Like I agreed with in last night’s comments section, the Republicans assuming Platner will lose to incumbent Susan Collins has shades of 2016 all over it.
And I don’t think, should Platner win the general, be another Fetterman.
Fargo, the largest city in ND, had its first election since the state leg forced it to switch back to FPTP (they started using approval voting after a referendum in 2018). The mayor will also be a full-time job for the first time. The longtime mayor, Tim Mahoney (D), is retiring, and it was won with ~47% by Josh Boschee (D), a state sen and former state rep and house minority leader, while several city officials spilt the remainder.
Boschee is gay and has frequently pushed back against anti-queer legislation. He was also the 2018 nominee for SOS in the weird election where the incumbent Repub was primaried, but then their nominee withdrew for being a peeping tom on university students where he was on staff, so the incumbent ran as an independent to stay in office.
I live in Fargo - definitely good news. The leading R-affiliated candidate (Michelle Turnberg) would not have been good, and prior to the results coming in I had no idea how the vote would go.
Certainly takes some of the sting out of Measure 1 passing statewide (nominally this limits ballot measures to one subject, but effectively guts most potential ballot measures)
Pour one out for Damny Tarkanian, who seems to have a humiliation fetish to lose elections every cycle. He has now lost 8 elections since 2004:
2004 - state senate
2006 - Secretary of State
2010 - US Senate
2012, 2016, 2018, and 2022 - US House
2026 - Attorney General
While I would have loved if we got to run against him again, I like Nicole Cannizaro’s odds in November. Zach Conine messed up by not running for Controller. The GOP also blessed us by giving us Jim Marchant to run against for Secretary of State yet again. I’m sure Lombardo and the rest of the R ticket will be pleased to relitigate the 2020 election with him on it.
ME Gov: Any of the second through fourth place candidates: Pingree, Jackson, Bellows has a chance, with their cross endorsement of each other, and as expected Shah underperforming polling. We won't know more until Angus King's voters are redistributed to second choices, but pingree imo has best shot, followed by Troy. No idea how King's votes should distribute, he ran a pox on both parties campaign, Hoping they break to troy, but realistically it seems troy will not pass pingree. Either way Pingree or Jackson is a great progressive candidate for governor. Still holding out hope for troy
Yeah, not sure Jackson will do well in the redistribution. It's just nuts that four quality candidates ran for the same office when anyone of them could have had the senate nomination for the asking had they started early enough.
Jackson would probably be the Senate nominee had he announced last summer. If he wanted to be governor so badly, he could have done a term or two in DC and then capped off his career as governor.
I think shah is a terrible candidate, bad on labor, bad on education (took money from a pro charter org), and might have trouble in the general with a three-way race given that the closeted republican pretending to be liberal is running as an independent. Bellows/Pingree/Jackson agreed. I'm still holding out hope for troy, but in the end, it seems being the worst funded candidate is never a good sign.
I saw Pratner give a terrific speech last night so I wouldn't count him out. Sad Steyer didn't make the ballot for November.Smart move by Ds in New Mexico, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Maine would be to adopt universal vote by mail which boosts voter turnout and saves millions (depending on size of state) of tax dollars needed to make up for Trump cuts to food and other assistance. Same for blue states, except California and Nevada which already have combined local elections with even year midterm elections. This reform boosts voter turnout, saves millions of tax dollars every election cycle. Added benefit of electing more women and more minorities to local office. Disappointed that Virginia Dems never passed a lower age for state Supreme Court judges. Hope they combine their statewide and legislative elections with their midterm elections like most states.
CT-1: Hartford school board member Ruth Fortune qualified through signatures to face Rep. John Larson in the Democratic primary. That means Larson will have 3 primary challengers - Fortune, and former Hartford mayor Luke Bronin and state Rep. Jillian Gilchrest, who qualified through convention performances.
At a council meeting, actually early this morning, Irvine CA city council directed the city attorney to draft a ballot measure to put RCV on the November ballot. The pro RCV group got an overwhelming group of speakers that drowned out the anti group that were 3 old quacks.
Our own Ryan Dack gave an impressive presentation on ordering pizza toppings with RCV.
Irvine will be the first RCV city in Orange County joining several other RCV cities primarily in the Bay Area.
I know that this race is under the radar for most Democrats, but even small donations to Trygve Hammer's campaign can have great effect in a state where the price of political ads is low compared to urban areas. I have subscribed to his Substack for the past 18 months, and with Trump's policies hitting farmers hard, not to mention the screwworm threat to ranchers, he would have a chance in this race. By the way, he wrote about the threat of the screwworm in his Substack over a year ago as DOGE was merrily cutting the money for the program that had kept it at bay for many years.
Tarkanian is challenging Harold Stassen's record for electoral losses. Stassen was defeated running in every Republican presidential primary between 1944 and 1992, except for 1956 and 1972. He lost elections to the U.S. Senate (1978, 1994), U.S. House (1986), governor of Minnesota (1982),
governor of Pennsylvania (1958, 1966), and mayor of Philadelphia (1959).
WI-7: Wisconsin Republicans are apparently unhappy with DOT head Sean Duffy's support of his son in law Michael Alfonso, and could instead rally behind a different candidate like Jessi Ebben.
Like I agreed with in last night’s comments section, the Republicans assuming Platner will lose to incumbent Susan Collins has shades of 2016 all over it.
And I don’t think, should Platner win the general, be another Fetterman.
I am not sure what is going to happen in Maine, but I do feel like Susan Collins of 2026 is not the same as that of 2020
She's not. She's stabbed her constituents in the back, voting for three SCOTUS judges while pretending to be moderate and "pro choice."
ME voters need to send this perpetually concerned liar back to Bangor.
Unless Platner has a stroke that diminishes his mental capacity, I have zero concern about him becoming another Fetterman.
Lindsey Graham’s opponent will be Annie Andrews, with an S.
https://www.enr-scvotes.org/SC/126294/web.345435/#/summary
Thank you, fixed!
Fargo, the largest city in ND, had its first election since the state leg forced it to switch back to FPTP (they started using approval voting after a referendum in 2018). The mayor will also be a full-time job for the first time. The longtime mayor, Tim Mahoney (D), is retiring, and it was won with ~47% by Josh Boschee (D), a state sen and former state rep and house minority leader, while several city officials spilt the remainder.
Boschee is gay and has frequently pushed back against anti-queer legislation. He was also the 2018 nominee for SOS in the weird election where the incumbent Repub was primaried, but then their nominee withdrew for being a peeping tom on university students where he was on staff, so the incumbent ran as an independent to stay in office.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/06/10/north-dakota-senator-josh-boschee-elected-mayor-fargo
I live in Fargo - definitely good news. The leading R-affiliated candidate (Michelle Turnberg) would not have been good, and prior to the results coming in I had no idea how the vote would go.
Certainly takes some of the sting out of Measure 1 passing statewide (nominally this limits ballot measures to one subject, but effectively guts most potential ballot measures)
Don't ever include the Pope in a campaign ad is Politics 101.
I'm not sure *anything* is off-limits anymore...
Pour one out for Damny Tarkanian, who seems to have a humiliation fetish to lose elections every cycle. He has now lost 8 elections since 2004:
2004 - state senate
2006 - Secretary of State
2010 - US Senate
2012, 2016, 2018, and 2022 - US House
2026 - Attorney General
While I would have loved if we got to run against him again, I like Nicole Cannizaro’s odds in November. Zach Conine messed up by not running for Controller. The GOP also blessed us by giving us Jim Marchant to run against for Secretary of State yet again. I’m sure Lombardo and the rest of the R ticket will be pleased to relitigate the 2020 election with him on it.
Oh man, looks like Sharrrrrrrrron Angle's not getting a political resurrection, either.
Hard to believe that lunatic was (briefly) considered favored to defeat Harry Reid in 2010.
ME Gov: Any of the second through fourth place candidates: Pingree, Jackson, Bellows has a chance, with their cross endorsement of each other, and as expected Shah underperforming polling. We won't know more until Angus King's voters are redistributed to second choices, but pingree imo has best shot, followed by Troy. No idea how King's votes should distribute, he ran a pox on both parties campaign, Hoping they break to troy, but realistically it seems troy will not pass pingree. Either way Pingree or Jackson is a great progressive candidate for governor. Still holding out hope for troy
Yeah, not sure Jackson will do well in the redistribution. It's just nuts that four quality candidates ran for the same office when anyone of them could have had the senate nomination for the asking had they started early enough.
Jackson would probably be the Senate nominee had he announced last summer. If he wanted to be governor so badly, he could have done a term or two in DC and then capped off his career as governor.
I think shah is a terrible candidate, bad on labor, bad on education (took money from a pro charter org), and might have trouble in the general with a three-way race given that the closeted republican pretending to be liberal is running as an independent. Bellows/Pingree/Jackson agreed. I'm still holding out hope for troy, but in the end, it seems being the worst funded candidate is never a good sign.
I saw Pratner give a terrific speech last night so I wouldn't count him out. Sad Steyer didn't make the ballot for November.Smart move by Ds in New Mexico, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Maine would be to adopt universal vote by mail which boosts voter turnout and saves millions (depending on size of state) of tax dollars needed to make up for Trump cuts to food and other assistance. Same for blue states, except California and Nevada which already have combined local elections with even year midterm elections. This reform boosts voter turnout, saves millions of tax dollars every election cycle. Added benefit of electing more women and more minorities to local office. Disappointed that Virginia Dems never passed a lower age for state Supreme Court judges. Hope they combine their statewide and legislative elections with their midterm elections like most states.
I'm not sold on vote by mail yet, based on my use of absentee voting in the past. It may be cheaper, but that doesn't necessarily make it better.
https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/politics/article/ruth-fortune-democratic-primary-connecticut-larson-22295693.php
CT-1: Hartford school board member Ruth Fortune qualified through signatures to face Rep. John Larson in the Democratic primary. That means Larson will have 3 primary challengers - Fortune, and former Hartford mayor Luke Bronin and state Rep. Jillian Gilchrest, who qualified through convention performances.
Irvine should vote on RCV in November.
At a council meeting, actually early this morning, Irvine CA city council directed the city attorney to draft a ballot measure to put RCV on the November ballot. The pro RCV group got an overwhelming group of speakers that drowned out the anti group that were 3 old quacks.
Our own Ryan Dack gave an impressive presentation on ordering pizza toppings with RCV.
Irvine will be the first RCV city in Orange County joining several other RCV cities primarily in the Bay Area.
The race for the Congressional Representative for North Dakota is now set:
https://apps.npr.org/primary-election-results-2026/states/ND.html?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20260610&utm_term=10808301&utm_campaign=news&utm_id=65169537&orgid=680&uniquet=_wRaqtez7OsQ4pufuiVuAA&utm_att1=
I know that this race is under the radar for most Democrats, but even small donations to Trygve Hammer's campaign can have great effect in a state where the price of political ads is low compared to urban areas. I have subscribed to his Substack for the past 18 months, and with Trump's policies hitting farmers hard, not to mention the screwworm threat to ranchers, he would have a chance in this race. By the way, he wrote about the threat of the screwworm in his Substack over a year ago as DOGE was merrily cutting the money for the program that had kept it at bay for many years.
She's a candidate of her word.
https://x.com/HQNewsNow/status/2064491505423659149?s=20
Tarkanian is challenging Harold Stassen's record for electoral losses. Stassen was defeated running in every Republican presidential primary between 1944 and 1992, except for 1956 and 1972. He lost elections to the U.S. Senate (1978, 1994), U.S. House (1986), governor of Minnesota (1982),
governor of Pennsylvania (1958, 1966), and mayor of Philadelphia (1959).
https://www.axios.com/2026/06/10/sean-duffy-gop-primary-wisconsin
WI-7: Wisconsin Republicans are apparently unhappy with DOT head Sean Duffy's support of his son in law Michael Alfonso, and could instead rally behind a different candidate like Jessi Ebben.
WI Rs in disarray! Love that for them.