Ah, it takes a Geoffrey to truly know a Geoffrey! Never to be confused with a Jefferson or Jeffrey. Let’s face it, Geoffrey has medieval roots and carries a flair and panache that the latter two can never attain!
My sense of the Massachusetts race is that Markey will ultimately have a primary challenger, but it will be someone low profile, who may not clear the 15% at the State convention needed to make the ballot. The younger, ambitious Representatives who could plausibly make the "generational change" argument are generally to his right, which, as Kennedy showed, is a great way to lose a primary. The one exception is Pressley and I don't think she will run.
The overall mood is very much encouraging folks to run though, we had 12 candidates running for the 4 at large council seats in Somerville, MA, more than have run in decades. And our mayor, who was not very popular, came in third in the preliminary, meaning she won't be on the ballot in November.
The big picture reason was that she was indecisive and overly reliant of studies and outside consultants to the point where critical infrastructure got neglected. The most dramatic example of this was an elementary school where the ceiling collapsed, fortunately while no one was there. She then dithered about what to do for two years before coming up with a plan to build a new school on top of one of the few athletic fields in the city, not very close to the old school. There's also been a significant shortage of staff due to the rising housing costs in Somerville, meaning that the city increasingly relies on private contractors who are vastly more expensive, as well as basic things like fixing potholes or weeding rain gardens getting neglected. Rather than raising salaries, her administration hardballed the union and dragged out contract negotiations for nearly two years.
The rain gardens are a personal pet peeve. (Technically they're bioswales, but rain garden is the more common name.) The city has been building them at enormous expense to help with perennial flooding in the Union Square area, which will only get worse with climate change. But they need water absorbing plants in order to work. This is significant, simply having dirt and whatever weeds dominate the landscape doesn't absorb nearly as much water as proper plantings that are well maintained. So the whole "millions for outside contractors and pennies for in-house staff" mentality means that we're building green infrastructure but not doing the basic maintenance necessary to have it work.
Plus, they end up being an eyesore rather than an attractive element of the cityscape. Montreal has beautiful rain gardens that they've planted all over their alleyways. Their "Ruelles Vertes", as they're called, are featured on postcards and local artwork and really improve the look and feel of the city. We could have the same thing in Somerville, but no, that would require giving the unionized employees a fair contract. Can't have that.
More seriously though I also doubt Pressley will run. She's not doing the necessary fundraising. She's avoided making an endorsement, so maybe she's leaving the door cracked open. If she keeps waiting there won't be any practical opportunity for her regardless.
I'll maintain that Kennedy misjudged his timing. If he ran for reelection 2020-2024 and was making a first-challenge against Markey now he'd have a solid chance. Dems weren't concerned with generational change in 2020 but are concerned with it now. They also aren't going to replace established incumbents with nobodys, though, regardless of age. Hypothetical 14 year house rep JPK3 could have been the right "somebody" able to pull it off.
Kennedy had other problems. A lot of progressives were unhappy with him for taking oil money, and there was suspicion he’d be less progressive than Markey. Whether or not that was true, that was the feeling.
That’s the perception but Kennedy was quite progressive and had plenty of views in line with AOC and other Democrats in the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Kennedy sponsored legislation to study reparations. Not exactly an agenda of someone less progressive in Congress.
I remember. His biggest issue in 2020 is that he ran a garbage campaign. All his other issues could have been overcome if he ran a competent primary that didn't rely on Markey calling it quits in the face of his last name. It's like he decided to copy all of Ted Kennedy's mistakes from 1980.
For my hypothetical scenario I'm assuming he'd have learned from the extra six years in the house and been able to run a better campaign. The ideological difference is real but I suspect it's small enough (or would be perceived as small enough) of a downgrade in 2026 for people to accept it in exchange for not having an 80-86 year old senator. No guarantees of course, but I think it's plausible enough to have happened.
Small enough isn't necessarily the same as small. Regardless, in this instance I was thinking of the general consensus within the primary electorate rather than as an absolute assessment.
Your thoughts are an interesting hypothetical, but the hard facts we have are the campaign he actually ran, and I'm doubting he would have run one so much better if he had done it this year, instead, because the most important variable is that he's still him. Of course I could be wrong.
The joke mayor candidate I want to reprise is Titwolf. Titwolf is a prominent graffito behind Market Basket, and as you might imagine, is a painting of a shewolf with unrealistically engorged nipples. Some years ago, someone put "Titwolf for Mayor" stickers around the city.
I looked at the graffiti photo first before I finished reading your comment, and my first thought was of Lupa with Romulus and Remus! Was funny to read the same thought immediately afterwards.
I would love to see Wiley Nickel win that Wake County DA seat and really go after the corrupt MFs like Phil Berger and his nepo baby sons in elected office.
And I bet Berger will spend a LOT to keep him out.
CO-01: Wanda James seems like she could give Diana DeGette a real challenge. Interested to see how DeGette does against a stronger challenger in a year when voters might be in an anti-incumbent mood.
Not *necessarily* saying this applies to DeGette but when you've been in office for 30 years, you can run the risk of having an old mindset even if you're still relatively young!
If DeGette shows signs of that I would consider her a ripe target for a primary.
I live in Auchincloss’s district and am consistently disappointed by him. I’d really, REALLY hoped he’d be boneheaded enough to mount a challenge to Markey if only so we’d have a chance to replace him in Congress. Oh well, here’s hoping voters on the North Shore get the chance to do the very same to Moulton!
I used to live in Auchincloss' district, although I moved before before he was elected (while Kennedy was still Rep). I've heard a lot of dissatisfaction with him, my general sense of it being that he's too moderate, but I haven't really kept up with the politics there to know the details. Why are people dissapointed with him? Are there specific votes he took/actions he took? From the outisde he seems kinda just like a backbencher who will reliably vote with the party. Looking on Wikipedia also shows that he's a strong critic of big tech
He's big into the "Abundance" group, from a pro-business/wealthy angle.
In a vacuum and as 1/435 he's... fine. Not great, but not worth making much of a fuss over. He'll not be one of the people blocking our legislative goals in the house.
In context: he's in a D+11 district that could do far better than someone trying to moderate the party and wishing to align us more with wealthy interests. If he were to become a senator he'd have a far bigger platform and his more moderate goals would be an unfortunate downgrade in such an overwhelmingly blue state.
If he was in something like a D+5 seat or if he had ambitions to be senator from PA or NV or similar I suspect most people wouldn't care about him much. It's the blueness of his seat and the ultra-blueness of his state that causes people to dislike him.
But the primary electorate may not be progressive majority as seen in the open race that he won in 2020. Progressives could have won if they consolidated in contrast to multiple moderates splitting the vote in 2020, but I doubt a successful primary challenge can be mounted in 2026 even with good funding. Plus, one of the progressives in the race, Becky Grossman had similar foreign policy views as Auchincloss.
Trans woman in Moulton's district here- I'm STILL mad about what he said. I really hope we get a viable primary challenger here.
That said, if Moulton does try to pick off Markey, that'll end up being a very tough choice for who to vote for- I thought Markey was way too old LAST cycle and was fully on board for Kennedy... but I'm still mad at Moulton...
Moulton has been annoying in the past (Pelosi challenge after 2018 was never going anywhere) can you please remind me what he said after November 2024 that caused controversy and the immediate primary challenge?
Quoting from wiki, his remarks after Harris' 2024 loss:
"Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face. I have two little girls, I don't want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I'm supposed to be afraid to say that."
His focus is on blaming trans people/support for our loss, and framing it disingenuously as the result of us insisting on speaking about it. When in fact it's an issue where discussion is dominated by conservative commentary and people like him saying we speak about it too much, with far less of the actual discussion coming from us or our candidates.
Fair enough, I don’t think it’s fair that Democrats are the only ones concerned with governing so all the debates must occur within our party on social issues such as trans rights…but doesn’t Moulton make a point about chilled speech in our party when that specific comment earns him such enmity and a primary challenge? This site is (just like DKE before it) intended to be reality-based as we discuss how to win moving forward. Clearly the they/them ads worked for MAGA, if we cannot have these conversations within our own party how do we win back the voters we lost? I say this as a fellow MA Dem from the western part of the state.
However, Moulton underestimates exactly how the trans community has evolved over the years. He's only a few weeks older than I am so and we grew up at a time when trans awareness wasn't at the level it is today (and in recent years). Anyone who was trans either was more flamboyant or not as open as they are now. Could also be a society issue.
That said, whenever anyone who is trans hears what Moulton said in the post-2024 election reckoning, it complicates their efforts to raise awareness on these issues, especially since Moulton himself had a very good LGBTQ record to begin with.
Moulton chose I believe a convenient way to bring up the issue without actually trying to resolve it.
I agree. Spanberger is a better candidate than Sherrill (who don’t get me wrong I do like) and Ciattarelli is a WAY better candidate than Winsime-Sears. That’s not being replicated next year
If this is about comparison between Booker and Warner's reelections, it's hard to say who wins by more (probably depends in part on what kind of opponents they draw), but neither looks likely to be very competitive.
Interestingly, the Lt. Gov. race tracks closely with Governor, in contrast to some other polling that shows LG closer than Gov, though with Hashmi ahead. Attorney General is closer here, as might be expected with an incumbent, but Jones leads Miyares by 7.
Not surprising considering the Trump deadweight, at 39-57 approval here (other polls have had it a little higher, but still significantly underwater). And Youngkin's somewhat tepid 48-42 approval isn't enough to save the GOP.
I mean how much vote splitting is there really going to be? Mark Herring was an incumbent in 2021 and he only ran about a point ahead of McAuliffe. The whole dem ticket will probably be within a few points of each other. If Spanberger wins by double digits there’s no way the rest of the dem ticket loses.
Probably not much, but if governor ends up getting close then ticket splitting becomes possible, though it'll probably require some serious individual mistakes by any one candidate.
Earle-Sears' campaign hasn't been great so far, but she hasn't and probably won't have a Mark Robinson-type implosion in which she loses by a landslide with little effect on the rest of her party. (Though the GOP did lose several statewide races in NC, including for the Supreme Court, by close enough margins that Robinson can plausibly be blamed.)
If Spanberger wins by 12, it would be the biggest Dem margin in a VA governor race in the post-Jim Crow era. The state isn't nearly as generically blue at the state level as at the federal level: 2017 was probably the high water mark for Dems nationally this century, and they won the VA race by just 9.
w/r/t the special election section: Marc Tremblay and Corinne Cascadden are both former state representatives. Tremblay served 2010-2012 and Cascadden served 2022-2024
Hinson has never been anything more than exactly what the GOP zeitgeist of the moment needs her to be. She's only a little less obvious about it than Nancy Mace.
I'm a little surprised how shamelessly MAGA Hinson's launch has been. I kind of got it at first as she wanted to make sure she got Trump's endorsement, but now that she has it, seems like it wouldn't be the worst idea to pivot to the center!
More importantly, who is watching MTV today at all?
MTV was more popular back in the 80’s and 90’s, especially with Beavis & Butthead back in the day. I don’t hear Gen Z hooked on MTV these days but perhaps I am missing something.
There was an article a while back on how MTV is so dead, they have become 24/7 reruns of a show called "Ridiculousness". As in, the entire fucking day, non-stop, back to back to back.
This is how you know (and also probably why) cable is dying.
Yes but the bigger problem with streaming is that it's resulted in more of a cesspol of films and shows being on and then off inconsistently. Taking into account TikTok, YouTube and streaming platforms in general, there's just a lot of junk and plenty of which made by average joes who end up becoming famous.
There's just a lot of junk in general and plenty of it isn't even professionally filmed.
While it may be easy to argue cable is dying, satelite technology isn't going away so if streaming becomes a bigger problem, well, TV companies will just have to adapt.
That said, MTV like other channels is really catering to stupidity. Meanwhile, National Geographic Channel isn't strictly about what the brand name is supposed to be about. Same with the History Channel.
For comparison, the median U.S. total population age is 39. I'm not sure what the median CVAP (citizen voting age population) age is, but it's almost certainly at least several years less than 67.
Traditional television (broadcast, cable, and satellite) is dying a slow death.
Are these numbers for people who actually watch on cable TV? Because many clips from shows on these networks are available and watched by younger people online. For example, I watch a few MSNBC segments on YouTube. And CNN 10 is quite popular online as well, especially in schools. I'm assuming Fox has a similar situation, but I don't watch Fox so I wouldn't know.
Which is a terrible development, at least with broadcast TV. One of the best things about television is that was an egalitarian medium available to the richest family in Beverly Hills and the poorest family in East Kentucky. Now it's becoming just another pay-per-view indulgence boxing out downscale people from the same cultural experience as their upscale brethren.
This seems to be the soft launch video of a primary against Fetterman (doesn't mention him though). Conor Lamb is already running and campaigning (indirectly).
Deluzio comes from the Bernie wing but is moderate compared to him and represents a swing district while Lamb is what some may call a normal Democrat. Lamb also occupied the same district before he lost the Senate primary.
Unless I missed something, no, there's no official announcement yet. Presumably if he runs he will not announce until after the 2026 elections are over.
I think he's taking his time but there's no reason why he needs to officially jump in the race just yet. Given the intense criticism John Fetterman is getting with the PA Democratic Party base, Conor Lamb won't need to launch his race early on.
July 2027 would be ideal but could be sooner than that.
I wonder if Fetterman will ultimately end up doing that. He’s clearly unhappy where he is and is facing declining health. I actually think it’s possible he might retire early.
I think Fetterman is going to want his congressional pension, which requires five years of service. If he willingly retires early and aligned with that, he'd be leaving with only a year left in his term.
That makes me think he's more likely to stick it out than not. If he opts to not run for reelection he can sit back and fuck around for those final 12 months in office, let everyone else fight over the primary and general election. He could do all the things that get him negative headlines right now, but with much reduced uproar: dems will be busy with our presidential primary, presidential general election, PA senate primary, PA senate general election, and maybe even some other even higher profile primaries (eg AOC vs Schumer). He could skate by in that last year if that's what he wanted.
The other day I mentioned how many GOP retirements in Congress there has been compared to Democrats. Substack’s G Elliott Morris has an article out about what that likely means in 2026 using historical analysis. The full article is for paid subscribers only, but you can read the intro and the bottom line for free:
Retirements forecast GOP loss of two dozen House seats in 2026
We've sometimes seen in the past when a large enough wave has overcome gerrymandering, but if the gerrymandering is extreme enough, as in Wisconsin, that was impossible.
Why are American institutions constantly surrendering to Trump despite him being at 42-44 percent approval in most polls? Would potential Democratic Presidential candidates promising Trumpian retribution deter them from doing that?
Most of the institutions surrendering are controlled by conservatives. For them it's not so much surrendering as getting the opportunity to do something they wanted to do anyway. Before they felt enough pressure from other institutional powers to preclude them from doing so; now the landscape has changed and they feel free to do what they always wanted.
For the places that don't fall under that umbrella, it's a case of not wanting to be the target, forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and years in litigation. Not enough institutions are standing up.
It's a combination of institutions being co-opted and others focusing on self-interest with their own cowardice at play.
It's a major issue and I don't know how we can fix it. It's a pity all the super wealthy dem donors out there didn't opt to buy themselves some major media networks/papers over the years to give us some reliable counterbalance.
I don't even think they're really ideologically conservative. They're just trying to squeeze as much money out of this economy as they can before the bottom falls out and they flee with their golden parachutes.
Very good post, but there is certainly one thing a lot of these outlets would have preferred not to do: pay huge bribes ("settlements") to Trump, yet they did it as a cost of doing business in a corrupt country they've done a tremendous amount to corrupt.
They'd absolutely have preferred not to pay those bribes. But at the end of the day it isn't a big cost to them on a personal level. Disney executives with annual salaries in the millions of dollars will be unaffected by having a Disney subsidiary paying $16m to Trump. They're not going to have their pay cut, shareholders won't fire them, and it's not even their money on an individual basis.
Obviously they'd rather not do it, but it gets them preferential treatment from regulators and from that perspective it's a cheap "business expense."
The power to win lawsuits, and I doubt the courts would sustain political censorship and vendettas by Trump and the FCC, though the fact that I'm not completely sure shows just how extreme and corrupt this Supreme Court is.
He was pretty malignant and killed and tortured lots and lots of people. The difference was that when push came to shove, he was willing to concede to legal authority.
The Democratic field to take on Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins is getting crowded.
Former Air Force civilian officer Daira Smith Rodriguez launched her populist-flavored bid on Thursday, joining several other Democrats vying to unseat the longtime Republican incumbent in one of the party’s top pickup opportunities of the cycle.
In her launch video, Rodriguez goes after the “oligarchy” and the cost of living, and talks about her time taking on the “military industrial defense complex” as a civilian contracting officer.
This coming discussion about to happen below me I’m sure will be pleasant.
On a less glib note: Not surprising at all, hopefully it provides more fodder for his critics in the party to force him into retirement at the soonest point and whether that’s a recall (if possible) or the next election, that’s for your own individual opinion to decide. “State Party chair refuses to endorse his own party’s nominee. Says he’s too extreme”. That ought to irk even the centrists/establishment members to see these headlines used 24/7 by the GOP in this and other races. The ads write themself.
Least surprising non-endorsement of the year. Curious where Schumer and Jeffries will end up.
I wonder if they realize how much fuel these non-endorsements are adding to the fire of future third party runs from the left. Especially in a state like NY that has that as a more possible option. This is something we do not want, but Jacobs' actions is going to result in more of it. Especially in the hopefully improbable scenario of Mamdani losing.
If I had to guess, it's going to be an argument for the anti-incumbent faction. The way I see it, a lot of it is motivated by the sentiment of "the current structure doesn't work" (which I agree with, for transparency), and so these non-endorsements will be seen as attempts to reinforce said structure. That in turn only bolsters the anti-incumbency sentiment.
Honestly even if everything went wrong under Mandani the endorsement should be easy enough to defend based on Cuomo and Adam’s corruption and Sliwa’s militia nonsense.
Fear of a failed mayor should be a good reason to endorse the guy most likely to beat Cuomo if we're being consistent. Cuomo had his high profile fuckups and corruption as governor.
They don't like that he's so far to their left, and pointedly that Mamdani is so unabashed about that.
It seems to me, the easy response to that is "I endorsed Mamdani because he was the only Democratic candidate for Mayor of New York. His performance in office is his responsibility."
Anyway, unsurprising but telling. The NY Dems seem to care about little else besides the big mean scary socialists. Even non-socialist progressives like Gustavo Rivera and Robert Jackson get fucked by neoliberal purity tests. Meanwhile, fascists are destroying our democracy and civil liberties — where is all this outrage over that from these people like Jacobs and this lady?
Chair of the state party who failed to support Democratic nominee for mayor of Buffalo fails to support Democratic nominee for mayor of NYC. Fire his ass.
I still remember him blowing 2022, with us losing five House seats, several state legislative seats (including in fucking Brooklyn), and pretty much all of Nassau County's leadership -- as in, the Nassau County that he chaired the Dem Party of.
At this point, I suspect donors and corruption alone are keeping him there. We need a Wikler or a Clayton badly.
Unfortunately, this gives some credence to arguments made both inside and outside of groups like DSA, who are Democrats/Electoral skeptical - "We supported Harris against Trump while disagreeing with some of her stances, and this guy can't support his own state's nominee for mayor against a guy who Trump and his allies are trying to help win."
It certainly does. And many of us socialists would much rather support a socialist party than the Democrats, if that were electorally viable. It's the ones who would without it being viable who are a problem, as witness how Woodrow Wilson became President, etc.
From 2020 to 2024, Democrats lost support among White voters in the Northeast, Florida, and many ancestrally Democratic areas of the Midwest, while gaining in suburbs (primarily across the South and Mountain West).
Really unexpected shift in the deep deep South even though whites there vote like 80-90R but why did Trump's margins still increase there by 3-4 points overall? due to a shift in Black men?
There is a thing called Simpson’s paradox. The case-mix changes.
In a racially polarized electorate, Harris could have run better percentage in both White and Black voters than 2020, and overall got worse. As the percentage improvement within a segment doesn’t equal to improvement in the raw vote margins nor the percentage in overall electorate.
Ex, say, 2020 30-70 in white voters, 80-20 in all others, the electorate 60W 40Other, that is a tie.
2024 31-69 in whites, 81-19 all others. Both improve by 2pt. But the electorate is 63W 37Other, overall it goes 1pt deficit.
Harris is the very first PresiDem candidate breaking 30% in exurban Cherokee County Georgia, since Jimmy Carter! Improving ~1pt from 2024.
However her total vote deficit is over 6000 larger than 2020, as the exurb population is exploding, with super high White turnout. So with this “improvement” in one county alone, had all other places in the state stayed put, the razor thin 2020 winning margin would be cut by more than half.
“Geoff” Duncan (ask me why I noticed that!)
Ah, it takes a Geoffrey to truly know a Geoffrey! Never to be confused with a Jefferson or Jeffrey. Let’s face it, Geoffrey has medieval roots and carries a flair and panache that the latter two can never attain!
Thank you for the catch, Geoff!
My sense of the Massachusetts race is that Markey will ultimately have a primary challenger, but it will be someone low profile, who may not clear the 15% at the State convention needed to make the ballot. The younger, ambitious Representatives who could plausibly make the "generational change" argument are generally to his right, which, as Kennedy showed, is a great way to lose a primary. The one exception is Pressley and I don't think she will run.
The overall mood is very much encouraging folks to run though, we had 12 candidates running for the 4 at large council seats in Somerville, MA, more than have run in decades. And our mayor, who was not very popular, came in third in the preliminary, meaning she won't be on the ballot in November.
I heard the mayor of Somerville got voted out. Question - why was she considered unpopular?
The big picture reason was that she was indecisive and overly reliant of studies and outside consultants to the point where critical infrastructure got neglected. The most dramatic example of this was an elementary school where the ceiling collapsed, fortunately while no one was there. She then dithered about what to do for two years before coming up with a plan to build a new school on top of one of the few athletic fields in the city, not very close to the old school. There's also been a significant shortage of staff due to the rising housing costs in Somerville, meaning that the city increasingly relies on private contractors who are vastly more expensive, as well as basic things like fixing potholes or weeding rain gardens getting neglected. Rather than raising salaries, her administration hardballed the union and dragged out contract negotiations for nearly two years.
The rain gardens are a personal pet peeve. (Technically they're bioswales, but rain garden is the more common name.) The city has been building them at enormous expense to help with perennial flooding in the Union Square area, which will only get worse with climate change. But they need water absorbing plants in order to work. This is significant, simply having dirt and whatever weeds dominate the landscape doesn't absorb nearly as much water as proper plantings that are well maintained. So the whole "millions for outside contractors and pennies for in-house staff" mentality means that we're building green infrastructure but not doing the basic maintenance necessary to have it work.
Plus, they end up being an eyesore rather than an attractive element of the cityscape. Montreal has beautiful rain gardens that they've planted all over their alleyways. Their "Ruelles Vertes", as they're called, are featured on postcards and local artwork and really improve the look and feel of the city. We could have the same thing in Somerville, but no, that would require giving the unionized employees a fair contract. Can't have that.
Sounds bad. I can see why she lost.
Don't forget Somerville's new cat mayor!
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2025/09/16/somerville-has-a-new-cat-mayor-meet-minerva/
More seriously though I also doubt Pressley will run. She's not doing the necessary fundraising. She's avoided making an endorsement, so maybe she's leaving the door cracked open. If she keeps waiting there won't be any practical opportunity for her regardless.
I'll maintain that Kennedy misjudged his timing. If he ran for reelection 2020-2024 and was making a first-challenge against Markey now he'd have a solid chance. Dems weren't concerned with generational change in 2020 but are concerned with it now. They also aren't going to replace established incumbents with nobodys, though, regardless of age. Hypothetical 14 year house rep JPK3 could have been the right "somebody" able to pull it off.
Kennedy had other problems. A lot of progressives were unhappy with him for taking oil money, and there was suspicion he’d be less progressive than Markey. Whether or not that was true, that was the feeling.
Also, progressives always get hurt when someone tries to primary an old progressive.
In this case, they were upset because Kennedy was seen as less progressive.
That’s the perception but Kennedy was quite progressive and had plenty of views in line with AOC and other Democrats in the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Kennedy sponsored legislation to study reparations. Not exactly an agenda of someone less progressive in Congress.
Perhaps. I was wigged out by the oil money though myself. There were some other controversies but I don’t remember them well, it’s been a while.
I remember. His biggest issue in 2020 is that he ran a garbage campaign. All his other issues could have been overcome if he ran a competent primary that didn't rely on Markey calling it quits in the face of his last name. It's like he decided to copy all of Ted Kennedy's mistakes from 1980.
For my hypothetical scenario I'm assuming he'd have learned from the extra six years in the house and been able to run a better campaign. The ideological difference is real but I suspect it's small enough (or would be perceived as small enough) of a downgrade in 2026 for people to accept it in exchange for not having an 80-86 year old senator. No guarantees of course, but I think it's plausible enough to have happened.
From left of Markey, I definitely don’t perceive the ideological difference with jktrey as small.
Small enough isn't necessarily the same as small. Regardless, in this instance I was thinking of the general consensus within the primary electorate rather than as an absolute assessment.
Your thoughts are an interesting hypothetical, but the hard facts we have are the campaign he actually ran, and I'm doubting he would have run one so much better if he had done it this year, instead, because the most important variable is that he's still him. Of course I could be wrong.
The joke mayor candidate I want to reprise is Titwolf. Titwolf is a prominent graffito behind Market Basket, and as you might imagine, is a painting of a shewolf with unrealistically engorged nipples. Some years ago, someone put "Titwolf for Mayor" stickers around the city.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/MqMeih49e5CxFM1Z7
This graffito has long reminded me of the famous bronze of the Capitoline Wolf nursing Romulus and Remus from Roman mythology.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitoline_Wolf
Therefore, in reference to the issues with the school I mention above, I want the following campaign slogan:
Titwolf for Mayor 2025
Who needs functioning schools when you have the milk that succored Romulus and Remus?
I looked at the graffiti photo first before I finished reading your comment, and my first thought was of Lupa with Romulus and Remus! Was funny to read the same thought immediately afterwards.
I would love to see Wiley Nickel win that Wake County DA seat and really go after the corrupt MFs like Phil Berger and his nepo baby sons in elected office.
And I bet Berger will spend a LOT to keep him out.
CO-01: Wanda James seems like she could give Diana DeGette a real challenge. Interested to see how DeGette does against a stronger challenger in a year when voters might be in an anti-incumbent mood.
What's wrong with DeGette? I doubt she's the kind of weak-willed Democrat anyone is looking to replace. And she's not that old.
Not *necessarily* saying this applies to DeGette but when you've been in office for 30 years, you can run the risk of having an old mindset even if you're still relatively young!
If DeGette shows signs of that I would consider her a ripe target for a primary.
She’s never in the community and she barely has any major accomplishments despite being in congress forever.
Ok, those are excellent reasons to primary her. My feeling from outside was that she's a good liberal, but if you can get a better one, terrific.
I live in Auchincloss’s district and am consistently disappointed by him. I’d really, REALLY hoped he’d be boneheaded enough to mount a challenge to Markey if only so we’d have a chance to replace him in Congress. Oh well, here’s hoping voters on the North Shore get the chance to do the very same to Moulton!
Massachusetts residents (even Massholes!) definitely deserve upgrades from Seth Moulton and Jake Auchincloss. Democrats can do better.
I used to live in Auchincloss' district, although I moved before before he was elected (while Kennedy was still Rep). I've heard a lot of dissatisfaction with him, my general sense of it being that he's too moderate, but I haven't really kept up with the politics there to know the details. Why are people dissapointed with him? Are there specific votes he took/actions he took? From the outisde he seems kinda just like a backbencher who will reliably vote with the party. Looking on Wikipedia also shows that he's a strong critic of big tech
He's big into the "Abundance" group, from a pro-business/wealthy angle.
In a vacuum and as 1/435 he's... fine. Not great, but not worth making much of a fuss over. He'll not be one of the people blocking our legislative goals in the house.
In context: he's in a D+11 district that could do far better than someone trying to moderate the party and wishing to align us more with wealthy interests. If he were to become a senator he'd have a far bigger platform and his more moderate goals would be an unfortunate downgrade in such an overwhelmingly blue state.
If he was in something like a D+5 seat or if he had ambitions to be senator from PA or NV or similar I suspect most people wouldn't care about him much. It's the blueness of his seat and the ultra-blueness of his state that causes people to dislike him.
But the primary electorate may not be progressive majority as seen in the open race that he won in 2020. Progressives could have won if they consolidated in contrast to multiple moderates splitting the vote in 2020, but I doubt a successful primary challenge can be mounted in 2026 even with good funding. Plus, one of the progressives in the race, Becky Grossman had similar foreign policy views as Auchincloss.
Yeah, I suspect he's more or less safe from primary challengers. It's too bad, I wish Mermell had won.
Trans woman in Moulton's district here- I'm STILL mad about what he said. I really hope we get a viable primary challenger here.
That said, if Moulton does try to pick off Markey, that'll end up being a very tough choice for who to vote for- I thought Markey was way too old LAST cycle and was fully on board for Kennedy... but I'm still mad at Moulton...
Moulton has been annoying in the past (Pelosi challenge after 2018 was never going anywhere) can you please remind me what he said after November 2024 that caused controversy and the immediate primary challenge?
He said that Democrats lost due to the they/them ad and he didn't want trans students beating up his daughters in the field.
Quoting from wiki, his remarks after Harris' 2024 loss:
"Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face. I have two little girls, I don't want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I'm supposed to be afraid to say that."
His focus is on blaming trans people/support for our loss, and framing it disingenuously as the result of us insisting on speaking about it. When in fact it's an issue where discussion is dominated by conservative commentary and people like him saying we speak about it too much, with far less of the actual discussion coming from us or our candidates.
Fair enough, I don’t think it’s fair that Democrats are the only ones concerned with governing so all the debates must occur within our party on social issues such as trans rights…but doesn’t Moulton make a point about chilled speech in our party when that specific comment earns him such enmity and a primary challenge? This site is (just like DKE before it) intended to be reality-based as we discuss how to win moving forward. Clearly the they/them ads worked for MAGA, if we cannot have these conversations within our own party how do we win back the voters we lost? I say this as a fellow MA Dem from the western part of the state.
I'm not interested in a debate to indulge in an elected official's desire to feed their own persecution complex.
Your question about winning back voters is fair.
However, Moulton underestimates exactly how the trans community has evolved over the years. He's only a few weeks older than I am so and we grew up at a time when trans awareness wasn't at the level it is today (and in recent years). Anyone who was trans either was more flamboyant or not as open as they are now. Could also be a society issue.
That said, whenever anyone who is trans hears what Moulton said in the post-2024 election reckoning, it complicates their efforts to raise awareness on these issues, especially since Moulton himself had a very good LGBTQ record to begin with.
Moulton chose I believe a convenient way to bring up the issue without actually trying to resolve it.
VA: Someone got the Wason Center poll results early: https://politicalwire.com/2025/09/18/spanberger-up-by-double-digits-in-virginia/
Dems up 12 for Gov, also strongly up in other races.
Nice. She should win by a larger margin than Sherrill.
Shaping up like that.
Would the US Sen races next year be like that?
That I don't know. Probably not.
I agree. Spanberger is a better candidate than Sherrill (who don’t get me wrong I do like) and Ciattarelli is a WAY better candidate than Winsime-Sears. That’s not being replicated next year
If this is about comparison between Booker and Warner's reelections, it's hard to say who wins by more (probably depends in part on what kind of opponents they draw), but neither looks likely to be very competitive.
Interestingly, the Lt. Gov. race tracks closely with Governor, in contrast to some other polling that shows LG closer than Gov, though with Hashmi ahead. Attorney General is closer here, as might be expected with an incumbent, but Jones leads Miyares by 7.
Not surprising considering the Trump deadweight, at 39-57 approval here (other polls have had it a little higher, but still significantly underwater). And Youngkin's somewhat tepid 48-42 approval isn't enough to save the GOP.
I mean how much vote splitting is there really going to be? Mark Herring was an incumbent in 2021 and he only ran about a point ahead of McAuliffe. The whole dem ticket will probably be within a few points of each other. If Spanberger wins by double digits there’s no way the rest of the dem ticket loses.
Probably not much, but if governor ends up getting close then ticket splitting becomes possible, though it'll probably require some serious individual mistakes by any one candidate.
Earle-Sears' campaign hasn't been great so far, but she hasn't and probably won't have a Mark Robinson-type implosion in which she loses by a landslide with little effect on the rest of her party. (Though the GOP did lose several statewide races in NC, including for the Supreme Court, by close enough margins that Robinson can plausibly be blamed.)
I mean there's not much of a chance the others lose if the state votes spanberger.
If Spanberger wins by 12, it would be the biggest Dem margin in a VA governor race in the post-Jim Crow era. The state isn't nearly as generically blue at the state level as at the federal level: 2017 was probably the high water mark for Dems nationally this century, and they won the VA race by just 9.
And Spanberger would be the first woman Governor of VA as well if I’m not mistaken.
Also, I think it has Generic Lege dems up 51-43.
w/r/t the special election section: Marc Tremblay and Corinne Cascadden are both former state representatives. Tremblay served 2010-2012 and Cascadden served 2022-2024
IA-SEN:
GOP Senate Candidate Ashley Hinson’s first campaign kickoff.
And she’s giving no independence from Trump and blindly supporting the BBB bill with nothing but spin.
Sounds like we don’t need Joni Ernst to run for re-election if we want to win the Senate seat in Iowa!
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2025/09/15/ashley-hinson-launches-iowa-senate-campaign/86046714007/
Also in her first interview after she entered the race, she said that she is running primarily because of "muh California".
No real independent thinking of any sort in her candidacy eh?
Hinson has never been anything more than exactly what the GOP zeitgeist of the moment needs her to be. She's only a little less obvious about it than Nancy Mace.
About the only thing I know of Hinson’s record that I respect is that she’s for anti-trust accountability.
But that doesn’t matter in her Senate race as being pro BBB will still be an albatross over her ability to get traction.
Whoever the Democratic Senate Nominee is will have a lot of room to work with.
I'm a little surprised how shamelessly MAGA Hinson's launch has been. I kind of got it at first as she wanted to make sure she got Trump's endorsement, but now that she has it, seems like it wouldn't be the worst idea to pivot to the center!
Median viewer age:
MSNBC: 70
Fox News: 69
CNN: 67
https://x.com/esaagar/status/1793982747809395191
The most hilarious stat is MTV's median age viewer is over 50.
Who the hell is over 50 and watching MTV?
More importantly, who is watching MTV today at all?
MTV was more popular back in the 80’s and 90’s, especially with Beavis & Butthead back in the day. I don’t hear Gen Z hooked on MTV these days but perhaps I am missing something.
The reboot on Comedy Central has been fun. I didn’t like it as a kid in the 90s but appreciate it more in this MAGA era.
I couldn't tell you a single thing on MTV today or in the last 10 years.
There was an article a while back on how MTV is so dead, they have become 24/7 reruns of a show called "Ridiculousness". As in, the entire fucking day, non-stop, back to back to back.
This is how you know (and also probably why) cable is dying.
https://www.theringer.com/2020/09/15/tv/mtv-ridiculousness-rob-dyrdek-reinvention
This article is written in a more humorous tone but it describes the problem.
Yes but the bigger problem with streaming is that it's resulted in more of a cesspol of films and shows being on and then off inconsistently. Taking into account TikTok, YouTube and streaming platforms in general, there's just a lot of junk and plenty of which made by average joes who end up becoming famous.
There's just a lot of junk in general and plenty of it isn't even professionally filmed.
While it may be easy to argue cable is dying, satelite technology isn't going away so if streaming becomes a bigger problem, well, TV companies will just have to adapt.
That said, MTV like other channels is really catering to stupidity. Meanwhile, National Geographic Channel isn't strictly about what the brand name is supposed to be about. Same with the History Channel.
That pothead academic talking about aliens building pyramids isn’t historical enough for you?!
Oh that works.
But programming that isn’t history based at all is what I am critical of.
MTV became fully irrelevant in the 2010s to me. During the 2000s, the channel had some relevance.
For comparison, the median U.S. total population age is 39. I'm not sure what the median CVAP (citizen voting age population) age is, but it's almost certainly at least several years less than 67.
Traditional television (broadcast, cable, and satellite) is dying a slow death.
The Mamdani campaign spent 73 percent of its media budget on traditional television during the primary, so that death may be slower than we think.
And lots of it was in clips shared virally on social media.
Are these numbers for people who actually watch on cable TV? Because many clips from shows on these networks are available and watched by younger people online. For example, I watch a few MSNBC segments on YouTube. And CNN 10 is quite popular online as well, especially in schools. I'm assuming Fox has a similar situation, but I don't watch Fox so I wouldn't know.
The average age of people who watch Network TV in prime time is 65. Cable and network television are on borrowed time.
Which is a terrible development, at least with broadcast TV. One of the best things about television is that was an egalitarian medium available to the richest family in Beverly Hills and the poorest family in East Kentucky. Now it's becoming just another pay-per-view indulgence boxing out downscale people from the same cultural experience as their upscale brethren.
Plus, traditional TV was a way of bringing families together as they all huddled up to watch shows together.
Now with streaming, there is no point. More people get distracted as opposed to being connected with each other.
https://x.com/ChrisForPA/status/1963210691407454259 Chris Deluzio
This seems to be the soft launch video of a primary against Fetterman (doesn't mention him though). Conor Lamb is already running and campaigning (indirectly).
Deluzio comes from the Bernie wing but is moderate compared to him and represents a swing district while Lamb is what some may call a normal Democrat. Lamb also occupied the same district before he lost the Senate primary.
Either would be a substantial improvement over Fetterman
If Deluzio primaries Fetterman, maybe Lamb can run for his former seat.
Or Deluzio/Lamb could run for McCormick's seat in 2030?
Is Lamb officially running?
Unless I missed something, no, there's no official announcement yet. Presumably if he runs he will not announce until after the 2026 elections are over.
I think he's taking his time but there's no reason why he needs to officially jump in the race just yet. Given the intense criticism John Fetterman is getting with the PA Democratic Party base, Conor Lamb won't need to launch his race early on.
July 2027 would be ideal but could be sooner than that.
True. I agree.
I wonder if Fetterman will ultimately end up doing that. He’s clearly unhappy where he is and is facing declining health. I actually think it’s possible he might retire early.
I think Fetterman is going to want his congressional pension, which requires five years of service. If he willingly retires early and aligned with that, he'd be leaving with only a year left in his term.
That makes me think he's more likely to stick it out than not. If he opts to not run for reelection he can sit back and fuck around for those final 12 months in office, let everyone else fight over the primary and general election. He could do all the things that get him negative headlines right now, but with much reduced uproar: dems will be busy with our presidential primary, presidential general election, PA senate primary, PA senate general election, and maybe even some other even higher profile primaries (eg AOC vs Schumer). He could skate by in that last year if that's what he wanted.
The other day I mentioned how many GOP retirements in Congress there has been compared to Democrats. Substack’s G Elliott Morris has an article out about what that likely means in 2026 using historical analysis. The full article is for paid subscribers only, but you can read the intro and the bottom line for free:
Retirements forecast GOP loss of two dozen House seats in 2026
https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/house-retirements-forecast-democratic
Let's hope it's more than 24 seats.
You can hope, but with everything gerrymandered to heck, there just aren't that many swing seats anymore.
We've sometimes seen in the past when a large enough wave has overcome gerrymandering, but if the gerrymandering is extreme enough, as in Wisconsin, that was impossible.
Why are American institutions constantly surrendering to Trump despite him being at 42-44 percent approval in most polls? Would potential Democratic Presidential candidates promising Trumpian retribution deter them from doing that?
Most of the institutions surrendering are controlled by conservatives. For them it's not so much surrendering as getting the opportunity to do something they wanted to do anyway. Before they felt enough pressure from other institutional powers to preclude them from doing so; now the landscape has changed and they feel free to do what they always wanted.
For the places that don't fall under that umbrella, it's a case of not wanting to be the target, forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and years in litigation. Not enough institutions are standing up.
It's a combination of institutions being co-opted and others focusing on self-interest with their own cowardice at play.
It's a major issue and I don't know how we can fix it. It's a pity all the super wealthy dem donors out there didn't opt to buy themselves some major media networks/papers over the years to give us some reliable counterbalance.
I don't even think they're really ideologically conservative. They're just trying to squeeze as much money out of this economy as they can before the bottom falls out and they flee with their golden parachutes.
As corporate institutions, they are fundamentally conservative, though I agree with you on the rest.
Very good post, but there is certainly one thing a lot of these outlets would have preferred not to do: pay huge bribes ("settlements") to Trump, yet they did it as a cost of doing business in a corrupt country they've done a tremendous amount to corrupt.
They'd absolutely have preferred not to pay those bribes. But at the end of the day it isn't a big cost to them on a personal level. Disney executives with annual salaries in the millions of dollars will be unaffected by having a Disney subsidiary paying $16m to Trump. They're not going to have their pay cut, shareholders won't fire them, and it's not even their money on an individual basis.
Obviously they'd rather not do it, but it gets them preferential treatment from regulators and from that perspective it's a cheap "business expense."
Reason being - They want to avoid lawsuits and still function.
Cowardice, sure, but what power do they have over Trump at this time?
The power to win lawsuits, and I doubt the courts would sustain political censorship and vendettas by Trump and the FCC, though the fact that I'm not completely sure shows just how extreme and corrupt this Supreme Court is.
It's a lose-lose only if they don't care at all about having any editorial control over their own coverage.
Oh yes, that's true. I'm all for institutions fighting back and winning lawsuits.
But power means any lawsuits won means Trump will stop his petty agenda.
There was once a time when the press was proud of having an adversarial relationship with Richard Nixon.
Well, it helped that Nixon wasn’t a malignant narcissist even while he had a giant ego.
He was pretty malignant and killed and tortured lots and lots of people. The difference was that when push came to shove, he was willing to concede to legal authority.
The Democratic field to take on Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins is getting crowded.
Former Air Force civilian officer Daira Smith Rodriguez launched her populist-flavored bid on Thursday, joining several other Democrats vying to unseat the longtime Republican incumbent in one of the party’s top pickup opportunities of the cycle.
In her launch video, Rodriguez goes after the “oligarchy” and the cost of living, and talks about her time taking on the “military industrial defense complex” as a civilian contracting officer.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/18/maine-sen-rodriguez-00569216
https://x.com/TaliGoldsheft/status/1968739318110757029
Jay Jacobs declares that he is not endorsing Mamdani over Israel and his DSA membership.
This coming discussion about to happen below me I’m sure will be pleasant.
On a less glib note: Not surprising at all, hopefully it provides more fodder for his critics in the party to force him into retirement at the soonest point and whether that’s a recall (if possible) or the next election, that’s for your own individual opinion to decide. “State Party chair refuses to endorse his own party’s nominee. Says he’s too extreme”. That ought to irk even the centrists/establishment members to see these headlines used 24/7 by the GOP in this and other races. The ads write themself.
Least surprising non-endorsement of the year. Curious where Schumer and Jeffries will end up.
I wonder if they realize how much fuel these non-endorsements are adding to the fire of future third party runs from the left. Especially in a state like NY that has that as a more possible option. This is something we do not want, but Jacobs' actions is going to result in more of it. Especially in the hopefully improbable scenario of Mamdani losing.
If I had to guess, it's going to be an argument for the anti-incumbent faction. The way I see it, a lot of it is motivated by the sentiment of "the current structure doesn't work" (which I agree with, for transparency), and so these non-endorsements will be seen as attempts to reinforce said structure. That in turn only bolsters the anti-incumbency sentiment.
Only part of his statement was there. Is he leaving open the policy of endorsing Cuomo, the idiot who hired him?
Some fear he'll fail and the state will have to take charge of the city, leaving them with egg on their face for the endorsement.
Honestly even if everything went wrong under Mandani the endorsement should be easy enough to defend based on Cuomo and Adam’s corruption and Sliwa’s militia nonsense.
Guardian Angels aren't a militia. They are forbidden to carry weapons.
They've still been accused of being vigilantes since their founding.
What would the appropriate term be?
Trained neighborhood watch club I suppose. They have the militia look, but it is very much a "their bark is much worse than their bite" thing.
And that wasn’t a concern for Adams?
Well, this is the lesson they learned from that.
I doubt that they're considering Adams' failures in this context. Have any of them made the connection?
Fear of a failed mayor should be a good reason to endorse the guy most likely to beat Cuomo if we're being consistent. Cuomo had his high profile fuckups and corruption as governor.
They don't like that he's so far to their left, and pointedly that Mamdani is so unabashed about that.
David Axelrod as well as a NY historian and journalist said it was due to donor pressure more than anything else.
It seems to me, the easy response to that is "I endorsed Mamdani because he was the only Democratic candidate for Mayor of New York. His performance in office is his responsibility."
Wow is that lady who tweeted that obnoxious.
Anyway, unsurprising but telling. The NY Dems seem to care about little else besides the big mean scary socialists. Even non-socialist progressives like Gustavo Rivera and Robert Jackson get fucked by neoliberal purity tests. Meanwhile, fascists are destroying our democracy and civil liberties — where is all this outrage over that from these people like Jacobs and this lady?
Context behind your mention of Rivera and Jackson?
Rivera and Jackson were targets of party-backed primary challenges (that they overcame) due to them being progressives.
https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2022/07/its-gustavo-rivera-versus-bronx-machine/374856/
https://www.cityandstateny.com/personality/2022/08/robert-jackson-gets-gloat-now/376356/
Why are you generalizing about NY Dems when many -have- endorsed Mamdani?
I’m referring to Jacobs, et al. I’m glad the ones who endorsed did. It’s the holdouts I despise.
Me too!
Cool. So he can now become even more irrelevant after Mamdani inevitably wins.
Wonder what Jeffries does now. Does this give him cover?
Chair of the state party who failed to support Democratic nominee for mayor of Buffalo fails to support Democratic nominee for mayor of NYC. Fire his ass.
I still remember him blowing 2022, with us losing five House seats, several state legislative seats (including in fucking Brooklyn), and pretty much all of Nassau County's leadership -- as in, the Nassau County that he chaired the Dem Party of.
At this point, I suspect donors and corruption alone are keeping him there. We need a Wikler or a Clayton badly.
The problem is bigger than him, but he’s one of the methane bubbles on the top.
Mr. Irrelevant
Unfortunately, this gives some credence to arguments made both inside and outside of groups like DSA, who are Democrats/Electoral skeptical - "We supported Harris against Trump while disagreeing with some of her stances, and this guy can't support his own state's nominee for mayor against a guy who Trump and his allies are trying to help win."
It certainly does. And many of us socialists would much rather support a socialist party than the Democrats, if that were electorally viable. It's the ones who would without it being viable who are a problem, as witness how Woodrow Wilson became President, etc.
What a great way to render your position and influence even more irrelevant
Zachary Donnini
@ZacharyDonnini
From 2020 to 2024, Democrats lost support among White voters in the Northeast, Florida, and many ancestrally Democratic areas of the Midwest, while gaining in suburbs (primarily across the South and Mountain West).
https://x.com/ZacharyDonnini/status/1968371983734936027
Really unexpected shift in the deep deep South even though whites there vote like 80-90R but why did Trump's margins still increase there by 3-4 points overall? due to a shift in Black men?
https://votehub.com/2024-map/
The 2024 election at precinct level, can be filtered by demographics, shift from 2016 or 2020 and density.
There is a thing called Simpson’s paradox. The case-mix changes.
In a racially polarized electorate, Harris could have run better percentage in both White and Black voters than 2020, and overall got worse. As the percentage improvement within a segment doesn’t equal to improvement in the raw vote margins nor the percentage in overall electorate.
Ex, say, 2020 30-70 in white voters, 80-20 in all others, the electorate 60W 40Other, that is a tie.
2024 31-69 in whites, 81-19 all others. Both improve by 2pt. But the electorate is 63W 37Other, overall it goes 1pt deficit.
Another example of “improvement”.
Harris is the very first PresiDem candidate breaking 30% in exurban Cherokee County Georgia, since Jimmy Carter! Improving ~1pt from 2024.
However her total vote deficit is over 6000 larger than 2020, as the exurb population is exploding, with super high White turnout. So with this “improvement” in one county alone, had all other places in the state stayed put, the razor thin 2020 winning margin would be cut by more than half.
This is benamery21, just subscribed again under the new account.
a name I recognize! Howdy!
Welcome! Glad to see you here.
Still need to get back into the discord.
I haven’t. I decided to pay for the year, but i’m comfortable with reading messages and posting replies.
Welcome back!