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NEWS FROM THE NORTH: Quebec holds its provincial election on Monday. After the ruling CAQ party had a brief rally under a new leader, it has since faltered during the campaign and is polling in the 16-20% range. As that support is geographically spread far and wide across the province, there is a very real possibility that the party will lose every seat it holds.
The separatist Parti Quebecois is now on the cusp of a majority government, despite polling around 30%, because of a five-way split in a first-past-the-post system.
The Quebec Liberal Party will form official opposition on the strength of its concentrated support among anglophones and allophones (those coming from a non-British or French background) in Montreal, the Ottawa suburbs, and the Eastern Townships. Projections have them winning around 30-40 seats
The Conservative Party of Quebec, despite polling around the same level as the CAQ, may pick up around 15-20 seats because of its strongholds in Quebec City and its rural outskirts.
A fifth party, Quebec Solidaire, looks to pick up 5-10 seats, mostly in the east end of Montreal and central Quebec City. It is a socialist-sovereigntist party.
The leader of the PQ has pledged not to call for a referendum on Quebec independence until after Trump leaves office because of global instability, on the mistaken belief that things will magically be better immediately after that. Unfortunately, in the short term it likely means a less united front between Quebec and the federal government on the Canada-U.S. diplomatic war and Prime Minister Carney's efforts to diversify trade and alliances.
I feel Canada hasn't moved on to a better system than first past the post because whatever party just won the last election assumes that they will continue to thread the needle and win majorities from plurality victories forever, when a complete wipeout is in fact equally likely.
CA-Gov: Steve Hilton put up in ad in which two women are supposedly about to have lesbian sex but instead one guides the other to fill in Hilton on her ballot, then instructs her to lick the envelope.
I can't point to any specific polling on this, but I would have to think the Republican Party is on track for a record low showing in the LGBTQ community.
Considering Assemblyman Carl DeMaio is the most prominent gay Republican in California, his job in helping the GOP in the state is made all the more difficult.
Yes although the actual article by Politico inaccurately described DeMaio as a hyper conservative. He is not as he’s pro-choice, pro gay marriage and pro environment, putting him at odds with the national GOP.
The main issues DeMaio has that help fire up his base are taxes, the state budget, immigration, voter IDs, etc. Otherwise, he’d probably be killed politically at the national level by the GOP.
DeMaio's agenda may really start to kick in when the next Democratic POTUS comes in if we're talking about 2029 and 2030. However, at the core, I really don't see him to be MAGA that much.
I’ve lived in CA my whole life. It’s been absolutely fascinating as someone who grew up as a teenager during when Pete Wilson served two terms as Governor and Arnold Schwarzenegger was in office from 2004-2011 to see how the CA GOP has declined since then.
Bizarre ads like this are intended to go viral. Sometimes it backfires if they're too weird, like the infamous "demon sheep" or "I'm not witch" ads. Even then, the candidate were long shots, so it's unclear that they actually lost support.
So, for some reason, NYT removed the Governor polls from their latest polls page. I don't know if it's because it was data or too early of a release but I'll be on the lookout for new numbers if they come out
Disappointing to see Masterson underperform but it is what it is in Kansas. Incumbent party hasn't won non-incumbent consecutive governor races for decades now. Maybe Masterson will surprise us with an upset but I doubt it.
Despite that, all other governor races look really good, especially considering this is NYT, a highly rated and high quality pollster and one that tends to be more conservative in its bias. Increasingly too Hinojosa seems to be creeping up within the margin of error or even leading. I really wish they included the Libertarian, Pat Dixon. As always, pollsters are neglecting a nontrivial 3rd party that can easily affect the results.
Iowa senate poll is very much within the margin of error and like many doesn't include the Libertarian. Every other poll basically shows a strong Democrat lead or worst case a tie in Kansas.
Also, there's a Rasmussen poll showing 43-47% with Turek performing even better than their last poll and despite their crap reputation, I will say that Rasmussen did at least include the 3rd party candidate.
A state Supreme Court judge has ruled that Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn is no longer the leader of the Brooklyn Dems. Reformer ally and outgoing Rep. Nydia Velazquez will be acting chair in the meantime — meaning the reformists may take control of the party.
Jay Jacobs won re election as chair by quite a bit. Sigh.
I’m not a fan of his, he cost us multiple House and state legislative seats in 2022 (including in places like Brooklyn where we had no business losing), Hochul’s leadership appears to have been the primary reason we rebounded in 2024 anyway, he spends most of his time engaging in ideological warfare with the left (not helpful in this environment), not only refused to back Mamdani when he won but actively told people not to vote for him (and even threatened to resign if Mamdani won), also refused to back India Walton in Buffalo when she won her primary and compared her to David Duke, and despite coming from Nassau County’s Dem party, he has presided over our electoral collapse there, with us recently losing the County Executive and DA races.
NY continues to have a ludicrously terrible Dem party. Even if you agree with Jacobs’ politics, his mismanagement alone should be disqualifying, I think.
Rare free state navigate forecast, you can't look at any individual state legislative forecasts without a (very expensive) membership, but you can see trifecta odds, as well as the odds of breaking/gaining supermajorities.
There's also a section for the seats most likely to flip, and there are a few visible uncontested flips
FL HD-47: R to D, this has been covered here previously
NM HD-4: D to R, this has been covered here previously
VT Washington 1 (1 seat): I (D caucus) to R, the independent incumbent seems to have withdrawn or been disqualified, leaving the other Republican incumbent and a second Republican uncontested.
SD HD-27 (1 seat): R to I: The former Democrat who switched parties didn't run for re-election, and the Republicans only ran one candidate, the other incumbent. The one Democrat running seems to have been disqualified and is running as an independent, and a bunch of other independents are also running for the second seat. State Navigate has this listed as R to D so I assume all the other independents are also Democrats.
Republicans are discussing pulling money from once-competitive races they see as too difficult to win, including Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa, Rep. Tom Kean in New Jersey and an open seat in Nebraska, according to three people familiar with the talks.
“Party leaders are particularly confident about two incumbents in purple seats: Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania and Mike Lawler in New York, both in districts Kamala Harris won in 2024.”
I guess Lawler loses and Fitz holds on but just based on vibes. Fitzpatrick is a genuinely good, bipartisan member of Congress who in another time I'd not have a ton of issues with. Lawler is a hack dressed up in moderate's clothing, like Susan Collins.
I think your assessment of the results is right - Fitz is WAY more entrenched than Lawler. As I've said elsewhere, I'd pretty shocked if Lawler won. Fitz, I'd put at 50/50 or even a slight favorite.
I suspect the reason for this is that Miller-Meeks doesn’t exactly generate enthusiasm with the GOP. I don’t know if it’s solely because Democrats have been on the move in the IA-01 race.
A three judge panel of federal judges upholds the elimination of the minority majority district in TN 9. Pretty much echoing the Supreme Court in saying that as long as the motive is shown to be partisan, it doesn’t matter that minority voters have their voting power diluted.
Get the supreme court on record officially approving a map chopping up a compact 60% black seat without repercussion. More ammo for court reform, makes the stakes clearer to elected Dems who are uncomfortable with playing hardball.
Apparently Alito, one of the 2 most hardcore conservative cretins on the Supreme Court, alongside Clarence Thomas, plans to do an interview with CBS on Monday discussing among other things, his retirement timeline.
There's always the strong possibility that Alito will announce his sudden retirement right before the current senate's term ends, but that leaves them with an increasingly small and narrow window to appoint a replacement. It could obviously potentially boost turnout among MAGA like it did in 2018 and that whole fake outrage about Kavanaugh being treated unfairly. Then again it might not. Trump has already lashed out against all of his own Supreme Court appointees, Gorsuch, Barrett and Kavanaugh saying he regrets nominating them. It's also hard to see how this could bail out Trump or Republicans. The Supreme Court is already historically unpopular, and so is Trump and Congress. In fact Trump is even more unpopular now than he was back in 2018 before the midterms. If anything, this might boost Democrat and left leaning turnout further instead.
Alito at the least, does seem actively aware of his own health and the state of Congress and current events, unlike Ginsburg, who despite her jurisprudence and virtuous adherence to integrity, justice and equality, allowed her ailing health to get the better of her.
Trump's fundamental flaw is that he's not able to see through by his SCOTUS nominations that all of them possess a certain degree of independent thinking even if they are for the most part conservative in their ideology and votes. Coney Barrett, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh all have ruled against him on more than one occasion, which certainly pisses Trump off as he's expecting loyalty above all. If Trump nominates another SCOTUS to replace Alito, it'll be the same as before with the previous three.
As for Alito, I'm skeptical he would retire before the end of this year.
Yes although general mainstream media labeling of justices like Alito, Coney Barrett, Gorsuch, etc. labels them as conservatives. Also, Alito’s decision to author the opinion on ending Roe vs Wade is just absurd. He knew exactly what he was doing and the decision by the SCOTUS for decades since Roe vs Wade was to affirm this was settled law of the land. If he’s getting chastised by his own colleagues and friends as he mentioned in the article, that means no matter how he tries to spin it his credibility is gone.
Conservatives in the Bay Area on the other hand whom I talk to, even at business settings, I can have reasonable conversations with. Most of the time it’s about tax policy, addressing crime and safety, homelessness, and the economy. Pretty much ongoing issues where you can have healthy discourse depending on the person.
My biggest takeaway is that we're merely splitting the difference with Hispanic voters between 2018 and 2024. In 2018, Beto O'Rourke, Andrew Gillum, and Bill Nelson still lost. Unless the final Hispanic vote tally ends up more lopsided than NBC's current polling shows, we're gonna fall short of a tsunami. As always, correct poll modeling is essential, and for a community with voting behavior as dynamic as Hispanics have been in the last decade, it'll be extremely had to pin down.
Well, I'm very confident that Democrats lose Florida. As for Texas, I'm saying one of two things has to happen: either the Hispanic vote has to resemble the 2018 margin more closely than the 2024 poll, or the math is unlikely to work out for Talarico. The polling is obviously not definitive, but if Talarico is unable to match O'Rourke's margin with Hispanic voters, it's hard to see how he wins.
2018 was a much different economic environment. No inflation but tariffs in at the time to a lesser extreme vs how things are now with more tariffs.
Traditionally speaking, Hispanic and Latino voters vote on economics. If Trump isn’t doing anything to solve their problems, then that accounts for why his approval rating for these demographics is astronomically low.
I continue to wait patiently for a single data point indicating that the Minnesota Senate race is anything other than a tossup.
It's become a biennial rite of passage for both campaigns and analysts to sleepwalk through Minnesota races, assuming they're not gonna be competitive but then realizing either just before or just after the finish line that they were competitive all along. One of these next times, Democrats are gonna end up on the losing end of that sleepwalking.
I singled out the most important race on the Minnesota ballot this year: the U.S. Senate race. It would be Shakespearean if the Democrats fell short of controlling the Senate because of a loss in Minnesota, and yet I've seen no indication that that isn't just as likely to happen as not, and I've seen no indication that anybody on the Democratic side is recognizing the vulnerability here.
If somebody somewhere has data to help me back off the ledge here, I'd love for them to show it. But week after week passes and we keep not getting it.
I'm not. That's why I'm waiting so patiently to see some. The fact that it keeps not coming indicates it's not markedly different than the public polls that are all showing ties.
All the post-primary polls so far are from Republican-aligned pollsters or pollsters with weak reputations and deeply questionable crosstabs. This is getting a bit exhausting.
And it begs the question.....why are we not seeing polling from Democratic-aligned pollsters or campaign internals if they show something different than what one after another after another public poll is showing? At some point, if something doesn't smell right, it probably means that something isn't right.
Seems far-fetched but that's the closest thing to a coherent defense of sitting on private polling. I'd say the more likely scenario is that the private polling shows a result either identical to the public polls or just a tick better, and releasing it would invite more Republican resources and facilitate a downward classification shift by race prognosticators.
As it stands, for the Cook Report to still have this as Likely D strikes me as the same kind of analyst detachment from Minnesota as what we saw on election night 2016 when it was 4 a.m. before analysts even realized that Minnesota was tied with 90+% of the vote in.
6 of the last 7 polls had (R) after them! But interestingly, none of them were internals from GOP nominee Tiffany Smiley. They're unrelated, self-directed (R) pollsters like co/efficient, InsiderAdvantage, and Trafalgar of course. Choosing to poll an underpolled state where they smelled a potential upset. They found a tied race, unanswered by any internals from Senator Murray, who nonetheless ended up winning by ~15 points.
Once again, 6 of the last 7 MN polls are these same or similar non-campaign affiliated (R) pollsters! No other state's publicly available polls looks like that right now. Flanagan has not produced any internals but neither has Tafoya.
There's surprises every year, swing is never uniform, state specific events can be a much larger factor in midterms, etc., if MN is close it would not be the most shocking thing in the world. You could very well be right, and on plenty of occasions your concern contrary to optimistic Dem consensus has proven to be correct. I'm just saying, the polling situation in MN right now has a familiar smell, and as such I think there's good reason to be doubtful of their findings.
I wonder if they don't want to release polling because the row offices are tougher and showing a tossup for the senate seat just keeps the same narrative. I still think Dems prevail just because of the national environment and Klobuchar leading the ticket but the other statewide offices and legislature concern me more.
Likewise. Clearly if Harris and Walz were President and Vice President right now rather than Trump and Vance, Minnesota Democrats would be on the cusp of a 2002-style thumping next month. I'm crossing my fingers that the national environment helps Minnesota Dems thread the needle with the close ones, but at this point I'm pretty much at peace that it might be a 49-state Democratic wave this year but it's not gonna be 50 states.
If the row offices were in serious danger, they might not release polling, but party would absolutely shift funding towards those races. Is there any evidence of that happening?
I don't disagree that MN as a state could be competitive in the near future, but I just cannot fathom us losing a statewide race there in an environment this blue.
State Navigate live poll showing a very close race in a deep red Pennsylvania State Senate seat between an independent and Republican, the independent seems like a left-wing populist (although her website doesn't mention social issues at all). Considering there are a lot of undecideds, and I expect them to break towards the Republicans, the race probably won't be super close in the end, but interesting nonetheless.
Saw a pro-Paxton advduring a Missouri-LSU volleyball match. Granted, the match in question aired on the SEC Network, where a Paxton ad would not be out of place (there are two SEC member universities in Texas), but the number of Texans watching a volleyball match that did not include a Texas-based team is probably very small and almost exclusively diehard fans of the sport of volleyball.
I also doubt there's many New York or Chicago sports fans in Texas. A lot of transplants, sure, but the state has two NFL teams. It was on CBS, which has begun a shift to the right after new ownership took over last year, however.
Hey everyone! Want to do a good deed for democracy today?
This weekend, please take a moment to help ProPublica leverage that YouTube algorithm by watching and liking this very intriguing video...they just put out a detailed video explaining the Susan Collins bribery scandal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqyiFFB7Kjg
For bonus points, share this video with a Maine voter.
For extra bonus points, post it on social media with the hashtag #Maine, #MESen, or #MEpolitics.
Let's help get the word out about how corrupt Susan Collins truly is. Godspeed!
To add:
Troy Jackson’s donation and volunteer pages are as follows:
Donate - https://secure.actblue.com/donate/loc_tdj_fr_web?refcode=top-nav
Volunteer -
https://www.jacksonformaine.com/volunteer
NEWS FROM THE NORTH: Quebec holds its provincial election on Monday. After the ruling CAQ party had a brief rally under a new leader, it has since faltered during the campaign and is polling in the 16-20% range. As that support is geographically spread far and wide across the province, there is a very real possibility that the party will lose every seat it holds.
The separatist Parti Quebecois is now on the cusp of a majority government, despite polling around 30%, because of a five-way split in a first-past-the-post system.
The Quebec Liberal Party will form official opposition on the strength of its concentrated support among anglophones and allophones (those coming from a non-British or French background) in Montreal, the Ottawa suburbs, and the Eastern Townships. Projections have them winning around 30-40 seats
The Conservative Party of Quebec, despite polling around the same level as the CAQ, may pick up around 15-20 seats because of its strongholds in Quebec City and its rural outskirts.
A fifth party, Quebec Solidaire, looks to pick up 5-10 seats, mostly in the east end of Montreal and central Quebec City. It is a socialist-sovereigntist party.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Quebec_general_election#Opinion_polls
https://338canada.com/quebec/
The leader of the PQ has pledged not to call for a referendum on Quebec independence until after Trump leaves office because of global instability, on the mistaken belief that things will magically be better immediately after that. Unfortunately, in the short term it likely means a less united front between Quebec and the federal government on the Canada-U.S. diplomatic war and Prime Minister Carney's efforts to diversify trade and alliances.
I feel Canada hasn't moved on to a better system than first past the post because whatever party just won the last election assumes that they will continue to thread the needle and win majorities from plurality victories forever, when a complete wipeout is in fact equally likely.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/10/gop-gubernatorial-candidate-releases-bizarrely-steamy-sapphic-campaign-ad-just-try-it/
CA-Gov: Steve Hilton put up in ad in which two women are supposedly about to have lesbian sex but instead one guides the other to fill in Hilton on her ballot, then instructs her to lick the envelope.
I can't point to any specific polling on this, but I would have to think the Republican Party is on track for a record low showing in the LGBTQ community.
Considering Assemblyman Carl DeMaio is the most prominent gay Republican in California, his job in helping the GOP in the state is made all the more difficult.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/10/02/carl-demaio-california-maga-voter-id-prop-39-01103730
Well, he's got a Politico puff piece going for him.
Yes although the actual article by Politico inaccurately described DeMaio as a hyper conservative. He is not as he’s pro-choice, pro gay marriage and pro environment, putting him at odds with the national GOP.
The main issues DeMaio has that help fire up his base are taxes, the state budget, immigration, voter IDs, etc. Otherwise, he’d probably be killed politically at the national level by the GOP.
DeMaio's agenda may really start to kick in when the next Democratic POTUS comes in if we're talking about 2029 and 2030. However, at the core, I really don't see him to be MAGA that much.
Maybe 10%?
One of these days, the CA Republican Party is going to have to decide if it really wants to win elections or not.
I leave the ball in it’s court.
Considering their congressional delegation is about go get double smoked after a dismal 2024 performance with 4 more seats leaving? Probably not.
Oh for sure.
I’ve lived in CA my whole life. It’s been absolutely fascinating as someone who grew up as a teenager during when Pete Wilson served two terms as Governor and Arnold Schwarzenegger was in office from 2004-2011 to see how the CA GOP has declined since then.
and it sure is great to see...even some of my republican neighbors hate the party and are voting straight line BLUE!!!!
Bizarre ads like this are intended to go viral. Sometimes it backfires if they're too weird, like the infamous "demon sheep" or "I'm not witch" ads. Even then, the candidate were long shots, so it's unclear that they actually lost support.
Can't we go back to the days of liking rocky road ice cream?
Funny!
I actually think it's kind of a clever ad. I mean, it'll have zero outcome on the race, but it's pretty daring.
Iowa Senate Poll By NYT/Siena (A+)
🟥 Ashley Hinson: 48% (=)
🟦 Josh Turek: 47% (+1)
9/24-10/1 | LV | (+/- vs June)
ALASKA SENATE POLL By NYT/Siena (A+)
🟦 Mary Peltola: 50% (+5)
🟥 Dan Sullivan (i): 43% (-4)
KANSAS POLL - Senate
🟦 Adam Hamilton: 45%
🟥 Roger Marshall (inc): 45%
🟨 David Graham: 2%
TEXAS SENATE POLL By NYT/Siena (A+)
🟦 James Talarico: 51% (+4)
🟥 Ken Paxton: 45% (-2)
OHIO SENATE POLL By NYT/Siena (A+)
🟦 Sherrod Brown: 49% (+2)
🟥 Jon Husted (i): 46% (-4)
Iowa Governor Poll by NYT/Siena
Rob Sand: 52%
Zach Lahn: 41%
Alaska Governor Poll by NYT/Siena (After all allocations)
Kreiss-Tomkins: 52%
Wilson: 48%
Kansas Governor by NYT/Siena
Masterson: 49%
Holscher: 44%
Texas Governor Poll by NYT/Siena
Hinojosa: 49%
Abbott: 46%
Ohio Governor Poll by NYT/Siena
Acton: 49%
Ramaswamy: 45%
So, for some reason, NYT removed the Governor polls from their latest polls page. I don't know if it's because it was data or too early of a release but I'll be on the lookout for new numbers if they come out
Disappointing to see Masterson underperform but it is what it is in Kansas. Incumbent party hasn't won non-incumbent consecutive governor races for decades now. Maybe Masterson will surprise us with an upset but I doubt it.
Despite that, all other governor races look really good, especially considering this is NYT, a highly rated and high quality pollster and one that tends to be more conservative in its bias. Increasingly too Hinojosa seems to be creeping up within the margin of error or even leading. I really wish they included the Libertarian, Pat Dixon. As always, pollsters are neglecting a nontrivial 3rd party that can easily affect the results.
Otherwise superb polling overall for the weekend.
You mean Holscher, not Masterson, and trailing by 5 in one poll is not terrible.
The Libertarian in the Kansas poll is at 5%
Iowa senate poll is very much within the margin of error and like many doesn't include the Libertarian. Every other poll basically shows a strong Democrat lead or worst case a tie in Kansas.
Also, there's a Rasmussen poll showing 43-47% with Turek performing even better than their last poll and despite their crap reputation, I will say that Rasmussen did at least include the 3rd party candidate.
Brooklyn Dem leadership:
https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2026/10/velazquez-not-bichotte-hermelyn-leads-bk-dems-judge-rules/416403/?oref=csny-homepage-river
A state Supreme Court judge has ruled that Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn is no longer the leader of the Brooklyn Dems. Reformer ally and outgoing Rep. Nydia Velazquez will be acting chair in the meantime — meaning the reformists may take control of the party.
NY State Dem leadership:
https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2026/10/jacobs-secures-reelection-state-dems-chair/416375/?oref=csny-homepage-river
Jay Jacobs won re election as chair by quite a bit. Sigh.
I’m not a fan of his, he cost us multiple House and state legislative seats in 2022 (including in places like Brooklyn where we had no business losing), Hochul’s leadership appears to have been the primary reason we rebounded in 2024 anyway, he spends most of his time engaging in ideological warfare with the left (not helpful in this environment), not only refused to back Mamdani when he won but actively told people not to vote for him (and even threatened to resign if Mamdani won), also refused to back India Walton in Buffalo when she won her primary and compared her to David Duke, and despite coming from Nassau County’s Dem party, he has presided over our electoral collapse there, with us recently losing the County Executive and DA races.
NY continues to have a ludicrously terrible Dem party. Even if you agree with Jacobs’ politics, his mismanagement alone should be disqualifying, I think.
That's an extremely frustrating result.
https://projects.statenavigate.com/25-26/national/
Rare free state navigate forecast, you can't look at any individual state legislative forecasts without a (very expensive) membership, but you can see trifecta odds, as well as the odds of breaking/gaining supermajorities.
There's also a section for the seats most likely to flip, and there are a few visible uncontested flips
FL HD-47: R to D, this has been covered here previously
NM HD-4: D to R, this has been covered here previously
VT Washington 1 (1 seat): I (D caucus) to R, the independent incumbent seems to have withdrawn or been disqualified, leaving the other Republican incumbent and a second Republican uncontested.
SD HD-27 (1 seat): R to I: The former Democrat who switched parties didn't run for re-election, and the Republicans only ran one candidate, the other incumbent. The one Democrat running seems to have been disqualified and is running as an independent, and a bunch of other independents are also running for the second seat. State Navigate has this listed as R to D so I assume all the other independents are also Democrats.
Republicans are discussing pulling money from once-competitive races they see as too difficult to win, including Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa, Rep. Tom Kean in New Jersey and an open seat in Nebraska, according to three people familiar with the talks.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/03/politics/republicans-congress-control-midterms?cid=ios_app
Buried in the article:
“Party leaders are particularly confident about two incumbents in purple seats: Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania and Mike Lawler in New York, both in districts Kamala Harris won in 2024.”
Are they right to be confident? Thoughts?
On the face of it, no, why should they be confident?
I guess Lawler loses and Fitz holds on but just based on vibes. Fitzpatrick is a genuinely good, bipartisan member of Congress who in another time I'd not have a ton of issues with. Lawler is a hack dressed up in moderate's clothing, like Susan Collins.
In what way is he genuinely good and better than Susan Collins?
I think your assessment of the results is right - Fitz is WAY more entrenched than Lawler. As I've said elsewhere, I'd pretty shocked if Lawler won. Fitz, I'd put at 50/50 or even a slight favorite.
I never understood why Marianette Miller-Meeks is so disliked. She was uncool with MAGA even when MAGA was cool.
I suspect the reason for this is that Miller-Meeks doesn’t exactly generate enthusiasm with the GOP. I don’t know if it’s solely because Democrats have been on the move in the IA-01 race.
A three judge panel of federal judges upholds the elimination of the minority majority district in TN 9. Pretty much echoing the Supreme Court in saying that as long as the motive is shown to be partisan, it doesn’t matter that minority voters have their voting power diluted.
Thttps://www.democracydocket.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-10-01-Order.pdf
They really can't help following unconstitutional rulings by the Supreme Court.
is there anyone to appeal to or is this it?
They could appeal it to the Supreme Court.
They could, but why?
Get the supreme court on record officially approving a map chopping up a compact 60% black seat without repercussion. More ammo for court reform, makes the stakes clearer to elected Dems who are uncomfortable with playing hardball.
Apparently Alito, one of the 2 most hardcore conservative cretins on the Supreme Court, alongside Clarence Thomas, plans to do an interview with CBS on Monday discussing among other things, his retirement timeline.
There's always the strong possibility that Alito will announce his sudden retirement right before the current senate's term ends, but that leaves them with an increasingly small and narrow window to appoint a replacement. It could obviously potentially boost turnout among MAGA like it did in 2018 and that whole fake outrage about Kavanaugh being treated unfairly. Then again it might not. Trump has already lashed out against all of his own Supreme Court appointees, Gorsuch, Barrett and Kavanaugh saying he regrets nominating them. It's also hard to see how this could bail out Trump or Republicans. The Supreme Court is already historically unpopular, and so is Trump and Congress. In fact Trump is even more unpopular now than he was back in 2018 before the midterms. If anything, this might boost Democrat and left leaning turnout further instead.
Alito at the least, does seem actively aware of his own health and the state of Congress and current events, unlike Ginsburg, who despite her jurisprudence and virtuous adherence to integrity, justice and equality, allowed her ailing health to get the better of her.
I wish Alito really were a cretin. If so, he would be less effective.
I want the hardest of hardball, and the dirtiest of tactics to prevent that seat from getting filled during trump's term, if possible.
Trump's fundamental flaw is that he's not able to see through by his SCOTUS nominations that all of them possess a certain degree of independent thinking even if they are for the most part conservative in their ideology and votes. Coney Barrett, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh all have ruled against him on more than one occasion, which certainly pisses Trump off as he's expecting loyalty above all. If Trump nominates another SCOTUS to replace Alito, it'll be the same as before with the previous three.
As for Alito, I'm skeptical he would retire before the end of this year.
Tipped, but I really reject the idea that any of the right-wing justices are conservative. They are radical anti-constitutional right-wingers.
Yes although general mainstream media labeling of justices like Alito, Coney Barrett, Gorsuch, etc. labels them as conservatives. Also, Alito’s decision to author the opinion on ending Roe vs Wade is just absurd. He knew exactly what he was doing and the decision by the SCOTUS for decades since Roe vs Wade was to affirm this was settled law of the land. If he’s getting chastised by his own colleagues and friends as he mentioned in the article, that means no matter how he tries to spin it his credibility is gone.
Conservatives in the Bay Area on the other hand whom I talk to, even at business settings, I can have reasonable conversations with. Most of the time it’s about tax policy, addressing crime and safety, homelessness, and the economy. Pretty much ongoing issues where you can have healthy discourse depending on the person.
The mainstream media are wrong and are paying no attention to definitions and history when they call these radical rightists "conservative".
https://www.kansas.com/opinion/guest-commentary/article317456793.html
KS-Sen: Former Republican Gov. Mike Hayden endorses Democrat Adam Hamilton. This comes after former Republican Gov. Bill Graves did the same.
Apparently Hamilton has now been endorsed by 6 of the 8 living KS Governors--all but Brownback and Colyer.
https://www.kansas.com/latest-news/article317471113.html
NBC - Trump’s Approval Rating Among Latinos at 27%
Eyes will be on states like TX to see how things fare in the midterms with Latino voters this pissed at Trump with the way things are.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sRdgj-95FCs&pp=ugUEEgJlbg%3D%3D&ra=m
My biggest takeaway is that we're merely splitting the difference with Hispanic voters between 2018 and 2024. In 2018, Beto O'Rourke, Andrew Gillum, and Bill Nelson still lost. Unless the final Hispanic vote tally ends up more lopsided than NBC's current polling shows, we're gonna fall short of a tsunami. As always, correct poll modeling is essential, and for a community with voting behavior as dynamic as Hispanics have been in the last decade, it'll be extremely had to pin down.
So to be clear, which contested Senate campaigns do you expect the Democrats to lose? Texas, Florida...?
Well, I'm very confident that Democrats lose Florida. As for Texas, I'm saying one of two things has to happen: either the Hispanic vote has to resemble the 2018 margin more closely than the 2024 poll, or the math is unlikely to work out for Talarico. The polling is obviously not definitive, but if Talarico is unable to match O'Rourke's margin with Hispanic voters, it's hard to see how he wins.
I agree with your conditional statement. What about other elections?
All I've got is:
https://x.com/PpollingNumbers/status/2106904736221852094
New - Hisponic voter trend
🔴 2024 - Trump +10
🔵 2026 - Democrats +30
40% swing to the Democrats
YouGov #B - LV
2018 was a much different economic environment. No inflation but tariffs in at the time to a lesser extreme vs how things are now with more tariffs.
Traditionally speaking, Hispanic and Latino voters vote on economics. If Trump isn’t doing anything to solve their problems, then that accounts for why his approval rating for these demographics is astronomically low.
I continue to wait patiently for a single data point indicating that the Minnesota Senate race is anything other than a tossup.
It's become a biennial rite of passage for both campaigns and analysts to sleepwalk through Minnesota races, assuming they're not gonna be competitive but then realizing either just before or just after the finish line that they were competitive all along. One of these next times, Democrats are gonna end up on the losing end of that sleepwalking.
You mean Democrats won't win every state-wide election in Minnesota forever? No. But who said they would?
I singled out the most important race on the Minnesota ballot this year: the U.S. Senate race. It would be Shakespearean if the Democrats fell short of controlling the Senate because of a loss in Minnesota, and yet I've seen no indication that that isn't just as likely to happen as not, and I've seen no indication that anybody on the Democratic side is recognizing the vulnerability here.
If somebody somewhere has data to help me back off the ledge here, I'd love for them to show it. But week after week passes and we keep not getting it.
Are you privy to their private polling? It must be telling a different story than yours.
I'm not. That's why I'm waiting so patiently to see some. The fact that it keeps not coming indicates it's not markedly different than the public polls that are all showing ties.
All the post-primary polls so far are from Republican-aligned pollsters or pollsters with weak reputations and deeply questionable crosstabs. This is getting a bit exhausting.
And it begs the question.....why are we not seeing polling from Democratic-aligned pollsters or campaign internals if they show something different than what one after another after another public poll is showing? At some point, if something doesn't smell right, it probably means that something isn't right.
It smells fine. Releasing a poll showing Flannagan way in the lead would hurt her fundraising abilities.
Seems far-fetched but that's the closest thing to a coherent defense of sitting on private polling. I'd say the more likely scenario is that the private polling shows a result either identical to the public polls or just a tick better, and releasing it would invite more Republican resources and facilitate a downward classification shift by race prognosticators.
As it stands, for the Cook Report to still have this as Likely D strikes me as the same kind of analyst detachment from Minnesota as what we saw on election night 2016 when it was 4 a.m. before analysts even realized that Minnesota was tied with 90+% of the vote in.
Won't really know for a month of course, but my suspicion is this is closest to another 2022 WA-Sen situation (where the public polling looked like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_Senate_election_in_Washington#Polling)
6 of the last 7 polls had (R) after them! But interestingly, none of them were internals from GOP nominee Tiffany Smiley. They're unrelated, self-directed (R) pollsters like co/efficient, InsiderAdvantage, and Trafalgar of course. Choosing to poll an underpolled state where they smelled a potential upset. They found a tied race, unanswered by any internals from Senator Murray, who nonetheless ended up winning by ~15 points.
What do we see for MN-Sen this year? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_Senate_election_in_Minnesota#Polling_3
Once again, 6 of the last 7 MN polls are these same or similar non-campaign affiliated (R) pollsters! No other state's publicly available polls looks like that right now. Flanagan has not produced any internals but neither has Tafoya.
There's surprises every year, swing is never uniform, state specific events can be a much larger factor in midterms, etc., if MN is close it would not be the most shocking thing in the world. You could very well be right, and on plenty of occasions your concern contrary to optimistic Dem consensus has proven to be correct. I'm just saying, the polling situation in MN right now has a familiar smell, and as such I think there's good reason to be doubtful of their findings.
I wonder if they don't want to release polling because the row offices are tougher and showing a tossup for the senate seat just keeps the same narrative. I still think Dems prevail just because of the national environment and Klobuchar leading the ticket but the other statewide offices and legislature concern me more.
Likewise. Clearly if Harris and Walz were President and Vice President right now rather than Trump and Vance, Minnesota Democrats would be on the cusp of a 2002-style thumping next month. I'm crossing my fingers that the national environment helps Minnesota Dems thread the needle with the close ones, but at this point I'm pretty much at peace that it might be a 49-state Democratic wave this year but it's not gonna be 50 states.
If the row offices were in serious danger, they might not release polling, but party would absolutely shift funding towards those races. Is there any evidence of that happening?
I don't disagree that MN as a state could be competitive in the near future, but I just cannot fathom us losing a statewide race there in an environment this blue.
AZ-5:
https://bsky.app/profile/reginageorgebush.bsky.social/post/3mx2irgspm22k
Apparently Dem candidate Elizabeth Lee has internal polls showing her just barely behind GOP nominee Mark Lamb.
For reference, this was Andy Biggs’ seat.
NPR did an article on Lamb losing most Mormon support in the district. Could get interesting.
AZ, particularly in AZ-05, seems to have a substantial Mormon population. After all, former Senator Jeff Flake is Mormon.
https://projects.statenavigate.com/interactives/pa/sd-46-live-poll/
State Navigate live poll showing a very close race in a deep red Pennsylvania State Senate seat between an independent and Republican, the independent seems like a left-wing populist (although her website doesn't mention social issues at all). Considering there are a lot of undecideds, and I expect them to break towards the Republicans, the race probably won't be super close in the end, but interesting nonetheless.
Just saw a Ken Paxton ad...while watching a Bears vs. Jets game...in West Virginia
And another, this time from an outside group attacking Talarico.
So much wasted money.
Saw a pro-Paxton advduring a Missouri-LSU volleyball match. Granted, the match in question aired on the SEC Network, where a Paxton ad would not be out of place (there are two SEC member universities in Texas), but the number of Texans watching a volleyball match that did not include a Texas-based team is probably very small and almost exclusively diehard fans of the sport of volleyball.
I also doubt there's many New York or Chicago sports fans in Texas. A lot of transplants, sure, but the state has two NFL teams. It was on CBS, which has begun a shift to the right after new ownership took over last year, however.