Conventions are really weird, I wouldn't gauge too much from it.
And just to round out, the Dem nominees for treasurer and comptroller are Coumba Kebe and Jessica Bailey. The Repub convention to select their three nominees is on 6/20.
I was a Beau delegate and cast my vote for him. I will say that the Potter side was way bigger and louder than I thought it would be. Bayh has some work to do within the party. But he can and will unify us.
Tbh, I'd rather find out about Platner's scandals now, than in September or October of this year, that's for sure.
I think voters care less about personal scandal for two reasons. First, Trump has obviously crossed the Rubicon when it comes to personal allegations and conduct in dozens of ways, and this has desensitized the population to some extent. Secondly, the current macroeconomic and personal finance situation for many people is not looking great, as the delta between wage and price increases continues to widen. People won't care much about sexting, affairs and such when they can barely pay for food and rent, and once regular parts of life such as vacations, slip out of reach for increasingly many.
Quotes from the Times: "The Times could not independently corroborate Ms. Fifield’s account of the altercations."
"Ms. Fifield, who is affiliated with Independent Women, a conservative group, insisted that her political beliefs had nothing to do with her choice to come forward. She worked briefly on Nikki Haley’s 2024 presidential campaign and before that for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Ms. Fifield said she had not been paid by any campaign or political entity since Ms. Haley’s campaign."
They spend more time talking about her work with Independent Women. Did not mention Ladies for Kavanaugh.
⬆️"The dems flip the following state houses AZ, WI, TX, FL and NC."
I'm in NC which is heavily gerrymandered at both the state and federal level. Currently the GOP effectively have a super-majority since two Democrats changed their party affiliation to unaffiliated after they both lost their primaries badly.
I do think it will be a good year for Democrats - just not that good.
Texas’ geography actually favors democrats a bit. Don’t need to exactly tie statewide baseline to carry the state House.
NC has bad geography already set in with the county line requirement. 2022 wasn’t going well with a 3-5 pt statewide deficit under a more or less neutral map. The remap basically locked in a lot of R build in advantage. I think winning a statewide 3-5pt may be in stock, but where the margins are matters. You see the lopsided primary D +15 pt turnout, but with Dem doing even worse than 24 on the eastern plains, esp with White voters? Fully expect that if Cooper wins mid to high single digit, that will come with him getting WORSE than his previous competitive races on the eastern plains. I.e White support there drops down to low teen or single digit!
Unfortunately that is where the last several HD majority makers are. Probably come to very close but a handful seats shy, if it is a D+8 or 9 wave, like +6 in NC. A tsunami larger than that, probably means a lot of R leaning voters just sit out. Anything could happen then.
I believe that the Texas state constitution has laws that mandate that state electoral districts can't go across county lines unless absolutely necessary and this prevents the GOP from gerrymandering by making long thin seats that put a slice of the suburbs connected to rural areas.
While Dean and Schneider have the liberty to speak on races outside of their states, I do agree that it doesn't put Platner in a great position as someone trying to win a competitive race in the same party as them. They could stay quiet, or at least not be as publicly callous about it.
"It was a positive for their party even though they lost many races...they shouldn't have lost". I don't think you and I have the same definition of "positive" in this context, Republicans would have a death grip on the Senate absent their awful candidates since 2010.
I guess. I just think there's better ways to determine party loyalty than support for gerrymandering, an idea that is pretty much universally hated by all Americans. Not a great look for a party if a main facet of it is just attempting to steal seats and elections.
Gerrymandering before reform you suggest can only go so far, and all it does is just continue to make voters distrust both parties and the political process. Maybe this cycle is fine, since the gerrymandering on the Republican side has been unprecedented in 2026, but I don't think it should be a standard bearer for future cycles.
Precisely. We gerrymander the *&^% out of every district we can using any legal means at our disposal. Then, when we control the Presidency, House and Senate (after 2028, hopefully) we institute a national redistricting policy, which should be order of business #1 for the new administration.
"Abolish ICE" is what I want to hear. Gerrymandering is a tactic; people can change their minds. ICE is about morals. It should be clear-cut.
As far as tactics, I would like people to start talking about longer term, more substantial goals. Proportional representation. At the moment no one even knows what that is, so getting to a place where we can push for it is a longer project than we'll likely have enough votes for, if at all,
I doubt proportional representation is a likely prospect, no matter what, for a long time. And a lot of people wouldn't support it. I believe there are much more important things to focus on.
For some of my friends, even the moderate ones, Platner and Talarico's support for eliminating the filibuster was what sold them on two very different candidates. Thats's how pissed off even some moderate Dems are.
Biden–Newsom–Trump–Prop 50 +17 ("destroy all Republicans" redistricting) voters were simply never going to vote for Valadao in 2026. This has been one of my favorite results.
Bains, a conservative Democrat who flip-flopped on multiple issues during the campaign, and her allies relentlessly and falsely attacked Villegas as someone who covered up sexual abuse and as "Central Valley's Mamdani" (which he kind of is). They poured in $2.5 million from Jeffries-linked super PACs and another $2.5 million from AIPAC/DMFI.
Despite facing an ungodly amount of dark money, Villegas appears to have overcome it and is likely to become the next congressman representing the Central Valley. Getting the endorsements of Bernie, AOC and the Hispanic Caucus in a largely Hispanic district that has never been represented by a Latino didn't hurt.
If Jeffries had spent his resources more wisely, Esther Kim Varet wouldn't be locked out.
Mamdani had pretty strong support from Hispanic voters, iirc. Perhaps a combination of his immigrant background and strong focus on pocketbook issues. So trying to vilify a leftist by calling him a Mamdani in a heavily Hispanic district perhaps wasn't the wisest move.
Bains wouldn't be winning a primary in a district that is 75 percent Latino against a Latino elected official, even a leftier one, in any scenario. Somewhat laughable that the New Dems/Blue Dogs didn't have enough sense to recruit a Latino moderate.
Considering Bains has held her very Hispanic assembly district in 2022 and 2024 against Hispanic opponents of both parties with ease, she could very well have won against a weaker opponent. There are a lot of reasons to criticize her, but the electability angle never really made since.
Valadeo is Portuguese and Adam Gray is white. Hispanic candidates like Becerra and Padilla (despite supporting the Green New Deal) have always overperformed in that district but Bains would not have difficulty in getting elected.
FWIW, Villegas doesn't support the GND or an assault weapons ban.
I agree. Anytime you have so-called "moderates" or those projecting a moderate political agenda/persona in the GOP, they end up pissing constituents off just like David Valadao, Lisa Murkowski and Mike Lawler have done.
Murkowski is the most unfortunate victim here of the wrath of criticism because she was the only Republican in the Senate to vote against confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the SCOTUS. That was the closest I've ever seen any Republican be truly moderate but after voting for the BBB, even while she was conflicted about it, still forever damaged her image.
IA-Gov: I don't necessarily think it's the *best* idea for Rob Sand to start his general election campaign by attacking Zach Lahn, but he is anyway. Thankfully, a few minutes into the interview, he pivoted to talking about the issues.
One interesting idea Sand had that I wasn't aware of: having a top 4 general election with a blanket primary, similar to Alaska's system.
MT-Sen and NE-Sen are good examples of why California's top-two system is attractive: you guarantee no vote splitting worries in the general. With the set of candidates in those states, the question of who might or might not drop out isn't a big deal.
CA-Gov is a counterpoint, showing how the system breaks down with larger numbers of candidates.
Top-four with RCV is definitely better, though it could still result in a lockout in extreme cases with very large candidate fields. Party primaries with RCV followed by a general with RCV seems like the way to me.
I would go away with top tier period whether it be top two or top four. Top four would be the lesser of two evils here as it doesn’t assure fairness to any political party to realistically compete in the general election.
Ranked choice though in a primary sense would work as long as the primary process has separate RCV for each party. If not, then it makes no sense.
With California's incredibly slow vote counting, I'm beginning to wonder if RCV can even work in a CA statewide election.
Normal tallying is taking 30 days. How long will it take with several rounds of RCV statewide?? Not to mention the longer period of uncertainty of who's the victor.
(Note than RCV is used successfully in a few muni elections in the state)
I fixed it. I gave the 10th the southern half of Bloomfield to compensate. It made the 11th a little bluer. Is it also okay that Jersey City has 3 districts with at least a small portion of it in them?
Splitting the plurality African-American parts of Jersey City from the rest of it is already common practice, the 3rd split is unusual but because I'm not from the area, I don't know how it would play.
The southern half of Bloomfield is fairly demographically distinct from the northern half, so splitting it up is probably more acceptable to the people there.
Dr. Pan has pulled ahead of Michael Stansfield for the second slot, so it looks like dems have avoided a lock out (additional ballots are likely to only widen the gap)
What the heck happened in CA-06? Is Kevin Kiley a mastermind that planned:
1. changing his registration to indie (NPP), but will still get the votes of knowledgeable conservatives, plus
2. recruit Stansfield, a Some Dude with an (R) after the name, and
3. have no other R's on the ballot, thus all the low-info conservative voters vote for the (R) guy, and in roughly equal proportion to his own vote, plus
4. manage to get several other Dems on the ballot in addition to Pan, to spread out the Dem vote,
5. Thus setting up the classic situation for a top-two Dem. lock-out.
If so, that would really be some genius scheming. Which came close, but happily didn't quite work.
None of that was planned by Kiley. His party change was a good gambit by him, but out of desperation. My guess is that lower-info voters saw his name w/o a GOP party label and voted for him out of vague familiarity.
The filing deadline was right after Kiley changed his party affiliation, so I doubt 2 and 4 are possible. However, I think it's entirely plausible that after seeing one random Republican file against him, his changed his party affiliation to try to make a top-2 lock out possible.
California allows a three-word candidate description, and Kiley put "United States Representative", that's probably how he got first place. And name rec.
Looking back to previous jungle primaries for this district (2022 and 2024 as well as every race from 2012 to 2020 in the predecessor district CA-21), it's the first time the total R vote is below a majority.
The sheer volume of money AIPAC and Jeffries-aligned groups dumped into the race in the closing week, particularly after AOC and several prominent Hispanic progressives rallied behind Villegas in response to the DCCC's heavy-handed intervention, made it obvious that Bains was in deep trouble.
Valadeo as well as anti-Israel Super PAC American Priorities blasting AOC's endorsement for Villegas seems to have helped.
Just checked and his parents were Azore Portuguese immigrants who came directly to the USA. Unusual for Azoreans to move to the Central Valley far from the sea, but maybe they wanted a change.
That's the one I'm interested in. Hope she can. I do not look forward to another five months of Pratt (apt name) capering and mugging and Trumping all over the frigging place. More, Nithya probably has a decent chance of beating Bass 1:1, and from what I've seen I like her.
Right, but if Pratt was winning conservative voters, why would they vote for a DSA candidate over a more establishment Democrat? I can't imagine Raman appeals to the "punish the homeless" crowd any more than Bass does.
Considering the runoff is the same day as the general election, conservatives staying home seems unlikely. Undervoting is possible, but I wouldn't count on that, as while not completely analogous, conservatives were willing to turnout and vote for Cuomo to try to keep Mamdani from winning, despite most of them likely not being fond of him as governor. Sure, Bass isn't going to throw them racist catnip like Cuomo did, but still.
She doesn't have to. It's another election in November with more time for a 1:1 campaign; who knows who'll turn out this time? Nov also when more people are paying attention.
If runoffs always ended up with the person in first place winning, there wouldn't be runoffs.
I don't think she has to. She just has to consolidate all of the other support that's out there. Bass is only sitting at 36% right now. For the record, I want Bass to win, but I think Raman has a better than even shot of beating her if its the two of them in the GE.
It had to do with opposition to a carbon capture pipeline that would run through the state. Sioux Falls mayor Paul TenHaken bankrolled the challengers. The incumbents that lost were mostly 2024 insurgents that defeated incumbents then, also due to the pipeline issue.
If the midterms were this coming Tuesday, how would you rank the Senate seats most likely to flip? North Carolina is my solid #1, but 2-6 I find myself constantly changing my mind on. If forced to guess:
1. North Carolina
2. Alaska
3. Texas
4. Maine
5. Ohio
6. Iowa
I feel you can make a good argument for any of them to be 2-6 though.
Platner's a hot mess, honestly, and that's the generous interpretation. Just saw they're tied in one poll now. Could be a blip, could be an omen. Hey ho.
I do think Iowa and Ohio are looking promising. Trump screwed farmers pretty hard; I think the midwest in general could have some surprises.
Alaska I'm not sure. One thing to look out for: SCOTUS ruling on mail-in ballots. A good chunk of Peltola's base is NA and far from any kind of city center, which I'm assuming includes drop boxes.
On the other hand, there's that other Republican Dan Sullivan, heh. I don't know that he was an actual Dem plant, as the irate incumbent's PR team is accusing, but it's pretty funny.
I am hoping hard for Texas, but...Texas. Also I think they're one of the likeliest states to blatantly cheat somehow.
Some other dark horses: Nebraska, still with Osborn. Montana also has an indie but in their case the Dem says she won't drop, so that's almost certainly out.
Florida, (I know, I know) has had some optimistic polling. There's one really unpleasant reason I think turnout for Donalds might not be as high as it could be. And I hear Jolly is running a good campaign, but I haven't looked for myself tbh
Finally...Kansas. Their primary's a ways off and last I saw the dark horse Dem, head of a really large church, was getting attacked hard by someone else, Idk numbers. And yeah, it'd be huge: they haven't had a Dem senator in a century.
But, they did just have a Dem governor. And we do live in unprecedented times. So...
oh, as for NC, that seems to be consensus it's extremely likely to flip, has been all along, and polls continue to support that.
I am somewhat worried about Michigan tbh. Georgia looks more and more solid. And New Hampshire seems somewhere in between. I think with this environment we likely keep NH. I am concerned that the frontrunner in MI Dems may be too polarizing for the general. idk.
Poll just came out with them tied. Idk the pollster. We'll see if it's a fluke or an omen, I guess.
We'll also see if anything -else- is gonna drop. Disclosure: I do not like or trust this guy. I'm just glad as usual I'm not in some kind of position where I'd have to either defend him or effectively throw it to Collins. Yes, I still hope he wins, obviously. Well. I hope Collins loses. There doesn't seem to be any other route at this point.
But if this story starts going more in the direction of Swalwell, or if it turns out he was sexting a minor or something...yeah, I'm done.
It'd be great in general if we could get over our enchantment with "Trump, but leftishly" tbh
the main accuser/ex in the NYT story was apparently in something called "Ladies for Kavanaugh." Idk if that necessarily means she is lying about the bits he's denying. Sometimes it's an "everybody sucks here" scenario. That said, that likely doesn't help their case with people determined to like this guy.
S Kolb said above that they would support Collins over Platner, so they probably don't want it to flip. Specifically, "Agree with Congresswoman Dean. Platner should be history even if it means handing the Senate seat to Collins!"
I can't quite go that far just yet, but it's a knife edge, and I'm steeling myself for the next, worse drop. This guy's a hot mess at best, and all this history goes ill imo with the ideals he professes to tout.
But if somehow it doesn't progress to more and worse accusations...yeah, his vote's more important in a utilitarian sense, and I suppose I'm one of those.
If he can stumble past the finish line and THEN flames out, well, hope ME keeps a Dem governor; maybe that'd be the most optimistic ending.
Of course we still haven't got rid of Fetterman...
I wouldn’t either but given Democrats only need four seats to back control over the Senate, the logic is we win AK, NC, OH and TX but ME is not needed to win control.
That said, with the sentiment that has been building towards how Platner has gotten support so far and how none of the controversies are really changing things polling wise for her, Collins may be in for a bit surprise November.
So EV closed today in SC. After EV started a week ago last Tue, we've had debates for both sides of the Gov race hosted by public tv, debates for Ag Commissioner and some other statewide offices, a GOP Gov candidate drop (Kimbrell), and a major poll drop (Citadel) which included responses during the EV period. Record numbers of EVers.
All this irritates me. Debates should be held before EV starts. Help out the voters folks!
I was worried about Bayh losing since conventions favor the most extreme candidates. So I will take it.
Conventions are really weird, I wouldn't gauge too much from it.
And just to round out, the Dem nominees for treasurer and comptroller are Coumba Kebe and Jessica Bailey. The Repub convention to select their three nominees is on 6/20.
I was a Beau delegate and cast my vote for him. I will say that the Potter side was way bigger and louder than I thought it would be. Bayh has some work to do within the party. But he can and will unify us.
I wonder if GOP pollsters are modeling a 2020 electorate for 2026. Collins's last internal poll in 2020 had a tie, IIRC.
That or a 2024 one.
Is that even good in this day and age? Yea they're trying to spin this but idk drip drip drip.
There’s a lot of RW copium in those Xitter comments.
Tbh, I'd rather find out about Platner's scandals now, than in September or October of this year, that's for sure.
I think voters care less about personal scandal for two reasons. First, Trump has obviously crossed the Rubicon when it comes to personal allegations and conduct in dozens of ways, and this has desensitized the population to some extent. Secondly, the current macroeconomic and personal finance situation for many people is not looking great, as the delta between wage and price increases continues to widen. People won't care much about sexting, affairs and such when they can barely pay for food and rent, and once regular parts of life such as vacations, slip out of reach for increasingly many.
Quotes from the Times: "The Times could not independently corroborate Ms. Fifield’s account of the altercations."
"Ms. Fifield, who is affiliated with Independent Women, a conservative group, insisted that her political beliefs had nothing to do with her choice to come forward. She worked briefly on Nikki Haley’s 2024 presidential campaign and before that for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Ms. Fifield said she had not been paid by any campaign or political entity since Ms. Haley’s campaign."
They spend more time talking about her work with Independent Women. Did not mention Ladies for Kavanaugh.
I don't see a lawsuit here.
Consider breaking your post into several posts and covering a few links at a time.
⬆️"The dems flip the following state houses AZ, WI, TX, FL and NC."
I'm in NC which is heavily gerrymandered at both the state and federal level. Currently the GOP effectively have a super-majority since two Democrats changed their party affiliation to unaffiliated after they both lost their primaries badly.
I do think it will be a good year for Democrats - just not that good.
Texas’ geography actually favors democrats a bit. Don’t need to exactly tie statewide baseline to carry the state House.
NC has bad geography already set in with the county line requirement. 2022 wasn’t going well with a 3-5 pt statewide deficit under a more or less neutral map. The remap basically locked in a lot of R build in advantage. I think winning a statewide 3-5pt may be in stock, but where the margins are matters. You see the lopsided primary D +15 pt turnout, but with Dem doing even worse than 24 on the eastern plains, esp with White voters? Fully expect that if Cooper wins mid to high single digit, that will come with him getting WORSE than his previous competitive races on the eastern plains. I.e White support there drops down to low teen or single digit!
Unfortunately that is where the last several HD majority makers are. Probably come to very close but a handful seats shy, if it is a D+8 or 9 wave, like +6 in NC. A tsunami larger than that, probably means a lot of R leaning voters just sit out. Anything could happen then.
FL House is just kidding, tbh.
I believe that the Texas state constitution has laws that mandate that state electoral districts can't go across county lines unless absolutely necessary and this prevents the GOP from gerrymandering by making long thin seats that put a slice of the suburbs connected to rural areas.
North Carolina has that on its constitution as well, which the SCONC interpreted as requiring county groupings.
The gerrymander on legislative seats are done within these groupings.
good grief!!
While Dean and Schneider have the liberty to speak on races outside of their states, I do agree that it doesn't put Platner in a great position as someone trying to win a competitive race in the same party as them. They could stay quiet, or at least not be as publicly callous about it.
"It was a positive for their party even though they lost many races...they shouldn't have lost". I don't think you and I have the same definition of "positive" in this context, Republicans would have a death grip on the Senate absent their awful candidates since 2010.
I definitely don't think support of gerrymandering should be the first litmus test for Democrats to stand up to Trump.
The equivalent is statehood for DC as soon as possible (I'd also say for PR, but that's much less nearly a guarantee of 2 seats for Democrats).
I guess. I just think there's better ways to determine party loyalty than support for gerrymandering, an idea that is pretty much universally hated by all Americans. Not a great look for a party if a main facet of it is just attempting to steal seats and elections.
The take is to absolutely fight to gerrymander until universal rules prohibiting it from any party are adopted nationwide.
Gerrymandering before reform you suggest can only go so far, and all it does is just continue to make voters distrust both parties and the political process. Maybe this cycle is fine, since the gerrymandering on the Republican side has been unprecedented in 2026, but I don't think it should be a standard bearer for future cycles.
Precisely. We gerrymander the *&^% out of every district we can using any legal means at our disposal. Then, when we control the Presidency, House and Senate (after 2028, hopefully) we institute a national redistricting policy, which should be order of business #1 for the new administration.
"Abolish ICE" is what I want to hear. Gerrymandering is a tactic; people can change their minds. ICE is about morals. It should be clear-cut.
As far as tactics, I would like people to start talking about longer term, more substantial goals. Proportional representation. At the moment no one even knows what that is, so getting to a place where we can push for it is a longer project than we'll likely have enough votes for, if at all,
I doubt proportional representation is a likely prospect, no matter what, for a long time. And a lot of people wouldn't support it. I believe there are much more important things to focus on.
For some of my friends, even the moderate ones, Platner and Talarico's support for eliminating the filibuster was what sold them on two very different candidates. Thats's how pissed off even some moderate Dems are.
What about supporting not applying the filibuster to fundamental things like restoration of the Voting Rights Act?
You're kind of right, but Democrats saying Democrats who won primaries essentially should lose - by default to Republicans - is a problem.
Agree with Congresswoman Dean. Platner should be history even if it means handing the Senate seat to Collins!
Just, no.
Trump is not going to be able to put his political opponents in jail since any phony legal case against them will be dismissed in court.
yes!
Oh FFS.
Advocating for Republicans to win is not acceptable on this site. I won't report your comment, but don't do it again.
Seems like a bad omen for Valadao, even if he can peel away a fair chunk of Bains's most moderate supporters...
Biden–Newsom–Trump–Prop 50 +17 ("destroy all Republicans" redistricting) voters were simply never going to vote for Valadao in 2026. This has been one of my favorite results.
Bains, a conservative Democrat who flip-flopped on multiple issues during the campaign, and her allies relentlessly and falsely attacked Villegas as someone who covered up sexual abuse and as "Central Valley's Mamdani" (which he kind of is). They poured in $2.5 million from Jeffries-linked super PACs and another $2.5 million from AIPAC/DMFI.
Despite facing an ungodly amount of dark money, Villegas appears to have overcome it and is likely to become the next congressman representing the Central Valley. Getting the endorsements of Bernie, AOC and the Hispanic Caucus in a largely Hispanic district that has never been represented by a Latino didn't hurt.
If Jeffries had spent his resources more wisely, Esther Kim Varet wouldn't be locked out.
"Central Valley's Mamdani"... wow, talk about an overly-online attack line!!
Mamdani had pretty strong support from Hispanic voters, iirc. Perhaps a combination of his immigrant background and strong focus on pocketbook issues. So trying to vilify a leftist by calling him a Mamdani in a heavily Hispanic district perhaps wasn't the wisest move.
Bains wouldn't be winning a primary in a district that is 75 percent Latino against a Latino elected official, even a leftier one, in any scenario. Somewhat laughable that the New Dems/Blue Dogs didn't have enough sense to recruit a Latino moderate.
Considering Bains has held her very Hispanic assembly district in 2022 and 2024 against Hispanic opponents of both parties with ease, she could very well have won against a weaker opponent. There are a lot of reasons to criticize her, but the electability angle never really made since.
Valadeo is Portuguese and Adam Gray is white. Hispanic candidates like Becerra and Padilla (despite supporting the Green New Deal) have always overperformed in that district but Bains would not have difficulty in getting elected.
FWIW, Villegas doesn't support the GND or an assault weapons ban.
Note: I have changed it to "Central Valley's Mamdani" after recalling the correct version of the attack line.
There's been a general trend of "ungodly floods of money" aren't enough to push someone over the edge, it seems. I like it.
Valadao voted for the BBB. He’s delusional thinking he’s got the same reputation as he has before with moderates.
There are no "moderate" Republicans now, certainly at a federal level. Maybe some state and locals still count, but not anywhere near me.
I agree. Anytime you have so-called "moderates" or those projecting a moderate political agenda/persona in the GOP, they end up pissing constituents off just like David Valadao, Lisa Murkowski and Mike Lawler have done.
Murkowski is the most unfortunate victim here of the wrath of criticism because she was the only Republican in the Senate to vote against confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the SCOTUS. That was the closest I've ever seen any Republican be truly moderate but after voting for the BBB, even while she was conflicted about it, still forever damaged her image.
Agreed - I'd say whichever D emerges is a slight favorite in the GE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh-u-a6Oins
IA-Gov: I don't necessarily think it's the *best* idea for Rob Sand to start his general election campaign by attacking Zach Lahn, but he is anyway. Thankfully, a few minutes into the interview, he pivoted to talking about the issues.
One interesting idea Sand had that I wasn't aware of: having a top 4 general election with a blanket primary, similar to Alaska's system.
Gotta define the blank slate candidate before Lahn can himself. This is a good strategy. Shift to Iowa issues after.
MT-Sen and NE-Sen are good examples of why California's top-two system is attractive: you guarantee no vote splitting worries in the general. With the set of candidates in those states, the question of who might or might not drop out isn't a big deal.
CA-Gov is a counterpoint, showing how the system breaks down with larger numbers of candidates.
Top-four with RCV is definitely better, though it could still result in a lockout in extreme cases with very large candidate fields. Party primaries with RCV followed by a general with RCV seems like the way to me.
I would go away with top tier period whether it be top two or top four. Top four would be the lesser of two evils here as it doesn’t assure fairness to any political party to realistically compete in the general election.
Ranked choice though in a primary sense would work as long as the primary process has separate RCV for each party. If not, then it makes no sense.
With California's incredibly slow vote counting, I'm beginning to wonder if RCV can even work in a CA statewide election.
Normal tallying is taking 30 days. How long will it take with several rounds of RCV statewide?? Not to mention the longer period of uncertainty of who's the victor.
(Note than RCV is used successfully in a few muni elections in the state)
There’s no reason California can’t have a robust mail ballot preprocessing system like they do in Florida. They have the resources to do it.
Yeah, our system kind of blows (CA) Ranked choice all around would be better. Better still (combined with): fusion voting.
I drew a much neater D gerrymander of NJ this week that actually is realistic, unlike last week: https://davesredistricting.org/join/9d827af3-24ed-430e-95cf-e18bc8d8a553
I'd bet that this 2nd voted for Kamala Harris, but the 2024 data for NJ isn't currently available on DRA.
That's pretty nice Ethan. Though the last version was entertaining in the way finding shapes in clouds is entertaining. 😄
Q: Isn't this something that AI would be pretty efficient at doing? Put in the rules and it cranks for 5 minutes to spit out districts?
I doubt South Orange and Maplewood would be put in different districts, but otherwise very well done.
Shows how little I know about the Oranges.
I fixed it. I gave the 10th the southern half of Bloomfield to compensate. It made the 11th a little bluer. Is it also okay that Jersey City has 3 districts with at least a small portion of it in them?
Splitting the plurality African-American parts of Jersey City from the rest of it is already common practice, the 3rd split is unusual but because I'm not from the area, I don't know how it would play.
The southern half of Bloomfield is fairly demographically distinct from the northern half, so splitting it up is probably more acceptable to the people there.
CA-06
Dr. Pan has pulled ahead of Michael Stansfield for the second slot, so it looks like dems have avoided a lock out (additional ballots are likely to only widen the gap)
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/us/elections/results-california-us-house-6-primary.html
It's nice to not have to wait until the final ballots for our guy to get back into contention. I see Becerra took the lead as well.
What the heck happened in CA-06? Is Kevin Kiley a mastermind that planned:
1. changing his registration to indie (NPP), but will still get the votes of knowledgeable conservatives, plus
2. recruit Stansfield, a Some Dude with an (R) after the name, and
3. have no other R's on the ballot, thus all the low-info conservative voters vote for the (R) guy, and in roughly equal proportion to his own vote, plus
4. manage to get several other Dems on the ballot in addition to Pan, to spread out the Dem vote,
5. Thus setting up the classic situation for a top-two Dem. lock-out.
If so, that would really be some genius scheming. Which came close, but happily didn't quite work.
None of that was planned by Kiley. His party change was a good gambit by him, but out of desperation. My guess is that lower-info voters saw his name w/o a GOP party label and voted for him out of vague familiarity.
The filing deadline was right after Kiley changed his party affiliation, so I doubt 2 and 4 are possible. However, I think it's entirely plausible that after seeing one random Republican file against him, his changed his party affiliation to try to make a top-2 lock out possible.
California allows a three-word candidate description, and Kiley put "United States Representative", that's probably how he got first place. And name rec.
CA 6 Pan back into position 2 https://x.com/taniel/status/2063036854748819797?s=61&t=5copDbz1aPl7ASsRCUclLg
Over 53% D by my count.
CA-22: Valadao's vote share is below 44%: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-primary-elections/california-us-house-district-22-results
Looking back to previous jungle primaries for this district (2022 and 2024 as well as every race from 2012 to 2020 in the predecessor district CA-21), it's the first time the total R vote is below a majority.
I’m honestly surprised Villegas is doing so well. I thought Bains would do better.
The sheer volume of money AIPAC and Jeffries-aligned groups dumped into the race in the closing week, particularly after AOC and several prominent Hispanic progressives rallied behind Villegas in response to the DCCC's heavy-handed intervention, made it obvious that Bains was in deep trouble.
Valadeo as well as anti-Israel Super PAC American Priorities blasting AOC's endorsement for Villegas seems to have helped.
For me, it was a toss-up based on several competing factors:
Both candidates were roughly even in terms of endorsements and fundraising.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_California#District_22
Bains is in the CA state assembly, where each consistency is absolutely massive (500k) so already a good base of support.
Villegas has a Hispanic last name, in a majority Latino seat.
Ultimately #3 was enough to break the tie.
District is 75 percent Latino - Villegas is the only Latino among the three main candidates. Simple demographic math.
Valadao is of Portuguese descent to be sure. Not that it makes him Latino.
That depends on how you define Latino.
Just checked and his parents were Azore Portuguese immigrants who came directly to the USA. Unusual for Azoreans to move to the Central Valley far from the sea, but maybe they wanted a change.
He’s toast.
Looking like Nithya has a good shot to overtake Pratt for 2nd. https://bsky.app/profile/taniel.bsky.social/post/3mnld2nsfes2q
That's the one I'm interested in. Hope she can. I do not look forward to another five months of Pratt (apt name) capering and mugging and Trumping all over the frigging place. More, Nithya probably has a decent chance of beating Bass 1:1, and from what I've seen I like her.
How would Raman win over Pratt voters?
She’s not Bass.
Right, but if Pratt was winning conservative voters, why would they vote for a DSA candidate over a more establishment Democrat? I can't imagine Raman appeals to the "punish the homeless" crowd any more than Bass does.
Then they stay home. But they might be more interested in punishing Bass that they don’t think about her other positions.
Considering the runoff is the same day as the general election, conservatives staying home seems unlikely. Undervoting is possible, but I wouldn't count on that, as while not completely analogous, conservatives were willing to turnout and vote for Cuomo to try to keep Mamdani from winning, despite most of them likely not being fond of him as governor. Sure, Bass isn't going to throw them racist catnip like Cuomo did, but still.
I think this is the correct interpretation
She doesn't have to. It's another election in November with more time for a 1:1 campaign; who knows who'll turn out this time? Nov also when more people are paying attention.
If runoffs always ended up with the person in first place winning, there wouldn't be runoffs.
I don't think she has to. She just has to consolidate all of the other support that's out there. Bass is only sitting at 36% right now. For the record, I want Bass to win, but I think Raman has a better than even shot of beating her if its the two of them in the GE.
South Dakota dumped 4 R incumbents in a 35 seat state senate. Seems high. Anyone know the issue there? Data Centers or something?
It had to do with opposition to a carbon capture pipeline that would run through the state. Sioux Falls mayor Paul TenHaken bankrolled the challengers. The incumbents that lost were mostly 2024 insurgents that defeated incumbents then, also due to the pipeline issue.
https://www.kotatv.com/2026/06/05/republican-voters-once-again-opt-oust-incumbents-south-dakota-legislature/
Which side won? Anti-pipeline?
The pro-regulation side won opposed to the pro-removal side.
If the midterms were this coming Tuesday, how would you rank the Senate seats most likely to flip? North Carolina is my solid #1, but 2-6 I find myself constantly changing my mind on. If forced to guess:
1. North Carolina
2. Alaska
3. Texas
4. Maine
5. Ohio
6. Iowa
I feel you can make a good argument for any of them to be 2-6 though.
Susan Collins won by more than Joni Ernst. The presidential margin doesn’t matter much for me in that light. Not underestimating her again.
She has lost a lot of crossover support since 2020 when she was the "check on Biden" candidate, and her lead was inflated by RCV.
Also Platner has pretty wide leads while Talarico's are a lot narrower.
Platner's a hot mess, honestly, and that's the generous interpretation. Just saw they're tied in one poll now. Could be a blip, could be an omen. Hey ho.
I do think Iowa and Ohio are looking promising. Trump screwed farmers pretty hard; I think the midwest in general could have some surprises.
Alaska I'm not sure. One thing to look out for: SCOTUS ruling on mail-in ballots. A good chunk of Peltola's base is NA and far from any kind of city center, which I'm assuming includes drop boxes.
On the other hand, there's that other Republican Dan Sullivan, heh. I don't know that he was an actual Dem plant, as the irate incumbent's PR team is accusing, but it's pretty funny.
I am hoping hard for Texas, but...Texas. Also I think they're one of the likeliest states to blatantly cheat somehow.
Some other dark horses: Nebraska, still with Osborn. Montana also has an indie but in their case the Dem says she won't drop, so that's almost certainly out.
Florida, (I know, I know) has had some optimistic polling. There's one really unpleasant reason I think turnout for Donalds might not be as high as it could be. And I hear Jolly is running a good campaign, but I haven't looked for myself tbh
Finally...Kansas. Their primary's a ways off and last I saw the dark horse Dem, head of a really large church, was getting attacked hard by someone else, Idk numbers. And yeah, it'd be huge: they haven't had a Dem senator in a century.
But, they did just have a Dem governor. And we do live in unprecedented times. So...
oh, as for NC, that seems to be consensus it's extremely likely to flip, has been all along, and polls continue to support that.
I am somewhat worried about Michigan tbh. Georgia looks more and more solid. And New Hampshire seems somewhere in between. I think with this environment we likely keep NH. I am concerned that the frontrunner in MI Dems may be too polarizing for the general. idk.
other wild card in the end, of course: frigging Fetterman.
I'm definitely worried about Michigan.
Care to link that poll showing Platner and Collins tied? Curious if its an internal
Someone elsewhere in the thread said it is an internal.
I agree, even though we seem intent on throwing ME away, I'd still put it a clear #2.
I’d have Maine, Ohio, Iowa and Texas 3-6.
I'd still put Maine before Alaska.
I had it that way before the latest hub bub. Might switch it back when additional independent polls come out.
Based on the reactions I'm seeing, it doesn't seem like anyone planning to vote for Platner is bothered by the revelations.
Poll just came out with them tied. Idk the pollster. We'll see if it's a fluke or an omen, I guess.
We'll also see if anything -else- is gonna drop. Disclosure: I do not like or trust this guy. I'm just glad as usual I'm not in some kind of position where I'd have to either defend him or effectively throw it to Collins. Yes, I still hope he wins, obviously. Well. I hope Collins loses. There doesn't seem to be any other route at this point.
But if this story starts going more in the direction of Swalwell, or if it turns out he was sexting a minor or something...yeah, I'm done.
It'd be great in general if we could get over our enchantment with "Trump, but leftishly" tbh
That poll was a Collins internal, and she was up in her last internal.
the main accuser/ex in the NYT story was apparently in something called "Ladies for Kavanaugh." Idk if that necessarily means she is lying about the bits he's denying. Sometimes it's an "everybody sucks here" scenario. That said, that likely doesn't help their case with people determined to like this guy.
1. NC
2. Maine
3. Alaska
4. Ohio
5. Texas
6. Iowa
This would be my ranking too. Unfortunately, if we nominate AES, I'd put MI above Iowa and maybe above Texas.
Disagree. Michigan with AES is roughly equal to Maine, IMO.
I dunno...ME is bluer than MI and I suspect bigotry is a stronger force than concern over Platner's issues...
MI is also way bluer than AK/OH/TX/IA.
And can bigotry overcome a blue national environment though?
OH 3
TX 4...but very close to OH
IA 5
ME no comment
Why can't you rank Maine?
S Kolb said above that they would support Collins over Platner, so they probably don't want it to flip. Specifically, "Agree with Congresswoman Dean. Platner should be history even if it means handing the Senate seat to Collins!"
I can't quite go that far just yet, but it's a knife edge, and I'm steeling myself for the next, worse drop. This guy's a hot mess at best, and all this history goes ill imo with the ideals he professes to tout.
But if somehow it doesn't progress to more and worse accusations...yeah, his vote's more important in a utilitarian sense, and I suppose I'm one of those.
If he can stumble past the finish line and THEN flames out, well, hope ME keeps a Dem governor; maybe that'd be the most optimistic ending.
Of course we still haven't got rid of Fetterman...
At this point, I'd go with
1. North Carolina
2. Alaska
3. Texas
4. Ohio
5. Maine
6. Iowa
7. Nebraska
8. Florida
9. Kansas
10. Mississippi
11. South Carolina
12. Montana (should be higher, but we don't have a chance here as long as we're splitting the vote between a Democrat and an independent)
I would not put Maine that low.
I wouldn’t either but given Democrats only need four seats to back control over the Senate, the logic is we win AK, NC, OH and TX but ME is not needed to win control.
That said, with the sentiment that has been building towards how Platner has gotten support so far and how none of the controversies are really changing things polling wise for her, Collins may be in for a bit surprise November.
Well I struggle to see Dems winning any of those other seats besides NC on a night Platner goes down.
It depends. If Platner has worse scandals, or Collins’ popularity holds up, the Maine results could diverge from the national results by quite a bit.
Collins is deeply unpopular nowadays. And it's possible nothing sticks to Platner, like nothing sticks to Trump.
1) North Cakalaky
2) Alaksa
3) Ohio
4) Maine (EDIT - sorry I plum forgot)
5) Michigan
6) Iowa
7) Nebraska
8) Texas
9) South Cakalaky
So EV closed today in SC. After EV started a week ago last Tue, we've had debates for both sides of the Gov race hosted by public tv, debates for Ag Commissioner and some other statewide offices, a GOP Gov candidate drop (Kimbrell), and a major poll drop (Citadel) which included responses during the EV period. Record numbers of EVers.
All this irritates me. Debates should be held before EV starts. Help out the voters folks!