I don't know how it works in South Carolina, but in Iowa, county attorneys prosecute rape cases--not the attorney general's office.
This post reminded me of an ad our Republican Governor Terry Branstad ran against his Democratic challenger, Iowa AG Bonnie Campbell, in 1994. There was a line in there about how under her leadership, the AG's office hadn't prosecuted any sex abuse cases against children. They made it sound like she didn't think those cases were important, when the reality was that county attorneys in Iowa handle those kinds of criminal charges.
Exactly. She was never a "moderate who went MAGA"—she was a rank opportunist from Day One.
(It seems to have been collectively memory-holed that her first foray into elective politics was her dud Tea Party primary campaign against Lindsey Graham in 2014.)
I sure wish we could win *something* beyond Clyburn's seat, though. (The sitting state superintendent is a clown show who deserves to lose to an actual educator, for just one example.)
The superintendent race was … interesting. Some of the congressional districts have been more competitive recently (District 1 flipped, then flipped back, and the District 4 race was more competitive last year). There’s also a suit on redistricting that I believe is still pending. If you’re serious about keeping things competitive, get involved at the municipal and county level. Run, or help out, or just find out what’s going on. Those offices have clout, too, and they are easier for people who want to run. (The statehouse pay is peanuts, and there’s no public transportation.)
Although a Tea Party Republican, the late Rep. Blake Farenthold was the step-grandson of an iconic figure in progressive Democratic politics in Texas - Frances "Sissy" Farenthold. She ran twice, unsuccessfully, in the Democratic primary for governor of Texas, and at the Democratic National Convention of 1972 her name was placed in nomination for vice president, losing out to Thomas Eagleton. She was elected first chair of the National Women's Political Caucus.
I would say that in and of itself yes Emerson is still that bad. However, the momentum of this race in Zohran's direction is pretty undeniable. I say that as a strong Lander supporter who isn't particularly fond of Zohran, but would rank him and not rank Cuomo on my ballot if I lived in NYC. Hopefully, we will get a better pollster to drop something tonight/tomorrow to get a better actual read on things.
Where Nancy Mace is correct is that the AGs office under Alan Wilson (and before) has been quite lenient on the good old boys. The Quinn affair is a good example. But also not getting the state law enforcement division SLED to focus on, or even competently investigate at all, crimes with good old boy connections is a real issue that Wilson will jave to defend. For example the judge and solicitor who enabled Alex Murdaugh, and multiple county police and the solicitor in the Myrtle Beach area who are covering up for a local restaurant owner who killed a guy in a road rage incident, and multiple accusations of child abuse and sexual harassment of a local pop up church pastor. This on top of this is a GOP state legislator, RJ May, who was just indicted on child p.rnography.
Wilson's office has covered up good old boy crimes for decades, but since he's part of the good old boy network, why wouldn't he?
The problem is that Mace is far from a perfect vehicle to take him down, but if I'm Ralph Norman, I'd jump into the gov race and quietly chant "You go girl!" all the way to my runoff win.
Okay interesting. When I tried to send my last message, I got an error response and had the option to try again. Instead I refreshed, and saw that it had still posted.
Cuomo got to consolidate a ton of the primary via name recognition and so many people with influence sat on the sidelines and were OK with it. Those people with outsized ability to make one of those candidates the consensus pick all opted to do nothing. Implicitly supporting Cuomo in the process.
Schumer, Gillibrand, and Hochul all opted to not make an endorsement as best I can tell. Schumer even lives in NYC and loves making endorsements; his silence says a lot. Gillibrand at least even specifically avoided speaking negative about Cuomo. James is the most prominent statewide official that made an endorsement at all. Jeffries isn't statewide but he is very prominent and he refused to make an endorsement.
Pro-Andrew Cuomo SuperPAC Fix the City put out an internal poll by HarrisX (they may have been trying to counter the Emerson poll showing Zohran Mamdani ahead on two-candidate preferred) showing Cuomo with a substantial lead (Cuomo winning on seventh round 52-28 over Mamdani, with Adrienne Adams not eliminated and at 20%), although the poll was in the field from June 11-22, and *a lot* has happened in the mayoral primary campaign since June 11.
- This poll appears to have been conducted online, based on the poll's description of its methodology.
- The poll did not provide a two-candidate preferred result (two-party/two-candidate preferred polling data is standard for pre-election polling in Australian House of Representatives elections, which are conducted via single-member-district ranked choice voting and have been for a long time).
- The poll has Jessica Ramos at 6% in the first round despite the fact that Ramos has endorsed Cuomo (although, strangely, she's not formally suspended her campaign).
- The poll has Brad Lander in fourth place in the first round (behind A. Adams) and in fifth place at elimination (behind A. Adams and Scott Stringer); most other recent polling has Lander in third place.
- The poll has candidates other than Cuomo and Mamdani getting a combined plurality (nearly a combined majority) of the Muslim vote in the first round.
Does Ramos' endorsement consist of more than asking her supporters to rank Cuomo 2nd? I don't think it's impossible for her to get 6% based on previous approval of her. I won't rate her tomorrow, though, and I otherwise would have been likely to have done so. I think my mayoral ballot will ultimately be Lander, Adams, Myrie, Mamdani, Blake.
I think Blake is worse than Mamdani because while both promise a rent freeze, Blake promised 600,000 affordable housing units and Mamdani promises 200,000. Of course more affordable housing is better, but with a rent freeze, no-one will want to build it and the city would have to go into debt to take on that responsibility. I guess I should look more closely at the rest of his promises before rating him at all, though.
Put it this way - if only Cuomo, Adams, and Sliwa are on the ballot? I'd probably vote Adams. At least I can comprehend his lane, as the crooked cop. Beats sex pest/sociopath and subway vigilante/sociopath.
That said, I've written in my cats' names in prior North Cakalaky races. They'd do a damned fine job, but they'd just refuse.
He is only because his father was and he's socially liberal. He screwed the city big-time and collaborated with the Republicans to keep them in power and maximize their ability to fuck with U.S. House redistricting when they were finally on the way out.
My thought is - he could do WAY more damage, in deep, structural ways. Adams is more of a corrupt, grifting boob. His damage would remain mostly short-term and fixable.
But none of Adams, Cuomo, Sliwa are even D- acceptable candidates. Mamdani gets my vote after the primary (on whatever ballot line), and he's maybe a D+
It's hard for me to evaluate which of them is worse in net.
I'd argue Adams' deep corruption and willingness to appease Trump is more dangerous than Cuomo's own corruption and willingness to appease conservatives and subvert the democratic party. Butttttttt.... Adams would be term limited while Cuomo, if he wins, could easily be around until 2034. Twice as long to do more damage, especially institutional damage as you highlight.
Normally I feel comfortable enough identifying my own opinion of the less-bad option but I would genuinely struggle to do so in this scenario.
Hard to know how great he might or might not have been with a Democratic Legislature, but I liked him. Adams also signed a lot of legislation passed by the New York City Council, which is dominated by Democrats, so I don't get how that's a distinction from Andrew Cuomo.
Per the first sentence, Cuomo in my view has been more loyal to Democrats than Adams has. He didn’t act like an asshole to people like Luigi Mangione when they have still have due process rights. It’s not good optics for a Democrat holding office, even as Mayor of one of the largest cities in the U.S., to start getting hardline so much on crime but not on being the voice of reason and civility. Also, Cuomo was not a former police officer who flip-flopped on stop and frisk like Adams did from being against it before being for it.
Per the 2nd part of what I am saying, that’s just standard procedure.
You really hold it against him to be negative toward a murderer? He can express an opinion on that without being bound by innocent until proven guilty, as he's not a juror. Otherwise, you have a strange definition of "loyal".
It’s not having a negative opinion about Mangione that’s the issue. It’s that Adams made a whole public scene out of Mangione and the murder he committed beyond what he needed to do. He also showed absolutely no recognition towards the backdrop of the situation, which was on how angry patients with healthcare insurance are at the system and being denied care when they shouldn’t be. The only reason why Mangione has being called out by Adams is because this was such a high profile murder. Mangione’s attorney was not happy with Adams’ rhetoric as she believed he could not have a fair trial as a result. Adams in other words is trying to influence the case, especially with the jury.
For the record, considering the severity of the crime I don’t think Mangione will get a light sentence. The severity of this crime is significant.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this an extremely weak showing for Cuomo? Especially from an internal poll? I honestly don’t know why he’d put it out other than a break glass in case of emergency campaign rebuttal to Mamdani’s momentum. 52% is a majority and would get him the nomination, but that also means 48% of voters are wanting someone else. But as a former 3 term governor with universal name ID? That’s quite bad.
There’s no guarantee Adams voters would all go to Mamdani of course and some will definitely not rank a candidate in a Cuomo vs Mamdani matchup, but I think most Adams voters would vote for Mamdani. Also, 2% can be made up or lost very easily from turnout or even be in the margin of error in this poll.
If anything, this poll makes me believe Mamdani’s going to win. We’ll find out shortly in any case though!
I will note on here that I have not had the issue of the "something went wrong" message popping up, but the comment posting anyways, when trying to comment on here. That issue has caused some people on here to have the same comment post several times.
Primary Day in New York City is tomorrow. I have not voted early. I'm looking at a sample ballot now.
Is there any reason I should rate anyone for Comptroller other than Mark Levine? Also, I tend to feel like there's no reason to primary out Jumaane Williams for Public Advocate. Is there any important reason to rank the ambitious Jennifer Rajkumar? I wouldn't vote for her for a position like this on account of her being younger. She seems like a good liberal, though.
I didn't get around to mentioning this because of so many events that have unfolded in recent days, but Minnesota State Sen. Erin Maye Quade (DFL-Apple Valley) talked about how seeing and hearing about some of the actions of the Trump Administration made her feel physically ill (EMQ said that in response to U.S. Homeland Security Secy. Kristi Noem's security detail assaulting U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA); the second link below is EMQ's initial response to the assault of Padilla):
EMQ posted that before the assassination of Minnesota State House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and attempted assassination of Minnesota State Sen. John Hoffman, which traumatized the entire Minnesota DFL community and Minnesotans in general.
About a week and a half ago, I asked Florida State Rep. and Orlando mayoral candidate Anna Eskamani (D-Orlando; given name pronounced AH-nuh) about how current events affect her mental well-being (I was inspired to do this because of EMQ talking about how she felt physically ill after learning about the assault of Padilla), and she gave a very insightful response (although it's slightly over halfway into a very long IG reel linked to below):
"You lie!"
– Nancy Mace on Alan Wilson, summarized
Rep. Joe Wilson to Nancy Mace:
“My son is not Obama! I said it to Obama because he was telling a real lie. I apologized for it but I don’t regret saying it!”
I don't know how it works in South Carolina, but in Iowa, county attorneys prosecute rape cases--not the attorney general's office.
This post reminded me of an ad our Republican Governor Terry Branstad ran against his Democratic challenger, Iowa AG Bonnie Campbell, in 1994. There was a line in there about how under her leadership, the AG's office hadn't prosecuted any sex abuse cases against children. They made it sound like she didn't think those cases were important, when the reality was that county attorneys in Iowa handle those kinds of criminal charges.
We have solicitors, not county district attorneys. Wilson’s office (the AG) occasionally gets directly involved in prosecutions.
I thought soliciting was largely illegal in the cities and towns of South Carolina?
/s
Trey Gowdy used to be the solicitor for this district. Fun fact.
Is there anything Nancy Mace won't lie about to get ahead? First it was demonizing trans people, now calling other Republicans RINOs.
Sheesh.
Hopefully this wounds those other Republicans, and herself, so severely that it clears a path for our Democratic candidates.
Yes, but very unlikely.
Winning these races is a long shot, but I applaud anything that improves our odds.
Exactly. She was never a "moderate who went MAGA"—she was a rank opportunist from Day One.
(It seems to have been collectively memory-holed that her first foray into elective politics was her dud Tea Party primary campaign against Lindsey Graham in 2014.)
Frankly, Mace is the real RINO.
She just goes for the opportunities when it’s politically expedient for her but otherwise has no real principled views.
Calling a fellow Republican challenger, the son of a current Congressman who has never been accused of being a RINO, a RINO is a FAIL.
We don't know if it's a fail. Whether it's a fail or not depends solely on the results.
No substance and just petty, random crap, especially considering Mace was never a Hard Trumper to begin with. That’s why I view it is a fail.
But at this point, if Democrats can pick up SC-01 with Mace’s help, could care less.
But it's very rarely a reasonable accusation, and that doesn't make it a political failure.
We shall see how this plays out then.
I'm pretty sure they all lie. When do Republicans ever tell the truth?
Texas astronaut Terry Virts launches his Senate campaign.
https://nitter.net/AstroTerry/status/1937101647391736111
https://x.com/AstroTerry/status/1937101647391736111
It's the party of nasty and cruelty so that would be a very good reason in their warped little minds.
Never a dull moment in Palmetto State politics.
I sure wish we could win *something* beyond Clyburn's seat, though. (The sitting state superintendent is a clown show who deserves to lose to an actual educator, for just one example.)
The superintendent race was … interesting. Some of the congressional districts have been more competitive recently (District 1 flipped, then flipped back, and the District 4 race was more competitive last year). There’s also a suit on redistricting that I believe is still pending. If you’re serious about keeping things competitive, get involved at the municipal and county level. Run, or help out, or just find out what’s going on. Those offices have clout, too, and they are easier for people who want to run. (The statehouse pay is peanuts, and there’s no public transportation.)
Although a Tea Party Republican, the late Rep. Blake Farenthold was the step-grandson of an iconic figure in progressive Democratic politics in Texas - Frances "Sissy" Farenthold. She ran twice, unsuccessfully, in the Democratic primary for governor of Texas, and at the Democratic National Convention of 1972 her name was placed in nomination for vice president, losing out to Thomas Eagleton. She was elected first chair of the National Women's Political Caucus.
NYC-Mayor, It's Emerson but it does show Mamdani ahead of Cuomo 52-48: https://pix11.com/news/politics/new-york-elections/final-nyc-mayor-poll-shows-mamdani-ahead-of-cuomo-in-ranked-choice-voting/
Is Emerson still so bad we should disregard it?
I would say that in and of itself yes Emerson is still that bad. However, the momentum of this race in Zohran's direction is pretty undeniable. I say that as a strong Lander supporter who isn't particularly fond of Zohran, but would rank him and not rank Cuomo on my ballot if I lived in NYC. Hopefully, we will get a better pollster to drop something tonight/tomorrow to get a better actual read on things.
We'll have actual raw results tomorrow.
In fairness, actual results are indeed "a better pollster." ;-)
NYC-Mayor, It's Emerson but it does show Mamdani ahead of Cuomo 52-48: https://pix11.com/news/politics/new-york-elections/final-nyc-mayor-poll-shows-mamdani-ahead-of-cuomo-in-ranked-choice-voting/
Where Nancy Mace is correct is that the AGs office under Alan Wilson (and before) has been quite lenient on the good old boys. The Quinn affair is a good example. But also not getting the state law enforcement division SLED to focus on, or even competently investigate at all, crimes with good old boy connections is a real issue that Wilson will jave to defend. For example the judge and solicitor who enabled Alex Murdaugh, and multiple county police and the solicitor in the Myrtle Beach area who are covering up for a local restaurant owner who killed a guy in a road rage incident, and multiple accusations of child abuse and sexual harassment of a local pop up church pastor. This on top of this is a GOP state legislator, RJ May, who was just indicted on child p.rnography.
Wilson's office has covered up good old boy crimes for decades, but since he's part of the good old boy network, why wouldn't he?
The problem is that Mace is far from a perfect vehicle to take him down, but if I'm Ralph Norman, I'd jump into the gov race and quietly chant "You go girl!" all the way to my runoff win.
You posted this 10 times.
I wonder if there's some sort of glitch in the comments? Because your comment also appeared multiple times
Okay interesting. When I tried to send my last message, I got an error response and had the option to try again. Instead I refreshed, and saw that it had still posted.
Apparently if you wait for a couple seconds after clicking reply, it will eventually post despite the "something went wrong" message
If you click on the three dots at the top of your comments, you should be able to delete the multiple comments (but keep one).
Sorry about that everyone. I was definitely getting error messges, and then I'd hit back and apparently it posted again.
Never happened before.
NYC-Mayor, It's Emerson but it does show Mamdani ahead of Cuomo 52-48: https://pix11.com/news/politics/new-york-elections/final-nyc-mayor-poll-shows-mamdani-ahead-of-cuomo-in-ranked-choice-voting/
It's sad that it's this close but I hope Mamdani can pull it off.
Mamdani is a very flawed candidate. What's really sad is that there are 3 better candidates who somehow never got much support from New Yorkers.
I mean, there's a small chance that Mamdani would be a non-disaster mayor. Plus, I'd like to see a message sent to Cuomo and his myriad enablers.
So, I'd probably hold my nose and rank him 4th or 5th. Anyone but Cuomo, but UGH.
I don't disagree, but that's probably why it's so close.
Cuomo got to consolidate a ton of the primary via name recognition and so many people with influence sat on the sidelines and were OK with it. Those people with outsized ability to make one of those candidates the consensus pick all opted to do nothing. Implicitly supporting Cuomo in the process.
Schumer, Gillibrand, and Hochul all opted to not make an endorsement as best I can tell. Schumer even lives in NYC and loves making endorsements; his silence says a lot. Gillibrand at least even specifically avoided speaking negative about Cuomo. James is the most prominent statewide official that made an endorsement at all. Jeffries isn't statewide but he is very prominent and he refused to make an endorsement.
Cowards. All of them.
fyi some sort of error is causing a lot of folks posts to be posted repeatedly
Pro-Andrew Cuomo SuperPAC Fix the City put out an internal poll by HarrisX (they may have been trying to counter the Emerson poll showing Zohran Mamdani ahead on two-candidate preferred) showing Cuomo with a substantial lead (Cuomo winning on seventh round 52-28 over Mamdani, with Adrienne Adams not eliminated and at 20%), although the poll was in the field from June 11-22, and *a lot* has happened in the mayoral primary campaign since June 11.
https://empirereportnewyork.com/fix-the-city-final-pre-primary-poll-cuomo-maintains-comfortable-lead-over-mamdani/
Some notes regarding the HarrisX poll:
- This poll appears to have been conducted online, based on the poll's description of its methodology.
- The poll did not provide a two-candidate preferred result (two-party/two-candidate preferred polling data is standard for pre-election polling in Australian House of Representatives elections, which are conducted via single-member-district ranked choice voting and have been for a long time).
- The poll has Jessica Ramos at 6% in the first round despite the fact that Ramos has endorsed Cuomo (although, strangely, she's not formally suspended her campaign).
- The poll has Brad Lander in fourth place in the first round (behind A. Adams) and in fifth place at elimination (behind A. Adams and Scott Stringer); most other recent polling has Lander in third place.
- The poll has candidates other than Cuomo and Mamdani getting a combined plurality (nearly a combined majority) of the Muslim vote in the first round.
For comparison, the Emerson poll data (in the field June 18-20 and with a considerably different methodology) showing Mamdani ahead of Cuomo on two-candidate preferred is here: https://emersoncollegepolling.com/new-york-city-mayoral-poll-june/
Does Ramos' endorsement consist of more than asking her supporters to rank Cuomo 2nd? I don't think it's impossible for her to get 6% based on previous approval of her. I won't rate her tomorrow, though, and I otherwise would have been likely to have done so. I think my mayoral ballot will ultimately be Lander, Adams, Myrie, Mamdani, Blake.
I'd probably go Adams/Lander/Myrie/(some rando)/Mamdani. I go back and forth on slots 1 and 2.
I think Blake is worse than Mamdani because while both promise a rent freeze, Blake promised 600,000 affordable housing units and Mamdani promises 200,000. Of course more affordable housing is better, but with a rent freeze, no-one will want to build it and the city would have to go into debt to take on that responsibility. I guess I should look more closely at the rest of his promises before rating him at all, though.
So Cuomo is relying on Mark Penn. Two POS.
Whatever happens in the primary, I think both Mamdani and Cuomo will be on the ballot in November.
Put it this way - if only Cuomo, Adams, and Sliwa are on the ballot? I'd probably vote Adams. At least I can comprehend his lane, as the crooked cop. Beats sex pest/sociopath and subway vigilante/sociopath.
That said, I've written in my cats' names in prior North Cakalaky races. They'd do a damned fine job, but they'd just refuse.
I wouldn't vote for Adams under any circumstances. He is compromised and collaborating with Trump.
And more importantly, is a real DINO with plenty of hard evidence to back this up.
Cuomo is also not a real Democrat.
Yeah, he is. He just also happens to be a piece of crap, awful human being.
He is only because his father was and he's socially liberal. He screwed the city big-time and collaborated with the Republicans to keep them in power and maximize their ability to fuck with U.S. House redistricting when they were finally on the way out.
My thought is - he could do WAY more damage, in deep, structural ways. Adams is more of a corrupt, grifting boob. His damage would remain mostly short-term and fixable.
But none of Adams, Cuomo, Sliwa are even D- acceptable candidates. Mamdani gets my vote after the primary (on whatever ballot line), and he's maybe a D+
It's hard for me to evaluate which of them is worse in net.
I'd argue Adams' deep corruption and willingness to appease Trump is more dangerous than Cuomo's own corruption and willingness to appease conservatives and subvert the democratic party. Butttttttt.... Adams would be term limited while Cuomo, if he wins, could easily be around until 2034. Twice as long to do more damage, especially institutional damage as you highlight.
Normally I feel comfortable enough identifying my own opinion of the less-bad option but I would genuinely struggle to do so in this scenario.
He’s a real New York Democrat.
Is not. IDC.
By contrast, he’s more so than Adams is. From what I recall, he also signed plenty of Democratic Party-introduced legislation.
But I also get the point of view you have on Cuomo. The late Mario Cuomo was great.
Hard to know how great he might or might not have been with a Democratic Legislature, but I liked him. Adams also signed a lot of legislation passed by the New York City Council, which is dominated by Democrats, so I don't get how that's a distinction from Andrew Cuomo.
Per the first sentence, Cuomo in my view has been more loyal to Democrats than Adams has. He didn’t act like an asshole to people like Luigi Mangione when they have still have due process rights. It’s not good optics for a Democrat holding office, even as Mayor of one of the largest cities in the U.S., to start getting hardline so much on crime but not on being the voice of reason and civility. Also, Cuomo was not a former police officer who flip-flopped on stop and frisk like Adams did from being against it before being for it.
Per the 2nd part of what I am saying, that’s just standard procedure.
You really hold it against him to be negative toward a murderer? He can express an opinion on that without being bound by innocent until proven guilty, as he's not a juror. Otherwise, you have a strange definition of "loyal".
He showed up in person when they brought him back. Impressive grandstanding.
It’s not having a negative opinion about Mangione that’s the issue. It’s that Adams made a whole public scene out of Mangione and the murder he committed beyond what he needed to do. He also showed absolutely no recognition towards the backdrop of the situation, which was on how angry patients with healthcare insurance are at the system and being denied care when they shouldn’t be. The only reason why Mangione has being called out by Adams is because this was such a high profile murder. Mangione’s attorney was not happy with Adams’ rhetoric as she believed he could not have a fair trial as a result. Adams in other words is trying to influence the case, especially with the jury.
For the record, considering the severity of the crime I don’t think Mangione will get a light sentence. The severity of this crime is significant.
https://youtu.be/HibbRZC-V4E?feature=shared
They wouldn’t be the only ones on the ballot. And I’d vote for Cuomo before I’d vote for Adams.
The other poll seems much more plausible.
Because?
I don't think Cuomo has a 30 point lead.
That's a reasonable thought. He might in a later round, though.
Fix the City is the name of the Super PAC?
Hell of a name for a pro-Cuomo Super PAC!
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this an extremely weak showing for Cuomo? Especially from an internal poll? I honestly don’t know why he’d put it out other than a break glass in case of emergency campaign rebuttal to Mamdani’s momentum. 52% is a majority and would get him the nomination, but that also means 48% of voters are wanting someone else. But as a former 3 term governor with universal name ID? That’s quite bad.
There’s no guarantee Adams voters would all go to Mamdani of course and some will definitely not rank a candidate in a Cuomo vs Mamdani matchup, but I think most Adams voters would vote for Mamdani. Also, 2% can be made up or lost very easily from turnout or even be in the margin of error in this poll.
If anything, this poll makes me believe Mamdani’s going to win. We’ll find out shortly in any case though!
I will note on here that I have not had the issue of the "something went wrong" message popping up, but the comment posting anyways, when trying to comment on here. That issue has caused some people on here to have the same comment post several times.
It's not happening to me, either.
It was a Substack-wide phenomenon, early afternoon EST (was really bonkers on the JVL daily thread on Bulwark). Seems to have resolved itself.
Primary Day in New York City is tomorrow. I have not voted early. I'm looking at a sample ballot now.
Is there any reason I should rate anyone for Comptroller other than Mark Levine? Also, I tend to feel like there's no reason to primary out Jumaane Williams for Public Advocate. Is there any important reason to rank the ambitious Jennifer Rajkumar? I wouldn't vote for her for a position like this on account of her being younger. She seems like a good liberal, though.
I didn't get around to mentioning this because of so many events that have unfolded in recent days, but Minnesota State Sen. Erin Maye Quade (DFL-Apple Valley) talked about how seeing and hearing about some of the actions of the Trump Administration made her feel physically ill (EMQ said that in response to U.S. Homeland Security Secy. Kristi Noem's security detail assaulting U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA); the second link below is EMQ's initial response to the assault of Padilla):
https://www.instagram.com/p/DK0USjlMoZc/
https://www.instagram.com/p/DK0DzPWxpla/
EMQ posted that before the assassination of Minnesota State House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and attempted assassination of Minnesota State Sen. John Hoffman, which traumatized the entire Minnesota DFL community and Minnesotans in general.
About a week and a half ago, I asked Florida State Rep. and Orlando mayoral candidate Anna Eskamani (D-Orlando; given name pronounced AH-nuh) about how current events affect her mental well-being (I was inspired to do this because of EMQ talking about how she felt physically ill after learning about the assault of Padilla), and she gave a very insightful response (although it's slightly over halfway into a very long IG reel linked to below):
https://www.instagram.com/p/DK2ymLFRq2c/
I'd figure I share this, given how politics and current events can be taxing on the mental health of political figures and citizens alike.