Before I read this, I was thinking "How often are you going to repeat yourself?" This actually is a good statement, though I'm not fully convinced there's a 1-to-1 analogy between Republicans and Democrats, for several reasons. But now that you've had your say, will you pause this message or repeat it like twice every day until 2029?
I did think you laid out some new thoughts, but I have some doubts that you'll continue to have new ways to say this every day or every week until 2029. And sure, I can pass it by, but I don't even seek to argue with you. I hope the country turns to the left, as long as "left" doesn't mean bigoted and Jew-hating, which some of the left, definitely much of the right and some of the center is, but I just don't think there's ultimately much more to say about this except when specific events, notably election results and changed positions and rhetoric, occur.
It’s like Lakshya Jain says, this year is the Tea Party moment for Democrats. Which will hopefully lead to more younger, more assertive candidates in 2028 for Congress and the presidency.
Trump and the enablers on SCOTUS has energized and enraged the country far more than Obama did with racist white people. We will definitely see a blue wave all over the country, hopefully a tsunami where Rs lose seats they thought were safe.
Unlike the Republican establishment who embraced Trump, I unfortunately think the Democratic establishment is too beholden to their donor base / DC consultant class to ever decide to play nice with the AOC / Zohran wing of the party. To them, they're more interested in having oatmeal bland, corporate bought, don't actually have anything to advocate for, AIPAC supporting Haley Stevens and Josh Shapiro as the face of the party rather than actually win elections, or heavens forbid, actually make lives better for people. This whole discourse incredibly pisses me off. Rather than try and see why the base and voters are so angry and voting for DSA supported candidates, they're choosing to pick a fight with them instead. Even preferring that they start their own party. "Vote Blue no matter who but only if it's our candidate not the one the voters want" so they prefer the left vote Third Party than actually be a big tent party. Voters are mad. The base is mad. & we know who is to blame. So we're going to continue to go with the candidates who are actually providing a vision.
Actually I suspect the left wing third party idea is just a sneaky way to keep the left out of power via ballot access laws and so on. We already tried the third party option with the Green Party, and we saw how that turned out. They do not want the left in power at all.
Problem for democrats in this scenario is this is still a center-right country where socialism is not acceptable. You'll need those "craven" "centists", aka normal liberals, if you ever want to sniff a majority.
In some areas socialism isn’t acceptable, not the whole country. There’s a reason the People’s Republic of Astoria nickname keeps getting used.
Also I’m getting quite tired of this sneering dismissal of the left from you. “Aka normal liberals”, Christ you’re being annoying. I try not to call people out anymore, it usually causes me more harm than good, but in this case it is getting really grating and I felt I had to say something.
I don't object to it because as a socialist, I don't call myself a liberal. I favor civil liberties, so I certainly oppose _illiberalism_, but I am not a liberal (or at least not merely a liberal).
Some of yall are getting ridiculous with your terminology. So anyone to the right of Avila Chevalier is a "centrist" or "conservative", like get a clue. I'd like to think I'm a reality based person, I'm not really into group think.
That is not even close to what I said. I did not say that anyone to the right of DAC is a centrist. Also, what groupthink? Last I checked, almost everyone here hated DAC.
You are being an asshole and it is derailing discussion. I am going to politely ask you to stop insulting me and other users here.
I would argue that centrists are less representative than progressives of a “normal” left of center person. The center of our party is neither centrist nor progressive. The centrist wing is shrinking rapidly, due to its reliance on red turf in an era of declining ballot splitting. Their replacement on the right edge of the party is moderates, who used to be closer to the party center. The progressive wing is growing. The party center today is neither progressive nor centrist.
Agreed. The Democratic Party is shifting further to the left over time, just as the Republican Party shifted further to the right over time. The solution to extremism is not Michelle Obama's "when they go low, we go high" mantra anymore. It is unfortunately to also go low, whether we like it or not.
I think the problem most folks have is there hasn't been a lot of evidence of progressive/DSA types flipping red seats blue. There has been a lot of cases though of them flopping in swing districts like Kara Eastman & Jamie McLeod Skinner to name a couple. Maybe they have a great but I don't blame people for being skeptical.
Again, is it the fault of Eastman and McLeod-Skinner that they lost, or were other factors at play in those races? Someone pointed out Eastman's primary opponent, Brad Ashford, ultimately endorsed Republican Don Bacon over her. I do agree that McLeod-Skinner had her own problems, however, given that she was a carpetbagger with a tenuous connection to the district.
One can usually find multiple factors, but it shouldn't be surprising that left-wing candidates are in more danger of losing general elections in Republican-leaning districts than in solidly Democratic ones that are also progressive-leaning. That seems like a no-brainer to most people who've observed elections over a period of time.
I think DAC comes off as a lunatic and I hope to God she understands she needs to mellow out. I do not think that applies to any of Mamdani, Lander, or Valdez. I’m skeptical their brand of politics has as broad of appeal outside of NYC as DSAers are claiming since Tuesday; I also don’t think that Cait Conley types would do well in NYC, for obvious reasons.
Part of a big tent is knowing who to run where. I’m not convinced yet that New York’s DSA grasps that. I do think that they’re, pretty clearly at this point, perfectly representative- to an extent - of their electorate in deep blue urban constituencies
But from a public policy angle, the DSA/Progressives get it right far more often than not.
Public Health insurance for all is just better policy. Aggressively fighting Clinate Change is better policy. Taxing the rich and corporations is better policy. Getting corporate $$ out of politics is better policy. Supporting Ukraine is better policy. Got it right on fobidden topic as well. This list goes on and on and on.
Got it right on fighting fire with fire on gereymandering. Holder got it wrong.
And the fact is that a lot of stuff we need to do cannot happen with the filibuster in place as is. Ditto SCROTUS. Kill the fil. Expand SCROTUS. Rewrire corporate DNA so that maximizing shareholder value is no longer their mission imperative. Overturn Citizens United. Build more housing. Raise the min wage. Make DC a state. Paid family & medical leave. Ban stock trading for executive branch, SCT justices, and Congressional insiders. Ban prediction markets. Restore the VRA, protect democracy.
To emphasize this: the explanation after the fact noted that saying "the forbidden topic" followed by talking about it is not allowed. The rule doesn't get relaxed simply by changing the nomenclature used to talk about a subject.
My recollection is that McLeod-Skinner wasn’t a progressive so much as not-a-moderate. She looked progressive by contrast with her primary opponent, but was not positioning herself as on the progressive wing itself.
There's a lot that probably gets into forbidden territory regarding how I'd like to respond, but I'll just say Trump rode a wave that didn't come out of nowhere; the GOP base had been Trumpian since the earliest days of Limbaugh (and the roots of that of course go much further back)
The Democrats don't have an analogous well to tap for DSA types. The base of the party is a North Carolina or Michigan center-left black woman who goes to church on Sunday, not a 25 year old self-described socialist who lives in LA or NYC.
If every black woman in the country was a democrat, and we estimated half the electorate as democrats, and we assumed that demographic groups vote in proportion with their population share, then black women would made up ~12% of the party. Basically exactly 1/8. In reality, not every black woman is a democrat and most non-white demographic groups vote at lower rates than their population share.
Progressives are not the core of our party. Moderates are not the core of our party. Centrists are not the core of our party. No single ethnic group is the core of our party. Neither non-religious, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, nor any other single spiritual identity is the core of our party.
If there is any demographic identity group that we could give that label to, it would be women. Not a specific subset of women. All women. A demographic that, as best I can tell, is substantially underrepresented in our comment section.
We are a big tent party. We should not pretend or assume that whatever narrow subset of the party most agrees with our philosophy is the True(tm) Democratic party. We need all of the subsets of the party and we need them to feel included enough to feel at home here. Which, yes, means DSA types winning in deep blue seats, and centrists winning red seats like WA-03, and moderates winning swing seats, and...
Biden "barely" beat Trump? 7m popular vote margin and 306-232 in the EC is "barely"? I know beating up on Biden is still in fashion, but 2020 was a fairly convincing margin.
He won the tipping point state in the electoral college by just 0.6 points. If 42,000 voters had voted differently, Trump would have won reelection. The only presidential election that was closer than that in the past 65 years was 2000. Biden barely won.
If not under Trump, I could see her serving in a future Republican administration, whether that be MAGA or hopefully something more palatable. The Trump succession fight, as it will happen at one point, will be interesting for the future of the party, ideologically at least.
With the trajectory of the republican party, we'll be glad if she's the republican senator in LA in 20 years and not whatever is the newest version of conservative.
If he were still in Congress, he would likely be scorned by the party in the same way John McCain was for voting to keep the ACA. I'm honestly surprised someone as ghoulish as Landry would appoint him.
Paxton likely left California before he went to college back in the mid 80's when George Deukmejian was Governor and when the state was more conservative. He didn't mention where he lived in the state though but if it was in Orange County, that may be completely different vs. if say he lived in San Francisco.
That said, Paxton admitting this still would make an effective ad that Talarico's campaign will play constantly through the end of the campaign season.
Well, I grew up as a kid in the 80’s in California although not in Orange County or San Diego. It was quite fun and bohemian in Berkeley back in the day although Reagan’s clout over California certainly did affect things.
The only thing I care about is Talarico winning the Senate race. Paxton can boast about his days in California, wipe Trump’s ass or even do batshit crazy things. I really don’t care as long as one more seat helps Democrats get closer to power.
I just find it’s funny Paxton would even mention this. I’m sure he’s trying to humanize himself but he’s giving Talarico gold to work with here.
CO-1, CO-3, CO-8, CO-Gov, and CO-Sen are on my watch. I think Kiros has a legit chance at an upset, whatever you think of her. I don’t think Julie Gonzales has that same chance, but it might be close. And I’m curious to see how Ron Hanks, Manny Rutinel/Shannon Bird, and Bennet/Weiser do.
I’m also watching LA-Sen — will Letlow still win, or will Fleming pull off an upset?
I think DeGette wins by much less than she ordinarily would and she retires going into 2028, and a more “polished” progesssive from Denver’s deep bench wins the primary to succeed her easily. Denver is not NYC
I have a hard time seeing Hickenlooper losing. I’d regard Rutinel as a favorite, maybe more comfortably than we’d expect. Bennet is probably narrowly favored but I think Weiser has a great chance (and imo the difference between them is fairly negligible. Bennet’s temperament and policy wonkery would suit him well in CO after how disappointing Polis has been but Weiser will be a great Gov if he wins too.
Watching CO-Gov on the GOP side, potential for a hall of fame freakshow to win their nomination. I already think we're in contention to flip Douglas and El Paso counties; this could make it happen with some room to spare.
I’m really interested in how Hickenlooper performs and I think how well/poorly he does could be an Indicator for how the base feels nationwide. He’s facing a progressive challenger who is massively underfunded, and shouldn’t have a problem dispatching her, but you have that recent poll from Colorado Community Research that has him up by only 7 points. Biggest caveat there is I don’t know how reliable or accurate that pollster is, it sounds newer.
Field Team 6 (https://postcards.fieldteam6.org/) still has a few hundred names and addresses at this point for their postcard campaign to register new voters in CO-08. Volunteers provide postcards and stamps. FT-6 provides script and address list. Mail as you write.
Postcards to Swing States (https://turnoutpac.org/postcards/) has postcard campaigns in CO-05 and CO-08. They will mail you the postcards for free along with a choice of 3 scripts plus the name & address list. (There is a 100 postcard minimum). You provide the stamps. These are "write and hold" postcards with a state-specific mailing date sometime in October.
[NOTE: Both groups have a number of different postcard campaigns in other swing states and/or districts. Also check out the postcard campaigns for Activate America (https://www.activateamerica.vote/)]
NM-Gov: Deb Haaland, the Democratic nominee, favors Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard to be her lieutenant governor, who was a former candidate for the position. Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver dropped off of the ticket for health issues after her and Haaland won the primary.
If Garcia Richard is nominated for LG by the state Democratic Party, her and Haaland will face Republican nominees Gregg Hull and David Gallegos. Interestingly enough, Haaland was chair of the very state party that now picks her running mate, before serving one term in Congress then as Secretary of the Interior.
News from the North: I am interested to see when our mini-Trump premier Doug Ford calls the by-elections for Scarborough Southwest and York-Simcoe. The former has to be held by September 3rd with the writ issued by August 3rd, so only a two month window left. Scarborough Southwest is likely to be a Liberal-NDP battle, whilst York-Simcoe is a fairly safe exurban/rural district for the PC Party. I don't know if he would call them at the same time or separately.
Lately Ford has been acting more like Trump, calling recent polls that showed him being unpopular and the PC Party lagging behind the Liberals as fake and wrong. I wish more people here would remember that he indulged in the same type of populist, anti-intellectual policies as Trump before Covid-19 and was happy Trump won before the tariffs and the annexation discussions.
Doug Ford might actually be a grosser/faker character than PP, despite his laudable TV rounds in defense of Canadian interests. Hes been able to pretend he’s not a Trumpian, loutish and hugely corrupt populist thug who runs a remarkably bent operation in Ontario while pretending to be a man of the people. PP’s stiff and unlikable dweebishness isn’t a persona, whatever else one might say about him
He is a narcissist but in a different way to Trump. Trump wants the flattery of the political/business class, the people who used to demean him back when he was the nouveau-riche property developer from Queens. Ford genuinely seems to need to be liked by the masses, he has made some stunning political u-turns when public sentiment has bubbled up to damage his favourability ratings, like trying to open up the Green Belt around Greater Toronto to his developer friends, or the jet fiasco from earlier this year.
Growing up in the 1980s, my family and I would sometimes drive from the Kitchener area to visit my dad's cousin in Mississauga (a suburb west of Toronto) about 80 km away. Every year, the transition from farmland to tract housing and strip malls would happen sooner and sooner.
Yup. There are about 4x as many people in the Phoenix metro area as when I was born (late Gen X). Much of the eastern part of the third largest city in the state was still citrus groves then. Pesticide drift from cropdusters on cotton fields was still a concern in the 80's at the elementary school for my 1940's-50's housing tract. The 4th largest city in the state by population now was still primarily hay farms when I got old enough to drive, it's almost all tract homes now.
I lived in the mountains in north LA county for about 12 years early in this century. I made the same 28 mile drive multiple times per month during that period. The short part of the drive in the Santa Clarita Valley went from 2 traffic lights to 13 in that period as residential tracts were built.
Traverse City, Michigan: Former DOT head Pete Buttigieg and his husband Chasten were briefly separated from their children after a false report to their home.
The person that reported Buttigieg said he confessed to a violent crime while visiting a town in Alabama he has never been to.
Swatting is going to have to be cracked down on through legislation or some other way. This is immoral to have to do this to Buttigeg, just like it would be immoral to do it to a MAGA Republican in Congress in the same context.
Existing law should cover this, as (based on what we publicly know) Pete if he wanted to could sue the authorities and the tipster, if found, into oblivion.
The main problem is that this is nowhere near enough proof to do what the authorities did. An anonymous tip is never enough information on its own to establish probable cause, much less an emergency situation allowing child services to remove kids from their parents. Putting aside the fact the accusation was frivolous on its face.
MA-Ballot: the state supreme court struck down a ballot measure to bring rent control back to Massachusetts, where it was banned statewide by a ballot initiative in 1994. This cycle the same court previously struck down a measure to reduce the state income tax from 5% to 4%.
There are several remaining questions expected to go forward, including one to adopt a top-2 primary system (ugh).
The rent control initiative was struck because it had an exemption for religious institutions, and the state constitution bans initiatives from covering religion. I know a lot of people will disagree and argue that excluding religious entities from the initiative is the exact opposite of covering religious matters. But by building in a religious carve out I do think it is rather directly covering religion -- their institutions would be getting preferential treatment from the law because of being religious.
Probably the initiative that will see the most attention is one to de-legalize marijuana. I cannot imagine that one succeeding, or coming all that close, but I can imagine it sucking up all the oxygen in the room.
There's one to implement same day voter registration as well. I'd like to hope that one will be able to pass easily, but it's hard for me to guess.
I fear the top two measure has a good chance of success. I really hope it fails.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) sang a different tune than a lot of his party by congratulating Tuesday's primary winners and welcoming them into the Democratic Party's big tent.
I've been seeing a lot of rhetoric on here these past few days on Tuesday in particular as well as broader ideological divides and tend to disagree with the views of many here. I'm sure you disagree with me too, but I think *this* is the right way to do things as a party. Not be divided. United. When was the purpose of this place to bicker about trivial, irrelevant ideological bullshit when what we should be doing is talking about elections and the process to win them? This is one of the best places to discuss the horribly divisive topic of politics on the Internet. But unfortunately, as pointed out by one commenter, some party faithful that scream "vote blue no matter who" suddenly change their tune when they don't get their primary candidate. If you all want to be a cohesive party, and I know many people here are diehard Democrats, you should ought to respect every wing of it. We should disagree, disagree passionately even, but not default to personal attacks and baseless criticisms. And I don't intend to talk down to anyone. This is just my two cents. Feel free to express a different point of view in a constructive way.
Speaking as someone near Long Beach, where Garcia was mayor before Congress, he's more moderate than progressive, but doesn't have a tin ear and has been signaling more progressivism in Congress.
I agree on welcoming primary winners, but if anyone is implying that it's not responsible to criticize racist, extremist candidates before primaries, I would strenuously object.
Of course it's a responsibility to criticize any candidate. But there's a difference between genuine criticism, and, like I said, name calling and unsubstantiated accusations.
I don't remember seeing a lot of that here, unless you think it's name-calling to call a racist extremist a racist extremist. I'm not really sure who you think has been engaging in personal invective against others posting here, other than users who have been banned.
Absolutely! I think it’s worth distinguishing though candidates who, for instance, are maybe a notch or two left of many of us (Valdez, Lander, the latter of whom I quite like) and people with a history of making MTG-level lunatic statements like DAC. It’s more about bafflement at the judgement of DSA and adjacent groups for recruiting and putting muscle behind people like that
I agree. But there gets to be a point for me where I don't see genuine criticism from people and instead see name-calling and finger-pointing. It is frankly tiresome in an otherwise positive, inclusive community. And it's not just candidates with problems like Chevalier or Fetterman, who has also been a topic of discussion lately. Like I said, it's part of a broader ideological battle between progressives and moderates that I just don't see a point in fighting over, at least not here.
Whoever is arguably the best fit for their district and doesn’t, in a swing seat, put it at risk gets my support. I’m pretty damn moderate as any old DKE poster can tell you but, also, Astoria and LIC should be represented by candidates that represent the views of people there, that’s how this all works. Where things get complicated in NYC specifically is a lot of the most strident left voters are… the degreed gentrifiers. That’s just objective fact. So I’m a bit hesitant about the recent DSA wave’s ability to actually connect with working people that we need vs just making the problem worse like the progressive social movements of the mid-2010s did.
But, also, I’m doubtful this all means much outside of NYC anyways, and I don’t live there, so
I recall at the Downballot last year in discussion before the NYC Mayoral Primary that Zohran Mamdani was considered a more extreme choice for Democrats in the general election.
Turns out that he ended up being extremely bright, well-spoken and a uniter who also happened to push back against defunding the police. Mamdani’s also proven himself to be politically savvy and works well with others, especially the police.
The same can happen for the other Democrats who unseated the House Democrats just days ago.
While this is true (and I’m pleasantly surprised by Mamdani so far) nothing he’s ever tweeted or said is half as batshit as DAC’s old MTG-tier bonkers tweets. It’s fair to doubt that he can accomplish some of his policy aims but that’s the case with any ambitious politician right, left or center, considering all the veto points in our systems
Mamdani still has tweets up from 2020 supporting defunding the police. DAC has made more problematic posts, but it’s clear people are not their old posts online & are capable of change
While in hindsight extremely ill advised on both political and policy grounds, he was far from the only Democrat to run out and tweet that and, now that it’s clear it’s electoral poison, backtrack from it. Everybody got caught up in a very dubious zeitgeist in the summer of 2020 after months being cooped up inside
Mamdani is a uniter only to a point. It's hard for me to follow everything he does in detail while I'm away from New York, but at least one Jewish friend of mine complained that he refused to make a statement at first about an assault committed against a Jewish woman in the subway and then supposedly only issued a press release saying it was deeply concerning or something. I asked him what Mamdani said when reporters asked him about it directly, but I didn't get an answer to that. I keep in mind that my friend is much more of a Zionist than I am and definitely not a socialist, and that that could color his reactions to Mayor Mamdani, but he is an example of a Democrat who Mamdani has not united behind him.
Well that shows how difficult Mamdani has to grapple with being Mayor now that he’s no longer in campaign mode. If he’s talking about being a Mayor for all New Yorkers, he should certainly be more viable and vocal quickly about hate crimes and attacks like this.
I mean, was it a hate crime, or just a crime where the victim happened to be Jewish. This is not clear from Michael's hearsay, and I don't think it makes sense to expect a mayoral statement on every crime in the city...
This is a classic problem among groups that are political outsiders when they start to gain some political power. Some people are outsiders because their ideas may be ahead of the curve while other people are outsiders because they are toxic people with terrible ideas. Sometimes people who have been in the minority and the outside so long are too willing to embrace anyone who is willing to embrace their movement when they should be doing a better job vetting their candidates. Chevalier winning her primary is a gift for the GOP and will put most Democrats in the difficult position where they can either hippy punch her or try to defend or deflect from her indefensible comments. I look at her primary win as a loss for both the Democratic party and the Progressive movement.
I suspect that Chevelier will only matter to other districts if she says further dumb things. Fact is she’s not high profile in the way eg AOC or Omar were (and are). Most people that follow politics haven’t heard of her, or at best have heard she won a primary with some vague idea of scandal. Regular voters don’t even know her district exists.
Paxton will have more purchase with out of state/district voters than she will. And he won’t have any purchase.
While I suspect that at the end of the day few people will change their vote due to what one nominee says in a district that they don't even live in, it would be a distraction that right wing media is already trying to use to distract from the failure of the Trump administration. This is a distraction that we don't need right now.
This is the era of Trump. If candidates haven’t learned how to deflect those questions back on to the topic they care about, then they’re not ready for prime time regardless. We have an actual full decade of examples of republicans doing that about what Trump says.
And likewise, in this era, nobody gives a fuck about anything that is more than a single media cycle old. Remember a few months ago when people were worried about the impact of Kirk’s assassination on the midterms? Probably 90% of the electorate already forgot about it.
I remain confident: if Chevelier doesn’t do anything newly stupid, she will have ~zero impact outside of her district.
Precisely. I generally support moderates over progressives, but I am supportive of whoever the Dem nominee is as a general rule. It's people like Chevalier who are the beyond the pale to me (Galindo would be another example).
I can’t speak for others, but I don’t think there is any hypocrisy in the “vote blue no matter who” crowd (assuming you’re coming at this from the left). If I lived in any of the NYC districts, I’d of course vote for the Dem. It’s just that some of them are horrible ambassadors for the party at a national level, and offer unrealistic hopes that some fringe policies will become law if only we elected more folks like them.
There is definitely hypocrisy on that from the more moderate/establishment wing. Not all of them mind you. Not even most of them. But some.
Schumer and Gillibrand pointedly refused to endorse the democratic nominee for mayor of NYC just last year. It doesn’t get much more clear cut than that.
This sounds like a GOP effort to change the rules after the fact.
Of course that wouldn't be the first time. As a NC resident, I am still outraged at the GOP's candidate for NC Supreme court trying to throw voters off the voter roles in several democratic-leaning counties AFTER he LOST.
I'm in a heavily gerrymandered US House district - the GOP incumbent was Speaker of the NC House and drew the boundaries of the district he planned to run in. So in the March 2026 primary he had a challenger who had previously run for a NC Senate seat as a Democrat. She didn't pretend to be anything that she was not and ran on a platform that matched her values. (FYI, In NC unaffiliated voters can vote in the primaries by selection which ballot to take).
The rules only require that a candidate be a member of the party for 90 days (IIRC) before filling to run and to pay the filling fees. She met both those requirements. She didn't come close to winning, unfortunately.
Worth noting, there is no "Republican primary" there is an all party election in which the top 4 candidates will advance to a ranked choice general election
Feeling much better about pickup opportunities in Iowa than Texas. Turek seems way more grounded than Talarico and Iowa having a strong governor slate at the top of the ticket certainly helps. Iowa being a much cheaper state to campaign in also makes it a smarter investment than trying to spend in TX 20 or so media markets.
I don't know - Husted was appointed to finish J.D. Vance's senate term, not elected.
And at the top of the ticket, Vivek Ramaswamy is a repellent candidate - especially for women voters. With Dr. Amy Acton as his Democratic opponent, this could result in gangbuster Democratic turnout in OH.
Ohio feels like it'd be just a 2 year rental seat for Brown if he wins. In 2028 he'd be in the same spot he was in 2024 trying to survive whatever the GOP margin is at the top of the ticket. Alaska & Iowa are just better investments considering Dems get those seats for 6 years if they flip them.
⬆️"Ohio feels like it'd be just a 2 year rental seat for Brown if he wins. "
IMO, we need every Senate seat that we can get in 2026. All three of the states you mention also have Governor's races this year which adds to the strategic complexity.
And Dems winning in "special" Senate races have a pretty good track record - e.g., Mark Kelly and Raphael Warnock.
The GOP brand is way more damaged in Iowa than Texas. Trump's pick lost the GOP Gov. primary in IA. And there is a recent history of Dems winning statewide there (and in OH and AK).
Heck, Turek, Brown, and Peltola have all done it themselves. In terms of the Senate & Gov races, we have way better shots in OH, AK, and IA. For Senate, I'd go AK, OH, IA. For Gov, IA, OH, then AK.
It has been at lot longer in Texas. It is a tougher lift. And more expensive. Doable. But tougher. I'd put it firmly #6.
FL and NE are real longshots. As is anything beyond them. Not impossible in a big wave, though.
In the CA-01 special election, held with the primaries, Republicans collectively outran Democrats by 2.5 points compared to 2024 presidential election numbers.
In the first round of the CA-14 special election, held two weeks later, Democrats collectively outran Republicans by 16 points.
CA-Gov: Trump says he convinced a U.S. Attorney to change the results of the election so that Steve Hilton was in the lead, claiming that if two Democrats made it to the general, there would have been fraud that he prevented.
Hilton has distanced himself from these claims, saying "Trump's not on the ballot. I am."
Just want to highlight a TX insider politics podcast that if you don't listen to, you might want to: Quorum Report Radio (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/quorum-report-radio/id1840051875). The people who do it are longtime political insiders in Texas politics. Their three June episodes have been great.
June 5 episode titled "Where the Hell is the Money?" Highlights from this episode are that the state House Republican campaign had a meeting in May where they were told they're facing a $65 million shortfall in their campaign fundraising for this election. They also talk about school finance and the backlash from rural areas about the response to the screwworm.
June 12 is a an episode featuring Harvey Kronberg interviewed by Joe Trippi talking about Texas elections this year. Kronberg thinks Dems could take all 5 of the districts Reps gerrymandered, plus 2 more. He specifically mentions a district drawn from the Dallas suburbs to Tyler, TX that is much closer than it says on paper. Leads me to believe it's either CD5 or CD32. He also notes that of the 12 seats Dems picked up in the state House in 2018 wave year, 8 were no-name Dems with no money behind them except a D next to their name.
June 19 episode is titled "Going to Hell, Fer Sure" They give a report from the TX Rep Convention noting it was one of the worst attended conventions for Reps they've seen. They also talk about Bobby Pulido's campaign in South Texas. And they highlight the Republican feuding going on between Dan Patrick and John Cornyn. I think this episode they mention Patrick is particularly worried because in previous elections he and Paxton have performed almost the same electorally because voters confuse their names and they're been right next to each other on the ballot.
⬆️"I think this episode they mention Patrick is particularly worried because in previous elections he and Paxton have performed almost the same electorally because voters confuse their names and they're been right next to each other on the ballot."
They confuse Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton? The names? How?
I checked photos to see if they looked alike. I don't think so other than both being middle-aged white dudes both working closely with Gov. Greg Abbott.
Three letter first name leading into a two syllable last name that starts with P. Yeah, a lot of voters are going to mix those up because a lot of voters barely follow politics at all. They get surface level engagement at most.
Paxton and Patrick have been on people's statewide ballots for the same amount of time (have both been incumbents in their positions since 2014). That could be another factor.
Before I read this, I was thinking "How often are you going to repeat yourself?" This actually is a good statement, though I'm not fully convinced there's a 1-to-1 analogy between Republicans and Democrats, for several reasons. But now that you've had your say, will you pause this message or repeat it like twice every day until 2029?
I did think you laid out some new thoughts, but I have some doubts that you'll continue to have new ways to say this every day or every week until 2029. And sure, I can pass it by, but I don't even seek to argue with you. I hope the country turns to the left, as long as "left" doesn't mean bigoted and Jew-hating, which some of the left, definitely much of the right and some of the center is, but I just don't think there's ultimately much more to say about this except when specific events, notably election results and changed positions and rhetoric, occur.
It’s like Lakshya Jain says, this year is the Tea Party moment for Democrats. Which will hopefully lead to more younger, more assertive candidates in 2028 for Congress and the presidency.
Trump and the enablers on SCOTUS has energized and enraged the country far more than Obama did with racist white people. We will definitely see a blue wave all over the country, hopefully a tsunami where Rs lose seats they thought were safe.
Vote in numbers too big to rig.
Unlike the Republican establishment who embraced Trump, I unfortunately think the Democratic establishment is too beholden to their donor base / DC consultant class to ever decide to play nice with the AOC / Zohran wing of the party. To them, they're more interested in having oatmeal bland, corporate bought, don't actually have anything to advocate for, AIPAC supporting Haley Stevens and Josh Shapiro as the face of the party rather than actually win elections, or heavens forbid, actually make lives better for people. This whole discourse incredibly pisses me off. Rather than try and see why the base and voters are so angry and voting for DSA supported candidates, they're choosing to pick a fight with them instead. Even preferring that they start their own party. "Vote Blue no matter who but only if it's our candidate not the one the voters want" so they prefer the left vote Third Party than actually be a big tent party. Voters are mad. The base is mad. & we know who is to blame. So we're going to continue to go with the candidates who are actually providing a vision.
Actually I suspect the left wing third party idea is just a sneaky way to keep the left out of power via ballot access laws and so on. We already tried the third party option with the Green Party, and we saw how that turned out. They do not want the left in power at all.
Problem for democrats in this scenario is this is still a center-right country where socialism is not acceptable. You'll need those "craven" "centists", aka normal liberals, if you ever want to sniff a majority.
In some areas socialism isn’t acceptable, not the whole country. There’s a reason the People’s Republic of Astoria nickname keeps getting used.
Also I’m getting quite tired of this sneering dismissal of the left from you. “Aka normal liberals”, Christ you’re being annoying. I try not to call people out anymore, it usually causes me more harm than good, but in this case it is getting really grating and I felt I had to say something.
I don't object to it because as a socialist, I don't call myself a liberal. I favor civil liberties, so I certainly oppose _illiberalism_, but I am not a liberal (or at least not merely a liberal).
Some of yall are getting ridiculous with your terminology. So anyone to the right of Avila Chevalier is a "centrist" or "conservative", like get a clue. I'd like to think I'm a reality based person, I'm not really into group think.
That is not even close to what I said. I did not say that anyone to the right of DAC is a centrist. Also, what groupthink? Last I checked, almost everyone here hated DAC.
You are being an asshole and it is derailing discussion. I am going to politely ask you to stop insulting me and other users here.
I'm just going to block you, we wont need to have discussions further.
I would argue that centrists are less representative than progressives of a “normal” left of center person. The center of our party is neither centrist nor progressive. The centrist wing is shrinking rapidly, due to its reliance on red turf in an era of declining ballot splitting. Their replacement on the right edge of the party is moderates, who used to be closer to the party center. The progressive wing is growing. The party center today is neither progressive nor centrist.
Agreed. The Democratic Party is shifting further to the left over time, just as the Republican Party shifted further to the right over time. The solution to extremism is not Michelle Obama's "when they go low, we go high" mantra anymore. It is unfortunately to also go low, whether we like it or not.
I dont think going low inspires democrats, sure fight back, but democrats aren't like republicans we dont thrive off negativity.
This is a center-right country where socialism is indeed acceptable and actively exists. Both can be true.
It’s center right on some issues (things like immigration and “wokeness”), but center left on others (a lot of economic issues).
I think the problem most folks have is there hasn't been a lot of evidence of progressive/DSA types flipping red seats blue. There has been a lot of cases though of them flopping in swing districts like Kara Eastman & Jamie McLeod Skinner to name a couple. Maybe they have a great but I don't blame people for being skeptical.
Again, is it the fault of Eastman and McLeod-Skinner that they lost, or were other factors at play in those races? Someone pointed out Eastman's primary opponent, Brad Ashford, ultimately endorsed Republican Don Bacon over her. I do agree that McLeod-Skinner had her own problems, however, given that she was a carpetbagger with a tenuous connection to the district.
One can usually find multiple factors, but it shouldn't be surprising that left-wing candidates are in more danger of losing general elections in Republican-leaning districts than in solidly Democratic ones that are also progressive-leaning. That seems like a no-brainer to most people who've observed elections over a period of time.
Katie Porter flipped Mimi Walters’ seat. It has happened.
Katie Porter was certainly not a DSA type.
The comment said “progressive/DSA type”. Porter isn’t DSA, but she is progressive.
True, although her performances were never really the strongest.
This is more or less my position.
I think DAC comes off as a lunatic and I hope to God she understands she needs to mellow out. I do not think that applies to any of Mamdani, Lander, or Valdez. I’m skeptical their brand of politics has as broad of appeal outside of NYC as DSAers are claiming since Tuesday; I also don’t think that Cait Conley types would do well in NYC, for obvious reasons.
Part of a big tent is knowing who to run where. I’m not convinced yet that New York’s DSA grasps that. I do think that they’re, pretty clearly at this point, perfectly representative- to an extent - of their electorate in deep blue urban constituencies
This is all fair and good electorally.
But from a public policy angle, the DSA/Progressives get it right far more often than not.
Public Health insurance for all is just better policy. Aggressively fighting Clinate Change is better policy. Taxing the rich and corporations is better policy. Getting corporate $$ out of politics is better policy. Supporting Ukraine is better policy. Got it right on fobidden topic as well. This list goes on and on and on.
Got it right on fighting fire with fire on gereymandering. Holder got it wrong.
And the fact is that a lot of stuff we need to do cannot happen with the filibuster in place as is. Ditto SCROTUS. Kill the fil. Expand SCROTUS. Rewrire corporate DNA so that maximizing shareholder value is no longer their mission imperative. Overturn Citizens United. Build more housing. Raise the min wage. Make DC a state. Paid family & medical leave. Ban stock trading for executive branch, SCT justices, and Congressional insiders. Ban prediction markets. Restore the VRA, protect democracy.
That is the LOW hanging fruit. Then get to work.
Why do you think you can get away with offering an opinion on a forbidden topic? Don't you know a user was banned for discussing the forbidden topic?
To emphasize this: the explanation after the fact noted that saying "the forbidden topic" followed by talking about it is not allowed. The rule doesn't get relaxed simply by changing the nomenclature used to talk about a subject.
My recollection is that McLeod-Skinner wasn’t a progressive so much as not-a-moderate. She looked progressive by contrast with her primary opponent, but was not positioning herself as on the progressive wing itself.
There's a lot that probably gets into forbidden territory regarding how I'd like to respond, but I'll just say Trump rode a wave that didn't come out of nowhere; the GOP base had been Trumpian since the earliest days of Limbaugh (and the roots of that of course go much further back)
The Democrats don't have an analogous well to tap for DSA types. The base of the party is a North Carolina or Michigan center-left black woman who goes to church on Sunday, not a 25 year old self-described socialist who lives in LA or NYC.
If every black woman in the country was a democrat, and we estimated half the electorate as democrats, and we assumed that demographic groups vote in proportion with their population share, then black women would made up ~12% of the party. Basically exactly 1/8. In reality, not every black woman is a democrat and most non-white demographic groups vote at lower rates than their population share.
Based on some data from Pew I found, the "progressive left" is... 12% of the democratic party as of 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/progressive-left/
Progressives are not the core of our party. Moderates are not the core of our party. Centrists are not the core of our party. No single ethnic group is the core of our party. Neither non-religious, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, nor any other single spiritual identity is the core of our party.
If there is any demographic identity group that we could give that label to, it would be women. Not a specific subset of women. All women. A demographic that, as best I can tell, is substantially underrepresented in our comment section.
We are a big tent party. We should not pretend or assume that whatever narrow subset of the party most agrees with our philosophy is the True(tm) Democratic party. We need all of the subsets of the party and we need them to feel included enough to feel at home here. Which, yes, means DSA types winning in deep blue seats, and centrists winning red seats like WA-03, and moderates winning swing seats, and...
Biden "barely" beat Trump? 7m popular vote margin and 306-232 in the EC is "barely"? I know beating up on Biden is still in fashion, but 2020 was a fairly convincing margin.
He won the tipping point state in the electoral college by just 0.6 points. If 42,000 voters had voted differently, Trump would have won reelection. The only presidential election that was closer than that in the past 65 years was 2000. Biden barely won.
Ugh. 36 years of Sen. Julia Letlow will be something.
If not under Trump, I could see her serving in a future Republican administration, whether that be MAGA or hopefully something more palatable. The Trump succession fight, as it will happen at one point, will be interesting for the future of the party, ideologically at least.
With the trajectory of the republican party, we'll be glad if she's the republican senator in LA in 20 years and not whatever is the newest version of conservative.
I think the best case scenario is she becomes a Katie Britt-type Senator.
Any info on Cao and his opponent? Which is less bad?
Cao was a liberal Republican in Congress, voting for the ACA (he had to be, he represented a D+25 seat). He's easily the best bet.
If he were still in Congress, he would likely be scorned by the party in the same way John McCain was for voting to keep the ACA. I'm honestly surprised someone as ghoulish as Landry would appoint him.
Considering this might not be a real poll, that would explain it,
It's not real. The person who originally posted it on twitter replied acknowledging it was a joke.
Paxton likely left California before he went to college back in the mid 80's when George Deukmejian was Governor and when the state was more conservative. He didn't mention where he lived in the state though but if it was in Orange County, that may be completely different vs. if say he lived in San Francisco.
That said, Paxton admitting this still would make an effective ad that Talarico's campaign will play constantly through the end of the campaign season.
What one would give to have a political system at present where people like Deukmejian are the baseline for what is and is not conservative
Well, I grew up as a kid in the 80’s in California although not in Orange County or San Diego. It was quite fun and bohemian in Berkeley back in the day although Reagan’s clout over California certainly did affect things.
Who cares! They wouldn’t allow Talarico that nuance
The only thing I care about is Talarico winning the Senate race. Paxton can boast about his days in California, wipe Trump’s ass or even do batshit crazy things. I really don’t care as long as one more seat helps Democrats get closer to power.
I just find it’s funny Paxton would even mention this. I’m sure he’s trying to humanize himself but he’s giving Talarico gold to work with here.
He started at Baylor in 1981. He was an Air Force brat so probably lived near (a) base(s).
He spent time in half a dozen states in childhood.
Well then! Certainly doesn’t change the fact that Paxton lived in a more conservative California back in the day.
What's a better ad for Talirico? Attacking Paxton for letting his child rapist buddies out of prison or one where he hating moving out of California?
Why not both?
CO-1, CO-3, CO-8, CO-Gov, and CO-Sen are on my watch. I think Kiros has a legit chance at an upset, whatever you think of her. I don’t think Julie Gonzales has that same chance, but it might be close. And I’m curious to see how Ron Hanks, Manny Rutinel/Shannon Bird, and Bennet/Weiser do.
I’m also watching LA-Sen — will Letlow still win, or will Fleming pull off an upset?
Thoughts from anyone else?
CO-1, CO-3: I expect both incumbents to win, but it could be within 10-15 points on the DeGette/Kiros side.
CO-8: Rutinel seems to have the momentum, but I guess I wouldn't be surprised if Bird wins.
CO-Gov: As you know, I favor Weiser to win the primary, but again wouldn't be surprised if Bennet wins.
LA-Sen: Letlow will win, but it won't be by a very convincing margin.
I think DeGette wins by much less than she ordinarily would and she retires going into 2028, and a more “polished” progesssive from Denver’s deep bench wins the primary to succeed her easily. Denver is not NYC
I have a hard time seeing Hickenlooper losing. I’d regard Rutinel as a favorite, maybe more comfortably than we’d expect. Bennet is probably narrowly favored but I think Weiser has a great chance (and imo the difference between them is fairly negligible. Bennet’s temperament and policy wonkery would suit him well in CO after how disappointing Polis has been but Weiser will be a great Gov if he wins too.
Watching CO-Gov on the GOP side, potential for a hall of fame freakshow to win their nomination. I already think we're in contention to flip Douglas and El Paso counties; this could make it happen with some room to spare.
I’m really interested in how Hickenlooper performs and I think how well/poorly he does could be an Indicator for how the base feels nationwide. He’s facing a progressive challenger who is massively underfunded, and shouldn’t have a problem dispatching her, but you have that recent poll from Colorado Community Research that has him up by only 7 points. Biggest caveat there is I don’t know how reliable or accurate that pollster is, it sounds newer.
Field Team 6 (https://postcards.fieldteam6.org/) still has a few hundred names and addresses at this point for their postcard campaign to register new voters in CO-08. Volunteers provide postcards and stamps. FT-6 provides script and address list. Mail as you write.
Postcards to Swing States (https://turnoutpac.org/postcards/) has postcard campaigns in CO-05 and CO-08. They will mail you the postcards for free along with a choice of 3 scripts plus the name & address list. (There is a 100 postcard minimum). You provide the stamps. These are "write and hold" postcards with a state-specific mailing date sometime in October.
[NOTE: Both groups have a number of different postcard campaigns in other swing states and/or districts. Also check out the postcard campaigns for Activate America (https://www.activateamerica.vote/)]
https://www.koat.com/article/deb-haaland-endorses-stephanie-garcia-richard-for-lieutenant-governor/71748657
NM-Gov: Deb Haaland, the Democratic nominee, favors Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard to be her lieutenant governor, who was a former candidate for the position. Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver dropped off of the ticket for health issues after her and Haaland won the primary.
If Garcia Richard is nominated for LG by the state Democratic Party, her and Haaland will face Republican nominees Gregg Hull and David Gallegos. Interestingly enough, Haaland was chair of the very state party that now picks her running mate, before serving one term in Congress then as Secretary of the Interior.
First I had heard of Maggie Toulouse Oliver's health problems. Hoping for the best possible outcome for her and her family.
oh wow it really was just one term!
News from the North: I am interested to see when our mini-Trump premier Doug Ford calls the by-elections for Scarborough Southwest and York-Simcoe. The former has to be held by September 3rd with the writ issued by August 3rd, so only a two month window left. Scarborough Southwest is likely to be a Liberal-NDP battle, whilst York-Simcoe is a fairly safe exurban/rural district for the PC Party. I don't know if he would call them at the same time or separately.
Lately Ford has been acting more like Trump, calling recent polls that showed him being unpopular and the PC Party lagging behind the Liberals as fake and wrong. I wish more people here would remember that he indulged in the same type of populist, anti-intellectual policies as Trump before Covid-19 and was happy Trump won before the tariffs and the annexation discussions.
I guess the lunacy runs in the family.
Doug doesn’t even have the excuse of being a crackhead/enjoyer of hookers!
Doug Ford might actually be a grosser/faker character than PP, despite his laudable TV rounds in defense of Canadian interests. Hes been able to pretend he’s not a Trumpian, loutish and hugely corrupt populist thug who runs a remarkably bent operation in Ontario while pretending to be a man of the people. PP’s stiff and unlikable dweebishness isn’t a persona, whatever else one might say about him
He is a narcissist but in a different way to Trump. Trump wants the flattery of the political/business class, the people who used to demean him back when he was the nouveau-riche property developer from Queens. Ford genuinely seems to need to be liked by the masses, he has made some stunning political u-turns when public sentiment has bubbled up to damage his favourability ratings, like trying to open up the Green Belt around Greater Toronto to his developer friends, or the jet fiasco from earlier this year.
EDIT: for those of you interested, what a corruption scandal used to look like before it was made SOP by the Trump regime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenbelt_scandal
I actually didn’t realize that Greenbelt wasn’t put in place until 2005 I thought that was a 1970s thing haha
Growing up in the 1980s, my family and I would sometimes drive from the Kitchener area to visit my dad's cousin in Mississauga (a suburb west of Toronto) about 80 km away. Every year, the transition from farmland to tract housing and strip malls would happen sooner and sooner.
Yup. There are about 4x as many people in the Phoenix metro area as when I was born (late Gen X). Much of the eastern part of the third largest city in the state was still citrus groves then. Pesticide drift from cropdusters on cotton fields was still a concern in the 80's at the elementary school for my 1940's-50's housing tract. The 4th largest city in the state by population now was still primarily hay farms when I got old enough to drive, it's almost all tract homes now.
I lived in the mountains in north LA county for about 12 years early in this century. I made the same 28 mile drive multiple times per month during that period. The short part of the drive in the Santa Clarita Valley went from 2 traffic lights to 13 in that period as residential tracts were built.
https://apnews.com/article/buttigieg-police-false-report-anonymous-0e0a586db4efcb63e70344f2b1f8fe98
Traverse City, Michigan: Former DOT head Pete Buttigieg and his husband Chasten were briefly separated from their children after a false report to their home.
The person that reported Buttigieg said he confessed to a violent crime while visiting a town in Alabama he has never been to.
How awful for them. This is sickening.
Swatting is going to have to be cracked down on through legislation or some other way. This is immoral to have to do this to Buttigeg, just like it would be immoral to do it to a MAGA Republican in Congress in the same context.
Existing law should cover this, as (based on what we publicly know) Pete if he wanted to could sue the authorities and the tipster, if found, into oblivion.
The main problem is that this is nowhere near enough proof to do what the authorities did. An anonymous tip is never enough information on its own to establish probable cause, much less an emergency situation allowing child services to remove kids from their parents. Putting aside the fact the accusation was frivolous on its face.
Doesn’t sound like the existing law is enough if it means police are reacting too hastily without going through the proper protocols.
This should warrant an investigation into the police department for not doing its job.
MA-Ballot: the state supreme court struck down a ballot measure to bring rent control back to Massachusetts, where it was banned statewide by a ballot initiative in 1994. This cycle the same court previously struck down a measure to reduce the state income tax from 5% to 4%.
There are several remaining questions expected to go forward, including one to adopt a top-2 primary system (ugh).
https://www.wbur.org/news/2026/06/23/massachusetts-high-court-rent-control-ballot-question-struck
The rent control initiative was struck because it had an exemption for religious institutions, and the state constitution bans initiatives from covering religion. I know a lot of people will disagree and argue that excluding religious entities from the initiative is the exact opposite of covering religious matters. But by building in a religious carve out I do think it is rather directly covering religion -- their institutions would be getting preferential treatment from the law because of being religious.
Probably the initiative that will see the most attention is one to de-legalize marijuana. I cannot imagine that one succeeding, or coming all that close, but I can imagine it sucking up all the oxygen in the room.
There's one to implement same day voter registration as well. I'd like to hope that one will be able to pass easily, but it's hard for me to guess.
I fear the top two measure has a good chance of success. I really hope it fails.
https://x.com/RobertGarcia/status/2070611342709444992
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) sang a different tune than a lot of his party by congratulating Tuesday's primary winners and welcoming them into the Democratic Party's big tent.
I've been seeing a lot of rhetoric on here these past few days on Tuesday in particular as well as broader ideological divides and tend to disagree with the views of many here. I'm sure you disagree with me too, but I think *this* is the right way to do things as a party. Not be divided. United. When was the purpose of this place to bicker about trivial, irrelevant ideological bullshit when what we should be doing is talking about elections and the process to win them? This is one of the best places to discuss the horribly divisive topic of politics on the Internet. But unfortunately, as pointed out by one commenter, some party faithful that scream "vote blue no matter who" suddenly change their tune when they don't get their primary candidate. If you all want to be a cohesive party, and I know many people here are diehard Democrats, you should ought to respect every wing of it. We should disagree, disagree passionately even, but not default to personal attacks and baseless criticisms. And I don't intend to talk down to anyone. This is just my two cents. Feel free to express a different point of view in a constructive way.
Speaking as someone near Long Beach, where Garcia was mayor before Congress, he's more moderate than progressive, but doesn't have a tin ear and has been signaling more progressivism in Congress.
I agree on welcoming primary winners, but if anyone is implying that it's not responsible to criticize racist, extremist candidates before primaries, I would strenuously object.
Of course it's a responsibility to criticize any candidate. But there's a difference between genuine criticism, and, like I said, name calling and unsubstantiated accusations.
I don't remember seeing a lot of that here, unless you think it's name-calling to call a racist extremist a racist extremist. I'm not really sure who you think has been engaging in personal invective against others posting here, other than users who have been banned.
Absolutely! I think it’s worth distinguishing though candidates who, for instance, are maybe a notch or two left of many of us (Valdez, Lander, the latter of whom I quite like) and people with a history of making MTG-level lunatic statements like DAC. It’s more about bafflement at the judgement of DSA and adjacent groups for recruiting and putting muscle behind people like that
I agree. But there gets to be a point for me where I don't see genuine criticism from people and instead see name-calling and finger-pointing. It is frankly tiresome in an otherwise positive, inclusive community. And it's not just candidates with problems like Chevalier or Fetterman, who has also been a topic of discussion lately. Like I said, it's part of a broader ideological battle between progressives and moderates that I just don't see a point in fighting over, at least not here.
Whoever is arguably the best fit for their district and doesn’t, in a swing seat, put it at risk gets my support. I’m pretty damn moderate as any old DKE poster can tell you but, also, Astoria and LIC should be represented by candidates that represent the views of people there, that’s how this all works. Where things get complicated in NYC specifically is a lot of the most strident left voters are… the degreed gentrifiers. That’s just objective fact. So I’m a bit hesitant about the recent DSA wave’s ability to actually connect with working people that we need vs just making the problem worse like the progressive social movements of the mid-2010s did.
But, also, I’m doubtful this all means much outside of NYC anyways, and I don’t live there, so
I recall at the Downballot last year in discussion before the NYC Mayoral Primary that Zohran Mamdani was considered a more extreme choice for Democrats in the general election.
Turns out that he ended up being extremely bright, well-spoken and a uniter who also happened to push back against defunding the police. Mamdani’s also proven himself to be politically savvy and works well with others, especially the police.
The same can happen for the other Democrats who unseated the House Democrats just days ago.
While this is true (and I’m pleasantly surprised by Mamdani so far) nothing he’s ever tweeted or said is half as batshit as DAC’s old MTG-tier bonkers tweets. It’s fair to doubt that he can accomplish some of his policy aims but that’s the case with any ambitious politician right, left or center, considering all the veto points in our systems
Mamdani still has tweets up from 2020 supporting defunding the police. DAC has made more problematic posts, but it’s clear people are not their old posts online & are capable of change
They're capable of change, but not everyone actually does, and some people just pretend.
While in hindsight extremely ill advised on both political and policy grounds, he was far from the only Democrat to run out and tweet that and, now that it’s clear it’s electoral poison, backtrack from it. Everybody got caught up in a very dubious zeitgeist in the summer of 2020 after months being cooped up inside
Precisely.
Mamdani is a uniter only to a point. It's hard for me to follow everything he does in detail while I'm away from New York, but at least one Jewish friend of mine complained that he refused to make a statement at first about an assault committed against a Jewish woman in the subway and then supposedly only issued a press release saying it was deeply concerning or something. I asked him what Mamdani said when reporters asked him about it directly, but I didn't get an answer to that. I keep in mind that my friend is much more of a Zionist than I am and definitely not a socialist, and that that could color his reactions to Mayor Mamdani, but he is an example of a Democrat who Mamdani has not united behind him.
Well that shows how difficult Mamdani has to grapple with being Mayor now that he’s no longer in campaign mode. If he’s talking about being a Mayor for all New Yorkers, he should certainly be more viable and vocal quickly about hate crimes and attacks like this.
I mean, was it a hate crime, or just a crime where the victim happened to be Jewish. This is not clear from Michael's hearsay, and I don't think it makes sense to expect a mayoral statement on every crime in the city...
This is a classic problem among groups that are political outsiders when they start to gain some political power. Some people are outsiders because their ideas may be ahead of the curve while other people are outsiders because they are toxic people with terrible ideas. Sometimes people who have been in the minority and the outside so long are too willing to embrace anyone who is willing to embrace their movement when they should be doing a better job vetting their candidates. Chevalier winning her primary is a gift for the GOP and will put most Democrats in the difficult position where they can either hippy punch her or try to defend or deflect from her indefensible comments. I look at her primary win as a loss for both the Democratic party and the Progressive movement.
I suspect that Chevelier will only matter to other districts if she says further dumb things. Fact is she’s not high profile in the way eg AOC or Omar were (and are). Most people that follow politics haven’t heard of her, or at best have heard she won a primary with some vague idea of scandal. Regular voters don’t even know her district exists.
Paxton will have more purchase with out of state/district voters than she will. And he won’t have any purchase.
While I suspect that at the end of the day few people will change their vote due to what one nominee says in a district that they don't even live in, it would be a distraction that right wing media is already trying to use to distract from the failure of the Trump administration. This is a distraction that we don't need right now.
This is the era of Trump. If candidates haven’t learned how to deflect those questions back on to the topic they care about, then they’re not ready for prime time regardless. We have an actual full decade of examples of republicans doing that about what Trump says.
And likewise, in this era, nobody gives a fuck about anything that is more than a single media cycle old. Remember a few months ago when people were worried about the impact of Kirk’s assassination on the midterms? Probably 90% of the electorate already forgot about it.
I remain confident: if Chevelier doesn’t do anything newly stupid, she will have ~zero impact outside of her district.
Agreed. Hence my frequent points that there are quality progressive recruits who won on Tuesday, too - and she takes away from them, as well
Precisely. I generally support moderates over progressives, but I am supportive of whoever the Dem nominee is as a general rule. It's people like Chevalier who are the beyond the pale to me (Galindo would be another example).
Galindo thankfully lost
Garcia is the top Democrat on a House committee (Oversight) with a lot of progressive and progressive-leaning Dems.
I can’t speak for others, but I don’t think there is any hypocrisy in the “vote blue no matter who” crowd (assuming you’re coming at this from the left). If I lived in any of the NYC districts, I’d of course vote for the Dem. It’s just that some of them are horrible ambassadors for the party at a national level, and offer unrealistic hopes that some fringe policies will become law if only we elected more folks like them.
There is definitely hypocrisy on that from the more moderate/establishment wing. Not all of them mind you. Not even most of them. But some.
Schumer and Gillibrand pointedly refused to endorse the democratic nominee for mayor of NYC just last year. It doesn’t get much more clear cut than that.
An Alaska superior court judge has ordered that the second Dan Sullivan be reinstated to the Republican primary ballot.
https://alaskapublic.org/news/politics/2026-06-26/judge-puts-2nd-dan-sullivan-back-on-ballot-in-alaskas-u-s-senate-race
The decision is expected to be quickly appealed to the AK Supreme Court, while primary ballots are scheduled to start printing on Tuesday.
I'd like to see this Dan Sullivan win the primary just for the sake of being another Dan Sullivan in the race. hahaha
This sounds like a GOP effort to change the rules after the fact.
Of course that wouldn't be the first time. As a NC resident, I am still outraged at the GOP's candidate for NC Supreme court trying to throw voters off the voter roles in several democratic-leaning counties AFTER he LOST.
I'm in a heavily gerrymandered US House district - the GOP incumbent was Speaker of the NC House and drew the boundaries of the district he planned to run in. So in the March 2026 primary he had a challenger who had previously run for a NC Senate seat as a Democrat. She didn't pretend to be anything that she was not and ran on a platform that matched her values. (FYI, In NC unaffiliated voters can vote in the primaries by selection which ballot to take).
The rules only require that a candidate be a member of the party for 90 days (IIRC) before filling to run and to pay the filling fees. She met both those requirements. She didn't come close to winning, unfortunately.
Worth noting, there is no "Republican primary" there is an all party election in which the top 4 candidates will advance to a ranked choice general election
Feeling much better about pickup opportunities in Iowa than Texas. Turek seems way more grounded than Talarico and Iowa having a strong governor slate at the top of the ticket certainly helps. Iowa being a much cheaper state to campaign in also makes it a smarter investment than trying to spend in TX 20 or so media markets.
Agreed. Just as I feel better about winning Alaska than Ohio, though Peltola and Brown lost by similar margins in 2024.
I don't know - Husted was appointed to finish J.D. Vance's senate term, not elected.
And at the top of the ticket, Vivek Ramaswamy is a repellent candidate - especially for women voters. With Dr. Amy Acton as his Democratic opponent, this could result in gangbuster Democratic turnout in OH.
Husted has continuously won statewide since 2010, though. And he has the support of the Republican establishment.
2010 and 2014 were both Republican wave years though, any victory can't really be attributed to some unique strength he has.
Ohio feels like it'd be just a 2 year rental seat for Brown if he wins. In 2028 he'd be in the same spot he was in 2024 trying to survive whatever the GOP margin is at the top of the ticket. Alaska & Iowa are just better investments considering Dems get those seats for 6 years if they flip them.
⬆️"Ohio feels like it'd be just a 2 year rental seat for Brown if he wins. "
IMO, we need every Senate seat that we can get in 2026. All three of the states you mention also have Governor's races this year which adds to the strategic complexity.
And Dems winning in "special" Senate races have a pretty good track record - e.g., Mark Kelly and Raphael Warnock.
Trump won't be on the ballot in 2028, I don't think we should write off Sen-OH in advance.
The GOP brand is way more damaged in Iowa than Texas. Trump's pick lost the GOP Gov. primary in IA. And there is a recent history of Dems winning statewide there (and in OH and AK).
Heck, Turek, Brown, and Peltola have all done it themselves. In terms of the Senate & Gov races, we have way better shots in OH, AK, and IA. For Senate, I'd go AK, OH, IA. For Gov, IA, OH, then AK.
It has been at lot longer in Texas. It is a tougher lift. And more expensive. Doable. But tougher. I'd put it firmly #6.
FL and NE are real longshots. As is anything beyond them. Not impossible in a big wave, though.
Correction, I meant Sand had won statewide in IA, not Turek.
You mentioned OH, AK, and IA then put TX at #6. What else have you included ahead of TX? I assume NC - is the other one ME?
Here's an interesting article about the Cooper - Whatley race:
https://www.politicsnc.com/p/for-the-gop-things-just-keep-getting
Danny Heck is elected in WA, not in any of the states mentioned @_@. I jest.
A tale of two turnouts
In the CA-01 special election, held with the primaries, Republicans collectively outran Democrats by 2.5 points compared to 2024 presidential election numbers.
In the first round of the CA-14 special election, held two weeks later, Democrats collectively outran Republicans by 16 points.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/24/us/politics/trump-us-attorney-hilton-california-governor.html
CA-Gov: Trump says he convinced a U.S. Attorney to change the results of the election so that Steve Hilton was in the lead, claiming that if two Democrats made it to the general, there would have been fraud that he prevented.
Hilton has distanced himself from these claims, saying "Trump's not on the ballot. I am."
Hilton is wasting his breath, his only option is to parlay this into a job with Trump.
Just want to highlight a TX insider politics podcast that if you don't listen to, you might want to: Quorum Report Radio (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/quorum-report-radio/id1840051875). The people who do it are longtime political insiders in Texas politics. Their three June episodes have been great.
June 5 episode titled "Where the Hell is the Money?" Highlights from this episode are that the state House Republican campaign had a meeting in May where they were told they're facing a $65 million shortfall in their campaign fundraising for this election. They also talk about school finance and the backlash from rural areas about the response to the screwworm.
June 12 is a an episode featuring Harvey Kronberg interviewed by Joe Trippi talking about Texas elections this year. Kronberg thinks Dems could take all 5 of the districts Reps gerrymandered, plus 2 more. He specifically mentions a district drawn from the Dallas suburbs to Tyler, TX that is much closer than it says on paper. Leads me to believe it's either CD5 or CD32. He also notes that of the 12 seats Dems picked up in the state House in 2018 wave year, 8 were no-name Dems with no money behind them except a D next to their name.
June 19 episode is titled "Going to Hell, Fer Sure" They give a report from the TX Rep Convention noting it was one of the worst attended conventions for Reps they've seen. They also talk about Bobby Pulido's campaign in South Texas. And they highlight the Republican feuding going on between Dan Patrick and John Cornyn. I think this episode they mention Patrick is particularly worried because in previous elections he and Paxton have performed almost the same electorally because voters confuse their names and they're been right next to each other on the ballot.
⬆️"I think this episode they mention Patrick is particularly worried because in previous elections he and Paxton have performed almost the same electorally because voters confuse their names and they're been right next to each other on the ballot."
They confuse Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton? The names? How?
I checked photos to see if they looked alike. I don't think so other than both being middle-aged white dudes both working closely with Gov. Greg Abbott.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Paxton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Patrick_(politician)
They're both far right pricks whose last name begins with P.
Three letter first name leading into a two syllable last name that starts with P. Yeah, a lot of voters are going to mix those up because a lot of voters barely follow politics at all. They get surface level engagement at most.
The ignorance of the voter base in this country is just depressing.
Paxton and Patrick have been on people's statewide ballots for the same amount of time (have both been incumbents in their positions since 2014). That could be another factor.