N.J. Governor’s race is a month away. Newark mayor Ras Baraka was arrested today seeking to enter an ICE detention facility in Newark. Wondering how much of a bump, if any, he gets from this. Remain concerned about Gottheimer as his ads are constantly popping up on YouTube and elsewhere on line. Meanwhile Sherrill has been virtually invisible. Maybe she’s doing more of her ads on tv and radio.
Doesn't seem that Baraka's agenda here is any different than Democrats who did the same thing in Trump's first term as POTUS when ICE was committing atrocious crimes then.
I'm not sure this is going to change the dynamic of the NJ-GOV race in Baraka's favor but I'm glad he's doing it.
It's a good thing to do, and actually doing it differentiates him from the other candidates even if they all support his actions. There's a difference between getting yourself arrested and opposing a policy.
This is a very brave move from him. Not only does he show that he’s willing to put himself in harm’s way to protect his people, but it shines a light on how low Trump’s ICE is willing to go.
I wonder if any of the not-Cuomo NYC mayoral candidates are thinking something like:
"Damn, I should think about doing some high profile act of anti-Trump civil disobedience to get some press to try to break out of the pack, cause that NJ guy just got millions in publicity"
Makes sense, she just wanted her week in the press. Kind of annoying but gives us all something to chatter about. She at least seemed more realistic compared to Rep Omar keeping her name in contention for MN-Sen for weeks.
While we’re waiting for a comprehensive report from The DownBallot’s secret correspondent at the Conclave, here is an interesting article published by Axios.
MAGA says Pope Leo may be American, but he's not 'America first'
And in other good news, Steve Bannon and the MAGA ecosphere have found reasons to denounce Pope Leo XIV.
"I mean it's kind of jaw-dropping. It is shocking to me that a guy could be selected to be the Pope that had had the Twitter feed and the statements he's had against American senior politicians," said Bannon, a hard-right Trump loyalist, practising Catholic and former altar boy.
The former altar boy predicts that there's "definitely going to be friction" between Leo and Trump.
It's not like Leo was sharing "Resistance" memes. The main thing he criticized was Vance's characterization of Love in Christianity, where Vance was totally 180% wrong. "The Gospels say we should love all humanity, even our enemies" is just an accurate statement, in no way controversial at all, or shouldn't be.
You say that, but throughout history, Christian rulers have much more commonly killed those they decided were enemies, rather than loving them. Jesus' radical message tends to be subversive, rather than congenial, for rulers.
On a side note, there’s a bloody good reason the Catholic Church waits until somebody’s dead before making them a saint. Can’t have saintly subversives running around!
I mean that's true, but rather irrelevant to the point that either Vance or Leo were making. Vance said that Christianity teaches that you should have a hierarchy of loving those closest to you first, and the future Leo, as well as many others, pointed out that the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the gospels say the opposite. What Christians do in practice is another question.
(Or followers of any religion that preaches some amount of pacifism. It usually gets thrown out the window when it's inconvenient for pollical leaders.)
First comprehensive high quality Florida gubernatorial poll, doesn't look bad for Democrats. Mrs. DeSantis is toast in the primary since Trump endorsed Donalds. Pizzo lead the primary field before his tantrum lol. The best thing to happen to Florida Democrats was him leaving. He deserves it.
That's a sort of apples to (Florida) oranges comparison, as neither of those years featured a Republican presidential incumbent and both had GOP incumbents running for governor and senator. 2018 with its open gubernatorial race and Trump in the WH might be more valid, though that's not too encouraging here either as (IIRC) Andrew Gillum led in most though not all fall polling. (I still maintain that his nomination was one of the biggest recent self-owns by any state's Democrats.)
A lot of undecideds so this may have potential, though I'd certainly understand if Dems decide that Florida really isn't worth the effort and cost in light of recent electoral history, apart from some congressional and legislative races. This shows Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava as the Democratic frontrunner for governor; is she actually running?
2020 electorate also was the same as 2018, just Trump pulled his single issue maga voters out to vote. Florida Dems ran the worst perennial, vote missing, candidate possible in 2022 which led to a very bad turnout and DeSantis' libertarian COVID policy proved very popular among Latino workers and small businesses in Florida.
Florida was a top destination for illegal immigration as well as affected a lot by the post covid inflation. This along with Ron's popularity easily explains 2024. Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Columbians and Puerto Ricans in Florida all voted for Democrats till 2020. Yeah more conservatives than liberals did migrate but older retirees pass away and Florida is more urbanized and diverse now. I believe Texas and Florida with Trump's unpopularity among Independents, young voters, Latinos and other minorities will be 2018 redux in 2026 with the races going either way.
Gillum’s primary win was irritating at first but then the polls made us look in a real good position to win. And then back to being mad. I get that FL is a big state but I would’ve hoped Gwen Graham’s ability to win in a red district would’ve resonated better. Instead, it seemed more like a hindrance and she wasn’t from the main Dem bases in the other major cities.
The problem in 2018 was Dems just having too many candidates running in the primary, which allowed Gillum to win the primary with just 34% of the vote. This is one instance where a runoff would have been helpful.
They had some rich guy Jeff Greene running and he self-funded his campaign. He went scorched earth on Graham and Gillum came out of nowhere to win. Gillum turned out to be a terrible candidate with serious ethical problems who cost us the race and did us no favors in the Senate race as well.
The very same poll you showed with Rs leading a hypothetical 2026 gov race by mid single digit, had a link to its 2024 poll, with Trump leading 6pt. Quite wrong about the margin, except at least they didn’t put Harris leading.
The links you put on 24 Senate race averaging Scott leading 5pt. He won 13pt. DeSantis’ polls 10-12pt, he won 19. If you take this, these polls had even larger errors than previous cycles in 16-20.
The only thing goes for them, the contests there have become so lopsided, at least they won’t get the winners wrong.
The presidential election was so off because other pollsters were using the "recall" technique in Texas and Florida to make the polls look closer to 2020 which herded them. I did not present the presidential election polls at all and did not assume you were talking about that since Florida wasn't in play. 2022 polls did predict a landslide even though they didn't accurately predict the breadth of it.
I think Cava, Pizzo, and Graham should split the Gubernatorial and next two Senate elections between them. If David Jolly wants to run as an independent I guess that's fine but he doesn't strike me as stronger than the other three. I know we're all down on Florida, but we just don't have the option to not seriously contest a bunch of states that Trump won by 10+ points because he won 24 of them by that amount. It's impossible to count to 51 in the Senate without running A tier candidates in places like Texas, Florida, Iowa, and Ohio every single cycle and hoping we win one out of every 8 races or whatever.
But I don’t think it matters. If you use James definition of 50/50 in a D wave, I don’t think any D candidate is viable at this moment. Things may change though.
His congressional voting record is pretty standard-issue conservative, if possible I'd rather someone like Gwen Graham run for the Senate since she's probably a more reliable vote and I don't think Jolly has any electability value over her or Cava.
“Democratic National Convention Chair Ken Martin on Saturday doubled down on his ultimatum for rogue Vice Chair David Hogg: Take a neutrality pledge or step down,” Politico reports.
Said Martin: “Party officers have one job: to be fair stewards of a process that invites every Democrat to the table — regardless of personal views or allegiances.”
On one hand, I think those kinds of primary challenges are needed and beneficial to the party in the long run. Replacing stagnant and unimpressive incumbents in safe seats with more dynamic and impressive candidates would make our party stronger overall, even for people outside of safe seats.
On the other hand, that's damn reasonable. We don't want party infrastructure favoring certain candidates.
On the other other hand, we should all expect that party infrastructure will be favoring long-term safe seat incumbents in passive ways through connections, fundraising, endorsements, and other ways.
On the other other other hand (halfway to an octopus now), those are still distinctly different than direct and more active involvement...
I could keep going but I think my take comes down to this being a reasonable request but I'd hope he, or someone else, still takes up that role to push safe seat dems to be better.
I’ve gradually come around to the same conclusion: this is a laudable project – and I hope it continues. However, David Hogg cannot be in charge or associated with it while serving as DNC Vice Chair. Any way you cut it, that is a conflict of interest.
Question for everyone: We made fun of Trump for saying merely that he hoped Pakistan and India would stop fighting soon, and that they've been fighting for centuries (which is obviously impossible). Now that the two countries agreed to a ceasefire brokered by the Trump Administration (at least as reported on WINS this morning), should we give them any credit for that? My reaction: I guess so, if that's really true.
He will take credit for anything he thinks of as good. He habitually shoves his name into association with something and then says the good thing is because of him.
If anyone wants me to believe he deserves credit for something, I want evidence that his involvement improved things and that the outcome we saw would not have happened otherwise. Not the generic name association that he is so wont to do.
There are conflicting accounts as to who really helped broker the deal. Most sources outside the Trump administration aren't giving it much credit; I think Rubio had a minor role and Trump none at all. Diplomats from many countries are being credited.
I object to both. When I used to watch CNN, I was always annoyed that instead of covering more news, including very important things happening in Africa, they covered the same stuff over and over ever hour.
Precisely! That said, Christiane Amanpour, and the two later-joiners Fareed Zakaria and Anderson Cooper at their best, were stellar. And I miss the CNN of old – before Ted Turner sold it.
Turner sold CNN in 1996, but even before then some of their coverage choices seemed dubious from anything but a ratings perspective. A key development may have been the gavel to gavel coverage of the OJ Simpson trial in 1994-95--as if it were the single most important news story in the world for over a year.
Of course it was mostly downhill from there, with some good moments and reverses. I think it really became a shitshow under Jeff Zucker.
I saw some Indian news reporting, they say that it's out of protocol to claim success or announce decisions after any backdoor or unofficial contacts or indirect negotiations, we might have participated in. It makes sense.
Coney Barrett will never turn into a liberal justice, she is influenced by Catholic conservative thought and not MAGA so she's a little moderate. That's it.
When America was concerned about electing America’s first Catholic president, who would have thought there would someday be six Catholic justices on the Supreme Court?
In a seat that has gone back and forth since elections, after a recount the Liberals have been declared the winner of the Terrebonne riding in Quebec by 1 vote. This gives them 170 seats.
“The Liberals fell just three seats short of the 172 required of a majority government. Even if the recounts all turn out Liberal victories, the party will still be one short.”
Yes, two of the other recounts are ones where the initial tally favoured the liberals. So best case they net one more seat, worst case they lose one seat total.
Carney doesn’t really need a majority at this moment. He doesn’t even need a formal confidence and supply agreement from NDP.
He just need to make sure not losing any votes on confidence matters, the throne speech, budget and money bills, any non taxing/spending laws he wants to pass absolutely and declares as confidence vote, or the non confidence motion Conservatives put forward.
IMHO, in terms of not letting the Liberals passing something in their worse instincts like Trudeau era, it is better NOT for them to have a majority.
The problem in my honest opinion living here, was Trudeau himself. People got tired of him specifically, not so much the policies (although you get no argument from me that the Liberals should have passed more legislation to help the cost of living for people over these last 10 years). I think that bares out in the election results (except the carbon tax that was very unpopular despite myself supporting it).
As soon as Carney took that 1 issue off the table, Canadians decided to hand them another up to 5 years as a minority government (unless they convince some NDP’ers or even Conservatives to cross the floor) despite Conservatives leading by 25 points a few months ago.
So I definitely agree he doesn’t need a majority and he has little risk in his government being toppled for at least the next year or two. I also agree he doesn’t need a supply and/or confidence agreement with the NDP.
A Republican sex scandal has upended the Virginia governor’s race—but not in the way that anyone expected, with the MAGA base flocking to John Reid, an openly gay Trump supporter, and turning on Glenn Youngkin for trying to push Reid out. “Trump broke the evangelical stuff,” said a campaign operative in Richmond. “There is purity, and there is winning. And they are both drugs, but one of them is a lot more addictive.”
Goes deep into why the controversy happened. Youngkin is out of the 2028 primary contention, it seems. A big self-own due to his homophobia.
Not to say that Trump is not some pro-gay guy though, he recently took a homophobic dig at Buttigieg mentioning the 2028 primary.
I am not discussing the primary but if Republicans want to solely focus on his sexual orientation starting from now then make him win the primary. It would be a great gift to us. "Gay president bad" is not exactly a great election pitch.
A May 2022 Gallup poll found that 71% of Americans supported same-sex marriage, while 28% were against. The 2022 American Values Atlas by Public Religion Research Institute found that 69% of Americans supported same-sex marriage, while 28% opposed it.
I am not saying that he should be the nominee... Yet we elected a Black man with an Arabic middle name as the president and we were about to elect a woman until a guy called Comey dropped a letter! (Silver, Vox and CNN's analysis say so)
The headwinds were against us in 2024 due to a variety of issues and Kamala was tied to a very unpopular administration, nothing much to do with her gender.
There is no delusion in acknowledging that electing a female president is a bigger lift than a male one. Polls show an unwillingness to vote for a woman for President.
It's delusional to say that Kamala lost because of her gender as Biden has been going around claiming in interviews rather than pointing out any other reason, she had much bigger problems like inflation, economy, border and being the VP of Biden, an unpopular president proven by the polls. She was trailing Trump on the biggest issues except Protecting Democracy, time and again, with the majority of voters saying that the country was headed in the wrong direction. No president has won re-election when voters say this.
Yes, it may be a bigger lift for a woman to be the president but which polls are you referring to? I can only find one where 57 percent that the country is ready to elect a woman, 23 percent say that country is not ready and 20 percent say that they are not sure. The sample size, Hillary and Kamala, is too small to know it as both were candidates dogged by a variety of issues. I concede that it may well be that a white Christian man is the safest bet. I personally dislike identity politics and would like the best and most winnable candidate to be nominated regardless of gender.
It's delusional to say that Kamala lost because of her gender as Biden has been going around claiming in interviews rather than pointing out any other reason, she had much bigger problems like inflation, economy, border and being the VP of Biden, an unpopular president proven by the polls. She was trailing Trump on the biggest issues except Protecting Democracy, time and again, with the majority of voters saying that the country was headed in the wrong direction. No president has won re-election when voters say this.
Yes, it may be a bigger lift for a woman to be the preside but I can only find one poll where 57 percent say that the country is ready to elect a woman, 23 percent say that the country not ready and 20 percent not sure in October 2024. The sample size, Hillary and Kamala, is too small to know it as both were candidates dogged by a variety of issues. I I concede that it may well be that a white Christian man is the safest bet. I personally dislike identity politics and would like the best and winnable candidate to be nominated regardless of gender.
I think Trump is probably mildly homophobic personally, and he knows he needs to occasionally toss bones to the hardcore fundies on it. But he doesn’t make it his whole personality politically like they do
It's also clear that Youngkin blew the Tumbler thing way out of proportion. It's literally just pictures of guys the account holder (perhaps Reid) found hot. Even if it was Reid's account, it hardly seems scandalous in today's day and age.
I mean it would probably reflect poorly on a straight male politician if an anonymous tumbler emerged from years past where they curated images of naked and scantily clad women. But it hardly seems career ending.
The infighting is something to behold. Youngkin never presented himself as a religious rightist (if he had he probably wouldn't be governor), but his operatives' negative reaction to Reid's sexuality is at least amusing. And if he wants to run for president, I'm not sure what impact it may have but there's the potential for opposition from both religious and more secular Republicans. (Personally I'm sympathetic to Reid in that his private doings, so long as they're with consenting adults, should not be an issue.)
But on a broader level people and the media should stop pretending that Trump somehow recast the GOP as a culturally tolerant party, especially given evangelicals' cultish fawning over him.
I am interested in how the 2026 judicial races will shape up in North Carolina, since Justice Allison Riggs, a favorable federal decision and a concession finally got her race certified. But on the negative side, the NC State Board of Elections is now controlled by the GOP state auditor and Phil Berger-approved majority (including a Federalist Society election denier).
Incumbent justice NC Supreme Court justice Anita Earls will have the edge against GOP challenger Sarah Stevens, simply on the D-favorable midterm circumstances. It certainly won't be a margin of several hundred votes. Two incumbent D justices on the Court of Appeals are also up for re-election (John Arrowood and Toby Hampson), while the third D justice (Allegra Collins) is not seeking re-election.
N.J. Governor’s race is a month away. Newark mayor Ras Baraka was arrested today seeking to enter an ICE detention facility in Newark. Wondering how much of a bump, if any, he gets from this. Remain concerned about Gottheimer as his ads are constantly popping up on YouTube and elsewhere on line. Meanwhile Sherrill has been virtually invisible. Maybe she’s doing more of her ads on tv and radio.
Is this Trump trying to prop up Baraka in the primary thinking he’ll be easier to beat in the general?
Do you think he's that strategic? I don't.
Doesn't seem that Baraka's agenda here is any different than Democrats who did the same thing in Trump's first term as POTUS when ICE was committing atrocious crimes then.
I'm not sure this is going to change the dynamic of the NJ-GOV race in Baraka's favor but I'm glad he's doing it.
It's a good thing to do, and actually doing it differentiates him from the other candidates even if they all support his actions. There's a difference between getting yourself arrested and opposing a policy.
This is a very brave move from him. Not only does he show that he’s willing to put himself in harm’s way to protect his people, but it shines a light on how low Trump’s ICE is willing to go.
I wonder if any of the not-Cuomo NYC mayoral candidates are thinking something like:
"Damn, I should think about doing some high profile act of anti-Trump civil disobedience to get some press to try to break out of the pack, cause that NJ guy just got millions in publicity"
GA Sen: MTG says she is not running for senate against Jon Ossoff.
Turns out she indeed doesn’t have the guts
Makes sense, she just wanted her week in the press. Kind of annoying but gives us all something to chatter about. She at least seemed more realistic compared to Rep Omar keeping her name in contention for MN-Sen for weeks.
Damn it!
Common Herschel Walker, you can do it.
Did he get his appointment to the Bahamas confirmed?
I don’t believe he has.
I think with Kemp skipping and Trump hovering around 40% approval, Ossoff is likely to be fine even if he gets a replacement level Republican.
"Why the conclave elected Robert Prevost"
While we’re waiting for a comprehensive report from The DownBallot’s secret correspondent at the Conclave, here is an interesting article published by Axios.
https://www.axios.com/2025/05/09/why-robert-prevost-elected-pope-leo-conclave
MAGA says Pope Leo may be American, but he's not 'America first'
And in other good news, Steve Bannon and the MAGA ecosphere have found reasons to denounce Pope Leo XIV.
"I mean it's kind of jaw-dropping. It is shocking to me that a guy could be selected to be the Pope that had had the Twitter feed and the statements he's had against American senior politicians," said Bannon, a hard-right Trump loyalist, practising Catholic and former altar boy.
The former altar boy predicts that there's "definitely going to be friction" between Leo and Trump.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyglw20lg2o
Really. Pope Leo XIV's job is to lead the Vatican and the Catholic Church and he's supposed to be "America first?"
What does Bannon want him to do? Speak at Trump rallies and pull another Jerry Falwell Jr?
The Farce is strong in this one, though he does not know it.
if trump and his gang of criminals make a point of attacking Pope Leo how many Catholics are going to support republicans in the near future? 30%?
Fine by me! Especially since it will help us in the Midwest, Arizona, Texas, and Florida.
And the Northeast, where shoring up NH and northern ME could help. Don't forget PA!
Possibly more, but it would definitely be a stupid move.
It's not like Leo was sharing "Resistance" memes. The main thing he criticized was Vance's characterization of Love in Christianity, where Vance was totally 180% wrong. "The Gospels say we should love all humanity, even our enemies" is just an accurate statement, in no way controversial at all, or shouldn't be.
You say that, but throughout history, Christian rulers have much more commonly killed those they decided were enemies, rather than loving them. Jesus' radical message tends to be subversive, rather than congenial, for rulers.
On a side note, there’s a bloody good reason the Catholic Church waits until somebody’s dead before making them a saint. Can’t have saintly subversives running around!
I mean that's true, but rather irrelevant to the point that either Vance or Leo were making. Vance said that Christianity teaches that you should have a hierarchy of loving those closest to you first, and the future Leo, as well as many others, pointed out that the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the gospels say the opposite. What Christians do in practice is another question.
(Or followers of any religion that preaches some amount of pacifism. It usually gets thrown out the window when it's inconvenient for pollical leaders.)
I don't think it's another question. It's the central issue.
https://jmipoll.com/
First comprehensive high quality Florida gubernatorial poll, doesn't look bad for Democrats. Mrs. DeSantis is toast in the primary since Trump endorsed Donalds. Pizzo lead the primary field before his tantrum lol. The best thing to happen to Florida Democrats was him leaving. He deserves it.
Another good poll:
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-approval-underwater-florida-texas-2069578
Typical FL polls.
Yup. We all know how polling works here. A bunch of polls looked like this in the 2022 governor and senate and 2024 senate races.
That's a sort of apples to (Florida) oranges comparison, as neither of those years featured a Republican presidential incumbent and both had GOP incumbents running for governor and senator. 2018 with its open gubernatorial race and Trump in the WH might be more valid, though that's not too encouraging here either as (IIRC) Andrew Gillum led in most though not all fall polling. (I still maintain that his nomination was one of the biggest recent self-owns by any state's Democrats.)
A lot of undecideds so this may have potential, though I'd certainly understand if Dems decide that Florida really isn't worth the effort and cost in light of recent electoral history, apart from some congressional and legislative races. This shows Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava as the Democratic frontrunner for governor; is she actually running?
2018 electorate no longer exists today.
2020 electorate also was the same as 2018, just Trump pulled his single issue maga voters out to vote. Florida Dems ran the worst perennial, vote missing, candidate possible in 2022 which led to a very bad turnout and DeSantis' libertarian COVID policy proved very popular among Latino workers and small businesses in Florida.
Florida was a top destination for illegal immigration as well as affected a lot by the post covid inflation. This along with Ron's popularity easily explains 2024. Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Columbians and Puerto Ricans in Florida all voted for Democrats till 2020. Yeah more conservatives than liberals did migrate but older retirees pass away and Florida is more urbanized and diverse now. I believe Texas and Florida with Trump's unpopularity among Independents, young voters, Latinos and other minorities will be 2018 redux in 2026 with the races going either way.
Gillum’s primary win was irritating at first but then the polls made us look in a real good position to win. And then back to being mad. I get that FL is a big state but I would’ve hoped Gwen Graham’s ability to win in a red district would’ve resonated better. Instead, it seemed more like a hindrance and she wasn’t from the main Dem bases in the other major cities.
The problem in 2018 was Dems just having too many candidates running in the primary, which allowed Gillum to win the primary with just 34% of the vote. This is one instance where a runoff would have been helpful.
They had some rich guy Jeff Greene running and he self-funded his campaign. He went scorched earth on Graham and Gillum came out of nowhere to win. Gillum turned out to be a terrible candidate with serious ethical problems who cost us the race and did us no favors in the Senate race as well.
Not at all, do check the General elections polls here.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_Senate_election_in_Florida
The medicaid fraudster led by 5+ points in polls.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Florida_gubernatorial_election
DeSantis had a 10-15 point lead in polls.
This statewide Florida poll had Trump leading by 10- 15 points during his honeymoon, the drop is real.
You are rewriting history.
Few legit poll except NYT Siena had Trump leading by over 10pt in 2024. Most had it in mid single digit.
I was guessing a very high single digit and 1m vote loss. Was wrong, too optimistic!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election_in_Florida
The very same poll you showed with Rs leading a hypothetical 2026 gov race by mid single digit, had a link to its 2024 poll, with Trump leading 6pt. Quite wrong about the margin, except at least they didn’t put Harris leading.
The links you put on 24 Senate race averaging Scott leading 5pt. He won 13pt. DeSantis’ polls 10-12pt, he won 19. If you take this, these polls had even larger errors than previous cycles in 16-20.
The only thing goes for them, the contests there have become so lopsided, at least they won’t get the winners wrong.
The presidential election was so off because other pollsters were using the "recall" technique in Texas and Florida to make the polls look closer to 2020 which herded them. I did not present the presidential election polls at all and did not assume you were talking about that since Florida wasn't in play. 2022 polls did predict a landslide even though they didn't accurately predict the breadth of it.
Don’t they weight the Senate question? Don’t they weight now?
https://www.newsweek.com/venezuelan-voters-miami-dade-florida-trump-2068811
30 percent of Venezuelans in the poll do not plan to vote for the GOP again.
I think Cava, Pizzo, and Graham should split the Gubernatorial and next two Senate elections between them. If David Jolly wants to run as an independent I guess that's fine but he doesn't strike me as stronger than the other three. I know we're all down on Florida, but we just don't have the option to not seriously contest a bunch of states that Trump won by 10+ points because he won 24 of them by that amount. It's impossible to count to 51 in the Senate without running A tier candidates in places like Texas, Florida, Iowa, and Ohio every single cycle and hoping we win one out of every 8 races or whatever.
Question: David Jolly is a registered Democrat. Would he be a viable Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Florida?
What do you mean by "viable"? What percentage chance of winning?
I would say about 50/50 in a strong Democratic year would be seen as "viable."
By "viable" I mean at least as strong as other possible Dem candidates.
As strong as any other candidate, probably.
But I don’t think it matters. If you use James definition of 50/50 in a D wave, I don’t think any D candidate is viable at this moment. Things may change though.
What do you think of Jolly running for Senate instead of governor?
I don’t know enough to have an informed opinion, hence my question.
His congressional voting record is pretty standard-issue conservative, if possible I'd rather someone like Gwen Graham run for the Senate since she's probably a more reliable vote and I don't think Jolly has any electability value over her or Cava.
Jolly would probably lose a primary at this point-his best chance of getting elected to anything in the future is as an Independent.
DNC Chair Doubles Down on Ultimatum for Hogg
“Democratic National Convention Chair Ken Martin on Saturday doubled down on his ultimatum for rogue Vice Chair David Hogg: Take a neutrality pledge or step down,” Politico reports.
Said Martin: “Party officers have one job: to be fair stewards of a process that invites every Democrat to the table — regardless of personal views or allegiances.”
https://politicalwire.com/2025/05/10/dnc-chair-doubles-down-on-ultimatum-for-hogg/
On one hand, I think those kinds of primary challenges are needed and beneficial to the party in the long run. Replacing stagnant and unimpressive incumbents in safe seats with more dynamic and impressive candidates would make our party stronger overall, even for people outside of safe seats.
On the other hand, that's damn reasonable. We don't want party infrastructure favoring certain candidates.
On the other other hand, we should all expect that party infrastructure will be favoring long-term safe seat incumbents in passive ways through connections, fundraising, endorsements, and other ways.
On the other other other hand (halfway to an octopus now), those are still distinctly different than direct and more active involvement...
I could keep going but I think my take comes down to this being a reasonable request but I'd hope he, or someone else, still takes up that role to push safe seat dems to be better.
I’ve gradually come around to the same conclusion: this is a laudable project – and I hope it continues. However, David Hogg cannot be in charge or associated with it while serving as DNC Vice Chair. Any way you cut it, that is a conflict of interest.
Question for everyone: We made fun of Trump for saying merely that he hoped Pakistan and India would stop fighting soon, and that they've been fighting for centuries (which is obviously impossible). Now that the two countries agreed to a ceasefire brokered by the Trump Administration (at least as reported on WINS this morning), should we give them any credit for that? My reaction: I guess so, if that's really true.
They have conflicts all the time that end shortly after. I wouldn't give Trump my credit for that.
Not Trump, but maybe someone in his administration?
He will take credit for anything he thinks of as good. He habitually shoves his name into association with something and then says the good thing is because of him.
If anyone wants me to believe he deserves credit for something, I want evidence that his involvement improved things and that the outcome we saw would not have happened otherwise. Not the generic name association that he is so wont to do.
There are conflicting accounts as to who really helped broker the deal. Most sources outside the Trump administration aren't giving it much credit; I think Rubio had a minor role and Trump none at all. Diplomats from many countries are being credited.
So undue U.S.-centeredness on the part of U.S. media. So typical!
My objection is not to US-centeredness, but to the MSM repeating what Trump and his appointees say as if it were truth.
I object to both. When I used to watch CNN, I was always annoyed that instead of covering more news, including very important things happening in Africa, they covered the same stuff over and over ever hour.
Precisely! That said, Christiane Amanpour, and the two later-joiners Fareed Zakaria and Anderson Cooper at their best, were stellar. And I miss the CNN of old – before Ted Turner sold it.
Turner sold CNN in 1996, but even before then some of their coverage choices seemed dubious from anything but a ratings perspective. A key development may have been the gavel to gavel coverage of the OJ Simpson trial in 1994-95--as if it were the single most important news story in the world for over a year.
Of course it was mostly downhill from there, with some good moments and reverses. I think it really became a shitshow under Jeff Zucker.
Definitely Amanpour. Should I be more impressed with Cooper than I am?
I saw some Indian news reporting, they say that it's out of protocol to claim success or announce decisions after any backdoor or unofficial contacts or indirect negotiations, we might have participated in. It makes sense.
Never expect Trump to observe any kind of protocol.
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/09/g-s1-65326/justice-david-souter-dies
Former Associate Justice David Souter dead at 85.
If only Amy Coney Barrett or Neil Gorsuch would evolve into the Justice Souter of our times!
Coney Barrett will never turn into a liberal justice, she is influenced by Catholic conservative thought and not MAGA so she's a little moderate. That's it.
Oh, I have no illusions. This was just a pipe dream – without the intoxicants.
When America was concerned about electing America’s first Catholic president, who would have thought there would someday be six Catholic justices on the Supreme Court?
Definitely not Gorsuch!
In a seat that has gone back and forth since elections, after a recount the Liberals have been declared the winner of the Terrebonne riding in Quebec by 1 vote. This gives them 170 seats.
https://bsky.app/profile/canadianpolling.bsky.social/post/3lou5lra6fs2w
Wow.. Bloc candidate beat the Liberal by 44 votes. Then the automatic recount resulted in that 1 vote (!) Liberal win. What a big vote shift.
There are 3 other recounts being done. So there's still a possibility for a Liberal majority government 172 seats.
Ballot recounts taking place in 4 tightly contested federal ridings
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/election-recounts-four-ridings-1.7531657
Not quite sadly. From the link:
“The Liberals fell just three seats short of the 172 required of a majority government. Even if the recounts all turn out Liberal victories, the party will still be one short.”
Yes, two of the other recounts are ones where the initial tally favoured the liberals. So best case they net one more seat, worst case they lose one seat total.
Carney doesn’t really need a majority at this moment. He doesn’t even need a formal confidence and supply agreement from NDP.
He just need to make sure not losing any votes on confidence matters, the throne speech, budget and money bills, any non taxing/spending laws he wants to pass absolutely and declares as confidence vote, or the non confidence motion Conservatives put forward.
IMHO, in terms of not letting the Liberals passing something in their worse instincts like Trudeau era, it is better NOT for them to have a majority.
What kinds of problematic legislation are you thinking of?
Things Trudeau and Starmer have done that make them extremely unpopular.
Where do PM Carney and the Liberals stand on approving of California, Oregon, Washington and Maine applying for Canadian provincehood?
/s
How about New York?
Queue up!
The problem in my honest opinion living here, was Trudeau himself. People got tired of him specifically, not so much the policies (although you get no argument from me that the Liberals should have passed more legislation to help the cost of living for people over these last 10 years). I think that bares out in the election results (except the carbon tax that was very unpopular despite myself supporting it).
As soon as Carney took that 1 issue off the table, Canadians decided to hand them another up to 5 years as a minority government (unless they convince some NDP’ers or even Conservatives to cross the floor) despite Conservatives leading by 25 points a few months ago.
So I definitely agree he doesn’t need a majority and he has little risk in his government being toppled for at least the next year or two. I also agree he doesn’t need a supply and/or confidence agreement with the NDP.
https://archive.ph/2Ub5w
Puck: The Virginia Monologues
A Republican sex scandal has upended the Virginia governor’s race—but not in the way that anyone expected, with the MAGA base flocking to John Reid, an openly gay Trump supporter, and turning on Glenn Youngkin for trying to push Reid out. “Trump broke the evangelical stuff,” said a campaign operative in Richmond. “There is purity, and there is winning. And they are both drugs, but one of them is a lot more addictive.”
Goes deep into why the controversy happened. Youngkin is out of the 2028 primary contention, it seems. A big self-own due to his homophobia.
Not to say that Trump is not some pro-gay guy though, he recently took a homophobic dig at Buttigieg mentioning the 2028 primary.
I am not discussing the primary but if Republicans want to solely focus on his sexual orientation starting from now then make him win the primary. It would be a great gift to us. "Gay president bad" is not exactly a great election pitch.
A May 2022 Gallup poll found that 71% of Americans supported same-sex marriage, while 28% were against. The 2022 American Values Atlas by Public Religion Research Institute found that 69% of Americans supported same-sex marriage, while 28% opposed it.
And yet Trump appointed Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary. Bessent is openly gay, married, and has two children. Just like Pete Buttigieg.
Funny how the MAGA/evangelical crowd that were so appalled by Pete’s lifestyle choice and kids are not voicing any criticism of Bessent!
As I’ve said before, I don’t believe the U.S. will elect a gay candidate president in 2028.
I am not saying that he should be the nominee... Yet we elected a Black man with an Arabic middle name as the president and we were about to elect a woman until a guy called Comey dropped a letter! (Silver, Vox and CNN's analysis say so)
The headwinds were against us in 2024 due to a variety of issues and Kamala was tied to a very unpopular administration, nothing much to do with her gender.
Obama was elected in a near-depression. Maybe that's what it will take for Americans to finally elect a woman as president.
don't forget...Obama was elected in part because he was Obama...don't expect another one to come along for quite a while
Probably not intentionally, at least. I'd like to see their figures on a theoretical Madam President, but we know what's actually happened lately.
We should not delude ourselves like Biden that Kamala lost because of misogyny.
There is no delusion in acknowledging that electing a female president is a bigger lift than a male one. Polls show an unwillingness to vote for a woman for President.
especially a woman of color?
It's delusional to say that Kamala lost because of her gender as Biden has been going around claiming in interviews rather than pointing out any other reason, she had much bigger problems like inflation, economy, border and being the VP of Biden, an unpopular president proven by the polls. She was trailing Trump on the biggest issues except Protecting Democracy, time and again, with the majority of voters saying that the country was headed in the wrong direction. No president has won re-election when voters say this.
Yes, it may be a bigger lift for a woman to be the president but which polls are you referring to? I can only find one where 57 percent that the country is ready to elect a woman, 23 percent say that country is not ready and 20 percent say that they are not sure. The sample size, Hillary and Kamala, is too small to know it as both were candidates dogged by a variety of issues. I concede that it may well be that a white Christian man is the safest bet. I personally dislike identity politics and would like the best and most winnable candidate to be nominated regardless of gender.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article294432724.html
Biden has also been claiming that he could have won the election and has stopped all contact with Pelosi. It's makes Democrats look so stupid.
You’re deluding yourself if you think that had nothing to do with it.
It's delusional to say that Kamala lost because of her gender as Biden has been going around claiming in interviews rather than pointing out any other reason, she had much bigger problems like inflation, economy, border and being the VP of Biden, an unpopular president proven by the polls. She was trailing Trump on the biggest issues except Protecting Democracy, time and again, with the majority of voters saying that the country was headed in the wrong direction. No president has won re-election when voters say this.
Yes, it may be a bigger lift for a woman to be the preside but I can only find one poll where 57 percent say that the country is ready to elect a woman, 23 percent say that the country not ready and 20 percent not sure in October 2024. The sample size, Hillary and Kamala, is too small to know it as both were candidates dogged by a variety of issues. I I concede that it may well be that a white Christian man is the safest bet. I personally dislike identity politics and would like the best and winnable candidate to be nominated regardless of gender.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article294432724.html
Biden has also been claiming that he could have won the election and has stopped all contact with Pelosi. It's makes Democrats look so stupid.
I think Trump is probably mildly homophobic personally, and he knows he needs to occasionally toss bones to the hardcore fundies on it. But he doesn’t make it his whole personality politically like they do
It's also clear that Youngkin blew the Tumbler thing way out of proportion. It's literally just pictures of guys the account holder (perhaps Reid) found hot. Even if it was Reid's account, it hardly seems scandalous in today's day and age.
That's all it was?
In some, but not all, the subject was naked. But none depicted sexual acts, per the article.
Big deal! Considering that people already knew he was gay, I'm shocked this was treated as such a scandal. Just amazing!
Didn't you catch on? Youngkin hates gays! He's evangelical, ain't he?
I mean it would probably reflect poorly on a straight male politician if an anonymous tumbler emerged from years past where they curated images of naked and scantily clad women. But it hardly seems career ending.
I don't think it would reflect poorly, but granted, I'm not the median voter.
The infighting is something to behold. Youngkin never presented himself as a religious rightist (if he had he probably wouldn't be governor), but his operatives' negative reaction to Reid's sexuality is at least amusing. And if he wants to run for president, I'm not sure what impact it may have but there's the potential for opposition from both religious and more secular Republicans. (Personally I'm sympathetic to Reid in that his private doings, so long as they're with consenting adults, should not be an issue.)
But on a broader level people and the media should stop pretending that Trump somehow recast the GOP as a culturally tolerant party, especially given evangelicals' cultish fawning over him.
I am interested in how the 2026 judicial races will shape up in North Carolina, since Justice Allison Riggs, a favorable federal decision and a concession finally got her race certified. But on the negative side, the NC State Board of Elections is now controlled by the GOP state auditor and Phil Berger-approved majority (including a Federalist Society election denier).
Incumbent justice NC Supreme Court justice Anita Earls will have the edge against GOP challenger Sarah Stevens, simply on the D-favorable midterm circumstances. It certainly won't be a margin of several hundred votes. Two incumbent D justices on the Court of Appeals are also up for re-election (John Arrowood and Toby Hampson), while the third D justice (Allegra Collins) is not seeking re-election.