I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think Cruz is right. <cringes waiting for lightning bolt to strike>.
Jeffries's behavior alone in the NYC mayor's race should tell us what establishment Democrats feel about Mamdani. My greatest fear if Democrats win a majority is that they interpret it as voters saying they just want to turn down the temperature of American politics, rather than wanting real policy change.
Mamdani's approach was been "let's use the existing laws and levers of power to make peoples's lives better," which blunts the attack that "Democrats just want to tax and spend." One of the most common criticisms of Democrats by average voters is that Democrats don't do anything when they have power. A lot of Democrats on Capitol Hill are feeling the heat because they don't seem to stand for anything except being anti-Trump.
So, yeah, I think Mamdani has theym shaking in their boots.
I lean towards agreeing with you, but I think that doesn't indicate Cruz is right.
Cruz is saying dems are afraid of Mamdani because they don't want to be associated with a democratic socialist and get labelled socialist. You're saying they're afraid of him because he represents a more active direction for the party and they don't want to abandon a minimalist approach to policy.
I agree with your second sentence but not your first. Mark Robinson demolishing Dale Folwell in my backyard neuters that “primary strength indicates general election strength” point.
robinson was the sitting lg, while folwell, despite being a statewide elected at the time was kinda a nobody by comparison. Plus trump and co pushed robinson on nc gop, and when have they ever not bent the knee. Always wondered how cherry berri would have polled against roy or stein
Do you mean Cheri Beasley? Cherie Berry was the NC Commissioner of Labor and a Republican. The only reason anyone knew her name was because her name appeared on the certificate in every elevator.
I meant Cherrie Berry, I remember my elevator rides while living in Chapel hill/Durham. It struck me as strange, as a northerner, that in a state where so many statewide elected's were democratic that the labor commissioner would be a republican. Fellow law students that lived in Carolina their whole life enthusastically called her the Elavator Queen and voted straight democratic, but for her office. Very bizzare, so my hypothetical was would she have ever posed a challenge to roy or stein when they were running for ag/gov
My point is we all knew Robinson was a disaster waiting to happen, yet they nominated Robinson anyway. He was already on pace to get smacked well before the Black Nazi thing came out. Folwell was a nobody, but he always was the better choice if Republicans actually cared about winning that race. That’s just one of many examples of primary strength not translating to general election strength. Mike Castle vs. Christine O’Donnell might be the most famous example of it.
Maybe, but I don't think Shah is a bad candidate and this is a situation where we can probably count on the political climate giving us the win. I usually hate to do that, because nothing is guaranteed and we should never assume a wave until it happens, but this feels like the kind of district we easily picked up in 2018. It's not like Republicans are fielding a good candidate, so I'm not worried about this one. I assume it'll be moved to Lean D by Labor Day and all this primary stuff will be forgotten by November.
I mean, Shah didn't really perform much worse than Harris did in the district in 2024. 2026 is going to be a year where identifying the difference between candidate strength vs wave year boost is going to be difficult for any candidate, I believe, even candidates like Talarico, Turek, etc who I'd consider strong candidates but might not have had a chance in any other environment
Citing name recognition as the explanation for Amish Shah's victory doesn't really hold up. Marlene Galán-Woods had already run in 2024, finished a close third in the primary, and then benefited from roughly $4 million in outside spending from AIPAC-affiliated groups (in addition to her own strong fundraising I.e 2.2 million and 500k from the DCCC), according to reporting. After two campaigns and that level of financial backing, it's hard to argue she still suffered from a significant name-recognition deficit. There have to be more substantive reasons for the result.
If the only issue the DCCC had with Shah was that he preferred to speak to real voters rather than call rich AIPAC donors for money, then they deserve every loss they get.
I came here to say the same thing! The DCCC apparently has a bias against candidates who take a grassroots approach rather than following the recommendations of the establishment consultant class.
I'm in NC and we had a problem with several incumbent Democratic House members in the General Assembly who voted with the GOP to override the Governor's vetoes of some truly bad bills. The NCDP and the Governor came out and backed their opponents in the March primaries. The challengers all won handily.
IMO that is one of the few legitimate excuses for the party to weigh in before the primaries. That and some of the corruption and sex scandals that mostly (but not exclusively) plague the GOP.
Finishing a close third in a primary 2 years ago ascribes a level of familiarity to voters they very likely don’t have. The argument wasn’t that nobody heard of her, just that people were more familiar with Shah from being the prior nominee.
It’s comparative name recognition, though. Shah had a high profile general election in 2024, and that might account for his strong residual showing. He was probably a household name in metro Phoenix in fall of 2024.
Ah, but I didn't say that he won because of his higher name recognition. I said that it was going to be hard to knock him back because of it. He was starting the race with a pretty considerable advantage—running in a general election is a totally different story. Far more people voted for him, and far more money was spent on him (both for and against!) in 2024 than was for Galan-Woods.
In CA 22 Baines entered the race when the only other D candidate was Salas, who had previously lost twice. She seemed initially like the only viable candidate and then Villegas filed. For a bit there were three D candidates until Salas dropped out. The DCCC stuck with Baines.
Actually, the DCCC was reported to have recruited Bains for the older iteration of the district which was redder but they stuck with her after the redistricting which she voted against to pander to right wingers.
I’m not sure general election voters are aware of ideology to the extent we are. Little held a very Republican state senate seat and probably has some residual familiarity and cross-over support from that stint that the other Dems lack. It’s hard to see MN-02 being anywhere near this close regardless, especially with Lindell probably leading the R ticket into an iceberg.
Amy Klobuchar vs Mike Lindell is literally just "hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby"
I'm not a Klobuchar guy by any means but that's one race I'll be paying close attention to on election night simply because I want to see just how bad it goes for Republicans. Legitimately could be an extinction level defeat for the state GOP.
I'd be surprised if Klobuchar won by more than 12 points. Lindell won't be a worse candidate that Royce White was in 2024 and Klobuchar only beat him by 16.
Since then, the fraud scandal, blamed on the Walz administration, is literally the only thing that ever gets talked about in Minnesota media. And too much of the state has realigned into a "colder Nebraska" to foment kind of margins Democrats have scored in Minnesota in the past, and in those areas, fury about the fraud scandal will burn hotter in voters' minds than anything related to Trump.
Remarked publicly that "women have become too mouthy"
Stated that "Israel is the lynchpin of the New World Order" and that "Jews invoke Holocaust to cover for corruption", while defending rapper Ye (Kanye West) against accusations of antisemitism;
Promoted fringe theories regarding COVID-19, the Federal Reserve, and voice-painted slogans on his scalp during BIG3 basketball games supporting figures like Alex Jones
Ordered by a Minnesota judge in a domestic abuse case to stay away from his ex-wife and teenage son for making threats and acts of physical abuse
Faced a Campaign Legal Center filing with the FEC alleging the misuse of over $157,000 in donor funds for personal use, including expenses at a strip club—which White defended by claiming he went there to eat food;
Faced multiple court actions and debt judgments relating to unpaid child support spanning several years.
Klobuchar is unlikely to be held responsible for anything the Walz administration did/didn't do, and Lindell is practically synonymous with "insane", and that will put him on par with Royce White for most. Add to that the stronger political environment and less polarization for a non-federal race, and I can't see Klobuchar underperforming compared to 2024.
Little has unique draw by virtue of being young and a political institution in a conservative population center in the seat. He was mayor of the exurb Lakeville, which is the largest city in Minnesota that voted for Trump, then briefly was elected to the State Senate from there as well. A DFL version of Jeremy Miller, IMO. Little would anchor this seat for decades if he wanted it, as he is only 41.
Also, Kaela Berg is arguably more liberal than Little (who him self is not exactly a DSA archeype.)
Klein is definitely a moderate, the oldest candidate, and has had an unremarkable decade in the state legislature. Certainly not the rightmost member of the DFL caucus, but definitely in the most conservative quadrant thereof.
The voters may well perfer a more progressive candidate (I don't know the district well enough to know) but an early poll of speculative match-ups among general election voters will show nothing more than comparative name ID, especially when the differences are very small and not statistically significant.
Little was formerly a centrist mayor of GOP-leaning Lakeville and then a centrist state Senator from a Republican-heavy district and lost re-election. Little fares the best because he has the highest name recognition and most people that remember him likely remember his as a moderate.
I am not familiar with Vermont politics and will never understand the New England infatuation with faux moderates. Can someone give me the run-down on why Phil Scott’s numbers might finally be coming back to earth? The John Rodgers numbers are also really bad for an incumbent. Do we have a preference in that race?
I could be wrong but I think I read somewhere that Scott had started moving to the right a little bit after the GOP broke the Democratic supermajorities in the state. Here's an article I found about it:
Looks like he's trying to fuck around with the public education system, something guaranteed to tank your popularity if you don't handle it with absolute perfection and grace (and of all the people I expect to accomplish that, a Republican, even a moderate one, is not one of them). There might be some other things he's doing as well that are ruffling feather in Vermont.
His approvals being "just" 48% is insane to me. He's been the most popular governor in the country pretty consistently since around 2020, and atleast in the top 3. Seeing his Democratic opponents only trailing him by single digits shocked me, but maybe even Phil Scott isn't strong enough to weather the blue wave, and if he does he'll come out damaged and weaker than ever.
As for the Lt. Gov race, Rodgers is a Democrat turned Republican who squeaked by in 2024 with a plurality win. His win could be chalked up to a perfect storm: Massive GOP wave year, especially in New England/the northeast where Republicans performed much better than usual, Phil Scott carrying the top of the ticket with a landslide win, and Rodgers' opponent, incumbent Lt. Gov Zuckerman, being a bit of a kook with a history of underperforming. And even then Rodgers massively underperformed Scott. It makes sense that he'd be trailing badly in a neutral environment, let alone a blue wave as big as what 2026's certainly will be. Conventional wisdom for me is that, as long as the Democrat is left of them, no moderate Republican is better than a Democrat. Even the kook (who luckily isn't running this year, although he'd probably win in this environment too).
Personally I don't understand why New England loves these kind of "moderate" Republicans. New Hampshire makes sense because it's a swing state and the Republicans there are still good at pretending they're not right-wing dipshits, but what exactly do Phil Scott or Charlie Baker bring to the table that a standard Democrat doesn't? And I don't even have to go into detail about Susan Collins.
Nice explanation, thank you! Yeah, I don’t understand it when if you want a Charlie Baker or a Phil Scott, a standard normie lib Democrat isn’t going to govern much differently from them. Especially when their veto powers were mostly meaningless due to the huge supermajorities. Scott only just got real veto powers after 2024, and now look at what it did to his numbers.
New Hampshire I kind of understand given how the lack of a state income tax there seems to be a third rail no one wants to touch.
baker only got that seat because every so often mass and new england pols think that the D next to their name is sufficient to win an election. Watching Marth Coakley aboslutely bottle two statewide elections in four years to Republicans for Ted kennedy's senate seat and then her subsequent lost to Baker is a good example of the lack of effort in campaigning
If I lost a senate seat to a Republican in Massachusetts, let alone *Ted Kennedy's* senate seat, I'd never show my face in public again. Coakley having the gall to run again is absolutely mindblowing, and then she lost again!
Apparently after her tenure as state AG she became a lobbyist for Juul. Just a repeated pattern of questionable decisions.
I mean, I can’t blame them. Up until now I thought Scott was a shoe in for re-election. He seemed to defy national environments and conventional wisdom due to his popularity alone. I can imagine several Vermont Dems are kicking themselves for not running now that he looks potentially vulnerable. And in any case he’ll likely retire in 2028, especially if he has a rough time getting re-elected this year, so it’s not like we have to wait too long.
Makes sense to me. Benson's won two statewide campaigns by large margins, James couldn't win either of his statewide campaigns, not even in a Republican year.
Why he chose to run for governor *now* I won't understand. A third statewide loss is just going to kill his political career whereas a loss in his congressional district would give him *some* room to make a comeback bid, either for his old seat or his choice of the governorship or senate seat up for election in 2030. Hell if he really hated being a house rep this much he could've atleast tried for the senate seat where his loss would've been *somewhat* closer. Instead he's just going to get walloped and lose by double digits.
Makes sense… Florida is Florida, the land of disappointment, but so far polling hasn’t indicated that Donalds going to run away with it. Of course Florida is a special state where polling underestimated Republican strength in both 2024 *and* 2022 so maybe the same thing will happen even now, but regardless I think this call is good
Re: FL races (hoping Jolly wins, however unlikely it may be) is there any recent history of a state being competitive/safe for one party, then drifting away to safe for the other party, then eventually drifting back again to competitiveness? Georgia is the only example I can think of off the top of my head. FL would need to take that course..
Maybe Iowa? but over a much longer period of time (was GOP leaning prior to the farm crisis, became one of the most dem states in the US, then slowly drifted back and is now a GOP leaning state again)
Late response, but we could arguably see Michigan that way.
Gore won Michigan by 5 and Kerry won it by 3. So it was competitive but still went blue in the not-great national environment of 2004. Then Obama carried it by a whopping 16 points in 2008 and by about 10 points in 2012. Meanwhile on the US Senate side Stabenow narrowly unseated incumbent Ralph Abraham in 2000, and then dems proceeded to win double-digit victories in every senate election including the absolute disaster year of 2014. Granted 2010 was an absolute disaster at the governor level, but in 2014 we came reasonably close to unseating incumbent Rick Snyder in a terrible year for dems.
So heading into 2016, one might reasonably conclude that while Michigan wasn’t off the table for republicans it had trended strongly towards dems and was only winnable for the gop in a very red year.
Anyway, we all know how that turned out.
It’s not a perfect comparison, as MI had never trended as hard towards dems as Florida has to the gop, but it does show that these trends don’t always last.
CA-14: "Bold America, a federal Super PAC with ties to AIPAC, spent $644,231 this week in support of CA14 candidate Melissa Hernandez for video production and an ad buy." The special election is 8/18. The ads apparently are attack ads against Aisha Wahab.
Question: how effective might these ads be? I believe there are a lot of Afghan-Americans in the district, no? Wouldn’t Wahab be able to benefit from that?
The ad will likely make no impact. Aisha Wahab faced similar attacks back in 2022 and she defeated her challenger in the State Senate race, Lily Wan. by 7.4% points.
Easy Bay Insiders, the publisher whose article Hilltopper is referencing, has mentioned news reports have already debunked the claims.
Wahab also scored far ahead of her nearest challenger in the primary election. It's pretty rare for someone to win by such a margin in the first election just to lose in the runoff
I think Wahab's large margin of victory in the primary election has a lot do with the district overall. Wahab has represented Hayward as a State Senator while being Muslim in a city that's got considerable Hispanic population whereas Asian population is growing and dominating cities like Dublin (which has a substantial Muslim population as well).
Compared to Melissa Hernandez, Wahab's support is quite wide in local and state government from Attorney General Rob Bonta + his wife Mia Bonta along with State Senator Scott Weiner, who is running in CA-11. It's hard for Wahab's momentum to crater when she's got this machine behind her.
If this means countering the messaging of Bold America, that would be helpful.
However, if Wahab wins the special election in August, it'll be much harder for Bold America to make an impact on her election chances as an incumbent even from a special election. Going from winning a large margin of the votes in the primary to potentially winning the special election will be hard to fight against in the general election.
I think it depends a lot on the stage of the campaign.
Most well trained canvassers can go out and talk to voters in a compelling way. However, when it comes to fundraising, many wealthy donors want to hear directly from the candidate, either in person or over the phone. It's why many members of Congress spend so many hours dialing for dollars, a sad necessity of our post-Citizens United world.
Obviously, candidates have to balance many different things. But if it was August or September of a campaign and a candidate wanted to spend all their free time canvassing even though the Q3 fundraising deadline was right around the corner, I would be concerned about their judgment.
That said, in my opinion, the DCCC and other DC Democratic insiders put WAAAY too much emphasis on fundraising to the detriment of some candidates who are trying to run a compelling campaign.
Sounds like he is a good fundraiser from what I read, but maybe it's like "Sure he raised 3 mil, but maybe he could raise double that if that's all he did?"
I didn't have the time to triple-check everything to my satisfaction to include it in the piece, but among non-incumbent Dem House candidates in 2024, he was in the top ~20 in fundraising. At the very top were people like Adam Frisch, who had the benefit of running against Boebert. Perhaps Shah could have done more, but how much more? I doubt, say, $1 million more would have been a difference-maker.
I am totally confident about winning the GA senate race. Governor race I give it 60-40 Lance-Bottoms win. Would be HUGE for the state if she won though and would help cement Georgia as solidly purple to light blue for the next decade
I recall the polling numbers for Ossoff were tighter at this point heading to the 2020 Senate Election.
He may be benefitting from being an incumbent Senator. Senator Raphael Warnock may have a similar fortune in the polls in 2028 when he's up for re-election then.
Love the Senate top line. Re the Gov race, I think we all knew it would be a close race in November and probably come down to GOTV.
From the link, I wanted to add that the survey found voters over 50 were most likely to vote in November (no surprise) and also that the over 50 voters favored both Republicans:
"In the gubernatorial contest, Keisha Lance Bottoms leads Rick Jackson 48% to 46% among all likely voters, within the margin of error. Among voters age 50-plus, Jackson leads Bottoms 55% to 42%. In the U.S. Senate contest, Senator Jon Ossoff leads Rep. Mike Collins 52% to 43% among all likely voters, while Collins leads among voters age 50-plus by 53% to 45%."
There is an interesting divergence in the voting trends of older voters between Canada and the United States. The poll above shows them breaking towards Republicans, yet poll after poll here in Canada indicates them flocking massively towards the Liberal Party. For example, look at this national poll taken earlier in July: https://338canada.com/20260713-aba.htm
Voters over 60 prefer the Liberals by a 52-32 margin! I would be fascinated to know why there is such an ideological divide.
Vast racial disparity on life expectancy, mostly for native Southerners.
Also the diverse transplants skew heavily on the working age adults (and their kids ofc). They will live much longer than the natives, but has not correctly reflected in the life table, nor on the voter list as aged 65+ yet.
GA SOS datahub has detailed summary of active registrations. Overall voters at White 51%, Black 31%, other 18%. But for voters 64 or younger, the pool is already majority non White, W 48%, B 32%.
For voters 65+, the numbers are at W 64%, B 25%, almost 40pt diff, and white seniors number 2.6 times of Black seniors.
There has been some evidence in recent cycles, particularly 2020 and 2024, that Democrats were gaining ground with older, wealthier White voters. The fact Harris did better than Biden in most of Washington, most Colorado ski counties, The Villages, and southern Delaware probably speak to this.
Former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has officially announced that he is running in the South Carolina Senate Republican Primary Special Election
Sanford will do anything and everything he can to continue to run more political campaigns. Maybe he sees a future after all once Trump is no longer in office so that's why he's taking a chance at this.
Perhaps he could go back to working in business in the private sector and join Paul Ryan as a partner at the private equity firm where he works at. Sanford has an MBA at University of Virginia.
Pet peeve with generical ballot polling: If less than 80% of the sample hasn't made up their mind yet, not worth throwing into the averages. After 3 polls this morning with Dems up 8, 9, 11% and touching/cresting 50%, Pew's +6 poll of 43-37% is bringing the average back down to earth. There is no universe where either party is gonna end up in the 30s on election day. We're probably gonna end up at a Dem advantage of like 54-45 or 53-46 or something. If you can't push leaners, don't do the poll.
I mean, 2018 resulted in a Dem victory of 53 - 45. I think it stands to reason that this year is going to be a bit more democratic given just how much worse things are this year, as well as Trump’s approvals being far worse than they were even in 2018
Interesting that the DCCC "...found Shah “difficult to work with” during his last campaign, complaining that he preferred knocking doors to fundraising and did not want to air negative ads...:
THAT IS WHAT I LIKE and many others do as well it seems! Establishment Dems, GET WITH THE PROGRAM & GET IN STEP WITH YOUR BASE!!!
I don't think Schweikert was a particularly strong incumbent or had much of a moderate image, he ran roughly even with Trump in 2020 and 2024, but so did Biggs, and while he did outrun Kari Lake in 2022 and 2024, pretty much anyone could have done that.
I understand and agree somewhat with your reasoning. Perhaps if the Dccc provides more support this time he may win. Too bad the shop lost my crystal ball when I took it in for a polish 😹.
If I knew exactly the correct answer, I'd be as rich as musk.. 😆 How would you identify the majority of dem voters that put Shah on 'top' of the primary at least?
I think those are two different questions. As far as choosing Shah, I suspect that's largely down to name recognition. The bigger challenge that I see is that the people who disproportionately turn out for primaries and our base are not the same thing...
Capital C Copium from the GOP. They are toast and they know it.
Cruz is full of shit (as always) that House Democrats are "afraid" of Mamdani. Interesting how he's throwing Paxton under the bus.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think Cruz is right. <cringes waiting for lightning bolt to strike>.
Jeffries's behavior alone in the NYC mayor's race should tell us what establishment Democrats feel about Mamdani. My greatest fear if Democrats win a majority is that they interpret it as voters saying they just want to turn down the temperature of American politics, rather than wanting real policy change.
Mamdani's approach was been "let's use the existing laws and levers of power to make peoples's lives better," which blunts the attack that "Democrats just want to tax and spend." One of the most common criticisms of Democrats by average voters is that Democrats don't do anything when they have power. A lot of Democrats on Capitol Hill are feeling the heat because they don't seem to stand for anything except being anti-Trump.
So, yeah, I think Mamdani has theym shaking in their boots.
I lean towards agreeing with you, but I think that doesn't indicate Cruz is right.
Cruz is saying dems are afraid of Mamdani because they don't want to be associated with a democratic socialist and get labelled socialist. You're saying they're afraid of him because he represents a more active direction for the party and they don't want to abandon a minimalist approach to policy.
Issues page doesn't really matter. He has a record of passing bipartisan bills in the state legislature.
Here's what I found
https://www.advocate.com/politics/national/arizona-democrats-anti-lgbtq-campaign
Thanks for the reference url.
He also was the nominee last time so, plenty of name recognition
Considering that this is the second primary in a row that she has lost, clearly she's not the stronger candidate.
I'm sorry to say but voters care more about vibes than records for the most part, especially with challenger candidates.
I agree with your second sentence but not your first. Mark Robinson demolishing Dale Folwell in my backyard neuters that “primary strength indicates general election strength” point.
robinson was the sitting lg, while folwell, despite being a statewide elected at the time was kinda a nobody by comparison. Plus trump and co pushed robinson on nc gop, and when have they ever not bent the knee. Always wondered how cherry berri would have polled against roy or stein
Sexism would've worked against Cheri Berry.
Do you mean Cheri Beasley? Cherie Berry was the NC Commissioner of Labor and a Republican. The only reason anyone knew her name was because her name appeared on the certificate in every elevator.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherie_Berry
I meant Cherrie Berry, I remember my elevator rides while living in Chapel hill/Durham. It struck me as strange, as a northerner, that in a state where so many statewide elected's were democratic that the labor commissioner would be a republican. Fellow law students that lived in Carolina their whole life enthusastically called her the Elavator Queen and voted straight democratic, but for her office. Very bizzare, so my hypothetical was would she have ever posed a challenge to roy or stein when they were running for ag/gov
My point is we all knew Robinson was a disaster waiting to happen, yet they nominated Robinson anyway. He was already on pace to get smacked well before the Black Nazi thing came out. Folwell was a nobody, but he always was the better choice if Republicans actually cared about winning that race. That’s just one of many examples of primary strength not translating to general election strength. Mike Castle vs. Christine O’Donnell might be the most famous example of it.
I would exclude Republican primaries from my comment as they tend to PREFER to nominate the less electable type.
Maybe, but I don't think Shah is a bad candidate and this is a situation where we can probably count on the political climate giving us the win. I usually hate to do that, because nothing is guaranteed and we should never assume a wave until it happens, but this feels like the kind of district we easily picked up in 2018. It's not like Republicans are fielding a good candidate, so I'm not worried about this one. I assume it'll be moved to Lean D by Labor Day and all this primary stuff will be forgotten by November.
I mean, Shah didn't really perform much worse than Harris did in the district in 2024. 2026 is going to be a year where identifying the difference between candidate strength vs wave year boost is going to be difficult for any candidate, I believe, even candidates like Talarico, Turek, etc who I'd consider strong candidates but might not have had a chance in any other environment
My sense is that this is a race where a blue wave will probably help any Democratic nominee win.
Citing name recognition as the explanation for Amish Shah's victory doesn't really hold up. Marlene Galán-Woods had already run in 2024, finished a close third in the primary, and then benefited from roughly $4 million in outside spending from AIPAC-affiliated groups (in addition to her own strong fundraising I.e 2.2 million and 500k from the DCCC), according to reporting. After two campaigns and that level of financial backing, it's hard to argue she still suffered from a significant name-recognition deficit. There have to be more substantive reasons for the result.
Maybe she’s just not an appealing campaigner? The ideological element of the primary seems to me negligible
If the only issue the DCCC had with Shah was that he preferred to speak to real voters rather than call rich AIPAC donors for money, then they deserve every loss they get.
I came here to say the same thing! The DCCC apparently has a bias against candidates who take a grassroots approach rather than following the recommendations of the establishment consultant class.
I'm in NC and we had a problem with several incumbent Democratic House members in the General Assembly who voted with the GOP to override the Governor's vetoes of some truly bad bills. The NCDP and the Governor came out and backed their opponents in the March primaries. The challengers all won handily.
IMO that is one of the few legitimate excuses for the party to weigh in before the primaries. That and some of the corruption and sex scandals that mostly (but not exclusively) plague the GOP.
Finishing a close third in a primary 2 years ago ascribes a level of familiarity to voters they very likely don’t have. The argument wasn’t that nobody heard of her, just that people were more familiar with Shah from being the prior nominee.
It’s comparative name recognition, though. Shah had a high profile general election in 2024, and that might account for his strong residual showing. He was probably a household name in metro Phoenix in fall of 2024.
Ah, but I didn't say that he won because of his higher name recognition. I said that it was going to be hard to knock him back because of it. He was starting the race with a pretty considerable advantage—running in a general election is a totally different story. Far more people voted for him, and far more money was spent on him (both for and against!) in 2024 than was for Galan-Woods.
MI-Sen: Outgoing Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) endorses Abdul El-Sayed
In CA 22 Baines entered the race when the only other D candidate was Salas, who had previously lost twice. She seemed initially like the only viable candidate and then Villegas filed. For a bit there were three D candidates until Salas dropped out. The DCCC stuck with Baines.
Actually, the DCCC was reported to have recruited Bains for the older iteration of the district which was redder but they stuck with her after the redistricting which she voted against to pander to right wingers.
Villegas entered back in spring of 2025- Bains didn’t enter until later that year.
I stand corrected! Just checked and Villegas filed in April and Bains in July.
Salas never ran a third time. He floated his name at one point, but he never bit.
Salas filed the paperwork to run and later withdrew.
I hate to cite Alpha News (far right-wing outlet in MN) but there's a new poll in Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District commissioned by the Republican nominee, Eric Pratt that he released exclusively to Alpha News. https://alphanews.org/exclusive-new-poll-shows-republican-eric-pratt-in-close-race-with-dfl-congressional-candidates/
Initial ballot:
Matt Little 45 - Eric Pratt 40
Matt Klein 43 - Eric Pratt 42
Kaela Berg 43 - Eric Pratt 43
Little is the most progressive candidate and is performing the best. Funny how that works.
I’m not sure general election voters are aware of ideology to the extent we are. Little held a very Republican state senate seat and probably has some residual familiarity and cross-over support from that stint that the other Dems lack. It’s hard to see MN-02 being anywhere near this close regardless, especially with Lindell probably leading the R ticket into an iceberg.
Amy Klobuchar vs Mike Lindell is literally just "hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby"
I'm not a Klobuchar guy by any means but that's one race I'll be paying close attention to on election night simply because I want to see just how bad it goes for Republicans. Legitimately could be an extinction level defeat for the state GOP.
I think MN DFL will regain a trifecta coming into 2027. And it'll be both Trump and Lindell's fault.
I'd be surprised if Klobuchar won by more than 12 points. Lindell won't be a worse candidate that Royce White was in 2024 and Klobuchar only beat him by 16.
Since then, the fraud scandal, blamed on the Walz administration, is literally the only thing that ever gets talked about in Minnesota media. And too much of the state has realigned into a "colder Nebraska" to foment kind of margins Democrats have scored in Minnesota in the past, and in those areas, fury about the fraud scandal will burn hotter in voters' minds than anything related to Trump.
Remind us of why White was as bad as Lindell.
Random sampling.....
Remarked publicly that "women have become too mouthy"
Stated that "Israel is the lynchpin of the New World Order" and that "Jews invoke Holocaust to cover for corruption", while defending rapper Ye (Kanye West) against accusations of antisemitism;
Promoted fringe theories regarding COVID-19, the Federal Reserve, and voice-painted slogans on his scalp during BIG3 basketball games supporting figures like Alex Jones
Ordered by a Minnesota judge in a domestic abuse case to stay away from his ex-wife and teenage son for making threats and acts of physical abuse
Faced a Campaign Legal Center filing with the FEC alleging the misuse of over $157,000 in donor funds for personal use, including expenses at a strip club—which White defended by claiming he went there to eat food;
Faced multiple court actions and debt judgments relating to unpaid child support spanning several years.
Klobuchar is unlikely to be held responsible for anything the Walz administration did/didn't do, and Lindell is practically synonymous with "insane", and that will put him on par with Royce White for most. Add to that the stronger political environment and less polarization for a non-federal race, and I can't see Klobuchar underperforming compared to 2024.
Little is better known from his time as wunderkind mayor of Lakeville, but yes he was a State Senator as well.
Little has unique draw by virtue of being young and a political institution in a conservative population center in the seat. He was mayor of the exurb Lakeville, which is the largest city in Minnesota that voted for Trump, then briefly was elected to the State Senate from there as well. A DFL version of Jeremy Miller, IMO. Little would anchor this seat for decades if he wanted it, as he is only 41.
Also, Kaela Berg is arguably more liberal than Little (who him self is not exactly a DSA archeype.)
Klein is definitely a moderate, the oldest candidate, and has had an unremarkable decade in the state legislature. Certainly not the rightmost member of the DFL caucus, but definitely in the most conservative quadrant thereof.
Interesting how he was mayor of Lakeville but now lives in Elko New Market.
He was like 30 when his mayoral term ended. Its not uncommon for a 30 year old to move a town over into a bigger house.
Thoughts on who might be the most likely winner of the primary? Little?
My guess is Little. But it won't be a blowout.
The voters may well perfer a more progressive candidate (I don't know the district well enough to know) but an early poll of speculative match-ups among general election voters will show nothing more than comparative name ID, especially when the differences are very small and not statistically significant.
Little was formerly a centrist mayor of GOP-leaning Lakeville and then a centrist state Senator from a Republican-heavy district and lost re-election. Little fares the best because he has the highest name recognition and most people that remember him likely remember his as a moderate.
Something that stood out to me yesterday but I forgot to mention is the VT-Gov poll and how Scott is polling under 50%, interesting
I am not familiar with Vermont politics and will never understand the New England infatuation with faux moderates. Can someone give me the run-down on why Phil Scott’s numbers might finally be coming back to earth? The John Rodgers numbers are also really bad for an incumbent. Do we have a preference in that race?
I could be wrong but I think I read somewhere that Scott had started moving to the right a little bit after the GOP broke the Democratic supermajorities in the state. Here's an article I found about it:
https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/politics/2026/07/23/vt-gov-scotts-approval-rating-hits-new-low-as-election-approaches/91006720007/
Looks like he's trying to fuck around with the public education system, something guaranteed to tank your popularity if you don't handle it with absolute perfection and grace (and of all the people I expect to accomplish that, a Republican, even a moderate one, is not one of them). There might be some other things he's doing as well that are ruffling feather in Vermont.
His approvals being "just" 48% is insane to me. He's been the most popular governor in the country pretty consistently since around 2020, and atleast in the top 3. Seeing his Democratic opponents only trailing him by single digits shocked me, but maybe even Phil Scott isn't strong enough to weather the blue wave, and if he does he'll come out damaged and weaker than ever.
As for the Lt. Gov race, Rodgers is a Democrat turned Republican who squeaked by in 2024 with a plurality win. His win could be chalked up to a perfect storm: Massive GOP wave year, especially in New England/the northeast where Republicans performed much better than usual, Phil Scott carrying the top of the ticket with a landslide win, and Rodgers' opponent, incumbent Lt. Gov Zuckerman, being a bit of a kook with a history of underperforming. And even then Rodgers massively underperformed Scott. It makes sense that he'd be trailing badly in a neutral environment, let alone a blue wave as big as what 2026's certainly will be. Conventional wisdom for me is that, as long as the Democrat is left of them, no moderate Republican is better than a Democrat. Even the kook (who luckily isn't running this year, although he'd probably win in this environment too).
Personally I don't understand why New England loves these kind of "moderate" Republicans. New Hampshire makes sense because it's a swing state and the Republicans there are still good at pretending they're not right-wing dipshits, but what exactly do Phil Scott or Charlie Baker bring to the table that a standard Democrat doesn't? And I don't even have to go into detail about Susan Collins.
Nice explanation, thank you! Yeah, I don’t understand it when if you want a Charlie Baker or a Phil Scott, a standard normie lib Democrat isn’t going to govern much differently from them. Especially when their veto powers were mostly meaningless due to the huge supermajorities. Scott only just got real veto powers after 2024, and now look at what it did to his numbers.
New Hampshire I kind of understand given how the lack of a state income tax there seems to be a third rail no one wants to touch.
baker only got that seat because every so often mass and new england pols think that the D next to their name is sufficient to win an election. Watching Marth Coakley aboslutely bottle two statewide elections in four years to Republicans for Ted kennedy's senate seat and then her subsequent lost to Baker is a good example of the lack of effort in campaigning
If I lost a senate seat to a Republican in Massachusetts, let alone *Ted Kennedy's* senate seat, I'd never show my face in public again. Coakley having the gall to run again is absolutely mindblowing, and then she lost again!
Apparently after her tenure as state AG she became a lobbyist for Juul. Just a repeated pattern of questionable decisions.
If only they'd managed to recruit, you know, actual candidates for 2026.
I mean, I can’t blame them. Up until now I thought Scott was a shoe in for re-election. He seemed to defy national environments and conventional wisdom due to his popularity alone. I can imagine several Vermont Dems are kicking themselves for not running now that he looks potentially vulnerable. And in any case he’ll likely retire in 2028, especially if he has a rough time getting re-elected this year, so it’s not like we have to wait too long.
Sabato's Crystal Ball has moved the MI-GOV race from Toss-Up to Lean Dem.
Makes sense to me. Benson's won two statewide campaigns by large margins, James couldn't win either of his statewide campaigns, not even in a Republican year.
Why he chose to run for governor *now* I won't understand. A third statewide loss is just going to kill his political career whereas a loss in his congressional district would give him *some* room to make a comeback bid, either for his old seat or his choice of the governorship or senate seat up for election in 2030. Hell if he really hated being a house rep this much he could've atleast tried for the senate seat where his loss would've been *somewhat* closer. Instead he's just going to get walloped and lose by double digits.
Crystal Ball moves FL Gov from safe to likely R.
https://x.com/ppollingnumbers/status/2080289187253649902?s=46&t=sbdQQeYBqp0h_Zql717iTw
Cue the horrendous RW copium comments.
Makes sense… Florida is Florida, the land of disappointment, but so far polling hasn’t indicated that Donalds going to run away with it. Of course Florida is a special state where polling underestimated Republican strength in both 2024 *and* 2022 so maybe the same thing will happen even now, but regardless I think this call is good
Re: FL races (hoping Jolly wins, however unlikely it may be) is there any recent history of a state being competitive/safe for one party, then drifting away to safe for the other party, then eventually drifting back again to competitiveness? Georgia is the only example I can think of off the top of my head. FL would need to take that course..
Maybe Iowa? but over a much longer period of time (was GOP leaning prior to the farm crisis, became one of the most dem states in the US, then slowly drifted back and is now a GOP leaning state again)
Late response, but we could arguably see Michigan that way.
Gore won Michigan by 5 and Kerry won it by 3. So it was competitive but still went blue in the not-great national environment of 2004. Then Obama carried it by a whopping 16 points in 2008 and by about 10 points in 2012. Meanwhile on the US Senate side Stabenow narrowly unseated incumbent Ralph Abraham in 2000, and then dems proceeded to win double-digit victories in every senate election including the absolute disaster year of 2014. Granted 2010 was an absolute disaster at the governor level, but in 2014 we came reasonably close to unseating incumbent Rick Snyder in a terrible year for dems.
So heading into 2016, one might reasonably conclude that while Michigan wasn’t off the table for republicans it had trended strongly towards dems and was only winnable for the gop in a very red year.
Anyway, we all know how that turned out.
It’s not a perfect comparison, as MI had never trended as hard towards dems as Florida has to the gop, but it does show that these trends don’t always last.
CA-14: "Bold America, a federal Super PAC with ties to AIPAC, spent $644,231 this week in support of CA14 candidate Melissa Hernandez for video production and an ad buy." The special election is 8/18. The ads apparently are attack ads against Aisha Wahab.
https://eastbayinsiders.substack.com/p/exclusive-oakland-roots-default-on
I wonder if its named that to get people confused with the CHC BOLD PAC
Question: how effective might these ads be? I believe there are a lot of Afghan-Americans in the district, no? Wouldn’t Wahab be able to benefit from that?
The ad will likely make no impact. Aisha Wahab faced similar attacks back in 2022 and she defeated her challenger in the State Senate race, Lily Wan. by 7.4% points.
Easy Bay Insiders, the publisher whose article Hilltopper is referencing, has mentioned news reports have already debunked the claims.
https://eastbayinsiders.substack.com/p/aipac-poised-to-unleash-smear-campaign
Wahab also scored far ahead of her nearest challenger in the primary election. It's pretty rare for someone to win by such a margin in the first election just to lose in the runoff
I think Wahab's large margin of victory in the primary election has a lot do with the district overall. Wahab has represented Hayward as a State Senator while being Muslim in a city that's got considerable Hispanic population whereas Asian population is growing and dominating cities like Dublin (which has a substantial Muslim population as well).
Compared to Melissa Hernandez, Wahab's support is quite wide in local and state government from Attorney General Rob Bonta + his wife Mia Bonta along with State Senator Scott Weiner, who is running in CA-11. It's hard for Wahab's momentum to crater when she's got this machine behind her.
Even then, I hope American Priorities and the CPC coordinate and invest in this race.
If this means countering the messaging of Bold America, that would be helpful.
However, if Wahab wins the special election in August, it'll be much harder for Bold America to make an impact on her election chances as an incumbent even from a special election. Going from winning a large margin of the votes in the primary to potentially winning the special election will be hard to fight against in the general election.
I am be naive, but I find it bizarre that the issue with Shah is that he wanted to talk to voters face to face?
If that's true, that says everything about the current state of the Democratic Party.
I think it depends a lot on the stage of the campaign.
Most well trained canvassers can go out and talk to voters in a compelling way. However, when it comes to fundraising, many wealthy donors want to hear directly from the candidate, either in person or over the phone. It's why many members of Congress spend so many hours dialing for dollars, a sad necessity of our post-Citizens United world.
Obviously, candidates have to balance many different things. But if it was August or September of a campaign and a candidate wanted to spend all their free time canvassing even though the Q3 fundraising deadline was right around the corner, I would be concerned about their judgment.
That said, in my opinion, the DCCC and other DC Democratic insiders put WAAAY too much emphasis on fundraising to the detriment of some candidates who are trying to run a compelling campaign.
Sounds like he is a good fundraiser from what I read, but maybe it's like "Sure he raised 3 mil, but maybe he could raise double that if that's all he did?"
Mike, I'm with you. His fundraising numbers were more than acceptable.
I didn't have the time to triple-check everything to my satisfaction to include it in the piece, but among non-incumbent Dem House candidates in 2024, he was in the top ~20 in fundraising. At the very top were people like Adam Frisch, who had the benefit of running against Boebert. Perhaps Shah could have done more, but how much more? I doubt, say, $1 million more would have been a difference-maker.
GA:
Ossoff 52 Collins 43
Lance-Bottoms 48 Jackson 46
https://www.aarp.org/pri/topics/voter-research/politics/2026-midterm-election-poll-georgia/
I am totally confident about winning the GA senate race. Governor race I give it 60-40 Lance-Bottoms win. Would be HUGE for the state if she won though and would help cement Georgia as solidly purple to light blue for the next decade
Even if she can keep Jackson under 50% (don’t know if there is a third party candidate), she would get another shot in a runoff.
No runoff this year--only two on the ballot.
I recall the polling numbers for Ossoff were tighter at this point heading to the 2020 Senate Election.
He may be benefitting from being an incumbent Senator. Senator Raphael Warnock may have a similar fortune in the polls in 2028 when he's up for re-election then.
Love the Senate top line. Re the Gov race, I think we all knew it would be a close race in November and probably come down to GOTV.
From the link, I wanted to add that the survey found voters over 50 were most likely to vote in November (no surprise) and also that the over 50 voters favored both Republicans:
"In the gubernatorial contest, Keisha Lance Bottoms leads Rick Jackson 48% to 46% among all likely voters, within the margin of error. Among voters age 50-plus, Jackson leads Bottoms 55% to 42%. In the U.S. Senate contest, Senator Jon Ossoff leads Rep. Mike Collins 52% to 43% among all likely voters, while Collins leads among voters age 50-plus by 53% to 45%."
There is an interesting divergence in the voting trends of older voters between Canada and the United States. The poll above shows them breaking towards Republicans, yet poll after poll here in Canada indicates them flocking massively towards the Liberal Party. For example, look at this national poll taken earlier in July: https://338canada.com/20260713-aba.htm
Voters over 60 prefer the Liberals by a 52-32 margin! I would be fascinated to know why there is such an ideological divide.
Older voters in Canada bought homes prior to 2010-12 would be my best guess; far more investment in the status quo
That might be part of it. I wonder as well if there are racial or culture war aspects to it as well.
Vast racial disparity on life expectancy, mostly for native Southerners.
Also the diverse transplants skew heavily on the working age adults (and their kids ofc). They will live much longer than the natives, but has not correctly reflected in the life table, nor on the voter list as aged 65+ yet.
GA SOS datahub has detailed summary of active registrations. Overall voters at White 51%, Black 31%, other 18%. But for voters 64 or younger, the pool is already majority non White, W 48%, B 32%.
For voters 65+, the numbers are at W 64%, B 25%, almost 40pt diff, and white seniors number 2.6 times of Black seniors.
There has been some evidence in recent cycles, particularly 2020 and 2024, that Democrats were gaining ground with older, wealthier White voters. The fact Harris did better than Biden in most of Washington, most Colorado ski counties, The Villages, and southern Delaware probably speak to this.
This link gives cross-tabs and results on a few other questions:
Trump approval -16 (but he is +17 among voters over 65).
And Democrats lead the Congressional Generic Ballot by 7 (but lose by 24 among voters over 65).
https://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/research/topics/voter-opinion-research/politics/2026-midterm-election-poll-georgia.doi.10.26419-2fres.01065.004.pdf
The generic legislative numbers are very similar to the Versaight poll from earlier this week. They didn't release Sen numbers in case I missed it..?
Former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has officially announced that he is running in the South Carolina Senate Republican Primary Special Election
Low double digits or less
Probably about the same his zombie SC-01 campaign (surprisingly) received.
The Appalachian Trail hijinx would not have sunk him in today's day and age...
positively milquetoast conduct compared to whats going on
Sanford will do anything and everything he can to continue to run more political campaigns. Maybe he sees a future after all once Trump is no longer in office so that's why he's taking a chance at this.
Perhaps he could go back to working in business in the private sector and join Paul Ryan as a partner at the private equity firm where he works at. Sanford has an MBA at University of Virginia.
https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/paul-ryan-says-he-is-joining-solamere-capital-11614207652
Pet peeve with generical ballot polling: If less than 80% of the sample hasn't made up their mind yet, not worth throwing into the averages. After 3 polls this morning with Dems up 8, 9, 11% and touching/cresting 50%, Pew's +6 poll of 43-37% is bringing the average back down to earth. There is no universe where either party is gonna end up in the 30s on election day. We're probably gonna end up at a Dem advantage of like 54-45 or 53-46 or something. If you can't push leaners, don't do the poll.
I mean, 2018 resulted in a Dem victory of 53 - 45. I think it stands to reason that this year is going to be a bit more democratic given just how much worse things are this year, as well as Trump’s approvals being far worse than they were even in 2018
Interesting that the DCCC "...found Shah “difficult to work with” during his last campaign, complaining that he preferred knocking doors to fundraising and did not want to air negative ads...:
THAT IS WHAT I LIKE and many others do as well it seems! Establishment Dems, GET WITH THE PROGRAM & GET IN STEP WITH YOUR BASE!!!
He lost so maybe they're right
he ran about even with the presidential ticket against an incumbent, I would call that an above average result for a house campaign.
Not to mention a pretty strong incumbent who cultivated a moderate appeal despite consistently voting for right leaning policies
I don't think Schweikert was a particularly strong incumbent or had much of a moderate image, he ran roughly even with Trump in 2020 and 2024, but so did Biggs, and while he did outrun Kari Lake in 2022 and 2024, pretty much anyone could have done that.
I understand and agree somewhat with your reasoning. Perhaps if the Dccc provides more support this time he may win. Too bad the shop lost my crystal ball when I took it in for a polish 😹.
What do you think the Democratic party's base is exactly?
If I knew exactly the correct answer, I'd be as rich as musk.. 😆 How would you identify the majority of dem voters that put Shah on 'top' of the primary at least?
I think those are two different questions. As far as choosing Shah, I suspect that's largely down to name recognition. The bigger challenge that I see is that the people who disproportionately turn out for primaries and our base are not the same thing...