It's a good article, but I loathe these Republican comments in it. Especially the ones from Reilly Richardson -- but the fact that they're slinging insults says to me they fear their state House majority is in jeopardy.
I think my favorite thing about Ken Martin is the willingness to recruit and support various different types of candidates. From centrists to progressives, military veterans and attorneys to a Tejano singer and a smokejumper. Martin made a statement after Sherrill, Spanberger, and Mamdani’s victories highlighting the big tent nature of the party. For all the shit he’s gotten, I think he may be on to something, fundraising be damned.
Maybe not the DNC then. But definitely the Dems in general. Barring stupid entities like Gillibrand’s DSCC, there’s been a good effort among some Dems to organize, recruit, and campaign effectively IMO. Not without problems, mind you (the aforementioned DSCC and their support of awful candidates like Stevens and Mills and Craig), but enough to hopefully lay the groundwork for reviving the Democratic Party.
Ken Martin turned things around for the MN DFL after the 2010 shellacking the party got. Seems like he’s applying it on a nationwide scale and adapting it to each state’s needs.
He's right. The flip side is that I believe his presidency sometimes suffered from his lack of experience, although we've clearly seen that a belief in a magical ability to convince Republicans to cooperate by reasoning with them can persist into old age, regardless of evidence. Anyway, I think we need a happy medium: someone who doesn't accept that the country and world have to suck, is brilliant and inspired or at least has advisors who are who they listen to, but is not naive and understands that changing anything substantial always requires an initial and continuing battle against the billionaires who really control this country and mostly prefer for things to suck for the non-rich while they accumulate more wealth and power and shrink at nothing in their unslakable thirst for more, more, more.
It completely suffered from it. He had very limited experience and immediately walked into the buzzsaw that was the Republican party, for destroyed in the midterms and spent most of the next 6 years being relatively powerless.
And one of Harry Reid's largest contributors and close friend was Bob Biggalow who was one of Trumps biggest contributors and longtime Republican donor (not to mention spending millions to try and prove UFOs and ghost were real).
No impact at all if it means the GOP wants to level a real attack against Rob Sand's chances in November. If the angle Republicans are going for is that Sand is too tied to Big Tech from Reid Hoffman's donation, I'm not sure this will play out effectively considering Sand has been IA State Auditor since 2019.
Sand also won re-election as auditor in 2022 by less than 1% points, showing he's experienced in surviving close re-election battles. I suspect the GOP is concerned about Sand being the Senate nominee in the general election considering his experience in running competitive races.
I humbly disagree. Talarico should primarily be attacking the Republican candidates and Trump. This is how Talarico wins the hearts and minds of Democratic primary voters.
He should not fall for the temptation where mutual attacks leave the eventual winner severely injured and holding a losing hand against Paxton or Cornyn.
I am sorry to learn that the Crocket campaign has gone negative on Talarico. As the candidate, she is responsible for that. To criticize him and the other Democrats for returning after their walkout is to miss the point: They drew attention to Trump's scheme to re-district to win the House, and that set off the re-districting initiatives in California and Virginia to counter it. The Democratic state legislators were never going to be able to hold out forever; that is not how it works.
If Crocket cannot win on the strength of her positions on the issues, she does not deserve to win.
I would like to know what the actual story is behind the GOP megadonor, since the GOP is the group that was pushing for Crocket to enter the race.
She is starting to remind me of Alan Grayson. She is a bomb thrower who became popular with the base who then tried to run statewide in a conservative state. However she will learn, just like Grayson, that being popular among hyper partisan online voters does not translate to electoral success.
If Crockett becomes a Maddow or Psaki, I have a concern she'll end up becoming another Tiffany Cross who will throw out crap that's going to divide the network she works for. I believe MSBC (MS Now these days) did not renew Cross' contract for this very reason.
Or Crockett could use her platform to elevate the debate.
Whatever you think of Cross, I watched her go after Bill Maher once and was quite entertained. Although I acknowledge that she probably still was too divisive and that was mainly my own hatred of Maher talking.
I've watched Bill Maher's show for a long time (even last week) and don't mind anyone who criticizes his personality.
But there are also plenty of Berkeley liberals I know besides myself (including my own friend from my childhood who is further to the left and progressive) who admire Maher's history in challenging the status quo even while he can have a giant ego and love the sound of his voice. Cross may have brought up "racist things" Maher said but she probably didn't recall he was one of President Obama's staunchest defenders and once said racism was why Obama was attacked by the GOP a lot.
She also didn't even watch Club Random where he had Leslie Jones on as a guest as well as Ice Cube who originally ripped Maher a new one on his show over saying a word we cannot mention only then to be best buds with him. Hell, I saw two older black women on BART coming from East Oakland complimenting Maher about being blunt. He's more popular with the black community than those who criticize him want to admit, especially considering he's got a history of dating black women.
Regardless of what you think about Maher, in all due respect, I don't think it's good form to devote media time for something that doesn't elevate the discourse or real truth other than to get hits and clicks. I don't desire to see more of the cesspol being blown up.
There was no conceivable world where the Democrats could have held out long enough (until the filing deadline, so 4 months) to make the redistricting stop, considering the major disruption to their lives and those of their families, and the attempts by Texas Republicans to get the federal government to arrest them, and weaponize the legislature and judiciary to remove the Democrats from their seats. They drew attention to the issue and made the authoritarian tendencies of Republicans clear, and that's the most that could have come of it.
It wasn't a federal crime, and the states they fled to wouldn't have arrested them or let Texas arrest them. I was really glad I hadn't sent them money only for them to piss it away, but if they had been really serious about holding out till the end, they could have fundraised harder.
I did contribute to that fund, and I consider it money well spent, not wasted. Texas legislators have regular jobs, in addition to their legislative duties. Abbot had already disrupted their regular jobs with his special session, so by leaving, they were prolonging that disruption, yet they did it to call attention to the redistricting. Most of the legislators need to make a living; we don't want the idle rich as legislators. I think that even with the fundraising effort, most of the legislators took a financial hit.
It is, but it's really up to party leadership to hold the line in these cases. Once some of their colleagues break, there's zero point in continuing to stay away. I don't put much blame on rank and file legislators like Talarico, even if I do think they should have held out.
Inspired by Marc Molinaro, can Kristi Noem be persuaded to step down from DHS to run again for the 6th district of the South Dakota House of Representatives?
Obituaries: Former Rep. Richard Ottinger (D-NY) is dead at 97. The district is now held by fellow Democrat George Latimer.
Ottinger was an opponent of the Vietnam War and supported environmental regulation - he ran for Senate in 1970 and performed better than Sen. Charles Goodell but lost to James Buckley. The district includes parts of suburban Westchester County.
GA-14: State Sen. Colton Moore received endorsements from disgraced former Rep. Matt Gaetz and mass shooter Kyle Rittenhouse as well as Marty Brown, a firefighter who dropped out of the primary by endorsing Moore.
It seems like he'll at least make it to the runoff, but the question is if he'll be with Trump-endorsed Clay Fuller or Democrat Shawn Harris, who could benefit from a split field.
Speaking of Trump endorsements, he's supporting Alex Mealer over Abbott-backed Briscoe Cain in the TX-09 primary. A Mealer victory would make the seat, already an uphill battle, even harder for Dems, since Cain is an incredibly weak candidate. https://x.com/scottbraddock/status/2023565158568858007
It's a good article, but I loathe these Republican comments in it. Especially the ones from Reilly Richardson -- but the fact that they're slinging insults says to me they fear their state House majority is in jeopardy.
I think my favorite thing about Ken Martin is the willingness to recruit and support various different types of candidates. From centrists to progressives, military veterans and attorneys to a Tejano singer and a smokejumper. Martin made a statement after Sherrill, Spanberger, and Mamdani’s victories highlighting the big tent nature of the party. For all the shit he’s gotten, I think he may be on to something, fundraising be damned.
Maybe not the DNC then. But definitely the Dems in general. Barring stupid entities like Gillibrand’s DSCC, there’s been a good effort among some Dems to organize, recruit, and campaign effectively IMO. Not without problems, mind you (the aforementioned DSCC and their support of awful candidates like Stevens and Mills and Craig), but enough to hopefully lay the groundwork for reviving the Democratic Party.
Ken Martin turned things around for the MN DFL after the 2010 shellacking the party got. Seems like he’s applying it on a nationwide scale and adapting it to each state’s needs.
"upset of the cycle": Vindman wins!
He's right. The flip side is that I believe his presidency sometimes suffered from his lack of experience, although we've clearly seen that a belief in a magical ability to convince Republicans to cooperate by reasoning with them can persist into old age, regardless of evidence. Anyway, I think we need a happy medium: someone who doesn't accept that the country and world have to suck, is brilliant and inspired or at least has advisors who are who they listen to, but is not naive and understands that changing anything substantial always requires an initial and continuing battle against the billionaires who really control this country and mostly prefer for things to suck for the non-rich while they accumulate more wealth and power and shrink at nothing in their unslakable thirst for more, more, more.
It completely suffered from it. He had very limited experience and immediately walked into the buzzsaw that was the Republican party, for destroyed in the midterms and spent most of the next 6 years being relatively powerless.
We've clearly been doing that this cycle. Thanks for the hot tip Obama.
Reid Hoffmann is quite famously not a Republican? He’s got his own set of problems but being a GOPer is not one them
Nah he's the neoliberal billionaire who primaries progressives with his Super PAC and funds centrist reports and thinktanks.
And one of Harry Reid's largest contributors and close friend was Bob Biggalow who was one of Trumps biggest contributors and longtime Republican donor (not to mention spending millions to try and prove UFOs and ghost were real).
No impact at all if it means the GOP wants to level a real attack against Rob Sand's chances in November. If the angle Republicans are going for is that Sand is too tied to Big Tech from Reid Hoffman's donation, I'm not sure this will play out effectively considering Sand has been IA State Auditor since 2019.
Sand also won re-election as auditor in 2022 by less than 1% points, showing he's experienced in surviving close re-election battles. I suspect the GOP is concerned about Sand being the Senate nominee in the general election considering his experience in running competitive races.
For better *and* worse, assume that the average voter knows a fraction of a fraction of the random crap that we know about stuff like this.
I don't think the GOP has made Reid Hoffman into enough of a boogie man for his name to make an impact on the race.
No since he's far more stacked than his opponent
Is Nuzzi the same woman who got involved with RFK Jr. a few years ago?
Yep the very same
Such a disgrace to journalism.
humanity, not just jounalism
That is... some spectacularly poor taste in men. Yikes :P
I think that Crockett ad will leave a mark on Talarico.
Having a GOP megadonor as one of your biggest contributors is not a good look in Dem circles atm.
Then Talarico should also go negative on Crockett. She has also taken contributions from right-wing oligarchs in the crypto and defense industries.
https://www.notus.org/2026-election/jasmine-crockett-campaign-donations-crypto
It's an uphill climb to prevent a Senator Paxton in the first place, but yeah, being less negative would probably help.
Wise words, DM!
I humbly disagree. Talarico should primarily be attacking the Republican candidates and Trump. This is how Talarico wins the hearts and minds of Democratic primary voters.
He should not fall for the temptation where mutual attacks leave the eventual winner severely injured and holding a losing hand against Paxton or Cornyn.
I am sorry to learn that the Crocket campaign has gone negative on Talarico. As the candidate, she is responsible for that. To criticize him and the other Democrats for returning after their walkout is to miss the point: They drew attention to Trump's scheme to re-district to win the House, and that set off the re-districting initiatives in California and Virginia to counter it. The Democratic state legislators were never going to be able to hold out forever; that is not how it works.
If Crocket cannot win on the strength of her positions on the issues, she does not deserve to win.
I would like to know what the actual story is behind the GOP megadonor, since the GOP is the group that was pushing for Crocket to enter the race.
She is starting to remind me of Alan Grayson. She is a bomb thrower who became popular with the base who then tried to run statewide in a conservative state. However she will learn, just like Grayson, that being popular among hyper partisan online voters does not translate to electoral success.
If Crockett becomes a Maddow or Psaki, I have a concern she'll end up becoming another Tiffany Cross who will throw out crap that's going to divide the network she works for. I believe MSBC (MS Now these days) did not renew Cross' contract for this very reason.
Or Crockett could use her platform to elevate the debate.
Whatever you think of Cross, I watched her go after Bill Maher once and was quite entertained. Although I acknowledge that she probably still was too divisive and that was mainly my own hatred of Maher talking.
I've watched Bill Maher's show for a long time (even last week) and don't mind anyone who criticizes his personality.
But there are also plenty of Berkeley liberals I know besides myself (including my own friend from my childhood who is further to the left and progressive) who admire Maher's history in challenging the status quo even while he can have a giant ego and love the sound of his voice. Cross may have brought up "racist things" Maher said but she probably didn't recall he was one of President Obama's staunchest defenders and once said racism was why Obama was attacked by the GOP a lot.
She also didn't even watch Club Random where he had Leslie Jones on as a guest as well as Ice Cube who originally ripped Maher a new one on his show over saying a word we cannot mention only then to be best buds with him. Hell, I saw two older black women on BART coming from East Oakland complimenting Maher about being blunt. He's more popular with the black community than those who criticize him want to admit, especially considering he's got a history of dating black women.
Regardless of what you think about Maher, in all due respect, I don't think it's good form to devote media time for something that doesn't elevate the discourse or real truth other than to get hits and clicks. I don't desire to see more of the cesspol being blown up.
Lots of giant egos (even by politician standards) in TX, it seems. Now, we have a circular firing squad. Yeesh.
Dunno, it seems like a valid issue to me.
There was no conceivable world where the Democrats could have held out long enough (until the filing deadline, so 4 months) to make the redistricting stop, considering the major disruption to their lives and those of their families, and the attempts by Texas Republicans to get the federal government to arrest them, and weaponize the legislature and judiciary to remove the Democrats from their seats. They drew attention to the issue and made the authoritarian tendencies of Republicans clear, and that's the most that could have come of it.
It wasn't a federal crime, and the states they fled to wouldn't have arrested them or let Texas arrest them. I was really glad I hadn't sent them money only for them to piss it away, but if they had been really serious about holding out till the end, they could have fundraised harder.
I did contribute to that fund, and I consider it money well spent, not wasted. Texas legislators have regular jobs, in addition to their legislative duties. Abbot had already disrupted their regular jobs with his special session, so by leaving, they were prolonging that disruption, yet they did it to call attention to the redistricting. Most of the legislators need to make a living; we don't want the idle rich as legislators. I think that even with the fundraising effort, most of the legislators took a financial hit.
We simply disagree.
It is, but it's really up to party leadership to hold the line in these cases. Once some of their colleagues break, there's zero point in continuing to stay away. I don't put much blame on rank and file legislators like Talarico, even if I do think they should have held out.
Always an interesting read, thank you both ... and pleased to be one of your earliest annual subscribers.
"Noted hiker" for Mark Sanford...lol
Also, what's up with Marc Molinaro just moving every few years?
dude's been running for every office in the hudson valley for years, before him it was john faso. just career hacks
Inspired by Marc Molinaro, can Kristi Noem be persuaded to step down from DHS to run again for the 6th district of the South Dakota House of Representatives?
Hahaha
in all seriousness, is there a single cabinet official in the last 40 years who then went to go back down to being a state house rep?
There is a president, John Quincy Adams, who went back to being a mere member of Congress.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/16/us/politics/richard-ottinger-dead.html
Obituaries: Former Rep. Richard Ottinger (D-NY) is dead at 97. The district is now held by fellow Democrat George Latimer.
Ottinger was an opponent of the Vietnam War and supported environmental regulation - he ran for Senate in 1970 and performed better than Sen. Charles Goodell but lost to James Buckley. The district includes parts of suburban Westchester County.
He and Goodell split the liberal
Anti-Vietnam War vote allowing Buckley to come down the middle. The ideological reverse of the NYC mayor’s race the year before.
The new Trump definition of "complete and total" should be 😂😂😂
https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2026/feb/11/colton-moore-garners-more-endorsements-on/
GA-14: State Sen. Colton Moore received endorsements from disgraced former Rep. Matt Gaetz and mass shooter Kyle Rittenhouse as well as Marty Brown, a firefighter who dropped out of the primary by endorsing Moore.
Winner endorsements. God help us if he wins.
It seems like he'll at least make it to the runoff, but the question is if he'll be with Trump-endorsed Clay Fuller or Democrat Shawn Harris, who could benefit from a split field.
I think Fuller is more likely to make it to the runoff than Moore.
Speaking of Trump endorsements, he's supporting Alex Mealer over Abbott-backed Briscoe Cain in the TX-09 primary. A Mealer victory would make the seat, already an uphill battle, even harder for Dems, since Cain is an incredibly weak candidate. https://x.com/scottbraddock/status/2023565158568858007
Former candidate Sage endorses Turek, criticizes Wahls in Iowa Democrats’ U.S. Senate primary
Sage said he appreciates Turek’s authenticity and calls Wahls ‘artificial’
https://thegazette.com/campaigns-elections/former-candidate-sage-endorses-turek-criticizes-wahls-in-iowa-democrats-u-s-senate-primary
I know people who have worked for Wahls…this is a common theme, and they are all supporting Turek in the primary.
How is he artificial?
TX-Sen, Stephen Colbert calls out CBS and Trump's FCC for pulling his interview with James Talarico: https://www.dailykos.com/story/2026/2/16/2369085/-TX-Sen-Watch-Stephen-Colbert-Call-Out-CBS-For-Pulling-His-Interview-With-James-Talarico-D