i get the comparison, but a better one would be to humphrey-hawkins full employment act. Carter neutered it, but unlike Americaworks of house of cards, humphrey hawkins did not harm entitlement programs
The frustrating thing is, you know it's likely that whatever Democrats do in 2029, they will get booted out in 2030, because it'll be too much, not enough, somehow wrong, or the people who demanded action didn't really mean it...
Of course a jobs guarantee is popular, everyone wants to be employed and making a decent amount of money. The problems with that as a policy are numerous.
1. Who would create these jobs?
2. What would the nature of these jobs be?
3. How much would these jobs pay?
4. Would people have any choice as to what job they get?
5. Would people be expected to move across the country to get a job?
While 71% of people might like the idea of being guaranteed the job by the government, they might like it less when it's $25 an hour of hard physical work in Montana, take it or leave it.
It would be hard to implement a jobs guarantee simply because the market-based economy doesn’t have the ability to provide this kind of system. Certain sectors hire more easily than hours but not all jobs and pay are the same.
Government may be more equipped to managing this but would the federal government budget wise be able to manage this?
The artificial intelligence boom, even if it becomes a bust like video games circa 1983 and the Internet circa 2000, has driven me to be more supportive of universal basic income, although I prefer to call it universal minimum income.
Voters can use drop boxes if worse came to worse. Which is what I use in New Jersey. But I think the courts will enjoin efforts to force states to comply with the directive.
I don't think SCOTUS releases their opinion on mail ballots until tomorrow. Or they could wait until June 30th before hightailing it out of town like they did with Dobbs.
I roll my eyes at this kind of analysis. For various reasons, people like to pretend that they're less partisan than they actually are, but the fact that there hasn't been a >10 point win in the GCB since 1982 puts the lie to this narrative.
Picking Graham says to me Jolly is serious about his party change and picking a more moderate LG to win over squishy Rs/right-leaning independent voters.
I do think, on the off chance, if the FL GOP legislative majority is broken or flipped (and Jolly wins), there’s going to be pent up demand to get Democratic priorities into law.
I think he would govern like Virginia’s Ralph Northam, sign progressive legislation but project a moderate vibe. I don’t think he would be a Spanberger.
In the House, he was fighting the good fight by trying to put a stop to members of Congress from spending hours at call centers each week to call donors. Definitely on the side of campaign finance reform and from a common sense point of view.
It was very entertaining hearing the rightwing talking points against ranked choice voting. Of course, one of the speakers effectively thinks 2020 was stolen.
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)
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 have concerns about Platner's electability but I don't think he's a risk to become Fetterman 2.0. He'll vote like a standard Dem in the Senate, I suspect, if he's elected.
"Chickenhawk is a political term used in the United States to describe a person who is a war hawk yet actively avoids or avoided military service when of age"
But I’m comparing Platner, who served in the Army, to Fetterman, who has not served in the Army and is being hawkish towards the Iran War. Point being is that Fetterman is questioning Platner’s character.
Actually, I just remembered that chicken hawk is a term for those who advocate for war but during the time of the draft pre-1973 (when the draft ended) chose to avoid the draft. I suppose warmonger might be more suitable for Fetterman for the time being.
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.
Is there any other major-party candidate with his level of profile (as opposed to someone like Ole Savior in Minnesota) who's got as impressive of a losing streak as Tarkanian?
I feel like Tarkanian is the most high-profile modern day prolific loser. I don’t count people like Brooks Paige in Vermont who aren’t in competitive districts/states.
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.
say what you will about troy, but doing anything for that veto machine is not something that factored into his calculation. He bashed mills before she even entered race, his entire reason for running for governor is that mills vetoed democratic priorities repeatedly, and jackson would sign them. As would pingree and bellows
Oh, it's not a criticism, I'm just saying, the whole "why wasn't someone else stepping up to run for Senate?" discourse disregards that national Dem leadership was signaling their support for Mills if she entered the race. I thought Jackson would make an amazing senator myself.
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.
As far as Democracy reforms go, I'd be interested in the first state that decides to make voting compulsory. I'd love for it to be California but I doubt the leadership here wants that to happen.
One person on Threads actually brought up an interesting thing to drive up voter turnout without making it compulsory: a refundable $1000 tax credit for each voter participating in a federal election.
I like that! But yeah Republicans for sure won’t go for it. They’ll say it’s “paying for votes” and the Republican Supreme Court probably shoots it down too.
They won't like the compulsory route, citing "freedom".
They cite all these other countries like Australia that 'don't have election season, they have election day.' But unlike here, their election day is on the weekend, is a holiday, there's no gerrymandering, and registered voters are all mailed a voter ID.
Would you have any other data to support that assertion? Caltech is a wonderful institution, but the academic work of two individuals does not a consensus make.
I’ve had issues with my mail ballot not even arriving back at the county by election day, even when I mail it weeks in advance. I vote early in person now. Much better.
In-person is still an option, although most people use the ballots sent to them in the mail. In Los Angeles County this time there are about 82% of the voters using VbM and 18% voting at Vote Centers.
After the whole thing with California, I've realized I'd be for the whole opposite of universal VBM/early voting - 72-hour nonstop in-person voting Sat-Mon, with reasonable accommodations for people who need VBM. My professor likes shorter election periods from what he calls the "festival of democracy" effect, that seeing people vote makes one more likely to turn out. Staff the polls with a jury-duty system like Mexico's elections to fill all the timeslots and theoretically everyone who can go in person will find a time they're able to vote.
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.
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.
Rightly so, but we never know until we try, and it is important to support the people running in difficult places, because even if they don't win this time, it creates the possibility of a next time. Without Beta O'Rourke, I'm not sure there would be a James Talarico. Democrats in these places need hope.
In the case of Texas, I think there were always signs it could be competitive based on demographics. Let's not forget that Biden kept Texas close-ish in 2020. For North Dakota, which ousted an incumbent Democratic senator in 2018 and has seen the number of Democratic state legislators steadily drop over time, to elect a Democrat, a complete voter realignment would have to happen, which takes decades.
Two years ago, no one would have thought Iowa might be in play this year. Jess Piper, who writes the Substack "The View from Rural Missouri," ran as a Democrat (yes, she lost) because she got tired of having no one on her ballots other than Republicans. She now works with Blue Missouri. My point is that we need to support people who step up to run, even in a red state.
Like the villain from House of Cards?
i get the comparison, but a better one would be to humphrey-hawkins full employment act. Carter neutered it, but unlike Americaworks of house of cards, humphrey hawkins did not harm entitlement programs
The frustrating thing is, you know it's likely that whatever Democrats do in 2029, they will get booted out in 2030, because it'll be too much, not enough, somehow wrong, or the people who demanded action didn't really mean it...
Of course a jobs guarantee is popular, everyone wants to be employed and making a decent amount of money. The problems with that as a policy are numerous.
1. Who would create these jobs?
2. What would the nature of these jobs be?
3. How much would these jobs pay?
4. Would people have any choice as to what job they get?
5. Would people be expected to move across the country to get a job?
While 71% of people might like the idea of being guaranteed the job by the government, they might like it less when it's $25 an hour of hard physical work in Montana, take it or leave it.
It would be hard to implement a jobs guarantee simply because the market-based economy doesn’t have the ability to provide this kind of system. Certain sectors hire more easily than hours but not all jobs and pay are the same.
Government may be more equipped to managing this but would the federal government budget wise be able to manage this?
Absolutely. It's a matter of priorities. There is loads of vital infrastructure to build!
The artificial intelligence boom, even if it becomes a bust like video games circa 1983 and the Internet circa 2000, has driven me to be more supportive of universal basic income, although I prefer to call it universal minimum income.
Voters can use drop boxes if worse came to worse. Which is what I use in New Jersey. But I think the courts will enjoin efforts to force states to comply with the directive.
I don't think SCOTUS releases their opinion on mail ballots until tomorrow. Or they could wait until June 30th before hightailing it out of town like they did with Dobbs.
John Anzalone is a prominent Democratic pollster.
Respectfully, I'd throttle back from assuming everyone who isn't wirh you 100% is a right winger
We are collecting (anonymous) responses as part of The Downballot's own group at our Discord! https://sidestack.io/the-downballot
Scientific?
I'm a Leftward Progressive, shocker lol
These are such arbitrary and loosely defined categories.
I roll my eyes at this kind of analysis. For various reasons, people like to pretend that they're less partisan than they actually are, but the fact that there hasn't been a >10 point win in the GCB since 1982 puts the lie to this narrative.
It's pretty well known that they don't like each other at all.
Jolly announced it today, so it's official.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jolly-picks-gwen-graham-for-running-mate-on-dem-florida-governor-ticket/ar-AA25ivuh?ocid=BingNewsVerp
Picking Graham says to me Jolly is serious about his party change and picking a more moderate LG to win over squishy Rs/right-leaning independent voters.
Jolly never struck me as an ideologue.
I do think, on the off chance, if the FL GOP legislative majority is broken or flipped (and Jolly wins), there’s going to be pent up demand to get Democratic priorities into law.
I think he would govern like Virginia’s Ralph Northam, sign progressive legislation but project a moderate vibe. I don’t think he would be a Spanberger.
No he isn’t exactly.
In the House, he was fighting the good fight by trying to put a stop to members of Congress from spending hours at call centers each week to call donors. Definitely on the side of campaign finance reform and from a common sense point of view.
It was very entertaining hearing the rightwing talking points against ranked choice voting. Of course, one of the speakers effectively thinks 2020 was stolen.
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)
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.
Which three? Collins did vote against Barrett.
She voted for Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and KBJ (maybe to appear bipartisan in the face of Dobbs). But they didn’t need her vote for KBJ.
Unless Platner has a stroke that diminishes his mental capacity, I have zero concern about him becoming another Fetterman.
I have concerns about Platner's electability but I don't think he's a risk to become Fetterman 2.0. He'll vote like a standard Dem in the Senate, I suspect, if he's elected.
Hard for Platner to turn into a chicken hawk like Fetterman considering he’s an Iraq War veteran.
Being a Vietnam War veteran didn't stop John McCain from being a hawk, so I really don't follow.
"Chickenhawk is a political term used in the United States to describe a person who is a war hawk yet actively avoids or avoided military service when of age"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chickenhawk_(politics)
I understand that, but in that context, it would be -impossible- for Platner to ever be one.
Which is the exact thing that Zero Cool said, which you said you didn't follow. I was trying to be helpful.
He said it would be hard. But anyway...
Oh for sure McCain was a hawk.
But I’m comparing Platner, who served in the Army, to Fetterman, who has not served in the Army and is being hawkish towards the Iran War. Point being is that Fetterman is questioning Platner’s character.
Actually, I just remembered that chicken hawk is a term for those who advocate for war but during the time of the draft pre-1973 (when the draft ended) chose to avoid the draft. I suppose warmonger might be more suitable for Fetterman for the time being.
Lindsey Graham’s opponent will be Annie Andrews, with an S.
https://www.enr-scvotes.org/SC/126294/web.345435/#/summary
Thank you, fixed!
Thanks! Will copy edit for food!
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.
Is there any other major-party candidate with his level of profile (as opposed to someone like Ole Savior in Minnesota) who's got as impressive of a losing streak as Tarkanian?
I feel like Tarkanian is the most high-profile modern day prolific loser. I don’t count people like Brooks Paige in Vermont who aren’t in competitive districts/states.
Harold Stassen?
Conine is the incumbent Controller and was term-limited, I assume you meant Treasurer?
No, Conine is the incumbent Treasurer. I said he should’ve ran for Controller instead months ago. Cannizzaro had the inside track as early as then.
Ah gotcha I had it backwards
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.
He and many others stood down for Mills.
say what you will about troy, but doing anything for that veto machine is not something that factored into his calculation. He bashed mills before she even entered race, his entire reason for running for governor is that mills vetoed democratic priorities repeatedly, and jackson would sign them. As would pingree and bellows
Oh, it's not a criticism, I'm just saying, the whole "why wasn't someone else stepping up to run for Senate?" discourse disregards that national Dem leadership was signaling their support for Mills if she entered the race. I thought Jackson would make an amazing senator myself.
I also think Jackson had little to no interest in Washington and was only looking to Augusta, sometimes people just want what they want.
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.
Yes, I prefer any of the other four to Shah.
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.
VBM increses turnout. https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/universal-voting-by-mail-increases-voter-turnout-for-both-major-parties
As far as Democracy reforms go, I'd be interested in the first state that decides to make voting compulsory. I'd love for it to be California but I doubt the leadership here wants that to happen.
One person on Threads actually brought up an interesting thing to drive up voter turnout without making it compulsory: a refundable $1000 tax credit for each voter participating in a federal election.
Republicans, of course, won't go for that.
I like that! But yeah Republicans for sure won’t go for it. They’ll say it’s “paying for votes” and the Republican Supreme Court probably shoots it down too.
They won't like the compulsory route, citing "freedom".
They cite all these other countries like Australia that 'don't have election season, they have election day.' But unlike here, their election day is on the weekend, is a holiday, there's no gerrymandering, and registered voters are all mailed a voter ID.
Voting is also compulsory in Australia... I don't think that's what Republicans are aiming for.
Would you have any other data to support that assertion? Caltech is a wonderful institution, but the academic work of two individuals does not a consensus make.
It's only a 3-4% increase? You could probably get the same by moving E day to Saturday or Sunday.
I’ve had issues with my mail ballot not even arriving back at the county by election day, even when I mail it weeks in advance. I vote early in person now. Much better.
Me too, and that was before the latest downturn in post office reliability.
I want in-person voting to remain an option.
In-person is still an option, although most people use the ballots sent to them in the mail. In Los Angeles County this time there are about 82% of the voters using VbM and 18% voting at Vote Centers.
After the whole thing with California, I've realized I'd be for the whole opposite of universal VBM/early voting - 72-hour nonstop in-person voting Sat-Mon, with reasonable accommodations for people who need VBM. My professor likes shorter election periods from what he calls the "festival of democracy" effect, that seeing people vote makes one more likely to turn out. Staff the polls with a jury-duty system like Mexico's elections to fill all the timeslots and theoretically everyone who can go in person will find a time they're able to vote.
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.
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.
You make a logical case for why he should have a chance, but I'm very skeptical of ND voters.
Rightly so, but we never know until we try, and it is important to support the people running in difficult places, because even if they don't win this time, it creates the possibility of a next time. Without Beta O'Rourke, I'm not sure there would be a James Talarico. Democrats in these places need hope.
Fair comment.
In the case of Texas, I think there were always signs it could be competitive based on demographics. Let's not forget that Biden kept Texas close-ish in 2020. For North Dakota, which ousted an incumbent Democratic senator in 2018 and has seen the number of Democratic state legislators steadily drop over time, to elect a Democrat, a complete voter realignment would have to happen, which takes decades.
Two years ago, no one would have thought Iowa might be in play this year. Jess Piper, who writes the Substack "The View from Rural Missouri," ran as a Democrat (yes, she lost) because she got tired of having no one on her ballots other than Republicans. She now works with Blue Missouri. My point is that we need to support people who step up to run, even in a red state.
Sure. But not everyone should get lots of financial contributions.
And that is why I pointed out that even small contributions are useful in rural areas.