I think he easily defeats Collins. And is going to also easily clear 50%+ in next week’s primary. The latest NYT article is almost all sourced from the right wing, Heritage Foundation operative, so I doubt his supporters will be swayed.
He may very well win but easily is a huge reach. We’ve been here before with Collins and it won’t do to underestimate her or the massive financial back she’ll receive.
a) he is not the strongest candidate we can put up here and we may very well lose the Senate because of him. It's not likely, but we're all kidding ourselves if we don't think it's possible that we win NC, OH, and one of AK, TX, and IA but Platner goes down because of these or forthcoming scandals.
b) I'm not sure we should want people like him in elected office. Donald Trump is a horrific person and a malignant force on our civic culture. Platner is nowhere near as bad as him but I don't see why we should want him to be in the Senate over a Democratic alternative.
c) it's worth noting that Hillary won Maine.
d) edit to add that someone with his personality is a liability politically in the way Fetterman is. I don't think it's safe to assume he'll be there with us on every tough vote.
In all fairness, if he breaks with Democrats in the Senate, it isn't going to be to screw the left a-la-Fetterman. He's more likely to break on status quo stuff, which is likely to cause less problems, although I doubt he's a reliable vote on any form of budget.
I think people who are as unstable as he is are liable to being sucked into right wing politics pretty easily. He is also narcissistic and may want the attention that comes with being a thorn in the side of leadership like Kyrsten Sinema was.
I don’t think you’ll find many people here not supporting him if he remains the nominee. There’s a difference between preferring we nominate someone without all this baggage, but that ship sailed months ago.
You also see a break with R-leaning independent/squishy R voters breaking with their party in the special elections in FL and TX... R+15 districts flipping to Democrats. That throws uncertainty that R gerrymanders are going to hold if 8-10% of Republicans defect to the other party and a plurality stay home.
I dislike characterizing Collins' 2020 win as that large. There was a substantial amount of third party voting that would have decreased the margin had Collins not won on the first round. Not all of them would have ranked Gideon ahead of Collins; not all of them would have ranked else at all for that matter. But the "real" margin if they had tabulated all the ballots to simulate a final round would probably have been in the 4-6 point range.
I think people are too pessimistic, we have to remember the general election is in 5 months. It certainly won’t get better for the republicans by then, and that will indirectly benefit Platner.
Hasn't been crossed- yet. I fear that there will be a drip drip drip of negative information coming out about Platner all the way until the election and the worst stuff will come out in October.
This is what I don’t understand. Why push forward with the dark cloud of more unknown stuff hanging over him when we could wipe our hands of it? It’s too late to do that though, the time for the party to push him aside was in October 2025 and nobody really did anything.
because janet mills has less of a chance of winning that senate seat than biden did of being reelected. she is hated by the base and got to run against paul lepage in 2022, and was elected first during a trump midterm. Data center moratorium veto, alienated native voters, alienated labor, blame mills more than anyone for her lack of effort
There’s plenty of blame to go around. Bernie world is not absolved of this. They could have ditched him back in October and found another progressive who wasn’t 80 years old and didn’t have issues with labor.
Wasn't there another Democratic candidate before Schumer pushed an obviously unenthusiastic Mills to enter the race? That candidate then withdrew in favor of Mills.
Platner is far from a perfect scandal. I'm thinking that he might be immune to scandals like Trump was, given how he survived the first wave of scandals that came out in October.
What if an asteroid hits Earth tomorrow? I don't think there's a large probability of some Earth-shattering revelation that hasn't already been uncovered between now and November. The level of pettiness entrenched in yesterday's oppo piece confirmed that. I honestly cant recall a major paper ever doing such a deep dive of a congressional candidate's rather benign dating history ever.
I agree, but it's getting closer than I would like. Still, maybe I am one of like 3 or 4 Dems on the internet to have moderate/inconclusive feelings re Platner overall.
I don't really want to take on the role on defending Platner, both because he's got plenty of people doing that for him and also because I don't like him.
That said, even if everything in the NYT article is true, I'd say Collins has done a lot more to hurt women than Platner has, and it isn't particularly close.
314 Action has gotten $1 million or more from AIPAC in the years 2021-24 and acts in alignment with pro-Israel funders much of the time. Needs to be said. one link:
There are leftists who outright dismiss candidates or incumbents for taking AIPAC money, which is pig-headed in this day and time. Until we can get Citizens United overturned, the Democratic Party shouldn't unilaterally disarm when Republicans gleefully take PAC money every which way.
CA-06 lockout update: looks like some more votes from Placer county came in recently. Placer is the best county for republicans. Pan is still about 1 point or 1,000 votes outside of the top 2. According to NBC, Placer now has almost 70% in, while the two counties where Pan is currently leading, Sacramento and Yolo, have less than 50% in. Pan should pull into second when more votes in those counties are counted, assuming NBC's estimation of the vote in is close to correct.
Most of that stuff is in the past, yes? And frankly, I find the lack of transparency on the sourcing from the NYT to be borderline journalistic malpractice. And on the summary here to a much lesser extent.
I don't mean to auto- dismiss the claims on one hand, but on the ither have we learned nothing from the Franken & Biden accusations? Or that lady that Obama wrongly dismissed due to out of context quotes.
I have no doubt that Platner WAS a complete creep. And doubts about him linger. At the same time, he still looks like our best shot at 2026 is a lot different than 2020.
And how crappy was the Mills campaign not to unearth this?
That is a really good point. The Mills campaign should have been able to unearth this. Even more of a reason not to nominate her if things really hit the fan with Platner and we need to replace him.
Speaking as a complete outsider to the world of opposition research, it seems to me like it's probably harder than you'd think, especially to find interpersonal issues that never surfaced in the public record (like a court case, police report, etc.) I am sure that if I was assigned a random candidate and asked to figure out if they had relationship-related skeletons in their closet, I would not be very good at getting people to talk. Of course, I'm not a trained or skilled investigator, and some people clearly do have special skills in that regard.
I suspect that most of the cases we hear about come because the involved parties willingly step forward to tell their story, at some level, as seems to have been the case with the most recent NYT story. Even the previous story (the sexting) didn't have much or anything in the way of direct testimony from those involved, only (apparently accurate) hearsay passed through multiple intermediaries, one of whom (the former campaign manager) had already been willing to share her concerns about Platner publicly. I also have a sense that, for some witnesses at least, speaking to a journalist (theoretically neutral and fact-based) is likelier than speaking to a campaign operative or private investigator.
That said, Platner and his controversies are clearly high-profile enough that I imagine it becomes likelier that other people come out to voluntarily tell their stories, too, presuming that such people and such stories exist... We will see!
Even as of today (were I a Mainer, which I am not), I'd probably still vote Platner over MIlls, had she not dropped out. She ran a very, very poor campaign. At least Platner WANTS the job.
But I'd vote for any of the top 4 Dem gubernatorial candidates over either, in a heartbeat.
Unless there's another photo I'm not aware of, the photo you're referring to does not actually show him touching her, more like hovering his hands over her breasts. To be clear, that does /not/ make it ok, but I just feel it should be pointed out.
I mean, yeah.....that is about the ultimate distinction. Miming sexual assault is not sexual assault anymore than the street performer with paint on his face pretending to be trapped in a box is not really trapped in a box.
Has Kiley changed his voting behavior, favored policies, etc. in tune with his switch from republican to independent? If not, I wouldn't call a top two with a democrat + him in it as a republican lock out. He's a de facto republican until and unless he changes ideologically.
A couple comments about the Citadel poll of SC. As y'all know by now, I'm a SC resident, and not living up to the Lurking part of my moniker atm.
All Lindsey is able to do with Lynch is drag up 40 year old drug charges and make wild claims about medical cocaine. For voters that spend more than 15 seconds thinking about it, I think that's probably not a meaningful argument. Too much grasping at straws. There are enough undecideds that Lindsey will probably win without a runoff. Lynch calling Graham a woman in his Tweet though is exactly the kind of gay-baiting I'd expect here. The lesser of two evils is a very low bar in that race.
The R gov poll suggests most people think Wilson will win, I do too. But considering how evenly spread the numbers are for the non-Wilson folks, and fewer undecideds, I think the vast majority are in the ABW camp...anybody but Wilson, so maybe he gets locked out of the runoff.
From the outside it seems like Graham should be extra vulnerable because 1) his most consistent issue is being hawkish in the Middle East, first supporting war against Iraq and now against Iran and that is one of the least popular positions to take, 2) his criticized Trump strongly before he became a sycophant, 3) his opponent has a record of excellence as a doctor so can garner bipartisan respect, & 4) he’s been distrusted by conservatives for a long time.
I do. Many Rs here really don't like him for those reasons and because they think he's insufficiently conservative. I'd like nothing nore than to see him lose. But I think the best to hope for is a runoff that he wins.
I wish, but not really. I think R voters will come home to him regardless. And a competitive Gov race will probably keep turnout up.
Perhaps the stars align and Graham does something egregious to PO Rs, and the D Gov candidate has no $ and nothing to make race competitive, so the Rs don't feel a need to vote, while Ds stay enthusiastic/angry and vote in record numbers. Then maybe. But Graham's so far up Trump's a .. now that I don't see an egregious turn, and I can't figure how an enthusiasm gap favors Ds enough to keep Rs home.
I think the Iran War and correlated economic impacts could change things. Like what if there is $6 gas in October and Andrews is hammering Graham because SC hospitals are rationing MRIs because of war induced helium shortages? Could that lead the Nikki Haley voters to temporarily abandon the GOP?
Sure, there's a lane, and Graham's base is weaker than many long serving incumbents, but he's no Lugar. (A colleague regularly sees him at the gym in the upstate, for example.) We do have a foundation of relatively sane Rs here. See recent redistricting debate.
If gas hit $6 here the rest of the country would be flipping tons of seats! It's $3.75 here now and there's talk of temporary gas tax suspension (28c). Never say never. Annie at least is a credible opponent. Better it seems than we have in Kentucky or other deep red states.
Crosstabs showed 7% of RVs in poll were 18-24 but only 1-2% of LVs for each party. To the extent that a campaign galvanize young voters, it could make a difference.
SC Republicans totally have their heads in the sand about climate change, with vast majoritites unconcerned about Hurricanes, droughts, and heat waves. We're in a massive drought now. Come on! Strong El Niño may help protect us this fall from hurricanes.
I was wondering if the SD Gov race was the closest finish of 4 candidates for a statewide race ever, since the spread was only 10%. We could be closer than that, but it would be top 4 vs 4 only.
I’ve seen people on here be nervous about Abdul. Whatever you think of him in the primary, if he does end up winning, I want to emphasize that we need to be prepared to support him in the general, even if he was with Hasan Piker or whatever. Which is worse — having a Senator who was with Hasan Piker, or losing the Senate to the GOP again?
My concern isn't if he can win in 2026. It's if he can win in a non-wave year. Which he would inevitably face at some point as a senator. Maybe as early as 2032. Maybe later down the road.
But if he is the nominee, then we worry about that when the time comes for it.
Yeah, idk how big this universe is but anyone who's still in the tank for Platner as a supporter/donor logically would have to do the same for El-Sayed as nominee.
Yes, exactly. If they're willing to say people should hold their noses for Platner to flip the Senate, there is no excuse to not say the same for El-Sayed.
Or you could, you know, actually present some evidence to back up what you're saying. Please show me where anyone on here threatened to not support Platner or AES in a General Election.
Tbh, this is the wrong audience to warn about needing to support him in the general. I think 99.9% of the people who regularly read/post here will support him to the hilt in the general no questions asked. The people that need to be put on a leash are the donors and James Carville types (yuck) who will give the media endless quotes about him being unelectable and subtly sabotage him. I'm pretty sure at least the major party organizations won't throw away a must-win race, but you never know.
I do agree. Admittedly I’m a little nervous that Schumer, et al, will be hesitant to support a potential Abdul candidacy. Then again, they backed Platner when Mills dropped out, so who knows.
The issue is why are we nominating bad candidates? I’d prefer not to test the theory of whether we can elect a Democratic version of Trump to see how much general voters will forgive in two key Senate races that we must win. Sure, we back the eventual nominee, but we should try to avoid these people before the problems arise.
Defund the police if he was running in 2018. That won't tank him this year thanks to the horrific murders of Pretti and Good, but any other election cycle probably.
He isn’t, but he has his own electability issues. Platner was the one compared to a Democratic version of Trump upthread and I think that’s a fair comparison at least in terms of imperviousness to scandal so far.
AES is the democratic version of Ted Cruz. He's extreme but personally there's no obvious character flaws. Cruz routinely underperforms and that could be fatal in Michigan.
I can see the angle that AES is a riskier choice because he is further towards the left edge of the party, but it's not like Peters or Stabenow were Manchin types, or that being a Manchin seems to be required to win in Michigan. In what by all accounts will be a very blue-leaning year, I think a candidate with his ideological profile would still be favored in a place like Michigan.
Otherwise, I feel like a lot of the concern around him does boil down to the fact that he is Muslim, which of course could also be a liability, but for more depressing reasons that none of us can control.
I really doubt the Hasan Piker connection will matter at all. Many, many successful politicians (from Barack Obama on down) have links to people who have made controversial statements. The old "defund the police" tweets... probably bad, but crime levels have continued to drop since the pandemic and the issue doesn't seem to be of the utmost salience this year.
Overall, it seems to me like he is a smart, qualified guy who generally seems like a likeable and authentic candidate in a lot of ways.
I’m not that concerned electorally. But I do think he’ll could become a liability based on how he spoke about the driver who rammed a Jewish synagogue in Michigan.
That seems like a perfectly reasonable statement and one I fully agree with.
I supported Whitmer over him in 2018 - in retrospect Whitmer has become a huge disappointment post 2024. So, maybe I should give him a second chance. Although I doubt McMorrow will be a disappointment like Whitmer.
Thank you very much. Based on the statement, he's no enemy. I definitely understand how it's controversial, though. Ending a cycle of violence is not the job of Jewish Americans who are going to synagogue, though it's good if they choose to try to contribute to that. And I'd like to know how he'd react to an attack on worshippers in a mosque by a Jewish terrorist. I'm guessing he wouldn't bring up whether a relative of the attacker was murdered by Muslims, etc., or call for an end to a cycle of violence, but I could be wrong.
No, the issue is why did ME Democrats decide to focus more on the gubernatorial race than the Senate race?
How many elected Democrats have chosen not to run for the Senate? A lot, including Shenna Bellows and Troy Jackson, both of whom decided to run for Governor.
It took Schumer to push Janet Mills to run for the Senate to finally get someone in. And look at how much of a lame duck campaign she ran.
Is anyone here suggesting not supporting him in the general? If so, I've not seen it. I am utterly terrified that he will be the nominee and give away a Dem senate seat in what would be a staggering own goal. That doesn't mean I won't support him if he's the nominee.
FL-11: Republican Lake County commissioner Anthony Sabatini was told by federal judge Mark Walker to resign from his position due to Florida's resign-to-run laws, but Sabatini is not and is now suing so he can stay on the commission. Interestingly, Walker is the only Democratic appointee currently serving the northern district of Florida on the U.S. District Court.
Just days ago, Trump's political organization sent a cease-and-desist to Sabatini for using Trump's likeness and purported endorsement in campaign ads.
Sabatini currently faces businessman Mike Wilnau and comedian Tim Wilkins in the primary, but former state Sen. Carey Baker, who would surely be the establishment favorite, is expected to join too. The filing deadline is in one week and filing opens in three days.
Took a look at the California state legislative races, and while Democrats don't look likely to be shut out of any competitive race, they did fail to recruit some candidates in potentially winnable assembly seats. Republican incumbents in districts 22 (Modesto and Turlock, Trump +8.5 in 2024 and Biden +4.5 in 2020) and 63 (parts of northwestern Riverside County, Trump +13 in 2024 and Trump +6 in 2020) are running completely uncontested, and in district 59 (northern Orange County and the tip of San Bernadino County, Trump +6.5 in 2024 and Trump +1.5 in 2020), only a Green Party candidate is challenging the incumbent Republican.
DS-I applaud the thoroughness of your research, but respectfully disagree with some of your conclusions. The districts you enumerate above are some of the most Republican in California, places where down-ballot Democrats under-perform the presidential vote and which are quite likely not winnable even in a great year for us. [The CA Dems are of course nevertheless absolutely still slouches for not running someone everywhere of course. I mean if they can do it in Texas......... ;>) ]
On a more serious note---and I would LOVE to be wrong about this--I think we ARE in fact in danger of being shut out in a competitive race. I followed the links posted above to NBC's data on the 6th CD, and my heart sank. Other posters have correctly pointed out that the more Dem-laden counties have reported a lower percentage of their expected vote share than Republican citadel of Placer County.. True--BUT although Placer has reported a higher percentage of their votes, the RAW NUMBER of votes yet to be counted is much higher there because most of Sacramento County is in the 7th district, not the 6th. Of course the yet-to-be-counteds will be more Democratic. That's what we have to pin our hopes on.
[I do realize you spec'ed leg races in your comment, just riffing a bit].
No, there are almost certainly more CA-06 ballots left from Sacramento and Yolo counties than Placer County.
Sacramento County has over 220,000 ballots left. If you allocate that proportionally by congressional district, that means ~66,000 ballots from the Sac County portion of CA-06.
About half of Placer County’s voting population is in CA-06, and countywide, they have ~45,000 ballots left. So that would mean only ~23,00 CA-06 ballots from Placer County.
There should also be around 7,000 ballots left in the most liberal part of the district, which is a portion of Yolo County.
My estimates for the proportion of ballots from each county is based on data from Dave's Redistricting App. You can see the current unprocessed ballot estimates for each county on the CA SOS website: https://dp.electionresults.sos.ca.gov/unprocessed-ballots-status
Anything is possible in elections, but the odds are Pan eventually pulls ahead.
I agree district 63 is highly unlikely, but in a large enough wave, 59 could be on the table, and 22 should be easily doable with 2020 Hispanic numbers. The closest 2010s district to the 22nd district, the 21st, was blue the entire decade.
I'm sorry for your loss. I lost an uncle and a set of grandparents all to lung cancer, and my mom has survived cancer of her reproductive organs twice.
I just went to the CA SoS Unprocessed Ballots Status page and there are an estimated 3.6 million ballots yet to be counted. This is going to be an ongoing process with different twists and turns along the way. If the Los Angeles county vote is about a quarter of that and the L.A. city vote is a tenth of the total vote, well I am not going to assume anything too soon. Each day when the counties issue their updates to the count we will know more.
Time to tune out from politics for the weekend. 2026 is not just an election year but also the centennial of Route 66, the Mother Road and Main Street of America, which was numbered in 1926 and has evolved since then. There is a caravan heading out tomorrow from Santa Monica east towards Chicago. That is opposite of the traditional direction of travel that many people have taken (including my mom and her family in 1948). it will allow people to pay attention to the route in California at the start of the journey, because westbound travelers usually just want to get to the finish by the time they cross the Colorado River into California. The caravan will take about three weeks to travel the 2448 miles (give or take) to the end. I am only going to follow it as far as Barstow, CA on Sunday, but it will be interesting and I expect to learn more about the area and have some fun. I might even get my kicks on Route 66...
Mail-in balloting is certainly a big contributor to this but I am not aware of a CA primary quote like this in some time, at least not since the 2003 gubernatorial recall race, where turnout has been this high in a primary. Quite something to see!
The GOP candidate in CA-6 (the one who was listed on the ballot as a Republican) seems like a far-left Trump 2024 voter and (can't go into too much detail due to the commenting rules on here) was very left-wing on at least some foreign policy issues. Also, he previously ran for Congress in Oregon as a Democrat and lost.
Most of Stansfield's voters were probably typical Republican voters who voted for the candidate who was listed on the ballot as a Republican, but there may have been some progressive and Biden/Trump voters who voted for Stansfield because of his foreign policy views.
MI-Sen - UAW backs Abdul El-Sayed in a complete surprise. This is a huge loss for Haley Stevens (who was Obama's Auto Czar and who was who I expected to get the UAW endorsement) and Mallory McMorrow (who done some automotive design work before entering politics, IIRC).
I think that's only part of it. She was too clever by half and would have been better off just not addressing it. She thought this would isolate El-Sayed on the left and let her scoop up left liberals and moderate liberals. But it only alienated the former.
As I said, I think this was only part of her decline, at least relative to the rest of the field. Her lane just might not be wide enough to come down the middle no matter what she does.
The "snarky social media posts" thing seems to have dinged her WAY more than I expected.
Holding MI is basically on par with winning IA or OH at this point (on my list). I think Platner (even with the drip-drippings) is considerably more likely to win than El-Sayed.
I'm much more optimistic about AES's chances, I think. Among other things, Michigan is probably THE poster child for GOP midyear turnout dropoff in the Trump era, based on on 2018 and 2022 results. Rogers has had some good polling, but he also just ran a race where tens of millions if not $100M+ was spent on his behalf.
I agree with this. I suspect both would wind up winning in the current political environment, but MI should be a straight up slam dunk for us this year and ME should at least be D-favored and we seem determined to force them both into the Tossup category.
I agree with this, a blue wave should get both of them across. If the environment looked like "reverse 2022" (AKA 2020) then I could very well see them fall short.
Something I have not seen anyone discuss is the possibility that AES will juice Arab/Muslim turnout in MI. 2-3% of the MI population is Arab. I don’t know if that will save us but I can’t imagine it would hurt.
I suspect that the Arab percentage of the voting age population is lower than that. Maybe would bring in a few votes around the margins, but that's about it.
Other than in these comment sections I have not heard a single word about the old tweets, fwiw. I think that with Stevens and El-Sayed getting propped up by different factions, she's been left without a lane.
Yeah I think it's less that she slipped and more that people are picking sides between the other two. But I could be wrong and you're right, just my read.
It does worry me that in a state like Michigan (which I don't view as running hot and cold by nature), the primary voters seemingly had no interest in a "unifying" candidate.
As a coalition party, we might be in a bit of a tight spot going forward, if that is the direction of travel.
I'll believe it when I see it. He led in most polls in 2024 until right before the election, when a late surge of crypto money came to boost Moreno and barely carry him over the finish line.
We are also in a wave year. This isn’t 2022, Trump and the GOP’s approval ratings are downright apocalyptic. Now, I don’t know if that means Abdul can survive 2032, but it does mean that we shouldn’t panic too much if he wins this year. (FWIW I’ve heard his GOTV operation is really good too.)
Even though I live really close to the NC/SC line, I don't keep up with SC politics.
Does anyone know why Graham's intraparty rival is being snubbed so badly by Trump? Why does Trump think he'd be a disaster for the GOP - or is that simply code for "Insufficiently loyal to Trump"?
MI, not ME
El-Sayed having 64% name ID doesn't seem correct, imo
I'm leaning towards that as well. Trump is so toxic and the urge to throw out an enabler will overcome ME voter misgivings about Platner this year.
I think he easily defeats Collins. And is going to also easily clear 50%+ in next week’s primary. The latest NYT article is almost all sourced from the right wing, Heritage Foundation operative, so I doubt his supporters will be swayed.
He may very well win but easily is a huge reach. We’ve been here before with Collins and it won’t do to underestimate her or the massive financial back she’ll receive.
If the other rumored story comes to naught, I'll backpedal on my opposition to him. I still won't like him, but I don't have to.
I think he's likely to win but let's be real.
a) he is not the strongest candidate we can put up here and we may very well lose the Senate because of him. It's not likely, but we're all kidding ourselves if we don't think it's possible that we win NC, OH, and one of AK, TX, and IA but Platner goes down because of these or forthcoming scandals.
b) I'm not sure we should want people like him in elected office. Donald Trump is a horrific person and a malignant force on our civic culture. Platner is nowhere near as bad as him but I don't see why we should want him to be in the Senate over a Democratic alternative.
c) it's worth noting that Hillary won Maine.
d) edit to add that someone with his personality is a liability politically in the way Fetterman is. I don't think it's safe to assume he'll be there with us on every tough vote.
very well put, and I agree with all of it, except maybe point D - I suspect he'd vote like a Populist-leaning Dem
In all fairness, if he breaks with Democrats in the Senate, it isn't going to be to screw the left a-la-Fetterman. He's more likely to break on status quo stuff, which is likely to cause less problems, although I doubt he's a reliable vote on any form of budget.
I think people who are as unstable as he is are liable to being sucked into right wing politics pretty easily. He is also narcissistic and may want the attention that comes with being a thorn in the side of leadership like Kyrsten Sinema was.
If he wins, it'll be because of the political environment...no more, no less.
Maine: Collins internal has the race tied at 46.
https://x.com/umichvoter/status/2062853940597678164?s=20
So, he's still ahead if that's the best her campaign can do, lol.
6 years ago her opponent led in virtually every poll from the summer until election day, then lost by 8 points.
I don’t think you’ll find many people here not supporting him if he remains the nominee. There’s a difference between preferring we nominate someone without all this baggage, but that ship sailed months ago.
You also see a break with R-leaning independent/squishy R voters breaking with their party in the special elections in FL and TX... R+15 districts flipping to Democrats. That throws uncertainty that R gerrymanders are going to hold if 8-10% of Republicans defect to the other party and a plurality stay home.
I dislike characterizing Collins' 2020 win as that large. There was a substantial amount of third party voting that would have decreased the margin had Collins not won on the first round. Not all of them would have ranked Gideon ahead of Collins; not all of them would have ranked else at all for that matter. But the "real" margin if they had tabulated all the ballots to simulate a final round would probably have been in the 4-6 point range.
Yeah Collins was just shy of 51% of the vote and most of the people who didn't vote for her were probably going to rank Gideon.
Or a ploy to get him to stay in the race. Wouldn’t be the first time something like that’s happened.
I think people are too pessimistic, we have to remember the general election is in 5 months. It certainly won’t get better for the republicans by then, and that will indirectly benefit Platner.
I’m not a Maine voter, but three things about Platner give me pause: lack of experience, alcohol use, treatment of women.
There's a line where those factors are outweighed by scandal, etc. In my view, that line hasn't been crossed.
Hasn't been crossed- yet. I fear that there will be a drip drip drip of negative information coming out about Platner all the way until the election and the worst stuff will come out in October.
This is what I don’t understand. Why push forward with the dark cloud of more unknown stuff hanging over him when we could wipe our hands of it? It’s too late to do that though, the time for the party to push him aside was in October 2025 and nobody really did anything.
because janet mills has less of a chance of winning that senate seat than biden did of being reelected. she is hated by the base and got to run against paul lepage in 2022, and was elected first during a trump midterm. Data center moratorium veto, alienated native voters, alienated labor, blame mills more than anyone for her lack of effort
There’s plenty of blame to go around. Bernie world is not absolved of this. They could have ditched him back in October and found another progressive who wasn’t 80 years old and didn’t have issues with labor.
She's not quite, but pretty close to, the female Jared Polis.
I think that's because his polling held up pretty well in the face of these scandals.
Wasn't there another Democratic candidate before Schumer pushed an obviously unenthusiastic Mills to enter the race? That candidate then withdrew in favor of Mills.
Platner is far from a perfect scandal. I'm thinking that he might be immune to scandals like Trump was, given how he survived the first wave of scandals that came out in October.
What if an asteroid hits Earth tomorrow? I don't think there's a large probability of some Earth-shattering revelation that hasn't already been uncovered between now and November. The level of pettiness entrenched in yesterday's oppo piece confirmed that. I honestly cant recall a major paper ever doing such a deep dive of a congressional candidate's rather benign dating history ever.
I agree, but it's getting closer than I would like. Still, maybe I am one of like 3 or 4 Dems on the internet to have moderate/inconclusive feelings re Platner overall.
I don't really want to take on the role on defending Platner, both because he's got plenty of people doing that for him and also because I don't like him.
That said, even if everything in the NYT article is true, I'd say Collins has done a lot more to hurt women than Platner has, and it isn't particularly close.
Good point. A check list of her votes against women is long.
314 Action has gotten $1 million or more from AIPAC in the years 2021-24 and acts in alignment with pro-Israel funders much of the time. Needs to be said. one link:
https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/314-action-fund/C00633248/summary/2024
There are leftists who outright dismiss candidates or incumbents for taking AIPAC money, which is pig-headed in this day and time. Until we can get Citizens United overturned, the Democratic Party shouldn't unilaterally disarm when Republicans gleefully take PAC money every which way.
CA-06 lockout update: looks like some more votes from Placer county came in recently. Placer is the best county for republicans. Pan is still about 1 point or 1,000 votes outside of the top 2. According to NBC, Placer now has almost 70% in, while the two counties where Pan is currently leading, Sacramento and Yolo, have less than 50% in. Pan should pull into second when more votes in those counties are counted, assuming NBC's estimation of the vote in is close to correct.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-primary-elections/california-us-house-district-6-results
Last time I looked, the total D vote was over 50% in CA-06.
Right at 50.0% atm. With more blue out.
Re Platner,
Most of that stuff is in the past, yes? And frankly, I find the lack of transparency on the sourcing from the NYT to be borderline journalistic malpractice. And on the summary here to a much lesser extent.
I don't mean to auto- dismiss the claims on one hand, but on the ither have we learned nothing from the Franken & Biden accusations? Or that lady that Obama wrongly dismissed due to out of context quotes.
I have no doubt that Platner WAS a complete creep. And doubts about him linger. At the same time, he still looks like our best shot at 2026 is a lot different than 2020.
And how crappy was the Mills campaign not to unearth this?
That is a really good point. The Mills campaign should have been able to unearth this. Even more of a reason not to nominate her if things really hit the fan with Platner and we need to replace him.
Speaking as a complete outsider to the world of opposition research, it seems to me like it's probably harder than you'd think, especially to find interpersonal issues that never surfaced in the public record (like a court case, police report, etc.) I am sure that if I was assigned a random candidate and asked to figure out if they had relationship-related skeletons in their closet, I would not be very good at getting people to talk. Of course, I'm not a trained or skilled investigator, and some people clearly do have special skills in that regard.
I suspect that most of the cases we hear about come because the involved parties willingly step forward to tell their story, at some level, as seems to have been the case with the most recent NYT story. Even the previous story (the sexting) didn't have much or anything in the way of direct testimony from those involved, only (apparently accurate) hearsay passed through multiple intermediaries, one of whom (the former campaign manager) had already been willing to share her concerns about Platner publicly. I also have a sense that, for some witnesses at least, speaking to a journalist (theoretically neutral and fact-based) is likelier than speaking to a campaign operative or private investigator.
That said, Platner and his controversies are clearly high-profile enough that I imagine it becomes likelier that other people come out to voluntarily tell their stories, too, presuming that such people and such stories exist... We will see!
Even as of today (were I a Mainer, which I am not), I'd probably still vote Platner over MIlls, had she not dropped out. She ran a very, very poor campaign. At least Platner WANTS the job.
But I'd vote for any of the top 4 Dem gubernatorial candidates over either, in a heartbeat.
Franken literally had a photograph grabbing her breasts while she was asleep.
Pretty sure the writers don't like people discussing Franken.
I mean, it's ancient news now (8yrs ago) but I see zero reason to dodge it if it's directly brought up.
Unless there's another photo I'm not aware of, the photo you're referring to does not actually show him touching her, more like hovering his hands over her breasts. To be clear, that does /not/ make it ok, but I just feel it should be pointed out.
Eh.
I mean, yeah.....that is about the ultimate distinction. Miming sexual assault is not sexual assault anymore than the street performer with paint on his face pretending to be trapped in a box is not really trapped in a box.
Has Kiley changed his voting behavior, favored policies, etc. in tune with his switch from republican to independent? If not, I wouldn't call a top two with a democrat + him in it as a republican lock out. He's a de facto republican until and unless he changes ideologically.
Kiley still caucuses with the Repubs. He's a GOPer and an IINO (independent in name only).
Yes, Kiley + a dem would not be a republican lockout. I was more worried that dems will be locked out because the vote is so split.
A couple comments about the Citadel poll of SC. As y'all know by now, I'm a SC resident, and not living up to the Lurking part of my moniker atm.
All Lindsey is able to do with Lynch is drag up 40 year old drug charges and make wild claims about medical cocaine. For voters that spend more than 15 seconds thinking about it, I think that's probably not a meaningful argument. Too much grasping at straws. There are enough undecideds that Lindsey will probably win without a runoff. Lynch calling Graham a woman in his Tweet though is exactly the kind of gay-baiting I'd expect here. The lesser of two evils is a very low bar in that race.
The R gov poll suggests most people think Wilson will win, I do too. But considering how evenly spread the numbers are for the non-Wilson folks, and fewer undecideds, I think the vast majority are in the ABW camp...anybody but Wilson, so maybe he gets locked out of the runoff.
EV remains steadily busier than past years here.
From the outside it seems like Graham should be extra vulnerable because 1) his most consistent issue is being hawkish in the Middle East, first supporting war against Iraq and now against Iran and that is one of the least popular positions to take, 2) his criticized Trump strongly before he became a sycophant, 3) his opponent has a record of excellence as a doctor so can garner bipartisan respect, & 4) he’s been distrusted by conservatives for a long time.
Do you agree?
I do. Many Rs here really don't like him for those reasons and because they think he's insufficiently conservative. I'd like nothing nore than to see him lose. But I think the best to hope for is a runoff that he wins.
Oh, to clarify, do you think he’s uniquely vulnerable in the general?
I wish, but not really. I think R voters will come home to him regardless. And a competitive Gov race will probably keep turnout up.
Perhaps the stars align and Graham does something egregious to PO Rs, and the D Gov candidate has no $ and nothing to make race competitive, so the Rs don't feel a need to vote, while Ds stay enthusiastic/angry and vote in record numbers. Then maybe. But Graham's so far up Trump's a .. now that I don't see an egregious turn, and I can't figure how an enthusiasm gap favors Ds enough to keep Rs home.
It’s certainly a long shot.
I think the Iran War and correlated economic impacts could change things. Like what if there is $6 gas in October and Andrews is hammering Graham because SC hospitals are rationing MRIs because of war induced helium shortages? Could that lead the Nikki Haley voters to temporarily abandon the GOP?
Sure, there's a lane, and Graham's base is weaker than many long serving incumbents, but he's no Lugar. (A colleague regularly sees him at the gym in the upstate, for example.) We do have a foundation of relatively sane Rs here. See recent redistricting debate.
If gas hit $6 here the rest of the country would be flipping tons of seats! It's $3.75 here now and there's talk of temporary gas tax suspension (28c). Never say never. Annie at least is a credible opponent. Better it seems than we have in Kentucky or other deep red states.
Other poll numbers from the linked Citadel poll that didn't make the Poll Pile
SCGov R 600 respondents LV
Pamela Evette 17%
Josh Kimbrell 1
Nancy Mace 16
Ralph Norman 13
Rom Reddy 14
Alan Wilson 16
Not sure 23
SC Gov D 427 LV (Can't remember if this is too small for TDB to report)
Jermaine Johnson 33%
Mullins McLeod 6
Billy Webster 18
Not sure 43
SC Sen D
Annie Andrews 45%
Brandon Brown 14
Kyle Freeman 5
Not sure 36
Also to note from Citadel poll.
Crosstabs showed 7% of RVs in poll were 18-24 but only 1-2% of LVs for each party. To the extent that a campaign galvanize young voters, it could make a difference.
SC Republicans totally have their heads in the sand about climate change, with vast majoritites unconcerned about Hurricanes, droughts, and heat waves. We're in a massive drought now. Come on! Strong El Niño may help protect us this fall from hurricanes.
That's quite the competitive R primary.
I was wondering if the SD Gov race was the closest finish of 4 candidates for a statewide race ever, since the spread was only 10%. We could be closer than that, but it would be top 4 vs 4 only.
MI-SEN:
https://bsky.app/profile/ericmgarcia.bsky.social/post/3mnkbklqmyc2i
The UAW just endorsed Abdul El-Sayed.
I’ve seen people on here be nervous about Abdul. Whatever you think of him in the primary, if he does end up winning, I want to emphasize that we need to be prepared to support him in the general, even if he was with Hasan Piker or whatever. Which is worse — having a Senator who was with Hasan Piker, or losing the Senate to the GOP again?
💯
i think the concern would be if aes can actually win the general, not his policies
I’m well aware, and it’s a concern I have as well. I’m just saying we have to be willing to support him if he does.
Don't think anyone here would withhold support. I didn't want Bottoms to be the GA-Gov nominee but sheeet I'm not going to now vote for Rick Jackson 🙃
My concern isn't if he can win in 2026. It's if he can win in a non-wave year. Which he would inevitably face at some point as a senator. Maybe as early as 2032. Maybe later down the road.
But if he is the nominee, then we worry about that when the time comes for it.
Yeah, idk how big this universe is but anyone who's still in the tank for Platner as a supporter/donor logically would have to do the same for El-Sayed as nominee.
Why? I don't see the comparison. There's no scandal surrounding El-Sayed. Except the prejudice against him due to his ethnicity and religion.
Yes, exactly. If they're willing to say people should hold their noses for Platner to flip the Senate, there is no excuse to not say the same for El-Sayed.
This is quite the strawman you guys are constructing. Who, exactly, on here has suggested not supporting either Platner or AES in the general?
I'm just gonna say lol.
Or you could, you know, actually present some evidence to back up what you're saying. Please show me where anyone on here threatened to not support Platner or AES in a General Election.
Yes, bigotry will hurt him. I also believe his positions are outside the mainstream in MI and will also cost him votes.
Tbh, this is the wrong audience to warn about needing to support him in the general. I think 99.9% of the people who regularly read/post here will support him to the hilt in the general no questions asked. The people that need to be put on a leash are the donors and James Carville types (yuck) who will give the media endless quotes about him being unelectable and subtly sabotage him. I'm pretty sure at least the major party organizations won't throw away a must-win race, but you never know.
I do agree. Admittedly I’m a little nervous that Schumer, et al, will be hesitant to support a potential Abdul candidacy. Then again, they backed Platner when Mills dropped out, so who knows.
The issue is why are we nominating bad candidates? I’d prefer not to test the theory of whether we can elect a Democratic version of Trump to see how much general voters will forgive in two key Senate races that we must win. Sure, we back the eventual nominee, but we should try to avoid these people before the problems arise.
He's not a Democratic version of Trump. I remember Bill Clinton getting elected despite threats of "bimbo eruptions" just about every week.
You are entitled to your opinion. I’m not going to act like all these things aren’t issues that would have sank candidates in a prior era.
What has AES said that would have sunk his campaign if he was running for an open Senate seat in say 2018?
Defund the police if he was running in 2018. That won't tank him this year thanks to the horrific murders of Pretti and Good, but any other election cycle probably.
How is Abdul El-Sayed the Democratic version of Trump?
He isn’t, but he has his own electability issues. Platner was the one compared to a Democratic version of Trump upthread and I think that’s a fair comparison at least in terms of imperviousness to scandal so far.
AES is the democratic version of Ted Cruz. He's extreme but personally there's no obvious character flaws. Cruz routinely underperforms and that could be fatal in Michigan.
Minus the universal hatred from both sides of the aisle and this "extremism" you suggest, sure.
I don't mean it as an insult to clarify. AES is just clearly towards the left end of the Democratic party. That's like, his entire appeal.
I can see the angle that AES is a riskier choice because he is further towards the left edge of the party, but it's not like Peters or Stabenow were Manchin types, or that being a Manchin seems to be required to win in Michigan. In what by all accounts will be a very blue-leaning year, I think a candidate with his ideological profile would still be favored in a place like Michigan.
Otherwise, I feel like a lot of the concern around him does boil down to the fact that he is Muslim, which of course could also be a liability, but for more depressing reasons that none of us can control.
I really doubt the Hasan Piker connection will matter at all. Many, many successful politicians (from Barack Obama on down) have links to people who have made controversial statements. The old "defund the police" tweets... probably bad, but crime levels have continued to drop since the pandemic and the issue doesn't seem to be of the utmost salience this year.
Overall, it seems to me like he is a smart, qualified guy who generally seems like a likeable and authentic candidate in a lot of ways.
I’m not that concerned electorally. But I do think he’ll could become a liability based on how he spoke about the driver who rammed a Jewish synagogue in Michigan.
Did he express sympathy for an act of Jew-hating terrorism? If he did, fuck him, he's my enemy!
I wouldn’t say sympathy. Here’s a link to the transcript.
https://abdulforsenate.com/2026/03/video-abdul-el-sayed-reflects-on-temple-israel-attack/
That seems like a perfectly reasonable statement and one I fully agree with.
I supported Whitmer over him in 2018 - in retrospect Whitmer has become a huge disappointment post 2024. So, maybe I should give him a second chance. Although I doubt McMorrow will be a disappointment like Whitmer.
Thank you very much. Based on the statement, he's no enemy. I definitely understand how it's controversial, though. Ending a cycle of violence is not the job of Jewish Americans who are going to synagogue, though it's good if they choose to try to contribute to that. And I'd like to know how he'd react to an attack on worshippers in a mosque by a Jewish terrorist. I'm guessing he wouldn't bring up whether a relative of the attacker was murdered by Muslims, etc., or call for an end to a cycle of violence, but I could be wrong.
Peters and Stabenow are both considerably more moderate than AES
No, the issue is why did ME Democrats decide to focus more on the gubernatorial race than the Senate race?
How many elected Democrats have chosen not to run for the Senate? A lot, including Shenna Bellows and Troy Jackson, both of whom decided to run for Governor.
It took Schumer to push Janet Mills to run for the Senate to finally get someone in. And look at how much of a lame duck campaign she ran.
Blaming Platner isn’t the answer.
He’s been very impressive in recent interviews on NBC and MS NOW.
Is anyone here suggesting not supporting him in the general? If so, I've not seen it. I am utterly terrified that he will be the nominee and give away a Dem senate seat in what would be a staggering own goal. That doesn't mean I won't support him if he's the nominee.
https://www.clickorlando.com/election-2026/2026/06/04/lake-commissioner-anthony-sabatini-refuses-to-resign-to-run-for-congress-sues-florida-to-block-law/
FL-11: Republican Lake County commissioner Anthony Sabatini was told by federal judge Mark Walker to resign from his position due to Florida's resign-to-run laws, but Sabatini is not and is now suing so he can stay on the commission. Interestingly, Walker is the only Democratic appointee currently serving the northern district of Florida on the U.S. District Court.
Just days ago, Trump's political organization sent a cease-and-desist to Sabatini for using Trump's likeness and purported endorsement in campaign ads.
Sabatini currently faces businessman Mike Wilnau and comedian Tim Wilkins in the primary, but former state Sen. Carey Baker, who would surely be the establishment favorite, is expected to join too. The filing deadline is in one week and filing opens in three days.
Took a look at the California state legislative races, and while Democrats don't look likely to be shut out of any competitive race, they did fail to recruit some candidates in potentially winnable assembly seats. Republican incumbents in districts 22 (Modesto and Turlock, Trump +8.5 in 2024 and Biden +4.5 in 2020) and 63 (parts of northwestern Riverside County, Trump +13 in 2024 and Trump +6 in 2020) are running completely uncontested, and in district 59 (northern Orange County and the tip of San Bernadino County, Trump +6.5 in 2024 and Trump +1.5 in 2020), only a Green Party candidate is challenging the incumbent Republican.
DS-I applaud the thoroughness of your research, but respectfully disagree with some of your conclusions. The districts you enumerate above are some of the most Republican in California, places where down-ballot Democrats under-perform the presidential vote and which are quite likely not winnable even in a great year for us. [The CA Dems are of course nevertheless absolutely still slouches for not running someone everywhere of course. I mean if they can do it in Texas......... ;>) ]
On a more serious note---and I would LOVE to be wrong about this--I think we ARE in fact in danger of being shut out in a competitive race. I followed the links posted above to NBC's data on the 6th CD, and my heart sank. Other posters have correctly pointed out that the more Dem-laden counties have reported a lower percentage of their expected vote share than Republican citadel of Placer County.. True--BUT although Placer has reported a higher percentage of their votes, the RAW NUMBER of votes yet to be counted is much higher there because most of Sacramento County is in the 7th district, not the 6th. Of course the yet-to-be-counteds will be more Democratic. That's what we have to pin our hopes on.
[I do realize you spec'ed leg races in your comment, just riffing a bit].
No, there are almost certainly more CA-06 ballots left from Sacramento and Yolo counties than Placer County.
Sacramento County has over 220,000 ballots left. If you allocate that proportionally by congressional district, that means ~66,000 ballots from the Sac County portion of CA-06.
About half of Placer County’s voting population is in CA-06, and countywide, they have ~45,000 ballots left. So that would mean only ~23,00 CA-06 ballots from Placer County.
There should also be around 7,000 ballots left in the most liberal part of the district, which is a portion of Yolo County.
My estimates for the proportion of ballots from each county is based on data from Dave's Redistricting App. You can see the current unprocessed ballot estimates for each county on the CA SOS website: https://dp.electionresults.sos.ca.gov/unprocessed-ballots-status
Anything is possible in elections, but the odds are Pan eventually pulls ahead.
I agree district 63 is highly unlikely, but in a large enough wave, 59 could be on the table, and 22 should be easily doable with 2020 Hispanic numbers. The closest 2010s district to the 22nd district, the 21st, was blue the entire decade.
FL-Gov - Jerry Demings suspends his gubernatorial campaign due to being diagnosed with prostate cancer.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DZNbIdoR_bb/?igsh=cWF1MTduZTM4dWRi
Fuck cancer. I hope he makes a full recovery.
If he caught it early, he does. If it's stage 3 or higher...
It was stage 4 colon cancer for my father. Unfortunately he did not make it. Early detection is indeed critical.
I'm sorry for your loss. I lost an uncle and a set of grandparents all to lung cancer, and my mom has survived cancer of her reproductive organs twice.
We are Swimming Across America for cancer research here in SC this weekend.
Another link for those who don't have IG/Meta:
https://www.wesh.com/article/orange-county-mayor-jerry-demings-cancer-suspends-campaign-governor/71506832
Hope Demings recovers.
I just went to the CA SoS Unprocessed Ballots Status page and there are an estimated 3.6 million ballots yet to be counted. This is going to be an ongoing process with different twists and turns along the way. If the Los Angeles county vote is about a quarter of that and the L.A. city vote is a tenth of the total vote, well I am not going to assume anything too soon. Each day when the counties issue their updates to the count we will know more.
Time to tune out from politics for the weekend. 2026 is not just an election year but also the centennial of Route 66, the Mother Road and Main Street of America, which was numbered in 1926 and has evolved since then. There is a caravan heading out tomorrow from Santa Monica east towards Chicago. That is opposite of the traditional direction of travel that many people have taken (including my mom and her family in 1948). it will allow people to pay attention to the route in California at the start of the journey, because westbound travelers usually just want to get to the finish by the time they cross the Colorado River into California. The caravan will take about three weeks to travel the 2448 miles (give or take) to the end. I am only going to follow it as far as Barstow, CA on Sunday, but it will be interesting and I expect to learn more about the area and have some fun. I might even get my kicks on Route 66...
Killer Depeche Mode tune, too.
Mail-in balloting is certainly a big contributor to this but I am not aware of a CA primary quote like this in some time, at least not since the 2003 gubernatorial recall race, where turnout has been this high in a primary. Quite something to see!
The GOP candidate in CA-6 (the one who was listed on the ballot as a Republican) seems like a far-left Trump 2024 voter and (can't go into too much detail due to the commenting rules on here) was very left-wing on at least some foreign policy issues. Also, he previously ran for Congress in Oregon as a Democrat and lost.
https://abcnews.com/US/wireStory/gop-candidate-focused-mideast-peace-threatens-california-democrats-133565474
Most of Stansfield's voters were probably typical Republican voters who voted for the candidate who was listed on the ballot as a Republican, but there may have been some progressive and Biden/Trump voters who voted for Stansfield because of his foreign policy views.
WTF is a "far-left Trump voter"? Do you mean they're far left now but weren't 2 years ago?
One of the "horseshoe theory/conspiracy minded" oddballs that Trump won almost all of in 2024?
Sound like MAHA voters, Tulsi supporters, etc.
Correct. I suppose (just based on guesswork) that was likely a Susie Wiles strategem, that she pulled off magnificently.
Not genuine leftists.
Yes, absolutely agree. Genuine leftists should definitely not be mixed in with horseshoe "left" (who are mostly self-aggrandizers)
“He wanted to emphasize the need for peace in the Middle East and Islam's compatibility with Christianity.”
He is going to be crucified (no pun intended) by the psycho evangelical GOP base for that stance.
Obviously still hoping Pan wins but I did not expect to hear those words come from a Republican.
MI-Sen - UAW backs Abdul El-Sayed in a complete surprise. This is a huge loss for Haley Stevens (who was Obama's Auto Czar and who was who I expected to get the UAW endorsement) and Mallory McMorrow (who done some automotive design work before entering politics, IIRC).
https://www.instagram.com/p/DZNcZuPFj_t/?igsh=cGV4cmQ1Y2c5YXM2
McMorrow really seems to be fading down the stretch... She seemed like a good option to me, but maybe didn't have her own lane to run in.
How did she attack the left? I'm not challenging you, I just haven't been following the race that closely and don't know what you're referring to.
She made a big to do about El-Sayed appearing with Hassan Piker.
She didn't, but she dared to criticize Hasan Piker, an unforgiveable sin for many.
Lol why are you so combative? Take a chill pill. You seem to constantly escalate the tension in every comment string.
I think that's only part of it. She was too clever by half and would have been better off just not addressing it. She thought this would isolate El-Sayed on the left and let her scoop up left liberals and moderate liberals. But it only alienated the former.
As I said, I think this was only part of her decline, at least relative to the rest of the field. Her lane just might not be wide enough to come down the middle no matter what she does.
Yeah - that’s a pretty solid read on it. It’s a photo op in a tank at the Warren Arsenal level of campaign blunder.
The "snarky social media posts" thing seems to have dinged her WAY more than I expected.
Holding MI is basically on par with winning IA or OH at this point (on my list). I think Platner (even with the drip-drippings) is considerably more likely to win than El-Sayed.
I'm much more optimistic about AES's chances, I think. Among other things, Michigan is probably THE poster child for GOP midyear turnout dropoff in the Trump era, based on on 2018 and 2022 results. Rogers has had some good polling, but he also just ran a race where tens of millions if not $100M+ was spent on his behalf.
Platner has been polling way better and Maine is a bluer state. I still think Platner wins before el-Sayed does.
I agree with this. I suspect both would wind up winning in the current political environment, but MI should be a straight up slam dunk for us this year and ME should at least be D-favored and we seem determined to force them both into the Tossup category.
I agree with this, a blue wave should get both of them across. If the environment looked like "reverse 2022" (AKA 2020) then I could very well see them fall short.
Something I have not seen anyone discuss is the possibility that AES will juice Arab/Muslim turnout in MI. 2-3% of the MI population is Arab. I don’t know if that will save us but I can’t imagine it would hurt.
I suspect that the Arab percentage of the voting age population is lower than that. Maybe would bring in a few votes around the margins, but that's about it.
If nothing else, I have heard that the Arab population is highly politically organized in MI. Could help a little bit.
Other than in these comment sections I have not heard a single word about the old tweets, fwiw. I think that with Stevens and El-Sayed getting propped up by different factions, she's been left without a lane.
I may be drawing lines that aren't there, but she was always right in the fight (usually in high 20s/low 30s) until after that week of bad press.
Yeah I think it's less that she slipped and more that people are picking sides between the other two. But I could be wrong and you're right, just my read.
It does worry me that in a state like Michigan (which I don't view as running hot and cold by nature), the primary voters seemingly had no interest in a "unifying" candidate.
As a coalition party, we might be in a bit of a tight spot going forward, if that is the direction of travel.
Absolutely not. El-Sayed is still far more likely to win than Brown or Turek.
I think Brown is a little more likely.
Yeah, Brown has been tearing it up. It's too bad that politics doesn't have an MVP award.
maybe the medal of freedom or JFK profile in courage award?
I'll believe it when I see it. He led in most polls in 2024 until right before the election, when a late surge of crypto money came to boost Moreno and barely carry him over the finish line.
We are also in a wave year. This isn’t 2022, Trump and the GOP’s approval ratings are downright apocalyptic. Now, I don’t know if that means Abdul can survive 2032, but it does mean that we shouldn’t panic too much if he wins this year. (FWIW I’ve heard his GOTV operation is really good too.)
This is also why I still think Platner will pull through easily.
Here I thought she had momentum just a couple of weeks ago. Sure doesn't seem so now.
The UAW will have a lot to answer for if Mike Rogers beats Democratic nominee El-Sayed next year.
Rogers is not winning in this environment.
This year*
Even though I live really close to the NC/SC line, I don't keep up with SC politics.
Does anyone know why Graham's intraparty rival is being snubbed so badly by Trump? Why does Trump think he'd be a disaster for the GOP - or is that simply code for "Insufficiently loyal to Trump"?
Be hard for him to find anyone more obsequious than Graham.
You put it perfectly. Trump became Graham's (Waylon Smithers) new Monty Burns when Sen. McCain passed away.