If we have the two candidates attacking each other, on November 4 we'll all be going oh well, Senator Paxton. Maybe Texas in another 10 years.
The national supporters of each candidate need to get the two together and agree on a truce. Focus on issues and attacks on Republicans, then the loser of the primary wholeheartedly supports the winner.
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's going negative because she's behind, and she also is incapable of running on issues because she's not a policy candidate. Her campaign ethos is to 100% run on personality, and her personality brand is being "a fighter" so this is they only pathway she knows how to do.
I'm moderately shocked someone on her team is actually competent enough to cut ads in Spanish and try to deal with the huge vulnerabilities she has with Latino voters.
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.
Except I think it’s much less likely she becomes a perennial candidate after she loses. I’ve said she may run for Mayor of Dallas in 2028, which is largely a figurehead role and could suit her well. But far and away the most likely outcome is her longtime fantasy to be a Maddow/Psaki, and if she doesn’t land a major cable deal to self publish a podcast.
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.
Crockett does not elevate this debate lmao. This entire vanity campaign to grift for money after she torches the path behind her has made that eminently obvious to everyone else who wasn't already aware that's been her modus operandi the whole time.
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?
Do you all think that the fact Rob Sand got a large contribution from Reid Hoffman will have any kind of an impact on the Iowa Governor's Race? I presume it will be a nothing burger, but this is the latest attack line Republicans are using against Auditor Sand.
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.
Maybe I’m just an eternal optimist at heart, but any amount of money a Democrat gets from a normally loyal rw GOP supporter if all else is equal, is a good thing in purple and red areas. Of course, as a partisan Democrat that immediately makes me worried that this candidate isn’t aligned with what I believe on policy. But it also shows that he is one of the few Democrats who can actually make our party tent bigger to win elections in areas we can’t win with our base, with voters we couldn’t win before.
There’s also the practical purpose that taking money away from a Republican who would be getting that cash otherwise, is a double impact for us, both by gaining money and taking away money from our opponent. That all said, in blue seats, it’s an automatic nonstarter for me. If this was a race for MD Governor and not IA, this donation would be considered disqualifying for myself of the Democratic candidate.
But in this particular case it’s proof and evidence of what we always say we want as loyal partisans: more people to vote for our party and our candidates. Sand’s campaign is bringing in people the average Democrat can’t and that’s necessary to win and the only reason the Iowa Governor race is considered a tossup in a Trump +15 state.
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.
Former President Barack Obama is urging the Democratic Party to invest in younger candidates if it wants to come out victorious in the 2026 midterm elections and, eventually, the 2028 presidential election.
In an interview with YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen that was published Saturday, the 64-year-old said part of the reason his own elections were so successful was because he was young at the time.
“I’m a pretty healthy 64, feel great, but the truth is, half of the references that my daughters make about social media, TikTok and such, I don’t know who they’re talking about,” he said. “There is an element of, at some point, you age out. You’re not connected directly to the immediate struggles that folks are going through.”
“I’m not making a hard and fast rule here, but I do think that Democrats do well when we have candidates who are plugged into the moment, to the zeitgeist, to the times and the particular struggles that folks are thinking about as they look towards the future, rather than look backward toward the past,” Obama told Cohen.
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.
Yes, but we can’t ever fix a problem if we can’t admit there is one in the first place. The fact that so much of our party, including the most popular Democratic president, is embracing the argument of and openly saying how our party’s leadership is too old to be connected to and winning voters in today’s America, is a very positive step forward for us.
We’ve needed this refresh/rebrand from the top to bottom since 2016, so I’m glad it’s finally happening now. I get that it feels like “well, duh, we’re already doing that” since we see the evidence of change already, but prior to the 2024 election, the conventional wisdom majority of our party was that Biden was fine to run for re-election and we don’t need to change anything.
So for those of us who were a part of that sentiment (myself included, I was wrong, very wrong), it’s a whiplash from just 2 short years ago for where we were and what we argued back then. That’s what deserves the accolades and why Obama stating it is so massively important. He leads Democratic voters and his voice is listened to by the average supporter.
Or put another way, if Obama had come out and said “Biden should’ve run for re-election, we barely lost in 2016 and 2024, so I have faith for our current party leadership to rebuild the party because they have the most experience to do it with”. How would that go over with Democrats? 2 entirely different worlds we live in between then compared to now. That’s worth celebrating/pointing out.
Florida Democrats are adopting the 2018 successful national party midterm strategy by running military veterans.
Side note imo - Vindman framing his race as the patriot vs the politician is brilliant and turns one of Moody’s biggest strengths (winning her elections easily and outperforming other Republicans on the same ballot) into a liability. I love it.
SUNRISE, Florida — Newly minted Democratic Senate candidate Alex Vindman kicked off his first-ever campaign event by asking veterans in the room to stand.
As a handful rose to their feet, he said they understood more than anyone why he was running to defend the country. Though Vindman is known nationally as the whistleblower who triggered President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, he’s also a longtime Army combat veteran. And he’s leaning into his military credentials to frame his campaign as a standoff between himself — “the patriot” — and GOP Sen. Ashley Moody — ”the politician.”
It’s part of a midterm trend nationwide and in Florida, as Democrats try to inch the state back to battleground status — and, more broadly, take back control of Congress. Democrats have actively recruited centrist candidates with military backgrounds, some of whom didn’t ascribe to a party until recently. In the Senate race and several House elections, numerous ex-military Democrats are jumping into politics for the first time.
After enduring several election cycles of stark defeats by Republicans, the noticeable shift shows Democrats have come into Florida this cycle with a strategy of focusing on candidate quality and message. It’s similar to 2018, when Democrats flipped the House during Trump’s first term. That Democratic class of 2018 included former Reps. Abigail Spanberger, Mikie Sherrill, Andy Kim and Elissa Slotkin — all of whom had national security and military backgrounds and now serve as senators or governors.
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.
I don’t know if the DNC chairman has any effect whatsoever on who Democrats recruit to run for Congress and his fundraising is apocalyptically awful, but I’ve always been an evidence and data guy, so if we do well in the midterms, I’ll give him his due credit on the part he played. But he didn’t do everything even if we have a good election.
That said, he has been working mostly in the behind the scenes arena, the special elections, the boots on the ground areas, which have been even better than Trump 1. So maybe he’s just a work horse and not a show horse, but for those with doubts and concerns about him, like myself, it’s hard to trust promises of good things happening in a future that isn’t here yet. Especially because every single Democrat running any organization says exactly the same things and often has differing results compared to the promises made by them. Wait and see imo.
IF that happens, we’re probably looking at closer to 60 seats, than just a bare majority in the chamber, with a tsunami wiping out Trump’s MAGA party. I hope Vindman does win, but I’ll believe it only after the vote has certified him as the winner in Florida and not 1 millisecond before it.
Great article worth your full time to read: Democrats, after starting to invest in national rural voter outreach for the first time in recent cycles, are doubling down with even more resources.
NC is incredibly lucky to have someone like Anderson Clayton running the party, her impact is already being felt.
Despite concerted voter outreach, Democrats readily admit their reputation is poor in rural America. Rural voters helped put President Donald Trump in the White House twice and have reliably voted for Republicans in recent midterms as well.
The Democratic National Committee told NOTUS that it’s investing historic levels of money in state parties so they can hire rural organizing directors, put up billboards, and run radio ads. House Democrats’ official campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, began an eight-figure effort late last year to persuade voters of color and rural voters in competitive battleground districts. It’s the first time the committee has a program dedicated specifically to rural voters.
And Jaime Harrison, the former Democratic National Committee chair who promoted a rural strategy, has revived his PAC called Dirt Road Democrats and is investing in rural races across the country.
“This is investing in a 20- to 40-year project for rural North Carolina. I’m not naive to think that these counties can be flipped overnight,” North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton said. “If I do my job right, we will see that shift in every county in North Carolina, just like we did in Virginia.”
In the short term, party officials say nontraditional candidates with local ties will make all the difference. In North Carolina, the party searched for pastors, retired state employees, school board volunteers and football coaches to run, said Grayson Barnette, a Democratic strategist and senior adviser to the state party.
North Carolina Democrats have Democratic-aligned candidates running in every state legislative seat this year. In 2020 and 2022, the party left 44 state legislative seats uncontested. Those seats were left unfilled to save money in certain places, but also because the party struggled to recruit in “unwinnable” areas, Clayton said.
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.
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
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
If we have the two candidates attacking each other, on November 4 we'll all be going oh well, Senator Paxton. Maybe Texas in another 10 years.
The national supporters of each candidate need to get the two together and agree on a truce. Focus on issues and attacks on Republicans, then the loser of the primary wholeheartedly supports the winner.
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's going negative because she's behind, and she also is incapable of running on issues because she's not a policy candidate. Her campaign ethos is to 100% run on personality, and her personality brand is being "a fighter" so this is they only pathway she knows how to do.
I'm moderately shocked someone on her team is actually competent enough to cut ads in Spanish and try to deal with the huge vulnerabilities she has with Latino voters.
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.
Except I think it’s much less likely she becomes a perennial candidate after she loses. I’ve said she may run for Mayor of Dallas in 2028, which is largely a figurehead role and could suit her well. But far and away the most likely outcome is her longtime fantasy to be a Maddow/Psaki, and if she doesn’t land a major cable deal to self publish a podcast.
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.
Crockett does not elevate this debate lmao. This entire vanity campaign to grift for money after she torches the path behind her has made that eminently obvious to everyone else who wasn't already aware that's been her modus operandi the whole time.
Lots of giant egos (even by politician standards) in TX, it seems. Now, we have a circular firing squad. Yeesh.
Talarico doesn't seem to have this problem?
for there to be a 'circular firing squad' more than one person needs to be shooting. it seems like Crockett is the only one here
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.
Do you all think that the fact Rob Sand got a large contribution from Reid Hoffman will have any kind of an impact on the Iowa Governor's Race? I presume it will be a nothing burger, but this is the latest attack line Republicans are using against Auditor Sand.
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.
Maybe I’m just an eternal optimist at heart, but any amount of money a Democrat gets from a normally loyal rw GOP supporter if all else is equal, is a good thing in purple and red areas. Of course, as a partisan Democrat that immediately makes me worried that this candidate isn’t aligned with what I believe on policy. But it also shows that he is one of the few Democrats who can actually make our party tent bigger to win elections in areas we can’t win with our base, with voters we couldn’t win before.
There’s also the practical purpose that taking money away from a Republican who would be getting that cash otherwise, is a double impact for us, both by gaining money and taking away money from our opponent. That all said, in blue seats, it’s an automatic nonstarter for me. If this was a race for MD Governor and not IA, this donation would be considered disqualifying for myself of the Democratic candidate.
But in this particular case it’s proof and evidence of what we always say we want as loyal partisans: more people to vote for our party and our candidates. Sand’s campaign is bringing in people the average Democrat can’t and that’s necessary to win and the only reason the Iowa Governor race is considered a tossup in a Trump +15 state.
Reid Hoffmann is quite famously not a Republican? He’s got his own set of problems but being a GOPer is not one them
Maybe I’m thinking of a different billionaire? I thought Hoffman was one of the many GOP billionaire backers.
Nah he's the neoliberal billionaire who primaries progressives with his Super PAC and funds centrist reports and thinktanks.
They are trying to tie Sand to Hoffman. Hoffman has been tied to Epstein, but I agree with your larger point of expanding our tent.
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
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 😂😂😂
If the king of Democrats can admit it, I think it’s pretty clear that it’s a problem for our party that needs to be fixed.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/15/obama-democrats-problems-too-old-00782719
https://archive.ph/YSZSG
Former President Barack Obama is urging the Democratic Party to invest in younger candidates if it wants to come out victorious in the 2026 midterm elections and, eventually, the 2028 presidential election.
In an interview with YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen that was published Saturday, the 64-year-old said part of the reason his own elections were so successful was because he was young at the time.
“I’m a pretty healthy 64, feel great, but the truth is, half of the references that my daughters make about social media, TikTok and such, I don’t know who they’re talking about,” he said. “There is an element of, at some point, you age out. You’re not connected directly to the immediate struggles that folks are going through.”
“I’m not making a hard and fast rule here, but I do think that Democrats do well when we have candidates who are plugged into the moment, to the zeitgeist, to the times and the particular struggles that folks are thinking about as they look towards the future, rather than look backward toward the past,” Obama told Cohen.
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.
Yes, but we can’t ever fix a problem if we can’t admit there is one in the first place. The fact that so much of our party, including the most popular Democratic president, is embracing the argument of and openly saying how our party’s leadership is too old to be connected to and winning voters in today’s America, is a very positive step forward for us.
We’ve needed this refresh/rebrand from the top to bottom since 2016, so I’m glad it’s finally happening now. I get that it feels like “well, duh, we’re already doing that” since we see the evidence of change already, but prior to the 2024 election, the conventional wisdom majority of our party was that Biden was fine to run for re-election and we don’t need to change anything.
So for those of us who were a part of that sentiment (myself included, I was wrong, very wrong), it’s a whiplash from just 2 short years ago for where we were and what we argued back then. That’s what deserves the accolades and why Obama stating it is so massively important. He leads Democratic voters and his voice is listened to by the average supporter.
Or put another way, if Obama had come out and said “Biden should’ve run for re-election, we barely lost in 2016 and 2024, so I have faith for our current party leadership to rebuild the party because they have the most experience to do it with”. How would that go over with Democrats? 2 entirely different worlds we live in between then compared to now. That’s worth celebrating/pointing out.
Florida Democrats are adopting the 2018 successful national party midterm strategy by running military veterans.
Side note imo - Vindman framing his race as the patriot vs the politician is brilliant and turns one of Moody’s biggest strengths (winning her elections easily and outperforming other Republicans on the same ballot) into a liability. I love it.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/13/florida-dems-play-up-candidates-with-military-cred-00778126
https://archive.ph/PdVqe
SUNRISE, Florida — Newly minted Democratic Senate candidate Alex Vindman kicked off his first-ever campaign event by asking veterans in the room to stand.
As a handful rose to their feet, he said they understood more than anyone why he was running to defend the country. Though Vindman is known nationally as the whistleblower who triggered President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, he’s also a longtime Army combat veteran. And he’s leaning into his military credentials to frame his campaign as a standoff between himself — “the patriot” — and GOP Sen. Ashley Moody — ”the politician.”
It’s part of a midterm trend nationwide and in Florida, as Democrats try to inch the state back to battleground status — and, more broadly, take back control of Congress. Democrats have actively recruited centrist candidates with military backgrounds, some of whom didn’t ascribe to a party until recently. In the Senate race and several House elections, numerous ex-military Democrats are jumping into politics for the first time.
After enduring several election cycles of stark defeats by Republicans, the noticeable shift shows Democrats have come into Florida this cycle with a strategy of focusing on candidate quality and message. It’s similar to 2018, when Democrats flipped the House during Trump’s first term. That Democratic class of 2018 included former Reps. Abigail Spanberger, Mikie Sherrill, Andy Kim and Elissa Slotkin — all of whom had national security and military backgrounds and now serve as senators or governors.
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.
The DNC doesn't really play in congressional races, though, right?
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.
I don’t know if the DNC chairman has any effect whatsoever on who Democrats recruit to run for Congress and his fundraising is apocalyptically awful, but I’ve always been an evidence and data guy, so if we do well in the midterms, I’ll give him his due credit on the part he played. But he didn’t do everything even if we have a good election.
That said, he has been working mostly in the behind the scenes arena, the special elections, the boots on the ground areas, which have been even better than Trump 1. So maybe he’s just a work horse and not a show horse, but for those with doubts and concerns about him, like myself, it’s hard to trust promises of good things happening in a future that isn’t here yet. Especially because every single Democrat running any organization says exactly the same things and often has differing results compared to the promises made by them. Wait and see imo.
"upset of the cycle": Vindman wins!
IF that happens, we’re probably looking at closer to 60 seats, than just a bare majority in the chamber, with a tsunami wiping out Trump’s MAGA party. I hope Vindman does win, but I’ll believe it only after the vote has certified him as the winner in Florida and not 1 millisecond before it.
Great article worth your full time to read: Democrats, after starting to invest in national rural voter outreach for the first time in recent cycles, are doubling down with even more resources.
NC is incredibly lucky to have someone like Anderson Clayton running the party, her impact is already being felt.
https://www.theassemblync.com/news/politics/democrats-rural-voters-nc/
Despite concerted voter outreach, Democrats readily admit their reputation is poor in rural America. Rural voters helped put President Donald Trump in the White House twice and have reliably voted for Republicans in recent midterms as well.
The Democratic National Committee told NOTUS that it’s investing historic levels of money in state parties so they can hire rural organizing directors, put up billboards, and run radio ads. House Democrats’ official campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, began an eight-figure effort late last year to persuade voters of color and rural voters in competitive battleground districts. It’s the first time the committee has a program dedicated specifically to rural voters.
And Jaime Harrison, the former Democratic National Committee chair who promoted a rural strategy, has revived his PAC called Dirt Road Democrats and is investing in rural races across the country.
“This is investing in a 20- to 40-year project for rural North Carolina. I’m not naive to think that these counties can be flipped overnight,” North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton said. “If I do my job right, we will see that shift in every county in North Carolina, just like we did in Virginia.”
In the short term, party officials say nontraditional candidates with local ties will make all the difference. In North Carolina, the party searched for pastors, retired state employees, school board volunteers and football coaches to run, said Grayson Barnette, a Democratic strategist and senior adviser to the state party.
North Carolina Democrats have Democratic-aligned candidates running in every state legislative seat this year. In 2020 and 2022, the party left 44 state legislative seats uncontested. Those seats were left unfilled to save money in certain places, but also because the party struggled to recruit in “unwinnable” areas, Clayton said.
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.
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.
Nathan Sage has endorsed Josh Turek.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/nathan-sage-endorses-rep-josh-220524643.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall
(think you meant this to be a new thread)
Yes, I did. I apologize.
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