t always the deciding factor, but when two reps vote the same and support the same policies, it’s really hard not to see it as such.
I mean, yeah, we largely agree. Sinema did not have to vote and be like that because she represented Arizona, so I don't think she's a bad example to use.
Can I take the mention of Schumer voting for the Iraq War as a reminder about a rant that's been stewing in my mind for a while now?
How is it that, nearly 25 years later, we are still stuck with prominent, powerful democrats that supported the Iraq War? Opposition to the Iraq War is possibly the policy that the party base has been most unified on for this entire century. More than any other topic, hating the Iraq War is something our voters agree on, both historically and in the present.
Yet in 2004 both our presidential nominee and his running mate both voted for it. In 2008 Obama did not vote for it, but he picked Biden as a running mate and he did vote for the war. Then he made HRC, another prominent early-supporter, his Secretary of State. His second Secretary of State was Kerry, who also voted for it. Then HRC was our nominee in 2016, with Biden our nominee (and winner) in 2020, and he was our nominee for most of 2024. Biden put Nelson in charge of NASA, another supporter. Schumer voted for the war and is the most powerful democrat in the senate and has been for a decade, and that perch has given him a lot of influence to try and keep future senators as much like him (politically) as he can get. Plus I see two more of our current senators who voted for it in the house: Markey and Schiff. That's not even touching on the people that are still around (some not much longer, at least) like Hoyer and Smith that also hold influence in the party.
Why were the initial supporters of the war able to hold any influence over our party for the past 25 years? Why do any of them still hold that influence?
I didn't remember that Markey had voted for the aggression. For shame!
Markey has nuclear derangement syndrome and probably voted for it because he thought Saddam had nukes. He's a hard green leftist.
That's not a good excuse because the nuclear inspectors begged the U.S. to let them stay and continue inspecting.
The anti-war movement got Obama over the line in the primaries, and they got a White House lead by Rahm fucking Emanuel and SoS Hillary Clinton.
But wait, don't we have to drag Chuy Garcia here before we celebrate?
Trisha Paytas clearly caused this /j
https://x.com/allymutnick/status/2009280422413312255
"News: Top House Dem leaders & 3 dozen members endorsed Rep Julie Johnson in her primary with former Rep Colin Allred in #TX33 On the endorsers list: >> Jeffries, Clark, Aguilar, DelBene >> AOC + Texans Vicente Gonzalez + Sylvia Garcia"
I can clearly see a pattern in the list. It's House leadership + New Dems + CPC's Dem women and LGBTQ+ members - the CBC.
I’m hoping Allred wins and donating to him because he has crafted a very politically smart centrist persona and has a unique electoral strength. He was the best ever Dem performer in 2k precincts, which would make him a shoo-in for any statewide office if Texas trends bluer.
I didn't appreciate his machinations recently, though.
Why are we conflating Allred's overperformances as unique to some strength of his rather than a particular weakness of Cruz's?
Yeah I agree with you anonymouse. Cruz was a terrible candidate, and Allred doesn’t have much of a distinct appeal in my opinion.
But he beat Beto's record in those precincts despite Cruz running a more moderate campaign this cycle.
Cruz running a more moderate campaign doesn’t change his image — he’s nationally known for his antics and comes off as a jerk regardless.
But Beto had the best ever performance for a Dem in Texas against Cruz and he hadn't swung to the left on guns and other issues until 2020!
It's an impressive list of her colleague's support but minus maybe AOC or Garcia+Gonzalez, I doubt this moves many voters toward her. This list is more to encourage donors to support her imo. She needs CBC support, esp those from TX to help her more in the primary, and I just doubt that's coming to her. They both seem about the same level ideologically, so hard to really root for one over the other. I think Allred should have run for governor or AG this time when it's most advantageous for us and himself if he felt he couldn't win a Senate campaign splitting Black voters with Crockett. So I don't really care about him for statewide in some vague future cycle.
I'm curious if the ICE murdering that woman in MN will have a bigger downballot impact across the country this fall. It wasn't a woman of color, it was a white woman with 3 kids, her partner and dog.
I think the MN legislature will flip back to Democrats this year just on this alone (along with all of Trump's other disastrous policies).
Makes me wonder if the Democrat would've won that special election in South Carolina if ICE had murdered that Minnesota woman on Monday instead of Wednesday. Maybe that might have been enough to drag 22 more Democrats to the polls.
Minnesota voters will have moved on from the ICE killing in two weeks let alone by November. It will be a nonfactor in the midterms just as Melissa Hortmann's shooting will be a nonfactor. There's a very short shelf life for people to be moved by these sorts of things before they retreat to conventional selfish concerns.
A ray of sunshine as always. And this time, you seem to be blatantly out of touch to boot. This murder is provoking very high levels of outrage— as you are or should be aware.
I disagree with Mark all the time here but I think what he wrote above is, unfortunately, correct. People will be outraged for a while and then will revert to voting on their own parochial concerns.
This will mobilize Dems across the country while doing nothing to countermobilize MAGAs.
In the short term, yes, but do we really think that this shooting will have an impact on November turnout?
Something I've been wondering quite a bit: where are the progressive singers/songwriters nowadays like we had in the '60s and '70s?
Someone needs to retool Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young's classic song "Ohio" to fit the current situation.
Tin soldiers and Trump is coming
We're finally on our own
This winter I hear the drumming
One dead in Minnesota
Seriously, I’ve wondered this myself especially since back in GWB Iraq War times we had bands like Green Day and System of a Down at least leading the charge against that idiotic war…where are the equivalents today?