Long since I stopped watching their pundits. But I occasionally stream Amanpour’s show and interviews. I would have loved to see her as a presidential debate moderator, or to have her interview Trump or key people in his regime.
I take the folks on "Have I got News For You" seriously. That is a comedy show on Saturday evenings with Roy Wood Jr., Amber Ruffin and others. It is very funny but also makes serious points.
The “original sin” that party leaders now need to grapple with is their tendency toward groupthink, inertia and an extreme and wildly counterproductive risk aversion.
Uncharted Blue has a humorous but pointed article on this topic. We cannot let the Republicans drag this topic as prime for 2026 or 2028. Biden isn't in office, period.
Anytime Biden comes up, we need to point out he's history and the current damage to our country, to democracy and the world is all Trump and the Republican sycophants supporting his every move.
Biden will only be an issue among Democrats. But the sentence from the article I posted applies to the party as a whole, at least in Washington. And that is a far bigger problem and has been for some time.
I think that the biggest problem right now is that if you asked the average voter what the Democrats stand for right now they couldn't give you an answer.
If we had a Parliament, maybe Obama would still be the party's leader. At any rate, they would be likely to pick a great public speaker for the purpose.
Fine, but let more of this self-reflection and discussion be behind closed doorse. The very last thing we need is this public self-flagellation that Democrats have such an astonishing propensity for.
i am not disagreeing the president should not have run for reelection, nor that the dnc is a very poorly run risk averse org. But i think inertia at the moment is to pile onto the former president (who left trump a thriving economy in all but vibes, with increasing organizing and middle class growth) instead of moving on. No one would dare say anything negative about him for two years as voters backed his policies but not him personally in election results throughout 22 and 23 corresponding to a relatively low approval rating for a president that somehow picked up senate seats in a midterm, but now everyone in the increasingly small amount of people that self identify as democrats is piling onto president biden. Lot of opinion from me here and I try to avoid gut feelings but to younger voters we look like we can't get over the former president making the honest mistake that every president makes --thinking the public likes them more than they do. There was much to criticize during his term, but he is no longer president and while I wish he too would recognize if he wants to be treated like harry truman historically he needs to go away for a bit like truman did, and the American voter can focus on the here and now.
Underlying all of this is that any biden discussion out in the public keeps the news off of the unconstitutional and unspeakable damage to the united states and world trump and co are doing, because jon favreau and other obama alums would rather score settle. Ken Martin should absolutely prepare an autopsy to account for the billion plus dollars wasted last election cycle, and soul searching is needed, but not because america fell out of a tenous love with an older politician that--domestically speaking--delivered for us like no president has in a while. The entire pod save america's disdain for biden, from his decision to follow through and not create another vietnam moment in Afghanistan by withdrawing troops compared to obama not pulling out of iraq after convincing everyone including myself that was one of his top prioriities in 2007 speaks to me of envy of biden admin getting more done in his two years of unified government with vastly smaller majorities than obama got in his two years of unified government.
For all the talk about leftist "groupthink", it's no comparison to right wing groupthink and total republican grassroots supports in polls for the worst of Trump's second term policies and the chip change like immediate switch in their economical talking points.
Relitigating this publicly is only going to hurt us more. I personally never wanted him to run again. Even after all those Biden's erratic viral clips on Tiktoks and shorts, people wonder why even Gen Z women shifted right with elaborate Gen Z 1.0 vs 2.0 theories based on one shitty Yale poll contradicted by others.
Trump is squandering one of his biggest 2024 electoral accomplishments. : the rightward shift of Independents, Latinos, other minorities and younger voters. Vox says that Trump is losing support from groups which support anti establishment politics.
This is an opportunity for liberals in the Democratic Party to start redefining what being liberal is about and not let the GOP define it like they did back in 1988.
Honestly the reaction to this book is so dumb on so many levels:
Number 1, there's no real "relevations" re: Biden's mental acuity. So he may have not recognized George Clooney at a fundraiser . . .he didn't grow up seeing George in media like younger folks did. And I hightly doubt their "friendship" was as substantial as Clooney infers. I saw Biden in numerous public speeches and interviews over the past year . . .he's not suffering from dementia or any other significant neurological disease. Period.
Number 2, the majority of "relevations" are regarding his general physical limitations and stiffness, largely due to a deteriorating spine. Which makes him appear weak and old, but has nothing to do with his mental fitness or abilities.
Number 3, no-one fucking cares at this point; the idea that this will impact 2026 or 2028 is so Axios/Politico-brained as to be literal parody.
I maintain Biden overall was a great President and would've been fine serving a second term. His true "original sin" was picking Harris as VP, which I thought was a bad idea back in 2020 and was proven to be so.
At the time I thought Whitmer, Klobuchar or Duckworth would've been the strongest picks politically. In hindsight Buttigieg would've been a fine pick too. When it became apparent that it would be an AA female, I thought Demings was a stronger pick than Harris.
Again, when it became apparent that the CBC were demanding the pick be a AA female for their SC rescue op, and the choices were basically Bass, Harris and Demings, I think Demings was the politically strongest choice of the three.
That said, I don't believe in ever straightjacketing yourself politically into having to demographically filter a pick for anything.
Hindsight doesn't cause me to consider Demings a better pick than Harris, and I still think Harris was fine, even if not terrifically exciting, as a pick.
Harris was arguably a better pick in terms of keeping certain elements of the base on board-they would have been furious with Demings being a literal cop.
I will forever maintain that Michelle Obama is probably the only person who could have achieved everything the 2020 Biden campaign could have possibly wanted in a running mate-unfortunately, she's never been interested in running for office in her own right.
He definitely would not have been fine serving a second time as evidenced by his disastrous debate and ridiculous gaffes like walking aimlessly with Meloni or America in a single word. The book is overhyped but the original sin was running again. Thank God, he didn't pick Whitmer or Klobuchar as the unlucky post-covid and war global inflation and his failed border policy would have ended their careers too. Whitmer would have been the best choice in 2020 as well as in 2024 if there was a quick primary. She doesn't divide the party like Warren or Shapiro. Obama's lobbying was correct. No Biden alumni except Buttigieg should even run in the 2028 primary.
"Thank God, he didn't pick Whitmer or Klobuchar as the unlucky post-covid and war global inflation and his failed border policy would have ended their careers too."
This is probably correct, and while I thought Whitmer was politically the most beneficial pick at the time, I actually didn't want her picked as I wanted her the opportunity to forge her own trail.
We'll have to agree to disagree on Biden's cognitive capabilities. Yes he'd slowed down but I think he retained by far the ability to effectuate the decision-making and policy choices necessary to be President. If he'd cut his workload in half it'd still be more than the current occupant, whose White House is basically being run by Stephen Miller and Russell Voight.
Here’s a question: are there any reach House seats that people here are watching? As in, seats that normally aren’t likely to flip but could end up as shock wins or at least close results?
And as a flip side question, are there House seats that Democrats currently hold that you fear may flip red, even in a good year?
ME-2 for the latter. It'll be interesting to see whether some surprising seats flip in states like California. Alternatively, if Trump really suffers in farm county, we could see flips in Nebraska, Kansas and maybe even Oklahoma, like in his last midterm, if I'm remembering the right election.
Yeah, we won a shock flip in OK-5 that year (Kendra Horn defeating Steve Russell). It's a 58-40 Orange Blob district now, so I don't see it flipping again.
It would not be good but Golden should not reach any other level of Democratic politics. He is more dangerous than the hardcore neolib Rahm Emanuel imo.
Jared Golden is probably the best Democrats can hope for in ME-02. Imho, he’s sort of a mirror image of Susan Collins – in other words, he votes with Republicans when it doesn’t matter.
That said, I do NOT want to see a Senator Golden or Governor Golden!
If Maine had been a Trump state I'd see the argument for Golden running against Collins, but I think it's clear a less problematic candidate could run and win there, especially in a wave year.
I get that, but the idea that she's dead woman walking is dubious. Democrats are fighting an uphill battle for the Senate, we shouldn't be taking anything for granted.
You’re right, and I am as eager as you to see Collins replaced with a good Democrat.
However, Susan Collins is a very savvy politician and nowhere near the worst Republican in the Senate. She seeks bipartisan solutions, helped save the Affordable Care Act, and voted to confirm legions of judicial and other nominations by President Clinton, President Obama and President Biden.
Moreover, as Senator, Collins is legendary for actually doing the work she was elected to do. In her entire career – which started in 1997! – Senator Susan Collins has missed fewer Senate votes than Bernie Sanders and John Fetterman have missed just this year! Actually, Collins has NEVER missed a vote.
NOTE: You don’t believe me? On April 19th of 2024, Senator Collins cast her 9000th consecutive vote! We should be encouraging – nay, demanding! – our Democratic senators to be equally diligent.
She has voted more in line with Republicans than Democrats. She mostly votes with Democrats when the Bill or nominee already has a clear path without her but never abandons the MAGAlican party on any such bill or nominee except the ACA.
Get used to being in a permanent minority in Congress then. All in the name of progressive purity, because what you’re saying means Democrats don’t win power ever again, period. Smart thinking there.
Republicans have been doing exactly what I'm suggesting and they have had the majority for most of the last decade and a half-clearly what I'm suggesting can work.
You are woefully misinformed. Republicans have voted for a ton of policies that Democrats also voted for. Unless you want to amend your statement to say a majority voting with the opposition, which already never happens on every political issue, which doesn’t even need mentioning.
If you equate this to Republicans, every current elected official should be kicked out of office for being insufficiently loyal to the GOP. What people like you don’t understand because you’re new to politics or very young, is that there’s issues both parties agree on. They’re the ones that don’t make the headlines, the minutiae that people like you don’t ever realize are voted into law regardless of who is president or which party holds what.
Maybe if we’re stretching, we can say on the main issues of importance, to fit your definition, but that already doesn’t happen. Every Republican in office has voted with a Democrat on something that has become law. Same as vice versa. My advice that you probably won’t take: Only punish and primary Democrats if their vote makes a GOP bill pass. That is when there needs to be a firm red line.
Golden unseated an incumbent Republican in a Trump district and has held on to that seat while Trump, LePage, and Trump have carried his district while he was simultaneously on the ballot the last three elections. He's a winner and I'm not really sure why people are so mad at him to be honest.
He is a progressive conservative and actually believes in it. He was so sad when Trump took back the tariffs lmao. He would be as DINO-esque even in another district and be a Sinema on steroids in the Senate.
Good lord, what are you talking about? He is a bit to the right of the Dem caucus and a perfect fit for his district. What, exactly, makes him "dangerous". This hyperbole is just stupid...
Though I agree, he is perfect for the district but that's not to say that he is voting as per his district and he himself has different private positions.
A reach seat is in the eye of the beholder in some respects, but I think that PA-10 (Perry) is winnable, even though it's ancestrally-Republican turf. Maybe PA-1 (Fitzpatrick) as well, but he's proven maddeningly resilient.
Would love to see CA-22 (Valadao) and CA-41 (Calvert) flip too.
Four unsafe Democratically-held seats off the top of my head are OH-9 (Kaptur), CA-45 (Tran), CA-13 (Gray), and NC-1 (Davis). Of course ME-2 (Golden) and WA-3 (Gluesenkamp Perez) are also in this category.
I would add CA 47 as unsafe Democratically held. I've heard rumors that Republicans are trying to get a regular style family guy Republican from either Irvine (only Mike Carroll) or Newport Beach city council.
Unfortunately, Min will always be slightly damaged goods with his DUI, and Scott Baugh, the R in 2022 and 2024 was a horrible candidate with a lot of criminal baggage.
PA-1 is such bullshit. Period. End of story. Democrats need to try again here so we have more to talk about. I’ve been reading SSP/DKE/DB for something like 20 years and PA-1 is the most irritating district there is. Give me a race. Give me SOMETHING. Not a single state senator wants a freebie try at a promotion? I do not understand how Dems give up on that district cycle after cycle after cycle. JFC, Fitzpatrick is just a name.
Yeah, in cases like this it's usually a combination of the incumbent's talent and the strongest potential opponents not wanting to mount a bid they feel they can't win.
They've been a lot of strong institutional incumbents who seemed invincible across multiple cycles who lost shockers in wave years. It's definitely gettable.
Right, many of them win, until one time they don't. I'm blanking on the name of the Representative in Texas who just kept winning but ultimately did lose.
Chet Edwards comes to mind, winning for 20 years starting in 1990. He survived Tom Delay's off-schedule gerrymandering, but couldn't survive 2010. But there may be others.
If we can get someone like Tran from the immigrant community to run there with an attractive career background (tall task I know), one district no one is talking about is CA-40. Michelle Steel only held her district as long as she did because Democrats kept running the wrong type of candidate against her.
Get someone from the Asian community there who is another veteran or someone who isn’t easily tarred by the “radical left, socialist” false GOP propaganda attacks and Young Kim is not as entrenched or strong as people think she is. She could even lose in a Trump wave, as Steel somehow managed to do, but with Trump as president? Best chance Democrats have to end her career, but only if they pick a Tran-like candidate.
I hope the newly elected congressman is talking behind the scenes to Democrats there and potential candidates to look at running. If you can win in a Trump wave as a Democrat, unseating an incumbent GOP rep no less, you can win in any election facing anyone.
It's also the hardest district to win that includes Orange County because of demographics. Whiter, fairly wealthy and includes Riverside county. It's also less Asian than other OC districts.
Yeah, seriously - where does the idea of a "wave" come from. Trump won by 1.5% and the Dems held 4 seats in the Senate in states he won and picked up seats in the house. If that's as bad as a Republican "wave" gets, I'll take it!
Exactly the district I was thinking of. The Richmond suburbs continue to trend Democratic, and with lower turnout from the Republican rural areas we could pull off an upset here.
I would be thinking about all those Latino plurality seats in south Texas and south Florida which were close or were won by us in 2018 and 2020 but we lost badly in 2022 and 2024.
The CO-3/4/5 trio are worth watching. 3 was within 5 points this year and Hurd’s anti-MAGA overtures could get him primaried, Trump won 5 by under 10, 4 is trending left and Boebert barely cleared a double digit margin.
People mentioned VA-01 already, but that is definitely on my list.
I have my eye on NE-01 centered around Lincoln the combo of trying to destroy universities and ag impact of tariffs could make that interesting (and has been trending out way), would have felt the same about KS-02 if they hadn't stuck Lawrence and Manhattan with the western half of the state. I agree about CO-05 mentioned above as well. If CO gets a fair map in 2030, we could pick up a number of seats. I think MI-04 around Kalamazoo is also an option if Huizeinga (sp?) goes for senate.
What happened? Also, from what I recall of the analysis of the most recent redistricting there, it was considered fair but disappointing inasmuch as we hoped it would have been more Democratic.
There was a commission that came up with an R leaning map. The state voted 55-42 for Harris but the delegation split 4-4 in Reps and presidential results.
Stefanik's district. She either runs as a weakened incumbent humiliated by Trump in an anti-Trump election or she doesn't run and it's an open Obama-Trump seat.
Either way, I don't think it will actually flip, those Obama numbers are the highwater mark for that ancestrally Republican area, but I think it'll be a lot closer than any race since Stefanik first ran in 2014.
Nancy Mace's district in SC, regardless of whether she's running there or for governor.
Also Michigan 1 (Bergman) and 4 (Huizenga). MI1 is Mayor Pete's new home and the U.P. It would take a good candidate that can speak to non-farm rural white working class voters since the UP is mining and timber. Similar demographic to N. Wisc and Duluth districts Add to the folks leaving Chicago (and South Bend) in the Traverse City area which has been voting light blue.
MI4 centers on Kalamazoo and has elected Dems (Wolpe) and Center GOP (Joe Schwarz) in the past. But also has been trending bluer. Decent bench in the Kzoo area.
I wish Tim Walberg in MI 5 would be vulnerable, his district is the entire S border of Michigan. But while the eastern part of his district might trend left, the center and west will not. Hillsdale College and all.
I agree. But I do fear that self-flagellating Democrats will forget that Biden was a great president – imho the most consequential since LBJ. Likewise that we, and thus the public, lose sight of what Team Biden accomplished (and which Trump is desperately trying to undo).
I feel strongly that evaluations of Biden (on policy, if not on politics) will soften over time. Sometimes these things can only be judged fairly from a bit of a distance. (And I really don't care what David Axelrod has to say; he's had a weird hard-on for Biden ever since the Obama years if not before.)
For what it's worth, I do think he should have declared himself a one-term transitional president from the get-go, but a 2024 primary would not have been a magic bullet, because (with the benefit of hindsight) I really don't think Trump was beatable that cycle. Ultimately, the results of both the 2020 and 2024 elections boiled down to a single matter: voters' nostalgia for, and desire to return to, 2019.
The tipping point state in 2024 was Pennsylvania, which Harris lost by 1.7 points. That's not a huge margin. It was absolutely a winnable year for the house and the presidency. The senate is another matter...
I don't know that a big open primary would have been what we needed. But sticking close to the events that did occur, I think it would be sufficient with Biden dropping out earlier in the year to (a) give Harris time to define herself and establish a campaign, and (b) avoid the disaster debate. The debate was bad not just for the negative headlines it gave us, but it ended the Trump conviction stories, and then after that it occupied the news for weeks as the media got stuck in a loop of if Biden would or would not stay in.
I'm not arguing that the swing-state margins weren't close (as is often the case), nor that Democrats couldn't have won if—and only if—the stars had aligned perfectly, but nothing was going to change Trump's large and cultish base of support and the horrible vibes about the economy (the latter driven both by inflation and by corporate media and its enablers who were mad that the pandemic didn't bring back post-2008 labor conditions).
I actually think that it's impressive that Harris fought things to a near-draw with a short runway. The House was a wash, and we lost only one winnable Senate race (PA).
Yeah, my point is that the losing margin for her was small enough that it wouldn't take the stars aligning perfectly for her to have won. Instead it'd be some tweaks in how the year went down. I think the combo of my (a) and (b) above would have done it, and that's far from a perfect alignment of events. It still has plenty of unfavorable events still occurring.
You at least have fun contracting chlamydia. Listening to Ron DeSantis is a struggle start to finish.
But if you believe, as some here defensibly do, that a GOP victory in 2024 was near-inevitable and the final result was only close because of Trump's personal unpopularity and baggage, then DeSantis would likely have won by a solid if not landslide margin and his party would now have more seats in the House, Senate, and state and local offices.
I don’t think DeSantis would have generated the same WWC support/turnout Trump did or gotten historic numbers with Hispanics. Also he’s way more socially conservative than Trump.
Trump was not beatable in 2024-In fact I don't think any Republican would have been beatable in 2024-given the rage and anger surrounding Trump's loss in 2020.
Agreed; voters' associated the worst of the post-Covid societal changes to Democrats (which honestly IS partially their fault and partially not) and thus any candidate would've had that anvil around their necks. Could have a Shapiro, Whitmer or Warnock outran that? Maybe, but with Harris as VP they would've never ran let alone won a hypothetical open primary in 2024.
Yep, and if Democratic voters sensed that an African-American woman were being unfairly shoved aside, that could have done considerable damage as well.
But of course, it's all academic speculation at this point.
I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. He was a great policy president, but he wasn’t a great political president. In all the areas that matter most to our lives, he was a transformational leader, but in all the areas that matter most to winning political power and elections, he was terrible.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but if Biden and Democrats had been blown out in the midterms in 2022 (which probably would have happened save for Dobbs backlash), he may have never even ran for a 2nd term as Democrats would have intensely pressured him to retire after 1 term and there would be an open contest for 2 years instead of a 3 month break glass in case of emergency last ditch effort campaign after he short circuited on national television.
Yeah, if the goal was to get Biden out, the fact that Democrats held up pretty well down-ballot in 2022 and 2023 certainly didn't help in achieving that goal. Dobbs was a major factor, but there were others as well: "I only have eyes for Trump" types not turning out, the J6 hearings bringing democracy concerns to the fore, Republicans nominating horrible MAGA candidates who were swing-vote poison, a 1994/2010-style House blowout being unlikely for several reasons, and so on.
I still think if he had completely owned the fact of being old and did a media blitz being the affable old grandpa and made fun of his infirmities (on podcasts, on the View . .heck I think he could've even charmed Joe Rogan in the right mindset) he could've helped his popularity a lot. But he was old school and from a time when the Presidency was "above" that type of strategy. I also think his advisors were overly protective and anxiety-ridden.
I'm all for acknowledging Biden's accomplishments, but you can't expect people to just ignore the fact that those accomplishments didn't translate into electoral success. To the extent that Biden himself contributed to that outcome is a worthy topic of discussion.
Both these things can be true - Biden was as good a president as we could have asked for, given the circumstances AND it's also clear in retrospect that he should not have run for re-election.
GOOD NEWS: J.D. Vance Is Clear Favorite to Win 2028 GOP Nomination
A new J.L. Partners survey found 46% of Republican voters are ready to back Vice President J.D. Vance as President Donald Trump’s successor, while no other named prospect got more than single-digit support.
Just 8% would back Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, while 7% supported Vivek Ramaswamy. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) each received 6% support.
It will be fun when Trump inevitably turns on Vance. Autocrats *despise* the idea of handing power over to a successor. It was pretty clear in 2024 that he (Trump) would have preferred not to have had a running mate at all.
There is a horrendous amount of awfulness we've all had to endure and will have to endure but I'll be damned if JD Goofy bootlicking motherfucker Vance is the first millennial president.
Sidenote: Leslie Jones was amazing this week on the Daily Show.
"Leslie Jones Roasts the Goofy Motherf**kers Trump Appointed to Ruin the Country | The Daily Show"
What do you mean story? Thomas was confirmed because some southern Democrats and Alan Dixon of Illinois voted for him. W Bush’s original choice, Harriet Meirs, was thought to be too lightweight and insufficiently conservative, so she dropped out and was replaced by Alito. Republicans controlled the senate.
With the end of the session coming up, it wouldn't surprise me if one of the two would resign to allow Trump to replace in a guaranteed Republican environment. My fear would be that anybody Trump nominates wouldn't be nearly as normal as his 3 first term picks.
A replacement would eliminate us being able to flip the seat when we get back the presidency and the Senate, and given Trump's cabinet and other appointments I believe we could get much worse.
By the way, I was thinking John Yoo would be worse, and yet he just came out with a strong statement that there's no chance the Supreme Court would ever vote to sustain a suspension of habeus corpus by Trump, and if they did, that would be a much stronger ground for impeaching Trump than his last 2 go-arounds. Yoo is actually responsible for thousands of tortures and homicides of prisoners of war held without trial, so a very evil unprosecuted criminal, and yet he would be a less unconstitutional justice than Thomas.
I disagree. Thomas steps down as soon as he can. He's out this fall is my guess to do what he loves: Make money for doing even less than he does on the court.
The majority of African Americans supported his confirmation to the Senate. They wanted “one of their own” to replace Marshall. They didn’t care about his ideology, admired his “up from poverty in rural Georgia” story, and didn’t believe Anita Hill’s story. The reason was Bork was blocked but not Thomas was because African Americans opposed Bork, but not Thomas.
Lol and he publicly derided his own multiple job working Black sister as a single welfare queen. He has done more damage to Black interests than any other recent justice imo and there couldn't be a more white adjacent Black than Thomas.
Since when does the majority supporting something mean that people in Congress have to vote for it? A majority of people (including republicans) support raising the minimum wage and universal healthcare. Do Republicans in Congress vote for those things? Nope
Republicans don’t get punished for ignoring voters. Democrats do. Like it or not, there are different standards for Democratic politicians than for Republican politicians. And BTW the majority of voters don’t support the complete elimination of private insurance healthcare options. If they did it would have happened by now.
Where did I say the majority of African Americans agreed with Thomas' politics? Nowhere. That doesn't mean they didn't want an African American on the SCOTUS.
The point is once they knew his politics they likely wouldn’t want him on the court. Just like once people know that universal healthcare would eliminate private insurance, they might not support it.
Did they not know his positions, or did they know and not care because "one of us?" There simply wasn't the same pressure to reject him the was there was to reject Bork back in 1987. If there had been, no way, no how does Thomas get appointed.
How would universal healthcare with public health insurance along with stronger mandates and higher taxes eliminate private health insurance. It works this way in many European countries.
Democrats could have insisted that he wasn't the one. Subordinating a lifetime appointment to fear over politics in the immediate term is unforgivable, and we've seen the results ever since.
Many of them did. 46 of the 48 votes against Thomas came from Democrats (Jim Jeffords and John Chafee being the two Republicans no votes). With the exceptions of Alan Dixon and James Exon, the 11 Democrats who said yes were southern conservatives whose elections were largely depended on African American voters. Rest assured if those voters had been against the Thomas confirmation, the Senators would have voted against confirmation. A major reason why then Democrat Richard Shelby voted against Bork back in 1987 was due to the fact that African Americans in Alabama had lobbied him big time in opposition.
Dixon lost his primary the next year to an African American woman (Carol Moseley Braun) mainly due to voting for Clarence Thomas. It was African Americans that powered her to victory in that race. If they supported Clarence Thomas’ confirmation that much I think Dixon would have won his primary in 1992.
About 50-55-60 percent of people oppose medicare for all without private health insurance options. But a majority like 60-65 and almost all Democrats want universal healthcare. A good compromise could be lowering Medicare to 55 and having stronger mandates and taxes for a public health insurance option with all types of family leave.
A majority of Republicans don't support raising the minimum wage and don't support universal healthcare. About 20 percent of them do as seen empirically in ballot measures.
Poll find that the majority of Americas support both of them but Republicans oppose even the public health insurance option. Moderate republicans have no power in their party.
I am passionate for Climate change but it would be dishonest to say that I am sad that Cons are owning themselves here by ending the "Green new scam". They deserve it for the damage they have done to our nation, for "owning the libs", and for hurting the right people by gutting the climate justice fund.
I ran into my first example of supply of something being unavailable because of Trump. Costco has a chandelier ceiling fan in their current sale booklet that started last Wednesday. Per their front desk, they received notice that the item is no longer available, and per the manager they have 5 items in the current book that just didn't make it. He said they won't get the items at all, it's not just a delay. He said he's never seen anything like this. Costco has a good reputation for having advertised stock.
Maybe a majority of voters will stop their purposeful ignorance when they literally see empty shelves and can no longer deny how stupid they were to vote for Trump and Republicans in 2024. One can only hope, but it’s too late to change anything now, they should have realized this before they voted.
It kind of blows my mind that if Trump had done literally nothing since being elected, the GOP run media, Republicans and voters would suddenly say the economy is amazing just because he’s in office and they want to justify their vote for the biggest conman in the world.
Along those lines, a weekend question for those armchair historians out there: What is the biggest self own a president has done in his first year in office for either party? Trump’s tariffs have to be pretty high up on that list I think?
Only he could manage to completely destroy his presidency, the vibe economy and voter coalition on the left and right (no one likes tariffs, not the Obama-Trump WWC or the liberals who thought Trump would be better for them) in the first 3 months of his term because of how incompetent he is at actually governing (sadly something Americans completely blanked out from his first term back when they voted in November).
It’s quite honestly impressive how much he’s screwed up the easiest presidency ever, do nothing and everyone just says it’s awesome rather than admitting to being gullible and falling for a scam twice.
It's hard to beat James Buchanan in 1857 related to the Dred Scott case and "Bleeding Kansas". Plus there was a financial panic that year.
Tariffs tripped up William Howard Taft in 1909; party division on the issue helped spark TR's insurgency. And we may not be able to blame Herbert Hoover for the 1929 stock market crash, but signing the Smoot-Hawley tariff was a big self inflicted second year blunder.
And the only other president to have non-consecutive terms, Grover Cleveland, faced an economic collapse and depression in his first year which, accompanied by his response, led to the opposition GOP sweeping the 1894 and 1896 elections establishing themselves as the clear majority party for most of the time until the 1930s.
What liberals that thought he would be better for them? Rich people who voted for Biden and Harris because they care about the nation but thought Trump would benefit them economically?
Types Iike actor Jon Lovitz who complained ever since Obama’s first term that he was being taxed too much (even though Obama and Democrats in Congress never raised taxes on the wealthy). He appeared on Fox News to vent, which is like going to Beverly Hills to bark about potholes in East LA.
To be clear, Jon Lovitz is not that wealthy compare to say Tom Hanks, who would likely not complain if he was paying more in taxes. I was making a joke at the expense of Lovitz given he complains about being taxed more than anyone in Hollywood.
That said, you can’t have it both ways as a liberal by stating you are one but are against taxes on the wealthy.
The young people and minorities who crossed over to vote for him even though they’d voted for Democrats in previous elections. Trump won low income Democrats who were liberal, which padded his margins and helped him to win every single swing state.
Don’t ask me why or how they ever convinced themselves of that vote choice because I truly don’t have a clue.
I can’t find this specific info again right now (oh how I wish we could search up previous viewed videos), but I remember it coming from a reputable source. That said, we know minorities and young people shifted to Trump in 2024, so while I can’t for sure have evidence to present you this second to backup my claim, we also can make an educated guess that this is indeed the case.
I wouldn't have expected those who switched Republican to vote for Trump to identify as liberal. More like lie-beral. You're telling me there are a significant number of liberals who are racist, anti-woke and support authoritarian bullying? If they're not lying, what do they think "liberal" means?
I found the chart, just look at it and read the article. Liberals voted for Trump because they thought Trump would make their own personal financial situation better. They’re not tuned into politics and are low information voters. It’s clear how much of a difference 2024 Trump vote was compared to the 2020 Trump vote.
Anyone who votes for that kind of guy just because they think he'll improve their personal financial situation is someone I would deny is really a liberal.
Agreed although since Trump has been in office and with the deportation fiasco with Muhammad Khalil, younger voters are increasingly getting pissed. Far more so than they were before.
We do have a centennial House Democrat, freshman Representative Maxwell Frost of FL-10, although it would work to the Democratic Party’s advantage if there were greater representation in Congress by centennials and millennials.
I am a xennial, a Gen Xer born in the late 70’s but who identifies more as a millennial. My father was born in the silent generation whereas my mother was a baby boomer.
I don't think there is any comparison, mostly because every other President had either risen through the ranks of lower elected offices or were generals in the army, which is an inherently political job, those guys have to testify to Congress and whatnot. Trump is just a spoiled brat who failed his way up by being famous for being famous. Like, if Kim Kardashian was president, I'd expect the same sort of competency.
I'll add another two cents, George W Bush trying to privatize Social Security after he barely won reelection was a huge own goal that contributed heavily to the 2006 wave.
That was my thought for a modern non-Trump example. Not only did it hurt his party but it took up time that they could have spent doing something else.
The press release noted a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) and metastasis to the bone. Below is an explanation of what a Gleason score of 9 means in the context of this diagnosis.
What is a Gleason Score?
The Gleason score is a grading system used to assess the aggressiveness of prostate cancer based on the appearance of cancer cells under a microscope. It ranges from 6 to 10, with higher scores indicating more aggressive cancer. A score of 9 is among the highest, signifying a highly aggressive form
I don't understand how someone with access to the type of medical care Biden has got to this stage of cancer when diagnosed.
I suspect he probably waved off certain exams that are uncomfortable. Most people aren't fond of digital rectal exams, but they can detect prostate cancer. Plus he has access to MRIs that the normal human fights with insurance to get covered.
Mr. Biden’s office said the former president had urinary symptoms, which led him to seek medical attention.
But, Dr. Lin said, “I highly doubt his symptoms were due to cancer.”
Instead, he said, the most likely scenario is that a doctor did an exam, noticed a nodule on Mr. Biden’s prostate and did a blood test, the prostate-specific antigen test.
Elections were also held in Poland (Presidential) and Portugal today.
In Poland, there will be a runoff between Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski (Civic Platform) and Karol Nawrocki (PiS).
In Portugal, the Center-Right Democratic Alliance remains the largest party in the assembly with 86 seats, while the far-right Chega Party and the Socialists each earned 58 seats.
In reference to a post near the end of this morning's digest, do very many folks take Harry Enten seriously?
I don't take anyone on CNN seriously.
I take Christiane Amanpour seriously.
Touché. I was thinking more of the insufferable pundit types on the network.
Long since I stopped watching their pundits. But I occasionally stream Amanpour’s show and interviews. I would have loved to see her as a presidential debate moderator, or to have her interview Trump or key people in his regime.
I take the folks on "Have I got News For You" seriously. That is a comedy show on Saturday evenings with Roy Wood Jr., Amber Ruffin and others. It is very funny but also makes serious points.
They need to stop competing for Fox brained right wingers.
24/7 cable news is a dying medium desperate to attract viewers in any way possible.
The “original sin” that party leaders now need to grapple with is their tendency toward groupthink, inertia and an extreme and wildly counterproductive risk aversion.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/opinion/biden-age-democrats-coverup.html
Uncharted Blue has a humorous but pointed article on this topic. We cannot let the Republicans drag this topic as prime for 2026 or 2028. Biden isn't in office, period.
Anytime Biden comes up, we need to point out he's history and the current damage to our country, to democracy and the world is all Trump and the Republican sycophants supporting his every move.
https://www.unchartedblue.com/to-political-journalists-america-is-just-a-stage-for-important-people-to-preen-and-bicker/
Amen, amen, and amen.
Biden will only be an issue among Democrats. But the sentence from the article I posted applies to the party as a whole, at least in Washington. And that is a far bigger problem and has been for some time.
I think that the biggest problem right now is that if you asked the average voter what the Democrats stand for right now they couldn't give you an answer.
If we had a Parliament, maybe Obama would still be the party's leader. At any rate, they would be likely to pick a great public speaker for the purpose.
Fine, but let more of this self-reflection and discussion be behind closed doorse. The very last thing we need is this public self-flagellation that Democrats have such an astonishing propensity for.
i am not disagreeing the president should not have run for reelection, nor that the dnc is a very poorly run risk averse org. But i think inertia at the moment is to pile onto the former president (who left trump a thriving economy in all but vibes, with increasing organizing and middle class growth) instead of moving on. No one would dare say anything negative about him for two years as voters backed his policies but not him personally in election results throughout 22 and 23 corresponding to a relatively low approval rating for a president that somehow picked up senate seats in a midterm, but now everyone in the increasingly small amount of people that self identify as democrats is piling onto president biden. Lot of opinion from me here and I try to avoid gut feelings but to younger voters we look like we can't get over the former president making the honest mistake that every president makes --thinking the public likes them more than they do. There was much to criticize during his term, but he is no longer president and while I wish he too would recognize if he wants to be treated like harry truman historically he needs to go away for a bit like truman did, and the American voter can focus on the here and now.
Underlying all of this is that any biden discussion out in the public keeps the news off of the unconstitutional and unspeakable damage to the united states and world trump and co are doing, because jon favreau and other obama alums would rather score settle. Ken Martin should absolutely prepare an autopsy to account for the billion plus dollars wasted last election cycle, and soul searching is needed, but not because america fell out of a tenous love with an older politician that--domestically speaking--delivered for us like no president has in a while. The entire pod save america's disdain for biden, from his decision to follow through and not create another vietnam moment in Afghanistan by withdrawing troops compared to obama not pulling out of iraq after convincing everyone including myself that was one of his top prioriities in 2007 speaks to me of envy of biden admin getting more done in his two years of unified government with vastly smaller majorities than obama got in his two years of unified government.
For all the talk about leftist "groupthink", it's no comparison to right wing groupthink and total republican grassroots supports in polls for the worst of Trump's second term policies and the chip change like immediate switch in their economical talking points.
Relitigating this publicly is only going to hurt us more. I personally never wanted him to run again. Even after all those Biden's erratic viral clips on Tiktoks and shorts, people wonder why even Gen Z women shifted right with elaborate Gen Z 1.0 vs 2.0 theories based on one shitty Yale poll contradicted by others.
https://www.vox.com/politics/412766/regret-trump-voter-buyers-remorse-philadelphia-election-tariff-economy
The rise of the regretful Trump voter
Trump is squandering one of his biggest 2024 electoral accomplishments. : the rightward shift of Independents, Latinos, other minorities and younger voters. Vox says that Trump is losing support from groups which support anti establishment politics.
This is an opportunity for liberals in the Democratic Party to start redefining what being liberal is about and not let the GOP define it like they did back in 1988.
Honestly the reaction to this book is so dumb on so many levels:
Number 1, there's no real "relevations" re: Biden's mental acuity. So he may have not recognized George Clooney at a fundraiser . . .he didn't grow up seeing George in media like younger folks did. And I hightly doubt their "friendship" was as substantial as Clooney infers. I saw Biden in numerous public speeches and interviews over the past year . . .he's not suffering from dementia or any other significant neurological disease. Period.
Number 2, the majority of "relevations" are regarding his general physical limitations and stiffness, largely due to a deteriorating spine. Which makes him appear weak and old, but has nothing to do with his mental fitness or abilities.
Number 3, no-one fucking cares at this point; the idea that this will impact 2026 or 2028 is so Axios/Politico-brained as to be literal parody.
I maintain Biden overall was a great President and would've been fine serving a second term. His true "original sin" was picking Harris as VP, which I thought was a bad idea back in 2020 and was proven to be so.
Who were you hoping for for VP?
At the time I thought Whitmer, Klobuchar or Duckworth would've been the strongest picks politically. In hindsight Buttigieg would've been a fine pick too. When it became apparent that it would be an AA female, I thought Demings was a stronger pick than Harris.
I liked Whitmer, but wow, Demings! Do you still think so? I don't.
Again, when it became apparent that the CBC were demanding the pick be a AA female for their SC rescue op, and the choices were basically Bass, Harris and Demings, I think Demings was the politically strongest choice of the three.
That said, I don't believe in ever straightjacketing yourself politically into having to demographically filter a pick for anything.
Hindsight doesn't cause me to consider Demings a better pick than Harris, and I still think Harris was fine, even if not terrifically exciting, as a pick.
Harris was arguably a better pick in terms of keeping certain elements of the base on board-they would have been furious with Demings being a literal cop.
I think the cohort of the base that would've been upset at a former black female cop being VP is the definition of electorally insignificant.
Probably true. The unnecessary controversy might have been feared, but it probably would have benefited the Democrats in a general election.
I will forever maintain that Michelle Obama is probably the only person who could have achieved everything the 2020 Biden campaign could have possibly wanted in a running mate-unfortunately, she's never been interested in running for office in her own right.
He definitely would not have been fine serving a second time as evidenced by his disastrous debate and ridiculous gaffes like walking aimlessly with Meloni or America in a single word. The book is overhyped but the original sin was running again. Thank God, he didn't pick Whitmer or Klobuchar as the unlucky post-covid and war global inflation and his failed border policy would have ended their careers too. Whitmer would have been the best choice in 2020 as well as in 2024 if there was a quick primary. She doesn't divide the party like Warren or Shapiro. Obama's lobbying was correct. No Biden alumni except Buttigieg should even run in the 2028 primary.
"Thank God, he didn't pick Whitmer or Klobuchar as the unlucky post-covid and war global inflation and his failed border policy would have ended their careers too."
This is probably correct, and while I thought Whitmer was politically the most beneficial pick at the time, I actually didn't want her picked as I wanted her the opportunity to forge her own trail.
We'll have to agree to disagree on Biden's cognitive capabilities. Yes he'd slowed down but I think he retained by far the ability to effectuate the decision-making and policy choices necessary to be President. If he'd cut his workload in half it'd still be more than the current occupant, whose White House is basically being run by Stephen Miller and Russell Voight.
His Axios tape was horrible. Did you listen to it?
Here’s a question: are there any reach House seats that people here are watching? As in, seats that normally aren’t likely to flip but could end up as shock wins or at least close results?
And as a flip side question, are there House seats that Democrats currently hold that you fear may flip red, even in a good year?
ME-2 for the latter. It'll be interesting to see whether some surprising seats flip in states like California. Alternatively, if Trump really suffers in farm county, we could see flips in Nebraska, Kansas and maybe even Oklahoma, like in his last midterm, if I'm remembering the right election.
Yeah, we won a shock flip in OK-5 that year (Kendra Horn defeating Steve Russell). It's a 58-40 Orange Blob district now, so I don't see it flipping again.
No-one saw it happening then, either. That's why it's a reach seat that could be a surprising flip.
The old one was Trump+13 in 2016.
It would not be good but Golden should not reach any other level of Democratic politics. He is more dangerous than the hardcore neolib Rahm Emanuel imo.
Feel free to support a primary opponent if he runs for senator or governor.
Jared Golden is probably the best Democrats can hope for in ME-02. Imho, he’s sort of a mirror image of Susan Collins – in other words, he votes with Republicans when it doesn’t matter.
That said, I do NOT want to see a Senator Golden or Governor Golden!
(Typo fixed.)
If Maine had been a Trump state I'd see the argument for Golden running against Collins, but I think it's clear a less problematic candidate could run and win there, especially in a wave year.
Golden has worked for Collins. He might run for an open Senate seat, but he is not going to challenge her.
You do know that Collins outran Trump by six points in vote share and won a majority in 2020 against a credible mainstream Democrat, right?
A Trump midterm (in his second go-around) is different than a POTUS year.
I get that, but the idea that she's dead woman walking is dubious. Democrats are fighting an uphill battle for the Senate, we shouldn't be taking anything for granted.
? I didn't say that? I was just saying I don't think Dems need to run the most conservative party-member in Congress to have a shot at beating her.
Who has a better shot at beating her?
If we can't beat her in 2026 we won't ever beat her.
Which is likely.
It's not clear any Democrat can beat Collins unless or until it happens.
You’re right, and I am as eager as you to see Collins replaced with a good Democrat.
However, Susan Collins is a very savvy politician and nowhere near the worst Republican in the Senate. She seeks bipartisan solutions, helped save the Affordable Care Act, and voted to confirm legions of judicial and other nominations by President Clinton, President Obama and President Biden.
Moreover, as Senator, Collins is legendary for actually doing the work she was elected to do. In her entire career – which started in 1997! – Senator Susan Collins has missed fewer Senate votes than Bernie Sanders and John Fetterman have missed just this year! Actually, Collins has NEVER missed a vote.
NOTE: You don’t believe me? On April 19th of 2024, Senator Collins cast her 9000th consecutive vote! We should be encouraging – nay, demanding! – our Democratic senators to be equally diligent.
https://www.collins.senate.gov/newsroom/senator-collins-casts-historic-9000th-consecutive-vote
She's probably the least-bad Republican senator other than Murkowski.
She has voted more in line with Republicans than Democrats. She mostly votes with Democrats when the Bill or nominee already has a clear path without her but never abandons the MAGAlican party on any such bill or nominee except the ACA.
She is a Republican, that is kind of how it works.
Not for Murkowski atleast. The difference is probably because she's elected by her liberal base.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/119-2025/s261
Wild that Corey Booker voted to confirm Charles Kushner as Ambassador to France and Murkowski was the only Republican No vote.
She is a capital R Republican and a very cunning politician.
No vote "doesn't matter". They all do, and voting with the Republicans on anything deserves a primary challenge.
Get used to being in a permanent minority in Congress then. All in the name of progressive purity, because what you’re saying means Democrats don’t win power ever again, period. Smart thinking there.
Republicans have been doing exactly what I'm suggesting and they have had the majority for most of the last decade and a half-clearly what I'm suggesting can work.
You are woefully misinformed. Republicans have voted for a ton of policies that Democrats also voted for. Unless you want to amend your statement to say a majority voting with the opposition, which already never happens on every political issue, which doesn’t even need mentioning.
If you equate this to Republicans, every current elected official should be kicked out of office for being insufficiently loyal to the GOP. What people like you don’t understand because you’re new to politics or very young, is that there’s issues both parties agree on. They’re the ones that don’t make the headlines, the minutiae that people like you don’t ever realize are voted into law regardless of who is president or which party holds what.
Maybe if we’re stretching, we can say on the main issues of importance, to fit your definition, but that already doesn’t happen. Every Republican in office has voted with a Democrat on something that has become law. Same as vice versa. My advice that you probably won’t take: Only punish and primary Democrats if their vote makes a GOP bill pass. That is when there needs to be a firm red line.
Republicans didn't get the majority by primarying blue seat incumbents.
I’m sick of the Golden hate. He represents his district and that’s all there is to it.
Golden unseated an incumbent Republican in a Trump district and has held on to that seat while Trump, LePage, and Trump have carried his district while he was simultaneously on the ballot the last three elections. He's a winner and I'm not really sure why people are so mad at him to be honest.
He is very annoying, so I completely understand it and I'm mad at him, too, sometimes. But otherwise, you're right.
IMO he's nowhere near as annoying as Manchin or Sinema. (But it also helps that he's one of 435 and not 100.)
That's the only reason, I think.
He is a progressive conservative and actually believes in it. He was so sad when Trump took back the tariffs lmao. He would be as DINO-esque even in another district and be a Sinema on steroids in the Senate.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Golden#Political_positions
Good lord, what are you talking about? He is a bit to the right of the Dem caucus and a perfect fit for his district. What, exactly, makes him "dangerous". This hyperbole is just stupid...
He is left to the most moderate Republican. He would be a Sinema styled Maverick on steroids in the Senate.
His record -
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Golden#Political_positions
Though I agree, he is perfect for the district but that's not to say that he is voting as per his district and he himself has different private positions.
A reach seat is in the eye of the beholder in some respects, but I think that PA-10 (Perry) is winnable, even though it's ancestrally-Republican turf. Maybe PA-1 (Fitzpatrick) as well, but he's proven maddeningly resilient.
Would love to see CA-22 (Valadao) and CA-41 (Calvert) flip too.
Four unsafe Democratically-held seats off the top of my head are OH-9 (Kaptur), CA-45 (Tran), CA-13 (Gray), and NC-1 (Davis). Of course ME-2 (Golden) and WA-3 (Gluesenkamp Perez) are also in this category.
I would add CA 47 as unsafe Democratically held. I've heard rumors that Republicans are trying to get a regular style family guy Republican from either Irvine (only Mike Carroll) or Newport Beach city council.
Unfortunately, Min will always be slightly damaged goods with his DUI, and Scott Baugh, the R in 2022 and 2024 was a horrible candidate with a lot of criminal baggage.
I don’t think 2026 is the year to take out Min. Only way he loses is if Republicans are winning this seat in statewide races.
There are usually some exceptions who lose even during waves the other way. That happened the last time the Democrats won the Omaha seat, didn't it?
Yep, the only time we've won that seat this century was (otherwise-terrible) 2014.
PA-1 is such bullshit. Period. End of story. Democrats need to try again here so we have more to talk about. I’ve been reading SSP/DKE/DB for something like 20 years and PA-1 is the most irritating district there is. Give me a race. Give me SOMETHING. Not a single state senator wants a freebie try at a promotion? I do not understand how Dems give up on that district cycle after cycle after cycle. JFC, Fitzpatrick is just a name.
Bob Harvey, a Bucks County commissioner, is running here.
Maybe Santarsiero makes a run at it again too.
No, I think he's a very talented politician. Some people are.
Yeah, in cases like this it's usually a combination of the incumbent's talent and the strongest potential opponents not wanting to mount a bid they feel they can't win.
Yes, it's not just a name.
They've been a lot of strong institutional incumbents who seemed invincible across multiple cycles who lost shockers in wave years. It's definitely gettable.
Right, many of them win, until one time they don't. I'm blanking on the name of the Representative in Texas who just kept winning but ultimately did lose.
Chet Edwards comes to mind, winning for 20 years starting in 1990. He survived Tom Delay's off-schedule gerrymandering, but couldn't survive 2010. But there may be others.
That's the guy I was thinking of. One of the most talented politicians of my lifetime.
If we can get someone like Tran from the immigrant community to run there with an attractive career background (tall task I know), one district no one is talking about is CA-40. Michelle Steel only held her district as long as she did because Democrats kept running the wrong type of candidate against her.
Get someone from the Asian community there who is another veteran or someone who isn’t easily tarred by the “radical left, socialist” false GOP propaganda attacks and Young Kim is not as entrenched or strong as people think she is. She could even lose in a Trump wave, as Steel somehow managed to do, but with Trump as president? Best chance Democrats have to end her career, but only if they pick a Tran-like candidate.
I hope the newly elected congressman is talking behind the scenes to Democrats there and potential candidates to look at running. If you can win in a Trump wave as a Democrat, unseating an incumbent GOP rep no less, you can win in any election facing anyone.
I thought people were talking about that district.
It's also the hardest district to win that includes Orange County because of demographics. Whiter, fairly wealthy and includes Riverside county. It's also less Asian than other OC districts.
But, we won every square inch of OC in 2018.
Trump wave? Republicans lost seats in the House.
Yeah, seriously - where does the idea of a "wave" come from. Trump won by 1.5% and the Dems held 4 seats in the Senate in states he won and picked up seats in the house. If that's as bad as a Republican "wave" gets, I'll take it!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia%27s_1st_congressional_district
wittman has never had to run a competitive election and district is home to a good deal of federal employees past or present
Exactly the district I was thinking of. The Richmond suburbs continue to trend Democratic, and with lower turnout from the Republican rural areas we could pull off an upset here.
If that district truly has narrowed down to just a PVI of +3, that's no longer a reach. That's quite competitive.
Big name to watch here is State Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg.
Agree on this one...seems like an obvious target for us....
I would be thinking about all those Latino plurality seats in south Texas and south Florida which were close or were won by us in 2018 and 2020 but we lost badly in 2022 and 2024.
For the latter, watch out three south Florida seats held by Jewish Democratic Representatives.
Frankel, Moskowitz, and Wasserman Schultz?
Right. If 2026 is a neutral year, each would be endangered.
Fortunately 2026 midterm is very likely not a neutral one.
The CO-3/4/5 trio are worth watching. 3 was within 5 points this year and Hurd’s anti-MAGA overtures could get him primaried, Trump won 5 by under 10, 4 is trending left and Boebert barely cleared a double digit margin.
People mentioned VA-01 already, but that is definitely on my list.
I have my eye on NE-01 centered around Lincoln the combo of trying to destroy universities and ag impact of tariffs could make that interesting (and has been trending out way), would have felt the same about KS-02 if they hadn't stuck Lawrence and Manhattan with the western half of the state. I agree about CO-05 mentioned above as well. If CO gets a fair map in 2030, we could pick up a number of seats. I think MI-04 around Kalamazoo is also an option if Huizeinga (sp?) goes for senate.
Just to clarify: CO does have a fair map, doesn't it?
Not really
What happened? Also, from what I recall of the analysis of the most recent redistricting there, it was considered fair but disappointing inasmuch as we hoped it would have been more Democratic.
There was a commission that came up with an R leaning map. The state voted 55-42 for Harris but the delegation split 4-4 in Reps and presidential results.
Stefanik's district. She either runs as a weakened incumbent humiliated by Trump in an anti-Trump election or she doesn't run and it's an open Obama-Trump seat.
Either way, I don't think it will actually flip, those Obama numbers are the highwater mark for that ancestrally Republican area, but I think it'll be a lot closer than any race since Stefanik first ran in 2014.
Nancy Mace's district in SC, regardless of whether she's running there or for governor.
Also Michigan 1 (Bergman) and 4 (Huizenga). MI1 is Mayor Pete's new home and the U.P. It would take a good candidate that can speak to non-farm rural white working class voters since the UP is mining and timber. Similar demographic to N. Wisc and Duluth districts Add to the folks leaving Chicago (and South Bend) in the Traverse City area which has been voting light blue.
MI4 centers on Kalamazoo and has elected Dems (Wolpe) and Center GOP (Joe Schwarz) in the past. But also has been trending bluer. Decent bench in the Kzoo area.
I wish Tim Walberg in MI 5 would be vulnerable, his district is the entire S border of Michigan. But while the eastern part of his district might trend left, the center and west will not. Hillsdale College and all.
A few thoughts:
– The very last thing we need is this public self-flagellation that Democrats have such an astonishing propensity for.
– Yes, Biden books are being published, but we are idiots if we allow Trump’s insanity and misdeeds to be pushed into the background.
– We need to push our narrative into the news cycle, so it eclipses what Trump and MAGA are trying to push.
– Ken Martin and the DNC are doing a terrific job of being the catalyst for change that the Democratic party sorely needs.
– There are incredibly many positive things happening at the local and state level. For instance: hundreds of town halls and targeted protests.
– And even nationally, Democratic legislators are doing a better job of fighting back.
I actually think it's good that the Biden stuff is dropping now. Get it over with and move on.
I agree. But I do fear that self-flagellating Democrats will forget that Biden was a great president – imho the most consequential since LBJ. Likewise that we, and thus the public, lose sight of what Team Biden accomplished (and which Trump is desperately trying to undo).
I feel strongly that evaluations of Biden (on policy, if not on politics) will soften over time. Sometimes these things can only be judged fairly from a bit of a distance. (And I really don't care what David Axelrod has to say; he's had a weird hard-on for Biden ever since the Obama years if not before.)
For what it's worth, I do think he should have declared himself a one-term transitional president from the get-go, but a 2024 primary would not have been a magic bullet, because (with the benefit of hindsight) I really don't think Trump was beatable that cycle. Ultimately, the results of both the 2020 and 2024 elections boiled down to a single matter: voters' nostalgia for, and desire to return to, 2019.
The tipping point state in 2024 was Pennsylvania, which Harris lost by 1.7 points. That's not a huge margin. It was absolutely a winnable year for the house and the presidency. The senate is another matter...
I don't know that a big open primary would have been what we needed. But sticking close to the events that did occur, I think it would be sufficient with Biden dropping out earlier in the year to (a) give Harris time to define herself and establish a campaign, and (b) avoid the disaster debate. The debate was bad not just for the negative headlines it gave us, but it ended the Trump conviction stories, and then after that it occupied the news for weeks as the media got stuck in a loop of if Biden would or would not stay in.
I'm not arguing that the swing-state margins weren't close (as is often the case), nor that Democrats couldn't have won if—and only if—the stars had aligned perfectly, but nothing was going to change Trump's large and cultish base of support and the horrible vibes about the economy (the latter driven both by inflation and by corporate media and its enablers who were mad that the pandemic didn't bring back post-2008 labor conditions).
I actually think that it's impressive that Harris fought things to a near-draw with a short runway. The House was a wash, and we lost only one winnable Senate race (PA).
Yeah, my point is that the losing margin for her was small enough that it wouldn't take the stars aligning perfectly for her to have won. Instead it'd be some tweaks in how the year went down. I think the combo of my (a) and (b) above would have done it, and that's far from a perfect alignment of events. It still has plenty of unfavorable events still occurring.
1.7 is not insurmountable, but it’s a large enough margin to conclude he would have been favored in most scenarios.
It would be even better if we lost the popular vote but won the Presidency. An end to this ridiculous system with its origins in slavery and elitism.
You mean won the electoral college but lost the popular vote.
Good points and I agree with all – except that I do believe Trump was beatable in 2024.
It would have required the stars to align perfectly, or nearly so. Not impossible, but also highly improbable.
Now, if Trump had been unable to run again in 2024 for whatever reason, things would have been a LOT more up-in-the-air.
If Trump hadn't run I think DeSantis would have beaten Harris by around 5 and the Senate would be 57-43.
DeSantis beating Harris? No way! Even Chlamydia is more popular than Ron DeSantis!
You at least have fun contracting chlamydia. Listening to Ron DeSantis is a struggle start to finish.
But if you believe, as some here defensibly do, that a GOP victory in 2024 was near-inevitable and the final result was only close because of Trump's personal unpopularity and baggage, then DeSantis would likely have won by a solid if not landslide margin and his party would now have more seats in the House, Senate, and state and local offices.
I don’t think DeSantis would have generated the same WWC support/turnout Trump did or gotten historic numbers with Hispanics. Also he’s way more socially conservative than Trump.
Trump was not beatable in 2024-In fact I don't think any Republican would have been beatable in 2024-given the rage and anger surrounding Trump's loss in 2020.
Agreed; voters' associated the worst of the post-Covid societal changes to Democrats (which honestly IS partially their fault and partially not) and thus any candidate would've had that anvil around their necks. Could have a Shapiro, Whitmer or Warnock outran that? Maybe, but with Harris as VP they would've never ran let alone won a hypothetical open primary in 2024.
Yep, and if Democratic voters sensed that an African-American woman were being unfairly shoved aside, that could have done considerable damage as well.
But of course, it's all academic speculation at this point.
I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. He was a great policy president, but he wasn’t a great political president. In all the areas that matter most to our lives, he was a transformational leader, but in all the areas that matter most to winning political power and elections, he was terrible.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but if Biden and Democrats had been blown out in the midterms in 2022 (which probably would have happened save for Dobbs backlash), he may have never even ran for a 2nd term as Democrats would have intensely pressured him to retire after 1 term and there would be an open contest for 2 years instead of a 3 month break glass in case of emergency last ditch effort campaign after he short circuited on national television.
Yeah, if the goal was to get Biden out, the fact that Democrats held up pretty well down-ballot in 2022 and 2023 certainly didn't help in achieving that goal. Dobbs was a major factor, but there were others as well: "I only have eyes for Trump" types not turning out, the J6 hearings bringing democracy concerns to the fore, Republicans nominating horrible MAGA candidates who were swing-vote poison, a 1994/2010-style House blowout being unlikely for several reasons, and so on.
I think there’s a good argument to be made that Trump would have beaten Biden in the swing states in 2022 while Democrats were holding up well.
He was a good chief executive, but he had no idea how to operate in a 21st century media environment.
I still think if he had completely owned the fact of being old and did a media blitz being the affable old grandpa and made fun of his infirmities (on podcasts, on the View . .heck I think he could've even charmed Joe Rogan in the right mindset) he could've helped his popularity a lot. But he was old school and from a time when the Presidency was "above" that type of strategy. I also think his advisors were overly protective and anxiety-ridden.
I'm all for acknowledging Biden's accomplishments, but you can't expect people to just ignore the fact that those accomplishments didn't translate into electoral success. To the extent that Biden himself contributed to that outcome is a worthy topic of discussion.
All true. My objection is to conducting that discussion in a manner that removes the focus from the outrageous behavior or the Trump Regime.
And my objection is this is just whataboutism. If Biden has things he needs to be called out for, so be it. Trump is irrelevant to the discussion.
Both these things can be true - Biden was as good a president as we could have asked for, given the circumstances AND it's also clear in retrospect that he should not have run for re-election.
GOOD NEWS: J.D. Vance Is Clear Favorite to Win 2028 GOP Nomination
A new J.L. Partners survey found 46% of Republican voters are ready to back Vice President J.D. Vance as President Donald Trump’s successor, while no other named prospect got more than single-digit support.
Just 8% would back Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, while 7% supported Vivek Ramaswamy. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) each received 6% support.
It will be fun when Trump inevitably turns on Vance. Autocrats *despise* the idea of handing power over to a successor. It was pretty clear in 2024 that he (Trump) would have preferred not to have had a running mate at all.
There is a horrendous amount of awfulness we've all had to endure and will have to endure but I'll be damned if JD Goofy bootlicking motherfucker Vance is the first millennial president.
Sidenote: Leslie Jones was amazing this week on the Daily Show.
"Leslie Jones Roasts the Goofy Motherf**kers Trump Appointed to Ruin the Country | The Daily Show"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhdAwTt33ls
I'm not assuming anything about the 2028 elections.
a wild, off-the-wall prediction: jdv won't be repub nominee.
Here are three other names on my For-God’s-Sake-Don’t-Nominate-Them list:
– Curtis Yarvin
– Peter Thiel
– Elon Musk
Musk is from South Africa and can't become U.S. president.
I believe that is also true of Thiel.
He's from Germany?
I thought he was from S.Africa. Not 100% sure, though.
Almost two weeks later, two Australia seats are still up in the air. Calwell should end up with ALP again, but the number of indie candidates has mucked up the final 1-on-1 preference calculaton: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/may/13/we-may-be-waiting-weeks-for-a-result-in-the-seat-of-calwell-the-most-complex-ever-counted-in-an-australian-election
Bradfield has the Liberal ahead by a hair: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/surprise-twist-in-bradfield-nail-biter-vote-count-20250516-p5lzto.html
I've been somewhat futilely checking the aussie results every day to see if we have a final call. I guess I can keep at it for a while, eh?
A 7 to 2 ruling? I wonder who the two dissenters were?
Just kidding. I know exactly who they were, didn’t even have to look.
https://x.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1923477117347430481
What was the story of far right Thomas and Alito's confirmation, anyone knows?
I would love for them to be replaced by a Democratic Senate between 2026-2036.
What do you mean story? Thomas was confirmed because some southern Democrats and Alan Dixon of Illinois voted for him. W Bush’s original choice, Harriet Meirs, was thought to be too lightweight and insufficiently conservative, so she dropped out and was replaced by Alito. Republicans controlled the senate.
Yes, and the Democrats refused to filibuster, which could have killed the nomination.
Democrats could have simply stopped the hearings for Thomas once the Anita Hill issues came up. They had 57 seats in the senate.
Sen Biden was running the show.
With the end of the session coming up, it wouldn't surprise me if one of the two would resign to allow Trump to replace in a guaranteed Republican environment. My fear would be that anybody Trump nominates wouldn't be nearly as normal as his 3 first term picks.
The only real disadvantage of a replacement of either of those 2 is that they would be younger. They could hardly be worse.
A replacement would eliminate us being able to flip the seat when we get back the presidency and the Senate, and given Trump's cabinet and other appointments I believe we could get much worse.
Over these next 4 years we need to build the foundation for Court Expansion or else we will never control the courts in our lifetimes.
Build the foundation how? While the Democrats lack control of the Senate is a terrible time to bring it up.
More importantly, when they lack control of _any_ branch of the Federal government.
It would be hard to get someone worse than Thomas. Could get someone just as bad.
Much worse than Thomas would be what? A murderer?
By the way, I was thinking John Yoo would be worse, and yet he just came out with a strong statement that there's no chance the Supreme Court would ever vote to sustain a suspension of habeus corpus by Trump, and if they did, that would be a much stronger ground for impeaching Trump than his last 2 go-arounds. Yoo is actually responsible for thousands of tortures and homicides of prisoners of war held without trial, so a very evil unprosecuted criminal, and yet he would be a less unconstitutional justice than Thomas.
Matthew Kacsmaryk? James Ho? Aileen Cannon?
Yes, those are three I was thinking of.
None of them are stepping down unless there is some health issue.
I disagree. Thomas steps down as soon as he can. He's out this fall is my guess to do what he loves: Make money for doing even less than he does on the court.
Why step down when can make money and still be on the court.
That assumes he doesn't really enjoy being a Justice. Don't you think he does?
The majority of African Americans supported his confirmation to the Senate. They wanted “one of their own” to replace Marshall. They didn’t care about his ideology, admired his “up from poverty in rural Georgia” story, and didn’t believe Anita Hill’s story. The reason was Bork was blocked but not Thomas was because African Americans opposed Bork, but not Thomas.
Lol and he publicly derided his own multiple job working Black sister as a single welfare queen. He has done more damage to Black interests than any other recent justice imo and there couldn't be a more white adjacent Black than Thomas.
And again, the majority of African Americans didn’t care. They wanted “one of their own.”
Please show me some evidence to support this notion....
That's an exaggeration. Justice Taney was the worst for Black people.
Taney’s decision was soon reversed by the Civil War. Henry Billings Brown’s decision had far more long-term impact.
That's true.
Any other recent justice*
I skipped over the word "recent" (or you edited the post).
I edited it after you pointed it out. I did not wish to exaggerate, I missed the word while writing it.
Since when does the majority supporting something mean that people in Congress have to vote for it? A majority of people (including republicans) support raising the minimum wage and universal healthcare. Do Republicans in Congress vote for those things? Nope
Republicans don’t get punished for ignoring voters. Democrats do. Like it or not, there are different standards for Democratic politicians than for Republican politicians. And BTW the majority of voters don’t support the complete elimination of private insurance healthcare options. If they did it would have happened by now.
By the same token, I don’t think a majority of African Americans supported eviscerating the VRA, which Thomas did.
Where did I say the majority of African Americans agreed with Thomas' politics? Nowhere. That doesn't mean they didn't want an African American on the SCOTUS.
The point is once they knew his politics they likely wouldn’t want him on the court. Just like once people know that universal healthcare would eliminate private insurance, they might not support it.
Did they not know his positions, or did they know and not care because "one of us?" There simply wasn't the same pressure to reject him the was there was to reject Bork back in 1987. If there had been, no way, no how does Thomas get appointed.
I highly doubt a majority of them knew his positions. If they did, I don’t think they’d have supported his confirmation.
How would universal healthcare with public health insurance along with stronger mandates and higher taxes eliminate private health insurance. It works this way in many European countries.
Democrats could have insisted that he wasn't the one. Subordinating a lifetime appointment to fear over politics in the immediate term is unforgivable, and we've seen the results ever since.
Especially given that voters almost certainly would have forgotten about it by the time the 1992 election rolled around.
Many of them did. 46 of the 48 votes against Thomas came from Democrats (Jim Jeffords and John Chafee being the two Republicans no votes). With the exceptions of Alan Dixon and James Exon, the 11 Democrats who said yes were southern conservatives whose elections were largely depended on African American voters. Rest assured if those voters had been against the Thomas confirmation, the Senators would have voted against confirmation. A major reason why then Democrat Richard Shelby voted against Bork back in 1987 was due to the fact that African Americans in Alabama had lobbied him big time in opposition.
Dixon lost his primary the next year to an African American woman (Carol Moseley Braun) mainly due to voting for Clarence Thomas. It was African Americans that powered her to victory in that race. If they supported Clarence Thomas’ confirmation that much I think Dixon would have won his primary in 1992.
It was in particular Black -women- who powered her victory.
About 50-55-60 percent of people oppose medicare for all without private health insurance options. But a majority like 60-65 and almost all Democrats want universal healthcare. A good compromise could be lowering Medicare to 55 and having stronger mandates and taxes for a public health insurance option with all types of family leave.
A majority of Republicans don't support raising the minimum wage and don't support universal healthcare. About 20 percent of them do as seen empirically in ballot measures.
Poll find that the majority of Americas support both of them but Republicans oppose even the public health insurance option. Moderate republicans have no power in their party.
Republicans propose gutting Biden climate bill for Trump tax cuts
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/republicans-propose-gutting-biden-climate-bill-for-trump-tax-cuts/
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/climate/biden-clean-energy-tax-credits-trump.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/climate/trump-clean-energy-republican-states.html
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-opinion-biden-ira-sends-green-energy-investment-republican-districts/
I am passionate for Climate change but it would be dishonest to say that I am sad that Cons are owning themselves here by ending the "Green new scam". They deserve it for the damage they have done to our nation, for "owning the libs", and for hurting the right people by gutting the climate justice fund.
I ran into my first example of supply of something being unavailable because of Trump. Costco has a chandelier ceiling fan in their current sale booklet that started last Wednesday. Per their front desk, they received notice that the item is no longer available, and per the manager they have 5 items in the current book that just didn't make it. He said they won't get the items at all, it's not just a delay. He said he's never seen anything like this. Costco has a good reputation for having advertised stock.
Maybe a majority of voters will stop their purposeful ignorance when they literally see empty shelves and can no longer deny how stupid they were to vote for Trump and Republicans in 2024. One can only hope, but it’s too late to change anything now, they should have realized this before they voted.
I haven’t seen many empty shelves when I went to Target last week.
Not yet! I have seen empty shelves at CVS and Target in SoCal.
Hope you've got an acceptable back up when you need circulation from this summer's heat wave.
It kind of blows my mind that if Trump had done literally nothing since being elected, the GOP run media, Republicans and voters would suddenly say the economy is amazing just because he’s in office and they want to justify their vote for the biggest conman in the world.
Along those lines, a weekend question for those armchair historians out there: What is the biggest self own a president has done in his first year in office for either party? Trump’s tariffs have to be pretty high up on that list I think?
Only he could manage to completely destroy his presidency, the vibe economy and voter coalition on the left and right (no one likes tariffs, not the Obama-Trump WWC or the liberals who thought Trump would be better for them) in the first 3 months of his term because of how incompetent he is at actually governing (sadly something Americans completely blanked out from his first term back when they voted in November).
It’s quite honestly impressive how much he’s screwed up the easiest presidency ever, do nothing and everyone just says it’s awesome rather than admitting to being gullible and falling for a scam twice.
It's hard to beat James Buchanan in 1857 related to the Dred Scott case and "Bleeding Kansas". Plus there was a financial panic that year.
Tariffs tripped up William Howard Taft in 1909; party division on the issue helped spark TR's insurgency. And we may not be able to blame Herbert Hoover for the 1929 stock market crash, but signing the Smoot-Hawley tariff was a big self inflicted second year blunder.
And the only other president to have non-consecutive terms, Grover Cleveland, faced an economic collapse and depression in his first year which, accompanied by his response, led to the opposition GOP sweeping the 1894 and 1896 elections establishing themselves as the clear majority party for most of the time until the 1930s.
What liberals that thought he would be better for them? Rich people who voted for Biden and Harris because they care about the nation but thought Trump would benefit them economically?
Types Iike actor Jon Lovitz who complained ever since Obama’s first term that he was being taxed too much (even though Obama and Democrats in Congress never raised taxes on the wealthy). He appeared on Fox News to vent, which is like going to Beverly Hills to bark about potholes in East LA.
he is not being taxed enough!!
He isn’t? That’s not fair!
It's not that he in particular isn't being taxed enough, it's that the wealthiest aren't, and no, it isn't fair.
To be clear, Jon Lovitz is not that wealthy compare to say Tom Hanks, who would likely not complain if he was paying more in taxes. I was making a joke at the expense of Lovitz given he complains about being taxed more than anyone in Hollywood.
That said, you can’t have it both ways as a liberal by stating you are one but are against taxes on the wealthy.
No, then maybe you're a social liberal but not a real liberal.
More moderate I would say.
Socially liberal, economically elitist. Basically, more like a classical Adam Smith liberal, I think.
Ok. That’s definitely not me!
So like I said.
The young people and minorities who crossed over to vote for him even though they’d voted for Democrats in previous elections. Trump won low income Democrats who were liberal, which padded his margins and helped him to win every single swing state.
Don’t ask me why or how they ever convinced themselves of that vote choice because I truly don’t have a clue.
This is based on self-identification in polls? How many of them might have been deliberately lying?
I can’t find this specific info again right now (oh how I wish we could search up previous viewed videos), but I remember it coming from a reputable source. That said, we know minorities and young people shifted to Trump in 2024, so while I can’t for sure have evidence to present you this second to backup my claim, we also can make an educated guess that this is indeed the case.
I wouldn't have expected those who switched Republican to vote for Trump to identify as liberal. More like lie-beral. You're telling me there are a significant number of liberals who are racist, anti-woke and support authoritarian bullying? If they're not lying, what do they think "liberal" means?
I found the chart, just look at it and read the article. Liberals voted for Trump because they thought Trump would make their own personal financial situation better. They’re not tuned into politics and are low information voters. It’s clear how much of a difference 2024 Trump vote was compared to the 2020 Trump vote.
https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/what-do-disengaged-voters-think-about?r=a9pj&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
Anyone who votes for that kind of guy just because they think he'll improve their personal financial situation is someone I would deny is really a liberal.
Here’s an understanding of what you are referring to:
Plenty of voters are increasingly disillusioned at the system and cast votes for Trump out of frustration, not enthusiasm.
If certain liberals voted for Trump, it was because Biden and Harris turned them off.
Extremely puerile and stupid, but I guess I can understand that as the reaction of really childish, destructive voters having temper tantrums.
Agreed although since Trump has been in office and with the deportation fiasco with Muhammad Khalil, younger voters are increasingly getting pissed. Far more so than they were before.
We do have a centennial House Democrat, freshman Representative Maxwell Frost of FL-10, although it would work to the Democratic Party’s advantage if there were greater representation in Congress by centennials and millennials.
Is centennial the name of a generation? I would have thought that meant someone 100 years old or older?
Yes. Centennials are the Gen Zers, just like Millennials are Gen Yers.
https://www.bbva.com/en/centennials-generation-never-known-world-internet/
What comes next, Gen AAers?
Who knows?
I am a xennial, a Gen Xer born in the late 70’s but who identifies more as a millennial. My father was born in the silent generation whereas my mother was a baby boomer.
I don't think there is any comparison, mostly because every other President had either risen through the ranks of lower elected offices or were generals in the army, which is an inherently political job, those guys have to testify to Congress and whatnot. Trump is just a spoiled brat who failed his way up by being famous for being famous. Like, if Kim Kardashian was president, I'd expect the same sort of competency.
I will say though in a strange way, Kim Kardashian is actually being more successful in her business empire than Trump has been with his.
That is not saying a lot!
Yep. Ike was effective for a reason, and somebody like Jack Pershing or Wesley Clark probably would have been, too. For same reason
Not sure about Wesley Clark.
I'll add another two cents, George W Bush trying to privatize Social Security after he barely won reelection was a huge own goal that contributed heavily to the 2006 wave.
That was my thought for a modern non-Trump example. Not only did it hurt his party but it took up time that they could have spent doing something else.
https://www.politico.eu/article/romanian-presidential-election-results-nicusor-dan-george-simion/
According to exit polls, Nicusor Dan, the Mayor of Bucharest, will be the next President of Romania.
He's being projected to defeat far-right candidate George Simon.
That's a relief!
Biden diagnosed with aggressive form of prostate cancer
The disease included “metastasis to the bone,” according to a statement from his personal office.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/18/joe-biden-prostate-cancer-00356411
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/joe-biden-prostate-cancer-diagnosis-what-a-gleason-score-of-9-means-101747599622237.html
The press release noted a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) and metastasis to the bone. Below is an explanation of what a Gleason score of 9 means in the context of this diagnosis.
What is a Gleason Score?
The Gleason score is a grading system used to assess the aggressiveness of prostate cancer based on the appearance of cancer cells under a microscope. It ranges from 6 to 10, with higher scores indicating more aggressive cancer. A score of 9 is among the highest, signifying a highly aggressive form
They also said “it appears to be hormone sensitive, which allows for effective management.”
I don't understand how someone with access to the type of medical care Biden has got to this stage of cancer when diagnosed.
I suspect he probably waved off certain exams that are uncomfortable. Most people aren't fond of digital rectal exams, but they can detect prostate cancer. Plus he has access to MRIs that the normal human fights with insurance to get covered.
It could also have been detected in bloodwork through abnormal levels of Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA).
At that age the progression can be pretty fast. I also don't think the stress of the past year has helped at all.
Mr. Biden’s office said the former president had urinary symptoms, which led him to seek medical attention.
But, Dr. Lin said, “I highly doubt his symptoms were due to cancer.”
Instead, he said, the most likely scenario is that a doctor did an exam, noticed a nodule on Mr. Biden’s prostate and did a blood test, the prostate-specific antigen test.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/health/joe-biden-diagnosis-prostate-cancer.html
https://www.politico.eu/article/rafal-trzaskowski-warsaw-mayor-narrow-win-poland-presidential-election-runoff-vote/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/18/centre-right-party-on-course-to-win-in-portugal-as-far-right-make-record-gains
Elections were also held in Poland (Presidential) and Portugal today.
In Poland, there will be a runoff between Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski (Civic Platform) and Karol Nawrocki (PiS).
In Portugal, the Center-Right Democratic Alliance remains the largest party in the assembly with 86 seats, while the far-right Chega Party and the Socialists each earned 58 seats.
Those don't seem like great results.