The Digest mentions that "an unusually large proportion of Weil's fundraising went to a 23-year-old fundraising consultant". Yes, I realize it costs (far too much) money to raise money; that’s a perennial problem for charitable organizations as well as political campaigns. But to what degree was this exploitation, and to what degree incompetence by Weil’s campaign? Certainly as a math teacher, Josh Weil should have been able to do the math!
Exactly, he isn't a good candidate. He also has stalking and harassment allegations against him by a former school teacher. He would be a worse candidate than Charlie Crist. It's just that Randy Fine is an extremist who even DeSantis refused to campaign for along with turnout that he did well in the special election.
If the goal was to get his name out there with big fundraising numbers, then mission accomplished. It’s really the only reason he became viewed as viable, which then helped bring in more money and attention.
It comes off unseemly that a 23-year old could milk that much money out of a campaign but it’s not hard to do what he did - mass mail every Dem that you can, which is expensive.
I’ve been 100% supportive of Ken Martin as DNC Chair until the David Hogg mess and even afterwards because although I 100% agree with Hogg, elected party members shouldn’t put their thumb in the scale for anyone, the voters should decide (in practice it’s often not the case, but this is a goal that should be worked towards).
But this is ridiculous imo. At least Jaime Harrison the previous chair could raise money and actually communicated with the big donors Democrats need badly to compete with the unlimited billionaire spigot the GOP has. Look, 2024 was when Democratic donors spent over $1B dollars with almost nothing to show for it. It doesn’t matter if he wasn’t in charge then, donors are not the ones who need to fix the relationship, he is. That’s literally his job.
If he can’t raise money and refuses to do the basics of donor outreach and repair (which is absolutely necessary after the 2024 results!), why is he the chair? What is he bringing of value to the party? Winning elections in a blue leaning state? I had very high hopes for him, but I’m seeing a lot of red flags that are hard to ignore.
Still, the party’s total cash reserves shrank by $4 million from January through April, according to the most recent federal records, while the Republican National Committee’s coffers swelled by roughly $29 million. A new report is due this week.
The party out of power often falls behind the one holding the White House. Still, the current financial gap is large: $18 million on hand for the D.N.C. entering May, compared with $67.4 million for the R.N.C. Hefty chunks sit in special accounts that cannot be used for operational costs.
One challenge for Mr. Martin in wooing big contributors is that during the race for D.N.C. chair, his campaign criticized his chief rival, Ben Wikler, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, for his ties to some of the party’s largest donors, such as the billionaires Reid Hoffman and Alex Soros. Shortly after Mr. Martin won, he told The New York Times that the onus would be on donors to mend any fences.
Mr. Soros has not heard from Mr. Martin since then, according to a spokesman for the billionaire. Mr. Martin said he had tried to connect with Mr. Hoffman but had “not had a chance to reach out to Alex yet.”
So your solution is to have 50 state parties, many of them under-resourced, trying to raise funds from the wealthiest people in their states, many of whom have livelihoods attached to Republican control of state government, rather than a national entity that can raise funds across the country and distribute them to worthwhile races in historically red states?
If you look in a recipe book for "how to remain a minority party," I think you'll find your solution right there.
The state-level parties are precisely what DNC Chair Ken Martin is working to strengthen. If you actually mean state parties, I totally agree with Rayspace: that’s a recipe for long-term disaster!
This is exactly what Howard Dean was starting to work on when he was DNC Chair back in 2005. He just had Rahm Emanuel to deal with as he was DCCC Chair at the time.
But that same situation doesn’t apply these days. Ken Martin doesn’t have another Emanuel to deal with.
To his credit, Ken Martin is supporting the rebuilding of state-level parties throughout the nation. He has been far better on messaging. I seem to recall him taking the initiative to launch the DNC’s Rapid Response Team on social media, and a daily DNC broadcast on YouTube.
Now, please tell me what Jaime Harrison accomplished – or even tried to accomplish – between the November election and the end of his tenure? He had many months. Yet as far as I know, Harrison didn’t do jack shit!
Does Ken Martin have faults? Absolutely! And Martin needs to get is act together with regards to fundraising. But fundraising is NOT the only job of the DNC Chair – or at least it shouldn’t be. And, in fairness, Ken Martin has done much in areas that have far too long been neglected.
Has he been better at messaging? I haven't seen him make any noteworthy statements since the chair election. And the DNC YouTube broadcast barely has over 1,000 views despite what should be a large base and well-produced videos.
Ken Martin is not the messenger – he and the DNC are *catalysts* for the messaging of the Democratic Party. That’s a vitally important distinction.
My post gave two examples of this: the daily DNC broadcast on YouTube, and the DNC’s Rapid Response Team on social media. Both have just been launched; hopefully both will improve and gain wider audiences in time.
Samuel Sero added a third, which is even more consequential: inspiring Democrats to hold hundreds of town halls!
That DNC broadcast on YouTube could be done better and they need to bring in folks like Brian Tyler Coen to be the commentators, not the DNC’s communications rep but I’m happy to see them get more into this space.
Otoh, 1000 views on an insider youtube channel 17 mo before an election in a highly fragmented media environment for folks in the center and left seems like a win to me.
I did point out that Martin didn’t piss away any of the DNC’s money at strip clubs but if we are going to compare him to Steele, Steele oversaw one of the GOP’s most monumental midterm elections. Not a bad comparison. Under Martin’s leadership at the DNC, we are seeing over performance in specials that’s beating 2017 levels. When Politico jumps on the hype bandwagon and then shoves a bunch of common sense quotes like from Jaime Harrison who’s defending Martin, it confirms my suspicion that this being overblown: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/19/dnc-chair-ken-martin-infighting-00413409
Martin makes the case that he has kept the million dollar monthly donations to state parties and has wanted to pull the DNC out of DC and focus it on a local level to reach voters. He understands that DC Dems can be toxic. Proofs in the pudding with the special election results especially flipping double digit Trump districts in Pennsylvania and Iowa. The donors like Reid Hoffman and George Soros are just being babies because they got their fee fees hurt when Martin called Ben Wikler for being too cozy with him. Weingarten and Sanders stepped aside because they didn’t like Martin’s approach and were Wikler backers. Look, I love Ben Wikler and he has been an amazing WI Democratic Party chairman and has a bright future but the reason he’s not the DNC Chairman is because despite the gains and helping Tammy Baldwin win re-election, he couldn’t deliver Wisconsin for Harris. I don’t fault him for that but when you’re going up against a guy like Martin who made an effective pitch that he got the DFL in Minnesota’s finances out of the red and into the black, made huge gains, held onto seats in the rural and made Minnesota a safer Blue State, it’s clear that someone like Wikler needed to stay in Wisconsin and keep up the good work while Martin could move on to the big job.
In terms of raising money and what he’s been doing, Martin has been going all over the country helping state parties put together town halls and organize. He’s been out there raising money for sure it’s just the biggest donors feel that because Harris raised over a billion dollars and still lost, they want to know what they are spending their money on this time. Martin’s the one looking more in touch with folks (despite smart ass jokes from Colin Jost about him flying a Qatar-A-Logo banner over Mar-a-Lago) whereas Democratic donors like Hoffman and Soros are going to luxury hotels figuring how to talk to men with fancy power point presentations. Once the autopsy report is finished this summer and Martin has exact talking points to go to with donors, he’ll be able to tell them how and what they need to spend money on to win. Martin just has to weather the storm.
The only criticism of him in that Politico article that’s close to legit is he should’ve gotten rid of Hogg earlier but to be fair, Martin tried to explain to him why he can’t run a Super PAC and be a DNC Vice Chair and gave him a chance to think about that and decide what’s best. It’s clear now Hogg used that moment to raise money for his Super PAC and I’m still convinced he was the one who secretly leaked the audio from that internal call with Martin despite denying it. Even if Hogg is right about bringing in new leadership with his Super PAC, his move was self serving and it’s kind of pathetic that his Super PAC needs him to be the face or else it will either and die.
Over 200 DNC members, from all states, elected the DNC’s new officers. Those members include representatives from state committees and notable Democratic leaders, all of whom play a role in party organization and strategy.
One more thing I want to add: Tom Perez had a rough start in the beginning of 2017. Remember him and Bernie Sanders’ attempt a unity tour? That didn’t work. In fact, I remember Democrats making open seats like Mike Pompeo’s seat insanely close with very little to no help from the DCCC or the DNC. That was all grassroots and I think the Kansas Democratic Party. Same thing with Mick Mulvaney’s seat. Martin learned something from those years that the party can make those areas competitive, especially under Trump and Trump fatigue didn’t even kick in that early in 2017. It’s already kicked in faster than back in 2017. Martin even pointed out that under him, they are not just winning elections they are exceeding 2017 numbers. Martin had always been an advocate of the DNC to invest way more in state party infrastructures before he got the job. He’s the right leader for the right moment and when you shake things up, of course people on the inside are going to complain about it. But tough shit. He’s the leader and even leaders have bad days like that leaked phone call showed. So I’m still with him while he weathers the storm.
What would happen if the DNC or RNC vanished? Would it change anything? Would people vote differently? I don't think so because at the end of the day voters are responding to politicians. So the main focus should be fundraising because people don't care what a party chairman has to say.
If you want to push David Jolly aside, recruit a stronger candidate! I’ll take a never-Trumper defeating a MAGA incumbent over a progressive candidate losing to a MAGA any day. (Of course I prefer the progressive candidates where they have a path to victory.)
For instance, I would like to see Evan McMullin run for office again in Utah – and if he does, I think it’s a good idea for Democrats to endorse him.
Endorsements from Democrats would prevent McMullin from winning the Republican votes that he'll need to win in Utah. It would be better for the Utah Democratic Party to just not field a candidate and then quietly encourage their base voters to vote for McMullin in the general election.
In Maine, Senator King, who had already caucused with Democrats in his first term, held his Republican challenger to 10 points less than Trump received. So the fact that King votes for Schumer as Majority Leader didn’t seem to stop him from receiving crossover votes.
In a midterm, both parties will want to get their voters out to the polls and I expect that will take an enthusiastic endorsement of the Independent candidate by local Democratic leaders.
However, I’m a thousand miles away so perhaps I’m wrong.
Maine is a much bluer state than Utah, so the political calculus is different. Angus King knows that his votes come primarily from Democrats and left-leaning voters rather than Republicans and right-leaning voters.
When he was first elected to the Senate in 2012, there was a Democrat on the ballot (Cynthia Dill), but she only got 13% of the vote, while the Republican candidate (Charles Summers) got 31%. His reelection bids have had similar outcomes, where the Democratic nominee gets less than 15% of the vote and the Republican nominee gets a vote share in the 30s.
King knows that appealing to Democrats (so that they don't vote for the actual Democrat on the ballot in large numbers) is more important to his political survival than winning support from Republicans in Maine.
The Republican share in other main races is about 44-45% except for Susan Collins. So when King runs as an independent, he’s gathering 10% of the total vote from the Republican when the Republican candidate only receives 31-33% of the total vote. So King is winning 20-25% of voters who would otherwise vote Republican even though he’s clear that he mostly votes Democratic.
In Utah the race is harder, but the equation is similar. Don’t run a Democratic candidate to create the chance to win all the Democrats and Democratic leaning voters (35%). Win 23% of Republican leaning voters (65%*23%=15%).
My point is that, like with King, the Independent candidate winning in Utah (or never Trump Republican) will need more Democratic votes than Republican votes to win.
I just think if the Party and other Democratic officials refuse to endorse and stay away it either looks disingenuous or it is depresses Democratic turnout. Turnout is already harder when by definition the Independent candidate is a compromise candidate for your voters.
McMullin is a useless scold. He is just an old school anti immigration reform, free trade, anti welfare, tax cutting, pro-life, pro-war neocon who has promised to vote for originalists like Thomas. Democrats should try to run populist independents in the mould of Dan Osborn not these alt-Republican candidates whom nobody will even register to vote for. Not even a single Democrat should endorse him this time. He is not going to caucus with us.
Fair enough, although I’m doubtful whether Utah would be keen on a populist independent in the mould of Dan Osborn. I would gladly trade out Mike Lee for Evan McMullin and consider it a significant upgrade.
I don't know about the political culture of Utah but statistically it would be a great state to try independents because it's very educated and its electorate is 85 percent+ white like Nebraska. Many Mormons are also not MAGA.
The Mormons I have known have all had a strong moral compass. I think Utah Mormons, by and large, either despise or are extremely wary of Trump, whose immorality is obvious to all who look. That should indeed give opportunities to recruit a good Independent candidate, if not a Democrat.
I doubt a populist like Dan Osborn would do well in Utah. States like Nebraska or Missouri would be receptive to a socially conservative, economically populist candidate. However, Utah voters are conservative on almost all issues. A pro-democracy conservative like McMullin is the best we can hope for in Utah.
That would require base Democratic Party voters in said states to put up with said candidates in the primaries. Even in conservative states like Alabama, said voters can't stand it when they spit on their national leaders. If they could put with it, Artur Davis would have romped to victory in the 2010 Democratic primary for Governor of Alabama.
I'm not talking about Evan McMullin running in a Democratic primary and becoming the Democratic nominee in a Utah Senate race. I'm talking about him running as an Independent (and thus not having to win a primary election) and there not being a Democratic nominee in the general election.
Agreed. By and large, people who switch parties and run for office tend to vote with their new party most of the time. They are still beholden to their constituents, after all. It’s a case-by-case basis and depends on where they are running. Cheney can run as a Dem in WY but not in CO.
The reason the Nazis were able to take over Germany and establish an absolute dictatorship was that the non-fascists were divided, with the Communist Party refusing to collaborate with anyone and considering the Social Democrats a worse enemy than the Nazis. So if you want to figuratively die on your hill, that's fine, but it's unacceptable for you to potentially literally take unconsenting victims with you to their graves. Yes, it could be that serious, and whoever seeks to divide the anti-authoritarian movements from each other instead of welcoming all comers in the struggle to save democracy is a dangerous obstacle who must concede or be pushed aside.
This is why I applaud the efforts of Liz Cheney. As long as we agree to fight as hard as we can against Trump and Fascism, it doesn’t matter to me that I disagree with just every other political opinion she has.
That's an unbelievably tone deaf remark, and I feel like the fact that you believe that makes you similar to Trumpers who believe all kinds of nonsense. Sorry, I mean that. She's risked her life to stand up for democracy, and you say this crap.
I really don't think that had so much to do with it. They got less than 33% of the vote. A unified non-fascist bloc could have easily prevented them from taking over.
Are you talking about Bridget Brink? She joined the Foreign Service under Clinton and was appointed to ambassadorships by both Trump and Biden. To my knowledge, she's never been any kind of Republican.
That said, she won't have the primary all to herself. Plenty of time for another candidate to emerge.
David Jolly is running a rather progressive campaign including promising to ban assault rifles. There is a lot of fake news being spread about him on reddit so the resistance to him is not surprising. Gwen Graham is also endorsing him. There is no prominent Democrat in Florida anymore.
Millions of liberal Republicans have voted for Democrats since Trump and MAGA took over the GOP and working class conservative Democrats have left the party in turn. Should we purge them from our coalition? Hell, even former President George H.W Bush, the last country club Republican voted for Democrats.
I feel like all the “Dems in Disarray” stories are ultimately designed to discourage the donor class above all else.
It seems to me there’s been an astonishing amount of “If I’m not getting my way 100% of the time I’m taking my ball and going home” from a large number of powerful people and entities within the Democratic Party. When what we need most right now is unity, solidarity, and occasionally, sucking it up and taking one for the team.
Basically, it ain’t good that so many people seem to just be looking for an excuse to leave the party. Republicans all hate each other’s guts but they all implicitly understand they’re the only game in town.
Exactly. The problem I find with so many liberal/progressive voters is that they have way too many purity tests to the point it’s impossible to satisfy. A GOP politician is acceptable if they fall in line with the party while Dem politicians are acceptable to liberals if they have fall in line on policy.
The number of people I follow on IG who spend their energy trashing Dems for not being good enough vs trashing the GOP for being utter trash is irritating and common.
Speaking of which, I applaud AOC’s and Bernie Sanders’ for holding many anti-Trump rallies across the nation. But imho, the could and should have use these as a golden opportunity to register more Democrats.
as opposed to "democratic senator" john fetterman, "democratic senator" max baucus etc. There were voter registration booths at each of his rallies. Bernie Sanders voted in line with President Obama and President Biden more than the following "democratic" senators during their respective times in office:
Mark Pryor, Blanche Lincoln, Claire McCaskill, Jon Tester, Joe Manchin, Sinema, Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, Byron Dorgan, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Mark Warner, Bob Menendez. The nation is burning and we would rather bash a consistent defender of the working class than find common ground.
Also he is not the non-democrat senator from vermont. The proper usage is democratic. Gingrich and co long ago realized its better to label democratic folks as democrats, as it sounds closer to bureaucrat. Let's try not doing the right's work for them.
Whatever. For the record, “non-Democrat Bernie” is a perfectly valid statement. (An individual politician in the Democratic Party is a “Democrat,” and Bernie is not a Democrat.)
Given the toxicity of the Democratic brand in many states and the craven actions of the Democratic politicians in Democratic Supermajority states, perhaps it's time to regroup as a party. Even Democrats hate Democrats at this point.
sincerely who cares? I'm a Democrat because I care about the working class, healthcare access and other things. Bernie and Dems share the same values, which is more important than sharing the same label.
No he doesn't. If he did he'd have spent his life working to get similarly minded candidates elected to office. Not spent it trashing Democrats for being "not good enough." The fact that not even Vermont has single payer healthcare is a perfect demonstration of how little he's actually accomplished in his career.
to continue the list of "democratic senators" that were less supportive of the party:
Mary Landriue, kay hagan, tim johnson, jay rockefeller. so that's about two dozen united states democratic senators that hes done more to effect systemic change than. but yea keep moving the goalposts
there have been a total of two democratic senators elected from vermont post civil war. the governor has been republican since 2016. the brand aint doing great
i love jon tester, i like mark warner as a friend. my point was simply bernie is a more reliable vote, and actively worked to get biden elected. Please do not read into my comment any anti jon tester feelings. He's the man
It could have been solved without losing 600,000+ people, and that would have been if Lincoln had let the South secede without going to war against them. Of course, America's history and culture would be vastly different, and a lot of it for the worse (the South might have still had slavery to this day, for example), if the Confederacy was still around, and letting the South secede would have been an open invitation for states like Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, and maybe even Indiana and New Jersey, to join the Confederacy, which would have physically divided the Union and made it infinitely weaker.
The endorsement of any one pundit is only a drop in the bucket in this day and age, but in a democratic primary I wonder if the Ezra Klein will have a measurable impact on the NYC primary?
For dem primaries I’d consider him a top tier media voice, normie libs love him!
Only the progressives who follow politics closely, which in a Democratic primary is not negligible. Democratic primary voters are the most educated and politically aware voters in the entire country. Therefore, they care more about winning than nominating the most left wing candidate. If Mamdani can carry the normie lib vote, that goes a very long way to defeating Cuomo.
That all said, I don’t think Klein’s endorsement is a game changer, it will probably move very few votes. But if you get a few votes here, a few votes there from the biggest chunk of Democratic primary voters, it suddenly adds up very quickly and could be one of the key factors should Mamdani win narrowly.
It’s kind of funny that right now we’re seeing the same thing happen in this race on the left that already happened in previous elections with the right, when the normal wing of the party became accepting of the furthest right politicians. I don’t think you’d see any normie libs endorse or cross endorse Mamdani if this race was held at anytime before 2024.
Don’t get me wrong, 70% of what Mamdani’s campaign has promised won’t happen. I expect him (if he wins the primary and the general election) to become as unpopular or worse than De Blasio was. But the goal isn’t to be popular in politics. It’s to build a winning electoral coalition for 1 primary election (if necessary) and 1 general election campaign.
Realism doesn’t sell. Status quo doesn’t sell. That’s our own education misleading us for thinking we need things to be realistic and paid for. The average voter just thinks doing that means the entire party doesn’t get what they want to happen or understand the average voter.
Trump knew this, so he lied at every opportunity with grandiose verbiage. This “let’s make things a bit better” pitch doesn’t work even for the core voters of the Democratic base who abandoned the party for Trump and Republicans in 2024. The only people this strategy works on are college educated Americans. Of which, they are a very small minority of voters.
Promise the world, get elected and then you can try to move things in the right direction. That’s how modern elections work. Obama knew this as well and got elected president twice as a black man in America. Do I wish a less left wing Democrat would face Cuomo? Yes, because I desperately don’t want him to ever be elected as a Democrat again and any liberal Democrat would win a Cuomo vs them matchup easily. Mamdani is far more risky, but he’s the one who’s gained the most traction among our party voters, so it’s him or Cuomo and I know who I’m picking in that matchup.
I understand that lying works for Republicans, but can't at least Democrats be smarter than that? If lying and promising a bunch of bullshit becomes standard for both parties, democracy will truly break down and that will really pave the way for dictators who disregard the voters because they are idiots and in a best case, do what they believe necessary like Peru's Alan Garcia did but in a much more likely case are purely demagogic thieves and tyrants.
I truly do not understand how you can reconcile this as an Elected Dem. Maybe if Cuomo showed any sort of contrition for what he did but even still Sex Pests should not be welcome in this party and it's disheartening to see people flip flop on this and for what? A mediocre former Governor?
I wasn’t impressed when they announced the new House leadership and they were from NY, MA and CA. Not that it matters to swing voters bc they don’t know who these people are but it’s indicative of a party that just doesn’t quite get it.
So does the GOP "get it" with a House and Senate leadership from Louisiana (both top House slots), South Dakota, and Wyoming? Only Majority Whip Tom Emmer isn't from a red state (Minnesota), and his district is red.
It doesn’t matter much. But, we get attacked for being out-of-touch costal elites. Then we redo the leadership team they’re all from states that fit that stereotype. It’s memeable at least.
Part of it is craven politics. However, we're also not in the "me too era" anymore. We're in the backlash to that. People like Cuomo and Franken could hold out now.
Franken probably could survive if the scandal came out now and he announced that he wasn't running for reelection.
Cuomo might not have been able to-he almost certainly would have had to resign to avoid impeachment-remember, the sexual assaults were not the only scandal Cuomo was being linked to at the time.
They’re not. I’m not sure why the OP said that when the article is about Dems keeping their mouth shut when it comes to wanting to trash talk him. Bottom line, there isn’t much they can do until he’s up for re-election again.
Rwanda and The Democratic Republic of the Congo have reached a draft peace deal to possibly end their ongoing war, brokered by the Trump Administration and Qatar.
The Digest mentions that "an unusually large proportion of Weil's fundraising went to a 23-year-old fundraising consultant". Yes, I realize it costs (far too much) money to raise money; that’s a perennial problem for charitable organizations as well as political campaigns. But to what degree was this exploitation, and to what degree incompetence by Weil’s campaign? Certainly as a math teacher, Josh Weil should have been able to do the math!
That's approaching fundraising scam expenses ratio. Not impressed at all. I'm glad I didn't give him anything.
Exactly, he isn't a good candidate. He also has stalking and harassment allegations against him by a former school teacher. He would be a worse candidate than Charlie Crist. It's just that Randy Fine is an extremist who even DeSantis refused to campaign for along with turnout that he did well in the special election.
"He would be a worse candidate than Charlie Crist".
Re Crist, don't give him any ideas....
If the goal was to get his name out there with big fundraising numbers, then mission accomplished. It’s really the only reason he became viewed as viable, which then helped bring in more money and attention.
It comes off unseemly that a 23-year old could milk that much money out of a campaign but it’s not hard to do what he did - mass mail every Dem that you can, which is expensive.
I’ve been 100% supportive of Ken Martin as DNC Chair until the David Hogg mess and even afterwards because although I 100% agree with Hogg, elected party members shouldn’t put their thumb in the scale for anyone, the voters should decide (in practice it’s often not the case, but this is a goal that should be worked towards).
But this is ridiculous imo. At least Jaime Harrison the previous chair could raise money and actually communicated with the big donors Democrats need badly to compete with the unlimited billionaire spigot the GOP has. Look, 2024 was when Democratic donors spent over $1B dollars with almost nothing to show for it. It doesn’t matter if he wasn’t in charge then, donors are not the ones who need to fix the relationship, he is. That’s literally his job.
If he can’t raise money and refuses to do the basics of donor outreach and repair (which is absolutely necessary after the 2024 results!), why is he the chair? What is he bringing of value to the party? Winning elections in a blue leaning state? I had very high hopes for him, but I’m seeing a lot of red flags that are hard to ignore.
https://archive.ph/1ypIM
Still, the party’s total cash reserves shrank by $4 million from January through April, according to the most recent federal records, while the Republican National Committee’s coffers swelled by roughly $29 million. A new report is due this week.
The party out of power often falls behind the one holding the White House. Still, the current financial gap is large: $18 million on hand for the D.N.C. entering May, compared with $67.4 million for the R.N.C. Hefty chunks sit in special accounts that cannot be used for operational costs.
One challenge for Mr. Martin in wooing big contributors is that during the race for D.N.C. chair, his campaign criticized his chief rival, Ben Wikler, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, for his ties to some of the party’s largest donors, such as the billionaires Reid Hoffman and Alex Soros. Shortly after Mr. Martin won, he told The New York Times that the onus would be on donors to mend any fences.
Mr. Soros has not heard from Mr. Martin since then, according to a spokesman for the billionaire. Mr. Martin said he had tried to connect with Mr. Hoffman but had “not had a chance to reach out to Alex yet.”
The DNC is useless, in my view.
And your alternative is...?
state parties
So your solution is to have 50 state parties, many of them under-resourced, trying to raise funds from the wealthiest people in their states, many of whom have livelihoods attached to Republican control of state government, rather than a national entity that can raise funds across the country and distribute them to worthwhile races in historically red states?
If you look in a recipe book for "how to remain a minority party," I think you'll find your solution right there.
The state-level parties are precisely what DNC Chair Ken Martin is working to strengthen. If you actually mean state parties, I totally agree with Rayspace: that’s a recipe for long-term disaster!
This is exactly what Howard Dean was starting to work on when he was DNC Chair back in 2005. He just had Rahm Emanuel to deal with as he was DCCC Chair at the time.
But that same situation doesn’t apply these days. Ken Martin doesn’t have another Emanuel to deal with.
A total revamped organization with public relations and propaganda experts and social media influencers. Not, money, money, money.
To his credit, Ken Martin is supporting the rebuilding of state-level parties throughout the nation. He has been far better on messaging. I seem to recall him taking the initiative to launch the DNC’s Rapid Response Team on social media, and a daily DNC broadcast on YouTube.
Now, please tell me what Jaime Harrison accomplished – or even tried to accomplish – between the November election and the end of his tenure? He had many months. Yet as far as I know, Harrison didn’t do jack shit!
Does Ken Martin have faults? Absolutely! And Martin needs to get is act together with regards to fundraising. But fundraising is NOT the only job of the DNC Chair – or at least it shouldn’t be. And, in fairness, Ken Martin has done much in areas that have far too long been neglected.
Has he been better at messaging? I haven't seen him make any noteworthy statements since the chair election. And the DNC YouTube broadcast barely has over 1,000 views despite what should be a large base and well-produced videos.
Ken Martin is not the messenger – he and the DNC are *catalysts* for the messaging of the Democratic Party. That’s a vitally important distinction.
My post gave two examples of this: the daily DNC broadcast on YouTube, and the DNC’s Rapid Response Team on social media. Both have just been launched; hopefully both will improve and gain wider audiences in time.
Samuel Sero added a third, which is even more consequential: inspiring Democrats to hold hundreds of town halls!
That DNC broadcast on YouTube could be done better and they need to bring in folks like Brian Tyler Coen to be the commentators, not the DNC’s communications rep but I’m happy to see them get more into this space.
Agreed! Brian Tyler Cohen is a savvy communicator and an excellent interviewer. Importantly, he already has a large audience and a wide reach.
Based on what I have seen about Ken Martin in his interviews since being elected as DNC Chair, he’s been very much on message.
He recently stated, “I’m not here to win the argument. I’m here to win elections.”
Otoh, 1000 views on an insider youtube channel 17 mo before an election in a highly fragmented media environment for folks in the center and left seems like a win to me.
I was talking about that NYT article with a friend of mine yesterday and he sent me this: https://x.com/samstein/status/1935701696342089908?s=46&t=NhLQrgM30BfZmjI73-3rMg
I did point out that Martin didn’t piss away any of the DNC’s money at strip clubs but if we are going to compare him to Steele, Steele oversaw one of the GOP’s most monumental midterm elections. Not a bad comparison. Under Martin’s leadership at the DNC, we are seeing over performance in specials that’s beating 2017 levels. When Politico jumps on the hype bandwagon and then shoves a bunch of common sense quotes like from Jaime Harrison who’s defending Martin, it confirms my suspicion that this being overblown: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/19/dnc-chair-ken-martin-infighting-00413409
Martin makes the case that he has kept the million dollar monthly donations to state parties and has wanted to pull the DNC out of DC and focus it on a local level to reach voters. He understands that DC Dems can be toxic. Proofs in the pudding with the special election results especially flipping double digit Trump districts in Pennsylvania and Iowa. The donors like Reid Hoffman and George Soros are just being babies because they got their fee fees hurt when Martin called Ben Wikler for being too cozy with him. Weingarten and Sanders stepped aside because they didn’t like Martin’s approach and were Wikler backers. Look, I love Ben Wikler and he has been an amazing WI Democratic Party chairman and has a bright future but the reason he’s not the DNC Chairman is because despite the gains and helping Tammy Baldwin win re-election, he couldn’t deliver Wisconsin for Harris. I don’t fault him for that but when you’re going up against a guy like Martin who made an effective pitch that he got the DFL in Minnesota’s finances out of the red and into the black, made huge gains, held onto seats in the rural and made Minnesota a safer Blue State, it’s clear that someone like Wikler needed to stay in Wisconsin and keep up the good work while Martin could move on to the big job.
In terms of raising money and what he’s been doing, Martin has been going all over the country helping state parties put together town halls and organize. He’s been out there raising money for sure it’s just the biggest donors feel that because Harris raised over a billion dollars and still lost, they want to know what they are spending their money on this time. Martin’s the one looking more in touch with folks (despite smart ass jokes from Colin Jost about him flying a Qatar-A-Logo banner over Mar-a-Lago) whereas Democratic donors like Hoffman and Soros are going to luxury hotels figuring how to talk to men with fancy power point presentations. Once the autopsy report is finished this summer and Martin has exact talking points to go to with donors, he’ll be able to tell them how and what they need to spend money on to win. Martin just has to weather the storm.
The only criticism of him in that Politico article that’s close to legit is he should’ve gotten rid of Hogg earlier but to be fair, Martin tried to explain to him why he can’t run a Super PAC and be a DNC Vice Chair and gave him a chance to think about that and decide what’s best. It’s clear now Hogg used that moment to raise money for his Super PAC and I’m still convinced he was the one who secretly leaked the audio from that internal call with Martin despite denying it. Even if Hogg is right about bringing in new leadership with his Super PAC, his move was self serving and it’s kind of pathetic that his Super PAC needs him to be the face or else it will either and die.
Spot on! And thank you for bringing up the town halls. Those are a BFD!
But he made a mistake by hiring Hogg without insisting on cooperation to begin with.
David Hogg was elected, not hired. But yes, Hogg proved he’s not a team player.
How did elections work?
Over 200 DNC members, from all states, elected the DNC’s new officers. Those members include representatives from state committees and notable Democratic leaders, all of whom play a role in party organization and strategy.
So they made a mistake.
One more thing I want to add: Tom Perez had a rough start in the beginning of 2017. Remember him and Bernie Sanders’ attempt a unity tour? That didn’t work. In fact, I remember Democrats making open seats like Mike Pompeo’s seat insanely close with very little to no help from the DCCC or the DNC. That was all grassroots and I think the Kansas Democratic Party. Same thing with Mick Mulvaney’s seat. Martin learned something from those years that the party can make those areas competitive, especially under Trump and Trump fatigue didn’t even kick in that early in 2017. It’s already kicked in faster than back in 2017. Martin even pointed out that under him, they are not just winning elections they are exceeding 2017 numbers. Martin had always been an advocate of the DNC to invest way more in state party infrastructures before he got the job. He’s the right leader for the right moment and when you shake things up, of course people on the inside are going to complain about it. But tough shit. He’s the leader and even leaders have bad days like that leaked phone call showed. So I’m still with him while he weathers the storm.
What would happen if the DNC or RNC vanished? Would it change anything? Would people vote differently? I don't think so because at the end of the day voters are responding to politicians. So the main focus should be fundraising because people don't care what a party chairman has to say.
all these never trumpers and republicans are running as dems. that’s NOT OK. there is no way a trump appointee is going to be remotely progressive.
fuck this chick, fuck david jolly. take a look at gavin newsom courting fascists. look at john fettermanchin crawling up netanyahu’s fascist ass.
we cannot allow these people to push the left OPPOSITION party farther to the right.
say no to fake democrats.
If you want to push David Jolly aside, recruit a stronger candidate! I’ll take a never-Trumper defeating a MAGA incumbent over a progressive candidate losing to a MAGA any day. (Of course I prefer the progressive candidates where they have a path to victory.)
For instance, I would like to see Evan McMullin run for office again in Utah – and if he does, I think it’s a good idea for Democrats to endorse him.
Endorsements from Democrats would prevent McMullin from winning the Republican votes that he'll need to win in Utah. It would be better for the Utah Democratic Party to just not field a candidate and then quietly encourage their base voters to vote for McMullin in the general election.
Good points! I fully agree.
Is that true?
In Maine, Senator King, who had already caucused with Democrats in his first term, held his Republican challenger to 10 points less than Trump received. So the fact that King votes for Schumer as Majority Leader didn’t seem to stop him from receiving crossover votes.
In a midterm, both parties will want to get their voters out to the polls and I expect that will take an enthusiastic endorsement of the Independent candidate by local Democratic leaders.
However, I’m a thousand miles away so perhaps I’m wrong.
Maine is a much bluer state than Utah, so the political calculus is different. Angus King knows that his votes come primarily from Democrats and left-leaning voters rather than Republicans and right-leaning voters.
When he was first elected to the Senate in 2012, there was a Democrat on the ballot (Cynthia Dill), but she only got 13% of the vote, while the Republican candidate (Charles Summers) got 31%. His reelection bids have had similar outcomes, where the Democratic nominee gets less than 15% of the vote and the Republican nominee gets a vote share in the 30s.
King knows that appealing to Democrats (so that they don't vote for the actual Democrat on the ballot in large numbers) is more important to his political survival than winning support from Republicans in Maine.
The Republican share in other main races is about 44-45% except for Susan Collins. So when King runs as an independent, he’s gathering 10% of the total vote from the Republican when the Republican candidate only receives 31-33% of the total vote. So King is winning 20-25% of voters who would otherwise vote Republican even though he’s clear that he mostly votes Democratic.
In Utah the race is harder, but the equation is similar. Don’t run a Democratic candidate to create the chance to win all the Democrats and Democratic leaning voters (35%). Win 23% of Republican leaning voters (65%*23%=15%).
My point is that, like with King, the Independent candidate winning in Utah (or never Trump Republican) will need more Democratic votes than Republican votes to win.
I just think if the Party and other Democratic officials refuse to endorse and stay away it either looks disingenuous or it is depresses Democratic turnout. Turnout is already harder when by definition the Independent candidate is a compromise candidate for your voters.
McMullin is a useless scold. He is just an old school anti immigration reform, free trade, anti welfare, tax cutting, pro-life, pro-war neocon who has promised to vote for originalists like Thomas. Democrats should try to run populist independents in the mould of Dan Osborn not these alt-Republican candidates whom nobody will even register to vote for. Not even a single Democrat should endorse him this time. He is not going to caucus with us.
Fair enough, although I’m doubtful whether Utah would be keen on a populist independent in the mould of Dan Osborn. I would gladly trade out Mike Lee for Evan McMullin and consider it a significant upgrade.
He would have been a bit better than Mike Lee.
I don't know about the political culture of Utah but statistically it would be a great state to try independents because it's very educated and its electorate is 85 percent+ white like Nebraska. Many Mormons are also not MAGA.
The Mormons I have known have all had a strong moral compass. I think Utah Mormons, by and large, either despise or are extremely wary of Trump, whose immorality is obvious to all who look. That should indeed give opportunities to recruit a good Independent candidate, if not a Democrat.
I'm skeptical. Trump won by plenty there last year.
I doubt a populist like Dan Osborn would do well in Utah. States like Nebraska or Missouri would be receptive to a socially conservative, economically populist candidate. However, Utah voters are conservative on almost all issues. A pro-democracy conservative like McMullin is the best we can hope for in Utah.
Pro-Democracy and Conservative don't go together-McMullin ultimately will vote for Trump 99% of the time and thus does not deserve our support.
That would require base Democratic Party voters in said states to put up with said candidates in the primaries. Even in conservative states like Alabama, said voters can't stand it when they spit on their national leaders. If they could put with it, Artur Davis would have romped to victory in the 2010 Democratic primary for Governor of Alabama.
I'm not talking about Evan McMullin running in a Democratic primary and becoming the Democratic nominee in a Utah Senate race. I'm talking about him running as an Independent (and thus not having to win a primary election) and there not being a Democratic nominee in the general election.
We need as many people as possible to oppose dictatorship!
Agreed. By and large, people who switch parties and run for office tend to vote with their new party most of the time. They are still beholden to their constituents, after all. It’s a case-by-case basis and depends on where they are running. Cheney can run as a Dem in WY but not in CO.
Cheney is not a Democrat. Your first point is true but not relevant.
The reason the Nazis were able to take over Germany and establish an absolute dictatorship was that the non-fascists were divided, with the Communist Party refusing to collaborate with anyone and considering the Social Democrats a worse enemy than the Nazis. So if you want to figuratively die on your hill, that's fine, but it's unacceptable for you to potentially literally take unconsenting victims with you to their graves. Yes, it could be that serious, and whoever seeks to divide the anti-authoritarian movements from each other instead of welcoming all comers in the struggle to save democracy is a dangerous obstacle who must concede or be pushed aside.
This is why I applaud the efforts of Liz Cheney. As long as we agree to fight as hard as we can against Trump and Fascism, it doesn’t matter to me that I disagree with just every other political opinion she has.
100%!
Liz Cheney is just bitter that she isn't the wannabe dictator in question.
That's an unbelievably tone deaf remark, and I feel like the fact that you believe that makes you similar to Trumpers who believe all kinds of nonsense. Sorry, I mean that. She's risked her life to stand up for democracy, and you say this crap.
That and Germany's economy collapsed with the Wall Street Crash of 1929. No Wall Street Crash that year equals no Nazi takeover of the country.
I really don't think that had so much to do with it. They got less than 33% of the vote. A unified non-fascist bloc could have easily prevented them from taking over.
Are you talking about Bridget Brink? She joined the Foreign Service under Clinton and was appointed to ambassadorships by both Trump and Biden. To my knowledge, she's never been any kind of Republican.
That said, she won't have the primary all to herself. Plenty of time for another candidate to emerge.
David Jolly is running a rather progressive campaign including promising to ban assault rifles. There is a lot of fake news being spread about him on reddit so the resistance to him is not surprising. Gwen Graham is also endorsing him. There is no prominent Democrat in Florida anymore.
Millions of liberal Republicans have voted for Democrats since Trump and MAGA took over the GOP and working class conservative Democrats have left the party in turn. Should we purge them from our coalition? Hell, even former President George H.W Bush, the last country club Republican voted for Democrats.
I feel like all the “Dems in Disarray” stories are ultimately designed to discourage the donor class above all else.
It seems to me there’s been an astonishing amount of “If I’m not getting my way 100% of the time I’m taking my ball and going home” from a large number of powerful people and entities within the Democratic Party. When what we need most right now is unity, solidarity, and occasionally, sucking it up and taking one for the team.
Basically, it ain’t good that so many people seem to just be looking for an excuse to leave the party. Republicans all hate each other’s guts but they all implicitly understand they’re the only game in town.
Exactly. The problem I find with so many liberal/progressive voters is that they have way too many purity tests to the point it’s impossible to satisfy. A GOP politician is acceptable if they fall in line with the party while Dem politicians are acceptable to liberals if they have fall in line on policy.
The number of people I follow on IG who spend their energy trashing Dems for not being good enough vs trashing the GOP for being utter trash is irritating and common.
Speaking of which, I applaud AOC’s and Bernie Sanders’ for holding many anti-Trump rallies across the nation. But imho, the could and should have use these as a golden opportunity to register more Democrats.
They didn't?
Not unless I missed something. And I do recall seeing articles that criticized this.
Man, that's idiotic.
*cough* Non-Democrat Bernie has never been interested in building up the Democratic party *cough*
as opposed to "democratic senator" john fetterman, "democratic senator" max baucus etc. There were voter registration booths at each of his rallies. Bernie Sanders voted in line with President Obama and President Biden more than the following "democratic" senators during their respective times in office:
Mark Pryor, Blanche Lincoln, Claire McCaskill, Jon Tester, Joe Manchin, Sinema, Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, Byron Dorgan, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Mark Warner, Bob Menendez. The nation is burning and we would rather bash a consistent defender of the working class than find common ground.
Also he is not the non-democrat senator from vermont. The proper usage is democratic. Gingrich and co long ago realized its better to label democratic folks as democrats, as it sounds closer to bureaucrat. Let's try not doing the right's work for them.
https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2010/03/26/114585414/since-when-did-it-become-the-democrat-party
Whatever. For the record, “non-Democrat Bernie” is a perfectly valid statement. (An individual politician in the Democratic Party is a “Democrat,” and Bernie is not a Democrat.)
Given the toxicity of the Democratic brand in many states and the craven actions of the Democratic politicians in Democratic Supermajority states, perhaps it's time to regroup as a party. Even Democrats hate Democrats at this point.
Since when is the Democratic Party brand "toxic" in Vermont though?
sincerely who cares? I'm a Democrat because I care about the working class, healthcare access and other things. Bernie and Dems share the same values, which is more important than sharing the same label.
No he doesn't. If he did he'd have spent his life working to get similarly minded candidates elected to office. Not spent it trashing Democrats for being "not good enough." The fact that not even Vermont has single payer healthcare is a perfect demonstration of how little he's actually accomplished in his career.
to continue the list of "democratic senators" that were less supportive of the party:
Mary Landriue, kay hagan, tim johnson, jay rockefeller. so that's about two dozen united states democratic senators that hes done more to effect systemic change than. but yea keep moving the goalposts
Because they had to suck up to voters to the right of Vermont. Yawn.
there have been a total of two democratic senators elected from vermont post civil war. the governor has been republican since 2016. the brand aint doing great
And Kentucky and Kansas have Democratic Governors. Your point being?
Jon Tester gave us every important vote and was ready to gut the filibuster and Mark Warner has not obstructed anything.
i love jon tester, i like mark warner as a friend. my point was simply bernie is a more reliable vote, and actively worked to get biden elected. Please do not read into my comment any anti jon tester feelings. He's the man
"Non-Democrat" is a noun and works perfectly in the sentence you criticize. Otherwise, your points are taken.
Also, all these articles keep quoting the anti LGBTQ neolib dinosaur Rahm Emanuel who loves hating on Ken Martin.
What is his significance in national politics today? They love hyping him up but I bet he'll not even qualify for the first debate.
Emanuel is against gays? Or trans people? What's his most recent anti-LGBT statement?
He supports or atleast isn't against don't say gay, bathroom and hormone bans etc.
TRUMP’s Juneteenth quote
“I wonder if – you know, the Civil War, it always seemed to me maybe that could’ve been solved without losing 600,000-plus people.”
– Donald J. Trump
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1935417457369305313
He says "sad to see what's happening" like the Civil War was last year . . . .
By extending slavery. What's a small thing like that to come between states? (Do I have to point out this is sarcasm?)
It could have been solved without losing 600,000+ people, and that would have been if Lincoln had let the South secede without going to war against them. Of course, America's history and culture would be vastly different, and a lot of it for the worse (the South might have still had slavery to this day, for example), if the Confederacy was still around, and letting the South secede would have been an open invitation for states like Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, and maybe even Indiana and New Jersey, to join the Confederacy, which would have physically divided the Union and made it infinitely weaker.
I think New Jersey is improbable. Ohio had a lot of Copperheads, though.
Huge swaths of Ohio and Indiana are a *lot* more Southern/"Appalachian" than many people realize. Hell, even Illinois.
https://www.reddit.com/r/geography/comments/1bohtro/a_multi_level_checkoff_map_of_what_constitutes/
100% true, this is the best data based "Southern" map, I've ever seen. Those swaths are lightly populated though nowadays.
Very weird seeing those "Southern" parts of Wisconsin and Washington State.
Yes indeed. Cairo, Illinois was also a center of Copperhead activity, if I remember correctly.
The endorsement of any one pundit is only a drop in the bucket in this day and age, but in a democratic primary I wonder if the Ezra Klein will have a measurable impact on the NYC primary?
For dem primaries I’d consider him a top tier media voice, normie libs love him!
Klein creating a permission structure for normie libs who might otherwise be skeptical on Lander and Mamdani is indeed a big deal
Really? How many primary voters have even heard of him?
Only the progressives who follow politics closely, which in a Democratic primary is not negligible. Democratic primary voters are the most educated and politically aware voters in the entire country. Therefore, they care more about winning than nominating the most left wing candidate. If Mamdani can carry the normie lib vote, that goes a very long way to defeating Cuomo.
That all said, I don’t think Klein’s endorsement is a game changer, it will probably move very few votes. But if you get a few votes here, a few votes there from the biggest chunk of Democratic primary voters, it suddenly adds up very quickly and could be one of the key factors should Mamdani win narrowly.
It’s kind of funny that right now we’re seeing the same thing happen in this race on the left that already happened in previous elections with the right, when the normal wing of the party became accepting of the furthest right politicians. I don’t think you’d see any normie libs endorse or cross endorse Mamdani if this race was held at anytime before 2024.
I'm not even a normie lib, and I'm very disappointed by a choice between Cuomo and Mamdani.
Don’t get me wrong, 70% of what Mamdani’s campaign has promised won’t happen. I expect him (if he wins the primary and the general election) to become as unpopular or worse than De Blasio was. But the goal isn’t to be popular in politics. It’s to build a winning electoral coalition for 1 primary election (if necessary) and 1 general election campaign.
Realism doesn’t sell. Status quo doesn’t sell. That’s our own education misleading us for thinking we need things to be realistic and paid for. The average voter just thinks doing that means the entire party doesn’t get what they want to happen or understand the average voter.
Trump knew this, so he lied at every opportunity with grandiose verbiage. This “let’s make things a bit better” pitch doesn’t work even for the core voters of the Democratic base who abandoned the party for Trump and Republicans in 2024. The only people this strategy works on are college educated Americans. Of which, they are a very small minority of voters.
Promise the world, get elected and then you can try to move things in the right direction. That’s how modern elections work. Obama knew this as well and got elected president twice as a black man in America. Do I wish a less left wing Democrat would face Cuomo? Yes, because I desperately don’t want him to ever be elected as a Democrat again and any liberal Democrat would win a Cuomo vs them matchup easily. Mamdani is far more risky, but he’s the one who’s gained the most traction among our party voters, so it’s him or Cuomo and I know who I’m picking in that matchup.
Hopefully women working in the mayors office won't have to carry pepper spray and mace if Mamdani wins.
I understand that lying works for Republicans, but can't at least Democrats be smarter than that? If lying and promising a bunch of bullshit becomes standard for both parties, democracy will truly break down and that will really pave the way for dictators who disregard the voters because they are idiots and in a best case, do what they believe necessary like Peru's Alan Garcia did but in a much more likely case are purely demagogic thieves and tyrants.
https://archive.ph/gOZrp
Inside the Democratic Rupture That Undermined Kamala Harris’s Presidential Hopes
In the weeks before Election Day, it seemed like the candidate had two campaigns.
By Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker
Two different campaigns from the Future Forward PAC and the Harris campaign.
https://x.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1935353086089769034
Carl Sagan on the future.
I truly do not understand how you can reconcile this as an Elected Dem. Maybe if Cuomo showed any sort of contrition for what he did but even still Sex Pests should not be welcome in this party and it's disheartening to see people flip flop on this and for what? A mediocre former Governor?
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/18/cuomo-former-critics-endorsements-new-york-mayor-00403346
Hoping they can get scraps or at the very least avoid the creeps wrath.
With a couple of exceptions New York Democrats are unprincipled hacks. Which explains why the Democratic leadership in congress is so poor.
I've said this before but, for multiple reasons, it's insane to have our Senate and House leadership be from a few miles away from one another in NYC.
I wasn’t impressed when they announced the new House leadership and they were from NY, MA and CA. Not that it matters to swing voters bc they don’t know who these people are but it’s indicative of a party that just doesn’t quite get it.
I’ve felt that Clark “gets things” better than you’d expect from leadership. Not flawless but she’s good in every instance I’ve seen her at work.
So does the GOP "get it" with a House and Senate leadership from Louisiana (both top House slots), South Dakota, and Wyoming? Only Majority Whip Tom Emmer isn't from a red state (Minnesota), and his district is red.
It doesn’t matter much. But, we get attacked for being out-of-touch costal elites. Then we redo the leadership team they’re all from states that fit that stereotype. It’s memeable at least.
Yeah, as a New Yorker, I sadly have to agree. I wish it weren't so obvious how problematic it is.
Part of it is craven politics. However, we're also not in the "me too era" anymore. We're in the backlash to that. People like Cuomo and Franken could hold out now.
Franken probably could survive if the scandal came out now and he announced that he wasn't running for reelection.
Cuomo might not have been able to-he almost certainly would have had to resign to avoid impeachment-remember, the sexual assaults were not the only scandal Cuomo was being linked to at the time.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/18/politics/fetterman-democrats-israel-iran-protests
Elected Democrats are very tired of him breaking the party's narrative time and again privately.
This is a first for me: CNN is subscription-walling this article! Why are they praising him?
They’re not. I’m not sure why the OP said that when the article is about Dems keeping their mouth shut when it comes to wanting to trash talk him. Bottom line, there isn’t much they can do until he’s up for re-election again.
"We love Jon"
My uncle is on his hiking trip but he gave me permission to post here: The L. A. Dodgers denied Federal Agents access to Dodger Stadium this morning. I wonder if these agents wanted to look at employee records. This might lead to some interesting moments at tonite's game against San Diego. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/45545612/dodgers-ask-ice-agents-leave-dodger-stadium-parking-lot
Given at least 75% of the players in Major League Baseball would fit the technical definition of who Trump is trying to deport...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr795jjrnnlo
Rwanda and The Democratic Republic of the Congo have reached a draft peace deal to possibly end their ongoing war, brokered by the Trump Administration and Qatar.
Glad to hear that conflict, obscure as it unfortunately might be in the West, may be winding down
Unfortunately, I don't really feel comfortable trusting the government of Rwanda to honor any such peace deal.
Indeed.
Eugene Vindman is the twin of Alexander Vindman from the famous Ukraine call.