Kim's not exactly a divisive House Republican, especially considering she has been able win election to her own House seat with a larger margin than what Trump won her district by back in 2024. She really doesn't generate any kind of headlines although that's not to say she can't be criticized for anything by Democrats. The margin she gets in votes is likely to change next year but Kim actually has some moderate credentials that plenty in the GOP in CA do not have.
Calvert on the other hand is dillusional. He seems to come from an era where he was able to comfortably win re-election in the House for decades only to find he may have to learn the hard way he just doesn't have it going for him anymore.
If Darrell Issa will lose re-election next year, how's Calvert going to spin anything? He's your typical partisan Republican who isn't even bending with his views.
Another reminder how I both don't get and hate ranked-choice voting. I figured at 42% on the first ballot with the other three candidates working in tandem against Frey that he was a long shot to get to 50%, but he somehow did.
I'm curious what the final tally was, how close was it?
To my mind 42% was good enough that he could win. Obviously not a very brave thing to say with his victory being reported... At 42% with his opponent starting about ten points behind, he needed to be ranked higher on ~25-30% of the other ballots. That number goes down when we take into account that exhausted ballots will happen.
Star Tribune is reporting at 50-44 Fry after the second round. There were admittedly a lot of variables in that some Davis and Hampton voters probably ranked Fry even though they were officially working with Fateh. I'm hoping to find a breakdown of how the second ballot unfolded as it might help me understand this bonkers process a little better.
I disagree about RCV being bad, just because it’s poorly understood doesn’t mean the process itself is a problem. The onus then is on governments to explain it better.
If not for RCV we wouldn’t have gotten Mary Peltola or Jared Golden.
Us, winning in Miami of all places? Honestly I had given up hope on South Florida ever since 2020, maybe it's just the blue wave, but maybe we're not as doomed down there as I thought we were...
I see Miami never being red so much as swinging back and forth because of Trump, DeSantis and the pervasive problems Democrats have had in turning out the base.
I mean, Donna Deegan back in 2023 was elected as Mayor of Jacksonville and she had no prior experience in elected office. Plenty of batshit crazies in the city, at least so says a close friend of mine who lived there for years before moving back to California in Santa Maria.
Democrats have to keep the momentum up and not be complacent after 2028, when Trump will be out of office as POTUS.
One of my first thoughts on seeing the margin for Prop 50 is that they should have skipped a few steps and removed it entirely. For congressional offices at least.
We're going to be back in the same spot after the 2030 reapportionment. Republicans will target a maximalist map in Texas and Florida et al from the start next time around. It would be helpful if California didn't need to return to the polls to counterbalance that next time.
Agreed, should have gotten rid of it altogether. Maybe the (implicit) thought was that by 2030, gerrymandering will have been resolved somehow nationally -- whether through a SCOUS ruling, Dem trifecta at the national level, or some sort of mukti-state detente after the chaos of the past 6 months. Foolish to count on that though
I think most of us made our celebratory comments last night.
Now that you mention it though, we should be carrying it more into today! So I'll repeat myself from last night: this was an almost complete sweep of every reasonably contested election, with consistent and significant overperformances relative to polling and expectations across the board.
One of the best election nights we've had. Skimming the numbers it looks like we did somewhere between about the same and decently better than in 2017. That's no guarantee for 2026 but it's a good sign.
interesting point about the VA HoD results - based on the current vote totals, it appears that Dems now control all seats down to Trump+4, with no Rs above the line, and no D's below that line.
You are right - so that may be the top-line race (although often federal statewide races are listed above state races). I'm seeing polling that Vivek Ramaswamy (odious, failed candidate for President in 2024) is likely to be the R nominee, with Amy Acton (the director of the Ohio Department of Health during the pandemic, who was effective but demonized by R forces) or Tim Ryan (former US representative, not yet declared) being the most likely Democratic candidates.
The combination of Sherrod Brown and Vivek Ramaswamy in the two statewide races might turn out to be very good news for downballot Dems (I expect the former to have more coattails than the latter).
I don't agree. If there's a new Democratic administration in 2029, they need to put an aggressive Attorney General in office to do an extensive denazification, and loads and loads of government officials at all levels will need to be investigated and rooted out. And do we think ICE will be abolished? Besides which, things will never be the same between the U.S. and other countries.
Is the next Dem president willing and able to spend their entire first term doing backward looking cleanup and prosecutions? The exact opposite of Obama? Because that's what's required.
Not only backward-looking. New laws need to be passed, the Supreme Court needs to be enlarged, new states need to be admitted, new districting and election standards need to be imposed, etc.
Nuremberg 2.0. is needed if there's a new Dem administration elected along side a Dem Congress in 2029. If we're fortunate to have a Dem Administration and Congress in 2029 they'll have to spend the entire time cleaning up Trump's mess and rooting out the MAGA deep state.
I wish she had done better fundraising in recent quarters, she's going to start with a big financial disadvantage if she jumps in. The ideal scenario is she runs and Markey drops out to endorse her. I don't get a sense that he'd do that, but there's plenty of room for me to be wrong.
It seems clear to me: the point is that she and Markey can split the left-wing vote, leaving Moulton to win by a plurality. No claim there, just a logical thought.
I think it's entirely possible. There's a good chance that with all three of them in the primary that they would all occupy similar 25-40% levels of support in the primary. Clustered together closely enough that any one of them could win.
There is a lot of hunger from activists, at least, to replace Markey with someone younger. Those same people also largely do not want an asshole like Moulton. There's a decent sized lane for all three of them.
As it stands right now I think the primary would start off closely divided, maybe advantage Markey. Over time it would depend on if any of them are able to do something to stand out to get voters better in their corner. Massachusetts' primary isn't until next September so there's a long window for them to fight it out, which is probably to Pressley's benefit at Markey's expense. But maybe not.
I would respect Pressley far more than Moulton simply because:
1) She would be able to work with Elizabeth Warren, who may not necessarily come out and endorse Pressley's campaign out of respect for Ed Markey. Pressley was a staunch supporter of Warren when she was running for president whereas most of the squad from AOC and on supported Bernie's presidential campaign (to my recollection)
2) Pressley would make the campaign less about Markey and more about the issues. Moulton might not be able to get a good balance with this in his campaign, which would be a problem for him in the primary.
However, Markey's a good guy. Great Senator and is staunchly liberal, progressive on just about every issue.
Fun facts about the Virginia results: Spanberger's was the biggest margin for a Democrat for governor since 1961, and Hashmi's the largest Democratic win for Lieutenant Governor since 1969 (some say 1965.)
The 64 seats won by Democrats in the House of Delegates is the most since the 1987 election, when it was much more conservative. It wasn't that long ago (calendar year 2017, before that year's election) that the GOP had a 2-1 (66-34) majority.
I wonder if Phil Berger is regretting his redistricting power play after what happened in Virginia last night. Because if NC gets a similar blue wave next year, that planned 11 R - 3 D map could actually turn into 9 R - 5 D.
And this is great news for folks like Roy Cooper and even Sherrod Brown in Ohio.
Unfortunately all of those NC districts are still double digit Trump districts. It’s not like they dummymandered a bunch of Trump + 2-4 districts like in VA.
Things are going to get worse here in this country between now and 11/3/2026. Anything can happen.
I just hope this buoys NC Democrats to run for every seat and GOTV even harder. Because shock flips can happen. Virginia Dems overcame gerrymandered state legislative maps to wrest the majority away from Rs back in 2019.
I wouldn’t call Virginia’s state legislative maps a dummymander. However, the state Supreme Court did take some liberties with COI standards and traditional redistricting criteria to give Republicans a fighting chance at winning a majority in either chamber of the legislature.
If they end up drawing the maps in 2031, and if Democrats are still dominant in state government that year, then I wouldn’t be surprised if the Court draws legislative maps that give Republicans a higher floor but make it harder for them to win a legislative majority.
Similar to Colorado's legislative maps. They went high risk high reward to preserve a path to a majority via a bunch of single digit Biden seats but lost everything instead.
In way down ballot news. Georgetown SC dumped its GOP mayor (and county party chair) and all three GOP members of the city county in favor of 3 dems on the council and a local Progress Party mayor. The GOP swept the races last time kicking 3 dems out, iirc.
In the politics is local file, the issues came down to what to do with the paper plant that closed abruptly last Christmas (thanks International Paper) and a long sputtering steel mill. Lots of ideas, no resolution yet. Riverside properties, but lots of clean up to do. But even more pressing was the plan to replace the closed shrimp dock with high density, high end housing. I suspect that is what dumped the incumbents.
At least you don't replace it with condos. You might replace it with more public access/marina space, green space, even shops. But not condos that cater to rich.
Looking at "Activity" is causing this site to freeze most of the time this evening, a problem I haven't had before.
bye Ken!
Kim's not exactly a divisive House Republican, especially considering she has been able win election to her own House seat with a larger margin than what Trump won her district by back in 2024. She really doesn't generate any kind of headlines although that's not to say she can't be criticized for anything by Democrats. The margin she gets in votes is likely to change next year but Kim actually has some moderate credentials that plenty in the GOP in CA do not have.
Calvert on the other hand is dillusional. He seems to come from an era where he was able to comfortably win re-election in the House for decades only to find he may have to learn the hard way he just doesn't have it going for him anymore.
If Darrell Issa will lose re-election next year, how's Calvert going to spin anything? He's your typical partisan Republican who isn't even bending with his views.
https://giphy.com/gifs/community-fire-shocked-nLhdSinRtaL2E
Another reminder how I both don't get and hate ranked-choice voting. I figured at 42% on the first ballot with the other three candidates working in tandem against Frey that he was a long shot to get to 50%, but he somehow did.
I'm curious what the final tally was, how close was it?
To my mind 42% was good enough that he could win. Obviously not a very brave thing to say with his victory being reported... At 42% with his opponent starting about ten points behind, he needed to be ranked higher on ~25-30% of the other ballots. That number goes down when we take into account that exhausted ballots will happen.
Star Tribune is reporting at 50-44 Fry after the second round. There were admittedly a lot of variables in that some Davis and Hampton voters probably ranked Fry even though they were officially working with Fateh. I'm hoping to find a breakdown of how the second ballot unfolded as it might help me understand this bonkers process a little better.
Seeing the final breakdown would be a great insight, hopefully we get it soon.
Thanks for the numbers!
I disagree about RCV being bad, just because it’s poorly understood doesn’t mean the process itself is a problem. The onus then is on governments to explain it better.
If not for RCV we wouldn’t have gotten Mary Peltola or Jared Golden.
Yeah, I surely don't hate it.
Us, winning in Miami of all places? Honestly I had given up hope on South Florida ever since 2020, maybe it's just the blue wave, but maybe we're not as doomed down there as I thought we were...
I see Miami never being red so much as swinging back and forth because of Trump, DeSantis and the pervasive problems Democrats have had in turning out the base.
I mean, Donna Deegan back in 2023 was elected as Mayor of Jacksonville and she had no prior experience in elected office. Plenty of batshit crazies in the city, at least so says a close friend of mine who lived there for years before moving back to California in Santa Maria.
Democrats have to keep the momentum up and not be complacent after 2028, when Trump will be out of office as POTUS.
One of my first thoughts on seeing the margin for Prop 50 is that they should have skipped a few steps and removed it entirely. For congressional offices at least.
We're going to be back in the same spot after the 2030 reapportionment. Republicans will target a maximalist map in Texas and Florida et al from the start next time around. It would be helpful if California didn't need to return to the polls to counterbalance that next time.
Still, I've always been one to take the win.
Agreed, should have gotten rid of it altogether. Maybe the (implicit) thought was that by 2030, gerrymandering will have been resolved somehow nationally -- whether through a SCOUS ruling, Dem trifecta at the national level, or some sort of mukti-state detente after the chaos of the past 6 months. Foolish to count on that though
Exactly! Why didn't we just eliminate the commission altogether?
3 for sure. The other two are so close they’ll inevitably go to a recount. With Dems currently leading.
victory party for macurdy, in LD 21, was so fun. Absolutely swamped those vote skipping incumbents
2 and 25 are really close, but what!s out is VBM and provisionals that should widen Dems’ lead.
Why post when we have nothing to complain about?
This made me literally laugh out loud
I think most of us made our celebratory comments last night.
Now that you mention it though, we should be carrying it more into today! So I'll repeat myself from last night: this was an almost complete sweep of every reasonably contested election, with consistent and significant overperformances relative to polling and expectations across the board.
One of the best election nights we've had. Skimming the numbers it looks like we did somewhere between about the same and decently better than in 2017. That's no guarantee for 2026 but it's a good sign.
It's definitely bigger than 2017 and significantly bigger than Republicans' 2021 mini-wave.
*Thread proceeds to become one of the most commented ever*
I guess Bobby Orrock was the Bob Marshall of 2025!
Bobby Orrock was never a controversial figure like Bob Marshall was. I would compare his loss to Manoli Loupassi’s loss in 2017.
interesting point about the VA HoD results - based on the current vote totals, it appears that Dems now control all seats down to Trump+4, with no Rs above the line, and no D's below that line.
That would suggest the Dems on the Ohio redistricting commission made the right move, if margins remain the same.
The Ohio Democrats will also probably have the most popular statewide Democratic politician on the top line of the ballot in 2026 - Sherrod Brown.
Isn't there a Gubernatorial election in 2026 in OH?
You are right - so that may be the top-line race (although often federal statewide races are listed above state races). I'm seeing polling that Vivek Ramaswamy (odious, failed candidate for President in 2024) is likely to be the R nominee, with Amy Acton (the director of the Ohio Department of Health during the pandemic, who was effective but demonized by R forces) or Tim Ryan (former US representative, not yet declared) being the most likely Democratic candidates.
The combination of Sherrod Brown and Vivek Ramaswamy in the two statewide races might turn out to be very good news for downballot Dems (I expect the former to have more coattails than the latter).
So stipulated
it'll take like 6 months if they buck up and eliminate the filibuster in 2029
I don't agree. If there's a new Democratic administration in 2029, they need to put an aggressive Attorney General in office to do an extensive denazification, and loads and loads of government officials at all levels will need to be investigated and rooted out. And do we think ICE will be abolished? Besides which, things will never be the same between the U.S. and other countries.
Is the next Dem president willing and able to spend their entire first term doing backward looking cleanup and prosecutions? The exact opposite of Obama? Because that's what's required.
Not only backward-looking. New laws need to be passed, the Supreme Court needs to be enlarged, new states need to be admitted, new districting and election standards need to be imposed, etc.
Nuremberg 2.0. is needed if there's a new Dem administration elected along side a Dem Congress in 2029. If we're fortunate to have a Dem Administration and Congress in 2029 they'll have to spend the entire time cleaning up Trump's mess and rooting out the MAGA deep state.
They can't. They must fix things going forward, too. There's so much to do.
Pressley considering jumping into the Massachusetts senate election.
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/11/04/congress/ayanna-pressley-for-senate-00636295
I wish she had done better fundraising in recent quarters, she's going to start with a big financial disadvantage if she jumps in. The ideal scenario is she runs and Markey drops out to endorse her. I don't get a sense that he'd do that, but there's plenty of room for me to be wrong.
If she gets in and Markey doesn't drop out, we may have a moulton hot problem on our hands.
It seems clear to me: the point is that she and Markey can split the left-wing vote, leaving Moulton to win by a plurality. No claim there, just a logical thought.
I think it's entirely possible. There's a good chance that with all three of them in the primary that they would all occupy similar 25-40% levels of support in the primary. Clustered together closely enough that any one of them could win.
There is a lot of hunger from activists, at least, to replace Markey with someone younger. Those same people also largely do not want an asshole like Moulton. There's a decent sized lane for all three of them.
As it stands right now I think the primary would start off closely divided, maybe advantage Markey. Over time it would depend on if any of them are able to do something to stand out to get voters better in their corner. Massachusetts' primary isn't until next September so there's a long window for them to fight it out, which is probably to Pressley's benefit at Markey's expense. But maybe not.
I would respect Pressley far more than Moulton simply because:
1) She would be able to work with Elizabeth Warren, who may not necessarily come out and endorse Pressley's campaign out of respect for Ed Markey. Pressley was a staunch supporter of Warren when she was running for president whereas most of the squad from AOC and on supported Bernie's presidential campaign (to my recollection)
2) Pressley would make the campaign less about Markey and more about the issues. Moulton might not be able to get a good balance with this in his campaign, which would be a problem for him in the primary.
However, Markey's a good guy. Great Senator and is staunchly liberal, progressive on just about every issue.
I made the mistake of putting on "Morning Joe" for a minute and the titular commentator was devoting an extended monologue to...bashing Joe Biden.
*click*
I felt the same way after watching Van Jones on CNN last night.
Fun facts about the Virginia results: Spanberger's was the biggest margin for a Democrat for governor since 1961, and Hashmi's the largest Democratic win for Lieutenant Governor since 1969 (some say 1965.)
The 64 seats won by Democrats in the House of Delegates is the most since the 1987 election, when it was much more conservative. It wasn't that long ago (calendar year 2017, before that year's election) that the GOP had a 2-1 (66-34) majority.
So 64-36 was the final seat count? I figured 60 was the ceiling wow.
Interesting (and awesome) a near complete margin reversal in just 8 years!
I wonder if Phil Berger is regretting his redistricting power play after what happened in Virginia last night. Because if NC gets a similar blue wave next year, that planned 11 R - 3 D map could actually turn into 9 R - 5 D.
And this is great news for folks like Roy Cooper and even Sherrod Brown in Ohio.
Unfortunately all of those NC districts are still double digit Trump districts. It’s not like they dummymandered a bunch of Trump + 2-4 districts like in VA.
Things are going to get worse here in this country between now and 11/3/2026. Anything can happen.
I just hope this buoys NC Democrats to run for every seat and GOTV even harder. Because shock flips can happen. Virginia Dems overcame gerrymandered state legislative maps to wrest the majority away from Rs back in 2019.
I wonder if Tricia Cotham is sending out résumés yet...
3 and 11 are potential flips in a wave under the new map.
I wouldn’t call Virginia’s state legislative maps a dummymander. However, the state Supreme Court did take some liberties with COI standards and traditional redistricting criteria to give Republicans a fighting chance at winning a majority in either chamber of the legislature.
If they end up drawing the maps in 2031, and if Democrats are still dominant in state government that year, then I wouldn’t be surprised if the Court draws legislative maps that give Republicans a higher floor but make it harder for them to win a legislative majority.
Similar to Colorado's legislative maps. They went high risk high reward to preserve a path to a majority via a bunch of single digit Biden seats but lost everything instead.
In way down ballot news. Georgetown SC dumped its GOP mayor (and county party chair) and all three GOP members of the city county in favor of 3 dems on the council and a local Progress Party mayor. The GOP swept the races last time kicking 3 dems out, iirc.
In the politics is local file, the issues came down to what to do with the paper plant that closed abruptly last Christmas (thanks International Paper) and a long sputtering steel mill. Lots of ideas, no resolution yet. Riverside properties, but lots of clean up to do. But even more pressing was the plan to replace the closed shrimp dock with high density, high end housing. I suspect that is what dumped the incumbents.
City council, that is. I can't edit comments with the 3 dots.
Low country SC seems like the exact place you don’t close a shrimp dock
At least you don't replace it with condos. You might replace it with more public access/marina space, green space, even shops. But not condos that cater to rich.