Ugh, weak numbers for Stratton compared to Raja, even accounting for the transfer; she raised $1m in new money to his $2.3m. We're probably going to be stuck with another milquetoast for 30 years.
Krishnamoorthi also just had a huge amount stocked up in his House campaign that he could transfer over and Stratton couldn't. Underwood would have also been behind him, but it was really silly from a movement-building perspective for them to muscle her out of it because of Stratton's personal ambition. Still hoping Stratton wins, but they definitely planned her entering the race more than the actual campaign. Pritzker probably didn't want to solely prop her up with a huge investment at launch and make her just look like his puppet/rob her of proving that she couldn't fundraise on her own. But god is it going to suck if Durbin is replaced by someone even worse after all these years.
He's the same level of corporatism with milquetoast power politics strategy, while being even worse on Israel than Durbin with added Hindutva associations. That makes him worse to me.
Yep, and so inattentive and self-centered at joint events. Wanders in to give a tone deaf speech that makes all the other electeds roll their eyes, then leaves immediately after. Not just sometimes, always. Abyssmal egomaniac who can't work with others. Again--much worse than Durbin (who I've almost always found staff really enjoy, whether they're in his state, DC personal office, leadership office, committee or campaign teams). Raja's staff are always nooch at best.
I don’t know a ton about this race or have strong opinions on the candidates. What makes Stratton better / Krishnamoorthi worse? The fact that Pritzker promised to fund Stratton’s campaign is definitely a turn-off for me (just cause it’s not ideal for a senator to owe their office to money from a single billionaire), but she could still be the best candidate. Krishnamoorthi hasn’t made much impression on me during his time in the house. I’ve always like Robin Kelly, but people here seem to think she’s not viable.
If you owe anything to a billionaire, owing it to someone as good as Pritzker is best. And if we look at American history, F.D.R. was super-rich and saved the country.
The thread here has various reasons Krishnamoorthi is the worst option that can be dug into more. Stratton has relatively the most progressive record of the three based off her term in the state senate and alongside Pritzker's administration, and regardless is essentially the most viable non-Krishnamoorthi candidate who would be at a minimum even with Durbin--but likely would at least be an improvement in comparison. I think Kelly is fine, she's also a bit too business-oriented and I think can get wooed by their shiny interests at least at first (for ex. she had a weird blockchain moment c. 2016-2019). The bigger issue with Kelly is that she's a bit too old and that she's not polling enough to be viable, but enough to seemingly harm Stratton more (don't have hard data on this tbh, some of her coalition does split to Raja but my sense is it's the minority portion). I definitely get the patronage concern, but she's clearly the better candidate on policy and Krishnamoorthi is already owned by corporates and AIPAC.
The Downballot's focus on fundraising is understandable given the realities of what it takes to run for even local positions today. It takes vast, obscene sums to aspire to federal offices, and candidates are obliged to spend much of their time pleading for money from donors who assume they are buying influence. If the Democrats ever gain control, they need to pass meaningful campaign donation and spending limits and of course do away with Citizens United. For all the discussion here of the need for younger members of Congress, what is most urgently needed are more members of Congress of modest means who are more representative of the electorate and can concentrate on policy, not fundraising.
A constitutional amendment will never get passed, you can forget about Citizens United if Republicans win the Senate in 2026 which they are favored to.
Organize, get out and vote even in states like Iowa, Texas, Alaska, Nebraska and Ohio so that we win back the Senate. We need to win two seats from these states. The Senate confirms the Justices.
Their replacements will require Senate confirmation. Which is why 2027 is a good metric – provided Democrats can achieve the monumental feat of retaking the Senate! - ArcticStones
Their replacements will require Senate confirmation. Which is why 2027 is a good metric – provided Democrats can achieve the monumental feat of retaking the Senate!
It does not change the timeline in any way. It's a non-realistic framing to just say "we'll be plucky and out organize the funding crush!" Tbh, it's how a psyop would talk.
What is easier -- organizing to win Senate seats in those heavily Republican states with Democratic Senators willing to block crazy Republican justices (leaving SCOTUS seats empty for years, as McConnell did/would do), or using a slim majority to do away with the filibuster? Honest question, because those are the 2 options.
I am the most anti-filibuster guy here but you're calling for expanding the courts which is extremely risky. I would rather add DC and PR to pad the Senate majority and to give our citizens their voting rights.
To the extent that the republican majority relies on that, it's because they won 5/6 of elections from 1968-1988, and then managed to be roughly 50-50 for all elections since then. Even then, if this happened today that 1/6 would be enough to prevent the change in judicial power.
"Just win more" isn't a real solution. The societal and political shifts required to win "just" four presidential elections in a row are immense today. Immense enough that we can describe it as only a few notches more plausible than impossible.
Most of the damage on the high court in the last 50 years was done by Bush II (Alito), Trump (Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett), and Senate Dems in 1991 (allowing Thomas to get to confirmation after Anita Hill when they had 57 senate seats).
Other than the self inflicted Dem wound of Clarance Thomas, the only really horrible appointment/confirmation between 1968-1992 was Scalia (which was under a Republican senate).
I'd argue most of the damage was by LBJ and Nixon.
LBJ fucked up trying to reward a friend with a seat, and in the process gave up two seats. Nixon became the start of aggressively politicizing the court and caring about appointments. Republicans gained control over SCOTUS with his four appointments, and have held it since.
It's been 50 years and republican control over the court has only tightened.
That's even accounting for the fact that we fucked up less than republicans did! Our failures with Thomas are clear, but republicans put Stevens and Souter on the court. Both ended up aligned with democratic nominees, despite seeing themselves as conservatives.
Since you're going back to Nixon, you have to consider Blackmun at a minimum to be a fuckup on his part. If you go back to Eisenhower, Warren and Brennan. When you mention Stevens, Ford was a moderate Republican and never regretted nominating him.
Oh I forgot about Fortas being dumb enough to resign under Nixon. Clarence Thomas did much worse than him and didn’t resign. Fortas never “had” to resign.
Frankly, it wasn't really Marshall's fault. Clinton wouldn't have won if not for George H.W Bush's recession which was not his fault at all. He raised taxes but that was only one of the factors in the loss. Clinton was called "the candidate who had nothing to lose" and it was also speculated that he was running to build up a national profile for himself for the next election. He would have gained a lot of respect if he didn't lose as badly as Dukakis. Many big names, including Cuomo, Biden and Gore stayed out of the primary.
By November 1991 it was clear that the economy was gonna be a problem for Bush in 1992. Things really started unravel for Bush starting right around then. Had Dems stalled on a Marshall’s confirmation a bit longer (maybe through December) it’s possible Marshall could have been convinced to pull back his retirement and hold out until early 1993 when there was a decent chance of a Dem getting elected President. Bush’s free fall was really just in its embryonic stages in November 1991.
If our plan is a hail mary pass that is more likely than not catching a grenade rather than a football, we're going to fail.
1) We are not going to be able to expand the court.
2) If we tried, we'd get hammered in the next election.
3) If we succeeded, Republicans would come right back and expand it further and worse, and they'd be well within their rights to do so.
4) Republican voters understand the courts better than Democratic voters do and are more motivated by controlling them than ours are. It's that simple. We will lose if we try this, and be worse off than we are now.
1 Expanding the court is something we are more than able to do. Willing is another matter, but able only requires a bare trifecta in DC. With our senate caucus we'd need maybe 54 seats to have any confidence, but if it's the type of legislation that is being brought to the floor in the first place it would be entirely doable. Getting to that point is the hard part. Talking about it and supporting it is a step on that.
2 We get hammered in elections anytime we hold power. That's a fact of life. Also this point is incongruent with your last point. If voters do not understand the courts then they're not going to punish us for what we do on it. Republicans blatantly stole a SCOTUS seat and received all of zero electoral pushback for it.
3 Which is no worse than the reality we currently live in. We'd go from controlling the court NEVER to controlling the court occasionally. That's a huge upgrade! Right now we're on a glide path to everyone here, every single person on DB, never living to see a SCOTUS that isn't controlled by republicans. That is the benchmark against which all alternatives need to be measured.
4 How can we possibly be worse off on SCOTUS? We go from it being controlled by an unhinged corrupt majority of openly partisan conservatives with little respect for consistent jurisprudence to... what, exactly? Explain the "worse off" and explain how that scenario is actually different from the present day.
How could it possibly backfire? The typical argument is that republicans will counter-expand the court when they next gain a trifecta following. Which sounds bad, but is still better than the current status quo.
Right now, if we do nothing, republicans are likely to have a multi-generational lock on the supreme court. If they do not monumentally fuck up or experience extremely poor luck they could hold the court for the rest of our lives. Every single person posting here or reading here is, as things stand, likely to spend the entire rest of their lives with a conservative supreme court.
The alternative scenario we are offered is one where that control shifts around between trifectas. That is a monumental improvement for us. Yes, it would come with the court's legitimacy being severely weakened. Considering the way that the Roberts court has been rubber stamping efforts to undermine our democracy and rule of law, that's not a real downside either.
I quite honestly do not see any true downsides, only things that look like downsides before accounting for the way things are going to go otherwise.
This is where outside of the box thinking is needed because I don't want to live the rest of my life with a corrupt conservative court. Expand it to 13 using the argument that it's supposed to correspond to the 13 circuit courts and let the chips fall where they may. If we keep going back and forth it will just dilute the influence of each individual court member and even better institute term limits so that a President is guaranteed two appointments each term and the Court Battles are over.
Your latter idea, sticking with nine justices and limiting them to 18 year terms is the ideal solution, in my opinion. Problem is that implementing this requires a constitutional amendment. Which republican states would never support so long as they control the courts. Realistically such an amendment cannot make it through the prior step of making it through congress.
Our best bet on that front would be to pass legislation expanding the court to 13 with a trigger mechanism that causes it to go into effect soon (6-12 months) unless a 28th amendment limiting justices to 18 year terms is passed before that trigger date.
That time table isn't unreasonable, either. The 26th amendment (right to vote for 18+) made it through congress in March of 1971 and was ratified by a 38th state in June of 1971. It took three months.
Transparency is the only thing I care about, trying to "keep money out of politics" seems like a fool's errand to me. People need to put their mouth where their money is.
I don't want Golden to lose the primary since it will be a GOP pickup, but he brought this upon himself by veering too far to the right and abandoning those who voted for him. I won't be surprised if he loses it handily. He has a pretty low approval among Democrats even though they will vote for him.
While Jared Golden, who is my Congressman, is chronically annoying, he is a considerable upgrade from Bruce Poliquin, the corrupt Republican apparatchik that he replaced. Hate to say it, but I believe Golden is the best we can hope for in Maine’s blood-red 2nd Congressional District.
Ironically, what may most endanger Jared Golden’s reelection chances is his unapologetic support for a sound progressive policy. After the tragic massacre in his home town of Lewiston, Golden has loudly advocated for sensible gun control.
Also how he's so obviously trying to be the spokesperson for some imaginary "silent majority" of blue dog Dems. I think he's a good fit for his traditionally conservative district but he acts like his district is representative of the Democratic party as a whole, which is just so out of step with reality imo.
He's full of himself like Manchin who was once touting his model as the future of the party, obviously after being egged on by the media. But I'd choose Manchin over a Republican any day.
They don’t seem to understand that all parties have a right flank, and they’re on it, and that’s OK! They all insist that actually they’re secretly the beating heart of the party when they’re just not.
It's not uncommon for politicians to do that. There's a certain myopic view at play. They see what works for them, what they need to do, the way their district or city or state votes, as the default everywhere.
It is unfortunate but it is worth giving some leeway on it when they are not being obnoxious about it. It is easy for someone to get lost in the weeds when their career depends on them being extremely familiar with those weeds.
The dude is a centrist Democrat in a Trump district who stands up for the positions he takes. It's not like he's running for president, DNC chair, Speaker of the House, or making any other claim to speak for Democrats nationally.
Maybe I’m just being naive, but wouldn’t someone running to his left help him against LePage? He gets to show he’s not a party line Democrat for the next year or so before the primary gets held. Win-win imo.
Unless of course he loses the primary, but I have a really hard time seeing that, given how red his district is. Even progressives would know to hold their nose to vote for the only Democrat that can win the seat in the primary.
Totally different calculus for primary voters than a safe blue seat.
I suppose it may be a question of how far to the left Golden's primary challenger would be.
A moderate liberal might be ok in ME-02 but still be able to get crossover support that would help the candidate defeat LePage next year. I don't see a very liberal candidate to do this knowing that ME-02 is a Lean GOP district.
I kind of disagree. Even a Jared Golden clone on paper with the exact background and ideology wouldn’t be able to win this district as a Democrat. The only thing that keeps him there is his votes that piss off the party base when the GOP has power and his incumbency.
Voters who support him, trust him and trust Trump at the same time. This has literally been an easy to hold Trump district because of him only. That’s insanely valuable to the party. So imo, anyone other than Golden is an auto flip to the R’s. I mean if he loses the primary of course still fight to keep it, but realistically: it’s a flip.
While I know 100% these districts are not the same, the situation is an exact repeat of what happened in OR-05. If Kurt Schrader won the primary instead of JMS, we would’ve had 1 extra seat for 2 extra years and he’d probably still be there now. I know Janelle Bynum there now is better than both of them, but the point still stands on its own.
Let’s not look at trying to get something a little bit better when we already have a Golden ticket right now who is still very young and can probably run and hold that seat for decades if he wanted to. We’ve tried that before in a bluer district and it backfired spectacularly in our faces, so I’m not trying to get a McLaren if I already have a Ferrari.
Actually, I may have initially misread your question but since you took the time to write, I'll say this:
Scenario 1 - A moderate liberal challenger primaries Jared Golden out of office. My overall point is that it's more probable a moderate liberal Democrat would beat Paul LePage in the general election than a very liberal Democrat. This would be based on the ideal candidate who could win, not so much that the candidate is a Golden clone or not.
Scenario 2 - I'd argue at the same time, a moderate liberal challenging Golden but not winning the primary will likely help him more than a very liberal challenger. Unless you see a more liberal primary challenger being able to get Golden's base of supporters to turn out for Golden in the general election.
I agree with you on 1 and am 50/50 on number 2. I could see scenarios where a left primary challenge could be better for him or where a moderate primary challenge could be better for him. The answer in my mind completely depends on what the outcome of each primary challenge and general election challenge ends up.
In the event he wins either matchup in the primary and wins against LePage I’d still be undecided, but I’d lean agreeing with you that a moderate challenger would be better for him because he’s not really pulled to the left or has an opposition candidate who could rally enough of the base in a year that’s looking like it could be good for primary challengers to defeat him. Or face many attacks.
But on the other hand if he faces a moderate in the primary then he doesn’t have an effective foil to show how much different he is from the average Democrat for the next year. With ticket splitting declining to all time lows (and getting lower each cycle) and a “Trump before Trump” Republican ginning up the MAGA base, it might end up crucial to have a more left primary challenger.
He needs to be viewed as a conservative Democrat to win a general election to that district. Does a left challenger achieve that more than a moderate? I don’t really know for sure and there’s a lot of factors to consider. So imo it’s not entirely clear what is or isn’t best for him regarding who and what ideology he faces in any primary challenge.
In this environment, I think Golden may end up still winning re-election as the political situation for the GOP at large is still very much toxic. 2024 was his closest House election to date but I think a challenger for Golden may not be what is needed to win in this case.
LePage's timing is off. He would have had a better chance in 2016 but Bruce Poliquin was already in the House serving ME-02 for his first term since 2015.
I do think he wins too with a likely bluer leaning year and I agree no challenger is the best option, but in lieu of that I’d rather have a progressive challenger over a moderate one.
I also think LePage chose the wrong year to run (2024, he would’ve won, no doubt in my mind). But he’s going to be a very tough opponent who can raise limitless amounts of cash and red seat Democrats have lost in good years for the party, so we’ve got a really tough fight here in 2026.
In the same boat with you. Democrats have bigger fish to fry than having to be obsessed over challenging an incumbent House Democrat who may be the best shot at keeping ME-02, especially considering Golden has held this seat since 2019.
Yeah, my first preference is no primary for that very reason. No primary = no additional risk. Golden could instead spend every dollar attacking LePage and using his cash for a really tough general election.
If that doesn’t happen though, I prefer a progressive challenger over a moderate.
This isn't Maine as a whole. LePage probably has a close to 50/50 chance of defeating Golden in the first place, maybe 40% if there's a Democratic wave.
However, in ME-02 I'm basing my view on the fact that there have been conservative Republican residents in California who I have learned are open to a more moderate or at least consensus building Democrat.
This has been the case in Danville (where Senator Adam Schiff went to high school) where it's the most conservative city in the East Bay besides Clayton. When my SFSU Professor Joe Tuman ran for Mayor of Oakland in 2014, plenty of the few conservatives living in the city supported him because they didn't see him to be a lightning rod, political partisan and in the eyes of them was more of a reasonable mayoral candidate to consider voting for.
That said, I also don't know enough about ME-02 conservatives. I'm assuming they are more Trump supporting ones than what would be in Clayton and Danville.
Danville has a population of 43,582 (2020 census). Do you know how many cities are that big in ME-02? _ZERO_!Lewiston, the largest city in the district, has a population of 37,121, with Bangor at 31,753. A lot of the district is a large rural area.
That explains everything. I understand Maine predominately a rural state to begin with but seems like the biggest cities such as Portland are in ME-01.
To add to what you're saying... LePage won ME-02 in 2022 when he ran for governor. He lost statewide, 55-42.
This is absolutely the kind of district that could elect him. He's already won the place even while losing statewide in a landslide. I would not discount the possibility of us losing this seat in 2026 even in a wave year.
Interesting theory and you may be right, but we'd need to make sure that his primary opponent 1) doesn't go scorched earth on him or 2) drain his coffers before the general. TBH, in the political environment I anticipate for 2026, I think he's pretty safe in the general anyway....
All things equal, I’d much, MUCH prefer he not have any primary challenger, but if he does face one, I think a left foil is more beneficial on the whole to him to be able to position himself right in the centre (which he usually is) where he needs to be to win that district.
Centre-left is too left for voters there. So being able to have a primary where he goes “I’m not like that” and position himself to the right of the Democratic Party and then having a general election campaign where he’s not as conservative as Republican LePage ideally is the perfect setup to win re-election.
He gets to be between both parties and use both opponents to his benefit. All of course depending on him winning both races, but I think that would be the 2nd best option other than not facing any primary.
LePage has no chance at winning. If the much more broadly appealing Austin Theriault couldn’t beat Golden with Trump on the ballot, LePage would get crushed in a Trump midterm.
I’m not going to underestimate him and I don’t think we should either. He’s stronger than we view him as Democrats. He’s got the exact brash bravado style that pulls Trump voters in droves to the polls. I’d even say over a year beforehand that turnout in ME-02 will have more Republicans vote than every other district in the country.
The way to win is through your base in modern America. All LePage needs to do to win is get a Trump endorsement (duh) and get Trump voters to vote party line in a red district. That’s not that hard to do. We’ve literally just seen how hard it is for any Democrat to hold red areas these days. He is the most endangered Democrat in office.
It’s likely a 51-49 squeaker race either way in 2026 and if we aren’t preparing for such, we’re taking the race for granted and underestimating our opposition (which almost always works out very badly for anyone who does in politics). We underestimated Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024. Didn’t work out so great for Democrats in most of those.
The only way Golden wins comfortably in 2026 is if he gets “Florida LePage” to stick to a two term former Governor of Maine in a very parochial seat that doesn’t like or trust outsiders. Not impossible, but definitely not something I’m expecting him to succeed at either, given LePage’s prior electoral experience.
Did he actually abandon "those who voted for him"? Seems like he's repping his constituents relatively accurately. Plus, as you say, he's our best (only?) chance to hold the district...
Yes, she's awesome, but she represents a district quite a bit to the left of Golden's. Someone like her could possibly work, but who, exactly would that be? I'm also not certain of this, but I'm guessing her voting record and Golden's are not dissimilar...
People need to figure out how red this district is, because I don’t think they really know with some of the arguments some people are making on here. Until they do, they’re really not going to understand the district on the ground and go into fantasyland of what Democrat could represent here and still win.
Trump won ME-02 by 9 points in 2024 and 6 points in 2020. Almost double digits! It moved more right between presidential cycles, it got even redder (that’s why 2024 was a squeaker for him). Realistically speaking: No Democrat should have any chance in this seat. None. The fact we have an actual Democrat representing it is a miracle.
Trump won WA-03 by 4 points in 2020 and shifted left, winning by 3 points in 2024 (one of only 19 districts that moved left). The two districts are not the same. Not even close. So people should really stop comparing them and stop thinking about a better Democrat winning here. No centre left Democrat like MGP can win here.
If Golden does/doesn’t make any of those votes you’re upset about, a Republican is in his seat right now. It’s him or it’s a Republican, period. I don’t like that, but it’s reality.
Waters retiring would be big. Lots of contenders for the seat, but also the shakeup for Financial Services (esp hoping for a majority flip to chair). Next in line is Nydia Velázquez, who'd be in her early/mis 70s (compared to Waters now in her mid/late 80s), and has been the ranking/chair on Small Business since 1998. But she's MUCH better on policy than the other senior members--Greg Meeks or Brad Sherman--so would hope it doesn’t go to them either if she's skipped. (Steve Lynch might once again run for something and lose, and they're not letting David Scott lead a committee gain if he doesn't retire.) Honestly, if it's not Velázquez, we'd have to go quite far down the seniority list to find someone nearly as progressive as Waters and her, and younger than she is. Maybe Sean Casten at 15/25 and then Pressley right after him.
"How Trump Dominates and Corrupts the Private Sector"
Yes, you read that right. Usually I find George Will extremely annoying; even when he is voicing anti-Trump sentiments he has a habit of blaming Biden or Hillary or Obamo or other Democrats. Not this time. For once I didn’t find any bothsiderist or whataboutist fault with his column – just an astute analysis by Mr Will of our current predicament. Imho, this is a very worthwhile complement to the DownBallot’s election data and own analysis. (Gift link)
In all fairness, this is a problem that we have in the anti-Trump coalition. The coalition opposing Trump ranges from Bernie Sanders to Mitt Romney voters and some elements end up fighting among themselves more than opposing Trump. Some never Trump Republicans can't resist getting digs in at Democrats, and I again say that we should be fighting Trump rather then ourselves right now.
I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. It is a much needed and healthy fight over party direction from left to right and over what type of people we nominate. We have needed this outlet of anger and frustration that has been boiling beneath the surface for almost a decade in order to figure out what we’re actually about, what we fight for and who we are as a party since at least 2016. We have people who lead us and when they leave office, we have nothing to stand back on.
It’s cathartic for everyone to use their voices, spread their message/opinions and then let our voters decide what they want in our party. Of course we want to fight Trump, but Trump is gone come 2028, we need our own message of what we’re actually for in order to win, otherwise the victories are pyrrhic and we go right back to GOP control the next election cycle.
I want a party that is strong enough and big enough to win power for a decade straight. We don’t do that by playing nice and only attacking Trump. It’ll win us 2026, like in 2018, which is great and all, but I want to win consistently in good and bad election years. Right now this party is not at that level and our base is very angry. We all need this fight to relieve some pressure and let off some steam. I’m certain we’ll be much stronger because of it in the end.
Because if we don’t have this fight, we’re going to lose 2028 and the GOP might just be the party that has a decade of power. Their messaging and branding is so much better than ours. There’s a lot of things we need to fix, but we won’t know what to change and what to keep if we don’t have these arguments and instead just ride an anti-Trump wave by aiming our fire solely at him.
Republicans and voters know who they are and what their party supports (even if it’s not true!) through every single politician and leader: low taxes, secure the border, back the blue and cut red tape. It’s been known for decades. We don’t have that party orthodoxy and we need to do that process the GOP already went through to find what makes all of us tick at the same time. Something that can be transferred to any politician over and over again, no matter who leads us.
Only then can we have a party that can win consistently.
First, you're assuming that Trump will be gone in 2028. We can't assume that. Ferdinand Marcos was elected President in the Philippines and then took over as President for Life for decades, etc., etc. Second, there's a difference between attacking collaborationists and ineffective politicians and attacking the party from within. The people who are attacking the party are doing the fascists' work and need to be ostracized.
He's also broached the idea of running for a third term, and that that might somehow be legal, and considering what unconstitutional things the Supreme Court has already done, you have misplaced confidence in that not happening.
In your opinion, how would you rate the chances Trump runs again? The chances he'll be the nominee again? And the chances he's still President after January 20, 2029?
"In This Mine in Western Norway, Climate Data Is Being Saved from Trump"
In this disused mine in Western Norway, climate and health data are downloaded from the USA. Researchers cannot trust Trump to secure the data for the future.
Link to Google Translate English version of article:
The Cook Report has changed its rating of the Texas Senate race from "Solid Republican" to "likely Republican" thanks to the inter-party primary fight between incumbent John Cornyn and MAGA attorney general Ken Paxton.
and because another internal poll showed Paxton trailing a Democrat. Trump, Stephen Miller and Paxton may well turn out to be Texas' Pete Wilson. I think we are in a historic cycle this time.
I'm all for 2026 being a repeat of 2006. One reporter from The New Republic said that Democrats didn't expect to win the Senate in 2006, let alone the House after Dumbya's 2004 re-election. But thanks to political gravity and disasters like Katrina, it happened.
Trump's got 15 more months to make things a LOT worse, thanks to those two awful bills Rs pushed through recently.
Failure to keep costs down (plus his idiotic tariff strategy) will cost Trump the House alone. But with everything else going bad for Americans, the Senate could flip. It's going to be hard but if the perfect electoral storm churns up, anything goes.
And if Roy Cooper replaces Thom Tillis in the Senate next year (I think he'll announce his bid next Saturday at the NC Dems Unity dinner in Raleigh), Ted Budd's days are numbered. He could very well be swept out in 2028 as a "turn the page" presidential year with a strong Dem opponent -- plus him voting to defund PBS and Medicaid will hurt him among moderates and squishy Rs.
I'm very skeptical about the Senate. It would have to be a very big wave to override normal Republican tendencies in states like Texas, Florida, Iowa and Ohio.
You can forget about Florida, and Ohio without Brown. If we get back to 2020 or 2018 margins among minorities and improve upon our margins in the suburbs, it may be enough to win Texas. Nebraska is an unknown depending on how well Osborn performs. Alaska is closer at the state level compared to Presidential since they hate gun control and clean energy due to their geography. They have a unified caucus in the legislature and their politics is different to the lower 48. It may be competitive. Iowa may or may not be competitive, but it seems to be giving lower marks to Trump job performance compared to Ohio. The Florida Democratic party is truly in shambles.
Nebraska may be gettable, Osborn came within 6 points of beating Fischer (FDJT won by double digits) last year. He might have a shot.
Iowa is showing signs of improvement but we’ll see next year whether a Dem replaces Ernst or not.
The real wild card is Texas if Paxton wins the primary and goes against a strong D candidate next year. I’m writing off Florida and Ohio unless there’s a shock flip.
I wouldn't want to rely on him for getting votes through. He'd be very helpful for blocking awful legislation but I am skeptical we could count on him to get any of our agenda through.
If Cooper enters the Senate race (and all clues lead to yes), that NC seat is very likely to flip. Ditto for Maine if Janet Mills decides to challenge Susan Collins. Republicans are likely to hold control of the Senate after the 2026 midterms, but flipping two next year paves the way to nabbing back control in 2028.
Kinda like Joni Ernst, I fear the scandal may be too early for us to take advantage. I know Paxton has won elections post-scandal, but it wouldn't surprise me if the moneyed GOP forces find another candidate or somehow tank Paxton beforethe primary. They're not just gonna watch and throw out a Senate seat. We'd be too lucky to win a Senate seat in TX in this landscape. But I will cross my fingers..
Likely R seems right to me, even before their current mess. In all likelihood it will remain republican held after the election, but it's not implausible that we win it with a big wave. We came close in 2018 without this level of republican infighting.
Polls showed that he won native Texans but lost because of his margins with transplants. Abbott used a lot of his campaign funds and machine to help Cruz which is why Texas Dems want a full slate this year. Beto carried the entire ticket in 2018 and 2022.
In this hypothetical, does he win re-election in 2024? I’d say no way, but even if that’s so, a 6 years Senate rental would’ve been extremely helpful. What could have been indeed:
With him as Senator, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act bill would’ve been passed (Manchin could’ve voted no and VP Harris would’ve broken the tie) and we wouldn’t be even needing to convince Democrats in California to redraw their maps right now.
Texas Republicans wouldn’t be able to redraw, nor would have North Carolina earlier or Ohio now. 2 percentage points away from safeguarding against this lawless power grab by the win at all costs GOP. Other races too, hurt with close calls in recent years, but that one race would’ve been pivotal.
Imagine, also, if Nelson had actually run "scared as a jackrabbit" like he said he would, and he got those last few thousand votes. Or even crazier if they had both won and we had a functional 52 seat majority after 2020? Of course this requires nothing to change downstream with the George runoffs, which is far from certain.
I think if O'Rourke won in 2018 he'd have had OK odds to winning reelection in 2024. Republicans would have had an incredibly expensive primary and likely picked the craziest candidate around to be his challenger. Plus that change in the senate would have changed how political events happened during Biden's term, maybe we'd have walked out of it much more popular than we were in the reality that happened. Allred did 5.5 points better than Harris in 2024 against an incumbent. I think tilt R to lean R would be the right rating for that alternate history.
If Nelson and O'Rourke won in 2018, Amy Coney Barrett probably not be on SCOTUS. But then Mike Pence would've cast the tiebreaker if it was 50-50 before the 2020 election.
I thought she was on board for the filibuster carve out, but my memory was incorrect. You are right, we did need 1 more Senator. Though I do think it was at least possible to get her on board for it. Manchin on the other hand was a firm no.
Sinema was even more firm than Manchin on the filibuster and voting rights carveout; Manchin wanted to raise the corporate minimum tax and close the carried interest loophole which she killed.
Elian Gonzalez - A Factor In the 2000 Presidential Election
I remember being in my junior year at SFSU when the 2000 presidential election was held. Although Al Gore originally was supposed to have won FL even with the small vote margin, it appears the Cuban vote may have been a factor as to why Gore's margin in FL was smaller than expected.
Since 2000, Florida has of course become more red. However, the Cuban vote is still important.
Approved by the Clinton Administration's Justice Department, the raid on April 22, 2000, to take custody of Elián González was emotional and dramatic—and so was its impact on Cuban-American voters. In the view of Miami-based pollster Sergio Bendixen, "It was humiliating to Cuban-Americans, and the 2000 election was payback."
They called it el voto castigo, or "the punishment vote." Whom did Cuban-American voters punish? Democratic nominee Al Gore and his fellow Democrats. "The Democrats first lost tremendous support among Cuban-Americans in the 1960s because of the Bay of Pigs," Bendixen noted. "But since the middle 1980s, the Democratic Party had been gaining with Cuban-American voters, from the teens [in terms of percentage of the Cuban-American vote] to the low 20s to the mid-30s. The Elián González saga reversed that pattern in a dramatic way."
Bendixen estimates that President Clinton got 35 percent of the Cuban-American vote in Florida in 1996. In 2000, Gore drew less than 20 percent. Look at the vote in Hialeah, Fla., a predominantly Cuban-American suburb of Miami. In 1996, Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole outpolled Clinton in Hialeah by about 10,000 votes. In 2000, George W. Bush got nearly 25,000 more votes than Gore.
Elián is one of those fixations that I feel the need to google every now and then. In case you're curious, he was elected to the Cuban Legislature in 2023.
Yeah, it was probably decisive on that front. It was something I did for current events presentation in Elementary School so I remember it. The optics of the raid also couldn't be worse unless the raid actually drew blood. I would have slow-walked it if I were Clinton. Cuba wasn't in a position to keep things to a deadline.
Early on when Rudy Giulani was still Mayor of New York and a Senate candidate running against Hillary Clinton, he along with then-NY Governor George Pataki (both moderate Republicans at the time) had harshly criticized President Clinton and his administration over the raid of Elian Gonzalez.
Although the Clinton Administration as well as Hillary Clinton and Democrats fought back on Giuliani's rhetoric, they may have come across as too hard line for Cuban-Americans living in Florida at the time.
Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani lashed out at the Clinton administration yesterday for the early-morning raid that snatched Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Miami relatives, saying that the government had sent ''storm troopers using guns'' to do the bidding of Fidel Castro.
''It is one of the saddest days we've seen,'' Mr. Giuliani said at a news conference at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. The mayor condemned the Justice Department's use of armed federal agents ''pointing guns at people to rip a boy away from a family that is caring for him, and a boy who has at least indicated an interest in growing up in democracy and freedom.''
Mr. Giuliani said President Clinton had acted like a pawn of the Cuban dictator. ''You would have to ignore the whole history of Communism not to realize that this is an orchestrated plot by Castro,'' he said. ''It is even said that when he goes back to Cuba he will have to go into an indoctrination camp. I can't imagine that the American administration has lost its way so much.''
The mayor, a former United States attorney in Manhattan who had served in the Reagan administration as associate attorney general -- the third-highest post in the Justice Department -- also harshly criticized Attorney General Janet Reno yesterday for her handling of the situation.
''She should have negotiated as long as it took,'' Mr. Giuliani said. ''She has had some pretty disgraceful situations as attorney general, but this one probably ranks right up there. It has been a heck of a tenure as attorney general.''
Gov. George E. Pataki also criticized Miami raid, which came before dawn.
''It's very upsetting and offensive that people with machine guns and fatigues would break down a door to take a child out of a home in America,'' Mr. Pataki, a Republican, said. ''This is something that would happen in the Soviet Union or Castro's Cuba, not in the U.S.''
Makes me wonder how high Al Gore's margin of victory would have been with the initial election results back then if Cuban Americans voted for him the way they did for Bill Clinton back in 1996.
Yeah. I remember that. This also came at the time when in California, Darrell Issa as CA State GOP Chair was pushing for the party to be more hard line. This was particularly the case in overturning affirmative action.
Even Karl Rove said that Gore not having Clinton barnstorm Arkansas, Tennessee, and Florida in the closing weeks of the 2000 campaign almost certainly cost him votes in all three of those states. Probably would have been at least been enough to swing Florida to him.
Even a single Clinton rally in Miami or Orlando and the subsequent headlines would deliver him Florida. He was so obsessed with triangulation that he triangulated away his Presidency.
I don't see how Gore needed to run away from that was going to prevent him from winning. The economy was doing well even while concerns of it fizzling out were raised even during the 2000 election (which did happen from 2001-2002 with the dot com recession).
Clinton wanted to campaign for Gore but Gore told him not to. The whole Lewinsky scandal seemed to play with Gore’s head and he thought he needed to distance himself from Clinton because of that even though Clinton had an approval ratings in the 60s.
Gore’s best bet was to have Clinton out on the trail saying that electing Bush would risk messing up the economy and budget surplus and that “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.
Mamdani Wins Backing of Major Health Care Union That Had Endorsed Cuomo.
Local 1199, which represents 200,000 health care workers in New York City, rescinded its support of Andrew Cuomo and is now endorsing Zohran Mamdani for mayor.
It’s all coming together for him just like I expected/hoped. The Democratic establishment is coalescing behind him like the Republican Party establishment did for another insurgent candidate that came out of nowhere in their 2016 primary (who was also outside the mainstream party orthodoxy/ideology).
And just like that, the Democratic party tent is bigger and socialism isn’t an automatic nonstarter to the party or our voters anymore. Like racism and cruelty became accepted in the GOP and made their tent bigger by including the extremists/conspiracy nuts who never voted until Trump became leader.
Socialism obviously is not at all on the same level as the other 2, but it is the same situation where party elites eschewed exactly what that politician was like in order to try and win, but then became comfortable with something different after it proved extremely popular with their base.
🤞🏼I hope they get rid of every single crook in the City and County of Honolulu and Hawaii State government and all the ineffectual and fake Democrats in Congress (we know who you are) who have let the fascists take over our country. As that character said in the Mandelorian: “I have spoken.”✊🏼
I agree with your sentiment, but it is not Democrats who have "let the fascists take over our country." The main culprit is the voters, and then secondarily, the Supreme Court and the Republicans in the Senate who refused to convict Trump twice, with a dishonorable mention for Garland slow-walking prosecutions.
I wouldn’t even group Biden in with Ginsburg. I don’t know if there was anything he could have done differently to chance the trajectory of things. Ginsburg however could have and should have known that Dems were likely to lose the senate in 2014 and had a very good chance of losing the presidency in 2016. Perhaps she thought she was going to live to be well into her 90s?
Yeah I'm not sure another Dem or Kamala getting a head start struggles to win Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia etc. but it's not completely impossible either.
I don’t know about that. Having a Democratic wide open primary for president instead of a break glass emergency VP choice might’ve enabled us to nominate someone else who is a better politician than someone who almost lost California as a Democrat (in hindsight, this should’ve told us how 2024 would go with her as our nominee).
For example, does a theoretical Whitmer, Beshear or Shapiro lose against Trump? With the caretaker transition president Biden not running again, representing a reset for voters who feared the Biden economy would continue if Harris was president? Someone outside the administration entirely? I have my doubts Trump still wins 2024 against a popular Governor.
Check out our representative Ed Case- and please- Chuck Schumer and his strongly worded letters? I no longer support the Democratic Party. Only individual Democratic Candidates. That’s where I’m coming from. I’ve had this discussion already and I’m not going to have it again. I stand by my opinion.
It probably will go away by the time 2026 elections come around, but that’s only if this situations doesn’t create a permanent break in the wrongly held belief that Trump is fighting the elites and the deep state. If he’s viewed as a creature of the establishment instead of a fighter against it by his base, that could have a massive implication on the midterms. Whether that happens or not, we wait and see.
Regarding the Florida Supreme Court's decision to violate the expressed will of Florida voters when they passed the Fair Districts Amendments to Florida Constitution and embrace Gov DiSaster's Nazi theories instead, I must correct one small mistake in your article. None of the current justices on Florida's Kangaroo Supreme Court were appointed by Rick (the P is silent) Scott. While Scott did and continues to do plenty of damage to Florida, his justices have all been elevated to the federal courts by President Trump, as it was one of the few places he could find actual Nazis with the backgrounds to win Senate approval. Of the seven FSC justices, the five justices that constituted the majority in this case were all appointed by Ron DiSaster. The lone dissenting justice was appointed by Charlie Crist while a second Crist justice recused himself.
The ones where the Führer gets to do whatever he wants regardless of what the law or the people say. Floridians voted overwhelmingly for Fair Districts. The Florida Supreme Court created the District that DiSaster and his literal lackeys just destroyed for no reason other than partisanship.
That's authoritarian, not specifically Nazi. There is a difference. Two of my great uncles fled from the Nazis and fought in the Soviet Red Army during World War II.
Yes, I am aware of the differences between Nazis and authoritarians. While I perhaps could have been more clear in my writing, that does not distract from the fact that Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis and most of the leaders of the state are Nazis, some by their own admission, most by their actions. My paternal grandfather fought the Nazis in France and Belgium while three of my maternal uncles fought the Nazi and one was killed by them. I could write all night about the fascism of Florida, but I’ll spare you.
Umm eliminating democratic representation for the oldest black community in the state that consist primarily of the descendants of the slaves from Florida’s small plantation economy which was largely covered by the former district 5th that the “Justices” destroyed. All while lying snd claiming the district boundaries weren’t based on anything. They were flatly lying.
That's much older than Nazism, my friend. You probably know that one of the main inspiration for the Nazis was American eugenics, but the disenfranchisement of Black people in the U.S. goes back to the beginning of the country's existence, with precedents back to colonial Jamestown.
Yes, I was just giving you a specifically racist theory at play in the FSC’s ruling, which is what you said you were trying to find. I know that the development of the plantation economy in north Florida beginning in the 1840’s predates the Nazis by nearly a century.
Pretty sure that's MN Gov Tim Walz, not Scott :)
^ Cane here to say that!
Ugh, weak numbers for Stratton compared to Raja, even accounting for the transfer; she raised $1m in new money to his $2.3m. We're probably going to be stuck with another milquetoast for 30 years.
JB Pritzker is expected to fund her bid according to reports.
a) seen no evidence of that yet and IL has a very early primary
b) PAC spending doesn't get as much exposure as candidate spending
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/us/politics/illinois-senate-race-durbin-pritzker.html
https://archive.ph/TGulJ
Yeah, that's evidence that it's being talked about, not that it's actually happening.
Maybe the numbers are weak because there's an assumption that Pritzker will fund the campaign.
That seems likely, yeah
Krishnamoorthi also just had a huge amount stocked up in his House campaign that he could transfer over and Stratton couldn't. Underwood would have also been behind him, but it was really silly from a movement-building perspective for them to muscle her out of it because of Stratton's personal ambition. Still hoping Stratton wins, but they definitely planned her entering the race more than the actual campaign. Pritzker probably didn't want to solely prop her up with a huge investment at launch and make her just look like his puppet/rob her of proving that she couldn't fundraise on her own. But god is it going to suck if Durbin is replaced by someone even worse after all these years.
I wouldn't call Raja *worse* necessarily, but even a lateral move feels like a waste
He's the same level of corporatism with milquetoast power politics strategy, while being even worse on Israel than Durbin with added Hindutva associations. That makes him worse to me.
He's pro-BJP? I don't think he'd be nearly as milquetoast toward Trump, though. Can you cite evidence to support an assertion that he would be?
I had a friend who worked for him for a cycle, closely. Raja is an absolute psychopath monster to his staffers.
I've heard that as well, probably from the same person? Hi Morgan! long time no see :D
Yep, and so inattentive and self-centered at joint events. Wanders in to give a tone deaf speech that makes all the other electeds roll their eyes, then leaves immediately after. Not just sometimes, always. Abyssmal egomaniac who can't work with others. Again--much worse than Durbin (who I've almost always found staff really enjoy, whether they're in his state, DC personal office, leadership office, committee or campaign teams). Raja's staff are always nooch at best.
I don’t know a ton about this race or have strong opinions on the candidates. What makes Stratton better / Krishnamoorthi worse? The fact that Pritzker promised to fund Stratton’s campaign is definitely a turn-off for me (just cause it’s not ideal for a senator to owe their office to money from a single billionaire), but she could still be the best candidate. Krishnamoorthi hasn’t made much impression on me during his time in the house. I’ve always like Robin Kelly, but people here seem to think she’s not viable.
If you owe anything to a billionaire, owing it to someone as good as Pritzker is best. And if we look at American history, F.D.R. was super-rich and saved the country.
Fair point!
The thread here has various reasons Krishnamoorthi is the worst option that can be dug into more. Stratton has relatively the most progressive record of the three based off her term in the state senate and alongside Pritzker's administration, and regardless is essentially the most viable non-Krishnamoorthi candidate who would be at a minimum even with Durbin--but likely would at least be an improvement in comparison. I think Kelly is fine, she's also a bit too business-oriented and I think can get wooed by their shiny interests at least at first (for ex. she had a weird blockchain moment c. 2016-2019). The bigger issue with Kelly is that she's a bit too old and that she's not polling enough to be viable, but enough to seemingly harm Stratton more (don't have hard data on this tbh, some of her coalition does split to Raja but my sense is it's the minority portion). I definitely get the patronage concern, but she's clearly the better candidate on policy and Krishnamoorthi is already owned by corporates and AIPAC.
Thanks, very helpful! It’s really useful to get the perspective of people more familiar w/ politics in the state!
The Downballot's focus on fundraising is understandable given the realities of what it takes to run for even local positions today. It takes vast, obscene sums to aspire to federal offices, and candidates are obliged to spend much of their time pleading for money from donors who assume they are buying influence. If the Democrats ever gain control, they need to pass meaningful campaign donation and spending limits and of course do away with Citizens United. For all the discussion here of the need for younger members of Congress, what is most urgently needed are more members of Congress of modest means who are more representative of the electorate and can concentrate on policy, not fundraising.
Doing away with Citizens United would require a constitutional amendment. Or a supreme court willing to discard it.
A constitutional amendment will never get passed, you can forget about Citizens United if Republicans win the Senate in 2026 which they are favored to.
"Never" is a long time, but it certainly doesn't seem predictable unless something big somehow changes in U.S. politics.
Which is why the next Democratic trifecta needs to blow up the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court.
Expanding the Supreme Court is always going to backfire and there are too many centrists in Congress who oppose that.
So do you have any bright ideas that aren't just accepting it and laying down until we're beyond fucked?
Organize, get out and vote even in states like Iowa, Texas, Alaska, Nebraska and Ohio so that we win back the Senate. We need to win two seats from these states. The Senate confirms the Justices.
I'm sure waiting until 2055 for Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett to retire for the chance to retake the majority will go great.
Alito and Thomas have not given any indication that they will retire in the next 1.5 years.
You know Trump is President until 2029, so why are you using 2027 as a metric?
Their replacements will require Senate confirmation. Which is why 2027 is a good metric – provided Democrats can achieve the monumental feat of retaking the Senate! - ArcticStones
Sigh. This is pointless.
Their replacements will require Senate confirmation. Which is why 2027 is a good metric – provided Democrats can achieve the monumental feat of retaking the Senate!
It does not change the timeline in any way. It's a non-realistic framing to just say "we'll be plucky and out organize the funding crush!" Tbh, it's how a psyop would talk.
What is easier -- organizing to win Senate seats in those heavily Republican states with Democratic Senators willing to block crazy Republican justices (leaving SCOTUS seats empty for years, as McConnell did/would do), or using a slim majority to do away with the filibuster? Honest question, because those are the 2 options.
Hard to know, really.
I am the most anti-filibuster guy here but you're calling for expanding the courts which is extremely risky. I would rather add DC and PR to pad the Senate majority and to give our citizens their voting rights.
Why not both?
Do what the Republicans did and win enough elections for long enough to actually have legislative and judicial power. There are no short cuts here.
To the extent that the republican majority relies on that, it's because they won 5/6 of elections from 1968-1988, and then managed to be roughly 50-50 for all elections since then. Even then, if this happened today that 1/6 would be enough to prevent the change in judicial power.
"Just win more" isn't a real solution. The societal and political shifts required to win "just" four presidential elections in a row are immense today. Immense enough that we can describe it as only a few notches more plausible than impossible.
Most of the damage on the high court in the last 50 years was done by Bush II (Alito), Trump (Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett), and Senate Dems in 1991 (allowing Thomas to get to confirmation after Anita Hill when they had 57 senate seats).
Other than the self inflicted Dem wound of Clarance Thomas, the only really horrible appointment/confirmation between 1968-1992 was Scalia (which was under a Republican senate).
I'd argue most of the damage was by LBJ and Nixon.
LBJ fucked up trying to reward a friend with a seat, and in the process gave up two seats. Nixon became the start of aggressively politicizing the court and caring about appointments. Republicans gained control over SCOTUS with his four appointments, and have held it since.
It's been 50 years and republican control over the court has only tightened.
That's even accounting for the fact that we fucked up less than republicans did! Our failures with Thomas are clear, but republicans put Stevens and Souter on the court. Both ended up aligned with democratic nominees, despite seeing themselves as conservatives.
Since you're going back to Nixon, you have to consider Blackmun at a minimum to be a fuckup on his part. If you go back to Eisenhower, Warren and Brennan. When you mention Stevens, Ford was a moderate Republican and never regretted nominating him.
Did Eisenhower recognize that he was nominating liberal icons?
Reagan and Bush's appointments would have reversed a lot of LBJ's 2 justices' rulings and Fortas would have to resign during Nixon admin. anyways.
Oh I forgot about Fortas being dumb enough to resign under Nixon. Clarence Thomas did much worse than him and didn’t resign. Fortas never “had” to resign.
You say that, but look at who voted to select George W. Bush in 2000!
Thurgood Marshall not holding out for a few more years gave us Clarence Thomas, and by extension Bush v. Gore, and by extension Alito and Roberts.
Frankly, it wasn't really Marshall's fault. Clinton wouldn't have won if not for George H.W Bush's recession which was not his fault at all. He raised taxes but that was only one of the factors in the loss. Clinton was called "the candidate who had nothing to lose" and it was also speculated that he was running to build up a national profile for himself for the next election. He would have gained a lot of respect if he didn't lose as badly as Dukakis. Many big names, including Cuomo, Biden and Gore stayed out of the primary.
By November 1991 it was clear that the economy was gonna be a problem for Bush in 1992. Things really started unravel for Bush starting right around then. Had Dems stalled on a Marshall’s confirmation a bit longer (maybe through December) it’s possible Marshall could have been convinced to pull back his retirement and hold out until early 1993 when there was a decent chance of a Dem getting elected President. Bush’s free fall was really just in its embryonic stages in November 1991.
He couldn't. Marshall was very ill.
If our plan is a hail mary pass that is more likely than not catching a grenade rather than a football, we're going to fail.
1) We are not going to be able to expand the court.
2) If we tried, we'd get hammered in the next election.
3) If we succeeded, Republicans would come right back and expand it further and worse, and they'd be well within their rights to do so.
4) Republican voters understand the courts better than Democratic voters do and are more motivated by controlling them than ours are. It's that simple. We will lose if we try this, and be worse off than we are now.
1 Expanding the court is something we are more than able to do. Willing is another matter, but able only requires a bare trifecta in DC. With our senate caucus we'd need maybe 54 seats to have any confidence, but if it's the type of legislation that is being brought to the floor in the first place it would be entirely doable. Getting to that point is the hard part. Talking about it and supporting it is a step on that.
2 We get hammered in elections anytime we hold power. That's a fact of life. Also this point is incongruent with your last point. If voters do not understand the courts then they're not going to punish us for what we do on it. Republicans blatantly stole a SCOTUS seat and received all of zero electoral pushback for it.
3 Which is no worse than the reality we currently live in. We'd go from controlling the court NEVER to controlling the court occasionally. That's a huge upgrade! Right now we're on a glide path to everyone here, every single person on DB, never living to see a SCOTUS that isn't controlled by republicans. That is the benchmark against which all alternatives need to be measured.
4 How can we possibly be worse off on SCOTUS? We go from it being controlled by an unhinged corrupt majority of openly partisan conservatives with little respect for consistent jurisprudence to... what, exactly? Explain the "worse off" and explain how that scenario is actually different from the present day.
Win more elections.
Might be worth a shot, but obviously they'd have to have control of both houses and be willing to break the filibuster.
How could it possibly backfire? The typical argument is that republicans will counter-expand the court when they next gain a trifecta following. Which sounds bad, but is still better than the current status quo.
Right now, if we do nothing, republicans are likely to have a multi-generational lock on the supreme court. If they do not monumentally fuck up or experience extremely poor luck they could hold the court for the rest of our lives. Every single person posting here or reading here is, as things stand, likely to spend the entire rest of their lives with a conservative supreme court.
The alternative scenario we are offered is one where that control shifts around between trifectas. That is a monumental improvement for us. Yes, it would come with the court's legitimacy being severely weakened. Considering the way that the Roberts court has been rubber stamping efforts to undermine our democracy and rule of law, that's not a real downside either.
I quite honestly do not see any true downsides, only things that look like downsides before accounting for the way things are going to go otherwise.
This is where outside of the box thinking is needed because I don't want to live the rest of my life with a corrupt conservative court. Expand it to 13 using the argument that it's supposed to correspond to the 13 circuit courts and let the chips fall where they may. If we keep going back and forth it will just dilute the influence of each individual court member and even better institute term limits so that a President is guaranteed two appointments each term and the Court Battles are over.
Your latter idea, sticking with nine justices and limiting them to 18 year terms is the ideal solution, in my opinion. Problem is that implementing this requires a constitutional amendment. Which republican states would never support so long as they control the courts. Realistically such an amendment cannot make it through the prior step of making it through congress.
Our best bet on that front would be to pass legislation expanding the court to 13 with a trigger mechanism that causes it to go into effect soon (6-12 months) unless a 28th amendment limiting justices to 18 year terms is passed before that trigger date.
That time table isn't unreasonable, either. The 26th amendment (right to vote for 18+) made it through congress in March of 1971 and was ratified by a 38th state in June of 1971. It took three months.
I agree...this isn't ideal (and I'm an institutionalist) but we have to be realistic about the way politics is today...
What if you pass legislation allowing every prez to appoint two justices?
Per term, I presume?
Yes.
That still gives 2-term presidents a huge amount of power.
But it's fair. The president gets to choose 4 justices because he has the mandate of the people.
Yes, and massive revulsion over the way American democracy is sold to the highest bidders needs to power one or the other.
Transparency is the only thing I care about, trying to "keep money out of politics" seems like a fool's errand to me. People need to put their mouth where their money is.
I don't want Golden to lose the primary since it will be a GOP pickup, but he brought this upon himself by veering too far to the right and abandoning those who voted for him. I won't be surprised if he loses it handily. He has a pretty low approval among Democrats even though they will vote for him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Golden#Political_positions
While Jared Golden, who is my Congressman, is chronically annoying, he is a considerable upgrade from Bruce Poliquin, the corrupt Republican apparatchik that he replaced. Hate to say it, but I believe Golden is the best we can hope for in Maine’s blood-red 2nd Congressional District.
Ironically, what may most endanger Jared Golden’s reelection chances is his unapologetic support for a sound progressive policy. After the tragic massacre in his home town of Lewiston, Golden has loudly advocated for sensible gun control.
I will forever resent Poliquin for trying to get RCV gutted in Maine.
I’ll take Golden, conservative as he is, over that.
Obviously.
I mean, Golden has already won reelection since taking that stance, so I'd be surprised if that were the main danger.
Yeah the gun control comments definitely hurt him. He went from winning comfortably in 2020 and 2022 to just barely squeaking by in 2024.
I don't know if I'd call 53-47 in a RCV runoff a "comfortable" win.
Also how he's so obviously trying to be the spokesperson for some imaginary "silent majority" of blue dog Dems. I think he's a good fit for his traditionally conservative district but he acts like his district is representative of the Democratic party as a whole, which is just so out of step with reality imo.
He's full of himself like Manchin who was once touting his model as the future of the party, obviously after being egged on by the media. But I'd choose Manchin over a Republican any day.
They don’t seem to understand that all parties have a right flank, and they’re on it, and that’s OK! They all insist that actually they’re secretly the beating heart of the party when they’re just not.
It's not uncommon for politicians to do that. There's a certain myopic view at play. They see what works for them, what they need to do, the way their district or city or state votes, as the default everywhere.
It is unfortunate but it is worth giving some leeway on it when they are not being obnoxious about it. It is easy for someone to get lost in the weeds when their career depends on them being extremely familiar with those weeds.
The dude is a centrist Democrat in a Trump district who stands up for the positions he takes. It's not like he's running for president, DNC chair, Speaker of the House, or making any other claim to speak for Democrats nationally.
Maybe I’m just being naive, but wouldn’t someone running to his left help him against LePage? He gets to show he’s not a party line Democrat for the next year or so before the primary gets held. Win-win imo.
Unless of course he loses the primary, but I have a really hard time seeing that, given how red his district is. Even progressives would know to hold their nose to vote for the only Democrat that can win the seat in the primary.
Totally different calculus for primary voters than a safe blue seat.
I suppose it may be a question of how far to the left Golden's primary challenger would be.
A moderate liberal might be ok in ME-02 but still be able to get crossover support that would help the candidate defeat LePage next year. I don't see a very liberal candidate to do this knowing that ME-02 is a Lean GOP district.
I kind of disagree. Even a Jared Golden clone on paper with the exact background and ideology wouldn’t be able to win this district as a Democrat. The only thing that keeps him there is his votes that piss off the party base when the GOP has power and his incumbency.
Voters who support him, trust him and trust Trump at the same time. This has literally been an easy to hold Trump district because of him only. That’s insanely valuable to the party. So imo, anyone other than Golden is an auto flip to the R’s. I mean if he loses the primary of course still fight to keep it, but realistically: it’s a flip.
While I know 100% these districts are not the same, the situation is an exact repeat of what happened in OR-05. If Kurt Schrader won the primary instead of JMS, we would’ve had 1 extra seat for 2 extra years and he’d probably still be there now. I know Janelle Bynum there now is better than both of them, but the point still stands on its own.
Let’s not look at trying to get something a little bit better when we already have a Golden ticket right now who is still very young and can probably run and hold that seat for decades if he wanted to. We’ve tried that before in a bluer district and it backfired spectacularly in our faces, so I’m not trying to get a McLaren if I already have a Ferrari.
Actually, I may have initially misread your question but since you took the time to write, I'll say this:
Scenario 1 - A moderate liberal challenger primaries Jared Golden out of office. My overall point is that it's more probable a moderate liberal Democrat would beat Paul LePage in the general election than a very liberal Democrat. This would be based on the ideal candidate who could win, not so much that the candidate is a Golden clone or not.
Scenario 2 - I'd argue at the same time, a moderate liberal challenging Golden but not winning the primary will likely help him more than a very liberal challenger. Unless you see a more liberal primary challenger being able to get Golden's base of supporters to turn out for Golden in the general election.
I agree with you on 1 and am 50/50 on number 2. I could see scenarios where a left primary challenge could be better for him or where a moderate primary challenge could be better for him. The answer in my mind completely depends on what the outcome of each primary challenge and general election challenge ends up.
In the event he wins either matchup in the primary and wins against LePage I’d still be undecided, but I’d lean agreeing with you that a moderate challenger would be better for him because he’s not really pulled to the left or has an opposition candidate who could rally enough of the base in a year that’s looking like it could be good for primary challengers to defeat him. Or face many attacks.
But on the other hand if he faces a moderate in the primary then he doesn’t have an effective foil to show how much different he is from the average Democrat for the next year. With ticket splitting declining to all time lows (and getting lower each cycle) and a “Trump before Trump” Republican ginning up the MAGA base, it might end up crucial to have a more left primary challenger.
He needs to be viewed as a conservative Democrat to win a general election to that district. Does a left challenger achieve that more than a moderate? I don’t really know for sure and there’s a lot of factors to consider. So imo it’s not entirely clear what is or isn’t best for him regarding who and what ideology he faces in any primary challenge.
In this environment, I think Golden may end up still winning re-election as the political situation for the GOP at large is still very much toxic. 2024 was his closest House election to date but I think a challenger for Golden may not be what is needed to win in this case.
LePage's timing is off. He would have had a better chance in 2016 but Bruce Poliquin was already in the House serving ME-02 for his first term since 2015.
I do think he wins too with a likely bluer leaning year and I agree no challenger is the best option, but in lieu of that I’d rather have a progressive challenger over a moderate one.
I also think LePage chose the wrong year to run (2024, he would’ve won, no doubt in my mind). But he’s going to be a very tough opponent who can raise limitless amounts of cash and red seat Democrats have lost in good years for the party, so we’ve got a really tough fight here in 2026.
I really have a problem with there being any primary challengers, because if they win the primary, as you said, they are toast.
In the same boat with you. Democrats have bigger fish to fry than having to be obsessed over challenging an incumbent House Democrat who may be the best shot at keeping ME-02, especially considering Golden has held this seat since 2019.
Yeah, my first preference is no primary for that very reason. No primary = no additional risk. Golden could instead spend every dollar attacking LePage and using his cash for a really tough general election.
If that doesn’t happen though, I prefer a progressive challenger over a moderate.
Only if we figure the local Democrats are less likely to vote for them in the primary.
This isn't Maine as a whole. LePage probably has a close to 50/50 chance of defeating Golden in the first place, maybe 40% if there's a Democratic wave.
Your point is valid.
However, in ME-02 I'm basing my view on the fact that there have been conservative Republican residents in California who I have learned are open to a more moderate or at least consensus building Democrat.
This has been the case in Danville (where Senator Adam Schiff went to high school) where it's the most conservative city in the East Bay besides Clayton. When my SFSU Professor Joe Tuman ran for Mayor of Oakland in 2014, plenty of the few conservatives living in the city supported him because they didn't see him to be a lightning rod, political partisan and in the eyes of them was more of a reasonable mayoral candidate to consider voting for.
That said, I also don't know enough about ME-02 conservatives. I'm assuming they are more Trump supporting ones than what would be in Clayton and Danville.
Danville has a population of 43,582 (2020 census). Do you know how many cities are that big in ME-02? _ZERO_!Lewiston, the largest city in the district, has a population of 37,121, with Bangor at 31,753. A lot of the district is a large rural area.
That explains everything. I understand Maine predominately a rural state to begin with but seems like the biggest cities such as Portland are in ME-01.
Lewiston and Bangor are the 2nd- and 3rd-largest cities in the state!
So lots of the cities, not the largest, are in ME-01. Yet the largest cities are in ME-02, a Lean GOP district.
ME sure is something else compared to CA and NY!
To add to what you're saying... LePage won ME-02 in 2022 when he ran for governor. He lost statewide, 55-42.
This is absolutely the kind of district that could elect him. He's already won the place even while losing statewide in a landslide. I would not discount the possibility of us losing this seat in 2026 even in a wave year.
Agreed.
Interesting theory and you may be right, but we'd need to make sure that his primary opponent 1) doesn't go scorched earth on him or 2) drain his coffers before the general. TBH, in the political environment I anticipate for 2026, I think he's pretty safe in the general anyway....
All things equal, I’d much, MUCH prefer he not have any primary challenger, but if he does face one, I think a left foil is more beneficial on the whole to him to be able to position himself right in the centre (which he usually is) where he needs to be to win that district.
Centre-left is too left for voters there. So being able to have a primary where he goes “I’m not like that” and position himself to the right of the Democratic Party and then having a general election campaign where he’s not as conservative as Republican LePage ideally is the perfect setup to win re-election.
He gets to be between both parties and use both opponents to his benefit. All of course depending on him winning both races, but I think that would be the 2nd best option other than not facing any primary.
LePage has no chance at winning. If the much more broadly appealing Austin Theriault couldn’t beat Golden with Trump on the ballot, LePage would get crushed in a Trump midterm.
I’m not going to underestimate him and I don’t think we should either. He’s stronger than we view him as Democrats. He’s got the exact brash bravado style that pulls Trump voters in droves to the polls. I’d even say over a year beforehand that turnout in ME-02 will have more Republicans vote than every other district in the country.
The way to win is through your base in modern America. All LePage needs to do to win is get a Trump endorsement (duh) and get Trump voters to vote party line in a red district. That’s not that hard to do. We’ve literally just seen how hard it is for any Democrat to hold red areas these days. He is the most endangered Democrat in office.
It’s likely a 51-49 squeaker race either way in 2026 and if we aren’t preparing for such, we’re taking the race for granted and underestimating our opposition (which almost always works out very badly for anyone who does in politics). We underestimated Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024. Didn’t work out so great for Democrats in most of those.
The only way Golden wins comfortably in 2026 is if he gets “Florida LePage” to stick to a two term former Governor of Maine in a very parochial seat that doesn’t like or trust outsiders. Not impossible, but definitely not something I’m expecting him to succeed at either, given LePage’s prior electoral experience.
Did he actually abandon "those who voted for him"? Seems like he's repping his constituents relatively accurately. Plus, as you say, he's our best (only?) chance to hold the district...
3 other polls showed him trailing LePage and he is now vulnerable to a primary challenge.
That may be, but that doesn't mean my statement is untrue. Who else would even have a shot at a district this red?
A Marie Glueskamp Perez like Democrat, a hard centrist but not centre-right.
Yes, she's awesome, but she represents a district quite a bit to the left of Golden's. Someone like her could possibly work, but who, exactly would that be? I'm also not certain of this, but I'm guessing her voting record and Golden's are not dissimilar...
There are major no votes which are different like the George Floyd Act, Schumer's funding bill and BBB as well as the constant Trump apologism.
People need to figure out how red this district is, because I don’t think they really know with some of the arguments some people are making on here. Until they do, they’re really not going to understand the district on the ground and go into fantasyland of what Democrat could represent here and still win.
Trump won ME-02 by 9 points in 2024 and 6 points in 2020. Almost double digits! It moved more right between presidential cycles, it got even redder (that’s why 2024 was a squeaker for him). Realistically speaking: No Democrat should have any chance in this seat. None. The fact we have an actual Democrat representing it is a miracle.
Trump won WA-03 by 4 points in 2020 and shifted left, winning by 3 points in 2024 (one of only 19 districts that moved left). The two districts are not the same. Not even close. So people should really stop comparing them and stop thinking about a better Democrat winning here. No centre left Democrat like MGP can win here.
If Golden does/doesn’t make any of those votes you’re upset about, a Republican is in his seat right now. It’s him or it’s a Republican, period. I don’t like that, but it’s reality.
Waters retiring would be big. Lots of contenders for the seat, but also the shakeup for Financial Services (esp hoping for a majority flip to chair). Next in line is Nydia Velázquez, who'd be in her early/mis 70s (compared to Waters now in her mid/late 80s), and has been the ranking/chair on Small Business since 1998. But she's MUCH better on policy than the other senior members--Greg Meeks or Brad Sherman--so would hope it doesn’t go to them either if she's skipped. (Steve Lynch might once again run for something and lose, and they're not letting David Scott lead a committee gain if he doesn't retire.) Honestly, if it's not Velázquez, we'd have to go quite far down the seniority list to find someone nearly as progressive as Waters and her, and younger than she is. Maybe Sean Casten at 15/25 and then Pressley right after him.
If Maxine Waters retires, I’d peg Tina McKinnor as her likely successor in her seat.
GEORGE WILL NAILS IT!
"How Trump Dominates and Corrupts the Private Sector"
Yes, you read that right. Usually I find George Will extremely annoying; even when he is voicing anti-Trump sentiments he has a habit of blaming Biden or Hillary or Obamo or other Democrats. Not this time. For once I didn’t find any bothsiderist or whataboutist fault with his column – just an astute analysis by Mr Will of our current predicament. Imho, this is a very worthwhile complement to the DownBallot’s election data and own analysis. (Gift link)
https://wapo.st/4eV36k5
Apart from his moments of mental clarity, George Will is a Republican dinosaur that talks about baseball and complains about Democrats.
In all fairness, this is a problem that we have in the anti-Trump coalition. The coalition opposing Trump ranges from Bernie Sanders to Mitt Romney voters and some elements end up fighting among themselves more than opposing Trump. Some never Trump Republicans can't resist getting digs in at Democrats, and I again say that we should be fighting Trump rather then ourselves right now.
Precisely this! Your astute latter point is precisely why I’m highlighting Will’s column.
I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. It is a much needed and healthy fight over party direction from left to right and over what type of people we nominate. We have needed this outlet of anger and frustration that has been boiling beneath the surface for almost a decade in order to figure out what we’re actually about, what we fight for and who we are as a party since at least 2016. We have people who lead us and when they leave office, we have nothing to stand back on.
It’s cathartic for everyone to use their voices, spread their message/opinions and then let our voters decide what they want in our party. Of course we want to fight Trump, but Trump is gone come 2028, we need our own message of what we’re actually for in order to win, otherwise the victories are pyrrhic and we go right back to GOP control the next election cycle.
I want a party that is strong enough and big enough to win power for a decade straight. We don’t do that by playing nice and only attacking Trump. It’ll win us 2026, like in 2018, which is great and all, but I want to win consistently in good and bad election years. Right now this party is not at that level and our base is very angry. We all need this fight to relieve some pressure and let off some steam. I’m certain we’ll be much stronger because of it in the end.
Because if we don’t have this fight, we’re going to lose 2028 and the GOP might just be the party that has a decade of power. Their messaging and branding is so much better than ours. There’s a lot of things we need to fix, but we won’t know what to change and what to keep if we don’t have these arguments and instead just ride an anti-Trump wave by aiming our fire solely at him.
Republicans and voters know who they are and what their party supports (even if it’s not true!) through every single politician and leader: low taxes, secure the border, back the blue and cut red tape. It’s been known for decades. We don’t have that party orthodoxy and we need to do that process the GOP already went through to find what makes all of us tick at the same time. Something that can be transferred to any politician over and over again, no matter who leads us.
Only then can we have a party that can win consistently.
First, you're assuming that Trump will be gone in 2028. We can't assume that. Ferdinand Marcos was elected President in the Philippines and then took over as President for Life for decades, etc., etc. Second, there's a difference between attacking collaborationists and ineffective politicians and attacking the party from within. The people who are attacking the party are doing the fascists' work and need to be ostracized.
Trump is not going to be the nominee in 2028. The man himself already said he has no plans to run again.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd9l3399wvno
Besides, he will not be able to get on any ballots should he try to and SCOTUS won’t back him up on this, like after 2020.
I’m 90% confident Vance will be the GOP nominee.
He's also broached the idea of running for a third term, and that that might somehow be legal, and considering what unconstitutional things the Supreme Court has already done, you have misplaced confidence in that not happening.
In your opinion, how would you rate the chances Trump runs again? The chances he'll be the nominee again? And the chances he's still President after January 20, 2029?
GOOD NEWS FROM NORWAY:
"In This Mine in Western Norway, Climate Data Is Being Saved from Trump"
In this disused mine in Western Norway, climate and health data are downloaded from the USA. Researchers cannot trust Trump to secure the data for the future.
Link to Google Translate English version of article:
https://www-nrk-no.translate.goog/vestland/i-den-nedlagde-gruva-pa-lefdal-i-nordfjord-blir-klimadata-lasta-ned-og-redda-fra-trump-sitt-usa-1.17484168?_x_tr_sl=no&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
The Cook Report has changed its rating of the Texas Senate race from "Solid Republican" to "likely Republican" thanks to the inter-party primary fight between incumbent John Cornyn and MAGA attorney general Ken Paxton.
and because another internal poll showed Paxton trailing a Democrat. Trump, Stephen Miller and Paxton may well turn out to be Texas' Pete Wilson. I think we are in a historic cycle this time.
I'm all for 2026 being a repeat of 2006. One reporter from The New Republic said that Democrats didn't expect to win the Senate in 2006, let alone the House after Dumbya's 2004 re-election. But thanks to political gravity and disasters like Katrina, it happened.
Trump's got 15 more months to make things a LOT worse, thanks to those two awful bills Rs pushed through recently.
Failure in Iraq was a big theme in 2006, too.
Failure to keep costs down (plus his idiotic tariff strategy) will cost Trump the House alone. But with everything else going bad for Americans, the Senate could flip. It's going to be hard but if the perfect electoral storm churns up, anything goes.
And if Roy Cooper replaces Thom Tillis in the Senate next year (I think he'll announce his bid next Saturday at the NC Dems Unity dinner in Raleigh), Ted Budd's days are numbered. He could very well be swept out in 2028 as a "turn the page" presidential year with a strong Dem opponent -- plus him voting to defund PBS and Medicaid will hurt him among moderates and squishy Rs.
I'm very skeptical about the Senate. It would have to be a very big wave to override normal Republican tendencies in states like Texas, Florida, Iowa and Ohio.
You can forget about Florida, and Ohio without Brown. If we get back to 2020 or 2018 margins among minorities and improve upon our margins in the suburbs, it may be enough to win Texas. Nebraska is an unknown depending on how well Osborn performs. Alaska is closer at the state level compared to Presidential since they hate gun control and clean energy due to their geography. They have a unified caucus in the legislature and their politics is different to the lower 48. It may be competitive. Iowa may or may not be competitive, but it seems to be giving lower marks to Trump job performance compared to Ohio. The Florida Democratic party is truly in shambles.
Nebraska may be gettable, Osborn came within 6 points of beating Fischer (FDJT won by double digits) last year. He might have a shot.
Iowa is showing signs of improvement but we’ll see next year whether a Dem replaces Ernst or not.
The real wild card is Texas if Paxton wins the primary and goes against a strong D candidate next year. I’m writing off Florida and Ohio unless there’s a shock flip.
Osborn is possible but an underdog.
I wouldn't want to rely on him for getting votes through. He'd be very helpful for blocking awful legislation but I am skeptical we could count on him to get any of our agenda through.
A victory by him would be pretty miraculous in the first place.
I'm skeptical about all of them.
If Cooper enters the Senate race (and all clues lead to yes), that NC seat is very likely to flip. Ditto for Maine if Janet Mills decides to challenge Susan Collins. Republicans are likely to hold control of the Senate after the 2026 midterms, but flipping two next year paves the way to nabbing back control in 2028.
I agree that NC is a likely flip. I'll believe Collins will lose when we see it and not a moment sooner.
Yeah i'm less sold on Maine or that age at the very least won't be a big obstacle to overcome if Mills gets in.
Kinda like Joni Ernst, I fear the scandal may be too early for us to take advantage. I know Paxton has won elections post-scandal, but it wouldn't surprise me if the moneyed GOP forces find another candidate or somehow tank Paxton beforethe primary. They're not just gonna watch and throw out a Senate seat. We'd be too lucky to win a Senate seat in TX in this landscape. But I will cross my fingers..
Likely R seems right to me, even before their current mess. In all likelihood it will remain republican held after the election, but it's not implausible that we win it with a big wave. We came close in 2018 without this level of republican infighting.
O'Rourke came within 2 points of unseating Cancun Cruz in 2018.
What could've been...
Polls showed that he won native Texans but lost because of his margins with transplants. Abbott used a lot of his campaign funds and machine to help Cruz which is why Texas Dems want a full slate this year. Beto carried the entire ticket in 2018 and 2022.
In this hypothetical, does he win re-election in 2024? I’d say no way, but even if that’s so, a 6 years Senate rental would’ve been extremely helpful. What could have been indeed:
With him as Senator, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act bill would’ve been passed (Manchin could’ve voted no and VP Harris would’ve broken the tie) and we wouldn’t be even needing to convince Democrats in California to redraw their maps right now.
Texas Republicans wouldn’t be able to redraw, nor would have North Carolina earlier or Ohio now. 2 percentage points away from safeguarding against this lawless power grab by the win at all costs GOP. Other races too, hurt with close calls in recent years, but that one race would’ve been pivotal.
Imagine, also, if Nelson had actually run "scared as a jackrabbit" like he said he would, and he got those last few thousand votes. Or even crazier if they had both won and we had a functional 52 seat majority after 2020? Of course this requires nothing to change downstream with the George runoffs, which is far from certain.
I think if O'Rourke won in 2018 he'd have had OK odds to winning reelection in 2024. Republicans would have had an incredibly expensive primary and likely picked the craziest candidate around to be his challenger. Plus that change in the senate would have changed how political events happened during Biden's term, maybe we'd have walked out of it much more popular than we were in the reality that happened. Allred did 5.5 points better than Harris in 2024 against an incumbent. I think tilt R to lean R would be the right rating for that alternate history.
If Nelson and O'Rourke won in 2018, Amy Coney Barrett probably not be on SCOTUS. But then Mike Pence would've cast the tiebreaker if it was 50-50 before the 2020 election.
Imagine if Barnes had won WI and Beasley NC too. The majority would have potentially grown.
Did you completely forget about the DINO known as Sinema? You're describing a scenario where Nelson also wins.
I thought she was on board for the filibuster carve out, but my memory was incorrect. You are right, we did need 1 more Senator. Though I do think it was at least possible to get her on board for it. Manchin on the other hand was a firm no.
Sinema was even more firm than Manchin on the filibuster and voting rights carveout; Manchin wanted to raise the corporate minimum tax and close the carried interest loophole which she killed.
The Palm Beach Post is reporting State Rep. Joe Casello on life support after suffering a massive heart attack.
Democrat in PBC
Yes
A tragic loss; while we can hope, he’s not expected to recover. Casello is only 72.
Palm Beach Post reported that Casello passed away last night.
Elian Gonzalez - A Factor In the 2000 Presidential Election
I remember being in my junior year at SFSU when the 2000 presidential election was held. Although Al Gore originally was supposed to have won FL even with the small vote margin, it appears the Cuban vote may have been a factor as to why Gore's margin in FL was smaller than expected.
Since 2000, Florida has of course become more red. However, the Cuban vote is still important.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2001/05/elian-gonzalez-defeated-al-gore/377714/
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Approved by the Clinton Administration's Justice Department, the raid on April 22, 2000, to take custody of Elián González was emotional and dramatic—and so was its impact on Cuban-American voters. In the view of Miami-based pollster Sergio Bendixen, "It was humiliating to Cuban-Americans, and the 2000 election was payback."
They called it el voto castigo, or "the punishment vote." Whom did Cuban-American voters punish? Democratic nominee Al Gore and his fellow Democrats. "The Democrats first lost tremendous support among Cuban-Americans in the 1960s because of the Bay of Pigs," Bendixen noted. "But since the middle 1980s, the Democratic Party had been gaining with Cuban-American voters, from the teens [in terms of percentage of the Cuban-American vote] to the low 20s to the mid-30s. The Elián González saga reversed that pattern in a dramatic way."
Bendixen estimates that President Clinton got 35 percent of the Cuban-American vote in Florida in 1996. In 2000, Gore drew less than 20 percent. Look at the vote in Hialeah, Fla., a predominantly Cuban-American suburb of Miami. In 1996, Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole outpolled Clinton in Hialeah by about 10,000 votes. In 2000, George W. Bush got nearly 25,000 more votes than Gore.
Elián is one of those fixations that I feel the need to google every now and then. In case you're curious, he was elected to the Cuban Legislature in 2023.
He was Castro's vaunted wunderkind in the 2000s. He was the first and maybe only unilateral foreign policy boon he achieved post-Soviet collapse.
I did notice that. He's a Member of the National Assembly of People's Power representing the Cardenas part of Cuba.
Yeah, it was probably decisive on that front. It was something I did for current events presentation in Elementary School so I remember it. The optics of the raid also couldn't be worse unless the raid actually drew blood. I would have slow-walked it if I were Clinton. Cuba wasn't in a position to keep things to a deadline.
He was enforcing a court order. He had little choice in the matter except to defy the courts. And it was over 6 months before the election
Here's what ended up happening:
Early on when Rudy Giulani was still Mayor of New York and a Senate candidate running against Hillary Clinton, he along with then-NY Governor George Pataki (both moderate Republicans at the time) had harshly criticized President Clinton and his administration over the raid of Elian Gonzalez.
Although the Clinton Administration as well as Hillary Clinton and Democrats fought back on Giuliani's rhetoric, they may have come across as too hard line for Cuban-Americans living in Florida at the time.
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/23/nyregion/giuliani-assails-miami-raid-as-serving-goals-of-castro.html
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Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani lashed out at the Clinton administration yesterday for the early-morning raid that snatched Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Miami relatives, saying that the government had sent ''storm troopers using guns'' to do the bidding of Fidel Castro.
''It is one of the saddest days we've seen,'' Mr. Giuliani said at a news conference at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. The mayor condemned the Justice Department's use of armed federal agents ''pointing guns at people to rip a boy away from a family that is caring for him, and a boy who has at least indicated an interest in growing up in democracy and freedom.''
Mr. Giuliani said President Clinton had acted like a pawn of the Cuban dictator. ''You would have to ignore the whole history of Communism not to realize that this is an orchestrated plot by Castro,'' he said. ''It is even said that when he goes back to Cuba he will have to go into an indoctrination camp. I can't imagine that the American administration has lost its way so much.''
The mayor, a former United States attorney in Manhattan who had served in the Reagan administration as associate attorney general -- the third-highest post in the Justice Department -- also harshly criticized Attorney General Janet Reno yesterday for her handling of the situation.
''She should have negotiated as long as it took,'' Mr. Giuliani said. ''She has had some pretty disgraceful situations as attorney general, but this one probably ranks right up there. It has been a heck of a tenure as attorney general.''
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Gov. George E. Pataki also criticized Miami raid, which came before dawn.
''It's very upsetting and offensive that people with machine guns and fatigues would break down a door to take a child out of a home in America,'' Mr. Pataki, a Republican, said. ''This is something that would happen in the Soviet Union or Castro's Cuba, not in the U.S.''
The photo of armed agents busting into a closet for a child was dreadful optics.
They could argue the Cuban-American vigilantes surrounding him necessitated delays to avoid a reckless, possibly deadly confrontation.
They did delay as I recall. I guess they could have chosen to be like Trump and defy or not enforce a court order.
Makes me wonder how high Al Gore's margin of victory would have been with the initial election results back then if Cuban Americans voted for him the way they did for Bill Clinton back in 1996.
The Bush name was always popular with that voting group. And Clinton was helped in ‘96 by Republicans’ anti-immigration legislation
Yeah. I remember that. This also came at the time when in California, Darrell Issa as CA State GOP Chair was pushing for the party to be more hard line. This was particularly the case in overturning affirmative action.
This was just bad timing coming into 2000.
Lots of things lost Al Gore Florida:
Distancing himself from a very popular outgoing President seen as a victim of Republicans' witch hunt
Losing liberal votes to Ralph Nader by picking centre to centre-right Lieberman obsessed with Clinton's family values.
Voter roll purge by Florida Sec. State, butterfly ballots, Supreme court etc etc.
Elian Gonzalez was one not in his control and he took the right decision.
Even Karl Rove said that Gore not having Clinton barnstorm Arkansas, Tennessee, and Florida in the closing weeks of the 2000 campaign almost certainly cost him votes in all three of those states. Probably would have been at least been enough to swing Florida to him.
Even a single Clinton rally in Miami or Orlando and the subsequent headlines would deliver him Florida. He was so obsessed with triangulation that he triangulated away his Presidency.
I don't see how Gore needed to run away from that was going to prevent him from winning. The economy was doing well even while concerns of it fizzling out were raised even during the 2000 election (which did happen from 2001-2002 with the dot com recession).
Clinton wanted to campaign for Gore but Gore told him not to. The whole Lewinsky scandal seemed to play with Gore’s head and he thought he needed to distance himself from Clinton because of that even though Clinton had an approval ratings in the 60s.
Gore’s best bet was to have Clinton out on the trail saying that electing Bush would risk messing up the economy and budget surplus and that “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.
Right. And do I not remember correctly that Gore later cheated on his wife, leading to a divorce? That was a really stupid move by Gore!
per wikipedia, he and Tipper separated in 2010, no formal divorce, doesn't say anything about infidelity fwiw.
Mamdani Wins Backing of Major Health Care Union That Had Endorsed Cuomo.
Local 1199, which represents 200,000 health care workers in New York City, rescinded its support of Andrew Cuomo and is now endorsing Zohran Mamdani for mayor.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/18/nyregion/mamdani-union-1199-endorsement-nyc-mayor.html
It’s all coming together for him just like I expected/hoped. The Democratic establishment is coalescing behind him like the Republican Party establishment did for another insurgent candidate that came out of nowhere in their 2016 primary (who was also outside the mainstream party orthodoxy/ideology).
And just like that, the Democratic party tent is bigger and socialism isn’t an automatic nonstarter to the party or our voters anymore. Like racism and cruelty became accepted in the GOP and made their tent bigger by including the extremists/conspiracy nuts who never voted until Trump became leader.
Socialism obviously is not at all on the same level as the other 2, but it is the same situation where party elites eschewed exactly what that politician was like in order to try and win, but then became comfortable with something different after it proved extremely popular with their base.
🤞🏼I hope they get rid of every single crook in the City and County of Honolulu and Hawaii State government and all the ineffectual and fake Democrats in Congress (we know who you are) who have let the fascists take over our country. As that character said in the Mandelorian: “I have spoken.”✊🏼
I agree with your sentiment, but it is not Democrats who have "let the fascists take over our country." The main culprit is the voters, and then secondarily, the Supreme Court and the Republicans in the Senate who refused to convict Trump twice, with a dishonorable mention for Garland slow-walking prosecutions.
Democratic timidity, stupidity and selfishness (Biden and Ginsburg) have certainly played a role.
I wouldn’t even group Biden in with Ginsburg. I don’t know if there was anything he could have done differently to chance the trajectory of things. Ginsburg however could have and should have known that Dems were likely to lose the senate in 2014 and had a very good chance of losing the presidency in 2016. Perhaps she thought she was going to live to be well into her 90s?
He could have, and should have, not run for re-election to begin with.
I’m not convinced that would have changed the timeline.
To second John Carr, pretty sure we'd be in the same place now if he hadn't run.
Of course there’s no way of knowing for sure. But it’s hard to dispute that Democrats would have been a lot better off had he not run.
Yeah I'm not sure another Dem or Kamala getting a head start struggles to win Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia etc. but it's not completely impossible either.
I don’t know about that. Having a Democratic wide open primary for president instead of a break glass emergency VP choice might’ve enabled us to nominate someone else who is a better politician than someone who almost lost California as a Democrat (in hindsight, this should’ve told us how 2024 would go with her as our nominee).
For example, does a theoretical Whitmer, Beshear or Shapiro lose against Trump? With the caretaker transition president Biden not running again, representing a reset for voters who feared the Biden economy would continue if Harris was president? Someone outside the administration entirely? I have my doubts Trump still wins 2024 against a popular Governor.
They didn't determine any votes.
Check out our representative Ed Case- and please- Chuck Schumer and his strongly worded letters? I no longer support the Democratic Party. Only individual Democratic Candidates. That’s where I’m coming from. I’ve had this discussion already and I’m not going to have it again. I stand by my opinion.
They're not the reason Trump is in office and the Republicans control both Houses of Congress. Be precise in your criticisms.
https://x.com/atlas_intel/status/1946359801539178607
📊ATLAS POLL - JEFFREY EPSTEIN SCANDAL
Impact on the 2026 elections
52.6% of Americans believe the Epstein scandal will be important or very important when deciding how they will vote in the 2026 midterm elections.
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1946342999580889332
Generic Ballot Polling:
🔵 DEM: 51%
🔴 GOP: 43%
AtlasIntel / July 18, 2025
Yeah, it's not going away.
It might go away. Anger over the loss of the legal right to abortion didn't determine the 2024 election results, did it?
At the very least i'm glad the last few squirrels thrown out "ROSIE IS A THREAT TO HUMANITY!!!" have failed horribly.
It helped in 2022. People will always choose economy over legal abortion though it's a top 5 issue and definitely hurts the GOP among women.
And Epstein is dead and is no longer hurting anyone on an ongoing basis.
It probably will go away by the time 2026 elections come around, but that’s only if this situations doesn’t create a permanent break in the wrongly held belief that Trump is fighting the elites and the deep state. If he’s viewed as a creature of the establishment instead of a fighter against it by his base, that could have a massive implication on the midterms. Whether that happens or not, we wait and see.
For those up late or early, there's an election today/tomorrow.
Voters in Tasmania are voting in a snap election after the incumbent Liberal minority lost a no confidence vote.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/tas-election-2025
Regarding the Florida Supreme Court's decision to violate the expressed will of Florida voters when they passed the Fair Districts Amendments to Florida Constitution and embrace Gov DiSaster's Nazi theories instead, I must correct one small mistake in your article. None of the current justices on Florida's Kangaroo Supreme Court were appointed by Rick (the P is silent) Scott. While Scott did and continues to do plenty of damage to Florida, his justices have all been elevated to the federal courts by President Trump, as it was one of the few places he could find actual Nazis with the backgrounds to win Senate approval. Of the seven FSC justices, the five justices that constituted the majority in this case were all appointed by Ron DiSaster. The lone dissenting justice was appointed by Charlie Crist while a second Crist justice recused himself.
Which theories are you calling "Nazi"?
The ones where the Führer gets to do whatever he wants regardless of what the law or the people say. Floridians voted overwhelmingly for Fair Districts. The Florida Supreme Court created the District that DiSaster and his literal lackeys just destroyed for no reason other than partisanship.
That's authoritarian, not specifically Nazi. There is a difference. Two of my great uncles fled from the Nazis and fought in the Soviet Red Army during World War II.
Yes, I am aware of the differences between Nazis and authoritarians. While I perhaps could have been more clear in my writing, that does not distract from the fact that Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis and most of the leaders of the state are Nazis, some by their own admission, most by their actions. My paternal grandfather fought the Nazis in France and Belgium while three of my maternal uncles fought the Nazi and one was killed by them. I could write all night about the fascism of Florida, but I’ll spare you.
I have no problem with what you're saying here; you just confused the issue for me before. I was trying to find a specifically racist theory at play.
Umm eliminating democratic representation for the oldest black community in the state that consist primarily of the descendants of the slaves from Florida’s small plantation economy which was largely covered by the former district 5th that the “Justices” destroyed. All while lying snd claiming the district boundaries weren’t based on anything. They were flatly lying.
That's much older than Nazism, my friend. You probably know that one of the main inspiration for the Nazis was American eugenics, but the disenfranchisement of Black people in the U.S. goes back to the beginning of the country's existence, with precedents back to colonial Jamestown.
Yes, I was just giving you a specifically racist theory at play in the FSC’s ruling, which is what you said you were trying to find. I know that the development of the plantation economy in north Florida beginning in the 1840’s predates the Nazis by nearly a century.