I am curious to see how the special election in TN-07 is going to evolve into getting TN Democrats more activism, energy and practical strategy post-election. It would be awesome if Democrats could win the House seat, even by a razor thin, tiny margin but regardless of the outcome, I hope it doesn’t just end there in the state.
Ehhh....I wouldn't be too sure of a D+10 or similar level wave. Individual races aside, I don't want us to be like the GOP in 2022 when a moderately successful result looked like a defeat after expectations were enlarged due to (frequently off-base) polling and related punditry.
Sure, take nothing for granted. But 2022 had both 1.) Dobbs come down and 2.) Republicans gifting us multiple Senate and gubernatorial races with terrible candidates. We do not have something similar to 1.) on the horizon that would galvanize Republican voters in the way that Dobbs did for Dems. We also have far superior candidates on the whole than the GOP. The only risky ones I’m worried about are Platner and AES, which I’ve said before. Mandela Barnes and KLB to a lesser extent in the gubernatorial races, but I think even they would end up winning.
Hi, lurker here. What does everyone think of the chances of Aftyn Behn winning the TN-07 special election? What is the history of Dems winning districts with a similar PVI? I have limited resources to donate, and can't afford to donate to Marcus Flowers / hopeless candidates.
TN-07 is an R+10 district, which means we'd expect a typical margin of R+20. Which aligns with the past few election cycles there.
I do not want to say "impossible" but it's very unlikely that we win that special. It would require conditions similar to the Georgia PSC elections recently -- democrats show up to vote while republicans stay home. It's a very long shot.
With limited resources to donate I'd focus on other elections. Maybe save up to donate for next year's general election or find a primary candidate you care deeply about that has a chance. Which depends a lot on your own preferences.
Cook Political Report moved TN-7 from Safe Republican to Likely Republican because Republican operatives are worried about low turnout from reliably GOP voters, a rare problem for the Republicans.
Yes, it sure is! 😉 Let’s not be a debby downer here. Its compelely possible. You can have your feelings, and I will have mine. Have a fantastic, hopeful day!
I don’t think Behn will win but the margins will be curious to me. If it’s even slightly closer than normal the GOP is in deep shit next year, given the partisan lean of the seat.
Considering some of the extreme flips that have happened in special elections, I think it's possible, but it's way too much for us to consider it more likely than not, and the margin will certainly be interesting.
You should never donate to hopeless candidates like Marcus Flowers. Any donations you make should be strategic and practical. There are already more than enough people out there who donate to hopeless candidates without researching the state or district they’re running in.
I donated, and even though she's not favored to win, I'd encourage others to donate to her if they can afford it.
An upset is plausible, but not likely. It will require everything going right. To me, that's a bet worth making. And even if she doesn't win, getting the margins as scary close as possible could wake up Republicans in more vulnerable seats, causing them start to turn on Trump.
For anyone who needs it, here is the link to donate:
Jersey City Mayor's Race: Much has been written about how Solomon could be this side of the river's Zohran, because each are running against former governors that resigned in a scanda or in cuomos case facing impeachment/multiple scandals in multiple areas. Beyond that though, zohran, love him or hate him, undeniably believes what he says. His record in the assembly is brief, but reflects mainstream left wing values that put peoples lives first. And as he said in one of the many debates, it's a benefit for new yorkers to have a mayor that isn't going to run for higher office.
OTOH: Solomon in JC has been a councilman for eight years, and during those eight years not one unit of affordable housing was built in his ward. His entire platform is affordability, but eight years not one new unit of affordable housing in his ward. JC is a really nice place, but the disparity between downtown is worse than ever, some of which you can lay at fulop's feet, but fulop came out the same downtown ward that solomon is trying to come out of and the focus imho should be on making sure families stay in the city, not turning it into a cheaper place for young finace guys and gals to live with quick access to manhattan. and for those that have not heard or read, the incumbent fulop tried to help the republican candidate beat the dem for governor, after similarly being held up as a progressive icon crusading against machines and for affordable housing...
And this is all said before you dive into either candidate's background. McGreevey's scandal leaving the governor's office still is an ethical stain. It doesn't rise to cuomo behavior because other than trump there's a limit to what one can get away with. But he's led reentry nj, a great nonprofit for two decades and represents an older era, where education and city infrastructure would be more emphasized. Solomon has no ethical stains, (of which we are aware because who hasn't made mistakes), but his family is comprised of former republican federally appointed officials and large bankrollers of the RNC. Makes you doubt how loyal a "progressive" solomon can possibly be, even ignoring the lack of success at getting any affordable housing built in his ward
During his gubernatorial tenure, McGreevey—who was then married to Dina Matos—appointed Israeli national Golan Cipel as a Homeland Security advisor. The $110,000-per-year appointment was criticized due to Cipel's lack of qualifications, and Cipel later left McGreevey's staff. [From later in the article: "In addition, Cipel could not obtain a security clearance from the federal government, as he was Israeli and not a U.S. citizen; therefore, the FBI and the Secret Service would not provide him with intelligence."] On August 12, 2004, following threats of a sexual harassment lawsuit from Cipel, McGreevey publicly acknowledged his homosexuality and stated that he had engaged in an extramarital relationship; he also announced that he would resign the governorship effective November 15, 2004. McGreevey later stated that he had had an affair with Cipel, but Cipel denied this claim.
This is why, whatever Solomon’s problems are, I cannot bring myself to support McGreevey. Scandals like this should be disqualifying. There’s a difference between Jay Jones texting something stupid to a GOP State Delegate and blatant corruption.
and look at what the former governor has done since, run an incredible non-profit that I have seen first hand change multiple generations of lives for the better. everything is not black and white
It's not, and the questions for voters aware of the details of the scandal are whether he is rehabilitated and whether the type of corruption and unsavory behavior he committed is unforgivable for a government official.
Looking at the 1994 edition of the Almanac of American Politics, and reading about California in there, the authors suggest that Pete Wilson should have considered appointing Condaleeza Rice to the Senate seat that he left to be the Governor. That might be the earliest reference to her that I’ve seen in a national political publication. I was unaware that she might have been considered for the seat
The guy that Gov. Wilson did appoint to the seat was instantly forgettable. John Seymour was a State Senator from Orange County. Seymour was defeated when he was first on the ballot in 1992, and it wasn't even close. Dianne Feinstein won in a landslide (around 20% margin) while California was still a swing state. Wilson won re-election in '94 by riding on the Prop 187 wave as well as the weakness of the Kathleen Brown campaign. The CAGOP even won 41 seats in the Assembly that year, a single seat majority. 1996 was the end of all that and the beginning of the Blue Golden State.
Ahhnold would have a hard time winning a CAGOP primary. He ran and was elected on a nonpartisan ballot, so he never had to cater as much to the activist hard-right folks who voted in their primaries. Once he was an incumbent that wasn't as much of a problem, because nothing beats winning. Now there are no party primaries so someone who doesn't fit a partisan profile has more of a chance. Gov. Schwartzie then pushed the 2010 ballot prop that replaced party primaries with the top two runoffs. I miss the party primaries...
California is blue in the sense that the Dems are the dominant party, but there are distinct regional differences that affect the local politics. The Repubs haven't won a POTUS or US Senate race in CA since 1988 or any statewide office since 2006 but there are some areas where the GOP is the main party. It is easy to forget that there was a GOP Speaker of the House from California not long ago. He just didn't last as long as his CADEM predecessor.
It's amazing what you can avoid seeing if you're determined enough. Loads of white Southerners would have said the same thing during the years of Jim Crow - and supported lynching Black people who said anything different.
Yet from 1980-1983 when he was a Member of the Pretoria City Council, he was also a member of the Progressive Federal Party, the main opposition to the National Party in working to stop the apartheid regime.
I don't understand. Is Errol Musk now walking back any association he had with the Progressive Federal Party and now saying it was a mistake for him to have been affiliated with it in the first place?
ERROL MUSK SR: "I don't know what the hell I was thinking but I never saw any oppression in South Africa that I can recall."
INTERVIEWER: "So you're walking back on everything you did in government?"
ERROL MUSK SR: "What's there to walk back? There was no oppression!"
INTERVIEWER: "So everything that President FW DeKlerk did as the last white leader of the National Party was a mistake?"
ERROL MUSK SR: "I am not going to answer your question. I know there was no oppression and I'm sticking with my view!"
He is right that his father is not a good person. Besides Errol Musk Sr. having married multiple times, he's also like Elon fathered multiple children. His first wife said he was abusive.
Absolute, pure privilege and insulation from many things as a result of being super, filthy wealthy.
At this point, I could care less whether Errol Musk really did anything with being a member of the Progressive Federal Party or on the Pretoria City Council. Let him melt down.
Besides, was Errol Musk named after actor Errol Flynn? Inquiring minds need to know. Jk
In 2017, Trump was more unpopular in NJ than he is now in NJ, Christie was as unpopular as you could get after 2 terms, and Christie's LG (who ran with him both times as a running mate) was the GOP candidate. So this is very surprising.
Sherrill's map is pretty impressive. When you look at large sections of it, it seems like it's the map of a 20-point victory, except for just two things: 1) Low turnout in the cities, and 2) Ocean County, which continues to somehow get even redder than it already is.
A good illustration of both of those things is that, while Elizabeth and Lakewood have about the same population, fewer than 20,000 people voted in Elizabeth while more than 40,000 people voted in Lakewood. So while Sherrill's popular vote margin in Elizabeth was about 9,600 votes, Ciattarelli's margin in Lakewood was almost 33,000 votes (and turnout in Lakewood was about twice that of 2021). Lakewood single-handedly canceled out Sherrill's margins of victory in Passaic, Morris, Gloucester, Atlantic, and Cumberland counties combined. Turnout was high enough in Lakewood for Ciattarelli to get about the same number of votes that Trump did last year.
They did as much as they could to squeeze Lakewood for all its worth. They even had loudspeakers on a truck reminding people to vote, in Yiddish (since Hebrew is considered too holy for secular use in ultra-Orthodox communities).
I assume she asked, she's not dumb. She took pursuing Jewish voters seriously in other aspects, campaigning with Shapiro and Gottheimer. They are just very conservative and they probably thought Ciattarelli could win based on the bad polling. Had they known it was going to be a blowout, they might have sat it out or endorsed her.
Jews tend to vote in high percentages even when they aren't Chasidic. But did most other places in New Jersey vote at similar percentages to Elizabeth?
We're still taking it as a fact that Trump's approvals aren't that bad now, based on polls. The same polls that massively undersampled Dems and missed the results by double digits. The thing to consider is that maybe Trump's numbers are actually worse than 2017 and pollsters are just missing it.
It's frustrating that the polling world we live in now is one where pollsters are going to miss almost by default. They struggle right now to properly model the electorate.
There's a lot of weighing to recent elections, but America exists with a negative feedback system on election results: once a party wins power (especially nationally but sometimes more locally), they immediately start to get punished at the ballot. This is an overwhelmingly consistent trend that seems to be completely ignored when pollsters build their models.
Polls this year and in 2022 (and 2018?) were off and missed factors in our favor. Polls in 2016 and 2020 vastly underestimated the turnout of newer republican voters. Polls in 2024 correctly caught that the election was close but were off in the same direction as the prior two. Polls in 2021 were good for Virginia but too optimistic for NJ.
Chances are the 2026 polls will be off in our favor, then in the next midterm with an incumbent democratic admin we'll see the opposite, where the polls are off in republicans' favor. But it's not a safe or easy assumption to make, because the pollsters could learn their lesson at any point and build an accurate electorate model for that cycle.
Kinda crazy that Siena/NYTimes told them that one simple answer on that front is to stop weighting based on prev. elections (they were the first major pollster to show that FL wouldn't even be remotely competitive in 24 iirc).
Obvi the other parts of the "Likely Voter Model Secret Sauce" (primarily the questions of race/age/education) will always befuddle pollsters, but determining what makes a sample more representative of the pop. is and always will never be truly accurate. Maybe returning to viewing political polling as a useful, yet imprecise, statistical tool as opposed just a backdrop for horserace narratives would see more accurate polls start to rise through the slop that's been pouring out the last few cycles; I doubt that's gonna happen any time soon.
I don't see polling being likely to improve much, as people just don't respond to attempts to contact them. Hell, I get texts and occasionally emails supposedly soliciting my opinion. I believe some, maybe most of them are legitimate, but I won't respond to online links, as I know to suspect them of going to malware. And very few people answer the phone to an unknown number.
Republican TN state rep. Jeff Burkhart has died. He represented the 75th district in western Montgomery County, including a good portion of Clarksville.
The district voted 51%-45.7% for Trump vs. Biden in 2020
Oh yeah good point. It seems that between 2020 and 2024 Democratic vote totals stayed roughly stagnant going from 9362 to 9286, while Republican vote totals increased from 10445 to 12002
With less than a year before the election, it looks like it will fall to the county commission to fill the seat. The last election had the commission at 8R-8D-5I. Chances are they won't rock the boat, but we should try to recruit well regardless for next year's general.
No matter who supported and voted for Trump from MAGA to QaNon to Big Tech, we can always count on Trump to have a hissy fit with anyone who originally supported him just like he got mad because he had a Nintendo game system that didn't function all of a sudden.
*preys*
Thank you Trump. Thank you for continuing to give Democrats more to work with so we can win more elections.
Ken Martin, have the DNC and Democratic Party air ads showing MTG criticizing Mike Johnson and everyone else for not fixing Obamacare. This would be gold for 2026.
It was pretty obvious back in 2018 that after serving as Trump’s right hand man, Michael Cohen was already revealing everything we needed to know about Trump himself. Cohen was also one of Trump’s chief spokespeople back in 2016 and went against anyone in the media who started to point out polls showing him behind Hillary Clinton.
Then Cohen had enough, served time for his deeds for Trump and got his life back. He’s been speaking out against Trump consistently since then and has never gone back to his old ways.
The fact that Marjorie Taylor Greene is starting to show signs of common sense makes me wonder, “Gee, if you really thought this way, why did you have to learn the hard way?”
So Richmond has finally reported its post-election votes and assigned all its votes to precincts.
And, as I suspected, the Windsor Farms precinct in western Richmond ultimately did vote for Spanberger. It was close, but don't forget that this precinct was McCain +40 in 2008. And ticket-splitting is still alive and well there - it voted for Reid by 13 in the LG race, Miyares by 26 in the AG race, and even voted for the hapless Republican in HD-78 who got 19% of the vote overall.
As you may have guessed, this is a very wealthy and exclusive (and practically all-white) area of Richmond.
That is crazy!! I've always wondered why that precinct was so republican leaning even though it was in Richmond and entirely surrounded by Dem precincts.
Yes, Windsor Farms (Richmond City Precinct 106) is basically the epitome of old money Richmond, but even more so than other precincts nearby that also could be described as such. It's the only precinct in the city that voted for Trump last year, though only by 12 votes.
Might it be time for a comprehensive redistricting update?
It is difficult with all the appeals & lawsuits flying around.
But someone please correct me if I have one wrong. And I get it is difficult to predict how the actual redrawn maps will vote. But I am going with the intent.
In the books:
1) TX, GOP +5
2) CA, Dem +5
3) NC, GOP +1
4) OH, GOP +1 (+2?)
---Done, but maybe not dusted--------
5) UT, Dems +1. GOP longshot CT appeal
6) MO, GOP +1. Petition drive ongoing that could block it for 2026.
----Efforts Proceeding----
7) VA, Dem +2 to +4. The Dem Leg has passed 1 of 2 necessary provisions, but a new one next year & voter approval still would be needed. Some Dems want a +4 Dem map, others a less extreme one.
--------Unsure-------
8) Florida, GOP. Not proceeding atm
-------Stalled at the moment-----
9) NH, GOP. Dead?
10) KS, GOP. Dead?
11) IN, GOP, Dead?
12) NE, GOP, Dead?
13) IL, Dem, Dead?
14) MD, Dem. Impasse. Gov seems forcit, Senate President against.
-----------Court Cases----VRA----
15) AL/LA. Court cases where SCRITUS could kill the VRA and declare mandated minority districts unconstitutional.
I have no earthy idea on timelines, filing deadlines, or when the point of no return is for 2026. I did not even look at 2028.
In wondering if Dems can win the GA House in 2026 what happened in Virginia can be replicated. If so, Dems can block any Republican redistricting shenanigans since any VRA decision isn’t likely to come soon enough to allow for map redrawing for 2026.
Looking at the districts, I think they can get to 87 seats (3 short of a majority) there in a similar environment.
So without the court case, Dems will come out even, or maybe even ahead, depending on VA... but when the SCOTUS hammer comes down , could leave the GOP what, +12 seats once VRA seats are erased?
It’s possible a lot of redistricting pushes in the south fizzle out due to local GOP hesitation, like in Indiana and Kansas.
Also plenty of seats in commission states that Democrats could get rid of, like in NY, NJ, and CO, or in states Dems don’t have a trifecta in but could after 2026, like MN, WI, and PA. That could cancel out.
Just pointing out that in Trump 1.0 we did in fact have a blue wave in the House in 2018 but it did not materialize in the Senate where we still lost 4 seats and gained 2 for a net loss of 2.
A blue wave may be building in the house. That does not necessarily guarantee one in the Senate. And I was burned by Phil Bredesen in TN, I'm not believing polls showing Cooper up that much in NC.
NC federally is Lucy pulling the football away at the last second.
Sure, I’m not saying it will be easy for dems to win the senate. But they’re not going to end up losing 4 seats like in 2018. There aren’t enough realistic targets for republicans. Dems most vulnerable seats are Michigan, Georgia, and New Hampshire, all way bluer than North Dakota, Missouri, and Indiana.
If we could not defend incumbent Dems in red states in a D+8 environment it is unlikely we will take open or incumbent Republican seats in red states under the same conditions. We may well defend open Dem seats. Point is taking seats is another problem.
I understand your point, but I think an important consideration is we don't need to spend money defending seats like Missouri, Indiana, and North Dakota. Instead, that money can be spent on offense in Maine, North Carolina, Texas, Iowa, Ohio, and potentially even Alaska. I'm definitely not saying that's an easy task. But it's much preferable to having to go on offense in those states while *also* defending many deep red states.
2020 was a year where we spent a lot of money trying to win deep red seats (McGrath in Kentucky, Harrison in South Carolina, Bullock in Montana). Perhaps if we hadn't diverted so much money there, we could have won in Maine, North Carolina, or even Iowa and we would have had a Senate majority that wasn't reliant on the VP-tie breaker and didn't rely on Manchin and Sinema. We didn't even spend money trying to defend Doug Jones in Alabama, because we recognized it wasn't worthwhile. This cycle, we don't have to defend Kentucky and South Carolina, and can focus our efforts on defending Georgia, Michigan, and New Hampshire while going on offence in Maine, North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio, and Texas.
I think in D+8 environment Dems would pick up NC and ME at least and lose nothing. Collins was able to survive D+3/4 in 2020 but I don’t think she can survive D+8.
I think Spanberger won by more than any Dem Gov in VA since the 1960s.
Mamdani got the most votes ever for a NYC mayor..
Sherrill WAY overperformed the polling. As did the ballot issues in ME. Big margins in GA. Big wins, both in terms of margins, swings, and red places, in PA, CT, NH, etc.
When a bubble bursts all sorrs of things can happen.
If Mark Warner had been allowed to run for reelection in 2005, he probably would’ve won by a larger margin than Spanberger did this year. That doesn’t make Spanberger’s performance any less impressive, though.
Indiana, Missouri, and North Dakota are all redder than Iowa, Ohio, Alaska, and Texas. Just because we lost the former set of states in 2018 doesn't mean we'll lose the latter set of states next year. Also, Rick Scott spent $64M of his own money to win the 2018 Senate race in Florida.
We kind of thought that with Florida up until 2018, with Dems losing the governorship in 2010 and 2014 narrowly due to very bad Dem years. However I think the situation in NC is different as Dems have been able to win a fair share of statewide races in even mediocre Presidential election years..
Exactly, as Stein's landslide carried Jackson, Riggs and Green with him even as Trump won NC a year ago (Robinson, Griffin, Bishop and Morrow were also shitty nominees)
Not only are they experiencing pretty significantly different demographic pulls, but NC has been overall trending bluer in POTUS years the past decade, whereas Florida has been trending right for the past quarter-century.
If NC had a Senate race in 2018 we would probably have won it. And we might have won in 2020 without the Cunningham scandal, though in retrospect the polls which often showed him leading may have been off even without the personal scandal which frankly doesn't seem that serious in this day and age.
Even in 2024 Dems might have been able to win there; leaving aside the Stein landslide as an aberration--though the GOP might have chosen Mark Robinson for Senate if they could--most other statewide races were close and Trump didn't win it by that much (and I'd guess he'd lose it now). 2026 obviously seems to present us with a confluence of positive factors--good year for Dems, or at least anti-GOP backlash, and strong candidate--but obviously we can't get complacent.
2028 will be interesting. Ted Budd, who won only narrowly in 2022 and probably doesn't have much in the way of special personal popularity, will be up. And the last Democratic Senate win in the state to date was in 2008, which had an unpopular Republican president who couldn't run again and energised Dems running on a change message.
Counterintuitively I'd argue that the wave did hit the senate in 2018. The problem was the map and realignment. Three of the seats we lost that year were doomed from the start. Ignore the starting number of seats held and look at the states won and outcome solely on the outcome. From that perspective the year went amazingly for us in the senate.
The reality is that our seats in MO and IN were on borrowed time, seats we only won in 2012 due to republican candidates imploding. Both of them and ND were only won in 2012 due to just barely retaining our prior coalition downballot. Once voters realign at the top of the ballot it's only a matter of time until they also realign downballot. That we did hold onto WV that year was our one miracle, to counterbalance the disaster of barely losing FL.
There's a real chance that 2026 sees us with limited gains in the senate even in a great year, again due to the map. There are realistically only two seats we can pick up next year without a wave: North Carolina and Maine. There are a good number of plausible reach seats: Texas, Ohio, Iowa, and Alaska. But all four of them are only possible in a wave. A wave does not guarantee we win any of them, it's merely a required condition for us to have a chance at all. Senate outcomes this year has a lot of variability at the big wave end of things, but not much variance below that.
A very good year for us would be holding all our seats and gaining NC and ME. Even in a 2018 redux, anything beyond that is a reach.
That sets us up in 2028 to get to 50 or 51 seats by picking up WI and WI and NC and using that rare majority to create a filibuster carve out for voting rights to pass a national redistricting standards bill that mandates bipartisan or non partisan commissions in every state to draw district lines as well as passing statehood for DC and Puerto Rico.
I do think we shouldn't completely write off the four reach seats, but we should go into it expecting that even in a decent sized wave we could lose all four and "only" have NC+ME as pickups.
If we can gain three seats next year it will be a huge improvement in our chances for holding a trifecta in 2029. Of course, it should be remembered that Ohio's winner next year will be up again in 2028: we need to win it twice in a row to contribute for a trifecta.
I'm torn on which is the least-difficult between TX, AK, and IA. They're all struggles even in a wave, but still viable reach seats.
I think it was just a repeat of WI and that John only meant "WI and NC." Looking at the map there's nothing in 2028 that is as competitive as those two. There aren't that many reach seats either. Only Iowa, really, and even if we do well in Iowa next year I'd be very skeptical of that carrying through to a presidential electorate.
Then in 2030 the only realistic pickup target is Pennsylvania, with only Texas as a plausible reach seat.
It's a bit of a side comment but we're really damn close to our realistic maximum seat count in the senate with current coalitions. Ignoring reach seats, we have five plausible pickups across the three senate classes: ME, WI, PA, and NC x2. If we maximized those we'd cap out at 52 seats; if we added in a reach seat or two we could hit 53-54 as a practical maximum.
Republicans, despite being at a 53-47 majority, still have lots of room for potential growth in the senate even without reach seats. Take away ME to simplify things, and they'd have 52 red or purple state senators. Plausible pickups include: WI, MI x2, PA, MN x2, NV x2, AZ x2, and GA x2. Maybe NH x2 as well, depending on how we look at it. Some might debate MN too, but it's been consistently close so I think it's fair to look at it as a similar category as NC for us. Republicans have about a dozen realistic senate seat pickups.
We desperately need to add DC (and PR) as a state if we want to have long-term governing prospects. We cannot rely on winning 80+% of swing state senate seats indefinitely. It's unrealistic to expect our luck and candidate quality to continue forever.
It is, but not to the extent of the 1st and 3rd. It would be hard to flip unless a really unlikable republican took it (the frontrunner seems to be state rep and close ally of the late Charlie Kirk, Joe Mitchell)
This exceeded my expectations for Iowa thus far. But if any state has persuadable, rural and blue collar whites, it's Iowa. And to a lesser extent Wisconsin and Michigan. I imagine that all 3 congressional districts outside of the 4th are not only in play, but have Democrats up in the polls right now. Bodes very well for any Democrats running in statewide races in Iowa.
Virginia election data is now in DRA! And except for two precincts in York County, it looks like it's pretty darn accurate.
For anyone drawing Democratic gerrymanders of Virginia, Spanberger +4 seems to be pretty much the line between HoD districts won by Dems and those held by Republicans. HD-30, the closest Dem victory, went to Spanberger by 5, while HD-34, the closest Republican victory, went to Spanberger by 3. Every district bluer than HD-30 elected a Dem this year, while every district redder than HD-34 elected a Republican.
Lines up with the idea that the LG race was the most "generic D vs R" one, whereas Spanberger was a much better candidate than her opponent (flipping some otherwise partyline R voters), while Jones was worse than his opponent (losing some otherwise partyline D voters).
I think there’s an argument that Hashmi was hurt by racism. Obviously we can’t tell the counterfactual. I wonder if the generic D vs R would be somewhere around D+13-14 to reconcile both the racism against her and maybe WES, as well as Spanberger’s superior campaign.
I think that's a reasonable argument. IMO Jones would probably have won by about 13 if not for his texting scandal, outperforming Hashmi but not quite matching Spanberger.
Amanda Cook has been picked by the Guilford County Democratic Party to replace the former conservadem state NC representative Cecil Brockman after he resigned due to child sex charges.
"Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City this week. He wants to defund and disarm police, abolish jails, impose city-run grocery stores, freeze rents, and enact a $30 minimum wage, all while advocating massive tax hikes and open
borders.
With this election, do you believe the Democratic Party is becoming more radical, less radical, or it made no difference?"
More Radical: 55%
No Difference: 27%
Less Radical: 9%
Cygnal / Nov 6, 2025
36 percent of the people that Cygnal polled are insane.
Republicans have luckily also done a good job of branding themselves with the goals of their own fringiest members, if the recent election night is to be believed.
To tack on to my other post, if people polled me about what I think the true positions of the Republican party are, they might consider me out of whack with "reality" as well.
I think Andrew Marshall is referring to the fact that Republicans called Obama a socialist Muslim, and he did indeed get elected President for two terms.
What's the purpose of this poll? Feels a lot like it's just to bash Mamdani and Dems? It's very clearly using fear-mongering language like "defund" "impose" and "open borders"
Cygnal is a liar, and we shouldn't take any of their numbers seriously. None of what they say about Mamdani is accurate beyond the first sentence (unless he wants a $30 minimum wage, which I think I would have heard about).
San Francisco did help lead the way with minimum wage well over a decade ago but at a smaller amount by contrast to what minimum wage would be.
It’s a question of how Mamdani can get minimum wage increased. May have to up progressively in increments over time but as long as the process is in place, that helps.
Dems are just really bad at counter-messaging. The GOP uses the likes of "defund the police" and "abolish ICE" said by a couple loony people on our side to paint all of us that way. Why we have not countered with "the party that pardons domestic terrorists" and "tanked our economy twice in twenty years" is beyond me.
Do you think you're making a serious argument? He won an outright majority against 2 candidates, with another still on the ballot, and absolutely creamed the #2 candidate. Someone who didn't know the actual election results would interpret your remarks as meaning he won 49-48%. How was the margin for you?
My point was not about Mamdani specifically, but thanks for derailing. I’ll leave my thoughts on Mamdani and any extrapolation for his supposed electability in swing states for another thread.
WTF are you talking about? You made a misleading or ill-considered statement about the New York City Mayoral election. And he wasn't running in swing states, and we don't need to have a totally useless discussion about whether he would be viable running in one, which is a fake controversy no-one is arguing about.
Notice there’s been no breast beating by the likes of Nate Cohn and Harry Enten about the massive polling error in New Jersey. 11 points off the RCP average. You can be sure that had the parties been reversed, we’d never hear the end of it.
Depends which pollsters you’re talking about. The numerous Republican pollsters are terrible without Trump on the ballot. See 2022. Quinnipiac and Fox had it at 7. Which, while not gold ribbon worthy, was at least somewhat in the ballpark.
I just feel like ever since Trump, no matter the outlet's affiliation, they just can't seem to get it right - or if they do, not within the margin of victory. Some elections I understand because they're very close, but the final polls for NJ governor had Sherill up by 2 and 3 points - she won by 16!!
That's like saying that the government "imposes" the Postal Service on us. In fact, that's not even the best comparison, since the Postal Service actually does have a monopoly on the use of mailboxes and stuff, while Mamdani's city-run grocery stores will simply be an alternative to the existing privately owned grocery stores.
It really baffles me that, of all of the different planks of Mamdani's platform, some of which are admittedly problematic, that *this* is the one that many conservatives are most upset about.
$30 minimum wage should really be close to or around what most people should get paid for if you take into account inflation. Perhaps higher. We can’t get there overnight but minimum wage was essential in helping the US move away from the Great Depression.
But implementing it locally in NYC is going to be a tough sell unless it can go directly to voters locally on the ballot.
On this one issue, Democrats should show spine and not be ashamed of making wages as reasonable as possible.
One of the things that's going to be really important is Mamdani making real progress on childcare. It's a big ticket item that will actually help affordability (and presumably create jobs).
If he's able to deliver in a meaningful way here, it's a true government works success story that actually makes a meaningful difference. BDB doing UPK was a two-pronged policy item that helped parents stay working and provided avenues for children to learn.
Going to be hard to tar and feather him as a scary radical socialist when you have troves of happy parents speaking positively about how this changed their lives...
What is the chance that Montana's 1st District flips next year? The last two elections it was 49.6-46.5 and 52.3-44.6 for the Republicans. Is it a reach district, or would it just depend on the right candidate? Ryan Zinke is quite obviously tied to Trump via his stint as Secretary of the Interior in his first term, so that is a potential albatross around his neck.
I think Fitzpatrick is completely toast next year. The Bucks County results at 50% turnout were nothing but disastrous for the GOP. Shapiro is going to get over 60% there next year. As for the rest of the seats, I could lump MT-01 in before them, sure.
I just checked and Fitzpatrick wasn't among the 2 Republicans that voted against the BBB and voted yes on it. On top of that he's gonna have a lot of explaining as to why he didn't bother to vote for discharge petition to release the Epstein files. Moderate Republicans are increasingly cooked if they aren't already. Voting for or against the wrong things and nothing to show for it but a crap economy, political and social turmoil and an increasingly corrupt, incompetent and guilty president.
You know who did vote against the BBB and voted to release the Epstein files though? Thomas Massie of all people. I never thought I'd say I would actually see integrity and courage in Republican these days, let alone respect one.
So far there are two Dems in the race, neither of whom hold elected office. Based on their websites, Russell Cleveland seems like a conventional liberal and Matt Rains more of a Tester type.
There was talk of one candidate (named Sam Forstag) who apparently was a part of an elite group of smokejumpers who also spoke at a Bernie rally, a la Graham Platner and Bob Brooks. And given how Platner's campaign is going, I'm not sure if he'd be necessarily a safe bet either -- but I'm not hearing many other possible recruits so far.
Future Races:
Since we’re looking at a D+10 wave brewing, here’s my outlook.
I think we flip the Trump +13 GA HD-121.
I think TN-07 will be real close
I think the Wisconsin Supreme Court race in April will likely be a complete blowout.
Idk if I’m missing anything else major/competitive between now and then.
Timing-wise, it would line up with “Scott Brown wins MA/Doug Jones wins AL,” so why not?
TN-07 is becoming nationalized and will be closer than Kamala margins but not competitive imo.
Also in the Spring we will have the Viriginia ballot initiative for redistricting.
I’m thinking upper single digits, which would still confirm the D+10 wave building
We might be favored if the election was completely under the radar with no national involvement and total grassroots game. Alas..
I am curious to see how the special election in TN-07 is going to evolve into getting TN Democrats more activism, energy and practical strategy post-election. It would be awesome if Democrats could win the House seat, even by a razor thin, tiny margin but regardless of the outcome, I hope it doesn’t just end there in the state.
Ehhh....I wouldn't be too sure of a D+10 or similar level wave. Individual races aside, I don't want us to be like the GOP in 2022 when a moderately successful result looked like a defeat after expectations were enlarged due to (frequently off-base) polling and related punditry.
Sure, take nothing for granted. But 2022 had both 1.) Dobbs come down and 2.) Republicans gifting us multiple Senate and gubernatorial races with terrible candidates. We do not have something similar to 1.) on the horizon that would galvanize Republican voters in the way that Dobbs did for Dems. We also have far superior candidates on the whole than the GOP. The only risky ones I’m worried about are Platner and AES, which I’ve said before. Mandela Barnes and KLB to a lesser extent in the gubernatorial races, but I think even they would end up winning.
Hi, lurker here. What does everyone think of the chances of Aftyn Behn winning the TN-07 special election? What is the history of Dems winning districts with a similar PVI? I have limited resources to donate, and can't afford to donate to Marcus Flowers / hopeless candidates.
TN-07 is an R+10 district, which means we'd expect a typical margin of R+20. Which aligns with the past few election cycles there.
I do not want to say "impossible" but it's very unlikely that we win that special. It would require conditions similar to the Georgia PSC elections recently -- democrats show up to vote while republicans stay home. It's a very long shot.
With limited resources to donate I'd focus on other elections. Maybe save up to donate for next year's general election or find a primary candidate you care deeply about that has a chance. Which depends a lot on your own preferences.
If we get TN-7 to single digits that would be remarkable
Agree. We aren't winning and it's becoming a nationalized race which is a problem for us.
Cook Political Report moved TN-7 from Safe Republican to Likely Republican because Republican operatives are worried about low turnout from reliably GOP voters, a rare problem for the Republicans.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DRAFu-CERNU/?igsh=MWI2a3ltNXA1bndpdQ
That's pretty remarkable.
Good! Here's hoping Democrats have a shot.
Now if there could be a Democratic challenger to Senator Bill Hagerty, that would be awesome.
White conservatives not showing up to vote? Those people usually always show up
Before the Tuesday elections this month, I said it was maybe 25% possible now I think it’s more like 60% possible. I think an upset is brewing there.
No it's not.
Yes, it sure is! 😉 Let’s not be a debby downer here. Its compelely possible. You can have your feelings, and I will have mine. Have a fantastic, hopeful day!
This isn't a cheerleading site. Disagreeing that an R+10 seat is 60% likely to flip isn't being a "Debby downer".
I don’t think Behn will win but the margins will be curious to me. If it’s even slightly closer than normal the GOP is in deep shit next year, given the partisan lean of the seat.
Considering some of the extreme flips that have happened in special elections, I think it's possible, but it's way too much for us to consider it more likely than not, and the margin will certainly be interesting.
You should never donate to hopeless candidates like Marcus Flowers. Any donations you make should be strategic and practical. There are already more than enough people out there who donate to hopeless candidates without researching the state or district they’re running in.
I donated, and even though she's not favored to win, I'd encourage others to donate to her if they can afford it.
An upset is plausible, but not likely. It will require everything going right. To me, that's a bet worth making. And even if she doesn't win, getting the margins as scary close as possible could wake up Republicans in more vulnerable seats, causing them start to turn on Trump.
For anyone who needs it, here is the link to donate:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/aftyn-behn-website
Thank you - and for this link!
Jersey City Mayor's Race: Much has been written about how Solomon could be this side of the river's Zohran, because each are running against former governors that resigned in a scanda or in cuomos case facing impeachment/multiple scandals in multiple areas. Beyond that though, zohran, love him or hate him, undeniably believes what he says. His record in the assembly is brief, but reflects mainstream left wing values that put peoples lives first. And as he said in one of the many debates, it's a benefit for new yorkers to have a mayor that isn't going to run for higher office.
OTOH: Solomon in JC has been a councilman for eight years, and during those eight years not one unit of affordable housing was built in his ward. His entire platform is affordability, but eight years not one new unit of affordable housing in his ward. JC is a really nice place, but the disparity between downtown is worse than ever, some of which you can lay at fulop's feet, but fulop came out the same downtown ward that solomon is trying to come out of and the focus imho should be on making sure families stay in the city, not turning it into a cheaper place for young finace guys and gals to live with quick access to manhattan. and for those that have not heard or read, the incumbent fulop tried to help the republican candidate beat the dem for governor, after similarly being held up as a progressive icon crusading against machines and for affordable housing...
And this is all said before you dive into either candidate's background. McGreevey's scandal leaving the governor's office still is an ethical stain. It doesn't rise to cuomo behavior because other than trump there's a limit to what one can get away with. But he's led reentry nj, a great nonprofit for two decades and represents an older era, where education and city infrastructure would be more emphasized. Solomon has no ethical stains, (of which we are aware because who hasn't made mistakes), but his family is comprised of former republican federally appointed officials and large bankrollers of the RNC. Makes you doubt how loyal a "progressive" solomon can possibly be, even ignoring the lack of success at getting any affordable housing built in his ward
Wasn't McGreevey's scandal that he was gay, and that was in the don't ask don't tell era of politics?
No. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_McGreevey:
During his gubernatorial tenure, McGreevey—who was then married to Dina Matos—appointed Israeli national Golan Cipel as a Homeland Security advisor. The $110,000-per-year appointment was criticized due to Cipel's lack of qualifications, and Cipel later left McGreevey's staff. [From later in the article: "In addition, Cipel could not obtain a security clearance from the federal government, as he was Israeli and not a U.S. citizen; therefore, the FBI and the Secret Service would not provide him with intelligence."] On August 12, 2004, following threats of a sexual harassment lawsuit from Cipel, McGreevey publicly acknowledged his homosexuality and stated that he had engaged in an extramarital relationship; he also announced that he would resign the governorship effective November 15, 2004. McGreevey later stated that he had had an affair with Cipel, but Cipel denied this claim.
This is why, whatever Solomon’s problems are, I cannot bring myself to support McGreevey. Scandals like this should be disqualifying. There’s a difference between Jay Jones texting something stupid to a GOP State Delegate and blatant corruption.
solomon being on the take from developers while preaching wholier than thou rhetoric and a closeted republican no pun intended are disqualifying to me
and look at what the former governor has done since, run an incredible non-profit that I have seen first hand change multiple generations of lives for the better. everything is not black and white
It's not, and the questions for voters aware of the details of the scandal are whether he is rehabilitated and whether the type of corruption and unsavory behavior he committed is unforgivable for a government official.
Interesting note I found:
Looking at the 1994 edition of the Almanac of American Politics, and reading about California in there, the authors suggest that Pete Wilson should have considered appointing Condaleeza Rice to the Senate seat that he left to be the Governor. That might be the earliest reference to her that I’ve seen in a national political publication. I was unaware that she might have been considered for the seat
The guy that Gov. Wilson did appoint to the seat was instantly forgettable. John Seymour was a State Senator from Orange County. Seymour was defeated when he was first on the ballot in 1992, and it wasn't even close. Dianne Feinstein won in a landslide (around 20% margin) while California was still a swing state. Wilson won re-election in '94 by riding on the Prop 187 wave as well as the weakness of the Kathleen Brown campaign. The CAGOP even won 41 seats in the Assembly that year, a single seat majority. 1996 was the end of all that and the beginning of the Blue Golden State.
except for Aanold
Ahhnold would have a hard time winning a CAGOP primary. He ran and was elected on a nonpartisan ballot, so he never had to cater as much to the activist hard-right folks who voted in their primaries. Once he was an incumbent that wasn't as much of a problem, because nothing beats winning. Now there are no party primaries so someone who doesn't fit a partisan profile has more of a chance. Gov. Schwartzie then pushed the 2010 ballot prop that replaced party primaries with the top two runoffs. I miss the party primaries...
California is blue in the sense that the Dems are the dominant party, but there are distinct regional differences that affect the local politics. The Repubs haven't won a POTUS or US Senate race in CA since 1988 or any statewide office since 2006 but there are some areas where the GOP is the main party. It is easy to forget that there was a GOP Speaker of the House from California not long ago. He just didn't last as long as his CADEM predecessor.
Elon Musk's father says they never saw oppression during Apartheid... https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/14/world/video/errol-elon-musk-dad-apartheid-donie-vrtc
It's amazing what you can avoid seeing if you're determined enough. Loads of white Southerners would have said the same thing during the years of Jim Crow - and supported lynching Black people who said anything different.
Yet from 1980-1983 when he was a Member of the Pretoria City Council, he was also a member of the Progressive Federal Party, the main opposition to the National Party in working to stop the apartheid regime.
I don't understand. Is Errol Musk now walking back any association he had with the Progressive Federal Party and now saying it was a mistake for him to have been affiliated with it in the first place?
ERROL MUSK SR: "I don't know what the hell I was thinking but I never saw any oppression in South Africa that I can recall."
INTERVIEWER: "So you're walking back on everything you did in government?"
ERROL MUSK SR: "What's there to walk back? There was no oppression!"
INTERVIEWER: "So everything that President FW DeKlerk did as the last white leader of the National Party was a mistake?"
ERROL MUSK SR: "I am not going to answer your question. I know there was no oppression and I'm sticking with my view!"
Perhaps Musk Sr. has become senile?
There is one thing I will say about Elon Musk:
He is right that his father is not a good person. Besides Errol Musk Sr. having married multiple times, he's also like Elon fathered multiple children. His first wife said he was abusive.
Boy, the Musk men sure think alike!
Not only does the Musk stink not wash off, it’s clearly passed on from one generation to the next.
Absolute, pure privilege and insulation from many things as a result of being super, filthy wealthy.
At this point, I could care less whether Errol Musk really did anything with being a member of the Progressive Federal Party or on the Pretoria City Council. Let him melt down.
Besides, was Errol Musk named after actor Errol Flynn? Inquiring minds need to know. Jk
NJ-Gov: Wow, Sherrill outperformed Phil Murphy's 2017 winning percent margin, after already beating him in total share of the vote: https://nitter.poast.org/SageOfTime1/status/1989462390501773398#m
In 2017, Trump was more unpopular in NJ than he is now in NJ, Christie was as unpopular as you could get after 2 terms, and Christie's LG (who ran with him both times as a running mate) was the GOP candidate. So this is very surprising.
Also, Mikie Sherrill won WWC Gloucester County town Westville: https://votehub.com/nj-gov-2025
I used to commute through Westville so I know what it's about. They have at least one union hall and one Irish pub.
Sherrill's map is pretty impressive. When you look at large sections of it, it seems like it's the map of a 20-point victory, except for just two things: 1) Low turnout in the cities, and 2) Ocean County, which continues to somehow get even redder than it already is.
A good illustration of both of those things is that, while Elizabeth and Lakewood have about the same population, fewer than 20,000 people voted in Elizabeth while more than 40,000 people voted in Lakewood. So while Sherrill's popular vote margin in Elizabeth was about 9,600 votes, Ciattarelli's margin in Lakewood was almost 33,000 votes (and turnout in Lakewood was about twice that of 2021). Lakewood single-handedly canceled out Sherrill's margins of victory in Passaic, Morris, Gloucester, Atlantic, and Cumberland counties combined. Turnout was high enough in Lakewood for Ciattarelli to get about the same number of votes that Trump did last year.
They did as much as they could to squeeze Lakewood for all its worth. They even had loudspeakers on a truck reminding people to vote, in Yiddish (since Hebrew is considered too holy for secular use in ultra-Orthodox communities).
So if the Vaad had sat out or even endorsed Sherrill, she probably would’ve broken 57%. Crazy.
Correct.
Did Sherrill even ask for their endorsement? Or did the Vaad endorse Ciattarelli by default?
I assume she asked, she's not dumb. She took pursuing Jewish voters seriously in other aspects, campaigning with Shapiro and Gottheimer. They are just very conservative and they probably thought Ciattarelli could win based on the bad polling. Had they known it was going to be a blowout, they might have sat it out or endorsed her.
Why do you suppose people in Elizabeth didn't vote?
I suppose people in Elizabeth don't see it as their religious duty to vote.
Jews tend to vote in high percentages even when they aren't Chasidic. But did most other places in New Jersey vote at similar percentages to Elizabeth?
And here I was thinking she was in trouble. Shows you how much I knew.
My heart rate was elevated even if I felt confident in the last half hour before polls closed.
that'll teach you! from now on you have to think positive, my boy!!! lol
I don’t think anyone foresaw what is approaching a 700,000 increase in turnout from 2017.
We're still taking it as a fact that Trump's approvals aren't that bad now, based on polls. The same polls that massively undersampled Dems and missed the results by double digits. The thing to consider is that maybe Trump's numbers are actually worse than 2017 and pollsters are just missing it.
It's frustrating that the polling world we live in now is one where pollsters are going to miss almost by default. They struggle right now to properly model the electorate.
There's a lot of weighing to recent elections, but America exists with a negative feedback system on election results: once a party wins power (especially nationally but sometimes more locally), they immediately start to get punished at the ballot. This is an overwhelmingly consistent trend that seems to be completely ignored when pollsters build their models.
Polls this year and in 2022 (and 2018?) were off and missed factors in our favor. Polls in 2016 and 2020 vastly underestimated the turnout of newer republican voters. Polls in 2024 correctly caught that the election was close but were off in the same direction as the prior two. Polls in 2021 were good for Virginia but too optimistic for NJ.
Chances are the 2026 polls will be off in our favor, then in the next midterm with an incumbent democratic admin we'll see the opposite, where the polls are off in republicans' favor. But it's not a safe or easy assumption to make, because the pollsters could learn their lesson at any point and build an accurate electorate model for that cycle.
Kinda crazy that Siena/NYTimes told them that one simple answer on that front is to stop weighting based on prev. elections (they were the first major pollster to show that FL wouldn't even be remotely competitive in 24 iirc).
Obvi the other parts of the "Likely Voter Model Secret Sauce" (primarily the questions of race/age/education) will always befuddle pollsters, but determining what makes a sample more representative of the pop. is and always will never be truly accurate. Maybe returning to viewing political polling as a useful, yet imprecise, statistical tool as opposed just a backdrop for horserace narratives would see more accurate polls start to rise through the slop that's been pouring out the last few cycles; I doubt that's gonna happen any time soon.
I don't see polling being likely to improve much, as people just don't respond to attempts to contact them. Hell, I get texts and occasionally emails supposedly soliciting my opinion. I believe some, maybe most of them are legitimate, but I won't respond to online links, as I know to suspect them of going to malware. And very few people answer the phone to an unknown number.
Yes. That Cooper is up 8 and Hobbs is up 1 in samples that model off 2024 indicate to me those races aren't even close.
Maybe, but I'm also basing it on him only losing NJ by single digits last year.
Obama won Indiana, 2 years later Republicans swept the state. Things can change fast!
IMO Obama winning Indiana is the most surprising state result in any presidential election in the 21st century.
Looks like his "disapproval" numbers in national polls are actually worse now than in 2017 . .he just has a slightly higher floor.
Republican TN state rep. Jeff Burkhart has died. He represented the 75th district in western Montgomery County, including a good portion of Clarksville.
The district voted 51%-45.7% for Trump vs. Biden in 2020
Pickup opportunity.
It was like Trump + 12 in 2024 though. Still possible.
I only looked at the numbers available in DRA -- I don't know where to find other numbers or more recent numbers
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1GiIiDrVwddCH4Pc0Jsc9u9hxbm3mVRZVgivUeeT2ssQ/htmlview#gid=1019324265
Oh yeah good point. It seems that between 2020 and 2024 Democratic vote totals stayed roughly stagnant going from 9362 to 9286, while Republican vote totals increased from 10445 to 12002
With less than a year before the election, it looks like it will fall to the county commission to fill the seat. The last election had the commission at 8R-8D-5I. Chances are they won't rock the boat, but we should try to recruit well regardless for next year's general.
Should Dems run Allie Phillips again? She was a solid candidate who was in an unwinnable race.
Trump no longer supports Rep. Greene, and is looking at candidates to primary her.
L O L
No matter who supported and voted for Trump from MAGA to QaNon to Big Tech, we can always count on Trump to have a hissy fit with anyone who originally supported him just like he got mad because he had a Nintendo game system that didn't function all of a sudden.
*preys*
Thank you Trump. Thank you for continuing to give Democrats more to work with so we can win more elections.
Ken Martin, have the DNC and Democratic Party air ads showing MTG criticizing Mike Johnson and everyone else for not fixing Obamacare. This would be gold for 2026.
This is why I don’t get the instinct to bend over for him. He will never, ever repay it. To anyone.
It was pretty obvious back in 2018 that after serving as Trump’s right hand man, Michael Cohen was already revealing everything we needed to know about Trump himself. Cohen was also one of Trump’s chief spokespeople back in 2016 and went against anyone in the media who started to point out polls showing him behind Hillary Clinton.
Then Cohen had enough, served time for his deeds for Trump and got his life back. He’s been speaking out against Trump consistently since then and has never gone back to his old ways.
The fact that Marjorie Taylor Greene is starting to show signs of common sense makes me wonder, “Gee, if you really thought this way, why did you have to learn the hard way?”
Wonder if Boebert is next.
That would be sweet if Trump turned against her. :)
So Richmond has finally reported its post-election votes and assigned all its votes to precincts.
And, as I suspected, the Windsor Farms precinct in western Richmond ultimately did vote for Spanberger. It was close, but don't forget that this precinct was McCain +40 in 2008. And ticket-splitting is still alive and well there - it voted for Reid by 13 in the LG race, Miyares by 26 in the AG race, and even voted for the hapless Republican in HD-78 who got 19% of the vote overall.
As you may have guessed, this is a very wealthy and exclusive (and practically all-white) area of Richmond.
That is crazy!! I've always wondered why that precinct was so republican leaning even though it was in Richmond and entirely surrounded by Dem precincts.
Lots of old money, as I understand.
Yes, Windsor Farms (Richmond City Precinct 106) is basically the epitome of old money Richmond, but even more so than other precincts nearby that also could be described as such. It's the only precinct in the city that voted for Trump last year, though only by 12 votes.
How much did Spanberger win by in that precinct? And where is this precinct-level election info available?
Spanberger won the precinct by about a half a percent.
The almost-official results are here (choose a city/county and race to see precinct results): https://enr.elections.virginia.gov/results/public/virginia/elections/2025-November-General
And Votehub did a visualization that they've been continuously updating as the post-election ballots were counted: https://votehub.com/va-gov-2025
VPAP is a useful resource for information like this.
Might it be time for a comprehensive redistricting update?
It is difficult with all the appeals & lawsuits flying around.
But someone please correct me if I have one wrong. And I get it is difficult to predict how the actual redrawn maps will vote. But I am going with the intent.
In the books:
1) TX, GOP +5
2) CA, Dem +5
3) NC, GOP +1
4) OH, GOP +1 (+2?)
---Done, but maybe not dusted--------
5) UT, Dems +1. GOP longshot CT appeal
6) MO, GOP +1. Petition drive ongoing that could block it for 2026.
----Efforts Proceeding----
7) VA, Dem +2 to +4. The Dem Leg has passed 1 of 2 necessary provisions, but a new one next year & voter approval still would be needed. Some Dems want a +4 Dem map, others a less extreme one.
--------Unsure-------
8) Florida, GOP. Not proceeding atm
-------Stalled at the moment-----
9) NH, GOP. Dead?
10) KS, GOP. Dead?
11) IN, GOP, Dead?
12) NE, GOP, Dead?
13) IL, Dem, Dead?
14) MD, Dem. Impasse. Gov seems forcit, Senate President against.
-----------Court Cases----VRA----
15) AL/LA. Court cases where SCRITUS could kill the VRA and declare mandated minority districts unconstitutional.
I have no earthy idea on timelines, filing deadlines, or when the point of no return is for 2026. I did not even look at 2028.
I think if 15 comes about, then you add +1 R to SC and MS, and +2? to GA. Not sure NC can do much more, but others here will know better.
If GA happens it’ll only be GA-02. I doubt there is much appetite to go after any seat in Atlanta.
SC is unlikely too because getting rid of SC-06 could cause problems for SC-01 and SC-02 which Trump only
won by 13 points each.
In wondering if Dems can win the GA House in 2026 what happened in Virginia can be replicated. If so, Dems can block any Republican redistricting shenanigans since any VRA decision isn’t likely to come soon enough to allow for map redrawing for 2026.
Looking at the districts, I think they can get to 87 seats (3 short of a majority) there in a similar environment.
The easiest way to block it is flipping the governorship.
It's insane that we're anticipating racists on the Supreme Court annulling the _Voting Rights Act_. Absolutely insane and horrible!
We're going to need Virginia to go big. Louis Lucas do your thing girl
So without the court case, Dems will come out even, or maybe even ahead, depending on VA... but when the SCOTUS hammer comes down , could leave the GOP what, +12 seats once VRA seats are erased?
It’s possible a lot of redistricting pushes in the south fizzle out due to local GOP hesitation, like in Indiana and Kansas.
Also plenty of seats in commission states that Democrats could get rid of, like in NY, NJ, and CO, or in states Dems don’t have a trifecta in but could after 2026, like MN, WI, and PA. That could cancel out.
NY couldn't happen quickly, as constitutional amendments have to be passed by the legislature twice and be voted on by the public.
This is for 2028. They could pass the amendment twice, and have the vote in 2027.
That would require kickstarting efforts now for 2028 and Dems in CO, NJ and elsewhere are too hapless and/or provincial to get it going.
Just pointing out that in Trump 1.0 we did in fact have a blue wave in the House in 2018 but it did not materialize in the Senate where we still lost 4 seats and gained 2 for a net loss of 2.
A blue wave may be building in the house. That does not necessarily guarantee one in the Senate. And I was burned by Phil Bredesen in TN, I'm not believing polls showing Cooper up that much in NC.
NC federally is Lucy pulling the football away at the last second.
At least dems don't have to defend Indiana, Missouri, and North Dakota this time.
Think about what you just said. 2018 was D+8 and not enough to protect incumbent Democrats in red seats. Including Florida.
And not enough to drag the Beto phenom across in TX.
We need red seats in 2026 to have a shot at the Senate.
Iowa, Alaska, Ohio, defeating Collins, will likely take more than '18 turnout. A lot more.
Sure, I’m not saying it will be easy for dems to win the senate. But they’re not going to end up losing 4 seats like in 2018. There aren’t enough realistic targets for republicans. Dems most vulnerable seats are Michigan, Georgia, and New Hampshire, all way bluer than North Dakota, Missouri, and Indiana.
If we could not defend incumbent Dems in red states in a D+8 environment it is unlikely we will take open or incumbent Republican seats in red states under the same conditions. We may well defend open Dem seats. Point is taking seats is another problem.
I understand your point, but I think an important consideration is we don't need to spend money defending seats like Missouri, Indiana, and North Dakota. Instead, that money can be spent on offense in Maine, North Carolina, Texas, Iowa, Ohio, and potentially even Alaska. I'm definitely not saying that's an easy task. But it's much preferable to having to go on offense in those states while *also* defending many deep red states.
2020 was a year where we spent a lot of money trying to win deep red seats (McGrath in Kentucky, Harrison in South Carolina, Bullock in Montana). Perhaps if we hadn't diverted so much money there, we could have won in Maine, North Carolina, or even Iowa and we would have had a Senate majority that wasn't reliant on the VP-tie breaker and didn't rely on Manchin and Sinema. We didn't even spend money trying to defend Doug Jones in Alabama, because we recognized it wasn't worthwhile. This cycle, we don't have to defend Kentucky and South Carolina, and can focus our efforts on defending Georgia, Michigan, and New Hampshire while going on offence in Maine, North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio, and Texas.
I think in D+8 environment Dems would pick up NC and ME at least and lose nothing. Collins was able to survive D+3/4 in 2020 but I don’t think she can survive D+8.
But it won't be the same conditions.
I think Spanberger won by more than any Dem Gov in VA since the 1960s.
Mamdani got the most votes ever for a NYC mayor..
Sherrill WAY overperformed the polling. As did the ballot issues in ME. Big margins in GA. Big wins, both in terms of margins, swings, and red places, in PA, CT, NH, etc.
When a bubble bursts all sorrs of things can happen.
If Mark Warner had been allowed to run for reelection in 2005, he probably would’ve won by a larger margin than Spanberger did this year. That doesn’t make Spanberger’s performance any less impressive, though.
Indiana, Missouri, and North Dakota are all redder than Iowa, Ohio, Alaska, and Texas. Just because we lost the former set of states in 2018 doesn't mean we'll lose the latter set of states next year. Also, Rick Scott spent $64M of his own money to win the 2018 Senate race in Florida.
NC is not Lucy pulling the football. Its senate seats have just always been up in mediocre-to-bad years for Democrats.
We kind of thought that with Florida up until 2018, with Dems losing the governorship in 2010 and 2014 narrowly due to very bad Dem years. However I think the situation in NC is different as Dems have been able to win a fair share of statewide races in even mediocre Presidential election years..
Exactly, as Stein's landslide carried Jackson, Riggs and Green with him even as Trump won NC a year ago (Robinson, Griffin, Bishop and Morrow were also shitty nominees)
Not only are they experiencing pretty significantly different demographic pulls, but NC has been overall trending bluer in POTUS years the past decade, whereas Florida has been trending right for the past quarter-century.
Except there’s no Miami-Dade equivalent in NC to lurch the state rightward.
Or a DeSantis equivalent set to transform the states’ migration patterns.
If NC had a Senate race in 2018 we would probably have won it. And we might have won in 2020 without the Cunningham scandal, though in retrospect the polls which often showed him leading may have been off even without the personal scandal which frankly doesn't seem that serious in this day and age.
Even in 2024 Dems might have been able to win there; leaving aside the Stein landslide as an aberration--though the GOP might have chosen Mark Robinson for Senate if they could--most other statewide races were close and Trump didn't win it by that much (and I'd guess he'd lose it now). 2026 obviously seems to present us with a confluence of positive factors--good year for Dems, or at least anti-GOP backlash, and strong candidate--but obviously we can't get complacent.
2028 will be interesting. Ted Budd, who won only narrowly in 2022 and probably doesn't have much in the way of special personal popularity, will be up. And the last Democratic Senate win in the state to date was in 2008, which had an unpopular Republican president who couldn't run again and energised Dems running on a change message.
Senate maps! Class 1 in 2018 is a completely different animal from Class 2 in 2026.
Also despite the historical ties, today’s NC is not on the same boat with TN anymore.
Counterintuitively I'd argue that the wave did hit the senate in 2018. The problem was the map and realignment. Three of the seats we lost that year were doomed from the start. Ignore the starting number of seats held and look at the states won and outcome solely on the outcome. From that perspective the year went amazingly for us in the senate.
The reality is that our seats in MO and IN were on borrowed time, seats we only won in 2012 due to republican candidates imploding. Both of them and ND were only won in 2012 due to just barely retaining our prior coalition downballot. Once voters realign at the top of the ballot it's only a matter of time until they also realign downballot. That we did hold onto WV that year was our one miracle, to counterbalance the disaster of barely losing FL.
There's a real chance that 2026 sees us with limited gains in the senate even in a great year, again due to the map. There are realistically only two seats we can pick up next year without a wave: North Carolina and Maine. There are a good number of plausible reach seats: Texas, Ohio, Iowa, and Alaska. But all four of them are only possible in a wave. A wave does not guarantee we win any of them, it's merely a required condition for us to have a chance at all. Senate outcomes this year has a lot of variability at the big wave end of things, but not much variance below that.
A very good year for us would be holding all our seats and gaining NC and ME. Even in a 2018 redux, anything beyond that is a reach.
That sets us up in 2028 to get to 50 or 51 seats by picking up WI and WI and NC and using that rare majority to create a filibuster carve out for voting rights to pass a national redistricting standards bill that mandates bipartisan or non partisan commissions in every state to draw district lines as well as passing statehood for DC and Puerto Rico.
That matches my thinking exactly.
I do think we shouldn't completely write off the four reach seats, but we should go into it expecting that even in a decent sized wave we could lose all four and "only" have NC+ME as pickups.
If we can gain three seats next year it will be a huge improvement in our chances for holding a trifecta in 2029. Of course, it should be remembered that Ohio's winner next year will be up again in 2028: we need to win it twice in a row to contribute for a trifecta.
I'm torn on which is the least-difficult between TX, AK, and IA. They're all struggles even in a wave, but still viable reach seats.
What do you mean by WI and WI?
I think it was just a repeat of WI and that John only meant "WI and NC." Looking at the map there's nothing in 2028 that is as competitive as those two. There aren't that many reach seats either. Only Iowa, really, and even if we do well in Iowa next year I'd be very skeptical of that carrying through to a presidential electorate.
Then in 2030 the only realistic pickup target is Pennsylvania, with only Texas as a plausible reach seat.
It's a bit of a side comment but we're really damn close to our realistic maximum seat count in the senate with current coalitions. Ignoring reach seats, we have five plausible pickups across the three senate classes: ME, WI, PA, and NC x2. If we maximized those we'd cap out at 52 seats; if we added in a reach seat or two we could hit 53-54 as a practical maximum.
Republicans, despite being at a 53-47 majority, still have lots of room for potential growth in the senate even without reach seats. Take away ME to simplify things, and they'd have 52 red or purple state senators. Plausible pickups include: WI, MI x2, PA, MN x2, NV x2, AZ x2, and GA x2. Maybe NH x2 as well, depending on how we look at it. Some might debate MN too, but it's been consistently close so I think it's fair to look at it as a similar category as NC for us. Republicans have about a dozen realistic senate seat pickups.
We desperately need to add DC (and PR) as a state if we want to have long-term governing prospects. We cannot rely on winning 80+% of swing state senate seats indefinitely. It's unrealistic to expect our luck and candidate quality to continue forever.
Yes, and as I say, the Virgin Islands.
I meant picking up WI or picking up both WI and NC. We’d pick up WI before we picked up NC in 2028.
Change Research poll | 10/23-10/27 LV
Iowa’s 3rd congressional district
🟦Sarah Trone Garriott 53%
🟥Zach Nunn 40% (incumbent)
(Trump +4 in 2024)
(Sarah Trone Garriott internal)
IA Sen is so in play.
I’m curious what the polling is for that horrid Miller-Meeks woman vs Christina Bohannon.
The first poll in the spring had Bohannon up by 4
I wonder if Hinson’s open house seat is also in play.
It is, but not to the extent of the 1st and 3rd. It would be hard to flip unless a really unlikable republican took it (the frontrunner seems to be state rep and close ally of the late Charlie Kirk, Joe Mitchell)
This exceeded my expectations for Iowa thus far. But if any state has persuadable, rural and blue collar whites, it's Iowa. And to a lesser extent Wisconsin and Michigan. I imagine that all 3 congressional districts outside of the 4th are not only in play, but have Democrats up in the polls right now. Bodes very well for any Democrats running in statewide races in Iowa.
Plus having our Senate candidate from a red area in IA-04 would serve well to cut down the margins there. Turek represents a Trump +9 seat right now.
Important caveat: Those results are after an "informed ballot" question is asked. https://changeresearch.com/new-surveys-show-democrats-competitive-in-key-swing-house-districts/
Virginia election data is now in DRA! And except for two precincts in York County, it looks like it's pretty darn accurate.
For anyone drawing Democratic gerrymanders of Virginia, Spanberger +4 seems to be pretty much the line between HoD districts won by Dems and those held by Republicans. HD-30, the closest Dem victory, went to Spanberger by 5, while HD-34, the closest Republican victory, went to Spanberger by 3. Every district bluer than HD-30 elected a Dem this year, while every district redder than HD-34 elected a Republican.
Lines up with the idea that the LG race was the most "generic D vs R" one, whereas Spanberger was a much better candidate than her opponent (flipping some otherwise partyline R voters), while Jones was worse than his opponent (losing some otherwise partyline D voters).
I think there’s an argument that Hashmi was hurt by racism. Obviously we can’t tell the counterfactual. I wonder if the generic D vs R would be somewhere around D+13-14 to reconcile both the racism against her and maybe WES, as well as Spanberger’s superior campaign.
I think that's a reasonable argument. IMO Jones would probably have won by about 13 if not for his texting scandal, outperforming Hashmi but not quite matching Spanberger.
What's WES?
I think Winsome Earle-Sears?
Amanda Cook has been picked by the Guilford County Democratic Party to replace the former conservadem state NC representative Cecil Brockman after he resigned due to child sex charges.
https://myfox8.com/news/politics/nc/former-rep-cecil-brockmans-replacement-selected-by-guilford-county-democratic-party/amp/
"Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City this week. He wants to defund and disarm police, abolish jails, impose city-run grocery stores, freeze rents, and enact a $30 minimum wage, all while advocating massive tax hikes and open
borders.
With this election, do you believe the Democratic Party is becoming more radical, less radical, or it made no difference?"
More Radical: 55%
No Difference: 27%
Less Radical: 9%
Cygnal / Nov 6, 2025
36 percent of the people that Cygnal polled are insane.
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1989745433330020750
What did you think would happen when we nominated a socialist Muslim?
I am not taking this poll or the wording seriously but the amount of right wingers who believe this was already the official dem platform is unreal.
Republicans have done a good job of branding the party with the goals of its fringiest members.
Republicans have luckily also done a good job of branding themselves with the goals of their own fringiest members, if the recent election night is to be believed.
To tack on to my other post, if people polled me about what I think the true positions of the Republican party are, they might consider me out of whack with "reality" as well.
It doesn't matter what liars and gaslighters claim, nor is it the least bit equivalent to true or honest statements.
He'd get elected for two terms as President? (runs, hides)
He wasn't born in the US, so isn't eligible.
I think Andrew Marshall is referring to the fact that Republicans called Obama a socialist Muslim, and he did indeed get elected President for two terms.
(points at nose)
What's the purpose of this poll? Feels a lot like it's just to bash Mamdani and Dems? It's very clearly using fear-mongering language like "defund" "impose" and "open borders"
Republican pollster wants to get on Fox.
Cygnal is a liar, and we shouldn't take any of their numbers seriously. None of what they say about Mamdani is accurate beyond the first sentence (unless he wants a $30 minimum wage, which I think I would have heard about).
Actually, the $30 wage seems to be accurate: https://www.epi.org/blog/a-30-by-2030-minimum-wage-in-new-york-city-is-a-bold-proposal-the-first-step-is-giving-the-city-the-freedom-to-set-its-own-wage-floor/ Considering expenses here, that's probably a good idea.
San Francisco did help lead the way with minimum wage well over a decade ago but at a smaller amount by contrast to what minimum wage would be.
It’s a question of how Mamdani can get minimum wage increased. May have to up progressively in increments over time but as long as the process is in place, that helps.
Incremental increases are the plan.
I thought they would be. That's how the recent CA minimum wage increase was. Takes more time for the economy to absorb things.
Dems are just really bad at counter-messaging. The GOP uses the likes of "defund the police" and "abolish ICE" said by a couple loony people on our side to paint all of us that way. Why we have not countered with "the party that pardons domestic terrorists" and "tanked our economy twice in twenty years" is beyond me.
Of course we could choose to discuss that yet again, but it feels strange to say in this context, since Mamdani won.
Mamdani barely got over 50% against a Trump-endorsed candidate. Not a ringing endorsement for electoral prowess in a very blue city.
Do you think you're making a serious argument? He won an outright majority against 2 candidates, with another still on the ballot, and absolutely creamed the #2 candidate. Someone who didn't know the actual election results would interpret your remarks as meaning he won 49-48%. How was the margin for you?
Also, Trump didn't even win a majority of the popular vote last year but still characterized it as a mandate, despite only having 1 major opponent
Exactly, but he's a liar and would characterize an election in which he lost by 10 points but stole it as a mandate, too.
My point was not about Mamdani specifically, but thanks for derailing. I’ll leave my thoughts on Mamdani and any extrapolation for his supposed electability in swing states for another thread.
WTF are you talking about? You made a misleading or ill-considered statement about the New York City Mayoral election. And he wasn't running in swing states, and we don't need to have a totally useless discussion about whether he would be viable running in one, which is a fake controversy no-one is arguing about.
To be fair, he was also a former governor whose dad was also a governor in New York.
That plus Cuomo also had a lot of money supporting him.
Wow. A Republican pollster asks a loaded question. (The first two are outright lies). And people here are supposed to take it seriously?
One of the things past election cycles has taught us is that polls no longer accurately represent public opinion.
Notice there’s been no breast beating by the likes of Nate Cohn and Harry Enten about the massive polling error in New Jersey. 11 points off the RCP average. You can be sure that had the parties been reversed, we’d never hear the end of it.
How can the same pollsters make Sherill vulnerable while also saying Harris will win?
Depends which pollsters you’re talking about. The numerous Republican pollsters are terrible without Trump on the ballot. See 2022. Quinnipiac and Fox had it at 7. Which, while not gold ribbon worthy, was at least somewhat in the ballpark.
I just feel like ever since Trump, no matter the outlet's affiliation, they just can't seem to get it right - or if they do, not within the margin of victory. Some elections I understand because they're very close, but the final polls for NJ governor had Sherill up by 2 and 3 points - she won by 16!!
LOL at "impose" city-run grocery stores.
That's like saying that the government "imposes" the Postal Service on us. In fact, that's not even the best comparison, since the Postal Service actually does have a monopoly on the use of mailboxes and stuff, while Mamdani's city-run grocery stores will simply be an alternative to the existing privately owned grocery stores.
It really baffles me that, of all of the different planks of Mamdani's platform, some of which are admittedly problematic, that *this* is the one that many conservatives are most upset about.
$30 minimum wage should really be close to or around what most people should get paid for if you take into account inflation. Perhaps higher. We can’t get there overnight but minimum wage was essential in helping the US move away from the Great Depression.
But implementing it locally in NYC is going to be a tough sell unless it can go directly to voters locally on the ballot.
On this one issue, Democrats should show spine and not be ashamed of making wages as reasonable as possible.
One of the things that's going to be really important is Mamdani making real progress on childcare. It's a big ticket item that will actually help affordability (and presumably create jobs).
If he's able to deliver in a meaningful way here, it's a true government works success story that actually makes a meaningful difference. BDB doing UPK was a two-pronged policy item that helped parents stay working and provided avenues for children to learn.
Going to be hard to tar and feather him as a scary radical socialist when you have troves of happy parents speaking positively about how this changed their lives...
Right, but what is BDB doing UPK?
My hunch is that it means Bill de Blasio doing universal pre-kindergarten.
But the OP (original poster) should confirm.
That makes sense, but I doubt I would have figured it out.
Yup that's right.
What is the chance that Montana's 1st District flips next year? The last two elections it was 49.6-46.5 and 52.3-44.6 for the Republicans. Is it a reach district, or would it just depend on the right candidate? Ryan Zinke is quite obviously tied to Trump via his stint as Secretary of the Interior in his first term, so that is a potential albatross around his neck.
I think it’s more doable than some other seats
I'd say it's more doable than the likes of PA-1, FL 13, the new OH 9, WI 1, IA 2, TX 15 and AK AL
I think Fitzpatrick is completely toast next year. The Bucks County results at 50% turnout were nothing but disastrous for the GOP. Shapiro is going to get over 60% there next year. As for the rest of the seats, I could lump MT-01 in before them, sure.
If next year is like this year, Fitzpatrick will probably go down by plenty, but he is a wily survivor, so we can't be sure.
I just checked and Fitzpatrick wasn't among the 2 Republicans that voted against the BBB and voted yes on it. On top of that he's gonna have a lot of explaining as to why he didn't bother to vote for discharge petition to release the Epstein files. Moderate Republicans are increasingly cooked if they aren't already. Voting for or against the wrong things and nothing to show for it but a crap economy, political and social turmoil and an increasingly corrupt, incompetent and guilty president.
You know who did vote against the BBB and voted to release the Epstein files though? Thomas Massie of all people. I never thought I'd say I would actually see integrity and courage in Republican these days, let alone respect one.
"Moderate Republicans in Congress" are a myth. There haven't been any for a while now.
Yeah, Fitzpatrick may be toast for re-election at this point. He was considered one of the saner House Republicans compared to the rest of the pack.
Too bad. One more House seat up for grabs for Democrats coming right up!
So far there are two Dems in the race, neither of whom hold elected office. Based on their websites, Russell Cleveland seems like a conventional liberal and Matt Rains more of a Tester type.
Tester was still able to eke out a victory here last year.
Anyway it’s possible Zinke goes down in a wave, but I don’t think there’s a star recruit for the Dems here yet.
There was talk of one candidate (named Sam Forstag) who apparently was a part of an elite group of smokejumpers who also spoke at a Bernie rally, a la Graham Platner and Bob Brooks. And given how Platner's campaign is going, I'm not sure if he'd be necessarily a safe bet either -- but I'm not hearing many other possible recruits so far.
Hank Green might be the best bet if he wants to run.
He put out a video before election day last year endorsing the Democrat, Monica Tranel. Don't know if he's interested himself
The youtuber? Solid YT channel, but that's the best MT has got for dems?
came to the weekend Downballot to ask that same question. One of the two candidates is being touted to me as a Platner-without-tats type, and the other is being presented to me as a DCCC import. (Technically, DCCC-adjacent.) Flathead Beacon had a writeup a few days ago https://flatheadbeacon.com/2025/11/13/cleveland-rains-vie-for-democratic-nomination-to-run-in-western-house-district/