Sometimes yes, sometimes no. No one is saying the primary should be outlawed or forbidden, just that sometimes it saps resources you need for a general.
Exactly. The worst primaries are ones that end up bitter and expensive but with the long-expected person as the nominee. Imagine if someone else jumped in the NC-Sen primary and started taking potshots at Cooper. We'd still end up with Cooper 99.9% of the time, so the primary there wouldn't introduce meaningful choice. It would just cost money and time.
On the flipside, the primaries in MN or MI are good because these are real questions between different wings of the party and none of the candidates are close to a lock for it. While I have strong preferences in those races and would like it if my preferred candidates got the win by default, those are still healthy, good primaries for us to have.
I agree, but I would also add that the winner of this primary in particular probably won't make *that* much of a difference in November. In all likelihood, the seat is staying red.
Normally I would say yes as I'd prefer there be contested races between ideally 2-3 leading candidates.
However, the FL-SEN race is more complicated considering Vindman is becoming an effective fundraiser and may be taking the wind from whatever Angie Nixon has since she's been a candidate. I don't want her to drop out but I also don't think an additional Senate candidate who compares to the level of Vindman in attention, fundraising, traction, etc. is needed. Also, the filing deadline is in a few weeks so it's going to be complicated trying to make the Senate race more competitive than it is now.
If there were such Democratic candidates like Vindman who had the potential to make this a more hotly-contested race, they would have emerged months ago back in 2025.
Would be good for more FL Democrats who have energy in races like FL-28 to continue to jump in other House or statewide races instead of trying to make FL-SEN more competitive in a primary sense.
Alabama governor Kay Ivey (R), 81, is currently in the hospital recovering from surgery regarding fluid in her lung. The legislative session continues- I assume Lt. Gov Will Ainsworth is acting governor.
I mentioned this very late on yesterday's digest, but Coral Springs, FL Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen was shot and killed by her husband; she was only 38 years old.
Jared Moskowitz tweeted after her death, "I’m in shock. I was just with her on Saturday. She just buried her brother. She was about to announce she was running for Congress. Nancy was one of the nicest people I worked with. Always fighting for her community, always pushing to help. She had such a future. This is terrible."
Maybe he was considering retirement and having her as his successor? Seems like a bit of a stretch but like you said his language here doesn't fit with the scenario of him expecting her to run against him.
It's possible she could have run against Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick. Coral Springs isn't in the district, but neither is Miramar, where McCormick lives. Meanwhile, Elijah Manley actually lives in the district he is running in, in its share of Fort Lauderdale.
I'm trying to find that out. He's got $67M in the bank since he announced his campaign last year -- and I think a good chunk of that came from wealthy donors, not small dollar donations from FL voters.
⬆️A new digital ad from the American Action Network, which has close ties to House GOP leaders, overtly seeks to link Cavanaugh to the most toxic name in Democratic politics.
So far PAC spending in Democratic primaries hasn't exactly worked out the way the way the PAC had intended in multicandidate races, although I think those were mostly AIPAC-sponsored ads.
I don't think it is easy to predict who will be the beneficiary of these negative ads when there is more than 2 candidates in the race. And it is also difficult to predict which candidate will resonate with the voters in the current environment when being an outsider is an advantage.
I attended a zoom several months ago featuring Denise Powell and I was very impressed. She is a long-time grassroots activist and I believe she already had good name recognition in her district. In this way she reminds me of Caitlin Drey who won her Iowa State senate district in a spectacular special election upset in 2025.
Looking ahead to a hypothetical matchup for Governor between Republican Donalds and Democrat Jolly, 44% support Donalds, 39% Jolly, 2% would support someone else, and 15% are undecided.
In the U.S. Senate election, Republican Senator Ashley Moody leads potential Democratic opponents, Alex Vindman, 46% to 38%, Mujica, 45% to 38%, and Angie Nixon, 47% to 36%.
Pretty bad numbers for us with all dems polling under 40. Even accounting for the large numbers of undecideds. We'll see where it goes as the cycle progresses but I've stayed skeptical of Florida for a while now.
He's got a shot although it should be noted that in the 2018 gubernatorial race Andrew Gillum had led Ron DeSantis in multiple polls heading to the general election. He lost to DeSantis amid the FBI investigating him but by just .40% points.
Gillum's situation in 2018 was different than where Florida is now but if Jolly starts leading in the polls and keeps maintaining this in more polls, even if just a few percentage points, that would be a good sign.
I'd like to know more details of the methodology of this poll.
The methodology says it was weighted by party ID. The poll says the 1125 participants were 41% Republicans and 32% Democrats. The state website says Florida active registered voters are 41% Republicans and 30% Democrats. Seems quite possible the turnout gap in November would be greater than that.
The results include the question how likely are you to vote in the primary, but not a question of how likely are you to vote in the general election. Likely primary voters are not the same as likely general election voters. Are general election results based on likely general election voters, or likely primary voters?
And how do you weight for party registration? If you weight the overall universe who answer the phone to party registration, and then choose the likely voters among them, that seems reasonable. But if you weight the likely voters to an assumed turnout in November (based, perhaps, on past elections), you're assuming who will turn out which is partly assuming the results of the poll.
And there is still time to write postcards and phone bank for the VA Redistricting election on April 21. Activate America (www.activateamerica.vote) and Postcards to Voters (https://postcardstovoters.org) both have campaigns for this election. For those who want to minimize the amount of writing, Activate America provides a sticker template which includes a QR code that almost cuts the script in half.
I've been doing Vote Forward - letters instead of postcards, and you get to write a custom message. I like it but they don't seem to cover as many campaigns as some of the postcard ones. They do have VA redistricting, though (https://votefwd.org/campaigns).
How do the different postcard options compare? Any you'd recommend over the others?
I wrote a lot of Vote Forward letters in 2020 with a Swing Left chapter that has since disbanded. (Swing Left and Vote Forward are closely affiliated). Since then I have shifted my focus over to postcard-writing more and more, although I continue to write some Vote Forward letters. I expect Vote Forward will offer more campaigns for the November elections after the current two campaigns are completed.
⬆️"How do the different postcard options compare? Any you'd recommend over the others?'
I write postcards with many different organizations and each serve different niches as described below:
* Activate America (www.activateamerica.vote) focuses on a limited number of swing states or districts, often targets infrequent voters and (IIRC) includes both Democrats and independent voters. They often have "accountability" campaigns targeting vulnerable Republicans especially when the Democratic candidate is not yet determined.
* Arizona Native Democrats (www.arizonanativedemocrats.org) focuses on empowering voters on Arizona sovereign (i.e., indigenous) lands
* Environmental Voter Project (www.environmentalvoter.org) focuses on low-propensity voters who rank the environment as their top priority
* Field Team 6 (www.fieldteam6.org) focuses on voter registration in swing states or swing districts exclusively.
* Postcards For Democracy (https://postcards.markersfordemocracy.org/) focuses on really down ballot races like school board, town council, and occasionally state legislative races.
*Postcards to Swing States (https://turnoutpac.org/postcards/) sends volunteer writers postcards for free; their campaigns focus on low-propensity progressive voters in swing states (or districts) and they use social pressure messages to get these voters to the polls
* Postcards to Voters (https://postcardstovoters.org) is pretty eclectic in the choice of races but they almost always focus on a Democratic candidate - ballot initiatives and reminders to sign up for mail in ballots are the exceptions. They usually target Democratic voters and are more likely to feature down-ballot races, special elections, or runoff elections than any other postcard group.
Elon University polling has Roy Cooper with a 46% favorability among all respondents (48% with registered voters), while Michael Whatley at 24% favorability (25% among registered voters).
Manny Rutinel is not a progressive, he just didn't have an anti immigrant, pro business conservadem record in the state legislature like Bird. That's spin from Welcome.
The NC Supreme Court threw out the long-litigated Leandro case. As expected, the decision was along party lines 4-3, with MAGA Chief Justice Newby writing the majority opinion (with Phil Berger Jr. concurring), with conservative justice Dietz joining the progressive judges Earls and Riggs in their dissents.
It's been a 3-decade long court case where the state legislature refused to properly fund public education. It's been a game of tug-and-pull between the courts and the legislature (even before Berger and Moore became majority leaders).
Yes. Like the 2022 decision on voter ID and gerrymandering, Newby and the conservative majority ignore stare decisis when it suits them. Leandro was also previously decided in 2022, yet Newby and his cohorts slow-walked it because it suited their agenda.
Just makes voters even more furious. I'm looking forward to a progressive North Carolina Supreme Court majority overturning these decisions starting in 2029.
I will give Dietz credit for breaking with the majority on this plus the Griffin v Riggs case. But he needs to go too.
I used to argue with those kinds of people on Daily Kos, back in the early Trump days. They liked her heterodox views and anti-establishment posturing, but in the end she hated Democrats way more than Republicans, and she was happy to sell her soul for a chance to hitch her fortunes to Trump. Alt-left to MAGA pipeline, many such cases.
I have a family member that was a huge fan of her and I got into so many arguments over her too. She postured herself too perfectly to appeal to people on an anti-establishment level, using language that was not inherently progressive to sell herself as a progressive. I wasn't surprised at all by her being revealed as a phony; I would have been shocked if she hadn't.
I'm not sure it's an alt-left to MAGA pipeline for her specifically though. I think it was always self-interest. She had to be a democrat to succeed in Hawaii. Then she saw an opportunity to be a hero to a subset of our base by being anti-establishment. When neither of those got her where she wanted, she signed up to be a republican to get the power and influence she craved.
I'd expect people with her or her dad's politics to run as Dems in a one-party Dem state like Hawaii. In a competitive state like Nevada she might well have come up as a Republican.
Aside from the early reports that Trump is looking at Zeldin, "Some senators are pushing the White House to appoint Sen. Mike Lee as attorney general and plan to pitch Trump directly on the idea, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter."
I think maybe, or pure attention politics that having him out of the Senate takes out a windbag that gives them the chance to take up his air. But these are probably other members of the "Senate Republican Steering Committee" which is more of a rare Senate caucus of right-wingers that much predates the Tea Party and Freedom Caucus. Lee was the longtime chair (maybe its longest serving chair) until he gave it to Rick Scott this year as he took up the the ENR chair. These are often true Maga morons. In addition to Lee and Scott known members are people like Cruz, Lee, Marshall, Johnson, Schmitt and Paul. I would imagine Blackburn, Hawley, Banks, Moreno and Budd are possible members too (and maybe not anymore, but I think Barrasso is a low profile nutjob). Ironically, Cornyn was a member before, to show how far the window has shifted. But they're who I would suspect are pushing Lee for AG, and have also angled him for a potential SCOTUS appointment too.
Edit: I don't think all of these members necessarily are pushing him (Paul and Cruz in particular), but they're the most likely suspects.
Definitely getting a sense of an administration in panic over his awful -- and worsening -- approval ratings. Firing Noem and now Bondi while trying to create rally around the flag effects in Iran which itself backfired.
It's a good opportunity for more establishment republicans to try and take some influence back, not that I expect them to get very far. I wonder if we're going to see more desperate attempts to recover politically.
The time for establishment Republicans to try to assert themselves is after the primaries. Trump won't back their Democratic opponents or try to slide in a MAGA running as an independent. His power over them wanes considerably then.
New: Bill Hill, the independent candidate for Alaska’s at-large House seat, will report raising over $780,000 in the first quarter, his campaign tells me. He announced in late January. #AKAL
Pastor Matt Schultz is running as a Democrat and has a lot of institutional support, but as long as he and Hill each tell their supporters to rank the other second, shouldn't be too bad.
Did anyone else see the clip on X, where Trump gave a speech with no press allowed? He told the White House gathering, of who I couldn't figure out, that the United States needs to concentrate on Defense Spending, and America couldn't afford to fund child care, Medicare or Medicaid! The White House post was immediately taken down, but was caught by a reporter from the Business Insider and reposted to X. MS Now played the clip on The Chris Jansen Report! Apparently this is how he plans to pay for the $200 billion for the war supplements for the Iran War! Wow! What a gift to the Democrats for the Midterms and beyond! Talk about angering high propensity voters like Seniors, this just proves his insanity and dementia in my mind.
If Republicans were already in fairly significant trouble in the Midterms, this is the suicidal blow! These stupid Republican Congressional lemmings just couldn't see themselves being thrown over the cliff before now, so I will be fascinated by what happens next. Unfortunately, I think it will put more impetus behind their efforts to disenfranchise as many millions of voters as they can. The Intelligent thing to do would be to raise taxes on the billionaire Epstein Class! That or get rid of Trump altogether like Republicans did to Nixon. Can't they see he has no political instincts left?
For those of us on Medicare, trying to get coverage is already difficult in some areas. One covered item under Medicare is one pair of custom diabetic shoes per year. Basically all of the suppliers are no longer supplying because Doge stopped paying claiming fraud, and they aren't getting paid for services provided a year ago. Three companies I've used in the past aren't providing this service, including Hanger, a large nationwide company. I got a list of 12 providers from Medicare, placed calls to all, and no from all 12.
“We gotta cut your Medicare so I can look tough and bomb browns in the Middle East when I ran on lowering costs and no foreign wars” is a bold midterm pitch
Yes, and now I have read on Josh Bowers and Civic Shout the text of Trump's Executive Order on Voting, just out. Those of us living in States that have Vote By Mail in our statutes or State Constitution for everyone like 36 States including my State of Michigan will still be able to vote by mail. This will actually impact Red States more than Blue or Swing States. It will affect Pennsylvania and Connecticut though. Limit Red State Seniors from voting? I guess in his mind, he was able to put mail in voting with Seniors. Too Bad he couldn't have figured out the Strategic Value of the Straits of Hormuz, in advance!
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/788518-hector-mujica-enters-cd-28-race-setting-up-potentially-competitive-challenge-to-carlos-gimenez/
FL-Sen, FL-28: Democrat Hector Mujica will now challenge Rep. Carlos Gimenez rather than Sen. Ashley Moody.
That was quick after that poll coming out lol
Good. Clear the field for Alex Vindman!
No thanks. If he can win, great, but he shouldn't be installed as the nominee before the primary, or even filing deadline.
No one should be installed, and no one should be forced out, but we are undoubtedly better off avoiding a primary, unless a stronger nominee steps up.
Aren't we already looking at a primary? Or has Angie Nixon dropped her campaign?
She is still in, and probably my personal preference to Vindman.
I never understood this idea that we’d be better off avoiding a primary. That’s the whole point of democracy isn’t it?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. No one is saying the primary should be outlawed or forbidden, just that sometimes it saps resources you need for a general.
Exactly. The worst primaries are ones that end up bitter and expensive but with the long-expected person as the nominee. Imagine if someone else jumped in the NC-Sen primary and started taking potshots at Cooper. We'd still end up with Cooper 99.9% of the time, so the primary there wouldn't introduce meaningful choice. It would just cost money and time.
On the flipside, the primaries in MN or MI are good because these are real questions between different wings of the party and none of the candidates are close to a lock for it. While I have strong preferences in those races and would like it if my preferred candidates got the win by default, those are still healthy, good primaries for us to have.
I agree, but I would also add that the winner of this primary in particular probably won't make *that* much of a difference in November. In all likelihood, the seat is staying red.
Normally I would say yes as I'd prefer there be contested races between ideally 2-3 leading candidates.
However, the FL-SEN race is more complicated considering Vindman is becoming an effective fundraiser and may be taking the wind from whatever Angie Nixon has since she's been a candidate. I don't want her to drop out but I also don't think an additional Senate candidate who compares to the level of Vindman in attention, fundraising, traction, etc. is needed. Also, the filing deadline is in a few weeks so it's going to be complicated trying to make the Senate race more competitive than it is now.
If there were such Democratic candidates like Vindman who had the potential to make this a more hotly-contested race, they would have emerged months ago back in 2025.
Would be good for more FL Democrats who have energy in races like FL-28 to continue to jump in other House or statewide races instead of trying to make FL-SEN more competitive in a primary sense.
Hmm, that explains the ads that I've seen against Greg Landsman in Ohio, something about not supporting tips ... playing on YouTube
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbs42.com/news/gov-kay-ivey-progressing-very-well-after-medical-procedure-lawmakers-say-session-work-continues/amp/
Alabama governor Kay Ivey (R), 81, is currently in the hospital recovering from surgery regarding fluid in her lung. The legislative session continues- I assume Lt. Gov Will Ainsworth is acting governor.
I mentioned this very late on yesterday's digest, but Coral Springs, FL Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen was shot and killed by her husband; she was only 38 years old.
https://abcnews.com/US/coral-springs-vice-mayor-nancy-metayer-bowen-found/story?id=131636253
https://www.instagram.com/p/DWmwOE9EajP/?igsh=NWQ5YXp5MTNrN2Nk
In Florida and Arizona, vice mayors are city council members elected to that role by their peers, if I recall correctly.
Wasn't she gearing up to run for Congress too?
Just a tragic situation all around.
I believe she was preparing to mount a primary challenge to Moskowitz, if I recall correctly.
Jared Moskowitz tweeted after her death, "I’m in shock. I was just with her on Saturday. She just buried her brother. She was about to announce she was running for Congress. Nancy was one of the nicest people I worked with. Always fighting for her community, always pushing to help. She had such a future. This is terrible."
https://x.com/JaredEMoskowitz/status/2039448094236987770
Interesting, doesn't read like he was expecting her to run against him
Maybe he was considering retirement and having her as his successor? Seems like a bit of a stretch but like you said his language here doesn't fit with the scenario of him expecting her to run against him.
It's possible she could have run against Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick. Coral Springs isn't in the district, but neither is Miramar, where McCormick lives. Meanwhile, Elijah Manley actually lives in the district he is running in, in its share of Fort Lauderdale.
her passing makes a primary prospect moot, so he put out the most conciliatory and positive PR statement possible, nothing wrong with that.
Potentially, but alien's link below suggests a different district.
She was going to run against Cherfilus-McCormick.
https://www.coralspringsflnews.com/news/local/article315270080.html
*looks at $22M raised for Byron Donalds and shakes head*
Shameful. Love to see David Jolly upend that race if there are enough FL voters sick & tired of Trump and his yes-men in Congress.
I would like to know the breakdown of Donalds' fundraising. Did he get it mainly from within the state or from wealthy donors?
I'm trying to find that out. He's got $67M in the bank since he announced his campaign last year -- and I think a good chunk of that came from wealthy donors, not small dollar donations from FL voters.
Does FL not have campaign finance limits for state races, like VA and others?
⬆️A new digital ad from the American Action Network, which has close ties to House GOP leaders, overtly seeks to link Cavanaugh to the most toxic name in Democratic politics.
So far PAC spending in Democratic primaries hasn't exactly worked out the way the way the PAC had intended in multicandidate races, although I think those were mostly AIPAC-sponsored ads.
I don't think it is easy to predict who will be the beneficiary of these negative ads when there is more than 2 candidates in the race. And it is also difficult to predict which candidate will resonate with the voters in the current environment when being an outsider is an advantage.
I attended a zoom several months ago featuring Denise Powell and I was very impressed. She is a long-time grassroots activist and I believe she already had good name recognition in her district. In this way she reminds me of Caitlin Drey who won her Iowa State senate district in a spectacular special election upset in 2025.
Emerson Florida poll:
Looking ahead to a hypothetical matchup for Governor between Republican Donalds and Democrat Jolly, 44% support Donalds, 39% Jolly, 2% would support someone else, and 15% are undecided.
In the U.S. Senate election, Republican Senator Ashley Moody leads potential Democratic opponents, Alex Vindman, 46% to 38%, Mujica, 45% to 38%, and Angie Nixon, 47% to 36%.
https://emersoncollegepolling.com/florida-2026-poll-donalds-leads-gop-primary-for-governor-republicans-outpace-democrats-in-florida-elections/
Pretty bad numbers for us with all dems polling under 40. Even accounting for the large numbers of undecideds. We'll see where it goes as the cycle progresses but I've stayed skeptical of Florida for a while now.
Donalds at 44 is nothing to write home about
I hope Jolly narrows the gap this summer.
He's got a shot although it should be noted that in the 2018 gubernatorial race Andrew Gillum had led Ron DeSantis in multiple polls heading to the general election. He lost to DeSantis amid the FBI investigating him but by just .40% points.
Gillum's situation in 2018 was different than where Florida is now but if Jolly starts leading in the polls and keeps maintaining this in more polls, even if just a few percentage points, that would be a good sign.
Their numbers aren't great either, I agree. But sub-40 and mid-40s are meaningfully different in my mind.
I'm not writing either off as Safe R or anything. Just stating that this is a bad poll for us.
I'd like to know more details of the methodology of this poll.
The methodology says it was weighted by party ID. The poll says the 1125 participants were 41% Republicans and 32% Democrats. The state website says Florida active registered voters are 41% Republicans and 30% Democrats. Seems quite possible the turnout gap in November would be greater than that.
The results include the question how likely are you to vote in the primary, but not a question of how likely are you to vote in the general election. Likely primary voters are not the same as likely general election voters. Are general election results based on likely general election voters, or likely primary voters?
And how do you weight for party registration? If you weight the overall universe who answer the phone to party registration, and then choose the likely voters among them, that seems reasonable. But if you weight the likely voters to an assumed turnout in November (based, perhaps, on past elections), you're assuming who will turn out which is partly assuming the results of the poll.
A lot of these dems don't have a lot of name rec and Moody hasn't faced a lot of attacks on her record.
https://theintercept.com/2026/04/02/bernie-sanders-claire-valdez-congress-nyc/
NY-7: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) endorses Assemblywoman Claire Valdez (D)
Not surprised. I figured he would.
I enjoyed the podcast take on the WI Supreme court election. However, paid advertising isn't the only way to get out the vote!
Both Activate America (www.activateamerica.vote) and Postcards to Voters (https://postcardstovoters.org) had robust grassroots postcard campaigns in support of Judge Chris Taylor. (Lots of postcards were also written for previous WI Supreme Court races). The postcard deadline for the April 7th election is past, but it is NOT too late to phone bank: https://www.mobilize.us/?event_type=2&q=Chris%20Taylor
And there is still time to write postcards and phone bank for the VA Redistricting election on April 21. Activate America (www.activateamerica.vote) and Postcards to Voters (https://postcardstovoters.org) both have campaigns for this election. For those who want to minimize the amount of writing, Activate America provides a sticker template which includes a QR code that almost cuts the script in half.
Here is link to find a phone bank for the VA election where early voting is still underway: https://www.mobilize.us/?event_type=2&q=redistricting
I've been doing Vote Forward - letters instead of postcards, and you get to write a custom message. I like it but they don't seem to cover as many campaigns as some of the postcard ones. They do have VA redistricting, though (https://votefwd.org/campaigns).
How do the different postcard options compare? Any you'd recommend over the others?
I wrote a lot of Vote Forward letters in 2020 with a Swing Left chapter that has since disbanded. (Swing Left and Vote Forward are closely affiliated). Since then I have shifted my focus over to postcard-writing more and more, although I continue to write some Vote Forward letters. I expect Vote Forward will offer more campaigns for the November elections after the current two campaigns are completed.
⬆️"How do the different postcard options compare? Any you'd recommend over the others?'
I write postcards with many different organizations and each serve different niches as described below:
* Activate America (www.activateamerica.vote) focuses on a limited number of swing states or districts, often targets infrequent voters and (IIRC) includes both Democrats and independent voters. They often have "accountability" campaigns targeting vulnerable Republicans especially when the Democratic candidate is not yet determined.
* Arizona Native Democrats (www.arizonanativedemocrats.org) focuses on empowering voters on Arizona sovereign (i.e., indigenous) lands
* Environmental Voter Project (www.environmentalvoter.org) focuses on low-propensity voters who rank the environment as their top priority
* Field Team 6 (www.fieldteam6.org) focuses on voter registration in swing states or swing districts exclusively.
* Postcards For Democracy (https://postcards.markersfordemocracy.org/) focuses on really down ballot races like school board, town council, and occasionally state legislative races.
*Postcards to Swing States (https://turnoutpac.org/postcards/) sends volunteer writers postcards for free; their campaigns focus on low-propensity progressive voters in swing states (or districts) and they use social pressure messages to get these voters to the polls
* Postcards to Voters (https://postcardstovoters.org) is pretty eclectic in the choice of races but they almost always focus on a Democratic candidate - ballot initiatives and reminders to sign up for mail in ballots are the exceptions. They usually target Democratic voters and are more likely to feature down-ballot races, special elections, or runoff elections than any other postcard group.
* Postcards4VA (https://postcards4va.com/) focuses on state and Federal races in VA
* Reclaim Our Vote (www.centerforcommonground.org/reclaim-our-vote) focuses on increasing BIPOC voter turnout mostly in southern states.
Hope this helps!
Elon University polling has Roy Cooper with a 46% favorability among all respondents (48% with registered voters), while Michael Whatley at 24% favorability (25% among registered voters).
https://eloncdn.blob.core.windows.net/eu3/sites/819/2026/03/Elon-Poll-state-issues-charts-4-2-26.pdf
Elon polled around 800 NC adults between March 13 - 20, 2026.
But no head-to-head, so kinda useless
It's just measuring something different.
Manny Rutinel is not a progressive, he just didn't have an anti immigrant, pro business conservadem record in the state legislature like Bird. That's spin from Welcome.
Still more left than Bird.
The NC Supreme Court threw out the long-litigated Leandro case. As expected, the decision was along party lines 4-3, with MAGA Chief Justice Newby writing the majority opinion (with Phil Berger Jr. concurring), with conservative justice Dietz joining the progressive judges Earls and Riggs in their dissents.
https://www.ednc.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/425A21-3.pdf
This will be a salient issue for the 2028 state Supreme Court races. Phil's nepo baby son should be a prime target, in addition to Newby.
What is the Leandro case? I'm not familiar with this one and the court opinion is too legally dense for me to figure it out quickly.
It's been a 3-decade long court case where the state legislature refused to properly fund public education. It's been a game of tug-and-pull between the courts and the legislature (even before Berger and Moore became majority leaders).
So I'm guessing the conservatives said it was cool to underfund public education?
Yes. Like the 2022 decision on voter ID and gerrymandering, Newby and the conservative majority ignore stare decisis when it suits them. Leandro was also previously decided in 2022, yet Newby and his cohorts slow-walked it because it suited their agenda.
Just makes voters even more furious. I'm looking forward to a progressive North Carolina Supreme Court majority overturning these decisions starting in 2029.
I will give Dietz credit for breaking with the majority on this plus the Griffin v Riggs case. But he needs to go too.
Pam Bondi fired as Attorney General. Interim, at least, is deputy Todd Blanche.
Haha!
Fire that Russian asset Tulsi Gabbard next, Donny.
Could be.
https://x.com/polltracker2024/status/2039686969416942078?s=46&t=sbdQQeYBqp0h_Zql717iTw
God willing she goes next! Great news if true
It's crazy to think that Tulsi Gabbard was once a Democrat, and in Hawai'i no less of all places.
Not just once a democrat, I distinctly remember a large part (not all, to be clear!) of the progressive left being particular fans of her.
I used to argue with those kinds of people on Daily Kos, back in the early Trump days. They liked her heterodox views and anti-establishment posturing, but in the end she hated Democrats way more than Republicans, and she was happy to sell her soul for a chance to hitch her fortunes to Trump. Alt-left to MAGA pipeline, many such cases.
She was raised in a cult, never repudiated it, and that always made me extra skeptical.
Perfect match for the RFK moonbat wing of Trump's fascist cosplay.
I have a family member that was a huge fan of her and I got into so many arguments over her too. She postured herself too perfectly to appeal to people on an anti-establishment level, using language that was not inherently progressive to sell herself as a progressive. I wasn't surprised at all by her being revealed as a phony; I would have been shocked if she hadn't.
I'm not sure it's an alt-left to MAGA pipeline for her specifically though. I think it was always self-interest. She had to be a democrat to succeed in Hawaii. Then she saw an opportunity to be a hero to a subset of our base by being anti-establishment. When neither of those got her where she wanted, she signed up to be a republican to get the power and influence she craved.
Also, Vice Chair of the DNC. How times change.
I'd expect people with her or her dad's politics to run as Dems in a one-party Dem state like Hawaii. In a competitive state like Nevada she might well have come up as a Republican.
IIRC she was perceived as the "progressive" in her first Congressional primary, when she upset "moderate" Mufi Hannemann.
Rachel Maddow was practically drooling over her.
Rumor has it that Zeldin is the permanent replacement.
Now that he’s destroyed environmental protection, he can finish the job of destroying justice.
Yeah, I posted that just last night. Crazy.
Aside from the early reports that Trump is looking at Zeldin, "Some senators are pushing the White House to appoint Sen. Mike Lee as attorney general and plan to pitch Trump directly on the idea, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter."
https://www.notus.org/trump-white-house/trump-pam-bondi-attorney-general
I wonder if they’re pushing Lee because they hate him and want him gone
Lol. Maybe it's a similar situation for the Ted Cruz SCOTUS rumors.
I think maybe, or pure attention politics that having him out of the Senate takes out a windbag that gives them the chance to take up his air. But these are probably other members of the "Senate Republican Steering Committee" which is more of a rare Senate caucus of right-wingers that much predates the Tea Party and Freedom Caucus. Lee was the longtime chair (maybe its longest serving chair) until he gave it to Rick Scott this year as he took up the the ENR chair. These are often true Maga morons. In addition to Lee and Scott known members are people like Cruz, Lee, Marshall, Johnson, Schmitt and Paul. I would imagine Blackburn, Hawley, Banks, Moreno and Budd are possible members too (and maybe not anymore, but I think Barrasso is a low profile nutjob). Ironically, Cornyn was a member before, to show how far the window has shifted. But they're who I would suspect are pushing Lee for AG, and have also angled him for a potential SCOTUS appointment too.
Edit: I don't think all of these members necessarily are pushing him (Paul and Cruz in particular), but they're the most likely suspects.
Definitely getting a sense of an administration in panic over his awful -- and worsening -- approval ratings. Firing Noem and now Bondi while trying to create rally around the flag effects in Iran which itself backfired.
It's a good opportunity for more establishment republicans to try and take some influence back, not that I expect them to get very far. I wonder if we're going to see more desperate attempts to recover politically.
The time for establishment Republicans to try to assert themselves is after the primaries. Trump won't back their Democratic opponents or try to slide in a MAGA running as an independent. His power over them wanes considerably then.
Like replacing Pam Bondi is really going to stop the panic. /s
North Carolina Senate Quantus:
Cooper 49 Whatley 44
https://quantusinsights.org/f/north-carolina-2026-democrats-hold-early-edge#ddfaccf9-bede-412a-8ce9-6f9ddda07554
Another big haul, though he’s running as an independent for Congress.
https://x.com/PatrickSvitek/status/2039756627104981045
New: Bill Hill, the independent candidate for Alaska’s at-large House seat, will report raising over $780,000 in the first quarter, his campaign tells me. He announced in late January. #AKAL
Pastor Matt Schultz is running as a Democrat and has a lot of institutional support, but as long as he and Hill each tell their supporters to rank the other second, shouldn't be too bad.
I get ads from Schultz and I live thousands of miles away. Must be a good campaigner.
Is that a problem? Is there a serious Democratic candidate?
Ranked choice voting alleviates the issue somewhat
Did anyone else see the clip on X, where Trump gave a speech with no press allowed? He told the White House gathering, of who I couldn't figure out, that the United States needs to concentrate on Defense Spending, and America couldn't afford to fund child care, Medicare or Medicaid! The White House post was immediately taken down, but was caught by a reporter from the Business Insider and reposted to X. MS Now played the clip on The Chris Jansen Report! Apparently this is how he plans to pay for the $200 billion for the war supplements for the Iran War! Wow! What a gift to the Democrats for the Midterms and beyond! Talk about angering high propensity voters like Seniors, this just proves his insanity and dementia in my mind.
yes, I saw it paired with a video of Rubio saying it was the Iranians spending all their money on weapons instead of their own people....
If Republicans were already in fairly significant trouble in the Midterms, this is the suicidal blow! These stupid Republican Congressional lemmings just couldn't see themselves being thrown over the cliff before now, so I will be fascinated by what happens next. Unfortunately, I think it will put more impetus behind their efforts to disenfranchise as many millions of voters as they can. The Intelligent thing to do would be to raise taxes on the billionaire Epstein Class! That or get rid of Trump altogether like Republicans did to Nixon. Can't they see he has no political instincts left?
His ultras are too obsessed with him to throw him to the wolves successfully, though
For those of us on Medicare, trying to get coverage is already difficult in some areas. One covered item under Medicare is one pair of custom diabetic shoes per year. Basically all of the suppliers are no longer supplying because Doge stopped paying claiming fraud, and they aren't getting paid for services provided a year ago. Three companies I've used in the past aren't providing this service, including Hanger, a large nationwide company. I got a list of 12 providers from Medicare, placed calls to all, and no from all 12.
That sucks!
“We gotta cut your Medicare so I can look tough and bomb browns in the Middle East when I ran on lowering costs and no foreign wars” is a bold midterm pitch
Yes, and now I have read on Josh Bowers and Civic Shout the text of Trump's Executive Order on Voting, just out. Those of us living in States that have Vote By Mail in our statutes or State Constitution for everyone like 36 States including my State of Michigan will still be able to vote by mail. This will actually impact Red States more than Blue or Swing States. It will affect Pennsylvania and Connecticut though. Limit Red State Seniors from voting? I guess in his mind, he was able to put mail in voting with Seniors. Too Bad he couldn't have figured out the Strategic Value of the Straits of Hormuz, in advance!