Since we're on a new week, I'll share some more races I'm interested in.
- MD-SD-46: Is Bill Ferguson's anti-redistricting stance enough to sink him? Or is he safe from his primary challenger?
- TX-15: Under the new map, could we still unseat Monica De La Cruz? Would this environment help?
- MI-12: I seriously do not believe Tlaib will lose a primary, but is anyone stupid enough to try anyway? Fred Durhal III (Detroit City Councilman, candidate for Mayor) hinted he might run. Is he stupid enough to try?
- IL-08: Who is the frontrunner here? Given his fundraising and progressive ties, could Junaid Ahmed pull it off? Is Melissa Bean favored due to institutional ties?
- MN-Gov: Could Walz drop out, owing to his unpopularity and the recent scandal?
- CA-14: Will Aisha Wahab jump in? If not, who else could run?
- CO redistricting: Will it actually happen?
- OR-Gov: I've heard some of the left aren't happy with Tina Kotek, due to her focus on "cutting taxes" and so on. Might a primary challenge emerge? Or is it too late?
- NC-Supreme Court: How might Anita Earls do?
And a couple of election-adjacent questions:
- The VRA: Given SCOTUS's recent sudden not granting Trump the ability to keep occupying DC, does the VRA stand a chance?
- NYC: With Mamdani-critical Julie Menin as NYC Council Speaker, could she pose a serious threat to Mamdani's agenda? Is that her goal?
MD-SD-46: Though there's an anti-incumbent wave that seems to be building, Ferguson has been in office long enough to become entrenched and will win easily based on recognition.
TX-15: This environment should help tremendously, and Pulido is the perfect man for the job. I would give De La Cruz the advantage, though. Maybe it will be around a 5-point margin.
MI-12: I doubt Tlaib will get any substantial challenge. She seems secure in her seat at this point. Same goes for Omar and Lee.
IL-8: Though I think Bean is the frontrunner, I would argue Bankole will place 2nd in the primary, then Ahmed 3rd.
MN-Gov: He could drop out, but it would be somewhat unexpected. Governors less popular than him have won re-election after scandal.
CA-14: I imagine she will, and will be the frontrunner. Alameda County supervisor David Haubert is another potential candidate. I suspect Assemblywoman Liz Ortega could also run.
CO redistricting: Probably not. I feel like this redistricting war is dying down with the failed attempt in Indiana recently.
OR-Gov: Kotek should be fine - she's the strongest candidate in a state that doesn't really seem to enjoy Democrats being governor but continues to elect them.
NC-Supreme Court: She should win but by single digits, and Cooper will help her at the top of the ticket.
VRA: SCOTUS's recent rulings somewhat confuse me. One day they rule something Trump does as unconstitutional, but over a year ago the same Court also gave him immunity. I don't know.
NYC: I don't know much about Menin but Mamdani will have an uphill battle as mayor regardless.
I don't know. Detroit, Dearborn and Southfield's diverse communities overshadow the richer, whiter suburbs of Livonia and Westland. If the district didn't include its share of Detroit and stretched further west, maybe.
Thanedar looks cooked—progressives, moderate Black leaders, and labor have lined up behind his opponent. At this point, he’s basically left with his own money and a few single-issue super PACs.
Only primary wins where she's gotten in the 60% range, which isn't that amazing for an incumbent in a Dem district. The longer she's in, the less vulnerable she becomes.
Highly doubt that Kotek sees a primary challenge. The OR Dem establishment and associated power centers (public sector unions, primarily) are well organized and I think the bar would be a lot higher for them to support a challenge than whatever we've seen with Kotek. She also hasn't focused on cutting taxes per se, and in fact signed a moderately robust gas tax and vehicle fee hike into law for the purpose of road maintenance, although it's been reported that the Legislature may repeal all or at least parts of the law early in 2026 to head off a ballot initiative challenging the increases. (The sense seems to be that the initiative would pass, so leaving it on the ballot would just drag down Dem candidates.)
Kotek has expressed frustration with special purpose local taxes in the Portland area that have not appeared to deliver promised results despite raising quite a bit of money. These include a preschool for all income tax in Multnomah County, a homeless services income tax for Metro (regional government), and a climate change-focused quasi-sales tax in the City of Portland. The criticism is that these taxes have alienated businesses and higher income people in an area with a shaky economic base (a lot of eggs in the Intel basket) and thus might have quelled other possibilities for growth. I'm of several minds about this, but I do think that dedicating special tax streams to particular services is a recipe for governmental inefficiency, since the cash still comes in regardless of how well the programs are delivered.
Overall, we're definitely not getting a Blue Wave in Oregon next year -- not much left to gain -- but I think Kotek wins more comfortably than in 2022. The local vibes may not be great, but she'll have national tailwinds and the Dem base in Oregon comes out rain or shine.
Both have interesting backgrounds and could offer plenty of ideas in serving CA-14.
Qadir’s platform resonates with me, especially with regulating AI as being one the issues.
Luckily, the CA-14 race may end up being more interesting than the CA-12 race last year where Rep. Lateefah Simon had faced Jennifer Tran in the general election but had essentially been favored to win the whole time.
Dublin, Pleasanton, etc. have been represented by Eric Swalwell for a long time but he also unseated Rep. Pete Stark back in the day. Would be interesting if the next House Democrat here were Indian or Middle Eastern as these are growing voter demographics in CA-14.
Copy of most of an email from Chris Bowers, which covers a new Ohio law I'm not sure we've discussed since it was signed:
On Tuesday, December 23, Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine "reluctantly" signed a bill into law that ended the four-day grace period for mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day but received by election authorities afterward. DeWine indicated that he did this not because he supported the end of the four-day grace period, which he believed was reasonable. Instead, he indicated that he signed the bill because he was concerned that, in a case that will likely be ruled on in June, if the Supreme Court overturned grace periods on mail-in ballots it would result in a chaotic situation for elections in Ohio in 2026. Here is DeWine, via the Associated Press:
"I believe that this four-day grace period is reasonable, and I think for many reasons it makes a lot of sense," he told reporters. "Therefore, I normally would veto a repeal of this four-day grace period. And, frankly, that's what I wish I could do."(...)
"No one knows how the Supreme Court will rule," DeWine said. "However, if the court in late June upholds the 5th Circuit case and Ohio's grace period for counting late ballots is still in effect, the election situation in Ohio would be chaotic."
That actually seems at least somewhat reasonable to me, so I am not going to get angry at DeWine over this. It is an unfortunate situation, and hopefully the Supreme Court will make a ruling that protects at least limited grace periods for mail-in ballots.
It is also worth remembering exactly how many votes we are talking about here, because it is far fewer than you might think. In 2024, according to the New York Times, approximately 725,000 ballots were postmarked by Election Day, but received and accepted after Election Day as valid votes by the relevant authorities. That was less than one half of one percent of all votes cast.
In fact, as I estimated in the email below this one, even if the Supreme Court eliminates all grace periods for mail-in voting nationwide, the impact will likely mean a popular vote shift toward Republicans of a little less than one-tenth of one percent nationwide. This is neither the huge electoral shift that many Republicans, including Donald Trump, are hoping for, nor the electoral doom scenario that many Democrats might envision when they read headlines about mail-in voting.
Further, to be perfectly honest I actually suspect that making it more difficult to vote in any way will actually backfire on Republicans. Since Donald Trump's rise to national prominence a decade ago, there has been a major shift of high propensity, college educated voters toward Democrats, and of low propensity, non–college educated voters toward Republicans. Changing the voting options available to these groups is not going to impact how frequently they vote. While high propensity, college educated voters disproportionately use mail-in voting right now, if the laws change they will simply adjust and cast their ballots through other means. By contrast, the same cannot necessarily be said of lower propensity voters who do not follow the news with any regularity.
My comments: less than 0.5% is still a very significant number, and fuck the Republicans who support disenfranchising so many people. Loads of elections turn on smaller margins than that. Look at 2000 in Florida. All that is irrespective of whether it will blunt a seemingly likely Democratic wave in 2026 or whether it's more likely to affect low-propensity voters who seem to be more likely to vote Republican now.
He could veto it now, and then if there's a relevant SCOTUS ruling there's still no chaos. They'd have to obey the court ruling. They could pass another law after, if that course of events came to pass. And still with plenty of time before the election.
Many republicans love to parade themselves around "reasonable" and "forced" to implement the conservative agenda against their will. I do not believe them, especially in instances where they have plenty of agency.
Eh, neither Connecticut nor New Hampshire has ever had a grace period for absentee ballots, and I haven't heard of any major issues there or here of any significant number of ballots arriving late.
Here's a question I have for posters here: who's on retirement watch for 2028? Fetterman and Schumer seem like obvious picks, and Chuck Grassley is in his 90s -- might anyone else try to retire then?
Lamont will be in his mid 70s by then. We've had older freshmen senators but I'd hope he stays out. Hayes and Himes could both make credible runs, I think.
I believe Goodlander, Hayes, Fry, Steil (as the Republican candidate), Sanders, Letlow, Schmidt, Jayapal and Begich would be the easiest immediate options for the ones I listed.
Jayapal potentially running could get interesting because her House seat contains much of Seattle. I imagine a crowded primary, or potentially a left vs. center showdown, could follow.
Goodlander is in NH, Steil in WI, Sanders in AR, Letlow in LA, Jayapal in WA, and I believe the Begich you're talking about is the Republican one in AK. I just figured out that Hayes is Jahana Hayes, the great Congresswoman from CT. Where are Fry and Schmidt from? Schrier is a Congresswoman from WA, but who is Randall?
Living in SC, and in Fry's district, I can tell you he has absolutely no statewide presence. In fact, many politically attuned people here don't even know who he is. He's a one-trick pony who is all MAGA. There are many more Rs who would be favored over him, including Nancy Mace and any other of the also rans for Gov this year. Plus Trey Gowdy and some of the leadership in Columbia. And if the mood toward more rational Rs sets in at all, he's toast. But I see no reason that Tim Scott would retire in 28. He's not that old.
I said it before but I'll reiterate that I doubt Hassan will retire. I'd love to see her replaced by Goodlander or another better democrat in the state. Especially since "better" is applicable to basically any democrat that would succeed her. Maybe not monumentally so, but still there.
She's not acting like someone planning to retire. For her the constant appearances in the stupid-votes club is an attempt at moderation to win over republicans, rather than as a favor done to Schumer because she's retiring (like Durbin). And her campaign texted me for fundraising just this month.
It's not impossible, of course. Peters retired this cycle despite being younger than her and with no hints at it beforehand that I am aware of. But it's unlikely.
NH’s voting patterns honestly feel a lot like a big suburb - like Long Island or Westchester. At the federal level you get very milquetoast centrist Democrats, but at the state level it often leans red, which is pretty similar to Long Island politics.
That tracks historically too. I've read that NH was shaped by out-migration from Boston (and to a lesser extent NYC) during the 1960s–70s, when crime, taxes, and urban unrest pushed a lot of white, middle-class families into exurban and semi-rural areas. So you end up with a place that's suburban, skeptical of government, and fiscally conservative—but not hard-right.
I honestly suspect NH Dems could end up playing the Manchin/Sinema role and writing the actual bills in 2029 unless Democrats get a much bigger majority by winning more fiscally moderate states. If the margin stays slim, it’s going to be the most cautious, centrist Dems setting the terms, not the Senate's left flank.
Southern NH, particularly from ~Nashua and east, more or less is a long-distance suburb of Boston. It's not a majority of the state, but once you add in the areas that are offshots of that border region it is a majority. A lot of the state has an ingrained fear of the city. When I first started doing day trips to Boston for fun, everyone around me (of all adult ages) was aghast and worried about safety and parking, that people there wouldn't be friendly. I've found Boston to be way friendlier than NH and I feel safer there, too.
I'd disagree with the state/local level government leaning red. It leans towards incumbents and gerrymanders. Republicans have likely locked us out of a trifecta with the current maps. Sununu barely won in 2016 and then kept winning heavily as the incumbent, even in a blue wave. Just like Hassan and Lynch barely won and then kept winning heavily even with the 2010 and 2014 red waves. Right now republicans hold the local incumbency and the local gerrymanders, so they'll do well.
Fortunately Shaheen will be retired by 2027. I'm not expecting Pappas to be anywhere near a progressive senator. But I think he'll be OK in the same vein as someone like Coons. A reliable vote when we need it that won't sink legislation or vote with republicans stupidly, but also won't be agitating for legislation that goes big or bold.
Goodlander has impressed me, much to my surprise. If I'm wrong and Hassan does retire I think she'd be even better than Pappas. Still not progressive but a good senator.
Apart from anything else, Bostonians drive like lunatics while New Hampshire drivers are much better. It's always pretty easy to tell when a Bostonian drives up here because of their insane driving style.
I don't have to drive when in Boston, only drive to there. That increases the safety considerably as I'm far less likely to be in a car accident. I'd also say that NH's greater number of pickup truck drivers negates the driver behavior advantage -- I've noticed people with trucks around here (and anywhere) drive recklessly.
I feel no danger from crime in either area, but in the off chance something does happen in Boston I'm also surrounded by hundreds/thousands of people that could intervene or react to an injury; in NH I could easily hurt myself with no one around to help.
I also want to note I said I feel safer, not that I am. In reality I'm super safe in both areas, but I feel it more in Boston. That's a highly subjective detail but it's still there.
I'd like to say that additionally to these picks, the following could be on retirement watch in 2030: King, Sanders, Warren, Justice, Kaine, the other Scott, Wicker, Fischer, Barrasso and Hirono.
Justice is probably the best we can hope for as far as sanity in any GOP Senator in WV but he’s not the sharpest when it comes to judgement. When I some time ago on TDB posted about the 2030 Senate race becoming a problem for Justice, it’s that he’d be more likely to face a primary challenge than be unseated by a Democrat.
But 2030 is still a long way to go and would be when Trump is out of office. We really don’t know what the GOP is going to do to brand or “improve” itself at this point. Justice’s issues with the IRS and crazy financials with his businesses though are a liability to him whether wins re-election or loses.
I am most concerned with the Republican Senators and vacancies up for election in 2026.
Mitch McConnell knew that the road to real change is through the Senate.
The Blood Red Senators, and their estimated net worth, who need to be removed in 2026:
Alabama: Tommy Tuberville $13 million
Alaska: Dan Sullivan $6 million
Arkansas: Tom Cotton
Idaho: James Risch $55 million
Iowa: Joni Ernst (negative)
Kansas: Roger Marshall $6 million
Kentucky: Mitch McConnell's Replacement
Louisiana: Bill Cassidy $1.5 million
Maine: Susan Collins $5 million
Mississippi: Cindy Hyde-Smith $6 million
Montana: Steve Daines $50 million
Nebraska: Pete Ricketts $207 million
North Carolina: Thom Tillis $18 million
Oklahoma: Markwayne Mullin $75 million
South Carolina: Lindsey Graham $25 million
South Dakota: Mike Rounds $4.4 million
Tennessee: Bill Hagerty $53 million
West Virginia: Shelly Moore Capito $4.1 million
Wyoming: Cynthia Lummis
These are the senators who twice voted to acquit Trump. Twice voted to increase tax cuts for the rich. Cut funding for Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACA. They need to go, but we need a 60 Senate majority WITHOUT Liebermans, Sinemas or Manchins.
Congress does have to release estimates of the assets of its members, but the numbers will fall under a range than being an actual number. This makes it hard to get a precise estimate but some places will attempt to do so.
So are the above numbers referring to personal assets rather than campaign coffers? I’m a tad confused. I would think the latter number is the most important; not all politicians are willing or able to sink their personal wealth into campaigns that are not guaranteed to succeed.
It's their personal assets. I think the above commenter was trying to reference politicians getting rich in office and using it as a negative mark on them.
Not even a presidential campaign for 2028 is going to have $200m in cash on hand right now, so that's a healthy giveaway that it's all personal wealth.
Any chance that a moderate by Wyoming standards could sneak through in the Wyoming U.S. Senate primary? Lummis wasn't a crazy person, no doubt too conservative to help the people, but not a radical...IMO. Could Hageman be beat in a splintered primary?
Seeing that Joni Ernst is broke makes her decision to retire make much more sense. She can now collect her pension from the Senate, get a lobbying job paying at least triple what she earned as a Senator, and be free of having to be a Trump stooge. Who wouldn't make that move?
The U.S. is undergoing its fastest religious shift in modern history, marked by a rapid increase in the religiously unaffiliated and numerous church closures nationwide.
It turns out that Gen Z and Millenials after all the MSM narratives, about a reversal in religiosity due to COVID and Democrats, are still the least religious and most liberal generations.
The bad part is relative secularism hasn't proven the bulwark against reactionary nationalist hate-mongering that it was thought to 20ish years ago. That said, I have seen data showing actual correlation between regular church attendance and Trump support.
Not universal though. I attend church regularly and I think people here know my politics — and multiple other members of my church are also anti Trump.
I’m aware, I just wanted to say something because (and to be clear, I am not referring to either of you) some bad faith criticisms use such statistics to imply religion as a whole is evil.
I’m generally of the mind regarding such arguments (again, not yours) that religion is too complex a subject to be turned into a simple right vs. wrong argument. Particularly when you consider the various different ways religion (or spirituality in general) can manifest — it’s hardly black and white. For example, while I’m a church-going Christian, my interpretation of such is as a general moral guide (note general. I’m aware of some of the nastier parts of the Bible.) My actual beliefs lean more agnostic — not even in a “I don’t know” sense, but in a “it’s unknowable” sense. That’s just how I perceive it though.
And to clarify again, this is not directed at anyone in particular here. This is just to ensure speaking in absolutes does not occur.
I've observed that good people who are religious find the good in their religion, while bad people who are religious justify their evil behavior by reference to their religion, too. I don't think any kind of morality requires a religious origin, nor do I think religious belief or its absence makes anyone good or bad. It's a matter of character.
Of course I'm well aware of all of that, but I think we know your position by now and you probably don't have to restate it every time the topics of fanaticism and religious bigotry come up.
My theory without any data backing it is that more and more of the remaining christians have shifted sharply to the right in response to the US culture losing its veneer of christian dominance.
For the ones undergoing that shift, they've spent their entire life with society implicitly agreeing with them, being the dominant religious/spiritual aspect, and being de facto the state religion. This is especially true for any of them that are older. Losing that de facto control goes poorly with them and they turn more conservative to try and reassert that cultural power.
And as has been discussed, Christian fundamentalism along white Americans is closely associated with racism, and whether white surpremacists have always felt threatened or just enjoyed being the oppressors and brutalizing minorities, they always used their interpretation of Christianity to justify it. I think that while it's true that some people become bullies because they are internally weak in some way, others are just violent, bad people.
Eh this goes well beyond white supremacy. Some of the most right wing churches are black and Latino charismatic Pentacostal churches, which are exploding across Latin America.
Speaking of religious shifts, I would like to see a serious study of the alarming shift from Christianity to Christianism. (Think of these as parallel to the distinction between Muslims and Islamists.)
I suspect that has a lot to do with the fact that more moderate people are leaving organized Christianity, partly because the more radical and political fundamentalists have taken over the church, which results in a more radical church. A lot of churches are caught in this loop.
I've been a church musician for the past fifteen years and have witnessed the decline firsthand. (It's especially tough in areas like the Rust Belt, where churches are facing the double-whammy of increasing secularism and population decline.)
The future of the profession is, IMO, very bleak. I suspect it will end up a lot like academia and journalism have: only a handful of jobs that pay more than a pittance, nearly all of which will be located in and around major cities, and nearly all of which will go to elites.
I see. But aren't professional church musicians in the U.S. already high-level like that? Not that it matters whether your degree is from a state school or whatever.
Some are, some aren't. It used to be that a talented musician could start out at a local parish and move up the ranks, often within the same denomination (similar to how talented writers could start out at a podunk paper). It's just one more avenue of advancement that is rapidly closing, IMO.
Who else thinks Whitmer should make a late entry into the Senate race next year? The field of current Dems seems pretty underwhelming and it'd be nice to put that race away early with a strong candidate and focus solely on NC & ME. Seems like it'd be more of a sure thing for her than other aspirations she may hold.
She's an overperformer statewide, while McMorrow has yet to win statewide. The most recent approval rating 7 months ago gave her 63%. Whitmer also has name recognition throughout the state, while McMorrow is mostly known in her legislative district in the Detroit suburbs.
We cannot afford to play it safe in every election requiring our candidates to be proven statewide winners -- we need to refresh that group constantly to ensure there's more people to pick from.
Whitmer won statewide for the first time in 2018, a blue wave midterm. By all estimation 2026 is shaping up to be a blue wave midterm. Now is the perfect cycle to permit younger, less historically proven candidates run for statewide office in swing states.
For that matter: if we're going to be worried about the electoral prospects of any of the candidates in that primary, McMorrow is the last one I'd worry about.
I agree that McMorrow should be the candidate, I was saying logically why some people may not be sold on her yet rather than Whitmer. I also definitely agree that Stevens and El-Sayed are particularly weak candidates and that we should focus energy on McMorrow.
I agree with everything you said, but I fear that McMorrow could lose the primary while Whitmer will win the field and she will be even stronger in the general election. We must avoid nominating a candidate who will start a Democratic circular firing squad over the forbidden issue.
Here's an analogy: during the Yankees' late 90s dynasty, they didn't stand pat, figuring that the players who had won the championship even in their greatest year, 1998, would all excel in 1999. Instead, they analyzed the likelihood that players would excel the following year and then reassessed during the season when there was a possibility to acquire players. They also nurtured prospects throughout that period and got important contributions from them. And that's why they continued to win. You can look at any sports dynasty and see smart decisions by the General Manager and their staff that paid off.
What I think is irrelevant, Whitmer is gearing up for a Presidential run and is raising a lot of money from dark money donors for that so she won't run for Senate.
Generally we should avoid it. When it's relevant for a downballot election I try to reference it obliquely and with as few details as possible. Something like "Whitmer is unlikely to run for senate as she has her eyes on a different office."
I mean, the United States was founded in the late 18th century and how it’s evolved since then I am sure would have surprised James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, etc. They would be stunned today if they realized how much has changed since then.
MAGA’s response is just representative of cry babies. If they think the Constitution is supposed to show favoritism towards white people, they are clearly mistaken!
Good point although assuming we’re talking about things in a general sense from the founding of the U.S., not everything in the Constitution is so black and white from the beginning of the founding and subsequent amendments that followed.
As an example, the 1st Amendment is relevant today just like it was in the beginning. Non-white residents and immigrants have the right to free speech and MAGA should know this.
That's right, but that's why the phrasing of the question would be important to know. Depending on how they asked it, I might be among those who disagree with principles held by founding fathers.
They needed to retire in like 2012. His daughters Jennifer and Angela seem like reasonable successors, while Hoyer's line of succession seems a little more open.
I do find it odd how Hoyer & Pelosi stepped away from their prominent leadership positions but still stayed in congress. Usually speakers and such don’t hang around must longer after their speakership.
Pelosi’s been tougher than most of those previous House Speakers you mentioned.
She’s never been relenting and as House Speaker never let anything, even diverging ideologies and opinions from Democrats, from doing her job. Pelosi also got under Trump’s skin multiple times and never gave him a pass on his behavior. She was blunt about his antics in interviews.
They wanted to be able to mentor the next gen of leadership (charitably) or didn't trust them (uncharitably for a few terms to help them transition after 20yrs of their trifecta at the top. Hoyer and Clyburn resuming approps seniority and taking cardinal slots away from two members who had been in those roles for years was asinine.
Maybe it’s all just RW noise but the fraud stuff in Minnesota is a pretty big shortcoming for Walz and there is a danger for him if there are a bunch of 3rd party candidates on the ballot that he bleeds support to and gives the GOP an opening.
MN seems very receptive to third parties on the ballot and this is how Hillary almost lost MN and cost the DFL quite a few races over the years. It’s shaping up to be a blue wave but 2006 was a blue wave and Pawlenty pulled out a win with the help of third parties and a weak DFL candidate. I think if Walz retires the story loses steam and someone like Steve Simon can run as a reformer and such.
The right-wing smear and hate machine is after him and Somali-Americans in general. Running for a third term can be challenging in the best of circumstances. It may be better if he let someone else have a chance.
Walz retiring would leave the DFL with a massive gap to fill, without an obvious successor to fill it, and without a lot of time to fill it (Minnesota's precinct caucuses are in February; I'm not sure when the candidate filing deadline in Minnesota is). There's a huge opening for someone from the DFL's left flank, such as like Keith Ellison or Erin Maye Quade, to run for governor if Walz retires.
Peggy Flanagan and Angie Craig appear to be completely committed to the U.S. Senate primary, so I doubt that either of them would switch to the gubernatorial race on short notice. With Flanagan running for U.S. Senate, Walz will have to pick a running mate if he were to continue running for governor, and there's been little talk of potential running mates for Walz.
I'd assume Steve Simon would be the obvious successor considering he's the longest statewide officeholder right now besides Klobuchar and was the best performing one in 2022. The MN Dem bench is deep and state run primaries are usually in the late summer so I don't think timing is an issue.
This is the first time I've done this, so bear with me, but since it's basically the start of an election year, here are my initial predictions (in the current state of affairs) for the midterms. I give my ratings for Governor and Congress, for each race.
Yes, as there's more than one, so the progressive vote will be split. Belatti is probably the better candidate to take him on than Keohokalole, but both of them together just ensure his victory.
Much respect to you for doing this. I've found that my election predictions are crap. That said, if the economy gets worse, KS-Sen could be a race to watch, though I agree with solid R at this point. I'm not so sure some of those NY and NJ Congressional seats are solid R in this political climate. I think Garbarino is probably likely R, and the same with Drew. Their defeats are improbable but don't seem less likely than some of the extraordinary changes in margin in special elections. And maybe the same for Diaz-Balart - he's been very popular, but look at what happened with the Miami Mayoral election.
Diaz-Balart only holds a sliver of Miami currently, with most of the district based in Hialeah and the surrounding communities, which are heavily Republican. Some of the district grabs majority-Hispanic areas near Naples and Cape Coral across the Everglades, but that portion is also heavily Republican.
The most logical district to flip is FL-27 with Salazar, considering it includes about 2/3 of Miami and elected a Democrat as recent as the 2018 wave. FL-28 also seems to have a perennial status as a swing district, but has swung hard to the right since Gimenez was elected with Salazar in 2020.
There was talk of Daniella Levine Cava as a possible candidate for Salazar’s seat. Assuming redirecting doesn’t go through, I wonder if she’s interested.
Right now, Robin Peguero, a lawyer that was on the Jan. 6 committee, seems like the strongest recruit. Like Maxwell Frost in Orlando, he is Afro-Latino.
Fortunately, the GOP does not seem to be able to get a repeat of 2014 where Ed Gillespie came close to unseating Mark Warner. Luckily for Warner, he rebounded in 2020 by winning re-election by 12% points.
No way can Warner win re-election next year by single digits. Not in this environment, considering how wide Abigail Spanberger’s margin of victory was.
Mostly, Warner was also asleep at the wheel and didn't campaign nearly as hard as he should have. He thought after 2008 and 2012 that Virginia was safe Democratic territory, even with national polls and that it was such a recent transformation compared to losing IL and MA's much more Dem Senate seats so recently.
Yeah, 2014 was definitely like 2021 alright for Mark Warner as far as VA’s history of swinging to the right is concerned.
The main difference is that in 2014, Warner didn’t have any particular vulnerabilities, controversies or problems like Terry McAuliffe did in 2021 when he ran for Governor after serving one term from 2014-2018. Ed Gillespie thought, who had served as RNC Chair during the time McAuliffe was DNC Chair in Bush Jr’s first term as POTUS, did more proactive campaigning. This caught Warner by surprise.
I don't recall Warner running a lazy campaign in 2014. The one criticism I heard about his campaign at the time was that he spent too much time campaigning in southwest Virginia (a region that he had always won before and that he has emotional ties to) and not enough time campaigning in the Urban Crescent, where most of Virginia's Democratic voter base resides.
At least of the launched campaigns. Youngkin would probably be their "best" candidate, but he knows he'll lose and doesn't want that loss on his record before running for president in 2028. Even though he seems to be interested in tying to himself to Trump with a Cabinet role in the New Year, maybe even as toxic as the next DHS Sec.
Youngkin is basically the Trump Mitt Romney if he were a presidential candidate. His agenda and policies as Governor were more extreme than Romney’s were when he was Governor of MA but his business background and Romney’s are similar.
Romney mostly denied and ran against his record as Governor of Massachusetts in his 2012 presidential race. Youngkin wouldn't have to do that as a Republican.
I know. He represented most of the district during his previous tenure, but now he lives in MI-11, of course, since he ran there in 2022. I just wish Jeremy Moss wasn't going to be a congressman. He doesn't seem that great. I think Eric Chung is a good candidate in MI-10, for now.
He doesn't have as strong a chance now as if he tried to clear the field with an earlier launch, but I wish he'd run for state AG. AIPAC would spend so heavily against him from succeeding after they got Nessel into office though.
How would AIPAC have gotten Nessel into office? This seems to be false and I haven't heard AIPAC or its proxies spend on non-federal elections, other than in New York (Solidarity PAC).
Because of certain ideological PACs and the establishment spending in Stevens' favor...we've seen it many times before with Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush and Nina Turner.
Super PACs can't tip the electoral scales by 5-10 points, let alone 20, when both candidates are well-funded. I don't like Stevens, but she would have won that race anyway. These Super PACs, like AIPAC and cryptocurrency PACs, often choose weak candidates or opponents who are already trailing in the polls or are mired in scandals, in order to intimidate the rest of Congress.
Turner anti-endorsing the party's presidential nominee was probably not the best move for winning a future primary.
It is in Spanish: it basically says "no super PAC could have spent enough to make one candidate win, and Levin would have lost anyway without all of the outside money"
Which is true, as there's too many cases to count of the candidate with the most money losing the election
That’s actually a good point. Notice how, in 2024, AIPAC didn’t go after AOC or Pressley or Tlaib, or even really Lee. The three are in much better shape than Bowman or Bush were in 2024.
Bowman was 20 points down in the polls before the campaign started and he lost by about 20 points. Super pacs had very little to do with the outcome of that race. I don't know much about the Bush race but she had some problems and Nina Turner has been a total disaster. Those don't seem like good examples of super pac money being an issue.
I'm more curious about the role of PACs in races like AZ-3. When Gallego ran for Senate, the seat opened up, and there were basically two candidates, both progressives: Raquel Teran, and Yassamin Ansari. Teran had broad support from both progressives and some big party figures like Mark Kelly, while Ansari had the support of some AIPAC-adjacent groups and (if I remember this correctly) crypto PACs. Ansari narrowly won, despite Teran's broad support. Races like that are where I'm concerned about PACs. People talk about the Bowmans and Turners and Bushes, but in those races the candidates had other problems. I live next to NY-16, Bowman was despised in the district and was as poor a fit for it as Dan Goldman is for NY-10. He also had the fire alarm thing, past scandals, etc. He was toast. Bush had the ethics investigation as well (and I heard her successor Bell now has one of his own). And Turner has always been a divisive figure in the party -- she was accused of not being loyal enough to the Democratic Party (admittedly a bit laughable now, given the recent behavior of people like Schumer and Jeffries and the opposition they face from the Democratic base), and she's actually currently in trouble, as I said, for opposing Prop 50 and fighting with people on social media about it.
Teran didn't really have any major scandals that I knew of. Neither did Harry Dunn in MD, besides living outside the district initially. And something to consider: these PACs are clearly supported by corporate money. Even if they do make good points, keep in mind that isn't why they're getting involved. They have other motivations (some geopolitical, some related to things like crypto regulation, etc.) Whether or not their involvement tipped the scales in races like AZ-3, MD-3, OR-3, etc. I don't know. It is something to consider though.
The one upside is sometimes the candidates in question turn out not to be corporate stooges after they're elected. Yassamin Ansari and Maxine Dexter have become staunch progressives in office, and even Sarah Elfreth has done things like recently signing on to M4A and taking positions on the issue that shall not be discussed that are not in line with the party establishment. I guess if I can glean anything from this, it's that politicians can surprise you. I don't know.
Thanks for that interesting post. Tangentially, I'd demur on the idea that Turner shouldn't be lambasted for weakening party unity because Schumer did, too. That's not good logic to me.
Yassamin Ansari’s story is genuinely interesting, and she is IMO, a very savvy politician. Backing her turned out to be a major miscalculation by the lobby and crypto interests. She was widely known as a staunch progressive—the daughter of an Iranian-American immigrant but despite that, she was also an Iran dove, had worked for António Guterres in climate policy, and had old tweets touching on the forbidden topic. She entered politics citing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as her primary inspiration and she was also a vocal admirer of Ed Markey for his climate advocacy - very much part of the so-called "Markeyverse." All of this made it clear early on that she was never going to be a moderate.
My sense is that she leveraged her ties within the Iranian community, along with support from AIPAC/DMFI, Reid Hoffman's neoliberal PAC and crypto interests, because the Progressive caucus PAC and other progressive organizations and PACs were always going to line up behind Raquel Terán. Terán had a long history of progressive organizing and deep connections within Arizona establishment politics, having served as Senate Minority Leader, and she had also organized—alongside Ruben Gallego—against the failed "tough-on-illegal-immigrants" ballot initiative a decade ago.
After winning, Ansari initially voted with AIPAC priorities for a few months, likely out of concern about a potential primary challenge from Terán the following year after her extremely narrow primary win. But around the time Mamdani won his primary, she pivoted back to her original positions. She voted against the GENIUS Act, co-sponsored resolutions with Ro Khanna, gave interviews emphasizing her background, and shifted her rhetoric. Since then, she has built a consistently progressive voting record and aligned her social-media messaging accordingly.
Valerie Foushee who won over Nida Allam by 8 points had trouble raising even a decent amount of money, unlike Elfreth who was known for her work representing the district and was not a carpetbagger like Dunn who lost by 12 points, benefited a lot from Super PAC intervention.
Yeah, one doesn't have to like George Latimer, but it wasn't shocking that the popular Westchester County Executive won the primary in a district that consists almost entirely of...Westchester County.
Honestly I think Democrats would be utter fools not to jump on this issue in a big way, saying the socialized costs (pollution, electricity price hikes, copyright infringement chaos, debt-bubble investment threatening the larger economy, general prevalence of slop everywhere) don't exceed the so-far minor benefits. Big Tech is hated by nearly everyone as is the massive data center proliferation, and AI represents to the public the dehumanization and desocialization causing so many societal problems.
Not supporting blanket bans, but calling for major regulation and an end to the various avenues of public money subsidies should be standard for all Dem candidates. It's politically akin to a huge amount of money on the table, just waiting to be picked up.
As far as I can tell, Dems have been very reluctant to jump on some easy issues (self driving cars, AI to a slightly lesser extent). Probably because they are afraid of anger tech money, but maybe also because they don't want to seem old fashioned. To me, these seem like easy issues to make points on.
I'd actually disagree about self-driving cars as I think the data shows in the aggregate the safety improvements (and environmental improvements should the vehicles be electric) are worth the tradeoffs. Not so with the current LLM splurging.
I'm very opposed to self-driving cars for safety reasons (easy for foreign actors to hack into and control, replace taxi/rideshare driver jobs, cause massive traffic jams when there's a cell tower or electrical grid outage, do nothing to alleviate traffic congestion like public transit would, etc.). A power outage in San Francisco a week or two ago caused a bunch of self-driving cars to stop in the middle of the streets all at once, and it's a miracle that nobody got killed over that.
The data overwhelmingly show they are safer and better drivers than humans are. Drunks and confused (often older) drivers stop in the middle of the road all the time causing hazards. Drunks are far more dangerous and cause more accidents than self driving cars do/will. It's a sensible transition to make and would reduce insurance and health care costs
That said, YES to more and better public transport.
It will take decades for that to even happen. If tech regulation comes, that would complicate things even more, mitigating whatever impact self driving could have on the economy.
The big problem is that self driving is just not popular right now with the general public. They are gaining in interest but the problems with Waymo cars continue to be a liability for these cars to get traction. How can these companies expect car drivers to be sold on self driving if they can’t ensure absolute safety?
Self driving is like crash test dummies gone wild.
My feeling is that there should always be manual controls that can be used in an emergency. I'm not comfortable with there being no manual controls for windows.
Between 30-40,000 Americans die every year from car accidents. If self driving cars can seriously reduce that number, it would be irresponsible to not use self driving technology. Also, self driving cars will eliminate problems with people driving under the influence.
Not sure gen Z is on board with the anti-AI stuff. Most of them are probably using it to get through school these days. Might be better to talk up data centers regulations than AI restrictions.
Gen Z would be if AI regulation is specific to regulating what AI can and cannot do.
ChatGPT is useful but it is not efficient enough in being able to do plenty of things companies want to do in automating tasks. It’s mainly an AI information mining platform that summarizes a lot of Google Search Results.
If Gen Z has a harder time finding work because of what AI is doing to their target careers, that’s regulation they can get behind with. Gen Z startup founders I see at meetup events, namely an AI in Marketing meetup one in San Francisco which I attended a couple of times, have presented their technology and I have seen AI tech to be quite useful in a practical sense.
You have to define what AI regulation entails and how far it should go.
The sad thing about the copyright chaos is that there are valid arguments that US copyright law is a disaster, written by the entertainment industry to protect their profits while they rip off the artists they claim to speak for while screwing consumers with higher prices, less choices, and sometimes even the inability to consume some media altogether because of corporations and some artists blocking access to it (see: the video game industry’s war on preservation of older titles, the Star Wars original edition rerelease saga, etc.) To say nothing of the orphaned works nightmare, where some works can’t be re-released due to rights issues.
The problem is, that same industry adores AI because they can use it to slaughter jobs and create more generic, less expensive art, so AI complicates this situation quite a bit. I’d argue AI really does harm artists, while once again fattening the pockets of corporations. Really I think we need to fundamentally rework copyright law. There are some things that make no sense at all (why is it illegal to make a copy of a movie on a DVD if it’s solely for personal use? Profits?) and I think we’d all benefit from a real discussion on this.
I think you misunderstood me. I am not defending AI art, I despise it too. I was more talking about stuff like backing up DVDs for personal use, or orphaned works that are unreleasable due to rights issues. All the AI garbage can jump in a lake in my opinion. Sorry I wasn’t clear.
No, my apologies. I reread your comment and you perfectly explained my sentiments.
Yes, AI development can be perverted into something greater than what it really should be intended for. Your argument on AI is an example of AI being used not to solve a problem but trying to short cut ways for businesses to profit instead of actually trying to create something genuinely new.
Also, because AI is powered by the internet for the most part, what you described what you object to can potentially present security risks, namely from a hacking standpoint. Cybersecurity law will only get more complicated.
I think we're at the point where AI/LLM investment is actively harming the economy in the near future.
I do not know how much this detail has broken through outside of people who follow technology or hardware much, but RAM and NAND storage prices have skyrocketed the past few months. This is due to datacenter purchases for AI, spending ridiculous sums of money on hoarding up all the DDR, GDDR, or HBM they can acquire, or products using lots of one of those. NAND and DRAM are manufactured similarly, so demand for one is pushing production away from the other causing a similar price increase. RAM prices have gone up somewhere in the range of 300-500% since early fall.
That threatens every sector of the economy that relies on electronics with RAM, which is... a lot of it. Basically all consumer electronics first and foremost, but also spending on accessories for those electronics. And more importantly, spending on software. There's talk of phone companies delaying or cancelling launches in 2026. I'm not sure if that will end up happening, but the sourcing and pricing of a single critical component is going to be a huge bottleneck.
It'd be smart electoral politics to start a pushback now, so once the hits start coming we can take credit for it.
I’ve heard about this. Not quite as important as the entire consumer electronics market, but I know gamers are pissed about AI because gaming rig prices have ballooned due to AI.
Gaming is just the tip of the iceberg for this. It's hit first because DIY PC gamers do not have contracts for memory components that last months, and thus get hit with price surges immediately.
Laptop prices are starting to go up, I've seen 20-30% bandied about. That number will continue to go up if things do not improve. Office computers are going to go up in price. Everything Apple and their direct competitors make relies on lots of RAM, or relies on a device with lots of RAM. Even smartwatches should be using about 1 GB of RAM today. Modern cars use it. Robot vacuums use it. Major industrial equipment uses it. Research uses it. Modern TVs use it. Software relies on devices that use it.
The modern world, and in particular the modern US economy, relies on RAM being available and affordable for devices and equipment. This could be very, very bad.
Incidentally, China has started up their own DRAM manufacturer that I believe is at the point of being able to supply their domestic market, and they're not going through the insane AI investment boom we are. This could be a perfect opportunity for them to make major inroads into consumer markets where we are currently stronger.
Given what a fiasco the TikTok ban was for Biden & Dems and how it was perceived with younger voters I don't blame pols for being hesitant on jumping on the anti-Big tech/AI bandwagon. Alot of polls showed initially support for a tiktok ban and when it actually nearly happened support nosedived. When people suddenly can't use ChatGPT anymore because of some regulation there is going to be some backlash.
I think two of the reasons the TikTok ban was so poorly received were A. At least some of the lawmakers involved in it implied their actual target was related to the geopolitical issue we aren’t allowed to speak about, and B. The right wing took over TikTok once it was sold. Just my thoughts though.
TikTok is also a powerful word of mouth platform in driving its users, namely Gen Zers, to shop and even go to movie theaters. Making an outright ban of it would prevent small businesses from being able to get enough opportunities from influencer marketing to grow their brand awareness.
I don't think banning social media is the answer. Peer-to-peer communication is essential as an alternative to communicating via email, phone, regular mail and video chat/conferencing. If regulation ensures that social media is redesigned and works around necessary restrictions, I don't think TikTok would need to be banned for this reason.
The purpose of the original ban was because of national security reasons. However, the influence of social media in general on its users is a national security issue in itself.
" Making an outright ban of it would prevent small businesses from being able to get enough opportunities from influencer marketing to grow their brand awareness."
Brand awareness to small businesses? That’s to be debated.
YouTube offers strong influencer marketing opportunities but the videos aren’t as random and quick in production as TikTok videos are. What being viral here could mean may not be enough for what TikTok’s impact is.
But I am more concerned about user privacy and protection than anything else.
The U.S. is a total cesspool of business (and whoever else) ownership and sale of personal information. Europe has strong privacy laws. On this, as on so many other things, the U.S. should be more like Europe.
Yeah, I think you have a point. The number of people, of all ages, who think ChatGPT or whatever is helping them is significant. Meanwhile, I see how many times the automatic Chat answer that comes up when I search something is completely wrong - on really simple things.
They're designed to come up with confident, friendly answers that people want to hear. Which when you think about it is a truly terrifying combination as it will reinforce people's existing biases and make them feel validated, while also make people confident in hallucinated or otherwise plain wrong information.
The wrong answers aren't surprising though as it's all based on training data, and training data is going to have a lot of people who were also confidently wrong!
I had tried to create a goofy name and used Google Search to see if it was taken. The AI Search result showed:
“That’s a funny twist on…”
For goodness sake, I just wanted to do a quick Google Search to see if the name was taken. I don’t need a damn AI bot to tell me whether it’s funny or not!
Well, my daughter has discarded graphic design as a potential career now that she's in college because of AI. And so she went to data science, which she is also discarding (busy 1st semester, lol), though she is dumping that because she hates python. I argue that AI solves the need to program, and the cooler part of data science is the critical thinking part, which is now free of proofreading for semicolons in or whatever.
Point is, she isn't alone. There's a lot of angst amongst her peers about how AI is disrupting their futures in not-good ways.
Funny little detail: Python doesn't use semicolons. It can, if you want to squeeze multiple lines of code together into a single entry. In typical use the syntax does not use them. Nor curly brackets. So no proofreading for them!
I do not do much coding but it is one of my favorite details about Python: the syntax forces your code formatting to be easy to read.
Given the TokToK ban never happened we have no idea what the political ramifications would have been. All I saw were campaigns orchestrated on TikToK (shocker!) to call pols but ultimately that doesn't mean too much. I'm not convinced the political impacts wouldn't have been net positive (it was also bipartisan).
Part of the solution is for the people to own the means of production, so that AI doesn't simply replace the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people who become expendable and get killed by denial of healthcare or some other means. But no, we can't have socialism...
Depends on the situation. I'm pragmatic, but if AI and robots are in private hands when they take over the economy, a majority of the population will be "expendable."
I suspect that it is much more likely that we get a guaranteed basic income in the future because so many jobs are going to be replaced with technology that many people will not be able to work. For all the fighting over trade, mechanization has already devastated many industries and areas in the rust belt. I saw a story recently that stated that the number of man hours needed to assemble a new car has been reduced by over 75%. I am from coal country and know that over 95% of coal jobs have been eliminated by mechanization. With AI, we will see these issues in more white collar areas as well. When we reach the point that work is all but impossible to find, we will have a lot of angry frustrated people who will demand large changes, and I suspect that a basic income program will become inevitable.
You're more optimistic than I am. I think there's a great likelihood of a government that represents the ownership class and not the people treating the jobless majority as dead weight and eliminating us.
Why would we need basic income to suffice for displacement? That’s basically unemployment benefits but in a larger amount than what most Americans get. It also makes zero sense practically given that the economy cannot in itself function on autopilot. As much as AI is affecting the workforce right now, AI programs aren’t even performing the way they ought to be.
But many in Silicon Valley who are arguing for basic income programs are also the one disrupting the economy with their innovation and investments (namely the VCs). They have a very insulated view of the world conveniently try to argue about the advances of AI and other technologies without showing any real social conscious views.
But this is where a technology regulatory agency should come in. It should have applicable means so that technology is meant for advancing society, not disrupting it or causing adverse displacement.
We will need basic income when we have so many displacements that millions of people will become virtually unemployable because so many jobs are going to be lost to mechanization or AI in the future.
WY-AL, WY-Gov, WY-SoS: Secretary of State Chuck Gray is running for Congress to succeed Harriet Hageman. Worth noting he ran against Rep. Cheney in 2022 but dropped out after Hageman received Trump's endorsement.
I saw state treasurer Curt Meier floated as a possible candidate, but he'd be a House freshman in his early-mid 70s. State senator and former majority leader Ogden Driskill is another option.
Pulling from this link in that article, some other potential candidates in the WY musical chairs (some announced before Lummis's retirement announcement):
-Gov: Mark Gordon (incumbent gov – pending potential term limits suit), Megan Degenfelder (superintendent), Eric Barlow (state sen and former speaker – launched), Brent Bien (2022 candidate – launched), Reid Rasner (businessman – exploratory), Chip Neiman (speaker – or state senate)
-Gov/US House/SoS (plus super if Degenfelder runs): Ogden Driskill (former senate president – retiring from state sen regardless), Cheri Steinmetz (state sen), Cyrus Western (former state rep), Paul Ulrich (University of WY trustee – sounds most interested in US House), John Bear (state rep), Bo Biteman (state sen pres), Tim Salazar (state sen VP), Tara Nethercott (state sen majority leader), Rachel Rodriguez-Williams (state rep)
Well that's a dramatic change of pace. One of my classmates in a history class I took at my college last semester was Brazilian, and he told me he did not like Lula and thought he was corrupt (although he clarified he does not support the far right either).
Seems the turnaround was due to them actually prosecuting Bolsonaro, and the threat of Trump. Something tells me if we had gone after Trump after Jan 6, and not had Merrick Garland as AG, perhaps things could have gone differently.
Since we're on a new week, I'll share some more races I'm interested in.
- MD-SD-46: Is Bill Ferguson's anti-redistricting stance enough to sink him? Or is he safe from his primary challenger?
- TX-15: Under the new map, could we still unseat Monica De La Cruz? Would this environment help?
- MI-12: I seriously do not believe Tlaib will lose a primary, but is anyone stupid enough to try anyway? Fred Durhal III (Detroit City Councilman, candidate for Mayor) hinted he might run. Is he stupid enough to try?
- IL-08: Who is the frontrunner here? Given his fundraising and progressive ties, could Junaid Ahmed pull it off? Is Melissa Bean favored due to institutional ties?
- MN-Gov: Could Walz drop out, owing to his unpopularity and the recent scandal?
- CA-14: Will Aisha Wahab jump in? If not, who else could run?
- CO redistricting: Will it actually happen?
- OR-Gov: I've heard some of the left aren't happy with Tina Kotek, due to her focus on "cutting taxes" and so on. Might a primary challenge emerge? Or is it too late?
- NC-Supreme Court: How might Anita Earls do?
And a couple of election-adjacent questions:
- The VRA: Given SCOTUS's recent sudden not granting Trump the ability to keep occupying DC, does the VRA stand a chance?
- NYC: With Mamdani-critical Julie Menin as NYC Council Speaker, could she pose a serious threat to Mamdani's agenda? Is that her goal?
MD-SD-46: Though there's an anti-incumbent wave that seems to be building, Ferguson has been in office long enough to become entrenched and will win easily based on recognition.
TX-15: This environment should help tremendously, and Pulido is the perfect man for the job. I would give De La Cruz the advantage, though. Maybe it will be around a 5-point margin.
MI-12: I doubt Tlaib will get any substantial challenge. She seems secure in her seat at this point. Same goes for Omar and Lee.
IL-8: Though I think Bean is the frontrunner, I would argue Bankole will place 2nd in the primary, then Ahmed 3rd.
MN-Gov: He could drop out, but it would be somewhat unexpected. Governors less popular than him have won re-election after scandal.
CA-14: I imagine she will, and will be the frontrunner. Alameda County supervisor David Haubert is another potential candidate. I suspect Assemblywoman Liz Ortega could also run.
CO redistricting: Probably not. I feel like this redistricting war is dying down with the failed attempt in Indiana recently.
OR-Gov: Kotek should be fine - she's the strongest candidate in a state that doesn't really seem to enjoy Democrats being governor but continues to elect them.
NC-Supreme Court: She should win but by single digits, and Cooper will help her at the top of the ticket.
VRA: SCOTUS's recent rulings somewhat confuse me. One day they rule something Trump does as unconstitutional, but over a year ago the same Court also gave him immunity. I don't know.
NYC: I don't know much about Menin but Mamdani will have an uphill battle as mayor regardless.
Biden and Beto won TX-15.
If Tlaib had only one primary opponent, she could be vulnerable but if she has 2 or more, she's safe.
I don't know. Detroit, Dearborn and Southfield's diverse communities overshadow the richer, whiter suburbs of Livonia and Westland. If the district didn't include its share of Detroit and stretched further west, maybe.
I think she could be vulnerable to a strong African American candidate 1 on 1.
I doubt it. Is there any evidence that Tlaib isn't really popular in her district?
Yeah her constituent service is top notch from what I hear. So much so that she helps Thanedar's constituents as well, because he sucks.
And because she lives in Thanedar's district and represented it before him, lol
Those are irrelevant to the fact that she's doing someone else's job for them.
Thanedar looks cooked—progressives, moderate Black leaders, and labor have lined up behind his opponent. At this point, he’s basically left with his own money and a few single-issue super PACs.
Here's hoping.
I have my differences of opinion with Tlaib but I’ve never doubted she has firm convictions as opposed to Thanedar.
Only primary wins where she's gotten in the 60% range, which isn't that amazing for an incumbent in a Dem district. The longer she's in, the less vulnerable she becomes.
I'm ambivalent about her.
I don't let my doubts about some of her positions influence my assessment of her chances to continue representing her district.
Highly doubt that Kotek sees a primary challenge. The OR Dem establishment and associated power centers (public sector unions, primarily) are well organized and I think the bar would be a lot higher for them to support a challenge than whatever we've seen with Kotek. She also hasn't focused on cutting taxes per se, and in fact signed a moderately robust gas tax and vehicle fee hike into law for the purpose of road maintenance, although it's been reported that the Legislature may repeal all or at least parts of the law early in 2026 to head off a ballot initiative challenging the increases. (The sense seems to be that the initiative would pass, so leaving it on the ballot would just drag down Dem candidates.)
Kotek has expressed frustration with special purpose local taxes in the Portland area that have not appeared to deliver promised results despite raising quite a bit of money. These include a preschool for all income tax in Multnomah County, a homeless services income tax for Metro (regional government), and a climate change-focused quasi-sales tax in the City of Portland. The criticism is that these taxes have alienated businesses and higher income people in an area with a shaky economic base (a lot of eggs in the Intel basket) and thus might have quelled other possibilities for growth. I'm of several minds about this, but I do think that dedicating special tax streams to particular services is a recipe for governmental inefficiency, since the cash still comes in regardless of how well the programs are delivered.
Overall, we're definitely not getting a Blue Wave in Oregon next year -- not much left to gain -- but I think Kotek wins more comfortably than in 2022. The local vibes may not be great, but she'll have national tailwinds and the Dem base in Oregon comes out rain or shine.
We already have two Democratic candidates in the race:
Abrar Qadir
https://aq4congress.com/
Matt Ortega
https://mattortega.com/
Both have interesting backgrounds and could offer plenty of ideas in serving CA-14.
Qadir’s platform resonates with me, especially with regulating AI as being one the issues.
Luckily, the CA-14 race may end up being more interesting than the CA-12 race last year where Rep. Lateefah Simon had faced Jennifer Tran in the general election but had essentially been favored to win the whole time.
Dublin, Pleasanton, etc. have been represented by Eric Swalwell for a long time but he also unseated Rep. Pete Stark back in the day. Would be interesting if the next House Democrat here were Indian or Middle Eastern as these are growing voter demographics in CA-14.
Copy of most of an email from Chris Bowers, which covers a new Ohio law I'm not sure we've discussed since it was signed:
On Tuesday, December 23, Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine "reluctantly" signed a bill into law that ended the four-day grace period for mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day but received by election authorities afterward. DeWine indicated that he did this not because he supported the end of the four-day grace period, which he believed was reasonable. Instead, he indicated that he signed the bill because he was concerned that, in a case that will likely be ruled on in June, if the Supreme Court overturned grace periods on mail-in ballots it would result in a chaotic situation for elections in Ohio in 2026. Here is DeWine, via the Associated Press:
"I believe that this four-day grace period is reasonable, and I think for many reasons it makes a lot of sense," he told reporters. "Therefore, I normally would veto a repeal of this four-day grace period. And, frankly, that's what I wish I could do."(...)
"No one knows how the Supreme Court will rule," DeWine said. "However, if the court in late June upholds the 5th Circuit case and Ohio's grace period for counting late ballots is still in effect, the election situation in Ohio would be chaotic."
That actually seems at least somewhat reasonable to me, so I am not going to get angry at DeWine over this. It is an unfortunate situation, and hopefully the Supreme Court will make a ruling that protects at least limited grace periods for mail-in ballots.
It is also worth remembering exactly how many votes we are talking about here, because it is far fewer than you might think. In 2024, according to the New York Times, approximately 725,000 ballots were postmarked by Election Day, but received and accepted after Election Day as valid votes by the relevant authorities. That was less than one half of one percent of all votes cast.
In fact, as I estimated in the email below this one, even if the Supreme Court eliminates all grace periods for mail-in voting nationwide, the impact will likely mean a popular vote shift toward Republicans of a little less than one-tenth of one percent nationwide. This is neither the huge electoral shift that many Republicans, including Donald Trump, are hoping for, nor the electoral doom scenario that many Democrats might envision when they read headlines about mail-in voting.
Further, to be perfectly honest I actually suspect that making it more difficult to vote in any way will actually backfire on Republicans. Since Donald Trump's rise to national prominence a decade ago, there has been a major shift of high propensity, college educated voters toward Democrats, and of low propensity, non–college educated voters toward Republicans. Changing the voting options available to these groups is not going to impact how frequently they vote. While high propensity, college educated voters disproportionately use mail-in voting right now, if the laws change they will simply adjust and cast their ballots through other means. By contrast, the same cannot necessarily be said of lower propensity voters who do not follow the news with any regularity.
My comments: less than 0.5% is still a very significant number, and fuck the Republicans who support disenfranchising so many people. Loads of elections turn on smaller margins than that. Look at 2000 in Florida. All that is irrespective of whether it will blunt a seemingly likely Democratic wave in 2026 or whether it's more likely to affect low-propensity voters who seem to be more likely to vote Republican now.
I don't buy his justification.
He could veto it now, and then if there's a relevant SCOTUS ruling there's still no chaos. They'd have to obey the court ruling. They could pass another law after, if that course of events came to pass. And still with plenty of time before the election.
Many republicans love to parade themselves around "reasonable" and "forced" to implement the conservative agenda against their will. I do not believe them, especially in instances where they have plenty of agency.
I believe you are correct.
If the grace periods are eliminated, think of all the election interference DeJoy could cause by delaying mail-in ballots? Not a reassuring thought!
Eh, neither Connecticut nor New Hampshire has ever had a grace period for absentee ballots, and I haven't heard of any major issues there or here of any significant number of ballots arriving late.
DeJoy actually left office in March, though Trump's preferred choice was installed as PG in July.
Thanks, I missed this. Do we now have someone worse?
I haven't heard from Chris in over a decade (I use to write at openleft long ago)
Here's a question I have for posters here: who's on retirement watch for 2028? Fetterman and Schumer seem like obvious picks, and Chuck Grassley is in his 90s -- might anyone else try to retire then?
Hassan, Blumenthal, Scott, Johnson, Boozman, Kennedy, Moran, Murray, Murkowski, and possibly Van Hollen and Paul running for president.
Thanks. Interesting, lots of people.
I wonder if Jayapal will try for Senate if Murray calls it quits. Ditto for Lamont and Blumenthal.
Lamont will be in his mid 70s by then. We've had older freshmen senators but I'd hope he stays out. Hayes and Himes could both make credible runs, I think.
I believe Goodlander, Hayes, Fry, Steil (as the Republican candidate), Sanders, Letlow, Schmidt, Jayapal and Begich would be the easiest immediate options for the ones I listed.
Jayapal potentially running could get interesting because her House seat contains much of Seattle. I imagine a crowded primary, or potentially a left vs. center showdown, could follow.
Randall and Schrier could also potentially run, and they represent significantly more moderate but still liberal seats. Perez is a dark horse for me.
MGP is not popular in the state. She is best suited to keep her district but has lost a lot of goodwill on her left (again, not her fault).
That would be a very crowded primary.
That said I doubt Jayapal would run for Senate
Goodlander is in NH, Steil in WI, Sanders in AR, Letlow in LA, Jayapal in WA, and I believe the Begich you're talking about is the Republican one in AK. I just figured out that Hayes is Jahana Hayes, the great Congresswoman from CT. Where are Fry and Schmidt from? Schrier is a Congresswoman from WA, but who is Randall?
Fry: South Carolina (if Scott retires)
Schmidt: Kansas (if Moran retires)
Randall: Congresswoman from WA, currently a freshman
Thanks. Who did Randall replace?
Living in SC, and in Fry's district, I can tell you he has absolutely no statewide presence. In fact, many politically attuned people here don't even know who he is. He's a one-trick pony who is all MAGA. There are many more Rs who would be favored over him, including Nancy Mace and any other of the also rans for Gov this year. Plus Trey Gowdy and some of the leadership in Columbia. And if the mood toward more rational Rs sets in at all, he's toast. But I see no reason that Tim Scott would retire in 28. He's not that old.
I think Maxine Dexter will try, she beat Jayapal's sister from the middle in the primary and then swung to the left since her election.
Ron Wyden has said he has running again in Oregon, though. If he reverses that decision, or if Jeff Merkley retires in 2032, then she can run.
Someone on Bluesky said that, if Wyden retired Dexter could try then.
I said it before but I'll reiterate that I doubt Hassan will retire. I'd love to see her replaced by Goodlander or another better democrat in the state. Especially since "better" is applicable to basically any democrat that would succeed her. Maybe not monumentally so, but still there.
She's not acting like someone planning to retire. For her the constant appearances in the stupid-votes club is an attempt at moderation to win over republicans, rather than as a favor done to Schumer because she's retiring (like Durbin). And her campaign texted me for fundraising just this month.
It's not impossible, of course. Peters retired this cycle despite being younger than her and with no hints at it beforehand that I am aware of. But it's unlikely.
NH’s voting patterns honestly feel a lot like a big suburb - like Long Island or Westchester. At the federal level you get very milquetoast centrist Democrats, but at the state level it often leans red, which is pretty similar to Long Island politics.
That tracks historically too. I've read that NH was shaped by out-migration from Boston (and to a lesser extent NYC) during the 1960s–70s, when crime, taxes, and urban unrest pushed a lot of white, middle-class families into exurban and semi-rural areas. So you end up with a place that's suburban, skeptical of government, and fiscally conservative—but not hard-right.
I honestly suspect NH Dems could end up playing the Manchin/Sinema role and writing the actual bills in 2029 unless Democrats get a much bigger majority by winning more fiscally moderate states. If the margin stays slim, it’s going to be the most cautious, centrist Dems setting the terms, not the Senate's left flank.
Southern NH, particularly from ~Nashua and east, more or less is a long-distance suburb of Boston. It's not a majority of the state, but once you add in the areas that are offshots of that border region it is a majority. A lot of the state has an ingrained fear of the city. When I first started doing day trips to Boston for fun, everyone around me (of all adult ages) was aghast and worried about safety and parking, that people there wouldn't be friendly. I've found Boston to be way friendlier than NH and I feel safer there, too.
I'd disagree with the state/local level government leaning red. It leans towards incumbents and gerrymanders. Republicans have likely locked us out of a trifecta with the current maps. Sununu barely won in 2016 and then kept winning heavily as the incumbent, even in a blue wave. Just like Hassan and Lynch barely won and then kept winning heavily even with the 2010 and 2014 red waves. Right now republicans hold the local incumbency and the local gerrymanders, so they'll do well.
Fortunately Shaheen will be retired by 2027. I'm not expecting Pappas to be anywhere near a progressive senator. But I think he'll be OK in the same vein as someone like Coons. A reliable vote when we need it that won't sink legislation or vote with republicans stupidly, but also won't be agitating for legislation that goes big or bold.
Goodlander has impressed me, much to my surprise. If I'm wrong and Hassan does retire I think she'd be even better than Pappas. Still not progressive but a good senator.
Goodlander worked for Lieberman and McCain.
Which is a substantial part of why her impressing me is a surprise.
How on earth is Boston safer than New Hampshire?
Apart from anything else, Bostonians drive like lunatics while New Hampshire drivers are much better. It's always pretty easy to tell when a Bostonian drives up here because of their insane driving style.
I don't have to drive when in Boston, only drive to there. That increases the safety considerably as I'm far less likely to be in a car accident. I'd also say that NH's greater number of pickup truck drivers negates the driver behavior advantage -- I've noticed people with trucks around here (and anywhere) drive recklessly.
I feel no danger from crime in either area, but in the off chance something does happen in Boston I'm also surrounded by hundreds/thousands of people that could intervene or react to an injury; in NH I could easily hurt myself with no one around to help.
I also want to note I said I feel safer, not that I am. In reality I'm super safe in both areas, but I feel it more in Boston. That's a highly subjective detail but it's still there.
No way Hassan retires.
I'd like to say that additionally to these picks, the following could be on retirement watch in 2030: King, Sanders, Warren, Justice, Kaine, the other Scott, Wicker, Fischer, Barrasso and Hirono.
That's in 5 years. I think we can wait a while before discussing it.
Justice is probably the best we can hope for as far as sanity in any GOP Senator in WV but he’s not the sharpest when it comes to judgement. When I some time ago on TDB posted about the 2030 Senate race becoming a problem for Justice, it’s that he’d be more likely to face a primary challenge than be unseated by a Democrat.
But 2030 is still a long way to go and would be when Trump is out of office. We really don’t know what the GOP is going to do to brand or “improve” itself at this point. Justice’s issues with the IRS and crazy financials with his businesses though are a liability to him whether wins re-election or loses.
It depends on how long Babydog can allow the public to be fond of him.
If Chris Murphy leaves for VP, SoS or some other cabinet role, who might replace him?
I feel like Jahana Hayes would be at the top of the list, but I don't know whether there are stars in the state legislature or among mayors.
I'm hoping that Hayes succeeds Blumenthal when the latter (hopefully) retires in 2028.
Considering this is his 50th year in politics and he turns 80 in a little over a month, agreed.
Depends on who Ned Lamont wants. Probably someone safe and established.
I am most concerned with the Republican Senators and vacancies up for election in 2026.
Mitch McConnell knew that the road to real change is through the Senate.
The Blood Red Senators, and their estimated net worth, who need to be removed in 2026:
Alabama: Tommy Tuberville $13 million
Alaska: Dan Sullivan $6 million
Arkansas: Tom Cotton
Idaho: James Risch $55 million
Iowa: Joni Ernst (negative)
Kansas: Roger Marshall $6 million
Kentucky: Mitch McConnell's Replacement
Louisiana: Bill Cassidy $1.5 million
Maine: Susan Collins $5 million
Mississippi: Cindy Hyde-Smith $6 million
Montana: Steve Daines $50 million
Nebraska: Pete Ricketts $207 million
North Carolina: Thom Tillis $18 million
Oklahoma: Markwayne Mullin $75 million
South Carolina: Lindsey Graham $25 million
South Dakota: Mike Rounds $4.4 million
Tennessee: Bill Hagerty $53 million
West Virginia: Shelly Moore Capito $4.1 million
Wyoming: Cynthia Lummis
These are the senators who twice voted to acquit Trump. Twice voted to increase tax cuts for the rich. Cut funding for Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACA. They need to go, but we need a 60 Senate majority WITHOUT Liebermans, Sinemas or Manchins.
Tuberville is running for Governor of Alabama. He will not be in the Senate next term.
Tillis, Lummis and Ernst are also retiring.
By "estimated worth" do you mean how much is in their coffers and thus available for a campaign, or what their "personal wealth" is?
Congress does have to release estimates of the assets of its members, but the numbers will fall under a range than being an actual number. This makes it hard to get a precise estimate but some places will attempt to do so.
You can search through the senate reports here. https://efdsearch.senate.gov/search/home/
So are the above numbers referring to personal assets rather than campaign coffers? I’m a tad confused. I would think the latter number is the most important; not all politicians are willing or able to sink their personal wealth into campaigns that are not guaranteed to succeed.
It's their personal assets. I think the above commenter was trying to reference politicians getting rich in office and using it as a negative mark on them.
Not even a presidential campaign for 2028 is going to have $200m in cash on hand right now, so that's a healthy giveaway that it's all personal wealth.
I believe that Trump has $500 million in cash on hand. Here is an Axios article that references that number:
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/10/trump-maga-inc-power-fundraising
Any chance that a moderate by Wyoming standards could sneak through in the Wyoming U.S. Senate primary? Lummis wasn't a crazy person, no doubt too conservative to help the people, but not a radical...IMO. Could Hageman be beat in a splintered primary?
Seeing that Joni Ernst is broke makes her decision to retire make much more sense. She can now collect her pension from the Senate, get a lobbying job paying at least triple what she earned as a Senator, and be free of having to be a Trump stooge. Who wouldn't make that move?
The U.S. is undergoing its fastest religious shift in modern history, marked by a rapid increase in the religiously unaffiliated and numerous church closures nationwide.
https://www.axios.com/2025/12/26/great-unchurching-america-religiously-unaffiliated
It turns out that Gen Z and Millenials after all the MSM narratives, about a reversal in religiosity due to COVID and Democrats, are still the least religious and most liberal generations.
The bad part is relative secularism hasn't proven the bulwark against reactionary nationalist hate-mongering that it was thought to 20ish years ago. That said, I have seen data showing actual correlation between regular church attendance and Trump support.
Not universal though. I attend church regularly and I think people here know my politics — and multiple other members of my church are also anti Trump.
Correlation does not suggest universality.
I’m aware, I just wanted to say something because (and to be clear, I am not referring to either of you) some bad faith criticisms use such statistics to imply religion as a whole is evil.
I’m generally of the mind regarding such arguments (again, not yours) that religion is too complex a subject to be turned into a simple right vs. wrong argument. Particularly when you consider the various different ways religion (or spirituality in general) can manifest — it’s hardly black and white. For example, while I’m a church-going Christian, my interpretation of such is as a general moral guide (note general. I’m aware of some of the nastier parts of the Bible.) My actual beliefs lean more agnostic — not even in a “I don’t know” sense, but in a “it’s unknowable” sense. That’s just how I perceive it though.
And to clarify again, this is not directed at anyone in particular here. This is just to ensure speaking in absolutes does not occur.
Agreed. I don't and have never attended church but still have agnostic beliefs, and understand that many positive morals can come from religion.
I've observed that good people who are religious find the good in their religion, while bad people who are religious justify their evil behavior by reference to their religion, too. I don't think any kind of morality requires a religious origin, nor do I think religious belief or its absence makes anyone good or bad. It's a matter of character.
Of course I'm well aware of all of that, but I think we know your position by now and you probably don't have to restate it every time the topics of fanaticism and religious bigotry come up.
Indeed. I’ll cease discussion on such matters.
My theory without any data backing it is that more and more of the remaining christians have shifted sharply to the right in response to the US culture losing its veneer of christian dominance.
For the ones undergoing that shift, they've spent their entire life with society implicitly agreeing with them, being the dominant religious/spiritual aspect, and being de facto the state religion. This is especially true for any of them that are older. Losing that de facto control goes poorly with them and they turn more conservative to try and reassert that cultural power.
And as has been discussed, Christian fundamentalism along white Americans is closely associated with racism, and whether white surpremacists have always felt threatened or just enjoyed being the oppressors and brutalizing minorities, they always used their interpretation of Christianity to justify it. I think that while it's true that some people become bullies because they are internally weak in some way, others are just violent, bad people.
Eh this goes well beyond white supremacy. Some of the most right wing churches are black and Latino charismatic Pentacostal churches, which are exploding across Latin America.
I know that, and it's why I specifically mentioned -white- Americans.
That’s been the case in Europe, which secularized at our current pace a generation ago, so I’m not surprised it’s manifesting here
Speaking of religious shifts, I would like to see a serious study of the alarming shift from Christianity to Christianism. (Think of these as parallel to the distinction between Muslims and Islamists.)
I suspect that has a lot to do with the fact that more moderate people are leaving organized Christianity, partly because the more radical and political fundamentalists have taken over the church, which results in a more radical church. A lot of churches are caught in this loop.
I've been a church musician for the past fifteen years and have witnessed the decline firsthand. (It's especially tough in areas like the Rust Belt, where churches are facing the double-whammy of increasing secularism and population decline.)
The future of the profession is, IMO, very bleak. I suspect it will end up a lot like academia and journalism have: only a handful of jobs that pay more than a pittance, nearly all of which will be located in and around major cities, and nearly all of which will go to elites.
Elites? I don't think church musicians will ever be members of an elite like surgeons, let alone stockbrokers or still less the leisure class.
I was thinking more along the lines of elite conservatory and/or Ivy League graduates.
I see. But aren't professional church musicians in the U.S. already high-level like that? Not that it matters whether your degree is from a state school or whatever.
Some are, some aren't. It used to be that a talented musician could start out at a local parish and move up the ranks, often within the same denomination (similar to how talented writers could start out at a podunk paper). It's just one more avenue of advancement that is rapidly closing, IMO.
Who else thinks Whitmer should make a late entry into the Senate race next year? The field of current Dems seems pretty underwhelming and it'd be nice to put that race away early with a strong candidate and focus solely on NC & ME. Seems like it'd be more of a sure thing for her than other aspirations she may hold.
What's wrong with McMorrow? Also, how popular is Whitmer now?
She's an overperformer statewide, while McMorrow has yet to win statewide. The most recent approval rating 7 months ago gave her 63%. Whitmer also has name recognition throughout the state, while McMorrow is mostly known in her legislative district in the Detroit suburbs.
We cannot afford to play it safe in every election requiring our candidates to be proven statewide winners -- we need to refresh that group constantly to ensure there's more people to pick from.
Whitmer won statewide for the first time in 2018, a blue wave midterm. By all estimation 2026 is shaping up to be a blue wave midterm. Now is the perfect cycle to permit younger, less historically proven candidates run for statewide office in swing states.
For that matter: if we're going to be worried about the electoral prospects of any of the candidates in that primary, McMorrow is the last one I'd worry about.
I agree that McMorrow should be the candidate, I was saying logically why some people may not be sold on her yet rather than Whitmer. I also definitely agree that Stevens and El-Sayed are particularly weak candidates and that we should focus energy on McMorrow.
I agree with everything you said, but I fear that McMorrow could lose the primary while Whitmer will win the field and she will be even stronger in the general election. We must avoid nominating a candidate who will start a Democratic circular firing squad over the forbidden issue.
I think that El-Sayed and Stevens are too far on either side of said issue, while McMorrow is more of a compromise between the two.
Here's an analogy: during the Yankees' late 90s dynasty, they didn't stand pat, figuring that the players who had won the championship even in their greatest year, 1998, would all excel in 1999. Instead, they analyzed the likelihood that players would excel the following year and then reassessed during the season when there was a possibility to acquire players. They also nurtured prospects throughout that period and got important contributions from them. And that's why they continued to win. You can look at any sports dynasty and see smart decisions by the General Manager and their staff that paid off.
What I think is irrelevant, Whitmer is gearing up for a Presidential run and is raising a lot of money from dark money donors for that so she won't run for Senate.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2025/11/18/gretchen-whitmer-road-to-michigan-future-not-for-profit-organization-secret-donors-campaign-advisers/87326468007
"Whitmer-tied nonprofit draws $7.7M from secret donors in 2024, staffs up"
Don't talk about Democratic presidential politics. We've been through this before, have we not?
Shouldn't I explain why Whitmer won't run?
Generally we should avoid it. When it's relevant for a downballot election I try to reference it obliquely and with as few details as possible. Something like "Whitmer is unlikely to run for senate as she has her eyes on a different office."
Exactly. Or even "a higher office". That's enough.
She has a bigger race in mind
Thank you for opening a new thread! I just noticed.
Do you Favor or oppose America's founding ideals (MAGA Republicans)
🟤 Oppose 51%
🟢 Favor 39%
RMG #B - RV - 12/18
https://x.com/PpollingNumbers/status/2005312146876551663
The phrasing would be interesting.
I mean I’m not particularly surprised, nobody hates America quite like MAGA
I mean, the United States was founded in the late 18th century and how it’s evolved since then I am sure would have surprised James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, etc. They would be stunned today if they realized how much has changed since then.
MAGA’s response is just representative of cry babies. If they think the Constitution is supposed to show favoritism towards white people, they are clearly mistaken!
It absolutely did. The original constitution allowed slavery and the slave trade.
Not now. The Constitution of now vs then has changed. This isn’t the same period as the 18th or 19th century.
Point being, MAGA is ignorant of history and the progress they the U.S. has made since Lincoln was POTUS.
Right, but what founding ideals of the U.S. were mentioned in the poll? We don't know.
Good point although assuming we’re talking about things in a general sense from the founding of the U.S., not everything in the Constitution is so black and white from the beginning of the founding and subsequent amendments that followed.
As an example, the 1st Amendment is relevant today just like it was in the beginning. Non-white residents and immigrants have the right to free speech and MAGA should know this.
But if not, that’s MAGA’s problem.
That's right, but that's why the phrasing of the question would be important to know. Depending on how they asked it, I might be among those who disagree with principles held by founding fathers.
https://www.postandcourier.com/politics/sc-redistricting-jim-clyburn-congress-democrats/article_baebcf0b-cb40-4f05-91a0-f5685a6a7bf3.html
Good insight on Rep. Jim Clyburn and South Carolina politics in general. It sure sounds like he's leaning towards retirement.
He and Hoyer really need to retire.
They needed to retire in like 2012. His daughters Jennifer and Angela seem like reasonable successors, while Hoyer's line of succession seems a little more open.
I do find it odd how Hoyer & Pelosi stepped away from their prominent leadership positions but still stayed in congress. Usually speakers and such don’t hang around must longer after their speakership.
-McCarthy resigned after being ousted as speaker
-Ryan retired as speaker
-Boehner resigned as speaker
-Hastert resigned as speaker
-Gingrich resigned as speaker
-Foley was defeated as speaker
-Wright resigned as speaker
-O'Neill retired as speaker
And that's just in the past 50 years or so! Every speaker except Pelosi!
Pelosi’s been tougher than most of those previous House Speakers you mentioned.
She’s never been relenting and as House Speaker never let anything, even diverging ideologies and opinions from Democrats, from doing her job. Pelosi also got under Trump’s skin multiple times and never gave him a pass on his behavior. She was blunt about his antics in interviews.
Going to miss her when she leaves the House.
They wanted to be able to mentor the next gen of leadership (charitably) or didn't trust them (uncharitably for a few terms to help them transition after 20yrs of their trifecta at the top. Hoyer and Clyburn resuming approps seniority and taking cardinal slots away from two members who had been in those roles for years was asinine.
Justin Bamberg, Bakari Sellers, Jaime Harrison, Ronnie Sabb, etc etc. The bench is deep
Clyburn seems like someone who’d retire right before the filing deadline so only his chosen successor files.
We don't talk about that primary here.
Which?
the Presidential primary
Will not even be referenced then.
That sounds depressingly accurate.
Maybe it’s all just RW noise but the fraud stuff in Minnesota is a pretty big shortcoming for Walz and there is a danger for him if there are a bunch of 3rd party candidates on the ballot that he bleeds support to and gives the GOP an opening.
MN seems very receptive to third parties on the ballot and this is how Hillary almost lost MN and cost the DFL quite a few races over the years. It’s shaping up to be a blue wave but 2006 was a blue wave and Pawlenty pulled out a win with the help of third parties and a weak DFL candidate. I think if Walz retires the story loses steam and someone like Steve Simon can run as a reformer and such.
Lori Swanson and/or Rebecca Otto comeback attempt(s)? lol
The right-wing smear and hate machine is after him and Somali-Americans in general. Running for a third term can be challenging in the best of circumstances. It may be better if he let someone else have a chance.
Walz retiring would leave the DFL with a massive gap to fill, without an obvious successor to fill it, and without a lot of time to fill it (Minnesota's precinct caucuses are in February; I'm not sure when the candidate filing deadline in Minnesota is). There's a huge opening for someone from the DFL's left flank, such as like Keith Ellison or Erin Maye Quade, to run for governor if Walz retires.
Peggy Flanagan and Angie Craig appear to be completely committed to the U.S. Senate primary, so I doubt that either of them would switch to the gubernatorial race on short notice. With Flanagan running for U.S. Senate, Walz will have to pick a running mate if he were to continue running for governor, and there's been little talk of potential running mates for Walz.
I'd assume Steve Simon would be the obvious successor considering he's the longest statewide officeholder right now besides Klobuchar and was the best performing one in 2022. The MN Dem bench is deep and state run primaries are usually in the late summer so I don't think timing is an issue.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MRwkZOJx0OHAj91srxeibeWHtXOizS6mbx-cEN4obqQ/edit?tab=t.0
This is the first time I've done this, so bear with me, but since it's basically the start of an election year, here are my initial predictions (in the current state of affairs) for the midterms. I give my ratings for Governor and Congress, for each race.
I was prompted for a signin.
Fixed
Great rundown!
Question: you think Ed Case will fend off his challengers?
Yes, as there's more than one, so the progressive vote will be split. Belatti is probably the better candidate to take him on than Keohokalole, but both of them together just ensure his victory.
Much respect to you for doing this. I've found that my election predictions are crap. That said, if the economy gets worse, KS-Sen could be a race to watch, though I agree with solid R at this point. I'm not so sure some of those NY and NJ Congressional seats are solid R in this political climate. I think Garbarino is probably likely R, and the same with Drew. Their defeats are improbable but don't seem less likely than some of the extraordinary changes in margin in special elections. And maybe the same for Diaz-Balart - he's been very popular, but look at what happened with the Miami Mayoral election.
Diaz-Balart only holds a sliver of Miami currently, with most of the district based in Hialeah and the surrounding communities, which are heavily Republican. Some of the district grabs majority-Hispanic areas near Naples and Cape Coral across the Everglades, but that portion is also heavily Republican.
Keep in mind, though, I'm suggesting a possibility of likely R, nothing close to tossup. For all these seats, a Democratic flip would be surprising.
The most logical district to flip is FL-27 with Salazar, considering it includes about 2/3 of Miami and elected a Democrat as recent as the 2018 wave. FL-28 also seems to have a perennial status as a swing district, but has swung hard to the right since Gimenez was elected with Salazar in 2020.
There was talk of Daniella Levine Cava as a possible candidate for Salazar’s seat. Assuming redirecting doesn’t go through, I wonder if she’s interested.
Right now, Robin Peguero, a lawyer that was on the Jan. 6 committee, seems like the strongest recruit. Like Maxwell Frost in Orlando, he is Afro-Latino.
The Repub frontrunner for Senate nominee against Mark Warner is dropping out to focus on his state senate reelection run in 2027. lol.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/28/bryce-reeves-drops-out-virginia-senate-00707204
Republicans in Virginia just aren't having good election cycles lately, are they?
Fortunately, the GOP does not seem to be able to get a repeat of 2014 where Ed Gillespie came close to unseating Mark Warner. Luckily for Warner, he rebounded in 2020 by winning re-election by 12% points.
No way can Warner win re-election next year by single digits. Not in this environment, considering how wide Abigail Spanberger’s margin of victory was.
And I think that 2014 election had more to do with 2014 being a general disaster for Dems than anything particular about Gillespie or Warner.
Yes although Ed Gillespie ran a robust campaign in spite of 2014 being a crapshoot for Democrats.
You're using a different meaning for "crapshoot" than I've ever seen. Craps is a gambling game and a crapshoot is a gamble.
I have seem several friends who have used crapshoot for meaning different than what you are referring to.
But I get what you are saying. I have heard it in a gamble/gambling sense as well.
Mostly, Warner was also asleep at the wheel and didn't campaign nearly as hard as he should have. He thought after 2008 and 2012 that Virginia was safe Democratic territory, even with national polls and that it was such a recent transformation compared to losing IL and MA's much more Dem Senate seats so recently.
Yeah, 2014 was definitely like 2021 alright for Mark Warner as far as VA’s history of swinging to the right is concerned.
The main difference is that in 2014, Warner didn’t have any particular vulnerabilities, controversies or problems like Terry McAuliffe did in 2021 when he ran for Governor after serving one term from 2014-2018. Ed Gillespie thought, who had served as RNC Chair during the time McAuliffe was DNC Chair in Bush Jr’s first term as POTUS, did more proactive campaigning. This caught Warner by surprise.
I don't recall Warner running a lazy campaign in 2014. The one criticism I heard about his campaign at the time was that he spent too much time campaigning in southwest Virginia (a region that he had always won before and that he has emotional ties to) and not enough time campaigning in the Urban Crescent, where most of Virginia's Democratic voter base resides.
was this their best candidate?
At least of the launched campaigns. Youngkin would probably be their "best" candidate, but he knows he'll lose and doesn't want that loss on his record before running for president in 2028. Even though he seems to be interested in tying to himself to Trump with a Cabinet role in the New Year, maybe even as toxic as the next DHS Sec.
Youngkin is basically the Trump Mitt Romney if he were a presidential candidate. His agenda and policies as Governor were more extreme than Romney’s were when he was Governor of MA but his business background and Romney’s are similar.
Romney mostly denied and ran against his record as Governor of Massachusetts in his 2012 presidential race. Youngkin wouldn't have to do that as a Republican.
True.
He had no chance of winning anyway.
MI-11:
https://bsky.app/profile/the-downballot.com/post/3maqqkmpnok2r
Anil Kumar dropped out.
It would be nice if Andy Levin had a comeback
I wish he’d run in MI-10. I think he could win there, especially since that seat is now open.
I know. He represented most of the district during his previous tenure, but now he lives in MI-11, of course, since he ran there in 2022. I just wish Jeremy Moss wasn't going to be a congressman. He doesn't seem that great. I think Eric Chung is a good candidate in MI-10, for now.
Moss is a dud - He’s going to be Ritchie Torres 2.0 - he really lacks any substance and is an extreme egomaniac (even by politician standards).
He doesn't have as strong a chance now as if he tried to clear the field with an earlier launch, but I wish he'd run for state AG. AIPAC would spend so heavily against him from succeeding after they got Nessel into office though.
How would AIPAC have gotten Nessel into office? This seems to be false and I haven't heard AIPAC or its proxies spend on non-federal elections, other than in New York (Solidarity PAC).
Dana never received aipac money - Emily’s List was her biggest early supporter.
He got beat really badly by 20 points and I don't think the district is suitable for his brand of politics.
Because of certain ideological PACs and the establishment spending in Stevens' favor...we've seen it many times before with Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush and Nina Turner.
Super PACs can't tip the electoral scales by 5-10 points, let alone 20, when both candidates are well-funded. I don't like Stevens, but she would have won that race anyway. These Super PACs, like AIPAC and cryptocurrency PACs, often choose weak candidates or opponents who are already trailing in the polls or are mired in scandals, in order to intimidate the rest of Congress.
Turner anti-endorsing the party's presidential nominee was probably not the best move for winning a future primary.
Turner is currently in trouble for opposing Prop 50. Quite a bit of blowback on Bluesky for that.
Also is it just me, or is half your comment in Spanish?
It is in Spanish: it basically says "no super PAC could have spent enough to make one candidate win, and Levin would have lost anyway without all of the outside money"
Which is true, as there's too many cases to count of the candidate with the most money losing the election
I think I tapped auto translate by mistake.
That’s actually a good point. Notice how, in 2024, AIPAC didn’t go after AOC or Pressley or Tlaib, or even really Lee. The three are in much better shape than Bowman or Bush were in 2024.
They didn't go after any of them?
Bowman was 20 points down in the polls before the campaign started and he lost by about 20 points. Super pacs had very little to do with the outcome of that race. I don't know much about the Bush race but she had some problems and Nina Turner has been a total disaster. Those don't seem like good examples of super pac money being an issue.
I'm more curious about the role of PACs in races like AZ-3. When Gallego ran for Senate, the seat opened up, and there were basically two candidates, both progressives: Raquel Teran, and Yassamin Ansari. Teran had broad support from both progressives and some big party figures like Mark Kelly, while Ansari had the support of some AIPAC-adjacent groups and (if I remember this correctly) crypto PACs. Ansari narrowly won, despite Teran's broad support. Races like that are where I'm concerned about PACs. People talk about the Bowmans and Turners and Bushes, but in those races the candidates had other problems. I live next to NY-16, Bowman was despised in the district and was as poor a fit for it as Dan Goldman is for NY-10. He also had the fire alarm thing, past scandals, etc. He was toast. Bush had the ethics investigation as well (and I heard her successor Bell now has one of his own). And Turner has always been a divisive figure in the party -- she was accused of not being loyal enough to the Democratic Party (admittedly a bit laughable now, given the recent behavior of people like Schumer and Jeffries and the opposition they face from the Democratic base), and she's actually currently in trouble, as I said, for opposing Prop 50 and fighting with people on social media about it.
Teran didn't really have any major scandals that I knew of. Neither did Harry Dunn in MD, besides living outside the district initially. And something to consider: these PACs are clearly supported by corporate money. Even if they do make good points, keep in mind that isn't why they're getting involved. They have other motivations (some geopolitical, some related to things like crypto regulation, etc.) Whether or not their involvement tipped the scales in races like AZ-3, MD-3, OR-3, etc. I don't know. It is something to consider though.
The one upside is sometimes the candidates in question turn out not to be corporate stooges after they're elected. Yassamin Ansari and Maxine Dexter have become staunch progressives in office, and even Sarah Elfreth has done things like recently signing on to M4A and taking positions on the issue that shall not be discussed that are not in line with the party establishment. I guess if I can glean anything from this, it's that politicians can surprise you. I don't know.
Hasn't Ansari been a bit more left leaning since taking office, or is it fake progressivism?
Thanks for that interesting post. Tangentially, I'd demur on the idea that Turner shouldn't be lambasted for weakening party unity because Schumer did, too. That's not good logic to me.
Yassamin Ansari’s story is genuinely interesting, and she is IMO, a very savvy politician. Backing her turned out to be a major miscalculation by the lobby and crypto interests. She was widely known as a staunch progressive—the daughter of an Iranian-American immigrant but despite that, she was also an Iran dove, had worked for António Guterres in climate policy, and had old tweets touching on the forbidden topic. She entered politics citing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as her primary inspiration and she was also a vocal admirer of Ed Markey for his climate advocacy - very much part of the so-called "Markeyverse." All of this made it clear early on that she was never going to be a moderate.
My sense is that she leveraged her ties within the Iranian community, along with support from AIPAC/DMFI, Reid Hoffman's neoliberal PAC and crypto interests, because the Progressive caucus PAC and other progressive organizations and PACs were always going to line up behind Raquel Terán. Terán had a long history of progressive organizing and deep connections within Arizona establishment politics, having served as Senate Minority Leader, and she had also organized—alongside Ruben Gallego—against the failed "tough-on-illegal-immigrants" ballot initiative a decade ago.
After winning, Ansari initially voted with AIPAC priorities for a few months, likely out of concern about a potential primary challenge from Terán the following year after her extremely narrow primary win. But around the time Mamdani won his primary, she pivoted back to her original positions. She voted against the GENIUS Act, co-sponsored resolutions with Ro Khanna, gave interviews emphasizing her background, and shifted her rhetoric. Since then, she has built a consistently progressive voting record and aligned her social-media messaging accordingly.
Valerie Foushee who won over Nida Allam by 8 points had trouble raising even a decent amount of money, unlike Elfreth who was known for her work representing the district and was not a carpetbagger like Dunn who lost by 12 points, benefited a lot from Super PAC intervention.
Yeah, one doesn't have to like George Latimer, but it wasn't shocking that the popular Westchester County Executive won the primary in a district that consists almost entirely of...Westchester County.
He associated himself with the uncommitted movement in 2024, which does not make me trust his political instincts
Interesting article in Politico on Democrat's chance to helm in on an issue gaining widespread bipartisan backlash: Government acquiesience and subsidization of Big Tech's AI gambit: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/12/28/ai-job-losses-populism-democrats-bernie-sanders-00706680
Honestly I think Democrats would be utter fools not to jump on this issue in a big way, saying the socialized costs (pollution, electricity price hikes, copyright infringement chaos, debt-bubble investment threatening the larger economy, general prevalence of slop everywhere) don't exceed the so-far minor benefits. Big Tech is hated by nearly everyone as is the massive data center proliferation, and AI represents to the public the dehumanization and desocialization causing so many societal problems.
Not supporting blanket bans, but calling for major regulation and an end to the various avenues of public money subsidies should be standard for all Dem candidates. It's politically akin to a huge amount of money on the table, just waiting to be picked up.
As far as I can tell, Dems have been very reluctant to jump on some easy issues (self driving cars, AI to a slightly lesser extent). Probably because they are afraid of anger tech money, but maybe also because they don't want to seem old fashioned. To me, these seem like easy issues to make points on.
I'd actually disagree about self-driving cars as I think the data shows in the aggregate the safety improvements (and environmental improvements should the vehicles be electric) are worth the tradeoffs. Not so with the current LLM splurging.
I'm very opposed to self-driving cars for safety reasons (easy for foreign actors to hack into and control, replace taxi/rideshare driver jobs, cause massive traffic jams when there's a cell tower or electrical grid outage, do nothing to alleviate traffic congestion like public transit would, etc.). A power outage in San Francisco a week or two ago caused a bunch of self-driving cars to stop in the middle of the streets all at once, and it's a miracle that nobody got killed over that.
Very good points.
The data overwhelmingly show they are safer and better drivers than humans are. Drunks and confused (often older) drivers stop in the middle of the road all the time causing hazards. Drunks are far more dangerous and cause more accidents than self driving cars do/will. It's a sensible transition to make and would reduce insurance and health care costs
That said, YES to more and better public transport.
The primary argument against self driving cars is the hundreds of thousands of people, mostly lower to middle class, that it will put out of work.
That's not the only argument, though. When a self-driving car malfunctions and kills someone, who is liable?
The owner or the company
Has that been legally established?
Waymo is going to be about as liable and accountable and regulated as Uber and Lyft are now. That is to say, it won't be.
It will take decades for that to even happen. If tech regulation comes, that would complicate things even more, mitigating whatever impact self driving could have on the economy.
The big problem is that self driving is just not popular right now with the general public. They are gaining in interest but the problems with Waymo cars continue to be a liability for these cars to get traction. How can these companies expect car drivers to be sold on self driving if they can’t ensure absolute safety?
Self driving is like crash test dummies gone wild.
My feeling is that there should always be manual controls that can be used in an emergency. I'm not comfortable with there being no manual controls for windows.
That would work. Car drivers can't assume anything if self-driving mechanisms fail without even knowing so.
A hybrid car of self-driving and manual driving would be an easier sell.
My nephew bought a tesla, yes I know, the self driving feature drives better than any human. You can't help but think it's the future
Between 30-40,000 Americans die every year from car accidents. If self driving cars can seriously reduce that number, it would be irresponsible to not use self driving technology. Also, self driving cars will eliminate problems with people driving under the influence.
Not sure gen Z is on board with the anti-AI stuff. Most of them are probably using it to get through school these days. Might be better to talk up data centers regulations than AI restrictions.
Gen Z would be if AI regulation is specific to regulating what AI can and cannot do.
ChatGPT is useful but it is not efficient enough in being able to do plenty of things companies want to do in automating tasks. It’s mainly an AI information mining platform that summarizes a lot of Google Search Results.
If Gen Z has a harder time finding work because of what AI is doing to their target careers, that’s regulation they can get behind with. Gen Z startup founders I see at meetup events, namely an AI in Marketing meetup one in San Francisco which I attended a couple of times, have presented their technology and I have seen AI tech to be quite useful in a practical sense.
You have to define what AI regulation entails and how far it should go.
The sad thing about the copyright chaos is that there are valid arguments that US copyright law is a disaster, written by the entertainment industry to protect their profits while they rip off the artists they claim to speak for while screwing consumers with higher prices, less choices, and sometimes even the inability to consume some media altogether because of corporations and some artists blocking access to it (see: the video game industry’s war on preservation of older titles, the Star Wars original edition rerelease saga, etc.) To say nothing of the orphaned works nightmare, where some works can’t be re-released due to rights issues.
The problem is, that same industry adores AI because they can use it to slaughter jobs and create more generic, less expensive art, so AI complicates this situation quite a bit. I’d argue AI really does harm artists, while once again fattening the pockets of corporations. Really I think we need to fundamentally rework copyright law. There are some things that make no sense at all (why is it illegal to make a copy of a movie on a DVD if it’s solely for personal use? Profits?) and I think we’d all benefit from a real discussion on this.
Yes but AI art is crap. It’s not generated by the person who is creating it on hand writing and it’s all AI driven as opposed to your own ingenuity.
AI should not be able to work around copyrighting laws. The rules do have to apply to those using AI technology.
I think you misunderstood me. I am not defending AI art, I despise it too. I was more talking about stuff like backing up DVDs for personal use, or orphaned works that are unreleasable due to rights issues. All the AI garbage can jump in a lake in my opinion. Sorry I wasn’t clear.
No, my apologies. I reread your comment and you perfectly explained my sentiments.
Yes, AI development can be perverted into something greater than what it really should be intended for. Your argument on AI is an example of AI being used not to solve a problem but trying to short cut ways for businesses to profit instead of actually trying to create something genuinely new.
Also, because AI is powered by the internet for the most part, what you described what you object to can potentially present security risks, namely from a hacking standpoint. Cybersecurity law will only get more complicated.
I think we're at the point where AI/LLM investment is actively harming the economy in the near future.
I do not know how much this detail has broken through outside of people who follow technology or hardware much, but RAM and NAND storage prices have skyrocketed the past few months. This is due to datacenter purchases for AI, spending ridiculous sums of money on hoarding up all the DDR, GDDR, or HBM they can acquire, or products using lots of one of those. NAND and DRAM are manufactured similarly, so demand for one is pushing production away from the other causing a similar price increase. RAM prices have gone up somewhere in the range of 300-500% since early fall.
That threatens every sector of the economy that relies on electronics with RAM, which is... a lot of it. Basically all consumer electronics first and foremost, but also spending on accessories for those electronics. And more importantly, spending on software. There's talk of phone companies delaying or cancelling launches in 2026. I'm not sure if that will end up happening, but the sourcing and pricing of a single critical component is going to be a huge bottleneck.
It'd be smart electoral politics to start a pushback now, so once the hits start coming we can take credit for it.
I’ve heard about this. Not quite as important as the entire consumer electronics market, but I know gamers are pissed about AI because gaming rig prices have ballooned due to AI.
Hence why AI should be regulated.
Quite honestly, lots of AI should be banned with certain exceptions including (but not limited to):
GPS Map Directions
Chatbots - Quite helpful for customer service
AI summaries in Google Search. Are annoying and stupid.
VCs who finance AI startups are all about the money in the name of disrupting tech.
Gaming is just the tip of the iceberg for this. It's hit first because DIY PC gamers do not have contracts for memory components that last months, and thus get hit with price surges immediately.
Laptop prices are starting to go up, I've seen 20-30% bandied about. That number will continue to go up if things do not improve. Office computers are going to go up in price. Everything Apple and their direct competitors make relies on lots of RAM, or relies on a device with lots of RAM. Even smartwatches should be using about 1 GB of RAM today. Modern cars use it. Robot vacuums use it. Major industrial equipment uses it. Research uses it. Modern TVs use it. Software relies on devices that use it.
The modern world, and in particular the modern US economy, relies on RAM being available and affordable for devices and equipment. This could be very, very bad.
Incidentally, China has started up their own DRAM manufacturer that I believe is at the point of being able to supply their domestic market, and they're not going through the insane AI investment boom we are. This could be a perfect opportunity for them to make major inroads into consumer markets where we are currently stronger.
Given what a fiasco the TikTok ban was for Biden & Dems and how it was perceived with younger voters I don't blame pols for being hesitant on jumping on the anti-Big tech/AI bandwagon. Alot of polls showed initially support for a tiktok ban and when it actually nearly happened support nosedived. When people suddenly can't use ChatGPT anymore because of some regulation there is going to be some backlash.
I think two of the reasons the TikTok ban was so poorly received were A. At least some of the lawmakers involved in it implied their actual target was related to the geopolitical issue we aren’t allowed to speak about, and B. The right wing took over TikTok once it was sold. Just my thoughts though.
TikTok was sold? Did you mean Twitter, maybe? ByteDance still owns TikTok.
The American shares of TikTok were sold to tech and media mogul Larry Ellison.
Oh. How meaningful is that? It's still a subsidiary to ByteDance, right?
Ellison's a hardcore Trumper. The concern is, what would he do with TikTok?
TikTok is also a powerful word of mouth platform in driving its users, namely Gen Zers, to shop and even go to movie theaters. Making an outright ban of it would prevent small businesses from being able to get enough opportunities from influencer marketing to grow their brand awareness.
I don't think banning social media is the answer. Peer-to-peer communication is essential as an alternative to communicating via email, phone, regular mail and video chat/conferencing. If regulation ensures that social media is redesigned and works around necessary restrictions, I don't think TikTok would need to be banned for this reason.
The purpose of the original ban was because of national security reasons. However, the influence of social media in general on its users is a national security issue in itself.
" Making an outright ban of it would prevent small businesses from being able to get enough opportunities from influencer marketing to grow their brand awareness."
Nah, they'd just use YouTube or another platform.
Users yes.
Brand awareness to small businesses? That’s to be debated.
YouTube offers strong influencer marketing opportunities but the videos aren’t as random and quick in production as TikTok videos are. What being viral here could mean may not be enough for what TikTok’s impact is.
But I am more concerned about user privacy and protection than anything else.
The U.S. is a total cesspool of business (and whoever else) ownership and sale of personal information. Europe has strong privacy laws. On this, as on so many other things, the U.S. should be more like Europe.
The names of some of those lawmakers: Krishnamoorthi, Auchincloss, Gottheimer and Torres. At least the first two wrote some of the bill.
Yeah, I think you have a point. The number of people, of all ages, who think ChatGPT or whatever is helping them is significant. Meanwhile, I see how many times the automatic Chat answer that comes up when I search something is completely wrong - on really simple things.
They're designed to come up with confident, friendly answers that people want to hear. Which when you think about it is a truly terrifying combination as it will reinforce people's existing biases and make them feel validated, while also make people confident in hallucinated or otherwise plain wrong information.
The wrong answers aren't surprising though as it's all based on training data, and training data is going to have a lot of people who were also confidently wrong!
Oh it’s worse than wrong answers.
I had tried to create a goofy name and used Google Search to see if it was taken. The AI Search result showed:
“That’s a funny twist on…”
For goodness sake, I just wanted to do a quick Google Search to see if the name was taken. I don’t need a damn AI bot to tell me whether it’s funny or not!
Well, my daughter has discarded graphic design as a potential career now that she's in college because of AI. And so she went to data science, which she is also discarding (busy 1st semester, lol), though she is dumping that because she hates python. I argue that AI solves the need to program, and the cooler part of data science is the critical thinking part, which is now free of proofreading for semicolons in or whatever.
Point is, she isn't alone. There's a lot of angst amongst her peers about how AI is disrupting their futures in not-good ways.
Funny little detail: Python doesn't use semicolons. It can, if you want to squeeze multiple lines of code together into a single entry. In typical use the syntax does not use them. Nor curly brackets. So no proofreading for them!
I do not do much coding but it is one of my favorite details about Python: the syntax forces your code formatting to be easy to read.
Given the TokToK ban never happened we have no idea what the political ramifications would have been. All I saw were campaigns orchestrated on TikToK (shocker!) to call pols but ultimately that doesn't mean too much. I'm not convinced the political impacts wouldn't have been net positive (it was also bipartisan).
The TikTok ban still hasn’t happened, though
Part of the solution is for the people to own the means of production, so that AI doesn't simply replace the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people who become expendable and get killed by denial of healthcare or some other means. But no, we can't have socialism...
Interesting, I thought you were a Bernie Sanders socialist not a Marx leaning socialist.
Depends on the situation. I'm pragmatic, but if AI and robots are in private hands when they take over the economy, a majority of the population will be "expendable."
I suspect that it is much more likely that we get a guaranteed basic income in the future because so many jobs are going to be replaced with technology that many people will not be able to work. For all the fighting over trade, mechanization has already devastated many industries and areas in the rust belt. I saw a story recently that stated that the number of man hours needed to assemble a new car has been reduced by over 75%. I am from coal country and know that over 95% of coal jobs have been eliminated by mechanization. With AI, we will see these issues in more white collar areas as well. When we reach the point that work is all but impossible to find, we will have a lot of angry frustrated people who will demand large changes, and I suspect that a basic income program will become inevitable.
You're more optimistic than I am. I think there's a great likelihood of a government that represents the ownership class and not the people treating the jobless majority as dead weight and eliminating us.
Why would we need basic income to suffice for displacement? That’s basically unemployment benefits but in a larger amount than what most Americans get. It also makes zero sense practically given that the economy cannot in itself function on autopilot. As much as AI is affecting the workforce right now, AI programs aren’t even performing the way they ought to be.
But many in Silicon Valley who are arguing for basic income programs are also the one disrupting the economy with their innovation and investments (namely the VCs). They have a very insulated view of the world conveniently try to argue about the advances of AI and other technologies without showing any real social conscious views.
But this is where a technology regulatory agency should come in. It should have applicable means so that technology is meant for advancing society, not disrupting it or causing adverse displacement.
We will need basic income when we have so many displacements that millions of people will become virtually unemployable because so many jobs are going to be lost to mechanization or AI in the future.
That’s all speculative at this point. The entire economy cannot go on autopilot.
Also, basic income doesn’t really solve the problem. It’s like giving scraps to people instead of them actually earning a real salary.
Basic income is on par with most retail store salaries.
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2025/12/29/chuck-gray-announces-run-for-wyomings-u-s-house-seat/
WY-AL, WY-Gov, WY-SoS: Secretary of State Chuck Gray is running for Congress to succeed Harriet Hageman. Worth noting he ran against Rep. Cheney in 2022 but dropped out after Hageman received Trump's endorsement.
Not surprised, he had been in consideration for some time. I’m more curious to see if anyone else will attempt a run, or if Gray will clear the field.
I saw state treasurer Curt Meier floated as a possible candidate, but he'd be a House freshman in his early-mid 70s. State senator and former majority leader Ogden Driskill is another option.
Pulling from this link in that article, some other potential candidates in the WY musical chairs (some announced before Lummis's retirement announcement):
-Gov: Mark Gordon (incumbent gov – pending potential term limits suit), Megan Degenfelder (superintendent), Eric Barlow (state sen and former speaker – launched), Brent Bien (2022 candidate – launched), Reid Rasner (businessman – exploratory), Chip Neiman (speaker – or state senate)
-Gov/US House/SoS (plus super if Degenfelder runs): Ogden Driskill (former senate president – retiring from state sen regardless), Cheri Steinmetz (state sen), Cyrus Western (former state rep), Paul Ulrich (University of WY trustee – sounds most interested in US House), John Bear (state rep), Bo Biteman (state sen pres), Tim Salazar (state sen VP), Tara Nethercott (state sen majority leader), Rachel Rodriguez-Williams (state rep)
-Staying put: Curt Meier (treasurer), Kristi Racines (auditor)
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2025/12/23/degenfelder-strongly-considering-run-for-governor-others-ponder-higher-office/
Per the Economist, Lula is the favorite to win reelection in October: https://politicalwire.com/2025/12/29/brazils-election-is-about-lula-again/
Well that's a dramatic change of pace. One of my classmates in a history class I took at my college last semester was Brazilian, and he told me he did not like Lula and thought he was corrupt (although he clarified he does not support the far right either).
Seems the turnaround was due to them actually prosecuting Bolsonaro, and the threat of Trump. Something tells me if we had gone after Trump after Jan 6, and not had Merrick Garland as AG, perhaps things could have gone differently.
Brazil also seems to have an uncorrupt or at least less corrupt Supreme Court.
Apparently Jair Bolsonaro has a toxic enough brand that even his son Flavio Bolsonaro cannot get enough traction in his own presidential bid.