Here, in order of primary election date, are the candidates I have pitched in for. I am interested in any feedback about these races. But let’s face it… I’m more interested in positive feedback.
I have also pitched in to the State and Local Election Alliance and to Contest Every Race. You are buying kind of a pig in a poke with entities like that. Their targets are so very very many that you would think they would do well just gathering low-hanging fruit. But until they have a track record of successfully gathering low-hanging fruit, it seems they might do a slicker job of explaining their targeting methodology and their allocation of resources. But I simply assume the best of their good intentions.
Some local news: the data center mayhem has come to North Central West Virginia, with two data centers expected to be built in Marion and Tucker counties.
When I was in Tucker last, there was a large anti-data center push from locals that live in the small liberal enclaves of Davis and Thomas. Meanwhile, Marion County has a much larger liberal voting bloc, but they're building it in a rural unincorporated area outside of Fairmont.
A thought I had about the gerrymandering and apportionment problems: could (or should) Democratic governments or organizations in the North and West encourage another Great Migration from the Confederate States? Perhaps targeted ads towards Black professionals like doctors, nurses, teachers, etc who might be looking for a more welcoming climate in the face of Republican cuts to health and education, attacks on DEI, civil rights, and everything else? I'm just spitballing here so feel free to me this is a wrong or impossible approach.
Yes, I was thinking more of the deep South like Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Might also consider a branch out to messaging to Hispanic populations in Florida and Texas, depending on how the trends go there. I know there has been a reverse migration to the big cities in the South, Atlanta and Charlotte and Houston and so on. But things can change. And who knows, you might even see ads with maple leaves on them looking for people to emigrate.
Several of the Republican states that have passed draconian abortion laws have already seen an exodus of doctors, particularly ob/gyns, and are having trouble recruiting young talent in the medical field.
The problem is most people aren’t really factoring in politics when moving to different places. Jobs, affordability, climate are always the biggest drivers. If you get a nice job offer in Tennessee or Alabama most are not turning it down because of how red the state is.
I wonder how true this is these days? Historically what you say was absolutely true, but the country is sorting itself ideologically to a greater degree as time goes on.
Anecdotally, the way people respond to my personal opposition to relocating to red states is very different between recent statements and statements made many years ago. In the past people would treat it as something that made sense if it was important to me, but not something they would care about. Today I get far more people making statements of agreement, that they also would be unable to bear living in a deep red state. I care about politics far more than everyone I interact with in person.
Most specifically for affordability, African Americans in the South (especially in rural areas) tend to be rather poor, and considering bluer states tend to be expensive, there may not be many places where they can move to.
That'll be pretty tough due to Memphis' geographical location, and that aggressively cracking Memphis could inadvertently weaken the Nashville gerrymander.
Also depends on how much Kustoff, Van Epps, and Ogles are willing to play ball with taking in Memphis black voters in their districts.
yeah, the ideal R-map for TN (cracking both Memphis and Nashville) would require horizontal strips across the state to take in deep red Appalachia. Not sure how much willingness there is for that in the delegation.
I think the other big issue is the courts. Aside from legal issues surrounding the district itself the other issue is if it’s too late to redistrict this late in the cycle, since the filing deadline is long past.
Beyond the partisan consequences I have to imagine southern cities are going to suffer additional economic consequences if all of their federal representatives only represent a sliver of those cities and said representatives use the cities as political punching bags.
Some clarity would be nice. From what I've seen, on the one hand, the ruling defends compact, geographically logical VRA districts but then on the other delineates criteria that some are interpreting as "Okay, guys, just play dumb on racial statistics and you can map however you want. Just declare you want all Republican districts and nobody can stop you."
If tearing apart a geographically compact majority-minority district in order to create a majority white district isn’t vote dilution, I don’t know what is.
But yes, the Republicans are acting as if every majority-minority district, at least in the south, is by definition unconstitutional.
I think I'm approaching this from the POV that the focus of the case was on additional majority-minority districts (i.e. the ones in Louisiana and AL) and not legacy ones.
When those corrupt Republican hack judges don't overturn laws and decisions in one fell swoop, they do it by death from 1,000 cuts. Therefore, trying to parse their illegitimate, unconstitutional decisions for some remaining crumb they would enforce is a waste of time.
Is a 17-0 Illinois map really possible? I’ve seen some maps floating on twitter with like 17 bacon strips from Chicago stretching downstate but they never have PVI data.
Just factoring in incumbent demands, 17 safe seats where everyone is happy seems like a fantasy but maybe it’s possible.
I haven’t drawn it in a while but I’d settle for 2 or 3 downstate GOP seats to ensure the other 15 stay blue even in a bad wave. Ditto what I would’ve done in VA (9-2).
Illinois is blue but not so overwhelmingly blue that I would want to risk a 17-0 or even 16-1. I’d like Chicago to not be completely sliced up, as well.
Depending on what can be made I can imagine a 16-1 map being non-risky. Concentrate enough republicans in one district and the rest become a lot more reliable.
Theoretically if every district was balanced perfectly they would all be Harris +10. With a single republican district I could see that getting to the +12-14 range depending. Of course we wouldn't get that perfect even distribution in practice, but if we can get most of the districts to +14 with 2-4 in the +5-10 range I think that would be a good result. Question is if that's possible.
Being retired, disabled, and old, I have more available time than money, and even before Callais I have signed up with groups in California and Arizona to work on campaigns and GOTV.
Desert Democracy in Arizona is focused on 1, 6, and 2 congressional districts, but also state house and Senate seats to try to flip one or both statehouses.
People in the group are also focused on making sure we don't get rolled again on redistricting in 2031 like we did in 2021. In 2021, the allegedly independent commissioner voted with the 2 Republicans on virtually every issue taking us from 6-3 D to 6-3 R.
Thank you for your service, DM – present and upcoming. I really really hope that, come November, Arizonans and Left-Coasters will celebrate the fruits of your labor!
Not sure of poster's opinions on this topic - this person did an alternate history video where every President from 1976-2000 was instead a figure from the opposite party.
I'll save you an hour - skip if you're not a fan of this sort of thing:
1976: POTUS Gerald R. Ford and KS Sen. Bob Dole defeat GA Gov. Jimmy Carter and MN Sen. Walter Mondale.
1980: Former CA Gov. Burt Lancaster (Reagan) and DNC chair Sargent Shriver (Bush Sr.) defeat VPOTUS Bob Dole and NSA George H.W. Bush (Mondale). They also defeat the independent ticket of WA Sen. Scoop Jackson (Anderson) and former OR Gov. Tom McCall (Lucey).
1984: POTUS Burt Lancaster and VPOTUS Sargent Shriver defeat former NSA George H.W. Bush and Ambassador Shirley Temple (Ferraro).
1988: VPOTUS Sargent Shriver (Bush Sr.) and DE Sen. Joe Biden (Quayle) defeat NV Sen. Paul Laxalt (Dukakis) and RI Sen. John Chafee (Bentsen).
1992: ME Gov. John McKernan (Clinton) and NH Sen. John H. Sununu (Gore) defeat POTUS Sargent Shriver and VPOTUS Joe Biden. They also defeat the independent ticket of businessman Steve Forbes (Perot) and judge Clarence Thomas (Stockdale).
1996: POTUS John McKernan and VPOTUS John H. Sununu defeat former SD Sen. George McGovern (Dole) and NJ Sen. Bill Bradley (Kemp). They also defeat the independent ticket of Forbes, again, and economist Milton Friedman (Choate).
2000: CA Gov. Bobby Shriver (Bush Jr.) and strategist Hamilton Jordan (Cheney) defeat VPOTUS John H. Sununu (Gore) and PA Sen. Arlen Specter (Lieberman).
As somebody who’s written an alt-1976 timeline himself on alternate history.com, the 1980 candidate people should really look at had Ford won would have been New York Governor Hugh Carey (for my timeline I tapped Reuben Askew of Florida as his VP)
My favorite alternate history book is still Philip Roth's "Plot Against America" which I recently reread based on a quip on this site, I believe by David, about Lindbergh becoming president. After rereading, it took on a really new meaning based on a new world under Trump.
Roth's best book however is still the infamous "Portnoy's Complaint" which I also recently reread and found as shocking as I did in the 1970s.
Rick Wilson and his son Andrew on their Friday "Behind the Numbers" podcast say that while the GOP has a ton of money to burn, they've already triaged Michael Whatley's Senate campaign in NC (and that his campaign is "done").
This is quite surprising, given that Whatley was the RNC chair and even successfully got the president to push aside one of his own family members (in-law) to clear the field.
Cooper is far ahead in the fundraising race too, even before accounting for any outside PAC spending.
I’ll just say I have extreme doubts about whether Rick Wilson still has enough contacts in the GOP to get this kind of inside information after transforming into a resistlib over the last near decade. That goes doubly for his son. To me I think it’s more like them seeing the polls with Cooper above 50% and thinking this race is over combined with maybe a stray staffer on the opposition saying things aren’t looking good for Whatley to create this statement, rather than any hard evidence this is actually the case.
Giving up on a Republican held seat when they’re afraid of losing the majority seems like a colossally dumb move to make. In politics you want as many paths as possible to power, because 1 or 2 longshots may just pay off. If it is actually the case, why on earth a Republican staffer would talk to Rick Wilson of all people about midterm GOP Senate strategy and add in that the person only is willing to talk to Wilson (otherwise news orgs would be running this story everywhere), this seems like something beyond incredulity to me and is worth dismissing entirely without any further corroborating evidence. Anyone can say anything on the internet.
Let’s remember, he got you to click, view and then share this video, giving him more ad money, more subscribers and more views, just because he said exactly that, something so crazy and good for Democrats you just had to share it (also, not aiming this criticism at you particularly, many other Dems have and will do exactly as you have). That’s nothing against you or your opinion if you disagree, it’s just, I know how the mediasphere influencer ecosystem works. The more wild claims you make that no one else does, the more people think you have connections and tune in to hear the next one so they can be “informed” before everyone else.
It works the same on the right wing too, as it does our side.
I get what you're saying, but I have not seen any negative Cooper attack ads (yet) following the March primary. Now, are the GOP saving their money for after Labor Day? Yes.
As a NC voter, for me this Senate race went from toss-up to Lean Dem immediately after Roy Cooper announced his candidacy last summer. Cooper has been battle tested during multiple election cycles for AG and governor. And whatever "oppo" Rs have thrown at him isn't sticking.
We shall see how right Rick is this fall. If what he said bears fruit, Rs will have a beyond awful night on 11/3/26.
I also understand what you’re saying, but I disagree that if Cooper wins that means Rick Wilson had some kind of insider info on the race. That’s a mistake confusing correlation with causation. If, however, Republicans don’t spend any money for Whatley (which is what is the general agreed upon definition of the term triage), then I’ll say that Rick Wilson had some insider knowledge, which is obviously plausible due to his decades of connections made by his time in the GOP. Which is why he’s able to make this claim and some will believe it.
But that situation feels like it absolutely won’t happen unless Republican outside groups are broke, which they aren’t. They have over half a billion and millions more being raised daily to add to it. It would be akin to Democrats giving up on MN with the state party Democratic chair running in a midterm with Harris as President. Republicans haven’t won the state in decades, same with Democrats in NC, so you don’t ever give up on a seat in a state you’ve never lost a race in recent history, even with a likely brutally challenging midterm ahead of you.
His assertion defies any political logical sense that either party has followed in any election, good or bad. They support their nominees until they know the candidate is well and truly cooked later in the cycle. It’s never triaged at the start of the campaign season. Neither side has done that before and neither side has triaged at all unless the nominee is a catastrophe. Generic politicians rarely get triaged, unless they already represent opposing political turf that are impossible for them to win in a wave, which isn’t the case here. Even then though, Republicans never gave up on Comstock, the deadest of dead DOA Hillary double digit district GOP’er in the country in the 2018 blue wave.
I do agree with you on the Lean D rating for the race however and that the Republicans will likely save their cash until late.
WI-Gov: Powerful Democratic state Sen. Brad Pfaff, considered a potential running mate to this year's gubernatorial pick, has endorsed Joel Brennan, a little-known former aide of outgoing Gov. Tony Evers.
Rec'd for song choice. Sometimes I'm sitting at my comp, reading stupid stuff, and I'll think 'this is a good time to play Love Will Tear Us Apart' and cue it up on Youtube.
KY-Sen: Trump endorses Rep. Andy Barr, saying Elon Musk-backed businessman Nate Morris should drop out. Former Attorney General Daniel Cameron is also running in the Republican primary.
Democrats include former state Rep. Charles Booker, Navy veteran Amy McGrath, state Rep. Pamela Stevenson, horse trainer Dale Romans, and attorney Logan Forsythe.
Morris is saying that he is endorsing Barr, though how much weight that will carry, given the way Morris and Barr have been bashing one another since their campaigns started, is open to question.
FL-22: Republican businessman Michael Carbonara, who previously challenged Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, will now run for the presumably open 22nd.
DWS is such a relic of the Obama era, she also put her finger on the scale as the head of the DNC for Hillary in 2016…this gerrymander is a disgrace but she’s exactly the type of complacent corporate Dem I will not miss in the house.
DWS’ only success as DNC Chair was helping President Obama get re-elected. Any other successes Democrats had at the down ballot back in 2012 really came in light of the enthusiasm of re-electing Obama for a 2nd term.
But DWS had no real success after 2012. Terry McAuliffe did win the gubernatorial race but Chris Christie got re-elected as Governor. 2014 midterms were a disaster.
Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t McAuliffe win in part due to an unelectable Tea Party loon (Ken Cuccinelli) being the GOP nominee? Or was that a different race? There were a few cases like that, Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, the witch lady in Delaware, Sharron Angle, etc.
Agreed, Dems benefitted from the government shutdown, and the Libertarian candidate received an unusually high 7%, thus somewhat dividing the conservative vote.
Pretty much anytime a sitting elected official is made DNC chair rather than someone who has it is a full time job, it’s a disaster for the party. See both Tim Kaine and DWS.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/01/us/politics/alex-bores-chris-larsen-open-ai-jack-schlossberg.html
*Repost from digest*
NY-12: California tech billionaire Chris Larsen will spend at least $3.5 million to boost Democratic Assemblyman Alex Bores.
Here, in order of primary election date, are the candidates I have pitched in for. I am interested in any feedback about these races. But let’s face it… I’m more interested in positive feedback.
Keisha Lance Bottoms
Georgia Governor
Tina Shah
NJ-7
Deb Haaland
NM Governor
Letitia James
NY AG
Joanna Mendoza
Arizona-6
Don Coover
Kansas-2
Sharice Davids
Kansas-3
Sandy Spidel Neumann
Kansas US Senate
Cindy Holscher
Kansas Governor
Ilhan Omar
Minnesota-5
Peggy Flanagan
Minnesota US Senate
Mary Peltola
Alaska US Senate
I like Esteves for GA-Gov and probably Bennett for NJ-7, but the rest seem pretty reasonable.
Sometimes I have been mistaken for a pretty reasonable man.
I have also pitched in to the State and Local Election Alliance and to Contest Every Race. You are buying kind of a pig in a poke with entities like that. Their targets are so very very many that you would think they would do well just gathering low-hanging fruit. But until they have a track record of successfully gathering low-hanging fruit, it seems they might do a slicker job of explaining their targeting methodology and their allocation of resources. But I simply assume the best of their good intentions.
https://www.wboy.com/news/tucker/12-news-exclusive-data-center-official-discusses-tucker-county-project/
https://res.cloudinary.com/jll-global-sandbox/image/upload/v1756822731/MyListing/public/prod/property-875565/hog-lick-appalachian-mega-site-data-center-04.pdf
Some local news: the data center mayhem has come to North Central West Virginia, with two data centers expected to be built in Marion and Tucker counties.
When I was in Tucker last, there was a large anti-data center push from locals that live in the small liberal enclaves of Davis and Thomas. Meanwhile, Marion County has a much larger liberal voting bloc, but they're building it in a rural unincorporated area outside of Fairmont.
A thought I had about the gerrymandering and apportionment problems: could (or should) Democratic governments or organizations in the North and West encourage another Great Migration from the Confederate States? Perhaps targeted ads towards Black professionals like doctors, nurses, teachers, etc who might be looking for a more welcoming climate in the face of Republican cuts to health and education, attacks on DEI, civil rights, and everything else? I'm just spitballing here so feel free to me this is a wrong or impossible approach.
Any such effort would need to be very well-targeted. We don't want African-Americans moving out of Georgia or North Carolina.
Yes, I was thinking more of the deep South like Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Might also consider a branch out to messaging to Hispanic populations in Florida and Texas, depending on how the trends go there. I know there has been a reverse migration to the big cities in the South, Atlanta and Charlotte and Houston and so on. But things can change. And who knows, you might even see ads with maple leaves on them looking for people to emigrate.
Several of the Republican states that have passed draconian abortion laws have already seen an exodus of doctors, particularly ob/gyns, and are having trouble recruiting young talent in the medical field.
i'd back an effort to encourage them to move there though a lot of young professionals moving there are part of the reason they remain competitive.
The problem is most people aren’t really factoring in politics when moving to different places. Jobs, affordability, climate are always the biggest drivers. If you get a nice job offer in Tennessee or Alabama most are not turning it down because of how red the state is.
I wonder how true this is these days? Historically what you say was absolutely true, but the country is sorting itself ideologically to a greater degree as time goes on.
Anecdotally, the way people respond to my personal opposition to relocating to red states is very different between recent statements and statements made many years ago. In the past people would treat it as something that made sense if it was important to me, but not something they would care about. Today I get far more people making statements of agreement, that they also would be unable to bear living in a deep red state. I care about politics far more than everyone I interact with in person.
But, of course, anecdotes are just that.
Most specifically for affordability, African Americans in the South (especially in rural areas) tend to be rather poor, and considering bluer states tend to be expensive, there may not be many places where they can move to.
If this were feasible, Illinois would have the highest population growth of any state in the country right now, but it doesn't for a lot of reasons.
Lee calls a special session to redistrict TN to eliminate a minority opportunity district that happens to have a white representative.
https://x.com/thetnholler/status/2050332577878224962?s=46&t=sbdQQeYBqp0h_Zql717iTw
He better be careful - if he stretches a district from somewhere in Memphis to the city of Jackson, it could be swingy.
Unfortunately they’ll probably just do Memphis like they did Nashville and split it 3 or 4 ways.
That'll be pretty tough due to Memphis' geographical location, and that aggressively cracking Memphis could inadvertently weaken the Nashville gerrymander.
Also depends on how much Kustoff, Van Epps, and Ogles are willing to play ball with taking in Memphis black voters in their districts.
yeah, the ideal R-map for TN (cracking both Memphis and Nashville) would require horizontal strips across the state to take in deep red Appalachia. Not sure how much willingness there is for that in the delegation.
I think the other big issue is the courts. Aside from legal issues surrounding the district itself the other issue is if it’s too late to redistrict this late in the cycle, since the filing deadline is long past.
It would be past the deadline, but only for Democrats.
Beyond the partisan consequences I have to imagine southern cities are going to suffer additional economic consequences if all of their federal representatives only represent a sliver of those cities and said representatives use the cities as political punching bags.
Some clarity would be nice. From what I've seen, on the one hand, the ruling defends compact, geographically logical VRA districts but then on the other delineates criteria that some are interpreting as "Okay, guys, just play dumb on racial statistics and you can map however you want. Just declare you want all Republican districts and nobody can stop you."
This seems to be about testing boundaries.
If tearing apart a geographically compact majority-minority district in order to create a majority white district isn’t vote dilution, I don’t know what is.
But yes, the Republicans are acting as if every majority-minority district, at least in the south, is by definition unconstitutional.
Did the opinion have anything to say about retrogression? That seems to be the biggest missing piece.
If by that you mean getting rid of majority-minority districts that have been around for a while, like TN 9, no.
I think I'm approaching this from the POV that the focus of the case was on additional majority-minority districts (i.e. the ones in Louisiana and AL) and not legacy ones.
When those corrupt Republican hack judges don't overturn laws and decisions in one fell swoop, they do it by death from 1,000 cuts. Therefore, trying to parse their illegitimate, unconstitutional decisions for some remaining crumb they would enforce is a waste of time.
https://www.cbsnews.com/atlanta/news/david-scott-death-special-election-congressional-district/
GA-13: The special election for the late Rep. David Scott's seat will be held on July 28.
At least they held one.
Is a 17-0 Illinois map really possible? I’ve seen some maps floating on twitter with like 17 bacon strips from Chicago stretching downstate but they never have PVI data.
Just factoring in incumbent demands, 17 safe seats where everyone is happy seems like a fantasy but maybe it’s possible.
You’d basically have to have all 17 districts like a slot car track that goes into Chicago.
Hire abgin!
I haven’t drawn it in a while but I’d settle for 2 or 3 downstate GOP seats to ensure the other 15 stay blue even in a bad wave. Ditto what I would’ve done in VA (9-2).
Illinois is blue but not so overwhelmingly blue that I would want to risk a 17-0 or even 16-1. I’d like Chicago to not be completely sliced up, as well.
Depending on what can be made I can imagine a 16-1 map being non-risky. Concentrate enough republicans in one district and the rest become a lot more reliable.
Theoretically if every district was balanced perfectly they would all be Harris +10. With a single republican district I could see that getting to the +12-14 range depending. Of course we wouldn't get that perfect even distribution in practice, but if we can get most of the districts to +14 with 2-4 in the +5-10 range I think that would be a good result. Question is if that's possible.
Being retired, disabled, and old, I have more available time than money, and even before Callais I have signed up with groups in California and Arizona to work on campaigns and GOTV.
Desert Democracy in Arizona is focused on 1, 6, and 2 congressional districts, but also state house and Senate seats to try to flip one or both statehouses.
People in the group are also focused on making sure we don't get rolled again on redistricting in 2031 like we did in 2021. In 2021, the allegedly independent commissioner voted with the 2 Republicans on virtually every issue taking us from 6-3 D to 6-3 R.
I'm going to do as much volunteering as I can.
I am 25, will be 26 soon, and I am planning to spend this summer volunteering as best I can — preferably in my swing district of NY-17.
🫡 grew up in AZ so thank you for your service!
I’ll be knocking doors for Roy Cooper and Anita Earls this summer!
Thank you for your service, DM – present and upcoming. I really really hope that, come November, Arizonans and Left-Coasters will celebrate the fruits of your labor!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdMzMfuqVtE
Not sure of poster's opinions on this topic - this person did an alternate history video where every President from 1976-2000 was instead a figure from the opposite party.
I'll save you an hour - skip if you're not a fan of this sort of thing:
1976: POTUS Gerald R. Ford and KS Sen. Bob Dole defeat GA Gov. Jimmy Carter and MN Sen. Walter Mondale.
1980: Former CA Gov. Burt Lancaster (Reagan) and DNC chair Sargent Shriver (Bush Sr.) defeat VPOTUS Bob Dole and NSA George H.W. Bush (Mondale). They also defeat the independent ticket of WA Sen. Scoop Jackson (Anderson) and former OR Gov. Tom McCall (Lucey).
1984: POTUS Burt Lancaster and VPOTUS Sargent Shriver defeat former NSA George H.W. Bush and Ambassador Shirley Temple (Ferraro).
1988: VPOTUS Sargent Shriver (Bush Sr.) and DE Sen. Joe Biden (Quayle) defeat NV Sen. Paul Laxalt (Dukakis) and RI Sen. John Chafee (Bentsen).
1992: ME Gov. John McKernan (Clinton) and NH Sen. John H. Sununu (Gore) defeat POTUS Sargent Shriver and VPOTUS Joe Biden. They also defeat the independent ticket of businessman Steve Forbes (Perot) and judge Clarence Thomas (Stockdale).
1996: POTUS John McKernan and VPOTUS John H. Sununu defeat former SD Sen. George McGovern (Dole) and NJ Sen. Bill Bradley (Kemp). They also defeat the independent ticket of Forbes, again, and economist Milton Friedman (Choate).
2000: CA Gov. Bobby Shriver (Bush Jr.) and strategist Hamilton Jordan (Cheney) defeat VPOTUS John H. Sununu (Gore) and PA Sen. Arlen Specter (Lieberman).
Henry Fonda would have made a better governor and president
Than Lancaster, you mean? As a progressive alternative to Reagan?
Both
As somebody who’s written an alt-1976 timeline himself on alternate history.com, the 1980 candidate people should really look at had Ford won would have been New York Governor Hugh Carey (for my timeline I tapped Reuben Askew of Florida as his VP)
My favorite alternate history book is still Philip Roth's "Plot Against America" which I recently reread based on a quip on this site, I believe by David, about Lindbergh becoming president. After rereading, it took on a really new meaning based on a new world under Trump.
Roth's best book however is still the infamous "Portnoy's Complaint" which I also recently reread and found as shocking as I did in the 1970s.
For All Mankind’s alternate history is wild.
Rick Wilson and his son Andrew on their Friday "Behind the Numbers" podcast say that while the GOP has a ton of money to burn, they've already triaged Michael Whatley's Senate campaign in NC (and that his campaign is "done").
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THkz9CIJQxs
Go to 26:00 for the relevant comments.
3 months ago I said Cooper wins big!
This is quite surprising, given that Whatley was the RNC chair and even successfully got the president to push aside one of his own family members (in-law) to clear the field.
Cooper is far ahead in the fundraising race too, even before accounting for any outside PAC spending.
Lara Trump would get steamrolled by Cooper. Probably even more than Whatley will be after November.
I’ll just say I have extreme doubts about whether Rick Wilson still has enough contacts in the GOP to get this kind of inside information after transforming into a resistlib over the last near decade. That goes doubly for his son. To me I think it’s more like them seeing the polls with Cooper above 50% and thinking this race is over combined with maybe a stray staffer on the opposition saying things aren’t looking good for Whatley to create this statement, rather than any hard evidence this is actually the case.
Giving up on a Republican held seat when they’re afraid of losing the majority seems like a colossally dumb move to make. In politics you want as many paths as possible to power, because 1 or 2 longshots may just pay off. If it is actually the case, why on earth a Republican staffer would talk to Rick Wilson of all people about midterm GOP Senate strategy and add in that the person only is willing to talk to Wilson (otherwise news orgs would be running this story everywhere), this seems like something beyond incredulity to me and is worth dismissing entirely without any further corroborating evidence. Anyone can say anything on the internet.
Let’s remember, he got you to click, view and then share this video, giving him more ad money, more subscribers and more views, just because he said exactly that, something so crazy and good for Democrats you just had to share it (also, not aiming this criticism at you particularly, many other Dems have and will do exactly as you have). That’s nothing against you or your opinion if you disagree, it’s just, I know how the mediasphere influencer ecosystem works. The more wild claims you make that no one else does, the more people think you have connections and tune in to hear the next one so they can be “informed” before everyone else.
It works the same on the right wing too, as it does our side.
I get what you're saying, but I have not seen any negative Cooper attack ads (yet) following the March primary. Now, are the GOP saving their money for after Labor Day? Yes.
As a NC voter, for me this Senate race went from toss-up to Lean Dem immediately after Roy Cooper announced his candidacy last summer. Cooper has been battle tested during multiple election cycles for AG and governor. And whatever "oppo" Rs have thrown at him isn't sticking.
We shall see how right Rick is this fall. If what he said bears fruit, Rs will have a beyond awful night on 11/3/26.
I also understand what you’re saying, but I disagree that if Cooper wins that means Rick Wilson had some kind of insider info on the race. That’s a mistake confusing correlation with causation. If, however, Republicans don’t spend any money for Whatley (which is what is the general agreed upon definition of the term triage), then I’ll say that Rick Wilson had some insider knowledge, which is obviously plausible due to his decades of connections made by his time in the GOP. Which is why he’s able to make this claim and some will believe it.
But that situation feels like it absolutely won’t happen unless Republican outside groups are broke, which they aren’t. They have over half a billion and millions more being raised daily to add to it. It would be akin to Democrats giving up on MN with the state party Democratic chair running in a midterm with Harris as President. Republicans haven’t won the state in decades, same with Democrats in NC, so you don’t ever give up on a seat in a state you’ve never lost a race in recent history, even with a likely brutally challenging midterm ahead of you.
His assertion defies any political logical sense that either party has followed in any election, good or bad. They support their nominees until they know the candidate is well and truly cooked later in the cycle. It’s never triaged at the start of the campaign season. Neither side has done that before and neither side has triaged at all unless the nominee is a catastrophe. Generic politicians rarely get triaged, unless they already represent opposing political turf that are impossible for them to win in a wave, which isn’t the case here. Even then though, Republicans never gave up on Comstock, the deadest of dead DOA Hillary double digit district GOP’er in the country in the 2018 blue wave.
I do agree with you on the Lean D rating for the race however and that the Republicans will likely save their cash until late.
https://www.wispolitics.com/2026/brennan-campaign-state-senator-brad-pfaff-endorses-joel-brennan-for-governor/
WI-Gov: Powerful Democratic state Sen. Brad Pfaff, considered a potential running mate to this year's gubernatorial pick, has endorsed Joel Brennan, a little-known former aide of outgoing Gov. Tony Evers.
Mystifying lol
Rec'd for song choice. Sometimes I'm sitting at my comp, reading stupid stuff, and I'll think 'this is a good time to play Love Will Tear Us Apart' and cue it up on Youtube.
https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article315607450.html
KY-Sen: Trump endorses Rep. Andy Barr, saying Elon Musk-backed businessman Nate Morris should drop out. Former Attorney General Daniel Cameron is also running in the Republican primary.
Democrats include former state Rep. Charles Booker, Navy veteran Amy McGrath, state Rep. Pamela Stevenson, horse trainer Dale Romans, and attorney Logan Forsythe.
hahahahahaha
So what ambassadorship should Morris get from Trump for dropping out?
~~~~~~~
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/01/us/politics/trump-andy-barr-kentucky-senate-endorsement.html
Trump Endorses Andy Barr for Senate as Musk-Backed Candidate Exits Race
The candidate in Kentucky, Nate Morris, said he would be joining the Trump administration.
The president said that he planned to appoint Mr. Morris as a U.S. ambassador.
There are a lot of options...
https://afsa.org/list-ambassadorial-appointments
Elon and King Donald not on the same page? Oh, this could be fun. Pass the nachos, please – I’m not fond of popcorn.
https://kentuckylantern.com/2026/05/01/trump-causes-political-earthquake-in-ky-backing-barr-alvarado-in-u-s-senate-house-races/
Morris is saying that he is endorsing Barr, though how much weight that will carry, given the way Morris and Barr have been bashing one another since their campaigns started, is open to question.
https://www.tcpalm.com/story/opinion/columnists/laurence-reisman/2026/05/01/vero-beach-ex-mayor-oks-florida-map-eyes-seat-in-congress/89878275007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=false&gca-epti=z11xx05p119750l004450c119750e008680v11xx05&gca-ft=28&gca-ds=sophi
FL-9: Republican state Rep. Robbie Brackett will challenge Democratic Rep. Darren Soto.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.manilatimes.net/2026/05/02/tmt-newswire/globenewswire/carbonara-announces-run-for-us-congress-in-floridas-redrawn-22nd-district/2334115/amp
FL-22: Republican businessman Michael Carbonara, who previously challenged Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, will now run for the presumably open 22nd.
It may be petty but i remember DWS putting her friendships with the S FLa GOP ahead of her job to elect more Democrats. How’s that working out?
DWS is such a relic of the Obama era, she also put her finger on the scale as the head of the DNC for Hillary in 2016…this gerrymander is a disgrace but she’s exactly the type of complacent corporate Dem I will not miss in the house.
DWS’ only success as DNC Chair was helping President Obama get re-elected. Any other successes Democrats had at the down ballot back in 2012 really came in light of the enthusiasm of re-electing Obama for a 2nd term.
But DWS had no real success after 2012. Terry McAuliffe did win the gubernatorial race but Chris Christie got re-elected as Governor. 2014 midterms were a disaster.
Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t McAuliffe win in part due to an unelectable Tea Party loon (Ken Cuccinelli) being the GOP nominee? Or was that a different race? There were a few cases like that, Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, the witch lady in Delaware, Sharron Angle, etc.
For the most part, yes. McAuliffe winning the race was a fluke.
Agreed, Dems benefitted from the government shutdown, and the Libertarian candidate received an unusually high 7%, thus somewhat dividing the conservative vote.
Pretty much anytime a sitting elected official is made DNC chair rather than someone who has it is a full time job, it’s a disaster for the party. See both Tim Kaine and DWS.
That practice should forever stop.
ALL DNC Chairs need to be on the job full-time.
DWS has been a net negative for the Democratic party. That's all I'll say,
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/01/pope-former-undocumented-immigrant-bishop-west-virginia
Not electoral, but some interesting local news:
Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, an outspoken former undocumented immigrant, was appointed by Pope Leo XIV as the bishop for West Virginia.
has donald voiced an opinion yet?
No, but my very own Rep. Riley Moore, a Trump lackey who went to CECOT and posed in front of a crowded cell, is fine with it.
https://rileymoore.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-riley-m-moore-welcomes-new-bishop-diocese-wheeling-charleston
good