The allusion to "Montgomery County" as a red bulwark may require a bit of reorientation to people from Maryland or Pennsylvania, and perhaps some other states.
One of the biggest communities in Texas' MoCo is The Woodlands, a well-planned community which by design looks similar to places like Columbia, MD, or Reston, VA, but politically is apparently their polar opposite.
Yee, Becerra, Thurmond, Villaraigosa and Calderon should have dropped a long time ago. 3 to 4 people on that list of names have no political future anyway, especially Villaraigosa.
McMorrow and Stevens are untested statewide and generically I suspect they would be about 0-3 points and 1-4 points respectively weaker than Slotkin. (McMorrow is more telegenic.) Rogers = Rogers. The generic environment will probably be 8-15 points better for Dems than 2024 was: 2024 was R+2.6 in the aggregate, 2018 was D+8.6, and so far the cycle is shaping up as a bigger blowout than 2018. Compare the Virginia and New Jersey results from 2017 to 2025.
Prediction: McMorrow beats Rogers by 5-15, Stevens by 4-14.
Interesting how you forgot El-Sayed, who has been tested a little statewide though he didn't come out of it too well: an unsuccessful primary for governor in 2018 is his only previous bid for elected office.
I didn't forget him, I'm just not sure how to rate him. I think he's much riskier than either McMorrow or Stevens, in the worst case Rogers might be able to beat him even in this environment. McMorrow and Stevens are more comparable to Slotkin.
I’m of the opinion that running Stevens or running Abdul are roughly equally risky, albeit for different reasons. I fear Islamophobia is a major roadblock for Abdul, particularly in very conservative areas where that’s sadly a liability. Meanwhile, Stevens’ garbage campaigning, blunders like openly supporting corporate money in this environment (WTF?), and if I remember correctly at least one past incident of behavior that the GOP could exploit (in Congress? Can’t remember the details but I remember the GOP planned to exploit it) make her little better than Abdul. McMorrow is the way to go here in my opinion, she’d be a more reliable vote and is a better campaigner than Stevens, and has more of a normal profile than Abdul, so I feel she’s the only serious contender here.
100% correct, we who care about facts and day to day truth are being drowned out by the cruel and stupid masses that MAGA has activated over the last decade…this feels like we are fighting the electoral version of WW1 trench warfare. We “win” a little but nothing feels like a victory and even an attritional win leaves the victor nearly as depleted as the loser.
His disastrous handling of COVID in 2020 and Jan 6th should've shut the book on a second term. I'm still in disbelief that orange gasbag is back in office.
Dems could win this with the right candidate. State Sen. Nick Hinrichsen represents a seat in the district that trump won in 2024. He also represents Pueblo County which a dem needs to carry by a solid margin to win the district.
If Tony Gonzalez gets replaced by someone who is perceived as more MAGA/Trump-friendly, the district could very well end up flipping to Dem. It arguably already was in play for a blue wave, given that it's only a Trump +9.7 district.
I wonder if Adam Frisch makes a late entry into the race if he sees an opening here. The current Dem frontrunner here is solid but not necessarily spectacular.
Unless Frisch somehow disqualified himself for the future in his previous campaigns, there's no reason to exclude him from consideration if he's interested. The potential combination of a blue wave and poor GOP candidate choice may make this his best chance yet.
He's an insufferable centre-rightist who's already doing great running a PAC for billionaires and making the case that Democrats are radically left wing. He's almost a perennial candidate now after losing the DNC vice chair race with 5 votes lol.
I am not going to be guilt tripped into supporting someone who hates Democratic values with a passion. Let him enjoy doing what he loves i.e hating Democrats from the right. Even Bobby Pulido in the RGV doesn’t use his kind of Democrat hating rhetoric. I am not a Republican for a reason.
Hurd's primary opponent Hope Scheppelman back when she was vice chair of the state GOP held a party meeting underneath a bridge in an effort to stave off a challenge against then State GOP chair Dave Williams. You read that right.
Nothing is eternal in politics, but Colorado is one of the few places where Covid and WFH benefitted Democrats because a lot of liberals from the West Coast moved there.
I like when they release recalled vote. It isn't always accurate, but it gives a usually close enough picture of how the sample voted last time. Here it looks like they basically polled a 2024 electorate. Based on the pattern so far this cycle, there will be much more dropoff among Trump voters than among Harris voters, and 2024 nonvoters will heavily favor Dems. In other words, that result is probably close to an upper bound for Republicans as things stand now.
Not downplaying. A Libertarian has run in every Mich Gov election since 2006 and the most they've gotten is 1.3%, least about 0.6%. This guy is a some dude and he would either get 1% of the GOP primary vote or get 1% of the general, IF he becomes the candidate at the Lib party convention. I don't disagree that 1% matters in a 3way race, but he's just filling in a line that's baked in. I don't think the Libs will take many votes from the Dems in this race. They'd either take from the GOP or Duggan.
It is interesting that he gets any coverage. And as a DB community we certainly geek out on this stuff.
What we need in Wisconsin is for the blue trend in the WOW counties and the growth of the Madison area to outpace the losses in rural and small town Wisconsin. Eventually the rural areas get as red as they are going to be, and they should continue to shrink as a portion of the state, and then we will see the state get bluer. To a degree, this is the story in all the swing states.
I am interested in any primary race right now. Dem or GOP. A while back someone posted a thing detailing which challenges were likeliest to succeed and least likely to — my question is, how have things changed, if at all, in the past few weeks? And which primary challengers, on either side, pose the biggest threat to the incumbents they’re targeting?
And on a related note, are there any state legislators anywhere who may get primaried?
I thought that Sylvia Garcia in TX-29 might be in trouble because of redistricting, but she looks solid now. A poll last week had her up 46-27 in the primary. One to watch, but Garcia is the favorite. Unlike Al Green who is in real danger against Menefee.
I don't think Fleming or Hunt are considered viable primary challengers at this point. They're just the third wheel who at best can box out the incumbent of a runoff entirely.
The Maryland Senate President has a primary opponent who might benefit from his shenanigans with redistricting, just wish he were a stronger opponent but this might be enough to put him over the top.
That dipshit is moaning that the proposed remap might swing several blue districts red. But four years ago he was happy to dump me into a (currently) D+3 district--which is bluer than it was two years ago, according to Cook's PVI. (The proposed remap that he blocked would have made my district a bit bluer.)
NEW: The Utah Supreme Court has unanimously dismissed GOP lawmakers appeal of a trial court’s ruling that they had unconstitutionally repealed anti-gerrymandering reforms enacted by voters in 2018.
AG Jay Jones officially filed an appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court requesting a stay of the MAGA Tazewell judge ruling trying to block the redistricting referendum. The court is likely to lift the injunction given they already ruled the referendum could go ahead 2 weeks ago.
The court is nominally 4R-3D but none are known to be overtly partisan, although there is a small chance Dems could get an unfavorable ruling.
The SCOVA was already set to a have a hearing on the litigation regarding the previous injunction on April 23rd. It's likely this case will be rolled into the current one and the SCOVA will issue a firmer ruling that the election is not to be disturbed by any lower court.
TX-Sen GOP primary: Trying to figure out where everyone lands mathematically. In polling averages, Paxton and Cornyn are both in the low 30’s, Hunt in the low 20’s. But it has to add up to 100! I think Paxton might be closer to 50% than many people are thinking, and as a longtime incumbent, I don’t think Cornyn will get much more than he’s polling at. So my guess right now is that it’ll be something like:
42% - Paxton
33% - Cornyn
25% - Hunt
But open to others’ thoughts. I wouldn’t rule out a Hunt surge where he ekes into second place 29.01% to 28.99% or something.
Chuck Todd had the opposite take, because Hunt is the only candidate who has never run statewide he could very well underperform his polling. The other two candidates presumably have built up campaign infrastructure from their multiple statewide wins that Hunt just won't have. Todd was certainly hedging, but I think he makes a valid point.
I think it was Chuck Todd who suggested that all the negative ads about Paxton might actually benefit the Democrats more than John Cornyn, who they were intended to help.
IIRC, unless someone wins outright with at least 50% + 1 vote in TX, there will be a runoff. It could get interesting and it will definitely be expensive on both sides.
In 2022, Democrats outvoted Republicans by only 2,486
It's looking like Democrats may be on track to surpass 100,000 votes in the primary here. In addition to the U.S. Senate race, we also have contested primaries for County Judge and District Attorney that could also be driving some turnout. So far it looks like Democrats are doubling up over Republicans each day; Democrats are averaging about 9,400 votes per day versus 4,600 for Republicans. If that average held Democrats would go into primary Eday with about 104,000 votes versus about 51,000 for Republicans. If anything it really shows how some Republicans have switched from being early voters to Eday voters.
She strikes me as the type of candidate who can appeal to both progressives and moderate Democrats at the same time. I also suspect that she will be a strong general election candidate as well, although this hasn't been tested statewide in Michigan. This is a skill that few politicians have and it is a valuable skill. We need more candidates like her and James Talarico and less bomb throwers and ideologues. (By less ideologues, I mean both moderate and progressive ideologues.)
I roughly see Stevens as Peters Jr. and McMorrow as Stabenow Jr. I don't think most non-political-junkie voters would see much difference between them, although McMorrow is more telegenic and might have the edge in the primary.
I agree on most of that, but I'm definitely not so sure on ideologues: I think any party very much needs people who clearly enunciate and effectively promote and effectuate basic ideological tenets such as acting on behalf of the people, not the super-rich, fighting against monopolies and oligopolies (expressed in a more easily understood way), supporting and working for justice and fairness, working for public health and protecting the environment. That the word "ideologue" can have a bad connotation of some kind of undue rigidity or extremism shouldn't make us lose sight of the fact that parties that fundamentally stray from the principles that make them a positive force for progress and fairness, such as British Labour, lose their way.
Yep - watching the KHive losers go after Talarico on Bluesky is really something. I did not think it was possible for me to like a candidate and despise their online followers more than the Bernie Bros but the KHive whack jobs sure put that to the test.
And overall agree on McMorrow. She’s a great candidate and very much a more telegenic version of Stabenow. Which I think is a good thing.
KHive attacking Bowen Yang for days like a rabid dog after he said people shouldn't waste their time on Jasmine Crockett was also awful. Tim Miller said the crap Yang was getting from KHive was so awful.
They are truly the worst Dems on social media. Totally lacking in self-awareness and operate in such a bubble. I have never interacted with a KHiver and thought gee there’s someone really on their game and bound for success. Have they ever won anything? But yet not a moment of introspection as to why they always lose and no one likes them. Hell I think even Kamala has made fun of them.
I unfortunately posted a reply to Kamala announcing her new social media account on Bluesky dunking on KHive for their deranged promotion of Jasmine Crockett and I was swarmed by KHivers calling me a everything from a racist to a bot (because I just reply to people on Bluesky). Wretched people.
Craig is doing comparatively better on ActBlue than I expected. Thought she'd be weaker there but make up for it with big donors.
Increasingly hard for me to imagine Mills winning the Maine primary. This isn't a critical data point in and of itself, but the weakness she needs from Platner in the wake of the comments/tattoo story just is not showing up.
Really happy to see McMorrow doing the best in Michigan on this metric, I hope that follows through into other metrics as we get closer to the primary day itself.
I suspect that Platner's online posts calling rural people in Maine racist and stupid will be a much bigger story than the tattoo story. Few people really understand why that tattoo was such a problem, and I suspect that Platner was one of them when he got the tattoo in the first place. However, rural people already suspect that Democrats think that they are a bunch of racist uneducated rubes and the fact that Talarico came out and said this will be a huge problem in Maine, which is a very rural state. Also, I doubt that this is the only offensive thing that Platner said on the internet. I really fear that he would prove to be a terrible general election candidate who could cost us this seat.
He's also a rural straight white man. I doubt it sticks in a small and less populated state like Maine where he can make his case to almost everyone through rallies and retail politics. His GE polling doesn't seem to have been affected despite significant media and newspaper coverage of those comments.
I do think there's potential for it to come back and harm him more later, but I'm not sure it will actually happen.
My observation has been that it's vastly harder to get a story to "stick" to a candidate at a time after the initial media buzz around it. Journalists will not dedicate much air time to covering the same story a second or third time. They need something new to happen. Even then, it often needs to be worse than the original story to gain much traction. Are more Platner comments held in reserve by Mills' oppo team? Does Collins have anything? I assume he doesn't secretly have a worse tattoo somewhere...
Which is a roundabout way of saying: I really expected this story to destroy his campaign, but it didn't when it came out. That it didn't do so initially makes me skeptical that it will do so later due to how the media covers these things.
I agree that this is dangerous. However, this is another example of the fact that the average poster on this site is way more educated and informed than the average American. Over half of the people in the US read at a grade school level and hardly know anything about history.
Unlike Haley Stevens, Craig is a good speaker and is able to use "fighter" kind of language that hides how much a bipartisan centrist ideologue she is. I'm hoping Flanagan pulls through, her numbers have improved and the polls and betting odds are very much in her favor.
Interesting moment from a candidate forum in IL-09. I generally like Biss and he’d be in my top two but this is a bad look. Being wishy washy on his support for Jeffries as leader on top of his answer on AI does not bode well for me. Admittedly I was skeptical of Kay after the carpetbagger talk but I really believe she’s quelled those concerns and her ability to be unflinching in what she believes in is what we need more of in Congress. (I’m aware that this is from her social media team and I’m sure there are moments from the candidate forum that make her look just as bad as Biss and Fine, I’d be curious to see them though)
The wishy-washy Jeffries answer is the more relevant weak answer from a political candidate. But the one that might resonate more with voters is him answering yes to AI generated content being art. That's just tone deaf at the very minimum.
It’s a slap in the face to artists in his district and across the country to call AI “art”. I think there’s something to be said for Kat’s ability to be confident in her convictions and positions. I supported Biss against Pritzker in 2018 too.
Being seen as standing by your positions confidently is a huge asset for a politician. Candidates that get that perception, fairly or not, tend to get a good boost with voters.
If she doesn't win this primary I hope there's still a future in elected politics for her, she's way better at this than she's been given credit for, IMO.
The district deserves someone who has actually lived here. Someone who has actually lived in the state, for pete's sake.
Secondly, is there an unwritten rule that party members must be supportive of the party leadership? There is plenty to be disappointed about re: Jeffries. I am not surprised the candidates on stage were not giving raucous, enthusiastic endorsements of the guy who's tone, tenor and lack of aggressiveness, makes it look like he thinks its just another regular term, and not the republic and constitution gasping its last breaths.
Anecdotal: I see about 1200-1500 buildings in the district daily. I've seen 2 Kat Abu signs, 1 Biss sign, and no stickers for anyone. I would be willing to bet 90% of the district had no clue there was a candidate forum, and that AI as an issue won't even make the top 5.
I think districts deserve people who are ready to meet the moment that we’re in and Kat has done that, putting her body on the line for her new community.
That’s why it should have been an easy question to answer. But of course there’s an unofficial written rule to support the leader, especially for traditional politicians.
It will be interesting to see what happens here but to say none of this matters would be short sighted IMO. I’d be happy with either Biss or Kat. The only person I’d be upset with winning is Fine. I grew up in Gurnee so while I didn’t live in the district I had a lot of friends and family who do.
From what I've heard, Kat has run a largely unserious campaign. Bushra Amiwala who has similar positions, is young and has roots in the district, might otherwise have a strong shot at winning, given her fundraising and her favorability numbers, but Kat’s presence will not allow that. Kat is also a carpetbagger and has relatively high unfavorable ratings in the polling I've come across. I'd be happy if Daniel Biss wins even though he may have a bad position on A.I. Jeffries is becoming the Speaker no matter who wins unless he's primaried.
Why do you think it’s been an unserious campaign? I’ve seen her campaign to be very unique in the way she utilizes her resources and comports herself. I think it’s more novel than unserious if anything else. Time will tell if those methods work or not. But I’d much prefer her approach to the spam message fundraising/consultant brained approach that seems to infect most establishment Democratic candidates.
The allusion to "Montgomery County" as a red bulwark may require a bit of reorientation to people from Maryland or Pennsylvania, and perhaps some other states.
One of the biggest communities in Texas' MoCo is The Woodlands, a well-planned community which by design looks similar to places like Columbia, MD, or Reston, VA, but politically is apparently their polar opposite.
I'm guessing that Montgomery county is heavily Evangelical.
I think it's due to the oil and gas industry and defense contractors based in that county.
Conroe and Roman Forest have a few areas moving left, iirc
I've always kind of thought a lockout was possible but I've never really said anything because people here are so vehemently against that idea
Yee, Becerra, Thurmond, Villaraigosa and Calderon should have dropped a long time ago. 3 to 4 people on that list of names have no political future anyway, especially Villaraigosa.
with that terrible # in MI does anyone really feel R will carry senate in MI?
I think it'll be a comfortable win by MI standards for the D candidate (more than 3 points), barring any major scandals or whatnot.
McMorrow and Stevens are untested statewide and generically I suspect they would be about 0-3 points and 1-4 points respectively weaker than Slotkin. (McMorrow is more telegenic.) Rogers = Rogers. The generic environment will probably be 8-15 points better for Dems than 2024 was: 2024 was R+2.6 in the aggregate, 2018 was D+8.6, and so far the cycle is shaping up as a bigger blowout than 2018. Compare the Virginia and New Jersey results from 2017 to 2025.
Prediction: McMorrow beats Rogers by 5-15, Stevens by 4-14.
That range is like predicting someone will die between the ages of 60 and 90.
Interesting how you forgot El-Sayed, who has been tested a little statewide though he didn't come out of it too well: an unsuccessful primary for governor in 2018 is his only previous bid for elected office.
I didn't forget him, I'm just not sure how to rate him. I think he's much riskier than either McMorrow or Stevens, in the worst case Rogers might be able to beat him even in this environment. McMorrow and Stevens are more comparable to Slotkin.
You could predict for him to lose/win in the -5-to+5 range...
I’m of the opinion that running Stevens or running Abdul are roughly equally risky, albeit for different reasons. I fear Islamophobia is a major roadblock for Abdul, particularly in very conservative areas where that’s sadly a liability. Meanwhile, Stevens’ garbage campaigning, blunders like openly supporting corporate money in this environment (WTF?), and if I remember correctly at least one past incident of behavior that the GOP could exploit (in Congress? Can’t remember the details but I remember the GOP planned to exploit it) make her little better than Abdul. McMorrow is the way to go here in my opinion, she’d be a more reliable vote and is a better campaigner than Stevens, and has more of a normal profile than Abdul, so I feel she’s the only serious contender here.
I wouldn't necessarily compare a primary electorate to a general one, as Whitmer had broad support in 2018 across the party.
at least 6!!
And if only all those idiots who voted for him thought clearly at all, we would have avoided all the things they hate.
100% correct, we who care about facts and day to day truth are being drowned out by the cruel and stupid masses that MAGA has activated over the last decade…this feels like we are fighting the electoral version of WW1 trench warfare. We “win” a little but nothing feels like a victory and even an attritional win leaves the victor nearly as depleted as the loser.
His disastrous handling of COVID in 2020 and Jan 6th should've shut the book on a second term. I'm still in disbelief that orange gasbag is back in office.
Always good of Donnie to remind Republicans he could give two shits about the party
Dems could win this with the right candidate. State Sen. Nick Hinrichsen represents a seat in the district that trump won in 2024. He also represents Pueblo County which a dem needs to carry by a solid margin to win the district.
If Tony Gonzalez gets replaced by someone who is perceived as more MAGA/Trump-friendly, the district could very well end up flipping to Dem. It arguably already was in play for a blue wave, given that it's only a Trump +9.7 district.
I wonder if Adam Frisch makes a late entry into the race if he sees an opening here. The current Dem frontrunner here is solid but not necessarily spectacular.
No thanks. He had his chance(s)
Unless Frisch somehow disqualified himself for the future in his previous campaigns, there's no reason to exclude him from consideration if he's interested. The potential combination of a blue wave and poor GOP candidate choice may make this his best chance yet.
He's an insufferable centre-rightist who's already doing great running a PAC for billionaires and making the case that Democrats are radically left wing. He's almost a perennial candidate now after losing the DNC vice chair race with 5 votes lol.
Purity testing candidates in Trump +9 seats is a great idea.
I am not going to be guilt tripped into supporting someone who hates Democratic values with a passion. Let him enjoy doing what he loves i.e hating Democrats from the right. Even Bobby Pulido in the RGV doesn’t use his kind of Democrat hating rhetoric. I am not a Republican for a reason.
Hurd's primary opponent Hope Scheppelman back when she was vice chair of the state GOP held a party meeting underneath a bridge in an effort to stave off a challenge against then State GOP chair Dave Williams. You read that right.
https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/local-politics/colorado-gop-leaders-meet-under-a-bridge-to-hide-from-other-members/73-ead79079-0466-46cf-a3a6-518c33c8a915
Holy shit, no wonder the Colorado GOP is now borderline extinct.
Nothing is eternal in politics, but Colorado is one of the few places where Covid and WFH benefitted Democrats because a lot of liberals from the West Coast moved there.
I like when they release recalled vote. It isn't always accurate, but it gives a usually close enough picture of how the sample voted last time. Here it looks like they basically polled a 2024 electorate. Based on the pattern so far this cycle, there will be much more dropoff among Trump voters than among Harris voters, and 2024 nonvoters will heavily favor Dems. In other words, that result is probably close to an upper bound for Republicans as things stand now.
This is an extremely long survey! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c_gqeGR5OIMWZpeO8peNi33QG6ksLd_XYKSOaU7b8q4/mobilebasic. I stopped reading after the 40-somethingth question. How do they get anyone to complete the survey, and just how seriously should we take their results?
Any warm body will do in Wyoming
(I'd call that U.S. Senate from Wyoming, but that's a minor quibble. Thanks for the news!)
He'll get the same 1% either way.
Not downplaying. A Libertarian has run in every Mich Gov election since 2006 and the most they've gotten is 1.3%, least about 0.6%. This guy is a some dude and he would either get 1% of the GOP primary vote or get 1% of the general, IF he becomes the candidate at the Lib party convention. I don't disagree that 1% matters in a 3way race, but he's just filling in a line that's baked in. I don't think the Libs will take many votes from the Dems in this race. They'd either take from the GOP or Duggan.
It is interesting that he gets any coverage. And as a DB community we certainly geek out on this stuff.
What we need in Wisconsin is for the blue trend in the WOW counties and the growth of the Madison area to outpace the losses in rural and small town Wisconsin. Eventually the rural areas get as red as they are going to be, and they should continue to shrink as a portion of the state, and then we will see the state get bluer. To a degree, this is the story in all the swing states.
I am interested in any primary race right now. Dem or GOP. A while back someone posted a thing detailing which challenges were likeliest to succeed and least likely to — my question is, how have things changed, if at all, in the past few weeks? And which primary challengers, on either side, pose the biggest threat to the incumbents they’re targeting?
And on a related note, are there any state legislators anywhere who may get primaried?
I thought that Sylvia Garcia in TX-29 might be in trouble because of redistricting, but she looks solid now. A poll last week had her up 46-27 in the primary. One to watch, but Garcia is the favorite. Unlike Al Green who is in real danger against Menefee.
These are the likeliest ones I think (some of these will succeed, some won't)
*Ones that I think are the biggest threats
Governor:
*Dan McKee, by Helena Foulkes
Larry Rhoden, by Dusty Johnson
Senate:
Ed Markey, by Seth Moulton
*Bill Cassidy, by Julia Letlow and/or John Fleming
*John Cornyn, by Ken Paxton and/or Wesley Hunt
House:
Stephen Lynch, by Patrick Roath
John Larson, by Luke Bronin or Jillian Gilchrest
*Dan Goldman, by Brad Lander (depends on new map)
Ritchie Torres, by Michael Blake
Valerie Foushee, by Nida Allam
Andy Ogles, by Charlie Hatcher
Thomas Massie, by Ed Gallrein
*Shri Thanedar, by Donovan McKinney
Jim Baird, by Craig Haggard
*Al Green, by Christian Menefee
*Tony Gonzales, by Brandon Herrera
*Julie Johnson, by Colin Allred and/or Zeeshan Hafeez
*Celeste Maloy, by Mike Kennedy (if Burgess Owens doesn't retire)
*Tom McClintock, by Kevin Kiley (could become a general race)
*Ken Calvert or Young Kim, by each other and/or Esther Kim Varet (could become a general race)
Legislatures:
Can't speak for many states, so I'll just stick with my home state of WV:
Senate:
*Laura Chapman, by Joe Eddy (winner could be defeated in general by Shawn Fluharty)
*Mike Azinger, by Bob Fehrenbacher
Bill Hamilton, by Robert Karnes
Jay Taylor, by Marc Harman
Darren Thorne, by Ken Reed
House:
Adam Vance, by Greg Bishop
John Jordan, by Richard Jones
Wayne Clark, by Robert Fluharty
Excellent rundown as always Julius. Thanks.
I don't think Fleming or Hunt are considered viable primary challengers at this point. They're just the third wheel who at best can box out the incumbent of a runoff entirely.
The Maryland Senate President has a primary opponent who might benefit from his shenanigans with redistricting, just wish he were a stronger opponent but this might be enough to put him over the top.
That dipshit is moaning that the proposed remap might swing several blue districts red. But four years ago he was happy to dump me into a (currently) D+3 district--which is bluer than it was two years ago, according to Cook's PVI. (The proposed remap that he blocked would have made my district a bit bluer.)
2 North Carolina state house incumbents who sided with Rs against D governor vetoes are being challenged
NC-H-106 Rodney Sadler challenging incumbent Carla Cunningham
NC-H-023 Patricia Smith challenging incumbent Shelley Willingham
BlueVoterGuide has excellent endorsement info.
you can tell who you want to support/win the primary!
https://bluevoterguide.org/district/NC/North_Carolina_House_of_Representatives_District_106/32337/523
https://bluevoterguide.org/district/NC/North_Carolina_House_of_Representatives_District_23/32332/523
Additional Info from @taniel, Bolts:
https://boltsmag.org/north-carolina-2026-primary-immigration-policy/
I hope Cunningham, Willingham and Majeed all lose their primaries.
Yes, for NC-H-099 Veleria Levy is challenging incumbent Nassif Majeed:
https://bluevoterguide.org/district/NC/North_Carolina_House_of_Representatives_District_99/33287/523
As BlueVoterGuide shows, all 3 of the challengers have been endorsed by
Planned Parenthood; Progressive Caucus NC Dem Party; Red Wine & Blue; and Young Democrats of North Carolina
https://x.com/i/status/2025002668565901736
NEW: The Utah Supreme Court has unanimously dismissed GOP lawmakers appeal of a trial court’s ruling that they had unconstitutionally repealed anti-gerrymandering reforms enacted by voters in 2018.
Does anyone know where the signature-gathering repeal effort stands?
https://x.com/Jaaavis/status/2024996605972135991
AG Jay Jones officially filed an appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court requesting a stay of the MAGA Tazewell judge ruling trying to block the redistricting referendum. The court is likely to lift the injunction given they already ruled the referendum could go ahead 2 weeks ago.
The court is nominally 4R-3D but none are known to be overtly partisan, although there is a small chance Dems could get an unfavorable ruling.
Could this be in litigation until April?
The SCOVA was already set to a have a hearing on the litigation regarding the previous injunction on April 23rd. It's likely this case will be rolled into the current one and the SCOVA will issue a firmer ruling that the election is not to be disturbed by any lower court.
Very glad that Jay Jones won.
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2026/02/16/hawaii-news/questions-over-lt-gov-sylvia-luke-likely-to-inspire-challengers/
HI-Gov: Lieutenant governor Sylvia Luke will apparently face major interparty opposition this year. Not sure about her running mate, Gov. Josh Green.
This could get interesting. Progressives knocked out the State House Speaker in Hawaii recently, so I wonder if they smell blood in the water there.
TX-Sen GOP primary: Trying to figure out where everyone lands mathematically. In polling averages, Paxton and Cornyn are both in the low 30’s, Hunt in the low 20’s. But it has to add up to 100! I think Paxton might be closer to 50% than many people are thinking, and as a longtime incumbent, I don’t think Cornyn will get much more than he’s polling at. So my guess right now is that it’ll be something like:
42% - Paxton
33% - Cornyn
25% - Hunt
But open to others’ thoughts. I wouldn’t rule out a Hunt surge where he ekes into second place 29.01% to 28.99% or something.
Chuck Todd had the opposite take, because Hunt is the only candidate who has never run statewide he could very well underperform his polling. The other two candidates presumably have built up campaign infrastructure from their multiple statewide wins that Hunt just won't have. Todd was certainly hedging, but I think he makes a valid point.
I think it was Chuck Todd who suggested that all the negative ads about Paxton might actually benefit the Democrats more than John Cornyn, who they were intended to help.
IIRC, unless someone wins outright with at least 50% + 1 vote in TX, there will be a runoff. It could get interesting and it will definitely be expensive on both sides.
TX Primary: Here in Bexar County, our elections office posts daily updates on early vote counts for each party, but on their Facebook page, they also show a comparison by posting the early vote counts from 2022 and 2018. https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1368908871934695&id=100064467858713&rdid=RauwOZfOYha5d1f8
In 2018, Democrats outvoted Republicans by 15,612
In 2022, Democrats outvoted Republicans by only 2,486
It's looking like Democrats may be on track to surpass 100,000 votes in the primary here. In addition to the U.S. Senate race, we also have contested primaries for County Judge and District Attorney that could also be driving some turnout. So far it looks like Democrats are doubling up over Republicans each day; Democrats are averaging about 9,400 votes per day versus 4,600 for Republicans. If that average held Democrats would go into primary Eday with about 104,000 votes versus about 51,000 for Republicans. If anything it really shows how some Republicans have switched from being early voters to Eday voters.
"January 2026 ActBlue Numbers - MI
McMorrow: 30,844 donations for $662,611
Abdul 8,484 for $380,641
Stevens 6,896 for $182,320
ME
Platner: 48,905 donations for $992,987
Mills: 12,541 for $464,635
MN
Flanagan: 13,662 donations for $349,227
Craig: 6,957 for $240,394"
https://x.com/ttagaris/status/2025216503935565856
Clearly McMorrow is blowing the competition right out of the water with those donations. Wow.
She strikes me as the type of candidate who can appeal to both progressives and moderate Democrats at the same time. I also suspect that she will be a strong general election candidate as well, although this hasn't been tested statewide in Michigan. This is a skill that few politicians have and it is a valuable skill. We need more candidates like her and James Talarico and less bomb throwers and ideologues. (By less ideologues, I mean both moderate and progressive ideologues.)
Very much agree with all of this. She's my platonic ideal, in terms of competitive state candidates.
I roughly see Stevens as Peters Jr. and McMorrow as Stabenow Jr. I don't think most non-political-junkie voters would see much difference between them, although McMorrow is more telegenic and might have the edge in the primary.
I agree on most of that, but I'm definitely not so sure on ideologues: I think any party very much needs people who clearly enunciate and effectively promote and effectuate basic ideological tenets such as acting on behalf of the people, not the super-rich, fighting against monopolies and oligopolies (expressed in a more easily understood way), supporting and working for justice and fairness, working for public health and protecting the environment. That the word "ideologue" can have a bad connotation of some kind of undue rigidity or extremism shouldn't make us lose sight of the fact that parties that fundamentally stray from the principles that make them a positive force for progress and fairness, such as British Labour, lose their way.
Yep - watching the KHive losers go after Talarico on Bluesky is really something. I did not think it was possible for me to like a candidate and despise their online followers more than the Bernie Bros but the KHive whack jobs sure put that to the test.
And overall agree on McMorrow. She’s a great candidate and very much a more telegenic version of Stabenow. Which I think is a good thing.
KHive attacking Bowen Yang for days like a rabid dog after he said people shouldn't waste their time on Jasmine Crockett was also awful. Tim Miller said the crap Yang was getting from KHive was so awful.
They are truly the worst Dems on social media. Totally lacking in self-awareness and operate in such a bubble. I have never interacted with a KHiver and thought gee there’s someone really on their game and bound for success. Have they ever won anything? But yet not a moment of introspection as to why they always lose and no one likes them. Hell I think even Kamala has made fun of them.
I unfortunately posted a reply to Kamala announcing her new social media account on Bluesky dunking on KHive for their deranged promotion of Jasmine Crockett and I was swarmed by KHivers calling me a everything from a racist to a bot (because I just reply to people on Bluesky). Wretched people.
It makes me happy to see Stevens floundering. She’d be an awful choice in this race.
Craig is doing comparatively better on ActBlue than I expected. Thought she'd be weaker there but make up for it with big donors.
Increasingly hard for me to imagine Mills winning the Maine primary. This isn't a critical data point in and of itself, but the weakness she needs from Platner in the wake of the comments/tattoo story just is not showing up.
Really happy to see McMorrow doing the best in Michigan on this metric, I hope that follows through into other metrics as we get closer to the primary day itself.
I suspect that Platner's online posts calling rural people in Maine racist and stupid will be a much bigger story than the tattoo story. Few people really understand why that tattoo was such a problem, and I suspect that Platner was one of them when he got the tattoo in the first place. However, rural people already suspect that Democrats think that they are a bunch of racist uneducated rubes and the fact that Talarico came out and said this will be a huge problem in Maine, which is a very rural state. Also, I doubt that this is the only offensive thing that Platner said on the internet. I really fear that he would prove to be a terrible general election candidate who could cost us this seat.
He's also a rural straight white man. I doubt it sticks in a small and less populated state like Maine where he can make his case to almost everyone through rallies and retail politics. His GE polling doesn't seem to have been affected despite significant media and newspaper coverage of those comments.
I do think there's potential for it to come back and harm him more later, but I'm not sure it will actually happen.
My observation has been that it's vastly harder to get a story to "stick" to a candidate at a time after the initial media buzz around it. Journalists will not dedicate much air time to covering the same story a second or third time. They need something new to happen. Even then, it often needs to be worse than the original story to gain much traction. Are more Platner comments held in reserve by Mills' oppo team? Does Collins have anything? I assume he doesn't secretly have a worse tattoo somewhere...
Which is a roundabout way of saying: I really expected this story to destroy his campaign, but it didn't when it came out. That it didn't do so initially makes me skeptical that it will do so later due to how the media covers these things.
Expect to see and hear it in ads.
If few people understand that a Nazi tattoo is a problem, that shows just how dangerous a time this is in the U.S.
I agree that this is dangerous. However, this is another example of the fact that the average poster on this site is way more educated and informed than the average American. Over half of the people in the US read at a grade school level and hardly know anything about history.
Unlike Haley Stevens, Craig is a good speaker and is able to use "fighter" kind of language that hides how much a bipartisan centrist ideologue she is. I'm hoping Flanagan pulls through, her numbers have improved and the polls and betting odds are very much in her favor.
Interesting moment from a candidate forum in IL-09. I generally like Biss and he’d be in my top two but this is a bad look. Being wishy washy on his support for Jeffries as leader on top of his answer on AI does not bode well for me. Admittedly I was skeptical of Kay after the carpetbagger talk but I really believe she’s quelled those concerns and her ability to be unflinching in what she believes in is what we need more of in Congress. (I’m aware that this is from her social media team and I’m sure there are moments from the candidate forum that make her look just as bad as Biss and Fine, I’d be curious to see them though)
https://bsky.app/profile/katmabu.bsky.social/post/3mfeyy6knic2z
The wishy-washy Jeffries answer is the more relevant weak answer from a political candidate. But the one that might resonate more with voters is him answering yes to AI generated content being art. That's just tone deaf at the very minimum.
It’s a slap in the face to artists in his district and across the country to call AI “art”. I think there’s something to be said for Kat’s ability to be confident in her convictions and positions. I supported Biss against Pritzker in 2018 too.
Being seen as standing by your positions confidently is a huge asset for a politician. Candidates that get that perception, fairly or not, tend to get a good boost with voters.
If she doesn't win this primary I hope there's still a future in elected politics for her, she's way better at this than she's been given credit for, IMO.
The district deserves someone who has actually lived here. Someone who has actually lived in the state, for pete's sake.
Secondly, is there an unwritten rule that party members must be supportive of the party leadership? There is plenty to be disappointed about re: Jeffries. I am not surprised the candidates on stage were not giving raucous, enthusiastic endorsements of the guy who's tone, tenor and lack of aggressiveness, makes it look like he thinks its just another regular term, and not the republic and constitution gasping its last breaths.
Anecdotal: I see about 1200-1500 buildings in the district daily. I've seen 2 Kat Abu signs, 1 Biss sign, and no stickers for anyone. I would be willing to bet 90% of the district had no clue there was a candidate forum, and that AI as an issue won't even make the top 5.
I think districts deserve people who are ready to meet the moment that we’re in and Kat has done that, putting her body on the line for her new community.
That’s why it should have been an easy question to answer. But of course there’s an unofficial written rule to support the leader, especially for traditional politicians.
It will be interesting to see what happens here but to say none of this matters would be short sighted IMO. I’d be happy with either Biss or Kat. The only person I’d be upset with winning is Fine. I grew up in Gurnee so while I didn’t live in the district I had a lot of friends and family who do.
From what I've heard, Kat has run a largely unserious campaign. Bushra Amiwala who has similar positions, is young and has roots in the district, might otherwise have a strong shot at winning, given her fundraising and her favorability numbers, but Kat’s presence will not allow that. Kat is also a carpetbagger and has relatively high unfavorable ratings in the polling I've come across. I'd be happy if Daniel Biss wins even though he may have a bad position on A.I. Jeffries is becoming the Speaker no matter who wins unless he's primaried.
Why do you think it’s been an unserious campaign? I’ve seen her campaign to be very unique in the way she utilizes her resources and comports herself. I think it’s more novel than unserious if anything else. Time will tell if those methods work or not. But I’d much prefer her approach to the spam message fundraising/consultant brained approach that seems to infect most establishment Democratic candidates.
She hasn't spammed people begging for money?