Entirely self-created problem by them. They could have likely had a 2022 or maybe even good midterm for them if they held their worst instincts in check. Got into power, signed some insane tax cut for the rich into law and they'd get a huge part of what conservative power brokers actually want without becoming unpopular.
The most popular republicans in the country are the kinds that do their policies as quietly as possible. Basically the northeast republican governors. Not just Trump but republicans today all need the media spotlight on them for what they're doing.
Instead they're embraced all their own worst and most extreme instincts and double down at every opportunity. It's almost comical in how much they're proving the point of a lot of political theory and that doing unpopular stuff is bad, actually.
If you listen to the clip, that's not what he's saying. He's criticizing how working class people are facing price increases across the board and while yes, he says, "maybe get another job," it comes across as more of an acknowledgment that it's the only choice a lot of people have. I have no love for JVD, but I think it's a misrepresentation of what he's saying to claim that his message was "get another job you lazy bums."
I deleted my previous comment in light of what you are saying. I think JVD is being realistic about the rising prices situation but he is saying what most people are already thinking they need to do and acknowledging this.
Of course, Democrats may end up using JVD’s statement against him.
Honestly, even if that wasn’t what he said, using his statement against him may work anyway. Lord knows the GOP does nothing but lie. I question whether taking the moral high ground even works anymore — it sabotaged us in the Obama years and it didn’t stop Trump II.
Well, yes, because Jeff Van Drew became a traitor to Democrats after he helped flip a seat for the party in the midterms when Trump was POTUS in his first term. He deserves to get his ass whooped for re-election with a real Democrat who isn’t going to pull his crap.
Oddly enough, in NJ-02 Van Drew represents Atlantic City, the same city where Trump built the Taj Mahal casino.
As for the moral high ground, calling the GOP out yes and going after them hard sure. President Obama used the tax cuts against the GOP as the answer to everything the party does in his race against Mitt Romney back in 2012. However, just saying to the GOP, “That is just wrong” is not going to persuade anyone.
Note that if Iran does indeed wrap up in the next month or two he’ll probably regain with these voters a bit, but even keeping them a single-digit GOP approval cohort with some depressed turnout would be huge
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.
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.
Entirely self-created problem by them. They could have likely had a 2022 or maybe even good midterm for them if they held their worst instincts in check. Got into power, signed some insane tax cut for the rich into law and they'd get a huge part of what conservative power brokers actually want without becoming unpopular.
The most popular republicans in the country are the kinds that do their policies as quietly as possible. Basically the northeast republican governors. Not just Trump but republicans today all need the media spotlight on them for what they're doing.
Instead they're embraced all their own worst and most extreme instincts and double down at every opportunity. It's almost comical in how much they're proving the point of a lot of political theory and that doing unpopular stuff is bad, actually.
Worse than a massacre sounds more like it to me.
Everyone mad at everybody:
Over finding out the hard way that whiping Trump’s ass every day gives them problems.
GOP: “We must support Trump with whatever we’ve got. He’s the best thing to happen to us since Reagan!”
Also GOP: “What just happened?”
Trump only won NJ-02 by 13 points, definitely winnable in a wave and we have two strong candidate here (Winder and Mullock)
Justice Allison Riggs noted the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality in her concurring dissent on the Leandro case today.
Even legislative and judicial Republicans are saying "get another job", per the party marching orders.
If you listen to the clip, that's not what he's saying. He's criticizing how working class people are facing price increases across the board and while yes, he says, "maybe get another job," it comes across as more of an acknowledgment that it's the only choice a lot of people have. I have no love for JVD, but I think it's a misrepresentation of what he's saying to claim that his message was "get another job you lazy bums."
I deleted my previous comment in light of what you are saying. I think JVD is being realistic about the rising prices situation but he is saying what most people are already thinking they need to do and acknowledging this.
Of course, Democrats may end up using JVD’s statement against him.
Honestly, even if that wasn’t what he said, using his statement against him may work anyway. Lord knows the GOP does nothing but lie. I question whether taking the moral high ground even works anymore — it sabotaged us in the Obama years and it didn’t stop Trump II.
Well, yes, because Jeff Van Drew became a traitor to Democrats after he helped flip a seat for the party in the midterms when Trump was POTUS in his first term. He deserves to get his ass whooped for re-election with a real Democrat who isn’t going to pull his crap.
Oddly enough, in NJ-02 Van Drew represents Atlantic City, the same city where Trump built the Taj Mahal casino.
As for the moral high ground, calling the GOP out yes and going after them hard sure. President Obama used the tax cuts against the GOP as the answer to everything the party does in his race against Mitt Romney back in 2012. However, just saying to the GOP, “That is just wrong” is not going to persuade anyone.
Uhhhh
Note that if Iran does indeed wrap up in the next month or two he’ll probably regain with these voters a bit, but even keeping them a single-digit GOP approval cohort with some depressed turnout would be huge
I read that at first as "If Iran does indeed wrap it up," because Trump is not going to win this war.
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
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.