Election eve here in Massachusetts. Assuming the polls aren't wildly off, Markey should win easily. Moulton struggled to articulate a clear reason to elect him other than age. Which might have actually been enough, as the CT-1 results show, if the two candidates were more similar ideologically. But making vague statements like "we can't wait six year for change", when the change that you're offering is net negative, from the point of view of a good portion of the electorate, just makes it look like you're running away from your record, even to people that might agree with some of your critiques of the Democratic establishment.
Moulton is one of those guys who clearly looks in the mirror in the morning and sees a President. He could've had a great House career and gone on to chair HASC or whatever but he had to take these weird deviations going after Pelosi and Markey because he thought (incorrectly) that he had the talent to become a major national figure. Tale as old as time with good not great pols.
What's crazy is that it might've worked out for Swalwell if he didn't have all the sexual assault and misconduct. He's rather uncharismatic and was never a particularly stellar fundraiser, but he looked on his way to one of the ~five biggest jobs in American politics.
I think he would have wielded that power as an instrument of the California Democratic Party establishment and Dem-aligned/center-left money, as Becerra now seems poised to do. Even a real outsider who managed to make it through to the governorship would probably crash hard into the realities of the legislative leadership. If a major name with arguably an independent base of power came in and was able to push things through the legislature, they might shake things up. For example, if Harris had really had fire in the belly to govern California, she might have been able to do it
Oh, definitely. Evidently, she didn't want the job, so it's good that she didn't run just so she would have an office. But if for some reason she had a strong vision that she wanted to execute, I think she would have had an above-average ability to do so
Since the comments section is sleepy today, I thought I'd query the group on the biggest jobs in American politics, inspired by the discussion above about Swalwell almost becoming Governor of California. My personal ranking
1. POTUS
2. Speaker of the House
3. Senate Majority Leader
4. SoS
5. SecDef
6. VP
7. AG
8. SecTreas
9. Governor of California + Texas
10. Governor of Florida + NY
11. HHS
12. Mayor of New York City
13. DHS
14. Governor of Illinois + Pennsylvania + Ohio
15. Secretary of Interior, Energy, Commerce, Agriculture
16. Mayor of Los Angeles + Chicago + Houston
17. Governors of states between Georgia and Minnesota by population
18. Senator not in leadership
19. Other Cabinet members
20. Other Governors
21. Other big city Mayors but not one of the top 4-6 in the country.
It's hard to really compare these things, but if you're ranking these things by power, the VP technically none, except as the Senate's tiebreaker. They have varying degrees utility as spokespersons, and sometimes they are assigned special projects, but only at the president's discretion. I'd put VP below any governor, cabinet member, or Senator. Probably even below every House member, because House members also have TikTok AND they get to vote on everything (and even write it, if they're literate).
JD Vance's primary function these days is helping bail out Susan Collins.
I’m not much a foreign policy person so that skews my take on things, but I would put the AG and Treasury Secretary higher and the Defense Secretary lower. In terms of White House positions, there are also non-Senate confirmed roles like Chief of Staff that can wield considerable influence, though that probably varies from president to president.
I would also put the SCOTUS majority faction justices near the top as a group, maybe only below the president
I think it's very dependent on the makeup of the Court. Roberts, Barret, and Kavanugh are probably the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th most powerful people in the country. Jackson probably doesn't crack the top 100.
I think the point is that Roberts, Barret, and Kavanaugh are swing judges who have power over decisions, while Thomas (and Alito and mostly Gorsuch) are such consistently conservative votes they don't change much, unless they entirely change their judicial "philosophy" tomorrow.
Yep. Gorsuch does occasionally e.g. on tariffs. Thomas is basically irrelevant as a Justice, when they're rewriting settled precedent it's usually Alito or the CJ who does it.
How do you test generic congressional ballot in a district after the primaries, and on the same poll as two specific candidates? I'd think people's opinions of Fitzpatrick and Harvie would influence their generic ballot numbers, but considering the 8 point difference, maybe not?
Good question. I know in some polls that were brought up that show the generic congressional ballot statewide, which makes sense, but for just one congressional district, I think it's more akin to the overall feel of the district in terms of how they would most likely vote between generic D and generic R. Looking back at the Upswing Research and Strategy (D) poll done for the DA and Sheriff races last year, both Democratic nominees were leading the Republican incumbents by 6 and 5 point respectively. The poll didn't pull a generic question out there, but the fact that the lead there was outside the margin showed things were changing. So I think with this poll, this does show that Fitzpatrick is slipping, and if he didn't run again, you would most likely get someone with less name recognition and a better chance for a Democrat to win.
And Fitzpatrick isn't a generic R, he has strong establishment and name ties in the county thanks to the work of his late brother, Mike. As I said in my first post in The Downballot, "It's not so much running against Fitzpatrick the man, it's against Fitzpatrick the name". But if the name is starting to wear thin and people look back at your record in a difficult time such as what we're in right now in a district like PA-01, then more questions will be asked and left unanswered than questions asked and given some answer.
Three open seat special elections in Canada tonight. The Liberals should easily win two of them while the third, in Quebec, is a battle between the Liberals and the Bloc.
(Bursts through the paywall like the Kool-Aid Man) OH YEAH!
Trump providing a major assist to the Liberals with the tariff war might just be enough to push Chicoutimi-Pining for Le Fjord from blue to red (which is a good thing remember).
If you want to follow along, live results will be posted starting after 9:30 ET on elections.ca, The Numbers podcast will be livestreaming with commentary, and I don't know if you are geoblocked from CBC News Network but they will be covering it as well.
I'm gonna stick around for a couple of months because (1) I want to be around for the midterms and (2) there are a metric tonne of byelections, a provincial election, and a referendum on "independence" in the next couple of months which are being strongly influenced by your national shenanigans, and I feel it important to keep you appropriately
Holy balls, the Liberals are currently winning Chicoutimi-Le Fjord with a nearly 15 point lead over the Bloc Quebecois. The Conservative vote has almost completely collapsed from 34 percent in the general election last year to 13 percent tonight.
AK-Sen: Democrat David Leslie withdraws at the last second, but it's unsure if Republican Gerald Heikes did as well. Former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola and Republicans Dan Sullivan x2, one being the incumbent, have already made it to the general.
As for Alaska at-large, the 5th place Democrat withdrew, then the 6th place Republican did so, as did the 7th place Democrat, leaving the 8th (!) place Libertarian to get the final spot
And in the gubernatorial race... Treg Taylor was disqualified, and his LG pick (Candice English) replaced him, and his wife is now English's running mate. No one (besides 6th place for some reason) seems to have withdrawn.
Get better David
We miss you. Plus -- Elliott told two truly terrible jokes last week when you weren't there.
Stop him before he jokes again.
Was the joke the we miss you part?
The first debate was held in the race for Indiana Secretary of State:
https://indianacitizen.org/increased-visibility-4-candidates-share-viewpoints-at-public-forum-in-once-overlooked-sos-race/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet&utm_campaign=new-stories-from-the-indiana-citizen-40
The Indiana Supreme court will hear the appeal over who won the Republican primary for a state senate seat:
https://indianacitizen.org/judicial-review-indiana-supreme-court-accepts-appeal-in-deery-copenhaver-primary-fight/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet&utm_campaign=new-stories-from-the-indiana-citizen-40
Best wishes for a continued and speedy recovery!
Election eve here in Massachusetts. Assuming the polls aren't wildly off, Markey should win easily. Moulton struggled to articulate a clear reason to elect him other than age. Which might have actually been enough, as the CT-1 results show, if the two candidates were more similar ideologically. But making vague statements like "we can't wait six year for change", when the change that you're offering is net negative, from the point of view of a good portion of the electorate, just makes it look like you're running away from your record, even to people that might agree with some of your critiques of the Democratic establishment.
Moulton is one of those guys who clearly looks in the mirror in the morning and sees a President. He could've had a great House career and gone on to chair HASC or whatever but he had to take these weird deviations going after Pelosi and Markey because he thought (incorrectly) that he had the talent to become a major national figure. Tale as old as time with good not great pols.
Reminds me of Eric Swalwell minus the rape. The raw ambition and audacity.
What's crazy is that it might've worked out for Swalwell if he didn't have all the sexual assault and misconduct. He's rather uncharismatic and was never a particularly stellar fundraiser, but he looked on his way to one of the ~five biggest jobs in American politics.
I don't know. I feel like the Chinese spy issue would have caught up to him eventually.
I think he would have wielded that power as an instrument of the California Democratic Party establishment and Dem-aligned/center-left money, as Becerra now seems poised to do. Even a real outsider who managed to make it through to the governorship would probably crash hard into the realities of the legislative leadership. If a major name with arguably an independent base of power came in and was able to push things through the legislature, they might shake things up. For example, if Harris had really had fire in the belly to govern California, she might have been able to do it
Harris is totally establishment, though.
yeah but she has the gravitas to tell the other major players in Sacramento to pound sand occasionally if she needed or wanted to.
Oh, definitely. Evidently, she didn't want the job, so it's good that she didn't run just so she would have an office. But if for some reason she had a strong vision that she wanted to execute, I think she would have had an above-average ability to do so
Best wishes for a full and prompt recovery David. Feel better soon.
Since the comments section is sleepy today, I thought I'd query the group on the biggest jobs in American politics, inspired by the discussion above about Swalwell almost becoming Governor of California. My personal ranking
1. POTUS
2. Speaker of the House
3. Senate Majority Leader
4. SoS
5. SecDef
6. VP
7. AG
8. SecTreas
9. Governor of California + Texas
10. Governor of Florida + NY
11. HHS
12. Mayor of New York City
13. DHS
14. Governor of Illinois + Pennsylvania + Ohio
15. Secretary of Interior, Energy, Commerce, Agriculture
16. Mayor of Los Angeles + Chicago + Houston
17. Governors of states between Georgia and Minnesota by population
18. Senator not in leadership
19. Other Cabinet members
20. Other Governors
21. Other big city Mayors but not one of the top 4-6 in the country.
22. House member not in leadership.
It's hard to really compare these things, but if you're ranking these things by power, the VP technically none, except as the Senate's tiebreaker. They have varying degrees utility as spokespersons, and sometimes they are assigned special projects, but only at the president's discretion. I'd put VP below any governor, cabinet member, or Senator. Probably even below every House member, because House members also have TikTok AND they get to vote on everything (and even write it, if they're literate).
JD Vance's primary function these days is helping bail out Susan Collins.
Not a precise answer to your question but there is an official Order of Precedence in the US!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_precedence_in_the_United_States
I’m not much a foreign policy person so that skews my take on things, but I would put the AG and Treasury Secretary higher and the Defense Secretary lower. In terms of White House positions, there are also non-Senate confirmed roles like Chief of Staff that can wield considerable influence, though that probably varies from president to president.
I would also put the SCOTUS majority faction justices near the top as a group, maybe only below the president
Exactly on SCOTUS. Chief justice just below President.
I think it's very dependent on the makeup of the Court. Roberts, Barret, and Kavanugh are probably the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th most powerful people in the country. Jackson probably doesn't crack the top 100.
Absolutely. You didn't mention Thomas. #5?
I think the point is that Roberts, Barret, and Kavanaugh are swing judges who have power over decisions, while Thomas (and Alito and mostly Gorsuch) are such consistently conservative votes they don't change much, unless they entirely change their judicial "philosophy" tomorrow.
Yep. Gorsuch does occasionally e.g. on tariffs. Thomas is basically irrelevant as a Justice, when they're rewriting settled precedent it's usually Alito or the CJ who does it.
PA-01 Polling:
Head to Head
Fitzpatrick (R): 49%
Harvie (D): 48%
Generic Congressional Ballot
Democrats: 50%
Republicans: 43%
Aug 19th-23rd, 400 LV, done by GQR and sponsored by the House Majority PAC
https://www.thehousemajoritypac.com/news/hmp-poll-bob-harvie-statistically-tied-with-brian-fitzpatrick-in-pa-01
How do you test generic congressional ballot in a district after the primaries, and on the same poll as two specific candidates? I'd think people's opinions of Fitzpatrick and Harvie would influence their generic ballot numbers, but considering the 8 point difference, maybe not?
Good question. I know in some polls that were brought up that show the generic congressional ballot statewide, which makes sense, but for just one congressional district, I think it's more akin to the overall feel of the district in terms of how they would most likely vote between generic D and generic R. Looking back at the Upswing Research and Strategy (D) poll done for the DA and Sheriff races last year, both Democratic nominees were leading the Republican incumbents by 6 and 5 point respectively. The poll didn't pull a generic question out there, but the fact that the lead there was outside the margin showed things were changing. So I think with this poll, this does show that Fitzpatrick is slipping, and if he didn't run again, you would most likely get someone with less name recognition and a better chance for a Democrat to win.
And Fitzpatrick isn't a generic R, he has strong establishment and name ties in the county thanks to the work of his late brother, Mike. As I said in my first post in The Downballot, "It's not so much running against Fitzpatrick the man, it's against Fitzpatrick the name". But if the name is starting to wear thin and people look back at your record in a difficult time such as what we're in right now in a district like PA-01, then more questions will be asked and left unanswered than questions asked and given some answer.
Three open seat special elections in Canada tonight. The Liberals should easily win two of them while the third, in Quebec, is a battle between the Liberals and the Bloc.
https://bsky.app/profile/canadianpolling.bsky.social/post/3mufe7zpgjs2k
(Bursts through the paywall like the Kool-Aid Man) OH YEAH!
Trump providing a major assist to the Liberals with the tariff war might just be enough to push Chicoutimi-Pining for Le Fjord from blue to red (which is a good thing remember).
Several projections show the Liberals winning:
https://vote-scope.com/en/canada/byelections/chicoutimi-le-fjord/
https://338canada.com/24018e.htm
If you want to follow along, live results will be posted starting after 9:30 ET on elections.ca, The Numbers podcast will be livestreaming with commentary, and I don't know if you are geoblocked from CBC News Network but they will be covering it as well.
I'm gonna stick around for a couple of months because (1) I want to be around for the midterms and (2) there are a metric tonne of byelections, a provincial election, and a referendum on "independence" in the next couple of months which are being strongly influenced by your national shenanigans, and I feel it important to keep you appropriately
updated.
Holy balls, the Liberals are currently winning Chicoutimi-Le Fjord with a nearly 15 point lead over the Bloc Quebecois. The Conservative vote has almost completely collapsed from 34 percent in the general election last year to 13 percent tonight.
And Liberals get over 50% in all three ridings.
Hang in there, David. I know several folks that have undergone this surgery and it's a tough road. We support you. And your new knee.
https://x.com/Taniel/status/2094588478507880612?s=46
AK-Sen: Democrat David Leslie withdraws at the last second, but it's unsure if Republican Gerald Heikes did as well. Former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola and Republicans Dan Sullivan x2, one being the incumbent, have already made it to the general.
https://alaskabeacon.com/2026/08/31/in-alaskas-u-s-house-race-two-of-the-final-candidates-dont-live-in-alaska-and-one-is-in-prison/
As for Alaska at-large, the 5th place Democrat withdrew, then the 6th place Republican did so, as did the 7th place Democrat, leaving the 8th (!) place Libertarian to get the final spot
https://x.com/ak_elections/status/2094603547157664228
And in the gubernatorial race... Treg Taylor was disqualified, and his LG pick (Candice English) replaced him, and his wife is now English's running mate. No one (besides 6th place for some reason) seems to have withdrawn.
This makes such a mockery of RCV. Still, for 2026, the line up seems good for the Blue Team.