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.)
For the next six weeks, my answer will be the same - I'm interested in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
We haven't seen a single poll for it yet, and so while I assume the Dem-aligned Chris Taylor is leading (due to past results and the current political climate), I'd like to get some confirmation of that so we don't have any nasty surprises.
And what do we think the political geography of the election results will be? Last year, Crawford not only got 48% in Ozaukee County, but also got 49% in the heavily populated suburban cities of Brookfield and Menomonee Falls, in Waukesha County. Even Herb Kohl, in his landslide 2006 re-election, didn't win Brookfield - could Taylor become the first Dem-aligned candidate to win it (in a contested election) in a long time?
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.
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.
Most of them tend to get 2-3% in any race they run for, which could end up being decisive with an independent running in addition to the normal Democratic and Republican battle. I’m also pretty sure there wasn’t going to be any libertarian running prior to now, so in a game often decided by inches, I don’t think we should downplay the impact this could have.
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.
Oh, I see, you were talking about the specifics of Libertarian candidate impact in the MI-Gov race, not in general, my mistake. I think you’re probably right then that he gets 1%, which is a far lesser impact than I would’ve thought. Though you’re right that 1% could still be decisive.
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.
A thought I've had going in my head for a while now is that "progressive" has taken on a multitude of different meanings. In Venn diagram terms there's a lot of overlap across the different definitions in the sense of what you expect from a single individual, but they're not perfectly overlapping circles.
Sometimes people say progressive to mean...
(1) Getting lots of stuff done.
(2) Anti-establishment.
(3) Anti-inequality.
(4) Pro working class.
(5) A fighter against the modern republicans party.
(6) Not a moderate.
(7) Generally on the left.
(8) At the leftmost parts of the ideological mainstream in the US (maybe leftmost ~10-20% of dem party).
... and other things I'm not thinking of at the moment.
In and of itself there's not an immediate problem here but I do think it causes a lot of communication issues in discourse and can make it harder to assess electoral and political viability. If "progressive" means a lot of different things, then whether or not a progressive can win or not win a state/district is much harder to assess. Whether or not progressive policies will be popular is much harder to assess. Discussing if a candidate is "too progressive" or "not progressive enough" for a state/district is much harder to do.
One example that really jumps to my mind is Tim Walz. I saw a lot of people start calling him a progressive in the past 2-3 years in response to Minnesota getting a lot of stuff done under his governorship. To my mind that's a perfect case of muddying the waters by calling him progressive. He was widely seen as a moderate for much of his career, and while those legislative accomplishments were great, they were great because it was a lot of things. They all fell within the general mainstream of the party and individually.
There's also candidates like Platner or Fetterman (candidate-only, not as a senator!) that would be described with (2) and (4) and get the label. Or McMorrow for (5) and (6). Sanders unsurprisingly has a lot of these but has stood out the most on (2), anti-establishment, while ideologically similar elected officials like AOC and Warren are far more open to working with the party establishment.
I'm not really sure I have a point here, other than perhaps awareness and provoking discussion. This is less of a problem here than it is in other online spaces to my mind, but it's still something that can confuse discussion. I'm not sure there's a real solution.
A progressive in Democratic *party politics* and left-of-centre discourse means a SocDem. Someone who supports social democratic policies and not "Third Way" policies. Social democracy is a very old tradition while the intellectual leaders of Third Way policies were Gary Hart, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. Third Way was a socially liberal economically neoliberal movement which positioned itself as the moderate alternative between social democracy and conservatism. They triangulated between the positions of the left (progressives) and the right (conservatives). Today, some Third Way Democrats are moderate but not neoliberal as they support targeted tariffs, limited market interventions, oppose welfare reform etc while others specifically want "market-friendly moderation" when they say that Democrats are too far left.
I'd say that broadly aligns with how I use it, but people like Warren would not identify with Democratic-Socialism but is still unambiguously progressive by my metrics.
I mean social democrat not democratic socialist. Warren wrote about implementing social democracy as well during her academic career afaik. All progressives are not socialists.
She believes in capitalism rather than monopolism, but she also believes in harnessing the productive power of capitalism for the benefit of the people, which is a fundamentally social democratic position regardless of what she calls it.
Tim Walz had to be a moderate when he held his old district. It elects hardline Republicans by big margins now. I don't think you should read too much into that. Other Blue Dogs of his 2006 wave like Gillibrand also shifted their positions completely when they sought a promotion.
I think in general people have morphed into describing political terms in whatever way fits their own ideological beliefs. There’s no set standard definition followed by most people anymore. For example, Trump is viewed as MAGA, moderate and conservative by his supporters despite that being literally impossible by all the correct definitions of those words.
On our side of the aisle, people say someone is too progressive to win if that person is to the left of their own politics, not if they actually are too far to the left to win. Words have basically become meaningless when describing political ideology today because it’s completely centered on the person who’s making the argument instead of accurately assessing another persons politics.
On the media side, Republicans like Lawler are described as moderates, when they’ve voted with Trump 90-95% of the time and are unable to even save Obamacare subsidies or prevent Medicaid cuts, which is considered so unpopular and outside the mainstream, that they can’t literally fit the definition of moderate despite their ability to block legislation by withholding their vote unless those cuts are removed.
There’s also the problem of what exactly someone is comparing something to. If their baseline is MAGA, then yeah, Lawler is a moderate, but by any other rational definition of the word, they certainly aren’t. If their baseline is Trump 1 Republicans, they’ve moved so far to the right they’ve probably gone over the cliff.
Political definitions are now used solely in ways to advance that own persons political beliefs and to make it seem that theirs are the majority and correct. People will say and believe whatever fits their own opinion, so imo there’s not much of a point to discuss it anymore in all honesty.
For my own personal opinion, I believe progressive means supporting progress on any issue, even if it doesn’t go far enough to solve any problem completely. But to others that means a pragmatic progressive or a moderate unwilling to do what is needed and thus we go around in a circle again on what the definition actually is.
You have a Congressional Progressive Caucus organized based on the ideology and a New Democrat Coalition organized in the House based on the Third Way policies. It does have a meaning.
There are general terms that people mostly ascribe to in party caucuses, but even then there’s a ton of variance between the members on a ton of issues. Those caucuses are for each individual to join who think it accurately describes THEIR OWN politics. So if anything, that just proves my point that the definitions are created by each person and not by some concrete metric/s.
They have to vote a certain way a certain percentage of the time and co-sponsor a certain percentage of legislation. Sure, there are overlaps with the NDC and variance in their records. Two policies that almost every CPC member co-sponsors is single-payer Medicare for All and higher minimum wage. People just can’t join it because they feel they are progressive or centrist. The requirements were tightened after 2020 and some centrist members were kicked out and vice-versa for the NDC.
To go with your point: there are people in both the NDC and CPC. There's even people in the CPC and the Problem Solvers Caucus, with the latter being an explicitly bipartisan, centrist group that commits to voting for any measure that reaches sufficient bipartisan support by its members.
This really only makes sense if we are not in a world where definitions are broadly agreed upon and consistent from person to person.
Just to point out the CPC-PSC overlap is verrryyyy small. I think just Debbie Dingell, Steven Horsford, Donald Norcross, Jimmy Panetta and Darren Soto. The CPC-NDC overlap is 30 members (including four of the PSC folks, aside from Dingell).
Five people is 20% of the democratic membership of the PSC. In absolute terms that isn't a lot of people, but in relative terms it's not insubstantial.
I think if it was one or two people it would be easy to dismiss as an aberration, but five people / 20% is enough frequency for it to further the point that people really do not have a consistent meaning behind these ideological labels.
And there are prominent progressive members of the CPC who have called for membership to be more than a flag pin on the lapel of moderates running in lefty districts.
The comparison point is one I forgot about but very applicable. I've noticed often in primaries that if we have two serious candidates and candidate A is is to the left of candidate B, that candidate A will often be called a progressive. That's regardless of if A would be called a progressive in any other context. Simply being to the left of another democrat will be sufficient to acquire the label.
They are relatively progressive. It makes a good deal of sense in races with 2 major candidates to call one the big one, one the smart one, etc., as a shorthand.
And then, one of the most prominent people to openly call himself a progressive in the latter half of the 20th century was Jesse Jackson. You can read his platform's planks here.
Another use that I would add is (which I guess is more of an elaboration of 7) is as a euphemism for Liberal. In the American context, Liberal had come to mean the mainstream left generally, and is still used that way to some extent. But by the 90s, the Republicans had succeeded in giving the word enough negative connotation that Democrats stopped identifying that way. Clinton, et al, went the route of Centerist lingo, but for those who still wanted a left wing identity, they needed a new term, hence the rise of Progressive.
Interestingly, it doesn't seem like the right has attacked Progressive as a term in the same way that they did with Liberal. Trump and his allies use "radical left lunatics" as their go to phrase, which obviously isn't one that even someone who would adopt the radical left moniker would use.
(Radical itself has an interesting history of shifting usage, but that's another story.)
I doubt most Dem primary voters remember George Conway's GOP past. They remember him as someone who hates Trump so much he sacrificed his marriage for it. And it helps that he worked at The Bulwark where there's probably a disproportionate amount of Bulwark subscribers up in NY-12.
I definitely didn’t have Vindman being the 3rd highest non-incumbent Democratic candidate running for Republican Senate seats in terms of ActBlue donations raised. Hopefully he can force the NRSC to spend some dollars in Florida.
Also, an additional observation: both of the 2 older Democrats running for winnable Senate races in 2026 that aren’t in competitive primaries are raising far less cash than the younger Democrats in similar (though not the same) situations: Ossoff, Peltola, Talarico and even Vindman outraised Cooper and Brown by 30-200+%.
I don’t think this is something we should dismiss or ignore. I’ve often said that older Democratic candidates don’t really know how to run competitive campaigns in today’s America anymore and while ActBlue is only a portion of the funds these candidates get, it’s clear our base feels the same judging by the cash hauls by the candidates.
Youth, future, exciting, fresh candidates get our party’s voters to open their wallets more. Others still get donations, but not nearly at the same level and when Vindman is lapping the competitive race field in a Likely R at best race over 2 races considered Tossups, I think that’s a pretty clear signal of what our party and our voters are hungry for.
One other thing from these numbers: Democrat Shawn Harris in GA-14 raising almost $1m is insane for such a red district without MTG as a foil to raise cash against. I still think he’s going to lose the special election, but he might make it closer than anyone thought possible. I’m going to be watching that race very closely.
The link lists the top 76 recipients. I was surprised that none of the candidates for senate in Iowa even made the top 76. Seems like a cost-efficient place to donate.
Raising $7.8m in one month is insane for a senator that isn't even up this year.
Full list has AOC as the 8th highest fundraising individual. Not surprising considering her consistent numbers as the highest fundraising member of the house every quarter, but it's still incredible in the context of her not having a competitive primary or general election.
Stratton has a marginally higher number than Krishnamoorthi. I wonder if she's actually closing the gap with him? It doesn't seem likely but it's also not implausible.
I see Moulton on the top list but not Markey. I hope Markey isn't sleepwalking his way through this primary. I'm going to be pissed if we're stuck with someone as shitty and self-aggrandizing as Moulton in the senate from such a wildly blue state.
For South Dakota Senate, I think Bengs billing himself as a viable candidate is pretty hard to believe. Granted that Thune has a strong electoral track record, but Bengs lost by 43.5 points in 2022. For comparison, Biden lost by 26, Harris by 29, and Jamie Smith (gubernatorial nominee) by 28 points. Every Dem candidate running for other statewide offices in South Dakota in 2022 lost by somewhere between 28 and 37.5 points (no one ran for attorney general or U.S house). Yes, Bengs has raised nearly double the current Dem candidate, but there's no reason to believe that will translate into additional support.
Democrats continue to expand their turnout edge in Texas through Day 4 of early voting — nearly 50k more votes cast in the Democratic primary than the Republican primary.
Crockett's campaign lumping Talarico in with TACO and Paxton was a BIG mistake. While it won't cost her much of the Black voter base for the primary, she needs a unified Dem base plus Latino crossover votes to win the general election. She won't get it after March 3rd.
It's just shameful. If I was a TX Dem voter, I would vote for Talarico just out of spite. The primary battle here in NC between House Rep Valerie Foushee and challenger Nida Allam is civil by comparison. The PAC ads are the only ones taking shots at the candidates, but the actual candidate sanctioned ads highlight their values and achievements (not GOP-style mudslinging).
Crockett has run one of the more disgraceful primary campaigns in recent years especially since she or her staffers think we're still in Woke 1.0. and running on the West Coast or New York State.
A big new poll of North Carolina voters dropped yesterday.
US SENATE:
🔵
@RoyCooperNC
50%
🔴
@whatleync
40%
Among Independents: +40 Cooper 👀
TRUMP JOB APPROVAL:
Approve: 42%
Disapprove: 55%
Among Independents: +62 Disapprove 🤯
@JoshStein_
JOB APPROVAL:
Approve: 46%
Disapprove: 32%
Among Independents: +15 Approve
Who do you trust to govern fairly and with the people's interests in mind?
🔵Gov. Josh Stein: 43%
🔴NC State Legislature: 29%
NC SUPREME COURT:
🔵
@Anita_Earls
: 45%
🔴
@RepSarahStevens
: 43%
Among Independents: +15 Earls
The poll goes into some detail on voter attitudes towards North Carolina's state legislature (they hate it), views on immigration (consistent majorities hate ICE), and views towards Trump (underwater on almost every issue).
This poll sample is really something. If anything, it's very GOP-lean:
🔴47% Trump voters, 🔵44% Harris voters
🔴45% Rep, 14% Independent, 🔵42% Dem
🔴♂55% male, ♀45% female
Poll by
@ChangePolls
. N=1,069 NC voters. Jan 31 - Feb 4, 2026. MoE 3.1%.
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.
There are people out there who are so alone that they just like talking to another human being or are so politically involved they want to take any survey they get. It’s a miracle we get any sort of polling that’s even somewhat close to the reality for the election on the ground.
I don’t know how pollsters do it with less than a 1% response rate to these surveys. At some point they’re not going to be able to do accurate polls anymore and I’d bet a lot that that future is coming sooner than we think.
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
For the next six weeks, my answer will be the same - I'm interested in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
We haven't seen a single poll for it yet, and so while I assume the Dem-aligned Chris Taylor is leading (due to past results and the current political climate), I'd like to get some confirmation of that so we don't have any nasty surprises.
And what do we think the political geography of the election results will be? Last year, Crawford not only got 48% in Ozaukee County, but also got 49% in the heavily populated suburban cities of Brookfield and Menomonee Falls, in Waukesha County. Even Herb Kohl, in his landslide 2006 re-election, didn't win Brookfield - could Taylor become the first Dem-aligned candidate to win it (in a contested election) in a long time?
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.
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.
Republican candidate for Governor in MI, defects from party to become a Libertarian candidate in the race.
https://www.mlive.com/politics/2026/02/gubernatorial-candidate-leaves-republican-party-to-run-as-libertarian.html
He'll get the same 1% either way.
Most of them tend to get 2-3% in any race they run for, which could end up being decisive with an independent running in addition to the normal Democratic and Republican battle. I’m also pretty sure there wasn’t going to be any libertarian running prior to now, so in a game often decided by inches, I don’t think we should downplay the impact this could have.
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.
Oh, I see, you were talking about the specifics of Libertarian candidate impact in the MI-Gov race, not in general, my mistake. I think you’re probably right then that he gets 1%, which is a far lesser impact than I would’ve thought. Though you’re right that 1% could still be decisive.
Former State Rep HD44 Democrat James Byrd who held his seat from 2009-2019 has filed to run for Wyoming Senate.
https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/politics-government/2026-02-18/first-wyoming-democrat-announces-run-for-u-s-senate
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!)
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?
A thought I've had going in my head for a while now is that "progressive" has taken on a multitude of different meanings. In Venn diagram terms there's a lot of overlap across the different definitions in the sense of what you expect from a single individual, but they're not perfectly overlapping circles.
Sometimes people say progressive to mean...
(1) Getting lots of stuff done.
(2) Anti-establishment.
(3) Anti-inequality.
(4) Pro working class.
(5) A fighter against the modern republicans party.
(6) Not a moderate.
(7) Generally on the left.
(8) At the leftmost parts of the ideological mainstream in the US (maybe leftmost ~10-20% of dem party).
... and other things I'm not thinking of at the moment.
In and of itself there's not an immediate problem here but I do think it causes a lot of communication issues in discourse and can make it harder to assess electoral and political viability. If "progressive" means a lot of different things, then whether or not a progressive can win or not win a state/district is much harder to assess. Whether or not progressive policies will be popular is much harder to assess. Discussing if a candidate is "too progressive" or "not progressive enough" for a state/district is much harder to do.
One example that really jumps to my mind is Tim Walz. I saw a lot of people start calling him a progressive in the past 2-3 years in response to Minnesota getting a lot of stuff done under his governorship. To my mind that's a perfect case of muddying the waters by calling him progressive. He was widely seen as a moderate for much of his career, and while those legislative accomplishments were great, they were great because it was a lot of things. They all fell within the general mainstream of the party and individually.
There's also candidates like Platner or Fetterman (candidate-only, not as a senator!) that would be described with (2) and (4) and get the label. Or McMorrow for (5) and (6). Sanders unsurprisingly has a lot of these but has stood out the most on (2), anti-establishment, while ideologically similar elected officials like AOC and Warren are far more open to working with the party establishment.
I'm not really sure I have a point here, other than perhaps awareness and provoking discussion. This is less of a problem here than it is in other online spaces to my mind, but it's still something that can confuse discussion. I'm not sure there's a real solution.
A progressive in Democratic *party politics* and left-of-centre discourse means a SocDem. Someone who supports social democratic policies and not "Third Way" policies. Social democracy is a very old tradition while the intellectual leaders of Third Way policies were Gary Hart, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. Third Way was a socially liberal economically neoliberal movement which positioned itself as the moderate alternative between social democracy and conservatism. They triangulated between the positions of the left (progressives) and the right (conservatives). Today, some Third Way Democrats are moderate but not neoliberal as they support targeted tariffs, limited market interventions, oppose welfare reform etc while others specifically want "market-friendly moderation" when they say that Democrats are too far left.
I'd say that broadly aligns with how I use it, but people like Warren would not identify with Democratic-Socialism but is still unambiguously progressive by my metrics.
I mean social democrat not democratic socialist. Warren wrote about implementing social democracy as well during her academic career afaik. All progressives are not socialists.
She believes in capitalism rather than monopolism, but she also believes in harnessing the productive power of capitalism for the benefit of the people, which is a fundamentally social democratic position regardless of what she calls it.
Tim Walz had to be a moderate when he held his old district. It elects hardline Republicans by big margins now. I don't think you should read too much into that. Other Blue Dogs of his 2006 wave like Gillibrand also shifted their positions completely when they sought a promotion.
Gillibrand is not a progressive, either.
She larped as one until 2021.
I think in general people have morphed into describing political terms in whatever way fits their own ideological beliefs. There’s no set standard definition followed by most people anymore. For example, Trump is viewed as MAGA, moderate and conservative by his supporters despite that being literally impossible by all the correct definitions of those words.
On our side of the aisle, people say someone is too progressive to win if that person is to the left of their own politics, not if they actually are too far to the left to win. Words have basically become meaningless when describing political ideology today because it’s completely centered on the person who’s making the argument instead of accurately assessing another persons politics.
On the media side, Republicans like Lawler are described as moderates, when they’ve voted with Trump 90-95% of the time and are unable to even save Obamacare subsidies or prevent Medicaid cuts, which is considered so unpopular and outside the mainstream, that they can’t literally fit the definition of moderate despite their ability to block legislation by withholding their vote unless those cuts are removed.
There’s also the problem of what exactly someone is comparing something to. If their baseline is MAGA, then yeah, Lawler is a moderate, but by any other rational definition of the word, they certainly aren’t. If their baseline is Trump 1 Republicans, they’ve moved so far to the right they’ve probably gone over the cliff.
Political definitions are now used solely in ways to advance that own persons political beliefs and to make it seem that theirs are the majority and correct. People will say and believe whatever fits their own opinion, so imo there’s not much of a point to discuss it anymore in all honesty.
For my own personal opinion, I believe progressive means supporting progress on any issue, even if it doesn’t go far enough to solve any problem completely. But to others that means a pragmatic progressive or a moderate unwilling to do what is needed and thus we go around in a circle again on what the definition actually is.
You have a Congressional Progressive Caucus organized based on the ideology and a New Democrat Coalition organized in the House based on the Third Way policies. It does have a meaning.
There are general terms that people mostly ascribe to in party caucuses, but even then there’s a ton of variance between the members on a ton of issues. Those caucuses are for each individual to join who think it accurately describes THEIR OWN politics. So if anything, that just proves my point that the definitions are created by each person and not by some concrete metric/s.
They have to vote a certain way a certain percentage of the time and co-sponsor a certain percentage of legislation. Sure, there are overlaps with the NDC and variance in their records. Two policies that almost every CPC member co-sponsors is single-payer Medicare for All and higher minimum wage. People just can’t join it because they feel they are progressive or centrist. The requirements were tightened after 2020 and some centrist members were kicked out and vice-versa for the NDC.
To go with your point: there are people in both the NDC and CPC. There's even people in the CPC and the Problem Solvers Caucus, with the latter being an explicitly bipartisan, centrist group that commits to voting for any measure that reaches sufficient bipartisan support by its members.
This really only makes sense if we are not in a world where definitions are broadly agreed upon and consistent from person to person.
Just to point out the CPC-PSC overlap is verrryyyy small. I think just Debbie Dingell, Steven Horsford, Donald Norcross, Jimmy Panetta and Darren Soto. The CPC-NDC overlap is 30 members (including four of the PSC folks, aside from Dingell).
Five people is 20% of the democratic membership of the PSC. In absolute terms that isn't a lot of people, but in relative terms it's not insubstantial.
I think if it was one or two people it would be easy to dismiss as an aberration, but five people / 20% is enough frequency for it to further the point that people really do not have a consistent meaning behind these ideological labels.
And there are prominent progressive members of the CPC who have called for membership to be more than a flag pin on the lapel of moderates running in lefty districts.
The comparison point is one I forgot about but very applicable. I've noticed often in primaries that if we have two serious candidates and candidate A is is to the left of candidate B, that candidate A will often be called a progressive. That's regardless of if A would be called a progressive in any other context. Simply being to the left of another democrat will be sufficient to acquire the label.
They are relatively progressive. It makes a good deal of sense in races with 2 major candidates to call one the big one, one the smart one, etc., as a shorthand.
For example, Paul Wellstone, unofficially the leader of the progressive wing of the party during the Clinton era held positions like:
1. Medicare for All
2. Anti-welfare reform
3. Anti-NAFTA
4. Anti-Iraq war from Day 1
3. Voted for the crime bill after the Clintons agreed to a poison pill by passing one of his other priorities
5. Pro-gun control
6. Pro-comprehensive immigration reform.
Higher minimum wage
He was to the left of Bernie at that point. At a time, when liberal and progressive were bad words, he called himself both. He was not a socialist.
And then you had the Democratic Leadership Council run by Clintonites and Third Wayers.
"According to Bill Curry, an advisor to Bill Clinton, "the whole point of [the DLC] was to exterminate the progressives"."
And then, one of the most prominent people to openly call himself a progressive in the latter half of the 20th century was Jesse Jackson. You can read his platform's planks here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Jackson_1984_presidential_campaign
Another use that I would add is (which I guess is more of an elaboration of 7) is as a euphemism for Liberal. In the American context, Liberal had come to mean the mainstream left generally, and is still used that way to some extent. But by the 90s, the Republicans had succeeded in giving the word enough negative connotation that Democrats stopped identifying that way. Clinton, et al, went the route of Centerist lingo, but for those who still wanted a left wing identity, they needed a new term, hence the rise of Progressive.
Interestingly, it doesn't seem like the right has attacked Progressive as a term in the same way that they did with Liberal. Trump and his allies use "radical left lunatics" as their go to phrase, which obviously isn't one that even someone who would adopt the radical left moniker would use.
(Radical itself has an interesting history of shifting usage, but that's another story.)
"Top recipients of campaign contributions via ActBlue (1/1 - 1/31/26)
$7.79M Mark Kelly #AZSen
$4.85M DNC
$4.19M James Talarico #TXSen
$3.39M Jon Ossoff #GASen
$3.31M DSCC
$3.13M Mary Peltola #AKSen
$2.71M DCCC
$2.60M Alex Vindman #FLSen
$2.44M Fund the Future Unlimited
$1.97M Cooper Victory Fund #NCSen
$1.72M George Conway #NY12
$1.69M Sherrod Brown #OHSen"
https://x.com/rpyers/status/2025272164732080329
All that money going to former? Republican George Conway in what should be a left liberal seat? SMH.
I doubt most Dem primary voters remember George Conway's GOP past. They remember him as someone who hates Trump so much he sacrificed his marriage for it. And it helps that he worked at The Bulwark where there's probably a disproportionate amount of Bulwark subscribers up in NY-12.
I definitely didn’t have Vindman being the 3rd highest non-incumbent Democratic candidate running for Republican Senate seats in terms of ActBlue donations raised. Hopefully he can force the NRSC to spend some dollars in Florida.
Also, an additional observation: both of the 2 older Democrats running for winnable Senate races in 2026 that aren’t in competitive primaries are raising far less cash than the younger Democrats in similar (though not the same) situations: Ossoff, Peltola, Talarico and even Vindman outraised Cooper and Brown by 30-200+%.
I don’t think this is something we should dismiss or ignore. I’ve often said that older Democratic candidates don’t really know how to run competitive campaigns in today’s America anymore and while ActBlue is only a portion of the funds these candidates get, it’s clear our base feels the same judging by the cash hauls by the candidates.
Youth, future, exciting, fresh candidates get our party’s voters to open their wallets more. Others still get donations, but not nearly at the same level and when Vindman is lapping the competitive race field in a Likely R at best race over 2 races considered Tossups, I think that’s a pretty clear signal of what our party and our voters are hungry for.
One other thing from these numbers: Democrat Shawn Harris in GA-14 raising almost $1m is insane for such a red district without MTG as a foil to raise cash against. I still think he’s going to lose the special election, but he might make it closer than anyone thought possible. I’m going to be watching that race very closely.
The link lists the top 76 recipients. I was surprised that none of the candidates for senate in Iowa even made the top 76. Seems like a cost-efficient place to donate.
Raising $7.8m in one month is insane for a senator that isn't even up this year.
Full list has AOC as the 8th highest fundraising individual. Not surprising considering her consistent numbers as the highest fundraising member of the house every quarter, but it's still incredible in the context of her not having a competitive primary or general election.
Stratton has a marginally higher number than Krishnamoorthi. I wonder if she's actually closing the gap with him? It doesn't seem likely but it's also not implausible.
I see Moulton on the top list but not Markey. I hope Markey isn't sleepwalking his way through this primary. I'm going to be pissed if we're stuck with someone as shitty and self-aggrandizing as Moulton in the senate from such a wildly blue state.
Kelly's performance is due to Trump and Hegseth going after him for his unlawful orders video. He successfully turned that into a cash cow.
its clear if/when AOC pulls the trigger on a Senate or Presidential campaign, she is immediately going to receive an ocean of money.
For South Dakota Senate, I think Bengs billing himself as a viable candidate is pretty hard to believe. Granted that Thune has a strong electoral track record, but Bengs lost by 43.5 points in 2022. For comparison, Biden lost by 26, Harris by 29, and Jamie Smith (gubernatorial nominee) by 28 points. Every Dem candidate running for other statewide offices in South Dakota in 2022 lost by somewhere between 28 and 37.5 points (no one ran for attorney general or U.S house). Yes, Bengs has raised nearly double the current Dem candidate, but there's no reason to believe that will translate into additional support.
Democrats continue to expand their turnout edge in Texas through Day 4 of early voting — nearly 50k more votes cast in the Democratic primary than the Republican primary.
🔵 Democrats: 412,171
🔴 Republicans: 365,060
It's getting bruising for both Crockett and Talarico, thank the electoral stars that its over in less than 2 weeks
Crockett's campaign lumping Talarico in with TACO and Paxton was a BIG mistake. While it won't cost her much of the Black voter base for the primary, she needs a unified Dem base plus Latino crossover votes to win the general election. She won't get it after March 3rd.
It's just shameful. If I was a TX Dem voter, I would vote for Talarico just out of spite. The primary battle here in NC between House Rep Valerie Foushee and challenger Nida Allam is civil by comparison. The PAC ads are the only ones taking shots at the candidates, but the actual candidate sanctioned ads highlight their values and achievements (not GOP-style mudslinging).
Yeah - there’s some serious own fart smelling going on in the Crockett campaign if they think a scorched earth primary is a good idea in Texas.
Crockett has run one of the more disgraceful primary campaigns in recent years especially since she or her staffers think we're still in Woke 1.0. and running on the West Coast or New York State.
Enough.
Details on the NC poll just released:
Trump +3 voter sample, 55% male.
https://x.com/ForwardCarolina/status/2025263581420241122
A big new poll of North Carolina voters dropped yesterday.
US SENATE:
🔵
@RoyCooperNC
50%
🔴
@whatleync
40%
Among Independents: +40 Cooper 👀
TRUMP JOB APPROVAL:
Approve: 42%
Disapprove: 55%
Among Independents: +62 Disapprove 🤯
@JoshStein_
JOB APPROVAL:
Approve: 46%
Disapprove: 32%
Among Independents: +15 Approve
Who do you trust to govern fairly and with the people's interests in mind?
🔵Gov. Josh Stein: 43%
🔴NC State Legislature: 29%
NC SUPREME COURT:
🔵
@Anita_Earls
: 45%
🔴
@RepSarahStevens
: 43%
Among Independents: +15 Earls
The poll goes into some detail on voter attitudes towards North Carolina's state legislature (they hate it), views on immigration (consistent majorities hate ICE), and views towards Trump (underwater on almost every issue).
This poll sample is really something. If anything, it's very GOP-lean:
🔴47% Trump voters, 🔵44% Harris voters
🔴45% Rep, 14% Independent, 🔵42% Dem
🔴♂55% male, ♀45% female
Poll by
@ChangePolls
. N=1,069 NC voters. Jan 31 - Feb 4, 2026. MoE 3.1%.
https://changeresearch.com/north-carolina-voters-february-2026/
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?
There are people out there who are so alone that they just like talking to another human being or are so politically involved they want to take any survey they get. It’s a miracle we get any sort of polling that’s even somewhat close to the reality for the election on the ground.
I don’t know how pollsters do it with less than a 1% response rate to these surveys. At some point they’re not going to be able to do accurate polls anymore and I’d bet a lot that that future is coming sooner than we think.